The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  “My sister, Queen Alannah of Adyar, gave birth to a daughter,” Aidan continued. “That daughter lives here, on the temple mount. Princess Alba is of Adyar and can represent Adyar in the temple. She can represent our clan. Adyar has given enough, and we have no more daughters to spare.”

  “Yet you’ve come anyway, Adyar,” Banruud said, scorn dripping from his words. “Why, brother?”

  “I was curious. It seems the chieftains have obeyed their king.”

  “All but one,” Banruud answered. Their eyes clashed, and Aidan’s horse danced, sensing the nervous energy that swirled around him.

  “I’ve brought you a woman,” Aidan said, keeping his tone mild. “Just not . . . a young woman. My mother, Queen Esa, has come to see to the upbringing of her granddaughter. Now that Alannah is gone, you will need a woman to look after the princess. Unless . . . you intend to take another wife, Majesty? Mayhaps one of the clan daughters you’ve summoned?”

  Aidan was purposely trying to inflame the other chieftains and Banruud ignored him, waving his hand toward his manservant, who trotted forward to assist the lord of Adyar, signifying his dismissal. Alba was guarded by the Temple Boy and tended by servants. The king rarely saw her. Still, Lady Esa could take Alannah’s chamber if she wished. It made no difference to him. He was more interested in the girl children assembled to greet him.

  “This is Elayne of Ebba,” Chieftain Erskin announced, bowing slightly. He looked weary and planned to leave again at first light. The trouble in Ebba was worsening. Banruud had promised to join him soon, and the chieftains in every clan were sending warriors to his aid.

  The girl curtsied deeply but didn’t raise her red-rimmed eyes to the king. Her hair was a fiery tangle, her nose freckled, her lips full. She might grow to be a beauty or become plainer by the day. It was too soon to tell. She was lean and long and the biggest of the lot. In a few years, she would be old enough to wed. She’d clearly been born before the drought.

  Banruud moved on to the next chieftain, his cousin from Berne. Benjie had always been easy to manipulate and control. Banruud doubted this time would be any different. A girl with glowing brown skin and coiled black curls watched him approach. She was dressed from head to toe in the deep red of Berne, but she was a stranger to the clan. The Bernians were typically pale-skinned.

  “Who is this?” Banruud murmured. The girl did not shrink before him though he towered over her.

  “This is Bashti of Berne,” Banruud’s cousin grunted. Benjie put his hand on the girl’s back and urged her forward. She planted her feet and pressed back.

  “Bashti of . . . Berne?” Banruud questioned.

  “Bashti of Berne . . . daughter of Kembah, most likely.”

  “If she is a daughter of Kembah, she is not a daughter of Berne, Benjie. Plus, Kembah is a king,” Banruud disagreed. “I doubt this girl is Kembah’s. But if it suits you to pretend, cousin, I will not argue.”

  “Mayhaps when she is grown we can make an alliance,” Benjie offered. He had clearly thought through his presentation on his journey from Berne.

  “Mayhaps. If she has a womb she will grow into, it is enough.” Banruud raised his voice, including the other chieftains in his query. “Have you all brought me foreign wombs to beget other wombs?”

  No one answered. No one even breathed. But Banruud knew they had. They’d brought him the cast off and the captured. All except Erskin, who’d brought him the redheaded girl from besieged Ebba. Erskin said her mother had begged him to take her. He wondered if more would come, seeking sanctuary at the temple mount. Banruud’s power would grow with their numbers.

  The chieftains regarded him silently, their insolence and displeasure rolling from them in black waves.

  “You said to find daughters. We found daughters, Majesty,” Dirth of Dolphys ground out, his jaw tight, his blue eyes black with resentment.

  “So you did,” Banruud said. He only pretended displeasure. The assortment was exactly what he had expected. The children ranged from six to twelve years—five girls with bowed heads and thin backs, all of them older than Alba. Chieftain Josef had brought a girl named Juliah, her long dark hair braided tightly like that of a budding warrior. Josef said she’d been raised by men, and her hair bore witness to the fact. Lothgar had presented “Liis of Leok,” her eyes as old and stony as the temple mount itself. Her golden hair, falling loose around tight shoulders and clenched hands, would draw the eye of kings. The girl called Dalys, sloe-eyed and sooty-locked, delivered by Dirth of Dolphys, clung to the chieftain’s hand as though life in bloody Dolphys was better than life with a king.

  “They will stay in the castle, under my watch,” Banruud ordered, turning back toward his palace, indicating an end to all debate.

  “You said they would be raised by the keepers,” Lothgar protested. “In the temple.”

  “They will be raised with my daughter, in my house,” Banruud shot back. “Princesses of Saylok, all.”

  “They are supplicants to the temple. It is what was agreed upon. They will live in the temple and be guarded by the keepers.” Master Ivo stood in the courtyard, the light from the fat moon glancing off his face and hollowing out his black eyes and lips like caves in pale sand. He and his brethren had entered the gathering with no one noticing, their robes melding with the evening sky. His rasping voice raised the hair on Banruud’s neck and the resentment in his chest. The Highest Keeper was a constant thorn in his side.

  “It was what we agreed upon, Banruud,” Aidan repeated, still astride his horse. Banruud’s servant hovered helplessly.

  “You have no say in the matter, Adyar,” Banruud shot back. “You have come to the temple mount with your hands empty.”

  “I have promised this girl’s mother she will live in the temple and be raised in the safety of the sanctum,” Erskin of Ebba protested.

  “I have made the same promise to Juliah’s grandfather,” Josef said, his eyes touching on the girl child with the warrior braid.

  As if the gods chased her, Alba chose that moment to dash from the arched entry, coming to a teetering halt in front of the assembled chieftains and their retinues. The Temple Boy, her constant shadow, was only steps behind. A gasp rippled through the gathering. The chieftains had not seen the child since Banruud had taken the throne. He had kept her tucked away. Hidden. Even when the clans had come to the mount each year for the tournament, she and the queen had not taken part or made an appearance. Banruud had been afraid someone would take her—take them—from him. Men had tried. But mayhaps he needed to remind his chieftains that he had a girl child. A small, perfect girl child. And they had made him king because of it.

  She was a breathtaking creature—light and dark together, as though the moon had made love to midnight and given birth to a human child. The chieftains fell to their knees, Aidan sliding from his charger without a word. Their foreheads touched the earth, and their braids, long again with the five years of his reign, coiled in the dirt beside their heads. Banruud felt a surge of power, and he swept Alba up in his arms. Her small body stiffened in surprise. He had not held her since she was an infant, since he had laid her in the arms of his queen. The chieftains did not bow to anyone . . . but they bowed to her. And because of her, they would continue to look to him.

  “These clan daughters will be raised like princesses,” Banruud repeated, pointing at the trembling girl children. “They will be raised beside my own daughter.”

  The five girls, standing by the kneeling chieftains, slowly sank to their knees as well. They were in the presence of the princess, the hope of Saylok, and Banruud held Alba even higher, reminding his audience what he had given them.

  “No, Highness. They will be raised by keepers,” Master Ivo insisted again. The Highest Keeper had not fallen to his knees. None of the keepers had. Resentment rose in Banruud’s chest and built behind his lips. The Highest Keeper believed himself above all authority. He stood looking down his nose at the king as if he had Odin’s ear. Someday, Banruud would
strike him down. He would make them all kneel the way Agnes had knelt, her blood dripping from her slashed throat. Banruud had been certain the Temple Boy would run crying to the keepers after Banruud silenced her, but the idiot had held his twisted tongue. Banruud had given the midwife a burial she’d hardly deserved, laying her to rest at the feet of her beloved queen. No one had questioned him when he related her mad attempt to run him through.

  “Daughters of Freya, goddess of fertility, goddess of childbirth, wife of Odin the Allfather, we welcome you,” Ivo cried, gliding across the courtyard toward the massive Hearth of Kings that was as old as the temple itself. It only burned when a new king was chosen, and it had grown cold since Banruud was crowned. The higher keepers moved behind him, one representing each clan, as though they’d devised an entire ceremony beforehand.

  “These daughters of the clans, these daughters of Freya, will be guarded, their lives revered, their virtue defended. They will be a symbol to Saylok just like her runes,” the Highest Keeper boomed. In a show of sheer pageantry, he touched the sharp tip of his fingernail to his palm. The blood that welled became ink for the rune he painted upon the stone hearth. The rune became flame, whooshing up in a triumphant column.

  “Saylok needs daughters. From this day forward, these daughters—your daughters—will keep the flame lit. As long as it burns, you will know that the daughters of Freya are tending it, that the Keepers of Saylok are tending them, and Saylok will live on.”

  The child in Banruud’s arms was lit by the glow, and the jeweled crown upon his head cast a glittering rainbow across the faces of the keepers. Ivo was a magician, but Banruud was king, and his anger became an inferno.

  “We will guard them well, just as we honor the princess,” Master Ivo added, his tone placating but his gaze a challenge. The kneeling chiefs began to nod, looking from Banruud and his daughter to the Highest Keeper.

  “Bayr of Saylok, a child raised here on the temple mount and blessed with exceeding strength, will be their protector as well, just as he has protected the princess,” the Highest Keeper promised, extending his arms toward the boy as though he presented the chieftains with an incredible gift.

  Word of the Temple Boy’s slaying of the castle intruders had become a much-embellished legend throughout the land. To hear it told, the boy had defeated an army single-handedly with only his bare hands.

  The Temple Boy was the size of a man, though he stuttered like a child and his cheeks were still smooth. He rarely spoke at all and did not attempt to voice his agreement now. He simply dropped to one knee and bowed his head as though being knighted to the cause. But it was answer enough, and the chieftains rose to their feet, nodding and clutching their braids as though they grasped the hilts of swords slung across their backs. Bayr met the gaze of each one and stood, clasping his own braid in a posture of promise.

  “The Temple Boy will guard them,” Aidan roared, releasing his braid and raising his fist to the sky. The chieftains of Ebba, Dolphys, Leok, and Joran copied his motion. Benjie was the only chieftain who hesitated, his eyes shifting from Banruud’s face, to the men around him, to the boy who inspired such confidence in the clans. But Benjie’s fist soon followed, striking the night sky with his own endorsement.

  “From this day forward, we will call them the Daughters of Freya, and they will be a light to the clans,” Lothgar boomed, repeating the words of the Highest Keeper like he’d composed them himself.

  Alba was squirming to be released, and Banruud set her down, disgusted with his complete loss of control over the situation. The child ran to the Temple Boy, choosing him, completing the appearance of an anointing. Bayr took her hand and bowed to the chieftains again. Then he bowed to the Highest Keeper and finally to the king himself. And still he didn’t utter a word. Banruud considered demanding an oath just to embarrass the boy and demonstrate his weakness in front of the chieftains. His stumbling speech would undermine their confidence in him. They were so quick to raise their fists and cling to a savior.

  But Banruud could be magnanimous now. The Highest Keeper could have his flame, and the boy could guard it. The keepers were peasants in purple robes, the boy was a hulking idiot, and the chieftains were fools.

  “So be it, Temple Boy. I entrust the Daughters of Freya to your care and to the care of the Keepers of Saylok,” Banruud said, relenting. “Do not fail me. Do not fail them.”

  In the meantime, if something happened to one of their daughters, the chieftains and the people of Saylok would have someone to blame.

  “What do we do, Master?” Dagmar worried, his eyes on the huddled daughters eating in the flickering candlelight of the temple kitchen. Dagmar had hoped the chieftains would not obey their king.

  He should have known better.

  The chieftains were afraid. Saylok was afraid. A girl child from each clan—adopted by each clan—was their way of fighting back against a faceless foe, of preserving life, of bartering with the gods. Bringing a daughter to the temple was like storing gold in the ground, sewing jewels into a cloak, or hoarding food against a weak harvest.

  “They are supplicants, Dagmar. We will treat them as such,” Ivo replied.

  “They are not. They are little girls who have been ripped from their homes.”

  “Their sacrifice has been noted by Odin himself. We will give them a home here,” Ivo soothed.

  “It was you who taught me that the only sacrifice with any power is the one that is willingly made. These children are not willing.”

  Ivo sighed. “We ask nothing of them, Dagmar. Nothing. We will simply keep them safe.”

  “And their clothing? Their hair?” They were not warriors. They were not yet women. They were no longer even children.

  “We are keepers. If they are to live among keepers, they must behave like keepers. They must look like keepers. We will cut their hair and dress them in supplicants’ robes. It will offer them a measure of protection that their femininity does not.”

  “They are children,” Dagmar mourned.

  “You have raised a child, Dagmar. You have provided us all with invaluable experience.”

  Dagmar shook his head, fighting anguish. “My experience,” he scoffed. “I cannot protect Bayr. I cannot protect these girls. You saw the king this night. Bayr is at his mercy. These girls are at his mercy. He will use them to increase his power. It is a sham, Master.”

  “Only to the king, Keeper. Not to me. Not to Saylok.”

  “Then . . . we will instruct them?” Dagmar whispered, his eyes still lingering on the lost little girls. “Even in the runes?”

  Ivo was silent, contemplating, and then he sighed. “Not yet. Mayhaps not ever. We will see where the rune blood flows, if it flows at all. Not every supplicant becomes a keeper.” His voice held a note of dark irony as he quoted the king. “But every supplicant is protected by the sanctuary of the temple, and no chieftain or king can withdraw a supplicant once they have been pledged.”

  “Only the Highest Keeper can release or refuse a supplicant,” Dagmar whispered, realization dawning.

  “Yes.” Ivo nodded. “I didn’t think it necessary to remind King Banruud or the six clan chieftains of that mandate.”

  “Oh, Master. You are wily.”

  “Prescient. I am prescient,” Ivo sniffed, not liking Dagmar’s description. “It is better to let Banruud think the idea was his own. When I resist, he is so much more eager.”

  Dagmar could only shake his head in wonder.

  “Our goal is to make sure every daughter grows to become a woman. However long it takes,” Ivo murmured.

  “They are just little girls,” Dagmar whispered. “Can we do this, Master?” Dagmar longed to sink to his knees and slash his palms to carve a rune of comfort into the stones of the kitchen floor, but he stayed still, trusting Ivo to do what must be done, though his heart bled instead of his hands.

  “We can. We will. And when the king leaves for Ebba, you must retrieve the ghost woman from the fields and bring her here. She
will help us.”

  Ghost moved the sheep to the meadow below the palace the day the king left for Ebba with trumpets blaring and banners streaming. She uncovered her white hair and bowed her back, knowing it made her appear crone-like, and old women were generally ignored, though less and less so. She’d been heckled more in recent months than in all the years before that combined. Shepherding was a solitary profession, but there were bandits and rovers in the hills, and abductions of women—all women—in the King’s Village had increased.

  Dagmar had worried about her safety, a woman alone, but she’d managed thus far, surrounded by the sheep and tough terrain. She wore the purple cloak of a keeper, and from a distance, it had been enough to convince the curious that she was a bent old man, a Keeper of Saylok, tending the temple herd.

  The summer day was warm, and the herd huddled in the shadow of the temple mount, grazing on the grass that had grown long in recent weeks. Ghost removed her cloak and sat inside a cluster of stones, her back to a boulder that provided a sliver of shade for her pale skin. She thought maybe Dagmar would visit today. Maybe Bayr and Alba too. From her perch, Ghost could see the spires rising on the other side of the wall, pricking the sky like clawed hands, demanding instead of beseeching, and she wished the spires would direct them to her.

  The lambs born in the spring had grown and settled into the long summer days, and they were less likely to wander or draw the wolves. Ghost found herself growing drowsy in the late afternoon, lulled by the obedience of her flock and weary from hopeful waiting.

  “It’s a woman, all right.”

  The male voice came from her right, the exaggerated whisper more suspicious than a measured tone. Ghost kept her eyes closed, but alarm chased her heart.

  “Younger than she looks, I’ll wager,” he added, still hissing like he believed himself undetected. The sheep shifted nervously, sensing strangers in their midst, and Ghost called them to her with urgent thoughts, willing them to draw together. They responded immediately, huddling together, closing in around her and the circle of stones where she rested. Reaching for the blade beneath her skirts, she stood slowly and faced the threat.