Time of Daughters I Read online

  Danet had also noticed on her first Restday among the Olavayirs that someone in the family had a wonderful voice. At first she’d thought it as woman, for it was a high voice, clear and bright as struck metal.

  One day, when a nasty bout of morning sickness made her late to the family gathering, she slid in among the servants behind the Riders and discovered that the singer was Sinna. He had his brother’s pretty features, but when he sang he was beautiful.

  Danet abandoned Lanrid and wrote about Sinna, adding:

  I was up in the nearer stable attic, overseeing the airing and storing of the winter window-stuffing, when I overheard Sinna singing a Peddler Antivad song, and when I leaned out the hay window, there was Lanrid below, muttering something and I heard the word “jarl” and then he spat. His two favorite Rider captains spat as well. It was like habit, especially the way they looked around quick, after.

  Why, you ask, would they slander the Jarl of Olavayir, who everybody else seems to like? There is this invisible stone wall between Lanrid and Arrow at meals. When I tried to ask Tesar, she was not only tight-lipped but she actually looked scared, the way her gaze shifted from door to window as if she expected someone to be hiding.

  When we were growing up all the Olavayirs seemed to be one clump, but it’s not that way here. There is an entire wall of silence around the royal family. It isn’t a question of dolphin-branch family loyalty, as at the evening meal one night Lanrid was sneering about how his first-cousin Evred, who you’ll remember will be king when he comes of age, never leaves the royal city, and he said it like Evred isn’t allowed to. Nobody defended Evred.

  About Regent Kendred, I’ve heard mumbles in the steward wing about how lazy he is, how much he likes his luxuries, but he can’t be bothered to make certain that the northern garrisons get their share of the taxes, which is why the jarl holds the wargames, as a way of evaluating the training of the jarlates here in the north. But nobody has ever said anything about Commander and Defender Mathren Olavayir, Lanrid’s father, except once.

  I was going to the stable to ride Firefly, when I heard Lanrid’s voice, and I stopped because I didn’t want to go in there when he was there. While I waited for him to leave, he was ranting about how beautiful Hard Ride Arvandais is, and he deserves to marry her, hoola loo.

  How you and I would have laughed if you’d been there! Too bad Cousin Hard Ride can’t marry all those suitors. If anyone could rein them all, it would be she!

  I was thinking that when an older Rider said, “You know what your father wants.” And Lanrid actually went silent, for once!

  So in short, this is what you will be marrying into, Hliss. I am sorry, but I do think it’s better to be warned. At least Sinna himself seems nice, and I know you will love hearing him sing.

  SEVEN

  Festival days were somewhat perfunctorily observed in Farendavan, as Mother had always disliked anything that got in the way of work.

  Andahi Day was different. It was considered a duty, being the anniversary of the fall of Andahi Castle in 3914 AF, when the Venn slaughtered every defending woman and began their march down the Pass, their intent to conquer all Halia. As the Farendavans had had relations at both ends of the Pass, Mother made time to sing the Lament, the household standing in a circle, holding drip-candles, and singing the Lament, after which the entire household got a halfday free.

  So Danet had no idea what to expect from the Olavayirs when Andahi Day arrived, amid the castle’s accelerating preparations for the wargame.

  That evening she lowered her bulk onto her mat, so absorbed by her physical difficulties (like having to whisper the Waste Spell every single time she stood up or sat down) that at first she assumed the tense atmosphere was a result of unending labor in the summer heat.

  But when she glanced down the table to see the jarl’s usually empty mat filled with the nearly white-haired jarl, her gaze snagged on the randael’s seat next to the jarl, and Lanrid sitting there proudly, attractive mouth curled in a smirk of pride.

  And on the other side of the table, in his usual seat on the far side of big Jarend, Arrow, flushed to the ears with fury.

  What did I miss? Danet’s gaze swung toward Ranor-Jarlan, whose tired face wore a closed expression. No enlightenment was going to come from her. Danet then saw Tdor Fath looking her way, and she lifted her chin slightly toward the jarl, who had raised his cup.

  Danet shifted to the other haunch as the baby inside her kicked her bottom rib. Danet pressed a hand against the baby, distracted from her discomfort when the jarl said, “Lanrid is now Riding Commander, in accordance with treaty. But it is understood that when Jarend replaces me as jarl, Arrow will be his Randael.”

  What? Danet thought, and understood Arrow’s fury. As the jarl made a speech about courage and loyalty and protection of jarlate and kingdom, Danet worked out what it meant: that Lanrid was randael in all but name, and would effectively be running the military side of Olavayir when the jarl was away. Which was most of the time, as he was constantly visiting one or another of the garrisons, which were constantly short of both men and funds.

  She let out her breath, wondering how much trouble that would translate out to be, as she thirstily drained her water and promptly had to whisper the Waste Spell again.

  “Let us get to the walls now that the sun is down,” the jarl said as servants began collecting the dishes in haste, so that they could join the Lighting.

  Danet caught Lanrid shooting a toothy grin slantwise across the table at Arrow, who turned his back and vanished out the far door.

  The rest followed in haste, as Danet struggled to her knees, then pushed her hands on the table to get to her feet. She understood why some people had chairs, though it felt good to lean there on her hands and let her stomach swing. She arched her back, then hoisted herself upright—to find the jarl standing there an arm’s reach away.

  “I came back to give you a hand,” he said. “Since the boys have all run off. You’re the Farendavan girl, are you not?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m told Hasta Farendavan will be sending a riding of boys to fill out the East Company numbers, though he won’t come himself, still being up north.”

  “That’s my father,” Danet said—then blushed. Obviously the jarl knew that. “He can never get back over the Pass, it seems. The Jarl of Arvandais always seems to need him guarding the coastline.”

  The Jarl said, pleasantly enough, “Apparently the inland castles up in Idego can’t send anyone over the Pass to us due to some agricultural crisis. A young man they call Brother brought this riding. Do I have that right?”

  “Yes. Brother is, um, my brother,” she said, then blushed at how silly she sounded, stating the obvious. “He rode home, and brought Farendavan men.”

  “Brother? That’s his nickname?”

  “Yes. Everybody uses it,” Danet said. “Even Mother and Father.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because there are four Hastas in the family. Five, when Brother was mates with Hasta Lassad. I don’t know if they still are.”

  The Jarl laughed, a deep hur hur hur just like Jarend’s, and took her elbow to guide her toward the door. “Four Hastas! Five! I should have known. All named no doubt for Hasta Arveas-Andahi, before the Idegans smashed two good Marlovan names into one impossible one. Arvandais! Pah.”

  He made a spitting motion, then said, “I’m the last of the Indas, except down south it’s still a popular name, I’m told. When I was growing up, it seemed all the older men were Indas, if they weren’t waving another banner, like Goatkick and Grass Ass. But that was back when they had the academy, and everyone trained together.”

  She stared at him, wondering at the leaps from subject to subject in his speech. Was there extra meaning? She was uncertain what to say.

  But he didn’t seem to expect anything. He went on, “Ranor and Sdar both say you’ve been trained well. Know your tallies and tasks. That’s good.”

  He thumped her on
the shoulder and added, “Ranor says the boy listens to you, too. All the better.”

  ‘The boy’? Could he possibly mean Arrow? Whom she scarcely saw anymore?

  At that moment, Arrow himself reappeared. “There you are, Da. All the candles are ready, and the last of the stable hands are coming up the back stairs.”

  “They can wait a breath or two. It’s not quite full dark,” the jarl said, waving a hand that Danet could see was callus-thick and scarred.

  Brown liver spots showed in his scalp under his thin horsetail. She had never considered how old he was. But he would be old, as he’d had two grown sons killed during the troubles in the royal city twenty-some years ago. The Jarlan had been well into her forties when Jarend and Arrow were born, four sons altogether and no daughters.

  The Jarl said to Arrow, “Listen, boy, Ranor says this little girl here is banner-hand with tallies and tasks. You listen to her, understand?”

  “Yes, Da,” Arrow said, and gave Danet a look she could not interpret.

  “Good. Now, help her up the stairs. Where are your manners?”

  To Danet’s considerable relief, the jarl let go her arm and Arrow took his place as the jarl sauntered off, his nearly white horsetail swinging. A spurt of amusement warmed her as she recognized Arrow’s walk, only half a century older.

  Arrow muttered, “What have you been saying to him?”

  “Nothing! He came at me and said I’m good at tallies and tasks, and I don’t even do that! I wouldn’t dare! I only check the kitchen tallies after—”

  “But you could do them, right? You could?”

  She stared at him. “Of course I could! But last I saw, your mother is still alive and shooting. So I don’t know what you’re accusing me of, or why.”

  “No, no, you heard me wrong,” he said as they turned toward the stairway leading up to the sentry walk. “I’m not accusing you of anything. Sorry it sounds as if I am. It’s this mood I’m in. I could strangle anyone who looks at me wrong, thanks to Lanrid, so much worse now his da wants him commanding the Riders. Couldn’t wait until he turns twenty-five, at least.” Arrow scowled. “He’s always been a strut, but now he’s impossible, crowing all over, how as Olavayir Riding Commander he’ll win the game, then marry Hard Ride Hadand. At least that’ll probably send Fi flouncing back to Lindeth. I hope.”

  “Her again?” Danet groaned as she leaned forward to help heave herself up the stairs. “I thought we were rid of Fi for good till I saw her at the stable.”

  Arrow slid an arm around Danet, pulled her hip against his, and took some of her weight as he stepped with her. As they trod two or three steps, each trying to find the other’s rhythm, he snickered in that typical male way that usually meant sex, as he said, “Oh, she’s been running Lanrid ragged, and I don’t mean in bed. Though that, too.”

  “What do you all see in her?” Danet asked. “There are handsomer girls who don’t flounce and sulk.”

  “Handsome,” he repeated, and flipped up the back of his free hand. “She’s not just that. Tight. She’s hot to trot.” He laughed. “She isn’t talking to me, so I’m not telling her she doesn’t get a title if she marries Lanrid, and he doesn’t know what I figured out too late, that what she wants from any of us is some kind of title added to her name.” He added, “Otherwise she wouldn’t have looked at me twice. And I don’t care what Lanrid thinks. I’m sure it’s the same with him.”

  Then he peered all around them, and stopped in the middle of the stairway, and turned her to face him. “Listen. You and me, we might have to go to the royal city,” he whispered. “But keep that to yourself, mind. No one to know. Not even Tesar. No one. Until the jarl gives the order. Lanrid only got promoted early to keep Olavayir defended, that’s what Da told me.”

  The sound of footsteps running up the stairs below them shut Arrow up. Danet suppressed the stream of questions that she knew would only irritate him. Arrow seldom bothered with details. She had also learned that if she was patient, she could satisfy her thirst for all the answers.

  He helped her up the last few steps as the baker’s boy and the barnyard and kitchen children raced past, each dipping hands into the basket to pick up a candle.

  Arrow let Danet’s arm go and bent to fetch two candles. He handed her one. She ran her fingers over the smooth contours, and sniffed the sweet clover scent. Though many families (like the Farendavans, as Mother hated waste) reused drippings for their Andahi candles, or used leddas wax, Danet had learned that the jarlan began setting aside beeswax for the next year as soon as one Andahi Night was over. “Proper is proper,” she’d said to Danet on their first tour of the storeroom. “Besides, my grandmother said I had two kin on the walls at Andahi, both girls younger than you, sent up there for training. If their spirits are still around, I want them to see everything done right.”

  Danet rarely thought about spirits, or ghosts, or even Norsunder, the latter usually heard as a curse. Her mother had taught her to trust only what she could see herself, and although there were some who claimed to see ghosts—the rumor among the Olavayirs was that ancient Hesar-Gunvaer, the first Olavayir queen and apparently still alive down there in the royal city, could see them—Danet tended toward Mother’s thinking, that she needed proof, just as she needed to see the tallies and count the barrels, baskets, bolts, sheaves, and jugs.

  She watched as the jarl struck a spark from a stone battlement onto a twist of paper, then touched his taper from it. Light glowed ruddy-gold along the contours of his face, softening them into a semblance of his younger years as he bent his head toward Ranor-Jarlan and lit her taper from his. Both turned to pass the light, flame to flame igniting in a slow river down the sentrywalk battlement.

  The pungency of clover candle perfumed the air, and a soft breeze caressed Danet’s overheated cheeks as the tongues of flame sprang into light. Then the Olavayirs held up their candles, and the jarl and jarlan began singing the Andahi Lament, his voice a tuneless boom, hers a crow’s screech, soon joined by younger voices, Sinna’s pure tenor soaring over the rest, and pulling them into melody.

  And as the camp below saw the lights spring to life on the castle rampart, swiftly tiny lights bloomed in the courtyards where the castle population had gathered, a reflection of the brilliant stars overhead, and the Lament echoed back in heart-achingly eerie melody, as if from the distance of history. For the first time Danet wondered if among those stars spirits dwelt, looking down at those still alive, or if they walked among the living, more intangible than a summer breeze.

  The Lament had always been sad, but now Danet’s entire being filled with wonder, and grief, too, for those women and girls long ago.

  What Marlovans of the middle and northern part of the kingdom called Lightning Season had dried up the summer early this year, every day dawning hot and dry. The “lightning” was visible over the distant mountain-tops and closer; if you touched metal it sparked with a snapping sting. Hair crackled when brushed, even the thinnest, finest-weave wool clothing stuck to one, and felt like bees walking over you when you yanked it away. Above all, tempers flared like lightning.

  Elsewhere it was harvest season, people working to get everything in before the autumn rains came sweeping over the plains.

  For participants in the wargame, the jarl had reached no farther south than Marlovayir and Sindan-An, for there was no use inviting one Eastern Alliance clan unless you invited them all. Khanivayir, Halivayir, Yvanavayir, Tyavayir, the Eastern Alliance, and the garrisons at Lindeth, Larkadhe, and Andahi all began preparations for riding out, some the day after Victory Day, and those who had to ride the farthest had already left, and celebrated on the road.

  In Senelaec, Calamity inspected everyone in the secret riding herself.

  It was startling, how different the girls looked with their hair worn up in horsetails, and brothers and cousins’ old coats pulled over their shoulders, some with padding carefully stitched in. She had never been more thankful that men and women wore more or less sim
ilar riding boots and trousers. Dressed as boys, the girls looked younger to her, which was good. No one would pay any attention to a bunch of young teenage riders, especially those rendered nearly indistinguishable by the dust of travel.

  The girls had planned well. With Wolf and Yipyip’s help, they kept their chosen mounts in a far field, with packed saddlebags heaped out of sight along a stream. The morning after Victory Day, the boys rode out.

  As soon as they disappeared beyond the far hill, the girls raced beyond the training corrals to the hillock where their mounts waited, saddled up, and they crossed country, riding parallel to the boys for the rest of that first day.

  As one day turned into a week, the girls kept the boys just over the horizon, camping when they did.

  The boys rode more or less in column, until they fell in with the Sindan-An and Tlennen wings at a well-known crossroads. The girls followed their dust. When they camped, though the sky glowed warm among the campfires of the combined forces, and the somnolent summer air carried the sound of drums and songs for an appreciable distance, the girls’ small fireless campsite was entirely overlooked, except by the indifferent stars overhead, and much closer by the equally indifferent night birds cruising the balmy summer currents.

  In Nevree, by the end of the month, the dust of the first arrivals showed up on the border, reported by galloping outriders.

  The number of participants stretched the jarlan’s resources to the limit. They had planted as early as they dared, so that the first harvest could be gathered before all those wargamers were expected in. She was grateful that the gamble had paid off—this year.

  Danet, at the waddling stage of pregnancy, had been put in charge of monitoring the flow of foodstuffs brought in from all over the jarlate and then sent to the big pavilions set up as storage. She relished exactly this kind of work, and those under her began to appreciate her previously maligned eye for detail. Though of necessity the perishables had to be gathered, cleaned, readied and stored in a fraction of the time allotted for game-related supplies, still her small army ran the smoothest, with the least number of crises, out of all the castle staff.