Half a King. Джо Аберкромби

shuffle across. ‘This the best you could do?’ she asked with scarcely the hint of an accent, and sprang easily down. She had a thrall-collar of her own, but made from twisted wire, and her chain was loose and light, part coiled about her arm as though it was an ornament she had chosen to wear. A slave even more favoured than Ankran, then.

      She checked in the mouth of the coughing Vansterman and clicked her tongue, poked at the Shend’s crooked back and blew out her cheeks in disgust. ‘The captain won’t think much of these slops.’

      ‘And where is our illustrious leader?’ Ankran had the air of already knowing the answer.

      ‘Asleep.’

      ‘Asleep drunk?’

      She considered that, mouth moving faintly as though she was working at a sum. ‘Not sober.’

      ‘You worry about the course, Sumael,’ grunted Trigg, shoving Yarvi’s companions on again. ‘The rowers are my business.’

      Sumael narrowed her dark eyes at Yarvi as he shuffled past. She had a scar and a notch in her top lip where a little triangle of white tooth showed, and he found himself wondering what southern land she was born in and how she had come here, whether she was older or younger than him, hard to tell with her hair chopped short—

      She darted out a quick arm and caught his wrist, twisting it up so his hand came free of his torn sleeve.

      ‘This one has a crippled hand.’ No mockery, merely a statement of fact, as though she had found a lame cow in a herd. ‘There’s only one finger on it.’ Yarvi tried to pull free but she was stronger than she looked. ‘And that seems a poor one.’

      ‘That damn flesh-dealer!’ Ankran elbowed past to grab Yarvi’s wrist and twist it about to look. ‘You said you could row!’

      Yarvi could only shrug and mutter, ‘I didn’t say well.’

      ‘It’s almost as if you can’t trust anyone,’ said Sumael, one black eyebrow high. ‘How will he row with one hand?’

      ‘He’ll have to find a way,’ said Trigg, stepping up to her. ‘We’ve got nine spaces and nine slaves.’ He loomed over Sumael and spoke with his blunt nose no more than a finger’s width from her pointed one. ‘Unless you fancy a turn on the benches?’

      She licked at that notch in her lip, and eased carefully backward. ‘I’ll worry about the course, shall I?’

      ‘Good idea. Chain the cripple on Jaud’s oar.’

      They dragged Yarvi along a raised gangway down the middle of the deck, past benches on either side, three men to each huge oar, all shaven-headed, all lean, all collared, watching him with their own mixtures of pity, self-pity, boredom and contempt.

      A man was hunched on hands and knees, scrubbing at the deck-boards, face hidden by a shag of matted hair and colourless beard, so beggarly he made the most wretched of the oarsmen look like princes. One of the guards aimed the sort of careless kick at him you might at a stray dog and sent him crawling away, dragging a great weight of heavy chain after him. The ship did not seem well supplied in general but of chain there was no shortage.

      They flung Yarvi down with unnecessary violence between two other slaves, by no means an encouraging pair. At the end of the oar was a hulking southerner with a thick fold of muscle where his neck should have been, head tipped back so he could watch the sea-birds circling. Closest to the rowlock was a dour old man, short and stocky, his sinewy forearms thick with grey hair, his cheeks full of broken veins from a life in the weather, picking at the calluses on his broad palms.

      ‘Gods damn it,’ grunted this older one, shaking his head as the guards chained Yarvi to the bench beside him, ‘we’ve a cripple at our oar.’

      ‘You prayed for help, didn’t you?’ said the southerner, without looking around. ‘Here is help.’

      ‘I prayed for help with two hands.’

      ‘Be thankful for half of what you prayed for,’ said Yarvi. ‘Believe me, I prayed for none of this.’

      The big man’s mouth curled up a little as he looked at Yarvi sidelong. ‘When you have a load to lift, you’re better lifting than weeping. I am Jaud. Your sour oarmate is Rulf.’

      ‘My name’s Yorv,’ said Yarvi, having turned his story over in advance. Keep your lies as carefully as your winter grain, Mother Gundring would have said. ‘I was a cook’s boy—’

      With a practised roll of the tongue and twitch of the head the old man spat over the ship’s side. ‘You’re nothing now, and that’s all. Forget everything but the next stroke. That makes it a little easier.’

      Jaud heaved up a sigh. ‘Don’t let Rulf grind the laughter out of you. He’s sour as lemons, but a good man to have at your back.’ He puffed out his cheeks. ‘Though, one must admit, since he’s chained to your side, that will never happen.’

      Yarvi gave a sorry little chuckle, maybe his first since he was made a slave. Maybe his first since he was made a king. But he didn’t laugh long.

      The door of the aftcastle banged wide and a woman swaggered into the light, raised both arms with a flourish and shrieked, ‘I am awake!’

      She was very tall, sharp-featured as a hawk with a pale scar across one dark cheek and her hair pinned up in a tangle. Her clothes were a gaudy patchwork of a dozen cultures’ most impractical attire – a silken shirt with frayed embroidery flapping at the sleeves, a silvery fur coat ruffled by the breeze, a fingerless glove on one hand and the other crusted with rings, a crystal-studded belt the gilt end of which flapped about the grip of a curved sword slung absurdly low.

      She kicked aside the nearest oarsman so she could prop one sharp-toed boot on his bench and grinned down the ship, gold glinting among her teeth.

      Right away the slaves, the guards, the sailors began to clap. The only ones who did not join them were Sumael, her tongue wedged in her cheek on the roof of the aftcastle, the beggar whose scrubbing block was still scrape-scraping on the gangway, and Yarvi, ex-King of Gettland.

      ‘Damn this bitch,’ Rulf forced through a fixed grin while he applauded.

      ‘You’d better clap,’ murmured Jaud.

      Yarvi held up his hands. ‘I’m worse equipped for that than rowing.’

      ‘Little ones, little ones!’ called the woman, ring-covered fist pressed to her chest with emotion, ‘you do me too much honour! Don’t let that stop you trying, though. To those who have recently joined us, I am Ebdel Aric Shadikshirram, your captain and care-giver. You may well have heard of me, for my name is famous throughout the Shattered Sea and far beyond, yea unto the very walls of the First of Cities and so on.’

      Her fame had not reached Yarvi, but Mother Gundring always used to say the wise speaker learns first when to stay silent.

      ‘I could regale you with rousing tales of my colourful past,’ she went on, toying with an earring of gold and feathers that dangled down well past her shoulder. ‘How I commanded the victorious fleet of the empress at the Battle of Fulku, was for some time a favoured lover of Duke Mikedas himself but refused to become his wife, scattered the blockade at Inchim, sailed through the greatest tempest since the Breaking of God, landed a whale, and blah blah blah, but why?’ She affectionately patted the cheek of the nearest slave, hard enough for the slapping to be clearly heard. ‘Let us simply say this ship is now the world to you, and on this ship I am great and you are lowly.’

      ‘We’re great,’ echoed Trigg, sweeping the benches with his frown, ‘you’re lowly.’

      ‘Fine profits today, in spite of the sad need to replace a few of your brethren.’ The many buckles on the captain’s boots jingled as she swaggered between the benches. ‘You will all have a mouthful of bread and wine tonight.’ Scattered cheers at this spectacular show of generosity. ‘Though you belong to me—’

      Trigg noisily cleared