Time of Daughters II

by Sherwood Smith

  Maddar followed Cabbage out, and he hid his heart-lift of pride at the sight of her curving smile, and the even better curves below. Though he knew he could take no credit for it, he still relished the fact that the queen’s training girls had, in the mysterious ways of girls, chosen Maddar as second prettiest of their particular group before they’d all dispersed to their future lives.

  “We’ve got a new post,” he muttered. “Yvanavayir. For a year. I want to get out of here before Blue hears.”

  Maddar completely understood, but she had her own stipulation. “Snow’s coming with me,” she stated, glancing back to where Snow trailed them out of earshot.

  Cabbage turned up his hand, having expected as much. They’d been married during his two weeks’ liberty, in a wedding that Da had only permitted to take an hour out of a regular work day—“good enough for a second son,” he’d said.

  That liberty had been filled each day with chores, so though they’d slept together a few times, Maddar had been frank about the fact that she was tight with Snow (“I was nicknamed Snowball when I was born, being small and round with near white hair, but now I’m large and dark so Snow will do!”), a scribe turned baker.

  Da had accepted Snow once he found out that she was a full scribe, and willing to carry out any scribe chores at Gannan without being paid—and when he discovered that she also helped in the bakehouse, also unpaid, he wouldn’t have cared if she was a Venn.

  Maddar saw Cabbage’s acceptance, no less than expected but it was always good to get things clear. “We can be ready in an hour.”

  They rode out in less time, once Cabbage had told his father it was the king’s orders to leave immediately.

  The jarl didn’t argue. He didn’t like losing the women’s labor, but with the three of them and their runners gone, there were far fewer mouths to feed, and anyway he was readying for his ride to the royal city for Convocation.

  By the time Cabbage, Maddar, and Snow rounded the lake, Cabbage understood that there would never be any chance with Snow, though she had exactly the kind of figure he liked most. She liked women only, but she was easy to get along with. When they camped out, the three of them shared a tent, but Maddar laid out the bedrolls, each with their own, and she slept in the middle.

  The closer they got to Yvanavayir, the more intimidated he felt at the idea of running a jarlate, even for a year. Growing up, he’d paid little attention to what his father did as jarl, and would have been beaten for his temerity by both his father and his brother if he had. Instead, he’d made it his business to be as far away from Da as possible, which meant he’d pretty much lived in the stable, or out practicing in the field.

  They made it to Yvanavayir two weeks before the end of the year, and Convocation.

  Yvanavayir turned out to be far more intimidating than he’d expected.

  The first flurries of snow were falling when they rode through the high, iron-reinforced gates of a castle every bit as large as the royal castle. In fact, they were told by a quiet, somber man left by the Yvanavayirs as interim steward, Yvanavayir Castle had been rebuilt by Mad Gallop Yvanavayir on the same plan as the royal castle, except it didn’t have a huge garrison wing beyond the actual building, as the number of Riders in those days was fixed. So half the castle housed the Riders and stable hands and staff, but it was still enormous.

  And shabby, though someone had begun reparations here and there. “There’s a new bakehouse,” Snow exclaimed on their walk-through. “It’s like they knew I was coming!” And she remained behind to ask questions of the kitchen staff.

  Cabbage and Maddar toiled on. When the steward indicated the tour was finished by a morose mumble that he’d await orders, the interim jarl and jarlan were left completely alone.

  Cabbage’s habits had changed a lot in his years away from Gannan, but admitting to things was still difficult. Still, as Maddar gazed around the vaulted ceiling of the otherwise bare room they stood in, he mumbled, “I have no idea what to do first.”

  Maddar turned, bright blue eyes mild as she shoved her thick blond braids behind her shoulders. “I do. I’ve been helping my mother ever since I was small. Sindan-An’s castle isn’t nearly as pretentious as this,” she waved a hand outward, “but the jarlate is as big, and much the same in terrain to be ridden.”

  Snow caught up with them then, her dark eyes mirthful. “The Riders seem to regard Cabbage here as extra tight. It’s not just this command, it’s they think he’s got a handsome wife and a handsome lover.” She swung her hips suggestively.

  Maddar laughed. “Don’t let ‘em think otherwise. Cabbage here will need all the rep he can get when he starts handing out orders.”

  Which he did, after Maddar told him what to say.

  And so, when New Year’s Week began, Cabbage, Maddar, and Snow sat in the south tower, which had been brightened with two Iascan flower tapestries. Two weeks of hard labor by everyone, from the three of them on down to the ten-year-old stable wander, had rendered the castle livable, if sparsely furnished as yet.

  Maddar’s unshakeable calm and Snow’s jokes had eased the Riders into laborers for that time. Now the three sat on new mats, sharing a jug of New Year’s Week spiced wine as they looked up at the tapestry that Maddar had bought from one of the village craft guilds days ago.

  “There’s no battle in it,” Cabbage said. “No story. Just those flower and bird things in that wiggly line, with all the old-fashioned letters.”

  “The letters are part of the art,” Snow said. “And it does tell a story. In a way. The brightness of the flowers out of the shadows of winter, with the Sartoran symbols to make it clear.”

  “Clear only if you already know what they mean,” Cabbage said, taking a swig of the spiced wine.

  “That symbol there in each corner means influence—Sartoran influence. The letter itself has an interesting history, the marks meaning shadow-sound or sounds out of the shadows, which grab your attention. That sense of peripheral awareness could have come to mean influence,” Snow said, leaning over to refill her cup.

  She saw that Cabbage was getting restless. “Well, you get the idea. Iascan, which comes from Sartoran, is full of those, is all I’m saying. The letters all have little stories in them.”

  “That only scribes can read.” At the look Maddar cut him sidewise, he heard his own voice sounding more sullen than he’d meant it to. It was a boring subject, but they’d worked hard, and he liked the warm room and the wine, and maybe if Maddar ended the evening in a good mood, she’d sleep with him, because he hadn’t found any likely favorites yet. Too busy. “Scribing seems like hard work. Is that why you went back to baking?”

  Snow grinned. “Opposite. Too many scribes, too little work. I’m from generations of bakers. I know the trade, and people always need food, even if they don’t need my pen. It was different a century ago, our teachers said, when scribes were in demand everywhere,” she added. “When they were busy translating Iascan records to Marlovan.”

  “I thought Marlovan had its own records.” Cabbage reached past Snow for the jug.

  “No-o-o-o,” Snow drew out the word. “In those old days, they made this big fuss about how Marlovan was the language of war, hoola loo, but what it actually meant was, Marlovans didn’t have any writing, much less records.”

  “Of course we did,” he protested. “It was that Venn runes stuff. You see it in some of our older tapestries.”

  “But we didn’t use it.” Maddar held out the basket of crisped cabbage rolls, and Snow speared one with her knife. “Even I know that. Back in the Venn days, only certain people could learn runes, and our ancestors, who weren’t elite, that is, the leaders, didn’t. Maybe that’s why they left the Land of the Venn.”

  “Because they couldn’t write?” Cabbage hooted. “Try another one.”

  Snow put her feet up on the table next to the pile of dirty dishes left from supper. “Why do you think the really old ballads have so many verses?”

  “Grandma told
me that they used to memorize all their lessons,” Maddar said.

  “Right. Everybody spoke two languages a couple centuries ago, Iascan and Marlovan, not just folks up here, where there are lots of Iascans still, or in Marthdavan, along the coast—though their dialect is so thick I barely understood them when I visited my grandmother once.”

  Cabbage grabbed another biscuit. “Well, all I can say is, the bakehouse sure turns out good eats. These are way better than ours at Gannan.”

  Snow grinned. “I could go on about stinginess with ingredients, but none of that is new to you. Bringing me back to the bakehouse here. Excellent bakehouse. Which is why I think you two should do what you can to be promoted to jarl and jarlan.”

  At Cabbage’s startled look, Maddar and Snow exchanged glances.

  Cabbage might not be imaginative outside of his own interests, but he wasn’t stupid. “The king gave orders,” he said, raising his voice to hide how uneasy that glance of understanding made him. “Someone will show up here next New Year’s, by the king’s command.”

  “Yes, yes, we all know that,” Maddar said in a soothing voice. “You needn’t bellow. We’re all right here, and nobody is listening to us.”

  At that moment the crash and tinkle of crockery echoed up the stones from the courtyard below, followed by the roar of drunken voices.

  Snow cocked her head. “They’re already trying to do the sword dance with cups on their heads?” she asked rhetorically. “Anyway, as I was just about to say, I’d love to be the household steward. And neither of you wants to go back to Gannan any more than I do.”

  This was so true it was entirely unanswerable.

  Cabbage mumbled, “I wish we could get Lnand out, too.” Lnand Sindan was not merely a quiet presence; Cabbage had overheard her saying to Blue within days after her arrival, “I can see that there’s a lot going on in this castle that is not what I’m used to. Just so we start out understanding each other, if you touch me with one of those fists, you won’t live out the week.”

  Cabbage had admired her with unspoken intensity from that moment.

  Snow chuckled. “Don’t worry about Lnand.”

  Maddar’s smile glinted with the edges of her teeth. “Lnand is biding her time. You’ll see. Once the jarl drops dead of an apoplexy—by rights it should be soon—things will be different. And when she has a child, she’ll rein Blue hard by saying if he once lays a hand on him, she and the child, even if it’s a boy, will be smoke. Blue knows the entire Eastern Alliance will back her. If the queen doesn’t get at him first.”

  Cabbage knew he should protest the slurs against his father and brother. It was disloyal to the family not to. Except they weren’t really slurs if it was true, was it? He’d loathed both his father and his brother since he was small. He muttered, “My mother probably thought things would be different, too. Maybe that’s why she’s so sour.”

  “That’s because she had no cousins to back her. Or a tough gunvaer.” Snow clacked her mug against Maddar’s. “We’ve ridden with Lnand. I’d back her against your father any time. She’s quiet because he’s jarl, and the Riders all follow him. But see if she doesn’t rein Blue before then. Give her five years once she’s jarlan. Gannan will be a different place.”

  Maddar sensed Cabbage’s conflict, and took an oblique approach, elbowing him in the side. “Wouldn’t you like New Year’s Week to be this fun every year? If we improve this place, surely Noddy will want to reward you? Just mention it to him, is all I’m saying. He likes you. And you earned it.”

  Snow leaned over. “See, what you do is, invite Nadran-Sierlaef to Yvanavayir—”

  “Don’t say Yvanavayir,” Cabbage muttered. “They’re gone.”

  “About that.” Maddar put her fists on her chin. “Nobody seems to know what to call this jarlate, and you didn’t get orders, right, about a new name?”

  “Right,” Cabbage said cautiously.

  Maddar saw his wariness and flicked her fingers out. “Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting you use your name. Far from it! It’s just, when I went around to the local villages to meet the guild chiefs, what I heard most often was that this was Stalgoreth in the local language before we Marlovans turned up. Nobody is squawking about getting rid of us, so why not give them a small salute by using the old name? Only until the king appoints someone, of course.”

  When Cabbage hesitated, Snow said, “Mad can write to the gunvaer about it. How’s that? After all, we have to call it something, and everybody is so awkward every time the Yvanavayir name accidentally comes out.”

  “Write to the gunvaer,” Cabbage said, glad to pass the decision on.

  “And your part,” Maddar went on, walking her fingers up his broad chest, “is to invite the crown prince here for next year’s New Year’s Week, since there won’t be any Convocation. Inspection, call it. Give him an excellent time, and show him what we’ve done.” She poked a finger into the cleft in his chin.

  Cabbage Gannan was not imaginative, but even he could easily picture never having to see his brother again, except at Convocation once Da was gone, if they were both jarls. He’d even have precedence over Blue, wouldn’t he, as Yvanavayir—Stalgoreth—was so much bigger and older? All his life he’d dreaded what would happen once Blue was jarl, and he’d have to live under his brother’s heel....

  On the other side, if the rumor was true and Connar was being promoted again.... Cabbage grimaced into his cup. Connar had been the one to suggest his first promotion after being stupid enough to nearly run both himself and Noddy straight into the Bar Regren, when anyone could have told them to stay well away from Chalk Hills unless they had a full battalion at their backs. Connar had written to Nermand to recommend promotion, but he still looked at Cabbage as if he had shit on his shoes.

  Cabbage hated him for it, but that didn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that Connar hated him. And now Connar was at the top of the chain of command. Cabbage remembered seeing Connar fighting his way through the Bar Regren—and again at Tlennen Plain. He fought like lightning.

  If Noddy was promoted to run the army, life would be great. But Cabbage wasn’t so sure about Connar. Maybe being a jarl would be better than Commander of First Lancers, if Connar became Commander of the King’s Army.

  He looked up, to see Maddar and Snow waiting for him to answer.

  So he answered. “I’ll write to Noddy come spring. How’s that?”

  Maddar whooped, grabbed him by the shirt laces and gave him a smacking kiss. He kissed her back, laughing, then the three of them clacked their cups together.

  As for Connar, officially Commander in Chief of the King’s Army, about the time that Cabbage, Maddar, and Snow were charting what needed doing and who was to do it to improve Stalgoreth-used-to-be-Yvanavayir-used-to-be-Stalgoreth, Connar and his company rode for Ku Halir.

  Two nights running he scarcely slept at all, but sat in his tent poring over the kingdom map as he formed plans that always ran up against what he didn’t know, what he couldn’t predict.

  At the point at which the north road diverged, he sent Ghost to Halivayir to prepare it for winter games, and also—as Leaf Dorthad had recovered from her coma—to get married.

  By the time Connar and Stick galloped into Ku Halir ahead of a blizzard, Connar’s mood was bleak. Sometimes he hated Inda-Harskialdna, who (it was said) never experienced the slightest doubts. He just went out and won every battle.

  Light, warmth, good food, and leftover spiced wine, all offered by a cheerful Ventdor, helped to smooth the surface of Connar’s turmoil. Everywhere he looked was order, ready salutes to him as Commander in Chief. He and Stick gave their company general liberty to make up for the week of fun they’d missed by riding out of the royal city on New Year’s Secondday.

  That left Connar and Stick to Ventdor and his captains. Ventdor asked about everyone at the royal city, and then said, “Tomorrow is enough time to get to waiting affairs.”

  The good mood soured. “What waiting affairs?” Conna
r asked.

  He understood his voice was too sharp when Ventdor looked startled, nicked his chin at a waiting runner—who vanished through the door—then he raised his hands, palms out. “No, no, nothing dire. Would have sent someone, of course.” He glanced aside, then back, and forced a hearty tone. “Young Tanrid, that is, the Jarl of Olavayir—Cousin Jarend having handed off the title, you know. Well, quite rightly, has sent along his treaty requirement before the king could even call for volunteers for dealing with the Adranis.”

  Connar wondered why Ventdor sounded so disjointed, his gaze going to either side, up, down; he didn’t know Ventdor enough to recognize the signs of an inward struggle.

  Sneeze Ventdor was trying hard to hide his prejudice against the son of a one of the most fervent of the Nighthawk survivors after Mathren’s death: Halrid Jethren.

  Ventdor knew that kindly Jarend-Jarl, who hated violence, had done his best to integrate those men into the Olavayir Riders—and apparently they had been models of order and proper behavior ever since. Their skills in the field unmatched. Maybe Nighthawk had died out, as Jarend had hoped. One thing for certain, these boys certainly came with high praise for their skills.

  Aware he’d let a silence build, Ventdor cleared his throat. “Kethedrend Jethren comes with the former jarl’s recommendation, as being the best of the younger generation. Young as he is, Keth Jethren’s been promoted to lance captain over the three ridings he brought, along with scouts and runners.”

  Ventdor paused at the clatter of arrivals echoing down the hall through the open door. Connar forgot Ventdor’s flat tone and oblique gaze when he saw the four who came in behind the runner. All four seemed familiar, though he didn’t recognize any of them by name, and he wasn’t certain of place. They were led by a pale-haired fellow Connar’s own age, tall and broad-shouldered.

  This was obviously the leader. He raised his arm, and—stepping behind Barend Ventdor so that only Connar could see him, he laid his fist against his chest in the secret salute in the stable annex at the Nevree castle.