Half the World

OLD FRIENDS

Gods, she was quick now. Brand was twice the fighter he’d been when they left Thorlby just from fighting her, but every day he was less her equal. He felt like a lumbering hog against her, always three steps behind. Alone he had no chance at all, whatever the ground. Even with two comrades beside him he was starting to feel outnumbered. Less and less she was on the defensive, more and more she was the hunter and they the helpless prey.

“Koll,” called Brand, jerking his head, “take the left.” They started to spread out about the courtyard of the crumbling palace Yarvi had found for them, trying to trap her, trying to tempt her with the gaps between them. “Dosduvoi, get-”

Too late he realized Thorn had lured the big man into the one bright corner of the yard and Dosduvoi cringed as Mother Sun stabbed him suddenly in the eyes.

Thorn was on him like lightning, staggered him in spite of his size with a splintering ax-blow on the shield, slid her sword under the rim and rammed the point into his considerable gut. She reeled away laughing as Brand lashed at the air where she’d stood a moment before, making sure one of the flaking pillars that ringed the yard was between her and Koll.

“Oh, God,” wheezed Dosduvoi as he folded up, clutching at his belly.

“Promising,” said Skifr, circling them with her hands clasped behind her back. “But don’t let your own wind sweep you away. Treat every fight as if it is your last. Every enemy as though they are your worst. The wise fighter seems less than they are, however mean the opposition.”

“Thanks for that,” Brand forced through gritted teeth, trying to wipe some trickling sweat off on his shoulder. Gods, it was hot. Sometimes it didn’t seem there was a breath of wind anywhere in this cursed city.

“My father used to say never get proud.” Thorn’s eyes darted from Brand to Koll and back as they tried to herd her into a corner. “He said great warriors start believing their own songs, start thinking it’ll have to be a great thing that kills them. But a little thing can kill anyone.”

“Scratch gone bad,” said Safrit, watching with hands on hips.

“Frayed shield strap,” grunted Brand, trying to keep his eyes on Thorn’s weapons but finding her clinging vest something of a distraction.

“Slip on a sheep’s turd,” said Koll, nipping in and jabbing at Thorn but giving her the chance to land a crashing blow on his shield and slip around him into space again.

“Your father sounds a sensible man,” said Skifr. “How did he die?”

“Killed in a duel with Grom-gil-Gorm. By all accounts, he got proud.”

Thorn changed direction in an instant and, fast as Koll was getting, she was far faster. Fast as a scorpion and less merciful. Her ax thudded into the lad’s leg, made it buckle and he gasped as he staggered sideways. Her sword slapped into his side and he went tumbling across the courtyard with a despairing cry.

But that gave Brand his chance. Even off-balance she managed to turn his sword away so it thudded hard into her shoulder. Gods, she was tough, she didn’t even flinch. He crashed into her with his shield, drove her snarling back against the wall, rim gouging out a shower of loose plaster. They staggered in an ungainly tussle and, for a moment, he was sure he had her. But even as he was forcing her back she somehow twisted her foot behind his, growled as she switched her weight and sent him tumbling over it.

They went down hard, him on the bottom. Gods, she was strong. It was like Bail wrestling the great eel in the song, but more than likely with a worse outcome.

“You’re supposed to be killing him!” called Skifr, “not coupling with him! That you can do on your own time.”

They rolled in a tangle and came out with Thorn on top, teeth bared as she tried to work her forearm up under his jaw to choke him, he with a grip on her elbow, straining to twist it away, both snarling in each other’s faces.

So close her two eyes blurred into one. So close he could see every bead of sweat on her forehead. So close her chest pressed against him with each quick, hot, sour-sweet breath.

And for a moment it felt as if they weren’t fighting at all, but something else.

Then the heavy door shuddered open and Thorn sprang off him as quickly as if she’d been slapped.

“Another win?” snapped Father Yarvi, stepping over the threshold with Rulf frowning at his shoulder.

“Of course,” said Thorn, as if there was nothing in her mind but giving Brand a beating. What else would there be?

He clambered up, brushing himself off, pretending his skin wasn’t burning from his face to his toes. Pretending he was hunching over because of an elbow in the ribs rather than any swelling lower down. Pretending everything was the same as ever. But something had changed that day she stepped into the courtyard in her new clothes, the same but so, so different, the light catching the side of her frown and making one eye gleam, and he couldn’t speak for staring at her. Everything had fallen apart all of a sudden. Or maybe it had fallen together. She wasn’t just his friend or his rival or his oar-mate any more, one of the crew. She still was, but she was something else as well, something that excited and fascinated but mostly scared the hell out of him. Something had changed in the way he saw her and now when he looked at her he couldn’t see anything else.

They were sleeping on the floor of the same crumbling room. Hadn’t seemed anything strange about it when they moved in, they’d been sleeping on top of each other for months. Only now he lay awake half the sticky-hot night thinking about how close she was. Listening to the endless sounds of the city and trying to make out her slow breath. Thinking how easy it would be to reach out and touch her …

He realized he was looking sidelong at her arse again, and forced his eyes down to the floor. “Gods,” he mouthed, but he’d no idea which one you prayed to for help with a problem like this.

“Well I’m tremendously glad someone’s winning,” snapped Yarvi.

“No luck at the palace?” croaked out Brand, still bent over and desperate to find a distraction.

“The palace has no luck in it at all,” said Rulf.

“Another day wasted.” Yarvi sank down on a bench with his shoulders slumped. “We’ll be lucky if we get another chance to be insulted by Duke Mikedas, let alone his niece.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in luck?” asked Thorn.

“Right now, I’m down to hoping it believes in me.”

Father Yarvi looked rattled, and Brand had never seen that before. Even when they fought the Horse People, he had always seemed certain of what to do. Now Brand wondered whether that was a mask the minister had made himself. A mask which was starting to crack. For the first time he was painfully aware Yarvi was only a few years older than he was, and had the fate of Gettland to carry, and only one good hand to do it.

“I wonder what they’re doing in Thorlby right now?” murmured Koll wistfully, shaking out his hurt leg.

“Coming close to harvest time, I reckon,” said Dosduvoi, who’d rolled his shirt up to check his own bruises.

“Fields golden with swaying barley,” said Skifr.

“Lots of traders coming to the markets.” Safrit toyed with the merchant’s weights around her neck. “Docks swarming with ships. Money being made.”

“Unless the crops have been burned by the Vanstermen’s raids,” snapped Yarvi. “And the merchants have been held at Skekenhouse by Grandmother Wexen. Fields black stubble and the docks sitting empty. She could have roused the Lowlanders by now. The Inglings too, with Bright Yilling at their head. Thousands of them, marching on Gettland.”

Brand swallowed, thinking of Rin in their fragile little hovel outside the walls. “You think so?”

“No. Not yet. But soon, maybe. Time drains away and I do nothing. There’s always a way.” The minister stared down at the ground, good fingers fussing with the nail on his twisted thumb. “Half a war is fought with words, won with words. The right words to the right people. But I don’t have either.”

“It’ll come right,” muttered Brand, wanting to help but with no idea what he could do.

“I wish I could see how.” Yarvi put his hands over his pale face, the bad one like a twisted toy next to the good. “We need a damn miracle.”

And there was a thumping knock on the door.

Skifr raised an eyebrow. “Are we by any chance expecting visitors?”

“We’re hardly overburdened with friends in the city,” said Thorn.

“You’re hardly overburdened with friends anywhere,” said Brand.

“It could be that Mother Scaer has sent a welcoming party,” said Yarvi.

“Weapons,” growled Rulf. He tossed Thorn’s sword to her and she snatched it from the air.

“By God, I’m happy to fight anyone,” said Dosduvoi, seizing a spear, “as long as it’s not her.”

Brand drew the blade that had been Odda’s, the steel frighteningly light after the practice sword. Fear had quickly solved the problem in his trousers, if nothing else.

The door shuddered from more knocks, and it was not a light door.

Koll crept over to it, going up on tiptoe to peer through the spy-hole.

“It’s a woman,” he hissed. “She looks rich.”

“Alone?” asked Yarvi.

“Yes, I’m alone,” came a muffled voice through the door. “And I’m a friend.”

“That’s just what an enemy would say,” said Thorn.

“Or a friend,” said Brand.

“The gods know we could use one,” said Rulf, but nocking an arrow to his black bow even so.

“Open it,” said Yarvi.

Koll whipped back the bolt as though it might burn him and sprung away, a knife at the ready in each hand. Brand crouched behind his shield, fully expecting a flight of arrows to come hissing through the archway.

Instead the door creaked slowly open and a face showed itself at the crack. A woman’s face, dark-skinned and dark-eyed with black hair loosely twisted up and held with jewelled pins. She had a little scar through her top lip, a notch of white tooth showing as she smiled.

“Knock, knock,” she said, slipping through and pushing the door shut behind her. She wore a long coat of fine white linen and around her neck a golden chain, each link worked to look like an eye. She raised one brow at all the sharpened steel and slowly put up her palms. “Oh, I surrender.”

Rulf gave a great whoop, and flung his bow skittering across the floor, rushed over to the woman and gathered her in a great hug.

“Sumael!” he said, squeezing her tight. “Gods, how I’ve missed you!”

“And I you, Rulf, you old bastard,” she wheezed, slapping him on the back, then groaning as he lifted her off her feet. “Had my suspicions when I heard a ship called the South Wind had landed. Nice touch, by the way.”

“It reminds us where we came from,” said Yarvi, good hand rubbing at his neck.

“Father Yarvi,” said Sumael, slipping free of the helmsman’s embrace. “Look at you. Lost at sea and desperately in need of someone to pick out the course.”

“Some things never change,” he said. “You look … prosperous.”

“You look awful.”

“Some things never change.”

“No hug for me?”

He gave a snort, almost a sob. “I’m worried if I do I might never let go.”

She walked over, their eyes fixed on each other. “I’ll take the risk.” And she put her arms around him, going up on her toes to hold him close. He put his head on her shoulder, and tears glistened on his gaunt cheeks.

Brand stared at Thorn, and she shrugged back. “I guess now we know who Sumael is.”

“So this is the embassy of Gettland?” Sumael poked at a lump of mold-speckled plaster and it dropped from the wall and scattered across the dusty boards. “You’ve an eye for a bargain.”

“I am my mother’s son,” said Yarvi. “Even if she’s not my mother anymore.” The crumbling hall they ate in could have seated forty but most of the crew had gone their own ways and the place had a hollow echo to it now. “What are you doing here, Sumael?”

“Apart from catching up with old friends?” She sat back in her chair and let one stained boot, strangely at odds with her fine clothes, drop onto the scarred tabletop. “I helped my uncle build a ship for the Empress Theofora and one thing led to another. Much to the annoyance of several of her courtiers, she made me inspector of her fleet.” A strand of hair fell across her face and she stuck her bottom lip out and blew it back.

“You always had a touch with boats.” Rulf was beaming at her as if at a favorite daughter unexpectedly come home. “And annoying people.”

“The empire’s boats were rotting in the harbor of Rugora, down the coast. Which, as it happens, was also where the empress’s niece Vialine was being educated.” That strand of hair fell loose again and she blew it back again. “Or imprisoned, depending how you look at it.”

“Imprisoned?” asked Brand.

“There’s little trust within the royal family here.” Sumael shrugged. “But Vialine wanted to understand the fleet. She wants to understand everything. We became friends, I suppose. When Theofora fell ill and Vialine was called back to the First of Cities, she asked me to go with her, and …” She lifted the chain of eyes with a fingertip and let it fall clinking. “By some strange magic I find myself counselor to the Empress of the South.”

“Talent floats to the top,” said Rulf.

“Like turds,” grunted Thorn.

Sumael grinned back. “You must be buoyant, then.”

Brand laughed, and Thorn gave him a glare, and he stopped.

“So you sit at the right hand of the most powerful woman in the world?” asked Rulf, shaking his balding head.

“By no means alone.” That strand fell again and Sumael gave a twitch of annoyance and started pulling the pins from her hair. “There’s a council of dozens, and most of them belong to Duke Mikedas. Vialine may be empress in name but he holds the power, and has no intention of sharing.”

“He shared nothing with us,” said Yarvi.

“I heard.” The hair fell in a black curtain across half of her face, the other eye twinkling. “At least you came away with your heads.”

“You think we’ll keep them if we stay?” asked Yarvi.

Sumael’s eye slid across to Thorn. “That depends on how diplomatic you can be.”

“I can be diplomatic,” snarled Thorn.

Sumael only smiled the wider. She seemed immune to intimidation. “You remind me of a ship’s captain Yarvi and I used to sail with.”

Yarvi burst out laughing, and so did Rulf, and Thorn frowned through it. “Is that an insult or a compliment?”

“Call it a little of both.” Yarvi sat forward, elbows on the table and his shrivelled hand clasped in the other. “The High King is making ready for war, Sumael. Who knows, war might already have started.”

“What allies do you have?” she asked, sweeping her hair up with both hands and gathering it in a knot.

“Fewer than we need.”

“Some things never change, eh, Yarvi?” Sumael slid the pins back with nimble fingers. “The duke is not so taken with the One God as Theofora was, but he means to honor the alliance with Grandmother Wexen, even so. He can pick a winner.”

“We shall see,” said Yarvi. “I need to speak to the empress.”

Sumael puffed out her cheeks. “I can try. But more than a hearing I cannot promise.”

“You don’t owe me anything.”

She held his eye as she flicked the last pin home, its jewelled end glittering. “It’s not a question of debts. Not between us.”

Yarvi looked to be caught between laughing and crying, and in the end he sat back, and gave a ragged sigh. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

Sumael smiled, that notch of white tooth showing, and Brand found he was starting to like her. “And?”

“I’m glad I was wrong.”

“So am I.” That strand of hair fell into her face again and she frowned cross-eyed at it a moment, and blew it back.