Half a War (Shattered Sea, Book 3)

New Shoots

Raith heard laughter. Skara’s big, wild laughter, and the sound alone made him smile.

He peered from the dripping doorway and saw her walking, fine cloak flapping with the hood up against the drizzle, Mother Owd beside her, guards and thralls around her, an entourage fit for the queen she was. He waited until they were passing before he eased out, scraping back his wet hair.

‘My queen.’ He’d meant it to sound light-hearted. It came out a needy bleat.

Her head snapped around and he felt the same breathless shock as when he first saw her face, only stronger than ever and, soon enough, with a bitter edge too. She cracked no delighted smile of recognition, no look of haunted guilt even, only a pained grimace. Like he reminded her of something she’d much rather forget.

‘One moment,’ she said to Mother Owd, who was frowning at Raith as if he was a barrow full of plague corpses. The queen stepped away from her servants, glancing both ways down the wet street. ‘I can’t speak to you like this.’

‘Maybe later—’

‘No. Never.’ She’d told him once words can cut deeper than blades, and he’d laughed, but that never was a dagger in him. ‘I’m sorry, Raith. I can’t have you near me.’

He felt like his belly was ripped open and he was pouring blood all over the street. ‘Wouldn’t be proper, eh?’ he croaked.

‘Damn “proper”!’ she hissed. ‘It wouldn’t be right. Not for my land. Not for my people.’

His voice was a desperate whisper. ‘What about for you?’

She winced. Sadness. Or maybe just guilt. ‘Not for me either.’ She leaned close, looking up from under her brows, but her words came iron-hard and, however eager he was to trick himself, they left no room for doubts. ‘Best we think of our time together as a dream. A pleasant dream. But it’s time to wake.’

He would’ve liked to say something clever. Something noble. Something spiteful. Something, anyway. But talk had never been Raith’s battlefield. He’d no idea how to bind all this up into a few words. So in helpless silence he watched her turn. In helpless silence he watched her sweep away. Back to her thralls, and her guards, and her disapproving minister.

He saw how it was, now. Should’ve known how it was all along. She’d liked his warmth well enough in winter, but now summer came she’d shrugged him off like an old coat. And he could hardly blame her. She was a queen, after all, and he was a killer. It wasn’t right for anyone but him. He would’ve felt lucky to have got what he had, if it hadn’t left him so raw and hurting, and with no idea how he could ever feel any other way.

Maybe he should’ve made some vengeful scene. Maybe he should’ve airily strode off, as if he’d a hundred better women begging for his attentions. But the sorry fact was he loved her too much to do either one. Loved her too much to do anything but stand, nursing his aching hand and his broken nose and staring hungrily after her like a dog shut out in the cold. Hoping she’d stop. Hoping she’d change her mind. Hoping she’d just so much as look back.

But she didn’t.

‘What happened between the two of you?’ Raith turned to see Blue Jenner at his shoulder. ‘And don’t tell me nothing, boy.’

‘Nothing, old man.’ Raith tried to smile, but he didn’t have it in him. ‘Thanks.’

‘For what?’

‘Giving me a chance to be better. More’n I deserve, I reckon.’

And he hunched his shoulders and pressed on into the rain.

Raith stood across the street from the forge, watching the light spill around the shutters, listening to the anvil music clattering from inside, wondering if it was Rin that swung the hammer.

Seemed wherever she went she soon found a place for herself. But then she was a good person to have around. Someone who knew what she wanted and was willing to work for it. Someone who made things from nothing, mended things that were broken. She was just what Raith wasn’t.

He knew he’d no right to ask for anything from her, but she’d had some comfort for him after his brother died. The gods knew he needed some comfort, then. He didn’t know where else to look for it.

He gave a miserable sniff, wiped runny snot from under his broken nose on his bandaged arm, and stepped across the street to the door. He lifted his fist to knock.

‘What brings you here?’

It was the minister’s boy, Koll, a crooked grin on his face as he ambled up out of the fading light. A crooked grin reminded Raith for a strange little moment of the one his brother used to have. He still had a twitchy way about him, but there was an ease there too. Like a man who’d made peace with himself. Raith wished he knew how.

He thought fast. ‘Well … been thinking about getting a new sword. This is where that blade-maker’s working now, right?’

‘Rin’s her name and, aye, this is where she’s working.’ Koll cocked one ear to the door, smiled like there was sweet singing on the other side. ‘No one makes better swords than Rin. No one anywhere.’

‘How about you?’ asked Raith. ‘Didn’t mark you as the type for swords.’

‘No.’ Koll grinned even wider. ‘I was going to ask if she’d marry me.’

Raith’s brows went shooting up at that, and no mistake. ‘Eh?’

‘Should’ve done it long ago, but I never been too good at making choices. Made a lot of the wrong ones. Done a lot of dithering. I’ve been selfish. I’ve been weak. Didn’t want to hurt anyone so I ended up hurting everyone.’ He took a long breath. ‘But death waits for us all. Life’s about making the best of what you find along the way. A man who’s not content with what he’s got, well, more than likely he won’t be content with what he hasn’t.’

‘Wise words, I reckon.’

‘Yes they are. So I’m going to beg her forgiveness – on my knees if I have to, which knowing her I probably will – then I’m going to ask her to wear my key and I’m hoping a very great deal she’ll say yes.’

‘Thought you were headed for the Ministry?’

Koll worked his neck out, scratching hard at the back of his head. ‘For a long time so did I, but there’s all kinds of ways a man can change the world, I reckon. My mother told me … to be the best man I could.’ His eyes were suddenly swimming, and he laughed, and tugged at a thong around his neck, something clicking under his shirt. ‘Shame it took me this long to work out what she meant. But I got there in the end. Not too late, I hope. You going in then?’

Raith winced towards the window, and cleared his throat. ‘No.’ He used to have naught but contempt for this boy. Now he found he envied him. ‘I reckon your errand comes first.’

‘Not going to butt me again, are you?’

Raith waved at his broken nose. ‘I’m nowhere near so keen on butting as I was. Best of luck.’ And he slapped Koll on the shoulder as he passed. ‘I’ll come back tomorrow.’

But he knew he wouldn’t.

Evening time, and the shadows were long on the docks as Mother Sun slipped down over Skekenhouse. The last light glinted on glass in Raith’s palm. The vial Mother Scaer had given him, empty now. It’d been foreseen no man could kill Grom-gil-Gorm, but a few drips in a cup of wine had got it done. Koll had been right. Death waits for us all.

Raith took a hard breath, made a fist of his hand and winced at that old ache through his broken knuckles. You’d think pain would get less with time, but the longer you feel it, the worse it hurts. Jenner had been right too. Nothing ever quite heals.

He’d been a king’s sword-bearer and a queen’s bodyguard, he’d been the first warrior into battle and an oarsman on a hero’s crew. Now he wasn’t sure what he was. Wasn’t even sure what he wanted to be.

Fighting was all he’d known. He’d thought Mother War would bring him glory, and a glittering pile of ring-money, and the brotherhood of the shield-wall. But she’d taken his brother and given him nothing but wounds. He hugged his sore ribs, scratched at the dirty bandages on his burned arm, wrinkled his broken nose and felt the dull pain spread through his face. This was what fighting got you, if it didn’t get you dead. Hungry, aching and alone with a heap of regrets head-high.

‘Didn’t work out, eh?’ Thorn Bathu stood looking down at him, hands propped on her hips, the orange glory of Mother Sun’s setting at her back, so all he could see was her black outline.

‘How did you know?’ he asked.

‘Whatever it is, you don’t look like a man it worked out for.’

Raith gave a sigh right from his guts. ‘Did you come to mock me or kill me? Either way I can’t be bothered to stop you.’

‘Neither one, as it happens.’ Thorn slowly sat, her long legs dangling over the side of the quay beside his. She was silent a while, a frown on her scarred face. A breeze blew up and Raith watched a pair of dried-up leaves go chasing each other down the quay. Finally she spoke again. ‘Life ain’t easy for the likes of us, is it?’

‘Doesn’t seem to be.’

‘Those who are touched by Mother War …’ She stared out towards the glittering horizon. ‘We don’t know what to do with ourselves when Father Peace gets his turn. Those of us who’ve fought all our lives, when we run out of enemies …’

‘We fight ourselves,’ said Raith.

‘Queen Laithlin offered me my old place as her Chosen Shield.’

‘Good for you.’

‘I can’t take it.’

‘No?’

‘I stay around here, all I’ll ever see is what I’ve lost.’ She stared off at nothing, a sad half-smile on her lips. ‘Brand wouldn’t have wanted me pining. That boy had no jealousy in him. He’d have wanted new shoots in the ashes.’ She slapped the stones beside her. ‘So Father Yarvi’s giving me the South Wind.’

‘Handsome gift.’

‘Don’t think he’ll be sailing anywhere for a while. I’ve a mind to take her back down the Divine and Denied, all the way to the First of Cities and beyond, maybe. If I leave in the next few days, I reckon I can stay ahead of the ice. So I’m putting a crew together. Got my old friend Fror as helmsman, my old friend Dosduvoi as storekeeper, my old friend Skifr to pick the course.’

‘You’re surely blessed with friends for a woman as unfriendly as you are.’ Raith watched the gold glint on the water as Mother Sun sank behind them. ‘You’ll row away, and leave your sorry self here on the docks, eh? I wish you luck.’

‘I’m not a big believer in luck.’ Thorn gave a long sniff and spat into the water. But she didn’t leave. ‘I learned something worth knowing, the other day.’

‘My nose breaks easily as anyone’s?’

‘I’m someone who sometimes needs to be told no.’ She looked sideways at him. ‘That means I’m someone who needs someone around with the guts to tell me no. Aren’t many of them around.’

Raith raised his brows. ‘Fewer than there used to be, too.’

‘I can always find a use for a bloody little bastard, and I’ve got a back oar free.’ Thorn Bathu stood, and offered him her hand. ‘You coming?’

Raith blinked at it. ‘You want me to join the crew of someone I always hated, someone nearly killed me a couple of days back, to sail half the world away from all I’ve ever known or wanted on the promise of nothing but hard work and bad weather?’

‘Aye, that’s it.’ She grinned down. ‘Why, you beating away better offers?’

Raith opened his fist and looked down at the empty vial. Then he turned his palm over and let it fall into the water. ‘Not really.’

He took Thorn’s hand, and let her pull him to his feet.