Half a King

But Gorm was far away, already spreading flame and murder across the steadings of Gettland, no doubt. “Thorlby has strong walls,” he murmured, “and many strong warriors to man them. Too many. If I could take that city my skalds would already be singing of my victory.”

“Never,” whispered Nothing, but no one listened. The deal was done.

“That is the best thing of all,” crooned Yarvi. “You need only wait outside. I will give you Thorlby.”

IV

The Rightful King

30

CROWS

Yarvi pulled the fur collar of his borrowed cloak up against the wind and wrinkled his nose at the salt tang of the sea. That and the stink of the slaves pulling the oars. He had grown used to it when he was one of them, slept with his face in Rulf’s armpit and scarcely noticed. He had stunk just as bad as the rest, he knew. But that made their smell no better now.

All the worse, in fact.

“Poor dogs.” Jaud frowned over the rail of the aftcastle at them struggling below. For such a strong man he had a weak heart.

Rulf scrubbed at the gray-brown hair that had sprouted above his ears, though his pate was bald as ever. “Be nice to set ’em free.”

“Then how would we get to Thorlby?” said Yarvi. “Someone has to row. Will you pull an oar?”

His old oarmates both looked sharply across at him. “You have changed,” said Jaud.

“I’ve had to.” And he turned away from them and the benches where he had once struggled. Sumael stood at the rail, a huge smile on her face as the salt wind tore at her hair, grown longer now than it had been, black as raven’s feathers.

“You look pleased,” said Yarvi, happy to see her happy. He had not seen it often enough.

“Glad to be on the sea again.” She spread her arms wide, wriggling her fingers. “And with no chains!”

He felt his smile fade, for he still had a chain he could not break. The one he had forged himself with his own oath. The one that drew him back to Thorlby, and bound him to the Black Chair. And he knew then that sooner or later Sumael would stand at the rail of another ship. One that would carry her back to the First of Cities, and away from him forever.

Her smile faltered too, as though she had the same thought at the same moment, and they looked away from each other to watch Father Earth grinding by in awkward silence.

For two lands so bitterly opposed, Vansterland and Gettland looked very much the same. Barren beaches, forest and fen. He had seen few people, and those hurrying inland, fearful at the sight of a ship. Narrowing his eyes to the south, he saw a little tooth upon a headland, the smoke of houses smudging the white sky.

“What’s that town?” he asked Sumael.

“Amwend,” she said. “Near the border.”

Amwend, where he had led the raid. Or flopped from a ship without a shield and straight into a trap, at least. That was the tower, then, where Keimdal had died. Where Hurik had betrayed him. From which Odem had thrown him down, down into the bitter sea, and even more bitter slavery.

Yarvi realized he had ground his shrivelled hand into the rail until it hurt. He turned his eyes away from land, towards the white-churned water in their wake, the marks of the oars quickly fading to leave no sign of their passing. Would it be so with him? Faded and forgotten?

Sister Owd, the apprentice Mother Scaer had sent with them, was looking straight at him. A furtive sort of look, then quickly down at something she was writing on a tiny slip of paper, tugged and twitched under her charcoal by the wind.

Yarvi walked slowly to her. “Keeping an eye on me?”

“You know I am,” she said, without looking up. “That’s what I’m here for.”

“Do you doubt me?”

“I just tell Mother Scaer what I see. She chooses what to doubt.”

She was small and round-faced, one of those people whose age is hard to guess, but even so Yarvi did not think she could be older than him. “When did you take the Minister’s Test?”

“Two years ago,” she said, shielding the little slip of paper with her shoulder.

He gave up trying to see it. Ministers have their own signs anyway: he doubted he could read them. “What was it like?”

“Not hard, if you’re prepared.”

“I was prepared,” said Yarvi, thinking back to that night Odem came in out of the rain. The flames reflected in the jars, the creases in Mother Gundring’s smile, the purity of question and answer. He felt a surge of longing, then, for that simple life with no uncles to kill or oaths to keep or hard choices to be made. For the books and the plants and the soft word spoken. He had to force it away to the back of his mind with an effort. He could not afford it now. “But I never got the chance to take it.”

“You didn’t miss much. A lot of fussing outside the door. A lot of being stared at by old women.” She finished the message and began to roll it up into a tiny pellet. “Then the honor of being kissed by Grandmother Wexen.”

“How was that?”

Sister Owd puffed out her cheeks and gave a long sigh. “Wisest of all women she may be, but I was hoping my last kiss would be from someone younger. I saw the High King, from a distance.”