‘Because I’ve got a quim or because I’ve got a brain?’
‘My mother might treat me like a child but at least I bloody am her child. I’m lord governor now!’ Half-angry and half-wheedling, like he was trying to convince himself as much as her. ‘I have to make the decisions.’
‘And your first one is to break your fucking word?’
He looked taken aback by how savage she sounded. Truthfully, she was a little taken aback by it, too. ‘I’d no idea you could be so … ruthless.’
‘Oh, aye, Ruthless Rikke, terror of the North. Seems none of the men in my life know me as well as they think. The fact is, being nice gets nothing done. You have to make of your heart a stone, Leo. You should’ve killed him.’
‘Maybe I should have.’ Leo lifted his chin. ‘But I won. It was my choice what to do with him.’
By the dead, how had it come to this between the two of them? From a lot of bliss and a few niggles to all niggle and no bliss at all. She guessed you can only ride so far on a fine stomach. She felt a flurry of twitches chase up her cheek and the fact she couldn’t get her own face to obey only made her angrier than ever.
‘You arrogant fuck!’ she snarled. ‘You were reckless, and stupid, and by some margin the second-best fighter out of two! You won because Stour was even more of a puffed-up fool than you and couldn’t help showing off! You won because my Long Eye saw what he’d do and I bloody screamed it at you!’
Leo’s bruised, bandaged face barely moved while she spoke. Once she ran out of things to hurt him with and petered off into silence, he took a small step towards her. Not angry. Not sad.
‘What did you say to me? No one remembers how the fight was won. I won. No one cares how.’
He brushed her shoulder as he stepped past, not quite barging her out of the way, but nearly.
Was only a day or two ago, he’d said he loved her. Seemed he shrugged his loves off as easily as his promises.
He left her on the hillside, in the wind. Silently seething.
‘Leo dan bloody Brock,’ she snarled, and in case someone had somehow missed the point, added, ‘that preening dunce!’
Isern thoughtfully fiddled with the finger bones on her necklace. ‘I sense something hath come betwixt the young lovers.’
‘You’ve an uncanny feeling for these things,’ mused Rikke’s father.
‘He’s a bloody bladder o’ vanity!’ snapped Rikke, rubbing at her eye. Still sore. Still hot.
‘You know your problem?’ Her father had that calming look that was always certain to enrage her more.
‘It’s Leo dan lying Brock, the faithless fucker!’
‘You’re prone to set folk up so high, all they can do is let you down …’
‘It’s a constant worry o’ mine,’ said Isern, nodding away, ‘the way the girl worships me.’
‘… and when they do, it’s a high peak to topple from.’
‘That’s not true!’ snapped Rikke. Then she wondered if it was, and quickly lost all patience with the exercise. ‘That’s shit!’
‘You’ve said all along he’s prone to think of himself first, second, third and last,’ said Isern.
‘And you’re saying that’s all right?’
‘I’m saying it’s a bastard of a shortcoming in a lover, but one your eyes were wide open to. If you build your boat from cheese, d’you see, you can’t wail at the heavens when it sinks, for cheese is known to be a poor material for boat-building.’
‘You should only ask for promises you know are going to be kept,’ said her father. ‘And we’re talking of the Circle.’ He gave a helpless shrug. ‘Things happen. You’ve got to try to look on the sunny side or you’ll spend your life in darkness.’
Rikke ground her teeth. The two of them had, as usual, many fair points. But it was unfair points she wanted right then. ‘So when someone kicks me up my arse, I need to thank ’em for not kicking me in the teeth, do I?’
‘We got our land back, Rikke. Our city. Our hall. Our garden …’ His mouth curled up in a faraway smile. ‘No doubt it’ll all need some putting right, but—’
‘How long for, d’you think?’ sneered Rikke, not much comforted by thoughts of training a rose or two. ‘Will Black Calder just toss his father’s dreams on the rubbish heap now, dump his ambitions with the fish skins? That greedy fucker’s going nowhere. Moment we look away, he’ll be back!’
Her father, as ever, refused to be goaded into anger and stuck with quiet resignation. ‘Nothing’s for ever, Rikke. No peace and no war. All you can do is the best you can in the time you’ve got.’
‘Well, there’s our answer then. Best you can! Wisdom to be proud of.’
All that dug from him was a wistful wince. ‘Wish I had some wisdom to give you. Wish I had the answers.’
Rikke felt guilty, then. She seemed to lately, whenever she wasn’t angry. Lurching from one to the other like a bloody children’s see-saw. The kind that smacks you hard in the arse. ‘I’m sorry,’ she grumbled. ‘You’ve given me plenty of wisdom. More answers than any child’s got a right to. Ignore me.’ She couldn’t resist adding, ‘Everyone bloody does,’ in a mumble at the end.
‘Well, your faithless but finely proportioned lord governor problem is solving itself.’ Isern leaned back and put one boot up on the table, rolling a chagga pellet between finger and thumb. ‘Since he’s off to the Union where the bloated fools who wouldn’t lift a finger to help will call him the greatest warrior since Euz, and puff his head up with farts until he can’t fit through a bloody door sideways.’
‘Huh.’ Rikke neatly swiped the chagga pellet as Isern lifted it to her mouth and stuck it up behind her own lip. ‘Some solution.’
‘Thought you hated him?’
‘I do.’
‘But you don’t want him to go anywhere?’ asked Isern, rolling a new pellet for herself.
Rikke planted her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands and sagged unhappily into them. ‘Exactly.’
Her father swiped the second pellet from Isern’s fingers and stuck it down behind his own lip. ‘Just as well you’re going with him, then.’
Rikke looked up. ‘I’m going where now?’
‘Adua.’
‘I need to go back to Uffrith, with you. Tend to the garden, and whatever.’ Though she’d never had much patience for it, and less than ever these days.
‘Isern and Shivers’ll go with you, make sure you don’t get into mischief.’
‘Or that you do?’ muttered Isern, eyeing them both carefully as she rolled a third pellet.
‘You can pour a drink on my old friend Grim’s grave.’ He gave a little smile. ‘No need for words over it. He never liked ’em. But there’ll be deals done in Adua, and we need to be represented. After the battle at Osrung, we were promised six chairs on the Open Council. Never happened.’
‘Promises are like flowers,’ said Isern, stretching her arms wide. ‘Often given, rarely kept.’
‘Well, if Leo sticks by us, maybe it’ll be kept now.’
Rikke pushed her pellet sourly from one side of her lip to the other. ‘I haven’t proved myself too good at making Leo stick to things.’
‘Try again. You might improve. And it’ll do you good to see the world. There’s more to it than forests, believe it or not.’
‘Adua,’ muttered Rikke. ‘The City of White Towers.’ She’d heard a lot about it but never thought to go herself. A year in Ostenhorm had been hard enough work.
‘Just promise me one thing.’
‘Anything.’
‘Let go of it.’
‘Of what?’
‘The feuds,’ said her father, and of a sudden, he looked so tired. ‘The grudges. The enemies. Take it from a man with a wealth o’ bitter experience. Vengeance is just an empty chest you choose to carry. One you have to go bent under the weight of all your days. One score settled only plants the seeds of two more.’