The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  “My queen mother said the boy single-handedly raised the altar from my father’s body. Three men could not make it budge,” said Aidan, Chieftain of Adyar and son of the late king, with quiet authority.

  Four sets of eyes locked on the young chieftain’s face. Aidan had no chance of ever being king. A hundred years or more could pass before the crown returned to a son of Adyar, and Aidan would be in the ground. It gave his words more weight.

  “The soldiers at Temple Hill say he has fought the mountain lion. He has climbed to the eagle’s nest on the highest crags. He has ridden and tamed a wild horse. Do you know what that means?” Aidan asked, his tone nonchalant.

  The men waited, knowing Aidan would tell them. As the youngest among them, Aidan enjoyed the attention more than he cared to admit.

  “Adyar, the eagle. Ebba, the boar. Leok, the lion. Berne, the bear. Joran, the horse. Dolphys, the wolf. The boy has bested them all. The Highest Keeper believes he is destined to be king over the clans,” Aidan elucidated.

  “He is a child. He has no clan! He cannot be king,” Banruud growled.

  Aidan nodded slowly, clearly enjoying Banruud’s rage. Aidan had always disliked him. He blamed Banruud for his sister’s suffering. Even now, she lay in a chamber above them, preparing to birth yet another dead child. In seven years, she’d given birth to four infant boys, all of them stillborn, and with each labor, Banruud had wished only that she would die instead. She’d been a great disappointment to him.

  Mayhaps this time it would be a daughter.

  Banruud scoffed at his own thoughts, and the men around him interpreted the derisive sound as argument.

  Aidan only laughed.

  “Do not worry, Banruud, my brother. You will be king, just as you’ve planned.”

  The eyes of the chieftains locked on Aidan once more.

  “The Temple Boy is an idiot,” Aidan said, relenting.

  “What do you mean?” Dirth of Dolphys asked, his voice soft, his gaze hard. Berne was next in line for the throne, but the clan of Dolphys would follow, and Dirth was almost as interested in the boy as Banruud.

  “I mean he is blessed with unholy strength, but he can hardly speak a full sentence. He stutters when he speaks at all,” Aidan finished, a smirk twisting his lips.

  Banruud felt an easing in his chest, and Dirth threw his goblet against the wall in celebration. But Banruud of Berne could not completely drown out his fearful thoughts.

  Adyar, the eagle. Ebba, the boar. Leok, the lion. Berne, the bear. Joran, the horse. Dolphys, the wolf. The boy has bested them all. The Highest Keeper believes he is destined to be king over the clans.

  If Aidan was simply goading him into a rage, that was one thing. But if the Highest Keeper favored the boy, believed him to be called of the gods, then all was lost.

  Erskin spoke again. “It is not unholy strength that will save Saylok. Even if the child were as powerful as Thor himself.”

  “We need women. Seven years, and not a single female born in all the clans,” Lothgar grumbled, still eating. “Only women will save Saylok. Even if we have to take them.”

  And take them they had. Erskin of Ebba and Jaak of Joran had gone to the lands to the south, raiding villages and taking their women, spiriting them away aboard their ships to take back to their clans. Such raids were dangerous business, and the men of the Hinterlands didn’t take the theft of their women lightly. And just like the women of Saylok, the women they stole gave birth to sons.

  The last raid had ended badly for the Chieftain of Joran. He’d been killed in a battle on a distant shore, and his people were in the process of choosing a new chieftain. Banruud and Dirth, wanting to avoid the same fate, had decided to trade instead of raid, hoping to avoid war with the Eastlanders, and they’d brought home two dozen women—slaves mostly—but the Eastlanders had been quick to seize on their desperation. The women were sickly, plain, and expensive. Not good breeding stock. Three of them had died on the voyage back to Saylok.

  Banruud had no daughters. He had no sons. He had a wife who had labored to give him both and had failed to give him either. Desdemona would have given him a son, but he’d wanted to curry the king’s favor. Beautiful Desdemona of the black hair and wicked smile. Her father had come to him, raging at the squandered betrothal, blaming Banruud for her death. Banruud had wanted to kill Dred of Dolphys, but the Chieftain of Dolphys would have required recompense for the loss of one of his best warriors. Banruud had given Dred a bag of gold instead, and Desdemona’s father had not been heard from since.

  Banruud left his dining hall and the tables laden with food and wine and climbed the stairs to the room where his wife labored. The room stunk of sweat and smelling salts, and he grimaced as he approached her bed, a bed he hadn’t slept in for ages. Agnes, the midwife, had kept Alannah off her feet for much of her pregnancy, convinced that she could keep the babe alive if Alannah remained still. So far, the midwife had been right. The babe had continued to grow through nine long months. But in the last two days, Alannah had felt no movement in her womb. They feared the worst.

  “How is she?” he asked Agnes, who hovered nearby. She’d been present for the birth of every one of his dead children. Mayhaps she was the cause. Mayhaps he should throw her from the window that stood open, airing out the sickroom. He could heave her heavy body into the moat that circled his keep. Only the knowledge that Agnes had helped birth dozens of live children throughout his clan stayed his hand.

  “She is resting, my lord. Her pains are still far apart. She is not suffering. Mayhaps this time, Chief Banruud,” the midwife said, smiling. Hopeful.

  “Mayhaps,” he agreed. It was what they said every time. And each time, they were disappointed.

  The farmer and his wife had waited until there was no one left in the hall, standing against the far wall near the large doors, watching as Chief Banruud repeated the blessing he bestowed on all the new infants of Berne. He’d smeared his blood in the shape of a star on the forehead of each child—all of them boys—and sent their parents away with a piece of gold. It was required in every clan, this presentation of a newborn child to the chieftain. Every child was welcomed and recorded in the book of Berne, just as it was in Ebba, Joran, Leok, Adyar, and Dolphys. Yet it had still taken them a year to realize the children being born in the clans were all sons.

  In the beginning, they’d rejoiced. Sons were always preferable. Sons were the lifeblood. The protectors. The warriors. The farmers.

  How foolish they’d all been.

  “Bring the child forward,” Banruud demanded of the couple, cross. He’d stayed up too late with the chieftains the night before. They’d commiserated too long, drank far too much of his best wine, and settled nothing. The day had been long, night would soon fall, and he was weary. Worried. And he had no patience for villagers who tarried when his day should be done. Usually his wife herded the villagers to him and escorted them away on blessing day, but Alannah was dying in her bed, dying with his child still in her womb, and Chief Banruud was stuck with her duties as well as his own.

  He watched the farmer and his freckled wife approach, the babe clutched to the woman’s chest. Their eyes were not on him, but on his guards still standing near the door, watching the final couple seek his blessing. When they stopped before his throne, the woman bobbed a stiff curtsy and the man bowed, but the woman did not offer up the child for his mark.

  “We wish to speak to you without audience, Lord,” the farmer whispered, his nervousness causing Banruud to finger the dirk on his belt.

  “Why?” Banruud growled. The woman flinched, but the man simply lowered his voice and leaned into Banruud, showing more courage than was wise.

  “This is the child of a slave—our servant girl—and . . . and the babe is . . . the babe is a girl child, Lord,” the man mouthed, his voice so low, Banruud was certain he’d misunderstood. Glee and fear warred across the farmer’s flat face.

  “Leave us,” Banruud said, raising his hand and his voice
to his men. They obeyed immediately, the heavy door closing behind their hurried exit. The day had been tedious for them as well.

  “Give the child to me,” Banruud demanded. He kept his expression mild, his posture uninterested, but his heart boomed like a drum in his chest.

  The farmer’s wife obeyed, handing the sleeping child to her chieftain with excited trepidation.

  “We call her Alba,” the woman babbled.

  Banruud pulled the blankets aside and unwound the rag wrapped and secured around the infant’s nether regions.

  He could not help the gasp that escaped his lips, but covered the babe swiftly, his eyes scanning the empty room around him as though an army stood at his gates ready to take his newfound treasure.

  “The slave girl . . . her mother . . . tell me about her,” Banruud insisted, cradling the child in his arms.

  “She’s from Eastlandia. Balfor brought her to Saylok in the last trade. She’s only been with us four months. The babe would have been in her belly before she arrived, though she’s hid it well. We didn’t know she was expecting. She sleeps among the sheep. Takes care of them. No man wanted her, so we got her,” the farmer said.

  “Clearly some man did,” Banruud snapped.

  “No one wanted her because she is so plain,” the woman explained.

  Banruud laughed. The woman before him was homely and rail-thin, her cheeks windburned and ruddy, her graying hair frizzing from her enormous brow. She had little room to speak. Her cheeks flushed at his obvious derision, but she continued.

  “She has no color in her skin or her hair, my lord. She is white like the snow . . . like a spirit. Even her eyes are pale.”

  “Her eyes are like ice, Chieftain Banruud. I can’t stand to gaze at her long. She’s fearful ugly. The Eastmen must have laughed when they sent her along,” the farmer chimed in.

  A memory niggled.

  None of the women they’d acquired from Eastlandia had fought or resisted the trade. They’d been indentured since birth and had seemed resigned, even eager, to escape one master for another, especially if it meant they would be wives instead of slaves. None of the women they’d acquired in the trade had been mistreated, but they were all inspected. If they were female and of childbearing years or younger, they were accepted. Banruud remembered a slight woman, not much bigger than a child, cloaked completely from head to toe, huddled at the back of the group of women the Eastmen had herded to the docks. Balfor, Banruud’s overseer, had pulled the hood from her head, needing to ascertain the girl’s age and general health. Her white hair had caused an uproar.

  “This one’s old. We asked for young women!” Balfor had protested.

  “She’s not old. She’s just ugly.” Another woman spoke up wearily. “We call her Ghost. Look at her skin. Nary a wrinkle or a blemish. Look at her form. Straight and slim. Look at her breasts, if you must. She’s naught but seventeen. I’ve known her since the day she was born.” The woman who spoke up for the girl wasn’t much older than seventeen herself, but her tired eyes were rimmed and dark, her brown hair whipping about her face as if she were too spent to bind it back. Banruud had known then they were getting all the women no one else wanted. It didn’t bode well for the continuation of his people.

  Balfor had promptly ripped the ghost girl’s gown from her neck to her navel, exposing her flesh to the cold air. She was so pale she looked like death, but her breasts were young and high and tipped in a pink so vivid, every man on the dock had turned to gape. She hadn’t protested, but fixed her odd, stone-colored eyes on the horizon, awaiting her fate.

  His overseer had grunted his acceptance and turned away. The woman had pulled her gown closed and lifted her muddy cloak over her cloud-like hair, and that had been the end of it. Banruud had not looked at her again, and he’d had no idea what had become of her once they’d docked in Berne.

  “Why were you allowed to purchase her? The women brought back from the Eastlands were to be taken as wives,” he pressed.

  “Balfor gave her to me, Lord,” the farmer rushed to explain. “He owed me money. And, like I said, no one else wanted the ghost girl. The men were afraid of her. She’s so strange. They thought bedding her might turn their cocks to ice.”

  “She’s a hard worker, though. Good with the sheep. We haven’t lost a one,” the farmer’s wife insisted, defensive.

  Banruud cared nothing for hard work or sheep or frozen cocks. He was silent for a long moment, his thoughts churning. The gods were smiling on him this night.

  “Who else knows about this child?” Banruud asked, his tone careful.

  “Just us, Lord. We were afraid. We thought the babe might be cursed like the mother.”

  “Why?”

  “Because the mother is so odd-looking. And . . . the babe is a girl, Chief Banruud. And she’s not of Saylok. We thought she might be a changeling. Or a trick. What if she only appears to be a girl child but is really a monster?” the farmer reasoned.

  The infant was fair, her thatch of hair almost as white as the ghost girl’s. But her skin was warm and sun kissed, her lips and cheeks a deep pink. She was perfectly formed. Healthy. Beautiful. Not odd at all.

  “And where is her mother now?” Banruud asked.

  “With the sheep, Lord. She has work to do, and we told her the law required we bring the child to you. But she will be hungry soon,” the farmer’s wife answered.

  “I will take her to the Keepers of Saylok,” he said, his voice firm. “They will know what to do. They will know if this child is as she appears. You must tell no one until they have blessed her.”

  “But Lord,” the woman protested, doubtful. “Her mother will need to feed the child. The babe will need her mother.”

  Banruud thought of Alannah, her breasts already full of milk, straining to give birth to yet another dead child. The babe would not need the ghost girl. But he would need to silence her.

  “Go home and await my instructions.”

  The woman began to protest again, but the farmer was wise enough to quiet her with a tug on her hand. He’d seen Banruud’s temper and knew his wife was in danger of offending her chieftain.

  But Banruud was filled with light. His chest. His head. His future. All were bathed in a warm glow, and he smiled patiently at the couple who had given him the one thing that would grant him the power he desired.

  Still holding the girl child, he loosened the coin pouch at his waist and presented it to the farmer and his wife.

  “To compensate you for your loss. Speak nothing of the child until I send word from the keepers.”

  The farmer’s eyes widened in appreciation, but his wife chewed her lip in obvious distress.

  “Come, Linora,” the farmer insisted, and bowed before Banruud, the gold disappearing into the satchel hanging from his shoulders. “It is for the best.”

  Banruud clutched the child to his chest and turned away, signaling he was through with them. He waited until they were gone, and when he heard the door of his great hall lumber to a close, he once again stared down into the child’s face.

  “You will be my salvation, Alba,” he whispered. The name was perfect, as if the Norns had chosen it and whispered it into the slave girl’s ears. Alba, the Bernian word for “white.” White, for the color of her hair and the ghost girl who had unknowingly saved him. Alba, a name that began with the sound of Alannah’s clan. For all Saylok would believe that Alannah of Adyar was this child’s mother. He would announce it, and, once he had cleared up outstanding matters, no one would know the difference. He would declare himself her father. They would call him the curse breaker. Saylok would see it as a sign. Banruud of Berne had a daughter, and the Keepers of Saylok would make him king.

  5

  Alannah was asleep when Banruud slipped into her darkened room, the girl child in his arms. There was a fire in the grate though the day had not been cold. A maid moved around the room, gathering soiled linens, her movements sad and slow, and Banruud knew the fate of yet another son.


  The maid turned, her face pale, and dropped the bloody bedclothes like she’d been caught in a crime.

  “My lord! Agnes went to find you. The babe . . . your son . . . milady . . .” she babbled, unable to break the news he’d already ascertained.

  “Go,” he insisted, his tone level. Her eyes fell to the bundle in his arms, but she did as he asked, gathering the soiled linens once more, avoiding his eyes and the babe he held as she scurried from the chamber, but he knew what must be done.

  Banruud laid the girl child in the cradle near the bed, a cradle built in hopes that a chieftain’s child would someday grace it. Then he followed the maid from the room. She’d been hovering outside the door, as though she didn’t quite know what to do, but when she heard him coming, her steps quickened toward the steep stone staircase at the back of his keep, the stairs the servants used to access the different floors without being seen by the lord and his lady or their guests.

  “Run, little maid,” he whispered, and she did exactly that, her arms full, wanting to be away from him, but in three swift steps he closed the distance between them. With a firm shove to her slim back, he hastened her escape, and sent her tumbling down the unforgiving stone steps.

  She didn’t even scream.

  Banruud followed her down, taking each step with a measured tread. She lay in a broken heap at the bottom, the soiled sheets wrapped around her like a shroud, but she was not dead. She stared at him, her eyes wide, moaning in pain and fear. Her neck was broken, her left leg too, but he would relieve her suffering. He put his booted foot on her throat and pressed down with all his considerable weight, bidding her safe passage to the world beyond.

  When it was done, he climbed the stone stairs with the same steady conviction with which he’d descended. If Agnes, the midwife, showed any inclination toward disbelief or disloyalty, he would silence her as well. He was counting on her devotion to her mistress and her belief in the gods to close her lips.