N ikandr slept fitfully, thinking of Hilal. He knew the other six mahtar as well, but he knew Hilal the best. He’d taken Fahroz’s seat after she’d left with Nasim for Mirashadal. He was a gentle man. A learned man. But most of all, he was a caring man. He, much like Ashan, seemed to embody the calmness of center that the Aramahn were ever searching for.
Had it been Hilal who thought of the idea of offering themselves for the lives of the Maharraht? It had been a day Hilal most likely thought he’d never see: so many Maharraht forsaking their ways and taking up the life of an Aramahn once more. Many of the children would never have been exposed to any other life, and here they were being offered to the people their parents had betrayed in their quest to drive the Landed back to the Motherland.
And now, in order to protect them, Hilal had given himself. He and the other mahtar. In a way, it made sense-the Aramahn were quick to sacrifice themselves for the greater good-but that made it even more discouraging. This was an unprecedented event. One or two Maharraht had returned to the fold of the Aramahn over the years, but never so many at once. It might even have become a bridge to peace. But not now, not if those six men and women were killed.
In the end, Nikandr couldn’t sleep. He woke well before the four Vostroman streltsi came for him. When they did, he pulled on his cherkesska and followed them, hoping to speak with Borund away from others where he might at least listen to reason.
When he came at last to the long hall that led past Radiskoye’s central garden, he could see through the leaded glass windows that a gibbet had been stood in the center of the courtyard. He could see men gathered there, but he didn’t realize that none of them were Khalakovan until he stepped out from the hall and into the chill morning air. The smell of the sea filled the air, and the sound of the surf rose up from the base of the cliffs far below the eyrie of Radiskoye.
A handful of Vostroman royalty watched him pace forward. Borund and Viktor were among them, and they were flanked by two dozen streltsi wearing the seal of Vostroma. Their faces, to a man, were judgmental, angry, as if Nikandr had somehow called down the fury of Yrstanla on their homeland. He thought surely there would be at least one representative from Khalakovo. Ranos or Victania or Yvanna. But there were none.
As Nikandr was led forward, a portion of the courtyard previously blocked by a jutting corner of the palotza came into view. Here the gallows stood, and when he saw it against the backdrop of the eyrie and the cold gray sky, he stopped, his fingers going cold. Through the shrubs in the nearby garden, the wind whined before dying down once more.
Four men and three women stood on a raised wooden platform, Hilal and Amra and Saeeda and the rest. Black woolen sacks covered their heads, and nooses hung loosely around their necks, trailing up to the stout wooden beam above them. A hangman, a stout, hard-looking man whose left arm ended in a stump, stood on the far side, waiting with his hand on the lever that would drop the trap doors beneath the mahtar.
The courtyard was a study in silence. The sigh of the surf and the distant call of gulls were the only sounds to be heard. Knowing Borund as he did, Nikandr was sure that he’d ordered it so to let the scene sink in.
At last Nikandr’s escort of streltsi bowed and stepped aside and Borund broke away from the gathered royalty and stepped close to Nikandr, most likely so they could speak for a moment in peace. He held a rolled proclamation in one hand, but Nikandr could spare no time to wonder how it might read. He was too struck by how much Borund had changed. The Borund of five years ago was large, healthy, vibrant if a bit headstrong. This Borund looked beaten and crooked, even defeated.
“Don’t do this,” Nikandr said to him, loud enough for only Borund to hear. “These are innocent men and women.”
“They sheltered our enemy.”
“So you would hang them?”
“Some must pay, Nikandr.”
“ Nyet. They are innocent. They need not die.”
“They are not innocent.” Borund’s face became splotchy with anger. “How could you bring them here, Nikandr? They were Maharraht.”
“They have forsaken their ways. Don’t you see?”
“They were Maharraht, ” he repeated, loud enough for many of those gathered to hear.
“They weren’t,” Nikandr said, softly but sternly. “Not any longer. They were going to allow themselves to be burned.”
“What is burning when their minds are still willful and full of hate?”
“They were not willful!”
Borund looked at Nikandr with naked disgust. “You have been among them too long, Nischka. Too long by far.”
“Those Maharraht were ready to lay down arms. More might have followed. It might have been a path to peace, Borund. But none will do so now, and any that had thought to rejoin their brothers will redouble their efforts to harm us, to kill and to slaughter.”
Nikandr glanced to the gallows, where the Aramahn stood serenely. He turned back to Borund, his mind wild with possible ways to change Borund’s mind, none of them likely to succeed.
Until he came to one.
He stared Borund in the eye, willing him to listen. “What if I confess?”
Borund’s eyes went wide. His hand adjusted its grip on the proclamation. “Nischka, be quiet.”
“Borund, what if I-”
Borund’s fist came so fast there was nothing Nikandr could do to stop it. It connected across his jaw, sending him sprawling to the stones.
Borund’s footsteps crunched over the river stones. Nikandr tried to rise, but Borund leaned down, the bulk of him blocking the light of dawn, and placed one meaty hand against Nikandr’s chest, pinning him in place. “Say nothing, Nikandr, or I’ll be forced to put you on the gallows next to them.”
Then Borund took the front of Nikandr’s cherkesska with his two massive fists-the rolled proclamation crumpling-and pulled Nikandr to his feet.
Nikandr turned his head and spit to clear his mouth of the blood that was welling from the cut inside his cheek. He stared into Borund’s eyes. He was shocked-not by what Borund had done, but the reason behind it.
By the ancients, Borund was protecting him.
He wondered, then, why Viktor had been sent. Perhaps Borund’s place on the throne of Khalakovo was not so strong as Nikandr had imagined. Or perhaps Viktor had come of his own accord.
Whatever the reason, it was clear that Borund thought it certain that Nikandr would need to die as well were he to confess to bringing the Maharraht to the shores of Khalakovo.
Borund turned to the gallows, finality in his eyes.
“Bora, I would not have brought them if I feared they would harm us. You must know this.”
Borund licked his lips. He swallowed.
“I brought them to the very doorstep of Radiskoye. Why would I have done this if I thought they meant us harm?”
Borund raised his arm.
“Borund, don’t!”
And brought it back down.
The hangman pulled the lever.
The trapdoors swung, and seven mahtar fell, jerking against the ropes. Their arms flailed. Their legs kicked. And then one by one, they all went still, while the wind sighed through the garden’s short trees and the surf called up from the cliffs.
Nikandr didn’t know how long after the hanging Borund began to read, but he heard his low voice, reading in somber tones the contents of the proclamation. “Let it be known that as of this day, the sentence of death for Nikandr Iaroslov Khalakovo is to be stayed, pending his duty to the Grand Duchy, which takes precedence. Upon successful execution of those duties, the stay shall be writ permanent.”
Upon this, the expressions of the Vostroman royalty turned to distaste. Viktor stared hard enough that Nikandr thought he might pull his pistol, shoot Nikandr in the chest, and be done with it once and for all.
While Nikandr stared at Borund, confused, the royalty and the streltsi began to disperse.
