Half the World (Shattered Sea #2)(51)

“More likely Father Yarvi’s does. I don’t like it.”

“Then pretend you do,” said Thorn, putting her bravest face on and meeting every stare with a challenge. Or the most challenge she could manage with a hot wind whipping grit in her eyes and flapping her shirt against her sweaty back.

“Gods, it stinks,” choked Brand as they made it off the creaking wharves and onto Father Earth, and Thorn could not have disagreed even if she could have taken a full breath to do it. The crooked streets were scattered with baking dung, dogs squabbling over rubbish, dead animals skewered on poles beside doorways.

“Are they selling those?” muttered Brand.

“They’re offering them up,” answered Father Yarvi, “so their gods can see which houses have made sacrifices and which have not.”

“What about those?” Thorn nodded toward a group of skinned carcasses dangling from a mast raised in the middle of a square, gently swinging and swarming with flies.

“Savages,” murmured Rulf, frowning up at them.

With an unpleasant shifting in her stomach, Thorn realized those glistening bodies were man-shaped. “Horse People?” she croaked.

Father Yarvi grimly shook his head. “Vanstermen.”

“What?” The gods knew there were few people who liked Vanstermen less than Thorn, but she could see no reason for the Prince of Kalyiv to skin them.

Yarvi gestured toward some letters scraped into a wooden sign. “A crew that defied Prince Varoslaf’s wishes and tried to leave. Other men of the Shattered Sea are discouraged from following their example.”

“Gods,” whispered Brand, only just heard over the buzzing of the flies. “Does Gettland want the help of a man who does this?”

“What we want and what we need may be different things.”

A dozen armed men were forcing their way through the chaos of the docks. The prince might have been at war with the Horse People, but his warriors did not look much different from the Uzhaks Thorn had killed higher up the Denied. There was a woman in their midst, very tall and very thin, coins dangling from a silk headscarf wound around her black, black hair.

She stopped before them and bowed gracefully, a satchel swinging from her slender neck. “I am servant to Varoslaf, Great Prince of Kalyiv.”

“Well met, and I am—”

“You are Father Yarvi, Minister of Gettland. The prince has given me orders to conduct you to his hall.”

Yarvi and Rulf exchanged a glance. “Should I be honored or scared?”

The woman bowed again. “I advise you to be both, and prompt besides.”

“I have come a long way for an audience and see no reason to dawdle. Lead on.”

“I’ll pick out some men to go with you,” growled Rulf, but Father Yarvi shook his head.

“I will take Thorn and Brand. To go lightly attended, and by the young, is a gesture of trust in one’s host.”

“You trust Varoslaf?” muttered Thorn, as the prince’s men gathered about them.

“I can pretend to.”

“He’ll know you pretend.”

“Of course. On such twisted foundations are good manners built.”

Thorn looked at Brand, and he stared back with that helpless expression of his.

“Have a care,” came Skifr’s voice in her ear. “Even by the ruthless standards of the steppe Varoslaf is known as a ruthless man. Do not put yourself in his power.”

Thorn looked to the great chains strung across the river, then to those dangling bodies swinging, and could only shrug. “We’re all in his power now.”

THE PRINCE OF KALYIV’S HALL seemed even bigger on the inside, its ribs fashioned from the trunks of great trees still rooted in the hard-packed earth, shafts of sunlight filled with floating dust spearing down from windows high above. There was a long firepit but the flames burned low and the echoing space seemed almost chill after the heat outside.

Varoslaf, Prince of Kalyiv, was much younger than Thorn had expected. Only a few years older than Yarvi, perhaps, but without a hair on his head, nor his chin, nor even his brows, all smooth as an egg. He was not raised up on high, but sat on a stool before the firepit. He was not a big man, and he wore no jewels and boasted no weapon. He had no terrible frown upon his hairless face, only a stony blankness. There was nothing she could have described to make him seem fearsome to a listener, and yet he was fearsome. More so, and more, the closer they were led across that echoing floor.

By the time she and Brand stood at Father Yarvi’s shoulders a dozen strides from his stool, Thorn feared Prince Varoslaf more than anyone she had ever met.

“Father Yarvi.” His voice was dry and whispery as old papers and sent a sweaty shiver down her back. “Minister of Gettland, high is our honor at your visit. Welcome all to Kalyiv, Crossroads of the World.” His eyes moved from Brand, to Thorn, and back to Yarvi, and he reached down to stroke the ears of a vast hound curled about the legs of his stool. “It is a well-judged compliment that a man of your standing comes before me so lightly attended.”

Thorn did indeed feel somewhat lonely. As well as that bear of a dog there were many guards scattered about the hall, with bows and curved swords, tall spears and strange armor.

But if Yarvi was overawed, the minister did not show a grain of it. “I know I will want for nothing in your presence, great prince.”