Joe Abercrombie - Half a War

‘You can probably find a way. What does Varoslaf want?’

‘What the powerful always want. More power. Or so Thorn says. This trip to Roystock isn’t to her taste at all. She wanted to fight.’

Rin stood up. ‘She usually does.’

‘She’s in a bastard of a mood now. Wouldn’t want to be Brand tonight.’

‘He’ll manage.’ She slid back into the bed beside him, propping herself on one elbow, his shirt rumpled across her chest. ‘They love each other.’

Rin’s eyes, fixed on him so close, were making Koll quite uncomfortable. He felt cornered in that narrow bed. Trapped by the heat of her. ‘Maybe.’ He kicked over onto his back, frowning at the ceiling. He had great things to do. Stand at the shoulder of kings and so on. How could he change the world with Rin smothering him? ‘Love’s hardly the answer to every question, though, is it?’

She turned away, drawing the furs up to her waist. ‘Certainly seems not.’

With so many men away there were more women working on the docks of Thorlby than usual, busy at nets and sorting through the morning’s squirming catches. Fewer guards about too — older men, and boys Koll’s age yet to take their warrior’s tests, and some of the girls that Thorn had been training — but otherwise you might never have known there was any war at all.

Six battered ships had landed the night before from the long journey up the Divine, and their sunburned crews were bringing ashore silks, and wine, and all manner of fine curiosities from the south. Queen Laithlin’s men were loading her four ships for the voyage to Roystock and the air rang with their cries, and the barking of a stray being beaten away from the fish, and the laughter of children ducking among the wagons, and the calls of the scavenging gulls as they drifted in lazy circles, watching for spilled grain.

Mother Sun was bright as ever in the east, and Koll shaded his eyes as he gazed off towards Roystock, and sucked in a long, salty breath through his nostrils.

‘Smells like good luck!’

‘That and fish.’ Rin wrinkled her nose. ‘Four ships? To carry one woman?’

‘And her minister!’ Koll puffed up his chest and jabbed at it with his thumb. ‘A man of that stature must be properly attended.’

‘They’re going to lash two ships together just to carry his swollen head, are they?’

‘That and the Chosen Shield’s temper,’ he muttered, as Thorn’s angry orders came chopping through the hubbub. ‘You can tell a woman’s importance by the gifts she gives and the company she keeps. Queen Laithlin means to make a deep impression on Varoslaf by taking plenty of both.’

Rin glanced sideways. ‘What does it say about me that I keep company with you?’

Koll slipped his arm about her waist, grinning at how well it seemed to fit there. ‘That you’re a woman of high taste and refinement, not to mention excellent luck, and- Gods!’ As the crowd shifted Koll caught a glimpse of Brand, hefting a great crate as if it had nothing in it at all. He ducked behind a rack where fish big as boys had been hung glittering in the sunlight. One that still had a little life in it twitched about, seeming to give him a rather disapproving stare.

So did Rin, looking down with hands on hips. ‘The conqueror of Bail’s Point.’ And she stuck her tongue between her lips and blew a long fart at him.

‘Strong men are many, wise men are few. Did he see us?’

‘If you climbed inside one of those fish I think you could make sure.’

‘You’re almost as funny as you think you are.’ He pushed a fish aside with a fingertip to peer past. ‘We’d best part now.’

‘There’s always a reason to rush the parting, isn’t there? Young love. Not quite the joy they sing of.’ She caught him by the collar and half dragged him up, gave him the quickest of kisses and left him frozen with lips puckered and eyes closed. When he opened them he was disappointed to see her already walking away, an unexpected twinge of guilt and longing making him suddenly, stupidly desperate to stretch the parting out.

‘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.’