Lidan froze.
Would she truly do it? Would she kill Theus if she thought it would stop Lidan’s persistant pursuit of training and riding? Of course she would. She hated the horse. She only let Lidan keep it because it was a coming of age gift from her father. Perhaps the dana was right—ranging was dangerous. Perhaps Lidan just needed to listen more, then her mother wouldn’t be so angry all the time.
‘Yes, Mam,’ she whispered, conceding the point.
Sellan gave a nod and one more pinch for good measure before releasing her grip. ‘Go to supper.’
Rubbing her forearm, Lidan hurried towards the hall.
Stupid, stupid, stupid girl…
While she might disappear into the hubbub of the family meal, Sellan would find her later to make sure her point had stuck and Lidan didn’t plan on disappointing her. She’d suffered for disobeying her mother before. The cruelty was etched on her skin in places people couldn’t see. She knew better than to push the point and her mother’s decision was clear: no training—ever.
Chapter Two
Hummel, Tolak Range, the South Lands
Laughter echoed in the daari’s hall, warm light and the scent of cooked meat and flat bread radiated from the doors. Lidan ducked into the kitchen, breathless, and a tine-woman of middle years glanced up at the intrusion. Of all the tine-women in the long, busy kitchen, she alone noticed Lidan cutting through, but when their eyes met the woman did not speak, staying silent just like a slave ought to. Lidan left her to the business of yanking the skins from a pair of bouncers and slipped into the hall.
From the kitchen, a screened corridor ran the perimeter of her father’s hall, allowing the tine-women to move unseen with trays and urns of ale and wine. In the light filtering through the woven reed screen, Lidan paused and caught her breath. She rolled her embroidered shirt sleeves down over the marks of her mother’s nails and straightened her trousers and over-skirt until she looked presentable. She was in no mood to field questions about bruises and cuts she’d rather not explain.
Regaining some composure, Lidan spied an empty seat at the table occupied by her nine sisters and ducked through the gathering to sit with them. Mess and chaos filled the hall to brimming, the returned rangers and their families were dining with the daari and several trade masters in celebration of the patrol’s success. Many were linked by blood or matching, everyone related to someone else in some manner. Tomorrow the hall would once again become Lidan’s family home; but tonight, it was a heaving mass of humanity crammed within four walls to the point it seemed the hall might burst.
Men shouted across the room at their children to sit down, eat, and listen to their mothers, and children screamed when their siblings or cousins knocked over cups of milk, or stole the last baked potato from a platter. Mothers scolded and cursed, wiped and sighed as the collection of children ran rings around them; meat, bread and sauces hitting the earth floor in an endless shower.
Daari Erlon’s burly hunting dogs strategically positioned themselves under the tables and inhaled scraps as they fell, tails wagging as though a better feast had never been seen. At the head of the long fire pit cut deep in the floor, the daari sat with his seconds, talking and laughing, picking roast meat from platters and slathering flat bread with pickled preserves.
It was chaotic, dirty and exhausting and Lidan clenched her jaw, forced a smile and dropped down beside her full-sister, Marrit. She and Marrit were the only daughters of Dana Sellan and Erlon and had both inherited their northern mother’s distinct pale skin. They stood out like beacons among their half-sisters, all of them darker and cut from the same cloth as most of the clan. Erlon’s next wife, Raeh, fussed over her four daughters while bouncing baby Lucija on her knee. Lucija was the last of Erlon’s ten daughters, and his only child with the fourth and youngest wife, Farah. His third wife Kelill sat opposite, her brown hair tied in a tight knot on her head. Her three girls all sported the same style, as well as Erlon’s smiling blue eyes.
Lidan thanked the ancestors daily that four wives were the legal limit for a daari. More wives meant more children, and she really did think her father had his fair share of offspring. All he was missing was a son, and she knew that niggled at him like a buried splinter. Many wives also meant many mouths to feed, and the number any man could acquire relied solely on his role and his ability to support them all.
Lidan filled her cup with spiced milk as one of her smallest and favourite sisters, Abbi, crawled silently into her lap. She enjoyed the company of her tiny sister, because little Abbi was the quietest of all the Tolak girls. While the rest of their half-sisters chatted and giggled, and Bridie and Elva squabbled over the heads of the smaller girls, Lidan and Abbi ate together in a comfortable silence.
‘Don’t be stupid, Elva,’ Bridie snapped. ‘Everyone knows yawks don’t really exist.’ The nine-year-old rolled her eyes as though her eight-year-old half-sister was so very immature.
‘They do so! Mam said they do!’ Elva insisted, undeterred by Bridie’s disbelief. ‘And the pankars and the namorras. They catch you and suck your brains out.’
‘Not your brains—your soul,’ Bridie corrected. ‘They fly on the wind and steal your soul. That’s how they turn you into one of them.’
‘Your soul is in your brain!’ Elva’s voice rose higher, attracting the narrowed eyes of her mother.
‘It’s in your belly, you idiot!’
The argument would likely continue for hours if someone didn’t intervene, but Lidan had neither the energy or the will so she let their words flow past her like water over stones. Kelill placed a board of meat and bread in front of Lidan and cut across Bridie and Elva’s argument.
‘If you two don’t stop bickering, I’ll put you both out in the wind for the namorras to take. Now, be quiet and eat!’
As if to emphasise her point, a strong gust moaned through the thatch above and the girls fell silent. Kelill moved to separate her other girls, Iscah and Hanne, who were wrestling over the ownership of a cup.
Silenced but not defeated, Bridie and Elva stuck their tongues out at each other—a clear signal that the battle was not over.
Famished from a day in the valley, Lidan tucked into her food and let the noise melt the memory of her mother’s threats, even though it did nothing to ease the pain of her bruises, while Abbi nibbled at some flat bread and ignored the roasted vegetables her mother pushed across the table. Lidan glanced at the assembled crowd. Around the hall, rangers debated and gestured, discussing plans for hunts and flinging crass jibes at any available chance, and Lidan glanced at the assembled crowd. Was Sellan planning on showing her face in the hall tonight, or would she take her meal in her private quarters, as she was wont to do when the daari hosted a party of rangers?
Farah appeared, directing tine-women with boards of sweet treats towards the daari’s table, twisting to avoid children and dogs on the way.
Shouts of disagreement angrily cut the happy murmur of eating and drinking.
The attention of the hall swivelled to focus on a dim corner and a bench tucked behind a pillar where two men glared at each other with clenched fists and set jaws.
Lidan squinted and craned her neck to see.
The same men had been at the last open Hearing, airing a dispute settled by her father according to the Law. Hender stood almost a head higher than his adversary, Poll, and sported a full head of dark hair despite his years. Poll made up for his lack of height with his broad barrel of a chest, fit from wielding timber-cutting axes.
They silenced the hall with the scowls they traded across the table, all except a few children too young to sense the tension in the air. In the unusual quiet, Erlon rose from his bench and tapped the base of his horn cup on the table, drawing the eyes of the gathered clan to him.
‘Kinsmen, what brings you to shout in my hall?’ Her father eyed the men and Lidan stretched up to see over the heads blocking her view. Would they return to their seats or voice their dispute? It would be a welcom
e distraction from her mother’s ruling on her training.
Poll hadn’t been impressed with the daari’s decision at the last Hearing, spitting at Hender’s feet and storming off into the night. Was this the same problem, the same fight? To Lidan’s left a shape retreated into the shadows behind the reed screens and she guessed it was Hender’s daughter, Neilly, making a quick exit to escape the embarrassment of her father’s feuding.
Erlon gestured with his cup. ‘Come forwards if you won’t sit, and let’s settle this… again.’
He glared at Hender and Poll in turn, fire in his eyes and a muscle twitching in his jaw as he climbed the hall’s dais to his audience chair. It was a huge thing, carved from the stump of a Red Core tree and draped with furs. On the wall above the chair hung the longest knife Lidan had ever seen. Her father called it a sword—the only one of its kind south of the Malapa, and the profit of a trade with a wealthy Arinnian for the finest wild-born and stable-bred horses of the season, broken in and trained by the Tolak clan. Erlon never carried the blade though, complaining that it fooled with his balance and Titon fussed when it hung from the saddle.
Hender and Poll wove between the benches and tables, exchanging dark glares as the assembled rangers silently fell back to eating. It wasn’t often food came with such good entertainment. Lidan shifted Abbi onto the bench beside her and shuffled onto her knees, her feet tucked beneath her, so she had a better view.
‘What is it this time?’ Erlon asked, a tine-woman appearing at his shoulder to refill his cup while Hender and Poll arranged themselves in the space at the foot of the dais. Neither man spoke and Erlon narrowed his eyes. ‘Is this about the daughter, again?’
Lidan winced.
Neilly, she thought. Her name is Neilly…
‘Oh yes, sir, the daughter is at the heart of the matter.’ Poll nodded fiercely and stabbed a finger towards Hender. ‘And the promises her father made!’
‘If memory serves, this was dealt with at the last Hearing.’ Erlon kept his voice even, but the low, menacing edge of his voice was hard to ignore. ‘Hender’s first daughter may match with whomever he decides is best.’
‘Not after she was promised and said to be matching to my son!’ Poll’s balding head turned dark red from front to back. He tended to become a tomato when angered.
‘The promise was never certified,’ Hender interjected, folding his arms across his chest. ‘And I paid you handsomely in skins and hides, as the Daari ordered.’
‘Hender speaks true.’ Erlon leaned forwards slowly. ‘Can either of you explain why this still a problem?’
‘Because, sir,’ Hender turned so his voice carried across the hall. ‘This man has been raiding my plot and fouling my stock’s drinking water with dead things. Can’t afford to foul water and kill beasts in the dry season for no good reason, and he has no reason!’
Men and women in the hall nodded in agreement, filling their cups and settling in for the resolution.
Erlon raised a brow at Poll, who shuffled his feet a little. ‘Does he speak true?’
‘I’ve nothing to do with dead things ending up in his water!’
‘And the plot raiding?’ pressed Erlon, seeing through the bluster. He always picked the liars from the crowd. When Poll failed to answer, the daari worked his jaw. ‘Poll, it is unwise to bicker among kin and neighbours when we all face the same enemies outside our gates. The seasons and the other clans make enough trouble without us causing more. But I see you are unhappy with my judgement. What must be done to calm you?’
Lidan shuddered. This was like watching horse-trading, except instead of well-trained animals, they were bartering with the life of an eighteen-year-old girl who had no say in any of it unless her father deemed otherwise. A small fire ignited in Lidan. That would not be her fate. At least, not if she had anything to do with it.
Erlon drank deep and waited. He always waited. He watched and waited, and Lidan knew there was wisdom in that, though she couldn’t work out how he decided to act or what to do. It seemed like magic; the ancestors whispering in his ear, showing him the way forwards in words no other could hear.
Poll’s frustration burst out in a flurry of words.
‘My son and my family were shamed when his daughter matched to another, certified promise or not. I’ve now got to find the boy another wife and we all know the time and cost that takes!’
Again, the gathered crowd nodded and Lidan’s mother slowly approached from behind the reed screen to stand near her husband. How long had she been there, listening to the Hearing before revealing herself with the languid grace of a snake. Lidan’s gaze fixed on Sellan as the woman watched the disputing men with calm interest, calculations whirring behind her sharp eyes.
Poll opened his hands to the daari. ‘I deserve more than skins as repayment for my trouble.’
Sellan cleared her throat before Erlon could reply, and Lidan froze.
‘You’re a tradesman, aren’t you, Poll?’
Her question jolted the shorter man, and Erlon’s glare settled on his first wife. He took another drink and gestured to the tine-woman for more. Lidan grimaced and sank back to her seat, untucked her legs and slipped below the adults’ eye-line. Her ears and cheeks burned with embarrassment. Trust her mother to interrupt a Hearing, of all things!
‘Yes, Dana, I am a man of the trades.’ Poll inclined his head and returned his attention to Erlon as if the fact was of little consequence.
Lidan’s heart started to race.
Undaunted by Poll’s dismissive tone, the dana smirked.
‘So, what under the sun and sky made you think this man would match his first daughter—his prize child, second only to his first son—to your offspring?’ Her words carried high in the stifling air and even the children fell silent. ‘Did you offer a great dower for her, or perhaps your first son as an equal match? No, if I recall, your first son is already matched, with a child in his wife’s belly. So, if not him, then who? What did you offer Hender as sufficient repayment for matching his first daughter to the son of a tradesman?’
Poll stared at the dana, redder than Lidan had ever seen him, the veins in his neck throbbing.
Beside him, Hender cleared his throat to interrupt. ‘He offered his third son, an unskilled labourer in his timber works.’
A smile twitched at the edges of Sellan’s mouth and she nodded as if finally understanding, every movement mocking Poll. ‘You offered your third, unskilled son, to match to Hender’s first daughter? You might as well have asked him to match her to a pig!’ The hall erupted with laughter. If Poll got any redder, Lidan was sure he’d burst. ‘Hender, have you minor daughters of matching age?’
The taller man nodded. ‘Only one of matching age.’
‘She’s fifteen, then? And how old is your second son, Poll?’ Sellan asked, easing down to sit on the edge of the dais, her fine woollen dress pooling around her.
‘He is closer to twenty,’ Poll replied, somehow managing to keep most of his anger behind his teeth.
‘Ah! Perfect. All is settled; a son will marry a daughter and that will be the end of it.’ Sellan glanced at Erlon and smiled, but his lips didn’t return the expression. Her back straightened and eyes narrowed. ‘Are you not pleased, husband?’
‘Oh no, wife, please continue…’ He saluted her with his cup, his voice thick with sarcasm. ‘Soon you’ll have me out of a job.’
Some of the rangers chortled nervously, but most remained still and averted their gazes to their plates or the floor.
‘I have found you a solution, have I not? An amicable arrangement that need not result in blood?’ Her mother’s hand opened towards Poll and Hender, both motionless and surely regretting allowing their dispute to come before the daari again so publicly.
With a groan, Lidan hid her face behind her hands and waited. She was good at waiting—almost as good as her father. While she had inherited her mother’s stubbornness, she hardly held a candle to the woman at over-stepping what was proper. Se
llan was a veritable expert at taking things too far, a disregard her half-mothers claimed she brought from the north. Lidan imagined Sellan’s boldness had once entranced the daari, but by the look on her father’s face, she wondered if the novelty had begun to wear off.
‘Wife, as always I appreciate your… counsel.’ He seemed to swallow a mouthful of words and turned to the feuding men, frustration and fatigue etched in the lines of his face. ‘Poll, your third son is not a sufficient match for a first daughter in her matching year. We keep our first daughters un-matched until they are eighteen because they are precious to us. Expecting Hender to prefer your third son over a proposal from a ranger like Lucus Hoofmar is foolish and I’m sure you wouldn’t accept the same arrangement for your first children. A fair resolution has been found, if you agree to it?’
Poll puffed out his chest as if trying to make himself larger, or at least taller. ‘A second daughter is of lesser value than a first.’
He was right, Lidan had to concede. A minor daughter came with a much smaller dowry and fewer tine-women and livestock. Still, the endless references to value began to eat at her, as if Neilly were nothing more than a broodmare fit for foaling.
Poll continued, ‘I require something further to repay the insult of the—’
‘You’ve already killed four of my goats, old man!’ Hender snarled, leaving Lidan quite sure it took all his strength not to punch the balding man in the face. ‘You’ve taken enough payment.’
The shorter man’s fists shook, balled tight at the ends of thickly muscled arms. Short and round he might be, but the timber cutter was strong and well built. Only a fool would underestimate him, and Lidan doubted Hender to be such a man. His younger children spoke of him as wise and fair, not easily angered but deeply wounded by any slight on his honour.
Daari Erlon placed his cup aside and rested a casual hand on the hilt of his bronze knife. ‘Do we have a resolution?’
Lidan’s heartbeat quickened and her breathing laboured in the palpable tension of the hall. What if Poll refused? Hearings could turn bloody if one party could not accept the ruling of the daari.
Blood of Heirs Page 2