Half a War

Raith scowled. ‘She doesn’t scare me, my king.’

Gorm slapped him sharply across the face. Well, a slap to Gorm. To Raith it was like being hit with an oar. He staggered but the king caught him and dragged him closer still. ‘What wounds me is not that you tried to hurt her, but that you failed.’ He cuffed him the other way and Raith’s mouth turned salty with blood. ‘I do not want a dog that yaps. I want a dog that uses its teeth. I want a killer.’ And he slapped Raith a third time and left him dizzy. ‘I fear you have a grain of mercy left in you, Raith. Crush it, before it crushes you.’

Gorm gave Raith’s head a parting scratch. The sort a father gives a son. Or perhaps a huntsman gives his hound. ‘You can never be bloody enough for my taste, boy. You know that.’

Safe (#ulink_3a10a9cb-8241-5a3d-9e17-ccb3228f7d89)

The comb of polished whalebone swish-swish-swished through Skara’s hair.

Prince Druin’s toy sword click-clack-scraped against a chest in the corner.

Queen Laithlin’s voice spilled out blab-blab-blab. As though she sensed that if she left a silence Skara might start screaming, and screaming, and never stop.

‘Outside that window, on the south side of the city, my husband’s warriors are camped.’

‘Why didn’t they help us?’ Skara wanted to shriek as she stared numbly at the sprawling tents, but her mouth drooled out the proper thing, as always. ‘There must be very many.’

‘Two and a half thousand loyal Gettlanders, called in from every corner of the land.’

Skara felt Queen Laithlin’s strong fingers turn her head, gently but very firmly. Prince Druin gave a piping toddler’s war-cry and attacked a tapestry. The comb began to swish-swish-swish again, as though the solution to every problem was the right arrangement of hair.

‘Outside this window, to the north, is Grom-gil-Gorm’s camp.’ The fires glimmered in the gathering dusk, spread across the dark hills like stars across heaven’s cloth. ‘Two thousand Vanstermen in sight of the walls of Thorlby. I never thought to see such a thing.’

‘Not with their swords sheathed, anyway,’ tossed out Thorn Bathu from the back of the room, as harshly as a warrior might toss an axe.

‘I saw a quarrel on the docks …’ mumbled Skara.

‘I fear it will not be the last.’ Laithlin clicked her tongue as she teased out a knot. Skara’s hair had always been unruly, but the Queen of Gettland was not a woman to be put off by a stubborn curl or two. ‘There is to be a great moot tomorrow. Five hours straight of quarrelling, that will be. If we get through it with no one dead I will count it a victory for the songs. There.’

And Laithlin turned Skara’s head towards the mirror.

The queen’s silent thralls had bathed her, and scrubbed her, and swapped her filthy shift for green silk brought on the long voyage from the First of Cities, nimbly altered to fit her. It was stitched with golden thread about the hem, as fine as anything she had ever worn, and Skara had worn some fine things. So many, and so carefully arranged by Mother Kyre, she had sometimes felt the clothes wore her.

She was surrounded by strong walls, strong warriors, slaves and luxury. She should have felt giddy with relief. But like a runner who stops to rest and finds they cannot stand again, the comfort made Skara feel dizzy-weak and aching-raw, battered outside and in as if she was one great bruise. She almost wished she was back aboard Blue Jenner’s ship, the Black Dog, shivering, and staring into the rain, and thrice an hour crawling on grazed knees to puke over the side.

‘This belonged to my mother, King Fynn’s sister.’ Laithlin carefully arranged the earring, golden chains fine as cobweb that spilled red jewels almost to Skara’s shoulder.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Skara croaked out, struggling not to spray sick all over the mirror. She scarcely recognized the haunted, pink-eyed, brittle-looking girl she saw there. She looked like her own ghost. Perhaps she never escaped Yaletoft. Perhaps she was still trapped there, Bright Yilling’s slave, and always would be.

At the back of the room she saw Thorn Bathu squat beside the prince, shift his tiny hands around the grip of his wooden sword, murmur instructions on how to swing it properly. She grinned as he whacked her across the leg, the star-shaped scar on her cheek puckering, and ruffled his pale blonde hair. ‘Good boy!’

All Skara could think of was Bright Yilling’s sword, that diamond pommel flashing in the darkness of the Forest, and in the mirror the pale girl’s chest began to heave and her hands to tremble—

‘Skara.’ Queen Laithlin took her firmly by the shoulders, fixed her with those hard, sharp, grey-blue eyes, jerking her back to the present. ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

‘My grandfather waited for help from his allies.’ The words burbled out flat as a bee’s droning. ‘We waited for Uthil’s warriors, and Gorm’s. They never came.’

‘Go on.’

‘He lost heart. Mother Kyre persuaded him to make peace. She sent a dove and Grandmother Wexen sent an eagle back. If Bail’s Point was given up, and the warriors of Throvenland sent home, and the High King’s army given free passage across our land, she would forgive.’

‘But Grandmother Wexen does not forgive,’ said Laithlin.

‘She sent Bright Yilling to Yaletoft to settle the debt.’ Skara swallowed sour spit, and in the mirror the pale girl’s stringy neck shifted. Prince Druin’s little face was crumpled with warrior’s determination as he hacked at Thorn with his toy sword and she pushed it away with her fingers. His little war-cries sounded like the howls of pain and fury in the darkness, coming closer, always closer.

‘Bright Yilling cut Mother Kyre’s head off. He stabbed my grandfather right through and he fell in the firepit.’

Queen Laithlin’s eyes widened. ‘You … saw it happen?’

The dusting of sparks, the glow on the warriors’ smiles, the thick blood dripping from the tip of Yilling’s sword. Skara took a shuddering breath, and nodded. ‘I got away disguised as Blue Jenner’s slave. Bright Yilling flipped a coin, to decide whether he would kill him too … but the coin …’

She could still see it spinning in the shadows, flashing with the colours of fire.

‘The gods were with you that night,’ breathed Laithlin.

‘Then why did they kill my family?’ Skara wanted to shriek, but the girl in the mirror gave a queasy smile instead, and muttered a proper prayer of thanks to He Who Turns the Dice.

‘They have sent you to me, cousin.’ The queen squeezed hard at Skara’s shoulders. ‘You are safe here.’

The Forest that had been about her all her life, certain as a mountain, was made ashes. The high gable that had stood for two hundred years fallen in ruin. Throvenland was torn apart like smoke on the wind. Nowhere would be safe, ever again.

Skara found she was scratching at her cheek. She could still feel Bright Yilling’s cold fingertips upon it.

‘You have all been so kind,’ she croaked out, and tried to smother an acrid burp. She had always had a weak stomach, but since she clambered from the Black Dog her guts had felt as twisted as her thoughts.

‘You are family, and family is all that matters.’ With a parting squeeze, Queen Laithlin let go of her. ‘I must speak to my husband and my son … to Father Yarvi, that is.’

‘Could I ask you … is Blue Jenner still here?’

The queen’s displeasure was palpable. ‘The man is little better than a pirate—’

‘Could you send him to me? Please?’

Laithlin might have seemed hard as flint, but she must have heard the desperation in Skara’s voice. ‘I will send him. Thorn, the princess has been through an ordeal. Do not leave her alone. Come, Druin.’

The thigh-high prince looked solemnly at Skara. ‘Bye bye.’ And he dropped his wooden sword and ran after his mother.

Skara was left staring at Thorn Bathu. Staring up, since the Chosen Shield towered over her. Plainly she had no use for combs herself, the hair on one side clipped to dark stubble and on the other twisted into knots and braids and matted tangles bound up with a middle-sized fortune in gold and silver ring-money.

Here was a woman said to have fought seven men alone and won, the elf-bangle that had been her reward glowing fierce yellow on her wrist. A woman who wore blades instead of silks and scars instead of jewels. Who ground propriety under her boot heels and made no apologies for it, ever. A woman who would sooner break a door down with her face than knock.

‘Am I a prisoner?’ Skara meant it as a challenge, but it came out a mouse’s squeak.

Thorn’s expression was hard to read. ‘You’re a princess, princess.’

‘In my experience there’s not much difference between the two.’

‘I’m guessing you’ve never been a prisoner.’