Ketha's Daughter [Song of the Arkafina #2]

by Suzanne Francis

Overview

Queen Katrione Arkafina ably rules the kingdom of Beaumarais, but she has had less success with her boisterous daughter, Gwenn, born under the sway of a brutal Goddess. Keth Dirane has given Gwenn awesome strength and almost complete invulnerability, but manipulates her cruelly in return. Now, to further her own ends, she convinces Gwenn she must seek revenge for an old betrayal.

On the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Gwenn runs away. After she allies herself with some marauding coastal raiders, captained by Gunnar Strong Arm, she has the army she requires. Now, as the dreaded warrior Faircrow, Gwenn will steer the Fynära inexorably towards her former home -- the City of Isle St. Valery.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940033068357
Publisher:	Mushroom Publishing
Publication date:	02/21/2012
Series:	Song of the Arkafina , #2
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Fantasy author Suzanne Francis was born in a hotel in King's Lynn, Norfolk and spent much of her early life traveling widely with her military family. In addition to writing, her passions include music, neo-paganism and tramping through the countryside. She now makes her home in Dunedin, New Zealand along with her husband and four children. Heart of Hythea is her first published novel.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Lutyond's Leviathan

An old woman sits by a fireplace, and rattles a skin pouch filled with round stones, worn smooth by the action of the waves on the beach. She closes her eyes and places her hand inside, then stares at the stone she retrieves. It has been carefully incised with a stylized iceberg symbol.

Turning to her companion, who also sits close to the warmth of the fire, she says--Look, Hieronymus, it is Lutyond's Leviathan.[1] That means Raven is on the move at last.

* * * *

"No! I am not going and that is final. You cannot make me, Mother, and you know it. So why do you continue to argue?" Gwenn Benet angrily stamped her booted foot and glared at her mother.

Katkin sighed. The girl was right--she could not force Gwenn to do anything she did not want to do. She tried to reason with her stubborn daughter. "Listen, Gwenn. I have been Queen for sixteen years, far longer than I originally thought I would have to keep the position. Beaumarais does not need me anymore. The country is at peace with all her neighbors and trade is more profitable than ever. What is more, your father..."

Gwenn interrupted sarcastically, "My what? Call him Jacq. He means nothing to me."

The Queen gave her an angry glance. "Jacq, then. I promised him many years ago I would not stay in the City any longer than I had to. I know he is weary of being the Queen's consort, Gwenn. He does not complain, but I see the unhappiness in his eyes. It is time for us to move to the country and go back to the life he loves best. He has been more than patient."

"And you expect me to give up being a Princess, and go and live insome disgusting ... hovelin the back of beyond just so you can make him happy? Why should I? I like it here in the Citadel, with Jessamine and the rest of my friends." Gwenn's stormy expression left Katkin little doubt her carefully rehearsed arguments had fallen on deaf ears.

"Acorn is not a hovel. You saw that for yourself when we rode out there last week. When I instructed my men to rebuild the house your father ... I mean, Jacq, and I used to live in, I told them to expand and refurbish it. They even added indoor plumbing."

Gwenn gave her mother a withering look. "Indoor plumbing? My Gods, Mother, get a grip on yourself. Why did you not have Tintaren Manor rebuilt instead? That might be a decent place to live."

"Tintaren Manor burned down long ago, and I don't have any desire to live in my family's old mansion anyway. My father made his fortune by exploiting the cottars who worked for us. How would it look if I retired and took up residence there? It is out of the question. Anyway, I have already had Acorn rebuilt as a surprise for Jacq, and I intend to tell him tomorrow at your birthday banquet. I know he will be pleased."

"Are you planning to tell him any other secrets?" Gwenn said poisonously. "I know one which would not please him at all."

Katkin took a deep breath, determined to keep her temper in check now Gwenn had begun her favorite game. She said, firmly, "That is in the past and it needs to stay there."

"Oh yes, my Mother, and it will, as long as I get what I want. And what I want is to stay here in St. Valery." Gwenn looked at her mother and Katkin felt a sudden urge to slap the sneer from her face. Still, she did nothing.

"If you could stay here and go to school, as I did in my younger days, then I would not mind. Since you have managed to get yourself thrown out of every educational institution in St. Valery that is not possible. What happened at the last one? Beating up the headmaster, was it not?"

Gwenn's sneer turned into a pout. "Because I threatened to slice up that awful François Besson after he tried to kiss me, the headmaster took my sword away and told me to go to my room. Faugh! I challenged him to a duel and he laughed at me. I had to crush him; my honor was at stake."

"You have been listening to too many of Jacq's tales. Young ladies are not supposed to behave like warriors. What am I going to do with you?"

"You are not going to do anything with me. I don't have to listen to you. Ketha says..."

Katkin felt her grip on her temper slipping. "Leave that venomous snake out of this conversation. None of this would have happened if not for her."

"What do you mean, Mother? Ketha is my best friend in the whole world. She has given me powers you can only dream of."

"She has made you quarrelsome and unkind and I rue the day I ever let you near her. But that, too, is in the past and I cannot change it. Now listen to me, and listen well. You are going to leave St. Valery and move to the country with me and Jacq, and that is final." Katkin held her daughter's intense blue eyes in a challenging stare.

"No! Stop ordering me about or I will tell him the truth." Gwenn gave a satisfied smile, sure this threat, which had served her so well in the past, would come to her defense again. This time her mother surprised her.

"Go ahead and tell him," Katkin said bitterly. I have lived with that secret for sixteen years. I am too tired to fight any more."

She thought back to the day long ago when Gwenn had come to her, full of questions, carrying a braid of blond and chestnut hair carefully twined together and tied with a ribbon. Katkin had hidden it away in the bottom of a locked chest in her personal dressing room, and she had no doubt the troublemaking Keth Dirane had sent the girl to find it. The blond hair woven into the braid belonged to Captain Tomas de Vigny--Gwenn's true father. Katkin had once allowed him to make love to her, in return for a visit with her incarcerated husband, Jacq Benet. Unbeknownst to her, Tomas later made the braid--using a lock of her hair wound together with his--as a memento of the assignation that created Gwenn. Jacq knew nothing of Gwenn's true parentage, of course. Katkin had sworn on the heart of the Goddess Lalluna she would never tell him, on the day Tomas de Vigny died.

"Fine, maybe I will!" Gwenn snapped back. "Then you will be sorry."

"So will you, one day," Katkin spoke quietly now, with regret. "Jacq loves you so much. I only wish he felt as proud of Tristan as he does of you."

"Of course he is proud of me. Even if he is not my real father, I am still the true heir of the Dinrhydan[2], the greatest swordsman in the history of Beaumarais. That baby Tristan cannot come close. Ketha made me strong, and Jacq taught me the ways of the warrior. There is no man who could vanquish me now."

Katkin wearily shook her head. "Such skills belong to a different time. Now the world is at peace. When will you understand that?"

"Ketha speaks of a place where the accomplishments of the warrior are still valued, and someday soon I am going there. I will have such power, no-one will tell me what to do, ever again." She gave her mother a meaningful glance. "I will make you pay dearly for all your lies." With this, she turned and ran from the room. Katkin watched her go. After brushing the tears from her eyes, she called for her equerry to ready her pony, Alys.

* * * *

As Gwenn strode through the Citadel passages on her way to the blacksmith's shop, Ketha's voice echoed hollowly in her mind. "Are you going to tell him our secret? You said you would." She sounded hopeful. As Gwenn stepped on to the grassy parade fields, she paused to admire a detachment of Queen's Guard practicing close order drilling. She spoke out loud, though there was no-one near her.

"No, of course not. I love Jacq, even if he is not my real father. He is the only one who understands me. Not like her. I hate my mother!"

"You told your mother he meant nothing to you." Ketha's disappointment sounded plainly in her voice.

"I just said that to make her angry." Gwenn sighed. "I suppose I will actually have to do as she says this time."

"When are you going to learn, my dear? You must not allow your mother to dictate to you. That is not the way to freedom, child. Make her pay, Gwenn, as you threatened. Let us leave tonight, and make our way north. You can make new friends there, friends with real power. Later we can come back and crush her, as you have always wanted. Then we can have Jacq all to ourselves."

Gwenn listened to this in surprise. Had she always wanted to crush her mother? If Ketha said so, she supposed it had to be true.

She came in to the blacksmith shop and greeted her stepfather cheerfully. Jacq grinned at her as he hammered a red-hot horseshoe. Gwenn had been helping in the smithy since she was just a little thing, barely big enough to lift the heavy metal implements. Now she watched with interest, ready with the tongs to plunge the finished shoe into the cold water. Jacq nodded to her when it was ready and the shoe joined the others in the bucket with a brief hiss of boiling water and steam.

Jacq labored at the Citadel ironworks several days a week, making horseshoes or other handcrafted metal implements as needed. Of course, as the Queen's consort, he did not really have to work at all, but it made him feel useful to be making things with his hands. He felt very proud of his famous wife, who had saved the City from certain annihilation when she became the Avatar of Lalluna. Though she had been terribly maimed in her efforts to heal Hythea, the volcano Goddess, and now had only one arm, Jacq still thought her as beautiful as the day they met. Then she had been six years old and he ten. He had never loved another woman, could not even imagine it, until his little girl had been born and stolen his heart. Of course, he loved his son Tristan as well, but the boy could not compete with Gwenn, who shared Jacq's fascination with sword fighting.

They toiled together in companionable silence for a few moments and then she asked, "Do you have any swords to work on today, Jacq?"

He shook his head and she sighed regretfully. This use of his first name no longer troubled him, for she had been calling him that a few years now, for some reason he could not fathom. Katkin had assured him their daughter was just going through a phase and would grow out of it--but she had not.

"Are you almost finished?" she asked him eagerly. "Let's go practice for a while. I think I almost had you yesterday, you know. If only I had done a half turn to the left instead of the right, you would have been at my mercy."

"Of course we can. And you may turn whichever way takes your fancy today," he added drily. Jacq smiled and placed his sledgehammer with the other tools on the rack above the workbench. Though he had more work to do, he always made time for Gwenn and her sword fighting lessons. He began teaching her the day she showed an interest in his long, two-handed sword, d'angwir,[3] when she was six years old. Over her mother's strenuous objections, he had forged a tiny blunt-tipped metal blade for her. She had taken to swordplay with such determination and skill he continued to make her weapons as she grew and they spent many hours a week practicing. Other than tumbling, it was her only interest. Certainly, school had not held her attention, but that did not bother Jacq at all.

"But wait a moment. I have something to give you first."

He walked back to a dark corner of the smithy, behind the big forge, and returned with a long, bulky object wrapped in a dirty cloth. This present had taken him six months to make, and in it he had placed all the love and pride he felt in his heart for his warrior daughter.

Gwenn looked baffled as he handed over the bundle. He said, "I know your birthday isn't until tomorrow, but I want you to open this now, in private." Jacq smiled and shrugged sheepishly. "Your mother wouldn't understand, and I did not want there to be an argument at the banquet."

She unwrapped his present eagerly and gasped at the contents. There, in her hands, lay the most beautifully worked sword she had ever seen. Her stepfather had executed every detail impeccably, from the finely shaped damascened steel blade, to the wrist guard made of twisted gold and silver wire with inset jewels. Gwenn held it up to the light, a look of wonder on her face as she admired the detailed engraving that flashed with glints of fire from the forge.

"Oh, Papa, it is a most magnificent sword! Did you truly make it just for me?"

Jacq smiled happily and nodded--pleased he had shocked his daughter back into calling him by his title again. She held it before her and executed some rapid slashes. The perfectly balanced weapon performed just like a living extension of her arm.

Gwenn gave a whoop of sheer delight. "Come on, let's go and practice, right now! You had better watch out. Now you have given me this, I think I might be able to vanquish you at last, my Papa."

He handed her a matching scabbard and baldric, crafted with equally loving attention, and said, "First we must consecrate your new blade and give it a name. It might take you some time to think of the right one, and you should not use it until then. Today you should use your old sword."

She shook her head decisively. "I already know what name I want. My sword shall be called keth'fell."

"Keth'fell? Are you sure?" Jacq thought the name, which meant "death crow" in the old tongue, seemed a strange one for her to choose.

"I am sure. What do I have to do to consecrate my sword?" She waited impatiently as Jacq explained she must draw her own blood with the sword and smear it onto the blade.

"Then you must repeat the name of the sword three times and call upon the Goddess to protect you from harm. Will you do the bloodletting yourself, or do you want me to do it for you?"

Gwenn seemed unsure, so he took her hand in his huge rough one. "Ready?" he asked, and gave her a worried look.

She nodded confidently and said, "Do it, Papa." He drew the edge of the blade across her palm, making a shallow cut that bled freely. Gwenn blinked once or twice but did not make a sound. Jacq looked on proudly as she dabbed the puddle of blood in her left hand with her fingertips and anointed the blade.

"Now say keth'fell three times and call on Lalluna," he instructed her.

Gwenn did as he said, but instead of petitioning her mother's Goddess, the peaceful Lalluna, for protection, she silently prayed to Keth Dirane. Ketha's voice came to her in her mind, saying, "Of course I will always protect you Gwenn."

Once they finished the ceremony, Gwenn followed Jacq out of the smithy into the bright spring sunshine. She chattered exuberantly about her new sword as they made their way across the parade field towards the special fighting apparatus Jacq had built for them. It consisted of many individual platforms on several levels, with connecting stairs, ramps, and swinging bridges. Jacq spent a few moments rearranging the platforms into an unfamiliar configuration as Gwenn happily did back flips, cartwheels and somersaults on the grass. Her bright blond hair flashed in the sun.

Jacq placed his own sword with the blade pointing diagonally towards the ground. Gwenn joined him on the platform and crossed his sword with her own. She felt a shiver of pure delight when she saw that keth'fell was the equal of her father's mighty weapon, d'angwir. He locked eyes with her, grey into blue, and forgot he looked upon his daughter. Now she was only his opponent, and he focused completely on her. He held up his hand, and barked, "En garde!" Gwenn nodded and the fight began.

Their lessons almost always drew a crowd. Passing Guardsmen stopped to watch the Dinrhydan's magnificent skill with d'angwir, as he fought off charge after tireless charge from Gwenn. Though Jacq had seen his fortieth birthday this year, he still moved with the easy grace of a dancer as he ran backwards up a flight of steps and then jumped down to the lower platform. Gwenn executed a front somersault and landed before him. She swung in a vicious arc and Jacq ducked quickly to avoid losing his head. He thrust forward and she did a one handed back flip, the landing perfectly balanced. The crowd before them cheered, but neither heard the cries. Only the flashing of swords and the movement of the opponent's body occupied the fighter's attention. Neither gave or asked the other for quarter.

The contest continued for thirty minutes, until Jacq's face dripped with sweat and his breathing became ragged. Gwenn watched him carefully, waiting for the moment when he would tire and drop his guard for a split second. Never had she felt so invincible. Keth'fell made her into the warrior she had always dreamt she would be. Whirling sideways, she sent Jacq staggering with a swift kick, and watched triumphantly as he fell backwards. In a split second, she had hooked his wrist guard with the point of keth'fell and disarmed him. He gazed up at her in surprise. Her eyes hardened, and she touched the wickedly sharp tip of her sword to the hollow of his throat below the Adam's apple. Seeing the pulse beating in his neck gave her a curious thrill of power. The crowd below her murmured in consternation. Jacq lay very still, resting on his elbows, and his heart hammered as he waited for Gwenn to release him.

"Why don't you finish him?" Ketha hissed to her. "Now is your chance to prove you are mightier than the Dinrhydan."

Gwenn backed away, shaking her head, and dropped her sword. She cried out, "No! Not him. I won't do it."

Jacq stared at his daughter. "Who are you talking to?" he asked her.

She hung her head in embarrassment. "No-one, Papa. I just got confused for a moment." Gwenn held out her hand and helped him to rise.

He picked up keth'fell and handed it to her carefully, saying with a smile, "Well, I guess the time had to come, my daughter. You are the victor today, and I could not be more proud of you. Happy birthday, sweetheart." He gathered her up into his arms for an embrace, and Gwenn put her head on his broad shoulder, and managed to wipe her eyes surreptitiously on his already soaked shirt. As a true shield maiden, she did not want to be seen crying like a little girl.

After a moment, she said, "If I am a warrior truly worthy of respect, it is because of you, my Papa. Thank you for keth'fell and all your patient lessons. I will never forget this day. I love you, Papa Bear."

Jacq smiled and unashamedly wiped the tears from his own eyes. She had not called him that since she was a little girl. "I love you, too, Goldilocks."

The crowd around the platform broke up now that the show had ended. Father and daughter walked back towards the Citadel tower, arm in arm, animatedly discussing the finer points of the battle.

Fourteen-year-old Tristan Dinrhydan Benet watched them approach from his bedroom window. As it always did at these moments, his mind festered with jealousy and rage. His father and Gwenn had something special that Tristan knew in his heart he could never share. He had practiced and practiced with his sword, but it was clear he would never be his sister's equal in that department. Papa would always love her more. Turning away from the window in disgust, Tristan went to find his mother to tell her Gwenn had been fighting again. If he could get his sister into trouble, it might make him feel a little better.

Gwenn met him coming down the stairs. "Hello, little Shrimp. Where are you going with such a stormy face?" she taunted him.

"None of your business, Longshanks. Get out of my way." Gwenn towered over Tristan, and could easily best him in any physical contest, from racing to wrestling. He took some comfort in the fact he excelled at school. But though his father pretended to take pride in this, Tristan could tell it did not impress him nearly as much as his sister's dazzling swordsmanship.

Gwenn stepped aside saying, "Go on, Brat. Run to Mummy and tell her I have been practicing with Jacq." She smirked at Tristan when she saw by his expression that her guess had hit the mark.

He gave her a black look, and then noticed the sword she wore strapped to her back with the baldric Jacq had made for her. "Holy Goddess! Where did that come from? Did you steal it?"

She gave him a haughty look. "Of course I did not steal keth'fell. Papa made her for me, as a present for my sixteenth birthday." Gwenn produced the weapon with a ringing flourish and showed it off to her brother.

Though Tristan tried hard not to look impressed, his jealousy showed plainly on his face. He said, "Mother will not be pleased. You know she hates it when you and Father fight. The last time the surgeon had to stitch him up, she shouted at him for ages afterwards. Both of you are going to be in trouble now."

Gwenn laughed in his face. "I don't give a damn what she thinks. Soon, I will bring her to her knees and make her beg me for her very life. She will be the one in trouble, not me."

He looked at his sister with wide, shocked eyes. "You should not talk that way! Our mother is the Queen, remember? Such threats are treason. It is my duty as a citizen of the realm to tell her what you said. They will send the Guard for you."

"Tell her. I don't care. No-one can catch me where I am going," Gwenn said smugly.

"Are you leaving?" This unexpected news made him feel happier than he had for some time.

"Yes I am, and don't go running to Mummy with that piece of news. If you do, I'll cut your heart out and feed it to the cat for dinner." She glared at her brother.

Tristan smiled cunningly at her. "Don't worry, big sister, your secret is safe with me. Where are you going?"

"I am not telling you, little boy. But when I come back, you had better watch out. All of you." She said nothing else, just brushed past him up the stairs. Tristan watched her go, and he could not hide his hopeful expression.

Gwenn went into her bedroom and lay down on the ornately worked metal canopy bed her stepfather had made for her long ago. "A bed fit for a princess," he had laughingly said to her, on her eighth birthday.

Back then, she had been happy, for she had not known about her mother's lies. Reaching under her pillow, she removed a pearl-handled dagger and studied it closely. It had once belonged to her real father, Tomas de Vigny. Gwenn had kept at her mother for ages until she gave her the knife, saying it was the only thing of Tomas' she owned. Besides the hair, of course, but Katkin had refused to give her that. Tomas had been Jacq's sworn enemy. Gwenn still did not understand how her mother could have done such a terrible thing to her beloved Papa, and she hated her for lying to them both.

Ketha's voice rang in her head. "The sooner you leave here, the sooner you can make her pay."

"He is supposed to be coming back here to St. Valery," Gwenn said earnestly. "I want to see him before we depart. Jessamine told me he sent a letter."

"We cannot wait forever. He is months late already. We need to go now so we can make our way north in good weather. Perhaps we will meet him on the way."

"Do you think so? Could you find him, in all this wide Yrth?"

Ketha cackled. "Of course I can find him. Am I not a Goddess? But you must not tell him your real name or your destination. He might try to stop you, or come back here to warn the others."

"But Ketha, I..."

"No! Heed me, or I will punish you. Do you understand?" Ketha's voice was harsh, and Gwenn knew this was no idle threat. Her hand instinctively strayed to a long ragged scar on her upper thigh.

"Very well. I will do as you say." Gwenn heaved a sigh and stood up.

"That is better. Now start packing. We leave tonight, after the moon sets."

Gwenn moved slowly around her bedroom. Though she had been saying for months she could not wait for the day she could leave home, now the moment was at hand she felt curiously reluctant. She examined her collection of stuffed animals on the shelf, next to the books optimistically given to her by her mother that she had never even opened. There were prizes for tumbling pinned to the walls, and pictures she had painted as a child. Her first little sword, that Jacq had made her all those years ago, had pride of place over the mantle piece. She ran her fingers along the dulled edge regretfully. Her eyes filled with tears as she recalled his proud expression today after she had defeated him.

Ketha said, "What is this? I thought you were a shield maiden. You cannot afford to be sentimental. You want power, do you not? And freedom? Jacq has taught you everything he knows. He can be of no more use to us. Now we must move forward and find a race of warriors for you to command. That has always been your dream, has it not?"

Gwenn wiped her eyes and nodded. Ketha was right, as usual. She began stuffing some old clothes into a leather shoulder bag while looking with distaste at the beautiful dresses her mother had bought for her. She left them untouched on their hangers in the armoire, along with the dainty slippers and luxurious stockings. At least her mother would never force her to wear such things again. She pulled on her over-the-knee leather boots, and placed the dagger into the top of the right one. Suddenly, she remembered she could not slip away until it was dark, and that meant dressing for dinner. Gwenn felt sure another meeting with her stepfather would make her change her mind about leaving all together.

With a look of grim determination, she placed the scabbard and baldric belonging to keth'fell over her head, and shouldered her bag. After creeping along the deserted hallway, she went to her mother's dressing room, reached into the back of her wardrobe, and pulled out a small wooden coffer. Deftly, she picked the lock with a hairpin and removed the keepsake that had once belonged to her real father. Underneath it, she saw a curious amulet. With a sly smile, she placed it around her neck. She snapped the chest shut again, placed it back in the wardrobe and went back to her own room. After hastily rolling up one of the woolen blankets from her bed, she tied it with some rarely used hair ribbons.

Although her room stood on the third floor of the Citadel tower, Gwenn often exited through the window to avoid whatever tedious duty her mother wanted to impose on her. She scanned the parade field below. The mess hall bell had just rung, and all the Guardsmen were inside having dinner. Gwenn stepped over the sill and found a good handhold on the ivy clinging to the brickwork. After one long last look at her bedroom, she swiftly climbed down the wall and left her old life behind.