“Anybody got a fucking clue?”

The meeting was unusual. The group had all met each other before, even had meetings together, but there was one person missing and that threw the whole balance out.

Nielson looked around at the faces, searching for an answer to his question.

All six of the Keldara Fathers were present as well as two of the Mothers.

The Keldara were an ancient race of mountain warriors, descendants of the Norse guards of the Byzantine emperors, the Varangians. Marooned by the flow of history as the empire receded, they had endured a series of conquerors over the years but always maintained their traditions. Forced, like the Ghurkas and the Kurds, to be farmers for survival, they had, nonetheless, kept up their warrior tradition. In part this was due to a quiet and subtle breeding program.

Over the years they had had many “lords” occupy the caravanserai where the meeting was taking place. Some of them were courtiers exiled from centers of power but most had been foreign adventurers attached to whatever empire “owned” the Keldara at the time. The courtiers didn’t tend to last. They died mysteriously of diseases or sudden heart attacks or hunting accidents.

The other lords, the warriors, well, “a soldier that won’t fuck, won’t fight.” Those lords, naturally, wanted to sample the beautiful Keldara girls. And they were beautiful, so much so that people who met them commented on it constantly. Most such lords assumed the right as part of their position.

The Keldara had made that right their own, though, sending only girls who were about to be married and also in their period of maximum fertility. And they had insisted, quietly, subtly, but very determinedly, that the “lord” pay for his “rights” by presenting a dowry to the young lady.