The Rootstock
1260 Words
The Rootstock~
Madelyn o’Jenna
Twelvestones
Madelyn ran to keep up with Dara’s longer legs. He was older, but he wasn’t grown yet, and sometimes he let her tag along to watch him practice. He knew everything about Twelvestones. When no one else was around, Dara told her more than she ever got out of her parents or grandfather.
Until he got tired of her questions and reminded her she talked too much.
“Lilyan says it doesn’t matter which of them is her father because she’s a girl. That means she belongs to her mother.”
“That’s right.” Dara walked along a fallen log, not even holding out his arms for balance. Ruin, his pale silver gwynwulf, trotted along after him. She tried walking along behind them until she got tired of falling off. She ran down the path to catch up.
“But I’m a girl,” she said. “And Prince Brynmohr is my father.”
“Yes, but what’s your name?”
“Madelyn o’Jenna.” She thought for a minute. “So I belong to Mother?”
“You would if Prince Brynmohr weren’t your father.”
Dara was talking in circles. Sometimes she thought he did it on purpose.
“So how does Mother know Father is my father?” She challenged him.
“Because she is his consort and his alone,” he said, as if it were the simplest thing in the world to understand. “Women take only one mate. Most of them anyway. So, of course, he’s your father. Charlotte’s, too.”
“Nenen take more than one, though.” She puzzled it out. “Lady Glyneth married Prince Brynmohr, so that’s why she’ll be the queen. But she married Caustan and Palomar, too. Why?”
“You asked me this one before. What did I tell you? Why do nenen take several mates?”
She scrunched up her forehead. Dara didn’t like it when she asked the same question over and over.
“So they’ll have better babies,” she said triumphantly.
Dara laughed. “Not better babies. To have a better chance of having a baby. That’s what I told you.”
“What’s the difference?”
He stopped and folded his arms. He was about to tell her to stop asking questions. The big gwynwulf c****d his head as if he’d heard enough, too. She made a face at the smug beast.
“A nenan might have one or two babies in her whole life if she’s lucky. Women can easily have a dozen. A Firstborn lady takes several mates, so if one doesn’t give her a baby, another might.”
Dara walked on as she twisted it over in her head.
“Did Prince Brynmohr give Lady Glyneth a baby? Is that why he’s your father?”
“He’s my father because when I was born, Lady Glyneth named me Daranuthan o’Brynmohr and sent me to live with him. That makes me his son.”
“If you’d been a girl—”
“I’d be named o’Glyneth instead, I’d live with her, and you wouldn’t be following me around asking pesky questions.”
Madelyn bit her lip the rest of the way to the practice field. Dara readied his bow before the targets.
“Lilyan says you aren’t my brother.”
Dara’s arrow skimmed right of the target.
“She says I have a half-brother, though. He lives in Iverach. That’s by the ocean.”
“Lilyan needs to keep her big mouth shut.” Dara lowered his bow and frowned. “Better yet, her mother needs to keep her bigger mouth shut. Don’t repeat that to Father, do you understand? If there’s something he and Lady Jenna want you to know, they’ll tell you.”
His frown was a serious one.
“I promise, Dara. I won’t say it again.”
“Good. You talk too much.” He bent and whispered behind his hand. “Personally, I think I look more like Caustan. But do you understand it really doesn’t matter? All that matters is what Lady Glyneth named me.”
“I think so,” she said, not really understanding at all.
“And no one would ever call me your brother. At Twelvestones, brothers only have brothers and sisters only have sisters. Sons live with their fathers. Daughters live with their mothers.”
“So why do we live together?”
When Mother told stories about when she’d been a little girl, her family didn’t sound anything like this.
“Because Father’s the prince and he can do whatever he wants. He wants us to live with you and Charlotte and Lady Jenna.”
“What are you then? To me, I mean, if you aren’t my brother.”
“I don’t know there’s a Firstborn name for it. I guess you could call me your cousin if you wanted. But Lilyan would probably tell you that’s silly, too.”
Madelyn stretched out on the grass and watched him shoot another dozen arrows. Each one hit the target after the first one she made him miss. Dara was the best archer in all Twelvestones. Someday when she was strong enough to pull back on a bow, he would teach her. He’d promised.
After a while, she got bored and lay back to look for animal heads in the clouds. The next thing she knew, Dara was nudging her with his boot.
“Wake up, runt,” he said. “I’m headed back.”
Madelyn jumped up and brushed the grass off her skirt. She hurried after him, trying to work up the nerve to ask a favor.
“Dara?”
“What?”
“Father told me to visit Grandfather after dinner,” she said, swishing a stick through some leaves. Ruin snapped at the stick with his fierce white fangs, but she swatted him across the nose, and he let her be.
“Grandfather is fond of you,” said Dara. “He doesn’t mind if you ask the same thing over and over.”
“I know. It’s just that…” Words were hard sometimes. “Grandfather is so old. I can see all the bones in his hands. He almost never opens his eyes. Just makes that rattling sound. He…it’s scary.”
“He won’t be with us much longer,” he said. “You can be brave for a little while, can’t you?”
Dara thought she wasn’t brave. This time he was right.
“Would it help if I went with you?”
“Yes,” she said, jumping at his offer. “Yes, please, go with me.”
He pulled the quiver off his back and laid it across her arms.
“Take these to the armory for me. I want to go riding before dinner. And no,” he added before she could ask. “You can’t come.”
# # #
Madelyn edged up to Grandfather’s bed. Dara rested his hands on her shoulders.
“Grandfather, it’s me,” she said. “And Daranuthan.”
His old eyelids fluttered, then went still again. Dara leaned over her shoulder.
“Take his hand. Be brave.”
Madelyn rested her hand over her grandfather’s. His was bony and cold. She wanted to yank hers back, but Dara would see if she did.
Grandfather opened his eyes. He squinted at her.
“My sweet child,” he said with that rattling sound.
She didn’t know what to say, so she just patted his hand.
“What are you, sweet child?” he asked.
She knew the answer to this one. “I’m a daughter of the Firstborn.”
“Yes. Never forget.” He drew in a breath, and it whistled. “What is your destiny?”
That was harder. Grandfather had told her the last time she visited. He said it was important. The gods had told him, but she was supposed to keep it a secret. She chewed her lip for a few seconds.
“I am the rootstock,” she said.
Dara’s hands tightened on her shoulders. When she looked up at him, he wouldn’t look back.
“Yes, sweet child. You will bear fruit for the Firstborn.” Grandfather coughed and leaned his head back. “An army of warriors grafted on the rootstock.”
Madelyn had no idea what he meant, so she patted his hand until he closed his old eyes again. She stood still longer than she could remember ever standing still.
“Dara?”
“What?”
“He stopped rattling.”
Dara sucked in a breath, turned her around, and hurried her to the door. Out in the hallway, Grandfather’s gwynwulf paced and whined. Dara said something behind his hand to the guard and knelt, so his face was level with hers.
“Grandfather is gone,” he said. “Be brave for me now.”
“He died? With us standing there?” She panicked. “Did I do something wrong? Did I make him die?”
“No, Maddy. You eased his passing.”
Dara held her hand the whole way back to her room. She blinked back the tears until she sat on her bed, and Dara sat beside her. He didn’t get up again until she stopped sniffling and showed him she really was brave.
“Stay here until Father or Lady Jenna comes for you.”
She nodded.
Dara stopped at the door and looked back over his shoulder.
“He was wrong, Maddy,” he said. “No one is making you into rootstock.”
Chapter 33
- Writer
