Half a King

Mother Gundring unwrapped the sacred cloth and Yarvi snatched free his good hand, sticky-pink and tingling. His uncle seized him by the shoulders and said into his ear, ‘Well done!’, though Yarvi had done nothing but stand there and sing some promises he hardly understood.

The guests filed out, and Brinyolf closed the doors of the hall with an echoing clap, leaving Yarvi and Isriun alone with the gods, the Black Chair, the weight of their uncertain future, and an ocean of awkward silence.

Isriun rubbed gently at the hand that had held Yarvi’s, and looked at the floor. He looked at the floor too, not that there was anything so very interesting down there. He cleared his throat. He shifted his sword-belt. It still hung strangely on him. He felt as if it always would. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, at last.

She looked up, one eye shining in the heavy darkness. ‘Why are you sorry?’ Then she remembered to add uncertainly, ‘my king?’

He almost said That you’ll have half a man for a husband, but settled for, ‘That you’re passed around my family like a feast-day cup.’

‘On feast-day, everyone’s happy to get the cup.’ She gave a bitter little smile. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry. Imagine me a queen.’ And she snorted as though there never was a more foolish joke.

‘Imagine me a king.’

‘You are a king.’

He blinked at that. He had been so fixed on his shortcomings it had never occurred she might be fixed on her own. That thought, as the misery of others often can, made him feel just a little better.

‘You manage your father’s household.’ He looked down at the golden key hanging on her chest. ‘That’s no small task.’

‘But a queen manages the business of a country! Everyone says your mother has a high art at it. Laithlin, the Golden Queen!’ She spoke the name like a magic spell. ‘They say she’s owed a thousand thousand favours, that a debt to her is a matter for pride. They say her word is valued higher than gold among merchants, because gold may go down in worth but her word never does. They say some traders of the far north have given up praying to the gods and worship her instead.’ She spoke faster and faster, and chewed at her nails, and tugged at one thin hand with the other, eyes opening very wide. ‘There’s a rumour she lays silver eggs.’

Yarvi had to laugh. ‘I’m reasonably sure that one’s false.’

‘But she’s raised granaries and had channels dug and brought more earth under the plough so there’ll never again be a famine that forces folk to draw lots to see who must find new homes across the sea.’ Isriun’s shoulders drifted up as she spoke until they were hunched about her ears. ‘And people flock to Thorlby from across the world to trade, so the city’s tripled in size and split its walls and your mother’s built new walls and split them again.’

‘True, but—’

‘I’ve heard she has a mighty scheme to stamp every coin of one weight, and these coins will pass through all the lands about the Shattered Sea, so that every trade will be made with her face, and make her richer even than the High King in Skekenhouse! How will … I?’ Isriun’s shoulders slumped and she flicked at the key on her chest and set it swinging by its chain. ‘How can the likes of me—’

‘There’s always a way.’ Yarvi caught Isriun’s hand in his before she could get her vanishing nails to her teeth again. ‘My mother will help you. She’s your aunt, isn’t she?’

‘She’ll help me?’ Instead of pulling her hand away she drew him closer by it. ‘Your father may have been a great warrior but I rather think he was your less fearsome parent.’

Yarvi smiled, but he did not deny it. ‘You were luckier. My uncle’s always as calm as still water.’

Isriun glanced nervously towards the door. ‘You don’t know my father like I do.’

‘Then … I’ll help you.’ He had held her hand half the morning and it could have been a dead fish in his clammy palm. Now it felt like something else entirely – strong, and cool, and very much alive. ‘Isn’t that the point of a marriage?’

‘Not just that.’ She seemed suddenly very close, taper-light reflected in the corners of her eyes, teeth shining between parted lips.

There was a smell to her, not sweet and not sour, he could not name it. Faint, but it made his heart jump.

He did not know if he should close his eyes, then she did, so he did, and their noses bumped awkwardly.

Her breath tickled at his cheek and made his skin flush hot. Frighteningly hot.

Her lips just barely brushed his and he broke away with all the dignity of a startled rabbit, caught his leg on his sword and nearly fell over it.

‘Sorry,’ she said, shrinking back and staring at the floor.

‘It’s me who should be sorry.’ For a king Yarvi spent a great deal of his time apologizing. ‘I’m the sorriest man in Gettland. No doubt my brother gave you a better kiss. More practice … I suppose.’

‘All your brother did was talk about the battles he’d win,’ she muttered at her feet.

‘No danger of that with me.’ He could not have said why he did it – to shock her, or as revenge for the failed kiss, or simply to be honest – but he held up his crooked hand, shaking his sleeve free so it was between them in all its ugliness.

He expected her to flinch, to pale, to step away, but she only looked thoughtfully at it. ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Not really … sometimes.’

She reached out, then, sliding her fingers around his knobbled knuckles and pressing at the crooked palm with her thumb while the breath stopped in his throat. No one had ever touched that hand as if it was just a hand. A piece of flesh with feelings like any other.

‘I heard you beat Keimdal in the square even so,’ she said.

‘I only gave the order. I learned a long time ago that I’m not much good at fair fights.’

‘A warrior fights,’ she said, looking him in the eye. ‘A king commands.’ And with a grin she drew him up the dais. He went uneasily, for even though this was his hall, with every step he felt more like a trespasser.

‘The Black Chair,’ he muttered as they reached it.

‘Your chair,’ said Isriun, and to his horror she reached out and swept her fingertips down the perfect metal of the arm with a hiss that made Yarvi’s skin prickle. ‘Hard to believe it’s the oldest thing here. Made by the hands of elves before the Breaking of the World.’

‘You’re interested in the elves?’ he squeaked, terrified she might make him touch it or, more awful yet, sit in it, and desperate for a distraction.

‘I’ve read every book Mother Gundring has about them,’ she said.

Yarvi blinked. ‘You read?’

‘I once trained to be a minister. I was Mother Gundring’s apprentice, before you. Bound for a life of books, and plants, and soft words spoken.’

‘She never said so.’ It seemed they had more in common than he had imagined.

‘I was promised to your brother, and that was the end of it. We must do what’s best for Gettland.’

They gave much the same sigh at much the same time. ‘So everyone tells me,’ said Yarvi. ‘We’ve both lost the Ministry.’

‘But gained each other. And we’ve gained this.’ Her eyes shone as she gave the perfect curve of the Black Chair’s arm one last stroke. ‘No mean wedding present.’ Her light fingertips slipped from the metal and onto the back of his hand, and he found that he very much liked having them there. ‘We were meant to discuss when we’ll be married.’

‘As soon as I get back,’ he said, voice slightly hoarse.

She gave his withered hand one last squeeze then let it fall. ‘I’ll expect a better kiss after your victory, my king.’

As he watched her walk away Yarvi was almost glad neither one of them had joined the Ministry. ‘I’ll try not to trip over my sword!’ he called as she reached the doorway.

She smiled at him over her shoulder as she slipped through, the daylight setting a glow in her hair. Then the doors shut softly behind her. Leaving Yarvi marooned on the dais, in the midst of all that silent space, his doubts suddenly looming even higher than the Tall Gods above. It took a fearsome effort to turn his head back towards the Black Chair.

Could he truly sit in it, between gods and men? He, who could hardly bring himself to touch it with his crippled joke of a hand? He made himself reach out, his breath coming shallow. Made himself lay his one trembling fingertip upon the metal.