Kushiel's Justice - Jacqueline Carey [165]
"How did you know it was her?" I asked.
"I didn't," she said. "She looked a lot like my mother, only younger, and there was a brightness about her. And she was carrying a bow. She smiled at me. When I told my parents about it, they said it was her.”
"What did it mean?”
Dorelei shrugged. " 'Twas a sign that she was happy in the underworld. That she died well, with courage and honor, and that her death had been properly avenged.”
"What about the unhappy dead?" I asked.
"They're not happy," Dorelei said. "And they don't smile.”
When the invisible sun began to sink below the western horizon, all the lamps, torches, and candles in Clunderry were extinguished and the cooking fires were banked. A portion of all the food prepared that day was carried outside the castle walls and set on a long trestle table erected for the purpose. We bundled ourselves into warm clothing and thick woolen cloaks and gathered outside around the looming pile of brush and firewood, taking up unlit torches prepared for the occasion.
Darkness seemed to rise upward from the cold, barren ground. The ollamh Firdha lifted her hands and invoked the gods of death and the underworld, inviting them to open their gates that the dead might visit the living and be honored. She invoked the gods of fire and light to illuminate their paths and welcome them with brightness and warmth, and invoked the diadh-anam of the Cullach Gorrym to guide us.
When the ollamh's invocation was finished, Alais presented her with a flint striker. The Daughter of the Grove knelt and kindled the fire, the sparks bright and vivid against the gloaming.
It caught quickly, pitch-soaked twists of straw roaring to life. Within minutes, the bonfire was a roaring blaze, a tower of flame licking at the sky. Drustan stepped forward to light the first torch, and cheers echoed throughout Clunderry.
The procession began.
Firdha led it, flanked by a pair of the Cruarch's men, holding their torches high to light her way. One by one, we all came forward, dipping our torches into the bonfire, then proceeding past the trestle table, where we retrieved an item of food. I picked up a small mincemeat pie. The smell made my empty stomach rumble.
The procession crossed a stretch of darkened field, heading toward the taisgaidh woods. As I had promised Drustan, the paths had been cleared, although I'd not travelled them myself. I'd not ventured into the woods since the night of the cattle-raid.
As Firdha entered the darker shadow of the trees, I turned back to glance behind me. We were at the forefront of the procession. It snaked behind us, hundreds of people long, torches flickering all the way across Clunderry. The sight made me shiver with a mix of awe and apprehension.
"Are you all right?" Dorelei asked.
"Fine." I smiled at her. "Hungry.”
The woods were dense, but the path was wide and clear. It had to be, else we'd set fire to the place. Even so, it made me nervous. Dry branches reached down toward us like brittle fingers, eager to touch the crackling flames.
The Cruithne do this every year, I reminded myself.
I set my fear aside and concentrated on the dead, trying to honor them in my memory. To be sure, I had enough of them. I thought about all who had died in Daršanga, all the victims and martyrs and valiant fighters. Remember this. I thought about my comrades in Lucca, and the soldiers I'd killed with my own hand, praying for their forgiveness. I thought about Gilot, who had died a hero after all; and Canis, who'd given his life for mine.
I thought about Dorelei's dead; my family, now. Her grandmother, her father, her young aunt. I prayed that they would smile upon her.
We entered the oak grove. They were ancient trees with vast, spreading crowns and gnarled trunks, twisting roots thicker than a strong man's arm emerging from the soil. My skin prickled and my bindings itched. This was a sacred place.
In the center of the grove, Firdha pointed. One of the men escorting her knelt and planted his torch in the soil, then rose and kindled a second torch