That fell between them like gull’s droppings from a great height. But if Rin was hurt she didn’t show it. That wouldn’t have been her way at all. He loved that about her.
‘What was Bail’s Point like?’
‘It reminded me very much of a big elf-stone fortress by the sea.’
‘You’re almost as funny as you think you are. I mean, what was it like climbing into it?’
‘Heroes never think about the danger.’
She grinned. ‘So you pissed yourself?’
‘I tried, but I was so scared my bladder clenched up tight as King Uthil’s fist. Couldn’t get a drip out for days afterward.’
‘Koll the warrior, eh?’
‘I thought it best to leave the fighting to others.’ Koll tapped at his head. ‘Half a war is fought up here, Queen Skara is always saying.’
‘Queen Skara, now.’ Rin snorted. ‘I’ve yet to meet a man who isn’t much taken with that girl’s wisdom.’
‘I expect a lot of it’s in the, you know …’ Koll waved a hand about. ‘Jewellery and so on.’
Rin raised one brow at him. ‘Oh, you expect that, do you?’
‘No doubt she looks like something from the songs.’ He put his arms over his head, quivering as he stretched out. ‘But I reckon a stiff breeze could blow her away. I like a woman with both feet on Father Earth.’
‘That’s your notion of a compliment? Earthy?’ She made a tube of her tongue and spat hissing into the fire. ‘Some honeyed minister’s mouth you have.’
His mother’s weights clicked around his neck as Koll rolled onto one elbow. ‘What makes a woman beautiful to me isn’t her blood or her clothes but what she can do. I like a woman with strong hands who isn’t afraid of sweat or hard work or anything else. I like a woman with pride, and ambition, and quick wit, and high skill.’ Just words, maybe, but he meant them. Or half-meant them, anyway. ‘That’s why I never saw a woman anywhere so beautiful as you, Rin. And that’s before I even get to your arse, which I can’t imagine has an equal anywhere around the Shattered Sea.’
She looked back to the fire, lips curling at the corner. ‘That’s better, I’ll admit. Even if it is all a hatful of winds.’
Koll was much pleased with himself. He loved it when he made her smile. ‘Sweet smelling breezes at least, I hope?’
‘Better than your usual farts. Will you be charming Prince Varoslaf’s nose with your flattery?’
That dented his smugness considerably. By all accounts the Prince of Kalyiv’s taste ran less to funny men and more to skinned ones. ‘I doubt I’ll comment on his arse, at least. I may keep my mouth shut altogether and leave the talking to Queen Laithlin. Silent men rarely cause offence.’
‘You can probably find a way. What does Varoslaf want?’
‘What the powerful always want. More power. Or so Thorn says. This trip to Roystock isn’t to her taste at all. She wanted to fight.’
Rin stood up. ‘She usually does.’
‘She’s in a bastard of a mood now. Wouldn’t want to be Brand tonight.’
‘He’ll manage.’ She slid back into the bed beside him, propping herself on one elbow, his shirt rumpled across her chest. ‘They love each other.’
Rin’s eyes, fixed on him so close, were making Koll quite uncomfortable. He felt cornered in that narrow bed. Trapped by the heat of her. ‘Maybe.’ He kicked over onto his back, frowning at the ceiling. He had great things to do. Stand at the shoulder of kings and so on. How could he change the world with Rin smothering him? ‘Love’s hardly the answer to every question, though, is it?’
She turned away, drawing the furs up to her waist. ‘Certainly seems not.’
With so many men away there were more women working on the docks of Thorlby than usual, busy at nets and sorting through the morning’s squirming catches. Fewer guards about too — older men, and boys Koll’s age yet to take their warrior’s tests, and some of the girls that Thorn had been training — but otherwise you might never have known there was any war at all.
Six battered ships had landed the night before from the long journey up the Divine, and their sunburned crews were bringing ashore silks, and wine, and all manner of fine curiosities from the south. Queen Laithlin’s men were loading her four ships for the voyage to Roystock and the air rang with their cries, and the barking of a stray being beaten away from the fish, and the laughter of children ducking among the wagons, and the calls of the scavenging gulls as they drifted in lazy circles, watching for spilled grain.
Mother Sun was bright as ever in the east, and Koll shaded his eyes as he gazed off towards Roystock, and sucked in a long, salty breath through his nostrils.
‘Smells like good luck!’
‘That and fish.’ Rin wrinkled her nose. ‘Four ships? To carry one woman?’
‘And her minister!’ Koll puffed up his chest and jabbed at it with his thumb. ‘A man of that stature must be properly attended.’
‘They’re going to lash two ships together just to carry his swollen head, are they?’
‘That and the Chosen Shield’s temper,’ he muttered, as Thorn’s angry orders came chopping through the hubbub. ‘You can tell a woman’s importance by the gifts she gives and the company she keeps. Queen Laithlin means to make a deep impression on Varoslaf by taking plenty of both.’
Rin glanced sideways. ‘What does it say about me that I keep company with you?’
Koll slipped his arm about her waist, grinning at how well it seemed to fit there. ‘That you’re a woman of high taste and refinement, not to mention excellent luck, and- Gods!’ As the crowd shifted Koll caught a glimpse of Brand, hefting a great crate as if it had nothing in it at all. He ducked behind a rack where fish big as boys had been hung glittering in the sunlight. One that still had a little life in it twitched about, seeming to give him a rather disapproving stare.
So did Rin, looking down with hands on hips. ‘The conqueror of Bail’s Point.’ And she stuck her tongue between her lips and blew a long fart at him.
‘Strong men are many, wise men are few. Did he see us?’
‘If you climbed inside one of those fish I think you could make sure.’
‘You’re almost as funny as you think you are.’ He pushed a fish aside with a fingertip to peer past. ‘We’d best part now.’
‘There’s always a reason to rush the parting, isn’t there? Young love. Not quite the joy they sing of.’ She caught him by the collar and half dragged him up, gave him the quickest of kisses and left him frozen with lips puckered and eyes closed. When he opened them he was disappointed to see her already walking away, an unexpected twinge of guilt and longing making him suddenly, stupidly desperate to stretch the parting out.
‘See you in a week or two, then!’
‘If you’re luckier than you deserve!’ she called, without turning.
Koll stuck his thumbs carelessly in his belt and strolled down through the crowds, slipping around a wagon loaded with fleeces, old Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver droning out a blessing over the voyage in the background.
He froze as a heavy arm fell across his shoulders. ‘I need a word.’ For a big man, Brand could sneak up well enough when he wanted to.
Koll sent up a quick prayer to She Who Judges for mercy he knew he didn’t deserve. ‘To me? Whatever about?’
‘The Prince of Kalyiv.’
‘Ah!’ It said something that a man famous for skinning people alive was the preferable topic. ‘Him!’
‘Varoslaf is a bad man to cross,’ said Brand, ‘and Thorn’s got a habit of crossing those kind of people.’
‘True, though she’s a pretty bad woman to cross herself.’
Brand stared back at him. ‘Well there’s a recipe for a famous bloodbath, then.’
Koll cleared his throat. ‘I see your meaning.’
‘Just keep her out of trouble.’
‘She’s a hard woman to keep out of anything, especially trouble.’
‘Believe me when I say you’re telling me nothing I don’t know. Steer her away from trouble, then.’
Steering a ship through a tempest sounded lighter work but all Koll could do was puff out his cheeks. ‘I’ll do my best.’