Half a King

Yarvi pulled his fleece tight about his shoulders and looked into the fire, the flames taking on the shapes of things done and faces past. “Because of my hand … or the lack of it, I was to give up my birthright and join the Ministry. But my father, Uthrik, was killed. Betrayed by Grom-gil-Gorm and his minister, Mother Scaer … or so I was told. I led twenty-seven ships on a raid against them. My Uncle Odem laid the plans.” He found his voice was quivering. “Which included killing me and stealing my chair.”

“Prince Yarvi,” murmured Ankran. “Uthrik’s younger son. He had a crippled hand.” Yarvi held it up to the light and Ankran considered it, thoughtfully stroking the side of his crooked nose. “When we last passed through Thorlby there was talk of his death.”

“The announcement was made a little early. I fell from a tower, and Mother Sea washed me into the arms of Grom-gil-Gorm. I pretended to be a cook’s boy, and he put a collar on me and sold me to slavers in Vulsgard.”

“And there Trigg and I bought you,” mused Ankran, turning the story over for truth as a merchant might turn over a ring, trying to fathom how much gold was in the alloy. “Because you told me you could row.”

Yarvi could only shrug as he pushed his crippled hand back inside the warmth of his fleece. “As you can see, not the biggest lie I’ve ever told.”

Jaud puffed out his cheeks. “No doubt every man has his secrets, but that is larger than the average.”

“And a good deal more dangerous,” said Sumael, eyes narrowed. “Why break the silence?”

Yarvi thought about that for a moment. “You deserve to know the truth. And I deserve to tell it. And it deserves to be told.”

More silence. Jaud rubbed more fat into his feet. Ankran and Sumael exchanged a lingering frown. Then Rulf pushed his tongue between his lips and made a loud farting sound. “Does anyone believe this rubbish?”

“I believe.” Nothing stood, eyes black and huge, lifting his sword high. “And I now swear an oath!” He rammed the blade into the fire, sparks whirling and everyone shuffling back in surprise. “A sun-oath and a moon-oath. Let it be a chain about me and a goad within me. I will not rest until the rightful King of Gettland sits in the Black Chair once again!”

This silence was even longer, and no one was more stunned than Yarvi.

“Did you ever feel you were living in a dream?” muttered Rulf.

Jaud gave another of his sighs. “Often.”

“A nightmare,” said Sumael.

EARLY THE NEXT DAY they crested a ridge and were greeted by a sight straight out of a dream. Or perhaps a nightmare. Instead of white hills ahead they saw black, distant mountains ghostly in a haze of steam.

“The hot country,” said Ankran.

“A place where the gods of fire and ice make war upon each other,” whispered Nothing.

“Looks pleasant enough,” said Yarvi, “for a battlefield.”

There was a stretch of verdant green between the white land and the black, vegetation shifting with the breeze, clouds of colored birds wheeling above, water glimmering in the thin sun.

“A strip of spring cut out from the winter,” said Sumael.

“I do not trust it,” said Nothing.

“What do you trust?” asked Yarvi.

Nothing held up his sword, and did not so much smile as show his broken teeth. “Only this.”

No one mentioned yesterday’s revelation as they trudged on. As though they did not know whether to believe him, or what to do if they decided they did, and so had settled on pretending it had never happened and treating him just as they had before.

That was well enough with Yarvi, in the end. He always had felt more like a cook’s boy than a king.

The snow grew thin under his ragged boots, then melted and worked its way into them, then left him slipping in mud, then was gone altogether. The ground was patched with moss, then covered with tall green grass, then speckled with wildflowers that even Yarvi did not know the names of. Finally they stepped onto a shingle bank beside a wide pool, steam rising from the milky water, a twisted tree spreading rustling orange leaves over their heads.

“I have spent the last few years, and the last few days in particular, wondering what I did to earn such a punishment,” said Jaud. “Now I wonder how I deserved such a reward.”

“Life ain’t about deservings,” said Rulf, “so much as snatching what can be got. Where’s that fishing rod?”

And the old raider began to pluck pale fish from that cloudy water as quickly as he could bait his hook. It had started to snow again but it would not settle on the warm ground, and dry wood was everywhere, so they set a fire and Ankran cooked a banquet of fish on a flat stone above it.