Time of Daughters I

by Sherwood Smith

  Linden-Fareas kept her face neutral, but her muscles tightened so that her horse sidestepped, ears flicking to catch whatever had startled her rider.

  This gave the Iofre an excuse to bend forward, ostensibly to soothe the horse, but hiding her face as Danet, still looking at the light on those round roofs, went on, “He modeled the academy on what he and the famous Headmaster Gand put together. When I get back to the royal city, he’ll ask if I saw any tributes to Inda. I know there is that tapestry—”

  “Which he loathed,” the Iofre put in, her wide-set dark eyes crinkled with laughter. “He refused to look at it, we’re told.”

  “Really?” Danet asked. “I was told that he loved it, or that’s what’s been handed down in the family. And I thought it was beautiful. Why did he object to it?”

  “He said everything about the pose of the central figures was completely wrong, and he used to laugh and ask when he’d ever been as tall as the ceiling. But mostly he hated the woman who designed it, Dannor Tyavayir, though she only supervised a part of its making. Everything else was done by the household. We’ve kept it because of that work, but it can be a bride gift to your son, if you like,” the Iofre said with a shrug, causing Danet to slew around in the saddle and stare.

  Linden-Fareas wished she could take the words back. Not so much because she was fond of the tapestry, though she was. It was because her careless gesture might have exactly the opposite effect from what she’d meant.

  Then she saw the honest surprise in Danet’s face, and let out her breath, trying to shed the old anger. Camerend had told her in person, and Mnar by letter, to trust Danet in the sense that what you saw was what you got.

  Linden-Fareas was aware that Anred-Olavayir venerated the Algaravayir name for all the wrong reasons, but in this he was no different from all the other kings who had pestered the family for marriage alliances since the death of the great Hadand Deheldegarthe.

  She took a deep breath and, watching Danet covertly, answered her question to get the subject of Inda’s artifacts over with. “There’s a shield in the Hall that Inda’s runners brought back from the Venn invasion in the Pass, but we’re told he never used it. His old practice blade is with it. Other than that, there isn’t much. That is, the people have changed the names of some of the places along his old route. Like Indasbridge, where he used to stop and chat with the old men in a trade town on the river, and there’s Indascamp, which eventually turned into an outpost. And everyone knows the field where he died, though there’s nothing to mark it. Ho! It’s coming on rain. Well, that’s it, really, unless you want to see the peach orchard that we’ve tended ever since Joret Dei, who went over the mountains to be queen, sent rootlings to Tdor-Iofre.”

  “It looks like thunder’s coming,” Danet said, eyeing the dark clouds in the east, rather than admit she wasn’t particularly interested in inspecting orchards. She knew Arrow wouldn’t care, either.

  The Iofre turned her horse, and as they rode back under big splats of rain, Danet watched the girls. She still couldn’t tell the twins apart, except that one seemed to have a lot to say, and the other little, judging by the hand movement.

  When they arrived back, the girls were dispatched to help pull in the bedding and mats, which had been washed and put out to dry. The Iofre excused herself to see to castle business, leaving Danet—stiff and sore from the morning’s workout—standing at the upper window. Ow, every muscle hurt. She could so vividly hear Mother’s disgust, and envisioned herself having to muck out all the stable stalls, and haul in fresh hay. The sure cure, Mother always said, for sloth.

  From now on, every morning at least the knife dance, and if she had time the most basic odni drill, she promised herself as she watched the girls dashing about the courtyard below, gathering things to be brought inside. The twin named Hadand was immediately recognizable by her unchanging expression. She moved in a repeated pattern of straight lines, a hand touching the rim of the well, the hitching post, a stone jut of one of the towers. It was as if she were blind and guiding herself, except it was plain she could see.

  She was also slower in gathering mats and blankets, as she meticulously lined up corners precisely. No one interfered with her, or chivvied her to hurry, even though the rain was coming faster. It wasn’t until thunder rumbled that she started violently, and sped back along her route, touching each thing in reverse. So she wasn’t deaf, though Danet had yet to hear her speak.

  After the noon meal, Rider Captain Aldren Noth took the three girls into the stable to play with two newborn foals while he got to know his niece. The Iofre took Danet around the castle, introducing her to weavers and carpenters, stonemason and so forth. All very friendly and open, and yet Danet got the sense that she was seeing the outward components of their lives, as if this all was rehearsed.

  She distrusted this impression, wondering how much she was reading into the situation, just because Calamity had lied to her.

  A couple more days passed, beginning with odni drill with the women before breakfast. Danet observed the twins, noting how well Noren got along with everyone, and how athletic she was—everything her twin wasn’t. She held back from formally interviewing the girls, suspecting that they’d be on their best behavior, perhaps saying what they had been coached to say. She was content to observe.

  They all rode down to the harbor one day, and while Danet thoroughly enjoyed getting her first glimpse of the ocean, she still felt that the Iofre was keeping her at an affably polite distance. It felt as if she were being guided over the surface of a frozen lake, with all the underwater life hidden below.

  She had always been a light sleeper, and that had only worsened after she and Arrow found themselves king and queen. The occasional nights she slept alone she still put a knife under her pillow, though she knew it was senseless—anyone who could get past the castle defenses would strike her down fast. The knife was a compromise, yet even deep in sleep, the softest unexpected noise brought her instantly awake.

  So it was her fourth morning: She woke abruptly to the sound of rain below her open window. Her inner sense was of very early morning, at least an hour before dawn. She was about to turn over and go back to sleep when a slight cough, followed by a soft Shh!, shocked her nerves. The sound resolved into not rain but the soft thud of many footfalls.

  Attack?

  But the bell wasn’t ringing. No one was shouting. Except for those soft, steady footfalls, those below were completely silent. Sneak attack? Except no one was running.

  She got up, stepped to the side of her window, and peered down. There outlined in the dim, ruddy light of a wall torch, were the Iofre’s twin daughters. They joined a cluster of castle people all moving in one direction. With them walked another twig of a girl—was that Lineas? Yes. As they turned in one direction, the light fell across that triangular face. Danet’s alarm cooled to wariness and intense curiosity. She slipped barefooted out of the room and down the hall in the direction they were walking.

  The castle was not that large; Danet came up against the tower stair, and peeked out of an arrow slit into the court off the kitchen yard, with the water well central. Here the group she’d seen met up with a bigger crowd already gathered. Yes, there was Sage! In close ranks, with the Iofre at the front, they launched into what looked like an odni drill, except it was far faster, with alterations that she could see drew on male strength, rather than always driving from the hip.

  They were so fast, yet so close together, she could see why they didn’t hold blades—except, as it finished, everyone precisely in place, she suspected that if they had been drilling with weapons, no knife edge would have come closer than a finger’s breadth from the person at either side, in front, or behind.

  When it was done, they began to disperse as silently as they had gathered, leaving the yard empty. Danet ran like a girl back to her guest chamber, her toes cold, for the stone had yet to warm up.

  That was not the regular odni drill. That was something much more lethal. And
her own runner was a part of it, as well as that little twig Lineas. Royal runners did get hard training, she knew. Among their many duties, they were expected to protect whoever they were assigned to. The strangest part was that these Algaravayirs apparently did two sets of drills, and further, the royal runners and the Algaravayirs shared that secret one.

  Secrets again! She lay in bed wondering what, if anything, she should say. As if sanity dawned with the sun, she remembered that she was not Danet Farendavan, she was Danet-Gunvaer, who had every right to put any question she wanted.

  She got up, bathed, and dressed with a little more care than she usually bothered with.

  When the bell rang, sure enough, she found the women forming up for the customary odni drill, as though nothing had happened. To the Iofre’s friendly greeting, she said as neutrally as she could—because they hadn’t done anything wrong, precisely—“If this is for me, since you’ve already drilled, you don’t have to put yourself to the trouble.”

  The Iofre sighed. “So we did wake you up? I apologize.”

  “I don’t mind that,” Danet said. “And I was impressed by what I saw. I was also impressed to see my own runners in there with you.”

  The Iofre checked slightly at that, her gaze dropping. Then she looked up soberly. “I’d already decided to discuss certain things with you, and that can be part of it, as you wish. The simplest answer is that we’re trained much the same as the royal runners are. As for why, can it wait until a bit later? There’s a feel of a storm coming, and I’d like to get our outside chores done beforehand.”

  Danet knew that a lack of anger and a steady gaze didn’t necessarily mean truth, but instinct inclined her toward liking this older woman who seemed without pretense. “Certainly,” she said. “If you can give me something to do, I’d be the happier for it.”

  The Iofre’s bright smile flashed. “If you would help over at the stable.”

  “Gladly.”

  The stable chief was another Noth, tall, narrow-faced, with red-toned light hair, about as unlike her own dear Jarid as a man could be, but then Jarid’s branch of the Noths came from elsewhere. This man was slow, mild, and had a patient hand with animals and young people alike.

  The three girls showed up, two bouncing and giggling, Noren’s giggles a breathy keen very much her own sound. Her twin never laughed, but she seemed more animated than Danet had ever seen her, and less wooden, as they all worked to exercise the restless colts.

  The animals seemed to sense the coming storm, the young ones friskier than ever, which caused much running around, but finally all the stalls had been mucked out, and those who needed exercise had gotten it, and the midday bell clanged as the first heavy drops splatted around them.

  Danet discovered her mood had lightened. As usual, work cleared her heart, if not her head. The air as they crossed the courtyard was greenish with impending thunder, and everyone scurried, the two girls holding Hadand’s hands.

  Then the Iofre, who had been wrestling all week with an increasing instinct to trust an Olavayir—something she had never expected to happen—said, “Will you come up to the library?”

  The storm that crashed overhead darkened the library so that the Iofre went about lighting lamps as she said to Danet, “You’ve had time to observe my daughter Hadand, I’m certain.”

  Danet knew she was no good at subtlety, so she didn’t try. “I believe I understand why you swapped the girls. Noren is outgoing and sociable. Hadand...isn’t.”

  “Yes. She can hear—if you go downstairs, you will see her with her head buried under a cushion to muffle the thunder. The fact that she can hear is why I’d thought she’d be best to send away, when the girls were tiny, and we discovered that Noren was deaf. It runs through the Iascan side of the Noth family.”

  Danet opened her hand, accepting this, without perceiving how carefully Linden-Fareas watched her.

  “Since you wrote to me about a betrothal treaty, we’ve come to discover that—as far as we can tell—sound is irrelevant to Hadand. You can speak to her, but she seems to hear our words the way we hear dogs bark, or cows moo. She doesn’t speak. Never has. It’s always been Hand. I think she learned it not from us so much as from her sister. She and Noren have their own language, though most of it is recognizable Hand. Your little redhead is catching up remarkably quickly,” the Iofre added. “That was a thoughtful gesture, bringing the girls’ cousin.”

  “It was the royal runners’ training chief’s idea,” Danet said.

  “Mnar Milnari? I know her,” the Iofre said. “She used to visit here as a child, before she was sent up north. We still correspond when we can. She knows the situation, but I can understand her not wishing to say anything unless forced by circumstance, as she has never seen my girls, and I know the royal runners set great store by first-hand observation.”

  The Iofre waited for a blast of thunder to roll away. She sat head bent, her profile somber, almost unfamiliar. Danet hadn’t recognized until then how much those lines of laughter around her dark eyes were characteristic. The Iofre was a head shorter than Danet, but somehow within a day, the force of her personality had made her seem larger, in the way a summer garden looks so much larger than itself after a good rain.

  Danet said slowly, “This is in no way an accusation. I ask only to learn. But why didn’t you write to me about Noren and Hadand before I sent out the order about the visits once the girls turn sixteen?”

  Linden-Farias said bluntly, “Because I wasn’t always certain we’d keep that treaty.”

  Danet hid her shock. “Why?”

  “Every generation since the Olavayirs came to the throne, everyone wanted alliance with the Algaravayir name, while the Olavayir kings made it clear that they didn’t want anyone but themselves allying with us.”

  “I didn’t know that. The betrothal records I have didn’t show....”

  “Didn’t show the broken ones,” the Iofre said. “As for my own experience, the threats,” her teeth showed, “began with Mathren Olavayir. Judging by his behavior, and the tone of his demands, he was obsessed with the Algaravayir name and past. We knew all along that he murdered Fnor Marthdavan, his wife. After which he made noises about coming after me. We did not know how much your husband would resemble Mathren Olavayir.”

  “How did you know that?” Danet leaned forward. “That rumor started going around when his secret army turned on itself. We heard there was a witness, but never who.”

  “The witness was a kitchen boy, who’d crawled under the hay to sneak a nap. Woke when he heard a shout, peeked down in time to see Fnor and her runner both murdered by Mathren and his first runner. The boy managed to escape with help from his grandfather in the stable. We kept that secret lest Mathren retaliate. I understand that Mathren’s regicide also had a witness of sorts, who didn’t come forward for twenty years, probably for the same reason.” She lifted her hands. “The frightening thing was, the world believed Mathren to be a hero, and yet there were all these secrets. People kept them out of fear, without knowing that others kept the same, or similar, secrets.”

  “Just the way Mathren wanted it,” Danet said. “Everyone living in fear. It’s taken us years to overcome the shadow Mathren cast.”

  “Yes. It still exists in places.” The Iofre sighed. “Anyway, Mathren made it very clear that any marriage alliance I made without royal permission would be considered, oh, call it a threat to the throne. And then after Fnor’s death...well, to cut it all short, why do you think I waited until I was almost forty to have children?”

  The Iofre spread her hands. “The very week I learned that Mathren was dead, I chewed gerda. Aldren Noth is the girls’ father. He’s my randael, though he also functions as our stable chief. You met him today. He and I were together at the time. He’s an excellent father.”

  “And so you accepted my treaty offer to buy time, in case Arrow might be the sort of king who would send an army?” Sickened as Danet felt at this evidence of Mathren’s long reach, she wa
s glad she had come. She knew she would have learned none of this through writing letters.

  “Pretty much,” the Iofre said with a brief, sad smile. “But that was then. We’ve had twelve years of peace, nothing dire has happened, and meanwhile, Hadand is the way she is, but Noren loves the idea of living in the royal city. She loves history, she gets along with everyone, and she longs to travel.”

  “As a gunvaer, she won’t get much of that,” Danet commented wryly. “This is my first trip. Might very well be my last.”

  “I realize that. Which is one reason we’re talking today.” The Iofre recrossed her legs and leaned her elbows on her knees. “I think I need to talk about the Algaravayir name a little, and what that might mean to your future grandchildren. We understand how our name is perceived on the outside. You have to understand that Inda was beloved here, but it wasn’t for foreign battles, or even for what happened way up north. That was his duty, and he was duly honored for it, for he carried the scars as proof of the cost. He was beloved in Choreid Elgaer for his heart. The old people insist that their old people said he was always loving, always trusting, when he was small, but the truth was, he was also...odd. And he was away for so many years, during which things here...well, that’s another old subject useless to rake over.”

  The Iofre wiped back a strand of hair. “The one we all consider truly great was Tdor-Iofre, whose room I sleep in, and whose tapestries I look on each day, but whose greatness I could never measure up to. She, and the Fareas-Iofre I am named for, held Choreid Elgaer while Inda was away, and it was she who made life bearable for him on his return.”

  “Bearable,” Danet prompted, mindful of Arrow’s request.

  Linden-Fareas gazed into the fire, waiting out another crash of thunder. When it had died away to an uneven rumble, “I’m told that everyone in the kingdom talks about Grandfather Inda’s great battles, but we all grew up hearing about how his shouts during his nightmares echoed through the castle. How, before he turned forty, he needed help getting out of bed in winter. How his scars and badly healed bones ached ahead of blizzards, so they used him as a weather vane.”