The wind tugged at the end of my skirt.
Rowan pleaded with Faller.
My bones ached for Halvar, who was back at the palace with Fell.
Fara laced her fingers into mine, looking at me.Blinking.
You must decide quickly, the stones had said to me.
I had seen a heavy bracelet traded in a wager in the palace, a drinking game wager.I’d passed it to the winner across the table.Felt its weight.Eight silveraurarmeant one goldeyrir,which meant…
I didn’t think.I couldn’t allow myself to think.I took my arm back from Fara and marched to the palace.Don’t think about it.Don’t think about it.Don’t think about it.
I turned through hall upon hall, not bothering to speak pleasant greetings to any of the people I knew.When I reached the door I was looking for, I removed the feather I had set between the floor and the closed door, not letting my eyes focus, keeping everything slightly blurry.Misty like my mind was.I opened the door, stepped inside, and pulled the chest away from the wall.I pried the false back off the chest, pulling out my neatly folded goldkeeper’s gown.
“One and a half goldeyrir.”I set the narrow bars of gold into Faller’s hand.“You may weigh them if you want.”
Faller looked at what was in his calloused hand.I don’t think it was the gold itself that shocked him.The Land of the Northernmost Star is full of more riches than the annals make clear.Think of Fara’s eight silveraurar.Would an unmarried woman, reading and casting and brewing herbs for commoners possibly have eight pieces of silver saved up in any other land?The north had an obscene amount of salt, and salt meant trade options.But even if they hadn’t.Thievery was part of their way of life.Raiders were always taking the shiniest things from elsewhere and bringing them home, flooding cities and villages with treasure.
I think Faller was surprised by my payment because the gold was so blandly crafted.Each bar was identical, a little longer than my finger, but twice as thick.I think it seemed raw and unformed to him.
He stared at the gold in his hand for a moment longer, before he turned to Rowan.“You are Norsern now.”And then Faller added.“This means it is dishonourable to kill me while I sleep.If you wish to fight, you must do it when I am looking.”
Rowan paid the man no heed.He was looking at me.Eyes shiny.He was the only one who knew what I’d just done.I’d betrayed the order for him.
“Thank you,” he said, his voice wavering.
Thank Loric, I thought.It was his wealth I’d spent, not my own.
“I swear to feed you before myself,” Rowan said.
They were the words of a sworn sword to a grainkeeper.The words of fealty.
“To guard you before myself.To seek your ends before my own.”
He sank to his knees.
“To serve you and the gods with the whole of my heart.”
His eyes had glowed a little when he’d saidgods,for I think we both knew the other was a heathen by this point, though we hadn’t spoken of it directly.
I had no sword to present him with, no armour to gift him in return.But he’d known that before uttering the oath.
There were three ballads in which a woman was given fealty by a sworn sword, but I’d never heard of it happening in real life.All the same, I knew the words to speak as I’d heard my father speak them.“Rise and serve, Sir Rowan.”
There was a daring look in his eyes as he stood.How many heresies had we committed in the last half hour?More than was common.
Rowan’s eyes moved to Fara, who lifted her arms as she approached him.They wrapped around each other, laughing a little, setting their foreheads together as she murmured, “Happy Norsern Day.”And then they were kissing.Rowan pulled his face away from hers to look at me.“We will be ready to leave on the morrow.We can meet at the docks?—”
“No,” Fara said.“Come first to my home.I will prepare travelling gifts for us.”
They resumed kissing, and I went back to the palace very quickly because no one could mistake the passion with which they kissed for anything other than instruction to leave the couple alone to their coupling.
King Arik will simply have to accept that I have an attendant,I thought.The gods knew he had enough of them.
Forty-Four
Halvar screeched.He flailed.He spit up and demanded to be held and bounced as Fell and I packed our belongings.What this meant in actuality was every few moments I’d think of something Halvar might need in the next day or week or moon—because we had no idea how long we’d be gone for—and Fell would look exhausted, nearly sigh, and say something like: “There will not be room on the ship for that.”
