The Tale of Oriel (6 page)

Nikol lifted the dagger up, to bring it down into his throat, or chest.

To cut his throat, like a pig's. To—

He held Nikol's hand up, his arm stiff. He bucked and arched, like a fish on the hook, to knock Nikol off. He brought his knees up. Nikol rocked, but didn't fall. Nikol's hands and legs held him down. The dagger descended and only his own left hand slowed its progress.

He wondered which would prove stronger: the hand that wrapped around the dagger's hilt and drove it down, or the hand that wrapped around the other hand's wrist, to push it back away.

From behind Nikol's head, behind Nikol's bared teeth, the Damall's blanket swirled. The Damall reached down to take the hands that held the dagger. The Damall pulled the dagger free. Nikol groaned, cursed, wiped tears away.

He gathered all of his strength, and bucked Nikol off. He surged up onto his feet, staggering a little until the floor steadied under him.

Nikol lay on the ground, on his side.

He took a minute to pull his lower lip free of his teeth. The blood that followed, he swallowed.

Nikol lay on his belly, on the ground. His back heaved.

“I think I'll keep this dagger for the boy who wins this fight. I think,” the Damall said, “that the boy who wins this fight is the boy who should be my heir. Don't you agree?” the Damall asked the circle of boys, who responded excitedly. “Isn't that a good idea? Whichever of you two is the winner—the one who makes the other boy cry out for mercy, he has to say that word, no other word will stop it—that boy gets the dagger. That boy will be the seventh Damall. Yes, I do like that.” The Damall backed into his seat, and gathered the blanket about himself.

He was already standing.

Nikol struggled up onto his knees, because tears were running out of his eyes. Tears of frustration and anger.

He knew he shouldn't let Nikol get up. He knew he didn't know how much strength of his own he had left, in his legs that shook and his hands that hung on the ends of his wrists, somewhere. He couldn't think. It was harder to fight if you were standing, swaying. He dove onto Nikol.

They rolled, punched, grabbed. Nikol rolled over on top and pounded with his fists.

He felt wrong—in his mouth and cheeks, his ears rang and there were hands around his throat trying to keep air out.

He rose up, and the arms fell back. He rose free and grabbed Nikol's hair. He was sitting on Nikol's chest and Nikol's head rose in his hands and banged back onto the ground, it rose and banged. He couldn't tell if the blood was coming out of Nikol's ear or going into it.

“Stop,” Nikol cried. “Stop, please.”

Nikol's mouth was bleeding, and Nikol's whole nose followed the blood sideways over his cheek. The hands that lifted Nikol's head and slammed it down kept at their work.

“All right!” Nikol cried out. “Mercy!”

The hands kept on, and he could feel his heart thudding in his chest. He had been breathing fire.

“Mercy!” Nikol screamed. “Mercy! Mercy! I beg—”

He heard the voice. Nikol's head fell down onto the ground. Nikol lay screaming, like a pig at the slaughtering. He lifted his hand—and his shoulder hurt, too—and backhanded Nikol across his bloody cheek. The screaming stopped.

The boys were crying out something behind them. The Damall put the dagger into his hand. “Nikol wanted to let Griff have twenty-five strokes,” the Damall said. “Twenty-five strokes will—I've seen a boy die after nineteen. Nikol wanted Griff to die.”

“I didn't,” Nikol cried. “I didn't, I didn't.”

“He was lying about Raul, too, just to get Griff. That was a lie, wasn't it, Raul?” the Damall asked. “Didn't Nikol make you lie?”

“I didn't,” Nikol wept. “I didn't do it, I'm sorry.”

He sat on Nikol's chest, the dagger in his hand, but he couldn't understand what to do next.

“You said,” the Damall reminded him, “that for the guilty party there would be twenty-five strokes.”

“But I'll die!” Nikol cried. Nikol's swollen eyes didn't know who to look to, for help.

He held the dagger in his hand, and the fire burned in front of him. He had won the right to be seventh Damall. He had won what had been already given to him. It wasn't a whipping Nikol needed.

He swallowed, and tasted blood.

“You tried to kill me with the dagger,” he said to Nikol.

“I didn't, I wouldn't have, I'm sorry.”

“This wasn't a fight with daggers,” he said. He knew what he was going to do now. He had his fingers wrapped around the dagger, and he brought it down to Nikol's throat, like a pig's.

Nikol's eyes showed white. He couldn't back his head away from the dagger.

“I don't trust you,” he said to Nikol.

The boys behind him murmured.

“I'm not afraid of you. But you'll do things behind my back,” he said to Nikol. “So you have to choose. I could cut behind your knee so you'll never walk straight and I'll always be able to hear you coming. That's one choice.” Nikol's head rocked from side to side in fear. “Or I can hold your hand in the fire. Like the pirates did to the fifth Damall. Until the whole hand is burned off, so you can't hurt anyone again.”

“No.” Nikol moaned now. “No, no. Not fair. Please. No.”

“Choose,” he said.

Nikol shook his head. Nikol opened his mouth but no words came out.

The Damall crouched down and put his face close to Nikol's. “You have to choose. If you don't pick one, I'll let him do both.”

“I can't say. I don't. All right! The leg! I choose—no, don't, please don't, I'll take the—no, please don't, I'll do whatever you say. Forever, until I die, I will. I'll tell you everything I know. I know the Damall's secrets, where he hides things away, what he's afraid of, I know where there's meat—”

The Damall's hand came down over Nikol's mouth, and squeezed until Nikol screamed again.

He felt sorry for Nikol, who didn't even have the courage to pick his own pain and punishment. Nikol was nothing now, not even as much of a creature as the pale lusks that backed down into the mud when your fingers chased them.

He looked around, over his shoulder. All the boys were looking down at Nikol, and some of them were laughing at Nikol, and none of them felt sorry for Nikol.

He stood up, without a word. The Damall tried to stop him, but he eluded the man's grasp. He left Nikol on the floor and walked across the main hall, away from the fire. He walked out of the door, out into the yard. He held the dagger.

Rain sleeted down onto his bare head. It cooled his body and his face. His head was already cool. The boys followed him and the Damall followed the boys and he was not surprised when they followed.

He crossed the yard and went through the narrow gate, down the path to the harbor. The rocks underfoot were slippery, but he didn't lose his balance. He held the dagger up, aloft, as if it were a light to follow. At the water's edge, he waded out to climb up onto a huge boulder, and waited for all to gather on the shore behind him. Without a word, he pulled his arm back and hurled the dagger up, out, over, and then it cut sharply into the grey water. It sank and was gone.

He turned around to let them see it in his battered face: He needed no dagger to rule.

H
E HAD ONLY BLINKS OF
an eye to escape losing everything: He felt the wateriness of his knees and waist at the same time that he heard a buzzing in his ear and—just for an eyeblink—saw the boys gathered on the shore, the Damall tallest of them, although there was one boy there who might be trusted—to see them all, there, and boats, too, although not all the boats—as if they were behind a cloud, now, or behind—

He took a breath and fell backwards. It might look as if he were diving into the winter sea, in a show of strength.

He fell like a stone into the water. It was so cold that he opened his mouth to gasp a protest. Icy water poured in through his teeth, filling his mouth and choking his throat. His heart, he thought, stopped.

The sea bottom caught and held him and he rested there, until numbness seeped into his skin—face and arms and legs, belly. When he gathered his feet beneath him and stood up in the chest-high water, the boats bobbing around him, the pains of the many parts of his body had been dulled by the cold. He could smile, although it pained his cheeks to move, and his lower lip. He could smile in victory and mastery. He could walk out of the water and stride back up the path, with the others behind him as if they were a procession. It was not until he was ten paces from the doorway into the main hall, where Nikol stood waiting, watching, bleeding from a nose that seemed to have moved under his right eye, that the seventh Damall felt in danger again of collapsing onto the ground, into the soft bed of senselessness that reached up for him.

He made himself walk on. Made his knees bend. Nikol moved back before him, and that was luck. Through the doorway to the fire.

There, Griff took him by the arm. “I'll use wine,” Griff announced, “lest the cuts fester.”

All eyes were on Griff, who dared to say such a thing. He was glad all attended to Griff, because what little strength he had left was draining out of him.

“And salt,” Griff announced, maneuvering the two of them to the doorway into the kitchen.

The boys all looked to the Damall, to hear how he would respond to this. The Damall hesitated.

Meanwhile, Griff carried and pushed him into the kitchen. Meanwhile, Griff lowered him onto a stool beside the fireplace, carefully, so that his back rested against the warm stones.

He closed his eyes. The numbness had entirely worn off, and his body and face ached and throbbed, worse in the fire's warmth. When he breathed in, there was pain waiting, and when he breathed out. His legs trembled.

“Drink,” Griff said.

A bowl was put into his hands. “Blood?” he asked, but even he had difficulty understanding the word as it came out through his swollen mouth.

“Wine,” Griff said.

Between them they lifted the wooden bowl and got wine into his mouth. The wine was sharp, and bitter; it lay warm on his belly. He drank a second bowl unassisted, and the warmth of wine worked like the cold of the sea, to numb.

Griff washed him off with water, washed his face with wine, which stung, and then rinsed it again with cool water.

He leaned back against the warmth of the stones and dozed. When he opened his eyes, he could see only Griff, bending over the cauldron of soup. “Griff?”

Griff moved to the wine vat, ladled a bowlful, and brought it to him. “It's time for the meal,” Griff said.

That made it late in the day. He swallowed wine and felt his head clear. “The Damall—” he said, staring into the wine.

“You're the next Damall,” Griff reminded him.

“The seventh Damall.” He lifted the bowl to his mouth and emptied it. He had the right, now. “I had better go into the hall and sit at table. And dine.” He stood, swaying, and then righted himself, waiting until the ringing in his head ceased. He moved slowly to the doorway, and was not sure where he was going.

Wine fuddled the brains. They had all seen it often enough with the Damall. That thought went through him like flame through straw, and he straightened up, to walk strongly into the main hall.

When he entered, the faces of the boys turned to him and conversation halted. He didn't know what they saw. He saw a half circle of boys, sitting cross-legged or leaning back on their elbows, drawn back from the warmth of the fire because the Damall's chair sat up close to it. He saw the Damall in his chair, a tankard of wine in his hand, a little smile on his face as he listened to Nikol. Nikol stood behind the half circle of boys. His nose still slewed off to one side and one of his eyes had swollen to a slit. Nikol stood stiffly, as if all movement would be pain.

The Damall stood to greet him, with a raised tankard. “This boy is the next Damall, the seventh Damall. I name him my heir.” The Damall was saying the sentences just the way the Great Damall had written. “I name him next to rule over the Damall's island and the Damall's boys. I name him master of the treasure. Gold and silver and the beryls—all of these are his, because he is the seventh Damall,” announced the sixth Damall.

The seventh Damall didn't speak; as the ceremony required, in the Great Damall's book, he remained silent. The faces of the boys were turned up to him, now, and the first shadows of fear joined the shadows the fire left on their cheeks and in their eyes.

Nikol broke the silence. “What about me?”

The sixth Damall lowered his tankard and sat down again, before he answered. “What about you?”

“You promised,” Nikol said.

The Damall smiled. “But you couldn't win it. Could you. You didn't win it. Did you,” he said. “This inheritance isn't just going to be given to you. Do you understand that now? The title has to be won. And you have lost it, Nikol.”

Nikol stood absolutely still, as if concentrating on remembering something. Then he turned on his heels and left the hall, moving stiffly. Nikol went out—perhaps, the seventh Damall thought, to the privies, or perhaps to kick the pigs.

“The title has first to be won,” the sixth Damall said. “Then it has to be held. We hope you can hold it. Don't we, boys?”

“Yes,” the boys said, and “You were always best,” and “You'll be good at it.” Even Raul joined in the line of boys who spoke into his ear. Nikol didn't return that night.

At morning, however, Nikol stood beside the cold fireplace. The seventh Damall had risen early, in the pain of mending sprains and bruises, cuts and swellings, joints pulled away bone from bone. The seventh Damall had entered the main hall before sunrise to start the fire. He saw Nikol waiting there.

Nikol looked pale, and wet, washed clean as if he had spent the night out in the rain. But the night had been rainless. Nikol's hair was slicked down wet on his head, and his shirt dripped onto the floor. His eyes were cold and he didn't speak.