The Liar's Key (The Red Queen's War #2)(19)

? ? ?

The sea is always changing—but mostly for the worse. A cold and relentless rain arrived with the next morning and plagued us all day, driven by winds that pushed the ocean up before them into rolling hills of brine. Snorri’s dreadful little boat wallowed around like a pig trying to drown, and by the time evening threatened even the Norsemen had had enough.

“We’ll put in at Harrowheim,” Snorri told us, wiping the rain from his beard. “It’s a little place I know.” Something about the name gave me a bad feeling but I was too eager to be on solid ground to object, and I guessed that even driven as he was the Norseman would rather spend the night ashore.

So, with the sun setting behind us we turned for the dark coastline, letting the wind hurl us toward the rocks until at the last the mouth of a fjord revealed itself and we sailed on in. The fjord proved itself a narrow one, little more than two hundred yards wide, its shores rising steeper than a flight of stairs, reaching for the serrated ridges of sullen rock that cradled the waters.

Aslaug spoke to me while the two Norsemen busied themselves with rope and sail. She sat beside me in the stern, clad in shadow and suggestion, impervious to the rain and the tug of the wind.

“How they torment you with this boat, Prince Jalan.” She laid a hand on my knee, ebony fingers staining the cloth, a delicious feeling soaking into me. “Baraqel guides Snorri now. The Norseman doesn’t have your strength of will. Where you were able to withstand the demon’s preaching Snorri is swayed. His instincts have always been—”

“Demon?” I muttered. “Baraqel’s an angel.”

“You think so?” She purred it close by my ear and suddenly I didn’t know what I thought, or care overmuch that I didn’t. “The creatures of the light wear whatever shapes you let them steal from legend. Beneath it all they are singular in will and no more your friend or guardians than the fire.”

I shivered in my cloak wishing I had a good blaze to warm myself by right now. “But fire is—”

“Fire is your enemy, Prince Jalan. Enslave it and it will serve, but give it an inch, give it any opportunity, and you’ll be lucky to escape the burning wreckage of your home. You keep the fire at arm’s length. You don’t take a hot coal to your breast. No more should you embrace Baraqel or his kind. Snorri has done so and it has left his will in ashes—a puppet for the light to work its own purposes through. See how he looks at you. How he watches you. It’s only a matter of time before he acts openly against you. Mark these words, my prince. Mark—”

The sun sank and Aslaug fell into a darkness that leaked away through the hull.

? ? ?

We drew up at the quays of Harrowheim in the gathering gloom, guided in by the lights of houses clustered on the steepness of the slope. To the west some sort of cove or landslip offered a broad flattish area where crops might be grown in the shelter of the fjord.

An ancient with a lantern waved us alongside his own boat where he’d been sat picking the last fish from his nets.

“You’ll be wannin’ me ta walk you up,” he said, all gums and wisps of beard.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Father.” Tuttugu getting onto the quay with far more grace than he showed on land. He stooped low over the man’s boat. “Herring, eh? White-Gill. Nice catch. We don’t see them for another few weeks up in Trond.”

“Ayuh.” The old man held one up, still flipping half-heartedly in his fingers. “Good ’uns.” He put it down as Snorri clambered out, leaving me to stagger uncertainly across the rolling boat toward the step. “Still. Better go with you. The lads are twitchy tonight. Raiders about—it’s the season for ’em. Might fill you full of spear before you know it.”

My boot, wet with bilge water, slipped out from under me at “raiders” and I nearly vanished into the strip of dark water between quay and boat. I caught myself painfully on the planks, biting my tongue as I clutched the support. “Raiders?” I tasted blood and hoped it wasn’t a premonition.

Snorri shook his head. “Not serious stuff. The clans raid for wives come spring. Here it’ll be Guntish men.”

“Ayuh. And Westerfolk off Crow Island.” The old man set down his nets and came to join us, making an easier job of it than I had.

“Lead on.” I waved him forward, happy to trail behind if it meant him getting speared rather than me.

Now that Snorri had mentioned it I did recall talk of the practice back at the Three Axes. The business of raiding for girls of marriageable age seemed something that the people of Trond felt beneath them, but they loved to tell tales about their country bumpkin cousins doing it. Mostly it seemed to be an almost good-natured thing with a tacit approval from both sides—but of course if the raider proved sufficiently unskilled to get caught then he’d earn himself a good beating . . . and sometimes a bad one. And if he picked a girl that didn’t want to get caught she might give him worse than that.

Men emerged from the shadows as we walked up between the huts. Our new friend, Old Engli, put them quickly at their ease and the mood lightened. Some few recognized Snorri and many more recognized his name, leading us on amid a growing crowd. Lanterns and torches lit around us, children ran into the muddy streets, mothers and daughters eyed us from glowing doorways, the occasional girl, bolder than the rest, hanging from a window recently unboarded in the wake of winter’s retreat. One or two such caught my eye, the last of them a generously proportioned young woman with corn-coloured hair descending in thick waves and hung with small copper bells.