Season of Sacrifice (2 page)

Maybe Alana could find a real answer in the unread tomes that filled her little cabin, in the leather-bound journals that earlier woodsingers had kept. Perhaps her sister woodsingers had chosen not to sing directly to the Tree about inlanders’ ignorance; they might have chosen to protect the giant oak from such shameful stories. Alana would read the records her sisters had left, by firelight, after the harvest festival was complete. On her own for now, though, Alana tightened her voice and tried again.

“When a child is born, Your Grace, I bring it to the Tree. I sing to the Tree of the newest member of our village, and the oak learns. It remembers. When I rest my hand against the Tree’s bark, it…it speaks to me. I hear voices inside my head, voices of all the woodsingers before me. They tell me things, tell me stories of the People who have lived before.”

The duke stared at her as if she were speaking gibberish, as if she were a child telling hobgoblin tales by the fireside. She raised her chin defiantly. “When I am with the Tree, I can see the storms that have beaten the Headland. I can see the years of good harvests and bad.” She gestured toward the roots, toward the neat troughs that she had dug as the ground began to thaw. “I bring the Tree some of our first harvest. I lay the fish on the earth, and I cover it. The fish seeps into the roots, binding the Tree to us. The Tree remembers, and it reaches into our lives, into my mind.”

She could read the skepticism on his inland face, his patent disbelief. She knew that he was going to say something, was going to try to humor her as if she were telling stories about talking coneys or flying horses. She cut him off before she could see scorn twist his lips. “The Tree is the core of our lives, Your Grace! Every fisherman takes a piece of it onto his boat, so that the Tree will know him and remember him if he does not come home.”

Her throat closed around those last words. She had not yet found the strength to reach into all of the Tree’s memories of her father, into the stories her predecessors had sung about her da. Her father’s story ended with Alana becoming woodsinger herself, for old Sarira Woodsinger had perished trying to sing Alana’s father home, trying to guide four fishermen through a brutal autumn storm. His story, their story, ended with Alana donning the Guardians’ patchwork cloak, taking up the title and responsibility of woodsinger.

Duke Coren’s skepticism creased his forehead into a frown. “A tree remember? What sort of witchery is that?”

Alana forced herself to step away from the oak’s quiet comfort, to stride to the outer reach of its branches. Her voice was cold as she answered, “Perhaps, Your Grace, you will understand better if I show you.”

Forcing down the chill behind her words, she began to chant deep in her throat, a soft sound like a mother’s lullaby. Another breeze skirled through the new green leaves, but she ignored it, opening her mouth to voice the hymn that rose within her. The tune was wordless, a whisper about the People’s lives, about the festival that spread across the beach.

Alana sang of the long line of huers who had cried out from the Headland, of the fish that had just been caught. She sang of the strange men who had come with Coren, of the anger barely hidden behind their inland beards. She sang of the dogs that were chained well away from the People, and the power of the man who stood before her, and his skepticism about the woodsinger.

As she sang, a stillness fell over the hill. The breeze calmed in a pocket around the two humans and the Tree. The children’s laughing cries on the beach below melted away, swirled into the sudden silence. Alana felt the Tree listen to her, felt it add her words to its great store of knowledge. Inside her mind and her heart, she sensed the massive oak measuring the request that she had not quite dared to make.

A single branch began to lower.

Her song turned into a laugh when she glimpsed Duke Coren’s amazed face. She reached up toward the branch, and the Tree moved like a supple cat, curving to greet her and caress her cheek with a whisper of fragile leaves. She strode closer to the living wood, tracing the branch back toward its heart in the tree’s trunk. She followed a path that was as thick as her wrist, then her neck, then her waist.

When she reached the limits of the great Tree’s flexibility, she settled her hands on the rough wood. Her sung notes wrapped around the Tree’s essence, melding with the living bark. For just a moment, her heart beat with the fresh sweetness of oaken sap, and her soul settled into an otherworldly calm, layer on circular layer of peace. She was no longer Alana Woodsinger, hoping to impress a worldly duke. For a single, timeless instant, she
was
the Tree; she was the oaken daughter of the Great Mother, the living essence of the Guardians in all the world.

And then her heart beat again, and she was a woman once more, an ordinary woman standing beside a branch that quivered in a sudden gust of wind. She lifted her hand from the oak, not surprised to see its valleys and peaks etched into her skin, carved over the lines of her own palm. She sighed and shook her head, not noticing when her hair fell free of its improvised knot. Coren appeared not to notice either, for he gazed intently at what the Tree had revealed.

“What in the name of the Seven Gods is that?” His gruff surprise grounded Alana rapidly, and she bit back a smile at the skeptical finger he pointed toward the bark.

She barely had to touch the patch of wood to lift it from its nest. Perfectly symmetrical, the wooden globe was carved into an intricate star, tiny points striking out against the air like a night-black snowflake. As Alana turned the star before the duke’s eyes, she saw his interest sharpen until it was as penetrating as one of the carved points.

She smiled. “The children call it a woodstar, but the real name is a bavin.”

“A ‘bavin’?” He stumbled over the unfamiliar term.

“It’s an old word. The first woodsingers learned to ask the Tree for them. When a bavin is lit, it burns without consuming the wood. Each boat we make receives a bavin. The woodstars are set in the prow, so that the Tree can track us out at sea. As woodsinger, I always know where my people are, by watching through the bavins.”

“How many does the tree hold?”

“Hold?” The question puzzled her, startled her almost as much as the avaricious gleam in his eyes. She felt the Tree’s sudden concern, its disquiet at the inlander’s question. Unconsciously, she settled her hand against the fresh bavin scar, as if she were gentling a newborn colt. “We’ve never tried to find out.”

“If you cut down this branch, do they just come rolling out?”

“Oh, no.” Alana laughed uneasily. “The Tree does not contain bavins until we ask it to. Even then, it does not always give us woodstars. It must believe that we
need
a bavin before it makes the sacrifice.” She realized that he could not understand until he had examined the Tree’s gift, and she tossed the carved sphere to the man. She saw his surprise as his fist closed around it, as he registered how light it was. “The Tree has chosen to give this one to you. Take it as a keepsake of your time with the People.”

He stared at the bavin for a long minute before secreting it in a leather pouch that hung at his waist. When he bowed, she felt as if she were a noblewoman in Smithcourt’s royal castle. She shoved away the uneasiness that the Tree swirled into her thoughts. After all, what could an oak tree know of nobility? What could it know of the king’s distant court? How could any woodsinger have told the Tree about the strange ways of Smithcourt?

Duke Coren bowed fluidly. “And may I see you to the beach, my lady?”

She paused only long enough to caress the Tree, to thank it once again for its gift and to feel the balm of its comforting acknowledgment at the back of her mind. “I would be honored, Your Grace.”

Such courtly words were foreign to the People, but Alana had practiced for nearly a fortnight, since Duke Coren had arrived, leading a train of packhorses laden with trade goods. After the visitors’ troublesome dogs had been banished to the village’s perimeter, the People had been pleased with the duke’s riches. They longed for the smooth linen that Coren brought to trade; it was crisper and softer than their own rough wool. There were other items as well—trinkets of colored glass that pleased parents and children alike, hardened leather for shoe soles, and iron knives worked by near-magical smiths.

The people had no iron anywhere near the Headland. They needed to trade for all the metal they required, for cookpots and hardware for their boats and for precious knives. The People’s need was one of the many challenges of life on the Headland. Devoted as the People were to the Tree, to the living essence that combined all the Guardians’ forces, they still needed to bargain for iron, for the other major gift that the Guardians had crafted when they created this Age. The People remembered the Guardians’ ancient power over earth and air, fire and water; they knew the forged power of the dark metal that was not theirs. They consoled themselves with the force of the Tree, and they traded when they could.

During Duke Coren’s visit, the People marveled that the nobleman wanted so little in exchange for the precious goods he brought. All he asked for were barrels of salt fish and oil, left over after the easy winter. Those, and a handful of purple and white clamshell beads. The entire visit had carried the excitement of Midsummer Day, although it was barely spring.

That excitement was heightened by Duke Coren’s proclamation that he traded in the name of the king. Of course, the westlands were ruled by the distant king in Smithcourt, but no lord from so far inland had ever deigned to travel all the way to the Headland. The People had lived for generations as complacent subjects, raising their cups to their absent, distant liege. They enjoyed the fact that they were not ground under some noble heel on a regular basis, even if that meant that the price of iron remained high, that trade in linen and beads remained rare.

Nevertheless, the presence of a nobleman spurred a giddy excitement among all the People. There were even rumors that Duke Coren hoped to ascend to the Iron Throne when he returned to Smithcourt after this journey. After all, even the People had heard of the king’s untimely death the previous year, of his passing without an heir.
That
gossip was strong enough to make the journey to the edge of the kingdom. Duke Coren supposedly claimed the crown because of the wealth that he had poured into the dead king’s treasury, wealth from trading in lands so distant that the People could not imagine their names.

On the duke’s first night in the village, when all the People were gathered about a warm hearth sipping ale, the nobleman had handed out presents. Excitement had fluttered beneath Alana’s breastbone. She had told herself that she had no use for a silver brooch, and it was completely inappropriate for a strange man to proffer the sturdy linen sash that gathered the colors of the rainbow and nestled them around her narrow hips. Nevertheless, it would have been rude to decline his gifts. Besides, there was the village to think of—if she, the woodsinger, refused her presents, then the People could not accept theirs.

Therefore, she kept Coren’s offerings, and she found herself drawn into conversation with the generous lord. He went out of his way to make her feel at ease. He was an ambassador of good will, and it was her duty to pave his way among the fishermen. It was not
his
fault that she was drawn to him in ways that were not entirely proper for the People’s woodsinger, especially not a woodsinger who had been called to her post before settling on a husband.

Alas, that was one seaside tradition that Alana was
not
going to divulge to Duke Coren. There was no reason for him to learn that she was sworn to the Tree forever, that she would never be permitted to settle in a cottage with a man, to raise children, to divide her attention between a family and the Tree. Of course, if she had found her mate before being called to serve the oak, things would have been different…. The Tree would have made its choice knowing her commitment to her family. But Alana had had no family when the Tree chose. She had had no distractions. The Tree would not tolerate her divided loyalty now. She would remain alone.

Through no fault of her own, she would remain alone.

Repeating that rule to herself even now, Alana stumbled as her hard-soled winter shoe turned on a stone. Before she could catch herself, Coren’s hand was under her elbow, steadying her with a quiet strength. “Careful, my lady,” he murmured, and she was startled by the sudden breathlessness that closed her throat. She forced herself to look down at the stony path, to focus on the earth underfoot. She thought she heard the duke chuckle beside her, but she refused to meet his piercing eyes.

His hand was still on her arm when they emerged from the scrubby ocean grass onto the beach. The People looked up in expectation, and a sudden hush fell over the crowd. Laughter and a reed flute’s dancing notes slipped away in the crash of breakers. Alana saw the gossiping glint in Goodwife Glenna’s eyes, and she jerked her arm away from the duke as if she’d been burned.

Goody Glenna was the oldest of the People. The crone’s hearing might be going, but her eyes were sharp, and Alana knew that the old gossip was recording this latest tidbit to share by the communal ovens on the next baking day. Alana sighed. She was already tired of the Women’s Council watching her every move. She knew that she was not permitted a husband. She had accepted that she was sworn to the Tree.

“Alana!” The woodsinger whirled to face Sartain, the current leader of all the People. The fisherman was short and muscular; like most of his folk, his body had been shaped by hauling nets heavy with fish. His back was stooped from years of repetitive labor, and his hands were horny pads, callused by decades of service on the People’s coracles. Sartain’s eyes were carved deep in his face, protected by a web of lines etched by sun and wind.

“Yes, Sartain?”

“While you’ve kept our guest up on the bluff, the feast has been laid. We can’t have the duke saying that the People lack hospitality, can we?” Alana heard a good-natured smile behind the fisherman’s sea-salt words. “Come, woodsinger, let us begin the feast.”