The old man seemed to have decided Cain was a member of Fienna’s family. Swept up in the moment, Cain returned the grip of the old man’s hand.
Others followed.
“She set me up with an apprenticeship to a healer, and told me to be a good healer myself…”
“I had fled the prefect and came here with nothing. I took to drink. Fienna bade me to stop drinking and start working. She gave me money while I learned my trade…”
“… and that child who was at death’s door, now she is going to school. If it weren’t for Fienna…”
“Who did this to her? If I ever get my hands on him…”
In his inadvertent position as head mourner, shaking the hands of those who came, Cain realized that everyone or almost everyone gathered here had clan markings on their necks. They were Arlanders, who had come from all over the city. Which meant there were plenty of others who had not yet heard of Fienna’s death, or those who couldn’t attend the funeral for one reason or another. The people who mourned her could number in the hundreds. Septima had said Fienna received money from Gladdis. He was beginning to understand where that money had gone.
There were a few who asked what he was to Fienna, but Cain didn’t know how to answer. Nobody asked after a while, perhaps sensing his distress.
Soon, everyone had said a few words, and a few young and strong among them stepped forward. Six in all, including Cain. The gravedigger tied rope to all six handles of the coffin, and they slowly lowered the coffin into the grave. When it rested on the dirt below, they tossed in the ropes first, then took up spades to cover the coffin with the freshly tilled earth beside it.
“And the tombstone?” asked the old man who had first talked to Cain. “Why is there no tombstone ready?”
The gravedigger shrugged. “One never arrived. Nor is one expected to.”
The old man looked aghast as he turned to Cain, who was busy shoveling dirt into the grave. He then turned to the people behind him.
“There’s not a single one of us who hasn’t received succor fromour late friend. To think she must be buried in a grave without a marker! What will the world say of our people if this is so?”
The old man took out money from his pocket, put it in his hat, and passed it to the next person. The hat jangled as it was passed from person to person, and by the time the hat was returned to its owner, it was over half full of coppers and silvers. The man handed the hat to Cain.
“Erect a good stone for her. One my grandchildren can look upon and remember her…”
Cain said he would and accepted the hat now heavy with coin.
The snow thickened. The wind was stronger. Still, the mourners would not leave. They stayed by the graveside and talked. Some sat in a crouch, some stood, and some who rather lacked in decorum leaned against the tombstones. They all, however, spoke of the same things, of how kind Fienna had been and how she had helped them. Cain gave the gravedigger some money and asked him to bring the mourners drinks. The gravedigger grumbled about the need for making such arrangements before the funeral, but he was silenced when a few more of Cain’s silvers landed in his palm.
Why hadn’t Fienna told him that she was taking care of so many of them? Cain had been avoiding Arlander immigrants ever since he ran away from that country, so he wasn’t surprised that he didn’t know a single soul among the crowd in the cemetery. Still, it astonished him that he had been so ignorant of the extent of Fienna’s reach.
The old man, tapping his cane on the frozen ground, started singing in Arlandais in a low voice. The mourners followed suit, some weeping midway through the song. Cain recognized the mournful melody, but not the lyrics. They contained a mention of the dragon ofthe mountain helping the dead to their eternal rest, that lay beyond the blue veil of the sky. In Arland, the smoke from the cremated went up into the sky, much like the white plumes of the volcano. But here, Fienna was being buried in the earth… and the Empire did not believe in an afterlife. In the brief silence after the dirge ended, Cain wondered if in death he would meet Fienna again.
“Since you’re all from back home,” said a tall, older woman with a black headcloth, “did you hear the rumors? That Its Excellency the fire-dragon has taken the form of a woman and come down from the volcano to slaughter the Imperial legion?”
“I did hear that a princess in hiding has come out into the world to fight against the Empire.”
“I heard that, too. Last month, it was. News of this princess has even reached Kamori and Ledon.”
“They say she carries a flaming sword.”
“Father, does Arland have princesses?”
“Don’t you suspect it’s all rumor? There was one like it awhile back…”
“But I heard it, too. They say it’s real this time.”
“Then there might be another massacre, like the one twelve years ago…”
“That’s not what it feels like in Arland, they say. The prefect isn’t like he used to be. The legions are about to change shifts in the three provinces of Lontaria and he is scared of being replaced…”
Cain had almost succeeded in forgetting about Arland. As a son of convicted traitors, he was better off without ties to his old country. Since he ran away, Lukan and Fienna were the only reminders of the homeland that he no longer belonged to. But at this news, of an Arlander princess standing up to the Empire allby herself, Cain felt a muscle pulse somewhere inside him, one that he hadn’t realized he had.
Cain remembered what Septima had said about how an outpost near the border between Kamori and Arland had been ambushed and its Powered legionaries slain. He listened in silence. The voices of the Arlanders around him, which a moment ago had sounded so sorrowful at Fienna’s death, were now infused with a kind of vitality, or hope.
