“What am I, some bloody storyteller—”
“Father!” growled Stour. “There isn’t a man in this hall wouldn’t kill for the chance to teach the Lady Governor a few words of Northern. Stop insulting my guests and make yourself useful.”
With bad grace, which seemed the only grace he had, Black Calder stood, leaned close to his son’s ear and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear. “They want something. Don’t say yes because you feel you should, or because you feel you’re bored, or because of anything you feel, you understand? Make sure they pay.”
“I know what to do,” snapped Stour.
Savine gave Leo a wink as she took Black Calder’s bony hand and let the old man lead her from the dais. “Black Dow fought the Bloody-Nine right there,” he was saying.
“You saw it yourself?” breathed Savine, as if she’d never been so thrilled.
Stour worked his tongue around his sharp teeth as he watched them go. “Whatever my father says, it’s quite the honour to host you, Young Lion. And your wife, who’s clearly as clever as she is beautiful and I daresay knows a lot more Northern than she’s letting on. But I don’t reckon you suffered our roads all the way up to Carleon for my ale and my father’s stories.” He licked his fingers while he looked sidelong at Leo. “What are you after?”
Now was the moment, then. Courage, courage. He was the Young Lion, wasn’t he? He leaned in, speaking in an urgent whisper. “The Closed Council have to be stopped.”
“And you’re the man who’ll do it?”
“We’re the men who’ll do it.”
Stour raised one brow, as if he had his doubts.
“I want you with me on a grand adventure!” Leo tried to elbow through the detail and summon up some passion. “To win glory, and set the world right, and make friends of every decent man in the Union!”
Sad to say, Stour didn’t slit his hand and swear a blood oath to their alliance on the spot. Instead, he sat back, toying with his ale cup.
“So… you’re asking for warriors of the North… to sail to Midderland in their thousands… and fight against the big king in Adua?”
“Yes!” Leo thumped his knife point-down into the table and left it wobbling there. “You see it!”
“Who’s with you?”
“The great lords of the Open Council. Isher, Heugen, Barezin and more. Famous names.” Leo paused. But he’d been honest with Rikke. Honesty would serve him best with Stour. “And Uffrith.”
Nightfall showed his teeth. You couldn’t deny he was a handsome bastard, especially when he was angry. “Paid that Long-Eyed little witch a visit, did you? The two o’ you used to be proper close, if I remember.” Stour stuck his greasy thumb in his mouth and made a little popping sound. “You got a way with the women, Young Lion, that I can’t deny.”
Leo glanced towards Savine, who was draining an ale horn while a group of warriors watched in rapt admiration. Even Black Calder had a look of some respect as she wiped her mouth and held it out for more. “Please,” she said, “my mother drinks more on a workday morning.”
Those men who could speak common laughed, and the ones who couldn’t pretended they could and laughed even louder.
“But I’m not a woman,” said Stour, “and my father might be quite the carper, but he knows a thing or two. So the question keeps drifting past—what’s in it for me? You offering a piece of Midderland?”
Leo laughed. “No one in the Union would ever stand for that.”
“A slice of Angland?”
Leo frowned. “I’d never stand for that.”
“Uffrith, then?”
“I think we settled that question in the Circle,” said Leo stiffly.
“Daresay you want me on my best behaviour, too.” Stour stuck out his bottom lip. “Not even a little pillage on the way to battle.”
“We have to get the people of Midderland on our side,” said Leo. “We’re coming to free them, not rob them.”
“So, the way you’re telling it, your grand adventure’s going to cost me money. You’re saying you’ll be my friend, and your Open Council will thank me, and the people of Midderland will love me, but look around you.” And he gestured towards the hall full of warriors. “I’m shitting friends and pissing thanks. I’m a real loveable bastard.”
“Think of it, though! The Young Lion and the Great Wolf, side by side! Our banners flying together!” Leo shook his fist between them, trying to light the fire in Stour he always felt at the thought of armoured men tramping, horses prancing, cheers of triumph. “Think of the songs sung of our victory!”
But all Stour gave Leo was another dose of the side-eye. “Once you’ve heard one song of victory you’ve heard ’em all. Swap the names out and it’s the same spears shaken and horns blown and bodies carpeting the glen and all that shit. You see my friend Clover down there?” And he pointed out that balding bastard, the one who’d had the girl beside him with all the belts. “That fat fool used to be Jonas Steepfield.”
“Steepfield?” Leo frowned. “The one who held the pass at Grey Breaks? The one who killed Cairm Ironhead?”
“Aye. That one. He had all the glory a man could ask for. Now look at the fucker.”
“I thought you and I were the same! Men who care for nothing but victory.”
Stour hooked his chain with a thumb and held it up. “I’m a king now, Young Lion. Ain’t just a question of winning, it’s what you win.”
“I’d rather not bring up your debt—”
“Don’t, then.”
Leo carried on through gritted teeth. “But there is one.”
“My life, you mean?” Stour grinned. “The men the Bloody-Nine beat in the Circle were bound to serve him all their days, but we live in different times. And even if I was willing to clean your boots, no one else here owes you a fucking thing. You’ll find no one better with a sword than me, Young Lion. You know that. But I doubt I’ll beat the whole Union on my own.”
Leo took a disappointed swig of ale. “I never expected the Great Wolf to turn coward.”
The sharpest barb he could find, and it bounced off Stour’s grin. “Coward I may be, Young Lion. But I’m a coward you need.”
Leo couldn’t deny it. He slumped back and watched the warriors roar in delight as Savine called them cunts in Northern and pretended not to understand.
By the dead, diplomacy was hard work.
The Wolf’s Jaws
Savine rather enjoyed watching Leo sleep.
When she agreed to marry him, she had expected to quickly become bored. To spend time on long trips. Maybe take a lover, in due course. But there was a lot to like about the Young Lion. Honesty, loyalty, courage, passion. Old-fashioned virtues, perhaps. The virtues of a really excellent dog. But virtues she was starting to appreciate. Even to admire. He was a decent man, in several ways that actually counted. Enough to make her feel almost decent when she was beside him. And that was a pleasant feeling. Certainly a refreshing one.
He shifted in his sleep, drawing the furs up around his chin. For such a strong man, such a bold fighter, he could be strangely childlike. So trusting, so optimistic, so vain. He treated the world like an implausible storybook and, though it had thus far played along, she doubted it would do so for ever. Their mothers had been right, they were well matched. The impetuous optimist and the calculating cynic. He was not weighed down with excessive cleverness, but a clever husband would only have got in her way. She was glad she had married him. The world needs heroes.