“Then thank the dead you’ve had simple problems. You get those on the battlefield, but there’s none in Skarling’s Hall.”
The doors were swung open, and there was a rustle and a jingle as men shifted to see the Young Lion make his entrance. He looked quite the hero—breastplate, boots and teeth all buffed to a pretty sheen—but it was the woman beside him that really drew the eyes. She seemed to Clover to be an exception to the rule that men get more excited about a woman the less clothes she’s got on. Her dress might’ve been spun from sunlight, glittering as she moved. Jewels on her long fingers, and jewels at her long neck, and a little jewelled sword at her hip, too. You could hardly tell what she really looked like under all that flash and flutter and dancing, prancing strut, but no one seemed to care. There was a jealous stirring among the warriors, an awestruck murmur as if some priceless gemstone had been lifted from its case rather than a woman walked in through the door.
The soldiers and servants in her wake looked somewhat concerned by Stour’s fighters bearing in on every side, festooned with steel. Even the Young Lion himself, walking with a trace of a limp, for all he tried to hide it. But his wife glided down the middle like a swan down a river with roses on both banks. She’d smile at one man or another as if at a particularly handsome bloom, and he’d blink, or blush, or look down at his boots, hoary old warriors who’d laughed at red wounds humbled with a red smile.
She stopped beside Clover, and murmured something to her husband, and Clover wondered how her lips could be so pink and her eyes so dark and her skin so pale and perfect. Had to be painted on, like a face onto a Carl’s shield, but done with so much craft you could hardly tell. It was the closest thing to magic he’d seen in Skarling’s Hall, for all Stour’s magi and seers and wise women.
Brock took a step towards them, glanced at Sholla and said in very good Northern, “My wife is asking whether women fight here.”
Clover shook himself like he was waking from a dream. “Well, now and again in the North we run out o’ men. But we never run out o’ fights.” He glanced sideways at Sholla and leaned forward to murmur under his breath, “Then, between you and me, there are times you tell ’em not to fight and they bloody do it anyway.”
Brock rendered it into the Union tongue for his wife, and she gave a laugh as glittering as her dress. Clover wondered how long she’d practised to get it just right but still felt greatly pleased with himself that he’d been the cause of it, then greatly disappointed when she walked on. Downside stared after her like a fox at an open chicken coop.
“Watch out,” muttered Sholla. “You might both die o’ thirst from all that drooling.”
“The Great Wolf!” called Leo dan Brock, spreading his arms as he came towards the dais. “Greater than ever! King of the Northmen, no less!” And he offered Stour his hand.
“The Young Lion!” Stour rose from Skarling’s Chair. “Not as young as you were, but no worse for that.” He caught Brock’s hand, and pulled him up onto the dais, and flung his other arm around his shoulders, and slapped him on the back with an echoing clap. Then the two of ’em had one of those hugs which is halfway to a wrestling match, making out they were best of friends while each tried to drag the other off his feet.
“This is my wife, Lady Savine,” said Brock, once they’d finally fought the hugging to an ungainly draw.
And she sank down, rustling skirts spreading across the flags like a pool of gold, so smoothly it seemed she couldn’t have any legs at all under there but was mounted on a well-oiled platform. “My king. It is my honour to meet so great a warrior.”
“Oh, I know a bit about honour.” Stour grinned down at her from the dais. “And it’s all mine.” Her Northern might be poor, and have a heavy accent, but she’d already worked out where to tickle the Great Wolf. Not that he was too tight a riddle to untangle.
Downside leaned towards Clover, still staring at Brock’s wife. “I have got to get me one o’ those…”
Sholla rolled her eyes. “Like you could afford it.”
Diplomacy
By the dead, diplomacy was hard work.
“So, you see…” Leo stumbled on, “the Closed Council have to be stopped. Before they do more damage. We need good men in charge. Honest men. Patriots.”
“Oh, aye?” grunted Stour, tossing a bone onto the floor.
The Great Wolf made no effort to hide his boredom at all this talk of tax and injustice and patriotism, and Leo hardly blamed him. When Isher spoke about this stuff it made sense right off, but Leo was always tripping on the details. And here, at a feast in Skarling’s Hall, surrounded by red-handed warriors, the arguments all sounded so flimsy and ridiculous. By the dead, he was boring himself. There’d been enough bloody talk. What he needed to do was do. But one thing he’d learned over the last year—before you draw your sword, you need to know how you’ll win.
To win, he needed the King of the Northmen.
Flattery always did the trick for Savine. Leo puffed out his cheeks, looking at the crowd of Named Men down the great horseshoe of tables. “You’ve summoned quite the host,” he said. “The North seems stronger than ever. More united than ever.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Black Calder leaned past his son to point a frown at Leo as hostile as a drawn dagger.
“Now, now, Father.” Stour wagged a greasy finger. “I said be polite.”
When it came to flattery, Leo was more used to taking than giving. He wished he was down there with the warriors, drinking and singing and slapping backs, with no worries but a sore head in the morning. By the dead, diplomacy was hard work.
He felt Savine’s gentle touch on his arm. “You fought the man and won,” she murmured in his ear. “Surely you can talk to him?”
The thing about killing a man—you could do it in a moment. Bringing him around to your way of thinking took so much patience. And how could you even tell when it was done? Kill a man, he stayed dead. Change his mind, he always had the bloody chance to change it back.
“Reckon I’d rather fight him again.” He glanced over, and caught Black Calder glaring back. “Specially with his father judging every word.”
“If I had known we were bringing overbearing parents, we could have packed some of our own.” Savine sat forward. “I must say that you speak the common tongue wonderfully well, Lord Calder!”
She could usually slit a man right open with one compliment, but Black Calder was better armoured than most. “My own father always said it serves a man well to learn the ways of his enemies,” he grunted.
“And even better to learn the ways of his friends. I have been trying to garner some words of Northern, but I fear I am a poor study.”
“Oh, no doubt.” Calder snorted. “The first thing I think when I look at you is—there’s a woman who’s not crafty enough.”
Leo clenched his fist around his eating knife. He was damned if he’d let this old prick insult his wife, but before he could speak, Savine’s hand clamped tight on his sore thigh and cut him off in a pained squeak. “You, I think, are a man with craft to spare.” The ruder Calder got, the wider she smiled. “Perhaps you might tell me something of the history of Skarling’s Hall.”