Joe Abercrombie - Half a King

Yarvi glanced back at Ankran, who was frowning at the conversation with the deepest suspicion. “It is my sad observation that some men always want more.”

“They do.” She sadly propped elbow on knee and chin on hand as she watched her crestfallen warriors sit down in disgust, one of them already bunching moss to scrub off his battle-paint. “This could have been a profitable day.”

“It still can be.” Yarvi clambered to his feet, and clasped his hands the way his mother did when she began a bargain. “There are things for which my captain would like to trade …”

Shadikshirram’s cabin was cramped and garish, gloomy from the three slit windows, shadowy from sacks and bags dangling from the low roof-beams. Her bed, heaped with sheets and furs and stained pillows, took up most of the floor. An outsize, iron-bound chest took up most of the rest. Empty bottles had rolled to every corner. The place smelled of tar, salt and incense, stale sweat and stale wine. And yet compared to the life Yarvi had been living-if that even qualified as a life-it seemed the height of indulgent luxury.

“The repair won’t last,” Sumael was saying. “We should head back to Skekenhouse.”

“The wonderful thing about the Shattered Sea is that it forms a circle.” Shadikshirram made a circle in the air with her bottle. “We will come to Skekenhouse either way.”

Sumael blinked at that. “But one in days, the other months!”

“You’ll keep us going, you always do. The sailor’s worst enemy is the sea, but wood floats, no? How difficult can it be? We head on.” Shadikshirram’s eyes drifted to Yarvi as he ducked under the low lintel. “Ah, my ambassador! Since we still have our skins I assume things went well?”

“I need to speak to you, my captain.” He spoke with eyes downcast, the way a minister speaks to their king. “You alone.”

“Hmmm.” She stuck out her bottom lip and plucked at it like a musician might a harp. “A man seeking a private audience always intrigues me, even one so young, crippled, and otherwise unattractive as you. Get to your caulk and timber, Sumael, I want us back on the salt by morning.”

The muscles at the sides of Sumael’s head bunched as she ground her teeth. “On it or under it.” And she shouldered past Yarvi and out.

“So?” Shadikshirram took a long swig of wine and set the bottle rattling down.

“I begged the Shends for guest right, my captain. They have a solemn tradition not to deny a stranger who asks properly.”

“Nimble,” said Shadikshirram, gathering her black-and-silver hair in both hands.

“And I negotiated for the things we need, and made what I consider an excellent trade.”

“Very nimble,” she said, winding her hair into its usual tangle.

But now was when his nimbleness would truly be needed. “You may not think it quite so excellent a deal as I, my captain.”

Her eyes narrowed slightly. “How so?”

“Your storekeeper and overseer took their own shares in your profits.”

There was a long pause while, one by one, Shadikshirram slid the pins carefully through her hair to hold it fast. Her face did not change by the slightest detail, yet Yarvi felt suddenly that he was standing at the brink of a precipice.

“Did they?” she said.

He had expected anything but this offhand coolness. Did she know already but not care? Would she send him back to the oar regardless? Would Trigg and Ankran learn he had betrayed them? He licked his lips, knowing he stood on desperately thin ice. But he had no choice but to press on, and hope somehow to reach solid ground.

“Not for the first time,” he croaked.

“No?”

“In Vulsgard you gave money for healthy oarslaves and they bought the cheapest dregs they could find, myself among them. I’ve a guess you received little change.”

“Pathetically little.” Shadikshirram picked up her bottle between two fingers and took a long swig. “But I begin to wonder whether I got a bargain with you.”

Yarvi felt a strange desire to blurt the words out, had to make himself speak calmly, earnestly, just as a minister should. “They made both arrangements in Haleen, thinking no one would understand. But I speak that language too.”

“And sing in it, no doubt. For an oarslave you have many talents.”

A minister should endeavor never to be asked a question they do not already know the answer to, and Yarvi had a lie hanging ready for that. “My mother was a minister.”

“A minister’s belt should remain ever fastened.” Shadikshirram sucked air through her pursed lips. “Oh, ugly little secret.”

“Life is full of them.”

“So it is, boy, so it is.”

“She taught me tongues, and numbers, and the lore of plants, and many other things. Things that could be of use to you, my captain.”

“A useful child indeed. You may need two hands to fight someone, but only one to stab them in the back, eh? Ankran!” she sang through the open door. “Ankran, your captain would speak with you!”

The storekeeper’s footsteps came fast, but not as fast as Yarvi’s heart. “I’ve been checking the stores, Captain, and there’s a hatchet missing-” He saw Yarvi as he ducked through the doorway, and his face twitched, shock at first, then suspicion, and finally he tried to smile.

“Can I bring you more wine-”

“Never again.” There was an ugly pause, while the captain smiled bright-eyed, and the color steadily drained from Ankran’s face, and the blood in Yarvi’s temples surged louder and louder. “I expect Trigg to rob me: he is a free man and must look to his own interests. But you? To be robbed by one’s own possessions?” Shadikshirram drained her bottle, licked the last drops from the neck and weighed it lazily in her hand. “You must see that is something of an embarrassment.”

The storekeeper’s thin lips twisted. “He’s lying, Captain!”

“But his lies match my suspicions so closely.”

“It’s all-”

So fast that Yarvi hardly saw it, only heard the hollow thud, Shadikshirram clubbed Ankran with the base of her bottle. He dropped with a grunt and lay blinking, blood streaming down his face. She stepped forward, lifting her boot over his head and, calmly, steadily, frowning with concentration, started stamping on his face.

“Swindle me?” she hissed through gritted teeth, heel opening a cut down his cheek.

“Steal from me?” as her boot smashed Ankran’s nose sideways.

“Take me for a fool?”

Yarvi looked away into the corner of the room, the breath crawling in his throat as the sick crunching went on.

“After all … I’ve … done for you!”

Shadikshirram squatted down, forearms resting on her knees and her hands dangling. She thrust her jaw forward and blew a loose strand of hair out of her face. “I am once again disappointed by the wretchedness of humanity.”

“My wife,” Ankran whispered, bringing Yarvi’s eyes crawling back to his ruined face. A bubble of blood formed and broke on his lips. “My wife … and my son.”

“What of them?” snapped Shadikshirram, frowning at a red spatter that had caught the back of her hand and wiping it clean on Ankran’s clothes.

“The flesh dealer … you bought me from … in Thorlby.” Ankran’s voice was squelchy. “Yoverfell. He has them.” He coughed, and pushed a piece of tooth out of his mouth with his tongue. “He said he’d keep them safe … as long as I brought him their price … every time we passed through. If I don’t pay …”

Yarvi felt weak at the knees. So weak he thought he might fall. Now he understood why Ankran had needed all that money.

But Shadikshirram only shrugged. “What’s that to me?” And she twisted her fingers in Ankran’s hair and pulled a knife from her belt.