Time of Daughters I Read online

  Danet opened her hand. “Everyone knows the Eastern Alliance is the horse stud families, the Sindan-Ans, Tlens, Tlennens, and Senelaecs.”

  “And the Sindans, who ride with them all. Amble Sindan is their chief—not a jarl. So, things were quiet until twenty years ago,” Arrow went on. “How much do you know about that?”

  “All I know is what my da told us. It was while we were riding up the Pass to visit our Arvandais kin. He said, while Kendred Olavayir was out with most of the royal guard on a training game in the plains, masked assassins killed Garid-Harvaldar, his gunvaer, and their first runners and honor guard while they were riding a shortcut through the woods to watch the training game. At the castle, the assassins tried to kill the little prince, but Mathren Olavayir, who was just a young riding captain at the time, managed to save Evred.”

  Arrow looked away. “Both my brothers were in that honor guard. They died defending the king and queen. We don’t know who the assassins were, or where they came from. Everybody heard something different, that they were northerners, or southerners, or even Adranis from over the mountain passes in the east. The thing that bothers Da is that most of the witnesses had accidents, too. Except there’s one thing no one talks about outside of the family. And I don’t mean the cousins, or the Riders. Just us.”

  He held up five fingers. “Da, Ma, Jarend, me, and Tdor Fath. And now you make six.”

  Danet gripped her elbows with her hands as Arrow said, “A fourteen-year-old stable-girl, one of Ma’s kin, had been watering the remounts at a stream a distance away, and I guess the murderers didn’t know about remounts, because she had tied them up to crop at some clover while she came back for the saddles. She saw a blood splash on a tree and went doggo, crawled under some shrub, and looked out until she saw the queen lying dead, facing her way, her throat cut. She heard one of the assassins say, in Marlovan, That’s it. Leave the horses and come back here, for we have to find.... And then he—it was a man’s voice—turned away and she didn’t hear the rest. She lay hidden until nightfall, then rode those same horses away for home.”

  Danet said, “Why did you call that ‘a thing?’ It sounds like a witness to me.”

  He said, “Because the stable girl didn’t see the assassins. Ma said there was no evidence other than the voice the stable girl heard. When the royal runners brought Great-Uncle Kendred’s letter about the assassinations, declaring he, now as regent, would heed the Eastern Alliance Treaty, the older people decided nothing good would come of questions no one could prove, except maybe civil war.”

  Danet repeated, “Civil war?”

  “Da says there are certain jarls, mostly in the south, who’d love any excuse to break up the kingdom. They could become kings on their own. Some already are, in all but name—he says Kendred has given way to them time and again. Everybody says Kendred hates trouble, and will do anything to avoid it. But now that Evred is older, rumor has it that he’s getting harder to rein in. That’s what we have to do, to keep Evred from doing anything senseless because he wants to be king now.”

  He bent over Noddy’s sleep basket, and then said, “When’s he going to look like me? He still looks like a little old man.”

  “He might look like me,” Danet said, hiding her trepidation at this impending trip. Nobody wanted her opinion, they just wanted her to do her duty.

  Mother would say the same.

  TWELVE

  The jarl left very early the next morning for Lindeth, to exchange the wargame recruits for experienced Riders to accompany him on his journey to deal with the latest problems at the Nob.

  After breakfast, Jarend emerged from his room, and insisted in his quiet way that he could ride.

  The entire castle gathered to see them off.

  Fi watched from the inner city gate as Arrow and his brother and the rest of them rode by. She ducked back, but Arrow never looked her way. One they’d gone, the crowd began to disperse. She looked around for Lanrid, sure he’d be cracking jokes at Arrow’s expense, but she didn’t see him anywhere.

  But of course, now that he was almost a lord, or whatever these Marlovens called their military leaders, he probably thought he was above joining the commoners. Well, she was, too—or she soon would be.

  She returned to the family trade house to change into some flattering silks before going up into the residence to discuss her prospective wedding with Lanrid.

  But when she arrived, it was to find the residence stable courtyard curiously empty, except for servants talking in clumps.

  She walked around until she found a young runner-in-training whom she recognized, and confronted him. “Where’s Lanrid?” she demanded in Marlovan, since these ignorant people knew no Iascan.

  “He left on the north road,” the boy said.

  “What? When! Why?”

  “He took handpicked riders for a field game,” was the short answer. Fi was not popular with any of the servants.

  “Where would he leave messages?” she asked. “He must have left me a message. Go fetch it at once.”

  “There was only one. For the jarlan,” the boy said, with a little too much enjoyment.

  She considered slapping some respect into him, but decided she could punish him properly once she was Lady Olavayir.

  She stalked away to wait on his return.

  Danet rode in the cart for the first few days, mostly for Noddy’s and Rabbit’s sake. The babies complained less with her there.

  But then, as a vanguard of clouds slowly advanced overhead, the cavalcade pulled up. Danet peered irritably against the watery, glaring light at the three figures at the front, almost silhouetted against the diffuse sun: Jarend looming over the more slender royal runner, his hair touched to ruddy gold even in the weird light, and next to him Arrow, his shoulders and elbows points angling away from his scrawny backside.

  Danet climbed out of the cart to stretch her legs and peered over the autumnal grasses, wondering what the problem was. Difficulties caused by the royal runner? She’d only seen him that once, on her first border ride, surrounded by an air of mystery.

  Tdor Fath had ridden forward, and now trotted back, and slid out of the saddle to land beside the cart. She whistled to her mount, who shook her head and paused a few paces distant, nosing at the old summer grasses.

  “Danet, we’re going to part ways with the carts. We’re going ahead with our personal runners and the babes only. Arrow insists,” Tdor Fath said.

  “What about Nunka?” Danet asked. Already she depended heavily on the old nursery minder.

  “He stays with the carts. He’s too old to ride as long and as fast as we need to,” Tdor Fath said, and Danet’s heart sank. But as Mother would say, duty was duty. If they didn’t ask, then nobody wanted to hear what you thought.

  “Bad weather coming, and the roads are terrible in the open plains of Hesea.” Tdor Fath dug her fists into her lower back, then reached into the cart for one of the long baby cloths. “We’ll have to pack a couple of changes of clothes for the babes, and dry things in the air as we ride. Here’s how to make a baby sling.”

  Danet mastered it on one try, promised to teach Arrow, then they distributed Noddy’s small needs between Danet’s and Tesar’s saddlebags, as Tdor and her first rider carried Rabbit’s—all the other runners, including the nursery staff, had to ride with the carts.

  Danet taught Arrow the baby sling. They traded Noddy back and forth, the runners and Riders carrying field tents and travel bread.

  They reached Olavayir’s border, a river dividing Olavayir from Khanivayir jarlate. The water was running low after summer, so the horses could ford.

  Arrow insisted on carrying Noddy, saying he was taller in case his mount should stumble. She rode behind him, and kept her gaze fastened anxiously on his back every step his horse made, a journey of eternity while it lasted.

  His horse stumbled once, and every muscle in her body flashed cold as if she’d been thrown into ice water. Arrow’s arms tightened around Noddy, and she
made herself breathe.

  Arrow chose the eastern fork of the road because he’d been impressed by the Senelaecs’ riding at the games, and their total lack of strut about it. He liked Wolf much more than he liked that strutting Knuckles Marlovayir to the west, so—in accordance with ancient custom—they headed toward Senelaec, expecting guest privilege, and knew that outriders would spot them long before they reached the valley above which the Senelaec fortress lay.

  As each day of travel passed, swept by intermittent rains, everyone anticipated a dry bed and warmth the more. Danet also looked forward to thanking Calamity Senelaec, who had vanished before that could happen.

  Senelaec riders greeted them half a day’s ride out, and showed them a shortcut. The Olavayirs studied with interest the walled fortress built on a ridge above a valley, Arrow liked its commanding view—this position would be difficult to attack—and his brother the well-behaved horses the outriders rode. Though Olavayir horses were very well trained, there were still the occasional kicks and bites and whinnies of objection to one another, but these animals were mild as milk.

  Tdor Fath also considered the defensive position of the fortress. Women could hold that, she thought, and because the Andahi Lament was recent enough to hear in memory, she shivered in the cold air. And when they had climbed the last of the switchback road leading to the gates of the single wall, and passed beneath, Danet gazed with interest at a dwelling different than any other she’d seen yet.

  Shadowed by a single lookout tower, the house was low and rambling, an L shape with rooms that soon proved to open into each other—at one end a big barn, and the jarl and jarlan’s living quarters at the other.

  Calamity and Wolf ran out to greet them. At first Danet was not certain which of the two tall, light-haired women was Calamity and which Fuss. Within a few exchanges, Danet wondered how she could have thought them at all similar: Calamity’s freckles and big, sunny grin were a dramatic contrast to Fuss’s quiet sobriety. Even their Marlovan-blonde hair differed, Calamity’s golden, and Fuss’s a flaxen butter-cream color that brought Danet’s sister Hliss to mind.

  A cluster of Senelaec cousins crowded in. Danet handed Noddy down into reaching hands, and the babe was promptly swept away by a cooing sixteen-year-old, Rabbit right behind, swung gurgling with laughter between a pair of sisters.

  Calamity said, “We can offer you guest quarters off the jarl’s rooms, or else you can have our den. Here, I’ll show you.” She indicated the barn.

  Danet looked at it doubtfully, but said nothing as they ran up a stairway to a big, airy attic loft with cushions and thick quilts everywhere, broken gear here, tools there. It was a mess. Danet suppressed the urge to straighten everything, yet even so, she found the atmosphere cheery.

  Calamity rubbed her hands together. “I thought you might like this better. Half the time we just fall asleep up here! We always did when we were small. Let’s go find out when we’re going to eat, and you can get a hot bath. They’ve been cooking all day, and wouldn’t let us in to pinch so much as an apple!”

  She turned to go, but Danet caught her arm. “I wanted to thank you for helping me with Noddy. You disappeared so fast that I couldn’t, and I did not want you to think me rude or ungrateful.”

  To her surprise Calamity blushed to the ears that stuck out between her braid loops. “Don’t mention it. Really. We, ah, were not supposed to go north. To watch the boys. And we have a month to go of stable wanding!”

  “Ranor-Jarlan figured that must be the case. I mean, that you rode with your boys just to watch them? She thought it odd, but then we were there watching, so why not?”

  “Well, it’s over now, for five years. Come, I’ll show you the baths...."

  The house was warm, redolent of food and hemp and horse and over it all the heady smell of malting, as they were brewing. The girls ducked under loose-woven sacks of drying yellow-blossom, which Danet suspected the Senelaecs used instead of hops to brew their ale. She found that intensely interesting, but she could see that for Calamity, it was merely part of everyday life. So she bit back her usual stream of questions.

  After everyone was bathed and the babies fed and settled, the jarl and jarlan took Jarend and Tdor Fath off to entertain—Jarend, as heir to Olavayir, being regarded as stand-in in for his father, and Tdor Fath for the jarlan.

  Arrow and Danet joined Wolf, Calamity, and Fuss in the den. Wolf’s younger brother Yipyip was also there, a skinny weed with a prominent neck-knuckle and brown curls as luxuriant as his older brother’s darker locks. A few younger cousins also drifted in, at first shy and tentative.

  “Ma said we better get at it if we’re gonna jaw.” Yipyip spoke, hands on skinny hips as he surveyed the pile of harness repairs left over from the previous winter.

  Arrow uttered a crack of laughter, and Danet said, “We can help.”

  “Right,” Arrow said, interpreting correctly the hopeful faces around him. “I’ve seen plenty of repair duty, I can tell you.”

  “Let me guess.” Wolf slanted a brief, wicked grin. “Penalty for scrapping.”

  Arrow shrugged as he dropped crosslegged on an old mat and reached for the nearest broken bit of gear. “Isn’t it that way everywhere?”

  Wolf laughed again. Though the Olavayirs didn’t have that great a rep, and he’d found Arrow’s cousin Lanrid irritating with his constant strut as if he were emperor of the world, he hadn’t minded Arrow...he’d actually kind of liked him when he wasn’t ranting and raving about how unfair his cousin was in a game no one else cared about once it was over.

  Arrow and Danet proved to be deft, and the work party had made a significant dent before Wolf, feeling the prick of conscience, admitted that the jarl and jarlan got disgusted with them for putting off repair until the weather got bad. “It’s not that we’re lazy,” he said. “But if you have good weather, and you’re done with outside chores, wouldn’t you rather have fun?”

  Arrow’s sudden grin made it plain he agreed, and before long, they were trading stories of various jokes, ruses, and stings, Wolf carefully keeping the talk well away from the game, and who had won the ride and shoot.

  The last thing Arrow wanted to talk about was the game, and he loved stories about larks. But he began to notice that the Senelaecs’ targets were always the same: the Marlovayirs to the west.

  So he asked. “Why always the Marlovayirs? Wait, didn’t someone once mention a feud?”

  Calamity snorted. “It’s all due to their greed, during our grandfathers’ time, when they had the biggest jarlate in the north. Except for yours, of course, Yvanavayir, and the old Choreid Elgaer.”

  “The king was saved by my grandfather, who broke Marlovayir in half to create Senelaec,” Wolf said. “It wasn’t that we asked for it. Kings do what they’re going to do, and everybody knows it’s a very bad idea to turn them down when they want to give gifts. But the Marlovayirs have always acted as though our family robbed them, and they’ve been giving us trouble ever since.”

  “What kind of trouble? Is it a blood matter?” Arrow asked.

  “No...not so much since the Eastern Alliance forced...ah, oversaw the treaty with your family. You know. The Marlovayirs don’t want them coming down on them like thunder any more than we want our cousins giving us grief, so it’s raids. And stings. Like, last winter, one of our border patrols got hit by a snowstorm and wandered into their territory without knowing. They camped to wait it out, dark overtook them, and when they crawled out of their tents, they found a wing or two of Marlovayir riders with swords drawn. There was only the single riding—they couldn’t fight them all. The Marlovayirs robbed them.”

  “Why didn’t I hear about that? Horse thieving is a serious—”

  “They didn’t take their horses. Nothing that could be presented before the regent in the royal city,” Fuss said, looking at the corner of the room.

  Yipyip piped up, his treble voice cracking suddenly as he said, “They took their pants.”

  Arrow had to bit
e his lip to smother his laughter. Danet took in the row of indignant Senelaecs and suppressed the urge to smile.

  “And ever since, if they see any of us on patrol, they ask about the starkers patrol, or make some joke about moons,” Yipyip said with honest outrage. “I think they lie in wait and save up their comments.”

  Wolf sighed, thinking that the younger ones did not need to provide quite so much detail.

  Arrow exclaimed, “Well of course you’d want revenge for that. Have you tried....

  He caused an avalanche of ruses, stings, tricks, and traps concocted by several generations of creative minds. When the discussion dwindled to the boys trying to outdo one another with outrageous dares, Danet decided it was time to go check on Noddy.

  Calamity led the way to the nursery, where a couple of young girls were playing with Wolf’s little Cut and Rabbit, who were roughly the same age and fascinated with one another. Noddy was sound asleep.

  After a splendid banquet, full of singing and pounding the table until the hand drums were pulled out to spare the dishes, they adjourned for spiced wine and more talk, as below in the courtyard, the home riders entertained the visitors with roaring songs and dance, amid the rhythmic clash of swords.

  Arrow had begun the dinner worried all over again about the wargame being brought up—that Lanrid had won—but it was soon clear that no one was interested in talking about it, and he enjoyed himself.

  By the change of the night watch, Calamity, Fuss, and Danet were fast friends. Calamity liked everybody, if given half a chance, and in Fuss, Danet found another orderly soul, though even Fuss seemed to stutter and look overwhelmed at too long a string of Why? questions. They’d chatted happily about keeping household tallies (though Danet wondered how Fuss could bear to live in such chaos, cheerful as it was) until Calamity, bored with a conversation that seemed would never end, said, “Won’t Fuss make a great gunvaer?”

  Danet agreed, remembering what the jarlan had said, but there was also that gossip about Evred expecting to marry Hard Ride. Did the Senelaecs know about that? Oh yes, wasn’t Wolf’s first wife an Arvandais connection?