Joe Abercrombie: Half a War

‘A dog indeed,’ sneered Hunnan, and Raith would’ve sprung on the old bastard and knocked his brains out on the docks if Rakki hadn’t hugged him tight and crooned, ‘Calm, brother, calm,’ in his ear.

‘Blue Jenner! Here’s a surprise!’

Raith frowned over his shoulder and saw Father Yarvi drawn aside by some old sailor with a brine-pickled face.

‘A welcome one, I hope,’ said Jenner, clasping hands with Rulf like they were old oarmates.

‘That depends,’ said the minister. ‘Have you come to take Queen Laithlin’s gold?’

‘I try to take any gold that’s offered.’ Jenner glanced around like he was about to show off some secret treasure. ‘But I’ve a better reason for being here.’

‘Better than gold?’ asked Rulf, grinning. ‘You’ve changed.’

‘Far better.’ Jenner guided someone forward who’d been hidden at his back, and it was like someone stabbed Raith right through his skull and all the fight drained out.

She was small and slight, swamped by a weather-stained cloak. Her hair was a wild tangle, a cloud of dark curls that twitched and shifted in the salt breeze. Her skin was pale, and chapped pink round her nostrils, and the bones in her cheeks showed so fine and sharp it seemed they might snap at a harsh word.

She looked straight at Raith with big eyes dark and green as Mother Sea on a storm-day. She didn’t smile. She didn’t speak. Sad and solemn she seemed, and full of secrets, and every hair on Raith stood up. No axe-blow to the head could have knocked him quite so senseless as that one glimpse of her.

For a moment Father Yarvi’s mouth hung foolishly open. Then he shut it with a snap. ‘Rulf, take Blue Jenner and his guest to Queen Laithlin. Now.’

‘You were ready to do murder over who went first, now you don’t want to go at all?’ Rakki was staring at him, and Raith realized Gorm’s men were strutting in after the Gettlanders, all puffed up near to bursting to make up for going second.

‘Who was that girl?’ Raith croaked out, feeling giddy as a sleeper jerked from an ale-dream.

‘Since when were you interested in girls?’

‘Since I saw this one.’ He blinked into the crowd, hoping to prove to both of them he hadn’t imagined her, but she was gone.

‘Must’ve been quite a beauty to draw your eye from a quarrel.’

‘Like nothing I ever saw.’

‘Forgive me, brother, but when it comes to women you haven’t seen much. You’re the fighter, remember?’ Rakki grinned as he heaved up Grom-gil-Gorm’s great black shield. ‘I’m the lover.’

‘As you never tire of telling me.’ Raith shouldered the king’s heavy sword and made to follow his brother into Thorlby. Until he felt his master’s weighty hand holding him back.

‘You have disappointed me, Raith.’ The Breaker of Swords drew him close. ‘This place is full of bad enemies to have, but I fear in Queen Laithlin’s Chosen Shield you have picked the very worst.’

Raith scowled. ‘She doesn’t scare me, my king.’

Gorm slapped him sharply across the face. Well, a slap to Gorm. To Raith it was like being hit with an oar. He staggered but the king caught him and dragged him closer still. ‘What wounds me is not that you tried to hurt her, but that you failed.’ He cuffed him the other way and Raith’s mouth turned salty with blood. ‘I do not want a dog that yaps. I want a dog that uses its teeth. I want a killer.’ And he slapped Raith a third time and left him dizzy. ‘I fear you have a grain of mercy left in you, Raith. Crush it, before it crushes you.’

Gorm gave Raith’s head a parting scratch. The sort a father gives a son. Or perhaps a huntsman gives his hound. ‘You can never be bloody enough for my taste, boy. You know that.’

The comb of polished whalebone swish-swish-swished through Skara’s hair.

Prince Druin’s toy sword click-clack-scraped against a chest in the corner.

Queen Laithlin’s voice spilled out blab-blab-blab. As though she sensed that if she left a silence Skara might start screaming, and screaming, and never stop.

‘Outside that window, on the south side of the city, my husband’s warriors are camped.’

‘Why didn’t they help us?’ Skara wanted to shriek as she stared numbly at the sprawling tents, but her mouth drooled out the proper thing, as always. ‘There must be very many.’

‘Two and a half thousand loyal Gettlanders, called in from every corner of the land.’

Skara felt Queen Laithlin’s strong fingers turn her head, gently but very firmly. Prince Druin gave a piping toddler’s war-cry and attacked a tapestry. The comb began to swish-swish-swish again, as though the solution to every problem was the right arrangement of hair.

‘Outside this window, to the north, is Grom-gil-Gorm’s camp.’ The fires glimmered in the gathering dusk, spread across the dark hills like stars across heaven’s cloth. ‘Two thousand Vanstermen in sight of the walls of Thorlby. I never thought to see such a thing.’

‘Not with their swords sheathed, anyway,’ tossed out Thorn Bathu from the back of the room, as harshly as a warrior might toss an axe.

‘I saw a quarrel on the docks …’ mumbled Skara.

‘I fear it will not be the last.’ Laithlin clicked her tongue as she teased out a knot. Skara’s hair had always been unruly, but the Queen of Gettland was not a woman to be put off by a stubborn curl or two. ‘There is to be a great moot tomorrow. Five hours straight of quarrelling, that will be. If we get through it with no one dead I will count it a victory for the songs. There.’

And Laithlin turned Skara’s head towards the mirror.

The queen’s silent thralls had bathed her, and scrubbed her, and swapped her filthy shift for green silk brought on the long voyage from the First of Cities, nimbly altered to fit her. It was stitched with golden thread about the hem, as fine as anything she had ever worn, and Skara had worn some fine things. So many, and so carefully arranged by Mother Kyre, she had sometimes felt the clothes wore her.

She was surrounded by strong walls, strong warriors, slaves and luxury. She should have felt giddy with relief. But like a runner who stops to rest and finds they cannot stand again, the comfort made Skara feel dizzy-weak and aching-raw, battered outside and in as if she was one great bruise. She almost wished she was back aboard Blue Jenner’s ship, the Black Dog , shivering, and staring into the rain, and thrice an hour crawling on grazed knees to puke over the side.

‘This belonged to my mother, King Fynn’s sister.’ Laithlin carefully arranged the earring, golden chains fine as cobweb that spilled red jewels almost to Skara’s shoulder.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Skara croaked out, struggling not to spray sick all over the mirror. She scarcely recognized the haunted, pink-eyed, brittle-looking girl she saw there. She looked like her own ghost. Perhaps she never escaped Yaletoft. Perhaps she was still trapped there, Bright Yilling’s slave, and always would be.

At the back of the room she saw Thorn Bathu squat beside the prince, shift his tiny hands around the grip of his wooden sword, murmur instructions on how to swing it properly. She grinned as he whacked her across the leg, the star-shaped scar on her cheek puckering, and ruffled his pale blonde hair. ‘Good boy!’

All Skara could think of was Bright Yilling’s sword, that diamond pommel flashing in the darkness of the Forest, and in the mirror the pale girl’s chest began to heave and her hands to tremble-

‘Skara.’ Queen Laithlin took her firmly by the shoulders, fixed her with those hard, sharp, grey-blue eyes, jerking her back to the present. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’