Eye of the Labyrinth (7 page)

Chapter 11

For days, Tia fretted about what she had overheard Dirk telling Neris in his cave. For days she could barely think of anything else.

Tia had promised two years ago to not to reveal that it was Dirk who had killed Johan Thorn. But she had agreed reluctantly, mostly because she was desperate to protect Johan’s daughter from the pain such a revelation would bring. She was not sure she could hide the truth for much longer.

How much pain would Mellie suffer if the Lion of Senet ever
found his way through the delta?
The short-term hurt of Mellie learning her newly acquired brother was the man who killed her father might well be the lesser of two evils.

By the time Troitsa came around, Tia had made up her mind. She could not keep her awful secret any longer.

She waited in her room until the house was almost empty, her heart constricting as she heard Mellie chattering away to Reithan and Dirk about what she was going to wish for when she floated her garland. Tia waited until the voices had faded to nothing before making her way through the house to Johan’s study, where Lexie was putting the final touches on her own garland. To her surprise, Porl Isingrin was with her. She had not realized the pirate captain had returned from his last voyage.

“Tia!” Lexie exclaimed as she looked up. “You’re not ready yet.”

Tia glanced at Lexie and the captain with the feeling she had interrupted something important. “I’m not going.”

Lexie put down the ball of string she was using to tie off the garland. “What’s wrong, dear?”

“I have to talk to you, Lexie. Alone.”

“That sounds rather ominous. What did you want to talk about?”

“Dirk.”

“What a coincidence,” Porl said. He was standing near the open doors that led onto the balcony. “We were just talking about him,”

“What’s he done now?” she asked.

“Wallin Provin is dead.”

“Oh,” Tia said, feeling a little guilty. She had not expected that.

“We were just debating the advisability of telling Dirk,” Lexie explained.

“I’m sure he’ll get over the grief in record time.”

“That’s not the problem, lass,” Porl said. “Morna Provin has been arrested. She’s to be executed at the next Landfall Feast.”

Tia was not sure what to say. She had a rather low opinion of Morna Provin, but despite what she thought of the woman who abandoned Johan for a life of comfort as the Duchess of Elcast, nobody deserved to die like that.

“Are you afraid of upsetting him, or that he’ll do something stupid?”

“The latter mostly,” Porl agreed.

Tia shrugged. “Tell him. If he wants to go charging off to Elcast to rescue his mother, then good riddance to him, I say. Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll get himself killed in the process. Anyway, you can’t hide that sort of news for long. Dirk is going to find out eventually, and I imagine he’ll be rather peeved at you for keeping it from him. And perish the thought we might do anything to upset our precious Dirk.”

“Tia, what is the matter with you?” Lexie sighed. “Have you nothing kind to say about that poor boy?”

“Poor boy?”
she repeated incredulously. “
Poor
boy!
Goddess, Lexie, do you know what he is! Have you any inkling of what he’s done?”

“What did he do, Tia?” Lexie asked, sitting down in the big leather chair that had once been Johan’s.

“Dirk is the one ...” She found couldn’t do it, could not bring herself to say it.

“Who killed Johan?” Lexie finished for her.

Tia burst into tears as two years of pent-up secrets suddenly found release. Porl looked away uncomfortably as Lexie rose from the chair and walked around the desk. She took Tia in her arms and held her while she sobbed, muttering soothing nonsense words, as she had when Tia was a small child. “There, there, darling, you don’t have to hold it in any longer.”

“I’m so sorry, Lexie,” she sobbed. “I know he reminds you of Johan. But he’s a killer. He murdered his own father ...”

“I know, Tia, I know ...”

Tia lost herself in the comfort of Lexie’s arms for a time, and then she pulled away, staring at her foster mother. “What do you mean, you
know
?”

Lexie pulled a kerchief out of the sleeve of her gown and handed it to Tia before she answered.

“About three days after you brought him to Mil the first time, Dirk came to see me, Tia,” Porl said. “I brought him to Lexie. He told us what happened. He told us about Johan, about the Shadowdancer they claim he raped, even about how he acquired the dubious title the Butcher of Elcast.”

“So you got his nicely sanitized version of events,” Tia concluded, after blowing her nose loudly on the kerchief. “And now you’re on his side. Damn, he really is clever, isn’t he?”

“I doubt anything Dirk told us was sanitized for our benefit, Tia,” Lexie said. “In fact, he was quite distraught. I suspect he confessed to us in the hope that we might punish him in some way. I think he was trying to relieve the pain he was in.”

“He never suffered a moment’s remorse over what happened,” she objected. “I was there, Lexie. I saw it happen.”

“You’re wrong, darling. I don’t think a day goes by that Dirk isn’t tormented by what he did. I suspect it will haunt him for the rest of his life.”

“Good!” she declared with an inelegant sniff.

Lexie sighed. “Sit down, Tia.”

“Why, so you can convince me how wrong I am about Dirk Provin? Don’t waste your breath.”

“No, I think I need to convince you how wrong you are about Johan.”

Tia stared at her in confusion, taking the seat facing the desk. Lexie dragged another chair over to face her and sat down. “Describe Johan for me, Tia.”

“He was tall ... sort of, with dark hair and brown eyes ...”

“Not his physical description. Tell me what sort of person he was.”

“Brave. Noble. Compassionate ... I don’t see the point of this, Lexie.”

“You remember Johan as a hero,” Porl remarked.

Lexie nodded in agreement. “You never saw the man, Tia, only the tragic figure of a deposed king who was robbed of his kingdom by an evil warlord.”

“But that’s exactly what happened ...”

“In your mind, certainly,” Lexie agreed. “But you weren’t there. The fact is Johan lost Dhevyn because he invited Antonov in. Worse than that, he begged the Lion of Senet for help, and he allowed the true love of his life—”

“He loved you, Lexie!”

“Johan loved Morna, Tia, more than you will ever understand, unless you’ve loved someone the same way. Johan and I came together for comfort as much as love, and we were happy enough together, but his last thoughts were of Morna, not me.”

Tia did not want to admit such an unpleasant truth.
Give
my love to your mother.
It was the last thing Johan said. And he said it to Dirk.

“But he—”

“No, let me finish. Johan allowed the love of his life to marry the man Antonov chose because he was too afraid to deny him.”

“Johan wasn’t afraid of anything!” she declared hotly.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Tia. Johan was as full of fear as any other man. Why do you think he never tried to take Dhevyn back? The Johan you have built up in your mind is ten feet tall and made of solid gold. The real Johan was a thoughtful man, a cautious man, and one who spent his entire life paying for his mistakes. Think about it, Tia. Why do you think Johan left orders to kill him if he was ever captured? He wasn’t a martyr by nature. He was a realist.”

“I still don’t see how any of this excuses what Dirk did.”

“Do you know why Morna left Johan, Tia?”

“Because she was a coward.”

Lexie shook her head. “She left him because she thought Johan was the coward. Morna was a passionate young woman in those days. A bit like you, now that I think about it. She wanted to set the world on fire. When we suffered such an appalling defeat at the end of the war, Johan decided not to try again. We were weak, hungry, demoralized and decimated. Morna disagreed. She wanted to keep on fighting.”

“So she left him and went back to her husband? Where’s the logic in that?”

“I don’t think her plan was to sit quietly as the Duchess of Elcast for long,” Porl suggested. “She went back to Elcast to claim her eldest son, but when she got there, Antonov and Belagren were waiting for her. She was tried and sentenced to death. Wallin begged Antonov for her life and he relented, but only as long as Morna agreed never to leave Elcast again.”

“So she pretended that Dirk was Wallin’s son, and quietly raised her boys on Elcast for the next sixteen years? Some revolutionary she turned out to be.”

“That’s a reality of life you’ve yet to learn, Tia,” Lexie warned. “You can start out with the best of intentions in the world; but somehow one day turns into another and before you know it your children have grown and you haven’t done half the things you set out to do when you were younger.”

“I still don’t see the point ...”

“The point is, Tia, you’re judging Dirk when you could not possibly know how he feels. He did a very courageous thing, and—”

“Courageous?”
she cried in disbelief, jumping to her feet. “Lexie! He killed your husband!”

“And I’ll mourn Johan until the day I die. But what I
won’t
do is condemn a decent young man who saved my husband from months—possibly years—of torture at the hands of Antonov Latanya by doing what Johan asked of him.”

Tia sank down on the chair again. “Lexie, why is it only me that thinks he’s dangerous?”

“Because nobody else has quite the same black-and-white view of the world that you have, Tia. In real life, good people sometimes do bad things and bad people are not all totally evil. Dirk lives with what he’s done every day of his life. Just because he doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, doesn’t mean he isn’t punishing himself over it. He certainly doesn’t need you twisting the knife at every opportunity.”

“It’s so unfair! He kills Johan and somehow I’m the one in trouble!”

“Perhaps you should think about apologizing.”

“To Dirk Provin? The second sun will freeze over before that happens.”

“Well, if you can’t bring yourself to apologize, at least give him the benefit of the doubt.”

“You really don’t resent him, do you. He’s Morna’s son, for Goddess’s sake! How can you even bear to have him in your house?”

“I have a penchant for taking in lost children, Tia.”

She looked away guiltily. “You both think I’m being unreasonable, don’t you? I know Reithan does.”

“I think you’re still grieving for a man you loved like a father. But he’s been dead for two years, Tia. It’s time to let it go.”

Tia wiped her eyes with the kerchief. “I can’t just forgive and forget, Lexie. I was there. I saw it happen.”

“Nobody expects you to forget. But I think it’s time you forgave Dirk.” She held up her hand when Tia tried to object. “When you harbor bitterness, my dear, happiness will find another port to dock in. I’m not saying this for Dirk’s benefit. While I’m sure he’d appreciate hearing a civil word from you on occasion, I think that young man is more than strong enough to weather your rage. But I worry about you. You cannot go on living in a state of constant fury. Your anger will destroy you long before it destroys Dirk.” She took Tia’s hands in hers and forced a cheery smile. “Now, why don’t you go wash your face and put a dress on and we’ll go down to the beach with the others. It’s not often we get to have a party here, and we shouldn’t miss this one.”

“I suppose,” she agreed glumly. “But I’m not wearing a dress.”

“It was worth a try, Lexie,” Porl said with a smile.

Tia wiped her eyes, sniffing back the last of her tears. “I’m sorry, Lexie.”

“You don’t owe me an apology. Now, off you go, or we’ll miss the garland floating.”

Tia walked toward the door, turning back to look at Porl when she reached it. “Who else knows, Captain?”

“A few of the council we thought could be trusted.”

“You never told Mellie?”

“No. You were right to keep it from her, Tia. Mellie doesn’t need to know.”

“I miss him so much, Lexie.”

“We all do, Tia. But life goes on. Johan wouldn’t want you to waste your life fretting over something you can never change.”

Tia nodded silently and walked back to her room.

Chapter 12

By the time they arrived on the beach, most of the children were caught up in a boisterous game of stingball. The game involved a circle of players, armed with a hard leather ball, aiming it at the mass of children gathered in the center, with the intention of striking them, thus eliminating them from the game. It was called stingball, because as the younger, less agile children were eliminated from the circle, the game frequently became quite savage, as the sole aim of the outer circle was to hit the remaining participants hard enough to bruise.

When Tia and Lexie arrived, there were only seven players left in the center, among them Mellie and Eleska, who squealed with triumph every time they managed to successfully dodge the ball. Reithan and Dirk both stood in the outer ring, laughing almost as hard as the girls as they hurled the ball across the circle, trying to get the few remaining players out.

Tia watched the game for a while, laughing as Reithan caught Eleska a stinging blow on the shins. She limped out of the circle and the game carried on, the children who had already been eliminated cheering on their faster, stronger team-mates.

“That really hurt!” Eleska exclaimed as she hobbled over to where Lexie and Tia were standing.

“Well, Eleska,” Lexie said with an unsympathetic smile, “if you want to play with the big boys, you have to be able to take it.”

“Still, they shouldn’t throw so hard.”

“It wouldn’t be any fun if they did that, Eleska,” Tia pointed out. “Mellie seems to be keeping up, though.”

“I bet they don’t throw it so hard at her.”

“On the contrary,” Lexie corrected. “It is the sacred duty of all brothers the world over to brand their little sisters as hard as possible when playing stingball. It’s in the rules.”

“What rules?”

Before Lexie could answer, Mellie let out a howl of pain and the game halted while she limped from the circle, rubbing her behind with a sour look.

Tia smiled as Mellie approached, looking mightily put out. “Never turn your back on the ball, Mel, you should know that by now.”

“It wasn’t fair! I wasn’t ready for it!”

“Who got you?”

“Dirk, the rotten bastard.”

“Mellie!” Lexie cried, shocked by her vulgarity. “Mind your tongue!”

“I didn’t mean
that
sort of bastard, Mama,” Mellie explained. “I mean the hits-you-on-the-bum-when-you’re-not-ready-for-it sort of bastard.”

“Oh,” Tia said, biting back a smile, “that sort.”

Lexie rolled her eyes. “Dear Goddess, to think that in other circumstances she’d have been raised at court!”

“That’s right!” Eleska exclaimed. “I keep forgetting you’re a princess, Mel.”

“So does Mellie, I fear,” Lexie muttered, smiling fondly at her daughter.

A cheer went up from the circle as Tabor Isingrin was struck. There were only four boys left in the circle now, and the game was getting quite rough and very fast. Tia watched Dirk, Reithan and the other half dozen young men in the outer circle hurling the ball to and fro, thinking Mellie and Eleska had no idea how much they’d held back to prevent doing the girls any serious harm. There was an unwritten rule among those who were old enough to man the outer circle. You never aimed above the waist, and you always let the little kids think they were winning for a while. But once they were gone, once the only players left were the young, fit and rather cocky youths of the village, then nobody held back.

“Holen Baker will win,” Mellie predicted as yet another player was struck down. “He always does.” She looked around, trying to find someone in the crowd. “Has anyone seen Eryk?”

“He got hit just after the little Jarik twins,” Eleska told her. “He was a bit upset he got out so soon.”

Mellie sighed. “I’d better go find him. I promised he could float his garland next to mine.”

“That was very thoughtful of you, Mellie,” Lexie told her. “You go find him then and we’ll meet you down by the water.”

“I’ll fetch the garlands,” Eleska offered, hurrying off in the opposite direction, her limp forgotten. Another cheer went up as two more boys fell victim to the ball in quick succession.

As Mellie forecast, Holen Baker was the only one left standing and the other children swarmed him as he whooped with delight over his victory. The outer circle broke up as Reithan caught sight of them. He signaled to Dirk and they both headed over to where Lexie and Tia were standing.

“I’m getting old,” Reithan complained when they reached them. “I swear stingball never used to be that much hard work.”

“Don’t expect any sympathy from me,” Lexie laughed. “If you insist on volunteering for these things, you can’t complain about them afterwards.”

“Can’t I? What’s the point then?”

“You complain all you want, Reithan,” Tia consoled him. “Nobody’s going to listen to you anyway, so what difference does it make?”

“You’re a heartless fiend, Tia,” Reithan accused. “Now I know where Mellie gets it from.”

“What about you, Dirk?” Lexie asked. “You appear none the worse for the wear.”

“Well, I’m younger than Reithan,” Dirk replied with a grin. “I suppose when I get to his advanced age, I’ll be feeling it, too.”

“Hey! You’re supposed to be on my side!”

“I
am
on your side,” Dirk assured him. “I’ll fetch your cane and your shawl any time you’re ready for them.”

Tia watched them joking and laughing, feeling like an outsider. She wondered for a moment if that was what she really distrusted about Dirk. No matter what she did, Tia would never be truly a part of Johan’s family. She was not blood—not like Dirk and Mellie and Reithan. She was the lost child taken in because her mother was a coldhearted bitch and her father was a wasted drug addict.

“Very droll,” Reithan said with a scowl. “I’ll remember who thinks he’s younger and fitter the next time we have to reef the mainsail in a storm.”

“If you had any brains, Reithan, you wouldn’t have the damn mainsail set in a storm in the first place,” Porl Isingrin remarked as he came up behind Tia.

“I can’t win. They’re either younger and fitter or older and wiser ...”

“Life’s like that,” Porl agreed. “Nice game, by the way. Although I think someone should check on Holen Baker.”

“Why? The little weasel didn’t even look like getting hit.”

“That’s my point,” the pirate laughed. “There’s something wrong with that boy. Nobody should be able to move that fast.”

Their conversation was suddenly halted by a high-pitched scream echoing across the beach. Everybody froze at the unexpected sound.

“That’s Mellie,” Tia said.

She had barely uttered the words before Reithan and Dirk were running in the direction of the screams. Without even thinking, she raced after them, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Mellie screamed again. They followed the sound, crashing through the scrubby undergrowth that fought to survive near the beach. Dirk streaked ahead of Reithan and she could hear Porl Isingrin’s labored breathing behind her.

They found Mellie in a small clearing. She was lying on the ground, with Eryk sitting astride her, his hand over her mouth as he tried to stop her screaming. Tia arrived in time to see Dirk haul the boy off her. Then he hit him so hard that Eryk’s feet left the ground and the boy flew backward, landing on his back several feet from Mellie. Tia raced to her and gathered the child into her arms. Mellie was sobbing uncontrollably.

“What in the name of the Goddess is happening?” Porl bellowed as he reached them. He took in the scene with a glance and paled. “Did he? ...”

“I don’t think so,” Dirk said, panting heavily.

Eryk tried to sit up, but Reithan turned on him savagely. “You stay right where you are, boy!”

“Reithan, get Mellie up to the house,” Lexie ordered calmly as she stepped into the clearing.

Tia marveled at her composure. She wanted to kill someone, starting with Eryk. And then she would probably strangle Dirk Provin next, for bringing him to Mil in the first place.

“Porl, would you see to Eryk, please?”

The pirate nodded and looked at Dirk. “We’ll take him up to the longhouse.”

Dirk bent down to haul Eryk up by his shirt. The boy’s face was streaked with tears, his expression stunned, his nose dripping blood unheeded down the front of his shirt.

Lexie turned to address the rest of the crowd that had followed the screams. “The rest of you, get back to the party. The excitement is over.”

Through force of habit as much as anything else, the villagers complied with her orders. Dirk shoved Eryk in front of him, wearing that same icy expression Tia remembered from the night he killed Johan. She shuddered at the recollection as she helped Reithan scoop Mellie up into his arms.

“It’s all right, Mel,” she whispered soothingly. “It’s all over.”

Reithan glared at her for a moment then turned to watch Dirk and Porl escorting Eryk away. “It’s not over, Tia. Not by a long shot.”

Lexie and Finidice put Mellie to bed, leaving Reithan and Tia with nothing to do but anxiously pace the balcony. When Lexie finally emerged from Mellie’s room, her expression was grim.

“She blames herself,” Lexie told them, as she sank wearily down onto a chair.

“That’s ridiculous!” Tia cried. “She’s fourteen!”

“Keep your voice down,” Reithan warned.

“It’s ridiculous however loud you say it, Reithan,” she snapped.

They heard footsteps on the veranda and turned to find Porl Isingrin and Dirk had arrived.

“How’s Eryk?” Lexie asked.

“Confused,” Dirk said. “He’s not sure what he did wrong.”

“Well, you would defend him, wouldn’t you?”

Dirk seemed quite offended. “If I thought for a moment that Eryk seriously wanted to hurt Mellie, Tia, I’d kill him myself.”

“Settle down, both of you,” Lexie ordered impatiently. “Mellie says Eryk tried to kiss her. She got a fright so she screamed, he tried to shush her, they fell over and that’s when we found them.”

Porl nodded in agreement. “That’s much the same story we got from the boy. He’s quite distressed that he might have hurt her.”

“He can afford to be,” Tia remarked sourly. “He was the one on top.”

“Tia, please!”

She turned away from Lexie’s accusing stare only to find Mellie standing on the veranda in her nightgown.

“You’re talking about what to do with Eryk, aren’t you?”

“Mellie, you should go back to bed ...” Lexie began.

“You shouldn’t be mad at Eryk, Mama. It wasn’t his fault.”

“Don’t worry about him, Mel,” Reithan told her. “We’ll take care of it. Go back to bed.”

“No! Not until you listen to me. It wasn’t his fault. It was my fault. Eleska and I went up to visit Eryk the other day and we were fooling around, talking about who was going to marry who and ... I said I wanted to marry Eryk.”

“And he believed you?” Lexie asked.

Mellie nodded. “He doesn’t understand, Mama. He didn’t realize we were joking. He’d carved a doll for me and when he gave it to me, he said it was my betrothal present. He said all this other stuff too, about loving me, and being so happy that I wanted to marry him, too ... Then he tried to kiss me. He didn’t even try that hard, and I didn’t mean to scream like that ... I just got such a surprise, we fell over, and you found us. It looked a lot worse than it really was. Please don’t hurt him.”

“Nobody’s going to hurt him, lass,” Porl assured her.

“Dirk hit him pretty hard.”

“He’ll get over a few loose teeth,” Dirk said.

“You have to promise me. It truly wasn’t his fault. He’s not mean or vicious and he wasn’t trying to hurt me. He’s just ... different.”

“You have my word that no harm will come to him, Mellie,” Lexie promised.

Mellie studied their faces in the red sunlight and then nodded and left the balcony without another word.

Porl Isingrin broke the uncomfortable silence. “Despite what it looked like, I believe Mellie may have the right of it.”

“How can you say that?” Tia demanded. “She’s a child!”

“In his head, at least, Eryk is probably younger than Mellie,” Reithan pointed out.

“Aye, but that child’s mind is in the body of a young man,” Porl reminded them. “How old is he now? Fifteen?”

“Sixteen,” Dirk corrected.

“Even worse. We look at him and see the child in his mind. We forget about the fact that he’s almost a man, with a man’s wants and needs ...”

“Oh, please!
Spare
me!” Tia cried. “If he’s old enough to have
urges,
then he should be damn well old enough to control them.”

“You can start lecturing us on control when you learn to control
your
temper, young lady,” Porl retorted impatiently. He turned to the others before she could add anything further. “I agree Eryk probably meant Mellie no harm this time, but if he thinks he’s in love with her, that could cause problems in the future.”

“What do you suggest we do, Porl?” Lexie asked. “I can hardly post a guard on Mellie on the off chance that Eryk might one day decide to pursue her.”

“No, of course not. What do you think, Dirk?”

They all turned to look at him. “Send him out to sea.”

“You callous bastard,” Tia accused. “You’d set that boy afloat on the open sea?”

“Tia, what goes on inside that head of yours?” Reithan asked, shaking his head. “He meant putting him to work on one of the ships.” He turned to Dirk and added cautiously, “That is what you meant, isn’t it?”

“I meant find him a berth on a ship. That way he’ll be away from Mil a good part of the time. It will give him time to get over his obsession with Mellie.”

“Oh,” Tia said, feeling like an idiot. “That’s not a bad idea, actually.”

“It’s an excellent idea,” Lexie agreed. “Can you arrange it, Porl?”

The pirate nodded. “He can come with us to Nova. I’ll find him something more permanent when we get back. Perhaps the
Orlando
could find room for him.”

“You’ll take him to Grannon Rock for Landfall?” Lexie asked thoughtfully. “Then perhaps you should go, too, Dirk.”

Dirk shrugged. “If you think it will help.”

Tia looked at Lexie. Why did it make any difference ... and then she realized why Lexie had suggested it. If Dirk went with Porl and Reithan to Nova for Landfall to meet with the queen, then he would be isolated on the
Makuan
and unlikely to hear about his mother until it was too late. A part of Tia was uneasy with the decision to conceal the truth from him. If it was her mother about to be burned, she would want to know.