Half the World

SOME BLOODY DIPLOMAT

Skifr came at her again but this time Thorn was ready. The old woman grunted in surprise as Thorn’s ax caught her boot and sent her lurching. She parried the next blow but it rocked her on her heels and the one after tore her sword from her hand and knocked her clean on her back.

Even on the ground Skifr was dangerous. She kicked dust in Thorn’s face, rolled and flung her ax with deadly accuracy. But Thorn was ready for that too, hooked it from the air with her own and sent it skittering into the corner, pressing on, teeth bared, and pinning Skifr against one of the pillars, the point of her sword tickling the old woman’s sweat-beaded throat.

Skifr raised her gray brows. “Auspicious.”

“I won!” bellowed Thorn, shaking her notched wooden weapons at the sky. It had been months since she dared hope she might ever get the better of Skifr. Those endless mornings being beaten with the oar as Mother Sun rose, those endless evenings trying to hit her with the bar by the light of Father Moon, those endless blows and slaps and slides into the mud. But she had done it. “I beat her!”

“You beat her,” said Father Yarvi, nodding slowly.

Skifr winced as she clambered up. “You have beaten a grandmother long years past her best. There will be sterner challenges ahead for you. But … you have done well. You have listened. You have worked. You have become deadly. Father Yarvi was right-”

“When am I wrong?” The minister’s smile vanished at a hammering on the door. He jerked his head toward Koll and the boy slid back the bolt.

“Sumael,” said Yarvi, smiling as he did whenever she visited. “What brings-”

She was breathing hard as she stepped over the threshold. “The empress wishes to speak to you.”

Father Yarvi’s eyes widened. “I’ll come at once.”

“Not you.” She was looking straight at Thorn. “You.”

BRAND HAD SPENT MOST of his life feeling out of place. Beggar among the rich. Coward among the brave. Fool among the clever. But a visit to the Palace of the Empress opened up whole new gulfs of crippling inadequacy.

“Gods,” he whispered, every time he crept around another corner after Thorn and Sumael into some new marbled corridor, or gilded stairway, or cavernous chamber, each richer than the last. He tiptoed down a hallway lit with candles tall as a man. Dozens of them, each worth more in Thorlby than he was, left burning on the chance that someone might happen by. Everything was jewelled or silvered, panelled or painted. He looked at a chair inlaid with a dozen kinds of wood, and thought how much more it must have cost than everything he had earned in his life. He wondered if he was dreaming it, but knew he didn’t have a good enough imagination.

“Wait here,” said Sumael, as they reached a round room at the top of a flight of steps, every bit of the marble walls carved as finely as Koll’s mast with scenes from some story. “Touch nothing.” And she left Brand alone with Thorn. The first time since that day in the market.

And look how that turned out.

“Quite a place,” he muttered.

Thorn stood with her back to him, turning her head to show a sliver of frown. “Is that why Father Yarvi sent you along? To say what anyone could see?”

“I don’t know why he sent me along.” Chill silence stretched out. “I’m sorry if I dragged you back. The other day. You’re far the better fighter, I should’ve let you take the lead.”

“You should’ve,” she said, without looking at him.

“Just … seems like you’re angry with me, and whatever I-”

“Does now seem like the time?”

“No.” He knew some things were better left unsaid but he couldn’t stand thinking she hated him. He had to try and put things right. “I just-” He glanced across at her, and she caught him looking, the way she had dozens of times the last few weeks, but now her face twisted.

“Just shut your bloody mouth!” she snarled, white with fury, and looked ready to give him a bloody mouth as well.

He looked down at the floor, so highly polished he could see his own stricken face staring stupidly back, and had nothing to say. What could you say to that?

“If you love-birds are quite finished,” said Sumael from the doorway, “the empress is waiting.”

“Oh, we’re finished,” snapped Thorn, stalking off.

Sumael shrugged her shoulders at Brand, and two frowning guards shut the doors on him with a final-sounding click.

The gardens were like something from a dream, all lit in strange colors by the purple sunset and the shifting torchlight, flames flickering from cages of coals that sent sparks dancing with every breath of wind. Nothing was the way the gods had made it, everything tortured by the hands of man. Grass shaved as carefully as a romancer’s jaw. Trees clipped into unnatural shapes and bowing under the weight of their own bloated, sweet-smelling blossom. Birds too, twittering from the twisted branches, and Thorn wondered why they didn’t fly away until she saw they were all tethered to their perches with silver chains fine as spider’s threads.

Paths of white stone twisted between statues of impossibly stern, impossibly slender women wafting scrolls, books, swords. Empresses of the past, Thorn reckoned, and all wondering why this half-shaved horror had been allowed among them. The guards looked as if they had the same question. Lots of guards, every mirror-bright sword and spear making her acutely aware of how unarmed she was. She sloped after Sumael around a star-shaped pool, crystal water tinkling into it from a fountain carved like snakes coiled together, up to the steps of a strange little building, a dome set on pillars with a curved bench beneath it.

On the bench sat Vialine, Empress of the South.

She had undergone quite a transformation since she visited Father Yarvi’s crumbling house. Her hair was twisted into a shining coil netted with golden wire and hung with jewels. Her bodice was set with tiny mirrors that twinkled blue and pink with the fading light, red and orange with the torch-flames. From a streak of dark paint across the bridge of her nose, her eyes gleamed brightest of all.

Thorn wasn’t sure she’d ever felt so far out of her depth. “What do I say?”

“She’s just a person,” said Sumael. “Talk to her like she’s a person.”

“What the hell do I know about talking to a person?”

“Just be honest.” Sumael slapped Thorn on the back and sent her stumbling forward. “And do it now.”

Thorn edged onto the lowest stair. “Your radiance,” she croaked out, trying to go down on one knee then realizing it couldn’t really be done on a set of steps.

“Vialine, and please don’t kneel. A week ago I was nobody much. It still makes me nervous.”

Thorn froze awkwardly halfway down, and wobbled back to an uncertain stoop. “Sumael says you sent for-”

“What is your name?”

“Thorn Bathu, your-”

“Vialine, please. The Thorn seems self-explanatory. The Bathu?”

“My father won a famous victory there the day I was born.”

“He was a warrior?”

“A great one.” Thorn fumbled for the pouch about her neck. “Chosen Shield to a queen of Gettland.”

“And your mother?”

“My mother … wishes I wasn’t me.” Sumael had told her to be honest, after all.

“My mother was a general who died in battle against the Alyuks.”

“Good for her,” said Thorn, then instantly thought better of it. “Though … not for you.” Worse and worse. “I suppose, your radiance …” She trailed off into mortified silence. Some bloody diplomat.

“Vialine.” The empress patted the bench beside her. “Sit with me.”

Thorn stepped up into the little pavilion, around a table, a silver platter on it heaped with enough perfect fruit to feed an army, and to a waist-high rail.

“Gods,” she breathed. She had scarcely thought about how many stairs she climbed, but now she saw they were on the palace roof. There was a cliff-like drop to more gardens far below. The First of Cities was spread out under the darkening sky beyond, a madman’s maze of buildings, lights twinkling in the blue evening, as many as stars in the sky. In the distance, across the black mirror of the straight, other clusters of lights. Other towns, other cities. Strange constellations, faint in the distance.

“And all this is yours,” Thorn whispered.

“All of it and none of it.” There was something in the set of Vialine’s jaw, jutting proudly forward, that Thorn thought she recognized. That she had seen in her mother’s mirror, long ago. That made her think the empress was used to wearing a brave face of her own.

“That must be quite a weight to carry,” she said.

Vialine’s shoulders seemed to sag a little. “Something of a burden.”

“Empress, I don’t know anything about politics.” Thorn perched herself on the bench in a manner she hoped was respectful, whatever that looked like, she’d never been too comfortable sitting unless it was at an oar. “I don’t know anything about anything. You’d be much better talking to Father Yarvi-”

“I don’t want to talk about politics.”

Thorn sat in prickling awkwardness. “So …”

“You’re a woman.” Vialine leaned forward, her hands clasped in her lap and her eyes fixed on Thorn’s face. Disarmingly close. Closer than Thorn was used to having anyone, let alone an empress.

“So my mother tells me,” she muttered. “Opinion’s divided …”

“You fight men.”

“Yes.”

“You beat men.”

“Sometimes …”

“Sumael says you beat them three at a time! Your crew respect you. I could see it in their faces. They fear you.”

“Respect, I don’t know. Fear, maybe, your-”

“Vialine. I never saw a woman fight like you. Can I?” Before Thorn could answer the empress had put her hand on Thorn’s shoulder and squeezed at it. Her eyes went wide. “Great God, you’re like wood! You must be so strong.” She let her hand drop, much to Thorn’s relief, and stared down at it, small and dark on the marble between them. “I’m not.”

“Well, you won’t beat a strong man with strength,” murmured Thorn.

The empress’s eyes flickered to hers, white in the midst of that black paint, torch flames gleaming in the corners. “With what, then?”

“You must be quicker to strike and quicker when you do. You must be tougher and cleverer, you must always look to attack, and you must fight without honor, without conscience, without pity.” Skifr’s words, and Thorn realized only then how completely she had learned them, how totally she had taken them in, how much the old woman had taught her. “So I’m told, anyway-”

Vialine snapped her fingers. “That is why I sent for you. To learn how to fight strong men. Not with swords, but the principles are the same.” She propped her chin on her hands, a strangely girlish gesture in a woman who ruled half the world. “My uncle wants me to be nothing more than prow-beast for his ship. Less, if anything. The prow-beast at least goes at the keel.”

“Our ships have one at the stern as well.”

“Marvelous. He wants me to be that one, then. To sit in the throne and smile while he makes the choices. But I refuse to be his puppet.” Vialine clenched her fist and thumped the table, scarcely even making the tiny fruit knife rattle on the platter. “I refuse, do you hear me?”

“I do, but … I’m not sure my hearing will make much difference.”

“No. It’s my uncle’s ears I need to open.” The empress glared off across the darkening gardens. “I stood up to him again in the council today. You should have seen his face. He couldn’t have been more shocked if I’d stabbed him.”

“You can’t know that for sure until you stab him.”

“Great God, I’d like to!” Vialine grinned across at her. “I bet no one makes a puppet of you, do they? I bet no one dares! Look at you.” She had an expression Thorn wasn’t used to seeing. Almost … admiring. “You’re, you know-”

“Ugly?” muttered Thorn.

“No!”

“Tall?”

“No. Well, yes, but, free.”

“Free?” Thorn gave a disbelieving snort.

“Aren’t you?”

“I’m sworn to serve Father Yarvi. To do whatever he thinks necessary. To make up for … what I did.”

“What did you do?”

Thorn swallowed. “I killed a boy. Edwal was his name, and I don’t reckon he deserved to die, but … I killed him, all right.”

Vialine was just a person, as Sumael had said and, in spite of her clothes and her palace, or maybe because of them, there was something in her even, earnest gaze that drew the words out.

“They were all set to crush me with stones for it, but Father Yarvi saved me. Don’t know why, but he did. It was Skifr taught me to fight.” Thorn smiled as she touched her fingers to the shaved side of her head, thinking how strong she’d thought herself back then and how weak she’d been. “We fought Horse People on the Denied. Killed a few of them, then I was sick. And we fought men in the market, the other day. Me and Brand. Not sure whether I killed those, but I wanted to. Angry, about those beads … I reckon …” She trailed off, realizing she’d said a lot more than she should have.

“Beads?” asked Vialine, the painted bridge of her nose crinkled with puzzlement.

Thorn cleared her throat. “Wouldn’t worry about it.”

“I suppose freedom can be dangerous,” said the empress.

“I reckon.”

“Perhaps we look at others and see only the things we don’t have.”

“I reckon.”

“Perhaps we all feel weak, underneath.”

“I reckon.”

“But you fight men and win, even so.”

Thorn sighed. “At that, I win.”

Vialine counted the points off on her small fingers. “So, quickness to strike, and cleverness, and aggression without conscience, honor or pity.”

Thorn held up her empty hands. “They’ve got me everything I have.”

The empress laughed. A big laugh, from such a small woman, loud and joyous with her mouth wide open. “I like you, Thorn Bathu!”

“You’re joining a small group, then. Sometimes feels like it’s shrinking all the time.” And Thorn eased out the box, and held it between them. “Father Yarvi gave me something for you.”

“I told him I could not take it.”

“He told me I had to give it to you even so.” Thorn bit her lip as she eased the box open and the pale light spilled out, more strange and more beautiful than ever in the gathering darkness. The perfect edges of the elf-bangle gleamed like dagger-blades, glittering metal polished and faceted, winking with the lamplight, dark circles within circles shifting in the impossible depths beneath its round window. A relic from another world. A world thousands of years gone. A thing beside which the priceless treasures of the palace seemed petty baubles, worthless as mud.

Thorn tried to make her voice soft, persuasive, diplomatic. It came out rougher than ever. “Father Yarvi’s a good man. A deep-cunning man. You should speak to him.”

“I did.” Vialine looked from the bangle to Thorn’s eyes. “And you should be careful. Father Yarvi is a man like my uncle, I think. They give no gift without expecting something in return.” She snapped the box closed, then took it from Thorn’s hand. “But I will take it, if that is what you want. Give Father Yarvi my thanks. But tell him I can give him no more.”

“I will.” Thorn looked out at the garden as it sank into gloom, fumbling for something else to say, and noticed that where the guard had stood beside the fountain there were only shadows. All of them were gone. She and the empress were alone. “What happened to your guards?”

“That’s odd,” said Vialine. “Ah! But here are more.”

Thorn counted six men climbing the steps at the far end of the gardens. Six imperial soldiers, fully armed and armored, clattering quickly down the path through pools of orange torchlight toward the empress’s little house. Another man followed them. A man with gold on his breastplate and silver in his hair and a smile brighter than either upon his handsome face.

Duke Mikedas, and as he saw them he gave a jaunty wave.

Thorn had a feeling, then, as though the guts were draining out of her. She reached for the silver plate and slipped the little fruit knife between her fingers. A pitiful weapon, but better than none at all.

She stood as the soldiers stepped smartly around the fountain and between two statues, felt Vialine stand at her shoulder as they spread out. Thorn recognized one of them as the breeze caught the glowing coals and light flared across his face. The Vansterman she had fought in the market, cuts and purple bruises down one cheek and a heavy ax in his fist.

Duke Mikedas bowed low, but with a twist to his mouth, and his men did not bow at all. Vialine spoke in her own language and the duke answered, waving a lazy hand toward Thorn.

“Your grace,” she forced through clenched teeth. “What an honor.”

“My apologies,” he said in the Tongue. “I was telling her radiance that I simply could not miss your visit. A gift, indeed, to find the two of you alone!”

“How so?” asked Vialine.

The duke raised his brows high. “Northern interlopers have come to the First of Cities! Barbarians, from Guttland, or wherever. Set on exporting their petty squabbles to our shores! They have tried to drive a wedge between us and our ally, the High King, who has accepted our One God into his heart. When that failed …” He sternly shook his head. “They have sent an assassin to the palace. An unnatural murderer, hoping to prey upon the innocent good nature of my idiot niece.”

“I suppose that’d be me?” growled Thorn.

“Oh, fiend in woman’s shape! Roughly woman’s shape, anyway, you’re rather too … muscular for my taste. I seem to remember you wanted to try two of my guards?” Mikedas grinned, and all the while his men edged forward, steel glimmering as it caught the light. “How d’you feel about six of ’em?”

Always look less than you are. Thorn cringed back, hunched her shoulders, made herself look small and full of fear even though a strange calm had come on her. As if the Last Door did not yawn at her heels, but she saw it all from outside. She judged the distances, noted the ground, the statues, the torches, the table, the pillars, the steps, the long drop behind them.

“An empress really shouldn’t take such chances with her safety,” the duke was saying, “but do not despair, my dear niece, I shall avenge you!”

“Why?” whispered Vialine. Thorn could feel her fear, and that was useful. Two weak, and scared, and helpless girls, and behind her back she curled her fingers tight around that tiny knife.

The duke’s lip curled. “Because you prove to be an utter pain in my arse. We all like a girl with spirit, don’t we?” He stuck out his bottom lip and shook his head in disappointment. “But there is a limit. Really there is.”

Thorn’s father used to tell her, if you mean to kill, you kill, you don’t talk about it. But fortunately for her the duke was no killer, prating and boasting and savoring his power, giving Thorn time to judge her enemy, time to choose her best chance.

She reckoned the duke himself a small threat. He wore a sword and dagger but she doubted they had ever been drawn. The others knew their business, though. Good swords out, and good shields on their arms, and good daggers at their belts. Good armor too, scaled mail twinkling in the twilight, but weak at the throat. The insides of the elbows. The backs of the knees. That was where she had to strike.

She alone, against seven. She almost laughed then. Absurd odds. Impossible odds. But the only ones she had.

“Theofora could never do as she was told,” the duke blathered on, “but then she was too old a horse to learn obedience. I really had hoped a seventeen-year-old empress could be led by the nose.” He gave a sigh. “Some ponies just chafe at the bridle, though. They kick and bite and refuse to be ridden. Better to destroy them before they throw their master. The throne will pass to your cousin Asta next.” He showed those perfect teeth of his. “She’s four. Now that’s a woman you can work with!” Finally tiring of his own cleverness, he sent two of his men forward with a lazy gesture. “Let’s get it done.”

Thorn watched them come. One had a big, often-broken nose. The other a pocked and pitted face, smiling in a faintly uninterested way. Swords drawn but not raised as they came onto the first step. You couldn’t blame them for being confident. But they were so confident they never even considered she might give them a fight.

And Thorn would give them a fight.

“Careful, your grace,” said the Vansterman. “She’s dangerous.”

“Please,” scoffed the duke, “she’s just a girl. I thought you northerners were all fire and-”

The wise wait for their moment, as Father Yarvi had often told her, but never let it pass. The big-nosed man took the next step, squinting as the light from the torches in the pavilion shone into his eyes, then looking mildly surprised when Thorn darted forward and slit his throat with the fruit knife.

She angled the cut so blood sprayed the pock-faced man beside and he flinched. Just for an instant, but long enough for Thorn to jerk Big Nose’s knife from his belt as he stumbled backward and ram it under the rim of Pock-Mark’s helmet, into the shadow between his neck and his collarbone, all the way to the grip.

She planted her boot against his chest as he made a strangled groan and kicked him back, toppling from the first step and tangling with the two men behind. She caught his sword, cutting her hand on the blade but tearing it from his slack grip, bloody fingers around the crosspiece so she held it overhand like a dagger. She screamed as she ripped it upward, scraping the rim of the next man’s shield and catching him under the jaw, the point raking across his face and knocking his helmet askew.

He reeled away screeching, blood bubbling between his clutching fingers, tottering into the duke who gasped and shoved him into the bushes, staring at the black specks down his breastplate as though they were a personal affront.

Big Nose was stumbling drunkenly back, looking even more surprised than before, desperately trying to hold his neck together but his whole left side was already dark with blood. Thorn reckoned she could put him out of her mind.

To deal with three that quickly was fine weaponluck indeed, but surprise had been her one advantage. It was spent, and the odds still four to one.

“God damn it!” bellowed the duke, wiping at his blood-spattered cloak. “Kill them!”

Thorn shuffled back, keeping a pillar close on her left like a shield, eyes darting back and forth as the men closed in, shields and swords and axes plenty ready now, hard steel and hard eyes all gleaming red with the torchlight. She could hear Vialine behind her, almost whimpering with each breath.

“Brand!” she screamed at the top of her lungs. “Brand!”