C. Brittain: Voima

Karin scraped the last of the porridge out of the pot and sat down to eat at the opposite end of the table from King Hadros. “I went for a walk,” she said shortly when he looked a question at her. Her firmly set jaw and lowered eyes kept anyone else from speaking to her.

The king’s sons were discussing the horses. It was the season to bring the mares and the young foals in from pasture, to introduce the foals to humans and rebreed the mares, and almost time to start breaking the yearlings for riding. She listened absently to their conversation as she finished breakfast and braided her hair.

“We’ll have to see how well the foals came out this year,” said Valmar with a laugh. He was the king’s oldest son, two years younger than Karin, and had red hair and dark blue eyes with lashes that had always seemed to her too long for a boy. She still thought of him as her little brother, even though in the last few years he had shot up from boyhood to young manhood. Though most men stayed clean-shaven until marriage, he had managed to grow a somewhat patchy beard. “And we’ll have to see if the mares will be satisfied to be covered by an ordinary stallion this time. I’m afraid Roric’s troll-horse may have sired some of this year’s crop!”

His younger brothers, Dag and Nole, laughed too, then glanced toward her as though recalling her presence and stopped abruptly. They all knew better than to say anything that could possibly be considered crude or lewd in her presence, but King Hadros did not seem to have noticed.

Valmar rose. “Coming with us, Father? Or is your knee still bothering you?”

Karin looked up sharply at that. The king sat with one leg extended straight out from the bench. “Oh, my leg is fine,” he said easily. That was the leg, she recalled, that he had broken in the fall last year-or was it the year before? “But perhaps I shall let you go ahead and catch up with you.”

His three sons clattered out, taking the housecarls with them. Karin stood up with a swirl of her skirt, thinking that she would work in the weaving house; it did not require much concentration, once the pattern was established, and the tension burning inside her needed an outlet. The maids would be impressed at how fast she threw the shuttle today.

But King Hadros motioned to her. “Come here, Karin. I would speak with you.”

He smiled when he spoke, and she went somewhat reluctantly to sit beside him, looking at him steadily. Hadros was no taller than she but twice as wide, all of it muscle. He had little white scars all over the backs of his hands and arms and a long one on his cheek, which just barely did not reach his eye. Ever since she was fully grown, she could usually manage to talk and smile him into being agreeable.

Today she was less sure that she could control herself. This was the man, she thought, who had ordered Roric murdered.

But the man she saw now was the one who had taught her to ride, the man who had given her the direction of his household when the queen had died and she was still only a girl herself. She had known him both in riotous good humor and in black rages, especially when he had sat drinking long with his warriors. It was Hadros who, when she had first started developing a woman’s body, and one of the housecarls had made a remark to her so coarse that she had been another year older before she understood it, had seized the man by the neck and smashed him to the floor with such force that he died. But at some point, almost without her noticing, Hadros had developed lines in his tanned face and gray in his hair. And she had never before not known him to lead when they brought in the foals.

There were voices and the sound of hooves in the courtyard. She glanced through the open door to see that Roric, riding Goldmane, had joined the king’s sons. His rather ferocious good looks, straight dark eyebrows over deep-set eyes, a muscled body always in motion, usually made her heart turn over, but today she felt more irritation than anything else. In the one glimpse she had of him he appeared carefree, and he did not glance at all in her direction. Could he have forgotten already?

“I had not realized your leg was bothering you again,” she said, turning back to the king.

He shrugged. “I have not spoken with you for nearly two days, Karin,” he said, “since I had to tell you about your brother. By now I hope you have adjusted to the news.”

Oh no, she thought. Here it comes. He’s going to ask me to marry Valmar-or even himself.

Instead he smiled and tucked a finger under her chin. “So sober, my little princess.” He had not called her that in years. “I know you realize this makes you heiress to your father’s kingdom. The All-Gemot of the Fifty Kings will be held at his castle this year. Would you like to accompany me across the channel?”

This was not at all what she had expected him to say. The All-Gemot, she thought wildly. She had contemplated it during the long hours two nights ago when she had sat up, dressed, in the dark, listening to the restless tossing from the king’s bed. If Gizor and his thugs had killed Roric, she would have found some way to accuse Hadros before the Fifty Kings.

She had not known the All-Gemot would be held in her own father’s kingdom. She tightened her lips. They had sent her out a prisoner, a little girl, someone less important than Hadros’s offer of peace. But she would be coming home a woman and a future queen.

“Yes,” she said gravely. “I would very much like to accompany you.”

“There are a few sovereign queens already among the Fifty Kings,” he said. “And I’m sure you know it is not always fifty anymore. Last year I think there were sixty-three in attendance, including several from those little kingdoms up north-though it was quite an act of courtesy to call them kings!”

“How soon will we leave?” Roric might be among the warriors to accompany the king-or Hadros might use the opportunity to try again to have him killed here at the castle while his own hands stayed clean. She wondered if there was any way to ask the king to bring him along.

“Ten days. And you will want to bring your finest clothes. I am sure you remember the standards those kings south of the channel set for themselves! We will not be thought another little upcountry kingdom.”

She had not considered that, and for a few seconds she ran in her mind through the fine clothes stored in the bottom of her chest-the red silk dress she had worn when she came here had not fit for nine years. She did recall that, when she first arrived, this court had seemed crude, unrefined, but she had already been ready to hate everything about it. She could scarcely remember her own mother, who had died when her younger brother was born, but now that she thought about it she was quite sure the queen had not worked in the weaving house or done her own brewing.

“And the All-Gemot will be an excellent opportunity to announce your betrothal to Valmar.”

Karin took a sharp breath, then bit her lip. He had brought it up when she had almost forgotten to fear he would.

The king smiled at her as though he had just offered her a treat. “I could not of course urge Valmar on you while you were a hostage here. No man could say that King Hadros made war on girls. But once you are home you shall be able to make your choice freely. You two have spent a lot of time together ever since you were children-I helped make sure of that. By now you must know he’ll make you a fine husband.”

It was his expectation that she would be delighted at this generous offer that made her answer hotly. “Valmar? But why should I marry him? The beard can’t hide it. He’s nothing but a stripling boy!”

She stopped, seeing his surprise and, yes, disappointment. Whatever she wanted to argue with King Hadros about, it was not the manliness of his oldest son.