Bun was first, flashing a smile at Lineas before jabbering about a litter of new kittens born since her mother had left. Next was Connar, he of the sky blue eyes and curling black hair and the beautifully chiseled face. An instant in which his gaze met hers, and Lineas flashed hot then cold all over.
In that moment, as Connar dashed indifferently past, Lineas—so responsive to beauty—launched into the exhilaration of emotional freefall, her innocent passion arcing past Quill to Connar.
Connar trotted beside Noddy up the stairs behind their mother, waiting until Bun ran out of breath and surreptitiously feeling the reassuring shape of his arms. He thought about telling his mother some of the secret. Just to make sure everything was right.
But when they reached the residence floor, she turned around and faced them. “Noddy, your future wife will be Noren Algaravayir. She’ll come to visit in a very few years. So, beginning now, we’re going to have a new rule: Restdays will be talked in Hand only.”
And, slowly, awkwardly, she asked how each of them was.
Noddy gave Connar a long face. Connar signed back covertly, Stupid.
They actually liked Hand, once they’d discovered that they could use it as private code (as long as no fourth-years were around). But the signs they liked best weren’t the ones they could use around parents or masters.
So Connar sat tight on his secret as the family struggled through an entire meal without speaking, except when Da barked out a curse or two when he got frustrated. The boys and Bun did get some entertainment out of Da signing that the sun stank, and that his feet were hard. Arrow finally left early, leaving all the tarts to Connar, Noddy, and Bun.
The children vanished the moment the dessert tray was empty, whereupon Arrow slunk back in, slanting shifty glances right and left before he said, “I can’t stand waiting any longer. What did you learn about Inda-Harskialdna?”
“There’s a tapestry that the Iofre sent along as a gift to Noddy, made while Inda was alive. But there isn’t anything else, really.”
“He didn’t write down his thoughts on strategy?” Arrow’s eyes widened. “Every commander does that! I do that!”
“Not a word. According to her, he hated talking about his wars as much as he hated writing. I was in the library one afternoon while they were at work. The only signs of him are the books he bought, and they’re all old histories and travel books, and one about ship building. All the family stories handed down are about his nightmares, and how he couldn’t get out of bed in winter, because of all his scars and broken bones.”
Arrow thumbed his jaw. “I’ve heard some of that passed down through the Noths, but I thought that was just what outsiders heard. Damn. Well, I’m glad you’re back. But I hate this Restday rule of yours. Do we really have to do it?”
“If we do, Hand’ll become habit as much as our speaking, just as on the coast they all speak Iascan as well as Marlovan.”
Arrow sighed, then said, “Be sure to tell Noth when he turns up. If I can’t get out of it, he can’t, either.” And he left.
It was too early for Jarid, who usually came after the night watch changed. Now that she was alone, Danet hurried over to the archive, and as it was Restday, no scribe was on duty. She unlocked all three doors, and when she reached the inner vault, she uncovered her lamp and crossed to the sturdy, iron-bound chests that contained all Hadand Deheldegarthe’s papers.
She set the lamp down beside her on the floor, and methodically went through them until she found what she was looking for: Hadand’s own family tree, written in the women’s code in some places, and in a private code at other times, the ink varying in color denoting how many times she had come back to this project over the years.
Danet hadn’t really looked at it once she’d seem the code, deeming it useless for the present. She’d assumed it had been a hobby for the gunvaer, something to do on long winter nights. But after what she’d heard from Linden-Fareas, she felt she had to break the code in order to corroborate its truth.
She set aside that sheaf of papers, carefully restored everything else, picked up the papers and the lamp, and locked the archive behind her.
TEN
Three new patterns began that season.
It was well known by any who cared that the gunvaer and Commander Noth were lifemates. When this sort of thing happened between people with responsibilities in different parts of a huge castle, a room was usually found in a central location. It was partly for that reason and partly because Arrow temporarily put his fledgling army under Noth—now that he had his first academy graduates beginning their ten years in the forming King’s Riders—to assign him the old harskialdna tower, an awkward suite that had been empty for over fifty years. From here, Noth could more conveniently run the garrison as well as the King’s Riders. It also halved his walk from garrison command.
Danet no longer felt she must sleep near the nursery. She and Noth discovered that her own chambers, with their many windows, were more comfortable in summer, and the nearly windowless harskialdna chamber was much cozier in winter, as it could be kept warmer. Both had access to a small court directly below so that she, her runners, and Bun could do odni each morning; Noth always did sword drills with the guard.
The second pattern that developed that season—everyone understood “season” to mean the half year of the academy season—was that Hliss no longer came to the royal suite. She said it was for practical reasons, as the king’s chambers had no place for a babe. Arrow found it annoying at first, but he discovered that he liked her quiet rooms, where he could leave aside being king for a short time.
The third pattern was Hauth’s training Connar in secret.
It temporarily ended with the academy season. When the boys went home after the Victory Day Games, Hauth was assigned to the new barracks to train the King’s Riders over winter.
Before he dismissed Connar for the last time, he said flatly, “If you turn up next spring, I expect you to have kept up these exercises. I’ll know in a heartbeat if you slacked off. And of course, you can always give it up.”
He was ready for that, or considered himself to be: Connar’s black hair was a constant reminder that half of the boy came from that obnoxious Iascan woman that both Lanrid and Arrow had been so hot after. Had her blood tainted Connar too much? He’d not been above slacking off when it was exceptionally warm, or when he’d had a rough day previously.
From Connar’s boyish perspective, Hauth had told so many stories about Lanrid’s brilliance that he had begun to believe that Lanrid had never whined, or slacked, and had always been first in everything, like his father—both natural commanders.
Connar craved being recognized as a natural commander. Hauth made it clear that his birth-father and grandfather had been faster than everybody, and stronger than most, so that everyone turned to them whenever ridings were chosen for a game.
Attaining that goal seemed impossibly distant, because nobody in his year at the academy was turning to him. It was always Noddy, or Ghost Fath of the nearly white hair that tended to stand out around his head when the dry winds of Lightning Season blew, or sometimes skinny, rusty-haired Stick Tyavayir. At least it wasn’t Cabbage Gannan, though he tried hard enough to flatter or bully the others by turns.
Still, after a season of arduous training in secret, Connar had begun to notice a gratifying change in his standing in both class competitions and private squabbles. In the first, he was no longer somewhere in the middle of the scrum, but had begun to win his way behind the three leaders—Noddy of course always first in anything that had to do with strength. He just wasn’t fast. In private scraps, there were times when Connar at least held his own.
With that in mind, as winter began to close in, Connar kept up his habit of rising at the single bell an hour before the clangor of the dawn watch change, when those who had to be ready and on duty for morning watch rose to get ready.
It was difficult to keep up the habit when there was no Hauth, just himself in his
room. But then came Noddy’s Name Day, when Da measured Noddy against the inner door, and there was a three-finger spurt, and how Da laughed in pride. Connar knew he hadn’t grown much at all, because his togs from spring still fit. He couldn’t do anything about his height, but he could about his strength.
And so the long slow harvest season passed, ending in the howling storms of winter.
The problem with secrets, Danet decided as she dug her knuckles into the sides of her neck and twisted her head from side to side, was that it was easy to justify keeping one's own, but one could still begrudge someone else for keeping theirs.
To test her theory about madness running through the Algaravayir family, she’d worked at Hadand Deheldegarthe’s family tree off and on over the months since her return from her visit to Linden-Fareas Algaravayir. First, she’d discovered that there were actually two handwritings, belonging to Hadand and someone else.
It took months of close, meticulous work, but Danet liked these types of puzzles. Over New Year’s Week, with the castle blanketed under a four-day snowfall and with no duties to pull her away, she systematically tried every name associated with Hadand—down to grandchildren and pets—in every combination, and finally she cracked the code.
As often happened, the solution turned out to be simple, once she had all the information: the code was based on the name of the king of the time, Evred, plus his old academy nickname, which Danet discovered completely by accident one night when Arrow was telling the boys stories from the old academy days: Sponge.
Put the two names side by side, and the code unraveled itself.
But that only uncovered more puzzles, like the page that featured one Isa Cassadas, who had instead of a death date a note that she disappeared. And in the second handwriting, a small notation next to it: Gold = R?
And finally, at the root of the entire project—with significant holes, more frequent the farther back the research went—Adamas Dei. That would be the mysterious and legendary Adamas Dei of the Black Sword, who according to all the oldest legends and songs had traveled Halia righting wrongs while working as a blacksmith, teaching the Iascans how to make the swords that the Marlovans coveted when they came a-conquering.
Danet had seldom paid much attention to legends, as Mother had said that most of them were fireside pretense that people would then pass on as truth, usually through ballads.
But here was the name Adamas Dei, and next to it, Siar Cassadas.
Leading back down the timeline toward the present, it was apparent that Dei family had intermarried with themselves and the Cassadas family over generations, until small diamond shapes began popping up more frequently. Danet guessed that these diamonds represented relatives who had turned out to be...call it odd, instead of mad, as there was one next to Inda’s name on the first page, and also next to his mother’s sister.
As she tidied up the old papers and her notes, she reflected that the scale of this Algaravayir-Cassad-waterfall secret made Calamity’s silly boy-to-girl ruse seem trivial by comparison.
So she hid the papers away under her records of tax lists, and bent her mind to her new list of Hand vocabulary words.
Winter slid slowly into spring, and at the first thaw that lasted longer than a week, the boys began clamoring for their move over to the academy for another season, Noddy’s voice an unlovely adolescent bray, Connar’s reminding Danet of the silverflute she’d heard once, on her visit in Idego.
It was always the same—they moved over the week after Spring Day, and Connar’s Name Day—but they never tired of trying to wheedle an earlier date.
When the time came at last, and Bun was off on some pursuit of her own, Arrow and Danet sat down together for the evening meal. After they’d gone over the affairs of the day, Arrow said, “You’ll remember that this year you wanted girls in the Games. You’ve got a season to think about how to organize it.”
“Me?” she exclaimed. She'd never had anything to do with the academy.
Arrow’s brows shot upward. “Kind of late to change your mind.”
“I haven’t,” she said. “So far I’ve got the Marlovayirs sending a riding of girls, and the Faths as well, along with a Tyavayir cousin. That’s in the first batch of letters to arrive. But I thought the Victory Day competitions were arranged by the Headmaster.”
Arrow turned his palm up. “You’ve got to let him know what you want.”
“I’ll see to it.”
She sent Loret to ask if Mnar was free. When Mnar sat down on the guest mat, Danet summarized her conversation with Arrow and her subsequent thoughts, adding. “Since making a change works best when someone can point to tradition, I looked through Hadand-Gunvaer’s papers, but there’s nothing like a schedule of events for the queen’s training girls’ competitions. Only glancing references to who won what in a given year.”
Mnar reached for the Idegan-trade coffee that the queen always thoughtfully provided. “I expect they knew the traditions so well no one thought to write it down. Or if it was written down, it was all tossed out when the queen’s training was abandoned.” She lifted the cup in both hands. “You might go farther back in her letters, if there are any, to when she was a girl. Did she write to Tdor Marthdavan about the games, once she could be included in them? You might also see if there are any letters from Joret Dei, the one who went over the mountain to become a queen among the Adranis.”
Danet gasped. “Of course. I should have thought of that.”
Mnar opened her hand. “But there’s still the matter of what was expected of girls in those days. Do you want to go back to women on the walls? What is it you want to accomplish with bringing girls here for Victory Day games?”
Danet hadn’t expected that question from anyone but Arrow, and of course, herself. Maybe it was time to break that circle of questions chasing each other’s tail through her mind. “I’m not sure, except that going back to the walls doesn’t make much sense. If anything, we should be testing for field skills, considering how much border patrol women do. It isn’t always possible for scouts to get away from a fight. My own mother, as a girl, scouted with the Faths, and twice got caught in skirmishes with horse thieves from over the mountains. I know that the Jarlan of Yvanavayir went home with her best runners to help her Tlen relations against that huge raid in the Nelkereth. She died there, along with a lot of other women.”
Mnar said, “I remember that, though I was just a girl.”
Danet recollected her mother complaining bitterly that people over the mountains were rumored to pay something like ten times over the normal price for Marlovan-trained war horses. And if it’s true it’s the crown paying, then we’re going to see more and better raids, she’d warned the girls one hot summer day, when they were sloppy in drill.
Mnar opened her hand. “I wondered, because I’ve gotten the impression over the past decade that your feelings about the academy are ambivalent at best.”
“They are,” Danet said. “But then I think that having sensible girls in the academy might be a benefit overall.”
“Shall I state the obvious?”
“I know all girls aren’t sensible. But most of them, at least in my experience, don’t think of war as the highest form of life. Yes, I remember my cousin Hard Ride Arvandais. The fact that it's her name that comes up every single time there’s any sort of similar discussion proves that she was an outlier, not one of many, doesn’t it?”
Mnar spread her hands. “I don’t know. My job is not to make policy, but to teach those who serve and protect you policy makers.” She smiled wryly. “Speaking as a teacher, one subject I know well is teenagers. I’ll confine my advice to this: when those girls come, keep ‘em busy. What they do during the competition is less important than what you have them doing all day before you let them have rec time. Give them specific boundaries, or you’ll have them running wild all over the academy chasing the boys as soon as they get back from the Great Game, at which time discipline will go straight into the midden.”
>
Danet’s lips parted. “I never thought of that.”
“I didn’t think so. From what I can gather, your own upbringing was a model of order. That won’t be true for all these girls. Secondly, if you do decide to bring girls into the academy, start ‘em young, just like the boys, as there is no longer a similar standard for girls’ training any more than there is for boys outside of the academy. By their teens, habits are already set in. Good and bad.”
Danet had been thinking of integrating only the best-trained girls among the lancers—academy jargon for the senior boys—again to serve as examples. For the first time she considered how little she knew about how other girls were raised, and how they acted.
“I’ll consider your words,” she said, promising herself as she walked out that once she’d finished delving into those letters, she’d better talk it over with Hliss.
ELEVEN
“And so,” Danet said the Morning of Spring Day, and Connar’s sixteenth Name Day, “as we promised, you may choose one of the eligible royal runners to be your first runner.”
Connar stared at her in surprise, trying to hide his dismay. How would he ever be able to hide his secret training from a royal runner always at his elbow?
The words I don’t want one would not be spoken, because he knew they would ask why not?
Danet, seeing his hesitation and completely misinterpreting it, said, “You don’t have to follow your brother in this.”
Both parents looked at him in approval.
Connar knew they liked him and Noddy doing things together. Then he realized what had hitherto escaped him: Noddy’s Name Day had come and gone and he didn’t have a royal runner as personal runner.
Arrow said, “If you feel the same way, that’s all right. It can wait.”
“I do,” Connar said quickly. “I’m fine with the house runners coming by to sweep and change out the linens. I don’t need anything else. I could even do that. We have to over academy-side.”
Time of Daughters I Page 39