LITMIR.BIZ

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and Small Gods to grant fertility in their fields, and obedience in their slaves, and no one would have been surprised by a plea for regularity in their bowels next. Yarvi hunched his shoulders, swamped by one of the heavy furs his father used to wear, dreading the magnitude of Brinyolf’s blessing at the wedding itself.

      ‘Oh, She of the Ewer, pour prosperity upon this royal couple, upon their parents and their subjects, and upon all of Gettland!’

      The prayer-weaver stepped back, smug as a new parent, his chin vanishing into the roll of fat beneath it.

      ‘I shall be brief,’ said Mother Gundring, with the slightest knowing glance at Yarvi. He spluttered on a stifled laugh, then caught his mother’s eye upon him, cold as the winter sea, and had no need to stifle another.

      ‘A kingdom stands upon two pillars,’ spoke the old minister. ‘We already have a strong king.’ No one laughed. Admirable self control. ‘Soon, gods willing, we will have a strong queen also.’ Yarvi saw Isriun’s pale throat flutter as she swallowed.

      Mother Gundring beckoned forward Yarvi’s mother and his Uncle Odem, the one person who looked happy to be in attendance, to give their blessing by placing their hands upon the bundle. Then with an effort she lifted high her staff, tubes and rods of the same elf-metal as the Black Chair gleaming, and called out, ‘They are promised!’

      So it was done. Isriun was not asked for an opinion on the matter, and neither was Yarvi. It seemed there was little interest in the opinions of kings. Certainly not of this one. The audience, a hundred strong or more, served up restrained applause. The men – heads of some of Gettland’s greatest families, sword-hilts and cloak-buckles set with gold – beat approval on broad chests with heavy fists. On the other side of the hall the women – hair glistening with fresh oil and their household keys hung on best jewel-lustred chains – tapped fingers politely in their scented palms.

      Mother Gundring unwrapped the sacred cloth and Yarvi snatched free his good hand, sticky-pink and tingling. His uncle seized him by the shoulders and said into his ear, ‘Well done!’, though Yarvi had done nothing but stand there and sing some promises he hardly understood.

      The guests filed out, and Brinyolf closed the doors of the hall with an echoing clap, leaving Yarvi and Isriun alone with the gods, the Black Chair, the weight of their uncertain future, and an ocean of awkward silence.

      Isriun rubbed gently at the hand that had held Yarvi’s, and looked at the floor. He looked at the floor too, not that there was anything so very interesting down there. He cleared his throat. He shifted his sword-belt. It still hung strangely on him. He felt as if it always would. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, at last.

      She looked up, one eye shining in the heavy darkness. ‘Why are you sorry?’ Then she remembered to add uncertainly, ‘my king?’

      He almost said That you’ll have half a man for a husband, but settled for, ‘That you’re passed around my family like a feast-day cup.’

      ‘On feast-day, everyone’s happy to get the cup.’ She gave a bitter little smile. ‘I’m the one who should be sorry. Imagine me a queen.’ And she snorted as though there never was a more foolish joke.

      ‘Imagine me a king.’

      ‘You are a king.’

      He blinked at that. He had been so fixed on his shortcomings it had never occurred she might be fixed on her own. That thought, as the misery of others often can, made him feel just a little better.

      ‘You manage your father’s household.’ He looked down at the golden key hanging on her chest. ‘That’s no small task.’

      ‘But a queen manages the business of a country! Everyone says your mother has a high art at it. Laithlin, the Golden Queen!’ She spoke the name like a magic spell. ‘They say she’s owed a thousand thousand favours, that a debt to her is a matter for pride. They say her word is valued higher than gold among merchants, because gold may go down in worth but her word never does. They say some traders of the far north have given up praying to the gods and worship her instead.’ She spoke faster and faster, and chewed at her nails, and tugged at one thin hand with the other, eyes opening very wide. ‘There’s a rumour she lays silver eggs.’

      Yarvi had to laugh. ‘I’m reasonably sure that one’s false.’

      ‘But she’s raised granaries and had channels dug and brought more earth under the plough so there’ll never again be a famine that forces folk to draw lots to see who must find new homes across the sea.’ Isriun’s shoulders drifted up as she spoke until they were hunched about her ears. ‘And people flock to Thorlby from across the world to trade, so the city’s tripled in size and split its walls and your mother’s built new walls and split them again.’

      ‘True, but—’

      ‘I’ve heard she has a mighty scheme to stamp every coin of one weight, and these coins will pass through all the lands about the Shattered Sea, so that every trade will be made with her face, and make her richer even than the High King in Skekenhouse! How will … I?’ Isriun’s shoulders slumped and she flicked at the key on her chest and set it swinging by its chain. ‘How can the likes of me—’

      ‘There’s always a way.’ Yarvi caught Isriun’s hand in his before she could get her vanishing nails to her teeth again. ‘My mother will help you. She’s your aunt, isn’t she?’

      ‘She’ll help me?’ Instead of pulling her hand away she drew him closer by it. ‘Your father may have been a great warrior but I rather think he was your less fearsome parent.’

      Yarvi smiled, but he did not deny it. ‘You were luckier. My uncle’s always as calm as still water.’

      Isriun glanced nervously towards the door. ‘You don’t know my father like I do.’

      ‘Then … I’ll help you.’ He had held her hand half the morning and it could have been a dead fish in his clammy palm. Now it felt like something else entirely – strong, and cool, and very much alive. ‘Isn’t that the point of a marriage?’

      ‘Not just that.’ She seemed suddenly very close, taper-light reflected in the corners of her eyes, teeth shining between parted lips.

      There was a smell to her, not sweet and not sour, he could not name it. Faint, but it made his heart jump.

      He did not know if he should close his eyes, then she did, so he did, and their noses bumped awkwardly.

      Her breath tickled at his cheek and made his skin flush hot. Frighteningly hot.

      Her lips just barely brushed his and he broke away with all the dignity of a startled rabbit, caught his leg on his sword and nearly fell over it.

      ‘Sorry,’ she said, shrinking back and staring at the floor.

      ‘It’s me who should be sorry.’ For a king Yarvi spent a great deal of his time apologizing. ‘I’m the sorriest man in Gettland. No doubt my brother gave you a better kiss. More practice … I suppose.’

      ‘All your brother did was talk about the battles he’d win,’ she muttered at her feet.

      ‘No danger of that with me.’ He could not have said why he did it – to shock her, or as revenge for the failed kiss, or simply to be honest – but he held up his crooked hand, shaking his sleeve free so it was between them in all its ugliness.

      He expected her to flinch, to pale, to step away, but she only looked thoughtfully at it. ‘Does it hurt?’

      ‘Not really … sometimes.’

      She reached out, then, sliding her fingers around his knobbled knuckles and pressing at the crooked palm with her thumb while the breath stopped in his throat. No one had ever touched that hand as if it was just a hand. A piece of flesh with feelings like any other.

      ‘I heard you beat Keimdal in the square even so,’ she said.

      ‘I only gave the order.

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