Half a War

Power

Sister Owd frowned into the night pot. ‘This seems auspicious.’

‘How is one turd more auspicious than another?’ asked Skara.

‘People lucky enough to produce auspicious turds always ask that, my queen. Is your blood coming regularly?’

‘I understand once a month is traditional.’

‘And is your womb minded to break with tradition?’

Skara gave Sister Owd the frostiest glare she could manage. ‘My womb has always behaved entirely properly. You can rest easy. I’ve never so much as kissed a man. Mother Kyre made very sure of that.’

Owd delicately cleared her throat. ‘I am sorry to pry, but your wellbeing is my responsibility, now. Your blood is worth more to Throvenland than gold.’

‘Then Throvenland rejoice!’ shouted Skara as she stepped from the bath. ‘I’m bleeding regularly!’

Queen Laithlin’s thrall gently rubbed her dry, took a bundle of twigs and flicked her with scented water blessed in the name of He Who Sprouts the Seed. He might stand among the small gods, but he loomed large indeed over girls of royal blood.

The minister frowned. Skara’s minister, she supposed. Her servant, though it was hard not to think of her as a disapproving mistress. ‘Are you eating, my queen?’

‘What else would I do at mealtimes?’ Skara did not add that what little she forced down she felt endlessly on the point of spewing back up. ‘I’ve always been slight.’ She snapped her fingers at the thrall to bring her hurrying with her dressing-gown. ‘And I don’t enjoy being examined like a slave at the flesh-dealer’s.’

‘Who does, my queen?’ Sister Owd carefully averted her eyes. ‘But I fear privacy is a luxury the powerful cannot afford.’ Her mildness was, for some reason, more infuriating even than Mother Kyre’s bullying used to be.

‘No doubt you eat for both of us,’ snapped Skara.

Sister Owd only smiled, soft face dimpling. ‘I’ve always been solid, but the future of no nation rests upon my health. Luckily for all concerned. Bring the queen something.’ She gestured to the thrall and the girl shrugged back her long braid and took up the tray with the morning food.

‘No!’ snarled Skara, stomach clenching at the slightest smell of it, snatching back her hand as if to dash the lot on the floor, ‘take it away!’

The thrall flinched as if her anger was a raised whip and Skara felt an instant pang of guilt. Then she remembered Mother Kyre’s words, after her grandfather sold Skara’s nurse and she had cried for days. Feelings for a slave are feelings wasted. So she waved the girl impatiently away, just as she imagined Queen Laithlin might have. She was a queen now, after all.

Gods. She was a queen. Her stomach cramped again, sick tickled at the back of her raw throat and Skara gave a strangled cough, half burp, half growl of frustration. She bunched her fist as if to punch her own rebellious guts. How could she hope to bend kings to her will when her own stomach would not obey?

‘Well, there is much to do before today’s moot,’ said Sister Owd, turning for the door. ‘May I leave you for now, my queen?’

‘You can’t do so soon enough.’

The minister paused, and Skara saw her shoulders shift as she took a hard breath. Then she turned back, firmly folding her arms. ‘You may speak to me here however you wish.’ Sister Owd might have seemed soft as a peach at a first meeting, but Skara was beginning to remember that a peach holds a stubborn stone on which the unwary will break their teeth. ‘But behaving in this manner ill befits a queen. Do it before Uthil and Gorm and you will undo all the progress you have made. Your position is not strong enough to show such weakness.’

Skara was clenching every muscle, fully prepared to explode with fury, when it came to her that Owd was right. She was acting the way she used to with Mother Kyre. She was acting like a petulant child. Her grandfather, generous to all in wealth and in word, would have been less than impressed.

Skara closed her eyes and felt tears prickling at the lids, took a breath and let it sigh shuddering away. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That was unworthy of a beggar, let alone a queen. I am sorry.’

Sister Owd slowly unfolded her arms. ‘A queen need never be sorry, especially to her minister.’

‘Let me at least be grateful, then. I know you did not ask for this, but you have been a staunch support so far. I always supposed that I would one day be a queen, and speak in halls with the great, and strike wise deals on behalf of my people … I just never dreamed it would be so soon, and with the stakes so high, and without my grandfather to help me.’ She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘Mother Kyre tried to prepare me for the burden of power but … I am finding it a weight one is never quite ready for.’

The minister blinked. ‘Considering the circumstances, I think you bear it admirably.’

‘I will try to bear it better.’ Skara forced out a smile. ‘If you promise to keep correcting me when I fall short.’

Sister Owd smiled back. ‘It will be an honour, my queen. Truly.’ Then she gave a stiff bow, and shut the door softly behind her. Skara glanced over at the thrall, and realized she did not even know the girl’s name.

‘I am sorry to you too,’ she found she had muttered.

The thrall looked horrified, and Skara soon guessed why. If a slave is but a useful thing to her mistress, she is safe. If a slave becomes a person she can be favoured. She can even be loved, as Skara had once loved her nurse. But a person can also be blamed, envied, hated.

Safer to be a thing.

Skara snapped her fingers. ‘Bring the comb.’

There was a thudding knock at the door, followed by Raith’s rude growl. ‘Father Yarvi’s here. He wants to speak with you.’

‘Urgently, Queen Skara,’ came the minister’s voice. ‘On business that benefits us both.’

Skara set a hand on her belly in a futile effort to calm her frothing stomach. Father Yarvi had been kind enough, but there was something unnerving in his eye, as though he always knew just what she would say and already had the answer.

‘The blood of Bail is in my veins,’ she murmured to herself. ‘The blood of Bail, the blood of Bail.’ And she closed her bandaged fist until the cut burned. ‘Show him in!’

Not even Mother Kyre could have found fault with Father Yarvi’s behaviour. He came with his head respectfully bowed, his staff of slotted and twisted elf-metal in his good hand and his withered one behind him in case the sight of it offended her. Raith slunk in after him with his forehead creased in that constant frown of his, white hair flattened against one side of his skull from sleeping in her doorway and his scarred hand propped on his axe-handle.

Skara had stopped wondering about kissing him. Now she found herself often occupied thinking about what they might do after the kissing … She jerked her eyes away, but they kept creeping back. After all, there was no harm in wondering, was there?

The Minister of Gettland gave a stately bow. ‘My queen, I am honoured to be admitted to your presence.’

‘We have a moot later. Can’t we speak when I am dressed?’ And she drew her gown tighter about herself.

Now he looked up. Cool as spring rain, his grey-blue eyes. ‘You need not concern yourself there. I have sworn a Minister’s Oath. I am not a man, in that sense.’ And he glanced sideways at Raith.

His meaning was clear. Raith was, without doubt, a man in every sense. Skara felt his eyes on her from under his pale lashes, not caring in the least for what was proper. Barely even knowing the meaning of the word. The fitting thing for her to do was to order him out at once.

‘You can both stay,’ she said. With Raith and his axe lurking at Father Yarvi’s shoulder her power was greater. Propriety was all-important to a princess, but to a queen power was more important still. And, perhaps, hidden deep down, there was some part of her that liked the way Raith looked at her. Liked that it was far from proper. ‘Tell me what could be so urgent.’

If Gettland’s young minister was surprised his smiling mask did not show a twitch of it. ‘Battles are most often won by the side that comes first to the field, my queen,’ he said.

Skara beckoned to her thrall and brought her hurrying forward with the comb and oil, letting Father Yarvi know he was not important enough to disrupt her morning routine. ‘Am I a battlefield?’

‘You are a valued and a vital ally on one. An ally whose support I sorely need.’

‘As you needed my murdered grandfather’s?’ she snapped. Too harsh, too harsh, that showed weakness. She filed the edge from her voice. ‘Mother Kyre thought you tricked King Fynn into an alliance.’

‘I say I persuaded him, my queen.’

She raised an eyebrow at Yarvi in the mirror. ‘Persuade me, then, if you can.’

His staff tapped gently against the floor as he came forward, so slowly and subtly he hardly seemed to move. ‘Soon enough, the High King’s army will be coming.’

‘That is no deep-cunning, Father Yarvi.’

‘But I know when and where.’

Skara caught her thrall’s wrist before the comb reached her head and pushed it away, turning with her eyes narrowed.

‘In six nights’ time, he will try to bring his army across the straits from Yutmark at the narrowest point, just west of Yaletoft … of the ruins of Yaletoft, that is.’

Her breath caught at that. She remembered the city in flames. The fire lighting the night sky. The stink of smoke as her past life burned. No doubt he meant to put a spark to her fear, a spark to her anger. He succeeded.

Her voice had a keener edge than ever. ‘How do you know?’

‘It is a minister’s place to know. Our alliance may be far outnumbered on land, but we have fine crews and fine ships and the best of the High King’s sit captured in your harbour below. At sea we have the advantage. We must attack while they try to cross the straits.’

‘With my six ships?’ Skara turned back to the mirror, waved to the thrall to carry on, and the girl slipped her silver thrall-chain over one shoulder and stepped silently back with the comb.

‘With your six ships, my queen …’ Yarvi drifted a little closer. ‘And your one vote.’

‘I see.’ Though in fact Skara had seen something of the kind the moment he was announced. Her title was smoke, her warriors six boats’ worth of bandits, her lands no bigger than the walls of Bail’s Point. Everything she had was borrowed — her thrall, her guard, her minister, her mirror, the very clothes she wore. And yet the vote was hers.

Father Yarvi let his voice drop to a warm whisper. The kind of whisper that urges you to lean closer, to be part of the secret. But Skara made sure she did not move, made sure she kept her thoughts close, made sure he had to come to her.

‘Mother Scaer opposes everything I say because I say it. I fear Grom-gil-Gorm will be too cautious to seize this chance and we may not get another. But if you were to come forward with the strategy …’

‘Huh,’ grunted Skara. Never make a hasty choice, Mother Kyre used to tell her. Even if you know your answer, to delay your answer shows your strength. So she delayed, while Queen Laithlin’s lent slave stepped carefully up onto a stool to gather Skara’s hair, coil it and pin it with practised fingers.

‘Circumstances have made you powerful, my queen.’ Father Yarvi stepped closer still, and as his collar shifted Skara saw a scattering of faint scars up his neck. ‘And you have taken to it like a hawk to flying. Can I count on your support?’

She looked at herself in the mirror. Father Peace, who was that woman with the sharp eyes, so gaunt, and proud, and flinty hard? A hawk indeed. Surely it could not be her, whose stomach boiled over with doubts?

Seem powerful and you are powerful, Mother Kyre used to say.

She pushed her shoulders back as the thrall fixed her earring, flaring her nostrils as she took a hard breath. She gave the briefest nod. ‘This time.’

Yarvi smiled as he bowed. ‘You are as wise as you are beautiful, my queen.’

Raith turned back into the room after he pushed the door shut. ‘I don’t trust that bastard.’ It was so improper Skara could not help a snort of laughter. She had never known anyone who let as little slip as Father Yarvi, nor anyone who kept as little hidden as Raith. His every thought was plainly written on that blunt, scarred, handsome face.

‘Why?’ she asked, ‘because he judges me wise and beautiful?’

Raith’s eyes were still on her. ‘Just ’cause a man tells two truths doesn’t mean he’s got no lies in him.’

So Raith found her wise and beautiful too. That pleased her a great deal, but it would not do to show it. ‘Father Yarvi gives us a chance to strike at the High King,’ she said. ‘I do not mean to miss it.’

‘You do trust him, then?’

‘You do not have to trust a man to make use of him. My doorkeeper, after all, used to fill cups for Grom-gil-Gorm.’

Raith frowned harder than ever as he fiddled at that notch in his ear. ‘You might be best not trusting anyone.’

‘Good advice.’ Skara met his eye in the mirror. ‘You can leave, now.’ And she snapped her fingers at the thrall to bring her clothes.