Time of Daughters II

by Sherwood Smith

  The next two weeks trudged by, hour by hour. The Marlovans alternated drilling, serving on watch, and sleeping or getting what comfort they could.

  The grinding march of hours was broken by three more mass attacks, two at the same time, at each gate, strike and run. The third was much larger, people carrying makeshift ladders along with sharpened tools and implements; Connar’s archers picked them off unerringly, with devastating losses among Artolei’s infuriated mob until, in the way of mobs, their emotion turned to terror and they retreated in a stampede, in spite of Artolei’s and Ryu’s determination to rally them.

  Stalemate.

  Inside the winter palace, everyone was on strict rations; Seonrei noted that Connar, Jethren, and Rat ate exactly what their runners and warriors ate, down to the same amount, in a way that seemed habitual. That left her glad that she had instructed her maid to let the cook know she expected no special treatment, a step she had felt deserved acknowledgment. But that withered when she walked among the Marlovans. Uncouth they were, but so far, the barbarianism seemed evenly divided between both sides, evidenced in the rust-stained snow after every attempt to breach the wall.

  Seonrei began watching the drills, at first a glimpse, but gradually she stayed longer.

  Iaeth joined her one day, after having disappeared on one of her expeditions. “The Nyidris have their foodstuffs too well guarded,” she reported. “It would take too many to get there, and impossible to get past four rings of guards.”

  Seonrei didn’t ask how she knew. Her gaze followed Jethren and Connar as they led the sword warmup, which was a dance in itself.

  After contemplating her expression, Iaeth said, “So, Cousin?” in the intimate mode.

  “I am contemplating the Dichotomies.”

  Iaeth let out a soft laugh, no more than a puff of air, which froze and fell. “You mean fire down below.”

  Seonrei grunted. “I hate war as much as I ever did. More, in fact. But watching them...it’s the aesthetic appreciation of a thoroughbred’s speed, or the free-wheeling drift of the eagle against the sun before it dives on some hapless little creature. That I do not want to see, though it, too, is a part of its nature.”

  Iaeth said slowly, “Aesthetic appreciation at a distance, yes. Astute. I don’t want to get closer. Some of that is the quality of their silence. Prince Connar seems to have nothing to say beyond necessity. Captain Jethren...is more difficult to construe.”

  “Not so difficult,” Seonrei said. “He watches Prince Connar. Easy enough to see the heat there.”

  “If it were mere heat, that would be easy,” Iaeth retorted. She piqued herself on her ability to penetrate facades, but so far, he escaped her. “He doesn’t give the prince the hot-eye when he’s in the bath—yes, I saw them all once, while carrying in the towels, in hopes I would hear something useful. Jethren paid him scant heed there, but not when Prince Connar is fully dressed and fighting with two swords. Otherwise, Jethren turns his head for their women. Not our women, you’ll note. But theirs, without so much as a drape of silk between them, hair in common braids, with that swinging stride and the feline arm muscles as they shoot arrows in practice.”

  “Actually, I see the attraction,” Seonrei put in, dulcetly, her fan whirling in Rise of Interest. “You are observant.”

  A herald had to be, they both knew that.

  Iaeth sifted Seonrei’s words for clues. Was that an implied warning? Maybe not. Still, she decided to keep to herself the fact that the Marlovan ideal was someone she’d met nearly fifteen years ago, but his memory remained vivid. She’d caught him drilling like these men did, only in memory, at least, it was more lethal and yet more of a dance, with two knives, not a sword. But far more attractive had been his excellent manners, and the fact that he was as articulate as any Sartoran, with just enough accent to be interesting.

  She laughed. “Enjoy. It seems there is little enough to entertain us, Cousin.”

  Seonrei snapped her fan tight, and walked inside to do the fan dance once more.

  She was sedentary by nature, but she disliked the way she could feel bones beneath her flesh. She exercised to retain muscle, and to clear her mind that remained stubbornly cloudy...but after a few more days, she turned her travel mirror firmly face down.

  TEN

  Rat and Connar met each night to discuss the situation.

  One night, after Rat reported on the progress of making arrows (the servants’ cushions and quilting did not have useless down, as did that of the nobles, giving them a source of feathers) Connar said, “What’s the state of the stores?”

  “Low,” Rat said. “But we haven’t got to the leftover journey bread yet.”

  “What about their magic?”

  “What they said about the air burning if there is too much of that transfer business, it’s real. I smelled it. Very like an armory when all the fires are going, and the smiths banging out the steel. And the last bag arrived as ash.”

  Connar grimaced. “We can go to half-rations in the morning. Full for everyone on watch after an attack.”

  Jethren, thinking of West Outpost, said, “Do you think they’ll bring a battering ram?”

  “If they show up with one, let’s ice the road below the gate. In fact, let’s do that anyway, against the next attack. At least we have as much water as we want.”

  So they poured cauldrons of water over the wall in the dead of night, which froze into glassy smoothness by morning. Snow fell, a light covering. When the next attack arrived, the ice had as lethal an effect as the arrows from above, and once more the mob retreated at a fearful, angry scramble. This was supposed to be easy!

  The third week, the winter palace went to half rations all the time.

  Artolei appeared below them under white flag, dressed in glittering armor, a fine yeath cloak spread over his horse’s haunch, and a plumed helm on his head. Connar climbed up to the wall, memories of the siege of West Outpost flickering in his mind. His mood was grim when he looked down at the supposed commander.

  Before Artolei had finished the speech Ryu and Demeos had written—a mixture of promises and threats—Connar reached for the bow from the man standing next to him, but Rat, standing behind at shield arm position, muttered, “She’ll make him into a martyr if you shoot him under a white flag.”

  Connar said, “I know. I want to shoot that damn plume off his head.”

  Rat grinned mirthlessly. “They’ll be laughing about it clear to the border. Can you make that shot?”

  Connar loosened his grip on the bow. “That’s what I was trying to determine. I haven’t practiced in months.”

  “Marlovayir,” Rat called.

  Pepper Marlovayir, first captain under Rat, whipped up his bow, and twang!

  The plume exploded in a shower of feathers, Artolei let out a squawk of fear, and his horse bolted under him. Artolei got control—barely—and galloped away, shouting imprecations over his shoulder.

  Seonrei was waiting when Connar climbed down. “They can’t be sitting still out there.”

  “No,” Connar said. “They aren’t.”

  “The sun is higher in the sky every day. First thaw should be coming soon,” she said. “There will not be ice. And there’s the matter of food running out.”

  “We’ll start quarter-rations today,” he said. And because she had so far proved to be more of an ally than he had expected, “We’re waiting on reinforcements.”

  Seonrei drew in a breath. “You think that young woman made it, then?”

  Connar eyed her warily. Successfully identifying the question fast turning to suspicion, Seonrei said in careful, heavily accented Marlovan, “My servant Iaeth, she helped that redhaired maid to get away.”

  Connar’s expression shuttered, but at least the suspicion seemed to have faded as he said, “We will plan as if she did.”

  When the Marlovans were alone, Connar turned to Rat. “You know the terrain. Estimate the time to Cassad and back.”

  “Already have,” Rat
said. “I thought the earliest she could return is yesterday.”

  Jethren said, “Even if they turn up, what are we going to do with a dozen Riders out of Cassad?”

  “They will have spread the word,” Rat stated with quiet confidence. “They’ll all want in.”

  Jethren’s eyes narrowed. He turned to his commander, but Connar seemed pleased as he rubbed his jaw. “Whatever number they have, they’ll need to charge from the back. Let’s run the old academy signal flag up below the eagle banner to make sure.”

  The food ran out the next week, and they started on the travel bread.

  Seonrei eyed the brown loaves with trepidation. And when the cook cut off a piece no wider than the smallest joint on her little finger, she was hard put not to protest. She had never before felt hunger, but it was her constant companion now.

  She managed not to say anything—her mouth was watering too much anyway—and retreated with her disc of bread. It was stale and dry. By the time she had gnawed a few bites, half an hour had passed. The taste was actually not as terrible as the thing looked—it was thick with honey, nuts, and raisins—but she knew she would be tired of that taste before long.

  But it did fill the belly.

  Another week, and they woke to find pools of snowmelt.

  Artolei’s mob rushed the gate once again. This time they had fashioned shields to keep over their heads, and they had put together bladed rams out of what had once been building support timber.

  They lumbered toward the gates, slowed by the deep, slippery mud, and faltered at the gate under a steel rain from above. When they backed off, Rat signaled for the archers to halt, as they were dangerously low on arrows, and running out of wooden furniture to carve up.

  The Feravayir army roiled around in the mud, formed up for another try, and another flurry of arrows sent them into retreat once more.

  Connar ranged up beside Rat. “Ryu turn up?”

  “No. But I imagine he was lurking in the background among those on horses.”

  He was, and rode back to the temporary headquarters his family had established by taking over the inn at Tinker’s Turn at the north end of the town. They had expected to be there at most a week, long enough to establish that they had been innocently sledding to view the frozen falls when the Marlovans unaccountably went after each other as well as the Sartoran guests.

  Bitterness welled in him as he braced to face the escalating argument with his mother and brother over what to do next. If only his mother would listen instead of yapping about how dangerous mercenaries were! At least she didn’t know about the ones he’d secretly hired, and had planned to bring in as stonemasons to build a castle—until that damned Ivandred Noth sicced his brutes on the mercenaries’ ship as it was entering the harbor. The other two ships hadn’t even attempted to land. Cowards.

  He rode in the back way, to avoid being harassed by the roaming rabble, of whom he was thoroughly tired. With his guards going before and behind he slipped along Weavers’ Row and tramped across what in spring would be the inn’s kitchen garden, to enter through the back door.

  His steward was there, looking lugubrious—more fights were breaking out among his Perideth army, the result of wild rumors.

  Ryu pushed his way through the inn to the front, and glanced out the window. His mother stood in the main square, surrounded by the household bodyguards. She was shouting promises and assurances. He didn’t listen, but slipped around to the back again, past the squadron of armed guards keeping the rabble out of the inn.

  By the time he’d warmed up again and eaten a meal, she returned. Her first words were, “You failed again.” It wasn’t even a question.

  Irritated, he shrugged. “It was too soon. I said it was too soon. But they wanted to try, so why not? The good news is, the Marlovans look terrible. I watched them through my spyglass. They’re a step away from starving to death.”

  “Is Seonrei still there?”

  He shrugged again, sharper. “What does it matter? She can’t do anything. I’ve been thinking. Let’s give them three days. Apka should be finished with the rams by then, and the ramp to cover the ground.”

  “Three days,” she repeated. “If we can keep everyone from going at each other’s throats. You had better stop hiding here, and go among them. Promise whatever they want to hear. They’ll forget it all once they get inside and kill everyone in sight. And maybe each other, when they find nothing of value,” she added caustically.

  Artolei, Ryu, and Demeos as well as the toughest of their captains went out to force people back to the makeshift quarters, promising everything would be over in three days, when they would be celebrating their victory in the palace.

  They handed out extra provisions, and when it was clear that once again they’d managed to restore a semblance of order, a fourteen-year-old baker’s apprentice slipped out of the crowd, carrying a basket of rolls. He perched on his third-cousin’s supply cart, loaded with empty barrels and baskets. It was passed through the guards.

  When they had traveled a sufficient distance from the town, he set out cross-country.

  Before morning, he’d reached Colt Cassad, who was waiting at one of the gang’s hideaways. The gang gathered around the apprentice. “The other four told me their reports. All five of us agree, rumor spreads faster about threats than about promises. Especially now.”

  “That’s no surprise,” Colt said. “Go on.”

  “The jarlan is promising all kinds of things. Beginning with loot in the Artolei palace, and so they quieted down. Especially after the order went out to do another handout of supplies.”

  Brief smiles flickered at the notion of Artolei losing another palace full of treasure.

  Cassad propped fists on his knees. “Was Artolei there to hear about his place being offered as loot?”

  “No. He was leading today’s try against the gate.”

  “I hope someone tells him,” someone commented.

  The apprentice grinned. “Enkin said he’d make sure the rumor gets to Artolei.”

  Cassad grunted approval. Then frowned into the fire. “Unless a miracle happens, my guess is the Marlovans will fall. They have to’ve run out of supplies.”

  No one believed that Feravayir would improve as Perideth, at least with the Nyidris ruling. But Lavais’s control of news had prevailed at the upper levels, despite the Tax Gang’s efforts to spread counter-rumors at the lower levels.

  Cassad said slowly, “I believe it’s time for a new rumor to spread, one that might at least give the Nyidris some trouble. Get this one around everywhere, as fast as you can.”

  The apprentice ducked his head, skinny neck-knuckle bobbing.

  Everyone turned to Colt expectantly.

  Colt Cassad paused to consider his words. He’d reached the conclusion that Ivandred Noth had acted in good faith in sending Quill Montredavan-An to warn them. It was characteristic. Noth was a stickler for rules and regs, but he obeyed them as well, from all reports. While one might argue about the stupidity of some of those rules, a person whose deeds and words matched, and who further seemed to understand why Cassad chose to run outside the rules, was worth heeding, at least in this matter.

  So it was time to return that good faith—and see what the Marlovans did with it. “We’ll begin with the guilds....”

  Inside the winter palace, the leaders met. “We’re going to have to commence quarter rations once a day,” Connar said to Seonrei. “If you want to go away by magic, now is the time.”

  She made a small circular gesture with one hand as she said, “I’ve come this far. I believe I will stay until....” She hesitated, then finished, knowing it was weak, “until I can’t.”

  But Connar understood what she didn’t want to say. So he said it. “They’re inexperienced, but not stupid. Somewhere, someone is building a better ram. If they get firm ground under them, we’ll lose the gate. Then it’s hand to hand.”

  “I understand.” She glanced away, her arms within the many layer
s of flowing silk sleeves pressed against her middle. “I think I might go lie down. One thing I’ve learned is that hunger seems to express itself differently from person to person. My chief maid has headaches. My herald-guard has the trembles. I am lightheaded.”

  So was everyone else.

  That day, two men fainted during sparring. The next day, five. Connar changed the orders to only moving through the sword drill each morning. After the five were taken to the lazaretto, Connar led the way, looking strong and martial. Jethren worked even harder, until black spots swam before his eyes, lest he look weak before the true king, whose straight back and alert blue gaze demonstrated eagle clan’s strength and leadership.

  Every morning a scout climbed to the highest of those decorative spires. When Connar finished the sword drill, the scout returned from the long climb, to report as usual that there was no sign of anyone within a day’s ride out there.

  And so another grim day began. Connar and Rat were not talking to each other, except when necessary; Rat still believed that Lineas had won through, and the Noths would come. Connar struggled against ambivalence, his emotions mercilessly knotted. He wanted the reinforcements—desperately. But he couldn’t believe—couldn’t let himself believe—that Lineas would bring them. She was dead in a ditch somewhere, covered with snow. She was a prisoner, waiting to be dragged out and paraded below the walls. She was still riding, slowed by the weather...and late at night, when he roamed the tiled corridors of the palace without seeing their artful patterns, he imagined her holed up in some warm inn with Quill (who seemed to have vanished entirely), swilling and swiving.

  He tried to smother resentment. Whenever Lineas surfaced in memory he recollected Nand of the Sword’s talk about how heat was as unreliable as fire. That had been eminently sensible advice from a twenty-year-old to a teen—both unaware of the difference between the fire of limerence and the complexity of love. Connar only knew that to reveal his turmoil would be to make himself risible in others’ eyes.