LITMIR.BIZ

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Gundring shrugged. ‘It is rare to have a prince of royal blood join the Ministry.’

      ‘No doubt she’ll be as disappointed as everyone else that I’ve taken the Black Chair instead.’

      ‘Grandmother Wexen is wise enough to make the best of what the gods serve her. As must we all.’

      Yarvi’s eyes slid across the rest of the cages, seeking a distraction. Pitiless though they were, the eyes of the birds were easier to bear than those of his disappointed subjects.

      ‘Which dove brought the message from Grom-gil-Gorm?’

      ‘I sent it back to Vansterland. To his minister, Mother Scaer, carrying your father’s agreement to a parley.’

      ‘Where was the meeting to be?’

      ‘On the border, near the town of Amwend. Your father never reached the place.’

      ‘He was ambushed in Gettland?’

      ‘So it appears.’

      ‘It does not seem like my father, to be so keen to end a war.’

      ‘War,’ croaked one of the doves. ‘End a war.’

      Mother Gundring frowned at the grey-spattered floor. ‘I counselled him to go. The High King has asked for all swords to be sheathed until his new temple to the One God is completed. I never suspected even a savage like Grom-gil-Gorm would betray the sacred word given.’ She made a fist, as though she would strike herself, then slowly let it uncurl. ‘It is a minister’s task to smooth the way for Father Peace.’

      ‘But had my father no men with him? Had he—’

      ‘My king.’ Mother Gundring looked at him from under her brows. ‘We must go down.’

      Yarvi swallowed, his stomach seeming to jump up his throat and wash his mouth with sour spit. ‘I’m not ready.’

      ‘No one ever is. Your father was not.’

      Yarvi made a sound then, half a laugh, half a sob, and wiped tears on the back of his crooked hand. ‘Did my father weep after he was betrothed to my mother?’

      ‘In fact, he did,’ said Mother Gundring. ‘For several years. She, on the other hand …’

      And Yarvi gurgled up a laugh despite himself. ‘My mother’s even meaner with her tears than her gold.’ He looked up at the woman who had been his teacher, would now be his minister, that face full of kindly lines, the bright eyes filled with concern, and found he had whispered, ‘You’ve been like a mother to me.’

      ‘And you like a son to me. I am sorry, Yarvi. I am sorry for everything but … this is the greater good.’

      ‘The lesser evil.’ Yarvi fussed at his stub of a finger, and blinked up at the birds. The many doves, and the one great eagle. ‘Who will feed them now?’

      ‘I will find someone.’ And Mother Gundring offered her bony hand to help him up. ‘My king.’

       PROMISES

      It was a great affair.

      Many powerful families in the far reaches of Gettland would be angered that news of King Uthrik’s death had barely reached them before he was burned, denying them the chance to have their importance noted at an event that would live so long in the memory.

      No doubt the all-powerful High King on his high chair in Skekenhouse, not to mention the all-knowing Grandmother Wexen at his elbow, would be far from delighted that they received no invitation, as Mother Gundring was keen to point out. But Yarvi’s mother forced through her clenched teeth, ‘Their anger is dust to me.’ Laithlin might have been queen no longer but no other word would fit her, and Hurik still hovered huge and silent at her shoulder, sworn forever to her service. Once she spoke it was a thing already done.

      The procession passed from the Godshall through the yard of the citadel, grass littered with the sites of Yarvi’s many failures, under the limbs of the great cedar his brother used to mock him for being unable to climb.

      Yarvi went at the fore, of course, his mother overshadowing him in every sense at his shoulder and Mother Gundring struggling to keep up behind, bent over her staff. Uncle Odem led the king’s household, warriors and women in their best. Slaves came behind, collars rattling and their eyes on the ground where they belonged.

      Yarvi glanced up nervously as they passed through the one entrance tunnel, saw the bottom edge of the Screaming Gate gleam in the darkness, ready to drop and seal the citadel against any enemy. It was said to have been let fall only once, and that long before he was born, but still he swallowed as he always did when he passed beneath it. A mountain’s weight of polished copper hanging by a single pin tended to rattle the nerves.

      Especially when you were about to burn half your family.

      ‘You’re doing well,’ Yarvi’s uncle whispered in his ear.

      ‘I am walking.’

      ‘You are walking like a king.’

      ‘I am a king and I am walking. How could it be otherwise?’

      Odem smiled at that. ‘Well said. My king.’

      Over his uncle’s shoulder Yarvi caught Isriun smiling at him too, the torch she carried setting a gleam to her eyes and the chain about her neck. Soon the key to the treasury of Gettland would hang upon it, and she would be queen. His queen, and the thought gave him hope amidst his fears like a spark in the darkness.

      They all carried torches, a snake of lights through the gathering gloom, though the wind had snatched out half the flames by the time the procession passed through the city’s gates and onto the bare hillside.

      The king’s own ship, the best in Thorlby’s crowded harbour, twenty oars upon a side and its high prow and tail carved as finely as anything in the Godshall, was dragged by honoured warriors to the chosen place among the dunes, keel grinding out a snaking trench in the sand. The same ship in which King Uthrik had sailed across the Shattered Sea on his famous raid to Sagenmark. The same ship which had wallowed low in the water with slaves and plunder when he returned in triumph.

      On its deck they laid the pale bodies of the king and his heir upon a bier of fine swords, for Uthrik’s fame as a warrior had stood second only to his dead brother Uthil’s. All Yarvi could think was how that showed great warriors die no better than other men.

      And usually sooner.

      Rich offerings were placed about the dead in the manner the prayer-weaver judged the gods would most appreciate. Weapons and armour the king had won in battle. Armrings of gold, coins of silver. Treasures heaped glittering. Yarvi put a jewelled cup in his brother’s fists, and his mother put a cloak of white fur over the dead king’s shoulders, and placed one hand upon his chest, and stood looking down, her jaw clenched tight, until Yarvi said, ‘Mother?’

      She turned without a word and led him to the chairs on the hillside, the sea wind catching the brown grass and setting it thrashing about their feet. Yarvi squirmed for a comfortable position in that hard, high seat, his mother motionless on his right with Hurik a huge shadow behind her, Mother Gundring perched on a stool at his left hand, her staff clutched in one bony fist, the twisted elf-metal alive with reflected flames from the rustling torches.

      Yarvi sat between his two mothers. One who believed in him. One who had given birth to him.

      Mother Gundring leaned close then and said softly, ‘I am sorry, my king. This is not what I wanted for you.’

      Yarvi could show no weakness now. ‘We must make the best of what the gods serve us,’ he said. ‘Even kings.’

      ‘Especially kings,’ grated out his mother, and gave the signal.

      Two dozen horses were led onto the ship, hooves clattering at the timbers, and slaughtered

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