Half the World

GREETINGS

Brand said he’d help them unload.

Maybe because that was the good thing to do. Maybe because he couldn’t bear to leave the crew quite yet. Maybe because he was scared to see Rin. Scared she’d come to harm while he was gone. Scared she might blame him for it.

So he said as long as he didn’t have to lift the ship he’d help them unload it, and told himself it was the good thing to do. There aren’t many good things don’t have a splinter of selfishness in them somewhere, after all.

And when the unloading was done and half the crew already wandered their own ways he hugged Fror, and Dosduvoi, and Rulf, and they laughed over things Odda had said on the way down the Divine. Laughed as Mother Sun sank toward the hills behind Thorlby, shadows gathering in the carvings that swirled over the whole mast from its root to its top.

“You did one hell of a job on that mast, Koll,” said Brand, staring up at it.

“It’s the tale of our voyage.” Koll had changed a deal since they set out, twitchy-quick as ever but deeper in the voice, stronger in the face, surer in the hands as he slid them gently over the carved trees, and rivers, and ships, and figures all wonderfully woven into one another. “Thorlby’s here at the base, the Divine and Denied flow up this side and down the other, the First of Cities at the mast-head. Here we cross the Shattered Sea. There Brand lifts the ship. There we meet Blue Jenner.”

“Clever boy, isn’t he?” said Safrit, hugging him tight. “Just as well you didn’t fall off the bloody yard and smash your brains out.”

“Would’ve been a loss,” murmured Brand, gazing up at the mast in more wonder than ever.

Koll pointed out more figures. “Skifr sends Death across the plain. Prince Varoslaf chains the Denied. Thorn fights seven men. Father Yarvi seals his deal with the empress, and …” He leaned close, made a few more cuts to a kneeling figure at the bottom with his worn-down knife and blew the chippings away. “Here’s me, now, finishing it off.” And he stepped back, grinning. “Done.”

“It’s master’s work,” said Father Yarvi, running his shrivelled hand over the carvings. “I’ve a mind to have it mounted in the yard of the citadel, so every Gettlander can see the high deeds done on their behalf, and the high deed of carving it not least among them.”

The smiles faded then and left them dewy-eyed, because they all saw the voyage was over, and their little family breaking up. Those whose paths had twined so tight together into one great journey would each be following their own road now, scattered like leaves on a gale to who knew what distant ports, and it was in the hands of the fickle gods whether those paths would ever cross again.

“Bad luck,” murmured Dosduvoi, slowly shaking his head. “You find friends and they wander from your life again. Bad, bad luck-”

“Oh, stop prating on your luck you huge fool!” snapped Safrit. “My husband had the poor luck to be stolen by slavers but he never stopped struggling to return to me, never gave up hope, died fighting to the last for his oarmates.”

“That he did,” said Rulf.

“Saved my life,” said Father Yarvi.

“So you could save mine and my son’s.” Safrit gave Dosduvoi’s arm a shove which made the silver rings on his wrist rattle. “Look at all you have! Your strength, and your health, and your wealth, and friends who maybe one day wander back into your life!”

“Who knows who you’ll pass on this crooked path to the Last Door?” murmured Rulf, rubbing thoughtfully at his beard.

“That’s good luck, damn it, not bad!” said Safrit. “Give praise to whatever god you fancy for every day you live.”

“I never thought of it like that before,” said Dosduvoi, forehead creased in thought. “I’ll endeavor to think on my blessings.” He carefully rearranged the ring-money on his great wrist. “Just as soon as I’ve had a little round of dice. Or two.” And he headed off toward the town.

“Some men never bloody learn,” muttered Safrit, staring after him with hands on hips.

“None of ’em do,” said Rulf.

Brand held out his hand to him. “I’ll miss you.”

“And I you,” said the helmsman, clasping him by the arm. “You’re strong at the oar, and strong at the wall, and strong there too.” And he thumped Brand on his chest, and leaned close. “Stand in the light, lad, eh?”

“I’ll miss all of you.” Brand looked toward Thorlby, the way that Thorn had gone, and had to swallow the lump in his throat. To walk off with scarcely a word that way, as if he was nothing and nobody. That hurt.

“Don’t worry.” Safrit put her hand on his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “There are plenty of other girls about.”

“Not many like her.”

“That’s a bad thing?” asked Mother Scaer. “I know of a dozen back in Vulsgard who’d tear each other’s eyes out for a lad like you.”

“That’s a good thing?” asked Brand. “On balance, I’d prefer a wife with eyes.”

Mother Scaer narrowed hers, which made him more nervous still. “That’s why you pick the winner.”

“Always sensible,” said Father Yarvi. “It is time you left us, Mother Scaer.” He frowned toward the warriors standing at the city’s gate. “Vanstermen are less popular even than usual in Thorlby, I think.”

She growled in her throat. “The Mother of Crows dances on the border once again.”

“Then it is our task as ministers to speak for the Father of Doves, and make of the fist an open hand.”

“This alliance you plan.” Scaer scrubbed unhappily at her shaved head. “To sponge away a thousand years of blood is no small deed.”

“But one that will be worth singing of.”

“Men prefer to sing of the making of wounds, fools that they are.” Her eyes were blue slits as she stared into Yarvi’s. “And I fear you stitch one wound so you can carve a deeper. But I gave my word, and will do what I can.”

“What else can any of us do?” The elf-bangles rattled on Mother Scaer’s long arm as Yarvi clasped her hand in farewell. Then his eyes moved to Brand, cool and level. “My thanks for all your help, Brand.”

“Just doing what you paid me for.”

“More than that, I think.”

“Just trying to do good, then, maybe.”

“The time may come when I need a man who is not so concerned about the greater good, but just the good. Perhaps I can call on you?”

“It’d be my honor, Father Yarvi. I owe you for this. For giving me a place.”

“No, Brand, I owe you.” The minister smiled. “And I hope soon enough to pay.”

Brand headed across the hillside, threading between the tents and shacks and ill-made hovels sprouted up outside the gates like mushrooms after the rains. Many more than there used to be. There was war with the Vanstermen, and folk had fled homes near the border to huddle against Thorlby’s walls.

Lamplight gleamed through chinks in wattle, voices drifting into the evening, a fragment of a sad song echoing from somewhere. He passed a great bonfire, pinched faces of the very old and very young lit by whirling sparks. The air smelled strong of smoke and dung and unwashed bodies. The sour stink of his childhood, but it smelled sweet to him then. He knew this wouldn’t be his home much longer.

As he walked he felt the pouch shifting underneath his shirt. Heavy it was, now. Red gold from Prince Varoslaf and yellow gold from the Empress Vialine and good silver with the face of Queen Laithlin stamped upon it. Enough for a fine house in the shadow of the citadel. Enough that Rin would never want for anything again. He was smiling as he shoved the door of their shack rattling open.

“Rin, I’m-”

He found himself staring at a clutch of strangers. A man, a woman, and how many children? Five? Six? All crushed tight about the firepit where he used to warm his aching feet and no sign of Rin among them.

“Who the hell are you?” Fear clutched at him, and he put his hand on his dagger.

“It’s all right!” The man held up his palms. “You’re Brand?”

“Damn right I am. Where’s my sister?”

“You don’t know?”

“If I knew would I be asking? Where’s Rin?”

It was a fine house in the shadow of the citadel.

A rich woman’s house of good cut stone with a full second floor and a dragon’s head carved into its roof beam. A homely house with welcoming firelight spilling around its shutters and into the evening. A handsome house with a stream gurgling through a steep channel beside it and under a narrow bridge. A well-kept house with a door new-painted green, and hanging over the door a shingle in the shape of a sword, swinging gently with the breeze.

“Here?” Brand had labored up the steep lanes with crates and barrels to the homes of the wealthy often enough, and he knew the street. But he’d never been to this house, had no notion why his sister might be inside.

“Here,” answered the man, and gave the door a beating with his knuckles.

Brand stood there wondering what sort of pose to strike, and was caught by surprise halfway between two when the door jerked open.

Rin was changed. Even more than he was, maybe. A woman grown, she seemed now, taller, and her face leaner, dark hair cut short. She wore a fine tunic, clever stitching about the collar, like a wealthy merchant might.

“You all right, Hale?” she asked.

“Better,” said the man. “We had a visitor.” And he stepped out of the way so the light fell across Brand’s face.

“Rin …” he croaked, hardly knowing what to say, “I’m-”

“You’re back!” And she flung her arms around him almost hard enough to knock him over, and squeezed him almost hard enough to make him sick. “You just going to stand on the step and stare?” And she bundled him through the doorway. “Give my love to your children!” she shouted after Hale.

“Be glad to!”

Then she kicked the door shut and dragged Brand’s sea-chest from his shoulder. As she set it on the tiled floor a chain hung down, a silver chain with a silver key gleaming on it.

“Whose key’s that?” he muttered.

“Did you think I’d get married while you were gone? It’s my own key to my own locks. You hungry? You thirsty? I’ve got-”

“Whose house is this, Rin?”

She grinned at him. “It’s yours. It’s mine. It’s ours.”

“This?” Brand stared at her. “But … how did-”

“I told you I’d make a sword.”

Brand’s eyes went wide. “Must’ve been a blade for the songs.”

“King Uthil thought so.”

Brand’s eyes went wider still. “King Uthil?”

“I found a new way to smelt the steel. A hotter way. The first blade cracked when we quenched it, but the second held. Gaden said we had to give it to the king. And the king stood up in the Godshall and said steel was the answer, and this was the best steel he ever saw. He’s carrying it now, I hear.” She shrugged, as if King Uthil’s patronage was no great honor. “After that, everyone wanted me to make them a sword. Gaden said she couldn’t keep me. She said I should be the master and she the apprentice.” Rin shrugged. “Blessed by She who Strikes the Anvil, like we used to say.”

“Gods,” whispered Brand. “I was going to change your life. You did it by yourself.”

“You gave me the chance.” Rin took his wrist, frowning down at the scars there. “What happened?”

“Nothing. Rope slipped going over the tall hauls.”

“Reckon there’s more to that story.”

“I’ve got better ones.”

Rin’s lip wrinkled. “Long as they haven’t got Thorn Bathu in ’em.”

“She saved the Empress of the South from her uncle, Rin! The Empress! Of the South.”

“That one I’ve heard already. They’re singing it all over town. Something about her beating a dozen men alone. Then it was fifteen. Might’ve even been twenty last time I heard it. And she threw some duke off a roof and routed a horde of Horse People and won an elf-relic and lifted a ship besides, I hear. Lifted a ship!” And she snorted again.

Brand raised his brows. “I reckon songs have a habit of outrunning the truth.”

“You can tell me the truth of it later.” Rin took down the lamp and drew him through another doorway, stairs going up into the shadows. “Come and see your room.”

“I’ve got a room?” muttered Brand, eyes going wider than ever. How often had he dreamed of that? When they hadn’t a roof over their heads, or food to eat, or a friend in the world besides each other?

She put her arm around his shoulders and it felt like home. “You’ve got a room.”