then?’ asked Skara. ‘A plan that relies on cowardice?’
Old, her grandfather looked as he turned to her with misty eyes and brewer’s breath. Old and beaten. ‘You have always been brave, Skara. Braver than I. No doubt the blood of Bail flows in your veins.’
‘Your blood too, my king! You always told me only half a war is fought with swords. The other half is fought here.’ And Skara pressed one fingertip into the side of her head, so hard it hurt.
‘You have always been clever, Skara. Cleverer than I. The gods know you can talk the birds down from the sky when it pleases you. Fight that half of the war, then. Give me the deep cunning that can turn back the High King’s armies and save our land and our people from Bright Yilling’s sword. That can spare me from the shame of Grandmother Wexen’s terms.’
Skara looked down at the straw-covered floor, face burning. ‘I wish I could.’ But she was a girl seventeen winters old and, Bail’s blood or no, her head held no hero’s answers. ‘I’m sorry, Grandfather.’
‘So am I, child.’ King Fynn slumped back and beckoned for more ale. ‘So am I.’
‘Skara.’
She was snatched from troubled dreams and into darkness, Mother Kyre’s face ghostly in the light of one flickering candle.
‘Skara, get up.’
She fumbled back the furs, clumsy with sleep. Strange sounds outside. Shouting and laughter.
She rubbed her eyes. ‘What is it?’
‘You must go with Blue Jenner.’
Skara saw the trader then, lurking in the doorway of her bedchamber. A black figure, shaggy-headed, eyes turned to the floor.
‘What?’
Mother Kyre pulled her up by her arm. ‘You must go now.’
Skara was about to argue. As she always argued. Then she saw the minister’s expression and it made her obey without a word spoken. She had never seen Mother Kyre afraid before.
It did not sound like laughter any more, outside. Crying. Wild voices. ‘What’s happening?’ she managed to croak.
‘I made a terrible mistake.’ Mother Kyre’s eyes darted to the door and back. ‘I trusted Grandmother Wexen.’ She twisted the gold ring from Skara’s arm. The one Bail the Builder once wore into battle, its ruby glistening dark as new-spilled blood in the candlelight. ‘This is for you.’ She held it out to Blue Jenner. ‘If you swear to see her safe to Thorlby.’
The raider’s eyes flickered guiltily up as he took it. ‘I swear it. A sun-oath and a moon-oath.’
Mother Kyre clutched painfully hard at both of Skara’s hands. ‘Whatever happens, you must live. That is your duty now. You must live and you must lead. You must fight for Throvenland. You must stand for her people if … if there is no one else.’
Skara’s throat was so tight with fear she could hardly speak. ‘Fight? But—’
‘I have taught you how. I have tried to. Words are weapons.’ The minister wiped tears from Skara’s face that she had not even realized she had cried. ‘Your grandfather was right, you are brave and you are clever. But now you must be strong. You are a child no longer. Always remember, the blood of Bail flows in your veins. Now go.’
Skara padded barefoot through the darkness at Blue Jenner’s heels, shivering in her shift, Mother Kyre’s lessons so deep-rooted that even fearing for her life she worried over whether she was properly dressed. Flames beyond the narrow windows cast stabbing shadows across the straw-scattered floor. She heard panicked shouts. A dog barking, suddenly cut off. A heavy thudding as of a tree being felled.
As of axes at the door.
They stole into the guest-room, where warriors had slept shoulder to shoulder a few months before. Now there was only Blue Jenner’s threadbare blanket.
‘What’s happening?’ she whispered, hardly recognizing her own voice it came so thin and cracked.
‘Bright Yilling has come with his Companions,’ said Jenner, ‘to settle Grandmother Wexen’s debts. Yaletoft is already burning. I’m sorry, princess.’
Skara flinched as he slid something around her neck. A collar of twisted silver wire, a fine chain clinking faintly. The kind the Ingling girl who used to bind her hair had worn.
‘Am I a slave?’ she whispered, as Jenner buckled the other end about his wrist.
‘You must seem to be.’
Skara shrank back at a crash outside, the clash of metal, and Jenner pressed her against the wall. He blew his candle out and dropped them into darkness. She saw him draw a knife, Father Moon glinting on its edge.
Howls now, beyond the door, high and horrible, the bellows of beasts not the voices of men. Skara squeezed her eyes shut, tears stinging the lids, and prayed. Mumbling, stuttering, meaningless prayers. Prayers to every god and none.
It is easy to be brave when the Last Door seems tiny for its distance, a far-off thing for other folk to worry about. Now she felt Death’s chill breath on her neck and it froze the courage in her. How freely she had talked of cowardice the night before. Now she understood what it was.
A last long shriek, then silence almost worse than the noise had been. She felt herself drawn forward, Jenner’s breath stale on her cheek.
‘We have to go.’
‘I’m scared,’ she breathed.
‘So am I. But if we face ’em boldly we might talk our way free. If they find us hiding …’
You can only conquer your fears by facing them, her grandfather used to say. Hide from them, and they conquer you. Jenner eased the door creaking open and Skara forced herself through after him, her knees trembling so badly they were nearly knocking together.
Her bare foot slid in something wet. A dead man sat beside the door, the straw all about him black with blood.
Borid, his name. A warrior who had served her father. He had carried Skara on his shoulders when she was little, so she could reach the peaches in the orchard under the walls of Bail’s Point.
Her stinging eyes crept towards the sound of voices. Over broken weapons and cloven shields. Over more corpses, hunched, sprawled, spreadeagled among the carved columns after which her grandfather’s hall was called the Forest.
Figures were gathered in the light of the guttering firepit. Storied warriors, mail and weapons and ring-money gleaming with the colours of fire, their great shadows stretching out across the floor towards her.
Mother Kyre stood among them, and Skara’s grandfather too, ill-fitting mail hastily dragged on, grey hair still wild from his bed. Smiling blandly upon his two prisoners was a slender warrior with a soft, handsome face, as careless as a child’s, a space about him where even these other killers dared not tread.
Bright Yilling, who worshipped no god but Death.
His
