Half the World

‘Oh, gods,’ she whispered.

‘They rarely help.’ Father Yarvi stood frowning in the doorway. ‘What happened?’

‘He had poison,’ muttered Thorn, pointing weakly at the fallen jar. ‘Or … I think he did …’

The minister squatted beside the dead man. ‘You have a habit of killing people, Thorn Bathu.’

‘That’s a bad thing,’ she said in a voice very small.

‘It does rather depend on who you kill.’ Yarvi slowly stood, looked about the room, walked over to her, peering at her face. ‘He hit you?’

‘Well … no—’

‘Yes.’ He punched her in the mouth and she sprawled against the table. By then he was already throwing the door wide. ‘Bloodshed in King Fynn’s hall! To arms! To arms!’

First came Rulf, who blinked down at the corpse and softly said, ‘That works.’

Then came guards, who blinked down at the corpse and made their weapons ready.

Then came the crew, who shook their shaggy heads and rubbed their stubbled jaws and murmured prayers.

And finally came King Fynn.

Thorn had moved among the powerful since she killed Edwal. She had met five ministers and three kings, one of them High, and the only one to impress her was the one who killed her father. Fynn might have been famed for his anger, but the first thing that struck Thorn was what a strangely shapeless man the King of Throvenland was. His chin melted into his neck, his neck into his shoulders, his shoulders into his belly, his sparse grey hairs in wafting disarray from the royal bed.

‘Kneeling isn’t your strength, is it?’ hissed Rulf, dragging Thorn down along with everyone else. ‘And for the gods’ sake fasten your damn belt!’

‘What happened here?’ roared the king, spraying his wincing guards with spit.

Thorn kept her eyes down as she fumbled with her buckle. Crushing with rocks looked inevitable now. Certainly for her. Possibly for the rest of the crew too. She saw the looks on their faces. This is what happens if you give a girl a blade. Even a little one.

Mother Kyre, immaculate even in her nightclothes, took up the fallen jar between finger and thumb, sniffed at it and wrinkled her nose. ‘Ugh! Poison, my king.’

‘By the gods!’ Yarvi put his hand on Thorn’s shoulder. The same hand he had just punched her with. ‘If it wasn’t for this girl’s quick thinking, I and my crew might have passed through the Last Door before morning.’

‘Search every corner of my hall!’ bellowed King Fynn. ‘Tell me how this bastard got in!’

A warrior who had knelt to root through the dead man’s clothes held out his palm, silver glinting. ‘Coins, my king. Minted in Skekenhouse.’

‘There is altogether too much from Skekenhouse in my hall of late.’ Fynn’s quivering jowls had a pink flush. ‘Grandmother Wexen’s coins, Grandmother Wexen’s eagles, Grandmother Wexen’s demands too. Demands of me, the King of Throvenland!’

‘But think of your people’s welfare, my king,’ coaxed Mother Kyre, still clinging to her smile, but it hardly touched her mouth now, let alone her eyes. ‘Think of Father Peace, Father of Doves, who makes of the fist—’

‘I have suffered many indignities on behalf of Father Peace.’ The flush had spread to King Fynn’s cheeks. ‘Once the High King was the first among brothers. Now he gives a father’s commands. How men should fight. How women should trade. How all should pray. Temples to the One God spring up across Throvenland like mushrooms after the rains, and I have held my tongue!’

‘You were wise to do so,’ said Mother Kyre, ‘and would be wise to—’

‘Now Grandmother Wexen sends assassins to my land?’

‘My king, we have no proof at all—’

Fynn bellowed over his minister, doughy face heating from pink to blazing crimson. ‘To my very house? To poison my guests?’ He stabbed at the corpse with one sausage of a finger. ‘Beneath my own roof and under my protection?’

‘I would counsel caution—’

‘You always do, Mother Kyre, but there is a limit on my forbearance, and the High King has stepped over it!’ With face now fully purple he seized Father Yarvi’s good hand. ‘Tell my beloved niece Queen Laithlin and her honoured husband that they have a friend in me. A friend whatever the costs! I swear it!’

Mother Kyre had no smile ready for this moment, but Father Yarvi certainly did. ‘Your friendship is all they ask for.’ And he lifted King Fynn’s hand high.

The guards cheered this unexpected alliance between Throvenland and Gettland with some surprise, the South Wind’s crew with great relief, and Thorn Bathu should no doubt have applauded loudest of all. Killing a man by accident had made her a villain. Killing another on purpose had made her a hero.

But all she could do was frown at the body as they dragged it out, and feel there was something very odd in all this.

LOST AND FOUND (#ulink_3e802b79-2c56-5267-bf9f-abf45e8bb838)

Brand was proper drunk.

He often had been, lately.

Lifting on the docks was the best work he could find, and a day of that was thirsty work indeed. So he’d started drinking, and found he’d a real gift for it. Seemed he’d inherited something from his father after all.

The raid had been a mighty success. The Islanders were so sure the High King’s favour would protect them they were taken unawares, half their ships captured and half the rest burned. Brand had watched the warriors of Gettland swagger up through the twisting streets of Thorlby when they landed, laden with booty and covered in glory and cheered from every window. He heard Rauk took two slaves, and Sordaf got himself a silver arm-ring. He heard Uthil dragged old King Styr naked from his hall, made him kneel and swear a sun-oath and a moon-oath never to draw a blade against another Gettlander.

All heroes’ news, like something from the songs, but there’s nothing like others’ successes to make your own failures sting the worse.

Brand walked the crooked walk down some alley or other, between some houses or other, and shouted at the stars. Someone shouted back. Maybe the stars, maybe from a window. He didn’t care. He didn’t know where he was going. Didn’t seem to matter any more.

He was lost.

‘I’m worried,’ Rin had said.

‘Try having all your dreams stolen,’ he’d spat at her.

What could she say to that?

He tried to give her the dagger back. ‘I don’t need it and I don’t deserve it.’

‘I made it for you,’ she’d said. ‘I’m proud of you whatever.’ Nothing made her cry but she had tears in her eyes then, and they hurt worse than any beating he’d ever taken and he’d taken plenty.

So he asked Fridlif to fill his cup again. And again. And again. And Fridlif shook her grey head to see a young life wasted and all, but it was hardly the first time. Filling cups was what she did.

At least when he was drunk Brand could pretend other people were to blame. Hunnan, Thorn, Rauk, Father Yarvi, the gods, the stars above, the stones under his feet. Sober, he got to thinking he’d brought this on himself.

He blundered into a wall in the darkness and it spun him about, the anger flared up hot and he roared, ‘I did good!’ He threw a punch at the wall and missed, which was lucky, and fell in the gutter, which wasn’t.

Then he was sick on his hands.

‘Are you Brand?’