Though the darkness that swallowed the sun soon dissipated, it took the greater part of the day to calm Vasyllia. After ensuring Lebía was well, Voran put on full armor and joined the ranks of his brother-warriors as they attempted to calm the people and prevent any outbursts of public violence. Only a few young men, their blood up, tried to take advantage of the mêlée to settles scores, but they were easily contained.
Voran returned late to find the house asleep. Not bothering to take off his mail, he crumpled in exhaustion at Lebía’s side and feel into a deep sleep.
He dreamt that he walked back to the center of Vasyllia, toward the Great Tree. The path widened into the square, paved in large flagstones, all four sides lined with the gabled inns and taverns of the second reach of Vasyllia. The burning aspen seemed small, its flames sputtering.
Walking around the sapling, the Pilgrim caressed its leaves as one caresses a lover before a long separation. His singsong rumble was nearly in unison with the hum of the twin waterfalls, which from this vantage point appeared to plunge directly on either side of the aspen, framing it. His words were inaudible, but chant-like. His joy-pierced tones were tinged with grief.
The flames of the tree flared for a moment, then died.
The song of the Sirin flooded the air. Voran’s Sirin flew once around the sapling, chanting with the Pilgrim. Voran’s chest ached as though his heart were torn out. He was desperate to run to her, to beg her to sing to him, but as is the way with dreams, he was immobile as stone.
Voran awoke to clanging pots and shattering crockery. The house was in an uproar, servants rushing about and whispering nervously to each other.
“Cook, what is all this racket?” Voran asked as he entered the kitchens, still in yesterday’s mail.
The cook, thin as a reed—everyone jokingly called her “your lardship” behind her back—did not even stop to look at him.
“Prince Mirnían sits in the high hall with the Pilgrim, breaking his fast. There is to be a city-wide storytelling today. The Dar hopes it will calm the people after yesterday’s omen.”
“And you did not think to wake me?” Voran growled.
She flashed him a knowing smile and turned the piglets spinning over the hearth. “Lady Lebía said you’ve not snored so loudly in weeks. It would’ve been a crime to wake you.”
By the time Voran dressed and made his way down to the hall, Mirnían and the Pilgrim were already mounting horses in the courtyard.
“Voran,” said Mirnían with a sardonic smile, “so good of you to see us off. I had quite an appetite today. Her lardship tells me there are no more partridges in your cellars, I’m afraid. Do tell her how much I enjoyed them.”
Voran cursed inwardly. Partridge was his favorite.
“I will see you at the storytelling, I hope. Don’t forget that it’s in the main square today. All festivities outside the city walls have been canceled after the omen.” Mirnían turned his horse around and rode off. The Pilgrim followed, surrounded by an honor guard of twelve black-cloaked spear-bearers in helms.
As he joined the crowd of all reaches walking to the storytelling, Voran was pleased that he had an opportunity to walk alone. In his worn travel cloak, he easily blended in with the crowd, affording a rare pleasure of hearing the latest rumors.
Most of what he heard was nervous tattle, the people still nagged by yesterday’s fear. Voran let those conversations wash over him, seeking a word or phrase that would force his attention. There! The words were innocuous enough on their own, but there was something unnerving about them.
“You don’t believe me?” She was a matronly sort, fat from much childbearing. “He saw it, I tell you. That’s why I’m braving this morning, what after the omen, you know. I want to see it for myself.”
“Your husband is always seeing things.” The second speaker was an older woman, probably unmarried, at least judging by a bitterness that sounded long-established. “He’s as reliable an observer as he is a teller of tall tales. Every time he tells that story about hunting the boar, he adds to the number of his wounds.”
“You never give him the credit he deserves. You will see. He said it quite clearly. The fire on the aspen is nearly out. And we’re nowhere near the day of summoning.”
Voran’s skin crawled. Perhaps what he had seen was not a dream, but a vision? Had the Pilgrim sung a funeral dirge for the tree?
Straining for the sight of the tree through the houses, Voran pushed forward through the crowd. As he entered the square, he stopped, hardly noticing the grumbling of the people who jostled past him. There was no mistaking it. The fire on the tree was simmering, no more. It looked as though a gust of wind would put it out.
Voran found himself stranded, the square too full for him to push his way closer to the stage at the foot of the tree. The tension stretched around him like a viol string at its snapping point.
“Friends!” Mirnían spoke from the stage, and the crowd’s noise lessened. “Some of you have already heard of our unexpected honor. Vasyllia is visited by a Pilgrim.”
All around Voran a murmur of appreciation rose. The tension eased palpably, and Voran breathed out with it.
“He has traveled alone for many days, and all for the pleasure of seeing our land. Let us welcome him.”
More tension released in the music of their clapping hands. Even Voran, who liked to think himself impervious to mob mentality, felt his heart swelling.
“Yesterday was a dire day, my friends, there can be no doubting it. Though I am loath to say it, the hunt for the white stag has been canceled, and the omen of the darkened sun is enough to chill the heart of the bravest. But lest we think our own misfortunes too great, let us hear of the horrors and wonders of the other lands. I put it to you, dear friends. Shall we let the Pilgrim take the mantle of the storyteller for the day?”
Once again, universal cheers.
The Pilgrim walked forward and assessed the crowd. All cheering stopped as the people shriveled under his gaze. Some even began to mutter in discomfort. An awkward chuckle broke out somewhere, but was cut off immediately. The Pilgrim seemed to be searching for someone or something. His eyes caught Voran’s, and Voran heard the Pilgrim’s voice clearly in his mind: I am sorry, my falcon. I am sorry for everything.
Voran’s breath grew labored. A sense of inescapable calamity seized him. He tried to still his breathing, but the more he tried, the tighter his chest constricted. It was painful just to stand there. He needed to escape, to be anywhere but here. But he was hemmed in on all sides.
“I once knew a man who owned a great wealth of cherry trees,” the Pilgrim began in a storyteller’s sing-song. “His cherries were legendary—they were just sour enough, just sweet enough, just red enough. But one year the cherry orchard produced no fruit at all. Some gardeners blamed the warm weather; others blamed the soil. The rich man was greatly saddened by this.
“He walked through his favorite cherry orchard, amazed at the beauty of the trees. The leaves were the same transparent green they were in early spring; a faint fragrance rose with every breath of wind. They were a sight to behold, but they had no cherries, and it was nearing the end of the picking season.
“And the rich man grew more and more sad at the failure of the orchard. But there was nothing to be done. The ground was expensive; he could afford no fruitless trees. And so, with tears in his eyes, he took an axe and chopped down every tree himself.”
The Pilgrim stopped. Slowly at first, then rising like the wind before a thunderstorm, the crowd gave rein to its disappointment. The Vasylli never liked parables, thought Voran. The sense of impending calamity lessened, but it took a great force of will to unclench his fists. There were white marks on his palms where the nails bit.
Mirnían approached the Pilgrim, apparently encouraging him. The Pilgrim’s shoulders sagged an inch further with each of Mirnían’s words. He seemed a man broken by grief. It was strangely incongruous—the scene was one of festival, with banners fluttering on every windowsill and the people dressed in their finest. And yet, the fire on the tree sputtered.
Mirnían seemed to have won the argument, because the Pilgrim faced the people again with a story on his lips.
