‘As if I’m going to puke.’
‘I hear that’s just how a girl’s meant to feel on her wedding day.’
‘Is everything ready?’
If she had been hoping a great flood had swept the guests far out to sea she was disappointed. ‘You never saw the like! Queen Laithlin brought miles of white hangings with her, and the Hall of Whispers is all garlanded with autumn flowers and carpeted with autumn leaves. The statue of the One God lost its head and’ll soon lose its body and the Tall Gods back in charge where they belong. Say what you will about Grandfather Yarvi, he’s a man who gets things done.’
Skara puffed out her cheeks. ‘Grandfather Yarvi, now.’
‘Lot of people climbed up a way lately.’
‘Climbed up a hill of corpses.’ She adjusted the chain of pommels around her neck, Bright Yilling’s diamond flashing on her breastbone. ‘And none higher than me.’
Jenner was hardly listening. ‘Folk have come from all across the Shattered Sea. From Gettland and Throvenland and Vansterland. From Inglefold and the Lowlands and the Islands. Shends and Banyas and the gods know where some of ’em hale from for I surely don’t. I even saw some emissaries from Catalia, set out to speak to the High King and found there’s a new one since they left.’
‘How is the mood?’
‘There’s many raw wounds still, and always those who tend towards the sour, but mostly folk are happy Mother War’s folding her wings and Father Peace is smiling again. There are plenty who despise Gorm, plenty more who mistrust Yarvi, but the love for you goes a long way.’
‘For me?’
‘Your fame’s spread far and wide! The warrior-queen who fought for her land when there was no one else! The woman who laid Bright Yilling low but gave him succour as he died. Majesty and mercy combined, I heard. Ashenleer come again.’
Skara blinked at herself in the mirror. She remembered no succour between her and Yilling. Only that pouch of papers. She gave an acid burp, pressed her hand to her guts and wondered if Ashenleer had been plagued with fears in the stomach. ‘The truth and the songs rarely sit close together, do they?’ she muttered.
‘Not even in the same hall, but truth-telling isn’t what skalds are hired for.’ There was a pause, and Blue Jenner looked up at her from under his brows. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
She was very, very far from sure, but she did not need his doubts heaped on her own. ‘I made a deal. I cannot turn back even if I wanted to.’
‘But do you want to? Maybe there are worse men than the Breaker of Swords, but I think I know you, my queen. If you could pick anyone, I doubt he’s the husband you’d choose …’
Skara swallowed. The girl she had been before the flames took her grandfather’s hall might have longed to make a different choice. The girl who had pressed herself tight against Raith in the darkness, too. But she was not a girl any more.
She lifted her chin and regarded her advisor through narrowed eyes. She made herself look sure. ‘Then you do not know me as well as you think, Blue Jenner. Grom-gil-Gorm shall be made High King today. He is the most famed warrior about the Shattered Sea. An alliance between Vansterland and Throvenland will make us strong, and our people strong, and never again will men bring fire to Yaletoft in the night!’ She realized she was shouting, and forced her voice down. Forced her heart to be silent, and spoke with her head. ‘Gorm is the husband I would choose. The husband I have chosen.’
Blue Jenner looked down at his boots. ‘I never meant to doubt you-’
‘I know what you meant.’ Skara put her hand gently on his shoulder, and his eyes came up to hers, a little dewy. ‘You stood for me when no one else did, and I know you still stand for me. I pray you always will. But this is my duty. I will not turn from it.’ She could not. However much it hurt.
Blue Jenner gave that gap-toothed smile she had come to love, his weathered face filling with happy creases. ‘Then let’s get you married.’
They both turned as the door banged open. Mother Owd stood staring, her new robe too long and somewhat tangled with her feet, her chest heaving and a sheen of sweat on her pale forehead. One needed no great mind to see she was weighed down by heavy news.
‘Out with it,’ snapped Skara, sick tickling at the back of her throat.
‘My queen …’ Mother Owd swallowed, eyes round in her round face. ‘Grom-gil-Gorm is dead.’
Changing the World
‘I know it was you!’ snarled Mother Scaer, her rage filling the Hall of Whispers to the top, echoing back so savagely Koll hunched into his shoulders, ‘or that bitch of yours-’
‘If you are talking of Queen Skara she is neither a bitch nor is she mine.’ Grandfather Yarvi’s smile was as unmarked by Scaer’s fury as elf-stone by arrows. ‘If you knew I was responsible you would be presenting evidence, but I know you have none because I know I had nothing to do with it.’
Scaer opened her mouth but Yarvi talked over her. ‘We speak of Grom-gil-Gorm, Breaker of Swords and Maker of Orphans! He used to boast that no man had more enemies! Every pommel on that chain he wore was someone’s score in need of settling.’
‘And, after all …’ Koll spread his hands and tried to look as earnest as any man could. ‘Sometimes … people just die.’
Mother Scaer turned her freezing glare on him. ‘Oh, men will die over this, I promise you!’
Yarvi’s guards shifted unhappily, their faces hidden behind gilded face-plates but their elf-weapons on conspicuous display. The men who’d rowed the South Wind to Strokom had sickened. Three had died already. It seemed without Skifr’s magic beans the ruins were every bit as dangerous as the stories said. For now there would be no more relics brought from within, but Grandfather Yarvi found no shortage of men keen to carry the ones he had. The moment they took them up, after all, they were made stronger than any warrior in all the songs.
‘Have you really nothing better to do, Mother Scaer, than toss empty threats at my apprentice?’ Grandfather Yarvi gave a careless shrug. ‘Gorm died without an heir. Vansterland could fall into chaos, every warrior vying to prove himself the strongest. You must keep order, and ensure a new king is found without too much blood spilled.’
‘Oh, I shall find a new king.’ She glowered at Yarvi and growled the words. ‘Then I will dig out the truth of this and there will be a reckoning.’ She pointed up towards the statues of the Tall Gods with a clawing finger. ‘The gods see all! Their judgment is always waiting!’
Yarvi’s brow furrowed. ‘In my experience they take their time about it. Dig out whatever truth you please, but for now there shall be no High King. All the last one brought us was blood, and the Shattered Sea needs time to heal.’ He put his withered hand reluctantly on his own chest. ‘For now power shall rest with the Ministry, and Father Peace shall have his day.’
Mother Scaer gave a disgusted hiss. ‘Not even Grandmother Wexen presumed to set herself so high.’
‘This is for the greater good, not my own.’
‘So say all tyrants!’
‘If you despise my methods so, perhaps you should give up that elf-weapon you carry? Or is it not quite the evil you first feared?’
‘Sometimes one must fight evil with evil.’ Scaer looked towards Yarvi’s guards, and shifted the relic she carried beneath her coat. ‘If you have taught the world one lesson it is that.’
Yarvi’s frown hardened. ‘You should have the proper respect, Mother Scaer. For the office of Grandfather of the Ministry, if not the man who holds it.’
‘Here is all the respect I have for you at once.’ And she spat onto the floor at his feet. ‘You have not heard the last from me.’ And her footsteps clapped in the great space above as she stalked from the Hall of Whispers.
‘A shame.’ Yarvi wiped the spittle calmly away with his shoe. ‘When we were always such good friends. Still.’ And he turned to Koll with a grin at the corner of his mouth. ‘Enemies are the price of success, eh?’