Morg waited for his children on the steps of the palace of justice. He received them there with wine for his daughter and milk for his son, and they all listened with varying degrees of impatience as Hurlind the scold recounted their great victories with a minimum of chiding. Sometimes a scold’s duty was to tell when a man was worthy of honor.
While they stood and listened to Hurlind’s accolades, the dog that followed Morg everywhere came trotting out of the hall and curled around the Great Chieftain’s feet. All that animal ever did was sleep, Morget thought. He hated it so-no barbarian would ever be allowed such lethargy or uselessness, yet Morg loved it more than he had loved his own mother. He imagined all the different ways he could kill the dog while he waited for Hurlind to finish.
“The eastern half of Skrae is ours. Redweir has fallen,” Morg said at last, and put a hand on Morget’s shoulder. Normally the son would have shrugged off the father’s touch, but this time he tolerated it while he grinned nastily at Morgain. As usual, Morget thought, he’d shown her which of them was the stronger. As usual he swelled with the satisfaction of showing her up.
Yet Morg took his hand away all too soon. “More importantly, the remaining soldiers of Skrae are vanquished and all resistance conquered,” he said. “Morgain, you have given me half a kingdom by slaughtering that baron who was the last to stand against us. You of all my chieftains have achieved the most.”
Morget’s jaw dropped. He could not believe this outrage. He had brought low an entire city! What had Morgain done but crush a defiant rabble? This could not stand. This was not acceptable, that he should be slighted this way!
And yet-what could he do? Morg had already honored him. To demand greater laudation now would be the petulant whining of a child who is not given enough of his mother’s milk to suck. He seethed and glowered at Morgain, but she did not even meet his eye. Why should she? She was the hero of the day.
Morg lifted his hands high and smiled at his children. “We have won this war, thanks to my get and my ain. You shall both have coffers overflowing with gold, and thralls by the hundred to do your bidding.”
“I’ll trade my gold for you calling me by my proper name,” Morget growled. It had been a long time since he’d let anyone refer to him as Morg’s Get. He would be damned if he was to be called by that shameful name now.
“As you wish it, Mountainslayer. Hmm. I’ve never saved that much money by giving a man proper respect before. I must do it more often,” Morg said. He was very drunk, and in a merry mood.
“I’ll keep my gold,” Morgain said, looking deeply satisfied. She had always seemed bizarrely proud to be known as Morg’s Ain, that is, “one of Morg’s.” The names had not been meant to bring honor to the children, but rather shame them-they had no true names for themselves, not until they earned them. Yet Morgain acted as if her name was a badge of distinction. Perhaps she thought, like the decadent Skraelings, that glory could be passed on to one’s descendants the way you would pass down a sword or a shield. “Gold’s worth more than words any day,” she said. “Though it would please me to be called baronkiller, I confess.”
“Sorry, the price is nonnegotiable.” Morg laughed and stepped forward to place a hand on their shoulders. “I will give you each one thing for free, and that is my pride. You’ve both done very well.”
“We’ve done nothing yet,” Morget insisted, thrusting away his father’s hand. Perhaps there was a way he could turn this around-to downplay Morgain’s accomplishment and gain another chance to reap glory for himself. “The western half of Skrae is unconquered. My spies tell me of a new army massing against us, this Army of Free Men. They say it is led personally by the Burgrave of Ness. As long as he opposes us we have only temporary claim to this land.”
“You desire to march out of here again so soon?” Morg asked.
Morget began to answer. Then he bit his tongue. He’d been about to demand it for himself, but he remembered what Morgain had said outside the gate. Perhaps she had something to teach him after all. “I want nothing for myself. I am a chieftain, and it is what my clans want that matters.”
Morg nodded respectfully, as a man will who appreciates a move his opponent makes in a game of counters. That meant far more to Morget than his father’s pride.
“Winter is coming,” the Great Chieftain said. “This morning the water in my basin was frozen. I had to break it up to wash my face. It will be a hard thing, campaigning in a strange land in wintertime. I myself was going to suggest we spend the season here, and renew the fight only when the grass grows green once more.”
“My clans long to complete this war,” Morget insisted. “To crush Skrae while its leadership is in disarray. If we press the fight now, we face scattered troops hiding under their beds. Resistance in the eastern half of Skrae may be broken,” he said, waving one hand in the air as if to suggest this was no great thing. “Yet there are plenty of men to oppose us in the west, still. Right now they are an untrained rabble, the kind Morgain has proved so effective in dispersing.” Her eyes narrowed, and Morget wondered how far he could push her before she drew her sword and attacked him. Part of him would relish the chance to match his Ancient Blade against hers. “If we wait until spring there may be a real army prepared to stand against us.”
Morg shook his head from side to side. “Meeting even a scattered army on the battlefield means many casualties. Is it not better to let them come to us, where we have strong walls to aid us?”
“You assume they will attack if we do nothing. If it were wise for us to sit and wait, why would it be folly for them? They will not wish to fight in winter either. Let us use that to force them into a decisive battle.”
Morg looked up at the sky, as if trying to gauge when the first snow would fall. “You. Chieftess. You speak for one half of all my clans. What do you say?”
Morgain could not speak for a long while, as her skull-painted face contorted in rage. Clearly Morget’s gambit was working and he had robbed her of her glory. “My clans desire to hear the word of their Great Chieftain before they make a decision.” Morgain turned and stared into Morget’s eyes. “For myself, I desire many things. But of course, what I want does not matter.”
Morg nodded. “Very good. You’ve heard my decision. Take it to your chieftains, argue it all night over mead and contests of strength. Tell me tomorrow what you decide, and that will be our answer.”
There. It was out in the open. Morgain did want something. His own heart’s blood, probably. It did not matter, though.
If she refused to march west now, she would look the weakling. She would be begging the scolds to call her Morget’s cowardly sister. He knew Morgain could never live that down. She would offer her clans to accompany his because she had no choice. All the clans would agree that the war must be taken to the west, as far as Ness and the mountains beyond, all the way to the far sea, until all of Skrae was under their heel. As for Morg, he would never gainsay the clans when they were unanimous in their choosing.
And even if he tried to do just that-well, he could be replaced. And with Morgain on the defensive, able only to react to his own moves, there could be only one warrior ready and capable of being Morg’s replacement.
Morget walked away from the palace of justice with a vast smile deforming his face, despite how he’d been slighted by the Great Chieftain. No one dared ask him what he found so pleasant. He returned to the wall between the inner and outer baileys and collected Balint once more. As he headed toward his tent he told her all that had been said between father, brother, and sister. He wanted to know if she thought his plan to invade the West was brilliant or headstrong.
“Does it truly matter? It means more blood, and that’s what you’re really after,” the dwarf said, her jeering tone gone for once. She sounded afraid. “It means you get to kill more men of Skrae.”
As usual, when she wasn’t trying to be funny, she made Morget laugh the hardest.
“Oh yes,” he agreed, “that’s certainly a be
nefit.” He boomed out with laughter that shook the windows in the houses all around him.
Chapter Seventy-One
“The Godstone is cracked. The cracks need to be repaired. Only blood will do. Blood is what He wants! How can you not see this?” The madman, the child-killer, was chained to the bars of his cell in the gaol. He looked badly used. Bruises covered his chest and one eye was swollen shut. Clearly his keepers had been beating him.
Malden wondered if they had done so in self-defense or because they hated his crime. He supposed he couldn’t blame them for being angry. Still, he sighed. “I want him made as comfortable as possible. He’s beyond rationality-beyond knowing right from wrong. There’s no reason he should suffer because he’s lost his wits.”
“You could end his sufferin’ right now,” Velmont said. The Helstrovian thief didn’t look angry. He looked like he pitied the man. Yet it seemed he could imagine no better way to express that pity than slitting the madman’s throat.
The laws of Skrae-and the customs of Ness-agreed. If anyone but Malden had been in charge of his fate, the man would already be dead. But there had to be a better way-didn’t there? Mercy had to mean something.
“No,” Malden insisted. “There will be no executions while I’m Lord Mayor. The Burgrave hanged beggars for stealing a loaf of bread. Things are going to be different now.”
“There’s only six cells in this gaol,” Velmont pointed out. “There’ll be more like him, an’ soon enow.”
“Then we’ll build more cells,” Malden said, and headed up the stairs toward the ruins of Castle Hill. Velmont was right, of course. The gaol wasn’t going to serve his purposes for long. It was meant only for holding criminals until they could be brought to trial. It had not been designed for keeping anyone more than week at a time. The sanitary facilities were rudimentary. There was no air or light down there. Prisoners would sicken and perish if they were locked away in that hole for long.
Yet he knew he was right. Killing a man for a simple crime didn’t redress the original offense. It wouldn’t bring back the madman’s child. There had to be a better way, and it was up to him to find it.
Maybe, he thought for the first time, he’d been given this unwanted responsibility for a reason. Maybe he could use his power, instead of being used by it. Maybe he could change things for the better.
If he was only to be given a chance.
Up in the air again, he turned to Velmont and asked, “How much grain did we save from the stores?”
Velmont shrugged. “Enow fer a month, if we’re lucky.”
“We may have to ration it to last longer,” Malden said. He knew that would not be popular. In the two weeks he’d been Lord Mayor, the daily complaints he received about people unable to get flour to make bread had tripled. It was bound to get worse. Hungry people would want to know why he wasn’t feeding them. Starving people would start to think maybe they’d be better off with someone else. Every time he tried to explain the situation, he was met with blank stares.
The worst part was, he couldn’t blame the people of Ness. He couldn’t get angry with them when they didn’t understand. Back when he’d just been Malden the Thief, he would have had the same reaction. Living in a city, so far from farms and fields, people forgot that food had to be grown and harvested and brought to Ness and stored. When you could just go down to the market and buy a loaf of bread you never had to think about its provenance.
“Perhaps we should form details of men to go outside the walls and search the closer farms. There may be stores of grain left behind when the farmers fled. Though I imagine the Burgrave probably raided them. He’ll need to feed his army, and-”
Malden stopped because he’d heard a noise coming from beyond the wall of Castle Hill. A great jeering roar, full of boos and hisses.
“That can’t be good,” he said. They rushed to the broken gates and hurried out into Market Square. A crowd had gathered before the Cornmarket Bridge, a rough mob of women and old men who were throwing garbage at a train of wagons. Malden’s first thought was relief that the subject of the crowd’s ire was not himself.
His second thought was that it was his job to find out what was going on-and to stop it.
“We need to get through there and see what’s happening,” he said.
“On’t,” Velmont said, and started grabbing people from the crowd and thrusting them out of the way. Cursing and kicking, he forced a path through the gathering and Malden swept through until he stood at the end of the bridge, where rotten vegetables and bits of refuse coated the cobblestones, the remains of garbage thrown by the crowd.
A dozen men and women huddled there, sheltering themselves from the stinking missiles. They were dressed in heavy mantles and scarves as if they intended to travel a great distance. Behind them mules pulled three wagons overloaded with bundles and crates.
“What’s going on here?” Malden asked.
The leader of the group lifted his arm away from his face. It was the priest of the Lady who’d ministered to Pritchard Hood the night the bailiff died. The others, Malden realized, must be those few people left in Ness who still worshipped the Lady. The last few weeks had been difficult for them, Malden knew.
The priest stared pure hatred into Malden’s eyes. “I’m taking my flock to a better place.”
“Beyond the walls of Ness? It’s dangerous out there.”
“Less so than staying,” the priest insisted. “We are attacked by ruffians in the street. Our images are smashed. Our churches defiled by thieves and whores! You’ve driven the Lady’s face away from this city, Lord Mayor, and you will suffer the consequences.”
Malden grunted in frustration. He’d heard tales of violence against the Lady’s adherents, but had been able to do little about it. His staunchest supporters were those most devoutly attached to the Bloodgod, who seemed to think that the Lady’s priests were fair game.
“Don’t go,” he beseeched. “I’ll protect you. I’ll make it illegal to persecute anyone for their belief.” It had been one of the things he wanted to do anyway. He’d assumed he had some time before he had to start convincing people that they should accept all religions. Apparently it was now or never.
“We’ll take our chances with the barbarians, thank you very much. If you really want to help us, move this throng out of our path.”
Malden shook his head. “Where will you go?”
“The Northern Kingdoms do not worship the Bloodgod. Their interpretation of the Lady’s word is different from ours, but we share some articles of faith. Perhaps they will listen to our preaching there. If not, well, the Old Empire knows many faiths. The Emperor tolerates all religion as long as no one preaches against his rule. We can live there without fear of being murdered in our beds, simply because we believe in the true faith,” the priest said. He looked tired already. Malden wondered how far he would get before bandits killed him and his people for the contents of their wagons. Ten miles? Twenty? The Northern Kingdoms were two hundred miles away, and crossing the sea to the Old Empire would take months-assuming the pilgrims weren’t slaughtered by pirates or wrecked by storms.
“I won’t stop you,” Malden said, when for a minute he’d considered doing just that. He turned around and faced the jeering crowd. “All of you get back and let them through. And stop throwing that filth! They’re leaving. Isn’t that what you want?”
Grudgingly the crowd moved back to make an opening. They kept jeering and shouting insults but kept their garbage to themselves. Malden bowed to the priest and gestured for him to go through.
Velmont, however, had thought of something Malden had missed. “Boss,” he said. “What’ve they got in yon wains?”
For the first time Malden paid close attention to the priest’s wagons. They were filled to bursting with bundles of clothing, tents, and tools. More importantly, they were full of bags of flour, casks of lard, whole sides of salted beef and pork, and barrels of small beer.
Food. Enough food to get them
to their destination. Alternatively, food that could feed a hundred people in Ness for a week.
Malden wrestled with himself. He could not, in good conscience, do what good politics demanded of him.
But he needed that food.
“Hold,” he said. The priest glared at him. Malden took a purse from his belt. It was full of silver coins and a few gold royals. “I’ll give you fair recompense for the food you’re carrying,” he said.
“We’ll need it on the road,” the priest said. But there was a new look in his eye. A look of fear.
Malden tried to push the purse into the priest’s hand. The old man wouldn’t take it. “You can buy food on your way. It’ll make your load lighter.”
“Let me pass,” the priest insisted. His voice was weak. He knew that without Malden’s approval, he would never make it as far as the city gates.
“You can stay here and keep everything. Or you can leave the food behind on your way out of Ness,” Malden said through gritted teeth. His heart shriveled in his chest, just speaking the words. “Take the coins, damn you.”
“Every demon of the pit will take turns gnawing on your soul,” the priest said.
But he took the coins.
Chapter Seventy-Two
“Be of good cheer, lad,” Slag said as he led Malden down toward the Meadlock Stair. “Think of the fucking bright side already.” Ahead of them the river Skrait was at its narrowest, and it ran cold and fast, swollen with melted snow from the north. That morning white flakes had settled for a moment on the courtyard of the Lemon Garden, melting before Malden could be sure they were real. Winter was almost upon them.
Malden could barely imagine a bright side, much less see one. He strained for optimism, and came up with only the barest rationalization. “The pilgrims will die on the road, long before they would have had need of those foodstuffs,” he said, mostly for his own benefit. “In this weather-they’ll freeze before they starve.”
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