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.He didn’t give me the satisfaction of shock or hurt, only looked at me with his steady, unreadable gaze.I’d known him almost ten years and still found myself unable to decipher his eyes most times.“Neskaya,” I hissed.“Why do you not come to my bed anymore? Why do you not ask me to yours?” And then, perhaps because I didn’t want to let him answer, I asked, “Why come to this forsaken place on such a night?”“This is a holy place,” he said.“That’s no answer,” I said, getting frustrated.I wanted to leave.I remembered the sacrifices hanging from these branches, strangling slowly: horses, hogs, bulls, and men.And soon it would be time to hold the Midvinterblot again, to buy the gods’, the ancestors’, and the alves’ favors with blood.As if reading my mind (and I’d thought many times that he could) Neskaya said, “It’s almost time.”“Every nine years,” I said.“Do you remember last time?” he asked.I’d been eleven and had just lost my father to a petty war with a nearby kingdom.I remembered men and beasts dangling above me and priests showering me with blood.Then somebody shoved a few chunks of roasted meat and a cup of ale into my hands, and I squatted in the gore-soaked snow near the fire.As the men and women grew intoxicated, as they coupled and fought, I watched around the edges of the circle of orange light, because now and then a boy with strange eyes that sloped up at the corners and a strange mouth like a berry ready to burst with ripeness appeared, watching me.As soon as I turned to look at him, he disappeared.A few times I’d run into the shadows to seek him, thinking he might be an alve I could catch and demand a wish from.But I never found him, and the thrashing of the dying bodies in the trees, the awful stuff that rained down from them, drove me back into the light.I feared the spirits of the dead and the other alves that lingered in the twilight on this night and had not the courage to be alone among them.The next day my mother and I went to live at the King’s great hall.The King and my father had been closer than brothers, and with my father in Valhal, the King welcomed us in his home.My mother went off with the women, and the King took me to meet the sons of the warriors living on and around his estate.Many of them were boys around my age.One of them, to my bewilderment, was the alve-boy from the Midvinterblot.His name was Prince Neskaya, and he’d turned nine years old the night before.“Do you remember?” I asked Neskaya in turn.“Mmmm,” he answered, without elaborating.“I remember seeing you, though I hadn’t met you yet.” “Yes, I remember,” he said.“Lars?”“Neskaya?”“Tonight,” he said, standing and draping his hand over my straw-colored curls.“Come to my bed.Come.” He kissed my hairline, turned on his heel, and melded with the forest-shade.The scent of his hair, and of his body beneath his woolen tunic, lingered for a moment, and I wanted to grab hold of it and clasp it to my chest.But a breath of wind whisked it from me and no trace remained of my Neskaya nor his smell.Alone, I waited with only my cloud of frozen breath as a companion.I did not want to rejoin the feasting in the hall, if it could even be called feasting now that the crops had failed for the third summer in a row.I wanted to go straight to Neskaya’s bed and not be held up by a dance or wrestling match.I would be cross if detained, and so I waited to trek back to the King’s Hall.I DO not think any of the other men knew about Prince Neskaya and me.I don’t know what they would have said or done if they had.Early in our friendship, I’d been accused of manipulating Neskaya’s affections to get myself closer to the throne.The accusations stopped when I broke enough noses and cracked enough ribs.But more than that, Neskaya’s affections were immune to manipulation.When I first moved to the King’s home, I spent my days with a group of about a dozen boys, practicing archery, playing at wooden swords, and training to be great warriors and conquer lands.Neskaya joined us only on the rarest occasions, where he proved himself to be easily the best with a bow and the quickest, if not the strongest, with a blade.Most often, though, I’d see him from the corner of my eye, watching from the shadows.As he had at the Midvinterblot fire, he dissipated before I could turn my head.I asked the other boys about the Prince, but they only told me he was a changeling.I could not deny my fascination with Neskaya.I wondered where he spent his days, and I wandered the halls and grounds in search of him.Yet I only ever saw him at the supper table, and by the time I’d made my path through the drunken throng, Neskaya had slipped away.Midvinter came again, though the blot fell only every nine years, so hogs and cows alone were slaughtered for the feast.Spring came, and the gods, alves, and ancestors returned our warmth and light.I took up again with my friends.One fine morning, we were throwing our axes at some large trees beyond the animal pens.“Lars.” Neskaya stood a little way inside the glade; I had no idea how long he’d been there [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]