Half a King

Very cold and very hard. Just as a king must be.

Just as Yarvi’s father used to be, sitting there with the King’s Circle on his furrowed brow. His scarred hands gripping the arms, the pommel of his sword never far out of reach. The sword that hung at Yarvi’s belt now, dragging at him with its unfamiliar weight.

I didn’t ask for half a son.

And Yarvi shrank from the empty chair with even less dignity than when his father still sat in it. Not towards the doors of the Godshall and the waiting crowd beyond, but away towards the statue of Father Peace, pressing himself to the stone and working his fingers into the crack beside the giant leg of the patron god of ministers. In silence the hidden door sprang open, and like a thief fleeing the scene of his crime Yarvi slipped into the blackness beyond.

The citadel was full of secret ways, but nowhere so riddled as the Godshall. Passages passed under its floor, inside its walls, within its very dome. Ministers of old had used them to show the will of the gods with the odd little miracle – feathers fluttering down, or smoke rising behind the statues. Once blood had been dripped on Gettland’s reluctant warriors as the king called for war.

The passageways were dark and full of sounds, but Yarvi had no fear of them. These tunnels had long been his domain. He had hidden from his father’s blazing anger in the darkness. From his brother’s crushing love. From his mother’s chill disappointment. He could find his way from one end of the citadel to the other without once stepping into the light.

Here he knew all the ways, as any good minister should.

Here he was safe.

DOVES (#ulink_402dd4d0-9fb0-5962-a1d1-f18fc69de19e)

The dovecote was perched in the top of one of the citadel’s highest towers, streaked inside and out with centuries of droppings, and through its many windows a chill wind blew.

As Mother Gundring’s apprentice, feeding the doves had been Yarvi’s task. Feeding them, and teaching them the messages they were to speak, and watching them clatter into the sky to take news, and offers, and threats to other ministers about the Shattered Sea.

From the many cages ranked around the walls they looked down on him now, the doves, and one great bronze-feathered eagle which must have brought a message from the High King in Skekenhouse. The one person in the lands around the Shattered Sea who had the right to make requests of Yarvi now. Yet here he sat against the dropping-speckled wall, picking at the nail on his shrivelled hand, buried beneath a howe of demands he could never fulfil.

He had always been weak, but he never felt truly powerless until they made him a king.

He heard shuffling feet on the steps and Mother Gundring ducked through the low doorway, breathing hard.

‘I thought you’d never get here,’ said Yarvi.

‘My king,’ replied the old minister once she had the breath. ‘You were expected before the Godshall.’

‘Aren’t the tunnels meant for a king’s escape?’

‘From armed enemies. From your family, your subjects, not to mention your bride-to-be, less so.’ She peered up at the domed ceiling, at the gods painted there as birds, taking to a brilliant sky. ‘Were you planning to fly away?’

‘To Catalia, perhaps, or the land of the Alyuks, or up the Divine River to Kalyiv.’ Yarvi shrugged. ‘But I don’t have two good hands, never mind two good wings.’

Mother Gundring nodded. ‘In the end, we must all be what we are.’

‘And what am I?’

‘The King of Gettland.’

He swallowed then, knowing how disappointed she must be. How disappointed he was himself. In the songs great kings rarely crawled off to hide from their own people. He caught sight of the eagle as he looked away, huge and serene in its cage.

‘Grandmother Wexen has sent a message?’

‘A message,’ echoed one of the doves in its scratching mockery of a voice. ‘A message. A message.’

Mother Gundring frowned up at the eagle, still as a stuffed trophy. ‘It came from Skekenhouse five days ago. Grandmother Wexen sent to ask when you would arrive for your test.’

Yarvi remembered the one time he had seen the First of Ministers, a few years before when the High King had visited Thorlby. The High King had seemed a grim and grasping old man, offended by everything. Yarvi’s mother had been obliged to soothe him when someone did not bow in quite the manner he liked. Yarvi’s brother had laughed that such a feeble little wisp-haired man should rule the Shattered Sea, but his laughter died when he saw the number of warriors that followed him. Yarvi’s father had raged because the High King took gifts and gave none. Mother Gundring had clicked her tongue and said, The wealthier a man is, the more he craves wealth.

Grandmother Wexen had scarcely left her proper place at the High King’s side, ever smiling like a kindly grandparent. When Yarvi knelt before her she had looked at his crippled hand, and leaned down to murmur, My prince, have you considered joining the Ministry? And for a moment he had seen a hungry brightness in her eye which scared him more than all the High King’s frowning warriors.

‘So much interest from the First of Ministers?’ he muttered, swallowing an aftertaste of that day’s fear.

Mother 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.’