Blood's Eve
by Arref Mak
The distant music continued to fade as I took the steps up from the second floor stair above the kitchen. Another turning, another run of steps, and the brisk slide of my slippers on the stone became more insistant than the horns and strings in the great hall below. It was late now, thankfully the spectacle was over for this day. Tomorrow would start some new hell of our own creation.
I opened the unlocked door to the roof. The last set of stairs up, narrower and steeper lay exposed beyond the dark wood frame. No light was poised on the wall above these steps. The guards usually didn't need them or carried them along when they were less nonchalant. Oh, for the luxury of indifference. Moving up two steps, I half turned and closed the door behind me, bringing on complete darkness. I welcomed it. It had promise. Could it change my mood? Puncture it? The black of the staircase felt better than the bloody light of the coronation dinner I had left. I took cool silk in my hands and lifted my hems up high. . . these steps were steep. At the top, I found the door lever by fingertip, twisted and pushed it outward. The quick wash of cold clean air lifted loose hair at my neck and promised help for my spirit. I stepped free of the castle's darkness and into the night's.
The door slipped quickly from my hand and closed itself softly behind me. Under the stars, at the center of everything, I walked towards the ocean side of the castle. The soft rasp of steel on leather told me guards had marked my arrival. I kept my pace and let them speak first. The moon was new, the stars beautiful. Foolish, to think I might have all this beauty to myself.
"Who goes?" He didn't sound bored. It wasn't my habit to answer questions that would answer themselves so I said nothing. I saw their silhouettes against the stars. One guard held back a pace, the other pressed forward pulling out a small limner wand. Good men these, they needed to say nothing to each other to make these small choices.
Mail and heavy harness shifted, the wand cast its feeble sentry light, "Who's there? Speak up or I'll run you----. Princess?" He raised the light higher. "Did you answer our challenge? I didn't hear." A slight military petulance was in his voice.
"You know me." Sound no warmer than the night carried so well, my words almost seemed to come back from the corner towers.
"Aye, Princess, up for a breath of air, are we? Peace be with you." Swords went whispering back into scabbards. The speaker saluted then turned away. The light vanished. They knew I would ask them to stay if I wanted it so. . . they made for other parts of the battlements.
Peace be with me. The blood sliding down his face. The smell. The silent locked stares of favored noblemen who would say nothing. Do nothing. Not even brave enough to look away. A maiming of kin to celebrate a night of dominance. Like a conqueror, my brother taking the throne and casting his true blood brother into the dark passages of the family dungeon. Peace. Celebration. Grotesque theater. Our favorite game.
I was appalled at those who stood for it. Especially myself. Who might have seen through my frozen face? My chill gaze?
At the battlement, I allowed my steps to walk me clockwise, wishing for Rebman wine to wipe the taste of earthy grapes from my mouth. The night air helped. At night, the wind off the sea was so strong, that it would carry its vigor up into the mountains beyond the castle. Shortly I felt better and stopped at one of the junctures of tower and wall. Calmer. The night knew nothing of our family's cruelty. It was clean. An Amber night, yet clean. Was that a paradox? Was anything in Amber yet unstained? The line of the beach out beyond the grassy sward was as artful as any pleasant memory I could have conjured. The sea. I breathed a sigh, took respite. Yes. There were some things not touched, bloodied, twisted by our nature.
Silver coils of starlight rolled gently in from the midnight sea and squirmed up the beach. I inhaled as much salt air through my nose as I might. My headache began to fade.
Head cleared a little, I frowned, tomorrow would turn itself badly. I must leave as soon as possible. Visibly leaving tonight would only anger the new King. Folly! No news of our father, no sign, and instead of addressing that problem, he makes himself King. Now they will chose sides or already have. With the eldest brother gone, and with his strongest rival crippled and in the dungeon, the new King would set about shaping his likes and dislikes quickly.
The blood. His face. The smell. The bits of eye tissue sputtering to the floor of the chamber.
My eyes watered in remembrance. I grabbed the stone beneath my hands and squeezed. Would they send a physician to the dungeon for him? Would the guards let me pass? I doubted it. Or perhaps they would, and report my name to our King. Why? Why not? Why now? Tears. My shoulders shook. What even this indignity? Wasting salt. Damn you Corwin, you stupid lout. Damn you Bleys, you sleek devil. Why now?
My senses labored. The night lost its clarity. In all the cruel, small games that my brothers have played, this must be the crowning moment. An act that could break the kingdom. The men who perished stopping the attack of Corwin and Bleys would be nothing compared to what might happen now that a knave was King.
Why should I be surprised that only my sisters would find the sordid mess shocking? The offered solutions not quite so neat? Why must my brothers be so short sighted, so paternal? Gerard was angry with the loss of men, but not the King's justice. Caine nodded and listened while Eric ran on about plans for the future. The evening's ritual bloodletting seemed to have loosened the new King's tongue and there was Caine to reap what might fall out of that. Julian already recruited men to replace the army's many losses. The royal princesses were quiet. Once again it seemed, we would be pushed aside as unfit to contribute. Our collective weight almost useless.
No. Unfair. There was always Fiona. Wherever she was. And not all of my brothers had made an appearance. It was certain that some of them were deliberately not told. Not included. There was Random. Little Random, banished beneath the waves until the next turning of spring. Benedict. The tower of reason and silent might, not present. Bleys. Dead? I didn't think so, but such a terrible fall and there were witnesses who claimed to have seen his end. Brand. Often missing these days, and not trusted by Eric.
Martin. Pleasant young one. Stay far away from home, my nephew.
Having thought of him made something change. Martin I had watched grow and go out on his own. I had helped plan his strengths, where his mother had no time to even save herself. Martin, not defenseless, but not prepared for the like of what I had seen tonight.
Was I?
In a word, no.
It settled upon me, the feeling of watching from beyond myself. I had thought I was in the game, much as I hated it, too. Yet, I was not prepared. I was not making events work for me. No one was concerned about what I might think or do, for I had not made of myself a obstacle, or an ally, or anything at all. With this move, Eric had changed the nature of the game for all of us.
All my work, my craft, my politics, were in the deep bed of the sea where I felt the strongest and had the advantage. This new king needed my sister's support. Eric was uncomfortable with what I might say to her, or do in Rebma. . . not here in my own home. I did not think he knew just how badly his plans would tell in Rebma. He had moved without regard for Rebma or me, in particular.
I fancied myself proud. Eric taking the throne had set a new standard of pride flying above the castle. No. Not above the castle. Below it. In the dugeon. Bleeding. Burned. In the dark. Forever?
Far too well, I imagined myself down there. Cut off from the sea. Blinded. Forgotten by royal decree.
I shivered. What did I expect now? From myself? No wonder nothing changed. No wonder they did mayhem without concern for the princesses' good opinion. Fiona was the only one they respected.
"Fiona is the only one who dares. You see the correlation?" The sharp words, just behind me, answering my thoughts, thrust my heart into a rapid hammering that climbed upward, trying to find my throat.
I whispered a blessing I hadn't known I remembered and turned to confront the speaker.
"Dares what?" I tried to keep my words icy and distant while holding my thoughts strongly my own. The blackness behind me was bulky, short and unrecognizable. A man, certainly, with a bundle across his shoulders? Chill sea wind gentled at my back.
My breath stopped when he giggled and I knew this man. Dworkin, the architect of all our places; both those brimming full and empty, noble and dark.
"Why. . . dares to be punished. Dares to be wrong. Dares to give up what she holds dear for what might give her no pleasure." I couldn't see his eyes, couldn't say what was wrong with his voice. His words spilled out and left me still more worried about betrayal. Had Eric had Dworkin in his back pocket all along? Was I to have an accident now? Had my mask been torn off to see the caring beneath?
"Stop that." He gestured, I flinched.
"What?" I desperately wanted to see his eyes. Sometimes he was only a little mad.
"Thinking about me pushing you off the roof. Silly idea. You'd probably survive the fall. Not a proper death at all. Too cliche'."
It was like a cold slap. My best will to screen my thoughts and I couldn't even tell he was in my mind.
"I'm not in your mind. . . you're existance shouts at me. Is that why you asked me here? To help you kill yourself? I don't think so." His dark outline shook, with laughter or infirmity, I couldn't tell. He smelled of musty wood.
"I didn't call you . . . but you might find what has happened tonight interesting in a morbid way, Grandfather." Neutral. Keep calm.
"That's obvious. Tell me something interesting." He moved up beside the wall and looked out, the starlight showed me more of him. My eyes were unhindered by the night. Another thing that set me apart. He didn't look well. He was old. Older. The lines of his face were like a keep left half torn down.
Anything I said might be damming, but no one spoke to Dworkin these days that I knew of, "Our new King is a brute. His grab for power will send us all into a bigger confrontation. I would stop him, if I could." I felt strange saying these words this baldly. The castle roof seemed a poor place to talk treason. The coronation a bad day to do it. If grandfather favored Eric, I was courting a cell of my own. Or worse.
He made a noise, hard and abrupt. I didn't take it for a snort at first, it sounded too mechanical, "Phagh. Is that why you drag me out against my son's commands? You don't like the way he plays with the throne? You want someone to stop it?" He grabbed my wrist, suddenly, as if I had helped him find it in the dark. "What will you give up? What's it worth to you queen of misery and seafoam?"
"Not my life." I hated the words even as I said them. I shivered and couldn't stop.
His voice was quick, "Mebbe that's not a good answer, little minnow." His grip seemed to expand on my forearm, pressure rose there. . . I worked against his grip openly now. A fleeting thought came and went about calling the guard. Absurd. His manner became even more threatening, he leaned into me, "Make a choice. Be something."
How dare he! "Be what. . . a pretty doll princess with eyes like vipers? Do you need another Fiona, grandfather? Did she escape your intent? Isn't she just what you wanted?"
His grip vanished. My arm hurt. I clutched it back to my breast.
"Good one." He started to chuckle. "That's telling me. She is a pisser, isn't she? I suppose I'm as much a part of that as Oberon. Don't be jealous, little minnow. You'll have your chance to impress the boys."
None of this was quite rational. I felt that if I understood it, I might join the disconnected nature of it and so admitted to myself that I was frightened. "Go away. If I called you, it was an error. Go back to your games."
"This is the game. The only one." His stare was compounded of shadows crawling lightly across his face.
"I won't play with you." My arm still throbbed, I flexed my fingers.
"That's your game. It's part of mine." His voice held glee.
"Then I'll play this part. I reject you. Go away."
"You have power, but not that one. When I am really gone, you will know it. You before most of the others." The night was colder and his voice had that mechanical quality again. "You're ready to change. It will cost you something, I'm here to make sure you pay the right person and I don't have all night."
"I'm not giving you anything. Why don't you save Corwin from his own folly?"
"Why don't you?"
"I will. When I find a way."
"You already know the way. Yet you don't like Corwin above Eric, stay out of it then." Why his sudden reversal?
"I like Eric less, after tonight. Stop ordering me about. Take your game somewhere else, old man."
The cackle was worse than the snort, "That's rich. Somewhere else."
I felt foolish then. A pointless argument and he seemed not quite himself or the man I remembered. His movements, words, were wrong somehow, I thought to get him some attention, perhaps inside, I set my voice at a gentle tone, "Let's go in and discuss it."
"Transparent. You might have the time, little minnow, but I don't." He turned away, "I was wrong, you're not ready. You're a child still."
I tried to turn the conversation back to his interest to hold him, "I'll be something. For myself, if not for Amber."
He whirled back immediately, I had his interest. Now what? "What will you be?" His voice was edgy.
"I'll be kind." Nothing. He stood there. The silence deepened and I felt my face flush as I realized what I had said, and how idiotic it sounded. What dreck.
"That will cost you a pretty penny. If you can't stomach the blood of a brother, you've made a bad choice."
"I . . ." He made me sound so weak. I felt vulnerable and suddenly sure I was being trapped.
"Wasn't thinking? Spoke out of turn?" he laughed, "No. Too late, 'tis done, that's the way these things work. And since you didn't ask the price before, I'll tell you now that you won't get a bargain from me. You believe your heart will lead you to your destiny. I don't say you're wrong."
"You think your life has been tough up 'till now," he sounded smug and proud, "you just bought yourself a Unicorn full of misery."
What an odd choice of words. Sweat beaded between my shoulder blades. My concern for him cooled at his senseless words, in its place, the embers of my anger were revealed still present from our earlier harsh words, "What will this cost me, my first born? My voice? How far gone are you, grandfather?" The mockery in my voice was unsteady.
"I'm pleased to say, I find new depths to my journey almost every day." Then he stepped right against me. I found I couldn't move. He was leaning against the full length of my legs, one icy hand held me firmly behind my hip as his other hand slid up my torso, rustling past lace trims. This scene suddenly had implications. . . too outside anything that we had said to each other. He was mad.
And he still had his power.
His hand slid higher, he had to strain a bit, holding me steady, pushing his hand to my face. I punched out with my mind. Anything to throw him off for a moment. It changed nothing.
"I see I was wrong and you were right. You will be kind, little minnow." That's when I saw the beating heart in his hand, realized the wetness between his chest and my belly was not only my sweat. I opened my mouth to scream.
Mistake. I only made it easier for him to feed it to me. Wealth of the sea, his strength was terrible. The taste. My tears.
The blood sliding down my face. The smell.
* * *
"Lord Rein." At last, I had found him alone.
He turned, showed his surprise. "Princess. How nice to see you this morn, I thought you had left the castle."
"No. I am called back to Rebma. But I am hoping you will walk me to the beach."
He brightened, "I would be most pleased to do so." He stepped forward and took my arm, shifting his lyre to his other hand. We left the castle together.
"I must admit to you. . . I will be glad to return. It is so comforting to be in familiar surroundings." The morning was warm. I still was seeing colors new to me. It was distracting.
"Aye, princess. It does seem that you look pale this morning. I hope that you find things well on your return to the city."
"It is here that troubles me, sir, not Rebma. It is here that comfort will be lacking." Now is the season of my discontent, Rein.
"What might you mean, princess?"
"My brother and you have been close." Now will you run, or have I chosen well?
His face paled. "Once. He has been long gone from court."
"And he is now out of favor, to put it mildly." The small side street gave out to the scrub grass, the ocean smells blew strongly off the beach. I was too warm, colors swam at the edges of my eyes.
Rein stiffened, "I am not a part of the court for its value to my ego."
I squeezed his hand, "I know." It felt good to hold onto him, a spell of dizzyness passed.
He looked surprised, then looked closer at me, "Your hand is quite warm, princess. Are you well?" I left my hand on his, squeezed it again. I wanted to pull it away, but everything was too strong.
"I will be alright. It is my brother who needs his friends now." I watched the waves come into view up ahead. The white sand was smothered by the power of the waves, and didn't mind. I noted the lesson.
Rein's eyes found the horizon, "Your brother is doomed, I fear. No one can help him now."
"Except you. Go see him. Tell the guards to report you. Make sure they note your watching them log your visit. Let them search you and find whatever you carry."
He shook his head, "I might as well present myself to King Eric for beheading."
Our shoes caressed the sand now, I stopped short of the wash, turned to look at him, "No. If you do this, Eric will respect you more than you can imagine. He will pretend to know nothing of it, but his manner will take in your courage to do something he will not do himself. Your defiance will make you safe at court. I will be greatful as well. And you will get quite a song from the whole matter." I saw the idea take hold of his imagination, his artist's pride. The waves roared up the sand behind us.
"I can not make such a promise. But I think you are very caring and wise."
"Then promise me that you will never speak of what we have said to each other, and come visit me in Rebma." Yes. I wanted that, too.
"That I will do gladly." He looked like he might walk me the rest of the way. I took back my arm and gatherered the hems of my dress. "I thank you."
I went to the waves and headed out towards the stair. So warm. I wasn't used to the double tripping beat in my chest. Perhaps I foundered a bit. Perhaps, like in a fever there are things, moments that I don't remember. I remember the surf was strong and cold. I don't remember losing balance.
I remember Rein's hand was there to guide me. One moment, he was on the beach, the next he was supporting me. I didn't fall. We went on down together.
END