‘We could draw lots—’ King Uthil grated out.
’You had the satisfaction of killing Dunverk,’ said Gorm, ‘I should have the chair.’
Father Yarvi rubbed at one temple with the knuckles of his shrivelled hand. ‘For the gods’ sake, it is a chair. My apprentice can carve you another.’
‘It is not just any chair.’ Skara swallowed her nerves as she stepped up onto the dais. ‘Bail the Builder once sat here.’ King Uthil and his minister stood frowning on her left, Gorm and his minister on her right. She was the balance between them. She had to be. ‘How many ships did we take?’
‘Sixty-six,’ said Mother Scaer. ‘Among them a gilded beast of thirty oars a side which we hear is Bright Yilling’s own.’
Father Yarvi gave Skara an appreciative nod. ‘It was a deep-cunning plan, princess.’
‘I only sowed the seed,’ said Skara, bowing low to the two kings. ‘Your bravery reaped the harvest.’
‘Mother War was with us and our weaponluck held good.’ Gorm turned one of the pommels on his chain around and around. ‘But this fortress is far from safe. Grandmother Wexen knows well its importance, in strategy and as a symbol.’
‘It is a splinter pushed into her flesh,’ said Uthil, ‘and it will not be long before she tries to pluck it out. You should return to Thorlby with my wife, princess. You will be far from danger there.’
‘My respect for you is boundless, King Uthil, but you are wrong. My father knew well the importance of this fortress too. So much so he died to defend it, and is buried in the barrows outside the walls, beside my mother.’ Skara lowered herself into the chair where her forefathers had once sat, painfully upright, the way Mother Kyre had taught her. Her guts were churning, but she had to be strong. Had to lead. There was no one else. ‘This is Throvenland. This is my land. This is the very place I should be.’
Father Yarvi gave a tired smile. ‘Princess—’
‘In fact, I am a queen.’
There was a silence. Then Sister Owd began to climb the steps. ‘Queen Skara is quite right. She sits in Bail’s Chair as King Fynn’s only living descendant. There is precedent for an unmarried woman to take the chair alone.’ Her voice quavered under Mother Scaer’s deadly glare but she went on, nodding up towards the faded painting that loomed over them. ‘Queen Ashenleer herself, after all, was unmarried when she won victory against the Inglings.’
‘Is there another Ashenleer among us, then?’ sneered Mother Scaer.
Sister Owd stood at Skara’s left hand where a minister belongs, and resolutely folded her arms. ‘That remains to be seen.’
‘Whether you are princess or queen will mean nothing to Bright Yilling,’ rumbled Gorm, and Skara felt a surge of that familiar fear at the name. ‘He kneels to no woman but Death.’
‘He will already be on his way,’ said Uthil, ‘and with vengeance in mind.’
You can only conquer your fears by facing them. Hide from them, and they conquer you. Skara let them wait, taking a moment to settle her thumping heart before she answered. ‘Oh, I am counting on it.’
Young Love
She pushed her hand into his hair, pulled him down so their foreheads were pressed hard together, quick breath hot on his face. For a long while they lay tangled with each other, the furs kicked down around their ankles, in silence.
Not one word spoken since Koll said his goodbyes to Thorn on the docks and strode up like a thief after a promising purse through the darkened city. In silence Rin had opened her door, taken him into her house, into her arms, into her bed.
Koll had always loved words, but to be a minister’s apprentice was to drown in them. True words, false words, words in many tongues. Right words, wrong words, written and spoken and unspoken. For now silence suited him. To forget for a moment what he owed Father Yarvi, and what he owed Rin, and how there was no way he could settle both debts. Whatever words he said, he felt like a liar.
Rin put one rough hand on his cheek, gave him a parting kiss and slithered out from under him. He loved to watch her move, so strong and sure, shadows shifting between her ribs as she fished his shirt from the floor and pulled it on. He loved it when she wore his clothes, not asking, not needing to ask. It made them feel so close together, somehow. That and he loved the way the hem only came halfway down her bare backside.
She squatted, the key she wore to her own locks swinging free on its chain, tossed a log on the fire, sparks drifting up and the light flaring on her face. Not one word spoken all that time but, like everything good, the silence couldn’t last.
‘You’re back, then,’ she said.