The taller of the two took a step forward.
“Shipwife Meas Gilbryn, I come in the name of Thirteenbern Gilbryn, ruler of the Hundred Isles, protector of the Berncast, grandmother of the fleet, scion of the seaguard, high priest of Mother, Maiden and Hag, and wellspring of our fertility.”
“I know who my mother is,” said Meas softly, but the guard gave no sign he heard her.
“I am to bring you before the mother of all.” The thought of being brought before the ruler of the Hundred Isles almost unmanned Joron. He felt his knees weaken, his stomach flutter.
“I am grateful for the invite but I am afraid have a ship to prepare and the tide waits for none.” Meas made to walk past him, but the guard stepped forward, using his spear to bar the way. Unlike most seaguard he wore no armour; his clothing was more akin to that worn by Kept Indyl Karrad, an arrangement of leather straps designed to show off his oiled muscles. “You are a toy, not a soldier, Tassar,” said Meas to the man. “Do not obstruct me. I have business.”
“I think you will find I am both toy and soldier, Meas. Now, follow me.” He turned.
Meas watched him for a moment as he made his way up the gloomy tunnel, light burnishing his bronze skin. She waited, for long enough to make it seem like she made up her own mind to follow, though in Bernshulme no one turned down the invite of the Thirteenbern, not even her daughter.
To ascend the Grand Bothy was to enter the light. The higher you went, the more elaborately the bothy was constructed. On the lower levels the walls were patterned with specially chosen stone, the colours within making glittering gold, green and red spirals that ran around the building. Joron and Meas ascended the ramps that ran around the outside, up and up and up, walking behind the two seaguard. Further up, the bothy became more delicate. The Gaunt Islanders made their buildings from blocks of stone fixed together with a mixture of sand and chemicals that the Hundred Isles regarded as ugly and utilitarian. The Hundred Islanders built their bothies from small stones, each fitted together by the stonewrights without recourse to any form of glue, the weight of the buildings keeping them up. The spiral bothies were the finest exemplars of the stonewrights’ art and the Grand Bothy the greatest of them all. By the time they reached the highest level, the sixth, the bothy was a spider’s web of artfully constructed stone ribs with gion – bleached, treated and thinned until it was hard as iron and as clear as the air on a fine day – stretched between them.
Beneath this web, bathed in light, sat Thirteenbern Gilbryn, proud of what she was. Her hair was grey now, and she wore no colour in it – a break with tradition, but she was a woman who did not feel the need to advertise her authority. She wore a skirt, and her flat breasts hung down to her navel, almost covering the stretch marks across her belly, which had been painted in bright colours, the scars of her battles there for all to see: the marks of her power. There was no denying the strength in the Thirteenbern’s body, and that was why she showed it. She flaunted her fertility. This woman was the bringer of thirteen perfect children to the isles and claimed title as mother of all. Her skirts were of iron, laced together with birdgut and enamelled with stylised fish which danced across her lap. Like Meas she wore long boots. Unlike Meas, who stood upon a ship of shame, she sat upon on the throne of tears, a seat of polished and bonded varisk carved into the semblance of firstborn children, each child weeping as they held up the weight of the Thirteenbern and through her carried the weight of the entire Hundred Isles.
Gilbryn shared a face with Meas: imperious, eyes that could silence with a look, mouth thin, though it looked to Joron as though she longed to laugh. Maybe she did; maybe he only thought this so he felt less uncomfortable before her. Tassar walked to the seaward side of the Thirteenbern. Apart from him and those before her throne, the well-lit room was empty. There was nothing here: no tools, no papers, nothing. Thirteenbern Gilbryn had no need of possessions, because she owned everything in the Hundred Isles and all answered to her.
“What is he doing here?” Gilbryn pointed at Joron, and he wished he could vanish into the grey slate of the floor.
“Twiner is my deckkeeper.”
“Uh,” she said. An amused sound. “You raise up a simple Berncast fisher boy, have the weak-blooded share your deck.” Joron could feel his face burning with embarrassment, but Meas did not so much as look at him. “I thought, maybe, the certainty of death would make you less likely to stack the odds against yourself. It seems not.”
“It is not I who stacks the odds against me,” said Meas. Something crossed her face, a salt spray smile. “Is it, Mother?” she added.
The amusement on the the Thirteenbern’s face vanished and she was standing. From relaxed to fury in one movement, face contorted with anger.
“You do not get to call me that.” Cold words like an ice floe.
“It is what you are,” Meas replied.
“You are my curse. Every day I ask why the Hag took nine of my children in war but never so much as touched you.” She glared at Meas, letting silence settle like sediment in shipwine. Then she sat once more. “Tassar, take her plaything down a level; I would speak to my daughter.” She made the confirmation of their relationship into something mocking. “And I shall speak to her alone.”
The Kept stepped forward and motioned to Joron to follow him, which he did. They walked down the ramp to the level below, and behind them was only silence; Gilbryn had no wish to share her words with such as him.
Tassar openly stared at him. “It is unusual,” he said, “to see an officer who is neither Kept nor Bern brought through the spiral bothies, but I suppose Meas has little quality material to choose from among the dead.” Tassar’s eyes wandered down Joron’s body until they came to rest on the blade at his hip. “Do you even know how to use that?” He stepped a little closer to Joron. “Would you like me to give you some lessons?” He put his hand to his mouth. Touched his lip. “I could teach you how a man uses a sword.”
“No.” Joron swallowed, looked away. “I have already killed with this blade – I am quite comfortable with it.”
Before Joron could stop him Tassar leaned in and yanked the curnow from the hook on his belt.
“Not a real sword,” he said, hefting the weapon. “Swordcraft isn’t just about waggling it around. It takes skill. You’d be surprised what a real man can do” – he left a long pause – “with his sword.”
“May I have that back?” said Joron. The Kept did not look as though he had heard him and Joron pointed at the elaborate scabbard on Tassar’s hip. “Or are you proposing we swap?”
Tassar laughed.
“A wit! What a wit. Maybe you could have ended up one of the Kept had you been born stronger. But I hear your mother was weak.” He did not offer Joron the sword.
“You know nothing of me or my mother.” The words whipped out of his mouth, fast as a rope snapped taut by the wind.
“I know all about you, Twiner. I know you’ve been to see Karrad; no doubt he seeks to win the Thirteenbern’s favour. How would he do that, eh? If you knew, I could reward you.” He smiled, holding Joron’s sword loosely in his hand. For a moment Joron considered telling him everything, but only a moment. For all he hated Karrad he at least understood him, but this man was something different. He sensed some need beneath the innuendo, but it was not a deckchild’s fleshly pleasure he sought, not the company of a shipfriend. Besides, Meas’s warning still rang in his ears. He knew nothing of the world in the bothies, had no idea who could be trusted. He believed what he knew of Karrad was valuable, to the right person. But he did not think Tassar was the right person to tell, not at all.