The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  Bayr shrugged, his head still bowed.

  “You ran toward the bear. Weren’t you afraid?” Dagmar gasped. The boy’s confidence scared him almost as much as his strength.

  “I-I w-w-was a-afraid. B-b-but not of th-the b-b-bear.” Bayr’s stutter was back.

  Dagmar knelt once more and stared into the boy’s eyes, waiting. Listening.

  “Af-fraid f-for y-y-you,” Bayr whispered, patting Dagmar’s cheeks.

  “I am a man. I am your uncle. It is my duty to protect you.”

  Bayr shook his head, adamant, and thumped his chest, and Dagmar understood. The boy considered it his duty to protect Dagmar.

  “Bayr. Listen to me. You must never put yourself between me and death if it puts your own life in danger. If the fates intend it, so be it. I am your guardian. You are not mine.”

  Bayr did not respond, but his jaw grew tight and his eyes sullen. He was not arguing, but he did not agree. The boy reminded Dagmar of himself when he’d told the Highest Keeper he would throw himself from the cliffs of Shinway if the keepers refused him. Dagmar supposed his own stubborn streak had come back to mock him.

  “C-c-can’t l-lose y-you,” Bayr had stammered, and there were tears in his eyes.

  “I am yours, Bayr. Always. My heart is yours. My spirit is yours, and even when I’m dead, I will refuse Valhalla, and I will follow at your heels, watching over you,” Dagmar had promised.

  Bayr had not believed him. Dagmar had seen it in his gaze. Or maybe he had simply wanted Dagmar among the living more than he wanted an angel at his heels. But he’d nodded agreeably, and forgetting the bear, had clasped Dagmar’s hand like the child he was, forgiving his uncle for scolding him.

  That had been the first of many feats by the young Bayr. Over the years, Dagmar had ceased scolding and forbidding. How could he chastise the boy for using his gifts? Bayr never looked for contention or confrontation, but he protected fiercely, as though it came instinctively, as though he was compelled to act, and Dagmar continued to cut his palms and say his prayers, drawing runes of patience and perspective into the earth that he might guide the boy—or survive the boy—he’d been entrusted with.

  “What does Master Ivo want? Do you know, Bayr?” Dagmar asked as they came to the forest’s edge and began the climb to the temple mount.

  “D-dream.”

  “He’s had another dream?” Dagmar translated.

  The boy nodded once. “The k-k-king,” Bayr said, forcing the word through frustrated lips.

  Dagmar quickened his pace.

  The earth began to rumble and groan, shifting and shuddering as Dagmar and Bayr loped up the path to the temple wall, and both were knocked off their feet, unable to walk on the angry earth. Dagmar sought to shelter the boy from falling rock even as Bayr found his balance and pulled Dagmar back to his feet.

  All at once the shaking ceased, as though the world had decided it was not yet time to end, and screaming arose from beyond the wall, a terrified keening that made the hair rise on Dagmar’s arms.

  Without hesitation, Bayr ran toward the temple, and Dagmar rushed to follow. There was no guard on the west wall, but Bayr scaled it in mere seconds, unlatching the heavy door in the wall to let Dagmar through. Together they raced up the path that led through the gardens to the inner sanctum where Ivo spent most of his time. The quaking had weakened the walls of the temple and long cracks ran from the ceiling to the floor in several places, but the sanctum was still standing.

  The screaming rose again, and Dagmar flung the door wide, fearful of what he would find.

  A group of keepers was huddled around the stone table in the center of the room. The altar was split down the middle.

  “The altar has fallen,” Dagmar said, his throat closing in horror.

  Terrified chatter echoed among the normally subdued brothers, and as Dagmar and Bayr raced forward, Dagmar saw the crumpled form of King Ansel pinned beneath the rock slab.

  “Bayr, run for the guard,” Dagmar demanded. The queen, her eyes crazed with fear, her face streaked with dust and tears, was huddled near the king’s head, reassuring him that all would be well. His eyes were closed, his face still.

  Bayr did not obey. Planting his legs in a deep squat, he gripped the slab, and with a roar not unlike the bellow from the long-ago day in the woods, he hoisted the stone from atop the king, tipping it away from his inert body. It crashed to the floor, making the room quake and groan once more. The queen screamed, and the keepers fell back, but the king was freed, and the walls held firm.

  “Ansel!” the queen moaned, running her hands over the king’s body. But the king’s skin had grown ashen, and his chest, once broad and deep, appeared concave beneath the folds of his royal robes.

  Ivo stooped and laid his head against the king’s heart, the tips of his fingers against the king’s lips.

  “He is gone, my queen,” he murmured, his voice steady, his eyes bleak.

  Late in the night, when the king’s body had been removed from the temple and Bayr had been sent to bed, Master Ivo summoned Dagmar back to the sanctum. Ivo didn’t acknowledge him as he entered and walked soundlessly down the long aisle, but Dagmar knew his presence was noted. Ivo sat on his throne, his eyes on the broken altar, his hands with their long black nails curled around the armrests. Dagmar knelt at the Highest Keeper’s feet, signaling his subservience and his willingness to be instructed, and then rose, his gaze following Ivo’s to the stone table Bayr had heaved to the side.

  “What happened, Master?” Dagmar’s voice was hushed. Awestruck.

  “The king has been taken,” Ivo mused, his voice low and deliberate.

  Dagmar stifled his sigh. He knew that much. He wanted to understand the things he had not been present for. He wanted to know why he’d been summoned from the forest earlier in the day.

  “You sent Bayr to find me,” Dagmar reminded him.

  Ivo raised his eyes slowly, as though resurfacing from very deep thoughts.

  “I sought to gather all the brothers. I have felt the king’s passing for some time now. I feared he would be struck down. But his death was a merciful one. Sudden. It is the way any man would want to go, taken in an instant in the temple of the gods. Surely he will dine in Valhalla tonight.”

  “Why was he here?” Dagmar pressed. The king visited the temple infrequently. He had his own chapel in the palace and rarely entered the sanctum.

  “The king and the queen came to seek my guidance. The king asked about his daughter. She is with child again, but all her children have died before taking their first breath. The queen asked that I summon the Norns and ask the fate of her child.”

  Dagmar was silent, waiting for Master Ivo to continue. He knew the Highest Keeper would tell him only what he wanted him to hear, and the less eager he appeared, the more Ivo would impart. Ivo made him wait, not speaking, yet not dismissing him either.

  “I saw Lady Alannah holding a child,” Ivo murmured finally. “She was overjoyed. I imparted this news to King Ansel and the queen.”

  Dagmar gasped. Banruud had another son. Desdemona had prophesied that Bayr would be his only child. Mayhaps her blood curse had come to an end.

  “This is . . . this is . . . wonderful news,” Dagmar stammered.

  Ivo nodded slowly and closed his black-rimmed eyes as though he still saw the image behind his lids. “The vision gave the king joy in his last moments.”

  “We felt the ground shake as we climbed the hill,” Dagmar said. He’d felt the earth quake in exactly the same way the day Desdemona died. It was something he and Ivo had never discussed.

  “It was sudden, like a storm on the sea,” Ivo ruminated. “The sanctum quaked, and I thought the temple would fall, that we would all be crushed. I urged the king to take shelter under the table, but the altar cracked, as though Thor smashed it with his hammer, and it fell, knocking us all to the ground.”

  “What does it mean?” Dagmar asked, unable to keep the wonder from his tone.

  “Ther
e is no hiding from the gods when they call us home,” Ivo said, and Dagmar winced, remembering the broken body of the king.

  “We will be choosing a new king, Dagmar,” Ivo said.

  “Of course, Master.” Ansel had been king all the years that Dagmar had been a keeper. He had never participated in the selection of a king, and his stomach twisted in apprehension.

  “Bayr is Thor’s choice. Thor broke the altar. He took the life of one king in order to reveal another,” Ivo said, turning his black eyes on Dagmar.

  Dagmar could only stare at the Highest Keeper, stunned.

  “He is only seven years old, Master,” he protested, his heart thundering in resistance.

  “He has been chosen, Dagmar. He was chosen from the beginning.”

  “He has no clan,” Dagmar stammered. “The people will revolt.”

  “His name is Bayr. He is of the clan of Berne. His mother knew it. You know it. And I know it as well, brother. I know he is the son of Banruud of Berne. The runes have shown me.”

  Dagmar shuddered, willing back the torrent behind his eyes. He should have known Ivo would discover the truth. Ivo knew everything.

  “Chieftain Banruud will never claim him,” Dagmar whispered, clinging to hope.

  “It matters not. The Keeper of Berne will claim him,” Ivo answered evenly. “And you will testify of his lineage if it becomes necessary.”

  “Please, Master. He is not ready.”

  “He is our salvation.”

  “He is a child.”

  “We have all witnessed his power.”

  “Power is not enough, Master. He must grow and learn.”

  “You will teach him. You will be his counselor on the throne until he is of age.”

  “Yes, I will teach him. I will give my life—I have given my life—for him. But he is a child,” Dagmar protested, his chest aflame with fear for his nephew, for himself. He could not be counselor to a king.

  “Your fate will be his fate,” Ivo intoned. “Do you remember the day you brought the child, still covered in the blood and stain of his birth, into this sanctum?”

  Dagmar nodded. The day was burned into his heart, seared into his consciousness, and never far from his thoughts.

  “I knew then, Dagmar. I knew then that he would be king. He is Thor’s son,” Ivo stated, adamant. “We will call the clan chieftains together after the king is laid to rest. Then we will draw our runes and summon the gods. And we will choose a new king.”

  4

  As the day of King Ansel’s memorial drew near, the people of the clans began to move inland, making their pilgrimage to the center of Saylok to honor the late sovereign. The colors of the clans—Adyar gold, Berne red, Dolphys blue, Ebba orange, Joran brown, and Leok green—created a circular rainbow around the King’s Village, the people camping in their finery, awaiting the royal processional. Mourners, their braids severed and their colors bright, lined the long road that climbed Temple Hill, the only entrance to the temple and the palace of the king that didn’t require scaling cliffs or taking mountainous paths.

  When the king of Saylok died, it was tradition that the men of the clans, in recognition of his passing, cut their hair. The long, tight braid they wore down their backs was removed—a braid that had been allowed to grow for the entire reign of the king—to signify the end of one era and the beginning of another. In Saylok, one could ascertain the longevity of a king by the length of his warriors’ hair. One by one, the warriors of every clan laid their braids upon the king’s casket as it trundled past. Ansel of Adyar had been King of Saylok for twenty years, and the braids of his warriors had grown long.

  Women were not required to cut their hair when a king died, but many did, a sign of mourning and reverence, an indication of their personal devastation. The morning of the processional, the queen, her graying hair sticking up from her noble head in jagged tufts, walked behind the horse-drawn, open carriage where the body of her husband lay in a flag-draped coffin, the braids of his countrymen—a dozen different shades and lengths—spilling over the sides. People wept, and some women turned away, ashamed of their vanity in keeping their own hair.

  The Keepers of Saylok never grew their hair at all. They kept their pates smooth, indicating their separation from the king and his subjects in every way. Master Ivo, his bare head gleaming, led the procession, his higher keepers behind him, the remaining keepers following in two straight lines, their flowing purple robes a reminder of their independence from any clan. Bayr did not walk with them. He was not a keeper—not yet even a supplicant—and his own thick braid had been lopped off at the base of his neck in accordance with the custom. When Dagmar had left with the other keepers, Bayr climbed the smallest turret on the north wall and ogled the colorful sea below him, the slow-moving parade, the mighty chieftains and the grim keepers, all descending the long road leading away from the temple and the palace of the king.

  The chieftains, ordered according to their line to the throne, brought up the rear of the processional, Banruud of Berne first and Aidan of Adyar, the late king’s son and the man now farthest from power, bringing up the rear.

  “Saylok,” Bayr whispered. He said the word with the same reverence Dagmar always did, and his chest grew tight with pride and wonder at the pageantry on display. But his pale eyes were continually drawn to the big man in blue, his brown hair swept off his handsome face, his flag held high.

  “B-Ban-ruud of B-Berne,” Bayr added, testing the name while no one could hear. The new king would be from Berne, and Bayr was intrigued. The chieftains rode chargers and carried the flags of their clans, and though the people gaped and admired the fierce and colorful chieftains just like the boy perched on the ramparts did, Bayr was too far away to hear the gossip that writhed and wriggled among the spectators. The gods of Saylok had taken the Chieftain of Adyar suddenly, violently, and the people were not convinced another chieftain was the response the gods—or the times—required.

  It took all day to slowly circle the King’s Village, and when the processional was finished, the chieftains and the king’s guard escorted the coffin and the Lady Queen to Adyar, where King Ansel would be set out on the sea that rimmed his land, his funeral pyre aflame, his journey complete.

  For six weeks the Keepers of Saylok would query the gods and summon past kings for wisdom and insight. The chieftains would be called to the temple for conference, each chieftain making his opinion known, and the keepers would sequester themselves once more.

  When the six weeks were complete, Master Ivo and all the Keepers of Saylok would again walk in processional, rounding the village in their purple robes, the new king on horseback behind them. The people, clothed in their clan colors, would assemble once more, this time to see their new king.

  Dagmar had been quiet and brief with his answers when Bayr asked him about the process of selecting a new king. Bayr had wanted to know every minuscule detail, every contingency, every possibility. He’d especially wanted to know more about Banruud of Berne.

  Dagmar had pulled him close and explained what he could, but Bayr had seen the strain around his uncle’s eyes, the tightness of his lips, the tension in his touch. He’d noticed the length of his uncle’s prayers and the fresh wounds in his hands. Dagmar was drawing runes again, leaving Bayr behind when he walked in the woods. He said the trees sometimes spoke wisdom to him in whispers, and he couldn’t hear them when Bayr came along. Bayr frowned in disagreement—he was very quiet—and had tried to follow at a distance, but Dagmar always knew he was there and sent him home.

  Bayr’s eyes lingered on the broad back of Chieftain Banruud, and he wondered what it would be like to be a king, to be the ruler of Saylok. No one would be able to leave him behind or keep secrets from him. Dagmar would have to allow him to walk in the woods with him whenever he wished.

  What would it be like to be king?

  Bayr shuddered, abandoning the thought. He didn’t want to tell others what to do, to have the six clans looking to him to lead, to
command, to give fine speeches and sit on a throne. He didn’t want to be king. Not even a little bit. He laughed to himself and rose, balancing on the ramparts like the ground wasn’t a hundred feet below.

  “L-long l-live B-Ba-Banruud of B-Berne, the ne-next K-King of Saylok,” he shouted into the wind, grateful to the gods for making it so, grateful he was just a boy atop the parapets, hidden from view.

  Banruud had been confident he would have the support of the chieftains, if only because they liked the precedent of a chieftain becoming king. But the chieftains had heard the hissing and the whispers in the crowds, and they saw fit to taunt Banruud with the rumors of the Temple Boy. The chieftains were bound only by their titles and their desire to see Saylok flourish, if only for their own wealth and power. None of them particularly liked him, and none would care if Banruud were denied the throne. They were gathered in Berne, in Banruud’s keep, awaiting the word of the keepers, waiting to be called to the temple to cast their votes and crown a new king, and Banruud was slowly losing his mind. They were eating his meat and drinking his wine, sleeping in his beds and tupping his maids. Yet they persisted in the same conversation at every meal.

  “Word is the Temple Boy has faced a bear and fought off a pack of wolves,” Lothgar, Chieftain of Leok, muttered, his mouth greasy from the leg of lamb he held in his fist.

  “He has killed a wild boar with his bare hands. My brother saw it,” Erskin, the Chieftain of Ebba, added, eyeing Lothgar’s greasy mouth with distaste. “He grabbed the beast by his tusks and spun him ’round. When he let go, the boar slammed into a tree and didn’t get up again.”

  “He is naught but a boy, Erskin!” Banruud snarled at Ebba’s chieftain.

  “Yes. He is a boy. Seven years old. But he’s said to be quite big for his age, and incredibly strong,” Lothgar interjected, not raising his eyes from his food.

  Banruud scoffed. “A boy of seven cannot be king. He has no clan.”

  “His name is Bayr. One would think he is of Berne,” Dirth of Dolphys mused, raising one thick, black brow and lifting his eyes to Banruud in challenge. If the boy was of Berne, Banruud should claim him. And if he was of Berne, he could be king.