“Sigurasta!” Keturah stepped towards her and embraced the woman over her wares. “Thank you for the last time,” she said, employing the fond greeting of the Black Kingdom. “How’s your beautiful girl?” With care, Keturah pulled back the edge of the sling to reveal a sleeping baby, its head turned into its mother and wearing a stubborn frown.
“Healthy, so far,” said Sigurasta. “I hear you have a problem of your own to take care of?”
She referred to the Vidarr estate which had been left in Keturah’s control. “No problem,” said Keturah. “Father likes to complain but it is a minor responsibility. I have some timber to sell so I must move, before Avaldr is inundated. Will you come drink wine with us tomorrow?”
Sigurasta said that she would and Keturah gave her and her baby a kiss on the cheek before they parted. As she turned away from them, her face resumed its impatient repose.
The woman was Sigurasta Sakariasdottir, wife of Vinjar Kristvinson, Councillor for Agriculture and close personal friend of Uvoren the Mighty. Roper’s business was now Keturah’s business, and Roper needed Uvoren’s war council to be destroyed. Vinjar Kristvinson had to fall and perhaps his wife would have the key to that. Keturah thought of herself as much a warrior as any of those away on campaign. This was her battlefield and Sigurasta, whether she knew it or not, was one of her allies.
Keturah headed for a stall around which a small crowd had already assembled and behind which was a short, stocky man, evidently enjoying the attention he received. His wandering eyes caught Keturah’s and opened wide. “Almighty preserve me!” He threw up his hands in mock dread, a look of horror crossing his face. “No, not today, Miss Keturah. I am stretched enough as it is without one of my encounters with you.”
She laughed at this and slid through the ranks of other customers, placing a hand on his arm. “Avaldr, I am here to do you a favour.”
“She always says that,” Avaldr declared to his other clients. “What is it this time, Miss Keturah: a mighty bog-oak? A crystal from the Winter Road?” Avaldr always liked to share his jokes when he saw Keturah and now he had an audience. “And what shall you have as payment? The stall itself? My shoes?”
“There’s no need to be so melodramatic, Avaldr. I’ve some fine ash for you today but there’s always Bjarkan or Parmes, if you don’t want it.”
“Not while the Ulpha are away on campaign,” said Avaldr slyly, referring to the legion in which his two rivals served.
Keturah was amused. “It’s timber, Avaldr. It will keep until they’re back. I’ve no desire to sell it to you while you think you’re the only buyer in the fortress.”
He gave her a delighted smile. “But I am the only buyer in the fortress!” He gestured at the customers arrayed about him.
“But Avaldr, we’re such old friends.” She reached across to his cheek and gave it the lightest of caresses. “You’re still going to give me your best price.” Avaldr threw up his hands again and gestured as though to shoo her away, though he looked mightily pleased.
“It seems that I have little choice. How much have you got?”
“Three tons, twenty-foot lengths.”
“Green?”
“For now. Felled two weeks ago at Trawden.”
The two shaped an agreement, Avaldr agreeing to bring iron to Tekoa’s household in payment for the timber, which was being stored outside the fortress walls. Keturah bade him farewell, extricated herself from the crowd and went on the hunt for a stall selling yarn. She found one and traded some copper for it, extracting it from the leather sack hung at her shoulder and handing it to the woman behind the stall who used a broad chisel and hammer to gouge a few chunks off the copper, handing the rest of the ingot back to Keturah. The next stall along had goose eggs and, using the rest of her copper, Keturah purchased a crate of them nestled in short straw. Looking to her right, she spotted a familiar face.
“Hafdis,” she said, placing an arm at the back of the woman next to her. Hafdis was tall (though still several inches shorter than Keturah) and attractive, with an upturned nose, blue eyes and chestnut hair that fell midway down her back. Her beauty was tempered by an almost constant expression of distaste that she wore, as though perpetually disenchanted with those around her. But her clothes were finely woven layers of overlapping wool, her boots softest leather, and she was paying for her goose eggs in a rare currency: bolts of silk. This was Hafdis Reykdalsdottir, wife to Uvoren the Mighty.
Hafdis turned to Keturah and managed a watery smile, embracing the younger woman. “My, my, Keturah. Are you well?” Without waiting for a reply, she said, “Isn’t it dull with the legions away?”
“There’s certainly less laughter in the household since my father left,” said Keturah. “Though that was mostly him enjoying his own company. But I’m glad that the Sutherners are finally being challenged.”
“Oh, yes. I suppose you’re looking after your mother,” said Hafdis carelessly. “It’s too warm today.”
Keturah was too used to Hafdis’s wandering mind for it to bother her unduly, though privately she thought that of course it was warm beneath all those layers of wool. Out loud, she said sweetly: “You’re dressed for cooler weather, my dear. I hear Unndor and Urthr were married: my congratulations.”
The look of distaste on Hafdis’s face magnified several times. “I had hoped for better for both of them. A nobody from House Oris and another from House Nadoddur? My husband has a great deal to answer for.”
“Did the boys not want the marriages?”
“Neither had met their wife before the betrothal. Both girls are dull and plain: there is little desirable about the arrangement.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Keturah, shaking her head and suppressing the look of sardonic amusement with which she would usually have greeted such news.
