Joe Abercrombie - Half a King

“Many sweet stories have them,” said Jaud.

Rulf shrugged. “Hard to complain. In my voyages we must’ve stolen ten score Inglings and sold ’em for slaves and taken great delight in the profits.” The old raider rubbed his rough palm against the grain of the oar. “They say the seed you scatter will be the seed you harvest, and so it seems indeed.”

“You wouldn’t leave if you could?” muttered Yarvi, with a glance towards Trigg to make sure they were not heard.

Jaud snorted. “There is a well in the village where I used to live, a well that gives the sweetest water in the world.” He closed his eyes and licked at his lips as if he could taste it. “I would give anything to drink from that well again.” He spread his palms. “But I have nothing to give. And look at the last man who tried to leave.” And he nodded towards the scrubber, his block scraping, scraping, scraping endlessly down the deck, his heavy chain rattling as he shuffled stiffly on scabbed knees to nowhere.

“What’s his story?” asked Yarvi.

“I don’t know his name. Nothing, we all call him. When I was first brought to the South Wind he pulled an oar. One night, off the coast of Gettland, he tried to escape. Somehow he got free of his chain and stole a knife. He killed three guards and cut another’s knee so he never walked again, and he gave our captain that scar before she and Trigg put a stop to him.”

Yarvi blinked at the shambling scrubber. “All that with a knife?”

“And not a large one. Trigg wanted to hang him from a mast but Shadikshirram chose to keep him alive as an example to the rest of us.”

“Mercy’s ever been her weakness,” said Rulf, and gave a grunt of joyless laughter.

“She stitched her cut,” said Jaud, “and put that great chain on him, and hired more guards, and told them never to let him get his hands upon a blade, and ever since he has been scrubbing the deck, and never since have I heard him say a word.”

“What about you?” asked Yarvi.

Jaud grinned sideways at him. “I speak when I have something worth saying.”

“No. I mean, what’s your story?”

“I used to be a baker.” Ropes hissed as they brought up the anchor, and Jaud sighed, and worked his hands about the handles his own palms had polished to a gleam. “Now my story is I pull this oar.”

Jaud pulled their oar, and so did Yarvi, with the calluses thickening even on his crippled hand, his face hardening against the weather and his body turning lean and tough as Trigg’s whip. They rounded Bail’s Point in a soaking squall, hardly able to see the brooding fortress there for the rain, and turned eastwards into calmer waters, busy with ships of all shapes and nations, Yarvi twisting around at the oar in his eagerness to see Skekenhouse.

It was the elf-ruins he saw first, of course. The giant walls, sheer and perfectly smooth at their bases, were unmarked by Mother Sea’s fury but torn off ragged higher up, twisted metal showing in the cracks like splintered bone in a wound, battlements of new masonry perching at their tops, the flags of the High King proudly fluttering.

The Tower of the Ministry loomed over all. Over every building about the Shattered Sea, unless you counted the ruins of Strokom or Lanangad where no man dared tread. For three-quarters of its staggering height it was elf-built: pillars of jointless stone, perfectly square, perfectly true, with giant expanses of black elf-glass still twinkling at some of the great windows.

At perhaps five times the height of the tallest tower in Thorlby’s citadel the elf-stone was sheared away, rock melted and congealed in giant tears by the Breaking of God. Above, long generations of ministers had constructed a riotous crown of timber and tile-turrets, platforms, slumping roofs, balconies, sprouting with smoking chimneys and festooned with dangling ropes and chains, all streaked with age and droppings, the rotting work of men ridiculous by comparison with the stark perfection below.

Gray specks circled the highest domes. Doves, perhaps, like the ones Yarvi once tended. Like the one that lured his father to his death. Croaking out messages from the many ministers scattered about the Shattered Sea. Could he even see the odd bronze-feathered eagle carrying the High King’s wishes back?

In that ancient tower, Yarvi would have taken the test. There he would have kissed the cheek of Grandmother Wexen when he passed. There his life as a prince would have ended, and his life as a minister begun, and his life as a wretched slave never come to pass.

“Ship the oars!” called Sumael.

“Ship the oars!” bellowed Trigg, to make sure everyone saw he gave the orders.

“Oars out, oars in,” grunted Rulf. “You’d think they could make up their bloody minds.”

“Skekenhouse.” Yarvi rubbed at the red raw patches on his wrist as the South Wind was heaved into its berth while Sumael lent from the aftcastle and screamed at the struggling dockers to take care. “The center of the world.”

Jaud snorted. “Compared to the great cities of Catalia this is a stable.”

“We’re not in Catalia.”

“No.” The big man heaved a heavy sigh. “Sadly.”

The docks stank of old rot and salt decay, and with impressive power to be noticed over the stink of Yarvi and his companions. Many of the berths were empty. The windows of the decaying buildings behind gaped dark and empty. On the dockside a great heap of mouldering grain sprouted with weeds. Guardsmen in the patched livery of the High King sat idle and threw dice. Beggars slouched in the shadows. Perhaps it was the bigger city, but there was none of the vigor and vitality of Thorlby, none of the bustle or new building.

The elf-ruins might have been stupendous, but the parts of Skekenhouse that men had built seemed quite a disappointment. Yarvi curled his tongue and neatly spat over the side of the ship.

“Nice.” Rulf gave him a nod. “Your rowing’s not up to much, but you’re coming on where it really matters.”

“You must struggle by without me, little ones!” Shadikshirram strutted from her cabin in her most garish garments, working an extra ring or two onto her fingers. “I am expected at the Tower of the Ministry!”

“Our money’s expected,” grumbled Trigg. “How much for a licence this year?”

“My guess would be a little more than last year.” Shadikshirram licked a knuckle so she could twist a particularly gaudy bauble over it. “There is, in general, an upward trajectory to the High King’s fees.”

“Better to toss our money to Mother Sea than to the Ministry’s jackals.”

“I’d toss you to Mother Sea if I didn’t think she’d toss you straight back.” Shadikshirram held out her jewel-crusted hand at arm’s length to admire. “With a licence we can trade anywhere around the Shattered Sea. Without one … pfah.” And she blew all profits away through her fingertips.

“The High King is jealous of his revenues,” muttered Jaud.

“Course he is,” said Rulf as they watched their captain aim a lazy kick at Nothing, then stroll across the bouncing gangplank, Ankran scrambling after her on a short length of chain. “It’s his revenues make him High. Without ’em he’ll crash to earth like the rest of us.”

“And great men need great enemies,” said Jaud, “and wars are a damned expensive hobby.”

“Building temples comes close behind.” Rulf nodded up at the skeleton of a huge building showing itself above the nearest roofs, so covered in a ramshackle web of scaffolds, hoists and platforms Yarvi could hardly make out its shape.

“That’s the High King’s temple?”

“To this new god of his.” Rulf spat out of the rowlock, missed, and spattered the timbers instead. “A monument to his own vanity. Four years in the building and still not halfway done.”