Chapter 5 #2
Indrie looks at the bowl in Gunnar's outstretched hands and feels his stomach drop to his boots.
He's managed, for three days, to avoid direct contact with the king. Eskil is a presence on the ship, impossible to miss, impossible to ignore, but Indrie has learned the patterns of his movement. He’s learned the times he's at the helm and the times he's below deck, and has arranged his own schedule around them with careful, dedicated precision.
He hasn't spoken to the king since the shoreline.
Hasn't been within arm's reach. Hasn't had to look into those pale, unreadable eyes and wonder what's behind them.
Gunnar is watching him with patient expectation, clearly unable to fathom why his simple request has caused a crisis.
Indrie swallows his fear. He takes the bowl.
He tells himself he can do this. He can face this man.
He's faced Armond for five years, faced him at his worst, at his most volatile, at his most dangerous, and survived every time.
One bowl of stew delivered to one king. That's all this is. Walk in, set it down, walk out.
He manages to knock on the door without incident. A voice from inside, deep, clipped, distracted, says something he doesn't fully understand but hopes is permission to enter. He pushes the door open with his shoulder and steps inside.
The captain's cabin is larger and cluttered.
A desk takes up most of one wall, covered in charts and documents and a few scattered instruments Indrie doesn't recognize.
A trunk sits in the corner, lid open, clothes visible inside.
The bed is against the far wall, neatly made, and there's a lamp swinging gently from a hook overhead that casts the room in warm, shifting light.
It smells of wood and salt and something else, something warm and faintly sharp, that Indrie realizes is Eskil himself.
The king is seated at the desk, bent over a chart with a piece of charcoal in one hand and a look of concentration that deepens the lines between his brows.
He glances up when Indrie enters, a brief flicker of acknowledgment, and then his eyes return to the chart.
He says something, table or here or put it down, something short and directional, and Indrie adjusts his grip on the bowl and starts across the room.
But it's only been three days.
Three days is not a lot of time under any circumstances, and it is especially not a lot of time for someone who has never been on a ship before.
Indrie has learned to walk on the rolling deck without stumbling, mostly.
He's learned to brace himself when the swell picks up, to keep his knees soft and his weight centered.
He's learned to anticipate the larger rolls, the ones that send unsecured items sliding across tables and make the lamp swing in wide, dizzy arcs.
But three days is not enough to get used to the way the vessel rocks and sways with the ocean when his hands are full and his nerves are frayed and the floor is not, as it turns out, clear.
His boot catches on a stray length of netting coiled on the floor, left there from repairs, probably, or knocked loose from the wall where it was hanging, and the world tilts.
He pitches forward with a lurch that wrenches his stomach and his hands fly out instinctively to catch himself, which means the bowl goes, and the stew goes with it, and Indrie hits the floor palms and knees first with a crack that echoes up his limbs and into his teeth.
The pain is immediate, sharp in his kneecaps, hot in his palms where they've slammed against the wood, but it's nothing.
It's nothing compared to the dread and horror that washes over him as he registers the brown splash of stew across the planks, the overturned bowl rolling to a stop against the desk leg, the bread sitting in a puddle of broth, and, his eyes traveling upward with slow, sick certainty, the dark stain of stew splattered across the king's trouser legs.
There’s a moment of shocked silence from both of them.
Eskil looks down at his legs. Looks at the stew on the floor. Looks at Indrie, on his hands and knees at his feet with the netting tangled around one boot and his hair hanging in his face.
Indrie sits up slowly. He leans back on his heels, hands dropping to his knees, and his fight or flight instincts kick in with a violence that makes his heart slam against his ribs.
Does he flee to escape punishment? There's a door behind him, a corridor beyond that, places to hide on a ship this size if he's fast enough.
Does he stay and hope it's swift? Drop his forehead to the floor, expose the back of his neck, show the king he knows his place and accepts what's coming?
Both options have served him before, with varying degrees of success, and neither one has ever truly saved him.
He is frozen for a long second. His hands clenched against his knees. The stew soaks into the wood between them. The lamplight swings.
And then the king chooses his answer for him.
Eskil stands and crosses to him in the span of a breath, one stride, maybe two, his legs are long enough that the distance between desk and floor barely registers, and Indrie flinches back without meaning to.
His body moves before his mind can stop it, shoulders curling in, chin dropping to his chest, eyes squeezing shut.
The flinch is violent and total and he hates it, hates that he can't control it, hates that it's going to make things worse because showing fear always makes things worse, it makes them angrier, it makes them hit harder.
Then there are hands on his forearms.
Not striking. Not gripping. Not wrenching him up by his shirt or his hair or whatever is closest and easiest to grab. Just hands. Firm and warm and careful, closing around his forearms with a grip that holds rather than hurts, and the king is helping him to his feet.
Helping him.