Half a King

Yarvi looked away, and suddenly his eyes swam with tears. A set of things done, and choices made, and each had seemed the lesser evil but had somehow led him here. Could this really be anyone’s greater good?

“You don’t hate me?” he whispered.

“I’ve lost one friend, I don’t mean to throw away another.” And she put one hand gently on his shoulder. “I’m not much good at making new ones.”

He pressed his own on top of it, wishing he could hold it there. Strange, how you never see how much you want a thing until you know you cannot have it.

“You don’t blame me?” he whispered.

“Why would I?” She gave him a last parting squeeze, then let him go. “It’s better if you do it.”

39

SOME ARE SAVED

“I’m glad you came,” said Yarvi. “I’m fast running out of friends.”

“Happy to do it,” said Rulf. “For you and for Ankran. Can’t say I loved the skinny bastard when he was storekeeper, but I warmed to him in the end.” He grinned at Yarvi, the big scab above his eye shifting. “Some men you stick to right off, but it’s those that take time to stick as stick longest. Shall we get some slaves?”

There was a muttering, and a grunting, and a clattering of chains as the wares got to their feet for inspection, each pair of eyes with its own mixture of shame, and fear, and hope, and hopelessness, and Yarvi found himself rubbing gently at the faint scars on his throat where his own collar used to sit. The stink of the place smothered him with memories he would much rather have forgotten. Strange, how quickly he had grown used to free air again.

“Prince Yarvi!” The proprietor hurried from the shadows at the back, a big man with a soft, pale face, faintly familiar. One of the procession who had grovelled before Yarvi at his father’s howing up. Now he would have a chance to grovel again.

“I’m a prince no longer,” said Yarvi, “but, otherwise, yes. You’re Yoverfell?”

The flesh-dealer puffed up with pride at being known. “Indeed I am, and deeply honoured by your visit! Might I ask what sort of slave you are-”

“Does the name Ankran mean much to you?”

The merchant’s eyes flickered to Rulf, standing grim and solid with his thumbs in his silver-buckled sword-belt. “Ankran?”

“Let me sharpen your memory as the reek of your shop has sharpened mine. You sold a man called Ankran, then extorted money from him to keep his wife and child safe.”

Yoverfell cleared his throat. “I have broken no law-”

“And nor will I when I call in your debts.”

The merchant’s face had drained of color. “I owe you nothing …”

Yarvi chuckled. “Me? No. But my mother, Laithlin, soon to be once again the Golden Queen of Gettland and holder of the key to the treasury … I understand you do owe her a trifling debt?”

The knobble on the merchant’s scrawny throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I am my queen’s most humble servant-”

“Her slave, I’d call you. If you sold all you own it wouldn’t come close to covering what you owe her.”

“Her slave, then, why not?” Yoverfell gave a bitter snort. “Since you concern yourself with my business, it was because of the interest on her loans that I had to squeeze what I could from Ankran. I did not want to do it-”

“But you put your wishes aside,” said Yarvi. “How noble.”

“What do you want?”

“Let us begin with the woman and her child.”

“Very well.” Eyes on the ground, the merchant scraped away into the shadows. Yarvi looked across at Rulf, and the old warrior raised his brows, and about them the slaves looked on in silence. Yarvi thought one might be smiling.

He was not sure what he had been expecting. Outstanding beauty, or stunning grace, or something that struck him instantly to the heart. But Ankran’s family were an ordinary-looking pair. Most people are, of course, to those that don’t know them. The mother was small and slight with a defiant set to her jaw. The son was sandy-headed, as his father had been, and kept his eyes down.

Yoverfell ushered them forward, then plucked nervously at one of his hands with the other. “Healthy and well cared for, as promised. They are yours, of course, gifts, with my compliments.”

“Your compliments you can keep,” said Yarvi. “Now you will pack up here, and move your business to Vulsgard.”

“Vulsgard?”

“Yes. They have many flesh-dealers there, you will feel very much at home.”

“But why?”

“So you can keep an eye on the business of Grom-gil-Gorm. Know your enemy’s house better than your own, I’ve heard it said.”

Rulf gave an approving grunt, puffed out his chest a little and shifted his thumbs in his sword-belt.

“It’s that,” said Yarvi, “or find yourself being sold in your own shop. What price would you fetch, do you think?”

Yoverfell cleared his throat. “I will make the arrangements.”

“Quickly,” said Yarvi, and strode from the stink of that place to stand in the air and breathe, eyes closed.

“You … are our new owner, then?”

Ankran’s wife stood beside him, one finger wedged inside her collar.

“No. My name is Yarvi, this is Rulf.”

“We were friends of your husband,” said Rulf, ruffling the boy’s hair and causing him some discomfort.