The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  “It is true. Our women give birth to sons . . . or they die trying,” Banruud said, turning his gaze on the Highest Keeper, redirecting Aidan’s blame. “The only daughters are brought here from other lands or born of rape from raids by the Northmen, the Eastlanders, or the Hounds. There aren’t nearly enough women to go around. And you, Master Ivo, cannot tell us why.”

  The Highest Keeper said nothing. His silence was almost as powerful as denial, and the chieftains turned their complaints to the row of quiet keepers just as Banruud had intended.

  “Except for the princess, there have been no daughters born of Saylok in twelve years. We don’t feel the lack yet . . . but our sons will. In another decade, there will be no women to wed,” Benjie of Berne chimed in. He was the cousin of Banruud and had taken his place as chieftain when Banruud became king.

  “We’re spending our gold and our grain on females, and our weakness is becoming known to our enemies,” Erskin of Ebba added.

  “The villagers have started sacrificing female lambs, hoping to coax the gods into a trade, one female for another,” Banruud accused. The sacrifices hadn’t worked. The keepers had conducted similar sacrifices to no apparent avail.

  “We can’t continue to raid. We’re stirring up other lands to come against us,” Josef of Joran grunted. He was a farmer, not a warrior. Unlike some of the chieftains, who had been raiding for generations, he hated the necessity of the raids.

  “Josef is right. We have staved off attacks from the Eastlanders on the shores of Dolphys. It will only get worse,” Dirth agreed, nodding.

  “The battle has already come to Ebba,” Erskin growled. “The Hounds from the Hinterlands keep coming. If they defeat us, they will come for you next.”

  “Not all our enemies are raiders from foreign lands,” Lothgar of Leok said. “There have been attacks from within too. Bands of the clanless rove across the countryside, taking the girls and women from the farmers and killing their families when they resist. My warriors hunted some of them down. We put their heads on pikes on the border between Leok and Ebba. We have not had an attack since. But the people have started to disguise their daughters as boys to keep them safe . . . even from other clans.”

  “The problem is not with the women of Saylok. It is with the men,” Master Ivo murmured. His voice was low and soft, but no one missed it.

  Every eye narrowed on the Highest Keeper, and the chieftains fingered the hilts of their swords. The chieftains were virile and powerful, and none of them appreciated the quiet condemnation of the Highest Keeper.

  “You gather women from other lands to make up for their lack . . . yet mayhaps you should bring men from other lands to make up for yours. To bed your women,” Ivo cackled, unfazed by their displeasure. “Maybe the Hounds can help.”

  “If the keepers cannot tell us what plagues Saylok, then we must guard the few women we have,” Banruud said. He waited until every chieftain nodded in agreement, their eyes on his, before he offered his “solution.”

  “Every clan will gather their daughters and bring them here, to the mount,” Banruud insisted. Every brow instantly furrowed, but he continued, his voice coaxing and infinitely reasonable. He’d hadn’t thought any of it through, but his heart pounded at the thought. One daughter had made him king. Many daughters would make him infinitely more powerful.

  “The females will be kept safe, within these walls,” he continued. “When they are of age, they will be promised to the sons of the chieftains first, then the warriors, then the craftsmen. If a man is not a value to his clan, he will have little chance at a wife. Mayhaps it will weed out the weak and the useless.”

  “All the daughters?” Aidan gasped. “You will have a revolt, Sire. Are you going to take Lothgar’s daughters too?” Lothgar had already risen to his feet, his face twisted in protest.

  “Every daughter in Saylok is already spoken for,” Josef argued. “There is not a daughter in Saylok who has not been numbered and negotiated over. Would you void the betrothals drawn up at their births? Even the daughters of the slaves have been given standing.”

  “And the people will never agree to it.” Aidan shook his head, adamant.

  “You are a chieftain. Your job is to rule your people. Control them. Make them understand that it is for their own safety,” Banruud shot back.

  “We can keep our own women safe, Majesty,” Lothgar growled.

  “They are not your women, Lothgar. They are Saylok’s salvation,” Banruud roared.

  “So clever of you, Majesty. If you control the women of Saylok . . . you control the men,” the Highest Keeper mused, and the atmosphere in the room throbbed and thrummed.

  “The mount cannot hold all the daughters of Saylok. Even with the drought, there are hundreds of daughters between the ages of twelve and twenty,” Ivo added, his voice soft but his eyes sharp in his withered face.

  Lothgar grunted and the chieftains began to nod. Banruud felt a swell of desperation in his chest.

  “Then bring me one. One young daughter from every clan. If not for safety . . . then for symbolism. They can be raised in the temple by the keepers. Kept, like the sacred runes, safe and sound.” Banruud had meant to mock, to shine further light on the ineptitude and uselessness of the keepers, but Master Ivo nodded as though he agreed.

  “You mean to separate them from their families?” Chief Josef interrupted, troubled.

  “A supplicant leaves his family when he comes to the temple, does he not, Master Ivo?” Banruud asked, though he knew the answer.

  “He does,” the Highest Keeper murmured, nodding.

  “Well then.” Banruud raised his palms with a shrug, as if his solution was a simple matter.

  “Women cannot be supplicants, Majesty. And keepers are not nursemaids,” Keeper Amos argued.

  “But Master Ivo is the Highest Keeper. He can make it so. The Keepers of Saylok have the power to choose kings. Surely you have the power to do this. Women can be gods . . . Why not supplicants?” Banruud purred.

  Amos bowed his head. Banruud turned his attention back to the Highest Keeper, sensing victory.

  “Do you think you are above the gods, Ivo?” Banruud pressed.

  Ivo regarded him silently.

  “Why would the daughters be supplicants? You have no intention of them becoming keepers,” Ivo stated.

  “Do all supplicants become keepers?” Banruud inquired, innocence dripping from his words. “Your duty is to see to the continuance of the clans of Saylok. There will be no kings if there aren’t women to birth them. There will be no keepers either, though I’m convinced you, Master Ivo, were hatched from an egg,” Banruud said. No one dared laugh.

  Ivo was silent so long the chieftains began to shift and squirm.

  “Very well,” Ivo whispered. “Bring the daughters here. Bring them to the temple.”

  “Very well,” Banruud echoed.

  “Six daughters of Saylok—one from each clan—will become supplicants,” Ivo intoned, his voice dark, his eyes lit with unholy fire. “The king has decreed it. We have all witnessed it. Who am I to disagree?”

  “She is seven years old. Her mother was a concubine in King Kembah’s court. They called her Bashti. King Kembah has more daughters than he knows what to do with. He is fond of his wives, but eager to make trades for his daughters. He gave us ten of them—all ages. Bashti was the youngest. I don’t know what happened to her mother.”

  “Bashti of Berne,” Chieftain Benjie grunted. “She will do.”

  “But she is not . . . of Berne, Lord,” the warrior said.

  “She is now.”

  “But the king wants a daughter of Berne,” the warrior protested.

  “Do you want to give your daughter to the temple, man?” Benjie asked, churlish.

  “I have no daughters, Lord.”

  “No. Neither do I,” Benjie snapped. “Do any of you want to give your daughters?”

  The men who had daughters hung their heads. The men who did not stared at the little gi
rl with the corkscrew curls and the dark eyes. She was as brown as tree bark and dressed like a little boy, though her hair and fine features made the attempts at disguise ineffective. She did not look like she hailed from the Clan of the Bear. No one would believe she was from Berne. Not the keepers, not the king. But she was a girl, and that was all that really mattered.

  “Is she healthy?” Benjie pressed.

  “My wife says she’s never been sick . . . not even once. But she has a temper and doesn’t like to keep still. The temple might not be the place for her.”

  “We will let the keepers worry about that.” The Chieftain of Berne pricked the tip of his finger with his blade and smeared his blood on the little girl’s brow. She didn’t flinch but watched him with her hands clenched and her eyes wide.

  “You are now Bashti of Berne. Daughter of the bear. Child of this clan. Supplicant to the Keepers of Saylok.” Chieftain Benjie turned away and sheathed his knife, but not before muttering, “We’re all doomed.”

  “The chieftain says we must have a daughter from Ebba. You will live in the temple. You will be safe,” the woman said, trying to smile at her daughter, trying to convince her.

  “I will work harder. I won’t eat as much. I’ll sleep with the animals,” Elayne pled, clinging to her mother, frantic.

  “Elayne, my sweet daughter. I am not sending you away. I am giving you to the gods.”

  “The gods do not need me. You and Father need me. My brothers need me,” Elayne begged.

  “I care only for your life. You are twelve years old. There have been no daughters in our village since you were born. You are one of the last. In a few years you will be pressed to marry and have children for the clan. You are so young, and I want so much more for you. If you go to the temple, you will be protected. Even . . . worshipped. At least for a while. Lord Erskin says the keepers will teach you. It will be a better life, Elayne, than the one we can give you,” the woman cried. Her red hair and freckled cheeks were faded, as though strife had leached the color from every aspect of her existence. Someday Elayne would look just like her.

  “Please don’t do this,” Elayne wept. “I don’t want to go to the temple. I want to stay with you.”

  “You must do this for me, daughter. You must do this and give me hope for your life and your happiness.”

  “I could never be happy without you.”

  “And I will never be happy if I don’t make you seize this chance.”

  “But what if . . . it is a bad place?”

  “It cannot be worse than this,” Elayne’s mother whispered. “We are at war. To become a woman in the temple will be better than becoming a woman in Ebba.”

  “How old are you, girl?” the Chieftain of Leok asked. He’d demanded every girl child be brought before him. Thus far, not one family had obeyed the summons. The word had spread among the people that a daughter of Leok would be sent to live in the temple among the keepers, and none of them were willing to part with theirs. But one girl had come, seeking entry in his hall, asking for “Lord Lothgar.”

  She was small, but her sharp eyes belied her size. He repeated the question when she failed to answer him.

  “I don’t know how old I am,” she answered, impudent. Her shoulders tightened and she stared down at her bare feet. They were black with filth.

  “Where did you come from?” he pressed.

  “I am of Leok.”

  “If you were born in Leok, I would have known.”

  “I am of Leok,” she insisted, lifting her small chin.

  “Why have you come?”

  “I want to be sent to the temple.”

  “Who cares for you?”

  “I care for myself.”

  “Where is your family?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What is your name?”

  “I do not know.”

  “What do you know?”

  “I am of Leok,” she insisted, her voice rising. “And I am a girl.”

  Lothgar barked in laughter and his brother, Lykan, cursed behind him. Lykan was always hovering in the shadows. The girl was small, but her tongue was sharp. She seemed to have a firm grasp on the situation, young as she was.

  “You look like a daughter of Leok,” the chieftain conceded. “Your hair is fair and your eyes are blue.”

  “She looks like your daughters, Lord. Like our mother too,” Lykan mused. Lothgar turned his head to listen to his brother. “But she wasn’t born in Leok. She is nine or ten at the most, and we would have heard. Mayhaps her parents were travelers between lands. Mayhaps she belongs to the rovers.”

  “I belong to no one,” the girl said.

  “Why do you want to go to the temple?”

  “Because I belong to no one,” she repeated. “In the temple I’ll eat.”

  Lothgar nodded slowly and sighed. He had no one else to send. He could raid the homes of his people. Terrorize them. He didn’t want to do that. He had known his task would be nigh on impossible without force. His daughters were all grown, but he would have slain any man who tried to separate him from them.

  Yet here was this child. A girl child. A child washed up onto the shore, by all appearances. He had no idea where she had come from, but he found he didn’t much care.

  “You will have to have a name, daughter of Leok,” he murmured. “What shall we call you?”

  She was silent, and Lykan spoke up again.

  “We should call her Liis. For our mother. Surely she sent her to us,” he muttered.

  Lothgar agreed, piercing his thumb and calling the girl forward for his blessing. The gods had spoken, and he would not refuse a gift so obvious.

  “Liis of Leok it is.”

  “Magda tries to hide her, Lord. She doesn’t bathe with the other children. Magda calls her Dalys—a boy’s name—but we all know.”

  “How old is the child?” Dirth of Dolphys inquired.

  The woman squirmed and looked toward the kitchens, guilty. “Six. Maybe seven. She was brought over in a raid last year . . . with Magda and some of the others. Magda’s been looking out for her ever since.”

  “You have a daughter. Why should we not send her?” Dirth asked, his eyes shrewd. He knew what the woman was about. Her husband was one of Dirth’s oldest warriors, and she was a lady’s maid to Dirth’s wife. Clearly the woman had heard talk, and she didn’t want her daughter to be sent to the temple.

  “My daughter is spoken for, Lord. We need her.”

  “Magda is Dakin’s woman. Mayhaps the little girl is also spoken for. Mayhaps he will protest.”

  “I am protesting first, Lord.”

  Dirth glowered at her impudence, but she gazed at him defiantly. The women of Dolphys were notoriously headstrong. But Magda was not of Dolphys. She was of Eastlandia, and if the child was not hers, she would have little room to argue.

  He sighed and raised his face to the rafters, considering. “So be it. Bring little Dalys to me.”

  Chieftain Josef had known immediately where he would turn for a daughter of Joran. She had come to his thoughts as the king had made his demands. He’d thought of her on the long ride home. His clan had chosen him as chieftain because his family had the largest holding of lands in the clan. He was fair, and he ruled as well as he could. Every clan had their fishermen, their farmers, and their warriors, and Josef was a farmer. Not a warrior. And if Jerom, the girl’s grandfather, told him no, he didn’t think he could enforce his wishes with a sword. He hoped Jerom would not say no.

  Jerom’s daughter had been ravaged in a raid from the Hounds of the Hinterlands. The clans of Saylok were not the only raiders on the sea. What they did to others was done to them. Jerom’s family lived near the shore making their living off the water.

  Jerom was a good fisherman, but he was not a warrior either. It would not have mattered if he had been. He and his sons were casting their nets when the Hounds had come ashore ten years ago. Jerom’s wife and daughter had not been spared. His wife was killed, and his
daughter had become pregnant from the attack. When she gave birth to a daughter nine months later and died in the process, Jerom and his two sons had been charged with the task of raising the girl child. The clan of Joran had celebrated the birth of a daughter even as they quietly acknowledged that she was not of Saylok.

  When Master Ivo had insinuated it was the men of Saylok who were unable to father daughters, Josef had thought of the Hounds and Jerom’s daughter. Of Jerom’s granddaughter. They’d named her Juliah after her mother. Juliah of Joran. Juliah, daughter of a Hound.

  It was not safe on the shores of Joran. Jerom knew this better than anyone. Chieftain Josef thought he might be able to convince Jerom to send young Juliah to the temple.

  13

  “I did not bring a daughter of Adyar,” Aidan of Adyar said. “You already have one, Majesty.”

  The king raised a brow and folded his arms. The chieftains and their parties had begun arriving at sundown, and he’d greeted each one as darkness fell and the moon rose. No one had come inside. They’d pitched their tents on the grounds, the colors clearly indicating the separate camps. Servants had seen to their horses, but the crowd in the courtyard had grown as the arrivals continued. Aidan had arrived last, his retinue including the late king’s queen. She had entered the castle with a low bow to Banruud and proceeded into the blazing foyer beyond with the confidence of one having lived within the palace walls for half her life.

  Aidan hadn’t yet climbed down from his horse, clearly preferring the height and dominance the animal gave him. Banruud had grown accustomed to Aidan. The young chieftain had all the fire in his family. Alannah hadn’t had any, and her father, the previous king, had been as malleable as she. Still, Aidan of Adyar was no threat. He would never be king. He was a mouthy boy, intent on poking at the king simply because he thought he could. One day, when Aidan least expected it, that would end.