Joe Abercrombie - Half a War

‘It is not just any chair.’ Skara swallowed her nerves as she stepped up onto the dais. ‘Bail the Builder once sat here.’ King Uthil and his minister stood frowning on her left, Gorm and his minister on her right. She was the balance between them. She had to be. ‘How many ships did we take?’

‘Sixty-six,’ said Mother Scaer. ‘Among them a gilded beast of thirty oars a side which we hear is Bright Yilling’s own.’

Father Yarvi gave Skara an appreciative nod. ‘It was a deep-cunning plan, princess.’

‘I only sowed the seed,’ said Skara, bowing low to the two kings. ‘Your bravery reaped the harvest.’

‘Mother War was with us and our weaponluck held good.’ Gorm turned one of the pommels on his chain around and around. ‘But this fortress is far from safe. Grandmother Wexen knows well its importance, in strategy and as a symbol.’

‘It is a splinter pushed into her flesh,’ said Uthil, ‘and it will not be long before she tries to pluck it out. You should return to Thorlby with my wife, princess. You will be far from danger there.’

‘My respect for you is boundless, King Uthil, but you are wrong. My father knew well the importance of this fortress too. So much so he died to defend it, and is buried in the barrows outside the walls, beside my mother.’ Skara lowered herself into the chair where her forefathers had once sat, painfully upright, the way Mother Kyre had taught her. Her guts were churning, but she had to be strong. Had to lead. There was no one else. ‘This is Throvenland. This is my land. This is the very place I should be.’

Father Yarvi gave a tired smile. ‘Princess-’

‘In fact, I am a queen.’

There was a silence. Then Sister Owd began to climb the steps. ‘Queen Skara is quite right. She sits in Bail’s Chair as King Fynn’s only living descendant. There is precedent for an unmarried woman to take the chair alone.’ Her voice quavered under Mother Scaer’s deadly glare but she went on, nodding up towards the faded painting that loomed over them. ‘Queen Ashenleer herself, after all, was unmarried when she won victory against the Inglings.’

‘Is there another Ashenleer among us, then?’ sneered Mother Scaer.

Sister Owd stood at Skara’s left hand where a minister belongs, and resolutely folded her arms. ‘That remains to be seen.’

‘Whether you are princess or queen will mean nothing to Bright Yilling,’ rumbled Gorm, and Skara felt a surge of that familiar fear at the name. ‘He kneels to no woman but Death.’

‘He will already be on his way,’ said Uthil, ‘and with vengeance in mind.’

You can only conquer your fears by facing them. Hide from them, and they conquer you. Skara let them wait, taking a moment to settle her thumping heart before she answered. ‘Oh, I am counting on it.’

She pushed her hand into his hair, pulled him down so their foreheads were pressed hard together, quick breath hot on his face. For a long while they lay tangled with each other, the furs kicked down around their ankles, in silence.

Not one word spoken since Koll said his goodbyes to Thorn on the docks and strode up like a thief after a promising purse through the darkened city. In silence Rin had opened her door, taken him into her house, into her arms, into her bed.

Koll had always loved words, but to be a minister’s apprentice was to drown in them. True words, false words, words in many tongues. Right words, wrong words, written and spoken and unspoken. For now silence suited him. To forget for a moment what he owed Father Yarvi, and what he owed Rin, and how there was no way he could settle both debts. Whatever words he said, he felt like a liar.

Rin put one rough hand on his cheek, gave him a parting kiss and slithered out from under him. He loved to watch her move, so strong and sure, shadows shifting between her ribs as she fished his shirt from the floor and pulled it on. He loved it when she wore his clothes, not asking, not needing to ask. It made them feel so close together, somehow. That and he loved the way the hem only came halfway down her bare backside.

She squatted, the key she wore to her own locks swinging free on its chain, tossed a log on the fire, sparks drifting up and the light flaring on her face. Not one word spoken all that time but, like everything good, the silence couldn’t last.

‘You’re back, then,’ she said.

‘Only for tonight.’ Koll probed gently at the bridge of his nose, still not quite healed from its sharp meeting with Raith’s head. ‘The Prince of Kalyiv has come to Roystock. Queen Laithlin is sailing to an audience and needs a minister beside her. Father Yarvi’s busy trying to bail out our foundering alliances, so …’

‘She calls on the mighty Koll! Changing the world, just like you always wanted.’ Rin drew his shirt tight about her, the flames reflected in the corners of her eyes. ‘Minister to the Golden Queen and you never even took the Minister’s Test.’

‘No, but … I will have to. And swear the Minister’s Oath too.’

That fell between them like gull’s droppings from a great height. But if Rin was hurt she didn’t show it. That wouldn’t have been her way at all. He loved that about her.

‘What was Bail’s Point like?’

‘It reminded me very much of a big elf-stone fortress by the sea.’

‘You’re almost as funny as you think you are. I mean, what was it like climbing into it?’

‘Heroes never think about the danger.’

She grinned. ‘So you pissed yourself?’

‘I tried, but I was so scared my bladder clenched up tight as King Uthil’s fist. Couldn’t get a drip out for days afterward.’

‘Koll the warrior, eh?’

‘I thought it best to leave the fighting to others.’ Koll tapped at his head. ‘Half a war is fought up here, Queen Skara is always saying.’

‘ Queen Skara, now.’ Rin snorted. ‘I’ve yet to meet a man who isn’t much taken with that girl’s wisdom.’

‘I expect a lot of it’s in the, you know …’ Koll waved a hand about. ‘Jewellery and so on.’

Rin raised one brow at him. ‘Oh, you expect that, do you?’

‘No doubt she looks like something from the songs.’ He put his arms over his head, quivering as he stretched out. ‘But I reckon a stiff breeze could blow her away. I like a woman with both feet on Father Earth.’

‘That’s your notion of a compliment? Earthy?’ She made a tube of her tongue and spat hissing into the fire. ‘Some honeyed minister’s mouth you have.’

His mother’s weights clicked around his neck as Koll rolled onto one elbow. ‘What makes a woman beautiful to me isn’t her blood or her clothes but what she can do. I like a woman with strong hands who isn’t afraid of sweat or hard work or anything else. I like a woman with pride, and ambition, and quick wit, and high skill.’ Just words, maybe, but he meant them. Or half-meant them, anyway. ‘That’s why I never saw a woman anywhere so beautiful as you, Rin. And that’s before I even get to your arse, which I can’t imagine has an equal anywhere around the Shattered Sea.’

She looked back to the fire, lips curling at the corner. ‘That’s better, I’ll admit. Even if it is all a hatful of winds.’

Koll was much pleased with himself. He loved it when he made her smile. ‘Sweet smelling breezes at least, I hope?’

‘Better than your usual farts. Will you be charming Prince Varoslaf’s nose with your flattery?’

That dented his smugness considerably. By all accounts the Prince of Kalyiv’s taste ran less to funny men and more to skinned ones. ‘I doubt I’ll comment on his arse, at least. I may keep my mouth shut altogether and leave the talking to Queen Laithlin. Silent men rarely cause offence.’