‘See you in a week or two, then!’
‘If you’re luckier than you deserve!’ she called, without turning.
Koll stuck his thumbs carelessly in his belt and strolled down through the crowds, slipping around a wagon loaded with fleeces, old Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver droning out a blessing over the voyage in the background.
He froze as a heavy arm fell across his shoulders. ‘I need a word.’ For a big man, Brand could sneak up well enough when he wanted to.
Koll sent up a quick prayer to She Who Judges for mercy he knew he didn’t deserve. ‘To me? Whatever about?’
‘The Prince of Kalyiv.’
‘Ah!’ It said something that a man famous for skinning people alive was the preferable topic. ‘Him!’
‘Varoslaf is a bad man to cross,’ said Brand, ‘and Thorn’s got a habit of crossing those kind of people.’
‘True, though she’s a pretty bad woman to cross herself.’
Brand stared back at him. ‘Well there’s a recipe for a famous bloodbath, then.’
Koll cleared his throat. ‘I see your meaning.’
‘Just keep her out of trouble.’
‘She’s a hard woman to keep out of anything, especially trouble.’
‘Believe me when I say you’re telling me nothing I don’t know. Steer her away from trouble, then.’
Steering a ship through a tempest sounded lighter work but all Koll could do was puff out his cheeks. ‘I’ll do my best.’
‘Steer yourself away from trouble too.’
Koll grinned. ‘That I’ve always had a knack for.’ He looked hopefully towards Brand’s scarred and muscled arm. It did not move.
‘I’m not the sharpest man in Thorlby, Koll, I know that. But how thick do you think I am exactly?’
Koll winced so hard he closed one eye and peered at Brand out of the other. ‘Not my nose. It’s still not right after that white-haired bastard butted it.’
‘I’m not going to hit you, Koll. Rin can make her own choices. I reckon she made a fine one with you.’
‘You do?’
Brand looked at him calm and level. ‘Except you’re due to swear a Minister’s Oath, and give up all your family.’
‘Ah. The Oath.’ As though he’d hardly spared it a thought till now, when in fact he’d spent hours practising the words, thinking just how to say them, dreaming of what he’d do afterward, the high folk who’d nod at his wisdom, the grand choices he’d make, the greater good and the lesser evil he’d choose—
‘Yes, the Oath,’ said Brand. ‘Seems to me you’re stuck between Rin and Father Yarvi.’
‘Believe me when I say you’re telling me nothing I don’t know,’ mumbled Koll. ‘I’ve been praying to He Who Steers the Arrow for a point in the right direction.’
‘Finding him slow to reply?’
‘Father Yarvi says the gods love those who solve their own problems.’ Koll brightened. ‘You don’t have an answer, do you?’
‘Only the one you’ve already got.’
‘Ah.’
‘To pick one or the other.’
‘Ah. I don’t much like that one.’
‘No, but you’re a man now, Koll. You can’t just wait for someone else to put things right.’
‘I’m a man.’ Koll’s shoulders sagged. ‘When did that happen?’
‘It just happens.’
‘I wish I knew what it meant, being a man.’
‘Guess it means something different for each one of us. The gods know I’m no sage, but if I’ve realized anything, it’s that life isn’t about making something perfect.’ Brand looked over at Thorn, busy shaking her fist in the face of one of the queen’s warriors. ‘Death waits for us all. Nothing’s forever. Life’s about making the best of what you find along the way. A man who’s not content with what he’s got, well, more than likely he won’t be content with what he hasn’t.’
Koll blinked. ‘You’re sure you’re not a sage?’
‘Just be honest with her. She deserves that.’
‘I know she does,’ muttered Koll, looking guiltily down at the planks of the wharf.
‘You’ll do the right thing. If not, well …’ Brand drew him close. ‘I can hit you then.’
Koll sighed. ‘It’s good to have something to look forward to.’
‘I’ll see you when you get back.’ Brand saw him off with a slap on the shoulder. ‘Till then, stand in the light, Koll.’
‘You too, Brand.’
As he hopped aboard the queen’s ship Koll thought to himself, and not for the first time, that he was nowhere near as clever as he’d supposed. Something to remember, next time he got to thinking how clever he was.
He grinned at that. So much like something his mother would’ve said he almost thought it in her voice, and he gripped those old weights about his neck and looked up at the masthead, thinking of her screaming at him as he teetered there. He’d always hated his mother’s fussing. Now he’d have given everything he had to be fussed over again.
He turned to watch Queen Laithlin fussing over her son, the heir to the throne seeming tiny surrounded by slaves and servants, two hulking Ingling bodyguards with silver thrall-collars looming over him.
She adjusted his tiny cloak-buckle, and smoothed his blonde hair, and kissed him on the head, then turned towards the ship, one of her slaves kneeling on the wharf to make a step of his back for her.
‘All will be well here, my queen,’ called Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver, one hand on Druin’s shoulder and the other raised in an elaborate blessing. ‘And may She Who Finds the Course steer you safely home!’
‘Bye bye!’ called the prince, and while his mother was raising her arm to wave he slipped from under Brinyolf’s hand and scurried off giggling towards the city, his attendants hurrying to catch him.
Laithlin dropped her hand and gripped tight to the rail. ‘I wish I could take him, but I trust Varoslaf only a little less than a snake. I have lost one son to the sword and another to the Ministry. I cannot lose a third.’
‘Prince Druin could not be safer, my queen,’ said Koll, doing his best to say what Father Yarvi would have. ‘Thorlby is far from the fighting and still well-guarded, her walls never conquered and the citadel impregnable.’
‘Bail’s Point was impregnable. You climbed in.’
Koll dared a grin. ‘How fortunate that men of my talents are rare, my queen.’
Laithlin snorted. ‘You have a minister’s humility, already.’
Thorn was the last aboard. ‘Be safe,’ Brand called to her as she stomped past him down the wharf.
‘Aye,’ she grunted, swinging one leg over the rail. She froze as Queen Laithlin’s shadow fell across her, stuck with one foot off the ship and one foot on.
‘Young love is a treasure truly wasted on the young,’ mused the queen, frowning up towards the city with her hands clasped behind her. ‘It is my place to know the value of things, so take it from me you will have nothing in your life more precious. Soon enough the green leaves turn brown.’ She peered down sternly at her Chosen Shield. ‘I think you can do better than that.’
Thorn winced. ‘You think I can, my queen, or you’re ordering me to?’
‘To a Chosen Shield, a queen’s every whim is a decree.’
Thorn took a deep breath, swung her leg onto the wharf, and stomped back to Brand.
‘Since my queen commands it,’ she muttered, using her fingers like a comb to push the stray hair out of his face. She caught him behind the head and dragged him close, kissed him long and greedily, squeezing him so hard she lifted his toes off the wharf while the oarsmen sent up a cheer, and laughed, and thumped their oars.
‘I hadn’t marked you for a romantic, my queen,’ murmured Koll.
‘It seems I have surprised us both,’ said Laithlin.
Thorn broke away, wiping her mouth, the elf-bangle at her wrist glowing golden. ‘I love you,’ Koll heard her grunt over the noise of the crew. ‘And I’m sorry. For the way I am.’
Brand grinned back, brushing the star-shaped scar on her cheek with his fingertips. ‘I love the way you are. Be safe.’
‘Aye.’ Thorn thumped him on the shoulder with her fist, then stalked back down the wharf and vaulted over the ship’s rail. ‘Better?’ she asked.
‘I am warmed all over,’ murmured Laithlin, with just the hint of a smile. She took one last glance towards the citadel, then nodded to the helmsman. ‘Cast off.’
Queen of Nothing
They filed into the hall, maybe three dozen, lean as beggars, dirty as thieves. A couple had swords. Others wood-axes, hunting bows, butcher’s knives. One girl with half a hedge in her matted hair clutched a spear made from a hoeing pole and an old scythe-blade.
Raith puffed out his cheeks, making the cut on his face burn. ‘Here come the heroes.’
‘Some fighters have a sword put into their hand in the training square.’ Blue Jenner leaned close to mutter in his ear. ‘Bred to it all their lives, like you. Some have an axe fall into their hand when Mother War spreads her wings.’ He watched the ragged company kneel awkwardly in a half circle before the dais. ‘Takes courage to fight when you didn’t choose it, weren’t trained for it, weren’t ready for it.’
‘Wasn’t no sword put in my hand, old man,’ said Raith. ‘I had to rip it from a hundred others by the sharp end. And it ain’t lack of courage bothers me, it’s lack of skill.’
‘Good thing you’ve a thousand picked warriors waiting. You can send them in next.’
Raith scowled sideways, but had naught to say. Rakki was the talker.
‘It ain’t the courageous or the skilful Mother War rewards.’ Jenner nodded towards the beggars. ‘It’s those who make the best of what they’ve got.’
Skara had a fine art at that. She smiled on her ragged recruits as gratefully as if it was the Prince of Kalyiv, the Empress of the South and a dozen dukes of Catalia pledging their aid.
‘Thank you for coming, my friends.’ She sat forward earnestly in Bail’s Chair. Small though she was, she had a way of filling it. ‘My countrymen.’
They couldn’t have looked more grateful if it was Ashenleer herself they were kneeling to. Their leader, an old warrior with a face scarred as a butcher’s block, cleared his throat. ‘Princess Skara—’
‘Queen Skara,’ corrected Sister Owd, with a prissy little pout. Plainly she was getting to like being out from Mother Scaer’s shadow. Raith rolled his eyes, but he hardly blamed her. Mother Scaer’s shadow could be dreadful chilly.
‘I’m sorry, my queen—’ mumbled the warrior.
But Skara hardly cast a shadow at all. ‘I am the one who should be sorry. That you have had to fight alone. I am the one who should be grateful. That you have come to fight for me.’
‘I fought for your father,’ said the man in a broken voice. ‘Fought for your grandfather. I’ll fight to the death for you.’ And the others all nodded along, heads bobbing.
It’s one thing to offer to die, quite another to fling yourself on the sharpened steel, specially if the only metal you’re used to wielding is a milking bucket. Not long ago Raith would’ve been sniggering with his brother over their fool’s loyalty. But Rakki was elsewhere, and Raith was finding it hard to laugh.
He’d always been sure of the best thing to do before, and it mostly had an axe on the end. That was the way things got done in Vansterland. But Skara had her own way of doing things, and he found he liked watching her do it. He liked watching her a lot.
‘Where have you come from?’ she was asking.
‘Most of us from Ockenby, my queen, or the farms outside.’
‘Oh, I know it! There are wonderful oak trees there—’
‘Till Bright Yilling burned ’em,’ spat out a woman whose face was hard as the hatchet at her belt. ‘Burned everything.’
‘Aye, but we showed him some fire.’ The warrior set his dirty hand on the shoulder of a young lad beside him. ‘Burned some of his forage. Burned a tent with some of his men inside.’
‘Should’ve seen ’em dance,’ growled the woman.
‘I got one of ’em when he went to piss!’ shouted the boy in a voice cracking between high and low, then his face went bright red and he stared at the floor. ‘My queen, that is …’
‘You’ve all done brave work.’ Raith saw the tendons stark on Skara’s thin hands as she gripped at the arms of Bail’s Chair. ‘Where is Yilling now?’
‘Gone,’ said the boy. ‘He had a camp on the beach at Harentoft, but they up and left overnight.’
‘When?’ asked Jenner.
‘Twelve days ago.’
The old raider tugged unhappily at his straggling beard. ‘That worries me.’
‘We’ve got his ships,’ said Raith.
‘But the High King’s got more. Yilling could be working mischief on any coast of the Shattered Sea by now.’
‘You’re a crowd of worries, old man,’ grunted Raith. ‘Would you be happier if he was still burning farms?’
‘No, I’d be worried then too. That’s what it is to be old.’
Skara held her hand up for quiet. ‘You need food, and a place to sleep. If you still wish to fight, we have arms taken from the High King’s men. Ships too.’
‘We’ll fight, my queen,’ said the old warrior, and the rest of the Throvenlanders, however wretched, all showed their most warlike faces. No doubt they’d got courage, but as Sister Owd herded them out to be fed Raith pictured them facing the High King’s countless warriors. The next picture wasn’t a pretty one.
As the doors were shut Skara slumped back in her chair with a groan, one hand to her stomach. Plainly all that smiling took a toll. ‘Is that six crews, now?’
‘And all willing to die for you, my queen,’ said Jenner.
Raith took a heavy breath. ‘If the High King’s army comes, dying’s just what they’ll be doing.’
Jenner opened his mouth but Skara held up her hand again. ‘He’s right. I may have a queen’s chair, but without Gorm and Uthil camped outside my walls I’m queen of nothing.’ She stood, the dangling jewels on her earring flashing. ‘And Gorm and Uthil, not to mention their idle warriors, are back at one another’s throats. I should see if they’ve made any progress.’
Raith wasn’t hopeful. On Jenner’s advice, Skara had finally talked the two kings into working on the defences: felling trees grown too close, shoring up the man-built stretch of wall and digging out the ditch. Getting them to agree to that much had been a whole day of minister’s wrangling. Skara gathered her skirts and with a lazy wave let Raith know he should follow.
Still made him bristle to take orders from a girl, and Jenner must’ve seen it. The old raider caught his arm. ‘Listen, boy. You’re a fighter, and the gods know, we need some. But the man who finds fights everywhere, well … soon enough he’ll find one fight too many.’
Raith curled his lip. ‘Everything I’ve got, I had to beat from the world with my fists.’
‘Aye. And what have you got?’
Might be the old man had some ghost of a point.
‘Just keep her safe, eh?’
Raith shook him off. ‘Keep worrying, old man.’
Outside in the sunlight Skara was shaking her head at the big stump in the yard. ‘I remember when a great Fortress Tree grew here. Sister Owd thinks it a bad omen that it was cut down.’
‘Some folk see omens everywhere.’ Most likely Raith should’ve been sticking my queen on the end of everything, but the words felt wrong in his mouth. He was no courtier.
‘And you?’
‘Always seemed to me the gods send luck to the man with the most fight and the least mercy. That’s what I saw, growing up.’
‘Where did you grow up? A wolf pack?’
Raith raised his brows. ‘Aye, more or less.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Not sure.’ Skara blinked at him, and he shrugged. ‘Wolves don’t count too well.’
She set off towards the gates, her thrall following th
em with her eyes on the ground. ‘Then how did you come to be sword-bearer to a king?’
‘Mother Scaer picked us out. Me and my brother.’
‘So you owe her.’
Raith thought of the minister’s hard eyes and hard lessons, hunched his shoulders at the memory of more than one whipping too. ‘Aye, I reckon.’
‘And you admire the Breaker of Swords.’
Raith thought of the slaps, and the orders, and the bloody work he’d done on the frontier. ‘He’s the greatest warrior about the Shattered Sea.’
Skara’s sharp eyes darted sideways. ‘So did he send you to guard me or spy on me?’
Raith was caught off-balance. Being honest, he hadn’t been on-balance since he was sent to serve her. ‘I daresay some of both. But I’m far better at guarding than spying.’
‘Or lying either, it would seem.’
‘My brother’s the clever one.’
‘So the Breaker of Swords doesn’t trust me?’
‘Mother Scaer says only your enemies can never betray you.’
Skara snorted as they stepped into the gloom of the elf-cut entrance tunnel. ‘Ministers.’
‘Aye, ministers. But here’s how I see it. Far as the guarding goes, I’ll die for you.’
She blinked at that, and the muscles in her neck fluttered as she swallowed, and he thought that quite a wonderful thing.
‘Far as the spying goes, I’m too blunt to cut too deep into your business.’
‘Ah.’ Her eyes flickered over his face. ‘You’re just a beautiful fool.’
Raith didn’t blush often, but he felt the blood hot in his cheeks then. He could dive into a shield-wall bristling with steel but a glance from this twig of a girl had his courage crumbling. ‘Er … beauty I’ll leave to you, I reckon. The fool part I won’t deny.’
‘Mother Kyre always said only stupid men proclaim themselves clever.’
Raith’s turn to snort. ‘Ministers.’
Skara’s laugh echoed in the darkness. For a small woman she had a big laugh, wild and dirty as some old warrior’s at an ale-hall story, and Raith thought that quite a wonderful thing as well. ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘ministers. So why did the Breaker of Swords pick you?’