Duty Bound

by Lindsay Buroker

  “I figured. Got something to tell you too.”

  “Oh?”

  A faint giggle drifted up from a copse of trees beside the road a quarter of a mile away. A gaggle of teenage girls was down there, languidly filling their arms with firewood, though they hadn’t seemed to accumulate any more branches than they had ten minutes ago when they first showed up.

  Father looked at them, and Jev half expected him to yell for them to return to their chores. Jev didn’t know who they were but assumed they came from one of the villages on this side of the property. Everyone who worked on Dharrow land was a tenant and paid taxes for zyndar protection and a stable place to stay, so Father technically had the right to tell people what to do. Jev had a feeling he would holler at kids to get back to their chores whether he had any right to or not.

  “Zyndari Nhole came by yesterday,” Father said.

  Jev dropped his axe.

  “What? Why?” His voice came out squeaky with alarm, and he rushed to clear his throat and pick up the axe as Father frowned at him.

  “Made a marriage offer for you and her daughter, Ghara. She said you’d met and got along well.”

  “Got along— Uh, no. She’s a strange research doctor who keeps cadavers in her laboratory basement.” Jev hadn’t fought with her, but he certainly hadn’t found the woman charming or appealing. It was Zenia he’d kissed the night they had visited the Nhole estate to do research for their case.

  Zenia, who had decided they shouldn’t date or kiss ever again. He stared bleakly down at the stack of split wood.

  “The Nholes aren’t a prominent or powerful family, and they have little sway in government,” Father said, as if he hadn’t heard Jev mention the cadavers. To Jev, that was far more important than familial prominence. “We can do better. You’re still young enough and appealing to the women, I gather.”

  More giggles drifted up from the copse. Father grunted and nodded as if they reaffirmed his reasoning.

  Jev had his mouth open to protest the marriage topic, but he paused and glanced down the slope. The girls all looked away and pretended to hunt for wood. Dear founders, was his father insinuating those girls were there because of him?

  Jev had the sudden urge to find his shirt and yank it back over his head. He didn’t think they were more than fourteen or fifteen. In the old days, that had been considered a marriageable age, but he rarely heard of anyone under twenty marrying anymore, and he’d always thought it repulsive to see a lecherous old zyndar strolling around the city with a teenage girl on his arm. Maybe because he knew the young woman was only there because of the man’s status and money. Jev wanted someone attracted to him, not to his status. Or even—he thought of Zenia again and how she loathed zyndar—despite his status.

  “I’m glad you rejected the offer,” Jev said, eyeing his father. “Marriage is what I wanted to talk to you about today.”

  “You’ve got someone else in mind?” His father eyed him right back. Warily. “Someone from an appropriate family? Someone from a long line of noble warriors? Not from one of these zyndar families full of town fops. I want my grandchildren to have superior blood. Like ours.”

  Jev held up a hand. “I don’t want to marry at all. Not now,” he rushed to add when his father’s eyebrows flew up. “I just got back, and I’ve got a new job, new duties to the king. I want to relax and not worry about weddings and children, at least not this year.”

  Father frowned and grabbed a rail by himself and hefted it into place, his muscles still wiry and strong at seventy-five. “Having a woman in your bed ought to be relaxing, not stressful, or you aren’t doing it right.”

  Jev grimaced. “I’m not ready to marry the very month I returned from ten years at war. Give me some time, Father. There’s no rush, right?”

  There hadn’t been when he’d been twenty-three instead of thirty-three, but back then, he’d been madly in love with Naysha and she with him. Or at least he’d believed that. They had been engaged, due to marry in scant months, when King Abdor had declared war on the Taziir and ordered every zyndar family to raise a company from their lands and bring the men to fight in the army. Naysha, Jev had learned not from her but from his cousin Wyleria’s letter, hadn’t even waited a year before taking another lover and eventually marrying the man.

  “I’m not getting any younger, boy,” Father said. “I’d like to see grandchildren before I pass, to know our estate and the Dharrow family legacy are secured for generations to come.”

  “I know, Father. And I understand that. I’m only asking for a year.” Jev hated to lock himself into even that, as he didn’t want to feel rushed. He wanted to marry a woman he loved, not someone his father or relatives picked out for him. “And I’d like to choose someone, not have it be arranged.”

  Father made an exasperated noise. “Nothing wrong with having it arranged. This isn’t about love or any other storybook nonsense. It’s about producing superior heirs.”

  “And you’re convinced a zyndari woman from a less prestigious family, or even a woman of common birth, couldn’t bear good children?”

  “Common birth?” Father blurted, almost knocking off the rail he’d placed.

  Damn, Jev shouldn’t have said that. He hadn’t meant to suggest it, not yet. Maybe not ever since Zenia didn’t want to date him. But her reasoning had been that he could never propose to her, not that he was odious. If that changed, perhaps she would reconsider—

  “Did you get hit in the head when you were overseas, boy? Dharrows do not marry common women.”

  “I was hit numerous times,” Jev said. “Stabbed and shot too.”

  “Save your lip for someone who appreciates it, Jevlain. You’ll marry an appropriate zyndari woman, and that’s that. You want to take some common mistress, fine. I’m no prude, and I won’t object to that. Just be discreet. But first, you marry a zyndari woman and plant your seed in her womb. You want a firstborn legitimate heir before you get a child on some mistress and she starts begging you to legitimize him. Or her.” Father frowned in the direction of the girls, though they had drifted farther down their slope now, their arms full of wood.

  With an alarmed start, Jev realized one or more of those girls could be half-sisters to him. He knew of three his father had sired before the war, but Jev wouldn’t recognize any of them after ten years. And there could be more by now. It had been a long time since his mother had left—since she’d been killed—and he knew his father hadn’t been chaste that whole time.

  “You hearing me, boy?” Father asked. “No common women. We are Dharrows, not some lesser zyndar family, the likes of which let themselves get written up in gossip publications. If you don’t find someone appropriate this summer, I’ll set your aunts to finding someone for you.”

  “This summer?” What had happened to his year?

  “You heard me. It’s your duty to produce grandchildren, Jevlain. You gave up ten years to the king and his war, and that was an honorable act and not a duty to be shirked, but now it’s time to do your duty to the family.” Father swung his axe, lodging it in the top of one of the fence posts, and stalked off.

  Jev rubbed the side of his head. When did he get to do a duty to himself? Never?

  He wished his brother were still alive. The castle didn’t feel like home without Vastiun and his sarcastic mouth commenting on everything, and it wasn’t fair that his life had been cut so short. Further, if Vastiun were still alive—and Jev admitted this was an entirely selfish thought—he wouldn’t be his father’s only son. Maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference, since Vastiun had been younger and not the natural choice to become zyndar prime after Father, but it would have made Jev feel better, knowing Father had another potential heir, in case he did something… crazy. Like forgoing his inheritance and responsibilities and running off to marry a common woman.

  Jev sighed. He couldn’t truly consider that. Even if he wanted to. Even if he loathed his duty sometimes, he couldn’t shrink from it. He’d always known he
would take his father’s place as zyndar prime one day. He’d just hoped that, somehow, he could marry and have children with someone he loved.

  Hoofbeats on the road pulled his focus away from the subject. Thankfully.

  Recognizing three of the four riders as his expected guests, Jev lifted a hand. Zyndar Krox, still serving as Captain Krox in charge of the vaunted fighters of Wyvern Company, led the way, riding a stout black stallion almost as muscular as he was. Zyndar Hydal, formerly Lieutenant Hydal of Gryphon Company came next. He had served as Jev’s slight, spectacles-wearing second-in-command. Zyndar Captain Tuoark, former leader of Tuoark Company, followed him, the burly man an artisan metalworker who’d turned into an armor- and weapons-smith during the war. He reputedly had dwarves in his ancestry, and he’d gotten along well with Cutter.

  The fourth rider was a woman Jev didn’t know. She rode sidesaddle, a yellow dress flapping in the breeze as the group trotted up the road.

  Jev grabbed his shirt and headed across the field to meet them. His father had disappeared from sight, but the thwack of a distant axe suggested he’d found tools and work elsewhere. No doubt someplace where he wouldn’t have to listen to his son’s crazy desires.

  Jev had to force an affable smile onto his face for the approaching riders.

  “Nice of you to put a shirt on for us, Dharrow,” Krox growled in his typical baritone. “I didn’t come up here to see sweaty men. Had enough of that in the army.”

  Jev would have been shocked if Krox wasn’t still throwing sandbags around and dragging people off to wrestle with him.

  “I did it for the lady.” Jev extended a hand, assuming she was related to one of them. He thought she might be Tuoark's little sister, but she had only been ten the last time Jev had seen her. She wore a lot more makeup now, and he wasn’t sure it was the same person.

  “My sister,” Tuoark said. “Zyndari Elle. She wanted to come along to visit with your cousins.”

  The twenty-year-old woman smiled shyly at Jev.

  “She’s welcome, of course.” Jev nodded at her but focused on the others. “I’ve breakfast if you want it and coffee at the castle. I invited you up here to see if you’ve had any news about Cutter. He’s been missing for three days. Master Arkura Grindmor, the city’s prominent gem cutter, is also missing.”

  “You sure they didn’t intentionally go missing together?” Krox asked. “Romantically?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jev said. “My understanding is that Master Grindmor found Cutter’s beard lacking, and he was trying earnestly to prove himself to her but hadn’t yet.”

  “His beard?” Krox asked.

  “As you may know,” Hydal said, “a dwarf male grows out his beard with great care in order to help attract a mate. It’s akin to the male peacock spreading his tail and displaying his plumage to draw the females.”

  “I hope Cutter wasn’t spreading anything,” Krox said. “Nobody wants to see that.”

  Jev didn’t smile. He didn’t have a lot of love for Krox and had only invited him up because Cutter had occasionally joined in with his company’s dice and chips games. Even though Cutter was missing a hand, he was a solid fighter, and he’d liked wrestling and boxing with the highly trained men of Wyvern Company. Jev thought it possible Cutter would have sought some of them out to help with his quest to find and retrieve Grindmor’s valuable magical tools.

  “Have you seen him?” Jev asked. “Have any of you?”

  “Not since we sailed into port,” Krox said.

  “Same here,” Tuoark said.

  “I saw him, oh, it was about four days ago,” Hydal said. “You know that old quarry in town that was abandoned last century and turned into shops about twenty years ago?”

  “Yes.” Jev leaned forward. It had been three days since Lornysh reported that Cutter was missing. Hydal might have been one of the last people to see him.

  “I waved when we chanced across each other, but we didn’t speak. He was heading into the clockmaker’s shop in there. I had business with my tailor across the way and didn’t see him again when I came out.”

  “Thank you, Hydal.” Jev had hoped for more, but he could visit that clockmaker easily enough and see if anything suspicious had happened while Cutter had been there. For that matter, maybe he could find out why Cutter had been there. He was staying in a fully furnished room in Dharrow Castle. Cutter shouldn’t need a clock.

  “You going to feed us now that you’ve interrogated us?” Krox asked.

  “That was a modest interrogation,” Jev said, “as any inquisitor would tell you, but yes. Head on up. I’ll meet you there.”

  As Krox and Tuoark nudged their horses into motion again, Hydal swung down from his mount.

  “May I have a word with you in private, Captain?”

  “Of course, and it’s Jev, eh? We’re back in the realm of civilians now.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  Jev snorted. Sir wasn’t any better than captain. But he knew what a stickler for social rank Hydal was, and that since he came from a smaller and less established zyndar family, he might have sirred Jev even if they had never served together.

  Hydal, the breeze riffling through his short brown hair, moved his horse to the side of the road and gazed pointedly at Zyndari Elle, who hadn’t yet followed the others.

  She smiled shyly again, glanced at Hydal, grasped her thick braid of brown hair, then spoke to Jev. “Zyndar Dharrow, am I invited to your breakfast? I… didn’t think to eat this morning before heading out, and I’m famished.”

  “Of course,” Jev said. “Wyleria and the others may have eaten already, but you’re welcome to have your fill before finding them.”

  “Thank you.” She smiled at him again—she certainly liked to smile a lot—then guided her horse up the road. She glanced back a couple of times before disappearing around a bend.

  Jev looked at Hydal, expecting him to speak immediately, and was surprised to find a dyspeptic expression on his fine-featured face as he looked off toward that bend.

  “You all right?” Jev asked.

  “Yes.” Hydal smoothed his face, though his lips remained wryly canted. “I’ve decided I’m too mature to lament that the younger sisters of my fellow zyndar don’t flirt with me.”

  “Oh.” Jev was either obtuse or had been away from female company for too long because he hadn’t realized flirting was what she’d been doing.

  “I know I’m not the typical warrior zyndar.” Hydal waved at his slender form. “But with there being so many men who didn’t return from the war, the unmarried women to unmarried men ratio skews heavily to one side right now. You wouldn’t think the ladies could afford to be so picky.”

  “Ah.” Jev hadn’t thought about the topic, but he realized right away it was likely true, that there was a shortage of available men right now. That might explain why he’d received a marriage offer so soon. The last ten years had to have been something of a drought for women seeking marriage prospects, not only for the zyndar class but for the commoners as well. A lot of men from all social ranks had gone off to fight and die.

  “That’s not what I wanted to speak with you about, I confess,” Hydal said.

  Jev nodded, hoping he had suggestions about how to find Cutter. Hydal might not be an unparalleled warrior, but he was intelligent and clever. There was a reason he’d been moved into Gryphon Company. Jev was a little surprised he hadn’t been made captain of the unit over him, though he was a couple of years older and related more easily with the men, so he did understand the king’s choice. Still, he had deferred to Hydal often over the years.

  “You may already be aware of this, since you’re captaining the Crown Agents now,” Hydal said, not surprising Jev with his knowledge of the organization or its new leaders, “but there are rumors circulating about you. It’s likely nobody will act on them—who would dare pick a fight with a Dharrow?—but I don’t want you to be blindsided.”

  “Go on.” Jev’s first thought was that some
one had found out he’d taken Zenia on a date and might think to share the news with his father, but he found it hard to believe that was gossip Hydal would worry about. Besides, nobody knew they’d spoken of marriage; anyone watching them from the outside would likely assume he wanted a temporary physical relationship with her.

  “A few people, Krox included, are pointing out that it was rather brilliant of you to befriend Targyon.”

  “They all had their opportunities, as I recall,” Jev said.

  Targyon, more scholar than warrior, had a lot in common with Hydal. Targyon had been sent out for a couple of years of hardening, at his uncle King Abdor’s suggestion, but Targyon had never turned into a natural soldier. He’d been relieved when Jev, at Hydal’s suggestion, had offered him a spot in Gryphon Company, and he’d been able to escape from under Abdor’s overbearing leadership. Targyon had tried to get himself transferred into other companies first, but nobody had wanted to babysit the king’s nephew.

  “Yes, but they don’t recall that. What they remember is that you had your arm around Targyon’s shoulder for two years, mentoring him. And they—a couple of Targyon’s brothers’ wives reputedly started this rumor—find it suspicious that Targyon has been made king and that you’re now working for him in the castle with daily access to him.”

  Jev frowned, getting the gist. “It’s not like I could have known he would end up on the throne. Nobody could have. He has five older brothers.”

  “Who were oddly passed over in favor of him.”

  “By the hands of the Orders. I’ve found it odd, too, as has Targyon himself.”

  “Some are suggesting that you may have been the mastermind behind him being chosen.”

  “How would I have managed that when I was out there in the field with him? You were on the ship with us. We all found out together about the deaths of Abdor’s sons and about the Orders’ choice of Targyon.”

  “I know.” Hydal lifted his hands defensively.

  Jev realized his voice had grown loud and agitated. He forced himself to take a slow breath and relax his shoulders.