beside the naked delights of Lisa DeVeer to sharing a shitty rowing boat with a huge Norse maniac all in the space between two dawns.
‘Will we have trouble?’
‘Huh?’ I looked up from my misery.
Snorri tilted his head downstream to where several rickety wooden quays reached out into the river, a number of fishing boats tied up at them. Men moved here and there along the shore checking fish traps, mending nets.
‘Why should—’ I remembered that Snorri was very far from home in lands he had probably only glimpsed from the back of a slave wagon. ‘No,’ I said.
He grunted and set an oar to angle us into deeper water where the current ran fastest. Perhaps in the fjords of the frozen North any passing stranger was game and you became a stranger ten yards from your doorstep. Red March enjoyed ways a touch more civilized. Due in no small part to the fact that my grandmother would have anyone who broke the bigger laws nailed to a tree.
We carried on past various nameless hamlets and small towns that probably had names but held too few distractions ever to make me care what those names were. Occasionally a field hand would rest fingers on hoe, chin on knuckles, and watch us pass with the same vacancy that the cows used. Urchins chased us from time to time, following along the banks for a hundred yards, some throwing stones, others baring their grimy arses in mock-threat. Washerwomen splatting husbands’ second smocks against flat stones would raise their heads and hoot appreciatively at the Norseman as he flexed his arms against the oars. And finally on a lonely stretch of river where the Seleen explored her floodplain, with the sun hot and high, Snorri deflected us beneath the broad fringe of a great willow. The tree leaned out across lazy waters at the extreme of a long meander and encompassed us beneath its canopy.
‘So,’ he said, and the prow bumped up against the willow trunk. The hilt of his sword slipped from the bench and clunked on the planks, blade dark with dried blood.
‘Look … about the fight-pits … I—’ Much of the morning my maiden voyage had been spent planning the smooth denials that now refused to stutter from my tongue. In between the vomiting and the complaining I’d been rehearsing my lies, but under the focused gaze of a man who appeared to be more than ready to slaughter his way through any situation, I ran out of the spit required for falsehoods. For a moment I saw him staring up at Maeres from the pit floor. ‘Bring a bigger bear?’ I remembered the smile he had on him. A snort of laughter broke out of me and, fuck, yes it hurt. ‘Who even says that kind of thing?’
Snorri grinned. ‘The first one was too small.’
‘And the last one was just right?’ I shook my head, trying not to laugh again. ‘You beat Goldilocks to the punchline by one bear.’
He frowned at that. ‘Goldilocks?’
‘Never mind. Never mind. And Cutter John!’ I sucked in a huge breath and surrendered to the joy of the memory, of escaping that goggle-eyed demon and his knives. The mirth bubbled out of me. I doubled up, gasping with hysterical laughter, beating the side of the boat to stop myself. ‘Ah, Jesu! You took the bastard’s arm off.’
Snorri shrugged, holding back another grin. ‘Must have got in my way. Once your Red Queen changed her mind about letting me go she put her city at war with me.’
‘The Red Qu—’ I caught myself. I’d said it was the queen’s order that he be sent to the pits. He had no reason not to believe me. Remembering the anchor points of any web of lies is part of the basics when practising to deceive. Normally I’m world class at it. I blamed my failure on extenuating circumstances. I had, after all, escaped from Alain DeVeer’s frying pan into the fire of the opera only to plunge from that into something even worse. ‘Yes. That was … harsh of her. But my grandmother is known as somewhat of a tyrant.’
‘Your grandmother?’ Snorri raised his eyebrows.
‘Um.’ Shit. He hadn’t even noticed me in the throne room and now he knew me for a prince, a prize hostage. ‘I’m a very distant grandson. Hardly related at all really.’ I raised a hand to my nose. All that laughing had left it pulsing with hurt.
‘Take a breath.’ Snorri leaned forward.
‘What?’
He snaked out an arm, catching my head from behind, fingers like iron rods. For a second I thought he was just going to crush my skull, but then his other hand blocked my view and the world exploded in white agony. Pinching the bridge of my nose with finger and thumb he pulled and twisted. Something grated and if I’d had anything left to vomit I’d have filled the boat with it.
‘There.’ He released me. ‘Fixed.’
I hollered out the pain and surprise in one burst, trailing into coherence at the end of it, ‘… Jesu fuck me with a cross!’ The words came out clear, the nasal twang gone. I couldn’t bring myself to say thank you though, so I said, ‘Ouch.’
Snorri leaned back, arms resting on the sides of the boat. ‘You were in the throne room then? You must have heard the tale we prisoners were brought in to tell.’
‘Well, yes …’ Certainly bits of it.
‘So you’ll know where I’m headed then,’ Snorri said.
‘South?’ I ventured.
He looked puzzled at that. ‘I’d be more at ease going by sea but that may be hard to arrange. It might be I need to trek north through Rhone and Renar and Ancrath and Conaught.’
‘Well, of course …’ I had no idea what he was talking about. If there had been a word of truth in his story he wouldn’t want to go back. And his itinerary sounded like the trek from hell. Rhone, our uncouth neighbour to the north, was always a place best avoided. I’d yet to meet a Rhonish man I’d piss on if he were on fire. Renar I’d never heard of. Ancrath was a murky kingdom on the edge of a swamp and full of murderous inbreds, and Conaught lay so far away there was bound to be something wrong with it. ‘I wish you luck of the journey, Snagason, wherever you’re bound.’ I held my hand out for a manly clasping, a prelude to a parting of our ways.
‘I’m going north. Home to rescue my wife, my family …’ He paused for a moment, pressing his lips tight, then shook off the emotion. ‘And it went poorly the first time I left you behind,’ Snorri said. He eyed my outstretched hand with a measure of suspicion and extended his own cautiously. ‘You didn’t feel that just now?’ He touched his own nose with his other hand.
‘Course I bloody felt it!’ It was quite possibly the most painful thing I’d ever experienced, and that from someone who learned the hard way not to jump into the saddle from a bedroom window.
He brought his hand closer to mine and a pressure built against my skin, all pins and needles and fire. Closer still, and more slow, and my hand started to pale, almost to glow from within, while his darkened. With an inch between our extended palms it seemed that a cold fire ran through my veins, my hand brighter than the day, his looking as if it had been dipped in dark waters, stained with blackest ink that collected in every crease and filled each pore. His veins ran black while mine burned, darkness bled from his skin like mist, a wisp of pale flame ghosted across my knuckles. Snorri met my gaze, his teeth gritted against a pain that mirrored mine. Eyes which had been blue were now holes into some inner night.
I gave one of those yelps that I always hope will go unnoticed and whipped my hand away. ‘Damnation!’ I shook it, trying to shake the pain out, and watched as it shaded back to normality. ‘That bloody witch! Point taken. We won’t shake on it.’ I gestured to a gravel beach on the outer edge of the meander. ‘You can drop me off there. I’ll find my own way back.’
Snorri shook his head, eyes returning to blue. ‘It was worse when we got too far apart. Didn’t you notice?’
‘I was rather distracted,’ I said. ‘But, yes, I do recall some problems.’
‘What witch?’
‘What?’
‘You