Wind Over Bone: The Estralony Cycle #2 (Young Adult Fantasy Romance) (16 page)

“
You think so,” said the Southern man, nodding his head, “but they rebel in their heads. It is far better that they be consenting in the mind.”

“
A macabre idea,” said a little lady in a wimple that stood out like a sail from her head.

“
It is a beautiful idea. Fields farmed, great works built, all by useful people, happy people. Rilelden, Aindelden, humans––”

“
Girelden,” finished the old lord, sounding bored.

“
Macabre, horrid.” said the lady, shaking her head.

“
Not Girelden,” said the Southern man. “The flowers don’t work on them. An unnatural people.” He spat to the side.

“
Really?” said the old man, laughing. “I should feel marvelously lucky if I were Gireldine.”

“
Not so lucky.” The Southern man shook his head. “The flowers kill them.”

“
The flowers kill everyone,” said a lady in a snakeskin riding jacket. “I’ve heard of these.
Cam Belnech
. Pointless things unless you want hard work done quickly. The slaves in the South build marvelous palaces, but the workers don’t last five years.”

“
Cam w
hat?” said Rischa. The old lord smiled, and the little lady gasped and ducked out of the circle. “What’s your name?”

The man bowed deeply. “Namb Champorel of Miachamel, Exellency.”

“Who would buy such a thing?”

“
My uncle, the lord of Kuli, bought some seeds,” said the lady in the snakeskin jacket. “He was curious––wanted to see what the flowers looked like.”

“
Tell the Lord of Kuli,” said Rischa, “that he’s to bring the seeds to the justice in Dagona. If he doesn’t do this within a week I’ll see him publicly whipped.”

The lady stared at him. “A week is too short, my lord. The message wouldn’t reach him in a week.”

“Good.” Rischa turned back to Namb Champorel of Miachamel. “You’ve one month to leave the country. Your wares are evil.”

The man twisted his hands, and said in a meek voice, “I beg you reconsider––”

“I won’t say it again.”

The Southern man left with a bow that seemed more ironic than sincere, and Yelse looked after him.

She whispered something in Rischa’s ear. He nodded and she walked towards the door.

He looked as though he might go after her.

“Can we talk briefly?” Sarid asked, stepping in his way.

He looked at her in surprise, and gave Yelse another glance. “What about?” he said in a cheerful voice.

“Your behavior toward Leva has grown rather odd.” The cheerfulness slid off his face, and Sarid’s ears grew warm. “She’s laid up in the infirmary, not an inch of her without a bruise, and you’re waiting on a beggar princess.”

“
Well, Bones.” He wasn’t outwardly perturbed. Not yet. “Bolder than usual.”

“
I’m filling in for your brother.”

“
Oh.” He scratched his ear. “That makes more sense. So he’d have me give up the beggar princess and lay down where my silly uncle promised I should? Tell him that a country held together with a marriage contract isn’t a country, but a dog pit, rather.”

She opened her mouth, shut it. “You can’t do this, Rischa,” she said finally. She wondered how far she should go. “You can’t disregard half the country’s wishes. You’ve too much responsibility. One misstep can crush cities.”

He took a long breath. “Tall words for a girl who hasn’t traveled fifteen miles from her birthplace. At least I’ve seen the cities I’m crushing.”  A note of malice had crept into his voice, and Sarid decided she ought not to try him further.

***

“Well?” said Savvel, when she stepped into the quiet of the hall.

“
He won’t listen to me. Has sense enough to send away a peddler of spirit-breaking flowers, but then he turns around and talks of dog pits and his silly uncle.”

Savvel laughed––he hadn’t laughed in a while. “I suppose I’ll have to lay a trap.” He looked past Sarid’s shoulder and stopped smiling.

Rischa had come out just after Sarid. His eyes widened, and he turned to go back, but Savvel leapt up and caught him by the arm. “What? Won’t say hello to your brother?”

The servant at the door made a motion toward them. “Shall I fetch––?”

“No,” said Rischa. “Leave.” He saw Sarid and Dreida. “You too.”

Sarid pulled Dreida around the corner, and stopped when she heard the arguing. It got louder, echoing off the stone. Dreida looked sick, so Sarid sent her back to Savvel’s apartments.

But Sarid stayed just behind the corner. She could scarcely make out who was talking:

“
You’re probably the reason he’s sick.”

“
Me
?”

“
I was never so led about by my penis.”

“
Really? You gave Genna that black you got for your birthday––drove him into a rage.”

“
Bah! It wasn’t our
mother’s
horse, and get this into your brainless head you miserable little fuck––if you even
think
of breaking your trothplight I’ll beat you bloody.”

“
Couldn’t.”

“
I’ve got half a foot on you.”

“
And you’re skinny as a whore with the wasting sickness.”

“
You ought to be more scared of whores, got a whole army of them want to kill you, and good gods, Rischa, you’re young, but you’re a prince of the blood. You can’t behave like this.”

“
You’re a fine one to tell me how to behave.”

And then Sarid had to fling herself into a niche, because Rischa tore around the corner, face red, eyes murderous. The sound of his march faded away. Sarid stepped out and bumped into Savvel.

“Pretty manners for a lady.”

“
I’m not a lady.” She pulled away. “And you’re not much of a prince, sorry to tell.”

“
As opposed to my princely brother?”

She knew she shouldn’t, but she laughed.

***

“
Push me behind that hedge,” said Leva, pointing. She was outside for the first time in a week, propped upright in a wheelchair. “We’re such a motley group they’ll think we’re plotting treason.”

Mari wheeled her sister behind a hedge of yew, and they all drew close under its shadow. It was early afternoon. The air was chilly. “I don’t want to wed a boy who thinks I beat my horse to death.” She moved her right leg and grimaced. After a week her thigh was still swollen to twice its size. She looked over at Savvel, who was watching a bullfinch above his head. “If he refuses me we ought to marry. The Ravyir and Ravinya who might have been.”

“Your optimism puts me to shame, Queen Djain.” Savvel looked beyond the hedge. “Where’s that drat man of mine with my coat?”

“
My lord!” said Yoffin, coming round the corner as though he’d heard him. “I was warming it for you.” He took off Savvel’s coat and gave it to him.

“
Warming it?” said Savvel. “Practicing in the yard with your falchion? I know how you like to keep your sword arm fit.”

“
I was playing catch-the-pig. I also brought this, who says she’ll warm you better than a coat.” He pulled Dreida after him.

“
Enough of that,” said Sarid. She said to Dreida, “You were missing all morning. Is something wrong?”

Dreida looked at her with gloomy eyes. “Have I been a good maid to you, my lady?” There was a trace of tears on her face. She said to Savvel, “Are you at least a little fond of me?” She put a hand over her eyes and started crying.

“You see? She wants warming,” said Yoffin.

“
Shut up.” Savvel bent over her. “I’m very fond of you. What are these tears for?”

“
They took Edlin, my brother, and brought him here, and I can’t find him.”

“
Who took him?”

But she wouldn’t say; she looked everywhere but at his face and seemed in terror of it.

“Rischa,” Sarid said. Dreida nodded.

“
No fear,” said Mari. “Your brother’s just a smart little fellow who’s being trained for a page. He’ll learn his letters and become a scholar, and come back from faraway places to tell you stories.”

“
No,” said Dreida angrily. “My father didn’t give permission. They just came and took him like he was a dog.”

“
Why?” said Savvel.

“
The lady wanted a child,” said Dreida.

“
Like a lapdog?” said Leva. “It happens. In the south more than here. It’s stupid, though. It ruins them.”

“
What would Yelse want with a child?” said Savvel. Dreida started shaking.

“
Help me,” she said, and Sarid took her hands.

“
There’s not much I can do,” Savvel said. “My brother’s reached his majority. My uncle and father are ill, and I’m not likely to persuade him. There’s no one else who would try.”

“
Does he know the boy was taken against his family’s wishes?” said Sarid. “He might rethink it if he sees Dreida crying.”

“
Yes,” said Savvel. “Beat her, hold onions to her eyes, and send her up to Rischa. Right away he’ll relent.”

“
He will, though,” said Leva. “She’s pretty enough. Just have her get on her knees and beg. It’ll be an exquisite torment for him.”

“
Wench,” said Savvel.

“
Maybe,” said Sarid. And she said quickly to Dreida before she could think better of it: “Do you think you could do that? It’d be awfully humiliating, but it might work.”

Dreida shook her head.

“Simplest thing in the world,” said Savvel. “Do what you just did.”

“
Make sure Yelse’s nowhere near,” said Sarid.

***

Dreida washed her face and put on a clean apron, and later that evening she said in wonderment, “He fell right into it. I feel almost bad. When I cried, he started crying, even. He said he’d find another boy for his lady.”

Savvel burst into laughter. “I might die of shame. How’d you do it?”

“I followed him a few hours, holding a towel, like a chambermaid. I got him alone near the bathhouse. He thought I was witless, probably.”

“
He thought you were a little doll with golden curls. Did you dry his tears with your towel?”

“
Lord, no!” Dreida blushed down her front.

“
Your brother’s been returned?” said Sarid.

“
Yes.”

“
But then we must worry about another child,” she said, and sighed.

Fourteen

The valleys changed to red-gold and the peaks flashed teeth of new snow, and one night news arrived that the Ravyir had died in his sleep.

Rischa disappeared for weeks at a time. When he came back people behaved differently toward him, more carefully, rarely calling him by his old name.

He and Yelse grew closer, Yelse all innocence, and Sarid watched and waited. She wasn’t sure what for. She was told no more tales about stolen Rileldine children. She heard instead rumors of growing unease among the Eianhurts and Caveiras of eastern Lorila.

She pitied Leva and lived in fear she would guess it. Leva had wholly healed (she had a scar stretching from her armpit to her knee), but her smile looked like cracked ice. The dogs still wouldn’t go near her, and she stayed away from horses without Sarid having to tell her.

But though Leva couldn’t ride the horses she suffered them no ill treatment, and any groomsman who forgot a blanket on a cold night was subject to her punishing temper.

One thing in particular upset Leva. On the night of the equinox, is was tradition for a procession from Charevost to lead a young horse into the mountains. The procession ended at the edge of a canyon with a black river at the bottom, and there someone, usually someone saved recently from drowning, cut the beast’s throat and pushed it into the river. Sarid had never joined in the procession, but she suspected there were reasons for it. The red stain on the cliff was undimmed by rain or years. Charevost was in a wild place and had to make provision for keeping nature satisfied, especially in the fall, when Veles’ dark court was fired through with the agony of death.

Leva was unimpressed.

“They’ve already got their sacrifice. They took Shasi.”

“
They don’t think like that,” said Sarid, who was gathering mushrooms at the edge of her wood. “They think in bargains. It’s best not to interfere.”

But Leva didn’t listen to her, and went instead to pester her uncle, who was out on one of the lawns enjoying a picnic luncheon.

Sarid followed, basket of mushrooms on her arm, and hid herself behind a pear tree so she might act upon being seen as though she’d been picking up windfalls.

“
It’s an old, uncouth tradition,” said the Countess. “It has no place in polite society. Sit down and calm yourself, my dear. You look cross and anxious.” She patted the blanket beside her.

“
I’d rather not,” said Leva. Rischa was there, and Vanli, and Yelse, who smiled at Leva.

“
She feels badly for the horse, poor girl. So do I. But the tradition was started for a reason, probably.”

“
It’s only a horse,” said Rischa.

Sarid thought it a bit rich of him to care so little for this horse and make such a big deal of Shasi.

“It it’s only a horse,” said Leva, “then why should the saebels care so much that it dies?”

“
It’s a dumb beast, Leva,” said the Countess. “You’re making a fuss over nothing and ruining your fine face with worry.”

“
She’s right. It’s a waste.” Pash waved around a leg of lamb. “They always take the finest from my stables.” He looked darkly at Yelse under his brows. “What harm could it do if we skipped the thing this year?”

“
Indeed, what harm could it do?” said the Countess.

Sarid took a deep breath and said loudly enough so they could hear, “You can’t know.” Pash dropped his leg of lamb and Rischa set down his glass, and Yelse looked at her mildly. “So the best thing is to honor your side of the bargain.”

“No one asked your opinion, witch,” said Vanli. “Mind you don’t blight my mother’s pears.” Rischa gave him a black look, and he fell silent.

“
What’s
their
side of the bargain?” said Leva. “What’re they doing?”

“
Perhaps,” said Sarid, “it’s what they’re not doing.”

But even she wasn’t convinced the tradition wasn’t cruel, outdated, and pointless. And Count Pash, who was fond of Leva and irritated by Rischa’s regard for Yelse, decided to forgo the procession that year.

***

The equinox came round and the strawberry colt went unsacrificed. The sun sank and the birches and blood-red oaks cast boney shadows, and Sarid watched from her window. She felt an exquisite uneasiness, like a thousand tiny needles pricking her flesh.

The first long night of the year opened over the earth. And old Belbas the gardener, drawing water from the kitchen well so he might wash soil off his pumpkins, lost his balance and fell in the well. And Dreida’s second youngest brother, stooping for a drink at the river’s edge, put all his head in the water, and then his shoulders, and stomach, and legs and feet, and was never troubled by thirst again. And the chamberlain, washing his face, got his head stuck in the ewer and never heard the shrieks of his mistress. And Lady Fadril, taking her customary walk along the lakeshore, had a desire to walk along the bottom of the lake, and apparently liked the view so much she never came back up.

The deaths went uncounted. Anyone unlucky enough to be near even a puddle or washbasin when the last light faded was found drowned the next morning.

Sarid wondered later, when the numbness went away, if she could have stopped it by taking the colt to the canyon and killing it herself.

She was soon disabused of the notion when she saw how marvelously pleased Yelse looked.

But perhaps she was pleased because Rischa broke his trothplight with Leva. He did it the very next morning; Sarid witnessed some of it as she passed the little room where he stood with the Count.

He had no color in his face. He’d scarcely looked so bad when his brother was throttling Yelse.

“I am sorry,” he said. His hands were shaking and he sounded very young. “I’m sorry, but it’s a wonder we’re not all dead. Because of a willful, spoiled girl and her incredibly stupid guardian. Now if you will excuse me, I must make certain of my brother.”  Sarid dove behind a bureau in the hall when Rischa walked out the door. She wondered dully if it wasn’t becoming a habit.

The Haeks raised no cry about it. Leva stayed in her rooms and all day Dame Haek guarded the door like a mother bear, letting no one in. Finally Mari persuaded her mother to get some sleep, and let Sarid in to speak with Leva.

She was on her bed, knees drawn up. Her face was hidden and she was shaking with sobs.

“
In all practicality,” Sarid said, “it wasn’t your fault. It was your uncle’s. And you couldn’t have known––” Leva leapt up, grabbed a crock off her nightstand, and threw it. Sarid ducked. The pottery shattered on the floor.

“
Dearest,” said Mari, grabbing her sister’s arms and sitting her on the bed, “you’re running out of things to break. It’s time to think rationally.”

“
How?” shouted Leva over Mari’s shoulder.

“
Talk to him,” said Sarid. “He can’t marry my sister, it’s preposterous. If enough people talk to him––”

“
No one will talk to him,” said Mari sharply. “You don’t get it. Perhaps you never needed to. There’s danger in it, especially when he’s emotional. With one word and no thought he can strip us of our titles and property.”

Sarid licked her lips. “This is the province of Dirlan. You’re subject to the Caveiras, not Rischa.”

“The Caveiras are subject to the Eliavs.”

“
His father––”

“
The Grand Duke is sick. The duma made the heir apparent vice regent, like they always do. It sounds absurd, I know, but that’s only because you know him personally.”

“
He only has as much power as they give him,” said Sarid.

“
And they’ll give him as much as he likes,” said Leva. “They’re all looking to be promoted when he’s crowned. Sycophancy is a venerable tradition.” She savaged her lower lip in her teeth. “And looks like tradition is the only thing keeping the blood count down.” She sat calmly on the bed now, and Mari backed away.

She said sadly, “The blood count’ll probably go up, though. Dirlan and Garada aren’t going to lie down for Ravinya Yelse to step on.”

“I’ll talk to him,” said Sarid. “I have no property.”

***

He wasn’t in his rooms. He wasn’t with Yelse. He must have quit the building, so she went outside and searched the grounds. She passed the lakeshore with scarcely a glance, thinking the lake too horrible a sight for anyone that evening. But when she’d searched everywhere else for two hours with no success, she changed her mind and went down to the lake and twice passed a stump before remembering that no stump had stood there before.

She walked up to him. “Rischa,” she said. He looked fearfully at her and stood up.

“Of course I should have listened, but I thought the whole thing insignificant. I’m sorry. Now go away.”

“
No,” she said. A breeze scattered leaves across the lake and the water lapped at the shingle. The sound made her shudder. “I’m giving you another chance to listen. What happened is terrible, but it’s no excuse for what you did.  If Leva is willful and spoiled, you’re impetuous and a hypocrite. Ugly colors on a Ravyir. Take her back, and people will forget about this horror in twenty years––it’s nasty, but common enough in the north.”

His face had gone from fearful to angry. “Good speech. Did my brother write it?” He looked as though he were trying very hard not to hit her.

“This has nothing to do with him.”

“
Who’s it to do with?”

“
It’s what everyone is thinking.”

He looked over her head at the hall. “Then why are you the only one saying it?”

“Because”—she suspected she was digging herself into a deep, deep hole—“because they’re scared of you. Because I’m the only one here more powerful than you. The only one with any sense.”

He laughed softly and looked away. “Those are hanging words.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“
I’m telling you a fact.”

“
My dear prince,” she said sarcastically, “your facts do not apply to me. Your reality scarcely applies to me. You’re a foolish boy who broke a promise and will have cause to regret it.” He opened his mouth, but she interrupted: “You want a civil war? I can’t say I give a damn about Lorila, but I do care about you.”

“
Funny way of showing it. On a day like today. You expect me to listen to this?”

“
What else can I do? Bow and scrape like the Rilelden?”

“
Yes.”

She slapped him. His eyes got wide. He touched his cheek. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I was always so bent on pleasing everyone, now people hate me I don’t know what to do.”

Her hand stung. To her dismay she started crying, as though he was the one who’d slapped her. “What’s happening to you?” she said. “You were such a good boy.”

“
And now I would be a man.”

She didn’t trust herself not to blow down trees, so she walked away and left him standing by the lake.

***

The next morning Sarid walked down the row of her last crop of coriander, collecting the seeds in a little bowl. She left some in their feathery umbels so that they would drop to the ground and sprout plants next spring. She wondered if she would be there to harvest them.

“Sarid,” said someone behind her. She turned and wondered irritably why Rischa had got it into his head that he must stand on the purslane. “There’s nothing that makes me feel so bad as when I’ve made a girl cry.” He looked genuinely miserable. “And I don’t think I could stand it if you got to bowing and scraping.”

This Rischa was so different from the Rischa of yesterday that Sarid asked, “Do you often slip into strange moods?”

He opened his mouth, started to say no. Then he nodded. “Yes.”

“
Do you feel you’re not altogether yourself?”

“
Sometimes I think––” he looked over his shoulder. “I think I’m going mad like Savvel.” His mouth hung open, as if closing it might make his face collapse. She looked away. When she turned around he was gone, and she hated her sister more fiercely than she’d ever hated anyone.

***

Yelse was leaning out a little window at the end of a long room with a pitched roof. The lake was just outside. Waves lapped below, casting clear, fluid shadows across the ceiling as though the place were flooded.

“
How many people did you give them?” said Sarid. “The saebelen? What are they doing in return?”

Yelse pulled her head back into the room. “I haven’t made my decision.”

“I ought to kill you,” said Sarid.

“
You’d better wait. They’re in the next room.”  Yelse pointed to a side door in the wall.  “Your name has come up a lot, I believe.”