Page 5

There’s a vanguard, said Skedi into Inara’s mind. Four, and one is your mother. Inara passed this along to the others, to save them a god’s mindspeak drilling into their heads. Behind is the king, with ten guards, but there are over a hundred following.

The horns blasted closer, and Inara saw her mother astride a charger that would have dwarfed her if she had any less certainty in her spine. Tarin softened with relief.

‘Aren’t those House Graiis colours on her guards?

’ said Lertes. He was right, none of the knights around Lessa wore her colours.

They were just ahead of the crowd that was growing in their wake, and as they caught sight of the ship, they sped up, breaking free from the mass of people and putting distance between them as they hurried downhill. Inara tightened her hand on her bow.

‘She sent her own guard east,’ said Tarin. ‘With the Vittosks.’

‘The Vittosk lands are long gone,’ said Elo, frowning.

‘The House doesn’t take defeat on their backs. And Lady Craier protects her allies.’

‘How well will she be able to protect us?’ muttered Aleda, her eyes on the crowd. Finally, they understood the danger they might be in. Lertes now had his hand lightly balanced on his sword. ‘Should we call up the crew?’

‘This isn’t an attack,’ said Elo. ‘It’s a show. He’s proving that he still has power. That people still believe in him. He wants you to know this before you go to Irisia.’

Lertes eyed him. ‘Are you a rebel or a knight these days Ser Elogast?’

Elo didn’t answer. Perhaps he didn’t know.

‘He’s not wrong,’ said Tarin wearily. ‘Some people still seem to love him, no matter what he’s done.’

‘Some people are fools,’ said Aleda. ‘We should let them all rot together in these torched and godless lands.’

That drew Inara out of watching the colours of the crowd, vivid and churning.

‘These “torched and godless lands” are our home,’ she said. ‘ Lady Craier ’s home.’ She laid the emphasis on thick, so they remembered whose ship this was: her mother’s, not theirs. ‘She already gave up everything, her rebellion, to fight for it.’ Why was she defending her mother?

‘The captain your mother once was would have cut off the king’s head and taken the consequences later,’ said Aleda. ‘I’ve never known her to ally with an enemy she was so close to defeating.’

‘Perhaps she has learned that running a country is more complex than running a ship,’ Kissen muttered. Lertes scowled at her, his hand closing on his sword, but then Tarin cleared her throat.

‘Funny,’ she said, not taking her eyes off the harbour, where folk had stopped in their work to watch for what was coming, or were already running to join the parade. ‘ I’ve never known the woman to treat a mutinous tongue any better than a mutinous blade.’

Aleda blanched, and Lertes took his hand off the hilt as if it had burned him. ‘I didn’t mean—’

‘I know,’ Tarin added, ‘you speak out of concern for the lady. But if she chooses to fight for Middren, sink with it, or abandon it, you swore the Silverswift to her command when she left it in your charge.’

Aleda controlled her glower, and nodded.

‘Apologies,’ said Lertes. ‘No harm was meant.’

‘And she won’t abandon Middren,’ Inara pressed, wanting them to agree with her.

Elo and Kissen shared a glance, and Inara realised even they weren’t sure.

These people spoke about a mother she didn’t know, had never known.

Who had lied to her. Had abandoned her. Could she really trust her with any certainty?

‘Of course she won’t,’ said Tarin, and put a hand on Inara’s back, reassuring.

For a moment, Inara remembered the days in the kitchen, the nettle tea.

The child she used to be, all Tarin’s kindnesses, and that she had lost her own mother.

‘We’ll bring allies from Irisia and win this war,’ Tarin continued.

‘Then, Inara, we’ll go home, and rebuild. ’

She sounded confident, but her colours were uncertain twists of lavender and primrose.

Inara … Skedi spoke into her head.

Don’t tell me it’s a white lie, she replied. Let me believe it. She wanted to cling on to her shaken faith in her mother, her childhood love of Tarin, just for a little longer.

Lessa reached the ship and dismounted. She did not wait for her armed escort to struggle down from their saddles, instead leaving her charger to stand obediently by the stables and striding to the bottom of the gangplank.

She paused there, and looked up at the ship, her mouth lifting in a slight smile.

It quickly fell as she saw Inara, Elo and Kissen standing along the railings.

‘Permission to board, Captain Lertes?’ she called up.

Inara glanced sideways at Lertes. Why should her mother ask permission? Our ship, he had said. Lessa was trying to keep him sweet.

‘The Silverswift is yours once more, Lady Craier,’ Lertes replied assuredly. ‘Thirteen years, we have guarded her well. Now our barque is your bite.’

Thirteen years since she had given it away. Thirteen was Inara’s age.

Lessa nodded and ascended the gangplank with only one more wary glance towards the city.

Inara could see the silvery shine of armour now amidst the mob, the brocade of horses, and splashes of blue cloth.

The blast of horns was closer now, the clapping and stamping feet. She could feel it in her bones.

‘My thanks captain,’ the lady said. She hadn’t spared another glance for Inara, but gave Lertes a respectful bow. The front of her green cotton jacket was studded with embroidered birds from the Craier crest: the tiflet, a mythical, legless swallow, always seeking.

And, like the tiflet, she turned next to Elo, who was gazing in the king’s direction, his colours moving in swells and eddies of red and blue. ‘Lion of Lesscia,’ she said. ‘Are you here to pledge to me, and follow us to Irisia?’

Elo’s colours flickered, a glimmer of longing shining over them like a light through stained glass.

Irisia, where his own mother still lived.

But he smiled and shook his head. ‘I am here for goodbyes, my lady,’ he said.

‘Kissen is an able fighter and can offer you fair wisdom.’ Kissen looked as if she wanted to kick him.

‘The godkiller,’ said Lessa coldly, ‘has been granted passage over the Trade Sea at Inara’s special request.’

Now, at last, Inara found herself reflected in the dark of her mother’s eyes as the lady’s gaze turned to her.

Inara didn’t know what she had hoped for.

Perhaps the respect she had shown Lertes, or the warmth she had shown Tarin.

Even the appraisal given Elo would have been better than the distance she had when she looked at her own daughter. Inara stared back.

They’re coming.

They flinched as Skedi’s voice pierced through them.

The king’s parade had broken fully into the harbour.

Its crowd had grown larger still, spilling out around the phalanx of ten steeds in blue and gold barding.

Two of the riders had drums, and two were, as Tarin promised, in the colours of other Houses; Crolle and Elemni.

The rest were the remains of Arren’s armoured guard, holding halberds with clubbed bases.

In the centre rode King Arren himself, his head bare save for a circlet of sunrays and antlers.

He looked vulnerable, and young. Not a coward’s double of twigs and flame this time.

Instead, he wore a cuirass in a deep V down to his navel, exposing his open shirt and the dark, flickering maw of his chest and heart.

The cuirass itself was painted, reds and oranges.

Flames and fire. What was he trying to do?

Claim the sun and now claim flame for himself as well? A challenge to Hseth?

Inara’s blood boiled, and her fingers itched for an arrow. He had ordered the death of gods, of her mother, of her home, and here he was riding towards them as if he were the most innocent of innocents.

And the crowd trailed the horses like a brook of boiling water, flowing, gasping, churning out across the roads, frothing up from the main port.

‘Sunbringer, Sunbringer!’ they called.

So strange to see so much adulation, bright blues and golds of love for their monarch as they roared for their king’s attention.

But there were others in the mix, greens and silvers threading through, and more: fears in red, and yellow. Skedi flew down from the mast and landed defensively on Inara’s shoulder. Faith brings fervour, he whispered into her mind. Or fury.

As the crowd tumbled after the king’s array they shoved each other, some trying to get close enough to Arren to throw flowers, or hear him speak.

‘Sunbringer! Save us from the fire god!’

‘Save us from Talicia!’

Kissen grumbled. ‘What pompy nonsense is this, Elo?’

‘Isn’t this show of unity what you asked for, veiga?’ said Lessa.

‘Don’t blame me for your messes, noble.’

The king approached the ship, and the Graiis guards looked to Lessa, wondering whether to stop him, but she shook her head slightly.

Arren dismounted in one smooth motion, clearly a practised rider, then headed up the gangplank.

His guards stayed behind on the harbour wall, but Elemni and Crolle joined him on the ship.

Lady Crolle was a lean, fair woman with shrewd eyes.

She did not wear armour, but a split tunic and wide trews that had allowed her to sit astride the horse.

Elemni was a broad barrel of a woman, with curled gold-brown hair that cascaded around her shoulders.

Between them, Arren’s quick blue eyes assessed Kissen, Lessa, Inara and Skedi. So many of his enemies. His eyes landed on Elo, and his colours flickered amber, sharp and painful.

‘Lady Craier!’ came a call from the crowd. ‘Help us!’

‘Traitor to the king,’ screamed another.

‘Take us with you!’

‘Pirate scum!’

‘Save Middren!’

Some fruit and a clump of mud came their way but broke on the gunwales.

‘Bastards,’ muttered Lertes, but fell silent when Lessa cast him a glance.