By the time the last of Heiland’s lords returned from the War of Scars, Windberth was completed, the great cities of the east resigned to the King’s rule, and little choice was left but to swear fealty to Ebenhardt and the House of Idonea. Those who remained independent and defiant were brought to heel within months, or else fled to foreign lands and shores.
Preinon Idonea, it was said, was the first to bend his knee, and was welcomed as Duke of Heiland, and Marshal of the Violet West — where the core of his lands had remained untouched by the king.
But that is another story, Adria thought, with an equally unpleasant end.
The reputation of the citadel city of Windberth was twofold, and sealed quickly in rumor and legend. Built entirely of stone, the city was impregnable to fire, and the base of its walls too high for any but the greatest of war machines. Even then, its iron-boned roots were joined fast to the bedrock of the mountain itself.
But what truly caused the whispers of awe to reach every corner of Heiland was the manner in which supposed deeper secrets than iron and stone were protected — a manner which had convinced more than a few of the yet-defiant nobility to give oaths.
As the legend went, King Ebenhardt Idonea, known to many as the Dark Fire of Heiland, proclaimed a day of celebration upon completion of his great citadel city.
All those whose hands had carved stone, forged iron, or led caravans of materials from afar; those who had cooked meals for the workers, brewed ale for the respite of almost two thousand evenings — all those whose hands had helped raise Windberth in any way, were given such a feast as none among them had ever seen. Tumblers, players, and musicians were brought in, tobacco and wine and ale were handed freely, and a hundred whores were loosed to wander from one cot or bedroll to the next.
Just before dawn, the First Battle of the Knights of Darkfire surrounded the entire village and encampment of workers, while those who had so recently reveled slumbered within.
It was said to appear as if the stars fell. Arrows wreathed in flame pierced through hide tents, blankets, and flesh. Wooden huts and houses toppled in fire and ashes. Masons, smiths, and foresters, their wives and women, and the children they had borne in service to the citadel ran screaming against the ring of knights, only to be spitted on their lances, or split open by their swords. Their purpose fulfilled, the builders of the now-King’s city expired as one. And the fire, so high and so great, was said to awaken half of Heiland with a false Northern Light.
Only a few of the smallest inner circle were spared, a handful who had any knowledge of the city and the citadel. Even these, it is said, were bound by such oaths of King and Matriarch that death would be a small price for indiscretion.
Nonetheless, Adria had often to wonder at the truth of the tale, and very early on had wondered, assuming all had died in the camp, who might have told this story to begin with, with so few survivors, and these sworn to secret. She’d heard of those who claimed to be hunters watching from a distance, or lone survivors left for dead beneath the blood and ashes. She’d even heard those who denied such stories, insisting that the laborers had simply been shipped to another land, or even enslaved in Somana.
Though Adria had heard the variations more than once, the story of the Red North Lights was so wrought with mystery and horror that, whether or not she believed such a tale, she believed the citadel she had called home nearly her entire life held many great secrets within its walls and beneath the ashes of its history.
Another mystery, another legend, another legion ghosts of Heiland.
The road wound up slowly, walled on the outfacing side to prevent a horse or cart plunging down the mountainside to crush a similar horse or cart below, and Adria’s legs soon wished she had brought the palfrey up the rest of the way.
The switchbacks ended at a large and similarly walled plateau at the base of the city. Half the height of a man, these low walls were rendered almost unnoticeable by the sheer face of the front walls of the city, standing forty or fifty feet tall. To the fortune of the merchants and visitors who stopped to rest before entering the gates, the walls blocked the sun for much of the day in the seasons they were needed most, though they served less against wind, rain, or snow.
Between the stony ground and too-often biting winds, tenting was useless here. There were a number of wooden shelters for respite, but Adria was certain a charge accompanied these in the typically poor weather. More stalls and hawkers sold warm bread and meat, mulled wine and honeyed beer. Others changed money for the tolls.
The barbican itself was starkly formidable. It stood a massive five full levels, with three portcullises, four sets of oak doors, and enough murder holes and arrow loops before and within to have busied a single stone carver for life. The only spots of color were her father’s flags and banner, perched atop and sprouting out from the barbican, their black and violet rife with wind.
These markings still evoked an unsettling in Adria, and her blood coursed a little faster to see so many of the emblems of Idonea.
I shall have to relearn not to flinch upon seeing it, I suppose, Adria sighed, smiling a little. She closed her eyes and focused a moment, though even Aesidhe training could not completely slow the pace of her heart or quell the dizzying energy strengthening her limbs. So she found a place to rest herself upon the flagstones, even allowing the chill to brace her will and help her recollect her thoughts.
The sergeant took me at my word, without question, Adria thought. Is security so lax, or do they simply believe a young woman to be little threat? Perhaps Sisters are being recalled, or perhaps the way was paved for me… but by whom? And how?
And then she thought of the oddities of the past week — and has it been only one week? — the flashes of gray-clad figures at the corners of her vision, the sense of being watched, and even the white wolf who led her to the Marbury family…
Adria would be very difficult to follow without gaining her notice — of this she was certain. No Knight of Darkfire could manage it, unless their training now included rather more innovation than learning the Aeman letters.
Nevertheless, she suspected now that her father, no... more correctly, Matron Taber... knew she was coming.
It is her seal, not Father’s, which allows my entrance. Adria thought. It is fitting I claimed Sisterhood.
Even more, the manner of both the Sergeant and the Knight before him convinced her of this. They had not seemed to know her true identity, she was certain, but they didn’t seemed to be expecting someone like her.
She might have suspected Preinon of preparing her way somehow, perhaps even Tabashi. But none could have reached Windberth more swiftly than she had traveled, not even Mateko. There was no accounting for the Moresidhe Tabashi, Adria had learned. He had certainly known her path before she chosen it once or twice.
What coin could he have gained from this, perhaps with Taber? Adria mused.
Hafgrim could also have revealed her oath, either to their father or Taber. But for what purpose?
Adria could not immediately think of a reason for this either, and could not even be sure that Hafgrim would truly expect her to keep, or would even remember, the promise she had made as only a child.
Three years passed, and he would be a man now, Adria thought. Or at least what passes for one where Aeman law and expectations are generally concerned.
In the end, though disconcerting, perhaps this might prove better. She was expected, and her path had been cleared, at least this far. Whether this was fortune or ill-, she would have to wait and see.
Custom actually dictated a confrontation with the Matriarch. It was a long-standing Aeman tradition for visiting or returning royalty or high nobility to meet at once with the chancellor of an estate. Taber had been appointed, or had appointed herself, to this position some years before, and this was unlikely to have changed. All such ceremonies and ministrations of state had been absorbed by the Sisterhood.
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br /> Such tradition seemed a bizarre formality given the situation, but Adria was eager to take some measure of the Matriarch herself and perhaps to delay meeting both her father and her brother. Taber had always remained at a distance, and Adria had no reason to expect her manner to have changed dramatically, at least outwardly.
But Hafgrim will have changed… must have changed. And Father? We were close once, despite… despite the manner of my exile, despite what I have done… despite what secret histories he held I have since learned beyond the walls of home.
Adria’s body tensed with the anxiety of anticipation. And now, if he is as the rumors say…
This is not the way to calm my blood. Adria opened her eyes, rose, and dusted herself off. With measured breaths and steps, she unwrapped the wax seal of the Matriarch, holding it up like a talisman, and passed between the guards, beneath the iron teeth of the portcullises, and through the half-open doorways of her father’s great citadel city, where the first twelve years of her memory still dwelt.
A festival of sorts was held not long after Adria and Hafgrim were brought to Windberth as children. Their father was there, resplendent in his ceremonial armor, and all his closest Knights with their purple sashes.
Matron Taber was there as well, with her black-sashed Sisters, and it was they who led the formal ceremonies, but a great many had been taking part in festivities in prior days, as Adria had been told, especially children.
A tree stood at the heart of Windberth, the heart of the festival and its ceremony, the smooth bark if its trunk glistening in strange light. All about, torches and lanterns shone with blue white flames, and sent quicker sparks up among the stars, with the sound of milk scalding in a hot iron pot.
Adria had seen nothing like this tree, in years before or since. Its apples were green, some fading to gold. And the leaves of this tree were all white, and some few had fallen about, and were picked up by young children within the ring of Sisters and their guardian Knights, and who danced in circles with them and chanted a song.
Ring around the apple tree,
Crows singing in the leaves,
Ashes... Ashes... They all fall down.
Like… Paper Ghosts, Adria thought.
As instructed, Hafgrim and Adria sat quietly beside their father and the Matriarch on the pavilion, decorated with ivy and black and violet banners.
“That is not a song for this,” Matron Taber said quietly, without expression.
“And yet it fits well,” Father answered, also without certain feeling.
Taber nodded slowly. “Let us pray none too well.”
Curiously, no one touched the tree itself, except for the few fallen leaves, though its limbs hung low, its fruit in easy reach. Any child who stumbled looked up and about nervously, fearing to touch the tree itself, fearing any Sister or Knight who may have seen.
It must be forbidden, Adria realized. Like so many things and places here.
Adria’s stomach tingled and turned, missing her home from before. She looked to Hafgrim for comfort, but he watched silently.
Adria looked to her elders beside her, and might have asked, or simply looked askance enough that Matron Taber explained, “This tree is from my homeland. It is a legacy, and a gift to any named Idonea, to the Sisterhood, and to the people of Heiland. It is the only one of its kind, and the fruit it bears is… unique.”
The Matriarch made a motion with her hand, and the Sisters in their ring all came forward, to undo the dancing of the children, and to return them all to their parents beyond the circle. Now all who had gathered, from what Adria could tell, all of Windberth, stilled and watched.
“Three years ago we planted this tree, upon the founding of Windberth,” Matron Taber continued. “And for three years it has put forth leaves, and we have watched them grow white again each autumn, and then fall, and we have gathered to celebrate.”
Now a young Sister who served the Matriarch approached her. Unlike the others, she wore a pale green robe, and a white sash about her hips.
“But this year is special,” Taber whispered now, nodding to the young woman as she removed her green slippers and slowly climbed the stair, head down.
Taber rose from her chair, took up a wooden bowl from beside her, and then knelt before the young Sister, offering the bowl. Taber may have spoken to the Sister, or to Adria, as she spoke the last, “This year is the first year that it has borne fruit.”
The young Sister raised her eyes to meet the Matriarch’s, and she lowered her hands to the bowl between them, and spoke, as loudly as she could, though her voice trembled.
“I clear my eyes to know the nameless one.
I cleanse my face to ready to be seen.
I wash my hands and still my memory.
I kneel and wait to meet The-One-Who-Comes.”
Her motions followed her words, and when she knelt, Taber lowered the bowl of water, and smiled, and leaned over to kiss the top of the girl’s head, her silver-gold hair tinted blue-green in the strange torchlight.
The Matriarch took the Sister’s hands, and together they rose. She turned the young woman to face the circle, the tree, and the citizens of Windberth. Gently, Taber unlaced the back of the girl’s dress, and let it fall about her feet.
Naked and trembling, the young Sister managed her way down the steps and across the flagstones, among falling and fallen paper leaves, where a rising wind now wound among the branches.
Now Taber raised her arms and addressed the people of Windberth.
“Just as there are many who have left us, there is One-Who-Will-Come.” She paced her voice with the girl’s footsteps. “Just as there is death, there is life renewed.”
And the Sister reached and plucked a golden apple from among the paper leaves, as the Matriarch continued, “Just as leaves are fallen, there is fruit which gives us life.”
The girl turned, her face red with nakedness, and as she returned to the Matriarch, the remainder of the white leaves fell about her, each one of them turning to ash upon the stone tiles, upon her hair and body, and within the hands of children who gasped or cried in horror or wonder at the loss.
Now half-covered in ash, face streaked in grey-black tears, and half-stumbling with every step, the young Sister brought the apple to Matron Taber, offering it to her in her cupped hands.
Matron Taber looked upon the fruit, looked about at the small lake of ashes, and looked at last upon the face of the Sister, and smiled, gently waving her hand.
“Let this be my gift to you,” Taber said.
And the Sister bowed low, and she raised the apple high for all to see. Again, there was absolute stillness. Even the children watched, and waited, in silence.
Adria held her breath for whatever might be next. Her stomach still turned, and her arms and legs felt as if they were shaking. She felt the wind rushing about her face, though her hair remained still. She heard the calls of hawks, or doves, or ravens. She saw apples rotting upon their dark limbs.
The young sister took a small bite from the golden fruit in her hands, her eyes held surely by those of Taber.
It took only a moment for those eyes to widen, in what seemed to Adria to be a certain pleasure, like the perfect sweet of summer honey. She felt perhaps she could hear the Sister swallow, even in what Adria felt to be a stormy wind that somehow found only her, when even the violet banners of the pavilion lay slack.
And the girl blinked, and her eyes fluttered down to consider another bite of the fruit, and then widened even more, rising again to Matron Taber in every shape between pleasure and pain.
Her limbs tightened once, suddenly, her fingers clutched the apple, piercing it’s flesh in ten places. Taber leaned forward, taking the girl’s arms in her hands, her own limbs offering support.
But the girl’s face reddened again, and then shaded through purple and to blue, as the ash on he
r face and body thickened and ran with a sudden flush and an outpouring of sweat.
Perhaps it was the fruit rotting upon the tree, but there was a scent now, that sickened Adria where she sat upon her chair, trembling in wind and the sound of strange birds, eyes transfixed upon the ashen girl.
Taber struggled to hold the Sister where she stood, and then to help her gently to the cold floor as she fell, horrifically and silently trembling. She tore herself from Taber’s grasp, then, and what was left of the apple’s flesh scattered across the pavilion in ragged rotting fragments. Ashes smeared the marble top of the pavilion where the girl writhed, clawing red traces along her arching throat and across the too-beating flesh of her breast, her mouth open and taut to receive the breath that would not come.
Taber rose again, slowly, struggling to control her own gentle trembling, as the young Sister settled into sleep at last, a lump of bruised, bloody, and ashen limbs.
The wind about Adria subsided, the crying of birds which were only hers faded. She looked from the girl, to a now very still Taber, and then to her father.
King Ebenhardt Idonea as well was lost in though, his chin in his hand, now watching the Matriarch, waiting. It was somehow not his place to speak.
After a long moment, Taber half turned, but did not look full upon him, nor again consider the dead young Sister at her feet.
“Once more for the crows,” Taber whispered, and made a sign with her hands that Adria would never see from her again. And again she nearly turned to look upon Adria’s father, and again failed.
“Forgive me, Your Majesty.” And she turned away and made her way back to the citadel above, her Sisters and half the Knights falling in line behind her.
Slowly, unceremoniously, the people of Windberth dispersed, but the King and his princes remained. None approached the tree again, even as the last of the Knights gathered on either side of the pavilion to await their Lord’s command. And no one dared to touch the remains of the young Sister, and Adria had wondered more than once if she had simply lain there, rotting upon the marble to this day.
Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 Page 13
