Mark Lawrence - The Liar's key

“Give me your bow,” the princess demands of the nearest archer.

“Alica!” A strained whisper from the man beside her, smaller but similar in his colouring.

“Princess,” she says. The bow is in her hands, her eyes on his-dangerous. “Call me by my name again, cousin, and I will drop you from this wall.”

She pulls an arrow from the archer’s quiver. “It’s a good bow?”

“Y-yes. . princess.” The archer stutters it out. “Pulls a hair to the left if you over-draw. But that’s not a worry-it’s too much bow for a wo-”

Princess Alica strings the arrow and draws it to her ear, pointing up at the great keep tower back beyond the second wall. “Yes?”

“A hair to the left, your majesty.” The man backs away. “Two fingers on a fifty-yard target.”

“They’ve drawn up.” The cousin at the wall.

The princess lets the bow relax and comes to watch. Nine of the men have spread into a line on their horses. The emissary and the captive ride forward five more yards. The girl is in silks, side-saddle, she looks no more than thirteen, maybe fourteen. The man is fat, his armour adjusted for it, his neck thick and reddened by the Red March sun. He wears a blue plumed helm and a long turquoise cloak.

“Hail, the castle!” His voice reaches them, thinned by the distance.

Princess Alica’s face is stone. She strings the arrow to her bow once more and draws it.

“The flag. .” Contaph stares at her, a frown throwing his brow into deep furrows. Out among the enemy contingent the white flag flutters.

She looks once, out across the wall. “A mistake,” she says. “It helps me adjust for the wind.” She arches her spine, drawing the bowstring back further across her breastplate. . and the arrow is gone, just the hiss of it left behind amid our silence.

The princess drops the bow and steps away from the wall. Behind her a high-pitched cry rings out. A pause. The sound of galloping.

“Princess Gwen-” The cousin runs out of words.

“Shot her sister. .” The whisper ripples along the wall.

Alica whirls back around to face them all. “No negotiation. No surrender. No terms.”

Another sharp turn and she’s striding toward the stairs at the tower’s centre. Contaph jogs, clanking to catch her, the others strung out behind. I’m at her shoulder. So close I can hear the tightness of her breath.

She doesn’t turn her head as Contaph draws level at the head of the stair. “Kerwcjz would have had her staked over a fire for us all to watch by morning. He’d have set her singing my troops a song of pain and kept her at it as long as his torturers’ skills allowed.” The cousin and three others arrive behind us. Alica keeps her shoulders to them. Back at the wall the first rock explodes against the battlements. All along the enemy line engines of war release their pent up forces with throaty twangs.

“We win this, or we die. There is no third way.”

And in that moment I knew my grandmother.

And rock rained down upon us.

“I’m so hungry.”

“Finally he wakes!” Snorri’s voice close by.

I opened my eyes. “I’ve gone blind!” Panic seized me and I struggled up, banging my head on something hard.

“Relax!” He sounded amused. A big hand pushed me down. The old magic sizzled unpleasantly at the contact points.

“My eyes! My fuc-”

“It’s night time.”

“Where are the damn stars then?” I touched my forehead where I’d bashed it. My fingers came away sticky.

“It’s cloudy.”

“Where’s the lantern?” I had him this time. We always kept the lantern burning on dark nights, wick trimmed low. Better to waste a little oil than trip overboard in the dark when nature called.

“You broke it when you fell over.”

I remembered it all. That woman! My hand!

“My hand!” I shouted, stupidly grabbing the place she stabbed me and yelping in pain.

Tuttugu uttered a sleepy complaint and stopped snoring. These days I only really noticed his snoring when he stopped.

“Why am I so hungry?”

“You’re a pig.” I heard Snorri turn over and gather his covers.

“You’ve been asleep the best part of two nights and a day.” Kara’s voice from the other end of the boat.

“Well. .” I paused to consider that. “Well, it didn’t work. You mutilated me for nothing.”

“You saw nothing?” She sounded unconvinced.

“I saw my grandmother. When she was younger than I am now. She was a scary bitch back then too! Worse, if anything.”

“You delayed too long before tasting the blood,” Kara said.

“Well excuse me for being busy staring at the six inches of steel sticking out of the back of my hand!” I still couldn’t believe she didn’t warn me.

“You may see more when you next dream. Perhaps what you seek.” She didn’t sound bothered-sleepy more than anything.

I glowered at her in the darkness, but judging by the soft sounds all around me the three of them had already fallen back into their slumbers. I couldn’t follow them. I’d slept enough. Instead I sat staring into the darkness, rocked by the waves, until the skies shaded into pale to herald the dawn.

• • •

I spent those cold dark hours staring at memories of memories. At my grandmother a lifetime ago, at the sacrifices she made to deny her enemy, at the fire in her that drove her to attack long after hope had fled the battlefield. Like Snorri. Or rather, like Snorri had been.

In the grey predawn I watched the northman slumped across the tiller, the slits of his eyes dark as he watched me back. Baraqel would talk to him soon. The angel would walk across the waves and speak of light and purpose, and still Snorri would steer this boat south, aimed toward death.

“You’re a coward, Snorri ver Snagason.” Perhaps it was the lack of sleep, or the Red Queen’s blood still running hot in my veins, or even an honest desire to help the man, but something set the words spilling from my mouth, my normal desire to avoid any chance of being hit overridden for the moment.

“How so?” He didn’t move or raise his voice. In truth I’d never seen the violence he displayed in battle spill over into conversation-even those that ran against him. Perhaps I just judged him by what I’d do if I were a big scary Viking.

“This key. It’s built of lies, you know that. Taking it to death’s door-” I waved an arm in the air. “It’s just looking for a way out, an escape. You may as well have cut a hole in the sea ice back in Trond harbour and jumped through. Same result, less effort, and fewer people inconvenienced.” I would have told him he wasn’t going to get his wife back, or his children, or the unborn baby. I would have told him it was all nonsense and that the world doesn’t work that way. I would have said that but perhaps I’m not that cruel, or perhaps I didn’t trust his temper that far. . but most likely it didn’t need to be said. He knew it already.

Snorri didn’t speak. Nothing but the moan of the wind and the slap of waves against the hull. Then, “Yes. I am a coward, Jal.”

“So, throw the key over the side and come with me to Vermillion.”

“The door is my quest now.” Snorri sat up. “The door. The key. It’s all I have.” He touched the place where the key hung beneath his jerkin. “And what is the key if not a chance to face the gods and to demand an explanation for the world. . for your life?”

I knew this wasn’t about gods. Whatever he said. His family drew him on. Freja, Emy, Egil, Karl. I still kept their names and the stories he’d told about them, and they weren’t even mine. It’s not in me to care about such things, but even so, I saw that little girl, her peg doll, Snorri running to save her. I’d expected him to speak of them again over the long winter. Expected it and dreaded it. Known that one night, deep in his cups, he must break and drunkenly he would rage against the loss. But he never did. No matter how dark the night nor how long, or how much of my ale he consumed, Snorri ver Snagason made no complaint, spoke no word of his loss. I hadn’t expected to speak of it at last in a small boat, bound on every side by cold miles of restless sea.