Half a King

‘Back to the ships, and tell King Odem his nephew adorns the deep …’ And the voices faded towards the beach.

King Odem. His own uncle, who he had loved like a father, always there with a soothing word and an understanding smile and a steering hand on Yarvi’s shoulder. His own blood! Yarvi was clinging with his good hand but the bad one he bunched into a trembling fist, his father’s anger stealing up on him so strong he could hardly breathe for it. But his mother had always said, never worry about what has been done, only about what will be.

His mother.

He gave a needy sob at the thought of her. The Golden Queen always knew what should be done. But how to reach her? The ships of Gettland were already leaving. The Vanstermen would soon arrive. All Yarvi could do was wait for dark. Find some way back over the border and south to Thorlby.

There is always a way.

If he had to walk a hundred miles through the forest without boots he would do it. He would be revenged on his bastard uncle, and on that traitor Hurik, and he would take back the Black Chair. He swore it, over and over, as Mother Sun hid her face behind the rocks and the shadows lengthened.

He had not reckoned on that most ruthless of revengers, though, the tide. Soon the icy waves washed the shelf on which he clung. Over his bare feet rose the cold water, over his ankles, over his knees, and before long the sea was surging into that narrow space even more fiercely than before. He would have liked to weigh his choices, but for that you need more than one.

So he climbed. Shivering and weary, aching and cold, weeping and cursing the name of Odem with every slippery foot or handhold. It was an awful risk, but better than throwing himself on the mercy of Mother Sea for, as every sailor knows, she has none.

With a last effort he hauled himself over the brink and lay for a moment in the scrub, catching his breath. He groaned as he rolled over, began to stand.

Something cracked him on the side of the head, tore a cry from him and filled his skull with light. The land reeled and struck him on the side. He crawled up groggy, drooling blood.

‘A Gettland dog, judging by his hair.’ And he squealed as he was dragged up by it.

‘A pup, at least.’ A boot caught Yarvi’s arse and dumped him on his face. He scrambled a pace or two and was kicked down again. Two men were herding him. Two mailed men with spears. Vanstermen, no doubt, though apart from the long braids about their hard faces they looked little different to the warriors who had frowned at him in the training square.

To the unarmed, armed men all look the same.

‘Up,’ said one, rolling him over with another kick.

‘Then stop kicking me down,’ he gasped.

They gave him a spear butt on the other side of his face for that, and he resolved to make no more jokes. One of them hauled him up by the collar of his torn shirt and half-dragged him, half-marched him on.

There were warriors everywhere, some on horseback. Peasants too, perhaps townsfolk who had fled at the sight of ships, returned to the ruins of their homes, soot-smeared and tear-streaked, to dig through the wreckage. Bodies were laid out for burning: their shrouds flapped and tugged in the sea wind.

But Yarvi needed all his pity for himself.

‘Kneel, dog.’ He was sent sprawling once more and this time saw no pressing need to rise, moaning with each breath and his battered mouth one great throb.

‘What do you bring me?’ came a clear voice, high and wandering, as if it sang a song.

‘A Gettlander. He climbed from the sea beside the holdfast, my king.’

‘The Mother of Waters washes up strange bounty. Look upon me, sea creature.’

Yarvi slowly, fearfully, painfully raised his head and saw two great boots capped with scuffed steel. Then baggy trousers, striped red and white. Then a heavy belt with a golden buckle, the hilts of a great sword and four knives. Then mail of steel with zigzag lines of gold forged in. Then a white fur about great shoulders, the wolf’s head still on, garnets set into its empty eyes. Upon it, a chain of jumbled lumps of gold and silver, precious stones winking: pommels twisted from the swords of fallen enemies, so many that the chain was looped three times about a trunk of a neck and still hung low. Finally, so high above Yarvi that the man stood a giant, a craggy face, lop-sided as a wind-blown tree, long hair and beard hanging wild and streaked with silver-grey, but about the twisted mouth and eyes a smile. The smile of a man who studies beetles, wondering which to squash.

‘Who are you, person?’ asked the giant.

‘A cook’s boy.’ The words were clumsy in Yarvi’s bloodied mouth, and he tried to work his crippled hand into his damp shirt sleeve so it could not betray him. ‘I fell into the sea.’ A good liar weaves as much truth into the cloth as they can, Mother Gundring once told him.

‘Shall we play a guessing game?’ the giant asked, winding a strand of his long hair around and around one finger. ‘Of what my name might be?’

Yarvi swallowed. He did not need to guess. ‘You are Grom-gil-Gorm, Breaker of Swords and Maker of Orphans, King of the Vanstermen.’

‘You win!’ Gorm clapped his massive hands. ‘Though what you win remains to be seen. I am King of the Vanstermen. Lately including these ill-doomed wretches that your countrymen of Gettland have so freely robbed, butchered, and stolen as slaves, against the wishes of the High King in Skekenhouse, who has asked that swords stay sheathed. He loves to spoil our fun, but there it is.’ Gorm’s eyes wandered over the scene of ruin. ‘Does this strike you as just, cook’s boy?’

‘No,’ croaked Yarvi, and he did not have to lie.

A woman stepped up beside the king. Her hair was shaved to black-and-grey stubble, her long, white arms covered from shoulder to finger with blue designs. Some Yarvi recognized from his studies: charts for the reckoning of the future in the stars, circles within circles in which the relationships of the small gods were plotted, runes that told of times and distances and amounts permitted and forbidden. About one forearm five elf-bangles were stacked, relics of great age and value, gold and steel and bright glass flashing, talismans worked with symbols whose meanings were drowned in the depths of time.

And Yarvi knew this must be Mother Scaer, Gorm’s minister. She who sent the dove to Mother Gundring, luring Yarvi’s father to his death with promises of peace.

‘What King of Gettland ordered such slaughter?’ she asked, her voice every bit as harsh as a dove’s.

‘Odem.’ And Yarvi realized with some pain it was the truth.

Her lip wrinkled as if at a sour taste. ‘So the fox killed his brother the wolf.’

‘Treacherous beasties.’ Gorm sighed, turning a pommel absently around and around on his chain. ‘It was sure to come. As surely as Mother Sun follows Father Moon across the sky.’

‘You killed King Uthrik,’ Yarvi found he’d spat from his bloody mouth.

‘Do they say so?’ Gorm raised his great arms, the weapons at his belt shifting. ‘Then why do I not boast of it? Why are my skalds not setting the story to song? Would my triumph not make a merry tune?’ He laughed, and let his arms drop. ‘My hands are bloody to the shoulder, cook’s boy, for of all things blood pleases me the most. But, sad to say, not all men that die are killed by me.’

One of the daggers had eased forward in his belt, its horn handle pointing toward Yarvi. He could have snatched it. Had he been his father, or his brother, or brave Keimdal who died trying to protect his king, he might have lunged for that blade, sunk it into Grom-gil-Gorm’s belly and fulfilled his solemn oath for vengeance.

‘Do you want this bauble?’ Gorm drew the knife now, and held it out to Yarvi by the bright blade. ‘Then take it. But you should know that Mother War breathed upon me in my crib. It has been foreseen that no man can kill me.’

How huge he seemed, against the white sky, hair blowing, and mail shining, and the warm smile on his battle-weathered face. Had Yarvi sworn vengeance against this giant? He, half-man, with his one thin, white hand? He would have laughed at the arrogance of it were he not shivering with cold and fear.

‘He should be pegged on the beach and his guts unwound for the crows,’ said Gorm’s minister, her blue eyes fixed on Yarvi.

‘So you always say, Mother Scaer.’ Gorm slid the knife back into his belt. ‘But the crows never thank me. This is just a little boy. It is hardly as if this outrage was his idea.’ Truer than he knew. ‘Unlike the noble King Odem, I do not need to swell myself with the killing of weak things.’

‘What of justice?’ The minister frowned over at the shrouded bodies, muscles working on the sides of her shaven head. ‘The low folk are hungry for vengeance.’

Gorm pushed out his lips and made a farting sound. ‘It is the lot of low folk to be hungry. Have you learned nothing from the Golden Queen of Gettland, wise and beautiful Laithlin? Why kill what you can sell? Collar him and put him with the others.’

Yarvi squawked as one of the men dragged him up while another snapped a collar of rough iron around his neck.

‘If you change your mind about the knife,’ Gorm called after him, smiling all the while, ‘you can seek me out. Fare you well, ex-cook’s boy!’

‘Wait!’ hissed Yarvi, realizing what was to come, mind racing for some trick to put it off. ‘Wait!’

‘For what?’ asked Mother Scaer. ‘Stop his bleating.’

A kick in the stomach left him breathless. They forced him limp upon an old stump, and while one held him gasping the other brought the pin, yellow-hot from the forge, and worked it through the clasp of his collar with pincers. The first struck it with a hammer to squash it fast but he bungled the task, caught the pin a glancing blow and scattered molten iron across Yarvi’s neck.

He had never known pain like it, and he shrieked like a boiling kettle and sobbed and blubbered and writhed on the block, and one of them took him by his shirt and flung him in a fetid pool so the iron hissed cold.