Raith’s shoulders shifted as he shrugged. ‘Before I was Gorm’s servant, I was bad. After, I wasn’t always bad enough.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she muttered. Sorry that he’d been whipped. Sorry that she hardly knew what to say about it. They were so different, in every way. It made no sense that they could fit together. But when she slid her arm over his side and he slipped his fingers through hers they fitted together well enough. Maybe any living hand fits when Death is offering you hers.
‘What are we doing?’ he asked.
‘Holding hands.’
‘Tonight we are. What about tomorrow?’
‘I didn’t think you were much worried about tomorrow. It’s one of the things I like about you.’
‘Tomorrow used to seem a long way off. It got close of a sudden.’
The truth was she had no idea what they were doing, now or tomorrow. She had spent a lot of thought on what it might be like to have him. None at all on what she might do once she got him. It was like that puzzle box an emissary from Catalia had brought as a gift for her grandfather. Four days it had taken her to get it open and, once she had, there was another box inside.
In spite of Raith’s warmth she gave a shiver, whispered the words into his battered ear. ‘Do you think Bright Yilling will come tonight?’
‘He’s in no rush. Reckon he’ll wait for dawn.’
She thought of the blood tapping from the point of Yilling’s sword in the darkness and pressed herself tighter to Raith’s back.
‘King Uthil’s dead,’ she muttered. He had seemed a man forged from iron, indestructible. But she had seen him laid out pale and cold before Bail’s Chair.
‘Death waits for us all,’ said Raith. ‘All it takes is a stray pebble and no skill, no name, no fame can shield you from her.’
Skara glanced towards the door, torchlight around its edge. Out there, she had to be strong. Had to show no fear and no doubt. But no one can stay strong all the time. ‘We’re doomed,’ she whispered.
Finally he rolled towards her, but in the darkness she could hardly tell more from his face than from his back. Just the faint gleam of his eyes fixed on her, the hard set of his cheek. He didn’t speak. He didn’t deny it.
She gave a ragged sigh. ‘I missed my chance to jump off Gudrun’s Tower.’
‘I’ll admit it’s a lot lower than it was.’
She touched his chest, ran her fingertip through the few pale hairs there. ‘I suppose I should be ready to jump off one of the others.’
He caught her hand in his bandaged one. ‘Might be Blue Jenner could get you away. Like before.’
‘So I can be the one who always runs? A queen with no country? An object of contempt?’
‘Not to me. You’re about the best thing ever happened in my life.’
From the little he’d told her, his life had been horrible. ‘What comes second?’
She could just see his smile. ‘Rabbit stew, probably.’
‘Flatterer.’
His smile slowly faded. ‘Might be Blue Jenner could get both of us away.’
‘Gudrun and the stable-boy, living out their lives herding goats by a mountain stream?’
He shrugged again. ‘I’ve always liked goats.’
‘You’ve got a lot in common.’ She gripped his hand, looked into his eyes, trying to explain it to him. Trying to explain it to herself. ‘I am a queen, whether I feel like one or not. I can’t just be whoever I want to. I have to lead. I have to stand for Throvenland. The blood of Bail is in my veins.’
‘So you keep saying.’ He rubbed at the faint scar on her palm with his thumb. ‘I’d like to see it stay there.’
‘So would I. But my father died defending this place.’ She pulled her hand free of his. ‘I won’t run.’
‘I know. Nice to dream, though.’ He gave a weary groan as he started to sit up. ‘I should go.’
She caught him first, dragging him close, heard him sigh and felt all the resistance sag out of him. She liked the power she had over him. Not a queen’s power. Just her own.
‘You don’t want to stay?’ she whispered in his ear.
‘Can’t think of a queen whose bed I’d rather be in.’ He turned his head to look up at her. ‘Well, Laithlin is a damn handsome woman- ah!’
She caught him by the shoulder and pushed him down, slipping her leg over his hips so she straddled him. She kissed him, slow kisses while they still had time, while they still had breath, easing away a little with each one, smiling as she felt him straining up to meet her-
‘My queen!’
She could not have sprung from the bed more quickly had it been on fire, staring towards the door as it rattled from heavy knocks outside.
‘What is it?’ she called, getting her elbow caught in her shift and nearly tearing it in her hurry to pull it on.
‘My queen!’ Blue Jenner’s voice. ‘There are ships off the coast!’
‘Where the hell’s Raith?’ snapped Jenner as he followed Skara down the walls, her hood up against the drizzle.
‘Hiding in my bed,’ was most likely not the best answer, but a good liar mixes in truth wherever possible, and Skara was getting to be a better liar every day. ‘He hasn’t always been at my door the past few nights,’ she said, offhand. ‘I have a feeling he’s finding comfort with a girl.’
Jenner grunted. ‘Guess I can’t blame him.’
‘No.’ Skara hurried up the steps towards the roof of the Seaward Tower. ‘We have to take whatever comfort we can get.’
‘They were Gettlanders.’ Master Hunnan stood at the battlements, frowning into the night. ‘Six ships.’
‘Were?’ snapped Skara, stepping up beside him and staring out to Mother Sea, trying not to think of the long, long drop to the waves. Off to the north she saw lights on the water. Whoever they were, they had lamps burning, but they were already drifting away into the darkness. She felt her shoulders slump.
‘They tried to break through to the fortress but they were soon driven off,’ growled Hunnan. ‘They’re rowing back north fast as ever they can with a dozen of the High King’s ships following tight as hounds on a fox.’
Hope died like embers doused with ice, and Skara propped her fists on the battlements and frowned into the black sea, the smallest glimmer of moonlight on the waves.
‘Queen Laithlin’s ships, I reckon.’ Blue Jenner tugged thoughtfully at his beard. ‘But if their aim was to slip in why are they lit so brightly?’
Skara glimpsed a shadow flitting on the dark water and the embers of hope suddenly flared brighter than ever. ‘Because they were only a distraction. There!’ She threw an arm around Jenner’s shoulders, pointing with the other. She could see oars dipping now, a ship driving straight and swift towards the harbour.
‘I think she has doves for prow-beasts,’ murmured Hunnan.
‘It’s the South Wind!’ Skara hugged Blue Jenner tight. ‘Order the chains dropped!’
‘Drop the chains!’ roared the old sailor, hugging her every bit as hard. ‘Father Yarvi’s back!’
Part IV
Dawn
The hinges groaned, a crack of light showing down the middle of the gates, then widening. Dawn fell on the hard faces in the entrance passage. On Gorm’s scars. On Rulf and Jenner’s weather-battered cheeks. On Father Yarvi’s gaunt frown. It glinted at the corners of Skara’s eyes, the cords in her neck shifting as she swallowed.
‘You should stay here,’ said Raith, knowing she’d never agree.
She didn’t. ‘If we plan to surrender, I should be there.’
Raith glanced at Mother Scaer, hunched in the shadows, something bulky held under her coat, a gleam of dull metal showing as she shifted from one foot to the other.
‘We don’t plan to surrender,’ he said.
‘But we must seem to. And anyway.’ Skara set her thin shoulders under the weight of her mail, narrowing her eyes against the glare. ‘I mean to look Bright Yilling in the face when he dies.’