“Bad luck,” murmured Dosduvoi, slowly shaking his head. “You find friends and they wander from your life again. Bad, bad luck—”
“Oh, stop prating on your luck you huge fool!” snapped Safrit. “My husband had the poor luck to be stolen by slavers but he never stopped struggling to return to me, never gave up hope, died fighting to the last for his oarmates.”
“That he did,” said Rulf.
“Saved my life,” said Father Yarvi.
“So you could save mine and my son’s.” Safrit gave Dosduvoi’s arm a shove which made the silver rings on his wrist rattle. “Look at all you have! Your strength, and your health, and your wealth, and friends who maybe one day wander back into your life!”
“Who knows who you’ll pass on this crooked path to the Last Door?” murmured Rulf, rubbing thoughtfully at his beard.
“That’s good luck, damn it, not bad!” said Safrit. “Give praise to whatever god you fancy for every day you live.”
“I never thought of it like that before,” said Dosduvoi, forehead creased in thought. “I’ll endeavor to think on my blessings.” He carefully rearranged the ring-money on his great wrist. “Just as soon as I’ve had a little round of dice. Or two.” And he headed off toward the town.
“Some men never bloody learn,” muttered Safrit, staring after him with hands on hips.
“None of ’em do,” said Rulf.
Brand held out his hand to him. “I’ll miss you.”
“And I you,” said the helmsman, clasping him by the arm. “You’re strong at the oar, and strong at the wall, and strong there too.” And he thumped Brand on his chest, and leaned close. “Stand in the light, lad, eh?”
“I’ll miss all of you.” Brand looked toward Thorlby, the way that Thorn had gone, and had to swallow the lump in his throat. To walk off with scarcely a word that way, as if he was nothing and nobody. That hurt.
“Don’t worry.” Safrit put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “There are plenty of other girls about.”
“Not many like her.”
“That’s a bad thing?” asked Mother Scaer. “I know of a dozen back in Vulsgard who’d tear each other’s eyes out for a lad like you.”
“That’s a good thing?” asked Brand. “On balance, I’d prefer a wife with eyes.”
Mother Scaer narrowed hers, which made him more nervous still. “That’s why you pick the winner.”
“Always sensible,” said Father Yarvi. “It is time you left us, Mother Scaer.” He frowned toward the warriors standing at the city’s gate. “Vanstermen are less popular even than usual in Thorlby, I think.”
She growled in her throat. “The Mother of Crows dances on the border once again.”
“Then it is our task as ministers to speak for the Father of Doves, and make of the fist an open hand.”
“This alliance you plan.” Scaer scrubbed unhappily at her shaved head. “To sponge away a thousand years of blood is no small deed.”
“But one that will be worth singing of.”
“Men prefer to sing of the making of wounds, fools that they are.” Her eyes were blue slits as she stared into Yarvi’s. “And I fear you stitch one wound so you can carve a deeper. But I gave my word, and will do what I can.”
“What else can any of us do?” The elf-bangles rattled on Mother Scaer’s long arm as Yarvi clasped her hand in farewell. Then his eyes moved to Brand, cool and level. “My thanks for all your help, Brand.”
“Just doing what you paid me for.”
“More than that, I think.”
“Just trying to do good, then, maybe.”
“The time may come when I need a man who is not so concerned about the greater good, but just the good. Perhaps I can call on you?”
“It’d be my honor, Father Yarvi. I owe you for this. For giving me a place.”
“No, Brand, I owe you.” The minister smiled. “And I hope soon enough to pay.”
BRAND HEADED ACROSS THE hillside, threading between the tents and shacks and ill-made hovels sprouted up outside the gates like mushrooms after the rains. Many more than there used to be. There was war with the Vanstermen, and folk had fled homes near the border to huddle against Thorlby’s walls.
Lamplight gleamed through chinks in wattle, voices drifting into the evening, a fragment of a sad song echoing from somewhere. He passed a great bonfire, pinched faces of the very old and very young lit by whirling sparks. The air smelled strong of smoke and dung and unwashed bodies. The sour stink of his childhood, but it smelled sweet to him then. He knew this wouldn’t be his home much longer.
As he walked he felt the pouch shifting underneath his shirt. Heavy it was, now. Red gold from Prince Varoslaf and yellow gold from the Empress Vialine and good silver with the face of Queen Laithlin stamped upon it. Enough for a fine house in the shadow of the citadel. Enough that Rin would never want for anything again. He was smiling as he shoved the door of their shack rattling open.