Aleksey's Kingdom (A Royal Affair #2)(57)

It is always easy to recall as if merely a witness. I doubted not that this man’s knees were amongst those upon the sands.

“The soldiers, seeing the divisions she was creating in our number, said they would cross to the island for her, and some of us said we would accompany them—to help.” He retreated once more into his dark thoughts. I wondered how he defined the term help.

“So we slung ropes across and went.” His breath hitched. “She was gone. The island was deserted, and when we came to return, we could not, for the ropes had been cut. We had left them all on the other side—our wives and children… our babies. He—” The poor man began to rock in his distress, and for my part, I regretted cutting off his ear, even though he had tricked us to this place and shot at us. These things are complex. “He gave them all to the falls. Every morning as the sun crested the trees and hit the shore, he tied another to a log and sent them into the river. Our babies, our wives. And what did we do? We watched and tore at ourselves and could do nothing. Even those hellions in the witch’s thrall who helped and cursed the innocent were eventually sacrificed in their turn. The devil spared not even his acolytes. And then they were no more, and it was many days that we had been on the island, and there was no food. God help us, there was no food, and we became….”

I let him rest for a moment, although our situation was desperate enough and we needed him to talk.

“We fell upon each other, the strong upon the weak, son upon his father, and we took the nourishment we needed.”

I licked my lips, perhaps unconsciously, and glanced at Aleksey. I could see in his face the same horror that was upon the man’s. Joking about such things when you are happy and riding in sunshine on an adventure is one thing—seeing the reality of it is quite another. He did not like his cannibal stories so much now. “After some days, he returned to us. He rose from hell and said he had come to prepare a place for us, and if we chose his path he would save us. We fell at his feet and worshipped him, and he fed us. But he said he needed to ascend, that he needed more sacrifice and wanted always only the fairest and the best….”

Was it at that point that I saw the rest of the mystery unfolding before me? Perhaps it was so awful that I repressed the thought, only watching his lips as he spoke the words, disbelieving them even as I knew them for the truth.

“One of us had been recently in the big colony on the seaboard, and he had seen one there….”

I could see where he was trying not to look, but he could not prevent his eyes flicking for the briefest moment to Aleksey’s face.

“One so fair of face that he was as an angel. But it was more than this. He had heard the angel say that he was a prince—of the most pure of all blood. And even beyond all this, he was virgin, for he lived with an old man who was as a father to him, and that he did not know a woman.”

Aleksey sank back to sit upon the cold sand, wrapping his arms around his head as if he could ward himself from hearing this. It was not the stupidity of his words that had come back to haunt him, but that he saw for the first time the way things had stood, and that it had all happened because of him: all the death and all the misery.

This is not how I saw it, you understand, but how I knew he would be seeing it. We understood each other very well. Sometimes this was a curse.

“The devil said that if we brought this one to him, this angel of the pure blood, then we would be saved and released—that our tribute would not be needed. So he sent us to find this pure one and bring him to this place. We traveled to the colony, and the woman found a family, and we made ourselves known, and we told of some of what had happened here, and we did not need to do more, for the horror of it spread and was enjoyed, as if our babies who had been placed… were sport for tales around the fire.

“We wanted to bring only him and the family so we could travel without suspicion, but he had friends amongst the officers, and soon it was as a small army, and we were perplexed. And then the very worst thing.” I knew what was coming. He flicked his eyes to me but lowered them quickly. “You were not as he had described, and we feared all our plans would fail.” This was rather a feature of our relationship, I decided, but was in no mood to smile about it now. I pulled the man to his feet.

“Show me.” He knew what I meant. He was shivering badly and stumbling, his head pouring blood where my knife had sliced. He staggered as we walked, but he had boots, so I spared him no sympathy. He led us to the center of the island and then farther toward the edge of the cliff. I feared he was planning to throw himself off, so held tight to his ragged shirt. We had almost reached the edge when he stopped and appeared about to speak. But then there was a sound. We turned.

We saw the devil.

He was there, suddenly, the earth spewing him out. He raised his hand and pointed at the poor, bleeding man. The man screamed, and I think my horror at seeing the devil so close, so unnaturally appeared, overwhelmed me, and I let his shirt slip from my fingers.

He took himself over the edge of the cliff, and it felt, as we saw this, as if the devil’s pointing had taken him there.

When we turned back from seeking for the poor man, the devil had gone.

I was not sure by that time whether he had actually been there. How could he have been? Perhaps in our extremes, we had all conjured him in our minds.




WE WERE a very miserable group for the rest of the night.