Skara had a fine art at that. She smiled on her ragged recruits as gratefully as if it was the Prince of Kalyiv, the Empress of the South and a dozen dukes of Catalia pledging their aid.
‘Thank you for coming, my friends.’ She sat forward earnestly in Bail’s Chair. Small though she was, she had a way of filling it. ‘My countrymen.’
They couldn’t have looked more grateful if it was Ashenleer herself they were kneeling to. Their leader, an old warrior with a face scarred as a butcher’s block, cleared his throat. ‘Princess Skara-’
‘Queen Skara,’ corrected Sister Owd, with a prissy little pout. Plainly she was getting to like being out from Mother Scaer’s shadow. Raith rolled his eyes, but he hardly blamed her. Mother Scaer’s shadow could be dreadful chilly.
‘I’m sorry, my queen-’ mumbled the warrior.
But Skara hardly cast a shadow at all. ‘I am the one who should be sorry. That you have had to fight alone. I am the one who should be grateful. That you have come to fight for me.’
‘I fought for your father,’ said the man in a broken voice. ‘Fought for your grandfather. I’ll fight to the death for you.’ And the others all nodded along, heads bobbing.
It’s one thing to offer to die, quite another to fling yourself on the sharpened steel, specially if the only metal you’re used to wielding is a milking bucket. Not long ago Raith would’ve been sniggering with his brother over their fool’s loyalty. But Rakki was elsewhere, and Raith was finding it hard to laugh.
He’d always been sure of the best thing to do before, and it mostly had an axe on the end. That was the way things got done in Vansterland. But Skara had her own way of doing things, and he found he liked watching her do it. He liked watching her a lot.
‘Where have you come from?’ she was asking.
‘Most of us from Ockenby, my queen, or the farms outside.’
‘Oh, I know it! There are wonderful oak trees there-’
‘Till Bright Yilling burned ’em,’ spat out a woman whose face was hard as the hatchet at her belt. ‘Burned everything.’
‘Aye, but we showed him some fire.’ The warrior set his dirty hand on the shoulder of a young lad beside him. ‘Burned some of his forage. Burned a tent with some of his men inside.’
‘Should’ve seen ’em dance,’ growled the woman.
‘I got one of ’em when he went to piss!’ shouted the boy in a voice cracking between high and low, then his face went bright red and he stared at the floor. ‘My queen, that is …’
‘You’ve all done brave work.’ Raith saw the tendons stark on Skara’s thin hands as she gripped at the arms of Bail’s Chair. ‘Where is Yilling now?’
‘Gone,’ said the boy. ‘He had a camp on the beach at Harentoft, but they up and left overnight.’
‘When?’ asked Jenner.
‘Twelve days ago.’
The old raider tugged unhappily at his straggling beard. ‘That worries me.’
‘We’ve got his ships,’ said Raith.
‘But the High King’s got more. Yilling could be working mischief on any coast of the Shattered Sea by now.’
‘You’re a crowd of worries, old man,’ grunted Raith. ‘Would you be happier if he was still burning farms?’
‘No, I’d be worried then too. That’s what it is to be old.’
Skara held her hand up for quiet. ‘You need food, and a place to sleep. If you still wish to fight, we have arms taken from the High King’s men. Ships too.’
‘We’ll fight, my queen,’ said the old warrior, and the rest of the Throvenlanders, however wretched, all showed their most warlike faces. No doubt they’d got courage, but as Sister Owd herded them out to be fed Raith pictured them facing the High King’s countless warriors. The next picture wasn’t a pretty one.
As the doors were shut Skara slumped back in her chair with a groan, one hand to her stomach. Plainly all that smiling took a toll. ‘Is that six crews, now?’
‘And all willing to die for you, my queen,’ said Jenner.
Raith took a heavy breath. ‘If the High King’s army comes, dying’s just what they’ll be doing.’
Jenner opened his mouth but Skara held up her hand again. ‘He’s right. I may have a queen’s chair, but without Gorm and Uthil camped outside my walls I’m queen of nothing.’ She stood, the dangling jewels on her earring flashing. ‘And Gorm and Uthil, not to mention their idle warriors, are back at one another’s throats. I should see if they’ve made any progress.’
Raith wasn’t hopeful. On Jenner’s advice, Skara had finally talked the two kings into working on the defences: felling trees grown too close, shoring up the man-built stretch of wall and digging out the ditch. Getting them to agree to that much had been a whole day of minister’s wrangling. Skara gathered her skirts and with a lazy wave let Raith know he should follow.
Still made him bristle to take orders from a girl, and Jenner must’ve seen it. The old raider caught his arm. ‘Listen, boy. You’re a fighter, and the gods know, we need some. But the man who finds fights everywhere, well … soon enough he’ll find one fight too many.’
Raith curled his lip. ‘Everything I’ve got, I had to beat from the world with my fists.’
‘Aye. And what have you got?’
Might be the old man had some ghost of a point.
‘Just keep her safe, eh?’
Raith shook him off. ‘Keep worrying, old man.’
Outside in the sunlight Skara was shaking her head at the big stump in the yard. ‘I remember when a great Fortress Tree grew here. Sister Owd thinks it a bad omen that it was cut down.’
‘Some folk see omens everywhere.’ Most likely Raith should’ve been sticking my queen on the end of everything, but the words felt wrong in his mouth. He was no courtier.
‘And you?’
‘Always seemed to me the gods send luck to the man with the most fight and the least mercy. That’s what I saw, growing up.’
‘Where did you grow up? A wolf pack?’
Raith raised his brows. ‘Aye, more or less.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Not sure.’ Skara blinked at him, and he shrugged. ‘Wolves don’t count too well.’
She set off towards the gates, her thrall following them with her eyes on the ground. ‘Then how did you come to be sword-bearer to a king?’
‘Mother Scaer picked us out. Me and my brother.’
‘So you owe her.’
Raith thought of the minister’s hard eyes and hard lessons, hunched his shoulders at the memory of more than one whipping too. ‘Aye, I reckon.’
‘And you admire the Breaker of Swords.’
Raith thought of the slaps, and the orders, and the bloody work he’d done on the frontier. ‘He’s the greatest warrior about the Shattered Sea.’
Skara’s sharp eyes darted sideways. ‘So did he send you to guard me or spy on me?’
Raith was caught off-balance. Being honest, he hadn’t been on-balance since he was sent to serve her. ‘I daresay some of both. But I’m far better at guarding than spying.’
‘Or lying either, it would seem.’
‘My brother’s the clever one.’
‘So the Breaker of Swords doesn’t trust me?’
‘Mother Scaer says only your enemies can never betray you.’
Skara snorted as they stepped into the gloom of the elf-cut entrance tunnel. ‘Ministers.’
‘Aye, ministers. But here’s how I see it. Far as the guarding goes, I’ll die for you.’
She blinked at that, and the muscles in her neck fluttered as she swallowed, and he thought that quite a wonderful thing.
‘Far as the spying goes, I’m too blunt to cut too deep into your business.’
‘Ah.’ Her eyes flickered over his face. ‘You’re just a beautiful fool.’
Raith didn’t blush often, but he felt the blood hot in his cheeks then. He could dive into a shield-wall bristling with steel but a glance from this twig of a girl had his courage crumbling. ‘Er … beauty I’ll leave to you, I reckon. The fool part I won’t deny.’
‘Mother Kyre always said only stupid men proclaim themselves clever.’