Time of Daughters I Read online

  Could she ask? As a way of getting near the subject, she said, “That reminds me. At the game, I saw some of the Idegan people—”

  The game! Horrified, Calamity reached for any subject to get away from that! “Did you know we used to have one of the Arvandaises here?” she asked, hoping that gossip about Ndiran would sidetrack Danet away from the disastrous subject. “Ndiran wasn’t from the main branch.”

  “I heard something about that. What happened? I can’t believe Wolf was a terrible husband.”

  “He wasn’t,” Calamity said firmly. “He did everything her way. Including being exclusive. Because she wanted it.” Breathing hard, Calamity fought to keep her voice even. “I—we—thought we were so close. She was always telling me how great I am at shoo—at riding, and how beautifully Fuss organizes things, and chatting up the Riders, especially our Sindan cousins who’d come around after the spring roundup. It was all lies. She made it clear enough when she left without telling us how much she despised us. She not only took two of our horses—she took Wolf’s daughter.”

  “She sounds like a snake.”

  “Oh, she was a real snake, all right, as slithery as they come. It wasn’t till she was gone that it hit me that she never said a thing about herself. It was always the flowery talk, she admired us sooo much, she was everybody’s friend. And all of it cold-blooded, fake. Wolf says she was that way in private, too.”

  “Ugh, good riddance,” Danet said.

  Calamity’s mouth turned down. “Except that she hurt Wolf. He never said, but I could tell. Well. Gone is gone. And we are much better off now.” She blushed to the ears, grinning in a way that caused Danet to grin back, though she wondered if she would ever feel about a man the way Calamity felt about Wolf.

  The rest of the evening passed without any dangerous subjects being raised, and everyone parted with mutual good will. Calamity and Fuss went off to their old bedrooms, both sorry that Danet would be leaving on the morrow.

  Danet made a nest next to Arrow under the slanting roof in the den, Noddy apart from her for the first time, warm and comfortable in the Senelaec nursery.

  The next morning, she woke to aching breasts. By now she knew that when she felt that way, Noddy had to be hungry, so she got up and slipped down the back stairs that led to the kitchen. When she walked through the door she bumped into someone turning at that moment, having set down an empty mug of coffee.

  A flash of midnight blue—hands steadied her shoulders—and she looked up into light brown eyes with a tilt at the corners: the royal runner. She blinked at his soberly queued hair of ruddy blonde, aware of heat all over.

  She stepped aside, muttered an inarticulate apology, and passed on toward the nursery, but his image lingered so strongly that she had to blink it away.

  As she picked up Noddy, who had just begun to stir and fret, she was glad to be alone with no more company than sleeping children. Not even Embas the Miller back in Farendavan had caused so strong a reaction in her. And a royal runner, too. Everybody said they kept themselves to themselves.

  And so, as the Olavayir cavalcade departed (after being given a magnificent breakfast), she found herself looking for a reason to ride forward for the first time. I’m not seventeen again, she thought, and urged Firefly, who was frisky and impatient to move, back to ride sedately next to Tdor Fath.

  “Good people, the Senelaecs,” Tdor said. “I hope they invite us to make a real visit when we return north.”

  “When we go back, why don’t we just stay longer?” Danet asked.

  Tdor Fath flattened her hand, palm down, “Did you know that in the past, kings used near ruin jarls they didn’t like by paying honor visits and staying until the last of the stores were eaten?”

  “No,” Danet breathed. She thought of all the extra food and fodder required, and regretted her thoughtless comment. Had she really forgotten the months of labor getting ready for the wargame? “I liked Calamity and Fuss so much,” she said apologetically.

  “Then write to them,” Tdor Fath advised. “If they invite us, then it means they’ve planned for it. So much better manners.”

  Danet glanced at Tesar, her only runner, and Tdor Fath, easily guessing the direction of her thoughts, said, “One thing I’ve heard about the royal city is, there are always messengers going back and forth. We can talk to the scribes, and find out who’s going where when.”

  Danet began mentally writing a letter to Calamity as she watched that blonde royal runner up there, riding near the banner bearers. Tdor Fath gazed out at the Senelaec field workers late in harvesting, and working at a frantic pace to beat the dark bluegray storm piling up over the eastern mountains. She wondered how such generous, friendly people could be such terrible managers.

  THIRTEEN

  Danet and Arrow got a better sense of the Olavayir family’s standing among non-allied jarls from their welcome at Gannan.

  Everything was scrupulously correct, and cold as winter. The two couples kept their little sons with them—there was no offer of a nursery, and they would not have used it had there been. The Riders were quartered in the courtyard in their tents; they were told most apologetically that all Gannan’s Riders were in residence, plus family members, and there was no extra bunk space.

  When Arrow found out from his personal runner, he was furious. “They wouldn’t dare do that to my father,” he said to Jarend, Tdor, and Danet.

  “No, he wouldn’t, hurr hurr,” Jarend agreed, chuckling softly. “Not to Da.”

  “We’ll leave at first light,” Arrow said to his elder brother. “Give the order. Before first light. That won’t raise one of your headaches, will it, getting up before dawn?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Jarend said, as he always did. Even when he felt wretched.

  “Good.” Arrow smacked his fist into his palm. “That’ll let ‘em know what we think of their hospitality. And I’m going to let Evred know about this soon’s we reach the royal city. What happens to us reflects on him.”

  Jarend heaved himself to his feet and went out to summon the runner on duty outside the guest chamber door, his head ducking from long habit as he stepped under the lintel.

  So it was; the runners had everything packed halfway through the cold, miserable night. They and the Olavayir Riders took grim pleasure in waking everyone housed in the barracks over the stable as they clattered back and forth, making plenty of noise.

  At dawn the two couples and their fretting offspring walked out to the court to take their leave.

  Danet, who had entertained herself during the ride south from Senelaec by watching Camerend Montredavan-An from a distance, discovered that he had departed even earlier. He had left a map behind, with all landmarks etched in on what was a straight road southeast to the royal city.

  “Let’s get there as fast as we can,” Arrow said, eyeing the gray sky.

  The big, burly Jarl of Gannan, distrusting what tales might be carried south, made an effort at apology and a friendly farewell, but it rang as false as Arrow’s thanks, and the Olavayirs rode out.

  The jarl trod upstairs again, and shed his coat to climb into bed. He shook his wife awake in order to curse the Olavayirs, both branches, until she said in the subdued voice she’d learned early on in a rough marriage, “I hope there won’t be trouble.”

  She braced herself. But the jarl was too tired, and too pleased with himself, to lose his temper. “Soul-sucking Olavayirs. Don’t fret. They’ll be too busy squabbling with each other to bother about us. You watch.”

  The outer perimeter patrol spotted them three days outside Choraed Dhelerei, and sent the fastest among them to report to Commander Mathren Olavayir, brother to the regent, and father to Lanrid and Sinna.

  Mathren listened to the brief report—Olavayir eagle banner, at least a flight of honor guards—and hid his surprise and annoyance as he dismissed the scout. As the eagle-branch could not approach the royal city without invitation, that meant Kendred had invited them without informing his brother. I
t was obvious why Kendred had invited Evred’s putative heir: to scare Evred into behaving.

  Mathren walked into his private quarters in the tower at the far end of the state rooms overlooking the city. He gazed up at the map of Halia, with its stylized representations of towns, villages, harbors, and red borders of the current jarlates, with the painted-out old borders glimpsed as palimpsests. Once or twice the rare scribes permitted in his inner citadel, with their eyes trained to niceties, had offered to paint out those faint lines with a light brown to match the aging paper of the enormous map left from Evred-Harvaldar Montreivayir’s day.

  Mathren always thanked them while refusing the offer. It was important to see those old lines—perhaps painted at the orders of Inda-Harskialdna. Those lines represented places and times in the Marlovan past. Painting over them would not paint over desires, or plans, to regain what was lost.

  Mathren lifted his hand to touch the gold-inked Olavayir leaping dolphin, contemplating the importance of symbol. In youth, he’d seen the effect of displays of skill and strength in the riveted gazes of his comrades. It wasn’t just being strongest or fastest, it was the seeming effortlessness that stirred men to follow a leader. This was the essence of the elgar, a word that hadn’t even existed until a hundred years ago, and now was apparently in all foreigners’ mouths whenever anyone talked about Marlovans.

  Here in the Marlovan kingdom, “elgar” was less known, unused except by the coastal Iascans. Marlovans used that same tone of veneration when they uttered “harskialdna,” which had once merely meant war chief. But it had been charged with such legend that only one man, a century dead, could wear it.

  Mathren had read everything he could lay hands to about Indevan Algaravayir. There wasn’t all that much direct written evidence, and nothing whatsoever left by the man himself. But the stories, ah, so many! Including those handed down in Mathren’s own family tree, descended from two powerful jarlates, Olavayir and Tyavayir.

  It was well-known in the family that Dannor Tyavayir, Mathren’s great-great grandmother, had caught Inda-Harskialdna’s eye right before he was married, but unfortunately, Inda’s betrothed, a Marthdavan, jealously drove Dannor out before she and Inda could make a match. Dannor had left behind a tapestry she had designed and made with her famous artistic talent, which Inda had loved in her place, so family legend insisted.

  Legends could blur, or even lie, but one thing Mathren Olavayir understood was the crucial importance of symbol. The Olavayir dolphin, joined with the Algaravayir owl, would be as strong a force in people’s minds as the prowess of the never-defeated commander on land and sea who had made his name famous.

  One thing was clear: whatever Kendred wanted would fail, but that didn’t mean his gesture was useless. If it was true that both sons of Inda Olavayir of the eagle clan were about to walk into Mathren’s citadel, then it was time to act.

  But first he must alert his son.

  Mathren left his private office for the outer room. The waiting runners leaped to their feet and snapped three fingers to heart. His gaze went straight to the most trusted of these runners.

  “Thad. Ready yourself for a fast ride. You’ll have my sigil for horse changes.” He beckoned Thad inside, and said, “No one else to see you.”

  Thad’s round face tightened. He saluted again, wheeled about, and vanished down the stairs four at a time.

  Mathren sat down to write the order that he knew Lanrid had been waiting for. When Thad had reported back with his gear ready, he was dispatched with the letter. Then the commander sent a runner to warn the steward of the new arrivals in order to prepare suitable chambers, after which he pulled his remaining runners into his office to issue a stream of orders.

  He retired late, satisfied with the shift in plans, until another runner appeared, drenched and shivering, as the midnight watch change clanged.

  He said, “This had better be an attack.”

  “N-no.” The runner could scarcely speak, his teeth chattered so hard. “Your son. R-rode out. The day the jarl’s s-sons s-started south. Lanrid rode north. To Idego.”

  “He what?”

  The runner swayed with exhaustion, and forced out the words, “S-said to t-tell you. Running a bride raid. Like the olden days. Return with a queen.”

  Mathren dismissed the man, hiding his annoyance. If only he’d showed up a day earlier! Now he’d have to send another runner north on Thad’s heels.

  He sat down to compose another letter, this one strongly worded. Bride raid! Lanrid had better work the last of the young buck’s stupidity out of himself now; when he returned, it must be to his place in his father’s careful plans.

  It was time for Lanrid to act like a royal heir.

  A few days later, Mathren met Jarend and his party along the bend in the river at the north end of the city, with a full wing in their honor. Even in the rain that turned the river and the sky to gray, and made the banners sag like washed laundry, he and the honor guard looked heroic and impressive, which only served to irritate Arrow.

  To him, Mathren looked exactly like an older, harder Lanrid. More impressed with Mathren’s striking profile and military bearing, Danet also saw the resemblance, and consciously reminded herself that family likeness didn’t always mean like dispositions.

  Arrow and Jarend saluted Mathren, three fingers to chest, hastily copied by the rest of their cavalcade.

  Then Arrow glimpsed his royal cousin Evred slumped on his horse, half-hidden behind Mathren’s commanding presence. Danet stared at the future king. He was blond also, round of face, his expression sulky.

  “There you are,” Evred said to Jarend as the newcomers slapped flat hands to their chests: only kings and commanders directly under royal orders in chief were saluted fist to heart. Even his voice sounded sulky. He didn’t quite look at them as he said, “Uncle Kendred is off inspecting the mines, so you can tell your da we came and met you, everything proper, so he can’t complain. Let’s get in out of this rotten weather before it turns to sleet.”

  Mathren held up a fist, but correctly turned his chiseled profile toward Evred, who flopped a hand. Mathren opened his fist, turned his palm toward the gate, and the company galloped the last distance, trumpeters on the ramparts blaring.

  The riders swept up the largely empty streets of early evening, those few still out pressing back against buildings, then ducking as they were splashed by the horses’ hooves.

  They rode into an enormous stable yard even bigger than that at Nevree. A squadron of runners sorted everyone in an organized chaos. Out of the torchlit swarm of men going in all directions, a short runner in dull gray-blue emerged, and faced Tdor Fath and Danet.

  “I’m Tlen,” the young runner said, and tipped his pointed chin over his shoulder. “I’ll show you to your quarters.”

  Danet was surprised to see no women at all as they entered through a round tower, trudged upstairs, shedding clots of mud at every step, then trekked along an endless frigid hall of bare sandstone.

  They encountered guards at every stairway they passed, and each time, Tlen stopped and introduced them as the guards gave the women a close scan. Danet found that odd until she figured out that these guards were trained to learn faces.

  They were given suites next to each other three quarters of the way down the long hall. Each suite had three rooms, with smaller rooms off them. The walls were so thick that the single window could easily be sat in, if one didn’t mind rough stone.

  Danet found the windows odd. From the stonework, it seemed that the windows at least in this set of rooms had once been much wider, but had been narrowed. Instead of shutters and winter-stuffing to keep the cold out, there was wavery spun glass fitted into wooden frames that could be left open to hang against chains at the top. This was the same sort of glass, spun on a plate, that the Jarlan of Olavayir had been ordering servants to place in upper story windows against the coming winter, when Danet and Tdor Fath were leaving Nevree. She noted links for shutters that could be put up
outside the windows. For defense, of course; she hoped she would not be in this castle long enough to find out if she was right.

  She and Tdor Fath went exploring, finding doors in every wall, sometimes two. One of the small chambers gave access to both suites, a third narrower door opening into a dark, cobwebby space above a narrow stair.

  “This has to be a servants passage,” Tdor Fath said. “They mustn’t use it anymore.”

  “I wonder what’s at the other end.” Danet peered into the inky gloom.

  “I don’t want to know.” Tdor shuddered at the thought of pushing into all those spiderwebs. “We’ll block this door with a trunk so Rabbit can’t fall down those stairs, and make this room a nursery as we both can get to it. I hope Tesar comes soon with an ensorcelled bucket,” she added, sniffing. “I think they both need diaper changes.”

  Danet nodded, and turned to inspect the outer chamber. The main rooms were furnished with a trunk, a mattress stuffed with old quilting, a table, and cushions that looked old and worn, though they were in good repair.

  Their runners showed up carrying the saddlebags, and Tesar lugged in the freshly-filled wooden bucket. Its edges glimmered with the magic purifying spell.

  The runners began to unpack as Tdor Fath and Danet changed the babes, plunking their sodden diapers into the bucket amid the greenish flash of magic as the waste vanished. They wrung out the now-clean cloths and spread them in the deep window embrasures beside the servants’ stair, as there was no drying rack.

  “There has to be a laundry chamber somewhere in this place,” Tdor Fath said, her arms dropping.

  “Where are all the women?” Danet looked around, as if a female might be stashed behind the low table, the floor mats, or the trunks. “I know the gunvaer died with the king. Doesn’t the regent or Commander Mathren have a wife?”

  “The regent never married. Commander Mathren’s wife died, too,” Tdor Fath said. “It wasn’t too long after Sinna was born. She and her first runner gave their lives stopping the assassins coming back for Evred. None of us ever met her, of course—she came from the south—Marthdavan, I think. So. We’re alone, except for the grand gunvaer in her tower. Whichever one that might be.”