Rikke gave a delighted laugh. Reminded Leo, just for a moment, of how she used to be. “Oh, I like your wife, Leo. Best thing about you, I reckon! You kept the runes, I see.”
“They feel like good luck.” Savine touched the little wooden tablets she wore around her neck. “And you kept the emeralds.”
“They feel like high value,” said Rikke, pulling them up with her crooked little finger so they cut white into her long, lean throat.
“I have another gift for you,” and Savine waved Zuri from the shadows, a length of cloth over her arm, a vivid red that seemed almost to shine in the muddy grey hall, golden stitching gleaming in the hem. “This is Zuri, my companion.”
“Is it?” Rikke narrowed her eyes, then slid them, sly as a cat, towards Savine. “Sure you aren’t hers?”
“I have heard it said God puts us all where we are meant to be,” said Zuri.
“Wouldn’t know,” said Rikke. “We don’t see much of Him up here.” She took the cloth and shook it out with a snap, holding it up to the light. “Oooooooh, you give the best presents!”
“Suljuk silk,” said Savine, “from beyond the Thousand Isles. I thought perhaps you could make a dress from it, or a hanging, or…”
Rikke was already wrapping it around herself, ending up with something between a scarf, a cloak and a hood.
Zuri cocked her head on one side. “That works.”
“I love it.” Rikke smiled as she rubbed her cheek against the shining fabric. “And I see you’ve got a gift for Leo, too.” She dropped down on her knees, staring at Savine’s belly. “Can I feel?”
“Well, I suppose—”
Rikke slid her arms around Savine and pressed her tattooed cheek into her stomach, making her gasp.
Savine stared at Leo, but all he could do was shrug.
“Oh,” crooned Rikke, eyes closed as she snuggled in tight. “I’d expect something special from the two of you but this… this will change the world.”
“Where’s your friend Isern-i-Phail?” asked Leo. “And Caul Shivers? I swear you’re the only person in the world he likes.”
“I sent ’em off to make new friends. The Protectorate’s small. We need every friend we can get.”
“You should’ve come to us.”
“I knew you’d be coming to me.”
Leo tried to smile, but it wasn’t easy. Every time he saw a hint of that gangly girl he’d played hide and seek with in this very hall, she’d flash that sly smile, and turn that strange left eye on him, and he’d feel as if she was looking right into him. Right through him. The woman he’d known was vanished, sure as her father, and he was shocked at how much he missed them.
Savine, meanwhile, gnawed at her meat, lips and fingers shiny with grease, a pile of stripped bones on the table in front of her. “She might look like a doll,” murmured Rikke in Northern, “but she eats like a warrior.”
Leo laughed. “Something I should know about?” asked Savine.
“She… wonders if you want a fork.”
“When I was in Valbeck I ate with my fingers.” Savine ripped some gristle from her meat with her teeth and spat it into the firepit as neatly as any Named Man. “When I ate at all. I came to the North to see how things are done here. Not to do things my way regardless.”
“Very open-minded,” said Rikke. “But you didn’t come here to improve your table manners. The two o’ you are after something or my name’s not Sticky Rikke.”
Savine’s raised brow told Leo it was time to get to business. “You’re right. I wanted to see Uffrith, and I wanted to see you, but you’re right. I need your help, Rikke.”
“Naught my father wouldn’t have done for an old friend. And we go way back, eh? Used to wrestle on this very floor, didn’t we? What do you need?”
“Your father’s warriors. Your warriors, I mean.”
“Who are we fighting?”
“I hope they won’t have to fight.”
“But we both know hopes can turn out barren. You wouldn’t be asking for warriors if you didn’t have a fight in mind.”
Leo glanced towards Savine one last time, almost hoping she might give the faintest shake of her head, and they could forget the whole business. But she narrowed her eyes and gave the faintest nod instead.
“We’re fighting the Closed Council,” said Leo.
Rikke slowly eased back on her father’s bench, puffing out her hollow cheeks. “I know you like a scrap, Leo, but did you think of picking a smaller one?”
“Few of us get to pick our battles,” said Savine. “The battles pick us.”
“Maybe you should let this one pick someone else.”
“You saw what they were like in the war!” Leo sat forward angrily. “Promising everything. Giving nothing. The Union abandoned Uffrith. Abandoned your father. Abandoned you! But Angland never did. I never did.” He realised as he said it, sitting beside his new wife, that Rikke might see it differently, and he cleared his throat, and frowned down at the table.
“Calling in the favours, then,” she said. “Where’s your next stop, Young Lion?”
No point trying to trick her. She could always see right through him. And honesty can be a kind of weapon, too. “Carleon,” he said. “As you’ve no doubt guessed.”
“To beg for the Great Wolf’s help.” Rikke bared her teeth and snarled at him with sudden, shocking fury. “The man who burned half this city on a whim? Who promised to send my guts to my father in a box? Who killed my friends and yours? Who’d have killed you, if my Long Eye hadn’t seen it coming? Break what they love, he said. You’d have me link arms with my worst enemy?”
“Sometimes we must use one enemy to fight another,” said Savine.
Rikke curled back her lip and sucked a shred of meat from between her teeth. “Oh, you’re a clever one, Lady Brock. You could crawl through a keyhole, I reckon, even with a swollen belly. But last time we met it was on your ground. Up here, enemies aren’t so easily spun into friends.”
“Oh, I doubt the rules are so very different,” said Savine. “Uffrith needs protection. That is why it became a Protectorate. King Orso and his Closed Council have shown they will not help. Side with us, we can keep the balance between you and Nightfall. Turn us down, your time is already running out. It really is as simple as that.”
“So I risk everything, and in return I get what I’ve already got?” Rikke snorted. “And a scrap of red cloth, of course. You like making deals. If you were sat on my bench, what would you say to that one?”
“I would say it’s the best you’ll get,” said Savine. Leo winced. He’d come to ask for help from an old friend, but now his wife was turning the whole thing into a hard-headed bargain. One with more than a whiff of blackmail about it.
He held up his hands before things got any worse. “We’re friends! I risked my life for you. For Uffrith.” He grimaced as he shifted his leg. “I’ve got the scars. But I’d do the same again. I helped you against your enemies. I’m asking you to help me against mine.”