At first, Dana Sellan vanished for a night, then two. Before long she was absent several days at a time, the whispers certain she’d taken ill and gone to stay with the Crone. When another hunt staggered back through the gate and she disappeared again, they said she was casting auguries and trying to discover the culprits, for that type of work took days and the clan eagerly sought any sign the ancestors might deign to send. Erlon made no mention of Sellan’s absences, so deeply consumed by the more pressing problems of the clan that he failed to notice, or was too weary to care.
Lidan wasn’t about to enquire after the dana, either. In battle, those who stuck their heads above the parapet for the sake of curiosity got shot, and this was not a matter worth an arrow between the eyes. Sellan always returned eventually, as she had today—silent and sullen—her bright eyes dull and sunken into shadowed caverns of weariness. Auguries and the work of reading them were taxing, Lidan knew well enough from observing the Crone for hours on end, but they didn’t take that heavy a toll.
Weary beyond reckoning, Lidan ignored her mother and the rippling mutters of conversation in the hall. She didn’t have a spark of energy to spare and she couldn’t think where the rest of the clan found the time to gossip. Instead she stared at her plate and pushed the thick stew around with a crust of slowly disintegrating bread, leaving a trail of sodden crumbs in the gravy. She was at serious risk of falling asleep right there on the table.
There was every chance her father would announce another hunt, especially after losing another man to his wounds. The losses made the daari wild with anger and desperate enough to send more rangers out in the hope of finding whoever laid waste to the hunters. Lidan didn’t fancy watching the faces of the clan folk fall at the news, or shadows of resignation creep into the eyes of the remaining rangers and hunters, wondering if their patrol was next.
She glanced at the nearest door to plan her escape when the clan’s midwife crossed her line of sight, approaching the daari’s table and bowing deeply. Her fatigue evaporated immediately and the noise of the hall vanished, leaving Moyra’s words to echo alone amongst the beams.
‘…news of your wife, Farah.’
‘You have what?’ Erlon leaned forward, straining to decipher the woman’s statement.
‘I bring news of your wife, sir.’ Moyra repeated and folded her hands over her apron. Lidan stared at her mother across the hall, watching every inch of her for a reaction. ‘I can confirm Mother Farah is with child.’
Sellan’s knuckles turned ice white around her knife, the other hand strangling a cloth napkin beside her platter. Moyra continued to announce Farah’s pregnancy to the clan, the unborn child conceived five moons ago, and Lidan gaped at her mother’s shaking hands.
‘We were unsure of the cause of her illness… Your fourth wife has not bled in some time, which is well for a strong womb and babe,’ Moyra shouted over the wave of excited mutterings. ‘The child will arrive near the time of the first rains, a good omen for a prosperous wet season.’
Erlon smiled and his men clapped; the clan needed good omens.
‘I can say, Daari, Farah’s illness is surely a sign from the ancestors that the child is a boy…’
The hall erupted with roaring cheers, drowning anything else Moyra had to say, fists hammering the tables and platters clattering together with the vibrations.
Lidan stood and hoped her legs would hold her as her mothers and sisters bestowed a blessing on the daari for his good fortune. To her dismay, Lidan felt an anxious knot ball up in her stomach.
It was real.
Her mother and the Crone were right. For all her efforts to distract herself from the truth, there was another child coming and there was nothing to be done to stop it. What if Moyra was right? What if the child was a boy?
She couldn’t meet her father’s eyes when she congratulated him with a swift embrace and a kiss on his stubbled cheek. He looked through her as though she were made of nothing but the wind, hardly recognising her through the joy shining in his eyes and the bright smile stretching across his face. Whatever pain he might have carried from the morning in the treatment rooms seemed to vanish as he hoisted a cup high and shouted for the tine-women to bring all the ale they could carry.
Lidan shuffled back and stood behind her half-mother’s shoulders, her sisters crowding to the front of their family’s cluster, giggling and smiling. The older girls whispered and grinned at each other, while Abbi held on to her mother’s skirt, watching the sudden explosion of emotion and activity. The younger girls probably had no idea what was going on, only that the day was suddenly full of smiles after so much sadness and anger.
Tine-women appeared with urns in hand and the roaring commotion of the hall grew louder still. Lidan rubbed her temple and wondered if she could find something in Grent’s treatment rooms to dispel a headache. She turned to find a doorway and walked straight into her mother’s chest.
Her breath caught in her throat and she tried to back away before her mother noticed she was there, but the dana snagged her arm in a vice-grip and hurried her through the doorway to the kitchen, pushing tine-women aside.
*
Lidan swallowed the words that would dare to ask where they were going. Her mother’s rage obvious in the swing of her hips and the savagery of her steps. It seemed Sellan didn’t want to stay for the drinking, the songs, or the blessings. Lidan’s heart skipped when the trail to the Crone’s decrepit hut came into view, fear saturating her limbs and her muscles beginning to bunch. Was she being dragged up there for another round of punishment, another beating or another night in the pit? Her hands began to twitch, her body preparing to make a break and run. She didn’t care if she had nowhere to go, she wasn’t going back to the dank horror of that hole.
A whimper escaped her throat and Sellan tsked, yanking hard on Lidan’s arm to hurry her along. ‘Oh, don’t get all frightened on me now, girl. I’m not sending you to the pit. I’ve more important tasks for you.’
‘But—’ Lidan killed the questions on her lips as Sellan shoved open the Crone’s door, strode in and slumped into a chair by the fire, leaving Lidan to stand amongst hanging bunches of herbs and badly tanned hides reeking of dead flesh and urine. She stayed by the door and the only fresh air to be had, and tried to slow the hammering of her heart. She felt like a cornered bouncer, sensing imminent danger and desperate to escape it. Her time in the Crone’s hut had done nothing to endear the place to her, and she didn’t think she would ever be comfortable in the structure’s damp heat and the lingering stink of unwashed human.
The Crone poked at the fire casually and gave a wet, throaty sigh. ‘The midwife confirmed it, then?’
Her eyes flicked to Lidan and saw straight into her soul without a single ounce of effort. Lidan was as vulnerable as a new born babe beneath that stare. Could the old woman reach into her mind and pluck out thoughts at a whim?
‘Of course she did!’ Sellan snarled. ‘Now the whole place is in an uproar. The stupid man has a smile on his face wider than his arse crack.’ The dana leaned towards the Crone with her palms up in supplication. ‘Doesn’t he realise the risk he’s taking? He’ll be dead before the boy is old enough to match or rule in his own right. And Farah isn’t close to ready to rule as Mother-Dana. Gods save us! It’ll be chaos…’
‘What do you expect him to do with all those wives? Watch them sew?’ the Crone folded her hands on the top of her walking stick and winked at Lidan, who paled and leaned into the wall. Had she just made a joke?
‘If he was smart…’
‘He’s a man, Sellan. Intelligence and the males of our species are opposing forces and should the twain ever meet, the whole bloody cosmos would collapse under the weight of realised impossibility.’
‘Pah!’ Sellan stood to pace the room. ‘If she has a boy and Erlon dies before he’s old enough to stand as a daari on his own, his cousin’s son might move to take the clan…’
‘So sweet of you to be concerned with the clan’
s future…’
‘I don’t give a fuck about the clan, Thanie!’ the dana snapped, baring straight, white teeth. ‘I give a fuck about me. Things will change for us if he goes. How long do you think we’ll last? I can control him for now, but if he passes the clan to any other bastard, mark my words, we’ll be lucky to survive the first night! We’ll be cast out, or worse. And what of my girls?’
Comforting, Lidan thought, staring at a dusty beam in the ceiling. Today was not the first time she’d been an after-thought to Sellan’s concerns for her own wellbeing.
‘What other option does he have?’ The Crone seemed unmoved by the outburst and scowled at the dana. The old woman was the only person Lidan ever witnessed considering her mother with such an expression. ‘Who will take the clan if not a son of his own, or a son of the western clans?’
‘I’ve already told you,’ Sellan stopped and looked intently at Lidan, her green eyes darkened by shadow.
Chapter Sixteen
The Caine, Tolak Range, the South Lands
The Crone followed the dana’s gaze and snorted. ‘She might be his heir now, but the clan won’t like it. He’s determined to sire a son for a reason, Sellan.’
‘She is his first born! It shouldn’t matter if he has a dozen sons. She came first!’
‘But she is a woman! Or at least she will be. Who will follow her? Who will stand behind her in battle? What other clan would fear to tread in her territory? None, I’d wager. And as far as I understand the customs of this place, it would take a phenomenal amount of effort to change that fact.’ A wad of the Crone’s phlegm hit the fire and hissed angrily as if to signal the end of the discussion.
Lidan cleared a hard lump of fear from choking her throat and pressed harder against the wall. If she kept up the pressure, perhaps it might open up and swallow her so she could escape the conversation. Her mother approached the Crone with the smooth agility of a snake and pressed her hands onto the arms of the dusty chair the woman was perched on. Her face lowered to an inch from the Crone’s nose and Lidan shuddered. How could she stomach the smell?
‘She is a daughter of mine,’ Sellan ground out and glanced at Lidan with narrowed eyes. ‘If she heeds my word, the sky will fall at her command. Customs be damned. She will be his heir.’
‘So, your plans are unchanged, then?’ The Crone raised a brow.
‘They remain as we discussed.’ The dana withdrew to the fire.
The Crone nodded once and fixed her clear grey eyes back on Lidan. ‘Good. After all that business when he got back from the hunt, I began to wonder…’
For some reason, no matter how often Lidan swallowed the ball of fear, it returned, her chest tightening with each breath. They were serious about fighting for her to remain as her father’s heir, regardless of the child Farah now carried? Did they care what she thought? What she wanted? Evidently not, as they went on discussing her future as if she was no more than a piece of furniture in the room.
‘He can’t get enough of that Namjin whore, either.’ In the blink of an eye Sellan changed the subject to her disdain for Farah and ran a hand through the dark red waves of her hair with a sigh. ‘Boils my blood…’
‘Do you want the potion?’ The Crone’s words turned Sellan, and the intent Lidan saw in her mother’s gaze chilled Lidan’s blood to ice.
The potion? What potion?
Sellan’s eyes settled on Lidan.
Not that potion, surely?
‘The one given to Bandi Napper?’ asked Lidan. ‘When her baby died and had to come out early?’
The room stood silent, the crackling fire the only sound between the three of them; Lidan stared in disbelief while Sellan chewed her lip in thought. The Crone gave a casual nod to the affirmative and Lidan’s stomach did a sickening flip.
‘You can’t do that…’ she whispered, barely loud enough to hear over the fire.
‘The dana can do what she likes, girlie.’ The Crone shrugged. ‘Sometimes these things must be done. Isn’t as if she hasn’t done it before.’
Lidan met her mother’s bright green gaze and couldn’t believe what she saw. It was true, Sellan had done, and would do, whatever it took to secure her daughter’s ascension, even if it meant destroying another woman’s pregnancy. Disgusted, Lidan spun to the door. Her mother caught her arm with hard fingers and cupped her face, leaning close with wide, sad eyes.
‘I don’t like doing what must be done, Liddy.’ Sellan caressed Lidan’s cheek lovingly, her hand soft and warm. It felt like an age since her mother called her “Liddy”. It was long ago, before all this trouble with Farah and the hunts.
‘Why did you bring me here?’ Lidan pulled away from the dana’s grasp. She knew what those hands did when angered. If she enraged her mother, the penalty would be fiercer than a thousand summer suns. Would Sellan leave the Crone to punish her, or do it herself?
‘I don’t trust them, Liddy, my petal… You’ve seen what they are like! As soon as something more appealing comes along, they drop you like an old doll. We’ve been forgotten, you and I.’ Sellan clicked her tongue and tucked Lidan’s black hair behind her ears, just as her father once had. ‘I brought you here to get you away from that stupid man and his celebrations. You don’t deserve to have the loss of your inheritance rubbed in your face like that.’
‘You can’t kill her baby, Mam. It’s cruel!’
Sellan nodded slowly and threw a glance at the Crone.
‘Nor do I wish to. I only want what’s best for our clan, nothing more. This requires more thought. It pains me to see them treat you like this, my petal. I hate it; every time he gets his seed to take, it’s the same…’ The dana slowly paced before the fire. ‘I’d hoped to spare you the worst of it. You were young enough to forget what he did when the other girls were conceived, but if he insists on making more children, you will witness it again and again...’
‘Mam, it’s all right—’ Lidan clasped her hands together, begging her mother to stop.
‘All right?’ Sellan’s upper lip curled like a maddened dog shielding a bone. ‘All right? You’re going to throw it all away, hand it over to an unborn child who isn’t likely to be of age before his father kicks off? You’d give up your status and sink into obscurity? You’re content for me to disappear beneath Farah’s new found glory as the mother of the heir? I think not! Perhaps I should just match you to the nearest horse-herder now, get it over with and let him fuck you senseless?’
‘No!’ Lidan cried.
‘It’s what you’ll get if Farah drops a boy in the wet season!’
‘No, Mam, please, I didn’t mean—’
Sellan towered over her daughter and Lidan shrank instinctively. ‘Then you understand what I’m faced with? The chance I’ll lose you to some awful fate unless I act now and protect you?’
Lidan nodded. Her mother was right. Stupid girl…
‘Liddy, I do this for you; only for you.’ Her mother drew close, her soft voice soothing her shattered emotions. Lidan did understand, but the cost of securing her future tore at her heart. Perhaps it was best if she paid less attention to the path she must take and placed her focus on the destination. ‘I won’t let them take what is rightfully yours. I won’t let them deprive you of the inheritance you deserve.’
‘Please, just don’t do anything to Farah or the baby. It isn’t her fault…’ Lidan didn’t know if begging would change her mother’s mind, but she had to try. She couldn’t live with herself if she caused something awful to happen to her half-mothers or sisters, born or unborn. Sellan’s face darkened and for a moment Lidan thought she would refuse. She reached and took the woman’s perfectly manicured hand in hers, long pale fingers cupped in her small palm. ‘Mam, promise on my life you won’t hurt them. Farah and the baby?’
‘Why?’ The word came out cold and hard. Lidan let go of her mother’s hand and the darkness deepened, their locked gaze unwavering. ‘I see no other way to stop this before it gets out of hand.’
Frantic, Lidan s
earched her mind for the answer. She hunted the dark cavities of her heart for the one thing that might stay her mother’s hand and came up with nothing but a scrap of an idea, a sliver of hope and a chance to forestall something awful.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said.
Her mother started then frowned. ‘You’ll kill the baby?’
‘No! I’ll show Father that he doesn’t need another heir. He has one already, doesn’t he? Me. I’m the Tolak heir.’ Lidan set her jaw and squared her shoulders. The Crone raised a brow at that, but Lidan chose to ignore the old woman’s doubt. ‘Let me show him.’
‘And if you fail?’ her mother put voice to the question banging on the inside of Lidan’s skull.
What if I fail? What if he doesn’t choose me?
For a moment she and her mother shared a look that spoke more than words ever could. Under the red-haired bluster and fiery temper, her mother was desperate. Sellan was terrified of losing her daughter’s position in the clan and entirely prepared to do anything to secure it. Suddenly Lidan understood. Her mother would never agree to the plan without a safeguard.
‘If I fail, then you can do whatever you think is right…’
The concession tore itself from Lidan’s heart and the space left behind knotted into an ugly, blackened scar. If Sellan was surprised by her daughter, she hid it well. Lidan couldn’t help searching her mother’s face for a sign of her agreement, and found it in a minuscule nod of approval, before the dana vanished out the door and into the freezing afternoon.
Lidan remained frozen in place, her heart pounding.
Outside, a wind blustered in from the north, as hard and sharp as eagle talons, moaning through the gaps in the hut’s roof. Her gaze found the Crone and for a moment, the smallest fragment of time, she caught the woman watching the empty doorway. She stared at the place Sellan had been with an expression Lidan could only describe as bone-deep sorrow. It was etched in every line and smudge, every twitch of muscle, every blink.
Blood of Heirs Page 15