Half the World

SORT OF ALONE

They’d gone to sleep holding each other but it hadn’t lasted long. Brand never knew anyone to thrash about so much in the night. She twitched and twisted, jerked and shuddered, kicked and rolled until she kicked him awake and rolled him right out of his own bed.

So he was left sitting on his sea chest, the lid polished to a comfortable gloss by hundreds of miles of his own rowing backside, watching her.

She’d ended up facedown with her arms spread wide, a strip of sunlight from the narrow window angled across her back, one hand hanging off the bed and the elf-bangle casting a faint glow on the floor. One long leg poked out from under the blanket, a puckered scar across the thigh, hair bound with rings of silver and gold, tangled across her face so all he could see was half of one shut eye and a little piece of cheek with that arrow-shaped mark on it.

To begin with he’d sat with a stupid smile on his face, listening to her snore. Thinking how she’d snored in his ear all the way down the Divine and the Denied. Thinking how much he liked hearing it. Hardly able to believe his luck that she was there, now, naked, in his bed.

Then he’d started worrying.

What would people think when they found out they’d done this? What would Rin say? What would Thorn’s mother do? What if a child came? He’d heard it wasn’t likely but it happened, didn’t it? Sooner or later she’d wake. What if she didn’t want him anymore? How could she want him anymore? And, lurking at the back of his mind, the darkest worry of all. What if she woke and she did want him still? What then?

“Gods,” he muttered, blinking up at the ceiling, but they’d answered his prayers by putting her in his bed, hadn’t they? He could hardly pray for help getting her out.

With a particularly ripping snort Thorn jerked, and stretched out, clenching her fists, and stretching her toes, her muscles shuddering. She blew snot out of one nostril, wiped it on the back of her hand, rubbed her eyes on the back of the other and dragged her matted hair out of her face. She froze, and her head jerked around, eyes wide.

“Morning,” he said.

She stared at him. “Not a dream, then?”

“I’m guessing no.” A nightmare, maybe.

They looked at each other for a long moment. “You want me to go?” she asked.

“No!” he said, too loud and too eager. “No. You want to go?”

“No.” She sat up slowly, dragging the blanket around her shoulders, knobbled knees towards him, and gave a huge yawn.

“Why?” he found he’d said. She stopped halfway through, mouth hanging open. “Wasn’t like last night went too well did it?”

She flinched at that like he’d slapped her. “What did I do wrong?”

“You? No! You didn’t … it’s me I’m talking of.” He wasn’t sure what he was talking of, but his mouth kept going even so. “Rin told you, didn’t she?”

“Told me what?”

“That my own father didn’t want me. That my own mother didn’t want me.”

She frowned at him. “I thought your mother died.”

“Same bloody thing isn’t it?”

“No. It isn’t.”

He was hardly listening. “I grew up picking through rubbish. I had to beg to feed my sister. I carted bones like a slave.” He hadn’t meant to say any of it. Not ever. But it just came puking out.

Thorn shut her mouth with a snap. “I’m an arse, Brand. But what kind of arse would I be if I thought less of you for that? You’re a good man. A man who can be trusted. Everyone who knows you thinks so. Koll worships you. Rulf respects you. Even Father Yarvi likes you, and he doesn’t like anyone.”

He blinked at her. “I never speak.”

“But you listen when other people speak! And you’re handsome and well-made as Safrit never tired of telling me.”

“She did?”

“She and Mother Scaer spent a whole afternoon discussing your arse.”

“Eh?”

“You could have anyone you wanted. Specially now you don’t live in a midden. The mystery is why you’d want me.”

“Eh?” He’d never dreamed she had her own doubts. Always seemed so damn sure about everything.

But she drew the blanket tight around her shoulders and looked down at her bare feet, mouth twisted with disgust. “I’m selfish.”

“You’re … ambitious. I like that.”

“I’m bitter.”

“You’re funny. I like that too.”

She rubbed gently at her scarred cheek. “I’m ugly.”

Anger burned up in him then, so hot it took him by surprise. “Who bloody said so? Cause first they’re wrong and second I’ll punch their teeth out.”

“I can punch ’em myself. That’s the problem. I’m not … you know.” She stuck a hand out of the blanket and scrubbed her nails against the shaved side of her head. “I’m not how a girl should be. Or a woman. Never have been. I’m no good at …”

“What?”

“Smiling or, I don’t know, sewing.”

“I don’t need anything sewed.” And he slid off his sea chest and knelt down in front of her. His worries had faded. Things had got ruined before somehow and he wouldn’t let them get ruined again. Not for lack of trying. “I’ve wanted you since the First of Cities. Since before, maybe.” He reached out and put his hand on hers where it rested on the bed. Clumsy, maybe, but honest. “Just never thought I’d get you.” He looked into her face, groping for the right words. “Looking at you, and thinking you want me, makes me feel like … like I won.”

“Won something no one else would want,” she muttered.

“What do I care what they want?” he said, that anger catching fire again and making her look up. “If they’re too damn stupid to see you’re the best woman in the Shattered Sea that’s my good luck, isn’t it?” He fell silent, and felt his face burning, and thought for sure he’d ruined the whole thing again.

“That might be the nicest thing anyone ever said to me.” She reached up and pushed the hair out of his face. Gentle as a feather, her touch. He hadn’t realized she could be so gentle. “No one ever says anything nice to me, but even so.” The blanket slipped off her bare shoulder and he set his hand on it, slid it down her side and around her back, skin hissing on skin, warm, and smooth, her eyes closing, and his-

A thumping echoed through the house. Someone beating on the front door, and knocks that weren’t to be ignored. Brand heard the bolt drawn back, voices muttering.

“Gods,” said Thorn, eyes wide. “Could be my mother.”

They hadn’t moved so fast even when the Horse People came charging across the steppe, grabbing up clothes and tossing them to each other, pulling them on, him fumbling with his belt and getting it all messed up because he was watching her wriggle her trousers over her arse out of the corner of his eye.

“Brand?” came his sister’s voice.

They both froze, he with one boot on, she with none, then Brand called out a cracked, “Aye?”

“You all right?” Rin’s voice coming up the steps.

“Aye!”

“You alone?” Just outside the door now.

“Course!” Then, when he realized she might come in, he followed up with a guilty, “Sort of.”

“You’re the worst liar in Gettland. Is Thorn Bathu in there with you?”

Brand winced. “Sort of.”

“She’s in there or she’s not. Are you bloody in there, Thorn Bathu?”

“Sort of?” said Thorn at the door in a tiny voice.

A long pause. “That was Master Hunnan.”

The name was like a bucket of cold water down Brand’s trousers and no mistake.

“He said a dove came with news of a raid at Halleby, and with all the men gone north to fight, he’s gathering what’s left to go and see to it. Some who are training, some who are wounded, some who failed a test. They’re meeting on the beach.”

“He wants me?” called Brand, a quiver in his voice.

“He says Gettland needs you. And he says for any man who does his duty there’ll be a warrior’s place.”

A warrior’s place. Always to have brothers at your shoulder. Always to have something to fight for. To stand in the light. And quick as that the ashes of old dreams that had seemed for months burned out flared up hot and bright again. Quick as that he was decided.

“I’ll be down,” called Brand, heart suddenly beating hard, and he heard his sister’s footsteps move away.

“You’re going with that bastard?” asked Thorn. “After what he did to you? What he did to me?”

Brand pulled the blanket off the bed. “Not for his sake. For Gettland.”

She snorted. “For you.”

“All right, for me. Don’t I deserve it?”

Her jaw worked for a moment. “I notice he didn’t ask for me.”

“Would you have followed him?” he asked, putting his few things onto the blanket and making a bundle of it.

“Course I would. Then I’d have kicked his face in.”

“Maybe that’s why he didn’t ask for you.”

“Hunnan wouldn’t ask for me if I was holding a bucket of water and he was on fire. None of them would. Warriors of Gettland. There’s a bloody joke! Not a funny one, mind.” She paused halfway through dragging one boot on. “You’re not so keen to go just so you can get away from me, are you? Cause if you’re thinking better of this just tell me. I reckon we’ve had enough secrets-”

“That’s not it,” he said, even though he wondered if it was part of it. Just get some room to breathe. Just get some time to think.

“Sometimes I wish I’d stayed in the First of Cities,” she said.

“You’d never have bedded me then.”

“When I died rich and storied that could’ve been my life’s one great regret.”

“Just give me a week,” he said, strapping on Odda’s sword. “I’m not thinking better of anything, but I have to do this. I might never get another chance.”

She curled her lips back and made a long hiss. “One week. Then I go after the next man I find who can lift a ship.”

“Done.” And he kissed her one more time. Her lips were scummy, and her mouth was sour, and he didn’t care. He slung his shield over his shoulder, and hefted the little bundle he’d made with his blanket, and he took a long breath, and headed off to the iron embrace of Mother War.

Something stopped him in the doorway, though, and he took one last look back. As if to make sure she was really there. She was, and smiling at him. They were rare, her smiles, but that made them precious. Precious as gold, it seemed, and he was mightily pleased with himself for being the cause of it.