Time of Daughters II

by Sherwood Smith

He slammed off to bathe again.

  They rode out directly after the morning meal, orderly as always, but those who paid attention to the distances between people, and who spoke to whom, were aware that the Riders returning from the Adrani pass were three distinct groups: the Ku Halir lancers, eager to get back, and a further more subtle division between Jethren’s men and Stick’s and Ghost’s.

  At last, Ku Halir rose on the horizon.

  Connar expected salutes and cheers when they were sighted. They got them, but it wasn’t the frenzy he’d anticipated, and deserved, now that Elsarion was effectively dead. Maybe Quill had gone straight to the royal city without stopping to report.

  Ventdor came out to the stable yard, looking older and more careworn than Connar remembered. He spoke the words officially releasing the lancers to their commander, who immediately gave them all liberty. Then Connar said, “The rest of you, liberty as well. We’ll have orders at morning muster.”

  He waited, catching Stick’s and Ghost’s glances, and they acknowledged with the Hand sign for got it. Manther Yvanavayir went with the two captains.

  Jethren, watching obliquely, saw all this unspoken communication and walked away, strictly controlling his temper. After everything he’d done...but, he reminded himself, Ghost and Stick had been with the true king all his life. They were together at Chalk Hills, and Tlennen Plain. Of course it would take more than a year to prove himself, much less to replace them.

  Unless something happened.

  Connar turned his back on Jethren: out of sight, out of mind. With Stick, Ghost, and Manther at his back, he proceeded to Ventdor’s office, where Uncle Barend was holding the desk.

  Commander Ventdor waved all the runners out and shut the door.

  Connar said, “We cleaned the southern pass all the way to Elsarion, and he himself is effectively dead.”

  Ventdor opened his hand. “Young Quill stopped to change horses, and gave us the gist of the report he’s carrying to Arrow. They turned him into a statue! Should have turned him over to us, but....” He shrugged. “They’re Adranis.” He said Adranis in the same tone as one would say boneheads.

  Ventdor seemed to regard the subject as closed. Connar felt impelled to say, “Did Quill report on the battle at West Outpost?”

  “Yes,” Ventdor replied. “Said it was fairly hot. He didn’t say a lot, but I heard enough to recognize that you cut it tight, scrambling over some mountain in order to come at the Adranis from the back end. Very well planned. Your father is going to enjoy that.”

  ‘Scrambling over some mountain.’ Connar did not know what to say to such profound understatement. Just as well, because Ventdor went on, “I guess no runners got to you while you were running up and down the pass, so you probably want the details of our battle.”

  “Battle?” Connar repeated, expecting—wanting—Ventdor to correct himself and say skirmish, scuffle, dust-up.

  Ventdor opened his hands. “I didn’t think it could get much worse than Tlennen Hills. I was wrong.”

  And he told Connar, in excruciatingly vivid detail. Halfway through this account, Connar began to perceive that this was the battle he should have commanded. Of course the Bar Regren, or the Iascans, or even the Idegans, would try something as soon as they discovered that he’d taken the best of the northern garrisons east. He should have sent Rat Noth over that damn mountain, but he’d wanted the pleasure of killing Elsarion himself, and so he’d assigned Rat Noth a patrol area as far from any possible battleground as he could.

  Inda-Harskialdna had never made this kind of mistake.

  Ventdor, unaware that he’d all but lost his audience, went on at length about Rat Noth’s excellence, once more coming to the rescue. The Senelaecs’ heroism. Neit—Neit!—in command! Lineas running a heroic race to bring Rat Noth just in time.

  Ventdor finally paused to draw breath, and glanced at the prince, expecting to see his own emotions shared. He didn’t recognize the expression on Connar’s face, but instinct prompted him to add, “Of course the credit overall goes to you for putting the right people in the right places, so whatever happened, we had the entire north covered. That was excellent foresight,” Ventdor finished. “Not a bad start for your first two years of command.”

  Connar stared back as he struggled to assimilate the fact that the torment of Skytalon, and the triumph of West Outpost, had been entirely overshadowed by the Battle of Ku Halir.

  But everyone seemed to think he’d foreseen it.

  Danet listened to Quill’s report with growing horror, and then a rising fury. It was even worse than she’d dreaded. She looked at the faces gathered around Arrow, then away: one of the worst things you could say after hearing how many lives had been lost was how utterly useless it had been.

  She glared at Arrow, who coughed, then used the back of his hand to wipe his eyes. Was that a tremor in his fingers? Her anger shifted to resentment at how old he looked. She could blame the bristic, but she knew that grief caused him to drink more heavily than he ever had. Jarend was dead, not from an assassin’s knife, or from leading a battle. He’d died in bed, from a malady that struck the old. But they weren’t that old! She was just short of fifty. Jarend hadn’t been even sixty!

  Arrow peered at Quill, whose bones had sharpened considerably since the last time he’d reported. He counted up, shocked that two years had passed so quickly. “Good work,” Arrow said, and recollecting that he’d sent Quill away on the heels of that business down south, “Take the day off.”

  Danet shot him a glower. “Quill. Tell Mnar Milnari that you should have at least a week before taking up your duties again. She and the others can handle one more week.”

  Quill saluted, hand to heart. The only emotion he betrayed was a flush along those blade-sharp cheekbones; he’d done his best to report what happened, not what he thought, but he’d seen the queen’s reaction.

  As soon as he was gone, Danet considered what to say. Too late for Connar was far too young for that kind of responsibility. Arrow was no longer able to ride like thunder across the plains. He said himself he’d never be able to direct a battle.

  So avoid battles, Danet longed to say. Except the Bar Regren hadn’t permitted them that luxury. But would that have been true if Connar hadn’t gone chasing up the pass?

  When Arrow shot her a wary glance—he knew her well, and had sensed her bristling—she said only, “When Connar gets back, perhaps it’s time for him to complete the long-deferred tour of the south. I think he needs to get a good sense of the entire kingdom, don’t you?”

  Arrow’s brow lifted. “Yes. Good idea. Very good idea. And when he gets back, he can start taking some of the load off Andaun, who keeps making noises about retirement. He’s been running the academy coming up on thirty years, and he wasn’t that young when we corralled him into it. Seems to me it’s time Connar takes a hand over there.”

  Danet bit back a tart response that with the second year of girls joining the academy, Noren or Bunny could as easily help Andaun, couldn’t they?

  One thing at a time.

  “Agreed,” was all she said, and then glanced at Noddy, who stared down at his hands, his big, bony face long, his mouth unhappy, and a pang stabbed deep in her chest at how much he reminded her of Jarend. He had looked exactly like that that terrible day when he became king for an hour.

  She flicked a glance at Noren, who caught Noddy’s attention with some easy questions.

  Upstairs, Quill finished summarizing his report to Mnar.

  “We’ve missed you,” Mnar said bluntly. “Seems to me there’s a lot you didn’t say, but I can’t imagine any of it was easy.”

  He opened his hands, a gesture that reminded her so strongly of Shendan that her throat hurt. She said gruffly, “Go get something to eat. You’re too skinny.”

  But he had other things on his mind.

  He walked through the castle, breathing the familiar air, and listening to the sounds of normalcy. Sanity. Safety. Oh, how good it was to be back i
n the roost! He took a long bath, and returned to his room, where he found his clothes neatly laid aside. Nothing of Lineas’s was there—she was too scrupulous for that—but her scent was there, very faint, but there, on his pillow. He breathed deeply of it, feeling iron bands loosen from around his heart, bands he had not known were there until their merciless grip eased.

  Still two hours in the day watch; he didn’t trust himself to seek Lineas out. It was beyond him to maintain proper decorum if he saw her face. So he obeyed orders after all, retreating to the baths, where he dealt with all his clothing. He went off to the boot-maker to order more boots, and last to the mess hall, where familiar faces hailed him after his time away. A meal of just-baked hot pie, rolls, and fresh berry compote filled him up.

  When the night watch bell rang, he went up to the roost, his heart beating in his ears.

  She was there. Standing in the middle of his room. Everything he felt he saw in Lineas’s face. One moment for each to see that the other was truly there, and then they were together, mouths frantic, hands ripping impatiently at clothing as they tried to touch everywhere at once.

  Later—much later—Lineas curved against him, and tenderness shivered through her at the minute shifts he made while drowsy and half-asleep in order to fit her more tightly against him, one hand coming up to brush over her cheek, and trace down to rest on her hip.

  “It’s the details that can betray us,” he murmured into her soft cloud of hair. “I couldn’t transfer. A loose horse coming down the pass would have raised questions. I had to run the entire pass alone, and at West Outpost Gannan pressed his own favorite mount on me, which meant I must ride it myself to Ku Halir. At least I could get out West Outpost after only an hour, though by the time of my arrival it was mostly cleaned up, all except the ghosts.”

  Lineas’s muscles tightened, and Quill’s drowsiness vanished. He cupped his hand around her chin and gently turned her head so he could see her face. “You know that’s just an expression. Truth to tell, if I could have the memory of that slaughter cut out of my skull I’d thank the person wielding the knife.”

  She laid her head against his chest, listening to the timbre of his voice through the fremitus. The grief she could feel, and hear, chilled her.

  “Lineas?” he asked.

  She shivered again. “Just a foolish reaction.”

  He said, “Lineas, I don’t believe you’re capable of foolishness.”

  “Oh, if only you knew.”

  “If I don’t, then tell me.” He kissed her. “I remember when you were small you worried so much about being perceived as normal. Whatever that is. Sometimes I think there is no such thing. There is only an agreed-on fiction that we all pretend to. But I’ve always treasured you for being you. Always. Far before I woke up to all the possibilities of love.”

  “It’s....” She rolled away, and propped herself on her elbow so that she could see his face, and the sincerity there.

  He loved the subtle changes in her expression, the twitch of her eyebrows, the way her eyes narrowed with hidden laughter. The deep dimples beside her mouth, enhanced by the freckles.

  “That is, I do,” she whispered. “Tell you everything.”

  “Almost everything,” he said. “There are two subjects you’ve avoided, Connar and ghosts.”

  She chuckled, surprised, her expressive brows lifting then furrowing. “I...have learned to avoid the subject of ghosts. And there really isn’t much to say.” Her gaze shifted. “Connar...I never wanted him to be a, a thing between you and me.”

  “He isn’t,” Quill said. “He’s an important part of our lives, for a variety of reasons, but if you were thinking of resentment or jealousy on my part, I don’t resent your relationships present or past. We can talk about the future.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad,” she murmured. “It’s very hard—I feel I somehow failed, because everyone else can part with ease, but I...didn’t. He walked away, and I knew he was very angry with me. Though neither of us had ever made any promises.”

  Quill was silent, thinking over his few encounters with Connar. There’d been some kind of tension there. “It couldn’t be jealousy,” he murmured, more to himself.

  “Jealousy?” she repeated, her brow furrowed. “Impossible. He has numberless lovers. And we never made promises, as I said.”

  “It’s a guess only, and I’m probably wrong,” Quill admitted. “I hope I am. Camerend told me when I was small that jealousy is one of those emotions that gives you absolutely nothing but pain. Even anger can be useful. But not jealousy. Maybe Connar doesn’t trust me.”

  “Why?” Lineas rose on an elbow, looking worried. “But he sent you on such vital missions!”

  Quill was sorry to see alarm widening her eyes. “Mistrust might be the wrong idea. Or maybe it’s a personal distrust. Eh,” he added, as the alarm in Lineas’s face did not abate. “People do get sudden antipathies, same as sudden attraction. I’ve seen so little of him over the years, I don’t know him at all. I’ll exert myself now to keep it that way. It’s a big castle, a big kingdom. Lineas, my point is, if you want to talk about him—about why your parting was terrible, or what’s happened since—you can.”

  “I’m going to try to stay away also,” she said softly. “As for ghosts...I see them.” Her whisper was so low he almost didn’t hear her.

  “You....”

  “See them.” She let out a soft hiss of decision. “The day the king and queen took over the throne, the old gunvaer saw Evred’s ghost. Everyone talked of that. So I assumed that he was the one I saw my very first day here, right before I met you, and frequently since. Well, I thought it was Evred Olavayir. But the one I see is actually Lanrid Olavayir. The son of Mathren Olavayir.”

  Quill sat up, all vestiges of sleep gone. This conversation was straying into territory he was only used to hearing from his mother. “How did you find out? Where have you seen him?”

  Relieved at his lack of the usual annihilating disbelief or contemptuous skepticism, she told him what had happened at Larkadhe, and then Fish’s surprising comment. “I guess that drawing I made got saved, and shown to someone who knew Lanrid,” she finished.

  He said slowly, “But Lanrid Olavayir was never here, was he?”

  “As a small child, he was. Then he and his little brother were sent to Olavayir after their mother died. This is not a child ghost. He’s a young man. But then how ghosts appear, where, and why, I have never understood.”

  Quill lifted a strand of curly hair off her forehead, where it had tangled with her eyelashes. “What does it mean when a ghost hangs around like that?”

  “I don’t know. No one does. Maybe the Cassads can talk to ghosts, or at least make sense of them, but I can’t. It’s the most useless...thing...in life.”

  “Really?” he asked, laughing under his breath. “I thought the most useless thing in life was male nipples.”

  She clapped her hand over her mouth but could not hold the laughter in. It wasn’t that the comment was so very funny, it was mostly relief—and a heart overflowing with tenderness. She really could tell him anything! Why was it so much better to have a living, breathing person hearing one than the silent neutrality of the journal?

  TWO

  A month later, Lineas woke alone to the sky clouding up.

  Lineas’s morning class had been assigned to the barns. She stood before her window, hands cupping her elbows as she gazed out into the rain.

  It was the first cold rain of the season, a harbinger of winter to come. Ordinarily she loved the changing of the seasons, but somehow the chill rain hissing against the castle walls, turning them from warm dusty gold to dull brown, matched her mood.

  The happiness of this month together had been almost too much to bear, because each night when she sank into Quill’s arms to sleep, she knew that one of these mornings she would be alone again in that bed. Connar was due back at any time, and might very well summon Quill to another long, dangerous duty, whatever his motivation.
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br />   A knock at her half-open door, and a fledge leaned in. “Lineas, you’re wanted.”

  Lineas turned away from the window. “Who is it?”

  “The tall captain. Wears a runner robe when she’s not garrison-side,” the boy replied.

  “Neit?”

  “That’s the one!”

  “Bring her up.”

  He slapped an awkward, big-knuckled hand against his scrawny chest, and with a flick of ragged sash-ends and equally ragged hair, he was gone.

  The rules were strict: no one upstairs unless escorted. He reappeared soon, bringing Neit, who overtopped him by a head. To Lineas, she looked even taller and more imposing wearing a Rider’s gray coat, the skirts swinging as she strode in. You couldn’t say she had a man’s stride—there was a natural swing to those magnificent hips that was not even remotely masculine—but that stride seemed more suited to a parade ground. Neit seemed too big for the room.

  “Neit? Is something amiss?”

  Neit snorted. “I was going to invite you over to get something to drink, and ease my way around to it.”

  Lineas’s smile widened at the notion of Neit attempting to ease her way around to anything. “You know I don’t like to drink.”

  “I remember it. But I never believed it, until you started in about ghosts, after Chalk Hills. Damn, that was scary. I know that was sick-Lineas. Is that also drunk-Lineas?”

  “Drunk-Lineas falls asleep with her head on the table, and wakes up covered with drool, and a hammering headache,” Lineas retorted. “Which is why I don’t drink. Come in. There’s my chair. Tell me.”

  “I need to talk to you about the gunvaer.”

  Lineas was about to sit on the bed, but at this, she whirled around. “Neit! What makes you think I know anything about the gunvaer?”

  “Because you ran for her daughter for years, then for the boys. Because you were down there on the second floor at least as much as anyone outside her own runners. Because I know you.” Neit crossed her arms over her chest, her cleft chin raised. “I need advice, not argument or fart noise about duty, or just-wait-everything’s-fine.” She tipped her head. “Speaking of the royal family, there’s also Noddy—nah, that can wait.”