Read Fortress of Ice for Free Online

it’s always breakfastbefore the sun comes up, because we have to be there at sunrise. But it’s just five days.” It was what his mother used to say to him to cheer him up. “And then the Bryalt holiday starts, midway through. My mother puts up decorations in her chambers when that starts. You could put them up, in yours, well, after Fast Day. You shouldn’t put them in the sitting room, though. We can’t do that.”
    â€œThe Quinalt doesn’t allow it?”
    â€œNo.” Aewyn lowered his voice, and confessed: “I like my mother’s holiday ever so much better, with the evergreen and candles. Especially the cakes. Do they make the sweet cakes in Amefel, the brown ones with the nuts?”
    â€œOh, nut cakes, yes. And braided bread with apples in it.” Otter’s eyes brightened. “Do you have that for holiday?”
    â€œWell,” Aewyn admitted, “no one downstairs knows how. But Mother’s maid knows how to bake the cakes herself, and she goes down to the kitchen, and tosses Cook out, and we have them for days.” He saw how Otter’s eyes brightened at that news. “They pass the cakes out among all my mother’s staff, all through the Bryalt holiday, and she puts the evergreen up and lights bayberry candles in her private chambers at night, and they go to the Bryalt shrine on the last night, or at least Mother does, and her maids. My father can’t, and I can’t, not even when I was a babe in arms.” That was always a sore spot with him and with his mother. “She misses the dances. But they sing songs in her rooms. What else do they do in Amefel?”
    â€œThey give out the little cakes, free, in the shrine, except if you have coin in your purse you have to make an offering to keep all your other coins lucky. And there’s a penny baked into some of the cakes. The aetheling—the duke—throws pennies all up and down the street when he rides to the front gate to open it for the year. I’ve picked up three, all told. They’re supposed to be lucky.” He pulled out the plain braided cord he wore about his neck, and showed three dull brown pennies, pierced through. Aewyn had seen it before, and wondered then if it was a charm.
    â€œIs it magical?” he asked warily.
    â€œOh, it’s Gran’s; it could be. She made it for me, from the lucky pennies. Holiday pennies. It’s bad luck to spend them.”
    â€œThe Quinalt takes the money we give,” Aewyn said. “It doesn’t give it out. Everybody has to give something. The priests do give out food to the poor on the last day and set up long tables in the square. First day is the day I hate.”
    â€œFast Day?”
    â€œThat’s the hardest. Fasting daylight to dark. And praying at sunrise in the Quinaltine. We have to go there while it’s still dark, it’s always cold, because the sanctuary hasn’t heated up yet, and it’s long, long praying. You get tired, you mustn’t fidget, and you can’t eat or drink anything, not even water, on the day, from the first the sun rises. Even the horses and the cattle can’t eat or drink until the sun goes down.”
    â€œBut they don’t know what day it is!”
    â€œOh, truth is, they’ll feed themselves off browse. That’s why we put most of the horses we can down in pasture.”
    â€œBut it’s thick snow down there now. Will they put out hay?”
    â€œThey’re not supposed to, really. If the wind’s blowing, you’ll hear the cattle bawling clear up on the hill. Lamenting the sins of the world, the fathers say. And the horses that have to stay in stable, the courier horses and such, they’re pent in, and there’s no hay.”
    Otter had been on his belly, leaning on his elbows before the fire. Now he had sat up. “That’s outright cruel, not to feed them.”
    â€œWell”—Aewyn looked to see