NINETEEN
The morning of Noddy’s Name Day, Connar was reaching for the last peach tart when Bun snatched it up and ran out. Annoyed, he looked up, but Ma signaled one of her runners to fetch hot ones, then put her hand up to halt Bun’s red-haired runner at the door. She signed in Hand, “She’s improving?”
Lineas signed back, “We practice every morning and evening.” Then she vanished.
Danet got up and went in the other direction, leaving Arrow alone with the boys. Arrow turned to Noddy. “Is it time to assign runners to you? Run your errands?”
Noddy had been staring downward, his shoulders hunched. “No, Da,” he mumbled.
Da. Connar kept hearing Hauth’s voice whispering the king and it was easy to recollect what he’d missed before, that Hauth had never, in all their sessions, said your father or your brother. He’d always used their titles.
“No, Da,” he said, just to be saying Da. And he hoped Hauth was somehow spying or listening.
Then he wondered why he didn’t get a runner. There was no longer any need for secrecy. He could go work out any time he wanted—with Da’s complete approval. But...he glanced at Noddy, who always got that hunched up look whenever that freckle-faced runner Lineas was around. Connar knew why, and he also knew how miserable it made Noddy feel, because Lineas never looked twice at Noddy. She was one of the ones who stared at him, though she always looked away again if he caught her at it. But he felt it.
Then he heard an echo of that short conversation with Ma. He’d never even thought about it before, but Lineas was reporting on Bun. Not that Bun would care if she knew, and maybe she did.
That didn’t matter. What did was, Hauth had been watching him, Connar, and now he knew why. It had galled him ever since that Victory Day conversation: Hauth watched him and tutored him not because he was smart, or showed the promise of skill, it was all just the accident of his birth.
He fumed as thoughts flitted rapidly through his mind. He now comprehended the significance of those boring lessons they’d sat through ages ago, how you could get babies in two ways. There was the Birth Spell, which had something to do with magic in the long-ago past, but the point was, you had to really want the baby. Or you could get one with sex, but the woman had to chew or drink some herb first to make herself able to get the baby inside her.
Either way, you didn’t get a baby by accident. You had to work at it, but out of all the babies in the world, he’d been thrown away. Well, maybe that dolt Lanrid might have kept him, if he hadn’t got himself killed running after a traitor (and why would he get a baby with one woman while chasing another?) but the woman—he refused to think of her as his mother—had tossed him out.
And Hauth watched him because of that.
Revulsion tightened through him. “I like things as they are,” he stated.
Da said slowly, his eyes on Noddy, “That says a lot for your self-discipline. But there are some ways having a runner makes life easier.” In a very different voice, he said slowly, “Connar, you’ve grown at least a hand and a half since last year. You two have to be close to your full height.”
“Did the Beard Spell before Victory Day,” Noddy mumbled.
Connar opened his hand. He’d gone with Noddy, though he only had two cherished hairs on his chin at that point, and scarcely more than that under his clothes. As usual, Noddy had way more hair where men got it.
Arrow flicked his hand in agreement. “You boys been to the pleasure house yet? Or are you fine on your own?”
How could Da not know that Noddy was hot for Lineas? Noddy stared down at the crumbs on his plate as if they were about to get up and attack him. His ears were so red they were almost purple.
Da said, “Noddy?”
Noddy couldn’t look up, far too conflicted to explain that girls had been a problem for half a year, now. And it was just girls. At the academy, the boys who liked sex with other boys could easily find each other at rec time or in the baths, but there weren’t any girls in the academy, except glimpsed from a distance.
Then came Victory Day, and girls arrived aplenty, but the ones who came up to him called him Sierlaef, or Nadran-Sierlaef, or acted like...like….
“I wish I wasn’t a prince,” he burst out.
“What?” Arrow and Connar exclaimed at the same time.
Arrow got it first. “Has someone been—never mind that. Noddy, have you gone to the pleasure house?”
Noddy said to his plate, “No.”
“Why didn’t you speak up?”
“Because Connar doesn’t want to yet. I don’t want to go alone, and not know what to say, or do, and what if they laugh at me.”
Arrow sat back, fists on his knees. “Noddy. I can absolutely guarantee they won’t laugh. You could walk in and kick over the tables and pour beer on their heads, and they won’t laugh.”
“Because I’m a prince,” Noddy mumbled.
“Yes and no. They’ll just charge you more if you make trouble, whether you’re a prince or an assistant stable wander. It’s true that princes are going to get special attention….”
Arrow paused, remembering Evred and the Captain’s Drum, and the sort of men who’d followed and flattered him. “Look, I can take you to a place where being a prince won’t matter. Most of the senior academy boys seem to like it. They have a riding or two’s worth of people who deal especially with first timers. Your mother took your sister last year. She obviously survived.”
Noddy looked up. “Bun?” Somehow Bun always seemed like an eternal puppy. But she was...nearly seventeen.
Arrow shrugged. “Girls get their full growth sooner than we do, which means they usually take an interest a little sooner. My point is, we can go today if you want. Connar, you, too.”
Connar grinned, wondering why he hadn’t thought of going months ago. But he knew the answer: because Noddy hadn’t been ready.
Arrow said to Noddy, “You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, you can just talk. They’re good at making, ah, personal things feel normal, things that might feel awkward with your family or your mates at the academy.”
Noddy’s entire demeanor brightened. “Yes. Let’s do that.”
Arrow said, “Wait here. I have to give a couple of messages.” He ran out.
Connar eyed Noddy, who looked a little dazed. “Do you really mean that? About not wanting to be a prince?”
Noddy glanced sideways. “It won’t happen to you. She—they look at you different. They look at me and some of them laugh behind my head. I’ve seen it. I’ve heard it. But when they know I’m seeing them, they’re full of oh, Nadran-Sierlaef and smiles.” His voice rose to a squeak on his name.
Connar knew his question was senseless—that Noddy was never going to suddenly come out with a desire to run off and be a stonemason rather than a king. But he couldn’t help probing at the questions snarled in his mind, even if obliquely. “Do you ever think about being king?”
Noddy’s long, buck-toothed face changed to an expression so rare that Connar couldn’t quite define it. He’d only seen it once before, when their favorite dog had died of old age. “No,” he said, his voice a deep rumble in his chest. “I don’t like to think about Da being dead.” He slewed around, earnest now. “But when it happens, you’ll help me, right? Like you always do.”
“Always,” Connar said fervently, then looked away.
Arrow returned then, took his sons off to the Singing Sword, which was everything he promised—and more.
And so, as the sun dropped northward each day, bringing harvest season and cooler weather, Noddy and Connar threw themselves enthusiastically into the new, compelling world of pleasure house sex.
The preparations for Convocation completely escaped them until a cold, sleety day, far too cold for a ride. Connar had spent the morning at the garrison salle with the sword master, and he was prowling restlessly around his room, trying to decide if he’d give in and start reading Hauth’s papers again, or ignore them, when Noddy
burst in, a blond boy at his shoulder. The newcomer was almost as tall, almost as broad, with the same short upper lip, only in him it managed somehow to look less beaver-like.
This boy gave Connar a mild smile, and said in a soft voice, “Seven days without rain, and it hits us today, when we wanted to ride in looking good. Or at least clean.”
Noddy, who never noticed how anyone looked, clapped the newcomer on a shoulder as he said to Connar, “Here’s Cousin Tanrid! Our uncle Jarend sent him for his first Convocation.”
Connar looked from one to the other, then said, “The one Ma and Pa call Rabbit?”
“They stopped calling me Rabbit when I broke the swords in the sword dance,” Tanrid said, in that same mild voice. “Da told me to do it.”
Connar stared, trying to decide if this new cousin Rabbit-turned-Tanrid was strutting or...just odd.
“Come with us, Tanrid. We’ll show you around,” Noddy said.
“I would like that very much. May we look out the highest tower? I want to see how the distance compares with the view from the highest tower at home.”
Definitely odd.
The three went out, Tanrid occasionally offering facts from archives. It was clear by the end of the evening, when he was drunk enough to be staring fuzzily, that Tanrid was very bookish.
But he turned out to be an excellent companion, ready to do anything the others suggested, and keeping up effortlessly with that same mild expression. Bun joined them, taking an instant liking to Tanrid.
Everything was smooth on the surface. Underneath, there were currents difficult to navigate.
First, where Bun went, there went Lineas. Noddy couldn’t even say what it was about Lineas that gripped him so hard. She was quiet, unfailingly polite, self-effacing. Only someone aware of her every move would notice how her gaze strayed toward Connar, then flitted away quick. He hadn’t noticed her until late one day, with golden light slanting down and lighting her hair bright as fire. She stood poised, still as a hummingbird in the air, as she stared at something, her lips parted.
Noddy looked, and looked again, unable to see what in a blank stone wall had so arrested her, as his nerves prickled all over his body.
After that he couldn’t get her out of his mind.
Second, Connar enjoyed the easy camaraderie until the stormy morning they went down to the salle for practice. Tanrid was nearly as tall as Noddy, and almost as strong, which—in his own mind—left Connar the shortest and weakest of the three.
Connar struggled to hide his anger at being last in everything—most of that aimed at himself. Neither he nor Noddy had drilled every day for at least a couple months. They’d been too busy sleeping in after nights of pillow jigging with their favorites over at the Singing Sword, where most of the academy lancers congregated in season.
The truth was, Noddy didn’t really have to practice.
As the three walked to the baths to clean up before a meal, Connar vowed to get back to practice every morning instead of once in a while when he felt like it. He was still angry, and unsettled, about Hauth’s words.
All right. He was nearly as tall as Da, at least, and even if he wasn’t going to get any taller he was going to get stronger and faster.
Tanrid (formerly Rabbit) had come with his mother, Tdor Fath, as the Jarlan of Olavayir had chosen to remain in Nevree with Arrow’s brother Jarend. Arrow had kept his promise to Jarend, never requiring him to attend Convocation, but that promise did not extend to his son. This was Tanrid’s first visit.
While the cousins roamed around entertaining themselves, Danet and Tdor Fath resumed their old habits of talk as if the intervening years had never happened. At first Tdor Fath was slightly disconcerted, finding that gawky Danet had become this eagle-eyed gunvaer, but Danet made it plain much she missed having her to talk to.
“I talk to Arrow, of course. And Noth. And the royal runner chiefs are discreet and sensible. And there are things I only talk about with my sister. But each has things they want to talk about—and then there are the subjects I shouldn’t talk about. With you...I feel like I can say anything.”
Except she couldn’t, really.
Even with Tdor Fath she couldn’t bring herself to discuss what still felt like Calamity Senelaec’s personal betrayal. Tdor Fath saw the pain in her expression, and misinterpreted it.
“You can,” Tdor Fath promised, gratified, but regretting how much that throne had weighed on Danet—she still had nightmares about that last terrible day in the royal city all those years ago. And she could see the effects of that day in the taut lines in Danet’s face, which gave her that eagle-eyed look. “You can say anything to me. It won’t go farther.”
But they only had a day or two before the trumpets began to peal, and their precious free time ended.
The ground was iron-hard, the sky mercilessly clear and cold as the jarls converged on the royal city, for the first time in history riding with their jarlans.
The Jevayir of Jayad Hesea contingent had met the Feravayir party, as was traditional, riding north to stay over at the Cassad castle in Telyer Hesea, then, with the Cassads, set out in a long cavalcade. Carleas Cassad had been looking forward to a pleasant journey until the arrival of tall, bronze-skinned and black-eyed Lavais Nyidri, Jarlan of Feravayir.
The Nyidri family had ruled Perideth before the Marlovans swept in, renamed it Feravayir, and established one of their captains as jarl. The Nyidris had accepted the new rulers outwardly, as had the Cassads, but unlike the Cassads, had nursed for generations a bitter determination to recover what had once been theirs.
Lavais had married the last Feravayir, and after he died during a pirate attack on the harbor when their two sons were small, she ruled in her eldest boy’s name. When the news arrived that Mathren Olavayir was dead, she made two strategic moves: She returned to her family name, and married Ivandred Noth, the commander at Parayid Harbor garrison.
The Jevairs and the Cassads both regarded that marriage as a strategic move on Lavais’s part. No one was certain of Ivandred Noth’s motives, as he’d had a reputation as a straightforward military man who, until that marriage, had lived simply, first to rise with the garrison cooks and last to sleep. Whether he’d been dazzled by those Sartoran airs and graces of hers, or he’d thought to gain a mother for his boys, they’d combined their families, four sons altogether.
She hadn’t left her castle since coming back from Sartor as a young woman and began keeping court Sartoran-style, wearing Sartoran fashions and using their manners. Few in the south knew her; they only knew of her. And while peace existed between these three main powers of the south, all three were aware that she coveted the Jayad and the Telyer, which her ancestors had once ruled.
So they traveled together amicably enough on the surface.
Though they had to slow in areas slick with ice, the journey seemed far less arduous to the jarls than the last Convocation three years previous, with its howling winds.
The jarlans’ experience was different. Left to the company of their gender, by the time the cavalcade reached the royal city (the Jarlan of Feravayir smoothly assuming precedence as her right), Carleas was heartily tired of the long journey, which seemed the longer because each day began and ended with Lavais-Jarlan and her calm, assured command of all topics of conversation.
Carleas murmured to the Jarlan of Jayad Hesea, “She is perfectly willing for us to reveal ourselves, but she is about as communicative as that fan she’s always waving about. We’ll get nothing she doesn’t want to give.”
As for Lavais, she was intensely curious to see and evaluate the enemy. Her first jolt of annoyance occurred when they reached the royal city and the single peal for a jarlan rang out, instead of the fanfare for a royal house—proof (as if she’d needed it) that Perideth did not exist in the Marlovan mind.
But she kept her reaction to herself. Though she expected nothing but barbarianism from these Olavayirs, accidental monarchs from an already mediocre family line, she had to admi
t as she rode into the city that not only was Choreid Dhelerei well kept up, it was a formidable stronghold. Mediocrity, it seemed, knew how to protect itself, she thought as she rode under the alert, watching eyes of sentries.
She needed to assess this queen herself, after that surprising command that jarlans come to Convocation. Hitherto she’d thought it sufficient to send Ivandred Noth. He was excellent as a military commander, and played the part of a jarl well. But for politics he was useless, far too straightforward to comprehend subtleties.
In spite of the fact that this Danet-Gunvaer had had the temerity to force a betrothal treaty on Lavais, she would never let her beautiful, Sartoran-educated son Demeos actually marry a Marlovan barbarian unless she had beauty, brains, and wealth to bring—or at least wealth and beauty, and could be swayed to the Perideth cause. He was being groomed for a royal Sartoran marriage.
Her original plan had been to decide which would benefit her most: breaking this betrothal, or taking the princess they called Bunny back with her as a hostage.
The latter plan ceased to be feasible when she observed how many hard-eyed, fully armed warriors guarded this castle alone.
Once inside the second set of massive gates, she despised the unadorned stone. The furniture was sparse and intimidating rather than artistic or fashionable: big wingbacked chairs, raptor-clawed legs on the low tables, and here and there enormous tapestries depicting battle victories.
In the guest room she was assigned to, she scorned the low table with mats on the stone floor, instead of civilized tables and chairs. The dishes were typical clumsy Marlovan ceramic, the wine cups broad and shallow, forcing one to lift them with two hands—it was said to keep knives at bay. She could well believe it. She despised the shallow dishes, utensils only a spoon, and that wood-carved, as if they were all babes in arms. No forks, not even any Colendi eating sticks.
The interview room they were brought to was dominated by an enormous tapestry of a battle. She took in the winged helms and armored Venn with their elaborate knotwork. Their embroidered figures struggled with men in old-fashioned Marlovan coats, below a cliff on which stood a Marlovan commander in green and silver, standing in a heroic pose accepting the surrender of kneeling Venn.
Time of Daughters I Page 50