The First Girl Child

by Harmon, Amy

  She could still feel her mother, the comfort of her presence and the depth of her devotion, but her earliest memories were of Bayr. He permeated every one of her beginnings, every hope and every happiness. Bayr was the enduring contrast to her father’s shadow, always hovering at the edges of her childhood, the source of constant apprehension.

  She longed to be free of her father, and Bayr had escaped him, only to fall subject once again.

  Because of her.

  Alba moaned aloud, her fear breaking free. What had she set in motion? Bayr was no longer a boy but her father was still the king, and to stand against him as chieftain, to defy him, was to pit his entire clan against the kingdom. Bayr was not weak—not by any measure—but neither was he loud or rash. He would not speak unless he absolutely had to, and he would sacrifice himself before he would commit his people to war, but Alba would not sacrifice him.

  28

  Hours later, Ivo could only hope the warriors from Dolphys had heeded his counsel and left the mount as the residents of the temple were dragged from their beds by the king’s guard and driven into the center of the sanctum at knifepoint. Keepers, daughters, and refugees huddled together as the temple was ransacked—the tables overturned, the beds toppled, and the cupboards emptied. The doors were barred against any outside intrusion, but the night was deep, the dawn hours away, and the rest of the mount slept on, unaware of the raid inside holy walls. Alba was missing, and the king was convinced that the keepers and the Temple Boy were to blame.

  No one was allowed in or out. The king paced from room to room, checking the progress of his men, demanding they start again when their efforts yielded nothing. When they came up empty-handed, he returned to the sanctum, his men trailing behind him, their tension echoing his.

  “You have no authority here, Banruud,” Ivo said, but they both knew no one would stop him. The chieftains of Berne and Ebba were under his thumb, Bayr was gone, and the others slept. If the princess was truly missing, they too would demand a search. The temple guard, once formed to protect the temple, were now just an extension of the king’s army. They would not interfere with his wishes.

  “Where is she, Ivo?” Banruud snapped, towering over the weary Highest Keeper.

  Ivo stared at the king balefully. “Where is who, Majesty?”

  “My daughter,” Banruud ground out.

  “But Majesty . . . you have no daughter,” Ivo murmured. “Only a son. And he has been sent away.”

  Banruud’s countenance darkened and his gaze swung to the women and girls gathered at the rear of the room. He walked among them, his lamp held high, looking from face to face, until he turned back to the keepers, searching them the same way.

  “Remove your robes!” he demanded. The keepers gaped and shrank from him. “All of you, remove your robes,” he insisted again, yanking their hoods from their heads, their gleaming pates vulnerable in the orange glow of the temple torches.

  Ivo watched his brothers obey, opening their robes without argument and dropping them on the sanctum floor. They all stood in their simple bedshirts, the tails falling above knobby ankles and bare feet. They’d had no time to grab anything but their outer robes to be donned as they were herded through the corridors. Dagmar was not among them. Nor was Ghost. And Ivo took heart in their absence.

  “Separate them!” the king demanded, instructing his men, and they immediately began spreading the disrobed keepers from one end of the sanctum to another. When he commanded the same be done among the daughters, pushing them apart, Ivo dragged his sharp nail across the papery skin of his arm, creating a thin bead of blood to form his rune. The end was near.

  As Banruud searched, his anger grew, and he turned back to the Highest Keeper once more, his boots echoing across the stone floors like a spike being nailed home.

  “Where is she?” Banruud snapped, his face pressed up to Ivo’s, spittle flying in the Highest Keeper’s face.

  “Who, King Banruud? Who is it you seek?” Ivo asked, his voice barely audible and perfectly mild. His folded arms were hidden beneath the long sleeves of his robe, and he began to carve shapes into his skin with his talon-like nails, even as his eyes remained steady.

  “The white woman. The wraith. Where is she?” Banruud hissed.

  “Ah. The white woman. You have sought her for some time. Mayhaps she has taken your daughter. Or . . . mayhaps . . . you . . . have taken . . . hers.”

  Banruud’s nostrils flared and something flickered in his eyes, and Ivo saw his mistake. He’d confirmed the one thing the king feared most. He knew what the king had done, and that would not stand. He’d never been able to hold his tongue, and his task was unfinished.

  The king’s hand shot out, plunging and retreating, a slippery eel with sharp teeth. Ivo stilled, his runes wet on his arm, his blood pooling at his feet. His robes, black and voluminous, hid the life that seeped from his skin and the eel that silently slid away.

  The king stepped back and watched him crumple, folding into himself without a word of protest.

  “We’re done here,” the king called to his guard. “Keep men at the doors. No one goes in and no one goes out until the princess is found.”

  Dagmar climbed the eastern slope from the Temple Wood, Ghost’s hand clutched in his. He was still shaken from the rune, still disoriented and despairing, but his mind was oddly quiet, his path clear. Desdemona’s bones had risen from the soil in the Temple Wood and were clattering up the hill behind him. Her spirit was all around him.

  “I must tell Alba who she is,” Ghost said, her voice pitched like the breeze, soft and nearly soundless. “Before it is too late.”

  Dagmar tightened his hand and said nothing. It was already too late.

  They entered the tunnel that burrowed under the mount and opened into the sanctum, and hurried through the darkness, hand in hand. Ghost’s fingers were cold and her breaths were harsh, though he knew it was not from exertion but from fear.

  Dagmar expected the silence of a sleeping temple on the other side of the shifting stone wall, but when they slipped into the sanctum, they were met with blazing sconces and a crowded room. Every keeper was present, every daughter, every refugee; and every eye lifted as he stepped out onto the dais behind the altar, Ghost beside him.

  The entire room was kneeling in supplication, but they did not ring the altar or pray beside the stone benches. They faced the far corner, away from the dais, as though they waited for Odin to come through the doors. Keeper Amos arose amid the kneeling throng and walked toward the dais, and Dagmar noticed his feet were bare and dipped in blood. When Amos spoke, his voice echoed with blame.

  “The king has killed the Highest Keeper. His men stand at every door,” he cried.

  “Master Ivo is dead,” Juliah said, coming to her feet. The other daughters began to stand around her. Their hair was unbound, streaming around them. They’d clearly been roused from their beds. In the orange glow of the flickering sconces, they were far fiercer than the keepers who huddled around them. They wept, but they did not cower.

  Ghost cried out beside him, and she fled the dais for the circle of kneeling mourners, stepping over and between them until she halted, her hands clutching her robes, her eyes on the ground. When she fell to her knees, Dagmar raised his gaze to the dome and begged the Allfather to keep him standing, to keep his heart beating for just a little longer.

  Ivo’s black robes were soaked in blood, making them shine in the torchlight. In death he was not powerful; he was not the Highest Keeper. He was an old man, an abandoned shell, his skin spotted with age, his features flaccid, the black stain from his lips smeared across his papery cheeks. Dagmar crouched beside him and lifted him from the floor, unable to bear the indignity of his death, unwilling to look on him that way. Ivo’s body was frail and insubstantial, like an armful of autumn leaves, and Dagmar carried him to the altar. Ghost rushed to help him straighten his limbs and smooth his robes as they presented him to the gods.

  “There are runes on his arm
,” she gasped, pushing back his sleeve. “He has carved them here, above his wrist.”

  Dagmar could only stare.

  “I don’t know these runes,” Ghost murmured, raising her grief-stricken gaze to his.

  Dagmar knew them. One was the soul rune, used to connect one spirit to another. Ivo had been reaching out to someone in the final minutes of his life. The other rune—man, woman, and child separated by a serpent—was Desdemona’s.

  “The second rune is unfinished,” Ghost whispered.

  “Someone tell me what happened here,” Dagmar demanded, bearing down on the fear that threatened to engulf him. Amos, always the most outspoken among the keepers, proceeded to describe the events that had unfolded.

  By the time Amos had finished his account, Dagmar had sunk into a chair on the dais and the daughters and the keepers had gathered around him, clearly as stricken and lost as he. But Ghost remained beside the altar, her white head bowed, holding Ivo’s gnarled hand. The hem of her purple robe was black with Ivo’s blood; a long crimson streak stretched from the altar where she stood to the rear of the temple where he’d lain, marking her path.

  “Who will come to our aid?” Dalys asked, her voice small.

  “We will save ourselves,” Bashti hissed.

  “But . . . even Bayr has forsaken us,” Keeper Bjorn complained, and Ghost raised her head, her eyes meeting Dagmar’s across the altar.

  “The gods have forsaken us,” Amos intoned. “We have failed to lift the scourge.”

  “The king must die,” Juliah growled.

  “We must get a message to the chieftains. We must tell the people what he has done,” Elayne pressed.

  “None of them will care,” Keeper Dieter argued.

  “Aidan of Adyar will care,” Elayne shot back. “Lothgar and Josef will care.”

  “No one will stand against Banruud,” Keeper Lowell said. “There are Northmen on our mount. The clans are afraid, and the king has offered a solution.”

  “What solution is that?” Dagmar interrupted, harsh.

  “He has announced the marriage of Princess Alba to the North King. Gudrun has promised to leave the mount and to withdraw from Berne,” Amos supplied, a hint of admiration tingeing his words. “It is the only solution.”

  Ghost shuddered and released Ivo’s hand.

  “Why would Gudrun agree to such a thing?” Dagmar asked.

  The keepers gaped, not understanding, and Amos was the first to recover. “The princess is beautiful. She is a great prize, a valuable treasure. She is the hope of Saylok,” he stammered, outraged.

  “The hope of Saylok,” Dagmar repeated softly. For so long, they had pinned their hopes on one small girl child. They had placed responsibility on an orphaned temple boy.

  And they had all waited to be saved.

  “What assurances does the king have that Gudrun will leave?” Dagmar asked.

  The keepers had no answer, and their aging faces grew grim. Ghost turned from the altar, her gaze clinging to Dagmar’s face. He silently begged her for forgiveness.

  “Gudrun wants the temple,” Juliah muttered.

  “And the mount,” Bashti added.

  “He wants Saylok,” Liis said.

  “And if no one will stop Banruud . . . who will stop Gudrun?” Bjorn asked, and his cry echoed in every chest.

  “We will stop him,” Dagmar whispered, and though he knew it to be true, there was no victory in his voice. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. “Ivo has already begun.”

  Alba waited until the sky began to blush in the east before she gave up on Bayr. She considered pricking her finger once more, drawing the rune to hide her as she returned, but knew her blood would likely dry before she reached the garden door, so she waited.

  What she needed was a rune for courage, a rune to give her peace, and a rune to make her father a different man, but she had no such weapons in her arsenal. She knew runes to heal and runes to hide. She knew runes to hear words that were far away and runes that brought the distance into focus. She could quiet the birds and calm the beasts, little tricks that gave her a sense of freedom and a whisper of influence. But they gave her no power. She could not call down a curse or strike down the North King. She could not command armies or control men’s thoughts. She could not even control her own. Whatever abilities she possessed, whatever magic fed her runes, it was not enough to alter her existence in any way. It was not enough to protect Bayr.

  Arriving at the hatch, she brushed herself free of the detritus of a night spent on the hillside and a trek through the tunnel, and drew her rune before stepping out into her mother’s garden. Skirting the sharp rosebushes, she hurried down the long rows of late-blooming flowers and carefully shaped shrubbery, feeling scattered and scared. She’d waited on the hillside longer than she should have. The castle was awake, the cattle lowing from the barn, the chickens squabbling from the yard behind the kitchens. She would wash and change her clothes and set about finding Bayr. She ducked through the arched terraces and hurried through the rear entrance to the gardens to find the palace in a state of uproar. Porters rushed through the hallways, maids scurried, the kitchen was filled with clatter and chaos, and the guard was in a frenzy.

  They were looking for her.

  The crowded corridors and the king’s men assembled in the wide foyer at the base of the stairs would be almost impossible to navigate. The rune made her blend in; it did not make men blind. The guards were reporting back to Balfor, her father’s longtime henchman, rattling off the results of their search as she crept among them, hugging the edges of the room, her eyes on the tower stairs.

  “She was not in the temple, Captain.”

  “We’ve combed the village.”

  “Every room in the palace has been searched.”

  “No one has seen her.”

  “She is not in the square.”

  She formulated excuses as she neared the landing, praying her maid was not waiting in her room. Almost there. She began to rush past Balfor, who blocked her path, while holding her breath and clutching her skirts, but at the last moment, he shifted to the left and brushed against the back of her hand where her drying rune was drawn. He felt the contact and swiveled his head.

  “Princess,” he gasped, surprise lifting his brows.

  She continued past him, willing him to let her go, but he clutched her arm, detaining her with a shout.

  “Alert the king,” Balfor boomed. “The princess is here.”

  A sentry scrambled to obey him, but the guards around them gaped, momentarily speechless at her sudden appearance. Seconds later they were dispersing to report she’d been located, clearly relieved that the crisis had passed.

  “Where have you been, Princess?” Balfor hissed. “The whole mount was looking for you. The temple was searched—the keepers are not happy with you—and the palace turned upside down. Yet here you are, looking deliciously rumpled.”

  “Let go of me, Balfor,” she demanded, jerking her arm from his grasp. Balfor had always regarded her in a way that made her skin prickle and her hands sweat. He’d come from Berne with the king seventeen years before, and he’d never strayed far from his side. The way he said Princess Alba always sounded like a slur, and Alba avoided him whenever possible.

  “Gudrun and the Northmen will leave after the melee. You will be going with them,” he whispered. “Your trunks are being prepared. We thought you’d slipped away with the Temple Boy.” He grinned, revealing his blackened and missing teeth. “We have a patrol out looking for him. He’s to be hung if he’s found. Mayhaps your return will convince the king to show mercy. But Gudrun does not want a soiled queen. Are you soiled, Princess?”

  “Balfor.” Her father was striding toward her. “Leave us.”

  Balfor slunk away, instructing the remaining sentries to “stand guard at every entrance and be vigilant.” Alba turned on her father, her chest hot with terror, her throat closing around the flame.

  “I was not with Bayr,” she insist
ed, her voice pitched low for privacy, striving for calm. “What is the meaning of this?”

  Her father stopped in front of her and tipped her chin up in consideration, gazing down at her with flat eyes. His hair was messed, long silvery pieces falling from his braid, and there was blood splattered over his clothes. “I have been preparing you for this day—don’t act as though it is a surprise. You will be a queen before the sun sets, and Saylok will sing your praises for delivering them out of the hands of the Northmen.”

  “Where is Bayr?” she asked, pulling her chin from his grasp. “What have you done?”

  “You have a long journey ahead, Daughter. You should prepare yourself. Your people will want to see you off. You will join me and King Gudrun at the melee. A wedding feast will follow. And then we will bid you both farewell.” Banruud stepped away from her, turning his back as though the matter was settled.

  “I am not leaving, and I will not marry the North King. If you force me, I will gouge out Gudrun’s eyes and cut his throat in his sleep. And then I will make a rune, fed with my lifeblood, and I will curse you as you’ve cursed me. I will turn your limbs as black as your heart, and you will die as alone and miserable as you’ve lived.”

  Banruud swung back around, insolence curling his lips. He tugged a length of rope from his black vest and tossed it at her feet. “The Temple Boy left this for you. I thought, given your long friendship, you might want it.”

  It was Bayr’s braid. A streak of long, pale blond was woven through it from tip to tail; she’d wound a lock of her hair into its length only days before. Her fear became blind terror, and she fell to her knees, desperate to deny what she was seeing.

  “He cut his braid. Do you know what that means, Alba? Do you know what it means when a warrior cuts his braid in front of his king?” Banruud asked.

  She rose, clutching the plait to her chest, the heavy rope of Bayr’s hair spilling from her fists, anguish spilling from her eyes.

  “It is treason. A braid is severed when a king dies or when a warrior refuses to fight for him.” Her father closed the distance between them and wrapped his hand around her neck. Then he pulled her to him, pressing his lips to her brow.