Half a War - Джо Аберкромби

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a minister beside them,’ said Mother Scaer. ‘To help pick out the lesser evil.’

      Yarvi frowned across the hall at her. ‘And the greater good.’

      ‘Precisely. My apprentice Sister Owd is well versed in the languages and laws of the Shattered Sea, and a deep-cunning healer besides.’

      Raith almost laughed. Blinking gormlessly sideways at her mistress, Sister Owd looked about as deep-cunning as a turnip.

      ‘That is good,’ said Gorm, ‘but the princess must be as well guarded as she is advised.’

      Laithlin’s voice was icy. ‘My cousin has my warriors to protect her.’

      ‘And who will protect her from them? I offer you my own sword-bearer.’ Gorm’s weighty hand slapped down on Raith’s shoulder, as shocking as a stroke of lightning, and struck his laughter dead. ‘My own cup-filler. I trust my life to him every time I drink and I drink often. Raith will sleep outside your door, princess, and guard it faithfully as any hound.’

      ‘I’d sooner have a nest of snakes outside her bedchamber,’ snarled Thorn Bathu, and Raith was no happier. He could’ve gazed at Skara all the long day, but being ripped from the place he’d fought for and made her slave was nowhere near so pleasing.

      ‘My king—’ he hissed, as angry voices were raised all about the room. For years Raith and his brother had served their king together. That he could be so easily tossed aside was like a knife in him. And who’d watch over Rakki? Raith was the strong one, they both knew that.

      Gorm’s hand pressed heavier. ‘She is Laithlin’s cousin,’ he murmured. ‘Almost a Gettlander. Stick close to her.’

      ‘But I should fight beside you, not play nursemaid to some—’

      The great fingers squeezed so crushing hard they made Raith gasp. ‘Never make me ask twice.’

      ‘Friends! Please!’ called Skara. ‘We have too many enemies to argue with each other! I gratefully accept your advice, Sister Owd. And your protection, Raith.’

      Raith glanced around the hall, feeling all those cold eyes on him. His king had spoken. He’d no more say than a dog does in his master’s hunt.

      The legs of his chair shrieked as he stood and numbly unslung Gorm’s great sword from his shoulder. The sword he’d been cleaning, polishing, carrying, sleeping with for three years. So long he felt lop-sided without its weight. He wanted to fling it down, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. In the end he set it meekly beside his chair, gave his astonished brother a parting pat on the shoulder, and in one moment went from a king’s sword-bearer to a princess’ lapdog.

      His scraping footsteps echoed in the disapproving silence and Raith dropped numbly into a chair beside his new mistress, thoroughly beaten without even getting the chance to fight.

      ‘Shall we return to the business of war?’ grated out King Uthil, and the moot lurched on.

      Skara didn’t so much as glance at her new pet. Why would she? They might as well have come from different worlds. She seemed to Raith as sharp and perfect as a relic made by elf-hands. As calm, and confident, and serene in this high company as a mountain lake under the stars.

      A girl – or a woman – with no fear in her.

       Bail’s Blood

      Skara had hardly been more scared when she faced Bright Yilling.

      She had not slept an instant for the endless ploughing over of what to say and how to say it, weighing Mother Kyre’s lessons, remembering her grandfather’s example, muttering prayers into the darkness to She Who Spoke the First Word.

      She had not eaten a scrap of breakfast for the endless nervous churning of her guts. She felt as if her arse was about to drop right out, kept wondering what would happen if she let blast a great fart in the midst of this exalted company.

      She clung white-knuckle-tight to the arms of her chair as though it was adrift on a stormy sea. Angry faces swam from the gloom of the Godshall and she struggled to study them as Mother Kyre had taught her. To read them, to riddle out the doubts and hopes and secrets behind them, to find what could be used.

      She closed her eyes, repeating her grandfather’s words over and over in her thoughts. You were always a brave one, Skara. Always a brave one. Always a brave one.

      The young Vansterman, Raith, was hardly lending her confidence. He was striking, all right. Striking as an axe to the throat, his face pale and hard as chiselled silver, a deep nick cut from one battered ear, his forehead angrily furrowed, his short-clipped hair and his scarred brows and even his eyelashes all white, as if all sentiment had been wrung out of him and left only cold scorn.

      They might as well have come from different worlds. He looked tough and savage as a fighting dog, calm and disdainful in this deadly company as a wolf at the head of his own pack. He would have seemed in his right place smirking among Bright Yilling’s Companions, and Skara swallowed sour spit, and tried to pretend he was not there.

      ‘Death waits for us all.’ King Uthil’s grinding voice echoed at her as if he stood at the top of a well and she was drowning at the bottom. ‘The wise warrior favours the sword. He strikes for the heart, confounds and surprises his enemy. Steel is the answer, always. We must attack.’

      A predictable rattling of approval rose from Uthil’s side of the hall, a predictable grunting of disgust from Gorm’s.

      ‘The wise warrior does not rush into Death’s arms. He favours the shield.’ Gorm laid a loving hand on the great black shield Raith’s twin carried. ‘He draws his enemy onto his own ground, and on his own terms crushes him.’

      King Uthil snorted. ‘What has favouring the shield won you? In this very hall I challenged you and from this very hall you skulked like a beaten dog.’

      Sister Owd worked her way forward. Her face reminded Skara of the peaches that used to grow outside the walls of Bail’s Point: soft, round, blotched with pink and fuzzed with downy hair. ‘My kings, this is not helpful—’

      But Grom-gil-Gorm boomed over her like thunder over birdsong. ‘The last time Gettlanders and Vanstermen faced each other your famous sword went missing from the square, Iron King. You sent a woman to fight in your place and I defeated her, but chose to let her live—’

      ‘We can try it again whenever you please, you giant turd,’ snarled Thorn Bathu.

      Skara saw Raith’s hand grip the arm of his chair. A big, pale hand, scarred across the thick knuckles. A hand whose natural shape was a fist. Skara caught his wrist and made sure she stood first.

      ‘We must find some middle ground!’ she called. More of a desperate shriek, in truth. She swallowed as every eye turned towards her, hostile as a rank of levelled spears. ‘Surely the wisest warrior uses shield and sword together, each at the proper time.’

      It seemed hard to argue with, but the moot found a way. ‘Those who bring ships should speak on the strategy,’ said King Uthil, blunt as a birch-club.

      ‘You bring only one crew to our alliance,’ said King Gorm, fondling his chain.

      ‘It’s a good one,’ observed Jenner. ‘But I can’t argue it’s more than one.’

      Sister Owd made another effort. ‘The proper rules of a moot, laid down by Ashenleer in the depths of history, give equal voice to each party to an alliance, regardless of … regardless …’ She caught sight of her erstwhile mistress, Mother Scaer, giving her the frostiest glare imaginable, and her voice died a slow death in the great spaces of the Godshall.

      Skara had to struggle to keep her voice level. ‘I would have brought more ships if my grandfather was alive.’

      ‘But he is dead,’ answered Uthil,

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