Time of Daughters I

by Sherwood Smith

  The Marlovayirs pretend I do not exist. I do the same to them. I am sure they were planning to get me kicked out the first day. You should have seen their faces when Hauth said if they did they would go home. Me too. They look like weasels to me but I heard Frog Noth (he is only a distant cousin to Rat, kind of like me and Baldy) telling someone the three of us look alike and are we related. I wanted to kick him over the barn roof.

  Cub. It was exactly like you warned me. Everybody beat me in sword drill. But the master said at least I had the basics. Thank you for that. It was worth all that time in the icy barn breathing cow breath and goat farts.

  The first time we did horseback sword drill Cabbage Gannan the senior captain knocked me right out of the saddle. I was expecting that, only from Marlovayirs. There have been two broken arms so far and a broken leg from bad falls but I know how to roll. So I got back on and after that Rat Noth (he is kind of like a captain though there are no ranks except temporary ones for games) offered to drill extra with me if I did not mind getting up before the dawn watch bell. He is tough but I am learning fast. Nobody can beat me at the ride and shoot. And I win races as often as Rat so no one can call me snail or slow. (The Marlovayirs probably do anyway but they say nothing that I can hear. Also I do not care what they say.)

  Lance practice. I was bad at that too. But it turns out what they call light rider boys like me only ride with the lance a few times to know what to do, and then we serve as targets for the boys training for the heavies or else if the big boys are using hay target we go to practice sword on horseback. The big boys really drill hard and there is nothing better to watch. We sometimes act as enemy for the seniors when they drill breaking the line and either fighting on horseback or dismounting and doing double-stick drill. Which means we get to see them break the targets before they drop the lances and come at us with the wooden swords. Both the princes are good but the sierlaef can smash a lance without half trying.

  The food is like home. We have to keep our kit neat all the time. I hate that. Everybody thinks it their business to remind me. If your bedding is not perfect you get stuck sweeping. Sometimes I do it on rainy days when Rat and me and Tlennen and Jevayir stop sword drill early. Just to get it out of the way before morning inspection because I know I’ll be stuck with it anyway.

  When I am tired I wish I was at home where you can stick your shirt and pants on a peg and somebody else comes along and makes sure they are clean. Here we have to dunk our own clothes. And of course sew up the rips. I was surprised at how bad some are at sewing. It was like they never saw the double-satin stitch for extra reinforcing on the armpit insets on coats.

  Rat asked me to show him the double-satin because he is always ripping out the right shoulder on his coat and he won’t get a personal runner until he gets promotion into the King’s Riders. The Marlovayirs ignored me but I noticed later Salt Marlovayir had satin-stitch on the tear he got in his shirt from Basna at contact fighting.

  Rat is sort of leader without being called captain, except in games when if we pick he always gets picked. If he is, we win. Not always when others want to be leader or a master picks....

  The remainder of the letter was a scrawl of minutiae about what he’d done in the games, and what his bunkmates had done, without once stating the purpose of the games. Nor did he care. Braids’ entire ambition was to captain a wing of skirmishers—no life, in his view, could be more exciting.

  In contrast, Connar’s obsession with winning shadowed him through the day and bled through his nights, frequently giving him nightmares in which the King’s Riders galloped through the gate to glory, leaving Connar standing alone.

  He didn’t tell anyone what he had overheard about the army. If others found out, they found out. But the competition was already so intense, and he knew everyone else would want to win, to stand out, to be chosen to ride with the army when it went east.

  Over that first month and a half he avoided Hauth, until after his first command, which ended in a draw due to a sudden thunderstorm. He knew he would have lost. Sick with fury at himself, at Rat Noth, at the academy, and at the world, after a sleepless night he made himself go to the back barn where he’d met Hauth all those previous years.

  And there he was, working a young war horse on a longe line. Hauth heard the slow, reluctant footsteps, and relief wrung through him, along with exasperation at Connar’s waywardness. Of course that was his mother in him. If he could, he would beat it out of the boy, but short of that, he’d do his best to sweat it out of him.

  Connar came up and stood silently, breathing hard. When Hauth brought the animals in for a carrot reward, he glanced aside.

  Connar stood there, every line expressive of defiance. “Are you going to assassinate Noddy?”

  “What?” Hauth’s eye widened. “No!”

  Connar’s gaze shifted, relief flooding him at Hauth’s honest shock.

  Hauth’s mouth flattened to a grim line. “That, in case you don’t know, is called treason.”

  “But all that you said, last summer.” Connar’s gaze flicked warily, not hiding from Hauth, who knew the prince well, the ambivalence and guilt and longing that galled Connar.

  That was enough moral outrage, Hauth thought. Time to relent. “I told you about your heritage, your dolphin-clan heritage. It’s a vow I made, for I was loyal to dolphin-clan, as you know. My goal here is to teach you, for the sake of that loyalty. What you do about it is your concern.” And before Connar could speak the but shaping his lips, “So let me guess. You’re here to rail against Noth because you lost in yesterday’s raid.”

  “No.” Connar crossed his arms.

  “Good. He’ll be one of your best captains someday. You should be glad he’s as good as he is. Did you see his strategy?”

  Connar’s eyes narrowed. “It’s the same one he always uses, he leads the middle—”

  “Exactly. It’s the same one he always uses. It so happens you’ve got some big, fast, skilled boys in the year behind you. Future leaders for you to put in the field.” Time to shift to what he’d overheard in a discussion between Commander Noth and Andaun at the masters’ mess the previous evening. “But right now, the problem as I see it is you boys defend against Rat Noth the way you do scrapping in contact fighting, strength for strength. The Noth boy wins because he knows how to field the three flying wedges. And we want that. It’s the best way to make you tougher, which will make those you command tougher. You boys tend to stick to what works, which is normal. I guess it’s also normal at your age to avoid ventures like tactical retreat. You seem to think that you’ll look like rabbits.”

  Connar scowled. It was true. Connar thought back to the Inda stories about naval battles. He’d initially ignored all those, as ship fighting was useless on land. But this past winter he’d read the ship battles out of desperation, and discovered that Inda’s fleet had used all kinds of ruses, including ones that could be called tactical retreats—drawing pirates right into a trap. For the first time, he wondered if that would work on someone besides pirates.

  “Second thing,” Hauth said. “You lost because you set Holdan to lead your flank attack. That should have been Gannan.”

  “I hate Gannan.”

  “So? Noth Ain also won because he put the right man in place for each.”

  “But Gannan hates me. If I put him in a command of a riding, he’ll lose to make me look bad.”

  Hauth looked incredulous. “You really think Gannan ever wants to lose?” Boys were notoriously short-sighted, but that cynicism had to be another trait inherited from that Iascan woman.

  Time and past to train it out of him. “You put the man where he’ll do best, and even if yesterday he spat at your feet, if he wins for you, you give him respect. That’s what Mathren did, and he built loyalty like no one, no one, else.”

  “That’s because he killed everyone if they weren’t,” Connar retorted.

  “He did exactly what he said he would,” Hauth shot back. “He said he would m
ake the kingdom strong again, and that was what he was doing.”

  “Building a secret army for himself, using kingdom funds and lying about it? I’ve heard all about Nighthawk Company.” Connar crossed his arms, lip curled, eyes bright with derision.

  Hauth suppressed the intense desire to strike that arrogant face hard enough to knock some sense into the brat. But he’d made a vow. “Nighthawk Company would have secured the kingdom, without civil war,” he said heavily. “Yes, he was going to take the throne, but Evred would have lost it sooner than later, turning loose all the jarls to fight each other. With Nighthawk Company at strong points, the jarls would have seen strength and order when it was time for Lanrid to take the throne. That’s what people really want, the strength that guarantees order....”

  Connar sighed inwardly and let the order lecture flow over his head. When Hauth saw his inattention, he caught himself, gritted his teeth to rein in his temper, and said, “But that’s a debate for when you know more. Right now you’re parroting what the king tells you. You’ll understand when you get more experience, and one way to get experience is in these games. I’m offering suggestions, not solutions. I’m here to teach what I know, which is heavy cavalry. Not all that useful in tactical retreat.”

  Connar shrugged sharply, but at least he was listening.

  “To get back to my original point, every commander learns sooner or later that you treat your captains well,” Hauth said. “Don’t give them a reason to turn against you.”

  “Right,” Connar said, his temper easing at the words your captains. Annoying as Hauth was, he clearly expected Connar one day to be in command.

  They parted, Connar determined to find a new defense besides the usual right, left, and center wedges. Your captains. That was the way to address a future commander. No treason in that!

  But then came that gnawing worm: “Your captains” could belong to a king as well as to an army commander. No. No. No.

  Each Restday, as the weeks galloped by, Connar chivvied Noddy into going up to the castle early so that they could get the latest news the moment they could, and Noddy, for his own reasons, complied.

  Connar dreaded hearing that the army was about to depart. So far they hadn’t. Every Restday, as soon as breakfast was over and he’d heard the news, he holed up in his room and pored feverishly over the Inda papers, the naval battles as well as the old game reminiscences.

  Of course he kept coming back to the battle at Andahi Pass. It seemed to Connar that Inda had always liked using surprise flank attacks, first as a scrub running around on a field, and later against the pirates. He used the same plan against the Venn at Andahi Pass—a crazy plan born of desperation, depending on timing in terrible mountain terrain, against far superior numbers.

  But it had worked.

  Ruses....

  His next game gave him Noth on his side, and Stick Tyavayir as opposing commander. Connar put Noth and Ghost at the head of a flying wedge. “I want everybody watching you,” Connar said.

  Ghost grinned. Rat looked impassive as usual, but Connar knew he’d do exactly as told.

  And while the enemy force watched Ghost, Noth, and their spread numbers riding slowly and deliberately as they swung and twirled their wooden swords, two ridings belly-crawled at the perimeter of the designated field, and lay doggo.

  Ghost and Noth began the trot, then the canter of a charge, howling and yipping and waving their wooden swords. The enemy flag signaled a line, and they spread, readying to envelope the wedge they knew would hit hard.

  But then Ghost’s horse bumped into Frog Noth’s, which somehow upset the charge—they slowed, then Frog broke and began to retreat.

  Ghost, who loved a ruse, began shouting and swearing at him to come back—and rode after Frog, uttering threats. The enemy first line guffawed, and now it was their turn to ride up to a charge as Noth, then the rest, wheeled and retreated in apparent confusion, shouting curses.

  And right when the enemy reached a good canter, swords extended, Connar raised his fist, and skinny Basna, hiding behind a boulder with his bow, sent a whirtler whistling into the sky.

  All the boys knew that signaled a tactical change—and as the charging enemy looked wildly in the wrong direction, Connar’s hidden teams leaped up from where they lay in the mire, and picked them off with efficient speed. The chalk arrows were difficult to control, and ineffective anywhere but close range, especially as the boys hadn’t been able to hold them completely above the mud and grass. However, close range was all that was needed: Braids alone accounted for ten before the few survivors were out of arrow-shot.

  As one, Ghost and Noth wheeled again, gave chase to the survivors—and it was a complete and total defeat.

  Connar thrilled with the hot, wild joy of winning, as all around him his force shrilled the yip-yip-yip of victory.

  There was nothing better. Nothing.

  He coasted on the headiness of triumph for the rest of the day, but with dawn of the next, the old anxiety rose: he was still not assured of command on the big game. There were three other serious contenders besides himself for the two command positions: Ghost, Stick, and Rat Noth, even though he wasn’t a senior lancer. Connar was fairly certain that his next game would be against Rat, who hadn’t had an overnight since the first in the beginning of spring. After all, he still had a year of lancers to go.

  One warm Restday as spring ripened toward summer, Connar lingered after Noddy and Bun left. He said as casually as he could, “Da. About that report in winter, the Adranis. Is the army going to attack them?”

  Arrow grinned. “I like to see you taking an interest.” As Connar flushed with pride, Arrow rapped his knuckles on the low table. “Right now, scouts’re heading up into the mountains. Once we know what we’ve got, we’ll figure out what to do. Hah, I was so pleased to hear of your win. If we wait until after Victory Day to head east, would you like to ride as an aide?”

  Connar did not want to go as an aide. At twelve, he’d served as a runner to the headmaster, and he knew that aides were nothing more than runners attached to some captain or commander. He wanted to be a captain, even if only of a flight, or even a riding. Reading the Inda papers had made it clear what a small force could do if you had the right leader. Inda had taken control of a notorious pirate ship with scarcely a riding.

  “Sure,” he said, because at least he’d be going. The rest could happen after they got into the field.

  He listened to every scrap of talk among the boys, he reread the papers so much he had them memorized. He had multiple questions about what wasn’t described. So much was left out, such as exactly what Inda had done before executing these plans. Everything, everything, described what happened afterward.

  If he was truly going to be a commander, he needed to know more than everyone else. It made no sense otherwise, but he knew their answer to that: everyone in the academy must be treated the same—given the same information at the same time, whatever your future rank—because there must never be another Sierlaef of infamy, or a Bloody Tanrid, expecting special treatment above the everlasting damned rules.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Camerend woke abruptly from a deep sleep. He registered the sound of rain through the weavers’ annex open windows, under the distant mutter of thunder. Closer by, the sweet sound of Hliss’s breathing.

  He rolled up gently onto his elbow to look down at the pure curve of her cheek, the soft line of her jaw above the inward curve of her neck, so beautiful a line it hollowed him to the heart. He had never believed that joy could reach such depth it was near to pain, but an exquisite pain, a knife edge this side of pleasure.

  Marriage to Isa Eric had never been joyous, even when Senrid was born. Happiness, yes, but always attended by concern for her wellbeing, and awe, too. Isa’s gifts were wondrous, strange, and dangerous, never quite confined to the world of the living. Or rather, a reminder that the world one saw around one was only a part of what existed. If she was right (and she never lied) a very sma
ll part.

  Now Hliss had come into his life, her gifts a generosity of mind and body that demanded nothing. It had become his delight to give what was never asked.

  He smiled and reached, with infinite care, to shift her warm, heavy braid, freeing the loose strands of hair caught in her lashes.

  It was then that consciousness woke enough to recollect what had brought him out of sleep: it was the magic alert on his golden notecase.

  Awake now, he slipped out of bed, slid on his night robe, then fished the case from the inside pocket and padded noiselessly to the far window, where he thumbed the latch.

  The tiny scroll within was written in Old Sartoran, Lnand’s handwriting, just three words: Reached Skytalon Peak. The Elsarions have begun building small outposts along the pass. Everyone says to curb the passage of brigands.

  Camerend frowned at the paper. Outposts in plural. That sounded admirable on the surface—if it was true. Establishing outposts was something kings did, usually in concurrence with other kings, if said outposts straddled borders.

  Camerend lifted his gaze to the view out over the castle walls to the cloud-streaked sky, glowing orange and red between the castellations in the eastern distance.

  “Camerend? Something amiss in the chickenyard?”

  He had his back to the bed. Sliding note and case back into his pocket, he turned to find Hliss sitting up in the bed, flushed with sleep, but her gaze alert.

  He smiled. “Checking the weather,” he said. “I forgot it’s Restday. Go back to sleep, love.”

  “Are you coming back to bed?”

  “I’m too awake. I may as well get a few chores done while it’s cool.”

  She accepted that with a flick of her upturned palm. Then said, unsmiling, “Is Arrow really going to send the King’s Riders east to attack the Adranis?”