Time of Daughters II

by Sherwood Smith

  It was all false, in that he’d had no choice in the matter, but he recognized in her steady gaze that she meant it kindly. There was no smirk to her shapely mouth, no superiority in her summer-sky gaze. He had no idea what the future would bring. But life could be worse.

  On the other side of the chamber, Jethren also drank steadily, his attention unwavering on Starliss’s willowy form as she danced, so lissome with knives in each hand. Everyone assumed she would get a good wedding night. She was too handsome, and popular, not to. The question was, with whom. But Starliss had been raised by the Cassads, and knew what was proper and what wasn’t. And so, when the festivities finally wound down, she went to bed alone.

  From the ridge on the other side of the river, hidden by great, twisting trunks, Colt Cassad stood shoulder to shoulder with his beloved, surveying the winter palace glowing from the light of hundreds of torches. “And so. Ivandred Noth is now jarl. This can only be an improvement.”

  That sixteen-year-old stood nearby recognizing a lesson when she heard one. Yes, the royal runner had come in good faith, as it happened. At least the captain wasn’t jawing a whole lecture.

  The girl crossed her arms with a thump against her chest. “I don’t believe they’ll really use the Nyidri loot to fix anything. They’ll just build another giant castle. How does that make life better?”

  “We will watch and see.”

  THIRTEEN

  As jarl, Noth felt obliged to accompany the princess to Parayid, where she would take ship for Sartor. Because they could only travel as fast as the Nyidris’ once-prized Sartoran carriage (Seonrei did not ride, except at a decorous pace for short distances) news raced ahead of them.

  That meant at every halt there were crowds waiting to plead, beg, demand, negotiate—ever larger crowds, as Ivandred Noth began the arduous process of undoing two generations of oppressive governing in the king’s name. Not that he could do much. But at least he could gather eyewitness reports as well as interviews to be forwarded to the gunvaer, who he suspected would take immense pleasure in unraveling the corrupted mess the Nyidris had made of Feravayir.

  Quill was there at Ivandred Noth’s orders, to take note for the follow-up report to be sent to the king.

  Until that night in the winter palace, when Connar suddenly walked in on Quill and Lineas discussing her orders to take Noth’s report north, Quill had thought her over-scrupulous in striving to avoid Connar’s notice. Quill never gave a thought to his own place in a gathering, beyond standing either against a wall with the other runners, or behind the person he was assigned to in order to assist them. That much was training. But after that encounter—somehow the worse for how little was said—he decided it might be prudent to do the same.

  He couldn’t understand Connar’s attitude. Nor did he understand Connar’s silence. Why not talk things out with Lineas? As he employed his old stealth training, avoiding Connar when he could, and taking care to stand out of his line of sight when he couldn’t, he tried to imagine himself in Connar’s place—if Lineas came to him and said her emotions had changed—but there imagination faltered. He’d be frantic to figure out why. And maybe that would be a terrible thing, to shadow her asking what did I do, how can I change? He knew from his own parents’ broken marriage that sometimes there was no easy answer.

  As for Connar, he was always aware of Quill, but at least the royal runner stayed out of his way—and when he and Rat Noth rode for Parayid Harbor Garrison, leaving Ivandred Noth behind to deal with the tangle of petitions, accusations, demands, and pleas, he lost sight of Quill altogether.

  Connar admired everything he saw at Parayid Harbor and garrison. His mood lifted as Jethren’s soured. Every sign of order rankled; Rat Noth now made a significant jump in the command structure. If the kingdom went to war, it would be Rat Noth and Stick Tyavayir seconding Connar-Laef, unless Jethren was able to find a way to leap ahead.

  When the inspection was over, Connar said, “Everything is exactly the way the king wants it. We might as well ride for the royal city now. Get back before the hot weather.”

  Seeing Rat moving around with commander’s gold on his shoulders, forced words from Jethren. “Is this a temporary appointment?”

  Connar flicked a question his way. “What do you mean by ‘this’?”

  “Noth. Commander here. Father as jarl.” Seeing Connar’s brow furrow, he added in haste, “I thought the king didn’t put sons of jarls at nearby garrisons.” His throat spasmed on the words ‘the king,’ when he had been raised to speak those words only about the man standing before him now.

  Jethren’s heartbeat thumped as Connar’s gaze narrowed. “If it’s a problem, then Da will take care of it.”

  Summer had ripened all through the north when an outrider was spotted by the royal city’s outer-perimeter riders.

  Word relayed back to the royal castle, and spread from there.

  Holly, Noren’s personal runner, was carrying a load of sun-dried underclothes upstairs when Dannor Lassad, Bunny’s first runner, skidded around the corner and nearly ran her down.

  Dannor put out a hand to steady Holly and keep the clothes from falling. “Sorry, sorry,” she said and signed. “They’ve been sighted!”

  “They?”

  “Connar-Laef is back! That means Rat Noth will be back, and Bun will be wanting to drink gerda-leaf,” Dannor went on breathlessly, brown eyes earnest. “But your purple claypot is nearly empty.”

  Holly’s hands clutched tight on the clothes. “Purple claypot?”

  “Yes,” Dannor said. “Ranet told me herself, that’s the gerda-leaf Noren-Edli-Haranviar uses. Ranet didn’t have any for us because she was pregnant, so I’ve been fetching it from the purple-glaze claypot. Isn’t that right? Doesn’t everyone share?” Dannor blinked, question widening her eyes.

  Holly forced a smile. “Oh, that purple-glaze pot! For some reason, I was thinking of the other purple pot, you know, with the sweetgrass Noren likes strewn on her sheets.” Dannor was too young, and too uncritical in her admiration of Noren’s runners, to question. “Of course!” Holly exclaimed. “But I was just going to fetch more, after I finished the laundry here. I’ll bring you some, shall I?” she babbled.

  Dannor’s face brightened. “Thank you! I have so much to do to get ready. Bun will want all Rat’s things aired so his runners won’t have to, and....” She ran off, enumerating all the tasks that had sprouted up faster than spring mushrooms.

  Holly whistled softly as she let herself into the haranviar suite across from Noddy’s. She spotted Noren sitting alone, writing home as she usually did on Restday. Ranet and Bun were nowhere in sight. Dropping the underthings onto the nearest surface, Holly caught Noren’s eye, and her fingers blurred as she explained what had just happened.

  Noren’s face paled.

  Holly flapped a hand outward, made Dannor’s sign, and added, “I told her I’d fetch her some gerda. But should I put it in the old clay pot, or give her a new one? What should I do?”

  Noren thought rapidly. “Poor Bun! No wonder she didn’t get pregnant before they rode south. It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying. We can’t raise suspicions. Wash out the purple pot. Get real gerda in it. Give it to Dannor, and let her think we’ll continue to share it. We’ll keep my herb in here. That’s safest.”

  Holly pelted off to do her bidding. Noren slipped out to alert Ranet that Connar was arriving soon, knowing that Ranet’s back had been giving her trouble so late in her pregnancy. She liked a lie-down when she could get one.

  The entire family had gathered on the wall to welcome Connar’s company as they galloped through the gates. By now Connar had enough experience to be aware of the honor—and the family loyalty implied—of the king being on the wall to welcome him every time he returned.

  His gaze swept over Bun, who tried to hide her sharp disappointment when she saw that Rat was not with them. His attention snagged briefly on Ranet, red-faced from the heat, her stomach huge. Connar raised his hand in salu
te to the women, his smile warming when he saw Danet looking tough as ever, though grayer.

  By the time the company dismounted in the courtyard, Arrow and Noddy had come down to greet him. Connar clasped them both, saying, “I’ll make my report now, so I can get it out of my head. I’ve been thinking of nothing else these past few days.”

  “You were brilliant, Connar. Brilliant!” Arrow said, falling into step beside him.

  Connar sent him a quick look. Was that sarcasm? Connar was braced for the verbal trimming he deserved after his blunder, riding into the most obvious trap this side of the ten-year-olds in the academy, just because he’d assumed the Nyidris were too stupid to plot a trap within a trap.

  But Da’s tone and his smile were genuine. His and Noddy’s both. As they walked out of the sunshine into the familiar dusty scent of the tower, Arrow rubbed his hands as he said, “I didn’t understand exactly what happened with the Tax Gang. Noth wrote that you’d explain it. But using yourself as bait to draw that shit of a jarlan in, then clapping them all up with those reinforcements—which you’d already mustered—brilliant. And in the middle of winter!”

  “What exactly did Noth say? So I don’t just repeat what you already know.”

  Arrow flipped up his palm. “Not much. His reports are always on the short side: what he saw, what he said, what he ordered. Numbers. Since he wasn’t actually there until the end, he said your report would carry the details. Since we knew you were all right, we decided to wait to hear it from you, rather than pester you to write it all out while you were finishing up down there.”

  Noddy opened his hand in silent agreement.

  “Noth in place—which was what I always wanted—the Nyidris out. Everything perfect. Well, as much as can be expected. Your mother was sorry to lose one of her coming captains in the Cassad girl. She was surprised at her being married off to the Nyidri boy, I mean the one not dead. But your Lineas explained the strategy to her.”

  Connar’s mouth tightened sardonically at that your Lineas, which went unnoticed by the king, who continued, “After your report, I want to talk to you about the academy. This is Andaun’s last year as headmaster. Noddy’s been up there with him, learning what to do. Noren, too, when she can.”

  Noddy spoke up earnestly. “I’m not trying to take your rightful duty. I wrote everything down that I learned, the way I did at Larkadhe. I can give you those reports.”

  Arrow broke in as they mounted the last few steps to the second floor. “But there’s also the inspection in the northwest, a year overdue. The Nob has sent two insulting letters, as usual, pointing out that the treaty silver is overdue.” He puffed, his voice husky. “But none of that has to be decided at this moment. Your report can wait a while. Go on. Your Ma and the girls want you first, then get a bath and something to eat. We can wait.” He lifted his hand toward the door, and the queen’s suite on the other side of the hall.

  There they were, having followed up the stairs. They clustered inside Danet’s interview room. Connar crossed the hall, to be greeted by a chorus of female voices and hands flickering.

  Ma kissed him, told him she was proud of him, and then practically pushed him out the door again, into the arms of Ranet, sweaty and blotchy-faced from the summer heat, waddling with that gigantic belly. He didn’t dare touch her. Would it hurt her?

  She launched into a stream of talk, having considered for days and nights what to say. Only matters that would directly interest him. She began with what Iris had learned—how smart she was—and went on to possible baby names, and when he had nothing to offer, but agreed to everything she said, she moved on, talking faster, to how many of the girls from the queen’s training had been sent to which garrison, which was something he already knew.

  He stared haplessly during this stream. What was he supposed to be doing? She was already pregnant, so Ma couldn’t be going on about that duty. Then he remembered his da’s parting remark about duty.

  This duty was done, but that one wasn’t. As soon as she paused, expectantly, he said, “Those girls you and Noren have sent are great. Good as the new boys. Some better.” And when she smiled, he said quickly, “I’d best get down to the garrison. I didn’t give any orders.”

  He hadn’t even asked to see Iris, napping twenty steps away. Her throat tight, Ranet stepped aside so that he could make his escape.

  As he started down the back stairs to the garrison, he glanced around for Jethren, orders forming on his lips. But Jethren wasn’t in his usual spot at his heels. Of course he wouldn’t be there. Even Fish couldn’t follow him to the king’s rooms, or into his wife’s, unless bidden.

  Fish wasn’t in Connar’s rooms. Jethren wasn’t lurking in his usual spot on the landing.

  Hauth.

  Was Fish still reporting to him? Connar remembered that Hauth spent a lot of his free time at the quartermaster’s—that was where Hauth had yapped all that shit about dolphin clan and how Connar was supposed to knife his family in the back to become king. Jethren was also some sort of relation, as he recollected. Sneeze Ventdor had made that plain enough. And Connar remembered that silent salute in the stable annex.

  It was all tied to Hauth.

  He slowed at the first landing, and on impulse turned from the well-traveled route and ducked into one of the old tunnels that would put him on the back route to the quartermaster’s. He jinked through an archway, and into a court stashed with winter shutters and other gear, where he chose a vantage from which he could see the tunnel door that emptied directly opposite the quartermaster’s side door.

  Fish was indeed on his way, partly to get it over with before his father sent someone to summon him. But this time he’d figured out what to say that should get this burden off his back, which meant he had to get there before Jethren did.

  He used shortcuts that Jethren didn’t know because he was too arrogant to ask. Sure enough, there was Hauth waiting. Fish repeated the gist of the official reports, adding, “Connar is as silent as ever. I can tell you what he did, but not what he said. Certainly not what he thinks. For that, you’ll have to ask Jethren.”

  Hauth sat there, fingering the edge of the scroll that had become sacred to him, its meaning still pondered in the stillness of the night. “Kethedrend Jethren? Where is he? Get him.”

  Fish’s lip curled, an expression he’d absorbed from Connar. “He won’t come to my summons.”

  Hauth’s one eye widened. “You don’t discuss the best way to—”

  Fish cut in. “I’m too lowly for him to notice. I’d better get back up to the suite,” he added, and departed, smiling grimly. Let that shit Jethren deal with the interrogation and the jawing of worthless advice! Hauth never seemed able to understand that there was no telling Connar anything he didn’t want to hear.

  That was the smile Connar saw as he watched from behind a tower of stored baskets. Just Fish, still reporting to Hauth. As expected. He’d known that about Fish since the beginning. But no Jethren.

  He waited where he was, just in case, but Jethren never appeared; finally Connar moved away, aware that someone from the garrison, if not from his family, would come looking for him if he stayed away too long. And he had learned enough.

  Jethren had also been on his way to the quartermaster’s, having dismissed Moonbeam to carry his things over to the garrison. He was moving through the stable to the back court along the winding public route. Mentally he totted up all the triumphs he had to report as he crossed the court, and was turning the corner to pass between the winter tack storage and the bootmaker’s when white pain exploded across his head.

  He reeled, hands coming up ready for battle, but before he could lash out, a familiar grip took his wrist.

  He dropped his other hand. “Da,” he exclaimed in protest. “What’s that for? We won.”

  Halrid Jethren curled his lip. “Whining?”

  Keth Jethren stilled, knowing from his earliest days that any tone of voice that could possibly be considered whining would only bring
on more pain, along with I’ll give you something to whine about. That was the core of Vaskad training: control of all emotions, everything focused on strength.

  “We won,” his father mimicked. “What’s this ‘we’? Where were you during this win? Holding the reins? Waving the wand over horse shit? All I hear is Noth here, Noth there, forever Noth, Noth, Noth. When I am going to hear your name, at the king’s right hand?”

  “I’m there.” Keth Jethren knew better than to touch his jaw where the fist had landed, though the throbbing was insistent enough that his right eye was tearing. “As for the Noths, there’s a lot of ‘em. The new jarl. Rat. Mouse, at Hesea Garrison. Even the ones at Old Faral. They all got into it.”

  At Halrid’s interrogative grunt, his son gave a succinct account of the winter palace action, prudently leaving out that they had ridden unknowingly into a trap. His father actually flickered a smile when he described killing Ryu Nyidri.

  When he fell silent, Halrid flicked a glance at the other end of the narrow passage, at where Tigger, his brother, stood on watch, in case anyone strayed into the back court. His blond brows met as he considered the report, then he said, “You’ve got to tell the true king that Mathren’s first lesson in strategy warns of anyone else being able to whistle up an army—”

  Keth Jethren couldn’t prevent the snort of derision. “Mention the name Mathren and see what you get.” That stopped Halrid. “Why are you here? Why not wait until I reached the quartermaster’s, like usual?”

  Halrid’s blond brows knit and his gaze shifted. “Fact is, Ret Hauth turned on us.”

  “What?” Jethren squawked in flat disbelief. Hauth would never turn against the true king.

  Nor had he. Uncle Tigger spoke up from the corner. “Tossed us out.”

  Yeah, that sounded more like it, his da getting into it with Hauth, maybe trying to give orders. Keth Jethren squelched an almost overwhelming urge to laugh; his ribs actually throbbed briefly with the need to let it out.