The Tale of Oriel by Cynthia Voigt

faces of the boys turned to him and conversation halted. He didn’t know what they saw. He saw a half circle of boys, sitting cross-legged or leaning back on their elbows, drawn back from the warmth of the fire because the Damall’s chair sat up close to it. He saw the Damall in his chair, a tankard of wine in his hand, a little smile on his face as he listened to Nikol. Nikol stood behind the half circle of boys. His nose still slewed off to one side and one of his eyes had swollen to a slit. Nikol stood stiffly, as if all movement would be pain.
    The Damall stood to greet him, with a raised tankard. “This boy is the next Damall, the seventh Damall. I name him my heir.” The Damall was saying the sentences just the way the Great Damall had written. “I name him next to rule over the Damall’s island and the Damall’s boys. I name him master of the treasure. Gold and silver and the beryls—all of these are his, because he is the seventh Damall,” announced the sixth Damall.
    The seventh Damall didn’t speak; as the ceremony required, in the Great Damall’s book, he remained silent. The faces of the boys were turned up to him, now, and the first shadows of fear joined the shadows the fire left on their cheeks and in their eyes.
    Nikol broke the silence. “What about me?”
    The sixth Damall lowered his tankard and sat down again, before he answered. “What about you?”
    â€œYou promised,” Nikol said.
    The Damall smiled. “But you couldn’t win it. Could you. You didn’t win it. Did you,” he said. “This inheritance isn’t just going to be given to you. Do you understand that now? The title has to be won. And you have lost it, Nikol.”
    Nikol stood absolutely still, as if concentrating on remembering something. Then he turned on his heels and left the hall, moving stiffly. Nikol went out—perhaps, the seventh Damall thought, to the privies, or perhaps to kick the pigs.
    â€œThe title has first to be won,” the sixth Damall said. “Then it has to be held. We hope you can hold it. Don’t we, boys?”
    â€œYes,” the boys said, and “You were always best,” and “You’ll be good at it.” Even Raul joined in the line of boys who spoke into his ear. Nikol didn’t return that night.
    At morning, however, Nikol stood beside the cold fireplace. The seventh Damall had risen early, in the pain of mending sprains and bruises, cuts and swellings, joints pulled away bone from bone. The seventh Damall had entered the main hall before sunrise to start the fire. He saw Nikol waiting there.
    Nikol looked pale, and wet, washed clean as if he had spent the night out in the rain. But the night had been rainless. Nikol’s hair was slicked down wet on his head, and his shirt dripped onto the floor. His eyes were cold and he didn’t speak.
    The seventh Damall pretended not to notice, but he saw as much as he could. He saw Nikol’s face, so puffed that it seemed boneless. He saw a pale stillness in Nikol, and in his eyes.
    He thought he had destroyed Nikol yesterday, by shaming him in cowardice. Now, he saw, Nikol had moved beyond the heat of anger or fear. The seventh Damall thought, placing logs on the grey ashes of yesterday’s fire, that he was going to have to win his right to inherit every day, every day win it again, in order to hold it.
    He told the sixth Damall that he wished to walk the borders of the island that day. He didn’t ask it, he announced it, as befitted the heir. He spent that whole long day clambering over the rocks that tumbled down at the sea’s edge, and walking across, back and forth across, the fields and woods of the land he stood heir to. At the end of that day, he had decided what he would do—because he understood that he had no choice.

    A FORTNIGHT LATER, THE DAMALL lay dying.
    There had been a taste of spring. Under the warmth of sun, the