The Salt Widow

About

In Vellin the crown is not a circlet. It is a swallow. When a king dies, the living claimant eats a strip of the salted heart before the court. Swallow and you rule. Choke and the next in blood may try. King Harth died on the dais with the strip still in his brother Cassian's teeth. Cassian spat it back into the bowl and said the compact was complete. The court was too afraid to look. Neris Vale, cupbearer and seven-year lover of the dead king, saw the spit. She has the remaining heart in a locked salt box, a child that might be Harth's or Cassian's, and a widow-queen who already knows both facts. Outside the walls, Marshal Maedh Brin has four thousand spears and a price: Neris in his tent, or the city drowns on the next spring tide. Inside, the priest-butcher Orrin sells blessings by the strip, and Harth's bastard cartographer Tamsin is the only person who can still read the charts that keep the harbor from eating the palace. A branching succession drama about who swallows, who is swallowed, and what a city will pay to keep a lie in its mouth. Sex is treaty, bed and weapon. Violence is the compact doing what it was built to do. Neris must also decide whether to warn the lower quay before the court meets. The choices lead to five endings: a public swallowing, a quiet murder, a marriage of spears, a drowned court, or the cupbearer taking the heart herself.

Cast

• N Neris Vale cupbearer, the dead king's lover, unofficial keeper of the remaining heart no portrait yet
• S Serane Harth widow-queen, pregnant, the only person who can still make the court sit down no portrait yet
• C Cassian Harth the brother who did not swallow, now king by fear no portrait yet
• M Maedh Brin northern marshal, four thousand spears, wants the city and Neris no portrait yet
• O Orrin Salt priest-butcher of the compact, sells the swallow no portrait yet
• T Tamsin Harth Harth's acknowledged bastard, tide-cartographer, twenty-four no portrait yet