Chapter 213: Father and Son

Lexander had brought the king's table.

Of course he had. A small one, a traveling board of dark wood that folded in half on brass hinges, with the pieces in a cloth bag. I'd never seen it before. He took it out of his pack on Tuesday morning, the fourth day under the sea, and set it up on the floor of the passage in the light of Selvane's lamp while Jörmungandr swam on, and looked at me with his one eye.

"Sit," said Lexander.

So I sat. And he beat me. Three times, before noon, while the serpent's floor slid smoothly under us and the long cold darkness of What's Left of Draum went along beside us outside the walls, singing west under its breath.

It was the most ordinary thing that had happened in days. I could have wept.

* * *

He was quiet, though. Quieter than he is at home.

He played the way he always plays, pale defenders around the crowned king in the middle, dark attackers at the edges, patient, closing in from four sides at once until there's nowhere left for my king to go. But between moves he kept looking at the walls. At the gray-green scales curving up on either side of us and over our heads. He'd look at them, and then look down at the board, and then look at them again.

On the fourth game, when his dark pieces had my king surrounded in the middle of the board and I'd stopped pretending I could get out, I said, "You keep looking at him."

Lexander didn't pretend not to understand. He never does.

"Yes," he said.

"Why?"

He put down the piece he'd been holding. He was quiet a long time. Then he said, "You know what I carry. Whose memories."

"Odin's."

"Odin's." He looked at the walls. "Most of them are useful. Some of them are funny. A few are things I'd give the other eye not to have." He turned one of my captured pieces over in his fingers. "I remember a hall. A long time ago. Before there was any of this. Three children brought in front of the gods. A girl, and a wolf pup, and a little snake. Not much longer than my arm. Very frightened." He was quiet. "I remember the gods deciding they were too dangerous to keep. I remember who picked up the snake and threw it into the sea." He put the piece down. "I remember it was me."

I didn't say anything.

"I'm not him," said Lexander. "I know I'm not. I carry what he did the way you'd carry your grandfather's sword. It's not mine. I didn't swing it." He looked at the scales over our heads. "But I remember the weight of it in my hand. And I'm sitting inside the snake."

* * *

I thought about that for a long time.

The serpent swam. The sea pressed. Somewhere ahead of us, a girl was standing on the deck of a ship, waiting for her moment to cut the next rope.

"Has he ever said anything?" I asked. "To you. About it."

"No," said Lexander. "Not once. Not when he came to Greykeep in the war. Not when he made himself a moat around the castle hill. Not this week. He calls me the one-eyed man." He almost smiled. "Politely."

"Have you ever said anything to him?"

Lexander looked at me.

"I'm a king," he said slowly. "And I'm Odin, as near as anyone alive is. And I've never once known how to start that conversation."

I've played the king's table with him since I was eight. I've never once beaten him. But I've watched him play for fifteen years, and I know what he does when he's stuck. He looks at the board for a long time. And then he does the simplest thing.

"Ask him," I said. "He can say no."

Lexander looked at me for a long moment with his one eye.

Then he laughed. Quietly. The way he laughs when I've finally made a move he didn't see coming.

"You've been at Greykeep too long," he said.

"I was born there."

"That's what I mean." He stood up, slowly, the way a big man does in a low passage, and put his big scarred hand flat on the warm scales of the wall.

* * *

"Jörmungandr," said Lexander.

The walls breathed. In. Out. A minute long.

"Yes, one-eyed man," said the serpent politely, from everywhere at once.

The others had gone quiet. Io looked up from the satchel where she was rolling linen. Ignatius stopped halfway through peeling an apple. Loki had been lying on his back further up the passage with his hat over his face. He didn't move, but I saw his hand go still.

"I remember a hall," said Lexander. "A long time ago. I remember a little snake, about this long." He held his hands apart. "I remember who picked it up."

The walls went very still.

Nobody breathed.

"I remember being picked up," said Jörmungandr at last. His voice was very low, and very slow, like something coming up from a long way down. "I was small. The hand was big. It smelled of smoke and iron." He was quiet. "I remember the sea. How cold it was. How far down it went. I sank for a long time. I thought I'd never stop."

"I'm not him," said Lexander. "But I carry it. And I've carried it all the years I've known you without saying a word to you, and you've been at my table, and in my wars, and around my friend's castle, and I've never once said it." He kept his hand flat on the wall. "I'm sorry."

The walls didn't move.

"You can say no," said Lexander. "To the sorry. You don't have to take it. I just wanted it said out loud. Once. Inside you, where you'd hear it."

For a long, long time, nothing at all. Just the sea pressing on the outside, and the lamp, and the breathing.

Then: "Nobody's ever said that either," said Jörmungandr. "This week everybody keeps saying things nobody's ever said." The walls breathed in, slowly. "I don't know how to take a sorry. I've never had one. What do you do with it?"

"Keep it," said Lexander. "Or put it down somewhere. It's yours."

"Kessavel said that," said the serpent. "About the oath."

"He was right."

The walls breathed out.

"I'll keep it," said Jörmungandr. "I think. For now. I'll see what it's like." And then, quieter: "You've got the same hand. It still smells of smoke. But it's not cold."

Lexander took his hand off the wall. He stood there a moment in the low passage with his head bowed. Then he sat back down at the board, and picked up a pale piece, and looked at the dark ones closing in on my king.

"Your move," he said thickly.

Up the passage, Loki took the hat off his face and lay looking at the ceiling. He didn't say anything. But I saw his face, in the lamplight. And I looked away, because it wasn't mine to see.

* * *

At ten past one, the cold darkness outside the walls stopped singing.

We all felt it. The way you notice a clock has stopped. And then, through the scales, low and slow, in the voice like the sea in a cave:

One.

I put my ear to the wall.

One, said What's Left of Draum again. She cut another. Just now. I felt it go. It was quiet. One left.

At the same moment, Ignatius sat up straight. He'd felt it too, in his own flame. "She's cut something," he said. "Not big. Steady. The same as every day." He looked at me. "And she's tired. I can feel that. She's very tired."

One rope.

Tomorrow, said What's Left of Draum. Or the day after. She's slower now. Her hands are sore. It was quiet a long moment. I can feel her hands. Through the rope. Through him. They're very warm. They're sore and they keep going.

I looked down at my right palm. At the coal in Io's pale ring. I closed my hand around it.

"Hold on, Sera," I said. "Nearly there."

* * *

Kessavel came and sat beside me that afternoon, while the others were walking. He doesn't do that often. He usually stays at the edge of the light.

"The ropes," he said. "I should have told you yesterday. I didn't want to say it in front of her mother."

I looked at him.

"They're not rope," said Kessavel. "Not hemp. Not anything a sailor would know. The black ones they use on gods are made the way my chain was made." He turned his big hands over on his knees. "Oaths. Twisted. Somebody swears a thing, and they take the swearing and turn it around and plait it, three strands, the way you'd plait a girl's hair, until it holds the wrong way." He was quiet. "Every one of those twelve ropes is a promise somebody made. Twisted until it held a god by the throat."

"And she's cutting them."

"Yes." He looked at me. "That's why she's tired. It isn't hard to cut a rope. It's hard to cut a promise. Even a bad one. Even a twisted one. Every time she cuts one, she feels it go. Whatever it was, once. Somebody's word." He was quiet a long time. "I know what that costs. I kept every word on that shore. I felt each one go when it broke."

"Can you help her?"

"Not from here." He looked at his hands. "But when we get there. When I see the last one." He closed his fingers, slowly, and opened them again, the way Iselle does. "I can tell her whose it was. What it was before they twisted it. So she knows what she's cutting. So it isn't just a thing she's breaking in the dark." He was quiet. "That's the only thing I ever really knew how to do. Before. Tell people what their promises were."

"She'd like that," I said. "She likes knowing what things are."

"I know," said Kessavel. "I watched her break my chains off her own fire in your lower hall without burning me." He almost smiled. It looked strange on his face, as if it hadn't been used for a long time. "She knew exactly what that chain was. And she still didn't burn me."

* * *

I didn't sleep much that night either.

Jörmungandr made the room again, the round warm chamber, and we lay down around Io's smokeless fire in our coats. One by one they went to sleep. Carol with her head on my shoulder and her bad hand curled against her chest. Ignatius and Io back to back. Iselle on Roderic's arm. Selvane sitting up with her lamp in her lap, not sleeping, the way she never does, watching the light. Kessavel against the far wall with his long legs out and his hands open on his knees, looking at them, as if they still surprised him. Lexander, flat on his back, snoring very softly.

Loki was lying along the wall, a little apart from the rest of us, with his hat over his face, and his hand flat on the scales.

I thought he was asleep.

I was nearly asleep myself when I heard him.

* * *

"Son," said Loki. Very quietly. Barely above a breath.

The walls breathed. "Father."

"Are you awake?"

"I'm always awake. I'm swimming."

"Right." Loki was quiet. "Of course."

I should have said something. I should have rolled over, or coughed, or let them know I was there. I didn't. I lay very still with Carol's head on my shoulder and my eyes shut, and listened. I'm not proud of it. I'll tell you what they said anyway, because I think they'd want it written down. Mary says that's not a good enough reason. Mary's usually right.

"The one-eyed man," said Loki. "Today."

"Yes."

"I didn't know he was going to do that."

"Neither did he, I think," said Jörmungandr. "The door-boy told him to. I heard."

"Of course he did." Loki laughed very softly under his hat. "That whole house. They go around telling gods to say sorry to each other. It's indecent." He was quiet. "Are you all right?"

"I don't know. I've got it. The sorry. I'm keeping it, like I said. It's heavy. It's not a bad heavy." The walls breathed. "It's like the lamp. You don't notice how dark it was until something's lit."

Loki didn't say anything for a long time.

"I wasn't there," he said at last. "That day. In the hall. When they took you. When they took your brother. I wasn't there, and when I came back you were in the sea and he was on a chain, and I didn't—" He stopped. "I didn't come and find you. For a long time. Longer than I can tell you. I was busy being clever. I was busy being angry. I thought if I was clever enough and angry enough, it would add up to the same thing as being there." He was quiet. "It doesn't. It never once did."

The walls were very still.

"I know," said Jörmungandr.

"I'm not saying it so you'll say it's all right."

"I know. You never say things so people will say it's all right. You say things so they'll laugh." The walls breathed in. "You're not trying to make me laugh."

"No."

"Then I'll just listen."

Loki was quiet for a long time.

"Fenrir," he said at last. "He chose."

"I know. I felt him. When you asked him. In the kitchen." The serpent's voice was soft. "He turned around three times and lay back down by the boy. I felt it all the way from the river."

"He's never chosen anything," said Loki. "His whole life. Somebody always chose for him. Chains. Caves. Cages. Wars. Somebody pointed and said bite that. And I let them, because I was being clever." His voice wasn't quite steady. "And then a fourteen-month-old boy who can say six words looks at him from a kettle cupboard with an iron collar on, and my son, my wolf, bites the collar in two and takes a boiling pot of stock on his back and never once flinches, and lies down across the boy's basket every night since." He stopped. "And when I asked him to come with me, he chose the boy."

"Are you sad?" said Jörmungandr.

"I'm so proud I can't breathe," said Loki.

The walls breathed for him. In. Out.

"He's got someone now," said the serpent slowly. "Something to stand in front of. That's what he always wanted. That's what you told the door-boy once, wasn't it. In the kitchen, after the stockpot. That he was waiting to find something worth standing in front of."

"I said that."

"You were right," said Jörmungandr. "You're usually right about him. You're just never there when it happens."

Loki laughed. It cracked in the middle.

"And you," he said. "What did you find?"

The walls breathed in, long and slow. When the serpent spoke again, his voice was different. Shy, almost. The way my son sounds when he shows you something he's made.

"A road," said Jörmungandr. "I found out I'm a road. Somebody asked me if I could say no, and I said yes, and now people walk on me with a lamp. They sleep on me. They make fires on me. The one-eyed man says sorry inside me. The door-boy goes out of me into the dark to talk to cold things, and comes back." He was quiet. "I've never been anything but a thing at the bottom of the sea. Now I'm a road."

"You're a very good road," said Loki.

"I'm bumpy," said Jörmungandr. "I bumped the girl with the open hand this afternoon. I said sorry. She said it was all right." The walls breathed. "Everybody here says sorry. I've started doing it. It's catching."

Loki laughed again. Properly, this time.

"Father," said Jörmungandr.

"Mm."

"You came, though. You did come and find us. In the end." The walls were very warm. "It took a long time. But you came. You stood on the beach and called me son and asked if I could say no. And you crouched down in the kitchen in front of my brother at a respectful distance, the way you would in front of somebody else's dog, and asked him." The serpent was quiet. "That's the being there. That's what it adds up to. It doesn't matter how long it took."

Loki didn't say anything.

I heard him move. I opened my eyes, just a crack.

He'd turned over onto his side, facing the wall. His hat had fallen off. He had both hands flat on the scales, and his forehead pressed against them, the way he had after What's Left of Draum let go. His shoulders were shaking.

The walls curved in around him. Not tightly. Not the way the cold thing had squeezed. Just a little. The way you'd curl around something small to keep it warm.

I shut my eyes and turned my face into Carol's hair, and didn't open them again until morning.

* * *

He knew. Of course he knew.

At six the next morning, when Jörmungandr opened the room into a passage again and everyone was stamping their feet and eating the very last of Helena's oatcakes, Loki came and stood beside me with his hat back on and his hands in his pockets.

"You heard," he said. Not a question.

"Yes. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. Everybody in your house says sorry. It's catching." He looked up the passage at Selvane's lamp going on ahead. "Did you get all of it?"

"Most of it."

"Write it down," said Loki. "When you're home. All of it. Give it to Mary." He was quiet. "I'd like it written down that I said it. In case I'm ever tempted to pretend I didn't."

"Mary says that's not a good enough reason."

"Mary," said Loki, "has never been a god of mischief trying to give up lying." He tipped his hat at me. "Mostly true, Garrick. That's the best I can do. But that was all of it true."

He walked off up the passage after the lamp, whistling, not quite in tune.

* * *

From Mary's book. Tuesday. Mary's hand, small and steady:

Sel's eighth tree.

The boy said boat again, and then Fen, and then put both words together for the first time: Fen boat. He pointed at the carved wolf on the shore of Grandpa's boat and then at the real one on the floor. Thora says he means he wants Fen in the boat. Grandpa says he'll carve another wolf. Helena says the boy means the wolf is waiting for the boat, which is the right way around, and which is what wolves do.

1:10 p.m. Fenrir lifted his head off the boy's foot and looked west for a long time. Then he put it down again. He didn't growl. Helena says he looked like somebody listening to good news from a long way off.

Uriah in the east-wall nook from five until nine. Then he went down to the tilt yard, and Avarn said Again to him forty times, and he did it forty times, and didn't fall once. Evelyn watched from the wall. She says it's the first time since Friday he's done anything with his hands but hold the sea.

9:10 p.m. at the stone. Three and three. Mirelle lit the lamp. Benjamin answered. The second note under the stone's hum again. Davren says it's a little louder.

Caitlin's count, Tuesday: eleven marks. Home empty.

And under that, in a hand that's round and plain and very firm, the hand of someone who writes lists on the back of flour sacks and has never seen any reason to make her letters fancier than they need to be:

Helena. I'd like it noted that I don't write in this book. I'd like it noted that I'm writing in it because Mary asked me to, and because it's late, and because there's a cake in the larder that's been there five days now and it's the kind that keeps, and I'm starting to want it not to have to. I'd like it noted that the wolf is right. You wait for the boat. You don't get in it. You keep the kitchen warm and you wait for the boat. That's all. That's what we do.