Since Gariel had grown up in Cherek where almost everyone’s blond, the only brunette he’d ever encountered had been me. Algars are darker than Chereks, and Gariel was absolutely fascinated by the dark-haired Algar girls. Since Gariel was new to the clan, the girls hadn’t watched him go through all the awkward stages of growing up, so they found him to be equally fascinating. I was hard-pressed to keep my young charge and his new-found friends from exploring the outer reaches of those shared fascinations.
I’m sorry, but that’s about as delicately as I can put it. Mother was much more blunt when she told me that Gariel’s first son would be his heir – with or without benefit of clergy.
We finally got him safely married to a tall, beautiful Algar named Silar, and I was able to catch up on my sleep. When their son was born in 4756, I suggested that we might dust off one of the traditional names of the line, and they obliged me by naming the infant Daran. There were a dozen or so names we’ve used off and on down through the centuries, and I’ve found that these repetitions give us a sense of continuity and purpose that sustains a little family that’s obliged to live in obscurity.
Young Daran quite literally grew up on horseback, and I think that when he was a boy he hovered on the very brink of becoming what the Algars call a Sha-Dar – even as Hettar currently is. The Sha-Darim are known as ‘Horse-Lords’, men whose affinity for horses somehow links their minds with the group minds of entire horse-herds. I moved decisively to head that off. The Sha-Darim are so obsessed with horses that they seldom marry, and that option simply wasn’t open to Daran. The Sha-Darim also became irrational in some ways – as Hettar demonstrated in Ulgoland that time he tried to tame a Hrulga stallion. The Hrulgin look like horses, but they’re carnivores, so Hettar didn’t have much success – except that he managed to keep the Hrulga from having him for breakfast.
In time, Daran did marry a young Algar named Selara, and their son, Geran, was born in 4779. Note that repetition again. I was determined to keep the line of succession Rivan, and one of the ways I accomplished that was to make sure that they all had Rivan names. Like his father, Geran grew up to be a horse-herder, and I began to give some thought to relocation again. Algars are perfectly content with their nomadic life, but my task involved not merely hiding and protecting the heirs, but also nurturing and molding them. An Algar herder is quite probably the most independent and free of all men. Freedom’s all very well, I suppose, but it has no place in the make-up of an incipient king. A king – and by extension his heir – is the least free of all men. It’s a commonplace to say that a king wears a crown; but in reality, it’s the other way around.
My options in Algaria were severely limited. The only two places in the entire kingdom that didn’t move around on wheels were the Stronghold, which isn’t really a city but a baited trap set for any Murgos who come down the Eastern Escarpment to steal horses, and the village of Aldurford, Fleet-foot’s first capital. After Geran married and his son, Darel, was born in 4801, I began a careful campaign of corrupting the newest heir, stressing the inconvenience of living in a moving village and being dragged along behind a herd of cows interested only in grass. I told Darel stories about town-life with its comfort and convenience and all the joys of civilization as opposed to the loneliness of the nomadic life. A helpful blizzard in the winter of 4821 convinced him that there might be something to what I’d been telling him. After he’d spent twenty-eight hours in the saddle with a screaming wind driving snow into his face, he began to get my drift. I encouraged him to strike up an acquaintance with the son of our resident blacksmith, and he picked up the rudiments of that useful trade. That’s what probably turned the trick. There was no real need for two blacksmiths in the clan, so Darel would have to strike out on his own if he wanted to follow his trade.
As luck had it, he’d formed no permanent attachment to any of the girls in our clan, and so he had nothing to hold him back when he and I moved to Aldurford in 4825. The then current blacksmith in Aldurford was a bit too fond of strong drink, and he spent far more time in the local tavern than he did in his smithy. Thus, when I set Darel up in business on the outskirts of town, he soon had plenty of work to keep him out of mischief.
He was thirty when he finally married a local beauty, Adana, and they were very happy together. I shouldn’t admit it, but I was probably even happier than they were. Nomads tend not to bathe often, and people who spend all their time with horses and cows grow fragrant after a while. After Darel and I set up housekeeping in Aldurford, I bathed twice a day for almost a solid year.
The marriage of Darel and Adana was a good one, and Adana and I got along well together. I’d bought us a small house on the outskirts of town, and Darel’s new wife and I spent most of our time together in the kitchen. ‘Aunt Pol?’ she said to me one afternoon. I noticed that her face was troubled.
‘Yes, Adana?’
‘Is it possible that Darel and I are doing something wrong?’ She blushed furiously. ‘I mean, shouldn’t I be pregnant by now? I really want to have babies, but–’ she faltered.
‘Sometimes it takes a while, dear,’ I told her. ‘It’s not exactly the same as nailing pieces of wood together. There’s always an element of luck involved, you know.’
‘I do so want to give Darel a son, Aunt Pol.’
‘Yes, dear,’ I said, smiling, ‘I know.’ Of course I knew. Producing children is the ultimate expression of love for any woman, and Adana loved her blacksmith husband with a peculiarly fervent passion. ‘Come here a moment, dear,’ I said to her.
She obediently came to me, and I laid one hand on her lower abdomen. Then I sent a gently probing thought out through my fingers, and found the source of the problem almost immediately. Adana’s problem was chemical in nature. There was an imbalance that interfered with normal procreation.
If you’re that curious about it, you could read some medical texts, I suppose. I wouldn’t want to rob you of the joy of discovery, so I won’t get too specific here.
‘I’ll have to take a little trip down to the Vale, Adana,’ I told her.
‘Is it permanent, Aunt Pol?’ she asked, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Am I barren?’
‘Don’t be such a goose, Adana,’ I laughed. ‘You just need a little tonic, that’s all. I need to look up the proper formula in one of the books in my father’s tower, that’s all.’ The word ‘tonic’ is very useful for physicians. Everyone knows that a tonic is good for you – and that it doesn’t taste very good. The patients always make faces at the taste, but they take it religiously.