Joe Abercrombie - Half a War

Skara had stopped wondering about kissing him. Now she found herself often occupied thinking about what they might do after the kissing … She jerked her eyes away, but they kept creeping back. After all, there was no harm in wondering, was there?

The Minister of Gettland gave a stately bow. ‘My queen, I am honoured to be admitted to your presence.’

‘We have a moot later. Can’t we speak when I am dressed?’ And she drew her gown tighter about herself.

Now he looked up. Cool as spring rain, his grey-blue eyes. ‘You need not concern yourself there. I have sworn a Minister’s Oath. I am not a man, in that sense.’ And he glanced sideways at Raith.

His meaning was clear. Raith was, without doubt, a man in every sense. Skara felt his eyes on her from under his pale lashes, not caring in the least for what was proper. Barely even knowing the meaning of the word. The fitting thing for her to do was to order him out at once.

‘You can both stay,’ she said. With Raith and his axe lurking at Father Yarvi’s shoulder her power was greater. Propriety was all-important to a princess, but to a queen power was more important still. And, perhaps, hidden deep down, there was some part of her that liked the way Raith looked at her. Liked that it was far from proper. ‘Tell me what could be so urgent.’

If Gettland’s young minister was surprised his smiling mask did not show a twitch of it. ‘Battles are most often won by the side that comes first to the field, my queen,’ he said.

Skara beckoned to her thrall and brought her hurrying forward with the comb and oil, letting Father Yarvi know he was not important enough to disrupt her morning routine. ‘Am I a battlefield?’

‘You are a valued and a vital ally on one. An ally whose support I sorely need.’

‘As you needed my murdered grandfather’s?’ she snapped. Too harsh, too harsh, that showed weakness. She filed the edge from her voice. ‘Mother Kyre thought you tricked King Fynn into an alliance.’

‘I say I persuaded him, my queen.’

She raised an eyebrow at Yarvi in the mirror. ‘Persuade me, then, if you can.’

His staff tapped gently against the floor as he came forward, so slowly and subtly he hardly seemed to move. ‘Soon enough, the High King’s army will be coming.’

‘That is no deep-cunning, Father Yarvi.’

‘But I know when and where.’

Skara caught her thrall’s wrist before the comb reached her head and pushed it away, turning with her eyes narrowed.

‘In six nights’ time, he will try to bring his army across the straits from Yutmark at the narrowest point, just west of Yaletoft … of the ruins of Yaletoft, that is.’

Her breath caught at that. She remembered the city in flames. The fire lighting the night sky. The stink of smoke as her past life burned. No doubt he meant to put a spark to her fear, a spark to her anger. He succeeded.

Her voice had a keener edge than ever. ‘How do you know?’

‘It is a minister’s place to know. Our alliance may be far outnumbered on land, but we have fine crews and fine ships and the best of the High King’s sit captured in your harbour below. At sea we have the advantage. We must attack while they try to cross the straits.’

‘With my six ships?’ Skara turned back to the mirror, waved to the thrall to carry on, and the girl slipped her silver thrall-chain over one shoulder and stepped silently back with the comb.

‘With your six ships, my queen …’ Yarvi drifted a little closer. ‘And your one vote.’

‘I see.’ Though in fact Skara had seen something of the kind the moment he was announced. Her title was smoke, her warriors six boats’ worth of bandits, her lands no bigger than the walls of Bail’s Point. Everything she had was borrowed — her thrall, her guard, her minister, her mirror, the very clothes she wore. And yet the vote was hers.

Father Yarvi let his voice drop to a warm whisper. The kind of whisper that urges you to lean closer, to be part of the secret. But Skara made sure she did not move, made sure she kept her thoughts close, made sure he had to come to her.

‘Mother Scaer opposes everything I say because I say it. I fear Grom-gil-Gorm will be too cautious to seize this chance and we may not get another. But if you were to come forward with the strategy …’

‘Huh,’ grunted Skara. Never make a hasty choice , Mother Kyre used to tell her. Even if you know your answer, to delay your answer shows your strength. So she delayed, while Queen Laithlin’s lent slave stepped carefully up onto a stool to gather Skara’s hair, coil it and pin it with practised fingers.

‘Circumstances have made you powerful, my queen.’ Father Yarvi stepped closer still, and as his collar shifted Skara saw a scattering of faint scars up his neck. ‘And you have taken to it like a hawk to flying. Can I count on your support?’

She looked at herself in the mirror. Father Peace, who was that woman with the sharp eyes, so gaunt, and proud, and flinty hard? A hawk indeed. Surely it could not be her, whose stomach boiled over with doubts?

Seem powerful and you are powerful, Mother Kyre used to say.

She pushed her shoulders back as the thrall fixed her earring, flaring her nostrils as she took a hard breath. She gave the briefest nod. ‘This time.’

Yarvi smiled as he bowed. ‘You are as wise as you are beautiful, my queen.’

Raith turned back into the room after he pushed the door shut. ‘I don’t trust that bastard.’ It was so improper Skara could not help a snort of laughter. She had never known anyone who let as little slip as Father Yarvi, nor anyone who kept as little hidden as Raith. His every thought was plainly written on that blunt, scarred, handsome face.

‘Why?’ she asked, ‘because he judges me wise and beautiful?’

Raith’s eyes were still on her. ‘Just ’cause a man tells two truths doesn’t mean he’s got no lies in him.’

So Raith found her wise and beautiful too. That pleased her a great deal, but it would not do to show it. ‘Father Yarvi gives us a chance to strike at the High King,’ she said. ‘I do not mean to miss it.’

‘You do trust him, then?’

‘You do not have to trust a man to make use of him. My doorkeeper, after all, used to fill cups for Grom-gil-Gorm.’

Raith frowned harder than ever as he fiddled at that notch in his ear. ‘You might be best not trusting anyone.’

‘Good advice.’ Skara met his eye in the mirror. ‘You can leave, now.’ And she snapped her fingers at the thrall to bring her clothes.

It was two years since Koll visited Roystock, and the place had sprouted upwards and outwards from its boggy island like a tumour.

Wooden tentacles had shot across the water on rickety stilts, crooked piers with houses clinging to their sides like stubborn barnacles, sheds built on shacks at every angle but straight, a rotting forest of warped supports below and a hundred chimneys puffing a pall of smoke above. Little clumps of hovels had been flung out like spatters from spew, catching on every hump dry enough to hold a pile among the marshes at the wide mouth of the Divine.

Never in his life had Koll seen so much appalling carpentry gathered in one place.

‘It’s grown,’ he said, wrinkling his nose. ‘I guess that’s progress.’

Thorn pinched hers closed entirely. ‘The smell’s progressed some, that’s sure.’ The heady mix of ancient dung and salt decay with an acrid edge of fish-smoking, cloth-dying and leather-tanning made the breath snag at the back of Koll’s throat.

Queen Laithlin was not a woman to be put off business by an odour, however. ‘The headmen of Roystock have grown fat on the trade coming up the Divine,’ she said. ‘Their city has bloated up with them.’