Half the World (Shattered Sea, Book 2)

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

‘So you’re leaving?’ asked Sumael, her heavy footsteps echoing down the corridor.

‘Within the week,’ said Father Yarvi. ‘We may not make it home before the Divine freezes as it is. You could always come with us. Don’t pretend you don’t miss the northern snows.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, every balmy day here I wish I was frozen near to Death again. You could always stay with us. Don’t you enjoy the southern sun?’

‘I am a little too pale. I burn before I brown.’ He gave a ragged sigh. ‘And I have an oath to keep.’

Her smile faded. ‘I didn’t think you took your oaths that seriously.’

‘This one I do,’ said Father Yarvi.

‘Will you break the world to keep it?’

‘I hope it won’t come to that.’

Sumael snorted. ‘You know how it is, with hopes.’

‘I do,’ murmured Brand. He got the feeling there were two conversations going on. One in plain sight and one hidden. But he’d never been much good with conversations, or with things he couldn’t see, so he said no more.

Sumael swung a gate open with a squealing of rusted hinges, rough steps dropping into darkness. ‘She’s down there.’

The vaulted passage at the bottom was caked with mould, something scurrying away from the flickering light of Brand’s torch.

‘Just follow my lead,’ said Yarvi.

Brand gave a weary nod. ‘What else would I do?’

They stopped before a barred opening. Brand saw the glimmer of eyes in the shadows and stepped close, raising his torch.

Mother Scaer, once minister of Vansterland, then emissary of Grandmother Wexen, now sat against a wall of mossy rock with her shaved head on one side, her tattooed forearms on her knees and her long hands dangling. She had five elf-bangles stacked on one wrist, gold and glass and polished metal glinting. Brand would’ve been awestruck at the sight of them once but now they seemed petty, gaudy, broken things beside the one Thorn wore.

‘Ah, Father Yarvi!’ Scaer stretched a long leg towards them, chains rattling from an iron band about her bare ankle. ‘Have you come to gloat?’

‘Perhaps a little. Can you blame me? You did conspire to murder the Empress Vialine, after all.’

Mother Scaer gave a hiss. ‘I had no part of that. Grandmother Wexen sent me here to stop that puffed-up bladder of arrogance Duke Mikedas from doing anything foolish.’

‘How did that work out?’ asked Yarvi.

Mother Scaer held up a length of chain to show them, and let it drop in her lap. ‘You should know better than anyone, a good minister gives the best advice they can, but in the end the ruler does what the ruler does. Did you bring this one to frighten me?’ Mother Scaer’s blue eyes fell on Brand, and even through the bars he felt a chill. ‘He is not frightening.’

‘On the contrary, I brought him to make you feel comfortable. My frightening one picked up a scratch killing seven men when she saved the empress and ruined all your plans.’ Brand didn’t point out that he’d killed two of those men. He took no pride in it, and he was getting the feeling that wasn’t the story everyone wanted to tell. ‘But she’s healing nicely. Perhaps she can frighten you later.’

Mother Scaer looked away. ‘We both know there is no later for me. I should have killed you at Amwend.’

‘You wanted to leave my guts for the crows, I remember. But Grom-gil-Gorm said, “Why kill what you can sell?”’

‘His first mistake. He made a second when he trusted you.’

‘Well, like King Uthil, Gorm is a warrior, and warriors tend to prefer action to thought. That is why they need ministers. That is why he needs your advice so very badly. That, I suspect, is why Grandmother Wexen was so keen to prise you from his side.’

‘He will get no help from me now,’ said Mother Scaer. ‘You, and Grandmother Wexen, and Duke Mikedas between you have made sure of that.’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said Yarvi. ‘I am heading back up the Divine within the week. Back to the Shattered Sea.’ He pushed out his lips and tapped at them with his forefinger. ‘To send a passenger on to Vulsgard would not be too much trouble, eh, Brand?’

‘Not too much,’ said Brand.

Yarvi raised his brows as though the idea had just occurred. ‘Perhaps we could find room for Mother Scaer?’

‘We’ve lost one mysterious bald woman.’ Brand shrugged. ‘We’ve space for another.’

Gorm’s minister frowned up at them. Interested, but not wanting to seem interested. ‘Don’t toy with me, boy.’

‘Never been much good at toying,’ said Brand. ‘I had a short childhood.’

Mother Scaer slowly unfolded her long limbs and stood, bare feet flapping on damp stone as she walked to the bars until the chains were taut, then leaned a little further, shadows shifting in the hollows of her gaunt face.

‘Are you offering me my life, Father Yarvi?’

‘I find it in my hands, and have no better use for it.’

‘Huh.’ Mother Scaer raised her brows very high. ‘What tasty bait. And no hook in it, I suppose?’

Yarvi leaned closer to the bars himself, so the two ministers’ faces were no more than a foot’s length apart. ‘I want allies.’

‘Against the High King? What allies could I bring you?’

‘There is a Vansterman on our crew. A good man. Strong at the oar. Strong in the wall. Would you say so, Brand?’

‘Strong at the oar.’ Brand remembered Fror bellowing out the Song of Bail on that hill above the Denied. ‘Strong in the wall.’

‘Seeing him fight beside men of Gettland made me realize again how much alike we are,’ said Yarvi. ‘We pray to the same gods under the same skies. We sing the same songs in the same tongue. And we both struggle under the ever-weightier yoke of the High King.’

Mother Scaer’s lip curled. ‘And you would free Vansterland from her bondage, would you?’

‘Why not? If at the same time I can free Gettland from hers. I did not enjoy wearing a galley captain’s thrall-collar. I enjoy being slave to some drooling old fool in Skekenhouse no more.’

‘An alliance between Gettland and Vansterland?’ Brand grimly shook his head. ‘We’ve been fighting each other since before there was a High King. Since before there was a Gettland. Madness, surely.’

Yarvi turned to look at him, a warning in his eye. ‘The line between madness and deep-cunning has ever been a fine one.’

‘The boy is right.’ Mother Scaer pushed her arms through the bars and let them dangle. ‘There are ancient feuds between us, and deep hatreds—’

‘There are petty squabbles between us, and shallow ignorance. Leave the wrathful words to the warriors, Mother Scaer, you and I know better. Grandmother Wexen is our true enemy. She is the one who tore you from your place to do her slave-work. She cares nothing for Vansterland, or Gettland, or any of us. She cares only for her own power.’

Mother Scaer let her head fall on one side, blue eyes narrowed. ‘You will never win. She is too strong.’

‘Duke Mikedas was too strong, and both his power and his skull lie in ruins.’

They narrowed further. ‘King Uthil will never agree.’

‘Let me worry about King Uthil.’

Further still. ‘Grom-gil-Gorm will never agree.’

‘Do not underestimate yourself, Mother Scaer, I do not doubt your own powers of persuasion are formidable.’

Blue slits, now. ‘Less so than yours, I think, Father Yarvi.’ Of a sudden she opened her eyes wide, and pushed her hand out through the bars so fast that Brand flinched back and nearly dropped his torch. ‘I accept your offer.’

Father Yarvi took her hand and, stronger than she looked, she pulled him close by it. ‘You understand I can promise nothing.’

‘I am less interested in promises than I used to be. The way to bend someone to your will is to offer them what they want, not to make them swear an oath.’ Yarvi twisted his hand free. ‘It will be cold on the Divine, as the year grows late. I’d pack something warm.’

As they walked off into the darkness, Father Yarvi put his hand on Brand’s shoulder. ‘You did well.’

‘I scarcely said a thing.’

‘No. But the wise speaker learns first when to stay silent. You’d be surprised how many clever people never take the lesson.’

Sumael was waiting for them at the gate. ‘Did you get what you wanted?’

Yarvi stopped in front of her. ‘Everything I wanted and far more than I deserved. But now it seems I must leave it behind.’

‘Fate can be cruel.’

‘It usually is.’

‘You could stay.’

‘You could come.’

‘But in the end we must all be what we are. I am counsellor to an empress.’

‘I am minister to a king. We both have our burdens.’

Sumael smiled. ‘And when you’ve a load to lift …’

‘You’re better lifting than weeping.’

‘I will miss you, Yarvi.’

‘It will be as if I left the best piece of myself behind.’

They looked at each other for a moment longer, then Sumael dragged in a sharp breath. ‘Good luck on the journey.’ And she strode away, shoulders back.

Father Yarvi’s face twisted and he leaned against the gate as if he might fall. Brand was on the point of offering his hand, but the wise speaker learns first when to stay silent. Soon enough the minister drew himself up without help.

‘Gather the crew, Brand,’ he said. ‘We’ve a long way to go.’