Joe Abercrombie - Half a King

“Odem is trapped …” Nothing’s eyes glinted in the darkness. “And so are we.”

There was cheering in the yard as the latest exercise came to its end. One side the winner, the other laid low.

Yarvi nodded towards the silent Ingling. “My mother’s slave will show you the ways. Learn them.”

“Where are you going?” asked Rulf, and then added uncertainly, “My king.”

“There’s something I have to do.”

Holding his breath lest the slightest sound betray him, Yarvi eased through the fusty darkness toward the hidden door between the legs of Father Peace, pressed himself to the spy-slot and peered through into the Godshall.

It was before noon and the King of Gettland was in his proper place-the Black Chair. Its back was toward Yarvi, so he could not see Odem’s face, only the outline of his shoulders, the gleam of the King’s Circle in his hair. Mother Gundring sat on her stool at his right hand, arm trembling with the effort of holding up her minister’s staff.

Below the dais, making a sea of dim-lit faces, were the great and good of Gettland, or at least the mean and meager, best buckles and keys polished, faces pressed into servile smiles. The same men and women who had wept as Yarvi’s father was howed up, and wondered wherever they would find his like again. Not in his crippled joke of a younger son, that was sure.

And standing unbowed upon the steps below the chair with Hurik looming at her back, was Yarvi’s mother.

He could not see Odem’s face, but he heard the false king’s voice echo in the hallowed space. As calm and reasoned as it had always been. As patient as winter, and Yarvi felt a wintry shiver at the sound of it. “Might I inquire of our honoured sister when she intends to travel to Skekenhouse?”

“As soon as I am able, my king,” answered Yarvi’s mother. “I have pressing matters of business that-”

“I wear the key to the treasury now.”

Yarvi peered from the corner of the slot, and saw Isriun sitting on the other side of the Black Chair. His betrothed. Not to mention his brother’s. She wore the key to the treasury around her neck, and by all appearances it weighed less heavily than she had once feared. “I can resolve your business, Laithlin.”

She sounded little like the nervous girl who had sung her quavering promises to him in this very chamber. He remembered her eyes shining as she touched the Black Chair, and saw them shine now as she glanced at her father sitting in it.

It seemed Yarvi was not the only one changed since he sailed for Amwend.

“See to it soon,” came Odem’s voice.

“That you may stand as High Queen over us all,” added Mother Gundring, lifting high her staff for just a moment, elf-metal darkly gleaming.

“Or kneel as Grandmother Wexen’s book-keeper,” snapped Yarvi’s mother.

There was a pause, then Odem said softly, “there are worse fates, sister. We must do our duty. We must do what is best for Gettland. See to it.”

“My king,” she forced through gritted teeth as she bowed, and though Yarvi had often dreamed of it, he felt a burning anger at seeing her humbled.

“Now leave me with the gods,” said Odem, waving away his retainers. The doors were opened, the great men and women bowed their bottomless respect and filed out into the light. Yarvi’s mother went among them, Hurik beside her, and Mother Gundring after them, and Isriun last of all, smiling back at her father in the doorway as she had once smiled back at Yarvi.

The doors were closed with an echoing boom, and a heavy silence settled, and with a groan Odem wrenched himself up from the Black Chair as though it burned him to sit in it. He turned, and Yarvi found the breath stopped in his chest.

His uncle’s face was just as he remembered it. Strong, with hard lines in the cheeks and silver in the beard. So like Yarvi’s father, but with a softness and a care not even his own son could ever find in King Uthrik’s face.

The hate should have flooded in, and swept away all Yarvi’s fears, and drowned his nagging doubts that ripping the Black Chair back from his uncle’s clutches might not be worth the blood it would surely cost.

But instead, when he saw the face of his enemy, the killer of his family and thief of his kingdom, Yarvi’s heart betrayed him, and he felt of all things a choking surge of love. For the only one in his family who had ever given him kindness. Had ever made him feel that he was liked. Had ever made him feel he was worth liking. Next came a choking sorrow at the loss of that man, and Yarvi felt tears in his eyes, and he ground his twisted knuckles into the cold stone beside him, hating himself for his weakness.

“Stop looking at me!”

Yarvi jerked back from the slot but Odem’s gaze was fixed high above. He walked slowly, the taps of his footfalls echoing in the velvet dimness of that great space.

“Have you deserted me?” he called out. “As I have deserted you?”

He was speaking to the amber statues set about the dome. He was speaking to the gods, and his cracking voice was anything but calm. Now he lifted off the King’s Circle Yarvi had once worn and with a wince rubbed at the marks left on his forehead.

“What could I do?” he whispered, so quietly Yarvi could scarcely hear it. “We all serve someone. For everything there is a price.”

And Yarvi thought of Odem’s last words to him, sharp as knives in his memory.

You would have been a fine jester. But is my daughter really to have a one-handed weakling for a husband? A crippled puppet dangling on his mother’s string?

And now the hate boiled up, hot and reassuring. Had he not sworn an oath? For his father. For his mother.

For himself.

With the faintest ringing, the point of Shadikshirram’s sword left the sheath, and Yarvi pressed the knobbled fist of his left hand against the hidden door. One good shove would send it swinging, he knew. One shove, and three steps, and a thrust of the blade could end this. He licked his lips, and worked his hand about the grip, setting his shoulders for the effort, the blood surging at his temples-

“Enough!” roared Odem, the echoes ringing, and Yarvi froze again. His uncle had snatched up the King’s Circle and twisted it back on. “What’s done is done!” He shook his fist towards the ceiling. “If you wanted it otherwise, why did you not stop me?” And he spun on his heel and strode from the chamber.

“They have sent me to do it,” whispered Yarvi, sliding Shadikshirram’s sword back into its sheath. Not now. Not yet. Not as easily as that. But his doubts were burned away.

Even if he had to sink Thorlby in blood.

Odem had to die.

Yarvi strained at the oar, knowing the whip was over him. He tugged and snarled, plucked even with the stub of finger on his useless hand, but how could he move it alone?

Mother Sea burst roaring into the hold of the South Wind and Yarvi fumbled desperately with the ladder, watched the men straining against their chains for a last breath as the water surged over their faces.

“Clever children drown just like stupid ones,” said Trigg, blood running from the neat split in his skull.

Yarvi took one more floundering step in the merciless snow, slipped and teetered on hot rock smooth as glass. However he ran the dogs were always snapping at his heels.

Grom-gil-Gorm’s bared teeth were red and his face blood-dashed and Yarvi’s fingers threaded on his necklace. “I am coming,” he sang like the clanging of a bell. “And Mother War comes with me!”

“Are you ready to kneel?” asked Mother Scaer, arms covered in flashing elf-bangles and the crows on her shoulders laughing, laughing.