The Lycans Voted Her Queen novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Count of Stones
The lycan women of the Range vote for the human midwife over the king's pick, she refuses the crown in front of them all, and the law says the king must keep her door.
I walked into the Hearth Hall at dawn with a baby's blood still under my thumbnails.
The pup had come at ten past four, a girl, red and furious and perfect.
I had not slept.
Then a girl of twelve had banged on the clinic door and said Hester Petherton wanted me in the Hall before sunrise.
I assumed someone had complained about me again.
Four hundred women stood along the walls of the big timber room.
Lycan women are tall, and most of them looked down at me, and none of them looked away.
The smell of woodsmoke and wet wool hung under the beams.
At the far end sat two clay jars on a long table, and a third jar stood off to one side, bigger than the others.
Hester stood behind them with her stick.
She was seventy-four, thin as a fence rail, and she had counted every vote in the Range for forty years.
"There she is," Hester said.
"I can come back," I said. "I have a mother who needs her stitches checked at seven."
"Stay."
I stayed.
Dottie Wynn caught my eye from the third row.
She was nine months pregnant and sat on a bench with her hands on her belly, grinning.
"What is this?" I whispered.
"Quiet," she whispered back. "She's about to read."
Hester lifted the lid of the first jar.
"The Count of the first frost," she said, in a voice that carried to the doors.
"Four hundred and twelve women dropped a stone. Every stone is a name."
She reached in and let a handful clatter back into the clay.
"The king named one woman to this Hearth, as the law lets him. Britta Lund."
A tall woman near the front lifted her chin.
Britta was twenty-nine and elegant, with a long pale braid and a face that gave nothing away.
"One hundred and eighteen stones for Britta Lund," Hester said.
A murmur went down the walls.
"Seven stones with no name. Seven women who want it noted that they didn't care to say."
Somebody laughed.
Hester put her hand on the big jar.
"Two hundred and eighty-seven stones for Moira Hartigan."
The room did not make a sound.
I looked behind me, because there had to be another Moira.
There was only the door, and a wall of women, and every one of them looking at me.
"Me?" I said.
"You," said Hester.
"I'm a midwife."
"You are a woman over eighteen who has lived in the Range for nine years. The law asks for nothing else."
"I'm human."
"The law doesn't say wolf. I looked it up again this morning, just to enjoy it."
Someone in the back began to clap.
Then a few more joined.
Then Dottie was on her feet, which took her a while, and the sound came down on me.
I had delivered two hundred and twelve of this Range's last four hundred and thirty pups.
I had never once thought that meant anything but a long night and a good outcome.
The side door opened.
Cold air came in, and then the king.
Men do not enter the Hall during a Count.
The king is the one man who has to hear the name.
He came in behind the women's backs and stood at the edge of the light.
I had seen Garrick Holt perhaps four times in nine years, always across a yard, always at a distance he seemed to choose.
He was six foot eight and as wide as the door he had ducked through.
His sandy hair was cropped close and his beard was thick, and the top of his left ear was missing.
He wore a green wool shirt with the sleeves shoved up.
He had no coat, though the frost outside was white.
His eyes were pale green, ringed with gold.
They found me, and they stayed.
"The law says the king walks her to the chair," Hester said.
"Hester," I said.
"Take her hand, Garrick."
He came down the aisle, and women stepped back to make room for him as they would for a landslide.
He stopped in front of me.
I am five foot two.
My eyes came level with the middle of his chest, and I had to tip my head back to see his face.
He held out his hand, palm up.
It was the size of a dinner plate, scarred across the knuckles, and the fingers were steady.
"Miss Hartigan," he said. His voice was low and a little rough, as if he didn't use it much.
I put my hand in his.
Heat went up my arm.
His fingers closed, slow and careful, and the whole of my hand disappeared inside them.
I heard my own breath.
His eyes dropped to my mouth for a moment, and then he looked up again.
"This way," he said.
He walked me the length of the Hall.
Nobody spoke.
At the far end stood a plain chair of black oak with a worn seat, set on one step of stone.
It had been empty for six years.
A shout came from the doors.
"A human cannot sit the Queen's Chair!"
A man had pushed in past the guard, a silver-haired lycan with a heavy jaw and a coat cut in expensive tweed.
I knew him by his hands, because he had once broken a hold healer's wrist in front of me.
Rolf Lund, Britta's father.
"Show me the line," Hester said, without turning.
"It is understood!"
"Then it's not a law. Garrick."
Garrick said nothing.
I noticed that.
He kept my hand and kept his eyes on the chair, and the muscle in his jaw moved under the beard.
I looked at the black oak seat.
Four hundred women were watching me, and they had put their names into clay for me.
I should have felt proud.
What I felt was the sense of being handed an envelope with my pay inside.
For nine years the Range had thanked me with casseroles, pup-names, firewood and a seat at the long table.
I had always taken it, and said it was just my job.
I did not want to be paid in a throne.
I took my hand out of the king's, which took some effort, because I did not want to.
"No," I said.
It went through the Hall like a dropped tray.
"I'm sorry," I said, louder. "I know what this is. I know what you mean by it, and I'm grateful."
Dottie's mouth fell open.
"But it feels like thanks," I said. "You're thanking me for work I'm paid to do. I'm not taking a crown for it."
Rolf Lund looked smug, as if victory were already his.
Britta's face stayed empty, but her eyes had gone bright.
Garrick had not moved at all.
His hand still hung in the air where mine had been.
"Hester," I said. "Is that allowed?"
"Once," said Hester. She sounded like she was holding back a smile.
"A woman the Count names may refuse once. The chair stays empty until she says yes, or until midwinter."
"Fine."
"The king may name no other woman."
Rolf made a noise.
"And the king keeps the door," said Hester.
I turned to look at her.
"What does that mean?"
"It means he comes to your door once a day and asks, and you answer him."
"He may not order you, house you or feed you."
"He may give you what he can carry in one hand, and he may not come in unless you say so."
"That's a rule."
"It's the oldest one we have."
I looked up at Garrick Holt.
He was looking down at me with a face I could not read, except that he did not seem angry.
He looked down at the heavy weight in his hands, surprised to find he wanted it.
"I'll keep it," he said.
He said it to Hester, but he was watching me.
I left the Hall with every head turning after me, and I did not hurry, though my knees felt like water.
I made it to the clinic and checked the mother's stitches.
I ate a piece of toast standing up.
Then I slept for nine hours with my boots on.
When I woke the sky was copper, and someone was knocking on my porch rail.
I opened the door.
Garrick Holt filled the whole frame.
He held a loaf of bread in one hand, still warm, and his big shoulders were hunched against the cold.
"I'm told I ask," he said.
His eyes went over my face, my rumpled flannel, my bare feet on the boards.
"May I?"
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