Half a King

“The lesser evil and the greater good.” Yarvi took a long breath, and it seemed to hurt deep in his chest, and he thought of the black birds blinking in Sister Owd’s cage. “Only the minister given the blame never used doves. Only crows.”

Mother Gundring paused with the cup halfway to her mouth. “Crows?”

“It is so often the small things overlooked which leave our schemes in ruins.”

“Oh, troublesome detail.” Mother Gundring’s eye twitched as she looked down at her tea and took a longer swallow, and for a while they sat in silence, only the happy crackle of the fire and the odd floating spark between them. “I thought you might untangle it in time,” she said. “But not so soon.”

Yarvi snorted. “Not before I died at Amwend.”

“That was never my choice,” said the old minister. She who had always been like a mother to him. “You were to take the test, and give up your birthright, and in time take my place as we had always planned. But Odem did not trust me. He moved too soon. I could not stop your mother putting you in the Black Chair.” She gave a bitter sigh. “And Grandmother Wexen would by no means have been satisfied with that result.”

“So you let me flounder into Odem’s trap.”

“With the deepest regret. I judged it the lesser evil.” She set her empty cup down beside her. “How does this story end, Brother Yarvi?”

“It already has. With the deepest regret.” He looked up from the flames and into her eyes. “And it is Father Yarvi, now.”

The old minister frowned, first at him, then down at the cup he had brought her. “Black-tongue root?”

“I swore an oath, Mother Gundring, to be avenged on the killers of my father. I may be half a man, but I swore a whole oath.”

The flames in the firepit flickered then, their reflections dancing orange in the glass jars on the shelves.

“Your father and your brother,” croaked Mother Gundring. “Odem and his men. So many others. And now the Last Door opens for me. All … because of coins.”

She blinked then, and swayed towards the fire, and Yarvi started up and caught her gently with his left arm, and slipped the cushion behind her with his right, and eased her with great care back into her chair. “It seems coins can be most deadly.”

“I am sorry,” whispered Mother Gundring, her breath coming short.

“So am I. You will not find a sorrier man in all of Gettland.”

“I do not think so.” She gave the faintest smile. “You will make a fine minister, Father Yarvi.”

“I will try,” he said.

She did not answer.

Yarvi took a ragged breath, and brushed her eyelids closed, and crossed her withered hands in her lap, and slumped back sick and weary on his stool. He was still sitting there when the door banged wide and a figure blundered up the steps, setting the bunches of drying plants swinging like hanged men behind him.

One of the youngest warriors, newly past his tests. Younger even than Yarvi, firelight shifting on his beardless face as he loitered in the archway.

“King Uthil seeks an audience with his minister,” he said.

“Does he indeed?” Yarvi wrapped the fingers of his good hand about Mother Gundring’s staff. His staff, the elf-metal cold against his skin.

He stood. “Tell the king I am on my way.”