The route out from the isolated cave to the workshop where I stored my dragon was fairly smooth, with only an occasional bounce or jounce, but it took nearly an hour. If any of my ladies complained, the noise of the cart and the firmness of their gags kept it from me. In the workshop, I untied each in turn, removed her blindfold and gag, and stowed her in a barred cell adjoining the main room with a water-closet in one corner of it. The cell was furnished with two comfortable bunk beds firmly attached to the walls, where the ladies could sit or lie down as they chose. I then spent some time stowing equipment and preparing a simple meal of bread and fruit for my captives.
When I offered her a plate through the cell bars, one of the ladies finally broke our long silence. “My lord? Baron Rostov?”
Yes, I had seen that raven black hair and those alert brown eyes before. Marija Frankopan was her village headman’s daughter. When she, her father, and her brothers had come to the summer games for the Kalzov Valley, I had had the pleasure of presenting her a prize for placing in some race or other. Times must have been hard in Strawberry Vale for them to choose her! I would surely see the village had better over the next year.
“Miss Frankopan. How pleasant to see you alive,” I said, and handed Marija her plate.
“And you are … ?” I said to the sapphire-eyed blonde.
“Ana. Ana Gorjanski,” she replied as she took her plate. Danimir Gorjanski was a village counselor in Bear Glen, a solid man I had met many times over the years.
“Which daughter are you?”
“The eldest.” My throat tightened a bit. Clearly, over the next year and more I needed to be generous. My people were suffering much if they were willing to bring such sacrifices to the Great Dragon!
Both women sat down on one cot and began eating daintily, still deep in wonderment at their situation.
The redhead from Squirrel’s Perch stood on the far side of the cell, once again alert and wary with a defiant look in her emerald eyes. She had not long remained dazed from the long journey while blindfolded, gagged, and tied hand-and-foot. There was great strength in this one.
I picked up the third plate and stood at the bars before her. “And who are you?” I asked. She did not approach for her food. “Come, eat, and I will explain this situation,” I said.
She looked silently through the bars at the larger room’s door, clearly wondering if escape was possible.
“That door will not take you to safety,” I said, “not any more. Your life has changed, changed completely. Please, eat, tell me who you are, and I will explain.” I offered the plate once more.
This time she took it, sat down, and attacked the food aggressively—had Squirrel’s Perch not even offered her a last meal?
“I am Adrijana Okiv,” she said between bites.
“And your father is … ?” I said.
“He was Robert Okiv. ‘From a green, green island far away,’ my mother always says. He left her a widow just before I was born.”
“Who is your mother, child?” I asked, knowing the answer.
“Iskrena.”
Iskrena Pejacevic that was! Yes … Robert O’Keefe was known personally to me, a foreigner who had fought with the Rostov troops two decades ago. A good fighter, too, a towering man who could “make his claymore sing like a banshee” as his troops told me. For his heroism I gave him land in Squirrel’s Perch when he was mustered out, and found a wife for him, but he died only nine months later, as I had cause to know. Iskrena was a strong woman who had never found a second husband—perhaps had never wanted one—to help her raise Adrijana.
“Why did the village offer you up?”
She looked up at me sullenly. “I spoke against the Great Dragon.” Then she continued eating.
“You spoke against the Dragon?”
“I said, ‘Don’t do this. Don’t deliver your best to this hideous beast. This is false worship.’ For saying that, they chose me. All the Christian priests say the same thing, but none of them have any influence in Squirrel’s Perch. The few villagers who are Christians, and the many who pretend to be, go to Divine Liturgy in Bear Glen.”
Hmm, not a poxed-up whore, like Njega a few years ago, but instead a young woman with modern ideas in a very superstitious village.
“Excuse me, Your Excellency, but what is to become of us?” asked Marija.
“Formally, you ladies are all dead. In the eyes of your families and friends, you have been consumed by the Dragon, and in doing so have brought high honor to them. This means that if you return home, or are seen by anyone who knows you, you will be disgraced and the scandal will ruin your families. I wish it were not so, but it is.
“Do any of you think otherwise?”
I watched as realization dawned on Marija and Ana. Adrijana’s haughty look did not alter.
“I have changed your destinies … perhaps. What happens now, you have some control over. In a few days, I will ask you to make a choice of your own will.
“You can choose to die as your village planned, in appeasing the Dragon. I can take you back, bind you again, and leave you as those you hold most dear intended.” Adrijana snorted.
“Or you have the opportunity to live on in a life such as you have never dreamed of. But unfortunately it can never intersect with your old life in any way. You must sacrifice that old life for the sake of your family.”
Ana and Marija’s confusion was what I expected, and why I gave these girls several days before they must choose.
But Adrijana clearly had a different turn of mind. “And just why are you getting involved in this?” she asked.
In the long run, her attitude would be good, for her and for me. But in the short run … if she didn’t respect the Dragon, why should she respect me? Fear of scandal would not keep her away from Squirrel’s Perch. That put me at risk. Should I take the risk?
“I have saved you because, like Miss Okiv here, I don’t believe in the Dragon Ritual. So to live the new life I offer you, hard as it will be in some ways, is better than the death by devouring that would have happened to you by now.”
“What of our villages? I know that I died for mine …” Marija stopped, confused. “That I will die for Bear Glen.”
“You can if you choose, but before making that choice, you should know more.
“You should know that the Dragon does nothing for your villages, but I, your Baron, do.
“I don’t want the Dragon Ritual to continue. But I can’t outlaw superstitious thinking. So far the scorn of all the other towns and villages in the valley, and the respect I’m given, isn’t enough to quell it. So if I tried to outlaw the Ritual, it would be replaced by something even more secret … something I couldn’t intervene in.
“Therefore, for the last ten years I have been the dragon of the Dragon Ritual. I have intercepted thirty sacrificial maidens and brought them here. I examined them, much as I am examining you, and I have rewarded your villages based partly on what I see they have sacrificed, in their misguided sincerity.”
“You have spoken out against the Dragon Ritual many times, Your Excellency,” said Marija, coming to stand again at the bars. “I know that well. But Bear Glen will prosper next year after I die. I’ve seen it in the past, especially when I was a little girl.”
“Some of what you’ve seen is mere chance, but much of it is my doing. Oh, I am subtle about my rewards, but yes,” I lifted Marija’s chin to look at her full-faced, “be assured that, because of your willingness to be sacrificed, your village will have it better this coming year.” She pulled her head away, still not convinced.
“Times are changing; the world is changing. It won’t be too long before your villages change enough that they reject the Dragon Ritual. I look forward to that day. In the meantime, I save you young ladies and gain something in doing it.”
Adrijana snorted again.
“You, my dear Miss Okiv, are a most encouraging sign of the coming change. Your villagers considered your denial so dangerous that they sent you to the Dragon. Even ten years ago they would have considered you a raving lunatic, so not a suitable sacrifice, but harmless. It is because new ideas are seeping into your village that you are here.”
She looked at me in some surprise.
“Rest now, ladies. I will talk with you again tomorrow.
“But before you do, please remove your gowns. Yours, Miss Frankopan, Miss Gorjanski, are truly magnificent, and I will not have them lost. Miss Okiv, your spirit is too splendid for what you are wearing. I am sure you will each find clothing to fit in the closets behind you. The larger sizes are to the right. I’ll be back in about fifteen minutes.”
I gave them their privacy by leaving.
When I returned, Marija and Ana were reclothed and their sacrificial gowns were on their beds. Everything in the closets was well tailored of the highest quality cottons, silks, and linens. In their eyes, the silk gowns they had chosen were far more valuable than the garments they had taken off.
Adrijana was still in her drab peasant dress.
As I collected Ana and Marija’s gowns, I asked Adrijana, “You didn’t find anything to your liking?”
“This is no gown,” she said, with the sound of a blush.
“We’re not trading here. Just find something you like,” I said. “And I can tell you don’t like that! Please, Miss Okiv.”
And then to all of them, “Good night, and, when you’re ready, sweet dreams. You probably noticed there are also nightgowns in those closets.” I left them for the evening, retiring to my own apartment in another part of the workshop.
I knew collectors of fine memorabilia who would pay handsomely for these sacrificial gowns because they were well-crafted, exotic, and unique. But their monetary value was not why I asked for them. Switching to new clothing began the women’s acclimation to their new life, should they choose it, just as their ritual garments prepared them for the sacrifice.
So far I had taken three ladies back to the cave, where I had to suppose the real dragon had had her way. Once it had been two in one year. They had been women of high principle, and having been unsuccessful at persuading them that their principles were not being compromised, I had to reluctantly take them back. Honor and prudence had to take the upper hand.
But I hated it every time. So tomorrow, when we talked seriously about these women’s futures, I hoped to be eloquent and convincing.