Half a King

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.

“Wait!” shouted Yarvi.

The captain looked over at him sharply. “Really? Are you sure?”

It took everything he had to force his mouth into a watery smile. “Why kill what you can sell?”

She squatted there a moment, staring at him, and he wondered if she would kill them both. Then she snorted out a laugh, and lowered the knife. “I do declare. My soft heart will be my undoing. Trigg!”

The overseer paused for just a moment when he stepped into the cabin and saw Ankran on the floor with his face a bloodied pulp.

“It turns out our storekeeper has been robbing me,” said the captain.

Trigg frowned at Ankran, then at Shadikshirram, and finally, for a long time, at Yarvi. “Seems some people think only of themselves.”

“And I thought we were one family.” The captain stood, dusting off her knees. “We have a new storekeeper. Get him a better collar.” She rolled Ankran towards the door with her foot. “And put this thing in the space on Jaud’s oar.”

“Right y’are, Captain.” And Trigg dragged Ankran out by one arm and kicked the door closed.

“You see that I am merciful,” said Shadikshirram brightly, with merciful gestures of the blood-spotted hand which still loosely held her knife. “Mercy is my weakness.”

“Mercy is a feature of greatness,” Yarvi managed to croak.

Shadikshirram beamed at that. “Isn’t it? But, great though I am … I rather think Ankran has used up all my mercy for this year.” She put her long arm about Yarvi’s shoulders, hooking her thumb through his collar, and drew him close, close, close enough to smell the wine on her whisper. “If another storekeeper betrayed my trust …” And she trailed off into silence more eloquent than any words.

“You have nothing to worry about, my captain.” Yarvi looked into her face so close that her black eyes seemed to merge into one. “I have no wife or children to distract me.” Only an uncle to kill, and his daughter to marry, and the Black Chair of Gettland to reclaim. “I’m your man.”

“You’re scarcely a man, but otherwise, excellent!” And she wiped her knife one way then the other on the front of Yarvi’s shirt. “Then wriggle down to your stores, my little one-handed minister, ferret out where Ankran was hiding my money and bring me up some wine! And smile, boy!” Shadikshirram pulled a golden chain from around her neck and hung it over one of the posts of her bed. A key dangled from it. The key to the oarslaves’ locks. “I like my friends smiling and my enemies dead!” She spread her arms wide, wriggled the fingers, and toppled back onto her furs. “Today dawned with such little promise,” she mused at the ceiling. “But it turns out everyone got what they wanted.”

Yarvi thought it unwise to point out, as he hurried for the door, that Ankran, not to mention his wife and child, would probably not have agreed.

16

ENEMIES AND ALLIES

To no one’s surprise, Yarvi found himself much better suited to the stores than the oars.