Dagrun and Merit were not alone. For appearance’s sake, an emissary from Rachis and three warlords of Feren had joined them on the ceremonial platform. The man from Rachis, Kal Bendal, dressed in the deep purple of the mountain lords, occupied a folding stool, while Ferris Mawr of Caerwynt and Deccan Falkirk of Caerfrae sat on blackthorn stools and chewed nuts as the slaves sawed at the tree. Each man wore the colors of his clan. Deccan wore the gray and white, while Ferris donned the green and black. The last of the tribal warlords refused to sit. Brock Sutharian of the Northwoods—the land of the graythorn, the forest beyond the Gray Wood—paced, looking uncomfortable. Merit guessed he was unused to ceremony. The men of the Northwoods were said to live within the trees themselves, in great hollows carved in the ancient graythorns. Brock wore clothes of his own making and did not offer a greeting when Dagrun introduced him to Merit. She guessed he was not rude but rather not fluent in the emperor’s tongue, although looking at him she decided that perhaps he was not fluent in any tongue.
As with the other lords and grandees, Merit was an honored guest, nothing more. She kept her chin up and her face impassive as they watched the slaves work. The process fascinated Dagrun and she tried to share his interest. Above, on the scaffolds, slaves chipped at the hard, spiky bark like quarrymen. When they had opened a furrow wide enough to work, the men lifted saws. It took four of them to draw a blade across the tree and another four to pull the blade in the opposite direction. They heaved one more cry and the log tumbled to the ground.
When she had first thought to marry her sister to her admirer and co-conspirator, she had not factored in any jealousy on her part, but she could not deny that the elaborate preparations for their new queen were making her heart ache a little. As always, she felt slighted. In more ways than one, this was her wedding—her day and her tree. This was her triumph, but she had to pretend she was nothing more than an observer. She had to act as if the whole affair were a bore, rolling her eyes and heaving great sighs of exasperation.
Dagrun called out instructions as another section of trunk thundered to the ground. The wood caught on one of the tree’s lower branches and crashed awkwardly against a neighboring blackthorn. The king of the Ferens took the overseer by the neck and turned him around, patiently detailing the man’s error until he was interrupted by a shout. A young man rushed the platform, brandishing a blackthorn spear. “False king!” the man cried at Dagrun. He hefted a long and sharply pointed stave.
The king of the Ferens ignored his heckler, pointing to a winch that was poorly placed, a knot that had slipped. Dagrun coolly went on speaking to the overseer as a pair of soldiers cut the protester down with a couple of bloody swings from their swords, the body falling in three pieces, four.
Dagrun brushed a gray needle from his tunic as he ushered the overseer from the platform. Behind him, the seated warlords folded their hands uncomfortably but said nothing. Brock Sutharian gave a smirk, but only Merit acknowledged the incident. “Walk with me,” she said, leading him down the platform steps and away from the ears of the others. She gestured to the fallen man as they passed. “After all this time?” she asked. “They still do not accept you as king?”
Soldiers followed Dagrun at a distance. He waited till the clinking of their armor ceased. “It’s the damn Night Vigil.”
“I thought you underwent the Waking Rite.”
“No. Didn’t bother,” he said as the soldiers collected the protester’s remains.
“Why not? A single night in the Cragwood? You’ve survived worse.” She glanced at the forest floor, where only a bit of red remained in the place where the young man had fallen.
Dagrun grimaced at the bloody spot, his brow furrowed in dark ridges not unlike the rings of the trees around them. “No, it’s more than a night quarreling with outlanders in the forest. When the king wakes, he is supposed to find a kite circling above his head. The kite chooses the king. It joins him on the throne, like some kind of great bloody turkey.” The king of the Ferens shook his head. “I took my throne. I earned it with blood and coin. I don’t need a damned symbol—I have an army. But some think that without the kite, I have no right to call myself king. Superstitions and nonsense is what it is.” A flurry of silvery branches crashed one after another to the ground. In the distance, his soldiers maintained their guard.
Merit crossed her arms. “People live and die by superstitions and nonsense. It might be to your advantage to go through the rite, if only to put an end to the people’s reason to oppose you.”
Dagrun shrugged. He bent, as Merit had, to recover a spiky blackthorn seed. His callused fingers squeezed the thorny pod and it popped open. “Even if I did undergo the rite, there would still be opposition and strife in the kingdom,” he said, plucking out the soft nut and crushing it between his teeth. “The kite is just the latest excuse for their unhappiness.” He chewed. “If Barrin were still king, they would oppose him. I’ve made changes, I’ve helped my kingdom, made the crofters and foresters profitable.” He collected a pair of seeds, bunching them between his fingers. “Feren is blessed with great resources. But in other ways they curse us too. Blackthorn foresting requires legions of unskilled workers, slaves. We need these men and women to harvest the trees, but we cannot feed them. Many starved under Barrin’s reign; others were sold off to Soleri traders. Feren has half the workers it had a decade ago.”
“How is this possible? Is the forest not plentiful?”
“The forest is not the issue, the empire takes half of what we grow. Each month Tolemy asks for more and Feren must comply.” They walked deeper into the forest and Dagrun motioned for his soldiers to stay behind. He cracked the second nut and raised a finger to indicate the forest, the infant trees struggling upward around the old giant, now missing its top branches. “This is what we earned for betraying your grandfather. When Dalach abandoned Koren Hark-Wadi in the Children’s War, the Ray swore to him that no imperial solider would ever set foot again in the Gray Wood, that Sola would leave our blackthorns alone. We keep our trees, but the empire takes our crops. We have an army, but not the resources to feed that army.” Dagrun shook his head, leading her into a grove thick with blackthorn trunks. “If we had joined Koren, it might have ended that day.” His eyes hardened. They were alone now, standing in a forest of tall bracken and spiky trees. “I’d have joined him. I would not have left your grandfather holding his cock on the battlefield.” Dagrun glared at Merit, his eyes black, his face colored by regret.
“If only you were king then,” she said. “If only Dalach had been as strong as you.”
Dagrun brooded on that. His voice fell nearly to a whisper. “I will not see it happen here, the way it’s happened everywhere. Dalach was a coward and a weakling; he gave his boy to the emperor. Barrin gave his son to Tolemy.”
“You can give Kepi’s to the emperor. And one day, after we’ve overturned Tolemy, we’ll have a child that no one can take from us.”
“One day?” he asked. “Isn’t the wedding all but finished?” His hand brushed against the neckline of her dress and pulled at the fabric gently, so that his finger brushed her nipple until it stood firm.
“Not now.” Merit’s whole body flushed as she pressed herself against him, against the heat at his core. Dagrun groaned against her neck, his hand still cupping her breast, the other one impatiently lifting her skirt to touch her underneath. The trees and bracken sheltered them on all sides.