I’m King of the Isle. About to be. One more week, and if none of the dead Queen’s bitch daughters show up before then, it all falls to me. King of the Isle. Almost. Close enough to use the title, sure. And what woman wouldn’t set aside a miserable soldier’s life for the soft, warm bed of a king’s First Concubine? Sure, that is indeed a Letherii way, but as king I can make my own rules. And if the coven doesn’t like it, well, there’re the cliffs.
One of the Malazans at the table said, ‘Careful, Masan, he’s getting that look again.’
The woman named Masan Gilani straightened catlike in her chair, lifting her smooth, not-scrawny arms in an arching stretch that transformed her large breasts into round globes, tautening the worn fabric of her shirt. “S long as he keeps thinking with the wrong brain, Lobe, we’re good and easy.’ She then settled back, straightening her perfect legs.
‘We should bring him another whore,’ the one named Lobe said as he gathered the knuckle bones into a small leather bag.
‘No,’ Masan Gilani said. ‘Deadsmell barely revived the last one.’
But that’s not the real reason, is it? Brullyg smiled. No, you want me for yourself. Besides, I’m not usually like that. 1 was taking out some… frustrations. That’s all. His smile faded. They sure do use their hands a lot when talking. Gestures of all sorts. Strange people, these Malazans. He cleared his throat and spoke Letherii in the slow way they seemed to need. ‘I could do with another walk. My legs want exercise.’ A wink towards Masan Gilani, who responded with a knowing smile that lit him up low down, enough to make him shift in the chair. ‘My people need to see me, you understand? If they start getting suspicious-well, if anybody knows what a house arrest looks like, it is the citizens of Second Maiden Fort.’
In terribly accented Letherii, Lobe said, ‘You get your ale comes today, right? Best want to be waiting here for that. We walk you tonight.’
Like a Liberty mistress her pampered dog. Isn’t that nice? And when I lift a leg and piss against you, Lobe, what then?
These soldiers here did not frighten him. It was the other squad, the one still up-island. The one with that scrawny little mute girl. And she had a way of showing up as if from nowhere. From a swirl of light-he wondered what the Shake witches would make of that cute trick. All Lobe needed to do-Lobe, or Masan Gilani, or Gait, any of them-all they needed to do was call her name.
Sinn.
A real terror that one, and not a talon showing. He suspected he’d need the whole coven to get rid of her. Preferably with great losses. The coven had a way of crowding the chosen rulers of the Shake. And they’re on their way, like ravens to a carcass, all spit and cackle. Of course, they can’t fly. Can’t even swim. No, they’ll need boats, to take them across the strait-and that’s assuming the Reach isn’t now a jumbled mass of ice, which is how it looks from here.
The soldier named Gait rose from his chair, wincing at some twinge in his lower back, then ambled over to what had been the prefect’s prize possession, a tapestry that dominated an entire wall. Faded with age-and stained in the lower left corner with dried spatters of the poor prefect’s blood-the hanging depicted the First Landing of the Letherii, although in truth that was not the colonizers’ first landing. The fleet had come within sight of shore somewhere opposite the Reach. Fent canoes had ventured out to establish contact with the strangers. An exchange of gifts had gone awry, resulting in the slaughter of the Fent men and the subsequent enslavement of the women and children in the village. Three more settlements had suffered the same fate. The next four, southward down the coast, had been hastily abandoned.
The fleet had eventually rounded Sadon Peninsula on the north coast of the Ouster Sea, then sailed past the Lenth Arm and into Gedry Bay. The city of Gedry was founded on the place of the First Landing, at the mouth of the Lether River. This tapestry, easily a thousand years old, was proof enough of that. The general belief these days was that the landing occurred at the site of the capital itself, well up the river. Strange how the past was remade to suit the present. A lesson there Brullyg could use, once he was king. The Shake were a people of failure, fated to know naught but tragedy and pathos. Guardians of the shore, but incapable of guarding it against the sea’s tireless hunger. All of that needed… revising.
The Letherii had known defeat. Many times. Their history on this land was bloody, rife with their betrayals, their lies, their heartless cruelties. All of which were now seen as triumphant and heroic.
This is how a people must see itself. As we Shake must. A blinding beacon on this dark shore. When I am king…
‘Look at this damned thing,’ Gait said. ‘Here, that writing in the borders-that could be Ehrlii.’
‘But it isn’t,’ Lobe muttered. He had dismantled one of his daggers; on the table before him was the pommel, a few rivets and pins, a wooden handle wrapped in leather, a slitted hilt and the tanged blade. It seemed the soldier was now at a loss on how to put it all back together again.
‘Some of the letters-’
‘Ehrlii and Letherii come from the same language,’ Lobe said.
Gait’s glare was suspicious. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I don’t, you idiot. It’s just what I was told.’
‘Who?’
‘Ebron, I think. Or Shard. What difference does it make?
Somebody who knows things, that’s all. Hood, you’re making my brain hurt. And look at this mess.’
‘Is that my knife?’
‘Was.’
Brullyg saw Lobe cock his head, then the soldier said, ‘Footsteps bottom of the stairs.’ And with these words, his hands moved in a blur, and even as Gait was walking towards the door, Lobe was twisting home the pommel and flipping the knife into Gait’s path. Where it was caught one-handed-Gait had not even slowed in passing.
Brullyg settled back in his chair.
Rising, Masan Gilani loosened from their scabbards the vicious-looking long-bladed knives at her hips. ‘Wish I was with my own squad,’ she said, then drew a step closer to where Brullyg sat.
‘Stay put,’ she murmured.
Mouth dry, he nodded.
‘It’s likely the ale delivery,’ Lobe said from one side of the door, while Gait unlocked it and pushed it out wide enough to enable him to peer through the crack.
‘Sure, but those boots sound wrong.’
‘Not the usual drooling fart and his son?’
‘Not even close.’
‘All right.’ Lobe reached under the table and lifted into view a crossbow. A truly foreign weapon, constructed entirely of iron-or something very much like Letherii steel. The cord was thick as a man’s thumb, and the quarrel set into the groove was tipped with an x-shaped head that would punch through a Letherii shield as if it was birch bark. The soldier cranked the claw back and somehow locked it in place. Then he moved along the door’s wall to the corner.
Gait edged back as the footsteps on the stairs drew nearer. He made a series of hand gestures to which Masan Gilani grunted in response and Brullyg heard ripping cloth behind him and a moment later the point of a knife pressed between his shoulder blades-thrust right through the damned chair. She leaned down. ‘Be nice and be stupid, Brullyg. We know these two and we can guess why they’re here.’
Glancing back at Masan Gilani, nodding once, Gait then moved into the doorway, opening wide the door. ‘Well,’ he drawled in his dreadful Letherii, ‘if it isn’t the captain and her first mate. Run out of money comes too soon? What you making to comes with ale?’
A heavy growl from beyond. ‘What did he say, Captain?’
‘Whatever it was, he said it badly.’ A woman, and that voice-Brullyg frowned. That was a voice he had heard before. The knife tip dug deeper into his spine.
‘We’re bringing Shake Brullyg his ale,’ the woman continued.
‘That’s nice,’ Gait replied. ‘We see he comes gets it.’
‘Shake Brullyg’s an old friend of mine. I want to see him.’
‘He’s busy.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Thinking.’
