“Modesty is for folk with nothing to boast of.”
He weighed the dagger in his hand, feeling out the fine heft and balance to it. “My little sister, mistress of the forge. I never had a better gift.” Not that he’d had many. “Wish I had something to give you in return.”
She lay back on her bench and shook her threadbare blanket over her legs. “You’ve given me everything I’ve got.”
He winced. “Not much, is it?”
“I’ve no complaints.” She reached across the fire with her strong hand, scabbed and calloused from forge-work, and he took it, and they gave each other a squeeze.
He cleared his throat, looking at the hard-packed earth of the floor. “Will you be all right while I’m gone on this raid?”
“I’ll be like a swimmer who just shrugged her armor off.” She gave him the scornful face but he saw straight through it. She was fifteen years old, and he was all the family she had, and she was scared, and that made him scared too. Scared of fighting. Scared of leaving home. Scared of leaving her alone.
“I’ll be back, Rin. Before you know it.”
“Loaded with treasures, no doubt.”
He winked. “Songs sung of my high deeds and a dozen fine Islander slaves to my name.”
“Where will they sleep?”
“In the great stone house I’ll buy you up near the citadel.”
“I’ll have a room for my clothes,” she said, stroking at the wattle wall with her fingertips. Wasn’t much of a home they had, but the gods knew they were grateful for it. There’d been times they had nothing over their heads but weather.
Brand lay down too, knees bent since his legs hung way off the end of his bench these days, started unrolling his own smelly scrap of blanket.
“Rin,” he found he’d said, “I might’ve done a stupid thing.” He wasn’t much at keeping secrets. Especially from her.
“What this time?”
He set to picking at one of the holes in his blanket. “Told the truth.”
“What about?”
“Thorn Bathu.”
Rin clapped her hands over her face. “What is it with you and her?”
“What d’you mean? I don’t even like her.”
“No one likes her. She’s a splinter in the world’s arse. But you can’t seem to stop picking at her.”
“The gods have a habit of pushing us together, I reckon.”
“Have you tried walking the other way? She killed Edwal. She killed him. He’s dead, Brand.”
“I know. I was there. But it wasn’t murder. What should I have done, tell me that, since you’re the clever one. Kept my mouth shut with everyone else? Kept my mouth shut and let her be crushed with rocks? I couldn’t carry the weight of that!” He realized he was near-shouting, anger bubbling up, and he pressed his voice back down. “I couldn’t.”
A silence, then, while they frowned at each other, and the fire sagged, sending up a puff of sparks. “Why does it always fall to you to put things right?” she asked.
“I guess no one else is doing it.”
“You always were a good boy.” Rin stared up toward the smoke-hole and the chink of starry sky showing through it. “Now you’re a good man. That’s your trouble. I never saw a better man for doing good things and getting bad results. Who’d you tell your tale to?”
He swallowed, finding the smoke-hole mightily interesting himself. “Father Yarvi.”
“Oh, gods, Brand! You don’t like half measures, do you?”
“Never saw the point of them,” he muttered. “Dare say it’ll all work out, though?” wheedling, desperate for her to tell him yes.
She just lay staring at the ceiling, so he picked her dagger up again, watched the bright steel shine with the colors of fire.
“Really is fine work, Rin.”
“Go to sleep, Brand.”
KNEELING
“If in doubt, kneel.” Rulf’s place as helmsman was the platform at the South Wind’s stern, steering oar wedged under one arm. “Kneel low and kneel often.”
“Kneel,” muttered Thorn. “Got it.” She had one of the back oars, the place of most work and least honor, right beneath his ever-watchful eye. She kept twisting about, straining over her shoulder in her eagerness to see Skekenhouse, but there was a rainy mist in the air and she could make out nothing but ghosts in the murk. The looming phantoms of the famous elf-walls. The faintest wraith of the vast Tower of the Ministry.
“You might be best just shuffling around on your knees the whole time you’re here,” said Rulf. “And by the gods, keep your tongue still. Cause Grandmother Wexen some offense and crushing with stones will seem light duty.”