“You are all young yet, and supplicants do not marry,” Hod said, but she heard the same concern in his voice that shivered in her belly when such things were discussed. She saw the way Elayne was looked upon. The pressure on the keepers and the king would only get worse as they came of age.
“Dirth of Dolphys has died. The clan will pick a new chieftain.” She did not want to talk of marriage anymore.
“Arwin told me. He heard the news in Leok last week. Word is that Dred of Dolphys will take his place.”
“Dred is Keeper Dagmar’s father. The relationship is strained, though I don’t know why.”
“They have not spilled all their secrets to you?”
“I have kept my hands and my songs to myself. I do not wish to know anyone’s secrets.”
“But I do. So you must tell me when you know.”
Hod was teasing her, trying to keep their conversation from straying into the heaviness that always lurked in the shadows. The weight of people’s secrets wore on her. Her knowledge was not power; it was pain. What she knew she could not tell, and what she knew she could not forget. So she carried others’ secrets around, like rocks she couldn’t put down. Telling Hody was her only relief. So she told him everything and said not a peep to anyone else.
But she worried about the day when she would hear something she could not ignore.
The melee was the final event of the tournament, and it was a contest open only to clansmen. Each chieftain chose ten warriors to compete, and all six clans were represented. Sixty warriors took the field in their clan colors, and only one clan could claim victory. The object was to be the last clan standing, even if it was only one warrior. There were no weapons and no rules but one: take every man down. Once a man’s body hit the ground, he was required to leave the melee until only one man—or one clan—remained.
“We’ve only nine, Majesty,” Dred of Dolphys called out, striding forward. “We’re a man short.”
The crowd groaned. They’d been hopeful the melee was about to begin. Ghisla groaned with them. She was weary, her skin was sticky and hot beneath her purple robe, and she did not care for sport in general. The melee was one of the few events the daughters were allowed to attend—everyone attended the melee—but she had no interest in it. Juliah had been talking about the melee for weeks; she was rooting for Joran, obviously.
The king raised his arms to quiet the commotion.
“Then choose another, Dred. Surely you have another warrior from the Clan of the Wolf willing to enter the melee.”
“I claim him. I claim the Temple Boy.” Dred raised his arm and pointed at Bayr, who knelt behind Alba not far from the king, guarding her, ever present, ever faithful.
Ghisla was not the only one who gasped and gaped.
The king shook his head in immediate refusal.
“He is not of Dolphys. He has no clan. He cannot fight with you. Choose another,” the king replied.
“I claim him,” Dred insisted, planting his feet. “We have not yet chosen a chieftain. But I speak for my clan, as the oldest warrior on the field, and I want him.”
The crowd grew quiet, confusion rippling in silent waves. Dred of Dolphys was a seasoned contender, and he knew the rules of the melee. It was a contest among the clans. The clanless were not allowed.
“What are you babbling about, old man?” Banruud growled. He was sitting up straight in his seat, bristling with annoyance. “He is not qualified.”
“He is of Dolphys,” Dred replied.
“He is not,” someone yelled.
“He is the son of my daughter, Desdemona, shield maiden in the Clan of the Wolf.”
The king grew eerily still and the crowd followed suit, the hush of a thousand held breaths. No one knew why the king had turned to stone, but none of them dared break the spell.
“He is fourteen years old, Dred of Dolphys. Why have you not claimed him before? This is highly suspect,” Aidan of Adyar murmured.
“I did not know he lived,” Dred shot back. “His mother—my daughter—is dead. She has been dead since his birth fourteen years ago, Aidan.”
“He is naught but the Temple Boy,” the king ground out.
“That may be true, Highness, but he is also of Dolphys. And I claim him. We claim him. It is my right as acting chieftain unless . . . he has already been claimed by a clan or . . . a king?” Dred’s voice was mild and the onlookers nodded.
“Is this true, boy?” the king sneered. “Are you of Dolphys? If you accept this claim, you must live among your clan.”
The crowd shifted in protest and Juliah muttered under her breath. No one was required to live among his clan, but no one would argue with the king.
“Highness, it is a ploy,” Aidan of Adyar interrupted. “Dred knows he cannot win the melee with his pack of aging wolves. He thinks the Temple Boy is Odin’s hound. He’ll abandon him when the battle is over. Leave the boy be.” The warriors stomped and thundered their agreement. They wanted to begin the contest.
“What’ll it be, boy? Do you want to live in Dolphys?” the king pressed as if it mattered little to him. But Ghisla knew different. Banruud cared. His loathing was almost love.
“I a-am a s-servant of the t-t-temple,” Bayr stammered, and the king sneered at his stuttering. Ghisla wanted to slap Banruud, to spit in his face, to scratch at his eyes in defense of her friend. But such fantasies were folly, and she gritted her teeth and willed the confrontation to end for Bayr’s sake.
“Do you withdraw your claim, Dred of Dolphys?” the king asked.
“I cannot withdraw my blood from his veins, or his from mine, Highness. But I’ll not take the boy from his home . . . or his duties. We will play with nine. And we will win.”
The warriors behind Dred—clansmen and opponents alike—reacted, cries of denial and protest rising to chase away the awkward encounter, and Dred of Dolphys turned away, abandoning his claim.
The melee ensued but Ghisla did not watch. She watched Bayr. His eyes were fixed upon his feet, and when Alba began to droop on her little stool, Bayr stepped forward and, with his typical care, lifted her into his arms. Queen Esa rose as well, trailing him to the castle, calling to the handmaid who waited. Ghisla doubted the queen cared which tribe prevailed. Ghisla did not care either. She sensed that Bayr had lost, and that was all she knew.
The melee signified the end of the tournament, but the celebration afterward stretched well into the following day, when drunk and stumbling clansmen and citizens found their way off the mount for another year, often leaving the keepers with a mess to clean up.
Ghisla and the other daughters had gone to bed with music and laughter echoing up from the square and woke to a temple in mourning.
Dred of Dolphys had made another claim, and Bayr, his face bruised and battered, spent the day being prepared to leave for Dolphys.
“What has happened to Bayr?” Juliah asked.
Ghisla thought it likely that the king had taken out his rage on the boy, and Bayr had been unable to keep it from his uncle, and Dagmar and Dred of Dolphys had joined forces to remove Bayr from his clutches.
Bayr did not want to leave.
“Who w-will w-watch over the d-daughters?” he protested again, looking over his shoulders at Ghisla and her sisters as he was urged forward, out of the temple, to his waiting grandfather. His eyes met Ghisla’s, panicked, and she knew what he was asking. Who would watch over her? Who would protect her when the king summoned?