‘A lucky man is more dangerous than a cunning one, eh, Grandfather Yarvi?’
‘Tremble, then, when you see both together!’ He smiled again, but there was something hungry in it that made every hair on her spine stand up. ‘It is true that things have changed since we last negotiated, among the howes outside Bail’s Point. Much … simpler. No need to talk any longer of alliances, or compromises, or votes.’
You can only conquer your fears by facing them, her grandfather used to say. Hide from them, and they conquer you. Skara tried to draw herself up proudly, the way he had, when he faced Death. ‘Uthil and Gorm are both gone through the Last Door,’ she said. ‘There is only one vote, now, and it is—’
‘Mine!’ barked Yarvi, opening his eyes very wide. ‘I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to talk to someone who sees straight to the heart of things, so I will not insult you by dithering. You will marry King Druin.’
Skara had been prepared for many things, but she could not quite smother a gasp at that one. ‘King Druin is three years old.’
‘Then you will find him a far less demanding husband than the Breaker of Swords would have been. The world is changed, my queen. And it seems to me now that Throvenland …’ Yarvi lifted his withered hand and turned it around and around in the air. ‘Serves little purpose.’ He somehow managed to snap that one stubby finger with a sharp click. ‘It shall be part of Gettland from now on, though I think it best if my mother continues to wear the key of the treasury.’
‘And me?’ Skara struggled to keep her voice level for the thumping of her heart.
‘My queen, you look beautiful whatever you wear.’ And Grandfather Yarvi turned towards the door.
‘No.’ She could hardly believe how utterly certain she sounded. A strange calm had come over her. The calm that Bail the Builder felt before a battle, perhaps. She might be no warrior, but this was her battlefield, and she was ready to fight.
‘No?’ Yarvi turned back, his smile fading. ‘I came to tell you how things would be, not to ask for an opinion, but perhaps I overestimated your—’
‘No,’ she said again. Words would be her weapons. ‘My father died for Throvenland. My grandfather died for Throvenland. I gave up everything to fight for Throvenland. While I live I will not see it torn apart like a carcass between wolves.’
The First of Ministers stepped towards her, gaunt face tight with anger. ‘Do not presume to defy me, you puking waif!’ he snarled, stabbing at his chest with his withered hand. ‘You have no idea what I have sacrificed, what I have suffered! No idea of the fires I was forged in! You do not have the gold, or the men, or the swords—’
‘Only half a war is fought with swords.’ Mother Kyre had always said a smile costs nothing, so Skara showed the very sweetest one she could as she took the slip of paper from behind her back, folded between two fingers, and held it out. ‘A gift for you, Grandfather Yarvi,’ she said. ‘From Bright Yilling.’
There might have been no man in the Shattered Sea more deep-cunning than he, but Skara had been taught how to read a face, and she caught the twitch by his eye, and knew Yilling’s final whisper on the battlefield before Bail’s Point was true.
‘To being a puking waif I freely confess,’ she said as Yarvi snatched the paper from her fingers. ‘I am told I keep my fears in my stomach. But I have seen some tempering myself over the last few months. Do you recognize the hand?’
He looked up, jaw clenched tight.
‘I thought you might. It seems now great foresight on Mother Kyre’s part that she taught me to read.’
His face twitched again at that. ‘Far from proper, spreading the secret of letters outside the Ministry.’
‘Oh, Mother Kyre could be far from proper when the future of Throvenland was at stake.’ Now she put a little iron in her voice. She had to show her strength. ‘And so can I.’
Father Yarvi crumpled the paper in his trembling fist, but Skara only smiled the wider.
‘Keep that one, by all means,’ she said. ‘Yilling gave me a whole pouch full. There are seven people I trust scattered across Throvenland with one each. You will never know who. You will never know where. But if I should suffer some accident, trip one night and fall through the Last Door like my husband-to-be, messages will be sent, and the story told on every coast of the Shattered Sea …’ She leaned close and murmured the words. ‘That Father Yarvi was the traitor within our alliance.’
‘No one will believe it,’ he said, but his face had turned very pale.
‘A message will find its way to Master Hunnan and the warriors of Gettland, telling them that it was you who betrayed their beloved King Uthil.’
‘I don’t fear Hunnan,’ he said, but his hand was trembling on his staff.
‘A message will find its way to your mother, the Golden Queen of Gettland, telling her that her own son sold her city to her enemies.’