Season of Sacrifice (11 page)

Alana dashed her tears from her cheeks. Very well, then. Even if Maddock were lost, even if the rescuers’ first battle had been a rout, the war was not yet decided. Alana could fight with other weapons. Gritting her teeth, the woodsinger muttered to the Tree and any of her ancient sisters who might be listening, “Fine, then. I’ll reach for Reade.”

She found the new white thread and stretched across the land.

“Here’s your food, Maida.” Reade caught the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he balanced the tin plate that he carried to his sister. When he reached Maida’s side without spilling, he glanced at Duke Coren, hoping that the nobleman would notice Reade being polite to his twin. He was trying to remember that he must act like the Sun-lord. He was trying to be good. It was just so hard, with so many different things, so many strange places and people and things to do as they journeyed farther and farther from the Headland.

And Maida didn’t help. Even now, she screwed up her face into an awful frown. “I don’t like this bread.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the bread, Maida.” Reade reached out and tugged a bite from the hunk that balanced on the plate. He put it in his mouth and chewed hard, bobbing his head as he swallowed. “See? It’s fine. It’s just made with salt. That’s the way they make it here. That’s all the lady had at the inn, when we left this morning.”

Maida shook her head and pushed the plate away. “Mum makes good bread, not like this.”

Thinking of Mum made Reade uncomfortable. That morning, when he’d woken up, he had tried to remember the exact shape of her face. No matter how hard he tried, though, he could only see the woman who ran the inn. Oh, he could still remember how Mum yelled at him when he did something wrong, and he remembered that she always made him do his chores. But she was fading away, becoming part of his life from before Duke Coren came, from before Reade became the Sun-lord and Maida became the Sun-lady.

He tried to tell himself that he didn’t need Mum here, anyway. He was a big boy. He had been the huer in the spring harvest. He didn’t need his mum at his side, as if he were a little baby. He didn’t need his mum to protect him.

Even as Reade lined up his arguments, though, even as he made his thoughts as neat as knots in a net, his lower lip begin to tremble. Maida must have seen him, because she leaned forward and grabbed his arm through his golden robe. “Let’s run away, Reade. Let’s go back home.”

A strange light glowed in Maida’s eyes. She looked like old Goodman Jendo, after the horse kicked him in his head. Jendo had sat up in bed, screaming at Guardians who weren’t even there. Reade wasn’t supposed to have seen Jendo; he had promised Mum that he would not go near the cottage on the edge of the village. The older boys had dared him, though. They told him he wasn’t brave enough to creep up to the hut and look between the chinks in the wall. He couldn’t refuse the big boys, not without Winder calling him a coward.

He knew he was lucky he hadn’t been there when Jendo actually died. The Guardians might have carried Reade away if he had been, dragging him back to their home, along with Jendo. Even without watching the Guardians take the old man’s soul, Reade had been afraid that Jendo’s spirit would haunt him. Winder had said that it would; he said that the Guardians would punish Reade for looking through the holes in the cottage’s wall. Sometimes Reade still had dreams that Jendo had come for him, come to take him to live beneath the sea with the Guardians and other dead fishermen.

Maida tugged at Reade’s arm, breaking into his thoughts. “Reade. Listen to me.” She looked about to make sure that Duke Coren’s soldiers weren’t listening. When she whispered, Reade had to lean close so that he could hear her. “Do you remember Mum?”

The question was so close to his own thoughts, to his own fears, that he forced himself to laugh out loud. Ha! he made himself think. This was like Maida telling a joke. She was making up a story about some boy who was too stupid to remember his own mum. “I’m not a baby, Maida. Of course, I remember her.”

“I dreamed about her last night. I dreamed about how she prayed with us every night before we went to bed. I held my Great Mother, and Mum put her hands on top of mine.”

Unconsciously, Reade reached for the metal charm that hung about his neck, his own Great Mother. His hand brushed against the woodstar that Duke Coren had given him. Of course, the woodstar was powerful, more important than any gift he had ever received. His Great Mother, though, was special for a different reason. He couldn’t remember a time that he had not had the iron charm strung about his neck.

He had asked Mum about it once. She said that she’d given him his Great Mother the day that he was born. He and Maida both—they had the iron charms to watch over them, even when they were so little that they shared the same cradle.

If Maida had dreamed about her Great Mother, then she must be afraid. Again. It seemed like she was always holding on to her charm. She acted like she was on Da’s boat, tossing on the sea, and the Great Mother was her anchor.

Reade was a little scared when he thought of Maida’s dream. It reminded him of how far they were from home, of how frightening this whole journey was. He covered up those bad feelings by making himself laugh again, like Winder, back home. “That must have been a pretty stupid dream,” he said.

“It was a good dream!”

“Only babies dream about the Great Mother.”

“I am
not
a baby!” Maida shrilled, and a number of the soldiers looked over at them. Reade shushed his sister, afraid that Duke Coren would get angry.

“All right, Maida, you’re not a baby. By all the Guardians, stop squealing like a stuck pig.”

“I’m going to tell Mum that you swore!”

“You’re never going to see Mum again for the rest of your life!” Reade said the words before he could even think if they were true. Maida burst into tears, so suddenly that even Reade was surprised. Her wail was cut short as Reade clapped a hand over her mouth. “What are you trying to do? Duke Coren will
kill
us if you screech like that!”

She tossed her head free from his hand, but at least she remembered to whisper. “You’re bad, Reade! You’re breaking all the rules. You use bad words, and you don’t pray to the Great Mother, or the Guardians, or anything.”

“No one’s here to make me!”

“That’s not it, and you know it! You’re bad because you’re afraid. You’re afraid of what Duke Coren would do if he caught you praying to the Great Mother!”

“I am not afraid!”

“You are, too! You’re as scared as a lamb. You’re a coward!”

“I am not a coward! I was the huer, Maida. The huer has to stand on the very edge of the cliff. I couldn’t have been the huer if I was afraid!”

“Who cares about being the huer, Reade? There aren’t any cliffs here. There aren’t any boats, and the duke doesn’t need a huer. No one cares about a stupid
huer
.”

There. That was it. Maida was still jealous of him. When Sartain Fisherman had made Reade the huer, Maida had cried for an entire day. She’d still been sulking the day
after
Reade had been chosen, even when Mum had let her stir the porridge, and add an extra portion of honey. Maida was such a baby.

Before Reade could tell her that, though, she got a strange look in her eyes, like Winder when he was planning something mean. “If you’re so brave, Reade, if you’re so important, then why don’t you just get rid of your Great Mother? Why don’t you just leave it on this rock?”

Without thinking, Reade raised his hand to the metal charm. “I’m not going to do that.”

“See! It’s true! You’re a lamb! Coward!”

“I am not! It’s just that—”

“What? It’s just what?”

Reade couldn’t think of a good ending to the sentence. He
wasn’t
afraid. Not exactly. But he didn’t want to give up his Great Mother. Not when Mum had given him the charm. Not when he had no idea when he would see Mum again. But he would never be able to make Maida understand. He sighed and looked up at her miserably. “It’s just that you don’t have to be very brave to leave a Great Mother on a stone.” She snorted, and he said, “I’ll get rid of it! But you have to promise you’ll never call me a coward after I do.”

“What are you going to do?” Maida asked, suspicion filling her voice.

Reade started to say, “I’ll drop it in the bushes, the next time I piss,” but he didn’t want to fight with her about the dirty word. Instead, he just said, “I’ll get rid of it. That’s all you need to know. Promise, though. Say you won’t call me a coward.”

“That’s easy to say. You’ll never get rid of your Great Mother.”

“Say it!” Reade insisted, but Maida only frowned at him. “Say it!”

“Fine, Reade. If you get rid of your Great Mother, I won’t call you a coward.”

“Ever.”

“Ever.”

Reade nodded, pleased that he had won. Now he just had to figure out a way to get rid of the charm, a way that would make Maida remember forever that he was brave.

Before he could come up with a plan, the duke’s man, Donal, walked over to him. “Come along, Sun-lord. You shouldn’t keep the duke waiting.”

Donal always said “Sun-lord” like he didn’t mean it. Reade wanted to tell the soldier that he should be nicer. Reade wanted to say that he had heard Donal talking with Duke Coren that night, back in the tavern. Donal had been bad. Donal had made the duke angry.

Every time, though, that Reade started to talk back to Donal, he saw the anger in the man’s own eyes. And when Donal was angry, he was much scarier than Duke Coren. He didn’t just fold his hand into a fist. He reached for the hilt of his dagger.

Reade decided not to explain that he
wasn’t
keeping Duke Coren waiting. Instead, he tucked his Great Mother back inside his golden robes and let Donal hoist him up on the duke’s tall stallion. Reade settled down in front of Duke Coren and reached out to grasp the pommel on the high saddle.

The first day that he had ridden without the duke’s sweet water, he had regretted his oath. The horse had gone on and on without stopping, each step jarring until Reade could not keep tears from streaming down his face. Duke Coren had kept such a tight grip around Reade’s waist that the boy thought his back would always be dented from the metal studs on the duke’s armor.

Reade was stubborn, though. He remembered Duke Coren’s stern warning. No matter how sore he was, no matter how long the afternoon lasted, Reade had not asked for the golden cup. After all, the Sun-lord would not have complained. Da would have been proud of him.

Besides, Reade had not wanted to back down in front of Maida. That first morning, when the duke prepared to let Reade ride without drinking, Maida had thrown a tantrum. It was funny to watch his sister, screaming and kicking and biting, all because she wanted to do what Reade was doing.

It was funny, that was, until Duke Coren knelt down beside Maida. Reade couldn’t hear what the duke said, but Maida certainly did. She cut off her scream mid-wail. Casting a tear-sharpened look at her brother, she said, “It’s not fair! You call him Sun-lord, and you call me Sun-lady. If you don’t make him drink, then why should I have to?”

The duke had gazed at her for a long moment, his brown eyes as dark as Da’s. Reade got a twisty feeling in his belly, and he thought that he should step forward, that he should help his sister. He should try to explain things to Duke Coren. Maida was
always
trying to copy Reade. She had wanted to be the huer. She had wanted to go out fishing with Reade and Da. She had wanted to do all sorts of things that girls shouldn’t do.

Before Reade could explain, though, Duke Coren straightened up and put the golden cup in his saddlebags. “Fine then, Sun-lady,” he said, and his voice was as serious as when he spoke to Reade. “I’ll tell you the same thing that I told your brother, though. I won’t let you change your mind. If you make this decision, you can’t go back.”

“I won’t if Reade doesn’t.” Maida had glared at him as she settled into the saddle in front of Donal.

Reade wondered if Maida regretted her decision now. He knew that
he
did. Not only was the ride painful, but it was boring.

Well, it
had
been boring. Today would be different. Today, Reade would prove that he wasn’t a coward, no matter what Maida said. No matter what names she called him.

The duke kept them riding very fast. Reade heard one of the soldiers say that they were only seven days from Smithcourt. Sometimes they passed people on the road, walking or riding toward them. Those people always stepped to the side, giving lots of room to Duke Coren and all his men.

Once, Reade saw a giant farmer knuckling his forehead, just like he was a child, just like he was honored to be near the riders. The sight made Reade want to laugh aloud, and he glanced up to see Duke Coren eyeing him with an open smile. Just by sitting on the stallion, just by wearing the Sun-lord’s golden robes, Reade made the duke proud.

No, Reade wasn’t a coward. He wasn’t a frightened little sheep. Maida didn’t know what she was talking about. Reade thought about the farmer, staring in awe at the Sun-lord, and he sat even straighter in front of Duke Coren.

Throughout the long morning, he watched and waited, knowing that many of the soldiers would fall back as the afternoon dragged on. Duke Coren even loosened his grip around Reade’s middle, and Reade leaned forward to catch the stallion’s reins. He had a plan, now, a plan that would prove that he was brave. He glanced back at the duke, but the nobleman did not seem angry or alarmed. He was no more watchful than he ever was along the road.

Reade thought about how strong the horse was, and he realized that he was being foolish. Foolish and bad. Duke Coren would be furious with him. Donal would glare at him, and the duke might even say that Reade would get no supper.

Maybe it would be wiser just to hold on to his Great Mother. Let Maida say what she wanted.
Reade
knew that he wasn’t a coward. He knew that he wasn’t afraid. It was just that following Duke Coren’s rules was the right thing to do. The safe thing. The thing that the Sun-lord would do.

Uncertain, Reade leaned back against Duke Coren’s chest, resting his head against the armor. Afraid to touch his Great Mother, afraid to remind Maida of what he had promised to do, he shifted his hand to his bavin instead.

The woodstar was prickly beneath his fingers. He turned it over and over, running his hands across its points. Maida didn’t have a woodstar. She had a Great Mother, but she didn’t have a woodstar. Duke Coren had given the bavin to Reade. He
could
have given it to Maida, but he gave it to Reade instead. Duke Coren liked Reade better than he liked Maida. That’s why he let Reade ride in front of him, instead of making Reade ride with Donal.