Blood of Heirs

by Alicia Wanstall-Burke

  Poll’s head twitched in a nod and the hall breathed a collective sigh of relief. Erlon clapped his hands down on the arm rests of his audience chair.

  ‘Very well then. The second son of Poll Timmith and the second daughter of Hender Hide are to be matched. Consider this confirmation of the promise and see to it the matter of this dispute ends here, now, and is never spoken of again. If I hear reports of this rearing its head again, I’ll deal with the matter more severely.’ Her father looked pointedly at Poll. ‘This is your final warning and my final word.’

  The bald man’s head inclined again and Erlon waved them away. Lidan tried to swallow the hot ball of embarrassment in her throat and refused to look up at the faces around her as the hall fell into chatter once more and eating resumed. Were all mothers as humiliating as hers?

  Chapter Three

  Hummel, Tolak Range, the South Lands

  A fortnight after the Hearing, after a short ceremony that promised the two children of Poll and Hender, Hummel seemed a lighter place. By the time the clan recovered from the ale headaches and the effects of nights spent in celebration, it seemed most of Hummel’s residents had forgotten that it was the dana who cut across her father’s authority and made the ruling for him.

  Lidan, however, had not.

  She tried to avoid her mother, and to quell the unrelenting embarrassment roiling in her gut, disappearing into the stables at any opportunity, but she could not escape every lesson her mother forced her to sit through. She was atrociously inept at sewing, much to her mother’s disgust, and failed miserably at some odd little tea ceremony her half-mothers made her practice at the dana’s insistence. She struggled to weave a serviceable basket when asked and had no patience for planning meals and arranging significant clan events. She couldn’t grasp how any of these mundane tasks would make her a more capable or respected clan leader, and she itched to escape to the ranger’s barracks and training yard, even just to watch.

  The only lesson she relished was taught by her father, while she sat beside him and learned to read and draw maps. Today they worked outside in the sunny warmth of the common, drawing symbols with sharpened white chalk on a flat slate; her father sketching a symbol while she watched then copied it.

  ‘No, that needs to curve up and down more. Otherwise it looks like the line of a track, not a bank of hills. Here,’ he scrubbed the markings away with the ball of his hand and drew the symbol again. She bit her lip and concentrated, winding the line up and down to mimic the symbol above it. ‘Much better—do ten and then we’ll—’

  ‘Surprise!’ Farah’s voice sang out behind them and they both started at the sound. Erlon grinned when she emerged, chestnut curls dancing around her smiling face. He wrapped a muscled arm around Farah’s waist and dragged her into his lap, her half-mother’s laughter peeling across the common as his unshaven jaw nuzzled her neck. He whispered something and Farah blushed a deep red.

  ‘Stop it, husband!’ Farah joked with a playful slap to his shoulder and regarded Lidan with a warm smile. ‘You’re making poor Lidan awkward! Oh, your symbols are coming along so nicely, Liddy. You have a calm hand for drawing pictures as well as bows.’

  It was Lidan’s turn to blush and her face flushed at the praise. ‘I’m lucky Da takes time to teach me.’

  ‘My father didn’t teach me symbols,’ Farah said and leaned closer to study the slate. A daughter of the Namjin, Farah’s matching to Erlon had been an attempt at forging peace several years ago. That peace had since failed spectacularly, crushed under the weight of sparse resources and the harsh southern climate. ‘Looks like gibberish to me!’

  Her husband nodded. ‘Lidan is no ordinary girl, my love.’

  He tousled Lidan’s hair and she immediately swatted his hand and corrected it before anyone could see the black bird’s nest it became if set free from its braid. In truth, he only agreed to teach Lidan her symbols as consolation for her mother’s refusal to let her break in her horse. Map reading was a rare skill reserved for rangers, and map drawing was rarer still, so she tried to take to her lessons with enthusiasm, knowing all the while it was but a tiny sliver of the full training she yearned for.

  A pile of buckets crashed to the ground across the common in an echoing clatter and Lidan’s eyes darted to the source. A tine-woman with flaxen hair scrambled to collect her dislodged load of washing buckets, which, thankfully for her, were empty when she ran full-tilt into the dana. Sellan stood unmoved at the bottom of the kitchen stairs, with her arms crossed and a sour twist to her lips, glaring at Erlon, Lidan and Farah as though they’d been plotting murder.

  Lidan glanced at her father in time to see the light in his eyes fade and his smile straighten to a thin line. Her heart skipped a beat then hammered back into rhythm, shocked by how quickly the darkness in her mother’s gaze sucked the happiness from her father’s face. Lidan had little memory of Raeh and Kelill’s arrival at Hummel, too young to care or remember, but she did recall Farah’s no more than a year or two before. She remembered how Sellan had smiled her best smile and welcomed the daari’s fourth wife into her new home. And she remembered how every day since that smile had become tighter, more forced, until it dissolved into an undisguised scowl, born of the blatantly obvious regard Erlon held for Farah over his other wives.

  ‘Afternoon, wife,’ Erlon called a cool greeting to Sellan and tapped his finger on the slate. Lidan turned quickly back to her symbols and tried to ignore the strain vibrating between her parents. Apparently, her mother’s intrusion into the Hearing had not been forgotten or forgiven.

  ‘Husband,’ Sellan replied without moving. Farah shifted and tried to stand, but the muscles in Erlon’s arms flexed and held her firmly in place. After a moment, Lidan peeked up, not daring to lift her head more than an inch to glimpse her mother’s narrowed eyes and the dark shadows deepening above her cheekbones, as though a cloud above her blocked out the sun. Sellan’s eye twitched, a tiny movement that would be missed by anyone not staring as rudely as Lidan, then the dana spun away. She spat at the tine-woman and stormed up the stairs into the hall, her auburn hair vanishing into the dim interior like a trail of angry flame.

  ‘What did I do?’ Farah murmured.

  ‘Nothing, my love. She angers quicker than a summer storm and leaves a wake of confusion just as wide.’ Erlon kissed his wife and let her go. ‘Pay her no mind.’

  Lidan found no solace in the overheard words and her blood thumped through her veins. Why was her mother scowling so ferociously? Surely it was her father who had grounds to be cross and not the other way around?

  ‘Liddy?’ Farah’s voice reached through the flurry of her thoughts. She knew her panic was as plain as the nose on her face so there was little point trying to hide it. Lidan swallowed her anxiety and stared at the scrawled symbols, infantile compared to her father’s. ‘Lidan?’ Farah whispered in her ear. ‘Are you all right, blossom?’

  ‘I…’ Lidan didn’t know what to say. She was not all right but she couldn’t explain why. Her gut churned and twisted as though she’d swallowed a basket of snakes, her skin beading with anxious sweat, dread creeping up her spine. ‘Yes. Just tired.’

  Her lie took a moment to take hold. The youngest of her father’s wives laid a cool hand on the nape of Lidan’s neck and frowned back at the door. Lidan chewed the inside of her lip bloody, half expecting Farah to take off and follow the dana, but instead she pursed her lips and gave Lidan a gentle pat. ‘If you say so… Early to bed after supper. We’ll all be up at dawn to see off the hunt.’

  A cold shiver rippled from Lidan’s scalp to her fingertips, her eyes glued to her drawings as Farah moved away. She felt numb, empty and heavy all at once, the hectic noise of the common replaced by a high-pitched ringing in her ears. Her mother’s angry glare filled her vision and the pinch marks on her arms burned as if the dana held her where she sat. Why was her mother so angry?

  Perhaps Sellan had been looking at Lidan, still furious about their argument outside the
stable and her insistence on continuing to learn things only a ranger should know. She probably blamed the daari for continuing to indulge their daughter.

  Lidan squeezed the lump of drawing chalk until it crumbled and decided that tomorrow she would tell her father to take Theus back. Without the horse, all this animosity would surely end. Before her father left to lead the rangers on another hunt, she would ask him to give the colt to one of the apprentice rangers, or perhaps to Poll’s son as a matching gift, and be done with it. Yes, that would please her mother and no one would be angry anymore.

  *

  Sunlight cut through the window shades and dragged Lidan from a heavy sleep. Marrit’s bed stood empty across the room, a mess of furs and blankets piled on the floor. In the corner, a bowl of washing water stood on a table beside a basket of clean under linens and fine clothing their mother insisted they wear. Lidan splashed her face with the water and slipped a creamy embroidered shirt over her head before climbing into a pair of her favourite trousers.

  A skirt wrapped over the trousers, the fabric split from the ankles to the hip on both sides, then an apron fell over the front of that. Her boots stood by the door, scrubbed clean and ready for another day. Too impatient to sit and lace them properly, she shoved her feet in and hopped clumsily down the corridor, glancing behind door curtains as she passed. It was already late morning and each room stood empty, her family already in the common to farewell the departing hunt.

  The journey along the border of the Tolak range took several weeks and the rangers wouldn’t return until they’d caught enough game to smoke for the dry season stores. The dry season drove the game closer to the peaks of the Malapa, seeking the greener grass that sheltered in the damp foothills, taking them closer to the territories of the ice dragons who dwelt above the snow line. There weren’t many dragons left in Coraidin, the largest of them hunted to extinction while the rest were either too small to warrant any attention or kept themselves hidden in places men dared not tread. With the migrating mobs came the clan’s neighbours, eager to see what food could be found in land that was not their own. The rangers scouted not only for game, but for signs of the neighbouring Namjin and Wolban clans crossing their borders, answering each slight with anger and blood.

  Lidan hurried from the living quarters, hoping to find her father in the hall finalising his business. If he stood with the rangers, she wouldn’t dare try and return the colt to him—the shame would be intolerable! If she spoke to him alone, away from the others, he might understand. There was no way to avoid giving back the horse, as much as it broke her heart, but it had to be done quietly; no one could know.

  At the kitchen’s entrance to the main hall, she heard the deep rumble of Erlon’s voice, his words obscured by the thick walls. With a lump of sadness in her throat, Lidan stepped through to confront him.

  A rough hand caught her wrist and pulled her behind the woven screen, another slapped over her mouth. She hit the floor and winced, then spun to free herself from the grip of the unseen hand. The owner relented, demanding silence with his finger across his lips. It took a moment to recognise his face in the gloom, and when Lidan nodded her understanding, his hand fell away from her mouth.

  ‘Behn?’ asked Lidan with a scowl.

  ‘Shh!’ The forge apprentice pressed his finger harder to his lips as if she had misunderstood the gesture.

  ‘What in the name of the ancestors are you doing here?’ she hissed.

  ‘You don’t want to go in there,’ Behn replied. A year or so older than Lidan and apprenticed to the forge master, his already tan skin was so stained with soot it looked black as night in the dim corridor; his straight teeth and the whites of his eyes were ridiculously bright by comparison. This morning his brows furrowed into grimy creases across his forehead and his eyes scanned around.

  Lidan recoiled at the thick collection of filth under the boy’s nails. ‘When was your last bath?’

  Behn ignored her, his attention fixed on the muted conversation beyond the screen. ‘I’ve got a message for the daari from Master Rick, an important one he needs before the hunt…’ He paused and glanced around. ‘I nearly went straight in!’

  Lidan didn’t understand the problem; all he needed to do was rap a knuckle on the doorframe before entering. Why was he squatting in the corridor like a kicked dog? A voice echoed from the hall and her blood ran cold.

  Dana Sellan’s words shattered the silence. ‘I’ve tried to advise you and you ignore me time and time again!’

  ‘Told you,’ Behn muttered and sat down heavily. ‘You don’t want to go in there.’

  Lidan scrambled to her knees and peered through the screen’s weave. Her parents faced each other over a table near the hall’s fire pit, the surface covered with parchment sheets, scrolls, quills and ink cups. Sellan had interrupted Erlon’s preparations and it appeared serious enough that he’d dismissed his rangers and emptied the hall.

  ‘For the sake of the ancestors, woman!’ Daari Erlon’s tone held an anger that made Lidan shiver. He threw his quill down and spread his arms wide. ‘I’ve things to see to, a clan to feed, and you choose now to saunter in here and tell me what I can and can’t do with my own wives?’

  Sellan leaned forward, palms down on the papers, and lowered her voice to a growl. ‘I am your dana! It’s my job to tell you what to do with them and when. If you ignore the signs—’

  ‘What bloody signs?’ Erlon spat.

  ‘The auguries! Only a fool would ignore signs from the ancestors.’

  ‘You’ve been casting auguries about me?’ He stepped towards his wife but she didn’t flinch. ‘I don’t recall ordering auguries to be thrown, and if I had, it would be about the dry season, or our hunts, or our enemies, not my wives.’

  ‘The reason for casting the blood doesn’t matter—it only matters that you heed the message!’ Sellan’s words came out as sharp as knives but the daari dismissed the comment out of hand and turned away. Lidan knew when he waved his hand like that the conversation was over. She knew when he turned his back, it was the end of it, but her mother didn’t care. She jabbed an accusing finger in the direction of the living quarters. ‘Ever since she came, you’ve ignored every—’

  ‘Since who came?’ growled Erlon, deep as a wild dog defending its kill. Lidan’s pulse thundered so loud she could hardly hear her parent’s snarled words.

  ‘You know who, Erl,’ Sellan retorted, swift as a whip crack. ‘Don’t make like you haven’t changed your ways since she flounced down from the Namjin range. You’ve had her twice as often as the rest of us—and with a hundred times the hunger!’

  The pain in her mother’s jealous face was unlike anything Lidan had seen. Genuine anguish creased the corners of her eyes, the line of her lips held tight lest they betray a single tremor of emotion. The daari didn’t respond and Lidan’s mind flew into panic.

  She didn’t want to hear this.

  She didn’t want to know the private conversations of her parents, or see them bickering and spitting venom at each other. Fixed to the spot, there was nothing to do except struggle to understand their furious words.

  Sellan continued in the offered silence. ‘Thanie has advised me—’

  Her husband turned and hurled the table out from between them. ‘Fuck that bent old woman! What has the Crone ever done to justify my feeding her toothless hole of a mouth?’ Erlon’s rage set the air to crackling, his face burning red and broad chest heaving.

  ‘Her name is Thanie, and she is your only hope of conceiving a son, Erlon Tolak, and you know it!’ Sellan snapped.

  Lidan started and glanced at Behn. He shouldn’t be seeing this. Neither of them should. Only the ancestors knew the punishment they’d get if they were found spying, but they had no way to escape without being seen or heard. They were stuck, pinned to the spot, unable to look away and unable to leave.

  ‘Is that right?’ The daari’s boots scuffed the dried grasses spread across the hall’s bare floor. He paced slowly towar
ds the dana even though his temper was well and truly lost. ‘So why, in all the years since you and the wrinkled bitch came here in that trading caravan, have none of my girls been boys?’

  Silence filled the hall like icy water. Only the breeze whistling through the thatch roof and Behn’s breathing reached Lidan through her fear. The daari was right—after more than thirteen years and four wives, he had not one son.

  ‘Well?’ Erlon pressed, stepping closer. Sellan didn’t reply, her fierce eyes trained on his face in a defiant glare. ‘I thought so. I’ve done things your way for long enough with nothing to show for it. Now I’ll do what I like, when I like, how I like. As for the hag, she’s to be gone from my lands before the hunt returns.’

  ‘No! You can’t turn her out!’

  Erlon’s arm flew and the back of his wide hand connected with the side of Sellan’s face with a sharp crack that echoed against the ceiling. Lidan stifled a cry and Behn winced away. Lidan knew her parents fought, she knew things hadn’t been right between them for a long time—her mother’s distain for Farah and her father’s disregard of Sellan’s wishes cutting a rift between them that had been yawing open with each passing season. But Lidan had never seen her father, the biggest, strongest man she knew, strike her mother. The shock of it ripped through Lidan, vomit burning at the back of her mouth.

  ‘How dare you…’ Sellan snarled, undeterred and shivering with rage. She didn’t lift a hand to the brilliant red mark from her jaw to her eyebrow but her fingers clenched and unfurled as if she’d like to wrap them around his throat.

  ‘Oh, I dare. I’m the master of this hall and it’s about time you recognised it.’

  ‘I will not allow you to turn her out. I will not allow—’

  ‘That is not your decision!’ Erlon’s roar vibrated through Lidan’s chest and brought terrified tears to her eyes. ‘I don’t know how she does it, but she’s got hold of your mind and you’re dancing to her tune. I won’t stand for it! She’ll be gone before the hunt returns, or I’ll deal with you both like the disobedient tine-women you are. Do you want that?’