Time of Daughters I

by Sherwood Smith

  Noddy never asked. He just liked to be outside, under the broad sky, no noise except the crunch of hooves and the rush of wind through the trees.

  The time arrived at last to be measured for their first coats, Connar intensely relieved to discover that he’d grown nearly a palm in height that winter.

  The day their coats were ready, of course they had to stun the castle denizens with their manly appearance. They set out full of expectation, which was soon dashed. Though Connar noted the lingering glances of castle girls their own age, he wasn’t quite sure what to do about those. Anyway, the people he wanted to impress—guards and castle staff—didn’t seem to see anything new until Noddy dropped hints with the subtlety of horse farts.

  “Ah, yes, seniors at last,” the baker said with good humor. “Very fine! Would you like a tartlet? Just fresh out of the oven.”

  Connar was disappointed, but not enough to forego tarts. Noddy grinned. “I hear the pups back there in the churn court.”

  Connar shrugged, but followed willingly enough. He wanted to sit and eat, so as not to slop blueberry mixture on his fine new coat, and the barns weren’t far, with their small courtyard annex.

  They found the castle children there, playing some kind of tag game. “Heyo, there’s Andas,” Noddy exclaimed.

  One of the grubby four-year-olds looked up, his face breaking into a grin. They smiled back. Noddy broke his tart in half and held it out. “Want some? It’s blueberry.”

  “Yes,” Andas yelled, and pattered toward them, half the other little ones on his heels.

  Noddy handed down the pastry, which Andas turned to share out among his friends, but there wasn’t nearly enough. While some stood around eating and then licking sticky, grimy fingers, the slow ones who got nothing began squalling.

  The young kitchen helper in charge of them called, “Will you watch them if I go see if there are any more?”

  Noddy shrugged. “Sure!”

  Andas and the others turned speculative gazes up at Connar. “Share!” a pugnacious girl yelled.

  “Maybe....” Connar blocked them with a boot. “Let’s see you duel for it.”

  Noddy said, “They don’t have practice swords. Or even toy ones.”

  But the girl, the oldest of the bunch at six, had swept her gaze around the court, and spotted the long poles of the dash churns, set out to dry in the sun after the morning’s churning.

  The children flocked to these promising weapons, and promptly began waving them at each other, their crimson-faced efforts excruciatingly funny to Noddy and Connar.

  “Go at ‘em,” Noddy bellowed, his deep honk echoing through the stone canyons.

  The garrison urchins were easy to pick out, as they had some rudimentary training, if little skill, unlike the kitchen, carpentry, stonemason, barn, pottery, and clothyard youngsters. Noddy was fond of little creatures of every kind, and to him those earnest faces, the squeaky voices, the astoundingly bad skill, were adorable.

  “Look.” Noddy elbowed Connar. “Andas whupped the stick out of that one’s hand! Go, Andas!”

  The child grinned proudly their way half a heartbeat before the boy’s assailant landed on him from behind, and they went tumbling in the dirt, wrestling and shouting.

  Connar was also entertained, but he was also aware of mixed feelings. He knew it was despicable to secretly wish Andas had lost, but it was clear to him that Andas was a natural. He and that sturdy girl were easily the best of the entire pack of brats, most of whom swung wildly and then yelled insults when they lost. She used that dash with an instinctive swing that both Noddy and Connar, after years of training, recognized as correct, her yellow mouse-ear pigtails bouncing at every strike.

  Noddy nudged Connar again. “What you want to wager the runners nab that girl in a year or so, and make her a long rider?”

  “Wouldn’t take that bet,” Connar said, watching Andas. What if their da saw how good he was? He, unlike Noddy, had figured out that Aunt Hliss did not want Andas playing with toy swords. The urge to rat the brats out was so strong. But he couldn’t. If it got out, everybody would despise him for being a snitch. He hated snitches.

  As it happened, he didn’t have to. Noddy’s booming honk, aesthetically unlovely though infectious in its sheer good-nature, was recognizable all over the castle. Hliss, crossing in one of the far courts where the dyeing was going on, recognized it and wondered what Noddy was doing in the churn yard, when churning time was long over.

  As she neared, she heard the shrill voices of the castle children, who generally played about, watched by either a prentice or an adult. Noddy’s laugh rose again, and she entered the yard, taking in the brothers sitting side by side on the fence, looking older than their years in their new lancers’ coats.

  In the yard, the little ones were busy bashing each other with the churn dashes pulled out of the churns. And in the center, his flaxen curls drenched with sweat, Andas.

  She strode into their midst, the utterly alien look of fury in her eyes terrifying the children. Sticks clattered and dropped all around, as the more savvy children scampered off. Others started yelling and wailing, as Andas cried, “Ma, look, I won! I want my tart!” before his mother yanked the dash out of his hands.

  “Get inside,” she said in a furious hiss.

  Shocked and frightened, Andas began to howl. She grabbed his hand, then glared up at her nephews. Noddy looked as shocked as he was. Connar was harder to read, but she didn’t care what he was thinking—if he’d been thinking at all. “Who left you two stone-skulls in charge?” she demanded.

  “But nobody got hurt,” Noddy said reasonably. “We told ‘em, no hitting heads—”

  “Get. Out,” she said, still in that furious whisper they found more unsettling than the worst curses bawled by any sword master. “You are never to come here again.”

  Noddy and Connar looked at each other, then as one swung their feet over the other side of the fence. They retreated as fast as they could, Noddy saying, “What’s wrong? Nobody got hurt!”

  Connar was fairly sure he knew, but instinct kept him from saying that he was sick and tired of everybody in the world maundering on about how beautiful and clever Andas was getting to be. All he knew was, he didn’t need, or want, a beautiful and clever king’s real son following on his heels. Because every time Hauth reminded him how skillful a leader his true father and grandfather had been, no matter how much Connar resented that “true,” he knew that he was being reminded of his own shortcomings. As if he couldn’t see how much stronger Noddy was, and how much faster Ghost Fath and Stick Tyavayir were, no matter how hard he tried.

  He jammed the tart in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to speak.

  “I really don’t get it,” Noddy said, panting along beside him.

  “All I know is, we better play least in sight until she gets over it,” Connar said thickly around the pastry. And, after he swallowed, seeing Noddy still upset, “We’ve strutted our new coats around, but now we better change. How about a ride. See what the terrain looks like now that the thaw is real?”

  So the boys were nowhere in sight when Hliss confronted Arrow up in the royal residence. All the way over she’d mentally rehearsed bunking him out, but by the time she’d trod up the stairs to the third floor, passing all the sentries and runners, reality caught up with her: She was the royal weaver. She still had to live here. And though she could order Arrow out of her life, she couldn’t order him away from Andas.

  Her conflict sharpened when she saw the honest confusion in Arrow’s face, after telling him what she’d seen. It was clear he’d had no idea where the boys had gone—he had not given them permission. But the little grin, quickly quenched, when she said, “And your boys were cheering him on,” made it clear he truly didn’t understand what the problem was.

  “I’m sorry, Hliss,” he said when she snapped her teeth shut on a tirade. “I’ll tell the boys the kitchen and back end is all out of bounds,” he said.

  Too late, she want
ed to say. Andas had been so proud of himself. And who wouldn’t, cheered on by those boys who looked to the uncritical eyes of the small ones like the kings of the world in those dashing coats and high boots.

  Hliss stared at Arrow, silent as exasperation and affection and uncertainty boiled inside her. Yes, and guilt. It wasn’t as if Mother hadn’t warned her....

  Mother. That was the solution, she decided, though it came near to breaking her heart at the prospect. She couldn’t forbid Arrow to see his boy, but she could make it very hard to do so. And incidentally, get Andas away from the garrison boys.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She went straight to Danet, and two days later, a party led by Danet’s fastest and best armed royal runners departed for Farendavan, Andas riding in front of one of them as he chewed on some honeycomb.

  It wasn’t until nightfall that he was told he was not going back to Ma, but on to meet his grandmother and Uncle Brother. The young royal runner and Hliss’s most trusted assistant sat up all night with Andas, who screamed until almost dawn, when he fell into exhausted, sweaty sleep.

  He was not the only one who spent a sleepless, grief-stricken night. When her work was done, Hliss slipped out of her rooms and ran down the back way. To every person she encountered, she said she was going to a different place to check on this or that, and made her way by as circuitous a method as she could contrive up to the north tower, which afforded a clear view of the road.

  She thought she remained unseen, but Noth’s sentries were too vigilant to miss a lone woman—the king’s well-liked favorite, no less—slipping along from little-used stairwell to servant hall to wall. One glimpse of a tear-streaked face revealed in torchlight caused a watch captain to send a runner to Noth, who happened to be sitting with Headmaster Andaun, Camerend, and Quartermaster Pereth as they went over the logistical needs for the coming academy season.

  Noth said, “Tell Captain Toraca thanks. We’ll take it from here.”

  The runner departed, and Noth turned to the other two. Silence extended as they all considered the obvious: Hliss Farendavan had not gone for comfort to the king, who they knew was up in his suite. Nor had she gone to the gunvaer, her sister.

  “Do we tell them?”

  Camerend said, “My suggestion is, leave it. She knows where they are. She might need to be alone.”

  So they left it, and got back to their lists.

  Noth met up with the queen in the old harskialdna tower, which was warm and smelled of mulled wine, he said, “Your sister was reported on the north tower.”

  “I know.” Danet’s welcoming smile vanished. “One of her runners told me, and Loret checked with the watch captain. If she wants to be alone, she should be. She knows where we are if she wants us.”

  Noth accepted these words as he accepted his cup of warm wine, and they talked of other things, Hliss gradually sliding from the forefront of their attention.

  But she stayed in Camerend’s mind, and when he ventured up to the north tower as the first blue light of dawn began lifting the shadows, he found Hliss standing alone, shivering in a thick cloak as she watched the north road. He let her hear his footfalls, and when she turned, her expression eased minutely when she the cup of freshly boiled summer steep he carried.

  He joined her and silently held it out.

  When she had first arrived at the castle at eighteen, she had of course noticed the fine-looking royal runner and felt the same flare of attraction that her sister had: their tastes were much alike. Danet’s had died away, but Hliss’s never had.

  He’d been too heart-sore for anything beyond appreciation for the queen’s lovely sister. But now, all these years later, he was powerless against grief.

  FOURTEEN

  Arrow did not find out about Andas being gone for several days. He was furious, but he kept his reaction between the walls of the royal suite. “What did she want me to do, thrash Noddy and Connar bloody?” he said to Danet.

  “I suspect she didn’t think you took her wishes seriously.”

  Arrow was going to deny that, but he knew it was true. “Well, what of it?” he grouched. “He’s my boy, too. And what if he doesn’t want to be a weaver? What’s wrong with him maybe serving his brothers?”

  Danet heroically kept her opinion to herself. She knew he was saying these things to her so that he wouldn’t say them to Hliss—or anyone else. And as long as she didn’t tell him he was right, which she would not do, he wouldn’t. At least he knew where Andas was, and that he was safe.

  The princes were late in finding out. Noddy was genuinely sorry, and missed his little brother. Connar, as always, kept his mouth shut, and anyway, they were suddenly busy, as Arrow told them to get their gear ready for the academy.

  The days dragged until the morning when they were released like bolts from a cross bow. They only slowed when they reached the tunnel between the castle and the academy, for it wouldn’t do at their exalted age to look overeager.

  They sauntered to their new barracks—where, as always, the early arrivals eyed one another, seeing who had grown and who hadn’t, and bragged about how much drill they’d gotten over winter.

  Connar was not the only one who had practiced with a lance over winter, though his had been in secret. Some had begged training from accommodating older brothers on the grounds that the family would be disgraced forever if they looked ignorant when the class finally started their lance drills. Though he hated it, Connar couldn’t complain.

  Two days later, they began classes, and in the afternoon, for the first time, the princes’ barracks rode out to their first real lance drill. It galled Connar to see Ghost Fath pick up a lance, jam his heels down into the stirrups, and charge at the target, nicking the top of the straw man in a respectable first strike.

  Noddy went next. As expected, he hefted the lance with no trouble at all, grinning as he urged his horse into a trot. The boys whooped and cheered, for he was well-liked (and would have been had he not been born a prince) but when he tried for the target, he forgot everything he’d been told, and his strength utterly betrayed him as the lance caught in the target support, he made the mistake of gripping it tight, and described a neat parabola over the horse’s head.

  When he rose up unhurt from the mud, he laughed right along with the boys, as the junior master sighed in quiet relief, and Hauth remained impassive.

  Connar held himself strictly in check until the master called him forward. Then, controlled from wrists to heels, he couched the lance comfortably, and kept his horse at the ordered trot, though he longed to gallop. When the lance struck the straw man dead-center, the boys roared with approval, and he rode back, exhilarated, glorying in the admiration and surprise in all his bunkmates’ eyes.

  This was what he lived for. And it was everything he had hoped.

  He didn’t see the junior master’s knit brows—the man experienced enough to recognize how easily Connar had handled that lance. It was familiarity, not miraculous instant skill. Clearly Olavayir Tvei had been coached by Hauth, who had said nothing. No one would have a second thought about a king’s son getting coached, but for some reason Hauth had kept this training private.

  The junior master shrugged it off. At least Connar’s form was impeccable, which couldn’t be said for some of the others who also betrayed familiarity with the lance—which is why they told the boys not to experiment on their own, and pick up bad habits that had to be unlearned.

  Connar ended the class in the heady glory of triumph, and didn’t stop grinning as the boys discussed everyone’s performance, Connar and Ghost being voted the best.

  But admiration doesn’t last unless you keep earning it. Everyone else, he discovered over the following days, was too busy trying to earn it for themselves. And one day he arrived to an unpleasant discovery: Rat Noth and several boys from the class behind them had been ordered to join them for this class. At first Connar thought they were there to watch, but no, Hauth motioned them to practice, a whole year ahead o
f when they got to! The howling injustice!

  Of course at first they were terrible, and Connar felt justified in bawling insults along with his class. But they were there the next class, and the next.

  Some worked harder than others. Noddy never worked hard. He was too easy-going for that. Even so, within a month, Noddy whacked the target clean off the fence, right hand and left.

  One morning, when Hauth put Noddy on a big war horse nearing retirement, the animal responded to the man-sized weight in the saddle, or maybe it was only something in the air, and broke from trot to gallop. Noddy rode easily with it, his big body locked down in the stirrups, and when he struck the target, it not only burst apart, but the practice lance—made of flimsy wood—cracked with the violence of lightning hitting a tree. The entire class shrilled Yip-yip-yip!, the truest praise.

  Connar forced himself to cheer with the rest, for he’d seen the derision that jealousy raised. But for the first time, he was startled by a spurt of hatred for his brother. That caused an equal surge of self-hatred. Noddy was never jealous. Noddy cheered everyone equally, and he laughed at his own errors.

  Connar and Hauth were still meeting for their secret training, a habit Connar didn’t question, though there was strictly speaking no longer a necessity. The next morning, as soon as Connar saw Hauth, the pent-up words burst out: “Why is Rat Noth with us? We had to wait until this year to begin lance training.”

  Hauth saw Lanrid’s jealousy staring out of Connar’s eyes. Mindful that they hadn’t done well to curb it with scorn and punishments while Lanrid was alive, he and Quartermaster Pereth had spent uncounted hours discussing a different approach.

  He tried it now. “On the king’s orders,” he said impassively. “He’s clearly marked for the army. But think of it this way: he will be one of your captains.”