‘To pick one or the other.’
‘Ah. I don’t much like that one.’
‘No, but you’re a man now, Koll. You can’t just wait for someone else to put things right.’
‘I’m a man.’ Koll’s shoulders sagged. ‘When did that happen?’
‘It just happens.’
‘I wish I knew what it meant, being a man.’
‘Guess it means something different for each one of us. The gods know I’m no sage, but if I’ve realized anything, it’s that life isn’t about making something perfect.’ Brand looked over at Thorn, busy shaking her fist in the face of one of the queen’s warriors. ‘Death waits for us all. Nothing’s forever. Life’s about making the best of what you find along the way. A man who’s not content with what he’s got, well, more than likely he won’t be content with what he hasn’t.’
Koll blinked. ‘You’re sure you’re not a sage?’
‘Just be honest with her. She deserves that.’
‘I know she does,’ muttered Koll, looking guiltily down at the planks of the wharf.
‘You’ll do the right thing. If not, well …’ Brand drew him close. ‘I can hit you then.’
Koll sighed. ‘It’s good to have something to look forward to.’
‘I’ll see you when you get back.’ Brand saw him off with a slap on the shoulder. ‘Till then, stand in the light, Koll.’
‘You too, Brand.’
As he hopped aboard the queen’s ship Koll thought to himself, and not for the first time, that he was nowhere near as clever as he’d supposed. Something to remember, next time he got to thinking how clever he was.
He grinned at that. So much like something his mother would’ve said he almost thought it in her voice, and he gripped those old weights about his neck and looked up at the masthead, thinking of her screaming at him as he teetered there. He’d always hated his mother’s fussing. Now he’d have given everything he had to be fussed over again.
He turned to watch Queen Laithlin fussing over her son, the heir to the throne seeming tiny surrounded by slaves and servants, two hulking Ingling bodyguards with silver thrall-collars looming over him.
She adjusted his tiny cloak-buckle, and smoothed his blonde hair, and kissed him on the head, then turned towards the ship, one of her slaves kneeling on the wharf to make a step of his back for her.
‘All will be well here, my queen,’ called Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver, one hand on Druin’s shoulder and the other raised in an elaborate blessing. ‘And may She Who Finds the Course steer you safely home!’
‘Bye bye!’ called the prince, and while his mother was raising her arm to wave he slipped from under Brinyolf’s hand and scurried off giggling towards the city, his attendants hurrying to catch him.
Laithlin dropped her hand and gripped tight to the rail. ‘I wish I could take him, but I trust Varoslaf only a little less than a snake. I have lost one son to the sword and another to the Ministry. I cannot lose a third.’
‘Prince Druin could not be safer, my queen,’ said Koll, doing his best to say what Father Yarvi would have. ‘Thorlby is far from the fighting and still well-guarded, her walls never conquered and the citadel impregnable.’
‘Bail’s Point was impregnable. You climbed in.’
Koll dared a grin. ‘How fortunate that men of my talents are rare, my queen.’
Laithlin snorted. ‘You have a minister’s humility, already.’
Thorn was the last aboard. ‘Be safe,’ Brand called to her as she stomped past him down the wharf.
‘Aye,’ she grunted, swinging one leg over the rail. She froze as Queen Laithlin’s shadow fell across her, stuck with one foot off the ship and one foot on.
‘Young love is a treasure truly wasted on the young,’ mused the queen, frowning up towards the city with her hands clasped behind her. ‘It is my place to know the value of things, so take it from me you will have nothing in your life more precious. Soon enough the green leaves turn brown.’ She peered down sternly at her Chosen Shield. ‘I think you can do better than that.’
Thorn winced. ‘You think I can, my queen, or you’re ordering me to?’
‘To a Chosen Shield, a queen’s every whim is a decree.’
Thorn took a deep breath, swung her leg onto the wharf, and stomped back to Brand.
‘Since my queen commands it,’ she muttered, using her fingers like a comb to push the stray hair out of his face. She caught him behind the head and dragged him close, kissed him long and greedily, squeezing him so hard she lifted his toes off the wharf while the oarsmen sent up a cheer, and laughed, and thumped their oars.
‘I hadn’t marked you for a romantic, my queen,’ murmured Koll.
‘It seems I have surprised us both,’ said Laithlin.
Thorn broke away, wiping her mouth, the elf-bangle at her wrist glowing golden. ‘I love you,’ Koll heard her grunt over the noise of the crew. ‘And I’m sorry. For the way I am.’