‘My queen!’ A boy was hurrying up from the docks, his boots squelching in the half-frozen mud. ‘There are three ships coming in! Their sails have the white horse of Kalyiv!’
‘Duke Varoslaf’s emissaries,’ said Jenner. ‘You want to greet them at the docks?’
Skara considered the message that would send. ‘We must not seem over-eager. Set a chair here, beneath the gable. It would be proper for them to come to me.’
Mother Owd smiled. ‘We must always think of what is proper.’
‘We must. And then, where necessary, ignore it.’
‘I’ll carve you a better one in due course, my queen.’ Koll thumped down one of the rough chairs the carpenters sat on while they ate. ‘But this might have to serve for now.’ And he flicked a little dirt from the seat with the side of his hand.
It was a simple old thing, and a little rickety, the wood blackened in places by fire.
‘It is not the chair that makes the queen,’ said Mother Owd. ‘But the queen that makes the chair.’
‘It must’ve come through the night Bright Yilling came,’ murmured Blue Jenner, ‘and survived.’
‘Yes.’ Skara smiled as she stroked its arm. ‘But so has Throvenland. And so have I.’
She sat, facing the sea, with Mother Owd at her left hand and Blue Jenner at her right. Chest up, shoulders down, chin high, the way Mother Kyre had taught her. Strange, how what had seemed so awkward once could feel so natural now.
‘Warn the emissaries my hall is still a little draughty,’ said Skara. ‘But the Queen of Throvenland is ready to receive them.’