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In a time of change and danger, peace sparks to war, and sons become daughters...It's nearly a century after the death of Inda, the unbeatable Marlovan commander. Danet and Arrow, content in their arranged marriage, just want to live in peaceful obscurity and raise their family. But when a treaty sends them to the royal city to meet the heir to the throne, they discover that peace is fragile, old enemies have long memories, and what you want isn't always what you get. By the time they learn that you can't go back again, events ignite a conflagration that no one could have foreseen-except for the ghosts who walk the walls in the royal city.This is the first part of the Time of Daughters dulogy, an epic story of politics, war, family and magic in the beloved world of Sartorias-deles. Second half will come out from Book View Cafe 12/3..

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Publié par	Book View Cafe
Date de parution	08 octobre 2019
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781611388404
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0198€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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TIME OF DAUGHTERS I
Sherwood Smith

www.bookviewcafe.com
Book View Café 2019
Copyright © 2019 Sherwood Smith
Map of Marlovan-Iasca
PREFACE
The hundred years of Marlovan history after the defeat of the Venn at what became known as the Elgar Strait is a vexing one for archivists. As with any major war, the male population had dropped sharply, resulting in several generations of large families, in contrast to the traditional two or three, maybe four offspring.
That added to the shift of kingship from the Montrei-Vayir to the Ola-Vayir (now written Montreivayir and Olavayir) families, and the fractious nature of the latter, resulted in a shift of power from the throne to the jarlates.
This was the beginning of the period when jarls had private armies, called Riders. Riders are trained warriors, as opposed to riders, who are people on horseback. Some jarl clans were bolstered by Rider clans; others made up their Riders from local families. In the Who’s Who list below, individuals are listed by clan or by city, and a few by vocation (such as brigands).
Because of the insularity of the jarlates, whose jarls were petty kings in all but name, there was a great deal of intermarriage among the huge, complicated clans, resulting in a proliferation of names.
For example, by the time Inda died in 3963, the academy was in the process of training thirty-seven Indas, forty-four Evreds, and twenty-five Haldrens. In self-defense most chose nicknames, which generally stuck for life.
Otherwise archivists despaired of telling them all apart. Fellow Marlovans despaired of telling them apart, especially the tangle of the great Eastern Alliance.
The Great Eastern Alliance
Tlen, Tlennen, Sindan-An, and Sindan, with the Senelaecs over to the west, were the principal horse breeders of Marlovan Iasca. The Sindan-Ans were the primary family among them, closely seconded by the Tlennens. The Tlens were by this time a much smaller jarlate, and the Sindans never held land at all—their many branches were spread among their cousins as Riders.
Not only were these clans constantly intermarrying, their family names were often given as first names, so new boys at the new academy could be expected to meet similar-looking blonds named Tlen Sindan and Sindan Tlen—until they got a nickname.
The Eastern Alliance jarls elected a chief among them who dealt with outsiders, and commanded the alliance when the whole needed to be raised.
The Noth Family
There were three main branches of the family.
The Algaravayir Noths descended from Senrid (Whipstick) Noth of Choreid Elgaer, who features prominently in the chronicles about Inda-Harskialdna.
The Noths connected with Parayid Harbor in Faravayir descended from Whipstick’s second son.
Then there are the Faral Noths, plains Riders and horse masters connected to Cassad, Darchelde, and southern points. They are descended from Flatfoot Noth, Whipstick’s cousin.
PART ONE
ONE
Marlovan Iasca, late summer 4058 AF

This chronicle in the history of the Marlovans begins nearly a century after the death of the man famed throughout the world as Inda Elgar, Elgar the Fox, Elgar the Pirate, and a few other less savory names. But to Marlovans, who cared nothing for the rest of the world’s opinion, he was Indevan-Harskialdna, the king’s war commander who never lost a battle.
It’s always difficult to determine exactly when and where to start, because history is more like a river than a box: it bends and twists, flowing onward seemingly without beginning or end. But a chronicle has to have a beginning and end.
We will start in the northern part of the kingdom—an empire in all but name—once called Iasca Leror. Ever since Marlovan had become the language of government as well as war, the kingdom was more and more often referred to as Marlovan Iasca.
For reasons that I hope will become clear, at first I will avoid Choreid Dhelerei, the royal city, as well as the powerful jarlates, which in this time had nearly become small kingdoms on their own. Instead, we commence this record at a small freehold lying between the Olavayir and Halivayir jarlates, called Farendavan. Our primary concern here at the start is not with the holder (who was away more than he was home, serving as patrol captain in Idego) or his wife, who ran the holding, nor even with his son, but with the elder of his two daughters, Danet.
Though Danet Farendavan’s mother’s journal was scrupulously preserved by her progeny, anyone glancing at it could be forgiven for assuming the woman had no family feeling, as most of the journal is detailed accounts of linen weaves, dye lots, trade, and stable statistics.
For example, the day Danet’s life changed, her mother’s journal listed a complicated order for three different varieties of indigo, deep-water sponges and carmine fungi, saffron, and madder, then at the bottom is a brief note: Spoke to girls about marriage agreement Olavayir eagle-clan .
Danet was almost twenty. Her sister Hliss was sixteen. They had been out with their cousins and the stable hands doing ground work with the horses when their mother’s runner appeared. “You’re wanted. The both.”
Surprise semaphored between the sisters, then Danet glanced at her closest cousin and grimaced, handing off supervision with a flick of an open palm. Mother never interrupted chores unless it was important. Danet’s first thought was to wonder what she might have done wrong.
Hliss, as always, waited for her older sister to lead the way. They hurried back to the low, rambling stone house they called home, and into the big chamber where the looms were set up. The dusty smell of hay and horse gave way to the back-of-the-nose oily smell of wool; Danet sighed, recognizing the setup for weaving the sturdy cotton-wool twill from which their coats and riding trousers would be made. Winter work. Mother was starting the process of getting everything ready.
Hliss’s face lifted. Danet couldn’t understand how her sister could love being indoors working the looms and sigh over stable chores, when Danet felt exactly the opposite. The only indoor labor Danet loved was keeping tallies (what in other lands was called counting, thus the origin of the title count ), because then you knew exactly what you had, and where you were. But once Danet had been trained, Mother kept the tallies and only let Danet observe. “I’m faster,” Mother said with the hint of impatience that characterized her. “And whoever you marry will no doubt have their ways and rules. Enough that you now understand the method.”
A flash of sun slanting in the narrow windows reflected off Mother’s yellow-white hair as she looked their way. Then, instead of beckoning her daughters to help set up spindle or loom, she said, “In here, girls.”
Hliss sent a round-eyed glance at Danet as Mother led the way into her private room, where shelves of carefully bound household tallies took up one wall, and the most precious of the dyes another, the narrow bed under the window almost an afterthought. This room, from which Mother ruled the house, flax fields, barns, and training grounds, was considered by the household to be as formidable as the seldom-used Family Chamber at the other end of the house, with the few and modest Farendavan trophies on the walls.
Mother dropped straight-backed onto her stool alongside the table and pointed at the bench. “Sit down.”
As her daughters sat side by side, Mother compressed her lips and studied them—not as she saw them every day, but as strangers might see them. Both were lean and long-legged, Danet with dun-colored hair properly braided and looped, Hliss softer and rounder, with pretensions to prettiness (for those who looked for that sort of thing) in her fawn-dark eyes framed by pale cornsilk hair. Danet gazed at the world out of eyes too muddy to be either blue or brown, her thin, straight lips and set chin below round cheeks a match for Mother’s own.
The truth was, Mother did not like what she had to say, but the good of the family had to come first.
Best to get it over with, then. She wiped a strand of damp hair off her forehead. “There’s no time to waste, and you both know how little patience I have for questions I can’t answer. I’ve just received a runner from the Jarlan of Olavayir. It seems the marriage arrangements concerning your cousin Hadand Arvandais up north have fallen through. Whatever the reason, that has nothing to do with us.”
She paused, then said bluntly, “I’m certain that Han Fath suggested you to the jarlan. You know I used to ride with the Fath girls scouting for hill brigands, when I was your age.”
From Mother this was a very long speech, and Danet had learned to evaluate what Mother didn’t say as well as what she did. Danet already knew that the Faths—Riders for the Tyavayir jarlate—were one of the few clans Mother respected thoroughly. She thought less of the Tyavayirs, and less than that of the Olavayirs.
But Mother said nothing against them now. She went on, “You know I was trained by the Faths after I lost my own family, and I suspect they thought to honor me in putting forward your names. However it came about, the Olavayirs want you. Both.”
Danet said in disbelief, “The royal family? Us?”
“Jarl branch. Eagle, not dolphin. You’ll adopt in. The Olavayirs are all that way. Man or woman, if you marry into them, you take their name.”
Hliss’s eyes filled with tears. “I thought we could wait...until we were older.”
Mother sighed shortly, and Hliss hastily thumbed her eyes.
Mother knew how tender-hearted Hliss was, and schooled her voice to patience. “I did say I believed we’d leave this question for the future, and Hliss, I understand that you and the draper’s boy have been on fire since spring. But you know your romances have nothing to do with marriage alliances.”
Danet had been hearing a lot about Forever and Love Till We Die from her sister, who had discovered boys half a year ago. To draw Mother’s attention away from Hliss, Danet