“Banruud will not be pleased,” Lothgar crowed.
“About the queen or the daughter?” Lykan asked.
“Both, brother. Both.”
“Adyar is no threat to Banruud. He will never be king. He is a mouthy boy, intent on poking at the king simply because he thinks he can.”
Ghisla was suspended between the desire to stare, unblinking, so that she wouldn’t miss what was to come, and the need to close her eyes so she could hide from it.
“I do not care enough to be afraid,” she whispered to herself, and kept her eyes opened.
Before long, Ghisla counted four other girls sitting on horseback in front of warriors, exactly like she was. Four girls with bowed heads and thin backs, and all looked to Ghisla to be younger than she.
Stone steps ringed the temple, and robed men with heads shorn like Hod’s and their eyes rimmed in black stood in lines, their hands clasped and their gazes forward.
Those are the keepers, she thought.
“Aye,” Lothgar answered, and she realized she’d spoken aloud. He patted her head. “Don’t be afraid,” he urged, but she heard guilt in his gruff words.
The faces in the square blended into one another. They were of a type—braided or bald, robed or riding—and when a trumpet sounded and the bells clanged, they seemed to turn as one toward the castle of the king, expectant and . . . resigned. The resignation, the sense of doom and quiet despair, rippled through the throng, and though Ghisla recognized it, she did not grasp the cause. It simply frightened her, and Lothgar’s horse tossed his head, sensing her unease.
“I want to go now. I want to get down,” she insisted.
“Soon, girl. Soon. The king is coming.”
6
CLANS
“I did not bring a daughter of Adyar,” Aidan of Adyar said, spurring his mount forward to greet the king. “You already have one, Majesty.”
The king raised a brow and folded his arms. He was tall, with wide shoulders and powerful legs. He wore his dark hair swept back from his face and flowing around his shoulders, setting him apart from every other man on the mount, though Lothgar scoffed that it made him look like a woman.
He did not look like a woman. He’d been Chieftain of Berne, the Clan of the Bear, before he was king, Ghisla recalled, and he was as big as one. He wore a spiked crown on his head and unrelieved black.
“My sister, Queen Alannah of Adyar, gave birth to a daughter,” the chieftain from Adyar continued. “That daughter lives here, on the temple mount. Princess Alba is of Adyar and can represent Adyar in the temple. She can represent our clan. Adyar has given enough, and we have no more daughters to spare.”
“Yet you’ve come anyway, Adyar,” Banruud said, scorn dripping from his words. “Why, brother?”
“I was curious. It seems the chieftains have obeyed their king.”
“All but one,” Banruud answered.
“I’ve brought you a woman,” Aidan said, mocking yet mild. “Just not . . . a young woman. My mother, Queen Esa, has come to see to the upbringing of her granddaughter. Now that Alannah is gone, she feels you will need a woman to look after the princess. Unless . . . you intend to take another wife, Majesty? Mayhaps one of the clan daughters you’ve summoned?”
The king waved his hand, signifying his dismissal, as if Aidan of Adyar made no difference to him. The king moved on to the Chieftain of Ebba, who had already dismounted and stood next to a girl clad in a drab brown dress edged in orange ribbon.
“Erskin looks weary,” Lykan remarked to Lothgar.
“The trouble in Ebba is worsening. He’ll leave at first light. He has no time for this spectacle.”
“This is Elayne of Ebba,” the chieftain from Ebba said, introducing the girl and bowing slightly for the king. Elayne of Ebba curtsied deeply but didn’t look at the king. Her hair was a deep red against her pale skin, and she looked as though she’d been crying. She was lean and long, though she’d begun to curve inward at the waist. She was much taller than Ghisla, though Ghisla guessed they were close in age.
“She was born before the drought,” Lothgar murmured. Lykan grunted in agreement.
“She’s the only one. Which means the others aren’t from Saylok at all.”
“We have no room to criticize, brother,” Lothgar said.
Banruud moved on to the next chieftain, the chieftain from Berne. A girl dressed from head to toe in deep red watched the king approach.
“Her hair is coiled and her skin is brown,” Lothgar said, chuckling softly. “She is no more Bernian than I.”
“Who is this, Benjie?” Banruud asked. The girl did not seem intimidated by him at all. She stared up at him, expressionless.
“This is Bashti of Berne.” The Chieftain of Berne put his hand on the girl’s back and urged her forward. She planted her feet and pressed back.
“Bashti of . . . Berne?” Banruud questioned.
“Bashti of Berne . . . and daughter of Kembah, most likely,” the chieftain replied.
“If she is a daughter of Kembah, she is not a daughter of Berne, Benjie. Plus, Kembah is a king,” Banruud countered. “I doubt this girl is Kembah’s. But if it suits you to pretend, cousin, I will not argue.”
“Mayhaps when she is grown, we can make an alliance,” Benjie offered.
“Mayhaps. If she has a womb she will grow into, it is enough.” Banruud raised his voice. “Have you all brought me foreign wombs to beget other wombs?”
No one answered.
“You’ve brought me the cast off and the captured,” he mocked. “All except Erskin, who has a better excuse than all of you. His warriors fight the Hounds even now, and yet he brought a daughter of Ebba as he was directed.”
The chieftains regarded him silently, their resentment obvious.
“You said to find daughters. We found daughters, Majesty,” Dirth of Dolphys grumbled.
“So you did,” King Banruud said. He shrugged, granting them exasperated pardon.
The chieftain from Dolphys introduced the daughter he’d brought to the temple, Dalys. The little girl beside him was sloe-eyed and sooty-locked. She clung to the chieftain’s hand and stared up at the king with tragic resignation. Outrage burned in Ghisla’s throat and stiffened her spine. She did not like the king.
Banruud moved on to the Chieftain of Joran, his hands behind his back like he was inspecting horseflesh.
Chieftain Josef had brought a girl named Juliah, her long, dark hair braided tightly like that of the warriors around her, and the king asked if she’d been “raised by men.”
“Yes, Majesty,” the Chieftain of Joran said, eyes hard. “She was. Her grandfather is Jerom, the fisherman. He and his sons were casting their nets when the Hounds came ashore ten years ago. Jerom’s wife and daughter were not spared. His wife was killed, and his daughter became . . . pregnant from the attack. She died in childbirth. Jerom and his two sons have raised the girl.”
The king approached Lothgar last. Lothgar laid his arm around Ghisla’s shoulders, but she shrugged him off. She did not belong to him. The king smirked at her rejection of the Chieftain of Leok, and she regretted her impulsive display. It was better not to let them—any of them—see her react at all. Her feelings were the only thing that were hers, and she vowed that she would not share them with strangers. And everyone present was a stranger.