The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  The chieftains, rattled by the king’s sentry, signaled for their own men to follow, and every man eyed the others with open distrust, clan colors and weapons on full display. Aidan pounced as soon as the council chamber door was closed and the chieftains were seated.

  “You bring the Northmen to the mount, you parade the daughters of the temple in front of their bloody king, and you have not consulted about it with any of us.”

  Banruud studied the hostile room with slow nonchalance before answering the Chieftain of Adyar.

  “I am the king. I do not take instruction from Adyar, or Leok, or Dolphys, or Joran. I will hear your complaints. But I will do as I wish, just as other kings have done before me. Just as other kings will do when I am gone.”

  “Do you take instruction from Berne?” Bayr interjected.

  The king lifted one dark eyebrow, and Benjie huffed, but the other chieftains waited for Bayr to continue.

  “We have s-suffered attacks from Berne. Benjie d-denies it. But our villages have been attacked. We repel attacks on our shores only to be attacked on our f-flanks by his clan.” Bayr had rehearsed the lines so he would not stumble overmuch, but he had to pause several times and speak more slowly than the king had patience for.

  “Benjie cannot be blamed for rogue bands of marauders.” Banruud sighed.

  “He can.”

  The king sneered at Bayr’s response.

  “Benjie encourages it. He is . . . em-emboldened . . . by his . . . relationship to you, S-sire, and has no r-respect for other c-clans or other chieftains.”

  “Do you stutter because you are frightened, Temple Boy?”

  Dakin and Dred hissed, hands gripping their blades, drawing close to Bayr’s chair. The king’s guard drew their swords, a rippling of steel that stiffened the backs of every man at the king’s table.

  “He is the Dolphys. Not the Temple Boy, Banruud,” Dred growled.

  “And I am the king, Dred. And you will address me as such, or you will lose your tongue.”

  Bayr turned slightly and lifted a hand, settling it on his grandfather’s arm, and Dred glowered at the king and did not retreat. Dakin remained at Dred’s side, his eyes level and his body tight, and Bayr tried again.

  “I care n-not what you call me, Majesty. But you will not be k-king of Saylok if the c-clans destroy each other.”

  “You threaten me?”

  “If the clans fall, the k-kingdom falls.”

  “And who will be king when I am not, hmm? You? The next king will be from Dolphys, and you believe the keepers will choose you. Is that why you’ve finally taken your place at the council table, Temple Boy? You wish to kill me and let the keepers make you king?”

  The room became tomb-like with the accusation, and Bayr did not seek to break the silence. To protest was to give credence to the king’s claim.

  “You are naught but a hulking ox. An ox has great strength, but we do not make an ox our king,” Benjie mocked.

  Bayr did not react, but he could feel his grandfather’s rage behind him.

  “I have no w-wish to be king,” Bayr stated firmly.

  “A king must command his people, and you can barely speak. The tribes of our enemies would breach the temple mount before you could call out the order for attack,” Elbor snickered.

  “Better a hulking ox than a blathering idiot,” Josef of Joran murmured, shooting a withering look at Chief Elbor. Elbor’s chin began to tremble in affront.

  “Better a good man than a glib man,” Aidan of Adyar purred.

  “Better a tangled tongue than a forked one,” Dred growled.

  Every man in the room had his hand on his sword, and for a moment no one breathed, wondering who would be the first to lunge. The king stood slowly, his eyes filled with challenge.

  “What do you want me to do?” Banruud turned his palms out slowly, as if to show how empty they were, how void of blame. “I am a king, not a keeper. I am but a man. I am not a master of runes. We support the temple on the mount, the people worship the keepers, and yet they cannot answer our prayers. My daughter is the last girl child to be born to a son of Saylok. In twenty-four years, she is the only one.” Banruud paused, letting the reminder sink in around him.

  “Yet you come to me as though I can heal your seed,” he hissed. “Why do you not ask the keepers what they have done to end the scourge? Do they not guard the holy runes? Do they not commune with the fates? Do they not have Odin’s ear?”

  Banruud waited again, and when no one disagreed, he continued.

  “Five daughters have grown to womanhood in the temple walls, yet they have not been returned to you, to their clans,” Banruud cried, fervor ringing in his voice. “Their wombs are empty. What hope have they given you, Chieftains of Saylok? What hope have they given your people? Our sons turn on each other. And you come to me with your hands extended, asking me to cure this ill. Why do you not ask the keepers?”

  Elbor began to nod, the color in his ruddy jowls becoming deeper as he pounded his fists on the table. The men at his back, all draped in Ebba orange, began to grunt in raucous agreement, the sound like a herd of starving pigs.

  The chuff and growl of the warriors of Berne, the Clan of the Bear, became a competing swell, and Bayr resisted the urge to cover his ears. Lothgar of Leok, his mane of gold hair faded to white in the ten years since Bayr had seen him last, threw back his head and roared just to compete, the sound reverberating like that of the lion he claimed to descend from.

  “There is no order,” Bayr said, his voice firm, each word succinct, and the cacophony ceased.

  “It is not the keepers who rape and pillage. It is not the keepers who send their warriors to plunder the lands of their neighbors,” Dred hissed.

  “We take what we must to survive,” Benjie shouted.

  “You are lazy, Benjie. Your land is overrun with young men who follow your lead. Our women are few, but it is not the women who plow the fields or trap or fish or fight the Northmen. It has never been the women. So what is your excuse?” Dred was accustomed to speaking his mind in council, but he was not the chieftain, and Benjie seemed intent on reminding him of it. When Benjie lunged at him, a dagger clutched in his hand, Bayr shot to his feet, stepping in front of his grandfather. Before anyone could assist or resist, he’d grabbed Benjie by the throat and the crotch and bodily threw him across the round table the way he’d once thrown Ghost’s attackers down the hill. Benjie cleared Lothgar’s head by several feet and landed at the feet of his sons in a jumble of limbs, his blade skittering across the floor.

  Shock rippled from the table to the warriors who lined the walls. Bayr wasn’t certain if it was awe at the feat or fear at what it would incite.

  Lothgar roared again, but this time in laughter, and his sons helped the Chieftain of Berne to his feet. Benjie looked as though he’d suffered a blow to his head, and he swayed and clutched at his shoulder, his attack forgotten.

  “The Chieftain of Dolphys is not wrong,” Aidan contended as Lothgar’s merriment subsided. “We too have been beset by raiders from Berne. The fish have not stopped filling our nets. There is bounty in the land, and our men continue to be fierce in battle. But there are too many of them without families or female companionship. And some grow aimless . . . and vicious.” His eyes shot to the king’s guard.

  Josef of Joran, his farmer’s face as weathered as the palms of Dagmar’s hands, raised weary eyes to the king. “We are under constant threat from Ebba. Some of the Ebbans who seek refuge have nothing but the clothes on their backs. But they are willing to work. Others who come want only to take what does not belong to them. We have had to put warriors on the border, and now all who seek entry are turned away. We simply cannot absorb all of Ebba. Elbor sends his poor, and he sits like a pig on the spit, an apple in his fat snout.”

  Elbor rose, his lower jaw jutted out, his small eyes mean. “We have been suffering attacks from the Hinterlands for more than a decade,” he shot back.

  “As have we,” Jos
ef replied wearily. “It has always been thus among the clans on the southwestern shores. We battle the Hinterlands, Dolphys battles the Eastlanders, Berne and Adyar battle the Northmen, Leok battles the storms. But we have never come against each other, clan on clan.”

  “You t-tax your people into the ground, Elbor, while you do l-little to protect them,” Bayr argued.

  “I collect coin for the keepers. And what do they do for us?” Elbor bellowed, echoing the accusations of the king.

  It was a lie. Bayr was well acquainted with the minimalism inside the temple walls. The keepers lived on very little, herding their own sheep, milking their own goats, and tending their own gardens. Whatever coin came from the clans by way of the king was a pittance. Alms were collected during the tournament, and every farthing went to the preservation of the temple itself. There were no wealthy keepers.

  “You collect coin for yourself and for the king. As do we all.” The tithes the king demanded were a strain every season. Bayr collected them himself. What he kept for Dolphys, for the maintenance of a fighting force and the governance of the people, was far less than the king required for his own coffers.

  “Careful, Temple Boy,” the king whispered, the words like a snake slithering between their chairs.

  “This is all true,” Lothgar interrupted, oblivious to the tension that coiled around him. “Yet . . . I have wondered why the keepers can do nothing to end the scourge among our women.”

  “As have I,” Josef admitted.

  “Aye,” Elbor agreed, eager to turn the subject away from his own failures.

  “Something must be done,” Benjie agreed, and his acquiescence had the king sitting back in his chair, his fingers steepled and his eyes narrowed as though deeply pondering the question. Bayr had seen the look before. It was the same expression Banruud wore when he’d studied the body of poor Agnes, lying at his feet.

  “Something has been done,” the king said, eyeing his chieftains as though he held redemption in his hands. “I have reached an agreement with the North King. The princess will be a queen.”

  Bayr’s head rose slowly, but he didn’t question. He’d learned the art of waiting for men to talk. And talk they always did, even King Banruud.

  “She will leave with King Gudrun for the Northlands in two days. In return, the North King has agreed to pull his warriors from Berne. An announcement will be made after the melee tomorrow. Your precious daughters of the temple will be left to age beside your useless keepers,” the king said mockingly.

  Silence wrapped the room in guilty relief, and the chieftains began to nod like it was the only feasible course of action. Benjie stood as though it were settled, and Elbor lumbered to his feet as well, clearly eager to escape further condemnation.

  “She should not be sold,” Bayr said, focusing on saying the words precisely, breathing between each one, speaking slowly even though his heart raced.

  “She is not being sold. She is going to be a queen, and she will help her country in the process,” Benjie argued.

  “She should be queen of Saylok. She is the only one . . . of her kind,” Bayr insisted.

  Banruud crossed his legs and steepled his hands, giving the appearance of deep thought, but Bayr saw the smirk that played around his lips, half hidden by his prayerful pose.

  “And how would she be queen of Saylok? Did you think . . . you might have her? Did you suppose you could marry the princess . . . and when I die . . . you and she could reign in my stead?” Banruud’s voice was hushed with mock surprise, and Elbor grunted.

  “That will never be, Temple Boy. Alba’s future does not include you,” Banruud said, his tone flat.

  Bayr was silent. He didn’t want to reign. But he did want Alba.

  “You are a bloody cur, Banruud,” Aidan of Adyar growled. He stood abruptly, his chair scraping stone, an echo of his disgust. He left the council table without another word, striding for the doors with his men trailing after him. Lothgar was slower to follow, but his aging lion’s face was set in resignation. He did not argue the king’s decision or seek to offer an alternative solution. He followed Aidan from the room.

  The king waved his hands, dismissing those who still lingered. Bayr did not move. The room emptied around him until the two men sat, alone but for a handful of the king’s guard, who hovered near the doors, and Dred and Dakin, who stood in silent support of their chieftain.

  “Don’t do this . . . to Alba. To Saylok. The people . . . look . . . to her. She is their . . . only hope,” Bayr pled, his voice low, his heart shattered.

  “It is done,” Banruud ground out, enunciating each word with a thump of his fist upon the table. “Leave me.”

  Bayr didn’t rise, but his eyes closed in brief prayer. “P-p-please,” he stuttered, unable to keep the desperation from the word, and in his desperation, he became a stumbling child again.

  “P-p-please,” Banruud mimicked, exaggerating the sounds so he spit with every syllable. “You dare question me? You love my daughter, and you think I don’t know? She is your sister, you fool. You cannot wed your sister.”

  Bayr jerked as though he’d been lanced.

  The king laughed and threw his feet up on the table, his teeth flashing and his hands folded over his flat stomach. His casual pose contradicted his black glower.

  “Surely you knew. Surely your beloved keeper, Dagmar, told you who you are? I thought you slow but not entirely ignorant.”

  Bayr stood in horrified disbelief.

  “You are my son, Bayr. You are Alba’s brother.” He lifted his hands, palms up, as though bestowing a gift, and then he shrugged, letting them fall.

  “I am not,” Bayr asserted, his tongue so heavy he could not stammer. The heaviness spread, numbing his lips and his neck, his shoulders and his chest, closing his veins and hardening his blood.

  “Oh, but you are. You are of the Clan of the Bear. Named for me, your father. Desdemona was a passionate wench . . . and so dramatic. Even in death, I’m sure.”

  Dred howled in fury, and Dakin threw himself in front of him, wrapping his arms around the incensed warrior, saving him from taking vengeance upon the man who could have him put to death. The king’s guard leaped forward, protecting the king and dragging Dakin and a thrashing Dred from the chamber.

  “You will leave the mount, Temple Boy,” Banruud ordered. “And take the old man. If you want to live—if you want him to live—you won’t return.”

  Bayr could not feel his legs. He could not feel his hands or his heartbeat. He felt nothing at all. No sensation. No sadness. No breath. No being.

  The king’s guard circled around him, swords drawn but giving him wide berth. No one dared engage him. They’d all heard the tales. They’d all seen proof of his power. Yet he stood, arms at his sides, like he’d been carved from stone. Then, slowly, his hands steady, he drew a small blade from the belt at his waist. A member of the king’s guard yelled out in warning, but Bayr ignored him. He ignored them all.

  Grasping his braid in his left hand, he drew his knife through the thick plait with a slash of his right. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed his severed braid at the king’s feet. Then he turned and walked from the room, his blade still in his fist, the king’s guard clinging to their swords, uncertain what had just occurred.

  27

  Bayr’s hair fell in his eyes and curled around his sweat-slicked face, and he swept it from his skin, impatient. He would take it all off, like the keepers, so nothing remained to remind him. Darkness had fallen as he’d cut through the Temple Wood, racing his horror and his hate. He’d been traveling for miles, unwilling to stop, for in stopping he would have to face himself.

  He’d walked from the palace out into the courtyard, across the temple grounds and out the east gate of the mount. He’d kept on walking, his eyes forward, his soul stripped, his mind emptied. He’d never wanted to die before. Not in his loneliest hours or on his worst days. But in this moment he wanted nothing more. If his men had seen him—if anyone had noti
ced at all—they’d not tried to stop him. He’d been walking for hours, his sword slapping at his thighs.

  He followed the stream that trickled down from the temple mount and sliced through the Temple Wood. It continued toward Dolphys, eventually feeding into the Mogda River that spilled into the sea. Eventually he knelt beside it, his thirst penetrating the fog in his head and the hole in his chest.

  Dagmar had known. Dred had known. Bayr was certain of it. Had they all known? Had they all watched him with pitying eyes, keeping their secrets as he stuttered through his life, blind and trusting? Had they sent him from the mount to save him or to be rid of him?

  He’d never understood Banruud’s hatred. He didn’t understand it now. Had he not wanted sons? Queen Alannah had died trying to give him one while Bayr grew beneath his nose. He had not wanted Bayr, that much was certain.

  But Alba wanted him. Alba loved him. Alba needed him.

  Her name, surfacing through the tangle of his thoughts, had him groaning aloud and collapsing into the grass beside the stream, covering his face in his hands and fisting his hands in his hair.

  She would be sent to the Northlands. She would be sacrificed on the altar of Saylok, and no one would speak for her. No one could. The clans would celebrate her sacrifice, throwing flowers at her feet, but they would wave her off, bride of Gudrun and daughter of Saylok, soon to be queen of the North.

  He would go with her. He would kill the North King and bring her back.

  And death would follow them home.

  Bayr bellowed in hopeless fury. It would start a war. His love for Alba would start a war, and Bayr would be an army of one. He would not have the support of the clans or the blessing of the king. If Dolphys stood with him, her citizens would fall beneath the sword, and their deaths would be on his head. If the keepers came to his defense they would be hewn down like the grain in the fields, the runes lost, the daughters scattered.

  There would be no Saylok when the battle ended. There would be no temple and no clans. And Alba would still be his sister.