Half a King

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.”