Page 6 of Fought it Through the Teeth

They reach the doors of the Keep and are met on the steps by the warchief himself.

Ivan Wolfe is not about to offer refreshments. That much is clear from the set of his jaw.

He is big, though not in the way Bohdi is big — not lean, balanced, coiled-spring musculature built for speed and violence in equal measure. Ivan is broad, a bull, barrel-chested and heavy-shouldered, with a square jaw beneath a thick gray-streaked beard and small, shrewd eyes set deep in a face that has been weathered by decades of outdoor living. He wears boiled leather over a dark wool tunic, a sword at his hip, and he carries himself with the certainty that he is the most important person in any room he enters and sees no reason to pretend otherwise.

He stands at the top of the steps with two warriors flanking him and looks down at Morgan and Bohdi with an expression that is not welcoming and is not hostile and is something more dangerous than either: evaluative.

Morgan dismounts. The landing hurts, but he has been practicing his dismount since Valen and he manages it without wincing, and he counts that as a victory.

Ivan opens with insult dressed as grievance.

"I did not expect a warrior sent along with my betrothed." His voice is deep, carrying easily across the courtyard. He does not raise it. He doesn't need to. "Sending an armed man to my gate tells me exactly how little the king of the North thinks of the Wolfe clan, if Eskil cannot trust us to treat the prince properly."

Morgan bristles. He has three diplomatic answers ready, graded by severity — the mildest a gentle deflection, the sharpest a reminder that the prince of Rengara does not travel unescorted and that the chieftain's interpretation is his own to manage. He is assembling the middle option, the one with teeth wrapped in silk, when Bohdi beats him to it.

Bohdi steps forward, not past Morgan but beside him, half a step ahead, close enough to claim the conversation without displacing the prince entirely. And he grins, broad and easy and utterly disarming, the grin that Bohdi deploys to open doors and lower guards.

"It would have been madness to send him alone," Bohdi says, and laughs. The laugh is warm, conspiratorial, the kind of laugh that invites you to share the joke. "The prince is soft, chieftain. Used to a life of plenty." He gestures at Morgan with casual dismissiveness. "He'd have been eaten on the trail inside half a day if I hadn't been there to keep the wolves off him."

He says it as a joke between warriors. It is one working man to another about the useless nobility they are both stuck carrying, a shared commiseration, an eye-roll, a nudge of the elbow — you know how it is with these highborn types.

Morgan stands there and feels the words land, one after another, precise and deliberate, and hot humiliated fury floods through him so fast he can taste it in the back of his throat.

Soft. Used to a life of plenty. Eaten on the trail.

He has heard them in front of these people, in this courtyard, surrounded by painted warriors and grim-faced guards and the warchief whose goodwill they need more than Morgan wants to admit. Bohdi has just taken every insecurity Morgan carries about his own usefulness and laid it out on the stones for Ivan Wolfe to inspect.

And it works.

It works immediately and completely. The tension in Ivan's posture eases. The evaluative sharpness in his small eyes dulls, replaced by something warmer — not warmth, exactly, but a loosening, a willingness to be amused rather than offended. He looks Morgan over. The gaze is slow, thorough, unpleasantly appraising — checking the teeth and the hooves before deciding whether the price is fair.

"He isn't much to look at," Ivan says. His voice has lost its edge. He sounds almost genial. "Even our women are hardier." He pauses, and then, with a magnanimous wave of his hand, adds, "I hope this arrangement isn't a mistake."

He claps Bohdi on the arm. The gesture is heavy-handed and familiar, the kind of physical contact reserved for men who recognize each other as equals. Bohdi takes it with the grin still in place.

"No mistake, chieftain," Bohdi says. "You'll find the prince grows on you."

Ivan turns and leads them inside.

Morgan follows and does not look at Bohdi.

The interior of the Keep is dark timber and low ceilings, lit by oil lanterns that throw shifting amber light across the walls. The corridors are wide enough for three men abreast — wide enough for warriors in armor, Morgan notes, his clerk's mind working even through the haze of his anger. Tapestries hang on the walls, depicting hunts and battles and what Morgan assumes are significant moments in the clan's history. The air smells of woodsmoke and tallow and the musty closeness of a building that has been lived in by a great many people for a great many years.

Ivan walks ahead.

"The roads from the north still passable?" he calls over his shoulder. "I've heard the fall rains washed out the eastern route."

"Still passable," Bohdi says. "Barely. We came the western way. Slower, but the horses kept their footing."

Morgan walks behind them and clenches his jaw so hard his teeth ache.

They round a corner. Ivan is three strides ahead, gesturing to a warrior about something, and for a brief moment the corridor between them and the warchief is empty.

Morgan speaks quietly, very quietly, his voice low and precise and edged with steel.

"I'm delighted to hear I'd have been eaten by wolves. Do you have any other assessments of me you'd like to share with hostile foreign powers?"

Bohdi does not break stride. His grin is gone and the face he turns toward Morgan is calm and entirely unbothered.