Chapter 90: Victory Celebration (Part 2)

Six marinated cattle had been loaded onto carts and escorted by militia through the crowd to the bonfire — without the escort, Roland suspected, the carts would have been stripped clean before they reached the square.

The castle’s reserve was now empty. They would not have meat again until the first merchant ships came upriver. He thought about this for approximately three seconds, then put it away. Some costs were correct to pay.

The militia handled the barbecue: iron bars spitted through the carcasses, mounted on brick stands at the fire’s edge, the heat radiating outward in visible waves even at two meters’ distance. Oil emerged as the skin tightened, hissing when it dripped into the coals, releasing a smell that reached the far side of the square. The crowd pressure around the perimeter was considerable.

When the food smell had done its work on the crowd’s attention, Roland signaled Iron Axe.

The militia entered the cleared space around the bonfire. Iron Axe, who had been briefed on the dance the previous evening — half an hour of practice, which was all the choreography required — set up the first formation. Two rings of dancers, right arm through partner’s left, facing clockwise. The horns started. The circle moved. Every step threw the free foot forward, and on each step the dancers shouted: Ha!

Carter watched this for several seconds with an expression Roland had learned to read as professional distress barely contained.

“This is the lead dance.”

“It is,” Roland confirmed.

“It’s—” Carter appeared to be searching for a specific word and failing to find one that would not be rude. “Very accessible.”

“Half an hour of practice,” Roland said. “Any able-bodied person can learn it. That’s the point.”

Carter looked away from the dancers, toward the crowd, toward something private in the middle distance. Roland did not ask. He had his own complexities to manage.

The militia clapped in time. The beat pulled at the crowd the way beats do when bodies are tired from fear and relief, when the morning has been spent fighting and the sun has come out and there is free food nearby: irresistibly, involuntarily, hands moving before minds decided to move them. Iron Axe’s ring went faster. The beat went faster. When the formation eventually became unsteady and one of the dancers stumbled and brought two others down with him, the crowd flinched — then the applause went wild.

Iron Axe got to his feet, using a militia member’s shoulder for leverage. He turned to face the crowd.

“Did everyone see that? Who wants to try?” He grinned, and the grin was Iron Axe’s particular grin, the one that was simultaneously completely genuine and completely calculated. “The rule is simple: you dance until you fall. If you join us, you earn a portion of the honey barbecue. The longer you stay on your feet, the more you get.”

It was not a noble’s invitation. It was not something offered from above to people expected to be grateful for access. It was the militia, the townspeople’s neighbors, their former layabouts and gangsters turned soldiers, calling out to them directly. The first people who stepped forward were followed by a second group, then a third, until the ring was no longer recognizable as a ring — just a large mass of bodies moving more or less in the same direction, shouting Ha! at intervals, stumbling and laughing and being caught by strangers.

This was exactly the scene Roland had been trying to build.

He stayed for an hour, then left Carter responsible for the square and Barov for the closing remarks, and walked back to the castle.

The back garden was different — smaller, firelit, intimate in the way the square could not be. They had spitted chickens rather than cattle, cut into pieces and seasoned with the castle kitchen’s own blend. Anna had stopped using the spit entirely and was cooking directly with her green flame, holding pieces above it at the exact temperature she wanted, which produced results that made Roland briefly consider never eating roasted chicken any other way. Nightingale’s knives had appeared and disappeared in the time it took to blink, and a chicken had gone from whole to deboned in what appeared to be a single continuous motion.

Wendy’s wine from Willow Town was considerably better than ale. Lightning had discovered this before anyone thought to warn her.

Roland noticed, somewhere around the midpoint of the evening, that Lightning had emptied half a bottle and was currently floating three feet off the ground with the deliberate exaggerated carefulness of someone who is not going to admit anything.

He was considering how to address this when Lightning dropped out of the air and landed in his lap and kissed his cheek.

It happened very fast. It was captured by everyone present.

Lightning floated back up wearing the expression of someone who had done nothing wrong and was prepared to defend this position. She looked around at the faces. “According to Fjord custom, when celebrating a victory, a woman may kiss the leader. My father always let me. Is this not also the custom in Graycastle?”

“Absolutely not,” Roland said, which came out with slightly more certainty than he intended, because he was working to clear his head of the wine. He coughed. “Lightning, you’ve drunk too much. Go to bed.”

“I have never lost a drinking contest with any sailor—”

Wendy, catching Roland’s look, smiled and produced a precise wind. Lightning drifted down from altitude with the outraged expression of someone whose flight has been politely commandeered; Wendy walked toward her, caught her under the arms, and carried her into the castle over sustained protest.

“She just drank too much,” Roland said, to the remaining circle. “The dessert will be out shortly. Continue celebrating.”

The atmosphere had shifted. He felt it in the silences and in where people were not quite looking. He did not try to address it directly. Nana was still working on her chicken wings with the focused concentration of a person for whom the recent events were simply not relevant.

The bonfire burned down. Roland sent Nightingale to walk Nana home, went to the well, and washed his face in cold water until the wine was no longer a factor in his thinking.

He went inside. Climbed the stairs. Reached the third floor.

Anna was leaning against his door.

She was not looking at him yet — her gaze was on the floor, the particular still posture she took when she had made a decision and was now simply implementing it. The hallway was quiet except for the wind outside and the distant sounds of the celebration still running in the square.

Roland stopped. He was suddenly, completely, sober.

Chapter 90 Victory Celebration (Part 2)

Six marinated cattle were transported next to the bonfire by carts – if they weren’t escorted by the militia, Roland suspected that on its way through the crowd, the whole cattle would have already been carved up by the masses.

This was all of the food reserves the castle had left within the basement. So they wouldn’t have any meat to eat until the arrival of the next merchant ship. Thinking of this, Roland’s heart began to ache. In order to run this celebration, he had even used up all of the reserves he had.

The master chefs brought over from Graycastle were only responsible for wiping the meat and controlling the heat. In the end, the task of barbecuing was handed over to six people from the militia team. An iron bar was inserted into the cattle’s body through its mouth and then placed in front of the fire on a brick station. The flames were wildly burning so that even separated by two to three meters the heat waves were still clearly felt. Soon the whole cow’s skin issued a sizzling sound, oil began to emerge out of it’s pores, emitting a seductive scent.

Of course, the barbecue couldn’t be the only attraction, so on Roland’s signal, Iron Axe together with a team of militia entered the stage.

Since those gorgeous and complex court dance didn’t apply to such an occasion, and there wasn’t much time for training; they couldn’t even remember all the essentials steps, let alone show such a beautiful and complex dance. To ensure that it was an easy to understand dance which was still enjoyable, the dance of the sand people was clearly more in line with the interests of the civilians.

The dance started with Iron Axe and the others placing both of their hands on their hips, always putting the right arm through the partner’s left arm, forming a two rings around the bonfire. They were accompaniment by the sounds of

horns and began to move clockwise, with each step, they would throw the other foot to kick forward while shouting “Ha!

“Is this the lead dance you talked about?” Carter asked startled. “Can you even call this a dance?”

“Of course, it is very easy to remember, the militia had only needed to practice half an hour last night to master the pace,” Roland answered laughingly. “Do you also want to try?”

Carter shook his head and refused the offer. He just felt as if something in his heart would soon break out with a bang – don’t, she was just a girl with an appearance which made men’s hearts beat faster. Don’t, she is just a sad memory from my youth.

The other militia members were clapping with their hands in the pace of the all the dancer’s footsteps, accompanying each round with faster applause. The extremely fast rhythm moved the masses, they one after another reached out with their own hands to clap in accordance. As the applause got faster and faster, Iron Axe and his teams dancing speed also became faster and faster. Soon the ring began to show signs of coming apart. It didn’t take long until one of the dancers accidentally fell, taking more of the dancers with him. Seeing this the crowd became shocked, but the militia did not stop the applause, instead it get wilder and changed into a storm.

Iron Axe propped himself by a militia member, stopping his fall and then he turned to the crowd and shouted: “Did everyone understand it? Who would like to try it themselves? Until you fall just like us! If you join the dance, you can afterwards dive into the sweet and delicious honey barbecue, the longer you dance, the more meat you get!”

If the nobility or the rich families were to invite them, the normal townspeople would never have been involved – subconsciously, giving them the feeling that they were superior compared to themselves. It was also common for the nobility to go back on their promises. But when they saw the militia members, which came from the usual crowd of civilians now beckoning them to dance with them, they were unable to hold themselves back.

After the first round of people joined, they were soon followed by a second and then a third round. So soon, a new dance started, but this time most of the dancers came from the masses. Although this was a very simple interaction, it still made them very happy, in addition with the reward of the honey barbecue in their sight, the participants tried their hardest to show the best possible performance.

This was exactly the scene Roland wanted to see.

In addition to the barbecue, there were also bread, fish-cakes, and ale that was distributed to the masses. The celebration was planned to continue until evening, but Roland didn’t plan to stay until then. He arranged for Carter to be in charge of the town square’s safety, and the assistant minister was responsible for the closing speech, then he left.

He instead attended a private party at the castle’s back garden.

When the evening came, the backyard was still brightly lit.

Just like in the town’s square, they had also started a bonfire. The difference was that they used chicken for the barbeque which were cut into pieces. The seasoning and oil were of their own configuration, completely imitating the atmosphere of a barbeque in the wild. This kind of novelty of self-service style was loved too much by the witches, that they could never part with it. Of course for Roland’s eyes, this was a rare spectacle – for example, Anna directly wrapped the chicken into her green flame after seasoning it, which soon gave off a delicious fragrance. Nightingale instead showed off her incredible knife work, one moment the knives were hidden and a second later the chicken was hung upside down, completely peeled and with all of its bones fell down.

And of course, for the wine, it came from Willow Town and was much more suitable for the tastes of women than ale. Actually, Roland wanted to say that minors were prohibited from drinking, yet Lightning had already emptied half a bottle by herself and since she was floating in the air, it would be difficult to persuade her Roland thought.

After around one hour within the barbecue, Roland was slightly tipsy. He leaned against a chair and watched the group of happy laughing girls. Seeing this Roland felt very pleased. This is the perfect life for a prince, he thought, and also for the witches. With their extraordinary abilities and appearance, they shouldn’t be the object of hunting. If they were born in my previous life, I’m afraid they would have become the dazzling focus of many people. But now, here in my territory, they can live a normal life.

At this moment, Lightning suddenly fell down, directly landing on Roland’s lap, and even before he had the possibility to react, she already had planted a kiss on his cheek.

Although this action was done very quickly, it was still captured by many witches.

When Lightning grinningly flew upwards again, she could see that Anna, Nightingale, and Wendy looked very surprised, so she waved her hand explained: “According to the rules of the Fjords when they hold a banquet to celebrate a victory, the woman can take the initiative to kiss the leader. Dad would let me kiss him every time. Isn’t this also a habit in Graycastle?”

“Of course not,” Roland instantly woke up from his half-drunken state, “uh… cough cough, Lightning you’re drunk, quickly go back to the castle and sleep!”

“How can that be,” Lightning protested, “When I was sailing, I had many drinking battles with the crew and I never lost.”

Roland recognizing that she would follow the order turned to Wendy, who nodded and then used her power to kindly blow Lightning to the earth. When Lightning was close to landing, Wendy took two steps forward, approaching the girl and catching her within his arms. Disregarding of Lightings shouting and struggling, she walked in a straight line towards the castle.

“Don’t worry about her, she just drunk too much. Please continue to celebrate, soon the dessert will be delivered.” Roland suddenly felt that the atmosphere had turned a little strange, especially when he looked into Anna’s eyes, he felt a chill rising up from his feet. The only one who was completely

unaffected by what happened was Nana, she was still concentrating on eating her chicken wings, like nothing had happened in general.

After the bonfire was gradually extinguished, Roland requested Nightingale to escort Nana home. Then he went to the well and washed his face with cold water, already ready to go to bed. Roland didn’t take the former episode to heart, in his view, Lightning was still a minor child.

But when he arrived at the third floor, his heart suddenly begun to race.

He saw Anna who was leaning against his door.