“So we can tell Father and Elanor tonight?”
Ciara looked doubtful. “Just so long as they don’t go broody. I don’t want to be wrapped up and kept inside. I’m young, healthy, and the women of my line normally birth easily. Apart from that I know healcraft. I won’t take chances, love, but I don’t want to be driven mad by a fuss.”
Trovagh broke the news that evening. Privately he also managed a word with his family. The fuss was kept moderate. Ciara rode as usual, walked, and worked in the stillroom with her herbs. She bore a healthy boy. Four years later she added a girl to the family. But by then strange events were beginning.
A man had risen in the far South. He’d begun as a guard and proved to have fighting aptitude. From that he’d gone on to take over a garth. Then with a tail of men he’d taken a small clanless Keep.No one knew where he came from or what his blood. He called himself Pagar of Geen. But Geen was only a small town, and Pagar was a word in the old tongue for ‘One who stands alone.’ Nonetheless the man was a strategist as well as a fighter and leader of fighters. His next move was to take more land. It had lain long fallow, too far from clan land to be defensible, yet close to the Keep Pagar had taken, which had been small and not so defensible itself. Now the man was building a base, it appeared. Over the next two years Pagar strengthened his Keep, widened his holdings, then struck for real ties with power. It was a letter from Geavon that brought the news. Tarnoor read it with interest. So this Pagar had offered for the daughter of one of the smaller clans. He told his family over breakfast.
Ciara hooted. “Is that the one with a truly evil temper?”
“And a reputation for exhausting the Kars Guard?” Trovagh added.
“So I believe,” Tarnoor informed them. It was funny, but not for long. The woman apparently settled to a respectable wifehood, producing a son only days after nine months from the wedding. Her death in childbed was not surprising. Many women died that way. The child, however, lived, giving Pagar a solid clan claim. He used it to add men and clan soldiers to his train, striking within months at a keep belonging to a rival clan. It was taken swiftly. Then another, and a third. With growing wealth and status, his offer for a daughter of a larger clan was acceptable.
By this time there were voices suggesting Pagar be raised to duke. Merchants from Kars, some honest, others paid for the service, lobbied loudly. Here was a man who could finally bring order to the land. A man who knew the people. Three years later Pagar was crowned duke of the duchy of Kars. His alliances spread after that. His second wife died, again in a perfectly acceptable way. There was some gossip, put about by the ill-intentioned of course. Pagar ignored it loftily. He wed a third time. His prize was the only daughter of a powerful man in the most powerful of the coastal clans.
Pagar was thirty-three when he announced a campaign in the North. For too long the land around Verlaine had been lawless, Pagar said firmly. Fulk had never returned. Various lords had held Verlaine, the current one being a weak fool who permitted outlaws to ravage unchecked. Those living in that area agreed heartily. Pagar blooded his troops. Behind him he left Verlaine in the hands of one of those who looked to him. A strong guard reinforced peace over the area. Sycophants in Kars told all about them to look at how their duke handled things.
Geavon told a different story on a visit. “I don’t know the man’s eventual aim. But everything until now has been a carefully thought-out series of steps upward. I think soon he will attack Estcarp. It’s an old enemy to Karsten and the man must lead his men against someone.”
Elanor was puzzled. “Why?”
“Because of those he leads. Too many are mercenaries, bandits turned temporarily honest soldiers, outlaws impressed by the loot from the northern campaign. Without a war the army will fall apart. Pagar can’t pay them, but to keep them together he must. Or he can offer them the possibilities of vast loot. If he carves a path into Estcarp, he buys time to strengthen his power. Loot to rebuild Kars, plunder to pay his men. You do know he’s already started raiding along the border between us?”
Tarnoor was horrified. “Without declaration?”
“Exactly. Estcarp won’t take it for long. They’ll do something we may all regret.” Geavon sighed. “It all harks back to the Horning. Too many in our land benefited from that or have guilty consciences over things that happened. Too many have always feared that one day they’d be called to pay blood debt. Pagar has played on that. He has the city and most of the clans behind him in what he does. The worst of it is, Estcarp cannot win. If they do .nothing, Pagar will raid more boldly. If they act, then he will cry out that we are unjustly attacked by an old enemy. This is only the beginning. He will claim that if we do not fight, we will soon be a subject land.”
Tarnoor glanced at his friend. “Which do you think will come?”
“Those of Estcarp are not cowards, they’ll fight,” Geavon said thoughtfully. “Pagar is expecting an easier war than I think he will get. But once he is committed, then so are we all. I never liked nor trusted the man, I think he leads us where we would not wish did we but see the path ahead clearly. I fear for Karsten.”
It was well that Tarnoor persuaded the old man to remain. Two weeks later word came from Gerith Keep. Geavon left at once traveling light and as swift as aging bones allowed. His next letter was grim.
Estcarp had made some formal alliance with the Sulcar so that their fleets had been loosed upon Kars. Twenty ships broke the Kars river patrol, slashing into the very heart of the city. The results of that kept the duke busy in his own backyard for a year. The Kars merchants were outraged. The Sulcar had dealt death in moderation, but some wise one among them had counseled another blow. As the fleet withdrew they had burned every warehouse they could set alight. The duke had no sooner quelled that trouble than more came to him from the far South.
Hanion was amused. “They say the man claims to be Pagar’s half brother. That the father lived with some woman for several years before he died and got a son on her. This man is a bare twenty, but he’s ambitious and a couple of the clans with no love for Pagar will back him. Pagar had better deal quickly with him, else there are others who may decide this one to be the better bargain.”
Aiskeep was wise enough to remain apart. But as Hanion had said, there were others willing to fish in troubled waters.
Three years passed before Pagar was secure on his throne again. The half brother, however, had been so evilly slain that others rose in his place. As fast as the duke suppressed trouble in one province, it broke out elsewhere. Nor were supplies for war so easy to find of late with the Sulcar firmly on the side of Estcarp. For a time the duke lay low, keeping peace in the land while he built up trained men and quietly bought weapons to store against need.
In those years Aiskeep continued to thrive. The children grew, prospering in health and knowledge. Ciara’s daughter was sixteen when she wed. Ciara wept as she kissed her farewell.
“Be happy, do not be strangers to Aiskeep. May Cup and Flame go with you in blessing, little one.” For a time they did. Then it was the turn of Ciara’s son.
“But who is this lady, we have heard of no Aisha?”
Kirin laughed. “No, but is her name not a good omen? She is the sister of a friend I made in Kars. I met him when I stayed with Geavon at Gerith Keep last year. We visited my friend’s house in Kars often. She is young, only fourteen, but we could be wed next year.”
Ciara was uncertain. As ever she took her questions to Trovagh. “I know nothing of the girl; could we not invite her here for a time? We can thus decide with more knowledge. The match is well enough from what we know, but we know little.”
The girl came. She was small in stature, maybe a little sly, Ciara thought, quiet and gentle seeming but lazy and rather spoiled. She would not expect to run Aiskeep. In that she would produce no contention. She also appeared fond of Kirin, although Ciara wondered how much of her son’s determination was merely an infatuation with a very pretty girl. They were wed a year later, though Ciara wished both to wait a little longer.