“I must get back to my mother, dear Hafdis, but will you come and share some wine with me overmorrow? It would be my great pleasure to see you.” Hafdis agreed it would be a great pleasure while Keturah privately congratulated herself on the levels of self-sacrifice she was prepared to undergo for her new husband. She chose her friends carefully and Hafdis was not the company she would usually have sought, though there could be nobody better to provide her with Uvoren’s secrets than his disillusioned wife. Another ally of Keturah’s: this battle was going rather well.
She was about to depart when the atmosphere around her changed abruptly. Silence rippled through the chattering stalls. Traders fell quiet and turned towards Keturah, the collective attention of that portion of the market focusing on a point above her right shoulder. Hafdis had gone very still.
Keturah turned, knowing what she would find, and came face to face with Uvoren the Mighty, standing directly behind her. He wore a great deal of steel for a man not dressed for war. His belt was studded with plates of it, his woollen shirt fastened at the front with thick clips of it. A great sheathed strip of it hung at his side: a long dagger that he never wore during battle. His cloak was fastened by it and a fine coil of it held his hair in that high ponytail, reserved for lords and members of the Sacred Guard alone. The sight caused Keturah to raise her eyebrows: Uvoren was certainly flirting with the borders of excessive personal adornment.
The silence that had spread was replaced with an excited muttering and Uvoren flashed a grin over the marketplace. “Good morning, my friends. Please, carry on!”
The marketplace barely reacted beyond a slight flutter.
With Uvoren stood Baldwin Dufgurson, the Legion Tribune. Tall, black-haired, thin of face and narrow of limb, he surveyed Keturah imperiously, as though suspicious that Roper’s wife was in such close proximity.
“What are you doing here, Tekoasdottir?” he asked coldly.
Keturah pretended to look startled and surveyed her surroundings. “How odd, Tribune, I thought I was in the market. Wait …” She cast around again. “Yes, I am in fact in the market. So I’m trading.” She treated him to her iciest look.
Uvoren laughed, giving Baldwin an affectionate shove which the latter did not seem to appreciate. Then his eyes came to rest on his wife. He maintained his smile. “And you? Why are you here?”
“Buying eggs,” said Hafdis, uncertainly.
“Shouldn’t you be weaving?”
“I was tired of weaving.”
“Well, now you’ve had your break, you can return to it,” said Uvoren, still smiling. Hafdis glanced at Keturah, bade her a quiet farewell and headed for home, a basket of eggs clutched beneath one arm. Uvoren’s eyes had moved onto Keturah and lingered there as his wife moved out of sight. “What are you trading, Miss Keturah?”
She shrugged. “Some timber arrived from Trawden, Captain, to be sold. And I needed yarn. Yarn and goose eggs.”
He smiled. It was a smile so charming, so full of warmth and confidence that she almost forgot who he was. She almost liked him. “You intend to spend some time weaving yourself?”
“With my mother. It is hard for her, when my father is gone. She needs distraction.”
“Ah! Well, I hope she finds it.” Uvoren glanced at Baldwin, who was still wearing his supercilious expression. “Off you go, Baldwin.” The Tribune swept past Keturah and into the marketplace. Uvoren watched his back for a moment and then drew a little closer to Keturah. She stood her ground. “I pray your husband returns victorious.”
“Of course you do, Captain.” Keturah was very tall but, up close, Uvoren the Mighty was truly enormous. Even unarmoured and unhelmeted, his shoulders seemed to have the breadth of an eagle’s wingspan and his arms were thick as the chains that raise the portcullis of the Great Gate. Even Keturah, used to the presence of Tekoa and Pryce—men who others found quite as intimidating as Uvoren—felt daunted by this monstrous individual. When he spoke, his voice seemed to reverberate through her chest and up her throat.
“It must be hard for you, being left by both Roper and your father. Especially with your mother so unwell.” Keturah still stood her ground, even as he drew very close. “You are always welcome in my household, if you ever feel too alone.”
She laughed at that, placing a hand on Uvoren’s chest, at first lightly, as a caress, then brought the palm more firmly down and pushed him backwards. With the laugh, he was disarmed and sweetened. With the push, he was defeated. He allowed himself to be pushed backwards, infected by her laugh, smiling a little and playing the game.
“Come, come. Surely you have no loyalty towards the boy Roper yet?” he said.
“He is the Black Lord,” Keturah replied, raising her eyebrows at Uvoren and still smiling. “I thought we were all loyal towards him.”
“Black Lord in name alone. We both know what’s going to happen to him.”
“I thought you prayed for his victory?”
“I do. But victory or not, he isn’t coming back through the Great Gate. You don’t need to think about him.”
