Walking along the main field path, as my father orders his men to torch one more field and a farmhouse situated in the middle of it, the rumble of hooves resounds in the distance. Emerging out of the eastern woods pours an army, so big that my father curses, calling for his men to form ranks, though my eyes are fixated on the colors draped around the horses. They're not what any of us expected. They're gray and black.
The Graves.
My blood runs cold. If the Hartsons have a formal alliance with the Graves, then we're finished. They have the largest number of trained fighters out of all the clans in our state. They appointed themselves peacekeepers, in a vain effort to protect us from bandits, and ourselves. We have three dozen warriors remaining. I count at least one hundred horses, perhaps more, and many guns among the men. I bark at my father, at the men for them to stand down, and my father reluctantly orders the same, because the one thing worse than aggravating Hartson farmers is Graves warriors. They have the numbers to stamp us out without breaking a sweat.
Surrounded, we are commanded by the Graves warriors to drop our weapons, and to submit ourselves to judgment.
4
Pearl
Uncle Ronald glares at us. On one side of the room are the Hartsons. My parents, cousins, two brothers, and our most loyal vassal family members in the form of Rosewinds and Hillmores. Perhaps thirty of us in total. On the other side of the stately marble room are them.
A few dozen or so Claymores, including the one person I refuse to make eye contact with. Ringing the Claymores and Hartsons are nearly two hundred or so Graves soldiers. Mediating between us is my uncle Ronald, who was once a Graves, along with the current Graves leader, known by Matin.
Judging by the hateful glares the families direct at each other, it’s just as well they’re outnumbered by the Graves vassals. I shuffle uncomfortably. We’ve always been at odds with one another, but my lack of foresight had led to the biggest clan invasion of our lands in decades. My father, once he’d discovered what I’d done, was nearly apoplectic, and my uncle had immediately contacted the Graves, asking for their help to stifle the raiders. To clean up my mess.
“To put matters quite simply,” Ronald says, hands clasped behind his back, striking a regal pose with his gray trimmed beard and elegant dark clothes, “unless tensions between the Hartsons and Claymores die down, the Graves will be forced to take, ah, drastic action.”
I fidget, tucking my hands into the long sleeves of my gown. Though winter has not yet come, the bite of autumn is already hitting, and the marble and stone buildings carry a cold presence around them. All three major factions in the room wear their colors as a scream, to draw attention to their allegiance. My eyes skip along the Claymores momentarily, but all I see are murderers and rapists. People who have inflicted death on our lands for generations. Desmond is by his father’s side, and I see my own father glare at that man with the heat of a midsummer sun, and I know he’s itching to cross the room and strangle the life out of his brother’s killer.
“They wrecked our church!” comes a shout from the Claymore line. “They murdered our people!” Cries and shouts from both sides erupt, and men and women are hurling accusations of murder, agony, and cruelty, of sacrileges and acrimony. Fists are shaken, chests are beaten, and more than a few men take aggressive steps towards each other, reaching for weapons that aren’t there.
Several gunshots in the air quickly dispel the near-barbarian howls of anger, and now my uncle is listening to something that Matin Graves whispers in his ear. Then he steps forward, and when he speaks, his voice is a guttural growl, scraping through the room.
“I am tempted to exterminate both of you to end this ridiculous feud,” Matin says, mincing no words. A deathly, horrified silence coats everyone. Including me, because the guilt bites stronger, stronger…
If my act of revenge resulted in the annihilation of my clan, then it would go down as one of the stupidest decisions a single woman could make. That fistful of anger that had boiled in my stomach already feels like a distant memory, now that the consequences loom.
I really fucked up. No way around it. I thought I was so clever. I naively thought it couldn’t be traced back to my family, but if I was thinking clearer, I never would have risked it.
My brothers have done worse; I try to console myself with. They hunted. They took men’s lives. All I did was order the destruction of a building, and draw from funds so that the contractors didn’t ask too many questions. An ordinary man used to a pittance wage would hardly complain if he was offered three times as much. And we could afford it as well – we make so much from our farming businesses.
Matin’s saying something else, and I focus on his rasping words. “The Graves desire stability. If our state falls into economic chaos because of the petty fighting you two families conduct against each other, everything we’ve worked to build up since the World’s End will fall back into lawlessness. Bandits will enter the lands; there will no longer be any kind of society, and knowledge will be lost. Our names will vanish like the kings and queens of old. If I have to personally round all of you up and execute you, placing a new family as head, I will do it. However, Ronald Graves-Hartson believes that he has a solution for this mess. I will let him explain.”
No one makes a sound as Matin falls silent, and Ronald takes up the reins again.
“The answer is simple, ladies and gentlemen. Marriage. Several marriages, so to speak. But the first one, and the most important one, will be the male and female heirs of each family. Since we know these two have already made acquaintance with one another, the best way to preserve family honor will be to pair them up.”
Horror washes through me. No. I finally look at Desmond, and he’s wearing a similar expression to how I feel. He’s also as stiff as a board.
“Desmond Claymore and Pearl Hartson will marry. They will join the clans together, unlike what has been seen for centuries. Other arrangements will be made, but it makes sense to have the son and daughter of each leader entwined, along with other similar arrangements. That way – if you two fall to aggression again, there are kinsmen on the other side.”
Hostages is the unspoken word that burns in my uncle’s eyes. I want to gasp out a no, and already, there are more shouts, screams, posturing.
“My daughter won’t marry a monster!” my father shrieks. “Not with the blood you swines have on your hands!”
“Monster? You’re the monsters. My son, touching a filthy harridan like her?”
“Murderer,” my father roars, and I see the same rage and grief in his face as I did fifteen years ago. The shouts rise up almost to a mindless chant, and nearly two hundred Graves soldiers cock their guns at us, causing another deafening silence.
“Disagree, and you will all die in this place,” Matin says. “I will not tolerate such division. I have the state to think of. I have hundreds upon thousands of lives at stake, and the honor of my own people. The feud of two families and attacking each other’s valuable resources ends now.” He raises a hand. “What will it be? Do you choose life, or death?”
The quiet reigns in the room like a blizzard, swirling between our factions, painting the whispered promise of a mass grave. Of all of us dead, our names turned to dust.