“But you would like to fight?”
Thorn lifted her chin and held the queen’s eye. “It’s what I’m made for.”
“It must grate on your warrior’s pride to be ignored.”
“My father told me never to get proud.”
“Fine advice.” The prince had fallen asleep and Laithlin eased him from her breast and passed him up to Safrit, shrugging her robe closed. “Your father was a Chosen Shield for a time, I understand.”
“To King Uthil’s mother,” murmured Yarvi.
“What became of him?” asked the queen, while Safrit rocked the prince in her arms and gently cooed to him.
Thorn felt the pouch weigh against her chest as she shifted uncomfortably. “He was killed in a duel with Grom-gil-Gorm.”
“The Breaker of Swords. A fearsome warrior. A terrible enemy to Gettland. And now we face him again. I once had a Chosen Shield of my own.”
“Hurik,” said Thorn. “I saw him fight in the training square. He was a great warrior.”
“He betrayed me,” said the queen, her cold eyes on Thorn. “I had to kill him.”
She swallowed. “Oh …”
“I have never found one worthy to take his place.” There was a long and pregnant silence. “Until now.”
Thorn’s eyes went wide. She looked at Yarvi, and back to the queen. “Me?”
Yarvi held up his crippled hand. “Not me.”
Thorn’s heart was suddenly hammering. “But … I never passed my warrior’s test. I never swore a warrior’s oath—”
“You’ve passed far sterner tests,” said the queen, “and the only oath a Chosen Shield must swear is to me.”
Thorn slid off her stool and knelt at Laithlin’s feet, this time without knocking anything into the fire. “Tell me the words, my queen.”
“You are a brave one.” Laithlin leaned forward, putting her fingertips gently on Thorn’s scarred cheek. “But you should not be rash.”
“You should be careful what oaths you swear,” said Father Yarvi.
“This is a burden as well as an honor. You might have to fight for me. You might have to die for me.”
“Death waits for us all, my queen.” Thorn did not have to think. It felt more right than anything she had ever done. “I’ve dreamed of this since I could hold a sword. I am ready. Tell me the words.”
“Father Yarvi?” Koll hurried into the room, flushed with excitement and greatly out of breath.
“Not now, Koll—”
“A crow’s come!” And he held out a little scrap of paper, tiny marks scrawled across it.
“Mother Scaer replies, at last.” Yarvi spread it out upon his knees, eyes flickering over the signs. Thorn watched in wonder. To capture words in lines on a scrap of nothing seemed like magic to her as surely as what Skifr had done out on the steppe.
“What does it say?” asked Laithlin.
“Grom-gil-Gorm accepts King Uthil’s challenge. His raids will cease until midsummer’s day. Then the warriors of Vansterland and Gettland will meet in battle at Amon’s Tooth.” Yarvi turned the paper over, and narrowed his eyes.
“What else?”
“The Breaker of Swords makes a challenge of his own. He asks if King Uthil will meet him in the square, man against man.”
“A duel,” said Laithlin.
“A duel.”
“The king is not well enough to fight.” Laithlin looked over at her son. Her minister. “He cannot be well enough to fight.”
“With the favor of Father Peace, it will never come to that.”
“Your circles move, Father Yarvi.”
He crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the firepit. “They move.”
“Then we must be ready to ride north within the week.” Queen Laithlin stood, tall and stern, wise and beautiful, and kneeling at her feet Thorn thought there could never have been a woman more worth following. “Teach her the words.”
HALLEBY
It had rained, and the fire was gone. Everything was gone, more or less. A few charred uprights. A few tottering chimney stacks. The rest of the village of Halleby was mud-churned ash and splinters. A few people picking through for anything worth saving and not finding much. A few others gathered around some fresh turned earth, heads hanging.
“A sorry place at the best of times,” muttered Brand.
“And these ain’t them,” said Rauk.
An old man knelt in the wreckage of a house, all smeared with soot and his wispy hair blowing, croaking at the sky, “They took my sons. They took my sons. They took my sons,” over and over.
“Poor bastard.” Rauk wiped his running nose on the back of one hand and winced again as he hefted his shield. He’d been wincing ever since they left Thorlby.
“Your arm hurt?” asked Brand.
“Took an arrow a few weeks back. I’m all right.” He didn’t look all right. He looked thin, and drained out, and his watery eyes held none of the challenge they used to. Brand would never have thought he might miss that. But he did.