‘Aye, right, hot springs, very clever.’
Noxious alchemical steam billowed from the bathhouse, venting through a skylight into the freezing night above. Pikul, the giant guard escorting them, gestured to the women, then to the door on the left, then the men and the other door. Steam churned in the low amber light beyond.
‘Why the separation?’ Chel asked again, although he was both disappointed and relieved.
Lemon shrugged. ‘Best not quibble, I’d say. They’re not a bunch renowned for flexibility of custom.’
***
The antechamber was hot, the sulphuric stench initially overpowering, but the effect waned as they acclimatized. They dumped clothes on wooden benches, crunching over the still-cold ground to the rocky pool beneath the slatted roof overhead. However ashamed Chel felt at his nakedness between peeling off the last of his travelling garb, scuttling through the rippling steam and sliding into the hot, hissing pool, he had nothing on the prince. Tarfel, a blushing white stripe in the rolling clouds, shuffled crabwise around the edge, hands clamped over his nether regions, then splashed into a distant, far corner of the pool.
The water was unreal, supremely warm, and Chel felt buoyant, relaxed, soothed. His shoulder pulsed, slowly, almost happily. From somewhere over the wooden divide, he heard giggles and the petulant tones of the Nort alchemist. It seemed she was having some conceptual difficulties with the shared bath.
Somewhere to Chel’s left, Rennic stretched out his tattooed arms and groaned with aching happiness. To his right, Foss did likewise. One of them farted, but it was impossible to tell which. Both collapsed in laughter, street-kids at a parade.
‘What do you make of her then, friends? Our illustrious host.’
Rennic blew soaking strands of hair from his face. ‘Nearly-queen Ruumi? She’s playing the grinning guide, but let’s not forget where we are. She’s something around here, and this lot tend to respect one thing above all.’
‘What are you saying?’ Chel said. He was beginning to feel lightheaded from the water’s warmth.
‘I’m saying, little man, that you don’t get to be nearly-queen of a reaver tribe as established as this one without being a vicious piece of work. She said she has a proposal for us. We need to be seriously careful—’
‘How are we getting on, gentlemen?’
Ruumi was standing over them, one boot on the pool’s edge, hands on hips, vapours curling around her like affectionate pets.
Rennic sent up a chaotic spray as he thrashed to face her. ‘The f—? I thought women weren’t allowed in here!’
Again, the flat grin, a half-sneer devoid of malice. Perhaps it was a cultural thing. ‘You misunderstand. The separation of the sexes is only to prevent the clouding of minds when concentration is required elsewhere. We are a passionate people, and the last thing our womenfolk need when they should be considering matters of tribal import is the peacocking of brutes. It impairs our progress. Much great thinking, planning, scheming, is done within the bathhouse.’
‘Uh-huh. Yet here you are.’
‘Here I am. You need not worry, I am fully sated for now.’
Blank looks shone up from the pool.
‘Sexually,’ she clarified with an encouraging nod. The blank looks became somewhat frozen. Undeterred, she continued. ‘Prince Tarfel, I promised you we would talk, and now we may.’
Tarfel edged forward through the drifting steam, an amorphous white streak from the neck down below the waterline. ‘I thought … when you said we should bathe, then we would talk … you meant, ah, after bathing.’
The smile flashed again. ‘Now seems as fitting as any, does it not? Brecki informed me of the gist of your intentions, I would like to hear the words from you. She was never the most accomplished linguist.’
Chel found himself wondering about Brecki’s fate, her motivations for bringing them back here after all, and had to snap himself back to the present. The hot water was definitely getting to him.
Tarfel seemed to be steeling himself, his weak chin jutting as he looked up at the elegant figure at the bath-side. ‘You wanted my brother dead before.’ He swallowed, larynx bobbing in and out of the water. ‘I want him dead now. What will it take for you to try again?’
The bathhouse had gone quiet, but for the gentle bubble and splosh of lapping water. Murmured conversation, unintelligible, drifted over the divider.
Ruumi’s smile had hardened, not with anger or dismay, but with satisfaction, small lines appearing beneath her eyes. ‘It is true, then. Tarfel Merimonsun is to raise his pennant against his brother, and plunge his kingdom into civil war.’
Tarfel was shaking his head, hands out of the water spraying droplets. ‘It’s not like that, it’s … it’s … He’s planning things—’
‘I believe it was you and your entourage,’ Ruumi said with a gesture toward Rennic and Foss, but not Chel, who flushed with injured pride, ‘who despoiled the attempt in question. Perhaps you should have kept out of the way then, no?’
‘We didn’t know that he was … We couldn’t have known …’ Tarfel’s brows lowered, water trickling down his pale face. Chel watched through narrowed eyes, the steam tickling his nose. Ruumi had sent Brecki and her war-band to kill Tarfel’s brother when few in the kingdom would have considered him anything more than a jolly simpleton. Had they known what everyone else hadn’t?
Ruumi had one hand on her chin, her gaze lost somewhere in the drifting haze of the rafters. ‘It will be different now: he is not living as before. He sits at the heart of a great and growing force. To reach him directly with a war-band will be near impossible.’
Tarfel stood defiant in the water, his shoulders breaking the surface. ‘I realize this. I have no intention of making such an attempt.’
‘What is your plan?’
Chel leaned forward. What indeed?
‘My brother pretends to empire. He will consolidate his forces over winter, then come the thaw he will march his armies to each corner of the kingdom that resists central rule. There are plenty of Names, minor lords, and free cities who chafe at the thought of consolidation, but without a signal to rally they will simply capitulate, one by one.’
‘You mean to unite them? Replace one crown with another?’
‘He can only sweep the board if he can concentrate his forces. Give him too many enemies, no matter how small … If the scales tip, he will be pulled in too many directions.’
‘You wish for me to be one of these small enemies?’
‘I do, yes – the signal to rally. And I wish to know your price.’
Ruumi stood, her hand still at her chin. The smile was still there, as if applied and forgotten like war-paint. ‘You may have less time than you realize. Already your brother has begun disbanding and absorbing the mercenary companies of the north, drawing them into his great church army. He may not wait until the thaw.’
Rennic stirred at this, half-rising from the water. ‘He’s doing what?’
Tarfel, too, seemed taken aback. ‘That’s … How is he going to hold the disputed territories without the free companies?’
‘I know only what my spies report, Tarfel Merimonsun. Perhaps another for your list of small enemies.’
‘Perhaps …’ Tarfel was quiet for a moment. ‘Do I have your interest, Queen Ruumi?’
‘Only nearly, you remember. We will come to that. You have my interest.’
‘What do you offer?’
She put her hands on her hips, standing tall, looming over them in her fine-cut robes. ‘At an agreed time, I will land a significant force in the south-west of your kingdom, and I will seed chaos. We will set the coast aflame. Your brother will be forced to send aid, and we will fall upon it, as long as we are able. Should matters turn against us …’ She made a face. ‘… we shall depart in earnest.’
Tarfel swallowed again. ‘You’ll … pillage?’
Ruumi’s smile flashed back, beaming and brilliant. ‘We like to play to our strengths.’
Chel cleared his throat, trying to manage speech. The hot water had made him light-headed. ‘Surely … This seems, uh, disproportionately … bad. What about … isn’t there another way you can help?’
She gazed straight at him, through him. ‘None I am willing to countenance.’
‘I will ponder it,’ Tarfel said, his head dropped a span as if weighed. ‘This is your price?’
This time the mirth was gone from her smile. ‘It is half. As to the other … You expressed curiosity as to my station here. Thanks to your interventions and the failure of Brecki’s war-band, my situation is less sure than it should have been. You will remedy this.’
Rennic leaned forward. ‘Would this involve your conversion from nearly-queen to actual queen?’
‘My half-brother has made himself an issue. As outsiders, you are … uniquely placed to resolve matters.’
Tarfel looked affronted, nostrils flared. ‘You want us to kill your brother?’
‘Half-brother. You must admit, it seems only fair, given your own request. He need not die, but he must be removed from contention. I will leave it to your sell-swords to determine how.’
‘Surely … there must be something else?’
Ruumi’s eyebrow arched, and she folded her arms.
‘Give me your wizard.’
Despite the warmth, Chel shuddered at the thought of Kosh and her alchemy in the hands of the Horvaun.
‘Something else,’ protested Tarfel.
‘Pledge your troth to me, unite our causes and ride at the head of my war-bands as we exterminate first my brother, then yours, then overwhelm the continent with the fruit of our union.’
Tarfel’s mouth hung open.
‘You may decide which option you prefer,’ she said, the mirth creeping back into her smile.
‘I …’ Tarfel said. ‘I need to ponder this a little longer.’
Ruumi’s smile broadened. ‘I do not believe that you do.’
‘You all seem to be forgetting something,’ Rennic said, lying back against the pool’s edge with his hands folded behind his head, adopting the Posture of Unhurried Negotiation. ‘To wit, we are a commercial enterprise, and there are formalities involved in the engagement of our services. We’ll need explicit terms, and a contract drawn up. Then there’s the matter of expenses—’
Ruumi coughed, one hand over that smile. ‘Again, I apologize for my rustiness with your language. The work is already accepted in principle, by your captain. I was merely informing you as a courtesy, in case you wish to scheme while you are still bathing, once the prince agrees.’
‘My cap— What fucking captain?’
‘The lady with the unusual hair. I can see why you defer to her. I will leave you to make your plans. See you in the hall at your leisure, honoured guests.’
‘Loveless … I’ll … Nine hells!’
She vanished into the drifting fumes. The four men sat in the steaming pool in silence for a moment, brows deep, lips chewed in uneasy thought.
‘What …’ Chel said, running a hand through his hair. ‘What did we just agree to?’
One of them farted again.
***
When they returned to the hall, they found braziers burning between the long tables and fires in the great hearths at the walls. The hall teemed with activity. Tall southerners were standing in thick, boisterous knots, downcast servants weaving between them, ferrying dishes and drink; other figures, their furs and jewellery fine and well-made, were taking seats of significance around the chamber. The half-brother, a blond beast of a man, stood beside one of the modest chairs before the throne, a long table laid before him, surrounded by meat-armed and slab-chested southerners. All men, Chel noted.
The table before the other chair, the one on which Ruumi had leant before their tour, was occupied by an entirely female cast: their four companions, Ruumi herself, and her captain, the towering woman who’d brought them from the boat, finally named as Oksa. They rose as Pikul escorted the scrubbed and glowing men to the table, then withdrew to one side to maintain a presence of brooding menace. Ruumi signalled Tarfel to sit at the head of the table, a place of presumed significance.
‘They make you leave your tools behind?’ Lemon said as Ruumi bade them sit, before Rennic could begin a diatribe at Loveless. Loveless herself gave an arch grin, clearly aware of the big man’s mood.
Chel nodded. Not that they had much equipment left between them.
‘See?’ Lemon said to Foss. ‘They get it. Run a tighter ship than that shambles in the tower.’
‘Our people,’ said Oksa, each word delivered with great precision, ‘need no weapon to kill.’
‘Aye, right, but it’s a time-saver, eh?’
The big woman frowned at that, and returned to her platter. Chel wasn’t sure if she’d understood a word Lemon had said.
Ruumi gestured for a hovering servant to start pouring what Chel hoped would be wine into their horns. ‘What is this? What’s the occasion?’ he said, directed primarily at Ruumi who was looking down on them from her chair on the dais, chewing at a haunch of something.
‘Feast,’ said Oksa, and no more.
Ruumi smiled again. ‘As my captain says, we have something of a gathering this evening. I am glad you could be with us for it – it is to Brecki’s credit that you are. We have many honoured guests, besides yourselves, many of our local … Names, yes? The equivalent.’
Chel looked around the smoky hall. It hummed with a pleasant chatter and munch. Given the seating arrangements, he began to pick out several figures who were being treated with deference by those around them.
Lemon nudged him. ‘You’ve got your tribal chiefs, elders, even some of the local anointed.’
‘Anointed?’
‘Like a priesthood, but, you know, bloodier.’
Foss rumbled beside him. ‘Warlords. Blood-lords. Godless and damned.’
‘Aye, I dunno, Fossy, seems they’ve more than a few gods to go around.’
Ruumi raised her horn from its perch on the arm of her chair. ‘A toast, my guests, to mutual benefits.’
‘Tell me again how rusty your language is,’ Rennic muttered, downed whatever was in his horn, then waved to the servant for a refill. A number of other horns were emptied as the servant approached.
‘Can we not?’ Tarfel’s voice was small, the end of the table seeming a long way away in the hall’s raucous hubbub. ‘Given everything earlier, can we please, for once, not drink everything we can see?’
Loveless was staring at him, hard, as if he were something risen from the ocean and now walking up the beach. ‘Come again?’
‘Every time this happens, every time we sit down somewhere with people who seem friendly, it goes wrong. Terribly wrong. And I’m usually the one who gets hurt!’
Ruumi was watching the prince, ever-present smile held steady, muted, curious to hear more. She made no effort to reassure him over her perceived friendliness – or lack thereof.
‘In all the time I’ve travelled with you,’ Tarfel said, ‘willing or otherwise, I can’t think of one occasion where a feast hasn’t ended badly on some level. I’m just asking if we could maybe keep clear heads this evening, given what we’ve been asked to do, and the kind of people we’re surrounded by.’ He blushed, and added, ‘Meaning no disrespect, of course.’
‘Of course,’ Ruumi echoed with her smile.
‘That,’ Rennic said, voice already a touch flat with booze, ‘is life, princeling. Just about everything, feast or otherwise, ends badly on some level.’
‘Then why take the risk?’
‘Where would be the fun in a life without risk? Rest assured, every life ends badly, sooner or later. Might as well get some use out of it while you can.’ He waved to the servant again.
Ruumi sat forward, one elbow on her knee. ‘This is where our philosophies differ, sell-sword.’
‘Rennic.’
‘Master Rennic. When our lives on this vessel end, when we are reaped, we are judged on a life well-lived. Those who are judged worthy will be carried across the stars in the Navigator’s ship of bone, those who disappoint will be ground and resown by the Tiller to be reborn at the dawn of the endless winter, and those who have failed their people, as Brecki so nearly did, are severed and devoured.’
‘So?’
‘So for us, a life well-lived is a devout imperative.’ She sat back, still smiling.
‘And what constitutes a life well-lived?’ Loveless said, genuinely curious.
‘What you would expect. Great deeds. Victory, vitality, conquest, in steel and flesh.’ She waved a hand, as if curving over something invisible. ‘Pain endured, pleasure gained and given.’
Loveless seemed satisfied, her smile mirroring Ruumi’s.
‘But nothing of ethics, or moral imperative?’ Foss said. ‘Kindness to fellow man in all things?’
Ruumi’s smile faded, her response only a quizzical glance. ‘But how would that please the gods?’
‘And what about your ancestors?’ Lemon interjected. ‘Staying true to those who went before.’
Ruumi’s expression remained quizzical. ‘Those already sent to the gods had their time and received their judgement. The imperative, as your friend puts it, is in living the best life for the self. Our duty to the gods is to glory in an existence lived well, no matter what, or who, came before.’
‘Aye, but what about—’
‘Only the pieces on the board are still in the game, Clydish wench.’
‘Where does the boat go?’ Chel said over Lemon’s squawk. ‘The bone-boat, does it ever dock?’
‘Indeed: in paradise. A land of eternal conquest, eternal hunt, and eternal feast.’
‘Sounds like a recipe for eternal gut-rot,’ Lemon muttered. ‘I mean, I sleep terribly after a big meal these days, all that pissing and farting, just imagine an eternity of that.’
Rennic’s head was tilted, his eyes on Ruumi. ‘And to get to this paradise, must you die with your weapon in your hand?’
‘Not a problem for you, Gar,’ Loveless chuckled, ‘that’s how you wake up most mornings.’
Even Ruumi laughed at that. Foss watched her, frown deep, distrustful. ‘You laugh at your own gods? You mock them, allow others to do likewise?’
‘Of course!’
‘You don’t worry about angering them? They seem an ill-humoured bunch.’
‘Angering them? They are gods! What have they to fear from the mockery of mortals? What kind of gods would they be if they were cowed by the teasing squeals of piglets in their slaughterhouse? Ha! Can you imagine? Who would worship a god who craved the protection of men!’
Oksa was laughing, deep and mirthful. Foss’s frown was unmoved.
Ruumi sat forward again, warming to the conversation. ‘Tell me, I have often wondered. Your people, you have the Shepherd, yes?’
‘We do.’
‘And you have a god, a sole god, but one?’
‘We do.’
‘And are they the same?’
‘Yes,’ said Foss at the same time as Loveless said, ‘No.’ They looked at each other, irked.
‘I see,’ Ruumi said, stroking her chin. ‘And this Shepherd, she was a real person, walked the earth?’
‘No,’ said Foss, firmly, while Loveless said, ‘Yes,’ with equal certainty.
‘Master Rennic, do you have a view?’
Rennic put up his hands. ‘Don’t look at me, nearly-queen, my gods are silver and grape.’
‘I believe we have more in common than you may have expected.’
He raised his horn. ‘Maybe we do.’
They exchanged a smile, and Chel didn’t like the look of it.
***
Oksa was talking, a rapid stream of the lilting Horvaun tongue quite at odds with her ponderous speech to the northerners. Ruumi listened intently, the smile growing at the corners of her mouth, then exploded with laughter at the joke’s conclusion. Oksa sat back, chuckling to herself, delighted.
‘I apologize,’ Ruumi said, wiping a tear from one eye with the hand that held her drinking horn. ‘It’s a marvellous joke, but it just won’t translate well. Rest assured, it was not at your expense.’
‘Until you said that, the thought hadn’t occurred,’ Lemon said, eyes narrow. She returned her attention to hacking at the meat on the platter in front of her, something rich and well-fatted. It wobbled and sprang beneath her knife.
‘I am sorry, too, for the quality of the feast,’ Ruumi said. ‘Now that winter is upon us and the straits are frozen, we are forced to open the stores.’
Lemon looked up, aware of the glares in her direction. ‘But the straits don’t freeze!’
‘Perhaps not all the way across, but enough to make them impassable for our vessels. There will be no eastern travel until the thaw. Hence, no fresh meat, I’m afraid.’
Loveless raised an eyebrow. ‘Hence? Just how long did you spend in the north? Your linguistic command appears prodigious.’
Ruumi placed a hand on her chest in modesty, false or otherwise. ‘I admit, much of your language is returning to me with renewed exposure. Borre, my half-brother, and I both spent several years at the Academy, our terms overlapping. It was only toward the end of my time there that I encountered Prince Tarfel’s brothers, and of course the young prince himself. I saw only a little of them, and of course it was soon after that one was dead and the other was acting an imbecile.’
Chel’s gaze was back on the nearly-queen in an instant. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Mendel, the younger twin.’
‘The one who imprisoned us, executed our friends, purged the countryside of rebellion?’
‘No, no, you misunderstand. Mendel was dead. Corvel remained, behaving in a … strange manner, as if he were Mendel. And somehow …’ She waved a hand beside her head. ‘Damaged, his thinking.’
‘How did you know it was Corvel?’
‘The scar. Mendel had a scar, a failed hunt, something. Corvel, as Mendel, emerged from his trials with a fresh wound in the same area, but the old scar was gone from beneath.’
Tarfel was gazing at her, eyebrows pinched, a look of great scrutiny. ‘So you did know. How? How would you notice and nobody else?’
Ruumi’s smile returned, if anything a little prim. ‘How would you think, your highness?’
Tarfel’s mouth hung open.
‘It was only a brief time,’ she continued, ‘but that was no great shame.’
‘You … with my brother? My brothers?’
Demure, now. ‘Not at the same time, your highness.’
Loveless was cackling, her head lolling with mirth. ‘I think I like this one. Oh, really I do.’
Chel’s memory stirred. What had Corvel said? I cut my own face, you know that? I did this to myself. It was that or wait for a knife in the back. He might have been called ‘the Wise’, but someone had clocked his act.
‘Then you knew,’ Rennic said, speech barely slurred. ‘You knew Mendel … Corvel … whichever fucker. You knew he was acting up? Did you know he was running the church, and not the other way round?’
She sloshed the wine around in her horn. ‘I considered it a strong possibility. Why else do you think I sent Brecki’s war-band to kill him? Better safe than sorry, you might say.’
‘Fuck me. Brecki knew it. The whole time. While we had Corvel in our camp, while we made our plans. Fuck me! She could have said something!’
Chel repeated Ruumi’s words, mirthless. ‘She was never the most accomplished linguist.’
Ruumi nodded, smile persistent. ‘She was not.’ From across the dais came a great roar of stone-shaking laughter, and the slapping of a thick palm against the table. Borre was amused. Ruumi’s smile flickered, ever so briefly. ‘Tell me, sell-swords, is your scheming complete? The sooner you have acted on my situation, the sooner I can commit to your prince’s cause.’
‘I never actually—’ Tarfel began.
‘We’re on top of it,’ Loveless said over him.
‘We’ll discuss it,’ Rennic growled with a pointed look in her direction. Loveless flashed a brilliant smile, a perfect imitation of Ruumi’s, and Chel felt a sudden pang. ‘But … yeah, we’re on top of it,’ Rennic finished.
‘It pleases me to hear it,’ Ruumi said, ‘for Borre will likely depart on a hunt in the next day or so, and could be gone for some time. I would hate you to miss your opportunity.’
‘Like I said,’ Rennic replied, holding up his horn for a refill. ‘We’re on top of it.’
‘Then, my friends, let us drink, and eat, and talk of great things, as friends do.’
‘Any chance we could go easy on the drinking part?’ Tarfel spoke with the dejected tones of one who knows his pleas will fall on deaf ears, but feels he must make them nonetheless.
‘Fuck off, princey!’
‘Right you are.’
Chel looked back at the other half-throne. Borre was drinking now, his broad back to them, a massive stack of meat flanked by equally imposing hulks. Even getting close to the half-brother was going to be a challenge, let alone causing him some kind of injury. Surely there had to be a better way than this?
He kicked Rennic. ‘Are you sure about this?’ A nod toward Borre. ‘He’s … enormous. Have you given much thought to—’
Rennic’s glance was barely even cursory. Wine stained his beard. ‘Don’t worry your pretty head, little man. We’re on top of it.’
His words did nothing to reassure. Chel looked back at Borre, and realized the surreptitious gaze of several among Borre’s table was fixed on their own. As drinking horns were refilled and drained around him, Chel saw their hard features ease, their own jugs beginning to circulate in earnest. Was this some level of competition? Were they being measured? Or was something more dangerous at play?
He turned to Rennic to raise the prospect, but the big man had eyes only for Ruumi, and likewise she for him. Not for the first time, Chel felt like an outsider, a voyeur, peering in through the window of a party to which he hadn’t been invited.
‘Fuck it,’ he muttered, and reached for the wine.