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

by Mark Lawrence

“Snorri plans to put in at ports along the coast, Jal,” Tuttugu called from his huddle in the stern. “We’ll sail from Kristian to cross the Karlswater. That’s the only time we’ll lose sight of land.” “A great comfort, Tuttugu. I always like to do my drowning within sight of land.”

The night can last twenty hours and even when the day finally breaks it never gets above a level of cold I call “fuck that”—as in you open the door, your face freezes instantly to the point where it hurts to speak, but manfully you manage to say “fuck that,” before turning round, and going back to bed.

“Don’t trust the light, Prince Jalan. The stars are pretty but the space between them is infinite and black with promise.”

Faced with the present situation though, not to mention a table full of axes, I did what any man keen on leaving with the same number of limbs that he entered with would do. I grinned like an idiot and bore it.

Fear is a valuable commodity, it’s common sense compressed into its purest form. A lack of it is not a good thing.

To distract the men at the harbour wall from the fact we were smoothly pulling away into the night I raised a hand and bid them a royal farewell. “Good-bye, citizens of Olaafheim. I’ll always remember your town as . . . as . . . somewhere I’ve been.”

He knew Jal had been pushed into the boat by circumstance rather than jumping of his own accord, but Tuttugu had no reason to be there other than loyalty. Of the three of them only Tuttugu had started to make a life in Trond, finding work, new friends, a woman to share his days. And yet he’d given that up in a moment because an old friend needed him.

“It’s not a thing you want to touch, Jal. There’s no joy in it. As a friend I say don’t do this.” “As a prince of Red March I say give me the fucking key.”

“The flag . . .” Contaph stares at her, a frown throwing his brow into deep furrows. Out among the enemy contingent the white flag flutters. She looks once, out across the wall. “A mistake,” she says. “It helps me adjust for the wind.” She arches her spine, drawing the bowstring back further across her breastplate . . . and the arrow is gone, just the hiss of it left behind amid our silence. The princess drops the bow and steps away from the wall. Behind her a high-pitched cry rings out. A pause. The sound of galloping. “Princess Gwen—” The cousin runs out of words. “Shot her sister . . .” The whisper ripples along the wall. Alica whirls back around to face them all. “No negotiation. No surrender. No terms.”

I knew this wasn’t about gods. Whatever he said. His family drew him on. Freja, Emy, Egil, Karl. I still kept their names and the stories he’d told about them, and they weren’t even mine. It’s not in me to care about such things, but even so, I saw that little girl, her peg doll, Snorri running to save her. I’d expected him to speak of them again over the long winter. Expected it and dreaded it. Known that one night, deep in his cups, he must break and drunkenly he would rage against the loss. But he never did. No matter how dark the night nor how long, or how much of my ale he consumed, Snorri ver Snagason made no complaint, spoke no word of his loss. I hadn’t expected to speak of it at last in a small boat, bound on every side by cold miles of restless sea.

“Sixty beats of a heart would be enough. If I could hold them. Let them know I came for them no matter what stood in my way. It would be enough. Sixty beats of a heart past that door would outweigh sixty years in this world without them. You’ve not loved, Jal, not held your child, newborn and bloody, soft against a hard world, and promised that child you’d keep it safe.

“This would be a hell of a lot easier if some lunatic hadn’t stabbed me!” The laces confounded my awkward fingers yet again. “Christ’s whore!” I may have uttered a few more oaths, and called a certain völva’s good name into disrepute . . . “In the north we call that a little prick,” Kara replied, not looking over from her place at the tiller. I’m sure she meant the injury, but Tuttugu and Snorri, being ignorant barbarians, laughed themselves hoarse at my expense, and thereafter I manfully ignored my wound, having found the edge of Kara’s tongue to be sharper than her needle.

It sounded as though looking into the future might be as much of a pain as looking into the past. The moment was clearly the place to be. Except this moment which was wet and cold.

I turned and walked back toward him. Anything I had to say seemed shallow beside the depth of his grief. Words are awkward tools at best, too blunt for delicate tasks.

The best thing I can say about what followed is that it probably hurt less than being butchered with an axe.

“Handsome fellow,” said Kara as she stepped after Gorgoth. Snorri and I swapped a glance at that. Mine said, “See, this is why I had to mess with him in the first place.”

“We should have gone with them.” Hennan, his voice jolting to the beat of Nor’s gait. “He’s going to ask some madman in a salt mine to show him the doorway into death so that he can unlock it. A madman who sent assassins after him. Does that sound like something anyone should be doing?” “But they’re your friends.” “I can’t afford friends like that, boy.” The words came out angry. “That’s an important lesson right there—learning how to let go of people. Friends are useful. When they stop having something you want—brush them off.”

The road forgets. Make your life a journey, keep moving toward what you want, leave behind anything that’s too heavy to carry.

“A lie may prove true in the end, a promise might be broken. The difference might be said to be that if a person breaks one promise then all their promises are suspect, worthless, but if a liar tells the truth by accident we don’t feel inclined to treat all their other utterances as gospel. The promise of this note is as strong, or weak, as the promise of every bank in this broken empire of ours. If it breaks, we plunge into the abyss.”

A modern breaches etiquette the way an Ancrath murders your family, i.e. it’s not unheard of but you know it means they’re pissed off.

I’m only a little ashamed to say I outsprinted the boy. Old habits die hard. It’s good to be faster than what’s chasing you, but really the important thing in running away is to be faster than the slowest of those being pursued. Rule number one: be ahead of the next man. Or child.

“Enough. No more games.” She glanced over her shoulder as if worried about pursuit. “The key, Jalan, or I’ll take it.” I hit her. I’m not one for hitting women . . . or anyone else for that matter. In fact I’m not one for hitting anything liable to hit back, but given the choice between a hefty man and a slightly built woman I’ll punch out the woman every time. I’m not entirely clear why I hit her. Certainly I wanted to keep the key but I also didn’t want the Dead King dogging my trail all the way home along with half of Umbertide’s troops. So in many ways her offer was entirely reasonable. What was neither reasonable nor expected was the way she rolled with the blow and hit me back hard enough to break my nose and set me on my arse, my head clanging against the gate behind. She didn’t even drop her lantern.

I’m not perhaps the most generous of souls but generally there’s no murder in me. It’s not conscience so much as being squeamish, and also afraid of the repercussions.

To some men the desire for revenge can be a craving that will lead them on through one danger into another—it can consume them, a burning light outshining all others making them blind to danger, deaf to caution. Some call those men brave. I call them fools. I knew myself for a prince of fools to have let my anger lead me into the Tower in the first place, in defiance of all reason. Now, even with Tuttugu dead behind me and his murderer before me, all the anger in me blew out like a flame. The sharp edge at Hennan’s throat captured the light, and my attention. Shadows outlined the tendons stretched taut beneath the skin, the veins, the swell of his neck. I knew what a ruin one quick draw of that steel would make of it. Edris had opened Mother’s throat with the same economy a butcher uses when slaughtering pigs. With the same indifference. With the same edge.

“Gods watch us,” said Snorri. “We ask no aid, only that you witness.” “Damn that, God help me! The heathen can make his own way if he wants!”