“Hamish,” Gordon replied rather matter-of-factly as if having his nephews racing after his brother was the most common thing in the world. “It’s a game we used to play with our dad. Makes target practice a little more interesting when the target can move and hide.”
“Hence these.” Darshan waggled the cloth-tipped arrow, sprinkling a fine blue powder into the air.
Gordon beamed. “The dust was Nora’s idea. We’d always row over who actually hit our dad until her first attempt.” The fondness of old memories glazed his eye. “You should’ve seen the look of horror on me brother’s face the first time she struck our dad. She used red powder, you see? And it had started to rain about an hour into the hunt.” Laughter, loud and strong, roared from the man. “Scared the two of us half to death before she’d a chance to explain.”
“I can imagine.” Although, he saw little hilarity in the memory of believing a parent was bleeding to death before his eyes. Tirglasian humour was apparently a little stranger than he had been told.
Still wheezing and chuckling at every other breath, Gordon wiped his eyes. “Sorry about me nephews almost dusting you. They can get a little excitable when hunting. I keep telling them that the aim is to only hit your prey, not everything that moves, but…” He shrugged.
“Does your daughter not participate in this game?” He had witnessed her at the archery range on the same fateful day as his innocent kiss with Hamish. Although his judgement of the girl’s talent was perhaps rather less than professional, she seemed to have a fair bit of skill with a bow.
“She used to,” the man confessed, inviting Darshan to walk with him along the courtyard as they spoke. “Me wee lass was damn good at it, too.” Paternal pride puffed out his chest. “But just like it’s me job to keep the country on an even keel and war free, she has to learn how to handle a great many things until the boys catch up and can help her out.” His head turned, his attention drifting to the courtyard, as he half-heartedly added, “I reckon she’ll be with Nora by now.”
“Forgive me, but you do not sound all that happy about it.”
Gordon grunted. “I’d prefer she’d time to find her feet like her sister had.” He rubbed at his neck, his fingers disappearing into the bushy mass of his dark-red beard. “But there are certain ways she needs to ken about and it’s best to get it all into her head now, before she’s old enough for me mum to see her married off and Sorcha has to spend her days chasing her own bairns instead.”
“So young?” The girl couldn’t be more than in her early teenage years. He had heard Tirglasians married early and tended to have several children, generally straight away, but he hadn’t believed it to be that early.
“Aye.” Gordon scuffed a boot along the flagstones. “It never used to be this way. I think grief took its toll after me niece and her father drowned.”
He could see that happening, especially with an older child. His own father wasn’t immune to the call of siring spares should his heir die. “Even so… I have sisters in their twenties who are still unmarried.” Granted, some of that had more to do with his half-sister, Onella, and her schemes.
“But are any of them lined up to be the heir?”
Laughter, far louder than he had expected, burst from him. Darshan shook his head, unable to calm down enough to explain. Judging by the man’s scowl, he didn’t need to.
“A woman cannae inherit the title of Mhanek, then?”
Clearing his throat and fighting off a few lingering giddy hiccups, he shook his head again. “That title always goes to the closest male in the bloodline.” Darshan was well aware the same couldn’t be said of the Tirglasian throne. At times, he wished that was true back home. It would’ve made quite the difference. Fewer sisters for one.
“And if there is nae male?”
“Then there is generally a scurry to produce one.” A number of his half-sisters had already gone down that route. Onella—the oldest of his sisters excluding his twin—had married some poor lord in Nulshar some years back and had practically paraded her newborn son through the streets of Minamist.
Gordon’s frown deepened, but he said nothing further.
Their little foray around the courtyard, silently tailing the children whilst not appearing to do so, ended at the back of the stables. All three of the boys circled various stacks of hay, their bows half-drawn. Was the hunt almost at an end?
Darshan peered at their surroundings. He didn’t see anything large enough for a man to hide behind, unless he was in one of the haystacks, but surely that would’ve made this game far too difficult for the boys. Not to mention leave a trace. “How long do these hunts usually take?”
Gordon’s shoulders bobbed. “Depends on where he hides.”
Not helpful. That could mean anywhere from now to noon. He glanced up. The sun sat high, shaded by the occasional, fast-moving cloud. How was it not noon already? How did they even tell the hour here? I’d kill for a portable timepiece. The palace courtyard had been constructed as a huge astronomical sunclock, the ancient dwarves that’d designed the building taking advantage of sun and shadow on a phenomenal scale. There were other devices, like the recent mechanical marvel of wheels and weights that was the council room’s chronometer, but none of them were small enough for travel.
“So,” Darshan said as he watched the boys continue their search for Hamish. “If you handle the army and your sister manages trade, what does your brother usually do with himself? On the days that he has not become prey for his nephews, that is.” As much as he would like
