Wildwood Dancing (21 page)

“Jena,” Cezar said in a dangerous, quiet voice, “I think it’s best if you leave us now. We men are weary; it’s been a long night’s struggle. You need a little time to digest this news. Distress is making you irrational.”

“
A long night’s struggle?
A pack of—what—ten or eleven men against one dwarf?” I was on my feet, so angry that I let the words spill out without caution. “Forgive me if I cannot agree that this is some kind of victory.”

“Leave the room, Jena.” Now Cezar spoke sharply; it was a command. “I will not have words of that kind spoken here in the valley, not while I am master of Vǎrful cu Negurǎ. Please curb your tongue. Florica, where’s that ţuicǎ?”

One of the hardest things I had to do was break this news to my sisters in Aunt Bogdana’s presence, not knowing how each of them might respond. I was quivering with rage and humiliation after Cezar’s reprimand, and full of horror over what he had done. All I wanted to do was run away somewhere by myself with Gogu and cry like a child. But the voices of my cousin and his friends were loud and excited as they went over their exploits; it could only get worse as the ţuicǎ flowed. I needed to be first with this news, to render it gently. I did try.

“Cezar
killed
a
dwarf?
” Iulia found her voice first.

Stela, halfway through taking off her party dress, was staring round-eyed, her chin beginning to wobble.

“Aunt Bogdana,” said Paula, her own voice less than steady, “I might take Stela upstairs.”

“Of course, dear—your gown doesn’t have much work left to do. This is odd news. I did not think Cezar … It’s quite disturbing.” A loud gust of laughter reached us from the kitchen.

I was watching Tati. She stood by the wall, white and staring, as the sounds of hilarity filtered through the door. Then she turned and left the room without a word.

“I don’t think Tatiana’s very well, Jena,” said my aunt quietly. “She’s grown so thin, and she often seems … not quite all there. I wonder if you should consult an herbalist? I can recommend someone, if you wish.”

“Thank you, Aunt. I’ll consider that.” I realized she was speaking to me as if I were head of the household, as if I were the one in charge. Listening to Cezar’s voice, remembering what he had just said to me—wounding words, the words of a tyrant—I knew that if I had ever been in charge of anything at Piscul Dracului, I was no longer.

The next morning, the landholders of the valley awoke as usual and went out to check their stock. On every farm, on every smallholding, an animal was found slaughtered. There was no consistency in what was chosen, only in the method of killing. On one farm it was a sheep, on another a pig. One family found a beloved dog lying limp across the doorstep. Some had been luckier, finding only a chicken gone, while some had lost their cow, the standby of every household. The valley’s cows were not simply valued for the milk they provided over spring and summer, or for the calves they bore. Over the warmer months
they all went out to graze the mountain pastures together, gathered up by a herdsman in the morning at each gateway, and returned in the evening to be milked again. Each animal knew its own gate and waited there for admittance; each knew its own human family. That morning, eight cows lay in their blood, their throats slit. Eight families had lost an essential part of their livelihood as well as an honored friend.

The news reached us early—Ivan came up to tell us, his face pale. He had been fortunate to lose only one of his ducks. He went out with Petru to check our own stock. Most were housed over the winter in outbuildings near the castle, but we did have a flock of hardy ewes in the sheepfold near the forest’s margin. There was nothing untoward in the barn or the byre or the outbuildings—the animals looked healthy and demanded their breakfast. While the men went off to the upper pasture, I fed the chickens and Iulia tended to the pigs, and Paula and Stela made themselves useful in the kitchen, helping Florica with a batch of bread. Cezar and his friends were still asleep after another long night’s hunting; they would be hungry when they awoke. Tati had not made an appearance.

Ivan and Petru were gone awhile. The upper pasture was covered in snow; for most of the winter, the sheep were dependent on hay carried up to their shelter. I stayed outside the barn, chopping firewood with unnecessary violence. Images of blood and death passed before my eyes. I did not know any longer whether I believed that filling Piscul Dracului with colored lights and music and laughter could have any effect at all on the Night People. Something was happening that seemed far too powerful for that small gesture of defiance to hold any
weight. And, though I was filled with dread at the prospect, I wondered whether I should after all take a different path to try to stop it. Tonight was Dark of the Moon. If I crossed over to the Other Kingdom, could I hope to change the way things were? If I looked in Drǎguţa’s mirror, would I be given the secrets of the future, so I could make it come out differently? But maybe I was fooling myself, pretending that my motive was selfless when, underneath, it was dark temptation that drew me.

Jena
.

Gogu had been sitting on a tree stump, wincing every time my ax split a log. I stopped chopping. “What is it, Gogu?” I took him in my hand; he was trembling. It came to me suddenly that it could have been him, that I could have woken to find him stretched out dead beside me on the pillow, slaughtered as callously as those other animals had been.

Tell me what you are thinking
.

“I can’t. It will make you angry.”

Tell me. I am your friend
.

“I’m afraid. All I really want to do is be a complete coward and hide from all this. We can stop visiting the Other Kingdom so we don’t give away any secrets. We can hold our party and pretend that we’re not afraid of the Night People. But I don’t believe those things are enough to put this right. Ileana’s folk wouldn’t slaughter people’s stock. She said it herself—
That is not our way
—when she spoke to me about punishing Cezar. Her folk respect creatures; they don’t perform arbitrary killings. This is the work of the Night People. But it’s not vengeance for
the dwarf—he wasn’t one of their kind. It’s Tadeusz, playing games. It’s sheer mischief, malicious teasing, designed to stir up unrest. I’m sure it’s my fault. If I hadn’t let him bewitch me …” My head was full of that beguiling voice. Its soft darkness still drew me, despite all common sense.

What are you planning?

“Nothing.” But I was lying, and I thought he knew it.

When Petru and Ivan returned to the castle, their faces grave, I expected to be told of a loss. But they had counted the flock three times over, and all our sheep were still alive and well. It seemed that Piscul Dracului had escaped the slaughter. Maybe, Petru said, other farms had also been spared—some were too far away to have made a report yet.

Before day’s end, Judge Rinaldo called a meeting down in the village. Cezar went, and so did Petru. The news they brought back sent a chill through me. Of all the households in the entire valley, ours was the only one that had not lost an animal to this scourge. Piscul Dracului had been singled out for special treatment. It was not to do with castles and cottages—one treatment for the wealthy, one for the common folk—for Cezar’s farm at Vǎrful cu Negurǎ had lost a breeding ewe.

Cezar was beside himself with fury. Questions had been asked in public as to why our house—situated so close to the edge of the wildwood—should be different from any other. One very old man had muttered something about Piscul Dracului being a place of mystery, a home of hidden perils and secret doors. Petru had told him he was an addle-pated old fool, but the damage was done. Once one tale came out, other folk had
more to add. Someone suggested that the reason the place had stood empty for so long was that it concealed a gateway of some kind—that within its walls was a portal where worlds met.

Our cousin assembled us in the kitchen—all five sisters, with Florica and Petru. Rǎzvan and Daniel were looking uncomfortable by the door, as if stationed there to keep us from escaping. Perhaps Cezar had forgotten that this was our own house.

“I’m very unhappy,” he said. “Deeply disturbed by what has happened, and by what folk are saying. If I believed for a moment that any one of you was hiding something, that information existed which could help me apprehend these murderers and that you were holding it back, I would—” He stopped, then turned on Florica. “You’ve been here for years, since the days of the old owner. What’s all this talk of secret passageways and hidden entrances? Don’t try to tell me you don’t know.”

His tone was intimidating: Florica paled and shrank away from him. Petru put his hand on her shoulder.

“Cezar,” I said, “you can’t interrogate Florica as if she were a criminal.”

His brows creased into a ferocious scowl. “I’ll do whatever is required to drive this menace from our forest, Jena. Personal bonds and old loyalties must be set aside when people’s lives are at stake. You didn’t see that fellow we caught. These folk are evil, through and through. And I will not be the target of vicious tongues in the community. I will not allow accusations of this kind to taint my reputation. If there’s any truth in them,
I want it out in the open, right now. In your father’s absence, I speak as head of the family. Perhaps you girls lack a full understanding of the danger we are facing. But you must know what these rumors could do. Let folk associate such tales with the five of you, and your chances of making advantageous matches will be reduced to nothing. Nobody wants a wife with the taint of the wildwood about her.”

Paula made as if to speak—I silenced her with a look. Any comment she might make was likely to inflame the situation still further. In my pocket, Gogu was vibrating with anger.

“Cezar,” I said, “since you are so keen on propriety, may I suggest that we discuss this in private, just you and me, with one of my sisters as chaperone? I will not have Florica and Petru bullied.”

Cezar’s face was calm, the anger suppressed now, but I could see the dangerous look in his eyes. “My intention was to address you all together,” he said. “But I’ve changed my mind. I’ll see you one at a time, starting with Stela. Alone. And we’ll do it now, before you can concoct a set of matching stories.”

“Are you accusing my sisters of lying?” We all looked at Tati in surprise. These days she rarely contributed anything to general conversation. She had certainly got Cezar’s attention. He looked at her and his eyes narrowed. It was, perhaps, the first time he had noticed how pale and thin she was—how much she had changed.

“I cannot answer that until I hear what they have to say,” he said.

“You’re not talking to Stela without one of us there,” I told
him. “She’s only five. And this is still Father’s house. You are not head of anything, Cezar, not while he’s still alive and no farther away than Constanţa.” I drew a breath, fighting for calm. “It’s after Stela’s bedtime. It’s completely inappropriate to subject her to this so late. You can talk to her tomorrow with me present—or, better still, with Aunt Bogdana there as well. Let us see how prepared you are to bully and intimidate us in your own mother’s presence—”

He lifted his arm; his hand was poised to strike me. As one, my sisters drew in their breath in a shocked gasp. Then, surprising all of us, Daniel took two long strides across the kitchen and interposed his large body between my cousin and me. Cezar lowered his arm and I stepped back. Nobody had uttered a word.

“Tati,” I said, “will you take Stela up to bed, please? Florica, Petru: you are excused for the night. It’s been a long day, and you need your rest. Paula, Iulia: please clear away these platters and glasses before you go upstairs. Florica will want everything tidy for the morning.”

Cezar had turned his back; his shoulders were tight.

“Thank you,” I said to Daniel. He had retreated to the doorway, his eyes wary. I imagined that not even a strong young man would gladly cross Cezar. “I don’t know if the hunting party is going out again tonight, but I would ask you and Rǎzvan to give me a little time to speak to my cousin in private. You can wait outside the door.”

They obeyed. My sisters cleared the table rapidly, bearing cups and platters away for washing and drying in the scullery. While they were close at hand but out of earshot, I took the opportunity to speak, addressing myself to Cezar’s back.

“You would have hit me.” I could hear how cold my voice sounded, not at all the best thing to placate him. I couldn’t help it. “Any man who attempts that loses my respect immediately, Cezar. My father would never have raised a hand against a woman. Nor, I’m certain, would Uncle Nicolae. What is it that makes you hate so?”

“I don’t hate you, Jena.” His tone was constrained. He did not turn. “Quite the contrary. But you try me hard sometimes. I know you want to protect your sisters and your servants—that is admirable, as a general sentiment. But if one of them is concealing something … if one of them is in league with these destructive powers … I cannot believe that’s true, but I have to investigate the rumors. If the worst comes to pass, and someone in my own household has assisted these demonic folk, I must use what information they can give me to root out the evil—to destroy it once and for all.”

I was so angry I could hardly speak. “If you’re not careful,” I said, “your hatred will eat you up, Cezar. I don’t understand it. It has changed you so much that I hardly recognize you anymore. I know how terrible Costi’s death was for you. But it was so long ago. You have your own estate to look after, your community to watch over, your life to lead. It is frightening to have the Night People in our forest. It is terrible that Ivona died, and troubling that folk have lost livestock. But you’re a leader—you should be setting an example, not charging forward with the scent of blood in your nostrils and blind hatred in your heart. No matter how cruel the blow of losing your brother, it should never have made you lose your sense of what is right.”

He did not answer for a long time, just turned to stare at
me. It was as if I were the one who had almost struck a blow. Eventually he said, “You can’t understand. You can’t know what it’s like to be offered something and for it to seem as if you’ve been given it, and then to find out it’s all a sham—that what you believed was a wonderful gift is worthless, cold, a dead promise. To pay an impossible price and get dross disguised as treasure; that is the cruelest thing. A leader, me? Hardly. Folk follow me because I’m the best they’ve got. That’s not saying much in a place like this. Yes, I’m angry. I want the truth—and when I have it, I’ll use it to destroy those who tricked me, those who played the most evil joke in the world on me. I will tear them apart, limb from limb, and then I will destroy their forest so that they can never return to haunt me. I will drive them even out of my dreams.”