‘Steer yourself away from trouble too.’
Koll grinned. ‘That I’ve always had a knack for.’ He looked hopefully towards Brand’s scarred and muscled arm. It did not move.
‘I’m not the sharpest man in Thorlby, Koll, I know that. But how thick do you think I am exactly?’
Koll winced so hard he closed one eye and peered at Brand out of the other. ‘Not my nose. It’s still not right after that white-haired bastard butted it.’
‘I’m not going to hit you, Koll. Rin can make her own choices. I reckon she made a fine one with you.’
‘You do?’
Brand looked at him calm and level. ‘Except you’re due to swear a Minister’s Oath, and give up all your family.’
‘Ah. The Oath.’ As though he’d hardly spared it a thought till now, when in fact he’d spent hours practising the words, thinking just how to say them, dreaming of what he’d do afterward, the high folk who’d nod at his wisdom, the grand choices he’d make, the greater good and the lesser evil he’d choose-
‘Yes, the Oath,’ said Brand. ‘Seems to me you’re stuck between Rin and Father Yarvi.’
‘Believe me when I say you’re telling me nothing I don’t know,’ mumbled Koll. ‘I’ve been praying to He Who Steers the Arrow for a point in the right direction.’
‘Finding him slow to reply?’
‘Father Yarvi says the gods love those who solve their own problems.’ Koll brightened. ‘You don’t have an answer, do you?’
‘Only the one you’ve already got.’
‘Ah.’
‘To pick one or the other.’
‘Ah. I don’t much like that one.’
‘No, but you’re a man now, Koll. You can’t just wait for someone else to put things right.’
‘I’m a man.’ Koll’s shoulders sagged. ‘When did that happen?’
‘It just happens.’
‘I wish I knew what it meant, being a man.’
‘Guess it means something different for each one of us. The gods know I’m no sage, but if I’ve realized anything, it’s that life isn’t about making something perfect.’ Brand looked over at Thorn, busy shaking her fist in the face of one of the queen’s warriors. ‘Death waits for us all. Nothing’s forever. Life’s about making the best of what you find along the way. A man who’s not content with what he’s got, well, more than likely he won’t be content with what he hasn’t.’
Koll blinked. ‘You’re sure you’re not a sage?’
‘Just be honest with her. She deserves that.’
‘I know she does,’ muttered Koll, looking guiltily down at the planks of the wharf.
‘You’ll do the right thing. If not, well …’ Brand drew him close. ‘I can hit you then.’
Koll sighed. ‘It’s good to have something to look forward to.’
‘I’ll see you when you get back.’ Brand saw him off with a slap on the shoulder. ‘Till then, stand in the light, Koll.’
‘You too, Brand.’
As he hopped aboard the queen’s ship Koll thought to himself, and not for the first time, that he was nowhere near as clever as he’d supposed. Something to remember, next time he got to thinking how clever he was.
He grinned at that. So much like something his mother would’ve said he almost thought it in her voice, and he gripped those old weights about his neck and looked up at the masthead, thinking of her screaming at him as he teetered there. He’d always hated his mother’s fussing. Now he’d have given everything he had to be fussed over again.
He turned to watch Queen Laithlin fussing over her son, the heir to the throne seeming tiny surrounded by slaves and servants, two hulking Ingling bodyguards with silver thrall-collars looming over him.
She adjusted his tiny cloak-buckle, and smoothed his blonde hair, and kissed him on the head, then turned towards the ship, one of her slaves kneeling on the wharf to make a step of his back for her.
‘All will be well here, my queen,’ called Brinyolf the Prayer-Weaver, one hand on Druin’s shoulder and the other raised in an elaborate blessing. ‘And may She Who Finds the Course steer you safely home!’
‘Bye bye!’ called the prince, and while his mother was raising her arm to wave he slipped from under Brinyolf’s hand and scurried off giggling towards the city, his attendants hurrying to catch him.
Laithlin dropped her hand and gripped tight to the rail. ‘I wish I could take him, but I trust Varoslaf only a little less than a snake. I have lost one son to the sword and another to the Ministry. I cannot lose a third.’
‘Prince Druin could not be safer, my queen,’ said Koll, doing his best to say what Father Yarvi would have. ‘Thorlby is far from the fighting and still well-guarded, her walls never conquered and the citadel impregnable.’
‘Bail’s Point was impregnable. You climbed in.’
Koll dared a grin. ‘How fortunate that men of my talents are rare, my queen.’
Laithlin snorted. ‘You have a minister’s humility, already.’
Thorn was the last aboard. ‘Be safe,’ Brand called to her as she stomped past him down the wharf.
‘Aye,’ she grunted, swinging one leg over the rail. She froze as Queen Laithlin’s shadow fell across her, stuck with one foot off the ship and one foot on.
‘Young love is a treasure truly wasted on the young,’ mused the queen, frowning up towards the city with her hands clasped behind her. ‘It is my place to know the value of things, so take it from me you will have nothing in your life more precious. Soon enough the green leaves turn brown.’ She peered down sternly at her Chosen Shield. ‘I think you can do better than that.’
Thorn winced. ‘You think I can, my queen, or you’re ordering me to?’
‘To a Chosen Shield, a queen’s every whim is a decree.’
Thorn took a deep breath, swung her leg onto the wharf, and stomped back to Brand.
‘Since my queen commands it,’ she muttered, using her fingers like a comb to push the stray hair out of his face. She caught him behind the head and dragged him close, kissed him long and greedily, squeezing him so hard she lifted his toes off the wharf while the oarsmen sent up a cheer, and laughed, and thumped their oars.
‘I hadn’t marked you for a romantic, my queen,’ murmured Koll.
‘It seems I have surprised us both,’ said Laithlin.
Thorn broke away, wiping her mouth, the elf-bangle at her wrist glowing golden. ‘I love you,’ Koll heard her grunt over the noise of the crew. ‘And I’m sorry. For the way I am.’
Brand grinned back, brushing the star-shaped scar on her cheek with his fingertips. ‘I love the way you are. Be safe.’
‘Aye.’ Thorn thumped him on the shoulder with her fist, then stalked back down the wharf and vaulted over the ship’s rail. ‘Better?’ she asked.
‘I am warmed all over,’ murmured Laithlin, with just the hint of a smile. She took one last glance towards the citadel, then nodded to the helmsman. ‘Cast off.’
Queen of Nothing
They filed into the hall, maybe three dozen, lean as beggars, dirty as thieves. A couple had swords. Others wood-axes, hunting bows, butcher’s knives. One girl with half a hedge in her matted hair clutched a spear made from a hoeing pole and an old scythe-blade.
Raith puffed out his cheeks, making the cut on his face burn. ‘Here come the heroes.’
‘Some fighters have a sword put into their hand in the training square.’ Blue Jenner leaned close to mutter in his ear. ‘Bred to it all their lives, like you. Some have an axe fall into their hand when Mother War spreads her wings.’ He watched the ragged company kneel awkwardly in a half circle before the dais. ‘Takes courage to fight when you didn’t choose it, weren’t trained for it, weren’t ready for it.’
‘Wasn’t no sword put in my hand, old man,’ said Raith. ‘I had to rip it from a hundred others by the sharp end. And it ain’t lack of courage bothers me, it’s lack of skill.’
‘Good thing you’ve a thousand picked warriors waiting. You can send them in next.’
Raith scowled sideways, but had naught to say. Rakki was the talker.
‘It ain’t the courageous or the skilful Mother War rewards.’ Jenner nodded towards the beggars. ‘It’s those who make the best of what they’ve got.’