Time of Daughters I

by Sherwood Smith

  Before the dawn of New Year’s Firstday, Arrow and Danet had become king and queen.

  Memorials for royal figures had always happened by torchlight midway between the end of one day and the dawning of another, with coronations directly after the old king was Disappeared, superficially guaranteeing that the Marlovans always woke to a king in place—but more often than not the intent was to establish an immediate legitimacy, which in turn would grant the new ruler the right to smite rivals. There had never been much in the way of ceremonial, when everyone knew that the most important element was who commanded the military.

  That was not to say there was no ceremony.

  The royal runners had done their best with Evred, clothing him in the fine tunic Mard had not quite finished. Poor, blind Mard was also there, victim of Mathren’s ambition. And Mathren made the third, Camerend and Captain Noth having decided against relegating him to being Disappeared from before the prison, having cheated them of a traitor’s death. The fallen no longer cared. Memorials were entirely for the living, and the inescapable truth was that a good part of the castle had been loyal to Mathren for years, and still was.

  When the bodies were gone, Danet stood before the throne with a sword in either hand, her entire body stiff with self-consciousness as Sneeze Ventdor and his picked men began enthusiastically pounding a rolling beat on drums from up in the gallery.

  Arrow walked up the aisle between those gathered to witness, and stepped up onto the dais.

  Danet did not attempt any fancy maneuvers with the swords. Everyone there knew she was not a gunvaer trained in defense, and she wasn’t going to pretend to be. She handed the two swords to Arrow, then stepped to one side of the throne as up in the gallery, Sneeze Ventdor and his hand-picked riding pounded with heartfelt enthusiasm on the big drums.

  Arrow clashed the swords together, raising a respectable arc of sparks, threw down the swords east-west crossing north-south, and began the traditional sword dance, which of course he’d been doing every festival day his entire life, and often just for fun. He’d picked Captain—now Commander—Noth for one of his four guards representing the four borders of the kingdom, thus cementing his authority; Noth whirled through the dance as vigorously as Arrow. Jarend, of course, was North, lumbering grimly but powerfully through the dance, after a ringing clash raising a shower of sparks. The last two were Sneeze’s younger brother and their father-cousin.

  Danet stood there feeling awkward and self-conscious, her thoughts careening from memory to question to observation: the way Arrow danced, his bow-shaped mouth set hard with his effort not to fumble or stumble; Arrow as king; where was that army; what was it about the line of masculine backs and the curve of thighs that hit her so viscerally?

  She blinked past the broad-shouldered Captain Noth to the side entrance, where Camerend Montredavan-An stood directly under the torches, his hair touched to gold in the firelight. Gratitude buoyed the purely physical reaction, for she knew how much he had helped: the thought occurred to her that his family had once been royal. They were in the old Hymn to the Beginnings. He even looked like a king.

  She turned her gaze away, and grimly squelched her reaction.

  Arrow ended the dance to a respectable cheer, and thought, That’s the easy part done.

  He raised his voice. “Evred sent runners to summon the jarls to Convocation at Midsummer. We’ll keep to that. For everyone here except the wall sentries—they can rotate at half-watch—liberty today, and a feast.”

  They shouted with more enthusiasm, and were dismissed by their captains in military order. Arrow stood where he was, watching; Camerend had told him what to do to this point, but not what was expected next. Did he wait till they were gone, or march out the side door over there?

  Then he remembered that he was now king. He was supposed to be deciding those things. He tried to look kingly as he watched Noth supervise the dismissal. Mnar and Camerend gently helped the grand gunvaer up from the side throne that had been dug out of storage.

  Hesar paused to look around, then murmured, “Ah, that poor lost child.”

  “Child?” Mnar said.

  Hesar raised a withered hand, pointing to a spot beside the now empty throne, as Arrow and Jarend closed in behind her. “Evred, right over there. Don’t you see him?”

  “I don’t see anything,” Arrow muttered, his skin crawling. He didn’t want to see anything. He hated talk about ghosts, or weird things that couldn’t be explained.

  “Odd,” Hesar quavered, unperturbed. “I see that poor lost boy much more clearly than I see any of you.”

  Jarend said to Arrow, “She sees Evred’s ghost.”

  Arrow forced himself to respond normally, even carelessly. “Better than Mathren’s.”

  Jarend uttered his old chuckle, which Arrow was relieved to hear. It was disturbing to have his brother so quiet. He sped up his steps, glad to leave the subject of ghosts behind.

  Danet, too, glanced at that empty corner, but before she could follow, Hesar caught her by the sleeve. “Bide a moment,” the old woman quavered. “Listen to me, Danet-Gunvaer.”

  Danet grimaced, finding the title attached to her name an absurdity, a fraud somehow perpetrated on her as well as on the world.

  Hesar’s rheumy gaze lifted in her direction as she said, “I never trusted Shendan Montredavan-An and her ambitions, after she sneaked away to Sartor for all those years. Perhaps I was wrong. Our troubles have never come from her, or from her runners. I advise you to begin with them.”

  Danet swallowed in a tight throat. “We have done that.”

  The grand gunvaer gazed off into the distance. “Good. Listen well. Whatever you decide, remember this: what you wish, what you want, what you will, it now matters. Never forget that for a moment.”

  She groped for her runner’s arm, and shuffled away.

  Danet sped out, relieved to escape that throne room, which she hoped not to have to set foot in again until Midsummer. Assuming they hadn’t joined Evred as haunts.

  Jarend was moving slowly. Danet caught up with the brothers in a few quick steps. The three stayed silent until they reached their suite, which was already being packed up by the runners, under Tdor Fath’s orders. Danet skirted around trunks and sought out Tesar, saying, “If you want to go home with Jarend, I’ll understand. I know you haven’t been happy.”

  Tesar blushed dark red, her gaze fell, and she said, “I’ll stay, If I can be a real runner.”

  Danet’s face bloomed with a smile of relief, which gratified Tesar.

  Danet said, “I’ve always wanted someone of my own to carry letters, instead of having to wait on others. And now I have so many people to write to. Like Fuss, for a start. She was supposed to be the next gunvaer.”

  Tesar was so pleased that she actually spoke without being asked a question, for the first time ever: “You won’t have to wait now.” And she smacked palm to chest in salute to a gunvaer.

  Danet smiled, then it occurred to her that trained female runners were not going to sprout out of the ground. As Tesar set to packing with marked enthusiasm, Danet walked down the hall a few doors to where the royal suites traditionally lay, the king’s overlooking the parade ground on the west side of the castle, and the queen’s facing east and the inner courtyards.

  These suites each had a number of spacious side-chambers, including those for attendants, and several exits. Danet promised herself to explore every single one of those exits, just in case.

  She found Arrow standing in the middle of the king’s outer chamber, hands on hips as he pointed at some fine old wingback chairs with legs carved into raptor claws. “Those can stay. Desk, table. Everything else goes.”

  A row of runners picked up baskets of silk-covered cushions, rolled hangings, and the remainder of Kendred’s luxuries.

  “I’ll take those cushions,” Danet spoke up, causing the line to veer through the doorway across the hall.

  As the rest of the runners began toting unwanted furnishings o
ut, Gdan pointed at a thin, wiry woman whose brown coloring was a lot like Danet’s own. “This is Mnar Milnari,” Gdan said. “Royal runner.”

  Mnar turned Danet’s way and saluted. “Do you require runners?”

  “Yes,” Danet said simply, and with no pretension to an authority she was clearly unused to.

  Arrow stood by unnoticed. Amusement sparked in him at how much Mnar and Danet looked alike. At least at first glance. Then the differences occurred: Mnar’s triangular face (courtesy of her Noth ancestors through the Cassads, though he did not know that) so different from Danet’s round one, how Danet talked with her hands, but the other woman didn’t as she said, “Our original purpose was to serve the royal family. Of recent years we’ve mostly been confined to running messages and renewing bridge, firestick, and water spells. I can assure you, we have plenty of excellently-trained young people who need a place, and are well practiced in all runner duties, including scribe and archive as well as personal runners.”

  “Thank you,” Danet said with real gratitude.

  Mnar gazed with interest at Danet, whom she’d seen from a distance, but never met. As they crossed through the open doors into the queen’s chambers, where Tesar was busy directing the distribution of bed linens, floor mats, and the embroidered pillows that Arrow had rejected, Mnar asked what types of runners Danet would need. Danet began slowly, and Mnar saw how frequently the new gunvaer hesitated, then asked precise questions that opened into new questions. Mnar began to appreciate a mind trained to hard work and orderly procedure.

  The traditional nursery had once been on the third floor, where the royal runners were now housed. Danet chose the suite one door down from hers for the new nursery, and an army of servants got to work, so that by dawn, there would be an entirely new royal family in residence.

  Arrow wandered back to his new suite, watched the runners busy at work, and reflected on how two days ago he couldn’t get them to fetch him a cup of ale. But he didn’t fault them. The atmosphere of constraint that had held the entire castle in its grip was beginning to ease. There was almost a festive sound to the voices, and a vigor to the work, now that people weren’t looking over their shoulders.

  He crossed back to the queen’s suite, which looked just like his, only facing east. Fighting a gaping yawn, he gestured her out to the hall. “They know what to do. Let’s go take a look in Mathren’s office.”

  “Now?”

  “We should have done it first thing,” he said, hating this sense that there were a hundred things he should have done—and he had yet to go to bed.

  He watched her mouth thin, and knew she was thinking exactly the same thing.

  They approached the riding of armed guards at the ground floor entrance to the tower stairs.

  “Any trouble?” Arrow asked.

  Eight pairs of eyes shifted to one fellow dark of hair and skin, who said, “We just came on. Nothing reported from the day watch.”

  Arrow said, “Good,” and passed by, Danet in his wake. They trod in silence up and around, each lost in weary, but nerve-driven, headlong thought.

  The first landing opened into Mathren’s command center, before which stood two more guards. “Anyone tried to get in?” Arrow asked the nearest.

  The man shook his head. “Nobody made it this far.”

  The outer chamber giving onto the office had benches forming three sides of a square, below a huge dolphin banner.

  “How many runners did Mathren have?” Danet asked, looking at the benches.

  “I don’t think anyone knows. Maybe Noth will find out something,” he added, wondering how much trouble was going on in the garrison—if his promoting Noth over all Mathren’s commanders would stick. I’m still looking back over my own shoulder, he was thinking as they entered the office.

  It was a small room, with only the one entrance, and one window. Easily guarded, Arrow thought, looking at the two tidy desks, the storage shelves, the trunks, and dominating everything, an enormous map on one plastered wall.

  “This is old,” Arrow said, eyeing the map. “Real old.”

  Danet’s gaze lifted to pins stuck in various places, each with a bit of paper appended, with cryptic marks. “A code,” she breathed.

  “Damn,” Arrow said. “I hate that sort of horseshit.” He turned his back on the map. “You’re the one who figured out about the army. What exactly are we looking for?”

  Danet thumbed her temples as she scanned the desks, the shelves, the trunks. “I don’t know. Let’s start with the easy and obvious: any mention of Nighthawk, or Parnid, or anything that you think points toward a secret army. You know military talk better than I do.”

  Arrow went to the large desk, and began rooting through the piles there.

  Danet moved to the smaller desk opposite, clearly an orderly’s workplace, shelves adjacent lined with bound books exactly like the one that lay open on the desk. Beside the open book lay a stack of paper, three quill pens, a pen knife, and ink.

  Danet bent over the bound book. Here, too, was code, mixed with Marlovan.

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing,” Arrow exclaimed. “All rosters, reports from the garrisons, and monthly summaries from the quartermaster. Not a whiff of any Parnid.” He turned away and surveyed the room, which was bitterly cold, the firesticks snuffed by someone; he noted with disgust that the fireplace floor was a bed of old ash. Since firesticks did not burn, but released captured sun warmth through magic, the ash had to be exactly the sort of evidence they sought.

  He was distracted by the steam of his own breath as his gaze shifted from item to item: a sword (not the one that had killed Evred and Mard—that one Noth had taken away), a cloak folded neatly over a trunk. Several books above on a shelf. He reached for one: in faded ink, Eyewitness Accounts of the Battle at Andahi Pass by Vedrid Basna, Branid Toraca, and Camerend Kened. War reports. Of course. Arrow didn’t bother with the other books—he suspected he’d already read them, sweating over his desk as a boy.

  He kicked the cloak to the floor and opened the trunk, to discover tied sheaths of paper rolled up. “Damn,” he said. “It’ll take an army to paw through this stuff.”

  Danet said, “I’ll do it. It’s not only that army I want to find, it’s treasury records, and everything else he hid.”

  Arrow heaved a sigh of relief, suddenly so tired he could scarcely stand. “You’re better than the best. Ma was right.”

  Danet flushed. “Seems to me I have only the one talent, and I like numbers and breaking codes. It’s satisfying. Besides, you have a lot more to do that I can’t help with. Why don’t you go get some rest while things are quiet? I’m going to sort through these and make some piles.”

  Arrow said, “First, I’m going to hunt up that quartermaster.”

  He ran down the stairs, already feeling lighter—and nearly knocked Camerend down. “Any new assassins or disasters to report?”

  Camerend opened his hands. “Nothing new,” he began.

  “Good.” Arrow grinned, not well enough acquainted with Camerend yet to hear that slight emphasis on the word new. “Who would I talk to if I wanted the academy to start again?”

  “The academy?” Camerend repeated.

  Arrow flushed as if he’d been caught breaking rules, but stiffened his stance. He was now a king, and his father had said repeatedly that the kingdom would only be united if the academy was running again. Even Noth had said it, standing there over the dead bodies.

  He wasn’t ready to admit to his worry that he would be terrible at commanding an army even if he had one. He knew he’d had as good a training as anyone in the north, at least. So there must have been something different, and better, in the days of Inda-Harskialdna. While boys got trained, he could get trained, too.

  “We need it,” he stated, rubbing gritty eyes.

  Camerend heard the defensive almost-question, and said slowly, “Well, as for cleaning the academy buildings out and finding where all the furnishings have been stored, the castle steward f
or now, but the eventual Headmaster would need a staff for that as well.”

  Arrow’s gaze shifted sideways, then back. “Where are the records about...how it was run?”

  Camerend said, “There are of course records of competition-scores and dispositions and the like in the garrison archive. But if you mean, records about training....”

  He hesitated, knowing that it would be a mistake to mention the extensive records written by his greats-grandfather Saverend Montredavan-An—known as Fox. And yet the last third of this memoir was comprised of direct quotations from the famous Inda Algaravayir, refinements Inda and the also-famous Headmaster Gand had worked up together—a training method aimed at defense, not offense.

  So he finessed. “Well, as it happens, Headmaster Gand, I’m certain you’ve heard of him, left a training book, which we royal runners kept in our own archive after the academy was last shut down. I can send someone to fetch it, if you like.”

  Arrow smacked his hands together, his whole face alight with relief and delight. “Do it!”

  Camerend said, “It’ll take a few weeks for someone to travel to Darchelde and back in winter.” That would give them all winter to extricate a suitable Gand record and leave out all the personal memories.

  “That’s fine,” Arrow said, rubbing his hands. “I figure it’ll take a year to get things ready. I’ll tell the jarls about it at Midsummer, and they can send their sons the next spring.”

  “Very well,” Camerend said, thinking, It’s time. “There’s something you should know, Anred-Harvaldar.”

  Arrow grimaced at hearing his given name, which he’d only heard when he was in trouble. The harvaldar just worsened it. Then the sense of Camerend’s words sank in, and the grimace turned to a scowl. This couldn’t be good. “What?”

  Camerend watched the changes of expression that it never occurred to Arrow to hide, and out of hard-trained habit, began with carefully worded misdirection, “You can ask Commander Noth, who dispatched people to investigate—”

  “Just tell me,” Arrow said impatiently. “I can get details from Noth later.”