The hersir's good brown eye was still on Hrafn, the other was covered by a cloth full of inscriptions in the lord's tongue. The news Leif had brought was bad, and worse because by all indications, Alva had not known of it. The hatred in the young woman's eyes was almost tangible, and the only thing keeping her from exploding right there was the very recent memory of the crushing presence that had fallen over everyone in the room.
Hrafn had to admit; the man was frightening.
The crawler's presence, the pair of mandrakes, even the impression left by the walls of Sahirid, none of that compared to what he had just felt. The weight Leif had cast upon his spirit had been so great that for an instant Hrafn had almost blacked out right there, but he was stubborn.
He also did not like ultimatums. "I think I'll stay with Lady Alva," he said.
Leif did not move, but the good eye narrowed, Alva seemed taken more by surprise than the hersir. Hrafn raised the cup lightly, as if proposing a particularly bad toast.
"Nanna used to say that words have power," he continued. "And I do not intend to break mine."
The answer would have seemed foolishness to any sensible person, anyone with judgment would have taken the chance to flee, and rid himself of the Crown and the wrong family before the cost of the mistake doubled in size. But to go back now would mean something else, it would mean carrying the stigma of traitor. And Hrafn had not survived that far to trade one ''collar'' for another.
He also did not want to serve under Leif, the hersir perhaps thought Hrafn would consider the proposal if it were to serve him directly. He could not have been more mistaken, Hrafn knew how to recognize a type when he saw one. All that talk of honor, duty and justice was very beautiful to be carved in stone or shouted in ceremonies. But he saw something else there, he saw a man with only one eye, figuratively and not only; religion had blinded him too. Leif was a fanatic, the kind who would kill himself without hesitation for his own cause, and who would kill others with the same ease.
That was precisely why Hrafn preferred the other side. The Crown could be rotten in several places, but corruption at least obeyed some logic, however distorted and flawed it might be, but logic all the same, greed, selfishness, a good convenience, all of them were things Hrafn understood. Things with which one could negotiate, or work around, but a man like Leif? A man who believed himself right before the Star? That was much worse.
Leif kept staring at him for a few more instants, weighing whether it was worth insisting, whether it was worth crushing a little more, perhaps even trying to bend him some other way. In the end, the hersir withdrew."Disappointing," he said. Then rose and left.
Hrafn followed his back with a short and satisfied smile, beside him, Alva let out the breath she had been holding. "Why did you refuse?" she asked.
"I just said."
"I doubt it is only because of that."
"I do not care."
He then turned his attention back to what truly mattered, beginning to eat. Until that moment he had drunk more than he had eaten, because Leif's presence made any appetite seem like a bad idea, but the hersir was gone and Hrafn's stomach seemed willing to make up for the delay.
"So, a battle of six?" he asked, already with his mouth full. And beside him, Edvard had a small nervous spasm.
"Perhaps it is only speculation," Alva answered. She took the wine cup with thin and controlled fingers. "No voroir would risk his life over matters that do not concern him. My brother is too young to move that much influence."
"But it is not your brother, is it?" Hrafn answered, taking a piece of meat with his hand. "And there is no life to be risked either, at least not in their heads. It will be three voroirs against one."
"No, it is not my brother," she said, answering first the most important part. "He is too much of a coward for that." She tasted the wine, thoughtful. "In their view, you said. Does that mean that in yours, it would not be so simple?"
"That is exactly what I meant."
He did not explain, instead he brought more food to his mouth, chewed with relish and cast a brief glance at the butler. "The food is fabulous, Ed."
"Thank you, my lord,"
Alva picked up a small fork, which was probably the right fork for some right food, Hrafn preferred not to know, cut a pink steak with studied delicacy and brought it to her mouth. While she chewed, he could almost hear the gears working inside her. The little noblewoman's head was a room full of doors, safes and knives, of that he was certain.
"You are not going to tell me, are you?" she asked, after giving up on tearing an answer from his silence.
"And what would be the fun in that?"
She let out a short and unbelieving laugh. For a moment she seemed smaller than she already was, as well as tired too. Very tired, but soon her gaze sharpened again. "Kill Hakon, if you can, and surrender," she said.
Hrafn raised his eyebrows. "So you really do want to marry."
"Do not joke."
"So you do not love your brother?"
"One better joke than the other."
"Thank you."
The two looked at one another with a venom so measured it could almost be called humor. Alva sighed and pressed a hand to her forehead before continuing. "I do not care whether you win or not," she said. "I do not know what gives you confidence to face three voroirs, and it does not interest me. But, so long as you kill Hakon before you surrender, I will give you everything I have built."
Hrafn stopped with the fork in the air. "And if I kill him and win?"
He continued, savoring his own logic as much as the food. "Look well, it does not seem to me that you are exactly encouraging victory here. If I kill your brother and lose, I take many things. If I kill him and still win, you keep your things, I imagine." He made a short pause. "Are you an idiot?"
"Because you are not going to win," Alva answered, dryly. "Even if higher titles cannot enter the battle, do you really think you can compare yourself to older voroirs?"
"Who knows." Hrafn shrugged. "But it would be good to have the prize in sight in case yes. You know, incentive and all that shit." He cut another piece of meat. "Besides, I do not want your possessions, because that would be far too much work."
Alva frowned. "And what do you want?"
Hrafn chewed slowly, wiped his mouth with the cloth without any haste, then spoke smiling. "Marry me."
Alva stared at him as though she did not believe what she had heard, at first she took it for another absurd joke, one more provocation, another perversity of his crooked humor. But it was not, Hrafn's eyes kept smiling, but there was in them the clear rigidity of one who was speaking seriously.
"I want to kill my brother because of a marriage," she said, each syllable leaking anger and disgust. "And you ask me in marriage?"
"Yes. Brilliant, is it not? I know it is."
He took the cup with two fingers, drank a sip of wine and raised the other three in a gesture that meant; wait a little, I am not finished yet.
"If you marry me," he said, wiping his lips, "you will not have to marry anyone else. Do you understand?"
Alva was clever, and it did not take her long to see the maneuver, a marriage with Hrafn would solve the most immediate problem, would empty the pressure imposed by the family. And it would give her a husband who was already under agreement, one who did not seem to have any interest in commanding her domestic life as a true noble would.
"But what do you gain from this?" she asked. "I am the eighteenth daughter."
Hrafn turned his head to the butler. "Ed, could you?"
"In a moment, my lord." bowed and left.
"Our current contract is for fifteen percent, correct?" Hrafn said, turning back to Alva. "Let us change it to thirty percent for me in all your goods, and we marry. But there is one indispensable condition," he added. "I do not want to deal with any bureaucracy at all"
"Only that?" she asked, with more than fair suspicion. "You would sell me your marriage, that of a voroir, for fifteen more percent?"
"For thirty in everything," he corrected. "Look well. I do not want to marry and you do not want to marry. And before they begin pressuring me for that too, we can simply both marry each other and be done with the matter." He took another sip of wine. "It seems excellent to me."
Edvard returned shortly after with a new contract in hand.
The text kept almost all the previous terms, and the main change was clear; Hrafn would not touch any administrative part under any hypothesis whatsoever, and would begin to receive thirty percent of all of Alva's goods, not only the fifteen percent profit from the caravans, as in the previous agreement.
Alva took the document to read, Hrafn watched her face while she did so, there was anger there still, distrust as well. "So," he said, with a smile in which even the eyes took part.
"deal closed?"