Brand grinned back, brushing the star-shaped scar on her cheek with his fingertips. ‘I love the way you are. Be safe.’
‘Aye.’ Thorn thumped him on the shoulder with her fist, then stalked back down the wharf and vaulted over the ship’s rail. ‘Better?’ she asked.
‘I am warmed all over,’ murmured Laithlin, with just the hint of a smile. She took one last glance towards the citadel, then nodded to the helmsman. ‘Cast off.’
Queen of Nothing
They filed into the hall, maybe three dozen, lean as beggars, dirty as thieves. A couple had swords. Others wood-axes, hunting bows, butcher’s knives. One girl with half a hedge in her matted hair clutched a spear made from a hoeing pole and an old scythe-blade.
Raith puffed out his cheeks, making the cut on his face burn. ‘Here come the heroes.’
‘Some fighters have a sword put into their hand in the training square.’ Blue Jenner leaned close to mutter in his ear. ‘Bred to it all their lives, like you. Some have an axe fall into their hand when Mother War spreads her wings.’ He watched the ragged company kneel awkwardly in a half circle before the dais. ‘Takes courage to fight when you didn’t choose it, weren’t trained for it, weren’t ready for it.’
‘Wasn’t no sword put in my hand, old man,’ said Raith. ‘I had to rip it from a hundred others by the sharp end. And it ain’t lack of courage bothers me, it’s lack of skill.’
‘Good thing you’ve a thousand picked warriors waiting. You can send them in next.’
Raith scowled sideways, but had naught to say. Rakki was the talker.
‘It ain’t the courageous or the skilful Mother War rewards.’ Jenner nodded towards the beggars. ‘It’s those who make the best of what they’ve got.’
Skara had a fine art at that. She smiled on her ragged recruits as gratefully as if it was the Prince of Kalyiv, the Empress of the South and a dozen dukes of Catalia pledging their aid.
‘Thank you for coming, my friends.’ She sat forward earnestly in Bail’s Chair. Small though she was, she had a way of filling it. ‘My countrymen.’
They couldn’t have looked more grateful if it was Ashenleer herself they were kneeling to. Their leader, an old warrior with a face scarred as a butcher’s block, cleared his throat. ‘Princess Skara—’
‘Queen Skara,’ corrected Sister Owd, with a prissy little pout. Plainly she was getting to like being out from Mother Scaer’s shadow. Raith rolled his eyes, but he hardly blamed her. Mother Scaer’s shadow could be dreadful chilly.
‘I’m sorry, my queen—’ mumbled the warrior.
But Skara hardly cast a shadow at all. ‘I am the one who should be sorry. That you have had to fight alone. I am the one who should be grateful. That you have come to fight for me.’
‘I fought for your father,’ said the man in a broken voice. ‘Fought for your grandfather. I’ll fight to the death for you.’ And the others all nodded along, heads bobbing.
It’s one thing to offer to die, quite another to fling yourself on the sharpened steel, specially if the only metal you’re used to wielding is a milking bucket. Not long ago Raith would’ve been sniggering with his brother over their fool’s loyalty. But Rakki was elsewhere, and Raith was finding it hard to laugh.
He’d always been sure of the best thing to do before, and it mostly had an axe on the end. That was the way things got done in Vansterland. But Skara had her own way of doing things, and he found he liked watching her do it. He liked watching her a lot.
‘Where have you come from?’ she was asking.
‘Most of us from Ockenby, my queen, or the farms outside.’
‘Oh, I know it! There are wonderful oak trees there—’
‘Till Bright Yilling burned ’em,’ spat out a woman whose face was hard as the hatchet at her belt. ‘Burned everything.’
‘Aye, but we showed him some fire.’ The warrior set his dirty hand on the shoulder of a young lad beside him. ‘Burned some of his forage. Burned a tent with some of his men inside.’
‘Should’ve seen ’em dance,’ growled the woman.
‘I got one of ’em when he went to piss!’ shouted the boy in a voice cracking between high and low, then his face went bright red and he stared at the floor. ‘My queen, that is …’
‘You’ve all done brave work.’ Raith saw the tendons stark on Skara’s thin hands as she gripped at the arms of Bail’s Chair. ‘Where is Yilling now?’
‘Gone,’ said the boy. ‘He had a camp on the beach at Harentoft, but they up and left overnight.’
‘When?’ asked Jenner.
‘Twelve days ago.’
The old raider tugged unhappily at his straggling beard. ‘That worries me.’
‘We’ve got his ships,’ said Raith.
‘But the High King’s got more. Yilling could be working mischief on any coast of the Shattered Sea by now.’
‘You’re a crowd of worries, old man,’ grunted Raith. ‘Would you be happier if he was still burning farms?’