“You are lazy, Benjie. Your land is overrun with young men who follow your lead. Our women are few, but it is not the women who plow the fields or trap or fish or fight the Northmen. It has never been the women. So what is your excuse?” Dred argued.
“You are not a chieftain, Dred of Dolphys!” Benjie yelled, and the scraping of chairs and the rattling of swords indicated a battle of some sort had ensued.
Bayr bellowed, and from the sound of it, Benjie had made the mistake of lunging for Dred of Dolphys and had been tossed head over tail and landed with a crash behind Lothgar of Leok. His blade rattled across the floor and thudded against Hod’s foot. Hod kicked it back toward him as gasps of shock rippled from the table to the warriors who lined the walls. Hod wasn’t certain if it was awe at Bayr’s feat or fear at what it would incite.
Lothgar roared again, but this time in laughter. “I didn’t know bears could fly, Benjie.”
From Benjie’s silence, Hod could only ascertain that he was not conscious or he too had been stunned by his newly discovered ability.
“Help the man off the floor,” Lothgar instructed his men.
“The chieftain from Dolphys is not wrong,” Aidan contended as Lothgar’s merriment subsided. “We too have been beset by raiders from Berne. The fish have not stopped filling our nets. There is bounty in the land, and our men continue to be fierce in battle. But there are too many of them without families or female companionship. And some grow aimless . . . and vicious.”
Josef of Joran, a man who was more farmer than warrior, raised his own weary complaints to the king. “We are under constant threat from Ebba. Some of the Ebbans who seek refuge have nothing but the clothes on their backs, but they are willing to work and we welcome them. Others who come want only to take what does not belong to them. We have had to put warriors on the border, and now all who seek entry are turned away. We simply cannot absorb all of Ebba. Elbor sends his poor to me, and he sits like a pig on the spit, an apple in his fat snout.”
“We have been suffering attacks from the Hinterlands for more than a decade,” Elbor shot back.
“As have we,” Josef replied wearily. “It has always been thus among the clans on the southwestern shores. We battle the Hinterlands, Dolphys battles the Eastlanders, Berne and Adyar battle the Northmen, Leok battles the storms. But we have never come against each other, clan on clan.”
“You t-tax your people into the ground, Elbor, while you do l-little to protect them,” Bayr leveled.
“I collect coin for the keepers. And what do they do for us?” Elbor shouted, echoing the accusations of the king.
It was a lie. The keepers lived on very little, herding their own sheep, milking their own goats, and tending their own gardens. Whatever coin came from the clans by way of the king was a pittance. Alms were collected during the tournament, and every farthing went to the preservation of the temple itself. There were no wealthy keepers.
“You collect coin for yourself and for the king. As do we all,” Bayr replied. “The k-king requires far more than the keepers.”
“Careful, Temple Boy,” the king whispered, the words slithering from his mouth.
“This is all true,” Lothgar interrupted, oblivious to the tension that coiled around him. “Yet . . . I have wondered why the keepers can do nothing to end the scourge among our women.”
“As have I,” Josef admitted.
“Aye,” Elbor agreed, eager to turn the subject away from his own failures.
“Something must be done,” Benjie agreed, and his acquiescence had the king sitting back in his chair as though he pondered the question. The chair squeaked with the motion.
“And something has been done,” the king said. “I have reached an agreement with the North King. The princess will be a queen.”
Hod held his breath, sick for his brother.
“She will leave with King Gudrun for the Northlands in two days. In return, the North King has agreed to pull his warriors from Berne. An announcement will be made after the melee tomorrow. Your precious daughters of the temple will be left to age beside your useless keepers,” the king mocked.
Silence wrapped the room in guilty relief, and the chieftains began to murmur like it was the only feasible course of action. Benjie stood from the table as though it were settled, and Elbor lumbered to his feet as well, clearly eager to escape further condemnation.
“She should not be sold,” Bayr said, stating the words precisely, breathing between each one, speaking slowly even though Hod could hear how his heart raced.
“She is not being sold. She is going to be a queen, and she will help her country in the process,” Benjie argued.
“She should be queen of Saylok. She is the only one . . . of her kind,” Bayr insisted.
Banruud laughed, sitting back in his chair; it squealed against his weight.
“And how . . . exactly . . . would she be queen of Saylok?” Banruud sneered. “Did you think . . . you . . . might have her? Did you suppose you could marry the princess . . . and when I die . . . you and she could reign in my stead?” Banruud’s voice was hushed with mock surprise, and Elbor grunted.
“That will never be, Temple Boy. Alba’s destiny does not include you,” Banruud said, his tone flat.
Bayr was silent. Hod knew he had never wanted to reign. But it was evident that he did want Alba.
“You are a bloody cur, Banruud,” Aidan of Adyar growled. He stood abruptly, his chair scraping the stone, an echo of his disgust. He left the council table without another word, striding for the doors with his men trailing after him. Lothgar was slower to leave, but he did not argue the king’s decision or seek to offer an alternative solution. He followed Aidan from the room.
“We’re done here,” Banruud said, dismissing those who still lingered. Bayr did not leave the table. His heart was a counterrhythm to the king’s, and Hod listened to them both as the room emptied around them and the two men sat, alone but for Hod and a handful of the king’s guard, who hovered near the doors, and Dred and Dakin, who remained in silent support of their chieftain.
“Don’t do this . . . to Alba. To Saylok. The people . . . look . . . to her. She is their . . . only hope,” Bayr pled, his voice low. His heart brayed in his chest.
“It is done,” Banruud said, enunciating each word with a thump of his fist upon the long table. “Leave me.”
“P-p-please,” Bayr stuttered, unable to keep the desperation from the word, and in his desperation, he was not a chieftain but an abused child.
“P-p-please,” Banruud mimicked, exaggerating the sounds so he spat with every syllable. “You dare question me? You love my daughter, and you think I don’t know? She is your sister, you fool. You cannot wed your sister.”
Bayr grunted as though he’d been lanced.
The king laughed and threw his feet up on the table, feigning indifference.
“Surely you knew. Surely your beloved Uncle Dagmar told you who you are? I thought you slow but not entirely ignorant.”
Bayr stood in horrified disbelief.
“You are my son, Bayr. You are Alba’s brother.” Banruud said the words like they were of no consequence at all.
Heaviness spread through Hod, numbing his lips and his neck, his shoulders and his chest, hollowing out his veins and hardening his blood. He would kill Banruud himself. He would kill him, and he would free the mount from his tyranny. He would free his brother from his lies.