“No.” Thorn tossed down her battered wooden weapons and tidied a few strands back behind her ear, a strange gesture from her, who never seemed to care the least for how she looked.
Skifr raised her brows. “I would not have counted vanity among your many shortcomings.”
“I made my mother a promise,” said Thorn, snatching up a flat loaf and stuffing half of it in her mouth with dirty fingers in one go. She might not have outfought three men at once but Brand had no doubt she could have out-eaten them.
“I had no notion you held your mother in such high regard,” said Skifr.
“I don’t. She’s always been a pain in my arse. Always telling me the right way to do things and it’s never the way I want to do them.” Thorn ripped at the loaf with her teeth like a wolf at a carcass, eating and speaking at once, spraying crumbs. “Always fussing over what folk think of me, what they’ll do to me, how I might be hurt, how I might embarrass her. Eat this way, talk this way, smile this way, piss this way.”
All the while she talked Brand was thinking about his sister, left alone with no one to watch over her, and the anger stole up on him. “Gods,” he growled. “Is there a blessing made you couldn’t treat like a curse?”
Thorn frowned, cheeks bulging as she chewed. “What does that mean?”
He barked the words, suddenly disgusted with her. “That you’ve a mother who gives a damn about you, and a home waiting where you’re safe, and you still find a way to complain!”
That caused an uncomfortable silence. Father Yarvi narrowed his eyes, and Koll widened his, and Fror’s brows crept up in surprise. Thorn swallowed slowly, looking as shocked as if she’d been slapped. More shocked. She got slapped all the time.
“I bloody hate people,” she muttered, snatching another loaf from Safrit’s hand.
It was hardly the good thing to say but for once Brand couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “Don’t worry.” He dragged his blanket over one shoulder and turned his back on her. “They feel much the same about you.”
DAMN THEM
Thorn’s nose twitched at the smell of cooking. She blinked awake, and knew right off something was odd. She could scarcely remember the last time she had woken without the tender help of Skifr’s boot.
Perhaps the old witch had a heart after all.
She had dreamt a dog was licking at the side of her head, and she tried to shake the memory off as she rolled from her blankets. Maybe dreams were messages from the gods, but she was damned if she could sieve the meaning from that one. Koll was hunched at the water’s edge, grumbling as he washed the pots out.
“Morning,” she said, giving an almighty stretch and almost enjoying the long ache through her arms and across her back. The first few days she’d hardly been able to move in the mornings from the rowing and the training together, but she was hardening to the work now, getting tough as rope and timber.
Koll glanced up and his eyes went wide. “Er …”
“I know. Skifr let me sleep.” She grinned across the river. For the first time, Divine seemed an apt name for it. The year was wearing on and Mother Sun was bright and hot already, birds twittering in the forest and insects floating lazy over the water. The trailing branches of the trees about the bank were heavy with white flowers and Thorn took a long, blossom-scented breath in through her nose and let it sigh away. “I’ve a feeling it’ll be a fine day.” And she ruffled Koll’s hair, turned around, and almost walked into Brand.
He stared at her, that helpless look of his splattered all over his face. “Thorn, your—”
“Go and die.” Half the night she’d been lying awake thinking of harsh things to say to him, but when the moment came that was the best she could manage. She shouldered past and over to the embers of the fire where the crew were gathered.
“Eat well,” Rulf was saying. “Might be later today we’ll reach the tall hauls. You’ll need all the strength you’ve got and more besides when we carry … the …” He trailed off, staring, as Thorn walked up, grabbing a spare a bowl and peering into the pot.
“No need to stop for me,” she said. They were all staring at her and it was starting to make her nervous.
Then Odda chuckled, spluttering food. “She looks like a brush with half the bristles plucked!”
“A lamb half-sheared,” said Dosduvoi.
“A willow with half the branches lopped,” murmured Fror.
“I like that one,” said Odda. “That has poetry. You should speak more.”
“You should speak less, but things are as they are.”