show they can.” And indeed, those unlucky enough to be standing close to the blaze were sweating through their mail from it. “It’s not so much what the welcome says about the guest as what it tells the guest about the host.”
Downside looked more baffled than ever. “What?”
“Stour wants all these bastards here because it makes him look big,” said Sholla.
“Ah. Why didn’t you just say that?”
Clover sighed. “Because I have this girl to translate into halfhead for me.”
“What the hell is this?” Greenway was pacing the room, making sure everything met his standards, as if he had any. Now he’d come up to Sholla, sneering so hard it was a wonder his skull wasn’t showing. “Why the shit did you bring her?”
Clover heard Downside give a disgusted grunt and shot an arm out in front of him ’fore he exposed Greenway’s skull for real.
“You told me bring two o’ my best,” said Clover, with his usual calming grin. Felt like a keeper in a menagerie, sometimes, always struggling to stop the animals killing each other. “You didn’t want her here, you should’ve given more thought to what best meant.”
Greenway made great spectacle of sucking his teeth as he turned away. If tooth-sucking had been the measure of a man, he’d have had a place in the songs, all right. Sholla took it well. If you could say a rock takes a rain shower well. Downside, on the other hand, was a man who made a point of taking everything badly.
“Going to let that fucking arsehole sneer at one of our own?” he growled in Clover’s ear.
“You sneer at her often enough.”
“She knows it’s in fun.”
Sholla raised her brows. “How would I know that?”
Downside ignored her. He ignored anything that might stop a fight from happening. “She’s three times the man that fool is. He looks over here again, I’ll break his fucking head open, Skarling’s Hall or no.”
“By the dead.” Clover rubbed at the bridge of his nose. Great in a fight if you kept him pointed the right way, but here was why they called him Downside. “What do you think you’ll find in his head worth having? Boy’s an idiot. He’ll trip over his own cock soon enough, then you can laugh at the outcome without getting your hands dirty. If I’ve learned one thing, it’s that there’s rarely any need to wade into the bitter ocean for your vengeance. It’ll wash up on the shore soon enough.”
“I never been much for waiting,” grunted Downside, glaring daggers across at Greenway, who was complaining at some Named Man whose cloak-buckle wasn’t to his liking. “Time comes you have to stand up, Chief.”
“Maybe, but I’ll tell you one thing for damn sure, the time’s not now.” And Clover grinned about the crowded hall like they weren’t dancing on the edge o’ murder. “Got to pick your moment, Downside. Can’t solve every problem with your fist. Sometimes brain and mouth are better weapons.”
“Those the weapons you been using, the last few days?” asked Sholla.
“As a matter of fact. Went to meet old friends and neighbours, talk things through.”
“What friends and neighbours you got that aren’t here?”
“Believe it or not, there was a time before I was nursemaid to you squabbling geese. I’ve had a long and varied career. Many famous chiefs down the years—”
“Didn’t you kill most of ’em?” asked Sholla.
Clover’s smile slipped a little. “A few.”
Downside was busy glowering. He was every bit as deadly with a glower as Greenway was with a sneer, a great fold jutting between his brows and his little lips pressed tight together in his bush of beard. “Say what you like. I never had a problem I couldn’t solve with a big enough blade.”
“Then thank the dead you’ve had simple problems. You get those on the battlefield, but there’s none in Skarling’s Hall.”
The doors were swung open, and there was a rustle and a jingle as men shifted to see the Young Lion make his entrance. He looked quite the hero—breastplate, boots and teeth all buffed to a pretty sheen—but it was the woman beside him that really drew the eyes. She seemed to Clover to be an exception to the rule that men get more excited about a woman the less clothes she’s got on. Her dress might’ve been spun from sunlight, glittering as she moved. Jewels on her long fingers, and jewels at her long neck, and a little jewelled sword at her hip, too. You could hardly tell what she