Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2)

Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2) Page 42

I should have chosen to keep my misery and my pathetic hope, I told myself savagely. I left the ballroom for the terrace, and from there descended stone steps to the garden. It was hotter there, not cooler. Many of the flowering bushes had gone yellow with drought; the young trees were spindly and offered no shade. My collar choked me and my jacket was too warm. How could I have been so stupid? Why had I forced such a confrontation? I should have let her snub me. The next time I saw her, I’d be a thinner man, and there would have been no harm done. She’d have rebuked herself for avoiding me. Now what I had said to her must always stand between us. Uneasily, I wondered if she had fled to her mother. She was already with my sister. I wondered which would be worse for me.

A thick hedge and the sound of a fountain beyond it promised me a shadier retreat. The garden was poorly planned, for I had to walk some distance and follow a turning in the hedge before I found a very small gate. It was closed but not locked. I entered the second garden.

Here, no expense had been spared. I wondered that guests were not thronging it. A paved walkway led me in a meandering spiral toward the heart of the garden. The beds of flowers were lush, despite the heat and dryness of the last week. Bees hummed among the fairy rosebushes and battled the tall lavender for nectar. The fragrance of flowers and the aromas of herbs were heavy in the still air. I passed an ornamental fish pond. Spatterdock opened the fat petals of its yellow blossoms there, and fish transformed from shadow to gleams as they moved in and out of their shelter. Beyond was a dovecote, styled as a quaint little cottage, full of the preening, cooing creatures. The birds were sunning themselves in the fly pen attached to their shelter. I stood there for some time, letting the restful sound soothe me. Then I followed the winding footpath toward the decorative fountain at the center of the garden and the musical splashing of its waters.

I never reached the fountain. A sudden reek hit my nostrils, a stench so bad that I nearly gagged. I turned my head at the same time I lifted my hand to cover my nose and mouth. I could not believe what met my eyes. The altar was white marble, but the top of it was spattered with gore and bird droppings. A brass pole arched over the altar. Suspended from the arch was something that might have been a lovely chandelier, save that the arms of it ended in hooks, not lamps, and a dead dove was impaled on each hook. In the center of the altar, a bird had been split open and its entrails spread for reading. Bloody fingerprints smeared the white feathers. A black-and-white croaker bird was perched on top of the brass arch, a streamer of dove gut hanging from his beak. Flies and wasps buzzed heavily around the dead birds. They were grotesque. One white dove was more red than white now, its entrails hanging from its pecked anus. As I stared, dumbfounded, a slow drip of blood dropped to spatter on the altar.

This had been done today.

That chilling thought was followed by another. The altar and the hook chandelier were permanent fixtures. Poronte and his family worshipped the old gods on a regular basis. This was a marriage offering. In all likelihood, my brother’s bride and her mother and sisters had sacrificed these birds to celebrate Cecile’s wedding day.

I had not thought my horror could deepen. But as I stared, transfixed, the unthinkable happened. One bird abruptly twitched on its hook. Its wings shuddered spasmodically, causing the carousel of dead birds to turn slightly. It unlidded a dull eye at me while its small beak opened and closed soundlessly.

I could not stand it.

I had to stand on tiptoe to reach him, and my stretch strained the shoulders of my jacket perilously. I made a grab at him, caught him by the wing, and pulled the gruesome merry-go-round toward me. When I could get both hands on him, I lifted his body from the hook. I’d intended to end his misery by wringing his neck. Before I could, his body gave a final shudder and was still. I stepped back from the altar and looked at my pathetic trophy. The anger I had felt at Carsina suddenly transmuted to fury at the unfairness of it all. Why had this little creature had to die as sacrifice to celebrate a wedding day? Why was his tiny life so insignificant to them? It was the only life he could ever know. “You should not have died.” My blood pounded through me, thick with rage. “They were wicked to kill you! What sort of a family has my brother joined to us?”

The bird’s eyes opened. I was so shocked I nearly dropped it. It gave its head a shake, and then opened its wings. I did drop it then, releasing it to a fall that it changed into a frantic launch. One of its wings brushed my face at it took flight. In an instant, it was gone. Small downy neck feathers clung to my fingertips. I shook my hands, and they ghosted away to float eerily in the still air. I was not sure what had happened. I looked again at the gory carousel of dead birds and at the smear of blood on my hand. Repulsed, I wiped my hand clean on my dark trousers. How had the bird survived?