Time of Daughters I Page 5

  Sure enough, neither jarl nor jarlan chased him away as the gray and blonde heads bent over the neatly written letter.

  “Scribe-write,” the jarlan muttered. “She didn’t even pen it herself. Yes, it’s all formal language ending the marriage, and of course there will be no more island spices. Well, at least they won’t get any more of our horses, though it breaks my heart that she took Moonbeam, whom I trained myself. Frisk was Calamity’s. That’s going to hurt. It seems personal.”

  The jarl cast the letter onto the table. “I’ve half a mind to ride north with a wing at my back and demand my granddaughter’s return. Along with the two horses.”

  “Don’t talk like that in front of the young ones.” The jarlan rubbed her eyes, her fingers trembling. “They might just go. We can send some of the girls north with you, Camerend, or one of other royal runners, in a few years, to scout out Marend when she’s of an age to know her own mind. If she wants to come home, they can always bring her back. With or without her mother’s permission,” she added grimly. “Exactly as Ndiran asked Wolf’s.”

  At the jarl’s brightened expression, the jarlan smiled, then indicated the letter by his hand. “What’s that one?”

  “From Olavayir,” the jarl said heavily, lips pursing as his head jerked to the side, more habit than intent this particular time.

  “Ranor isn’t so bad,” the jarlan muttered as she slit the seal with her knife. “I wouldn’t ride in her saddle for a crown. Two crowns. Oh, Norsunder take it, it’s the jarl’s orders. As usual, acting like a king. Those benighted boys of his are going to command the Olavayir wargame, and want two entire wings from us this time. A hundred sixty-two riders, and twice the horses, food and fodder—because you know they’ll only feast them all on arrival and at the end. That is going to strap us badly, and right before harvest.” She sighed. “It’s always been two flights at most. What’s going on up there?”

  “The Olavayir boys are feeling their oats, of course,” the jarl said. He was thinking of his heir, who had taken his wife’s disappearance hard. At first Wolf’d been inseparable from his two-year-old son. He’d finally let the family near the cub again, but he’d been uncharacteristically silent ever since.

  The jarl sat back. “This might actually be a good thing. Tell you what. Let’s put Wolf in charge of picking them, and running their training over next spring. The Marlovayirs have to be sending two wings as well, and the prospect of beating them like a drum will surely put some frisk into Wolf’s gait again.”

  “Excellent plan,” the jarlan said, and shot to her feet. “No time like the present.”

  Camerend, who had faded back with trained expertise, stepped forward. “All right if I come with you? I’d like to say hello.”

  “Sure,” the jarlan said. “As it happens, they’re all up in their den. When the storm struck earlier, I put them to harness and bridle repair.” She led the way through the door to the bake house into the storeroom, which smelled of rye and onion, and then to the old stable that had been converted into a barn, talking over her shoulder the while. “Overdue repair, like every other dull task around here! All year they toss broken bits up there where I can’t see them, promising that they can work on repair over winter, when riding is impossible—and then all winter somehow riding is possible, usually scouting or running ruses on the Marlovayirs in the west.” She cackled as she pounded up the dusty stairs to the long steep-roofed attic over the barn housing the family milk-animals.

  Blonde and dark heads looked up guiltily at their entrance. The jarlan sighed, not surprised to see most of her wild brood of young people sitting in a circle playing a fast game of cards’n’shards. Only her daughter Fareas (called Fuss because of her tidy proclivities, which everyone else found alien) sat with a half-mended headstall in her lap, but her hands were idle as she watched the game.

  Camerend, standing behind the jarlan, hid his amusement as the jarlan cleared her throat.

  Startled faces turned her way, flaxen-haired Fuss blushing and returning to her work, skinny, freckled Carleas (known as Calamity) Senelaec laughing.

  Camerend had brought Calamity himself—one of his first runs—when she was a shivering twig of ten.

  He hadn’t been much younger than that when she was orphaned at birth, both parents having fought to defend the young king and queen from the band of assassins that attacked one terrible night. Camerend's mother had coopted the young runners-in-training to help spirit the garrison children away to safety.

  Camerend still vividly remembered that terrifying journey, no one knowing the truth of what had happened, and who might come after them, until the news came that Captain Mathren Olavayir had locked down the royal city, young as he was: his own little son had been saved along with the little prince, by his equally young wife.

  Calamity had been handed off to one of the Noth families, who—typical for the Noths—had only boys, no girls. For the next few years, Calamity wore the boys’ castoffs and more or less lived as a boy, until the jarlan and her elder sister as well as the Noths decided to bring Calamity to grow up with Fuss as Yipyip’s future wife.

  Calamity’s vivid face changed from surprise to delight when she saw Camerend. He smiled back, glad as always to see her flourishing. But her expression altered to an unspoken question.

  Wolf’s grin had snuffed out like a pinched candle. “Camerend. Were you up north?”

  “He was, and she wrote,” the jarlan said roughly. “Not to any of you. Just a scribe letter to us. The marriage is over. But look at this. From the eagle-branch Olavayirs.” She tossed the wargame letter toward the circle, and a cousin snatched it out of the air.

  “They’re holding another wargame. Two wings, they want, this time. Your father wants you to take charge,” the jarlan said.

  Camerend watched Wolf bend over the letter, squinting like his father. Wolf had received his nickname at birth, when he had come out with a full head of wild black fur as soft as a wolf cub’s.

  Now he was a tall, rangy young man in his early twenties, with a proud horsetail of thick dark hair that hung down to his hips. Like most of the Senelaecs, male and female, he rode like a centaur, as the saying was, horse and rider in perfect understanding—their Sindan-bred horses famed for being the best trained and fastest in a kingdom known for its horses.

  Wolf’s bony face turned to his younger brother and their cousins. The girls—most teens except for Fuss and Calamity, both twenty—also watched. Though of course they could not ride to a wargame, they would be participating in the training as enemies, along with as many of the local farm and artisanal boys as Wolf could commandeer.

  “When should I start?” Wolf asked.

  “Yesterday,” the jarlan replied, to which the youngsters let out a war whoop. “But you get serious next spring, after planting.”

  Camerend retreated with the jarlan to clean up before the evening meal, reflecting on how the jarlan, daughter of Sindan-An Rider captains, still thought like a Rider. For that matter, so did the jarl, and Wolf clearly had been raised the same.

  Back in the den, Calamity waited, and having lived with Wolf for half her life, knew what he was going to say moments before he spoke his decision: “If the Marlovayirs send Knuckles, we are going to destroy them.”

  Fuss paused in her four-strand hemp braid. “Why would they send Knuckles? Don’t they usually send their best Riders?”

  Wolf slapped the back of the letter with his fingers, mirroring his father’s gesture. “Not with boys commanding, he won’t. Da already thought of that, or Uncle Tana would be running our Riders, as usual.”

  The boys howled fox yips, Yipyip’s shrill, hair-raising cry rising above all the others.

  Fuss returned to work, and the rest all began throwing in ideas, no one listening to anyone else.

  Wolf didn’t listen to any of them. He had an idea.

  He waited until the mess bell clanged, then cut Calamity out of the pack with a glance and a jerk of the chin.

&nb
sp; “We can’t win any individual contests except riding, if it’s just us,” he said to her, tapping his chest.

  Calamity had to agree. They all knew that Wolf was somewhat short-sighted. Yipyip wasn’t much better. So of course the boys tended to hone the skills they were good at. But good as they were with sword and double-stick and hand-to-hand, they would be competing against men. Not just any men, but some of the jarls would send their best to the Olavayirs, no matter who was commanding.

  “Nobody outrides us Senelaecs outside of the Eastern Alliance,” Calamity said, referring to the intermarried complexity of Tlennen, Tlen, Sindan-An, and Senelaec jarlates, with the Sindans serving them all.

  His shoulder jerked up. “If they hold trick riding competitions, we’ll win, yeah, but they probably won’t. They haven’t in the past.”

  Calamity turned her palm up in agreement. Trick riding wasn’t war related, and though boys loved trick riding, it was the girls who really enjoyed it.

  Wolf scowled. “That letter’s full of grass gas about training everyone in the north and bark bark bark. My guess is, those Olavayir boys think they’ll be army commanders some day, for Evred once he’s crowned. All in the family.”

  “So?” she asked, aware of the two of them being alone in the den. She had been suppressing her feelings for Wolf for so long it was no longer a conscious thought.

  He held his arms out wide. “So nothing. Just a thought, about them. About us, well, Knuckles Marlovayir is a good shot. He claims to be the best in the north—”

  “But he’s not,” she said.

  “Exactly,” Wolf said, and as a way of getting nearer to his plan, he stated what they both knew, “You are.”

  She threw her arms out wide, mirror to his gesture. “So? I can’t make a good shot of you by summer’s end, if that’s where you’re going. I can’t give you my eye for distances, though I wish I could, if only for the summer.”

  “But you could do exactly what we did when we rode to Marlovayir to scout Knuckles and his rats.”

  Her mouth curled with reminiscent pleasure as she thought back two summers, after the Marlovayirs had pulled a dastardly raid on the Senelaecs. Thirsting for revenge, Wolf, his two best rider cousins, and Calamity (wearing one of Wolf’s old riding coats, and pulling her hair up, the way she had when she was living with the Noth boys) had sneaked into Marlovayir to scout.

  She loved remembering the laughter and companionship, especially the night the four of them eased up onto the Marlovayir stable roof to watch the shooting drills to see how good Knuckles and his pack were.

  Knuckles had been very good indeed.

  Then it hit her. He was reminiscing because.... “You want us to go? In disguise?”

  “Just you and your best eight. A riding. Dead secret. I don’t care who wins the stupid wargame, and we haven’t a hope in any of the individual competitions with steel and lance against more experienced men. But I want Knuckles Marlovayir to lose the ride and shoot, and to us.”

  Calamity dropped her gaze to her hands, trying to hide the extreme conflict. She had learned to make the Marlovayir-Senelaec feud her feud, especially after Knuckles started leading raids and making the feud personal and humiliating—though always careful not to kill anyone, which would commit the two clans to actual battle.

  Also, she loved to win.

  But could the girls in disguise fool anyone for more than half a watch? And then, if they rode north, who would do their work? She winced. The jarl and jarlan were unlikely to send her back south again, as punishment, but.... “We can make it work,” Wolf coaxed. “I know Ma and Da’ll be mad at us if you girls vanish, but if we come back with a banner, especially if Marlovayirs lose, then we’ll only get a jawing, and stable wanding for a month or two.”

  He stepped closer. Calamity was as good as his sister. Better in a lot of ways he hadn’t let himself examine since he turned twenty, as Ndiran had made it clear that their marriage would be exclusive. Then after she left him so suddenly, with nothing but insults scrawled on their chore board, he couldn’t bear any relationship outside of run-and-comes with the girls at the pleasure house on the river, whose names he didn’t have to know.

  Calamity’s heart knocked hard at Wolf’s proximity. She’d grown into loving him in all the ways it was possible to love, but fought a heroic internal battle because it wasn’t honorable when he’d made an exclusive vow—and now, after Ndiran betrayed him, he was clearly too hurt.

  Neither was in the habit of talking out their feelings. What was the use of whining? That was life. But emotions are what they are, and their unspoken desires fluttered in the same direction, two moths toward the same flame.

  “I’ll talk to Fuss,” she said, and her reward was his first real smile in what seemed like a hundred years.

  SIX

  I’ll return you now to Olavayir, and Danet’s own words as she wrote to her sister Hliss:

  This far west, in late afternoon a breeze blows that they say is off the ocean, breaking up the heat. Imagine seeing the ocean! Anyhow, summer is on its way.

  I will be so glad when you come here at last, and I don’t have to pester Tesar to find out when the jarlan or randviar are sending runners in the direction of Farendavan.

  Gdan brought me yours when she got back from the north, but it took me a while to write back, as I was so sick there for three very long months.

  First, let me reassure you that I’m more used to life here. You know me. I always have to know where I am, what I have, what I don’t, what to expect. I know you found it tedious to learn tally-keeping, and you never understood why I like it so much, especially when I’d rather be out riding. It’s not mere liking, it’s a craving, I finally understood when I came here and the jarlan assigned me to start learning the kitchen tallies, after I returned from my first border ride.

  It was a relief, like a blindfold had been taken off.

  The randviar does what Mother does, that is, oversee all supplies, from what they grow (food, of course, and sheep for wool) but what they bring in, like linens. I will like being randviar, especially with Tdor Fath as Jarlan. She reminds me of you in so many ways.

  So from the first day I was always in the stables, barns, and kitchen, watching what comes in and what goes out, and then looking at the old tally books, the way Mother taught us. They were surprised, and the assistant steward was not pleased to have to dig the books up when I asked, but she couldn’t say no because the jarlan gave me orders to learn the tallies right there where everyone could hear.

  And Mother was right. There really are patterns in all these numbers. I saw what I thought was a small error, but it kept coming up, always the bristic barrels, and always in the fall.

  To sum up, I caught a new kitchen runner stealing jugged bristic for sale at the harbor, and keeping the wherewithal. The jarlan was very pleased with me, and more with the savings.

  I also learned that here, you don’t go direct to people unless you want to lay on orders. Not like home, where everyone is in each other’s pocket all day, sharing all the work. After I reported the thief I got some cold food and limp greens for two days, which I knew was no accident.

  But then Aunt Hlar, who is chief potter, and you should see the deep blue on the dishes and especially the wine cups! Their fabrics are nothing, but their dishes so much better than ours. Anyway Aunt Hlar, who is nearly as tall as Jarend and every bit as big, and never once spoke to me, came to the kitchens to comment on how pilfering robs the entire family, not just in goods but also in honor.

  Tesar told me that much. She is a real miser with words! I don’t know what else happened, but apparently what Aunt Hlar says is important. Nobody crosses her, as she’s sibling to the jarl. Next day my dish didn’t have limp greens anymore, or cold oatmeal in the morning. Cold oatmeal is terrible, especially with grit that wasn’t washed out, and most especially when your stomach is already unhappy.

  But that didn’t mean I was right with everyone. No indeed. After the jarlan
demoted the thief to field work, I got more ice wall from the Rider branch—that is, the dolphin part of the Riders. I’m confused about that. All I know is, the Riders are made up of both clans, and cousins, and others. Acting Commander Lanrid, whose father is in the royal city as royal guard captain under the regent, favors the dolphin clan Riders, and is always taking them off for extra practice with lances, which Arrow says are useless for castle defense. I suspect that on my first day, this was what Gdan was hinting about.

  I forgot to say that Lanrid, who sparked me on my wedding night as I know I told you, tried a couple more times before I got sick in the mornings, but always where Arrow could hear. When I said no he lost interest pretty fast, and rumor has it he took up with Fi....

  Danet stopped before she got sidetracked into complaining about how Fi was still loitering around, but now, mostly at or near the garrison, where Lanrid lurked most.

  Lanrid was elder brother to Sindan, known to everyone as Sinna, the teenage boy Hliss was betrothed to. Mindful of Hliss’s request that Danet write everything she could about Sinna, Danet had done her best to learn something about him—while avoiding Lanrid and his pack of dolphin Riders. She thoroughly disliked Lanrid’s knowing smirk as well as his compliments, always offered in too sweet a voice. Whatever she said brought the horrible laughter that owes less to amusement than to scorn. It was easy enough to see that Lanrid had taken a dislike to her, probably over her discovery of his thieving cousin.

  From what she could see of Sinna, he was either the most practiced hypocrite she’d ever seen, or he was as unlike his brother as it was possible for a pair of siblings to be. She could accept difference—she was a plank of a person, and Hliss was like Brother, handsome. Hliss hated tallies and loved weaving, the opposite of Danet.

  Danet had noticed at meals that Sinna was invariably quiet, which didn’t mean much. It was manners for the young to say quiet while their elders spoke, and the jarlan invariably had plenty to say, especially at the evening meal, when orders for the following day were usually given out.