was, though each girl handled her strain differently.
The keepers, so regal and silent in the square, scurried off like terrified mice when the temple doors were secured. None of them seemed to know what to do with five small females. The Highest Keeper barked orders at a man named Dagmar, who remained behind, and the girls were brought to a dining hall and served a simple supper in the cavernous and deserted room.
As before, everyone assumed Ghisla was far younger than she was. They thought she was younger that Elayne, mayhaps the same as Juliah, but older than Bashti and Dalys. Elayne said she was twelve. That made Ghisla the oldest girl there by two years.
Ghisla didn’t bother correcting the assumptions. She had no intention of ever telling the truth again, at least not where it concerned her life and her past, and Elayne would be better in the role as oldest. She looked oldest. She also seemed genuinely kind and eager to make the best of things, though from her pale cheeks and red-rimmed eyes, it was easy to see that she’d succumbed at some point to fear and sadness too.
Juliah of Joran bristled with hostility when anyone looked at her, and Bashti of Berne was just the opposite. She wanted everyone to look at her.
She attempted to be the court jester, juggling the apples someone had placed on the table where the girls were instructed to sit for their supper. Bashti wasn’t without skill, and Dalys clapped for her performance, but Juliah swiped one while it was in the air, throwing Bashti off her rhythm. Juliah took a huge bite out of it, the juice and bits of apple falling from her mouth as she chewed, insolent.
Bashti’s temper flared at the rude interruption, and Elayne moved between the girls from Berne and Joran in an effort to diffuse the tension. They all ended up eating in weary silence, their eyes on their food, shivering in the candlelit hall while listening to Master Ivo and Dagmar discuss their predicament.
The two men had waited until the keepers on supper duty were gone, but like many men not accustomed to females, they assumed their conversation was being ignored or unheard. It wasn’t. Though she bowed her head over her dinner, spooning in the broth of a weak soup and shoveling bread into her hungry belly, Ghisla was listening intently. She assumed the other girls were too.
“I had hoped the chieftains would not obey the king,” Keeper Dagmar said. He was handsome, with pale-blue eyes and skin that did not have the pallor of so many of the other keepers. He seemed younger than most of the other keepers too, though the Highest Keeper looked so ancient, everyone was young in comparison.
“I knew they would. So did you, Dagmar,” the Highest Keeper scoffed. “The chieftains are afraid. Saylok is afraid. A girl child from each clan—adopted by each clan—is their way of fighting back against a faceless foe, of preserving life, of bartering with the gods. Bringing a daughter to the temple is like storing gold in the ground, sewing jewels into a cloak, or hoarding food against a weak harvest.”
“What do we do, Master?” Dagmar worried, his eyes on the huddled daughters eating in the flickering candlelight.
“They are supplicants, Dagmar. We will treat them as such,” Ivo replied.
“They are not supplicants! They are children who have been ripped from their homes.”
Ivo sighed. “We ask nothing of them, Dagmar. Nothing. We will simply keep them safe.”
Dagmar shook his head and his tone was one of anguish. “I cannot protect Bayr. I cannot protect these girls. You saw the king this night. Bayr is at his mercy. These girls are at his mercy. He will use them to increase his power. It is a sham, Master.”
“Only to the king, Dagmar. Not to me. Not to Saylok.”
“They are just little girls,” Dagmar said. “Can we do this, Master?”
“We can. We will. And when the king leaves for Ebba, you must retrieve the ghost woman from the fields and bring her here. She will help us.”
After supper, Keeper Dagmar laid five pallets by the fire in the kitchen. The keepers had not yet prepared a permanent space for them, and every other room felt dark and cold.
The littlest girls tossed and turned in their sleep. Elayne moaned as though she wrestled with bad dreams, and Juliah lashed out at invisible foes. But Ghisla lay perfectly still, contemplating nothing and everything.