Arrows of the Queen Read online

  "Get along, child!" she added, when Talia didn't respond immediately, "Or do you think I need hurry your steps with a switch?"

  "Yes ma'am. I mean, no ma'am!" Talia replied in as neutral a voice as she could manage. She tried to smooth her expression into one more pleasing to her elder, even as she smoothed the front of her tunic with a sweaty, nervous palm.

  What am I being summoned for? she wondered apprehensively. In her experience summonings had rarely meant anything good.

  "Well, go in, go in! Don't keep me standing here in the doorway all afternoon!" Keldar's cold face gave no clue as to what was in store.

  Everything about Keldar, from her tightly wrapped and braided hair to the exact set of her apron, gave an impression of one in total control. She was everything a Firstwife should be— and frequently pointed this out. Talia was always intimidated by her presence, and always felt she looked hoydenish and disheveled, no matter how carefully she'd prepared herself for confrontations.

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  In her haste to edge past the authoritative figure of the Firstwife in the doorway, Talia stumbled a little on the lintel. Keldar made a derogatory noise in the back of her throat, and Talia felt herself flush. Somehow there was that about Keldar that never failed to put her at her faultiest and clumsiest. She regathered what little composure she had and slipped inside and into the hall. The windowless entryway was very dark; she would have paused to let her eyes adjust except for the forbidding presence of Keldar hard on her heels.

  She felt her way down the worn, wooden floor hoping not to trip again.

  Then, as she entered the commonroom and she could see again in the light that came from its three windows, her mouth suddenly dried with fear; for all of her Father's Wives were waiting there, assembled around the roughhewn wooden table that served them all at meals. And all of them were staring at her. Eight pairs of blue and brown eyes held her transfixed like a bird surrounded by hungry cats. Eight flat, expressionless faces had turned to point in her direction.

  She thought at once of all her failings of the last month or so, from her failure to remember her kitchen duties yesterday to the disaster with the little she was supposed to have been watching who'd gotten into the goat pen. There were half a hundred things they might call her to account for, but none of them were bad enough to call for an assemblage of all the Wives; at least, she didn't think they were!

  Unless— she started guiltily at the thought— unless they'd somehow found out she'd been sneaking into Father's library to read when there was a full moon— light enough to read without a betraying candle. Father's books were mostly religious, but she'd found an old history or two that proved to be almost as good as her tales, and the temptation had been too much to resist. If they'd found that out—

  It might mean a beating every day for a week and a month of "exile"—being locked in a closet at night, and isolated by day, with no one allowed to speak to her or acknowledge her presence in any way, except Keldar, who would assign her chores.

  That had happened twice already this year. Talia began to tremble. She wasn't sure she could bear a third time.

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  Keldar took her place at the head of the table, and her next words drove all thought of that out of Talia's head. "Well, child," she said, scowling,

  "You're thirteen today."

  Talia felt almost giddy with relief. Just her Birthing Day? Was that all it was? She took an easier breath, and stood before the assemblage of nine Wives, much calmer mow. She kept her hands clasped properly before her, eyes cast down. She studied the basket at her sturdily-shod feet, prepared to listen with all due respect to the lecture about her growing responsibilities that they'd delivered to her every Birthing Day she could remember. After they were sure that she'd absorbed all their collective wisdom on the subject, they'd let her get back to her wool (and not so incidentally, her tale).

  But what Keldar had to say next scattered every speck of calm she'd regained to the four winds.

  "Yes, thirteen," Keldar repeated significantly.

  "And that is time to think of Marriage."

  Talia blanched, feeling as if her heart had stopped. Marriage? Oh, sweet Goddess no!

  Keldar seemingly paid no heed to Talia's reaction; a flicker of her eyes betrayed that she'd seen it, but she went callously on with her planned speech. "You're not ready for it, of course, but no girl is. Your courses have been regular for more than a year now, you're healthy and strong.

  There's no reason why you couldn't be a mother before the year is out. It's more than time you were in a Household as a Wife. Your Honored Father is dowering you with three whole fields, so your portion is quite respectable."

  Keldar's faintly sour expression seemed to indicate that she felt Talia's dower to be excessive. The hands clasping the edge of the table before her tightened as the other Wives murmured appreciation of their Husband's generosity.

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  "Several Elders have already bespoken your Father about you, either as a Firstwife for one of their sons or as an Underwife for themselves. In spite of your unwomanly habits of reading and writing, we've trained you well.

  You can cook and clean, sew, weave and spin, and you're trustworthy with the littlest littles. You're not up to managing a Household yet, but you won't be called to do that for several years. Even if you go to a young man as his Firstwife, you'll be living in your Husband's Father's Household. So you're prepared enough to do your duty."

  Keldar seemed to feel that she'd said all she needed to, and sat down, hands folded beneath her apron, back ramrod straight. Underwife Isrel waited for her nod of delegation, then took up the thread of the lecture on a daughter's options.

  Isrel was easily dominated by Keldar, and Talia had always considered her to be more than a little silly. The Underwife looked to Keldar with calf-like brown eyes for approval of everything she said— nor did she fail to do so now. She glanced at Keldar after every other word she spoke.

  "There's advantages to both, you know; being a Firstwife and being an Underwife, I mean. If you're Firstwife, eventually your Husband will start his own Steading and Household, and you'll be First in it. But if you're an Underwife, you won't have to ever make any decisions. And you'll be in an established Household and Steading— you won't have to scrimp and scant, there won't be any hardships. You won't have to worry about anything except the tasks you're set and bearing your littles. We don't want you to be unhappy, Talia. We want to give you the choice of the life you think you're best suited for. Not the man of course," she giggled nervously,

  "That would be unseemly, and besides you probably don't know any of them anyway."

  "Isrel!" Keldar snapped, and Isrel shrank into herself a little. "That last remark was unseemly, and not suited to a girl's ears! Now, child, which shall it be?"

  Goddess! Talia wanted to die, to turn into a bird, to sink into the floor—anything but this! Trapped; she was trapped. They'd Marry her off and she'd end up like Nada, beaten every night so that she had to wear high-

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  necked tunics to hide the bruises. Or she'd die like her own mother, worn out with too many babies too quickly. Or even if the impossible happened, and her Husband was kind or too stupid to be a danger, her real life, the tales that were all that made living worthwhile, would all but disappear, for there would be no time for them in the never-ending round of pregnancy and a Wife's duties—

  Before she could stop herself, Talia blurted out, "I don't want to be Married at all!"

  The little rustlings and stirrings of a group of bored women suddenly ceased, and they became as still as a row of fenceposts, all with disbelief on their faces. Nine identical expressions of shock and dismay stared at Talia from the sides of the table. The silence closed down around her like the hand of doom.

  "Talia, dear," a soft voice spoke behind her, breaking the terrible silence, and Talia turned with relief to face Father's Mother, who had been sitting unnoticed in the corner. She was one of the few people in Talia's life who never seemed to think that everything she did was wrong. Her kind, faded blue eyes were the only ones in the room not full of accusation. The old woman smoothed one braid of cloud-white hair with age-spotted hands in unconscious habit, as she continued. "May the Mother forgive us, but we never thought to ask you. Have you a vocation? Has the Goddess Called you to her service?"

  Talia had been hoping for a reprieve, but that, if anything, was worse.

  Talia thought with horror of the one glimpse she'd had of the Temple Cloisters, of the women there who spent their lives in prayer for the souls of the Holderkin. The utterly silent women, who went muffled from head to toe, forbidden to leave, forbidden to speak, forbidden— life!— had horrified her. It was a worse trap than Marriage; the very memory of the Cloisters made her feel as if she was being smothered.

  She shook her head frantically, unable to talk around the lump in her throat.

  Keldar rose from her place with the scrape of a stool on the rough wooden floor and advanced on the terrified child, who was as unable to move as a 10

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  mouse between the paws of a cat. Keldar took her shoulders with a grip that bruised as it made escape impossible and shook her till her teeth rattled. "What's wrong with you, girl?" she said angrily, "You don't want an Honorable Marriage, you don't want the Peace of the Goddess, what do you want?"

  All I want is to be left alone, Talia thought with quiet desperation, I don't want anything to change— but her traitorous mouth opened again and let the dream spill.

  "I want to be a Herald," she heard herself say.

  Keldar released her shoulders quickly, with a look of near-horror as if she'd discovered she'd been holding something vile, something that had crawled out of the midden.

  "You— you—" For once, the controlled Keldar was at a loss for words.

  Then— " Now you see what comes of coddling a brat!" she said, turning on Father's Mother in default of anyone else to use as a scapegoat, "This is what happens when you let a girl rise above her place. Reading! Figuring!

  No girl needs to know more than she requires to label her preserves and count her stores or keep the peddlers from cheating her! I told you this would happen, you and your precious Andrean, letting her fill her head with foolish tales!" She turned back to face Talia. " Now, girl— when I finish with you—"

  But Talia was gone.

  She had taken advantage of the distraction of Keldar's momentary tirade to escape. Scampering quickly out the door before any of the Wives realized she was missing, she fled the Steading as fast as she could run. Sobbing hysterically, she had no thought except to get away. With the wind in her face, and sweating with fear, she ran past the barns and the stockade, pure terror giving her feet extra speed. She fled through the fields as the waist-high hay and grain beat against her, and up into the woodlot and through it, following a tangled path through the uncut underbrush. She was seeking the shelter of the hiding place she'd found, the place that no one else knew of.

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  There was a steep bluff where the woodlot ended high above the Road.

  Two years ago, Talia had found a place where something had carved out a kind of shallow cave beneath the protruding roots of a tree that grew at the very edge of the bluff. She'd lined it with filched straw and old rugs meant for the rag-bag; she kept her other two books hidden there. She had spent many hours stolen from her chores there, daydreaming, invisible from above or below so long as she stayed quiet and still. She sought this sanctuary now, and scrambling over the edge of the bluff, crept into it. She buried herself in the rugs, crying hysterically, limp with exhaustion, nerves practically afire, ears stretched for the tiniest sound above her.

  For no matter how deep her misery, she knew she must keep alert for the sounds of searchers. Before very long, she heard the sound of some of the servants calling her name. When they drew too near, she stifled her sobs in the rugs while her tears fell silently, listening in fear for some sign telling her she'd been discovered. She thought a dozen times that they'd found some sign of her passage, but they seemed to have lost her track.

  Eventually they went away, and she was free to cry as she would.

  Wrapped in pure misery, she hugged her knees to her chest and rocked back and forth, weeping until her eyes were too dry and sore to shed another tear. She felt numb all over, too numb to think properly. Any choice she made seemed worse than the one before it. Should she return and apologize, any punishment she'd ever had before would seem a pleasure to the penance Keldar was likely to devise for her unseemly and insubordinate behavior. It would be Keldar's choice, and her Father's, what would befall her then. Any Husband Keldar would choose now would be— horrid. She'd either be shackled to some drooling old dotard, to be pawed over by night and to be a nursemaid by day— or she'd be given to some brutal, younger man, a cruel one, with instructions to break her to seemly behavior. Keldar would likely pick one as sadistic as Justus, her older brother— she shuddered, as the unbidden memory came to her, of him standing over her with the hot poker in his hand and the look on his face of fierce pleasure—

  She forced the memory away, quickly.

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  But even that fate would be a pleasurable experience compared to what would happen if they decided to offer her as a Temple Servant. The Goddess's Servants had even less freedom and more duties than Her Handmaidens. They lived and died never going beyond the cloister corridor to which they were assigned. And in any case, no matter what future they picked for her, her reading, her escape, would be over. Keldar would see to it that she never saw another book again.

  For one moment, she contemplated running away, truly fleeing the Steading and the Holderkin. Then she recalled the faces of the wandering laborers she'd seen at Hiring Fairs; pinched, hungry, desperate for anyone to take them into a Holding. And she'd never seen a woman among them.

  The "foolish tales" she'd read made one thing very clear, the life of a wanderer was dangerous and sometimes fatal for the unprepared, the defenseless. What preparation had she? She had the clothing she stood up in, the ragged rugs, and nothing else. How could she defend herself? She'd never even been taught how to use a knife. She'd be ready prey.

  If only this were a tale—

  An unfamiliar voice called her name— a voice full of calm authority, and she found herself answering it, climbing out of her hiding place almost against her will. And there before her, waiting at the top of the bluff—

  A Herald; resplendent and proud in her Whites, her Companion a snowy apparition beside her, mane and tail lifting in the gentle breeze like the finest silk. Sunlight haloed and hallowed both of them, making them seem more than mortal. She looked to Talia like the statue of the Lady come to life— only proud, strong and proud, not meek and submissive. Behind the Herald, looking cowed and ashamed, were Keldar and her Father.

  "You are Talia?" the Herald asked, and she nodded affirmatively.

  She broke out in a smile that dazzled her— it was like a sudden appearance of the sun after rain.

  "Blessed is the Lady who led us here!" she exclaimed. "Many the weary months we have searched for you, and always in vain. We had nothing to go on except your name—"

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  "Led you to me?" she asked, exalted, "But, why?"

  "To make you one of us, little sister," she replied, as Keldar shrank into herself and her Father seemed bent on studying the tops of his shoes. "You are to be a Herald, Talia— the gods themselves have decreed it. Look—

  yonder comes your Companion—"

  She looked where the Herald pointed, and saw a graceful white mare with a high, arched neck and a knowing eye pacing deliberately toward her.

  The Companion was caparisoned all in blue and silver, tiny bells hanging from her reins and bridle. Behind the Companion, at a respectful distance, came all her sibs, the rest of the Wives, and all the servants of the Holding.

  With a glad cry, she ran to meet the mare and the Herald helped her to mount up on the Companion's back, while the Hold servants cheered, her sibs stared in sullen respect, and Keldar and her Father stared at her in plain fear, obviously thinking of all the punishments they'd meted out to HER and expecting the same now that she was the one in power—

  The sound of hoofbeats on the Road broke into her desperate daydream.

  For one panicked moment she thought it was another searcher, but then she realized that her Father's horses sounded nothing like this. These hoofbeats had a chime like bells on the hard surface. As the sound drew nearer, it was joined by another; the sound of real bells, of bridle bells.

  Only one kind of horse wore bridle bells every day, and not just on Festival Days— the magical steed of legend, a Herald's Companion.

  Talia had never seen a real Herald, though she'd daydreamed about them constantly. The realization that she was finally going to see one of her dreams in actual fact startled her out of her fantasy and her tears completely. The distraction was too tempting to resist. For just this one moment she would forget her troubles, her hopeless position, and snatch a tiny bit of magic for herself, to treasure all her days. She leaned out of her cave, stretching as far out as she could, thinking of nothing except to catch a glimpse— and leaned out too far.

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  She lost her balance, and her flailing handscaught nothing but air. She tumbled end over end down the bluff, banging painfully into roots and rocks. The wind was knocked out of her before she was halfway down, and nothing she collided with seemed to slow her descent any. She was totally unable to stop her headlong tumble until she landed on the hard surface of the Road itself, with a force that set sparks to dancing in front of her eyes and left her half-stunned.