“What is your name, my lady?” tried Roper, speaking to the woman’s back.
“I am the lady of the house,” said she. “Skathi. Do not distress my husband, he is a good man.”
Roper was utterly nonplussed. The servant girl approached Skathi and took one of her outstretched hands, leading her in another gentle arc back towards her room. Skathi seemed quite happy to be steered in this way and did not glance at Roper on her way out.
“Let’s sit by the fire in your room, my lady,” said the servant girl kindly. “Your weaving is nearly finished.” She shot another cross-glance at Roper as she drew the door shut behind her, setting the latch into place with a click.
Roper glanced at Gray. “Tekoa’s wife,” said Gray softly. “She’s not had an easy life. Keturah is her eldest living child but she lost five sons before that; four on the battlefield, the last as an infant.”
“Ah.” Roper nodded abruptly and turned back towards the globe that sat on the table, more entranced than ever after what Skathi had said about it. He leaned close.
It took Roper some seconds to realise that this was a model of the Known World. He picked it up, turning it in his hands. Crammed into one tiny corner was an island, the outline of which he recognised from a captured Suthern map that hung in his quarters. His island. Albion. It was so small! A rock, surrounded by endless ocean. Above it was a great jagged crown of white, which at first left Roper confused. Then his memory sparked. Ice. Enough to cover the top of the world. South and east of Albion, across seas of varying width, stretched some lands he had heard of, most he had not. Landmasses and empires that shrank his island to insignificance. And in the west? A vast sea and a shadow. A mere sketch of coastline, behind which was darkness. Unknown lands. To the extreme south, across six inches of polished wood representing unimaginable stretches of kinetic ocean, lay another cap of ice, as if the world could be either way up.
Roper felt nauseous. The sensation this object gave him was like being at the top of the keep’s very tallest tower and standing leaning over the edge, one foot flirting with emptiness. The globe was swelling beneath his feet. It stretched out around him, each angle containing incalculable leagues running through lands that could not be more different from his own. That ice: there could not possibly be trees there. And there could therefore be no fire. The very ground would move beneath your feet. There would be nothing to connect you to the world in which you existed; no scents, for every smell would be frozen; no mountains or hills, no plants, no memories. Just an endless sea of white, stretching out in every direction, and perhaps a barren wind for company.
Footsteps sounded from the stairs to Roper’s left and he recovered, withdrawing his imagination from the disturbing object whilst at the same time wondering who would choose to keep such an item in their home. He returned the globe to its cradle and had just managed to sit down in one of the yew chairs beside Gray and Helmec when someone who was unmistakably Tekoa Urielson entered.
It was the way he carried himself. Imperious. Energetic. He looked like an older version of Pryce; dark-haired, handsome and unscarred. He halted suddenly when he saw Roper still arranging himself on the chair and glanced down at the globe, which had been replaced lopsidedly, as though it had been as sickened as Roper by their encounter. Tekoa looked at Roper through furrowed brows and straightened the globe. “You little bastard,” he growled. Gray and Helmec made noises of anger but Tekoa flapped at them impatiently to be silent. He seized a chair and drew it towards the fire. “We shall talk by the fire,” he declared. Aware that he was on the back foot already, Roper stood and dragged his own chair to the fireplace. The legionary returned, furnishing Tekoa with a goblet of birch wine. “You are old enough for wine, Roper?” demanded Tekoa.
“I am old enough for wine and senior enough to be called ‘my lord,’” admonished Roper.
Tekoa glanced at him appraisingly. “Well, then, why are you bothering me, my lord? To what do I owe your magpie-like presence in my house?” He raised a hand to the legionary, who supplied Roper with his own goblet.
“Because I think neither of us wants Uvoren on the Stone Throne. We came very close to that state of affairs last night.” Roper sipped the birch wine. It was delicious. Tekoa’s house might be austere, but everything in it was made by the most devoted craftsmen.
Tekoa laughed. It was like the boom of a cannon. “Ha! I hear the Kryptea are after you.”
“Jokul swears not,” said Roper. “And I believe him. The assassin was from House Algauti.”
“Hmm,” Tekoa gazed into his cup. “Perhaps the more convincing evidence that he was not Kryptean is that he botched the job.”
Despite himself, a little chuckle escaped Roper. Everyone else had tiptoed around the disturbing encounter, but Tekoa was not so sensitive and Roper found it a refreshing change to be able to laugh about such a thing.
“Perhaps,” he allowed. “So Uvoren wants the throne and will do whatever he can to obtain it for the Lothbroks, including killing its current occupant. There was a time when that was called treason.” Tekoa grinned and Roper could tell that that had amused him. He went on. “And the Vidarr … who knows? Perhaps you yourself intend to stake a claim
