Page 44 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

HENRIK

The paper in Henrik’s hand crinkled as he consulted it for the last time.

Right at the stone pillar with a lamp on top. Follow the alley to the left, past a red flag on the right-hand door. My home is on the left, with an image of a bird carved into the wood.

Dim lights emitted from these alleyways in Klipporno, far quieter than the riotous wharf at night. Lights dotted the distant sea while boat lanterns glowed from the harbor. He thought of Stenberg and the stars.

Drawing in a deep breath, Henrik strode down the alley, past a red flag. On the left he found a wooden door with a burned out image of a bird. Heart thumping, he lifted his knuckles and rapped on it. It opened a second later.

Selma immediately appeared. She stood there for a full breath, taking him in, before she stepped back. “Please, come in.”

He stepped inside, noting how she locked the door behind them, the iron bars crossing the inside of her shuttered windows.

The air was thick, a little stuffy. Was Klipporno not safe enough for open windows with iron bars?

She gestured to a pillow on the ground, eyelashes fluttering nervously. Her voice trembled.

“Have a seat.”

Casting his eyes around the room, and feeling less restrained and observed than at the Ladylord’s house, he said, “I’m sorry, Selma.” Her name sent a shiver through him.

Astonished, she whispered, “For what?”

“For leaving the other day. I?—”

A placating hand lifted, stopping him. “There are no apologies to give, Er—Henrik.” Her face crumpled into an awkward wince, but before she could apologize, he managed a smile.

“You can call me Erik.”

If possible, her eyes widened farther. “Then you must . . . believe me?”

“Yes.”

A sob caught in her throat. This she couldn’t hide. She simply nodded, motioned to the pillow, and lowered to one herself. She moved with great care, as if her knees were about to give out. To put her at ease, he sat on the pillow.

Words jammed in his throat. He’d gone over what he’d say when he met her on his own terms, but all his plans fled. He could only muster, “I didn’t forget.”

Brimming tears robbed her voice. Her brow furrowed.

Henrik swallowed his rising emotion. “When the soldats took me, you screamed something. Do you remember?”

“I told you to find me,” she whispered. “To never forget. I shrieked my name like a wild woman so that you wouldn’t.”

“ Your mama’s name is Selma!” He spoke each word with care. “I didn’t forget. Your plan worked.”

A shuddering shook her arms as Selma covered her face with both hands, weeping. He hesitated, stood up, sat next to her on her pillow, and put a hand on her shoulder. Her despair had no sound. Only agony as she leaned into him. Henrik accepted her weight.

The memory of her last moments, those screaming, vicious memories that woke him from deepest sleep, that haunted him every day, that had such power, dissipated.

He’d found her.

At last.

Minutes passed before she could compose herself. His questions built on top of themselves, ruthless, insatiable. Selma leaned away to better see him. Her hand, dotted with tears, rose to his face. The tips of her fingers lingered along his cheek.

“Erik.”

He kept her stare, not sure what to say. This was not a broken woman, but a woman who carried deep sorrow. What had it been like to battle daily life alone, all these years? To wonder what happened.

To think?—

“What happened after?” he asked. The questions would no longer remain in place.

“They sent me away.” She used her bent knuckles to wipe her cheeks. “They were embarrassed, I think. Trying to set an example so other mothers didn’t do the same.”

“Embarrassed?”

“About my protests, my screaming. I just . . . I knew you wouldn’t remember me unless I made it something for you to remember.”

“Who sent you away?”

With a wave of her hand, she said, “His Glory. I had to meet with him. Or was he there? I can’t remember. The whole thing was a blur. We hadn’t given our permission for you to go into the soldats, they just showed up.”

His heart hammered in his throat. “We?”

“Your father.”

Her eyes met his, filled with something like fear. Henrik had to calm his racing heart very carefully.

“Is he still alive?”

“I don’t know.”

He nodded, setting that aside to think about later.

Selma held up both hands, gesturing to him with open disbelief. “How?” she whispered.

“As soon as I could, I sought you. We found you in the records, but didn’t know where you went.

Arvid told me, and then Malcolm wrote a scribe and then there’s Britt, who snuck onto this ship and .

. .” He laughed, running a hand over his head.

“I’m making a mess of this. Anyway, all roads led us here.

If you look at it from the right angle, it’s all a little miraculous. ”

Greater confusion appeared in her expression. “But . . . soldats can’t leave.”

Henrik chuckled. “I think both of us have a lot to catch up on.”

She gave a watery smile.

“Yes, we do. Before we start, are you hungry? I have only fish and potatoes, a mainland staple, but there is enough for both of us. Allow me the pleasure of feeding my son once again?”

Henrik finished his recounting of meeting Britt, uncovering Selma’s name, and the soldat rebellion that led him to the mainland.

It took nearly an hour with all the nuance a stranger required.

By the time he finished, Selma stared at him, mouth slack, eyes wide, a piece of potato forgotten in her hands.

“This is better than a storybook, Erik. I mean?—”

He snorted, but not without amusement, and held up a hand. “It’s fine.”

Selma had a child-like depth. Everything about her small living space, her responses, spoke to a gentle simplicity in the brutish world of the mainland.

They sat at a wooden table near the back of the home, two candles as their only light. The ceiling groaned when someone walked across it on the floor above. Every now and then, the murmur of muted voices could be heard. Selma didn’t seem to notice.

She set her potato chunk on her plate and straightened, stretching her back. Her eyes glazed with deepening thoughts. With a shake of her head, she said, “I cannot fathom the entire lifetime of experiences that lies between you and myself, Erik.”

Somehow, the latent sorrow, laced with amazement, communicated all the words she didn’t say. So much time had been taken from them.

“What has it been like for you?” he asked, grateful to shuck the attention. He watched her closely. Too closely. She might feel uncomfortable under his scrutiny, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her. He thought he saw himself in her sloped nose and lip shape, perhaps.

Selma.

His mother.

The woman he’d secretly thought of every day of his life, committed to tracking her down, now sat before him. The disappointment, the fear, of their initial meeting had washed away. He marveled that she existed .

When Selma fell into thought and didn’t return, he quietly said, “They took you away?”

Blinking into the moment, she nodded. All the muscles in her hands tensed. “Yes. They were livid that I would make such a scene. We had no idea they were coming.”

That word.

We .

His voice was a rasp when he asked, “Did my father try to stop them?”

Selma closed her eyes, nodded. She spoke as if reliving a distant memory when she said, “Yes, we . Your father and I. I don’t know what happened to him immediately after they sent me here, but I presume he did everything he could.

I don’t know what happened to him, nor what punishment His Glory gave.

Was he banished? Killed? Kept? I don’t know.

For years, I attempted to write, to return, to figure out something , but it all came to vain. ”

“What’s his name?”

“Cristan.”

The same from the papers in Stenberg. He heard it with little surprise, but a steep sense of understanding he’d never truly comprehended before. It was his father. He had one. Until she confirmed it, all seemed nebulous.

She chuckled humorlessly. “Your father, he argued with the soldats. While he argued, two soldats stepped forward and took you both. After His Glory sent me to the mainland as a lesson for other mothers and punishment for embarrassing him, I lost . . . everything. To add insult to injury,” she added, “they took you and Noah at the same time. Noah was just like a son to me.”

Henrik took in a sharp breath.

“Noah?’

“Alice’s boy. The maid who worked for us? Really, we were as tight as sisters, though we had no blood relation.”

He smiled. “Einar’s real name is Noah?”

Selma gasped.

“You know him?”

“I didn’t mention him before because I didn’t want to overwhelm you. Noah is still around.” He laughed, thrilled. “Noah is Einar.”

She gaped. “Einar whom you spoke of so much just now? Who lost his love?”

He nodded.

Tears filled her eyes again. Her hands flew to her cheeks. “Oh!” she breathed. “Both of my sons have come back to life. But . . .” Selma swallowed, tearing up again. This time, she laughed, swiping the tears off her cheeks as they fell.

“Oh, Noah. That boy! What a smooth boy. A naughty thing! Always pulling you into trouble at only five years old.” She leaned forward, all eagerness now. “Can I meet him, too?”

“I think Einar would like that.”

“It is more than I could have hoped for.”

Jagged pieces of imperfect memories returned. Forceful hands on his arms. Selma’s screams. Henrik thought he remembered a dark, enclosed space. Einar—Noah—livid and cursing at his side. He shook himself out of the trance those memories inspired.

Did he imagine them?

Weakly, she said, “I didn’t know, Erik. I promise, I didn’t know they had been watching you, or we would have taken Alice, Noah, and you on a ship and left until you turned nine. I would have done anything but . . .”

She stopped, chin high.

Henrik reached across the table, put a hand on hers. “It’s over, Selma. It’s over.”

Tearful, she nodded. With a whisper, she squeezed her hand over his own and said, “I never thought I’d see you again.

My life, as difficult as it has been, has finally come full circle.

You, my boy, are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

Have ever done. It has always been an honor to be your mother. ”

The words sank too deep to comprehend, and the overwhelm returned. Henrik stood, reached for her over the table, and gave her another embrace. His arms felt stiff and uncertain. He didn’t know how to do this, but he had to give her something.

Into his shoulder, she whispered, “Thank you.”

He replied, “No, Selma. Thank you .”

Not a soul stirred on the ship when Henrik returned late that evening. Drake didn’t sleep in his nest, nor did Pedr stand at the wheel. The otherworldly calm was broken only by the arcane tugging the rowboat into place on the side.

He surveyed the deck as he reached for the hatch, then stopped.

A bundle of white caught his eye. Britt lay in a ball on the deck against the far gunwale.

Her dress bunched around her knees. She forsook the usual Kapurnickkian style of pants under the skirts.

The sun had been too hot for layers. Her arm propped her head up and she breathed lightly, eyes closed.

Henrik crossed the ship and crouched at her side. A wisp of hair floated onto her cheek. She loved to sleep under the stars, but she most often stayed in Pedr’s berth. He had a feeling she’d fallen asleep waiting for him. Britt baked kindness into all her actions.

He could scoop her up and take her into Pedr’s berth, letting her sleep. But after meeting Selma, he didn’t want to. Instead, he lay next to her. Britt turned, lashes fluttering open. Sleep crowded the corners of her smile as she stretched.

“You’re back?”

“I am.”

A soft sigh. “Good.” Yawning, she asked, “How did it go?”

“Perfectly,” he whispered.

Her eyes drifted closed, her head found his shoulder. He wound an arm around her and she snuggled deeper. Denerfen chirped from where he lay next to her on the deck. Chuckling, Henrik lifted Denerfen up and carefully deposited him on her neck. He sighed against her ear.

“I can’t wait to hear,” she mumbled.

As she returned to sleep, Henrik propped his other arm behind his head and stared at the sky until the stars blurred and sleep welcomed him.

What a beautiful thing, this messy life.