Half a War

The Dead

It was a great affair.

Many powerful Gettlanders who had not gone to war would be angered that King Uthil was howed up at Bail’s Point, denying them the chance to have their importance noted at an event that would live so long in the memory.

But Laithlin forced through clenched teeth, ‘Their anger is dust to me.’ Her husband’s death had made her queen-regent, the young King Druin clinging to her skirts and her power greater than ever. Thorn Bathu hovered at her shoulder with an eye so vicious and vengeful only the bravest dared meet it even for a moment. Once Laithlin spoke it was a thing already done.

And, after all, there was no shortage of famed figures to attend the Iron King’s funeral.

There was the young Queen Skara of Throvenland, lately a pitiful refugee, now celebrated for her courage, her compassion, and her deep-cunning most of all, her white-haired bodyguard frowning silent behind her chair.

There was her betrothed, Grom-gil-Gorm, the Breaker of Swords and Maker of Orphans, his chain of pommels grown longer than ever, his feared minister Mother Scaer brooding at his side.

There was the infamous sorceress Skifr, who had killed more warriors in a few moments than King Uthil in a bloody lifetime, sitting with her cloak of rags drawn tight about her, reckoning the omens in the dirt between her crossed legs.

There was Svidur, a high priestess of the Shends, a green elf-tablet on a thong around her neck. It turned out Father Yarvi had once begged guest-right at her fire after a storm, then convinced her to make an alliance with Grandmother Wexen, then, when it suited him, to break it.

There was the deep-cunning Minister of Gettland himself, of course, who had brought elf-weapons from the forbidden depths of Strokom, and used them to destroy the High King’s army, and changed the Shattered Sea for ever.

And there was his apprentice, Koll, whose coat was too thin for the season, and so sat cold and mournful in the sea wind feeling as if he had no business being there.

The king’s ship, the best in the crowded harbour of Bail’s Point, twenty-four oars upon a side, was dragged by honoured warriors to the chosen place, keel grinding against the stones in the yard of the fortress. The same ship in which King Uthil had sailed across the Shattered Sea on his famous raid to the Islands. The same ship which had wallowed low in the water with slaves and plunder when he returned in triumph.

On its deck they laid the body of the king, wrapped in the captured standard of Bright Yilling, rich offerings arranged about him in the manner Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver judged the gods would most appreciate.

Rulf laid a single arrow beside the body, and Koll reckoned he was struggling to keep back tears. ‘From nothing, to nothing,’ he croaked out.

Father Yarvi laid his withered hand on the old helmsman’s arm. ‘But what a journey in between.’

Queen Laithlin put a cloak of black fur over the dead king’s shoulders, and helped her little son wedge a jewelled cup in his fists, then she placed one hand upon his chest, and stood looking down, her jaw clenched tight, until Koll heard Father Yarvi lean close to her and murmur, ‘Mother?’

She turned without a word and led the mourners to their chairs, the sea wind catching the battered grass on which the battle had been fought, or the slaughter perpetrated, and setting it thrashing about their feet.

Three dozen captured horses were led onto the ship, hooves clattering at the timbers, and slaughtered so that their blood washed the deck. All agreed Death would show King Uthil through the Last Door with respect.

‘The dead will tremble at the news of his coming,’ murmured the Breaker of Swords, and gave a great sniff, and Koll saw tears glistening on his grizzled cheeks.

‘Why do you cry?’ asked Skara.

‘The passing of a fine enemy through the Last Door is as great a sorrow as the passing of a fine friend. Uthil was both to me.’

Father Yarvi helped the young King Druin set a torch to the pitch-soaked kindling. In a moment the ship was all ablaze, a sorrowful moan drawn from the warriors gathered in a great half-circle. They told sad tales of Uthil’s prowess, and sung sad songs of his high weaponluck, and spoke of how the like of his sword-work would never be seen again.

His heir, not even three years old, sat dwarfed in a great chair with his feet dangling, the sword that Rin had forged and that his father had carried with him always laid naked across his knees, beaming at the procession of warriors who shuffled past to offer sorrow and loyalty and grave-gifts but lately stolen from the High King’s fallen. He said ‘hello’ to every one, and ate cakes given to him by his mother until there was honey smeared all around his mouth.

Father Yarvi glanced sideways at him. ‘Two years old, and he handles this with better grace than I did.’

‘Perhaps.’ Queen Laithlin ruffled Druin’s pale blonde hair. ‘He sits straighter, but he has not sworn so fine an oath as you did.’

‘He does not have to.’ Yarvi’s jaw worked as he looked back to the fire. ‘Mine still binds us all.’

They sat, cold and silent, as Father Moon rose and his children the stars showed themselves, and the flames of the burning ship, and the burning goods, and the burning king lit up the faces of the hundred hundred mourners. They sat until the procession of warriors was over, and the boy-king was snoring gently in Queen Skara’s arms. They sat until the flames sank to a flickering, and the keel sagged into whirling embers, and the first muddy smear of dawn touched the clouds, glittering on the restless sea and setting the little birds twittering in the grass.

Queen Skara leant sideways, and laid her hand gently on Queen Laithlin’s, and Koll heard her murmur, ‘I am sorry.’

‘Don’t be. He died as he would have wanted to, with steel in his hand. The Iron King! And yet … there was so much more in him than iron. I only wish … that I had been beside him at the end.’ Laithlin shook herself, pulled her hand free of Skara’s to briskly wipe her eyes. ‘But I know what things are worth, cousin, and you will buy nothing with wishes.’

Then the queen-regent clapped her hands and the slaves with clinking collar-chains began to dig the earth over the still-smouldering pyre, raising a great howe that would stand tall beside that of Queen Skara’s father, killed in battle, and her great-grandfather Horrenhod the Red, and kings and queens of Throvenland, the descendants of Bail the Builder himself, dwindling away into the mist of history.

Laithlin stood, adjusting the great key of Gettland’s treasury, and spoke in a voice that betrayed neither doubt nor sorrow. ‘Gather the men. We sail for Skekenhouse.’

Away down the road, the High King’s captured warriors were still heaping the High King’s fallen warriors on poorer pyres. Pyres for a dozen, pyres for a hundred, their smoke smudging the sky for miles around.

Koll had become a minister to learn, not to kill. To change the world, not to break it. ‘When does it end?’ he muttered.

‘When I fulfil my oath.’ Father Yarvi’s eyes were dry as he stared out towards grey Mother Sea. ‘Not a moment before.’

Until he reached the bottom step, Koll was still arguing with himself over whether to go down.

He could hear the tapping of Rin’s hammer. Her tuneless humming under her breath as she worked. Time was that seemed a welcome as he stepped through her door. A song sung just for him. Now he felt like an eavesdropper, prying on a private conversation between her and the anvil.

She was frowning as she worked, a warm yellow glimmer across her face, mouth pressed into a firm line and the key she wore tossed over her shoulder so the chain was tight around her sweaty neck. She never did things by halves. He’d always loved that about her.

‘You took to working gold?’ he said.

She looked up, and when her eyes met his they seemed to steal his breath. He thought how much he’d missed her. How much he wanted to hold her. Be held by her. He’d always thought, hating to admit it to himself, that maybe she wasn’t pretty enough. That maybe someone prettier would trip and fall into his arms. Now he couldn’t believe he’d ever felt that way.

Gods, he was a fool.

‘King Druin’s head is smaller than his father’s.’ Rin held up the resized King’s Circle in her pliers, then set it back and carried on tapping.

‘I thought you were only interested in steel?’ He tried to wander into the forge the same carefree way he used to, but every step was a nervy challenge. ‘Swords for kings and mail for queens.’

‘After what those elf-weapons did, I’ve a feeling swords and mail might not be quite so popular. You have to change. Make the best of what life deals you. Face your misfortunes with a smile, eh?’ Rin snorted. ‘That’s what Brand would’ve said.’

Koll flinched at the name. At the thought he’d let Brand down, who’d treated him like a brother.

‘Why did you come here, Koll?’

He swallowed at that. Folk always said he’d a gift with words. But the truth was he’d a gift with ones that meant nothing. At saying what he actually felt he’d no gift at all. He pushed his hand into his pocket, felt the cool weight of the golden elf-bangle he’d taken from Strokom. A peace offering, if she’d have it.

‘I guess I’ve been thinking … maybe …’ He cleared his throat, mouth dry as dust as he glanced up guiltily at her. ‘I made the wrong choice?’ He’d meant it to be a firm admission. An open confession. Came out a self-justifying little squeak.

Rin looked less than impressed. ‘Did you tell Father Yarvi you made the wrong choice?’

He winced down at his feet but his shoes didn’t have the answers. Shoes don’t tend to. ‘Not yet …’ He couldn’t get the breath to say he would do, if she asked him to.

She didn’t. ‘Last thing I want to do is upset you, Koll.’ He winced harder at that. Something folk only say when upsetting you is their first priority. ‘But I reckon whatever choice you make, you soon get to thinking you made the wrong one.’

He would’ve liked to say that wasn’t fair. Would’ve liked to say he was so caught up between what Father Yarvi wanted, and what Rin wanted, and what Brand would’ve wanted, and what his mother would’ve wanted, he hardly knew what he wanted at all any more.

But all he managed was to croak out, ‘Aye. I’m not proud of myself.’

‘Nor am I.’ She tossed her hammer down, and when he met her eye she didn’t look angry. Sad. Guilty, even. He was starting to hope that might mean she’d forgive him when she said, ‘I laid with someone else.’

Took him a moment to catch up, and when he did he wished he hadn’t. His fist closed painful tight around the elf-bangle in his pocket. ‘You … Who?’

‘What does it matter? It wasn’t about him.’

He stood staring at her, suddenly furious. He felt ambushed. Wronged. He knew he had no right to feel that way, and that only made him feel worse. ‘You think I want to hear that?’

She blinked, caught somewhere between guilt and anger. ‘I hope you hate to hear it.’

‘That why you did it?’

Anger won. ‘I did it because I needed to you selfish prick!’ she barked. ‘Not everything’s about you and your great big talents and your great big choices and your great big bloody future.’ She stabbed at her chest with her finger. ‘I needed something and you chose not to be here!’ She turned her back on him. ‘No one’ll complain if you choose not to be here again.’

The tapping of her hammer chased him back up the steps. Back to the courtyard of Bail’s Point, and the war, and the smoke of dead men.