Silence.
“Earned?” Genis said cautiously, as Pony looked askance.
Thank you for the warning, Mnar, Danet was thinking, then she said, “I’ve been considering restoring the queen’s training.”
Gasps of surprise, and in a few, the burning gazes of delight, met this news.
“But I won’t be able to convince the king that girls are anywhere near as disciplined, or as skilled, as boys, if you’re chasing boys all over the castle from first to late bells,” Danet finished.
Some looked down guiltily, and Pony flushed. At home, where she was the only female of rank, she was used to doing what she wanted.
“So we’ll be busy with our own competition,” Danet finished. “Any girl who hasn’t got basic skills isn’t going to be allowed to go out on the parade ground to serve as a laughingstock.”
Chins came up, and mouths tightened, heartening Danet: whatever else these girls might be like, it was apparent they were certain of their skills.
And so it proved over the next few days, as the last of the girls arrived from the farther jarlates.
Danet watched from the queen’s suite, which she’d discovered overlooked what had been the old queen’s training grounds.
The day the girls were all there, she stood at the windows, her hands clutching her elbows, as she watched those young bodies moving with blithe assurance, and struggled within herself.
What did she really want here? In the old days of tents and plains wandering, women had had a purpose long since superseded by the move to castles. Did she want the girls learning that knife style that the royal runners learned? Who would they use it against—and how long before the men took it away again, and made it their own?
And why shouldn’t they, she argued with herself. Were they not all on the same side? War between the sexes would be horrible....
Any kind of war was horrible.
Once again the weight of responsibility pressed on her: she, a single being, could make a decision that affected the kingdom. She hated how that awareness made her question herself into an anxious fret, usually late at night, but there was no use in whining. She could hear Mother’s emphatic scold. Mother’s solution to every dilemma was to stop complaining and do your duty.
That night she ventured into revealing some of her worries to Jarid Noth, and as always he listened sympathetically, but he invariably spoke like a military man. “If we don’t have order—everyone understanding the same rules, and obeying commands—then we get trouble.”
“We also get trouble if the commands are senseless,” she retorted as she leaned against him.
She felt his sigh, then he said, “You won’t give senseless commands. Is that what worries you?”
“I don’t worry about giving foolish commands so much as I do about giving the wrong ones. One person in command....” She shook her head.
They had been lying in bed, but here he hoisted up on his elbow to gaze down at her, moonlight highlighting the surprise lift of his brows. “You’re against kingship? But what else is there? We can’t all be giving each other orders!” He snorted. “I know the argument, what about bad kings. My answer to that is, people have a way of getting rid of really terrible kings.”
She knew she would get no answers from him, and because she couldn’t even express what it was she sought, she let him sidetrack himself into enumerating the sanguinary ends of previous bad kings, which just goes to show (he rapped his knuckles on his forehead for emphasis) that people want order.
What kind of order was that? People mostly want to be left alone, she thought before she drifted into sleep. But Mother would say such an attitude was another word for selfishness, and avoidance of duty.
After restless dreams, she woke when Noth readied himself to depart for the garrison. She forced herself to get up and dress for drill, when Arrow’s impatient rap presaged his abrupt appearance. “We’ve been back for two days. When’re you letting those girls loose?”
“Tonight,” she said. “Today is our last drill.”
Arrow expelled his breath in obvious relief. “If you hadn’t, Andaun swore he’d have a mutiny on his hands.” He stuck his head out the door, yelled, “Tell the Headmaster to cut ‘em loose,” then popped back in again, grinning ruefully. “Pity the shopkeepers!”
“As long as the girls spend as freely as the boys do, no one will make a peep,” Danet predicted. “And it isn’t as if the taverns and shops didn’t have plenty of warning.”
The academy boys were used to either being ignored by the city girls, or regarded as flirt-worthy but little else. And while the pleasure houses held the obvious attractions, here were new girls besides sisters and female cousins who spoke the language of horses, territorial patrol, and the drill—their language. One of them might even be a boy's future wife. The rest wanted to be admired for their own sakes. Many looked for nothing more than a night of dancing, bragging, and maybe a quick trip somewhere private.
The shops and taverns whose trade was primarily with the academy had all been warned to close up by the end of Third Watch, as the Victory Day competitions would begin early the following day, and of course the academy students would be celebrating even more at the end of it.
The girls, who brushed and braided shining hair up into fox-ear loops or coronets, tied their sashes tighter, and sashayed through the castle gates into King’s Street, high voices chattering, avid eyes seeking out the teenage boys in their neatly sashed gray coats, their horsetails brushed and their blackweave riding boots polished.
They converged in Market Square as the sun sank toward the west, braying laughter meeting high giggles. Boys and girls both prowled around in clumps, then in twos and threes as brothers, cousins, and friends wrangled sisters and girl-cousins into introductions, and vice versa.
Eventually they began to disperse in all directions, most to the boys’ hangouts, where the drums came out for singing and dancing. For the first time, those male precincts featured women’s dances, to enthusiastic approval—especially the knife dance, when some of the girls did whirling and spinning tricks with steel, causing roars of approval. As darkness closed in, some paired off and disappeared into the starry night.
At home in Yvanavayir, Pony, as a motherless moppet, had become the mascot to the entire family, but now only her father still fondly regarded her that way. What had been adorable at age six had become less so for her brothers by age ten, and downright annoying by the time she reached sixteen—an irritation spiked as she began flirting her way through their friends among the Riders and other castle youth, dropping them without a second thought.
Consequently there was little habit of conversation between Pony and her brothers. She gave a perfunctory look for her brother Manther, now a senior, then shrugged him off; she could find someone else who could point out her betrothed, Ganred Noth.
It was Dannor Ndarga, regarded by the girls as the prettiest among their group, who spotted the problem, and in her typically friendly manner, left her own group and towed Pony toward several boys who stood in a knot. “Are you looking for Rat? Here he is! He’s my third cousin, I think, or fourth?”
The pause turned into a silence as Ganred Noth, given this opportunity to speak, just stood there, staring at the tops of his boots.
Pony said, “Rat?”
“Everybody calls him Rat,” Dannor said cheerfully. “His little brother is Mouse. Have fun!”
She ran off, leaving Pony staring at her future, who stood like a skinny post, his squinty eyes under his broad forehead shifting to either side of her and back, making him actually look like a rodent. At least he didn’t have beaver teeth, Pony thought, like the crown prince.
For the first time in her life, she felt obliged make an effort, and started in with questions about where he liked to go for rec time, and what he liked to do.
Every question elicited ever shorter responses as he stared, stunned, at this self-possessed, golden-haired girl. His shoulders hitched tighter as he f
elt his childhood stutter threatening a return. And clamped his lips shut.
She found herself talking more and more to fill in the painful silence, until one of the girls called, “Let’s do the knife dance!”
Pony had never worked so hard in her life, and for what? Much better-looking boys at home fell all over themselves if she glanced their way, but this rat of a Rat was impossible.
The future could take care of itself. Right now, she intended to find someone cute, and have some fun. She flipped her braids back and walked away, from sheer habit expecting him to at least catch up, or call, or something.
But a quick glance showed him standing there as if his boots had been nailed to the ground.
She turned away in disgust, and scanned the boys, lighting on the best dancer among them, a pretty boy with white-blonde hair. But everyone else seemed to be watching him, too. He was surrounded by girls.
Used to being the center of admirers at Yvanavayir, she had no idea how to break through the group to get him to notice her. So she danced harder and leaped higher, twirling twice and three times instead of once, until her robe whirled about her hips and her braids came loose and streamed out like shining ropes, but was he watching her? No.
Time sped by unnoticed until the bells rang, and everybody started moving toward the doors. Already? She swayed, suddenly tired, then spotted red-haired, freckled Lineas, their runner guide, and said, “What’s going on?”
“The boys are under strict orders to report back within a glass after the bells,” Lineas said. “The Victory Day competition will start early. The gunvaer ordered me to remind you all that you need your sleep.”
Pony sighed. She’d been ready to ignore the bells, but not if there wasn’t anyone interesting to ignore them with.
Lineas walked away, girls spotting her and joining up from all directions. Tired and irritated, Pony followed as two of the girls wove unsteadily, singing an old ballad and cackling inanely whenever they forgot words.
“Try putting ‘kissed’ in place of anything you forget,” one suggested, poking her friend—or trying to.
“Jayad and Cassad galloping thunder,
forefront the enemy—uh, uh....”
“Kissed!”
“Forefront the enemy, Gannan kissed the.... Kissed who?”
“Horseshoe Toraca!”
“Then the rhythm’s off-gait….”
They dissolved into drunken laughter.
Pony scowled at the crapulous pair, their braids half undone (she was unaware of her own state), their robes slopped with drink. At least they weren’t Yvanavayirs. They’d be terrible at tomorrow’s competition.
Too bad, she gloated.
She would ride them all down, in spite of pretty white-haired boys who didn’t look at her once.
TWELVE
Excerpt from Lineas’s journal:
...and so, mindful of the new orders to be more observant of what is, instead of seeing what I want to see, I was glad that I was finished with the visiting big girls. There was nothing more for me to do. The others had games duty, and the big girls’ own runners were responsible for them.
It was at first very strange to be at the Victory Day competition, and to hear girls’ voices. I tried not to think about myself as I walked about. I attempted to empty my mind and observe.
Things I observed: the gunvaer was there. She had stopped going four or five years ago—
Now she was there to see the girls, and everybody knew it. Liet insisted the gunvaer used to sit next to the king with papers in hand, and watch the sky as much as she watched the boys. Then she stopped going at all. I could see it in the way they looked up at the stands, and in their straightened posture, and manners.
She watched with that close attention that makes everyone want to please her. I saw her smile twice. One time was when Pandet Tlen shot three reds in a row at the gallop, and the other three were close—I think she might even have hit it six times, but by then the dust was so thick I’m surprised Pandet saw the targets at all.
The girls rode out hard. In that they were not so different from the boys. I wonder if it is something in our age, or if it’s just the excitement of the game. While it goes on everyone is giddy, and to win is everything, and nothing else matters. It is the opposite of what we fledglings have been taught—that our strength is in our trust of one another and our vows.
But it is so exciting to watch. I wonder if this is what they talk about, feeling the effects of drink, which makes everything bright and intense in a way that withers to tawdry and cold when the drink wears off.
When I was sent to fetch water, I heard Old Sartoran at the side-stand, by the barrel. Those of us who had rec time, or were within call, watched from there.
Though they had their backs to me I recognized Quill and Vanadei. They look so much alike. Perhaps it is because they have shared a room ever since they were little. And yet I recognized instantly which was Quill and which Vanadei, though they both wear runner robes, and their hair is the same shade of dark brown. No, not the same. Quill’s has more red, and more curl. But I hadn’t noticed that difference at first, so how had I known which was which? Why is the eye and ear so much faster than the conscious mind? The angle of Quill’s shoulders, the way he leaned his arm against the fence, even the sound of his voice, which has gone deep into his chest as they talked over the academy seniors’ sword competition.
I won’t write down everything they said, as I know I will never care about who they thought the best, and who the worst, or how they evaluated strength and skill in individuals. I don’t know those academy boys.
My observation was this: the first time I was sent for water, the boys finished and the girls ran out by the time I got my turn. I passed by Quill and Vanadei again so that I could observe them from the front. Quill’s expression was very intent. I know his face so very well, but I discovered that I don’t know that expression, except in that his eyes didn’t blink but once despite the dust.
Though Vanadei also watched, he wasn’t intent in the same way. But when I came back a third time, the boys were out again, doing their ride and shoot. This time it was Vanadei who was intent, but Quill was looking more at where the girls had gathered to sit on the corral fence than he was at the boys.
Because of Mnar’s orders, I asked Liet of the seniors later if she noticed the same, and could name that expression. She is the most patient of the seniors, but she laughed at me. Ndand said with that twist to her eyebrows she gets when she’s being mocking, Lineas, isn’t it obvious? Quill was undressing the girls. (She tapped her head.) Here. Dei was undressing the boys.
Liet hissed at her.
What? Ndand exclaimed, her hands out wide, palms up. You know they do it.
So do we, Liet said, and pointed at me. The point is, Lineas isn’t out of smocks. Not appropriate till she wears a robe.
Ndand gave me owl eyes. How old are you, Lineas, you have to be sixteen, or near, as I’m nineteen and I remember when you came, I was exactly—no, no, Liet, I’ll stop, never mind.
She walked away and shook her head, and Liet said to me and her voice was kind, Never mind. You’ll wake up one of these days. There is no hurry.
I went away, feeling very confused, because I am awake, if they mean loving someone. I’ve been awake since I was very small. But all these pages, like Restday last, when C. brushed against me, and I thought he did it on purpose, and the day of the thunderstorm when I helped Bun with the pups, and the princes came in and he smiled at me—
There. Six pages! I ripped them out. It’s stupid to imagine his interest and speculate on our conversation. I saw what I wanted to see, I know that now, because he didn’t have that look. Not even a little. Though I wanted him to. I’m furniture, just as I thought.
What IS love? I thought I knew....
With the girls and boys went a copy of Danet’s carefully worded letter that made her request an order: for the first time in Marlovan history, jarlans were to accompany jarls whe
n the latter arrived for the next Convocation.
And meantime, in the interim year, girls would be once again invited to the Games, an invitation endorsed with enthusiasm by most of the girls who had been to the first.
Even Pony, having arrived home to Yvanavayir, tossed her glossy braids back and announced that her relay team had won the fifty-pace gallop-and-shoot, and came in second in the saddle and racing relay. She didn’t mention that she had placed second and third (at least to older girls) in the individual competitions for bow and riding, and as for that boring old odni knife fighting, she’d been terrible, but so had other girls, at least—few of them knew much more than the knife dance.
Next year she would do much better.
Her father, assuming that meant more discipline, clapped her on the back. “I knew you’d make me proud! Did you meet the Noth boy you’re betrothed to?”
“Yes,” she said, and he didn’t recognize the danger in her jaw jut.
“Good,” the jarl exclaimed. “A third son, brought in by the jarlan’s second marriage, but Feravayir is larger than most jarlates. Most three jarlates. Some say a kingdom on its own, and the boy is one of the best. The king has his eye on him for future command, that’s what everyone says.”
Pony was going to snap that she didn’t care, that she’d rather stay in Yvanavayir, but the visit to the royal city had caused her to think for the first time of the future. Specifically about when Eaglebeak, her older brother, would bring home his own betrothed, one of the famous Cassads. This Chelis Cassad (who had not been in the royal city) would be the jarlan, and Pony would have to take her orders. She already hated her.
Pony returned no answer, and threw herself even more violently back into her usual habits, flirting recklessly with every fellow who looked her way. But she still brooded about the boy whose name she’d discovered on her last day in the royal city: Anderle Fath, the pale-haired one the academy boys all called Ghost.
Time of Daughters I Page 41
