‘If you are talking of Queen Skara she is neither a bitch nor is she mine.’ Grandfather Yarvi’s smile was as unmarked by Scaer’s fury as elf-stone by arrows. ‘If you knew I was responsible you would be presenting evidence, but I know you have none because I know I had nothing to do with it.’
Scaer opened her mouth but Yarvi talked over her. ‘We speak of Grom-gil-Gorm, Breaker of Swords and Maker of Orphans! He used to boast that no man had more enemies! Every pommel on that chain he wore was someone’s score in need of settling.’
‘And, after all …’ Koll spread his hands and tried to look as earnest as any man could. ‘Sometimes … people just die.’
Mother Scaer turned her freezing glare on him. ‘Oh, men will die over this, I promise you!’
Yarvi’s guards shifted unhappily, their faces hidden behind gilded face-plates but their elf-weapons on conspicuous display. The men who’d rowed the South Wind to Strokom had sickened. Three had died already. It seemed without Skifr’s magic beans the ruins were every bit as dangerous as the stories said. For now there would be no more relics brought from within, but Grandfather Yarvi found no shortage of men keen to carry the ones he had. The moment they took them up, after all, they were made stronger than any warrior in all the songs.
‘Have you really nothing better to do, Mother Scaer, than toss empty threats at my apprentice?’ Grandfather Yarvi gave a careless shrug. ‘Gorm died without an heir. Vansterland could fall into chaos, every warrior vying to prove himself the strongest. You must keep order, and ensure a new king is found without too much blood spilled.’
‘Oh, I shall find a new king.’ She glowered at Yarvi and growled the words. ‘Then I will dig out the truth of this and there will be a reckoning.’ She pointed up towards the statues of the Tall Gods with a clawing finger. ‘The gods see all! Their judgment is always waiting!’
Yarvi’s brow furrowed. ‘In my experience they take their time about it. Dig out whatever truth you please, but for now there shall be no High King. All the last one brought us was blood, and the Shattered Sea needs time to heal.’ He put his withered hand reluctantly on his own chest. ‘For now power shall rest with the Ministry, and Father Peace shall have his day.’
Mother Scaer gave a disgusted hiss. ‘Not even Grandmother Wexen presumed to set herself so high.’
‘This is for the greater good, not my own.’
‘So say all tyrants!’
‘If you despise my methods so, perhaps you should give up that elf-weapon you carry? Or is it not quite the evil you first feared?’
‘Sometimes one must fight evil with evil.’ Scaer looked towards Yarvi’s guards, and shifted the relic she carried beneath her coat. ‘If you have taught the world one lesson it is that.’
Yarvi’s frown hardened. ‘You should have the proper respect, Mother Scaer. For the office of Grandfather of the Ministry, if not the man who holds it.’
‘Here is all the respect I have for you at once.’ And she spat onto the floor at his feet. ‘You have not heard the last from me.’ And her footsteps clapped in the great space above as she stalked from the Hall of Whispers.
‘A shame.’ Yarvi wiped the spittle calmly away with his shoe. ‘When we were always such good friends. Still.’ And he turned to Koll with a grin at the corner of his mouth. ‘Enemies are the price of success, eh?’
‘So I’m told, Father Yarvi—’ Koll quickly corrected himself. ‘Grandfather Yarvi, that is.’
‘So it is. Walk with me.’
Though Mother Sun was high and bright there had been rain that morning, and the grey stones of Skekenhouse were dotted with puddles. The fires had all been put out but there was still the faintest tang of burning. The killing had been stopped but there was still an edge of violence on the air. The calls of the traders came muted, the eyes of the people were cast down. Even a dog’s distant bark sounded somehow fearful. Mother War might have folded her wings but Father Peace was far from settled at his loom.
A crowd of supplicants had gathered in the long shadow of the Tower of the Ministry. Folk come to beg for some prisoner released or some indulgence granted. They knelt in the wet, cringing as Grandfather Yarvi swept past, implacable, and called out thanks to him for saving the city from the Shends.
None mentioned that he’d been the one who gave the city up to the Shends in the first place. Not to his face, anyway.
‘Folk used to nod to you,’ murmured Koll. ‘Bow if they really wanted something. Now they kneel.’
‘It is only proper that they kneel to the Grandfather of the Ministry,’ he murmured, acknowledging the most servile efforts with a generous wave of his shrivelled hand.
‘Aye, but do they really kneel to him, or to the elf-weapons his guards carry?’
‘What matters is that they kneel.’
‘Are fear and respect really the same?’