Time of Daughters I

by Sherwood Smith

  Her expression was sober as she murmured, “Arrow’s current lover Fini sa Vaka hasn’t been asked to your wedding. But she’s Iascan. She doesn’t know our ways, and won’t listen. She might turn up and make trouble.”

  Danet considered that. She certainly had no feelings yet for Arrow, whom she’d scarcely spoken ten words to. Marriage, Mother had taught her girls, was an alliance between households, with clearly defined work for each partner. Romance and love might come, or one might have to look for it elsewhere. She said cautiously, “I don’t know all your ways yet. What ought I to do if that happens?”

  “Our ways,” Tdor repeated, flashing a rueful smile. “I’m a Fath, an outsider, same as you, adopted in. The Faths and the Olavayirs...let’s say the families made a truce.” Her hand swiped flat-handed, thrusting that subject aside. “At least we’re both Marlovans. I thought I’d tell you, Fini’s family is important in Lindeth. She was sent by her grandmother, Fini sa Buno, to run their counting house here at Nevree. So no one wants to risk her grandmother cutting off our trade with Lindeth-Hije Shipping. The jarlan says Fini-the-elder is fair, for an Iascan, so we don’t say anything or interfere while Fi tries to court Arrow. But I think you should know.”

  “Is it a love match?” Danet asked.

  Tdor actually laughed. “No chance. Before he took up with her, he, ah, he thought he was going to marry Hard Ride Arvandais, from over the mountains. While carrying on with half the girls in the castle, and another dozen in town.”

  Danet suppressed a whistle at the mention of her cousin, recollecting that a marriage treaty proposal had fallen through. Her brother had told her on his last visit that Hard Ride’s family was negotiating with no fewer than four important Houses, including the regent on behalf of the king.

  Tdor Fath’s eyes narrowed. “You know something.”

  “Not really,” Danet hedged. “I was only up in Idego once. When I was ten. To meet my cousins.” Fourth-cousins, one generation before the kinship terms changed. The adults up in Idego had been looking her over as a possible match for Hal, Hard Ride’s brother.

  “Is it true that Hard Ride Hadand is that amazing?” Tdor Fath asked.

  Danet wondered how much to say about that single visit. Hadand, the cousin closest to Danet’s age, had been thirteen, Danet ten. Even then all the Idegans had called her Hard Ride. Danet’s first glimpse of her cousin had been in the courtyard after their arrival, when Hard Ride leaped up onto the back of a restive horse and rode out at the gallop, not even holding on. Those long golden braids swaying across her back seemed shinier than everyone else’s.

  “She is….” Danet began, her gaze distant, and Tdor Fath waited.

  Danet was trying to find the words for how her cousin had seemed somehow larger than life, except not in the sense of Jarend-Laef. She’d been the first to laugh, the first to shout “Good one!” if someone got in a good blow or shot in the constant competitions, even against her.

  But she also had a temper like a flash of lightning, and then on some subjects she spoke in a fervent voice, her blue eyes wide and (Danet had thought privately) just a little bit crazy. Like when she’d blabbered away in Idegan to her first-cousins and friends, and instead of apologizing, she informed Danet that Marlovan was a barbaric tongue. It doesn’t even have its own alphabet! But Idegan is from Ancient Sartoran, she’d said earnestly, as if that was tremendously important. Well, to her, it clearly had been.

  Embas the Miller had told Danet just last year that everyone up north knew that by the time Hadand was seventeen “Hard Ride” had come to mean something very different. He’d said, I’m told they all call her a flaxen-haired throwback to One-Eyed Cama during the days of Inda-Harskialdna because everyone wants her, same as they all wanted Cama.

  Tdor Fath said, “We heard she and her brother are the best in Arvandais with bow and sword.”

  “They were when I was there—that is, best among us, underage. The jarl was the best in everything, except for his sword master, who was even harsher.” If Hard Ride Hadand glowed like a lantern, her father had been like the summer sun—everybody talked about him. Tried to please him. He shed a lot of light, but burned you if you displeased him.

  “They have competitions up there every day. The loser gets a beating. Mostly from the jarl, though the men got it from that sword master and much worse. What was his name? Vana...Dana...not Sindan. Ah, never mind. My first day, I lost a scrap and Hard Ride beat me herself.”

  The jarl and the sword master had looked on in approval. Within a couple of days, Danet realized her cousin had gone easy on her—the Arvandais got a lot worse. Including Hard Ride Hadand herself. After that, Danet had made certain to be in the riding competitions whenever there was scrapping among the youngsters in the court, and Hard Ride let her get away with it. But there’d been no talk of a betrothal by the time they went home, Danet emotionally exhausted as well as physically.

  Tdor Fath grunted, then tipped her head back toward the residence floor as they cleared the landing. “Some of the boys say that Fi is trouble at the gallop. She was after the new commander at the Lindeth garrison, and any of his captains related to jarls, before the grandmother sent her here to run their Nevree shop. Not that she does any actual work. She’s always here. We all think the commander asked the grandmother to send her away.”

  Voices echoed up the stairway. Tdor Fath fell silent and hurried down the last few steps. Danet followed more slowly, watching the slow-rippling reflections of light from the air ducts high overhead as she wondered if the reason no one had talked to her this much was because they were waiting to see what she would do on rough trail as well as smooth.

  Soon enough she stood alone in her room, putting on her wedding clothes, which had lain at the bottom of the carved trunk. She shook out the soft, almost silky double-heckled and bucked linen under-robe, wondering if putting on these clothes would make her feel different, but she just felt like herself inside clothes she didn’t want wrinkled or snagged.

  Her mother had insisted her daughters begin their braids behind their ears, which was practical and kept the loops out of their way as they worked. But some girls started their braids high on their heads, called the fox-ear look, making their loops stand out, and drawing attention to the shape of their heads and necks. Mother had given extra chores to any girl who wasted time on such frivolity, except on festival days, when at least half of the day was one’s own time.

  It was also impractical, for by the end of the day, inevitably strands were coming loose all over and the loops began to droop on girls with thick, heavy hair. Danet decided that for once, on her wedding day, she would braid fox ears. Even if no one else noticed, she would.

  Then she pulled on her House robe for the first time, touched the thin gold-silk embroidered edging that she suspected would look downright plain to the wealthy Olavayirs, and walked down to the great Hall of Ancestors. She smoothed her hands over the beautifully woven fabric, loving the brilliant blue color that was a truer royal blue even than that on the sun-lightened tower banners and pennants.

  Here she was in for a gratifying surprise. Every person who noticed the weave and color of her robe, the exquisite hang and sway of the fabric, had to stop and look, their eyes the size of horseshoes.

  She cast covert glances at their House tunics, for they had all put on their best. Under the more elaborate gold embroidery, the royal blue was flat and dull, here too green, there too gray, and the coarse weave (in comparison to what she was used to) so kindled her family pride that she cared nothing for uninvited Fi in her embroidered Iascan silks of royal blue and gold, swinging her hip-length mane of waving blue-black hair as she clutched at Arrow’s arm.

  He had to shake her off before Danet reached the arch of boughs erected beneath the great Olavayir banner. When he stepped up, Danet noted his red nose, and whiffed stale bristic. Her bridegroom was drunk, but not so drunk that he couldn’t see her reaction in her expression, and the way she took a half step back.


  Annoyance and remorse washed through him, but at the fuzzy distance drinking always gave him. “Fi kept toasting us,” he muttered to Danet.

  He thought his voice was soft, but his ears, always alert for his hated dolphin-branch cousin Lanrid, caught the familiar loud snicker behind him on the men’s side.

  Arrow shut up and held out his hand peremptorily, with a sudden sea change in the current of his emotions, impatient to have this over.

  Danet took his callused hand firmly: This was to be her life.

  What were these two thinking about as they repeated the simple vows that adopted her into the clan and made them partners? He was wishing he hadn’t drunk so much, and wondering how was he to get Fi out of there now that he’d actually gotten married—to someone else. He knew she’d expected him to dramatically reject Danet Farendavan at the last moment, right there under the boughs, in front of everyone, and thrillingly demand that his family accept Fini sa Vaka.

  Danet was making a conscious effort to think of the Olavayir Hall of Ancestors as her hall. Much as she missed home, she knew that to return would make her a failure in her duty. So she exerted every nerve to feel like an Olavyair when the two of them took the wedding cup that the jarlan, as senior ranking person, handed to them to share.

  He gulped. She touched her lip to the wine without drinking, then passed back the cup to the jarlan, who beckoned Danet away and passed the cup to Jarend.

  He took a noisy gulp, then said in his deep voice, “Welcome to the family,” with a smile so genuine that Danet smiled back. It struck her that she hadn’t seen anything of Jarend since her arrival, except at meals, when he sat huge as a mountain, silent except for that occasional rumbling chuckle that was almost like a purr.

  Jarend handed the cup to Tdor Fath, and the jarlan beckoned again, saying in an ordinary tone, “Danet, I’ve a question for you.”

  The everyday tone and behavior startled Danet, until the thought occurred to her that this was just another wedding for the jarlan and the randviar. They’d stood through many of them. This one was nothing special—Danet was nothing special. Danet stared down at the toes of her riding boots that she had polished so hard the night before, resolving to see this as another ordinary day.

  The jarlan said briskly, “We and your family settled on the wedding trade, and I assure you we’re well satisfied with the mares and especially the cloth your mother sent along.”

  “More than satisfied,” Sdar said, her gaze running hungrily down the beautiful folds of Danet’s robe.

  “Would your mother be offended if we wrote to ask her to share your dye process?” the jarlan asked.

  Danet said, “I can’t speak for her, but I believe if you were to write and give an increase in orders, she’d be pleased, not offended.”

  The two women smiled with genuine approval. The jarlan liked this Danet Farendavan the more she saw of her. Sdar exchanged quick glances with Tdor Fath, both relieved that Danet was behaving toward that revolting Fini sa Vaka as if she didn’t exist. Yes, she would do for Arrow.

  The jarlan turned out her hand, and one of the younger girls, who had been watching for her signal, brought out a hand drum.

  “Time for your bride dance,” Tdor Fath said, coming up to take Danet’s hand.

  Danet followed, thinking of her mother’s words about how marriage was like a castle, sturdy and enduring in shared work and family. Though she was now an Olavayir, Danet hugged to herself her pride as a Farendavan weaver, so she never once looked at Fi, after that first glance at her in her beautiful silks in the Olavayir blue and gold.

  Instead, she danced with the women, beginning with the knife dance. She watched the men, even though Arrow only got up twice, and not even for the sword dance. He shuffled through the easier ones, swaying and braying with laughter as Fi pressed drink on him between dances, with vindictive intent.

  When the night-watch bells rang, and everyone who had morning duty began breaking up, Danet started out after a departing clump of women.

  Fi, who had hoped for at least a scene, despised Danet not only for her plain looks, but her dullness, and gave Arrow a push, nearly knocking him down. “Go give her her wedding night,” she cooed. “She’s not going to get it from anyone else.”

  Arrow blinked stupidly, and disgust surged in Fi. All this time she’d wasted on the bonehead. She bitterly regretted having crooked her finger at him during his summer stint at the Lindeth garrison. Of course he’d come to her like a trained dog. They all did. But her time had clearly been wasted.

  “Waya...momun....” he slurred as he swayed after Danet.

  The group of women heard the unsteadily rap of his boot heels, and the jarlan’s second runner gathered the others with her eyes and drew them along as Danet turned a few paces in from the great doors, to face her bridegrooom.

  “Ready for bed?” Arrow asked, with a drunken leer as he lurched toward her.

  She put two fingers in the middle of the golden eagle wingspread on his chest and pushed him back. “You’re sloshing to the back teeth.”

  “Fi sen’ me,” he mumbled. “Do it righ’.”

  “I’m sending you back. I can’t stand drunks,” stated Mother’s daughter—not angrily, just a matter of fact.

  Because they stood alone, Danet had thought them alone, until she heard a crack of laughter from somewhere behind, and saw the flush of anger on Arrow’s face. She glanced up and caught a smirk on the face of the oldest of the Rider cousins, a very pretty one whose name she still didn’t know.

  She lowered her voice and said for Arrow’s ear alone, “You’re welcome in my bed when you’re sober.”

  Then she walked out.

  She hadn’t gone ten steps beyond the door before she heard an unfamiliar voice say, soft and low, “Danet.”

  Danet turned to find that same big cousin addressing her for the first time.

  He was almost as tall as Jarend, but far more slender, with splendid shoulders narrowing in to slim hips, what the slang of the day termed a tight body. His face was the definition of tight: square, cleft chin, bright blue eyes, and no hint of buck teeth.

  He sauntered toward her, enjoying her slow up and down as he said, “I’m Lanrid Olavayir, dolphin-branch, here in Olavayir according to treaty.” She heard the lilt of pride in the words dolphin-branch. “I’m Acting Rider Commander under the heir. Your sister will be marrying my little brother.”

  “Well met,” Danet said politely.

  He took a step closer. Now it was his turn to give her a slow rake from braids to boots that she felt as tingly heat, as if he’d touched her with his big, well-shaped hands. “You deserve a proper wedding night. I’ll give you one.”

  His voice was low and coaxing and she gulped in air, heart thumping. A kind of giddiness serried through her, but she forced herself think past the feelings. If this invitation had come in her first few lonely days, she knew she would probably have responded, but why now? Mother had taught the girls early to heed any sense of contradiction, and to mentally cover the smile and look at the eyes for inconsistency.

  His smile, bracketed by dimples, sharpened the tingles of expectation, but when she looked only at his eyes, and saw the complacent expectation there, and no reflection of the smile below, her budding attraction withered to ash.

  At home, she would have been blunt, but she was still trying to fit herself into this family without making enemies, if she could. She said, “I saved this night for Arrow.”

  Lanrid did not accept that and retire, as custom—decency—required. He took a step nearer, as if he didn’t believe her, and said, “I’m afraid it’ll be a long, lonely night. You deserve better.”

  There. The words were kindly, and the smile, but the closeness—she could feel his breath on her forehead—and his unsmiling eyes warned her of trouble.

  She didn’t understand why, but she trusted instinct. “I can hope. And if not, there’s always tomorrow.”

  He laughed. “Then we’ll have this conve
rsation again.”

  No we won’t, she decided as she said out loud, “Good night.” And walked away.

  Her shoulder blades crawled and her heart continued to bang her ribs, not with anticipation, but a sense of having escaped something she still could not name. She looked back furtively a couple times as she retreated to her room, relieved each time that no one was there.

  FOUR

  She got up with the dawn bells and grimly made herself report for drill, for she knew that the rest of the household regarded it as another workday. Sure enough, she found, talking in a knot in the women’s court, the jarlan, the randviar, their personal runners, and a couple of the cousins she still didn't know. Danet knew she was the subject when they broke up at the sight of her.

  But the jarlan gave her a grunt of approval, and Sdar-Randviar thumped her on the shoulder with her fist. “Your place is now up front, when I’m busy elsewhere. Take the lead today. Make ‘em sweat.”

  So there was Danet wearing her new working robe of royal blue over her old shirt and trousers, standing at the front. She hadn’t brought out her knives, as Olavayirs didn’t drill in the odni, but she decided to warm them up with the easy knife dance, and then put them through the odni hand drill without weapons, which she had been doing every day since she was six.

  The others followed as she called cadences in Mother’s voice.

  It was the strangest feeling, as if she slept and was dreaming. But in a dream everyone’s face is vague, or shows the same expression, and as she called the moves, she saw some trying hard, some watching for cues, a few resentful and sullen, and three or four girls at the back around Hliss’s age or younger giggling when they thought she wasn’t looking, until Sdar went back there and stood right behind them, making them repeat every move until they did it right.

  After, when the older women broke up to head for the riding ring for shooting practice, leaving the younger girls behind for more drill, Gdan came up to her, leading another hawk-nosed girl about Danet’s age, or maybe a year younger, wearing sun-faded runner gray-blue.