Chapter Two
“The roof was only two stories high.”
Baldr stops cutting his fish.
“Only.”
“Well, the granary had three floors, but the roof started above the second. The ground sloped.”
“Which side did you climb?”
“The north side.”
He sets down his knife. “Where the ground doesn’t slope.”
“I learned that afterward.”
Baldr looks across the little table at me. I take a sip of wine. He keeps looking.
“The kitten was crying,” I remind him.
“From a three-story granary.”
“A two-story roof.”
“That sentence hasn’t improved with repetition.”
I put down my cup before I laugh wine through my nose. Asta spent nearly an hour getting me ready for this dinner. Ruining her work before the second course would prove every opinion she has ever had about me.
Also, Baldr would see. I’d have to leave Sólvik.
“It had been up there since morning. The miller kept saying he’d fetch a ladder after the grain wagons were unloaded, but then the clouds came in and the poor thing walked onto the gutter.”
Baldr’s amber eye closes.
The pale-green one stays fixed on me.
“Why is one eye still open?”
“I’m keeping watch in case the story gets worse.”
“It gets much better.”
“For the kitten?”
“Eventually.”
He leans back in his chair. Firelight catches the damp ends of his hair where he washed after training. He’s wearing a dark-blue tunic, and I’ve been doing a very good job of looking at his face.
Mostly.
The west room is tucked behind the main hall, with one narrow window facing the sea and a small hearth. No court. No long tables. Just us, plus enough food for eight people because the kitchens have never adjusted a Skorvaer supper for one human guest.
I point my fork at him. “You said you wanted to hear this.”
“I asked why your father banned you from the old granary.”
“The kitten is why.”
“The kitten made the rule?”
“No, the falling did.”
His other eye closes.
“You’ll miss the good part.”
“I am gathering strength.”
“That’s your bloodline. You should already have plenty.”
Both eyes open again. A grin pulls across his face, easy and bright. “There she is.”
I push a roasted carrot through the sauce before I ask what he means. Asta would call that growth. “Asta went to find the miller.”
“Good.”
“I climbed the pear tree beside the granary.”
“Sól.”
“He was busy.”
“You could have waited.”
“The gutter was loose.”
Baldr picks up his cup and drinks.
“I got onto the roof easily,” I continue.
He drinks again.
“The branch came right over the tiles. I crawled to the kitten, wrapped it in the front of my dress, and started back.”
“And then?”
“It objected.”
“To being rescued.”
“Some people struggle to accept help.”
“You were sixteen.”
“I was making a general observation.”
The kitten had been tiny, yellow, and full of personal rage. It climbed straight up the inside of my dress and came out through the collar beside my ear. I tell Baldr this with the dignity the event lacked.
He tries not to laugh. His lips press together. His shoulders start moving. Then I explain that the kitten covered both my eyes with its tail, and he gives up.
His laugh fills the room. This afternoon, he made a training yard full of warriors go quiet with one word. Now he has tears in his eyes over a kitten in my dress.
“I’m glad my suffering brings you joy.”
“You weren’t suffering.” He wipes one eye with his thumb. “You thought it was funny.”
“Not immediately.”
“How long did that take?”
“A week.”
“What happened after it covered your eyes?”
I cut another piece of carrot. His smile disappears.
“Sól.”
“I lost my footing.”
“You fell off the roof.”
“Only the last part.”
His hand drops flat onto the table. The spoons jump.
“The miller put a grain cart under me.”
“Because you were falling.”
“Because I asked him to.”
“While you were on the roof.”
“Asta had found him by then.”
Baldr stares at the ceiling. “Of course she had.”
“I landed in barley. It was very soft.”
“It was a cart full of grain.”
“That’s what made it soft.”
“And the kitten?”
“Perfectly fine. It stayed on my shoulder the entire way down, which I thought was ungrateful.”
He rubs both hands over his face.
I wait until I can see his eyes again. “We named him Crumb. He lived in the palace kitchens and bit my father every morning for years.”
Baldr’s hands fall. “Your father kept him?”
“He said he didn’t. Crumb slept on his chair.”
“And bit him.”
“Affection can be complicated.”
He laughs again, quieter this time. Baldr tears the round loaf in half and gives me the softer piece without asking. When I was ten, I lost a tooth on a hard crust during one of our visits. He traded his soft bread for mine before anyone else noticed.
He remembers.
“Promise me one thing.” He spreads honey over his bread. “If another animal gets onto a roof, find a ladder.”
“There wasn’t one.”
“Then find someone tall.”
“I had Asta.”
“Asta would have stopped you.”
I pull the bread apart. “I can promise to look for a ladder first.”
“How thoroughly?”
“Both directions.”
He nods. “Good. I’m much calmer.”
“You don’t look calm.”
“I’m hiding it well.”
“Your knife is bent.”
Baldr looks down. The thin blade has curved beneath his thumb. He lets go of it.
I laugh so hard I have to put the bread down.
“I liked that knife.”
“You did that.”
“You fell off a building.”
“Years ago.”
“I’ve only just heard about it.”
He tries to straighten the knife. It bends the other direction, and I start laughing again.
By the time I can breathe properly, the fish has gone cold and my cheeks hurt. I’ve eaten beside Baldr since I was a child. I know he hates fennel; he knows I trade any dessert for the crisp corner piece.
Those dinners had other people. Tonight his knee brushes mine beneath the table and stays there.
I take another bite of bread so I don’t have to decide what to do with my mouth.
Baldr picks up his cup. “Was today terrible?”
“Before or after you arrived without a shirt?”
His cup pauses.
Oh.
I said that out loud.
Asta would tell me this is why people think before speaking. Asta isn’t here, though, and the small stuffed unicorn on my bed can’t report back unless it’s developed abilities in the past hour.
Baldr lowers the cup. “Which part are we measuring?”
“The day.”
“Of course.”
“You asked about the day.”
“I did.”
“So why would I mean the shirt?”
“I can’t imagine.”
His grin gets wider.
I reach for my wine. The cup isn’t where I expect. My fingers close around empty table.
Wonderful.
“The day was fine. The cat stole my bread. Asta insulted my scarf. One of your court explained my life to me. Then you interrupted before I could ask whether treaty chairs come with cushions.”
Baldr’s grin fades. “Hakon should never have spoken to you that way.”
So the courtier has a name. That’s unfortunate. I was enjoying Court Man.
“He apologized.”
“Because I made him.”
“It still counts a little.”
“Do you want him removed from the hall?”
Baldr would do it. Hakon could lose his place at the Dróttin’s table because I say yes.
I think about his boot nudging my hook farther away, then his face when the training yard went quiet.
“No.”
Baldr waits.
“I want him to sit there tomorrow and wonder whether I’m going to tell everyone he lost a fight with a crochet hook.”
“You didn’t have the hook.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
The grin returns. “A severe punishment.”
“He might learn from it.”
“You believe that?”
“No, but I want the chance to be surprised.”
Baldr tears off another piece of bread. “Then he stays.”
He asked, I answered, and the answer is enough.
“But if he does it again,” Baldr continues, “I’m giving you the practice sword.”
“I don’t know how to use one.”
“Neither does Hakon.”
I laugh into my wine.
We finish the fish. Baldr gives me the last carrots, and I give him the fennel hidden beneath mine. He finds it anyway.
“The kitchens think centuries will wear you down.”
He eats the fennel with great seriousness. “Never.”
The door opens once. A young servant brings honey cake, sets it down, and leaves with a smile he hides poorly.
“He knows.”
“He carried dinner in.”
“You could have called it a meeting.”
“Then they would have brought paper and less cake.”
“Good decision.”
He cuts the corner piece and sets it on my plate.
Yes. Very good decision.
The window reflects the room now: fire, table, two people sitting close enough that their knees keep meeting.
There’s black ink along the side of his thumb. I noticed it when he broke the bread, though it took me this long to remember where else I saw ink today.
“Did you write to Myrkvier?”
His gaze drops to his hand. “Before dinner.”
“About the silver?”
“I asked for another count at the mine.”
“Will they do it?”
“They’ll send a reply explaining why the original count was flawless and my question insulted them.”
“That sounds helpful.”
“They work hard at it.”
I pick one crumb from the cake. “What happens if the next shipment is light too?”
“We wait.”
“For how long?”
“Until Myrkvier can replace it.” He puts the knife beside his plate. “Harbor repairs slow down. The smiths fill half their orders. A few projects wait for next season.”
“Which projects?”
He looks at me.
“You said a few.”
“The north mooring chain. Roof braces for two storehouses. Tools for the lower shipyard.”
He knows every item. None takes him time to remember.
“Can ordinary silver do any of it?”
“The chain, maybe. It won’t last through as many winters. The braces need vein-silver.”
“And Myrkvier says the full shipment left.”
“Yes.”
“The seal was intact at the pass.”
“Yes.”
I break the last of my bread into three pieces.
Baldr watches my hands.
“What if the next shipment isn’t one shipment?”
“What do you mean?”
I place the pieces in a row between us. “Three smaller loads. Send them on different days. Weigh each one when it leaves the mine, at the pass, and here.”
He looks down at the bread.
“If all three arrive light, you know it keeps happening,” I continue. “If only one does, you can look at who handled that cart. You could change the seals too, or—”
“Sól.” He lays his hand over mine.
His palm is warm. Rough. The ink stain sits close to my little finger.
“I have it.”
“I know. I was only—”