Dirk was very deliberate in arranging the new firewood, as it gave him a moment to watch Anika from beside the fireplace. She was a year younger than Dirk. Fifteen last Midsummer’s day, she was perfection embodied to the young kitchen boy. She had delicate features, a small bow of a mouth, wide-set blue eyes, and hair of pale gold. Her skin held a faint touch of the sun in summer and was flawless pink in winter. Her figure was ripening, yet not voluptuous like the kitchen women, still possessing a grace when she moved that set Dirk’s heart to beating.
Dirk knew she didn’t even know his name, but he dreamed of somehow earning rank and fame someday, and winning her love. Her imaged filled his mind every waking moment of the day.
“Is something wrong, Wood Boy?” asked Lord Paul.
“No, sir!” said the boy, standing up and striking his head on the mantel. The girl covered her mouth as she laughed, and he blushed furiously. “I was just putting the wood away. I’m done, sir.”
“Then get back to the kitchen, lad,” said the Lord of the house.
Lord Paul was an Elector of the City. Before the Tsurani had come, Lord Paul had voted on every important matter confronting Walinor and had once been the delegate from the city to the General Council of Electors for the Free Cities of Natal. He was by any measure one of the wealthiest men in the city. He had ships plying the Bitter Sea and farms and holdings throughout the west, as well as investments in both the Kingdom of the Isles and the Empire of Great Kesh.
And Dirk was now hopelessly in love with his daughter.
It didn’t matter that she didn’t know his name, or even notice he was there, he just couldn’t stop thinking of her. For the last two weeks, since Hamish’s death, he had found his mind turning constantly to
thoughts of Anika. Her smile, how she moved, the tilt of her chin when she was listening to something her father was saying.
She wore only the finest clothing and her hair was always put up with combs of fine bone or shell from the Bitter Sea, or left down with ringlets that softly framed her face. She was always polite, even to the servants, and had the sweetest voice Dirk had ever heard.
Getting back to the kitchen, Jenna the old stout cook said, “Getting a peek at the girl, were we?”
Drogen laughed and Dirk blushed. His infatuation with Lord Paul’s daughter was a well-known source of amusement in the kitchen. Dirk prayed Jenna said nothing to any of the other boys, for if it became obvious to the boys in the barn, Dirk’s already miserable existence would become even blacker than it presently was.
“She’s a pretty girl,” said Drogen with a smile at Dirk. “Most men would look more than once.”
Dirk liked Drogen. He had been just one of Lord Paul’s men-atarms until Hamish had been killed for disturbing the Tsuranis on Midwinter’s Night. Since then he had become a fixture in the main house and Dirk had gotten several chances to talk to him. Unlike Hamish, who had been given to bouts of ill-humor, Drogen was a quiet fellow, saying little unless answering a direct question. Easygoing, he was reputed to be one of the best men with a sword in the Free Cities, and he had an open and friendly manner. He was handsome in a dark fashion, and Dirk had heard gossip that more than one of the servingwomen had snuck off with him on a thin pretext, and there were several tavern girls in the city who waited for his next visit. Dirk thought the man a nice enough fellow, though Jenna often had acid comments on Drogen’s inability to think of much besides women.
Dirk stood and said, “I have to get more wood over to the Tsurani.” He left the warm kitchen and, back out in the cold, wished he hadn’t. He hurried to the woodpile.
Dirk picked up a large pile of wood and moved to the first of the three buildings. He pushed open the door and found the Tsurani as he always did. Quietly they rested between patrols or other duties which might take as much as half the garrison away for days, even weeks at a time. Occasionally they would return carrying their wounded. When resting they slept in their bunks, tended their odd, black-and-orange-colored armor, and talked quietly. Some played what appeared to be
a gambling game of some sort involving sticks and rocks, and others played what looked to be chess.
Most were off on some mission for their master, leaving less than a dozen in residence at White Hill. They looked on impassively as he filled the woodbox. He left and serviced the other two woodboxes. When he was finished, he sighed audibly in relief. No matter how many times being the Wood Boy forced him to enter the buildings occupied by the Tsurani, having witnessed their capacity for ruthless murder brought Dirk to the edge of blind panic when he encountered them alone. When he knew he had done with them for another night, he felt as if he was entering a safe place for some hours to come.
Done with his outside chores for the night, he returned to the kitchen and ate his meager supper, a watery stew and coarse bread. The very best of the foodstuffs not taken by the invaders was served to Lord Paul and his daughter. He had overheard Anika complain about the food, only to hear her father reply that it wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Dirk thought that by the standards he was used to it was a feast. Drogen and the other workers in the house got the pick of leftovers and there was never anything for a mere Wood Boy.
Dirk returned to the barn and ignored the moaning that came from under a blanket in the first stall. Mikia and Torren seemed unconcerned that their privacy was nonexistent. Still, Dirk reasoned, they were dairy people, a herdsman and a milkmaid, and he found farm people far more earthy and unconcerned with modesty than townspeople.
Litia sat in the corner of the next stall, her slight form shivering under a blanket as she sat on the dirt floor, huddled close to the warmth of a small fire. Dirk waved and she returned a toothless smile. He went over and said, “How are you?”
“Well enough,” she said, and her voice was barely more than a whisper.
Dirk was concerned that the old woman might not last the winter, given the scant food and warmth, but others in the household seemed indifferent. You got old, then you died, they always said.
“What gossip?” asked the old woman. She lived for tidbits of news or rumors. Dirk always kept his ears open for something to enliven the old woman’s evening.
“Nothing new, sorry to say,” he replied.
With a wide, gummy grin, the old woman said, “And has the master’s daughter favored you with a glance yet, my young buck?”
Dirk felt his face flush and he said, “I don’t know what you mean, Litia.”
“Yes you do,” she chided him playfully. “It’s all right, lad. She’s the only girl your age here and it wouldn’t be natural if you didn’t feel a tug toward her. If those heathens who took our beds relent and let us visit with neighbors in the spring, the first young farm lass you meet will get your mind off my lord’s wicked child.”
“Wicked child?” said Dirk. “What do you mean?”
Litia said, “Nothing, sweet boy. She’s a willful girl who always gets what she wants, is all. What you need is a good strong lass, a farm girl with broad hips who can bear you sons who will take care of you in your old age.”
The bitterness in Litia’s words was not lost on Dirk, even if he was young. He knew that her only son had died years before in a drowning accident and that she had no one left to care for her. Dirk said, “I’ll try to get you another blanket from the house tomorrow.”
“Don’t get yourself into trouble on my account,” said the woman, but her expression showed she appreciated the offer.
Dirk left her and climbed the ladder to the loft, where the young men slept. He was the youngest up there, for the boys younger than he stayed with their families. Alex, Hans, and Leonard were already resting. Hemmy and Petir would be up shortly. Dirk wished for another blanket himself, but knew that he would have to depend upon the ones allotted to him. At least one side of him would be warm at a time, as he would huddled next to Hemmy, the next older boy. He would turn a few times in the night to ward off the freezing air.
And spring was but two months away. Hemmy and Petir climbed up and took their places in the loft, and Dirk snuggled down as best he could in his blankets and went to sleep.
I
t was an odd sound, and Dirk couldn’t quite make sense of it as he came awake in the dark. Then it registered: someone had cried out. It had been a muffled sound, but it had been a cry. Dirk listened for a moment, but the sound wasn’t repeated. He tried to go back to sleep.
Just as he was drowsy again, he heard a creak and the sound of someone moving in the barn. A dull thud and a strange gurgling noise
made him lift himself up on his right elbow, listening in the dark. He strained to hear something, but he couldn’t make out the sounds. Assuming it was Mikia and Torren again, he rolled over and tried to go back to sleep.
Again he was almost dozing when he realized something was wrong. As he turned over, he saw something moving rapidly toward him in the gloom, a large dark shape. He sat up, reflexively pulling away from what was coming toward him.
Two things happened at once. Someone slashed at him, a blade cutting into the fabric of his coat below his collarbone, and he struck the hay door with his back. He choked out an inarticulate cry, unable to speak for the terror which overwhelmed him. Then another body slammed into him with a strangled cry and he felt the door latch behind him give.
Never too sturdy, the latch parted as the weight of two bodies struck it, and with a muffled cry, Dirk fell out the hay door, down to the snow-covered ground below. He landed with a thud that drove the breath out of him.
Then the other body landed on him, and Dirk was knocked senseless.
H
e awoke as the sky was lightening. He was freezing and barely able to breathe. His left eye seemed glued shut and something on top of him held him firmly to the ground.
Dirk tried to move, and discovered that Hemmy lay atop him. “Hey, get off!” he said, but his voice was weak and strangled. A burning pain below his throat caused him to gasp when he moved.
His legs were numb from the cold, and he lay in a hole in the snow. He wiggled his bottom and managed to work his way upright and realized Hemmy was dead. The older boy’s face was white, and his throat was cut. Terror galvanized Dirk and he lifted the corpse enough to get out from beneath him, forcing numb legs to do his bidding.
He pulled himself out of the snow and his muscles screamed at being forced to move. He climbed out of the hole and saw he was drenched in blood, Hemmy’s blood.
“What happened?” he whispered.
As he staggered toward the barn he saw that the morning sun was still an hour from cresting the eastern horizon. His legs became wobbly
and he leaned against the barn, looking up to see the rear hay door still opened. He paused a moment to get control over his frozen, stiff legs, walked around to the front, and looked at the large doors thrown open to the cold. He glanced down at the snow before the door and saw no unusual number of footprints. But off to the south side of the entrance, where snow remained unclear, he saw a single set of footprints and the parallel impression left by a sled’s runners. Someone had pulled the large sled out of the barn. The depth of the runner tracks in the snow told him it was heavily loaded. The horses were long gone, having been eaten by the Tsurani the winter before, so whoever had moved the sled was pulling it.
Dirk went inside the barn and saw Mikia and Torren lying in each other’s arms, their throats cut. Old Litia also lay dead in her own blood, her eyes open wide. Everywhere he looked, he saw death.
Who did this? Dirk wondered in panicked confusion. Had the Tsurani who occupied Lord Paul’s estate gone mad and killed everyone? But if they had, there would have been footprints in abundance outside in the snow, and there were none. Most of them were gone on some mission or another, leaving only a few in the outbuildings this week. Then Dirk thoughts turned to the manor house. “Anika!” he said in a hoarse whisper.
He hurried through the predawn gloom to the kitchen and found the door open. He stared in mute horror at the carnage in the room. Everyone who slept in the kitchen was as dead as those in the barn.
He hurried up stairs and, without knocking, entered Anika’s room. Her bed lay empty. He peered under it, afraid she might have crawled under it to die. Then he realized there was no blood in the room.
He got up and ran to her father’s room, and pushed open the door. Lord Paul lay in a sea of blood, on his bed, Dirk didn’t need to see if he lived. Beside the bed a secret door was opened, a door painted to look like a section of the wall. Dirk looked through the door into the small hiding place and realized that here was where his master had kept his wealth. The invaders had demanded every gold, silver, and copper coin held by those living in the occupied region, yet it was well documented that they had no concept of wealth on this planet. The servants had speculated that Lord Paul had turned over only one part in three of his wealth and the rest had remained hidden. Perhaps
they had found he had hidden wealth and this was their way of punishing everyone. If the Tsurani had gone on a rampage—
“No,” he said softly to himself. The Tsurani hanged those without honor. The blade was for honorable foes. Whoever did the killing had moved with stealth, as if afraid to raise an alarm and be overwhelmed, and had cautiously killed all the servants one at a time. The killer had been armed … .