The King's ruddy face paled with shock; his lips moved silently as he fought for words. Queen Daryana, too, stared at Atara as did Count Dario and all the other nobles near the throne.
'You,' the King said as he held his trembling hand out to Atara, 'have another name.
Say it now so that we may hear it.'
Atara looked at me as if to beg my forgiveness. Then she smiled, drew in a breath and called out: 'Atara Ars Narmada – of Alonia and the Wendrush.'
I gasped in astonishment along with a thousand others. How it had come to be that this wild Sarni warrior was also a princess of the Narmada line, 1 couldn't understand. But that she was King Kiritan's daughter couldn't be denied. I saw it in the set of their square, stubborn faces and in the fire of their diamond-blue eyes; I felt it passing back and forth between them in fierce emotions that tasted both of love and hate.
'It's his daughter,' someone behind me whispered as if explaining Alonian court intrigues to an outsider. 'She's still alive.'
'Is she still our daughter?' King Kiritan asked, looking at Atara.
'Of course she is,' Queen Daryana said as she dropped the last medallion back into its chest. She hurried forward past the King and threw her arms around Atara. Not caring who was watching, she kissed her and stroked her long hair with delight.
Tears were streaming from her eyes as she laughed out, 'Our brave, beautiful daughter – oh, you are still alive!'
King Kiritan stood very straight as he scowled at Atara. 'Six years it's been since you fled our kingdom for lands unknown. Six years! We had thought you dead.'
'I'm sorry, Father.'
'Remember where you are!'
'Excuse me… Sire.'
That's better,' King Kiritan snapped. 'Are we to presume, then, that you've been living with the Kurmak all this time?'
'Yes, Sire.'
'You might have sent word to us that you were well.'
'Yes, I might have,' she said.
The King's eyes flicked up and down as he studied Atara's garments.
Then he said, 'And now you return to us, on this night, in front of our guests, attired as… as what? A Sarni warrior? Is this how women dress on the Wendrush?'
Across the room I saw several Sarni warriors, with their drooping blonde mustaches and curious blue eyes, pressing closer.
'Some of them do,' Queen Daryana said. Standing next to her daughter, it was clear to see that they were of the same height and strong cast of body. They were both strong in other ways, too. The Queen seemed as unafraid of her husband as Atara had been of the hill-men. To King Kiritan she said, 'Did you not hear her name herself as a Manslayer?' 'No, we tried not to hear that name. What does it mean?' 'It means she is a warrior,' Queen Daryana said simply. Then a great bitterness came into her voice. 'You take little interest in my people beyond seeing that they remain outside your Long Wall.'
'Your people,' he reminded the Queen, 'are Alonians and have been for more than twenty years.'
In the heated words that followed, I pieced together the story of Atara's life – and some of the recent history of Alonia. It seemed that early in King Kiritan's reign, to protect his southern borders, he had felt compelled to cement an alliance with the ferocious Kurmak tribe. And so he had sent a great weight of gold to Sajagax in exchange for his daughter Daryana's hand in marriage. The Kurmak had made peace with Alonia, and more, had checked the power of the equally ferocious Marituk tribe who patrolled the Wendrush between the Blue Mountains and the Poru, from the Long Wall as far south as the Blood River. But there had been little peace between King Kiritan and his proud, fierce, headstrong queen. As she would tell anyone who would listen, she had been born free and would not be ruled by any man, not even Ea's greatest king. And so for every command or slight the King gave her, she gave him back words barbed like the points of the Sarni's arrows. It was said that King Kiritan had once dared to strike her face; to repay him, she had cut the scar marking his cheek with her strong, white teeth.
'The King,' she said to Atara, 'has told me that your grandfather and grandmother, and your mother's brothers and sisters and their children – all the warriors and women of the Kurmak – are not my people. If he cut out my heart, would he not see that my blood remains as red as theirs? But he is the King, and he has said what he has said. And this on a day when he has invited all the free peoples of Ea into our home to go forth on a great quest as one people. Is this worthy of the great man you love and revere as your Sire?'
It was also said that for many years, King Kiritan had given Daryana coldness in place of love. And so she had given him one daughter only and no sons.
I wondered why Daryana hadn't fled back to the Kurmak as Atara had done. In answer, almost as if she could hear my thoughts, she said, 'Of course some might say that since gold has been paid in dower to my father, that I now belong to him who paid it. A deal is a deal, and can't be broken, yes? But I hadn't heard that the Alonians had entered the business of buying and selling human beings.'
At this, the King flashed her a look of hate as he said, 'No, you're right – that is not our business. And you're also right to say that a deal cannot be broken. Especially one that was agreed upon freely, and as we remember, enthusiastically.'
Queen Daryana's eyes were full of sadness as she looked at Atara and said, 'Choices must always be made; seldom can they be unmade. I might have joined the Manslayers even as you have. But then I wouldn't have lived to bear such a beautiful daughter.'
Atara, who was blinking back tears, bowed her head to her mother and then looked down at the floor.
'Yes, a daughter,' the King said as if he had bit into a lemon. 'But how is a king to secure the continuance of his line and the peace of his lands without sons?'
Queen Daryana's eyes were like daggers of ice as she told him, 'It's said that the King doesn't lack sons.'
It was said – I learned this later from the Duke of Raanan – that King Kiritan had multiplied to himself many concubines, if not wives. And many of these had borne him bastard sons, whom he kept hidden in various estates among his domains.
Now the King's face grew as red as heated iron. His hand closed into a fist, and I was afraid he might strike Daryana. The Sarni warriors, I saw, were pulling at their mustaches and smiling at Daryana's defiance of him. Everyone was now watching King Kiritan, who must have felt the shame of their wondering how he could rule a kingdom if he couldn't even rule his own wife and daughter. But it seemed that he could at least rule his wrath. He looked down at his fist as if commanding it to relax and open. Then he turned to Atara and held this open hand toward her.
'It has been said,' he told her, 'that we know little of your grandfather's people.
Especially this Society of Manslayers, as you call it. Would you please tell us more?'
This Atara did. Everyone in the hall pressed close to hear stories of women warriors riding their ponies across the Wendrush and killing their enemies with arrows. By the time Atara told of being left naked in the middle of the steppe with nothing more than a knife to work her survival, and hinted at other fiercer and more secret initiations, the King's lips were white and pressed tightly together
'A hundred of your enemies,' the King said, shaking his head. He looked at Count Dario and Baron Belur who stood near the throne. 'Few of even my finest knights have slain so many.'
'They haven't been trained by the Manslayers,' Atara said proudly.
The King ignored this slight against Aloniaa arms, and said, 'Then none of these women may marry until they've reached this number? Are there no exceptions?'
'No, Sire.'
'Not even for one who is also the daughter of the Alonian king?'
'I have made vows,' Atara told him.
'Do your vows then supersede your duty to your Lord?'
'And what duty is that?' Atara asked as she looked at Prince Jardan of the Elyssu.
With his curled brown hair, he was a handsome man and a tall one – though the webwork of broken blood vessels on his red nose hinted of weakness and craving for strong drink. 'The duty to be sold in marriage to the
