The Liar's key

EIGHTEEN

Nearly six months spent north of Rhone had improved my opinion of the country considerably. For one thing they knew what summer was about here. We walked south through long hot days and I basked in the sunshine whilst the others turned red and burned. Tuttugu proved the worst of them with the sun. At one point it seemed as though most of his exposed skin was attempting to peel off, and he moaned about it non-stop, crying out at the slightest slap on the arm-even going so far as to suggest some of them weren’t entirely accidental.

The sun also burned off the dark mood that had enfolded me for days after I woke. It didn’t reach the cold core of certainty that I would have to kill Edris Dean, but it rolled back the shadows the memory cast and left me with recollections of my mother that would have been lost forever if not for Kara’s magics. Whilst we kept moving it seemed that the past was content to trail behind me, not forgotten but not getting in the way of each moment. For the first day or two I thought the dream’s discoveries would drive me mad, but oddly with the passing of a week I felt more at ease in my own darkening skin than I had for years. Almost a form of contentment. I attributed it to the ever-narrowing gap between me and home.

Perhaps it was spending time trapped in my own head with the younger me but I seemed to have more of a rapport with Hennan on the last weeks of our journey. We started to pass through actual towns and I taught the lad a few tricks with a pack of cards I picked up. Just simple finesses, enough to bilk Snorri and Tuttugu out of their few coppers and some chore duties around camp.

“I’m sure one of you is cheating. .” Snorri rumbled that evening when saddled with an extra night watch and the task of gathering firewood for the fifth time in a row.

“That’s a common misconception among losers,” I told him. “If you call the application of intelligence and a shrewd assessment of the statistical odds cheating then yes, both I and Hennan are cheating.” In fact if you called “not playing in accordance with the rules” cheating, then we would both have to raise our hands to that also. “The rules of poker, Snorri, have outlasted the most basic information about the society and age in which they were constituted,” I continued. The important thing when denying cheating is to continue-to not stop speaking until the conversation has travelled so far from its roots that none of the listeners can remember what the original point of contention was. “What a civilization manages to keep from that which went before says as much about it as what it leaves to the next age.”

Snorri furrowed his brow. “Why is there an ace up your sleeve?”

“There isn’t.” It was a king, and there was no way he could have known it was there-just a lucky guess.

Continuation is a good policy, but sometimes it turns out that a barbarian is too stubborn to be led and you end up doing two night watches and gathering firewood all week. Snorri asked me what sort of lesson I thought my behaviour might provide Hennan with-a rather better one than would be taught by seeing a prince of Red March reduced to manual labour I thought, but at least I took satisfaction in the fact that my pupil’s cheating went undetected, a credit to my teaching.

Another benefit of a return to sun and civilization was that the summer once more restored the gold to my hair, bleaching out the drab brown. Additionally the reappearance of people helped me remember at last that there were women other than Kara in the world. I purchased new clothes in the town of Amele and spruced myself up. I considered a horse but unless I bought at least four steeds then having a saddle under my arse wouldn’t get me home any quicker. I did consider just riding on ahead by myself, but even in Rhone travelling alone can be a risky business, and even if our enemies were focused on finding the key I didn’t like the idea of having to explain to them on some country lane isolated in the middle of a thousand acres of Rhonish cornfields that I didn’t have it. I toyed with the idea of getting a nag for Snorri, Tuttugu, and Kara, with Hennan up behind me, but Mother’s locket had started to look threadbare and I wasn’t sure I could stand all the moaning and falling off the Norse were likely to do.

I visited a barber and had my beard shaved off-a ritual shedding of the north if you like. The fellow with the razor and snips declared it an unholy tangle and charged me an extra crown for the job. With it gone I felt strangely naked, my chin tender, and when he showed me the result in his mirror it took me a moment to accept that the man looking back out was me. He looked a lot younger, and vaguely surprised.

Walking through Amele in my new outfit-nothing fancy, just outdoors clothes that a country squire might wear-and my chin still stinging at the slightest breeze, I will admit to turning a few heads. I smiled at a buxom peasant girl off about whatever business it is that occupies peasants, and she smiled back. The world was good. And getting better by the mile.

• • •

“Bonjour,” Hennan greeted me when I returned to the tavern where I left the others-the King’s Leg, sporting a wooden stump above the door.

“Bon-what?”

“Snorri’s been teaching me the language the locals speak.” He looked up at Snorri to see if he’d got it right. “It means good day.”

“The locals all speak the Empire tongue well enough.” I sat down beside Tuttugu and stole a chicken wing from his plate. “Sometimes you have to wave a coin at them before they’ll admit it. Don’t waste your time, boy. Awful language.” I stopped talking in order to chew. Whatever Rhone’s failings-and they are many-I’ll call any man a liar who says they can’t cook. The lowliest Rhoneman can make a better meal than all the north put together. “Mmmm. That’s worth the trip south on its own, hey, Tuttugu?” Tuttugu nodded, mouth stuffed, beard full of grease. “Where was I now? Yes, Rhonish. Don’t bother. You know what the literal translation of the Rhonish word for defence is? The-gap-before-running-away. It’s a hard language to lie in, I’ll give you that.”

Snorri made a warning face and Tuttugu became still more interested in the rest of his chicken. I noticed a few locals aiming hard stares in my direction.

“A wonderful brave people though,” I added, loudly enough for the eavesdroppers to choke on.

“You look different,” Snorri said.

“I think ‘even more handsome’ was the phrase you were looking for.” I filched another piece of Tuttugu’s chicken. He tried to stab my hand as I pulled it back.

“More like a girl.” Snorri picked up his flagon and drained it.

“Well, I’ll have to strain the bits out of my beer by hand now the moustache is gone. . but otherwise it’s all good. You should try it.”

Tuttugu snorted at that. “My beard’s the only thing that keeps my chin from burning in this furnace you call home.” He sucked the meat off a leg bone. “I think the reason your chickens taste so good is that they’re all half-cooked before you slaughter them.”

Snorri rubbed his own beard but said nothing. He had trimmed it close, against the northern style: compared to most Vikings he merely looked as though he’d forgotten to shave that morning.

Kara watched me closely as if making a study. “You’re changing your skin, Jalan, casting off the north. By the time we reach the gates of your city you’ll be a southern prince once more. What will you keep from your journey, I wonder?”

And it was my turn to keep silent. Most of it I would gladly lose, though I’d learned a lesson about that. Throw away too much of your past and you abandon the person who walked those days. When you pare away at yourself you can reinvent, that’s true enough, but such whittling always seems to reveal a lesser man, and promises to leave you with nothing at the end.

Two things I would keep beyond doubt. The ache to know that Edris Dean had died and died hard was one of them. The other-the memory of the Northern Lights-the aurora borealis Kara told me they are called-that ghostly show which lit up the sky on the longest night of my short life when we camped on the Bitter Ice at the end of our endurance.

• • •

The trek continued under blue skies. Despite our fears no agents of the Dead King intercepted us, no monsters clawed from their graves to put us in ours, and we passed over the border into Red March without incident. Even so, Snorri pushed us hard, more urgency in him now than at any point since the Hardassa were on our heels. I could tell his wound hurt him-there was a stiffness about the way he moved. I wondered what we would see if he lifted his shirt to show the mark Kelem had put upon him. Perhaps though, the memory of Kelem in that cave, holding Snorri’s dead child, drove the northman forward more than the hooks in his wound drew him on. That had been a mistake on the mage’s part. He could have blocked that particular route to death’s door without that. I don’t care what magics you command-putting that kind of fury into a man like Snorri is always a bad idea.

• • •

In the town of Genova, two days out from Vermillion, I weakened and spent the last of my gold on a decent horse and tack, together with a fine riding cloak and a gilded neck chain. A prince of the realm can’t turn up looking like a footsore beggar however far he’s travelled and however many enemies he’s vanquished. I know Genova well enough and there’s fun to be had there, but with home so close I pressed on without further delay.

“Damn but even the air tastes better here!” I slapped the pommel of my saddle and took a deep breath-savouring the heady musk of wild onions among the oak and beech of the hill forests.

Snorri, Tuttugu, and Kara, sunburned and tramping along in my wake had fewer good things to say about my homeland, but Hennan, perched behind me on the gelding, tended to agree.

It felt wonderful to be back in the saddle again, a touch unfamiliar but far better than walking. My new steed looked rather nice too, a deep black coat and a crooked flash of white down his face, almost a lightning bolt jagging its way from between his eyes to his nose. If he’d been a seventeen-hand stallion rather than a squat gelding barely reaching fourteen hands I’d have been all the happier with him-though of course considerably poorer. In any event, he ate up the miles nicely and provided a good vantage point to watch Red March pass me by. My only regret was that the Norse had strapped their baggage to the beast as if he were a packhorse. Even “Gungnir” was there, wrapped in old rags to keep it from prying eyes, with just the spear tip gleaming where it pierced the wrappings.

I flashed my smile at Kara from on high a time or two but had little response. The woman seemed to be getting moodier by the mile. Probably thinking about how much she’d miss me. She was clever enough not to believe that I was coming with them to Florence and the nightmare Snorri had his sights on.

I bought us a room at an inn that night and after supper Kara found me alone on the porch. I’d been sitting there a while, watching the last traffic hurrying along the Appan Way as the day dwindled into gloom. She came to me as I always knew she would, reeled in eventually by that good old Jalan charm after the longest courtship I’d ever undertaken.

“Have you decided how you’ll stop him?” she asked without preamble.

I sat up at that, having expected some small talk before we began the old dance I’d been leading her up to. The dance that would see my passions requited at last in the hired bed awaiting us on the second floor.

“Stop who?”

“Snorri.” She sat in the wicker seat opposite, unconsciously rubbing her wrist. A lantern hung between us, moths battering against its glass while mosquitoes whined unseen in the dark. “How will you get the key from him?”

“Me?” I blinked at her. “I can’t change his mind.”

Kara massaged her wrist, rubbing at dark marks there. It was hard to tell in the lamplight among all the shadows. . “Are those bruises?”

She folded her arms-a guilty motion, hiding the hand, and kept silent under my stare until at last: “I tried to lift it from him two nights ago as he slept.”

“You. . were going to steal the key?”

“Don’t look at me like that.” She scowled. “I was trying to save Snorri’s life. Which is what you and Tuttugu should be doing, and would be if you were any kind of friends to him. Why do you think Skilfar pointed him at Kelem? It seemed a long enough journey for me to stop him-either by talking him out of it, or if needed, by stealing the key.” She got up and came to sit on the step beside me, composing herself and offering a sweet smile that looked good but most unlike her. “You could ask him for the key again and-”

“You! You were trying to steal the key off him in the cave that morning! He swapped it onto a chain because of you, not me! He’s been wise to you all along!” I realized I was pointing at her and lowered my hand.

“Taking the key would save his life!” She looked at me, exasperated. “Changing his mind would too.”

“It can’t be done, Kara. You should know that by now. You would know it if you’d seen him heading north. He can’t be stopped. He’s a grown man. It’s his life and if he wants-”

“It’s not just his life he’s throwing away, Jal.” Soft-voiced again. She set her hand to my arm. It gave me thrills, I’ll admit it. She had something about her, perhaps just built up after all those months of anticipation, but more than that I think. “Snorri could do untold damage. If Loki’s key falls into the Dead King’s hands. .”

“It will be a bloody mess.” Suddenly the moment had passed, the mood soured, the darkness around us full of undead threat instead of romantic possibility. “But I still can’t do anything about it.” And besides, I’d be safe in the palace in the heart of Vermillion, in the heart of Red March, and if the Dead King’s evil could reach me there then we were all fucked. But I felt safer putting my trust in Grandmother’s walls and her armies than in my ability to part Snorri from that key. I shook Kara off and stood abruptly, bidding her good night. I was so close to home I could taste it, practically reach out and set my fingers to it and I wasn’t messing things up now, not for anything, not even the promise in Kara’s touch. No man likes to be a last resort in any event, and on top of that, despite the wide eyes, the promise, the hint of desperation, I still couldn’t shake the feeling that somehow the woman was playing me.

That was a long night. My room hot, airless, and refusing to let me sleep.

Another day, more endless stretches of the Appan Way, another inn. And then one glorious summer morning, after trailing through mile upon mile of cultivated fields golden with wheat and green with squash, we crested a ridge and there on the horizon beneath a faint haze stood Vermillion, walls glowing with the early light. I’ll admit to a manly tear in my eye at the sight of it.

We made an early lunch at one of the many farmhouses close to the Appan Way that open their doors to passing travellers. We sat outside around a table in the shade of a huge cork tree. Chickens pecked their way about the dusty yard, watched by an old yellow dog too lazy to twitch when the flies landed on him. The farmer’s wife brought out fresh bread, butter, black olives, Milano cheese, and wine in a large earthenware amphora.

I had a cup or three of that good red before I gathered up the resolve to try one last time to talk Snorri out of his plan. Not for Kara, well, perhaps a little in the hope of Kara’s good opinion, but mostly just to save the big ox from his own stupidity.

“Snorri. .” I said it with enough seriousness that he put down his clay cup and gave me his attention. “I, uh.” Kara looked up at me from her bread and olives, encouraging me with the slightest of nods.

Even with a loosened tongue I found it hard to say. “This taking Loki’s key to death’s door business. .” Tuttugu shot me a warning look, gesturing down with the flat of his hand. “How about not doing it instead.” Tuttugu rolled his eyes. I scowled at him. Dammit, I was trying to help the man! “Give this up. It’s madness. You know it. I know it. Dead is dead. Except when it’s not. And we’ve seen how ugly that is. Even if the Dead King’s creatures don’t catch you on the road and take the key. Even if you reach Kelem and he doesn’t just kill you and take the key. . Even then. . you can’t win.”

Snorri stared at me, unspeaking, unreadable, unnerving. I drank deeply from my cup and, finding I’d reached the bottom, tried again.

“You’re not the first man to lose his wife. .”

Snorri didn’t explode to his feet as I thought he might with me touching his rawest nerve, in fact for the best part of a minute he said nothing, just looked out at the road and the people passing by.

“The years ahead scare me.” Snorri didn’t turn to face me. He spoke his words into distance. “I’m not scared of the pain, though in truth the ache inside is more than I can bear. Much more.

“She lit me up. My wife, Freja. Like I was one of those windows I’ve seen in the house of the White Christ. Dull and without meaning by night and then the light comes and they’re aglow with colour and story. Have you known that, Prince of the Red March? Not a woman you would die for, but a woman you’d live for?

“What terrifies me, Jal, is that time will blunt the wound. That in six months or six years I will wake one morning and realize I can’t see Freja’s face any more. Discover that my arms no longer remember little Emy’s weight, my hands her softness. I’ll forget my boys, Jal.” And his voice broke and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to take back my words. “I’ll forget them. I’ll mix one memory with another. I’ll forget how they sounded, the times we spent on the fjord fishing, the times they chased me when they were little. All those days, all those moments, gone. Without me to remember them. . what are they, Jal? My brave Karl, my Egil, what were they?” I saw the shudder in his shoulders, the hitch as he drew breath.

“I don’t say it’s right, or brave, but I’ll carry my father’s axe into Hel and I’ll search for them until I’m done.”

None of us spoke for an age after that. I drank steadily instead, seeking the courage that lies in the bottom of the barrel, though the wine seemed sour now.

• • •

Finally, with the shadows lengthening and all our plates long since empty, I told them.

“I’m stopping at Vermillion.” Another swig, running it over my teeth. “It’s been a pleasure, Snorri, but my journey ends here.” I didn’t even think I would have to do anything about the Sister’s curse. It had worn so thin that I’d not heard as much as a whisper from Aslaug since waking from the last of Kara’s dreams. Sunsets passed almost unnoticed now, with just a prickling of skin and a heightening of senses as the moment came and went. “I’m done.”

Kara shot me a shocked look at that but Snorri just pursed his lips and nodded. A man like Snorri could understand the hold that home and family have on a person. In truth though, I disliked pretty much every surviving member of my family, and the fear of being murdered by agents of the Dead King ranked at the top of the list of reasons I wasn’t continuing with Snorri’s mad quest. The plain fact of it was, however, that even reason number 6 “travelling is an awful bore” would have been sufficient on its own. My family might not have much hold on me, but the prestige of their name, the comfort of their palace, and the hedonistic pleasures to be found in their city all keep a vice-like grip on my heart.

“You should take Hennan with you,” Tuttugu said.

“Uh.” I hadn’t anticipated that. “I. .” It made sense. None of what was to follow was anything a child should endure. It wasn’t anything a grown man should endure come to that. “Of course. .” My mind was already racing through the list of places where I might palm the boy off. Madam Rose on Rossoli Street might be able to use him for running messages and clearing tables in the foyer. The Countess of Palamo staffed her mansion with very young men. . she might want a red-haired one. . Or the palace kitchens could use him. I was sure I’d seen urchins in there turning the meat spits and whatnot.

Hennan himself didn’t complain but chewed his heel of bread furiously and stared out at the road.

“I, uh. .” I swallowed some more wine. “I should make my good-byes here and be off.”

“We’re not good enough to be seen with in your city?” Kara arched an eyebrow at me. She’d taken her braids out, having lost all her runes, and grown her hair longer. It was so bleached by the sun it looked almost like silver where it flowed around her bare shoulders, now freckled with the summer.

“Snorri is a wanted criminal,” I said. A total lie of course, and even if he was I could probably argue his case for a pardon. The truth was that I didn’t want the facts muddying the waters of any lie I felt like telling about my adventures in the ice and snow. And besides, when I made my triumphant return to high society I wanted all eyes on me, not wandering up and down the muscular length of the intriguingly handsome barbarian towering over me.

Snorri met my gaze across the table and, before I could look away, stuck out his hand for the warrior clasp. Somewhat awkwardly, I took it. A bone-creaking squeeze and he let me go. Tuttugu held out his more reasonably sized hand for the same.

“Fair seas, Prince Jalan, and many fish.” As we clasped.

“You too, Tuttugu. Try to keep this one out of trouble.” I nodded to Snorri. “And that one.” A nod to Kara. I wanted to say something to her but couldn’t find any useful words. I stood unsteadily. “No point drawing these things out. . as the actress said to the bishop. .” My horse stood at the trough on the other side of the yard and since the world appeared to be revolving around me somewhat faster than normal I waited a moment for things to steady. “You take my advice and throw that key in a lake. .” I fluttered my fingers at Hennan to get him out of his seat. “C’mon, boy.” And with that I plotted as steady a path as I could to my gelding who I decided in that moment I would name Nor, in memory of Ron, the beast that bore me much of the way north. Nor would carry me in the opposite direction and so should bear the opposite name.

I mounted without too much difficulty and reached down a hand to swing Hennan up behind me. The spear, Gungnir, knocked against my leg, tied there across Nor’s side, still in its wrappings. It occurred to me I could ride off with it. Hope is always dangerous, and this spear, this false hope, was what Tuttugu, and maybe Kara, clung to. It made presenting themselves before Kelem seem less like suicide. Without it they might refuse at the last mile and perhaps even turn Snorri from his path.

“Gungnir!” Tuttugu started forward. I almost set my heels to Nor’s ribs, but in the end I reached down to pull loose the ties and took the spear in hand. The thing shivered in my grip as if half-alive, much heavier than it had a right to be.

I tossed it to Tuttugu. “Careful with that. I’ve a feeling it’s sharp both ends.”

That done and their bags removed, I saluted the table and set off at a trot along the gravelled road to Vermillion.

“We should have gone with them.” Hennan, his voice jolting to the beat of Nor’s gait.

“He’s going to ask some madman in a salt mine to show him the doorway into death so that he can unlock it. A madman who sent assassins after him. Does that sound like something anyone should be doing?”

“But they’re your friends.”

“I can’t afford friends like that, boy.” The words came out angry. “That’s an important lesson right there-learning how to let go of people. Friends are useful. When they stop having something you want-brush them off.”

“I thought we. .” Hurt in his voice.

“That’s different,” I said. “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re still friends. Who else am I going to pass my card tricks on to?”