“I am of Leok,” she insisted, lifting her small chin.
“Why have you come?”
“I want to be sent to the temple.”
“Who cares for you?”
“I care for myself.”
“Where is your family?”
“I don’t know.”
“What is your name?”
“I do not know.”
“What do you know?”
“I am of Leok,” she insisted, her voice rising. “And I am a girl.”
Lothgar barked in laughter and his brother, Lykan, cursed behind him. Lykan was always hovering in the shadows. The girl was small, but her tongue was sharp. She seemed to have a firm grasp on the situation, young as she was.
“You look like a daughter of Leok,” the chieftain conceded. “Your hair is fair and your eyes are blue.”
“She looks like your daughters, Lord. Like our mother too,” Lykan mused. Lothgar turned his head to listen to his brother. “But she wasn’t born in Leok. She is nine or ten at the most, and we would have heard. Mayhaps her parents were travelers between lands. Mayhaps she belongs to the rovers.”
“I belong to no one,” the girl said.
“Why do you want to go to the temple?”
“Because I belong to no one,” she repeated. “In the temple I’ll eat.”
Lothgar nodded slowly and sighed. He had no one else to send. He could raid the homes of his people. Terrorize them. He didn’t want to do that. He had known his task would be nigh on impossible without force. His daughters were all grown, but he would have slain any man who tried to separate him from them.
Yet here was this child. A girl child. A child washed up onto the shore, by all appearances. He had no idea where she had come from, but he found he didn’t much care.
“You will have to have a name, daughter of Leok,” he murmured. “What shall we call you?”
She was silent, and Lykan spoke up again.
“We should call her Liis. For our mother. Surely she sent her to us,” he muttered.
Lothgar agreed, piercing his thumb and calling the girl forward for his blessing. The gods had spoken, and he would not refuse a gift so obvious.
“Liis of Leok it is.”
“Magda tries to hide her, Lord. She doesn’t bathe with the other children. Magda calls her Dalys—a boy’s name—but we all know.”
“How old is the child?” Dirth of Dolphys inquired.
The woman squirmed and looked toward the kitchens, guilty. “Six. Maybe seven. She was brought over in a raid last year . . . with Magda and some of the others. Magda’s been looking out for her ever since.”
“You have a daughter. Why should we not send her?” Dirth asked, his eyes shrewd. He knew what the woman was about. Her husband was one of Dirth’s oldest warriors, and she was a lady’s maid to Dirth’s wife. Clearly the woman had heard talk, and she didn’t want her daughter to be sent to the temple.
“My daughter is spoken for, Lord. We need her.”
“Magda is Dakin’s woman. Mayhaps the little girl is also spoken for. Mayhaps he will protest.”
“I am protesting first, Lord.”
Dirth glowered at her impudence, but she gazed at him defiantly. The women of Dolphys were notoriously headstrong. But Magda was not of Dolphys. She was of Eastlandia, and if the child was not hers, she would have little room to argue.
He sighed and raised his face to the rafters, considering. “So be it. Bring little Dalys to me.”
Chieftain Josef had known immediately where he would turn for a daughter of Joran. She had come to his thoughts as the king had made his demands. He’d thought of her on the long ride home. His clan had chosen him as chieftain because his family had the largest holding of lands in the clan. He was fair, and he ruled as well as he could. Every clan had their fishermen, their farmers, and their warriors, and Josef was a farmer. Not a warrior. And if Jerom, the girl’s grandfather, told him no, he didn’t think he could enforce his wishes with a sword. He hoped Jerom would not say no.
Jerom’s daughter had been ravaged in a raid from the Hounds of the Hinterlands. The clans of Saylok were not the only raiders on the sea. What they did to others was done to them. Jerom’s family lived near the shore making their living off the water.
Jerom was a good fisherman, but he was not a warrior either. It would not have mattered if he had been. He and his sons were casting their nets when the Hounds had come ashore ten years ago. Jerom’s wife and daughter had not been spared. His wife was killed, and his daughter had become pregnant from the attack. When she gave birth to a daughter nine months later and died in the process, Jerom and his two sons had been charged with the task of raising the girl child. The clan of Joran had celebrated the birth of a daughter even as they quietly acknowledged that she was not of Saylok.
When Master Ivo had insinuated it was the men of Saylok who were unable to father daughters, Josef had thought of the Hounds and Jerom’s daughter. Of Jerom’s granddaughter. They’d named her Juliah after her mother. Juliah of Joran. Juliah, daughter of a Hound.
It was not safe on the shores of Joran. Jerom knew this better than anyone. Chieftain Josef thought he might be able to convince Jerom to send young Juliah to the temple.
13
“I did not bring a daughter of Adyar,” Aidan of Adyar said. “You already have one, Majesty.”
The king raised a brow and folded his arms. The chieftains and their parties had begun arriving at sundown, and he’d greeted each one as darkness fell and the moon rose. No one had come inside. They’d pitched their tents on the grounds, the colors clearly indicating the separate camps. Servants had seen to their horses, but the crowd in the courtyard had grown as the arrivals continued. Aidan had arrived last, his retinue including the late king’s queen. She had entered the castle with a low bow to Banruud and proceeded into the blazing foyer beyond with the confidence of one having lived within the palace walls for half her life.
Aidan hadn’t yet climbed down from his horse, clearly preferring the height and dominance the animal gave him. Banruud had grown accustomed to Aidan. The young chieftain had all the fire in his family. Alannah hadn’t had any, and her father, the previous king, had been as malleable as she. Still, Aidan of Adyar was no threat. He would never be king. He was a mouthy boy, intent on poking at the king simply because he thought he could. One day, when Aidan least expected it, that would end.
“My sister, Queen Alannah of Adyar, gave birth to a daughter,” Aidan 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. Their eyes clashed, and Aidan’s horse danced, sensing the nervous energy that swirled around him.
“I’ve brought you a woman,” Aidan said, keeping his tone 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, 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?”