Sister Owd only smiled, soft face dimpling. ‘I’ve always been solid, but the future of no nation rests upon my health. Luckily for all concerned. Bring the queen something.’ She gestured to the thrall and the girl shrugged back her long braid and took up the tray with the morning food.
‘No!’ snarled Skara, stomach clenching at the slightest smell of it, snatching back her hand as if to dash the lot on the floor, ‘take it away!’
The thrall flinched as if her anger was a raised whip and Skara felt an instant pang of guilt. Then she remembered Mother Kyre’s words, after her grandfather sold Skara’s nurse and she had cried for days. Feelings for a slave are feelings wasted. So she waved the girl impatiently away, just as she imagined Queen Laithlin might have. She was a queen now, after all.
Gods. She was a queen. Her stomach cramped again, sick tickled at the back of her raw throat and Skara gave a strangled cough, half burp, half growl of frustration. She bunched her fist as if to punch her own rebellious guts. How could she hope to bend kings to her will when her own stomach would not obey?
‘Well, there is much to do before today’s moot,’ said Sister Owd, turning for the door. ‘May I leave you for now, my queen?’
‘You can’t do so soon enough.’
The minister paused, and Skara saw her shoulders shift as she took a hard breath. Then she turned back, firmly folding her arms. ‘You may speak to me here however you wish.’ Sister Owd might have seemed soft as a peach at a first meeting, but Skara was beginning to remember that a peach holds a stubborn stone on which the unwary will break their teeth. ‘But behaving in this manner ill befits a queen. Do it before Uthil and Gorm and you will undo all the progress you have made. Your position is not strong enough to show such weakness.’
Skara was clenching every muscle, fully prepared to explode with fury, when it came to her that Owd was right. She was acting the way she used to with Mother Kyre. She was acting like a petulant child. Her grandfather, generous to all in wealth and in word, would have been less than impressed.
Skara closed her eyes and felt tears prickling at the lids, took a breath and let it sigh shuddering away. ‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘That was unworthy of a beggar, let alone a queen. I am sorry.’
Sister Owd slowly unfolded her arms. ‘A queen need never be sorry, especially to her minister.’
‘Let me at least be grateful, then. I know you did not ask for this, but you have been a staunch support so far. I always supposed that I would one day be a queen, and speak in halls with the great, and strike wise deals on behalf of my people … I just never dreamed it would be so soon, and with the stakes so high, and without my grandfather to help me.’ She wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. ‘Mother Kyre tried to prepare me for the burden of power but … I am finding it a weight one is never quite ready for.’
The minister blinked. ‘Considering the circumstances, I think you bear it admirably.’
‘I will try to bear it better.’ Skara forced out a smile. ‘If you promise to keep correcting me when I fall short.’
Sister Owd smiled back. ‘It will be an honour, my queen. Truly.’ Then she gave a stiff bow, and shut the door softly behind her. Skara glanced over at the thrall, and realized she did not even know the girl’s name.
‘I am sorry to you too,’ she found she had muttered.
The thrall looked horrified, and Skara soon guessed why. If a slave is but a useful thing to her mistress, she is safe. If a slave becomes a person she can be favoured. She can even be loved, as Skara had once loved her nurse. But a person can also be blamed, envied, hated.
Safer to be a thing.
Skara snapped her fingers. ‘Bring the comb.’
There was a thudding knock at the door, followed by Raith’s rude growl. ‘Father Yarvi’s here. He wants to speak with you.’
‘Urgently, Queen Skara,’ came the minister’s voice. ‘On business that benefits us both.’
Skara set a hand on her belly in a futile effort to calm her frothing stomach. Father Yarvi had been kind enough, but there was something unnerving in his eye, as though he always knew just what she would say and already had the answer.
‘The blood of Bail is in my veins,’ she murmured to herself. ‘The blood of Bail, the blood of Bail.’ And she closed her bandaged fist until the cut burned. ‘Show him in!’
Not even Mother Kyre could have found fault with Father Yarvi’s behaviour. He came with his head respectfully bowed, his staff of slotted and twisted elf-metal in his good hand and his withered one behind him in case the sight of it offended her. Raith slunk in after him with his forehead creased in that constant frown of his, white hair flattened against one side of his skull from sleeping in her doorway and his scarred hand propped on his axe-handle.
Skara had stopped wondering about kissing him. Now she found herself often occupied thinking about what they might do after the kissing … She jerked her eyes away, but they kept creeping back. After all, there was no harm in wondering, was there?