Season of Sacrifice (5 page)

The duke nodded slowly, and said, “Come along, Sun-lord. Sun-lady. Your supper is ready.” Reade was so relieved at the kindness in the duke’s voice that he almost ran to the man, almost threw himself against the duke’s armored chest. That was how Reade used to launch himself at Da. When Da came back from fishing. Before Da had gone off to fish with the Guardians.

Maida hung back, though, and Donal finally had to drag her over to the cookfire. Even when the soldiers gave her food, she only sat and cried. She wanted Mum, and she hated the hard bread that the soldiers told her she must eat. Reade showed her how she could hold it in her mouth and work her tongue around it. She could make it soft enough to chew. That made her stop sniffling for a little while. Reade’s chest swelled like a bantam rooster. Mum would be proud of him.

Before Reade could ask for a second helping of bread, the duke brought him a golden cup filled with sweet water. After the boy had drained the goblet, a soldier tossed him a scratchy blanket. Duke Coren’s saddlebag made a poor excuse for a pillow, but Reade was fast asleep before he could complain.

And so it went for a week. Every morning, the duke roused Reade from a deep sleep. Reade would drink from the golden cup, swallowing every drop of the sweet water. He would chew the dry bread. He would be lifted up to sit in front of Duke Coren.

If he ever thought of complaining, ever thought of asking for Mum, he remembered Crusher’s intent gaze and the dog’s dripping tongue. Duke Coren had saved him from Crusher. Reade should not bother Duke Coren. He should go with Duke Coren and be good, even if that meant riding away from the People, away from Mum.

The days passed in a haze.

They left the forest behind and made their way across open land. In the rare moments when he was awake, Reade began to see signs of people. Separate fields were defined by fences as high as his head. A clear road stretched beneath the horses’ hooves.

One evening, when the taste of the sweet water had faded from the back of Reade’s throat, he sat up in front of Duke Coren, looking out at the road that snaked before them. They crested one especially long hill and looked down on some whitewashed houses gathered together like eggs from one of Mum’s hens. The cottages were so crowded against each other that there was barely a patch of ground for growing herbs. The village green was striped with footpaths, and a small herd of milk-cows stood in the middle of the grass, chewing their cud.

Reade cried out when he saw an actual smithy on the far edge of the green. He recognized the anvil from Da’s stories. The gigantic metal block stood by the ashes of an open fire. Looking behind him, Reade swallowed audibly. He could not see the first houses they had passed when they entered this village—no, this
town
. “Please, Your Grace, are we going to your castle now?”

“My castle!” the duke barked in the twilight. “We’re nowhere near any castle, Sun-lord. We’ll be another fortnight on the road before we reach Smithcourt.” The duke laughed again. “Just for you, though, we’ll stay at the King’s Horse for the night.”

The words confused Reade until he looked at the building where Duke Coren had reined to a sudden halt. A great sign blew in the wind—a horse’s head picked out in bright paint, with fiery eyes that flashed at the young boy. A golden crown rested on the magnificent beast’s ears.

Duke Coren snorted at the sign and muttered under his breath as he lifted Reade down from his flesh-and-blood stallion. “Damned fools! Still, this is the best of the lot in this backwater—supposed to have the only drinkable ale in the entire cursed village.” There was more, but Reade could not catch the words as he trotted to keep up with the scowling duke.

Reade quickly forgot Duke Coren’s fascinating curses as he stared at the tavern’s strange patrons. Every face he could see was male; each was half covered with a bushy beard. Clouds of pungent smoke filled the air. Most of the men sucked on intricately carved pipes. Every pipe, though, was removed from brown-stained lips as the men gaped at the soldiers and their two golden-robed charges. Reade drew away from the staring faces, backing up until he felt the strength of Duke Coren’s legs against his spine. His hand crept to the bavin about his neck, his fingers closing tightly about its black points.

A huge, red-faced woman came out of the crowd of awestruck villagers. Her face was puffy, like dough that needed to be punched down. She hesitated for a moment before dropping a rough curtsey to the duke, and then she twisted her chapped hands in an apron that might once have been white. “Good evening, m’lord. I—” She stopped pretending to be polite. “Who
are
these children?”

Before Reade could answer, Maida broke free from Donal’s grip, darting toward the fat woman with a cry. “Please!” she sobbed as she buried her face in the dirty apron. “I want my mum!”

Reade stared at his sister in awe. How did she dare to run to a stranger, to a woman she’d never seen before?

As Reade watched, he saw that the woman looked afraid, but her hands started to smooth Maida’s tangled hair. The woman whispered something to Maida, and some of the men in the smoky room started to grumble. Two or three climbed to their feet, but they didn’t move any closer to Duke Coren after a dagger flashed into the nobleman’s hand.

Reade saw the firelight glint on the blade, but Maida did not. She kept her face buried in the fat woman’s skirts. Her words were muffled as she sobbed, “We’ve been on the road for days! They took us away, and they put us in these robes, and they made us ride and ride and ride….”

Maida sobbed as if she’d lost the last of her rag dolls, and the red-faced woman folded the girl closer against her padded hip, clucking meaningless noises as she stared in shock at Duke Coren. As Reade heard his sister, tears welled up in his own eyes. He
did
want his mum. And he
did
want to be back home. Duke Coren hadn’t answered any of his questions, and Reade still didn’t know why they were going to Smithcourt, or why they had to leave the People behind.

“Good lady,” the duke crooned, and Reade remembered how the man had spoken to Alana Woodsinger, back home. The thought made him feel all strange inside. His belly flipped over, and he took his own step toward the red-faced woman, trying to duck away from the nobleman’s hand on his shoulder. Duke Coren, though, tightened his fingers, keeping Reade firmly in place. The duke went on, pitching his voice just above Maida’s sobbing. “Good lady, we have ridden hard, traveling from Land’s End in just a single week. You can see that these children are exhausted.”

“I can see that this bairn is terrified!”

“And well she might be, after the horrors that we witnessed in her village. On the Headland of Slaughter.”

The name of home made Maida wail even louder, and Reade could barely make out her words. “I want to go home! I want my mum!” Reade took a deep breath, ready to cry out, too. Maida was right. They were so far away from Mum and Sartain Fisherman, from Alana Woodsinger and the Tree. Things were scary here, with Duke Coren, and with Donal, and with Crusher, the dog that was probably waiting outside even as the people in the tavern stared.

Before Reade could start to wail, though, Duke Coren sighed and shook his head. The nobleman made a show of setting his dagger on the long wooden table. When he looked up at the drinking men, his face was exhausted, pale behind his dark beard. “I beg your indulgence, goodwife, honest men. These children are the only ones we were able to save from the Headland of Slaughter, and our journey has been hard. Even now, we haven’t dared to tell them the full story of what they left behind. Perhaps my men can put them to bed abovestairs, and then I can tell you the truth of what happened on the Headland.”

The red-faced woman started to reply, but Maida interrupted, shrieking, “No! Don’t let them take me away! Don’t let me go! Help me!”

“Easy, child.” The woman smoothed Maida’s hair like Mum would, but Reade saw the careful look she gave to the dagger that Duke Coren had set upon her table. The woman was afraid, too. “No one is going to take you away. We’ll hear the lord out, though. Hush, girl. Stop your crying.”

Duke Coren waited until the woman looked up again, and then the nobleman shook his head. His face was sad, like Sartain Fisherman’s when Da went fishing with the Guardians. The duke sighed, and said, “I’m sorry to bear this horror into your house, good woman. But certainly you’ve heard rumors of the…strange habits out that way, on the Headland of Slaughter.”

A squawk of protest rose in Reade’s throat. The People weren’t strange! Before he could say anything, though, Duke Coren tightened his grip on Reade’s shoulder. Each of the man’s fingers was a separate little spade, digging into his flesh. Reade wasn’t stupid. He understood an order, even a silent one. Reade was not supposed to talk. He could listen, but he could not talk.

His heartbeat began to throb beneath Duke Coren’s fingertips, and he knew he would have a bruise beneath the golden cloth. Duke Coren continued, though, as if he weren’t pinching Reade’s flesh to the bone. “You see, good woman, any mention of the horror among those people is painful to this boy.”

The duke lowered his voice, and each of the villagers leaned a little nearer. Reade was reminded of the People, gathering around the fires in their cottages, eager for the news that Duke Coren had brought when he arrived at the Headland. “A new woodsinger holds sway at Land’s End, good folk. She…she has convinced her people that the Guardians must drink blood before the summer sun can rise.” As Reade gasped in disbelief, Duke Coren dropped his voice to a dark whisper. “They will soon come on raids to the inland, come to steal away your newborn babes. I trust no one has been taken yet?”

“No, my lord.” The red-faced woman was clearly frightened by Duke Coren’s story. “No one.”

Now, Reade was more than a little frightened himself. He’d always been afraid of Alana Woodsinger, and Sarira Woodsinger before her. There was something scary about the patched cloak the woodsingers wore, the swirling colors of brown and red, blue and white. They were always busy with the Tree, ordering people around to help them bring water, to help them bring fresh fish to lay in the earth. They could be so mean, telling Reade what he could and couldn’t do. Alana Woodsinger was much stricter than Mum, especially than Mum was now, now that Da was gone.

But Alana Woodsinger meant to kill him? She meant to give his blood to the Guardians? That made no sense at all!

“We haven’t lost children, m’lord, but I’ve had two newborn lambs taken in the past fortnight!” a shepherd shouted from the back of the room, and there was a low rumble of agreement. Other men cried out, too—four more lambs had been taken. Reade wiggled his fingers—four lambs and two lambs—
six
had been taken altogether.

Six lambs. That was a lot. Even Reade knew that didn’t happen by accident.

Maybe Duke Coren
wasn’t
making up stories. Maybe he had just misunderstood everything. The People did not want to give the Guardians the blood of children. They wanted to give the blood of
lambs
. It was easy to see how the duke could be confused. After all, Mum had called Reade a poor little lamb, the day that Da disappeared fishing. She had said often enough that Reade and Maida were her poor lost lambs, her poor fatherless lambs.

The People would sing their Song of Sacrifice, like they did every year, because they were grateful for the spring. The spring Song included lambs. Maybe Duke Coren thought that the Song of Sacrifice was real! Maybe he thought that the lambs in the song were real children!

Even now, the duke was nodding slowly, as if he had expected to hear about the inlanders’ missing livestock. His lips were thin with a grim smile. “It is as I feared then. The cursed outland raiders have come this far.”

Maida cried out, “My people don’t have any raiders!”

Reade saw the look that Maida cast at him across the room, saw her demand that he stand up for the People. He swallowed hard and tried to think of something to say. It was all so confusing! Duke Coren was saying one thing, and Maida understood another thing. The people in the tavern room would not know whom to believe, and Reade could not begin to figure out how he would make them all understand.

Before Reade could speak, though, Duke Coren tightened the pincers of his fingers even more. This was clearly not the time for Reade to speak, to clarify things for Maida and the men and the fat, red-faced woman.

After all, what did it really matter? Six lambs
had
been stolen. The inlanders had no reason to lie about that. And Mum had been talking just the other day about how she looked forward to the spring, to making stews with something other than salt fish. Who knew what had happened to those lambs?

In any case, Reade could not doubt the message that Duke Coren was sending through his fingers. It was exactly like when the bigger boys told Reade not to tattle, when they glared at him just before the elders came to see what was happening. The older boys were always threatening the little children. Only the other day, Reade had been forced to lie and say that
he
had trampled the new plants in the communal field. He took the blame because that bully Winder had threatened him, threatened to twist his arm behind his back and break it. Goody Glenna herself had punished Reade, but even her ear-boxing wasn’t as bad as Winder’s punishment would have been.

Reade understood what Duke Coren’s fingers meant. Even if the People
didn’t
have raiders, even if they hadn’t stolen the lambs, Reade must stay quiet.

“You see,” Duke Coren was saying to the red-faced woman, “that poor girl denies her people’s raiders because she is terrified by what she has seen. She’s been frightened to the point that she will lie outright. You can imagine how shocking it must have been for her, for both these poor children, to learn that the parents they had trusted, the People they had loved”—the duke lowered his voice, whispering his last words as if he meant for Maida not to hear him—“the People they had loved intended to slit their throats like newborn lambs.”