Joe Abercrombie - Half a War

So it proved. First Rakki jumped down into the ditch beside him with his pick. Then a few more Vanstermen followed. Not to be outdone, Hunnan spat into his palms, tore a shovel from the man beside him, clambered down and set to some furious work of his own. Wasn’t long before the whole length of the ditch was busy with warriors competing to give Father Earth the sternest beating.

‘When’s the last time you broke a fight up?’ muttered Rakki.

Raith grinned. ‘I’ve broken a few up with my fist.’

‘Don’t forget who you are, brother.’

‘I’m forgetting nothing,’ grunted Raith, stepping back to let Rakki swing the pick at a clump of stubborn roots. He glanced towards the gate and saw Skara smiling, couldn’t help smiling back. ‘But every day finds you a new man, eh?’

Rakki shook his head. ‘She’s got you on a short leash, that girl.’

‘Maybe,’ said Raith. ‘But I can think of worse leashes to be on.’

Sister Owd frowned into the night pot. ‘This seems auspicious.’

‘How is one turd more auspicious than another?’ asked Skara.

‘People lucky enough to produce auspicious turds always ask that, my queen. Is your blood coming regularly?’

‘I understand once a month is traditional.’

‘And is your womb minded to break with tradition?’

Skara gave Sister Owd the frostiest glare she could manage. ‘My womb has always behaved entirely properly. You can rest easy. I’ve never so much as kissed a man. Mother Kyre made very sure of that.’

Owd delicately cleared her throat. ‘I am sorry to pry, but your wellbeing is my responsibility, now. Your blood is worth more to Throvenland than gold.’

‘Then Throvenland rejoice!’ shouted Skara as she stepped from the bath. ‘I’m bleeding regularly!’

Queen Laithlin’s thrall gently rubbed her dry, took a bundle of twigs and flicked her with scented water blessed in the name of He Who Sprouts the Seed. He might stand among the small gods, but he loomed large indeed over girls of royal blood.

The minister frowned. Skara’s minister, she supposed. Her servant, though it was hard not to think of her as a disapproving mistress. ‘Are you eating, my queen?’

‘What else would I do at mealtimes?’ Skara did not add that what little she forced down she felt endlessly on the point of spewing back up. ‘I’ve always been slight.’ She snapped her fingers at the thrall to bring her hurrying with her dressing-gown. ‘And I don’t enjoy being examined like a slave at the flesh-dealer’s.’

‘Who does, my queen?’ Sister Owd carefully averted her eyes. ‘But I fear privacy is a luxury the powerful cannot afford.’ Her mildness was, for some reason, more infuriating even than Mother Kyre’s bullying used to be.

‘No doubt you eat for both of us,’ snapped Skara.

Sister Owd only smiled, soft face dimpling. ‘I’ve always been solid, but the future of no nation rests upon my health. Luckily for all concerned. Bring the queen something.’ She gestured to the thrall and the girl shrugged back her long braid and took up the tray with the morning food.

‘No!’ snarled Skara, stomach clenching at the slightest smell of it, snatching back her hand as if to dash the lot on the floor, ‘take it away!’

The thrall flinched as if her anger was a raised whip and Skara felt an instant pang of guilt. Then she remembered Mother Kyre’s words, after her grandfather sold Skara’s nurse and she had cried for days. Feelings for a slave are feelings wasted. So she waved the girl impatiently away, just as she imagined Queen Laithlin might have. She was a queen now, after all.

Gods. She was a queen. Her stomach cramped again, sick tickled at the back of her raw throat and Skara gave a strangled cough, half burp, half growl of frustration. She bunched her fist as if to punch her own rebellious guts. How could she hope to bend kings to her will when her own stomach would not obey?

‘Well, there is much to do before today’s moot,’ said Sister Owd, turning for the door. ‘May I leave you for now, my queen?’

‘You can’t do so soon enough.’

The minister paused, and Skara saw her shoulders shift as she took a hard breath. Then she turned back, firmly folding her arms. ‘You may speak to me here however you wish.’ Sister Owd might have seemed soft as a peach at a first meeting, but Skara was beginning to remember that a peach holds a stubborn stone on which the unwary will break their teeth. ‘But behaving in this manner ill befits a queen. Do it before Uthil and Gorm and you will undo all the progress you have made. Your position is not strong enough to show such weakness.’

Skara was clenching every muscle, fully prepared to explode with fury, when it came to her that Owd was right. She was acting the way she used to with Mother Kyre. She was acting like a petulant child. Her grandfather, generous to all in wealth and in word, would have been less than impressed.

Skara closed her eyes and felt tears prickling at the lids, took a breath and let it sigh shuddering away. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That was unworthy of a beggar, let alone a queen. I am sorry.’

Sister Owd slowly unfolded her arms. ‘A queen need never be sorry, especially to her minister.’

‘Let me at least be grateful, then. I know you did not ask for this, but you have been a staunch support so far. I always supposed that I would one day be a queen, and speak in halls with the great, and strike wise deals on behalf of my people … I just never dreamed it would be so soon, and with the stakes so high, and without my grandfather to help me.’ She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘Mother Kyre tried to prepare me for the burden of power but … I am finding it a weight one is never quite ready for.’

The minister blinked. ‘Considering the circumstances, I think you bear it admirably.’

‘I will try to bear it better.’ Skara forced out a smile. ‘If you promise to keep correcting me when I fall short.’

Sister Owd smiled back. ‘It will be an honour, my queen. Truly.’ Then she gave a stiff bow, and shut the door softly behind her. Skara glanced over at the thrall, and realized she did not even know the girl’s name.

‘I am sorry to you too,’ she found she had muttered.

The thrall looked horrified, and Skara soon guessed why. If a slave is but a useful thing to her mistress, she is safe. If a slave becomes a person she can be favoured. She can even be loved, as Skara had once loved her nurse. But a person can also be blamed, envied, hated.

Safer to be a thing.

Skara snapped her fingers. ‘Bring the comb.’

There was a thudding knock at the door, followed by Raith’s rude growl. ‘Father Yarvi’s here. He wants to speak with you.’

‘Urgently, Queen Skara,’ came the minister’s voice. ‘On business that benefits us both.’

Skara set a hand on her belly in a futile effort to calm her frothing stomach. Father Yarvi had been kind enough, but there was something unnerving in his eye, as though he always knew just what she would say and already had the answer.

‘The blood of Bail is in my veins,’ she murmured to herself. ‘The blood of Bail, the blood of Bail.’ And she closed her bandaged fist until the cut burned. ‘Show him in!’

Not even Mother Kyre could have found fault with Father Yarvi’s behaviour. He came with his head respectfully bowed, his staff of slotted and twisted elf-metal in his good hand and his withered one behind him in case the sight of it offended her. Raith slunk in after him with his forehead creased in that constant frown of his, white hair flattened against one side of his skull from sleeping in her doorway and his scarred hand propped on his axe-handle.