Daughter of Blood (73 page)
Authors: Helen Lowe
The steward smiled, a slight twist of her mouth. “Trouble? Nay, I am not troubled. But I know who will be if you are not clean and in your place when the feast bell strikes.” The smile widened at Malian's alarmed look. “That bell is not so very far off, so if I were you I should be running like the wind itself to my chamber, and the bath that is waiting there.”
Haimyr clapped Malian on the shoulder. “The good steward is right, as always. So run now, my bold heart!”
Malian ran. Her father held strict views on the conduct appropriate to an Heir of Night, and exacted the same obedience from his daughter as he did from the warriors under his command. “We keep the long watch,” he often said to Malian, “and that means we are a fighting House. The Wall itself is named for us, and of all the fortresses along its length, this one stands closest to our enemy. We cannot let our vigilance or discipline waver for an instant, and you and I must be the most vigilant of all, knowing all others look to us and will follow our example, whether good or bad.”
Malian knew that upholding discipline included being on time for a formal Feast of Returning. Her nurse and the other maids knew it, too, for they did not stop to scold but descended on her as one when she ran through the door, hustling her out of her grimy clothes and into the tepid bathwater. Nesta, the most senior of the maids, caught Malian's eye as she opened her mouth to complain, and Malian immediately shut it again. Nesta came of a family that had served the Earls of Night for long generations, and she held views on the value of discipline, tradition, and truancy that were remarkably similar to those of Malian's father.
Doria, Malian's nurse, was more voluble. “An imp of wickedness, that's what you are,” she said. “Running here, and running there, and never in sight when wanted. You'll be the death of me yet, I swearânot to mention the wrath of the Earl, your father, if he ever finds out about your expeditions.”
“We'll all die of fright on that day, sure enough,” said Nesta, in her dry way, “if nothing worse happens first. But will our fine young lady care, that's what I ask? And none of your wheedling answers either, my girl!” She struck a stern attitude, with arms akimbo, and the younger maids giggled.
“Well,” said Malian meekly, “it hasn't happened yet, has it? And you know I don't mean to be a trouble to you, Doria darling.” She hugged and kissed her nurse, but poked her tongue out at Nesta over Doria's shoulder.
The maid made a snipping motion with her fingers, imitating scissors. “Ay, Doria knows you don't mean to cause her trouble, but it won't stop trouble comingâespecially if we don't get you down to dinner on time.” She held up an elaborate black velvet dress. “It had better be black, I suppose, since you welcome the Earl of Night.”
“Black is good, thank you,” agreed Malian, scrambling into it. She waited, as patiently as she could, while Doria bound her hair into a net of smoky pearls.
“You look just like the ladies in the old tapestries,” the nurse sighed, as her fingers twisted and pinned. “You are growing up, my poppet. Nearly thirteen already! And in just a few more years you will be a grand lady of the Derai, in truth.”
Malian made a face at the polished reflection in the mirror. “I do look like a scion of the oldest line, I suppose.” She kicked the train out behind her. “But can you imagine Yorindesarinen wearing anything so restrictive?”
“That skirt would make worm slaying very difficult,” Nesta observed, and Malian grinned.
Doria, however, frowned. “Yorindesarinen is nothing but a fable put about by the House of Stars to make themselves feel important.” She sniffed. “Just like the length of their names. Ridiculous!”
“They're not all long,” Malian pointed out. “What about Tasian and Xeria?”
The nurse made a sign against bad luck, while Nesta shook her head. “Shortened,” the maid said. “Why should we honor that pair of ill omen with their full names?” She pulled a face. “Especially she who brought ruin upon us all.”
Doria nodded, her mouth pursed as if she had filled it with pins. “Cursed be her nameâand completely beneath the attention of the Heir of Night, so we will not sully our lips with it now!” She gave a last tweak to the gauze collar, so that it stood up like black butterfly wings on either side of Malian's face. “You look just as you should,” she said, not without pride. “And if you hurry, you'll be on time as well.”
Malian kissed her cheek. “Thank you,” she said, with real gratitude. “I am sorry that I gave you all so much trouble.”
Nesta rolled her eyes and Doria looked resigned. “You always are,” she said, sighing. “But I don't like your gallivanting off into the Old Keep, nasty cold place that it is. Trouble will come of itâand then what the Earl will do to us all, I shudder to think.”
Malian laughed. “You worry too much,” she said. “But if I don't hurry I really will be late and my father will make us all shudder, sooner rather than later.”
She blew a butterfly kiss back around the door and walked off as quickly as the black dress would allow, leaving Doria and Nesta to look at each other with a mixture of exasperation, resignation, and affection.
“Don't say it,” the nurse said to the younger woman, sitting down with a sigh. “The fact is that she is just like her mother was at the same ageâtoo much on her own and with a head filled with dreams of glory. Not to mention running wild, all over the New Keep and half the Old.”
Nesta shook her head. “They've been at her since she was a babe with all their lessons, turning her into an earl in miniature, not to mention the swordplay and other skills required by a warrior House. I like it when she acts like a normal girl and plays truant, for all the anxiety it causes us.”
Doria folded her arms across her chest. “But not into the
Old Keep,” she said, troubled. “That was her mother's way, always mad for adventure and leading the others after her. We all know how that ended.” She shook her head. “Malian is already too much her mother's daughter for my comfort.”
Nesta frowned. “The trouble is,” she said, pitching her voice so that no one else could hear her, “does the Earl realize that? And what will he do when he finds out?”
Doria sighed again, looking anxious. “I don't know,” she replied. “I know that Nhairin sees it, plain as I doâand that outsider minstrel, too, I've no doubt. It's as though the Earl is the only person who does not see it.”
“Or will not,” Nesta said softly.
“Does not, will not,” replied Doria, “the outcome is the same. Well, there's nothing we can do except our best for her, as we always have.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Nesta. Her dark eyes gazed into the fire. “Although what happens,” she asked, “if your best is not enough?”
But neither the nurse nor the fire had any answer for her.
HELEN LOWE
is an award-winning novelist, poet, interviewer, and blogger, whose first novel,
Thornspell
(Knopf), was published to critical praise in 2008.
Her second,
The Heir of Night
(The Wall of Night Series, Book One) won the Gemmell Morningstar Award 2012. The sequel,
The Gathering of The Lost
, was shortlisted for the Gemmell Legend Award in 2013. Helen has a second-dan black belt in the martial art aikido and represented her university at fencing. She posts regularly on her “. . . on
Anything, Really
” blog, occasionally on SF Signal, and is also on Twitter: @helenlowe.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Don Sipley
Excerpt from
The Heir of Night
copyright © 2010 by Helen Lowe.
DAUGHTER OF BLOOD
. Copyright © 2016 by Helen Lowe. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition FEBRUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780062198129
Print Edition ISBN: 9780061734069
FIRST EDITION
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