Time of Daughters II

by Sherwood Smith

  Lineas said, “I think...I think if you go there, or they come here, they won’t talk.”

  “How about if you talk, and I listen out of sight?”

  “We could try that,” Lineas said, trying to still her trepidation. She told herself that this was no different than serving as a translator occasionally when there was a language conflict. Except for the outcome. “But you must give me the questions you want answered.”

  By the time Barend-Scribe returned, looking dusty and put-upon, Noddy had recovered enough to address other issues. He took the closely written papers, laid them down and said, “I will read this later.”

  In injured silence, Barend settled onto his mat, took up his pen, and inked it with an affronted pok!

  The watch change rang as the sun vanished behind the mountains, each day a little more northerly. Once the garrison ate and the day watch went off to recreation or to bed, the kitchen runner summoned Lineas, who waited with her cart. She divided the supper between forty-six bowls and headed down to detention, with Noddy and Vanadei following.

  At the sight of the crown prince the night shift guards abruptly shut up and straightened to alertness. Vana, there to translate for Noddy, looked down so no one would see his amusement.

  Lineas was too distraught to notice anything. She had been able to slice muscles and tendons when these boys were enemies—maybe one of those wounds on the bigger boy was from her—but the more they talked, the more they became people instead of enemies.

  She served the men, who always fell silent the moment the key turned in the lock, then the duty guard opened the door to the boys’ cell, and at a gesture from Lineas, left it wider than usual.

  Vanadei stood behind it, ready to translate in Hand, as Lineas said in Bar Regren, “It’s stewed pepper-fish tonight. You might recognize the spices. I’d never had them until I came to the north here. Where are you all from?”

  “Nob,” said Thiv, the skinny one with the prominent neck-knuckle, who gnawed his fingernails.

  “Shut up,” growled Ewt, the biggest one, with the bandage around his wrist.

  “Why? We’re dead anyway, you keep saying,” Thiv snarled back.

  “Bar Regren,” Oba said. “We’re all from Bar Regren, but I wasn’t born on land.” He added bitterly, with a wild look around the barren cell, whose only air came from tiny vents high up on the wall opposite the door, “I hate living on land.”

  “You were born on a boat?” Lineas asked as she stacked the bowls from breakfast and began to set out their dinners.

  “Fisher,” Oba said. “Ma’s family owns two ships, trading in spice and coffee. After Pa died when Grandpa tried taking the Nob, he made me come off our fisher. Said it’s my duty.”

  “The Nob is our royal city, that’s what the king said,” Thiv added, scraping long front teeth over chapped lips. “Long ago, it was where the Red-Feathers were kings. He said if we killt the Marlovan princes and the rest of ‘em, and leave behind Idegan weapons, and things, then the Idegans would get blamed, and the Marlovans would attack them, and they’d fight each other, and we’d get the Nob back.”

  “The king said it’s our duty to fight. How do you think my brother died?” a hereto silent boy spoke up from the corner where he hunched.

  “And my aunt,” Thiv added, as he picked up one of the bowls.

  “And my Pa,” another put in. “Oba isn’t the only one that lost his pa.”

  “Not that I cared,” Oba muttered, under his breath, his shoulders hunched and his gaze turned away. “And my uncle ran and left me....”

  Lineas saw in the lines of the boy’s body that an unhappy story lay close to the surface, but he was not ready, or willing, to talk about it yet. She shifted the subject away. “Are any of you related to the other men?”

  Five voices said, “Me.”

  Lineas had finished setting out the food. She scanned the wary, frightened, unhappy faces and decided enough questions had been asked for the day. She carried the dirty bowls out, the guard slammed and locked the door, and Lineas wheeled her cart toward the outer exit.

  Nobody spoke until they got upstairs to the royal suite, which was empty.

  Lineas said, “Was that all right? I didn’t get to all your questions, but I thought a couple of them were answered in what they said. And the rest—”

  “I heard enough,” Noddy said. “I think...I think I know what I’m going to do. But, we always wait on judgments, right? Nothing sudden. No whims. Right? Tomorrow, if I’m still thinking the same, I’ll go with you.”

  He was there, waiting, when Lineas went down to fetch her cart. Guards stood at attention, the silence thick with unspoken tension, emotion, question. In the distance, Stick Tyavayir watched, hard-faced. He was ready to order guards in with drawn swords at the slightest hint of trouble.

  Lineas’s shoulder blades crawled as she led the way, not to the end, but to the first cell, where five men sat with their backs to the walls, as usual. When Noddy walked in after Lineas, they stirred, two leaping to their feet before dropping down again at the sight of the enormous Marlovan in his war coat, knife through his sash, and guards at his back.

  “Tell them you’ll translate,” he signed to Lineas.

  She said in Bar Regren, “Nadran-Sierlaef will speak to you now.”

  One man made a spitting motion, to be kicked by another.

  And Lineas translated as Noddy spoke, “Anyone who gives me his word he will go away to another life and never return, can have that life.”

  The men exchanged startled, skeptical, disbelieving glances, then one spoke for the first time. “If we don’t?”

  Lineas turned to Noddy, listened, then said unhappily, “Rules of war. But he promises, it will be quick. Also, if you break your word, and you return and are recognized, it’s a death sentence.”

  “Then...we’re free to go?” another asked with extreme skepticism.

  “We will send you to the opposite shore of the strait as soon as a trader comes in that will take you. You will have your brains, and your hands, to begin a new life. You have the day to think it over. When we return this evening, you’ll be taken out one by one and asked separately, so there is no coercion.”

  A younger man said sullenly, “What about my brother, Finger?”

  Lineas said, “The boys will get the same offer.”

  She listened patiently to the often curse-punctuated discussion, translating everything for Noddy, who waited behind the door until he felt he had enough. He frowned heavily as he trod upstairs, and closeted himself in his room, writing.

  When Neit returned late that night from her regular run to Lindeth, Noddy put down his pen. “I trust Vanadei and Lineas, but I think you’re faster. Would you go to the king for me?”

  What answer was there to be made to that? “First thing, soon’s we have sun,” she promised and tried to kiss the worry lines from his brow.

  Neit was given an heir’s pennon, which guaranteed the best of the horses at every outpost the moment she rode in, food and a bed. Though usually long riders took pride in how little they slept, resorting to the ground and even sleeping in the saddle in snatches.

  Neit knew how anxious Noddy was—and she kept an experienced eye to wind and weather. If she could, she intended to get back to the north before the snow flurries flew in earnest. She loathed floundering through snow for any longer than a day.

  The weather favored her as she galloped southward, past harvest gatherings. When she fetched up in the royal city, one of the young runners-in-training was sent to find the king and queen as soon as the sentries saw her pennon.

  She soon stood before the king, who read Noddy’s letter through twice, scowled, then sent one of his runners to fetch the queen.

  When Danet came in, she, too, read the letter twice, then said to Neit, “I understand that you are not a royal runner, and so we should not expect a report in their style. But please, tell us everything that happened. Everything,” she repeated.

  Neit
had planned out a succinct military report on the Chalk Hills Battle in case the king asked for extra details, knowing that he’d received the after-action report. But standing there under the queen’s gaze, Neit found herself adding, “And when we returned to the castle, poor Lineas was delirious, seeing ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?” Danet repeated.

  Arrow flat-handed he word away with a quick, impatient gesture. “I don’t want to hear about ghosts. Obviously she had a fever.” He leaned forward. “I read Nermand’s report, of course, but he wasn’t there. You were. Was the road the boys took a shortcut or not?”

  “It looks like one on the map, but locals know not to use it,” Neit said as neutrally as she could.

  “You mean they blundered into bad territory without asking?” the king demanded.

  Neit hesitated, then said, “I think they understand now.”

  Arrow sat back, his breath hissing out between his teeth. Close. So very close. Not that he was blaming them. He knew he was likely to have made the exact same sort of error. What was more important.... “But you say they fought well?”

  “Very well,” Neit confirmed. “In fact, I think you could say they heartened everyone with their bravery. Noddy is slow, but strong. He’s lance trained, and it showed. Connar was everywhere, smashing straight into the thick of them, Fish and a wedge of Captain Tyavayir’s best Riders flanking him. They definitely held the line until Riding Captain Gannan and his volunteers turned up. Then it was a rout.”

  “Hah,” Arrow said, relief flooding him. It didn’t do to show how happy he was that his long gamble was paying off. The boys really were far better than he was at leading; if the kingdom could just get through a few more years, until they had some seasoning on them, he could confine himself to doing his part with reports and maps. That, he understood as much as anyone else around him. But if there as an invasion, there was that oath he made at Convocation every year, that he’d lead the defense, as Evred-Harvaldar did, with Inda-Harskialdna as his shield arm.

  That was why ‘Sieraec,’ the old king-during-peace title, had been dropped when Iascan was dropped as the language of government. Marlovan kings promised to be ready to defend the kingdom...and Arrow knew he still couldn’t do it. He watched the academy game every summer, and he was no better at following tactics than he ever was: it was still all dust and noise.

  But his boys, exposed to it every day, were different.

  He chuckled, and catching Neit’s confused look and Danet’s narrowed eye, realized he’d lost the thread of the talk. Damn! Early in the day, and already his mouth was dry. But his mood was good. “Let me get some paper, so I can write to Noddy and back up his decision. I’d execute ’em all, but if he wants to exile them, well, he’s the man on the spot.” He vanished in three steps.

  “And I’m to tell you that there’s a suitable trading vessel willing to carry your cargo for a fee,” Connar said, the day after the first snow flurries landed softly on the steeply slanted slate rooftops below Lineas’s north window. “What cargo?”

  His company had just returned from the western edge of their patrol perimeter, having met Lindeth’s East Company by arrangement between scouts. They’d ridden hard to reach Larkadhe before sundown, as snow threatened.

  “The Bar Regren,” Noddy said.

  Connar tossed down his gloves, took off his cloak and slung it to Fish, then dropped onto his mat. “The what?”

  “Bar Regren, what the prisoners call themselves. The runners learned their lang—”

  “What?” Connar snapped. “Why would you need a cargo ship to execute them?” His eyebrows lifted. “You plan to send them out to sea and set fire to the ship?”

  “No.” Noddy looked revolted.

  Barend dropped his pen, and Lineas, just entered after taking the prisoners their supper, stopped inside the door, her heart crowding her throat at the sight of Connar’s furious blue gaze.

  Noddy said, “We gave them a choice. Three chose death, and they went against the wall that day. The rest promised never to return once they’re landed somewhere on the other side of the strait.” He added, “Neit made a grass run down to the royal city, after I finished with them.”

  Grass run was leftover slang from the days over a century ago when the famous King’s Runner Vedrid had crossed the kingdom in (legend had it) two weeks. Part of his legend was the saying Don’t let the grass grow under your ass. In some stories it was said to him, and in some he said it to another, but a grass ass run, shortened eventually to grass run, was equivalent to a relay run, except that a single individual galloped from post to post, sleeping and eating in the saddle.

  Noddy went on, “She got back yesterday. Here’s what Da says—he agreed with me.”

  Noddy touched a paper sitting at the corner of his desk, Arrow’s characteristic messy handwriting instantly recognizable. Connar, seeing that, did not read the words. “And you believe those shits down there?”

  “They aren’t in any shape to attack anyone, after being imprisoned since Midsummer,” Noddy said.

  “But that won’t be true after they get a few meals into them,” Connar retorted, and when Noddy began to speak, he lifted his hand, palm out, and turned around, catching sight of Lineas. “Do you agree with this? They nearly killed you.”

  She wanted to remind him that it wasn’t her place to comment on the princes’ judgments, but she sensed that that would only irritate Connar. “A lot of them didn’t want to be there,” she said softly.

  “And yet I don’t remember any of them hanging back when they were trying to kill us all.”

  “Some are very young—hardly more than children. And they had been taught to believe it was their duty to follow the man who claimed he was a king, and that he had the right to kill anyone in the way of his reclaiming his great grandfather’s throne.”

  A muscle jumped in Connar’s jaw on the word throne.

  “But a lot of them don’t seem to think it’s true anymore, now that Ovaka Red-Feather is dead.”

  Connar walked out.

  He remained silent until he reached the garrison, where he found Ghost Fath with Stick Tyavayir in the garrison command center. Ghost glowered, flushed with fury.

  Stick, who had known about the judgment for months, looked on with bitter eyes and his mouth curled in mordant irony. He still suffered broken sleep full of nightmarish distortions of his first command lying broken and bleeding, by day watching the slow, painful recovery of the ones who’d survived. Two hadn’t. He was haunted by midnight self-chastisement over his conviction that he should have known, given better commands, that he should have saved them—but solid and hardening by day was his conviction that Noddy’s mercy was injustice.

  Stick had never been very talkative, preferring action to words. In these days he became positively taciturn; his loyalty to Connar, already strong, intensified at Connar’s fury.

  Both Ghost and Stick waited for Connar to speak. Both knew that the king had sanctioned Nadran-Sierlaef’s decision. Anything they said to the contrary was tantamount to insubordination in their own eyes.

  “So you heard the news.” Connar’s lips curved in a humorless smile. He looked from one hard face to the other. “I have an idea,” he said.

  Their expressions altered to question.

  The next morning, when the princes met for breakfast, Connar appeared to be restored to good humor. Noddy had passed a wretched night. As soon as he saw Connar, he poured out all the reasoning for his decision that he’d thought out so carefully.

  Connar listened until he ran out of words, then said, “You were here. I wasn’t. I didn’t expect that, is all. What’s done is done.”

  Noddy sat back in relief. “If you want me to continue the patrols, and you can take over presiding in Yvana Hall, I don’t mind.”

  Connar lifted a hand. “It’s nearly winter, and Captain Nermand said that there’s rarely trouble once the snows come. For one thing, it’s very difficult to run away when there are ice patches every
where. So I can sit with you if you like. But we’ll take one last patrol, because I want to go over the winter map with Nermand, before the snows close us in. So I suggest we combine errands, and we’ll take your prisoners to Lindeth, and turn them over to your ship. How’s that?”

  Noddy hailed the suggestion with relief, knowing that he would have had to reduce his garrison considerably in order to send a proper escort, if Connar had taken his company out patrolling again; while he didn’t believe the prisoners would raise any trouble, there was always a chance that some of Ovaka Red-Feather’s bloodthirsty compatriots were lurking in the hills, waiting for the chance for another attack.

  Chance? He knew they were. Lineas had learned a lot about the Red-Feather family after the boys began to realize they were not going to be put to death. Ovaka Red-Feather’s second son, Oba’s Uncle Mol, had fled the field, earning the bitter scorn of those he’d abandoned. Mol would have to either prove himself or vanish entirely. Though they knew better than to take the complaints of an angry fourteen-year-old as fact, a picture had emerged of a hard-talking man. He’d be back.

  Connar and Stick hoped he’d be back. But there was no sign of the Bar Regren now. Connar and his two captains agreed that Stick and his company could ride with Connar, taking his recovered men with them.

  Lineas had just gotten breakfast into the Bar Regren when a great clattering of boots and weaponry caused everyone to still.

  “Time to go,” announced a guard in Marlovan.

  Lineas was about to translate but her voice collided with the clank of the doors being unlocked and thrown open. The Bar Regren were herded from the cells and taken out into the frigid air, still in the clothes they wore to the attack.

  Many people lined up to watch the prisoners marched off toward Lindeth. Some were puzzled by the fact that the Bar Regren were really still alive, that it wasn’t a rumor; a few were relieved on behalf of the boys. And some were disappointed. But overall, Noddy’s reputation as a commander reflected that of Arrow in faraway Choreid Dhelerei: he might not be very inspiring, but if you had to have Olavayirs ruling you, well, it could be worse.