style="font-size:15px;"> ‘The same Brand who trained with Thorn Bathu?’
He snorted at that, but his snorting tasted of sick and nearly made him spew again. ‘Sadly.’
‘Then this is for you.’
Cold water slapped him in the face and he spluttered on it, tried to scramble up and slipped over in the gutter. An empty bucket skittered away across the cobbles. Brand scraped the wet hair out of his eyes, saw a strip of lamplight across an old face, creased and lined, scarred and bearded.
‘I should hit you for that, you old bastard,’ he said, but getting up hardly seemed worth the effort.
‘But then I’d hit you back, and a broken face won’t mend your troubles. I know. I’ve tried it.’ The old man put hands on knees and leaned down close. ‘Thorn said you were the best she used to train with. You don’t look like the best of anything to me, boy.’
‘Time hasn’t been kind.’
‘Time never is. A fighter keeps fighting even so. Thought you were a fighter?’
‘I was,’ said Brand.
The old man held out his broad hand. ‘Good. My name’s Rulf, and I’ve got a fight for you.’
They’d made the torchlit storehouse up like a training square, ropes on the old boards marking the edge. There wasn’t as big an audience as Brand was used to, but what there was made him want to be sick again.
On one of the stools, with the key to the kingdom’s treasury gleaming on her chest, sat Laithlin, Golden Queen of Gettland. Beside her was the man who had once been her son and was now her minister, Father Yarvi. Behind them were four silver-collared slaves – two huge Inglings with hard axes at their belts and even harder frowns on their rock-chiselled faces, and two girls like as the halves of a walnut, and each with braids so long they had them looped around and around one arm.
And leaning against the far wall with one boot up on the stonework and that mocking little lop-sided smile on her lips was Brand’s least favourite sparring partner, Thorn Bathu.
And the strange thing was, though he’d spent long drunk hours blaming her for all his woes, Brand was happy to see her face. Happier than he’d been in a long while. Not because he liked her so much, but because the sight of her reminded him of a time when he liked himself. When he could see his future, and liked what he saw. When his hopes stood tall and the world seemed full of dares.
‘Thought you’d never get here.’ She worked her arm into the straps of a shield and picked out a wooden sword.
‘Thought they crushed you with rocks,’ said Brand.
‘It’s still very much a possibility,’ said Father Yarvi.
Rulf gave Brand a shove between the shoulder-blades and sent him tottering into the square. ‘Get to it, then, lad.’
Brand knew he didn’t have the fastest mind, and it was far from its fastest then, but he got the gist. He walked almost a straight line to the practice weapons and picked out a sword and shield, keenly aware of the queen’s cold eyes judging his every movement.
Thorn was already taking her mark. ‘You’re a sorry bloody sight,’ she said.
Brand looked down at his vest, soaked and somewhat sick-stained, and had to nod. ‘Aye.’
That wrinkle to her mouth twisted into a full sneer. ‘Weren’t you always telling me you’d be a rich man after your first raid?’
That stung. ‘I didn’t go.’
‘Hadn’t marked you for a coward.’
That stung more. She’d always known how to sting him. ‘I didn’t get picked,’ he grunted.
Thorn burst out laughing, no doubt showing off in front of the queen. She’d never tired of spouting how much she admired the woman. ‘Here’s me full of envy, expecting you all puffed up like a hero, and what do I find but some drunk beggar-boy?’
Brand felt a cold flush through him then, sweeping the drink away more surely than any ice water. He’d done more than his share of begging, that was true. But it’s the true ones that sting.
Thorn was still chuckling at her cleverness. ‘You always were an idiot. Hunnan stole my place, how did you toss yours away?’
Brand would’ve liked to tell her how he’d lost his place. He would’ve liked to scream it in her face, but he couldn’t get the words out because he’d started growling like an animal, growling louder and louder until the room throbbed with it, and his chest hummed with it, his lips curled back and his jaw clenched so hard it seemed his teeth would shatter, and Thorn was frowning at him over the rim of her shield like he’d gone mad. Maybe he had.
‘Begin!’ shouted Rulf, and he was on her, hacked her sword away, struck back so hard he sent splinters from her shield. She twisted, quick, she’d always been deadly quick, made enough space to swing but he wasn’t hesitating this time.
He shrugged the blow off his shoulder, barely felt it, bellowed as he pressed in blindly, driving her staggering back, shield-rims grinding together, almost lifting her as she tripped over the rope and crashed into the wall. She tried to twist her sword free but he still had it pinned useless over his shoulder, and he caught her shield with his left hand and dragged it down. Too close for weapons, he flung his practice blade away and started punching her, all his anger and his disappointment in it, as if she was Hunnan, and Yarvi, and all those so-called friends of his who’d done so well from doing nothing, stolen his place, stolen his future.
He hit her in the side and heard her groan, hit her again and she folded up, eyes bulging, hit her again and she went down hard, coughing and retching at his feet. He might’ve been about to set to kicking her when Rulf caught him around the neck with one thick forearm and dragged him back.
‘That’s enough, I reckon.’
‘Aye,’ he muttered, going limp. ‘More’n enough.’
He shook the shield off his arm, shocked of a sudden at what he’d done and nowhere near proud of it, knowing full well what it felt like on the other side of a beating like that. Maybe there was more than one thing he’d inherited from his father. He didn’t feel like he was standing in the light right then. Not at all.
Queen Laithlin gave a long sigh, Thorn’s coughing and dribbling in the background, and turned on her stool. ‘I was wondering when you’d arrive.’
And it was only then Brand noticed another watcher, slouched in the shadows of a corner in a cloak of rags every shade of grey. ‘Always when I am sorest needed and least expected.’ A woman’s voice from within the hood and a strange accent on it. ‘Or hungry.’
‘Did you see it?’ asked Yarvi.
‘I had that questionable privilege.’
‘What do you think?’
‘She is wretched. She is all pride and anger. She has too much confidence and too little. She does not know herself.’ The figure pushed back her hood. A black-skinned old woman with a face lean as famine and hair shaved to grey fuzz.
