The Tyrant's Law

Cithrin




Cithrin:

I don’t care how long it took you. I’m just so happy you wrote. Finding your letter there among all the others was the best moment of my day or week. Maybe of the year, and I helped win a war this year, so that’s even better than it sounds. I thought at first I was only dreaming or that I’d made a mistake. I miss you too. More than I ever thought I would. I know you’re a woman of trade and that the bank has its duties for you, but I was so disappointed when you left Camnipol without our getting to spend more time together.

I am so sorry that the army has been bothering you. I’ve given orders that you and the agents of the bank aren’t to be bothered. If there is any question, Broot will bring it to you and whatever you tell him will have the force of law. I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation as a dangerous man to cross, more through luck than anything I’ve really done, so I don’t think he’ll give you any problems, but if he does, write to me, and I’ll have it taken care of. There are some real advantages to sitting a throne, along with all the unpleasant parts.

And also, I wanted you to know how much I miss you too. Even with all the time we spent together, I felt like we hardly got the chance to explore who and what we are to each other. The last night—the one night …

Oh, this is so much harder to write about than I thought it would be. Jorey says I should be honest and gentle, and I want to be. Cithrin I love you. I love you more than anyone I’ve ever known. All this time that I’ve been running Aster’s kingdom and fighting to protect the empire, it’s been a way to distract myself from you. From your body. Does that sound crass? I don’t mean it to be. Before that night, I’d never touched a woman. Not the way I touched you. Since I had your letter, I can’t deny it anymore. I want you back with me. I want to sit up late at night with your head resting in my lap and read you all the poems we didn’t have when we were in hiding. I want to wake up beside you in the morning, and see you in the daylight the way we were in darkness.

I love you, Cithrin. And it’s such a relief to say it here, I feel lighter and purer and better already. I believe in you. I don’t need to ask if you’ve been as true to me as I have been to you. I know in my heart that you have.

Please, dear, when you can, come back to Camnipol. Let me shower you with roses and gold and silk and whatever else crosses your mind. I am well on my way to bringing peace to the whole world, and there is nothing I want to do with my power more than make you as happy as your letter made me.

And Aster! You should see him, dear one. He already looks like he’s halfway to manhood. When he ascends to the throne, and I’m not Lord Regent anymore, I will be free to—

Magistra?” the courier asked again.

Cithrin looked up. The man stood in her office like a ghost from a dream. His hair was still damp with sweat from his ride, and he stank of horse and the road. She tried to draw a breath, but her lungs felt like they’d been filled with glass.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m here.”

“Orders were I wait for your reply,” he said.

“There isn’t one. Not now,” she said. “This will … take some time.

“Yes, Magistra.”

He hesitated. She was on the edge of shouting at him to get out when she realized he was waiting for a coin. She fumbled with her purse, her fingers awkward and numb, drew out a bit of metal, and gave it over without looking to see what it was. The man bowed and went out. Cithrin sat on the divan, the leather creaking under her, and put her head in her hands. She felt trapped in the moment between being struck and feeling the pain of the blow. Everything had taken on a lightness and unreality. Her stomach was slowly, inexorably knotting itself, the anxiety settling deep in a way she knew meant sleeplessness for weeks to come. Months.

Geder Palliako thought he was in love with her. Love, like something out of the old epics. He’d spilled a little salt with her, and now they were soul mates. She went back to the letter. See you in the daylight the way we were in darkness. Yes, she knew what he meant by that.

“Well, shit,” she said to no one.

But, on the other hand, I’ve given orders that you and the agents of the bank aren’t to be bothered.

She tucked the letter away and pulled herself to her feet. The world still felt fragile, but she could walk and speak, and if she could manage that, she could do anything. She stepped out of her office and down to the guard quarters. Low clouds pressed, threatening an early snow. Enen and Yardem were sparring in the yard, blunted swords clacking against each other. Their focus on each other was intense, and she had to call their names before they stopped.

Yardem strode over. In his leather practice armor, he looked like a showfighter. His ears twitched, his earrings jingling. Enen pulled off her vest. She’d taken the beads out from her otter-slick pelt, and it was dark with sweat.

“Is there a problem, ma’am?” Yardem asked.

“Several,” Cithrin said, “but they aren’t at issue right now. Where do we stand on the evacuation?”

Enen scowled. It wasn’t something they talked of openly. At least it hadn’t been.

“It’s progressing,” Yardem said. “We had half a dozen children and their mothers out last week.”

A crow called from the wall of the yard, as if offering its opinion.

“I’m going to have orders soon,” Cithrin said. “I’ll want the two of you to carry them.”

“Orders for what, ma’am?” Enen asked.

“I want to get a hundred more children out this week.”

Yardem and Enen exchanged a glance.

“Not sure how we can do that without asking for trouble,” Yardem said.

“We have an advantage,” Cithrin said. “It seems we’re above the law.”

The snow began in the middle of the afternoon, small hard dots that tapped against the stone streets and blew in little whirlwinds about her ankles. Cithrin had sent word to Magistra Isadau’s network that the work had been compromised and never to speak of it, even to deny it had existed. Word of what the spider priests could do was making its way through the city in whispered conversations and ciphered notes. Giving the information out as widely as she could had been her only defense until now.

But even as the network quietly collapsed, some information still came to her. Seven families had gathered together to hide their children from the Antean forces. They were secreted away in a shed behind a dyer’s yard. A woman and her twelve-year-old son had taken refuge in the crawlspace beneath the house of a minor merchant, and the merchant was starting to get uncomfortable with the prospect of keeping them there. A tanner at the edge of the city had sent a message that he had people in need of help, but without any other details. Suddapal was rich in desperate people.

They started with a single cart with half a dozen large closed crates in it. Yardem drove the team with Cithrin beside him. Enen sat in the cart proper, her blade at the ready. The horses walked through the snowy streets, their breath blowing cold and opaque as feathers. Cithrin tried to bury herself in the grey wool coat she’d worn. The first stop was the merchant’s house. Yardem carried one of the crates on a wheeled pallet, striding to the servant’s entrance with the bored air of a man who did this every day.

When the door opened to them, a nervous-looking Timzinae man stared out.

“I’m Magistra Cithrin. We’re here to accept delivery,”

“Oh, thank God,” the man said, and ushered them in. The runaway Timzinae woman and her son both fit into the crate, though there wasn’t much space to spare. For seven families’ worth of escaped children, they’d need a larger cart.

“God bless you, miss,” the mother said. “Thank you for doing all this for me.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, but she thought, Thank Isadau. I’m doing it for her.

Yardem hauled the crate back out with a bit of help from one of the merchant’s servants. Then it was off to the tanner’s. Six people ranging in age from eight years to seventy were warming themselves in the stinking sheds. Cithrin saw them safely bundled into the cart. The others would have to wait a few hours more.

As the cart trundled back toward the center of the city, torchlight marked where Antean soldiers blocked the road before them. Cithrin’s breath came shorter and she lifted her chin. She had the sudden bone-deep certainty that trusting in Geder’s words had been a terrible mistake.

“Hold!” the guard captain cried.

Yardem pulled the team to a halt. Cithrin thought she heard someone weeping in one of the crates behind her. Please be quiet, she thought. You’ll get us all killed. The guard captain rode forward. He was a broad-shouldered Firstblood, axe and dagger at his side. Snow clung to his hair and beard. Cithrin’s heart fluttered and she fought her body’s sudden need to move—fidget or worry her hands or bite her tongue. She smiled coolly. The captain’s gaze lingered on the crates and he stroked his thin beard. Before he could speak, Cithrin did.

“Do you know who I am?”

The captain blinked. He’d expected to be the one controlling the conversation. His eyes narrowed and a hand fell toward his axe. Cithrin didn’t see Yardem shift in his seat so much as feel him.

“What are you hauling?” the guard growled.

“Don’t change the subject,” Cithrin snapped. “I asked you a question, and I expect an answer. Do you know who I am?”

A nervous pause followed. Cithrin raised her eyebrows.

“Why should I?” the captain asked at last, but his voice had lost some of its power. She’d put him on the defensive, which was either a good thing or the beginning of a terrible cascade.

“Because I am Cithrin bel Sarcour, voice of the Medean bank in Porte Oliva and Suddapal, and you are under specific orders from the Lord Regent that neither I nor anyone in my employ are to be bothered. And yet you are bothering me. Why is that?”

“We had word there were rebels,” the captain said. “Man said they were hiding in a house near here. We’re to check anyone going in or out.”

“You aren’t to check me,” Cithrin said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the guard said. “But I got orders. It’s just a look in them crates and under your cart to see—”

“Where’s Broot?”

“Ma’am?”

“Where is Broot? The protector Ternigan named. Where is he?”

“At his house?” the captain said, his discomfort making it a question.

“Yardem, drive us to the protector’s manor,” Cithrin said. “You. What’s your name?”

“Amis, ma’am?”

“You can follow us.”

“I … I can’t,” he said. His hand wasn’t by his axe anymore. “I’ve got to stay and check carts.”

“Well, you have a choice, then. You can come with us to the protector and we can clarify that you, Amis, have gone against the express orders of the Lord Regent, or you can let us by and stop wasting my time and interfering with my business. And then, when you and your men go back, you can ask what would have happened to you if you had chosen to take me before the protector.”

He knew he was being toyed with. Even in torchlight, it showed in his eyes. But he wasn’t certain. Cithrin sighed the way the woman she was pretending to be would have. Her belly was so tight it hurt.

“Wait here,” he said. “You and yours don’t move. I’m sending a runner.”

“That was a mistake,” Cithrin said, and leaned back to wait. The captain rode back to his men, and a moment later one of the torches detached from the group and sped off into the city.

Despite the snow and the wind, the cold wasn’t as bitter as she’d expected. The autumn hadn’t given up its hold. Yardem’s breath and hers ghosted, and the horses on the team grew bored and uncomfortable. In the back, Enen paced, her footsteps making the cart sway slightly. All along the street and out along the spread of the city, the falling snow gave buildings and water a sense of half-reality. Sound was muffled and distant, but she still caught the drone of strings for a moment from somewhere not so far away.

“It’s a prettier city than I thought when we came here,” Cithrin said.

“Has its charms,” Yardem agreed.

“Are we going to live through this, do you think?”

Yardem shrugged.

“Couldn’t say.”

“I’ll wager a fifty-weight of silver that we do,” she said.

Yardem looked over at her. His face was damp from the snow and his expression the mild incredulity of not knowing whether she was joking. Cithrin laughed, and Yardem smiled. It seemed to take half the night, and was hardly more than half an hour, before the torches came back. Ten of them. Cithrin leaned forward. Her toes and fingers were numb and her earlobes ached.

The new torches mingled with the old, and she heard the bark of voices. A moment more, and five men were galloping toward her. The one who didn’t carry a torch was the impressively mustached Fallon Broot, Protector of Suddapal, wearing a dining shirt and no jacket.

“Magistra Cithrin,” Broot said, “I am so terribly sorry this has happened. I told my man to spread the word, but some half-wit bastard wasn’t listening. I swear on everything holy this will not happen again.”

He bowed deeply in his saddle, as if he were speaking to a queen. Cithrin wondered what Geder had said in his orders that would bend a baron of the Antean Empire double before a half-Cinnae merchant woman. She felt a brief tug of sympathy for the man and his terror.

“Anyone can make a mistake,” she said. “Once is a mistake.”

“Thank you, Magistra. Thank you for understanding.”

“Twice isn’t a mistake. This was once.”

“And never again. You have my word. I’ll have Amis whipped raw as an example to the others.”

Cithrin looked down the street at the fluttering flames. Any of them—all of them—would have pulled the children out of the crates behind her. Would, at best, have driven them through the streets. At worst, the Timzinae would have died here on the snow-damp street of their home. She thought of Isadau and, for a moment, smelled her perfume.

“Do that,” she said, with a smile. “Yardem? I think we’ve lost enough time already.”

“Yes, Magistra,” the Tralgu said and made a deep clicking in his throat. The cart lurched forward, and the line of torches parted to let them through. Cithrin caught a glimpse of Amis as she passed, his face a tragic mask. She smiled.

At the dock, a small ship stood at anchor. The captain was a Yemmu, the bulk of his body making do instead of a jacket. He trundled forward to meet the cart, his eyes narrow.

“You’re late,” he said. “Another hour, we’d have missed the tide entirely.”

“There was some business that needed to be done,” Cithrin said.

“Doing what?”

“Establishing precedent,” she said. “We have the cargo here now. Are you still taking the contract?”

“You’re still paying it?” he said, and his tusks made his grin into a leer.

“I am.”

Yardem, Enen, and half a dozen sailors carried the crates across to the gently rocking deck. Cithrin watched as they disappeared. Each crate was a life or two that wouldn’t end here. A child who wouldn’t sleep in an Antean prison, a mother or father, brother or sister who wouldn’t be parted. And one less hold that the empire would have over its newly conquered lands.

Yardem and Enen walked back down, and with the calls of the sailors, the planks rose up. The anchor line rose and the ropes holding the ship to the land cast free. Slowly, the ship moved away into the grey of the snow. It was dangerous weather for sailing and worse for staying on land. Cithrin waited until the ship vanished entirely. The melted snow had turned all her clothes wet as if she’d jumped in the sea, but she couldn’t leave until she saw it gone.

Yardem laid a blanket across her shoulders. She didn’t know where he’d gotten it from, but it smelled of wet animal and it was warm.

“Seems that worked,” he said.

“It did,” she said. “And it will work better next time. And they’ve seen you and Enen, so they’ll know to be careful of you as well. It isn’t a promise that things will go well, but it makes our chances a thousand times better.”

“Suppose that’s true,” he said. “So a hundred this week?”

“I think so,” she said. “This can’t last long, and we’ll regret missing the chances we don’t take.”

“Fair point,” Yardem said. He put his hand on her shoulder for a moment, a silent approbation, then turned back to the cart. Cithrin waited another moment, then followed him with dread thickening in her throat. When she got back to the office, she would have to write back to Geder.





Marcus




Winter came to Camnipol. There was little snow, but the winds that blew across from the northern plains and highlands were bitter. The birds in the city departed until all that seemed to be left were crows and sparrows. The citizens of the city wrapped themselves in coats and cloaks, scarves and mittens, until they all seemed part of a single unified race of the chilled.

For weeks, Marcus and Kit had wandered the streets, striking up conversations with whomever they could. A rag seller’s daughter sitting on the stoop of her mother’s shop. A guardsman at the Prisoner’s Span. Footmen of the wealthy spending their wages at the taproom. Anyone. Everyone. They might begin anywhere—a scar on the back of someone’s hand, the weather, what kind of horses pulled best on a team—and edge the conversation around until they could ask, for whatever reason, Do you know anyone sending messages to Carse?

Most often the answer had been no, and the people had been telling the truth. A few times every week they found someone who said yes. Then they would use some pretext to talk about the bank in Carse, and the trail would run to stone. Three times they’d found someone who said that no, they didn’t know anyone doing that, and lied. Each time that happened, Marcus felt a rush of excitement and the sense that they were about to discover Cithrin’s mysterious informant.

The first had taken five days to run to ground, a man whose wife hated his brother. He had been sending messages to his brother in Carse and hiding the fact to avoid fighting about it at home. The second was a courier who had a lover in Northcoast and would send messages to him to arrange assignations. The third and most promising had been a minor nobleman trading correspondence with a counterpart in the court of King Tracian. For that one, Marcus and Kit had been forced to corner the man’s personal servant in the street and pepper him with questions like children throwing pebbles. They discovered that the man had been trying to buy a particularly impressive carriage without his social rival finding out and offering a higher price for it.

In the evenings, they retired to the stables by the Yellow House and slept in the company of the players. Marcus had the poisoned sword in among the props and costumes, and Kit made all the others understand the peril it represented. Even Sandr seemed wary of it. Marcus’s dreams became less disturbing and vivid and his shoulders hurt less when he wasn’t carrying it. And the days had taken on a kind of rhythm and the grim taste that consistent disappointment brought.

The hunt went on, striking blind and hoping, but the contact had been so discreet that no one seemed to know of him. And eventually, winter came to Camnipol, and the game changed again.

“Cary’s been approached by Lord Daskellin to be part of a revel,” Kit said, hunched over his cup of coffee. “Many of the most powerful men in the court will be there. And their servants.”

“Sounds like a thing we should do, then,” Marcus said. In the yard, half a dozen children were playing a complex game that involved kicking stones off the Division’s edge. Marcus watched them, envying the energy they had and the freedom of their play. The stables were full of horses and the grooms and the farrier had pushed the players to the edge of the space, where they sat together in a clump, like sheep in a rainstorm.

“What do you think she’ll put on?” Hornet asked from behind them.

“Something darker this time,” Charlit Soon said. Of all the players, Marcus knew her least, but her fair hair and round face made her seem more open and naïve than she’d turned out to be. “We’ve been playing the farces until you can see all the threads.”

“I believe farces are good in wartime,” Master Kit said. “There seems to be a hunger for laughter when times are bleak.”

“What we need to do is find what plays best in a famine,” Smit said thoughtfully. “You think The Tailor’s Boy and the Sun?”

“Why would that be good?” Mikel asked. “It’s got nothing to do with a famine.”

“That’s my point,” Smit said.

“When she and Sandr get back from the market, we can ask her,” Master Kit said. “But it poses a more immediate problem for our project, Captain.”

“I know,” Marcus said.

The court season ran from spring to the start of winter. Within days, the migration would begin. The men and women of the court would pack up their households and retreat from the city to their various holdings throughout Antea, and now Asterilhold, Sarakal, and Elassae besides as the conquered lands were divided up among the powerful and favored. Whoever they were looking for might be going anywhere. And then the King’s Hunt would begin, and a collection of the higher noblemen would track around the face of the world with the Lord Regent and Prince Aster killing deer. The court wouldn’t reconvene until spring, and by then the world might be a very different place.

Charlit Soon cursed mildly and flicked a beetle off her arm. One of the boys in the yard kicked a stone that sailed past his friends and companions out into the empty air of the Division, then lifted his arms in triumph. Kit sipped his coffee.

“If we can’t find him in Camnipol with everyone living in each other’s laps,” Marcus said, “we won’t find him in winter.”

“It seemed to me that it might be more of a challenge,” Kit agreed. “That leaves us, I think, with a question.”

“Several.”

All around them, the other players went quiet. Marcus could feel the glances and gestures being exchanged behind him and had the courtesy not to look back, but the tension was in the air all the same. Cary and Sandr appeared from around the corner of the house, each with a sack over their shoulder. Food, already expensive, was growing scarcer in the city, though from what Marcus could see, the higher classes still looked well fed. Kit rose to his feet, and Marcus followed him. The time had come to have the hard conversation.

Marcus saw Cary notice them waiting for her. Her steps didn’t falter so much as change the authority with which they struck the ground. Sandr was in the middle of some anecdote or argument, talking and gesturing with his free hand. Cary took the sack from around her own shoulder and handed it to him. Sandr took it, looking confused, then saw Marcus and Kit approaching. Cary stopped, and Sandr walked on.

“Cup of cider?” Marcus asked.

“Why not.”

The interior of Yellow House was comfortable and familiar. Cary lifted her hand to the keeper and pointed toward the back. He lifted his chin. The gestures were a full conversation in themselves. Cary led the way to a small room where casks of wine and tuns of beer lined the walls. A lamp hung from the ceiling with smoke-darkened tin plate above it reflecting the light down onto a thin wooden table. Cary sat first, then Master Kit. Marcus got stuck in the chair with its back to the door. A moment later the keep poked his head in.

“Cider all around,” Cary said. “Captain’s paying.”

“Pleased someone is,” the keep said, and a minute later three earthenware cups of cider sat on the table before them, steaming and filling the air with the scent of apples. Marcus took a sip and was a little surprised by both the sweetness and the bite.

“Good,” he said.

“They get it from an orchard in Asterilhold,” Cary said. “The stuff they had before wasn’t as good. So. Leaving Camnipol, then?”

“Seems that way,” Marcus said. “But the shape of it’s not clear. We were hoping to find someone who could give us information about some expeditions that the Lord Regent sent out into the world. What they were looking for, say. And where they were looking. Only that hasn’t worked. I think we’ve put in as much time as we can.”

“All right,” Cary said. Master Kit looked pained. To leave so soon after finding his family again was hard. Marcus knew that from recent experience. It was why he’d made the decision he had.

“I’m going north. The man leading the group in Hallskar’s named Dar Cinlama. Cithrin’s dealt with him before, and she thought he was the true gold. My guess is that whatever it is he’s looking for, he kept the best prospects for himself.”

“Seems wise,” Cary said.

“I will be going with him,” Kit said at the same moment that Marcus said, “I’m leaving Kit behind.”

Kit’s eyes went wide with surprise and Marcus leaned in toward the table, speaking quickly to take the floor before Kit wholly recovered.

“If you’re willing, Cary, you can take the company to the holdings of the nobility. You can follow the King’s Hunt. Kit knows how to sniff out the man we’re looking for. I’ll head for Hallskar by myself and try to find Cinlama and his people along the coast. It gives us two chances where we only have one otherwise.”

“I think that would also double the risk,” Kit said. “Traveling through Hallskar alone in winter, any number of things might go wrong.”

“Makes it a larger problem if I get a fever or break a bone,” Marcus said. “Also makes it less likely I’ll draw attention. I figure that makes it about even either way.”

“No,” Kit said. “You don’t.”

“You know, that’s really annoying.”

Cary slapped the table with an open palm. The report made both men jump. A strand of her hair had come loose from its braid and she pushed it back over her ear like a carpenter holding chalk.

“You know what I’m not hearing?” she said.

“Ah. I suppose I don’t,” Marcus said.

“I’m not hearing anyone say, ‘What do you think, Cary?’”

Marcus glanced at Kit.

“What do you think, Cary?” Marcus said.

She nodded curtly. “I think whatever this thing is you’re trying to find and being so closemouthed about—”

“Well, we don’t know what it is, and—” Marcus began, then Cary lifted her eyebrows. “Sorry.”

“I think whatever this thing is, a bad storm in Hallskar in the winter wouldn’t be good no matter how many people were on the road with you. The captain here knows it and wants us out of harm’s way. Add that he knows”—Cary turned toward Kit—“which apparently you don’t, that the company goes where Master Kit does.” Kit started to object and then stopped himself. “So all of this lip-flapping and masculine self-sacrifice will play just fine on the stage, and the stage is going to Hallskar. I’ll tell the others, send Hornet to buy some horses, and get the rest packing up. It’s about damn time we left this city anyway.”

Cary stood up from her chair, drank down her cider in one swallow, and marched out toward the main rooms of the house and, beyond them, the yard. Kit sipped his own cider more slowly and looked over at Marcus.

“You did give her control of the company,” Marcus said.

“I did. That’s true.”

“I’m thinking she has a taste for it.”

The journey was long, and they didn’t wait for the end of the court season to begin it. The company spent the last of its money on a team of horses to pull the cart and a couple more for the people to rest on when they got tired of walking. Even with the long stay in Camnipol, years of wandering made the company a model of efficiency. Aided by good weather, the journey to Sevenpol took hardly more than a week; they arrived just about the same time they would have been playing at Lord Daskellin’s party if they’d stayed. They made Estinport a week after that. The half of the fleet that hadn’t stayed in Sarakal was in winter port there, and the steep, narrow streets of the city were full with sailors spending their season’s wages and the prize money from the blockade of Nus.

Warships crowded the piers, empty for the most part, and the docks were fragrant with hot tar and fresh sawdust. Most ships flew the banner of House Skestinin below the royal pennant. And below them both, the red field and pale eightfold eye of the goddess.

Cary guided the cart into the yard of a taphouse that stood not a hundred paces from the sea. The air was cold and humid and the cries of the seagulls were louder than the human voices nearby. Master Kit negotiated with the taphouse keeper and got them decent terms for a three-night run. There wasn’t time enough to tailor any of the plays to the local situation or incorporate personalities, so they chose a well-known story where everyone knew the lines. While the players brought down the sides of the cart and prepared the props and costumes, Kit went to scout out boats that might be hired to ferry them across the water to Rukkyupal.

The players knew their business well enough that Marcus would only get in the way. For the better part of a day, he wandered the streets of Estinport with only himself for company. When he stopped in a taphouse for a length of garlic sausage and a mug of beer, he sat apart from the larger crowd.

A singer with a drum sat at the front of the common room, his reedy voice working through a long cycle that Marcus had heard before: the sea captain who went to war and was caught in an ancient magic that took him out of the world so that when he returned, all the people he had known were gone, all the places he had lived had changed. It was a sad song, with the dry beat of the drum carrying it along like a heartbeat. Marcus listened with half an ear, and watched the faces of the men and women in the room. They all looked young. Fresh and untried. These were sailors in a martial navy, and tradesmen, and women with households and market stalls and children of their own, and they all looked as if they were playing dress-up. More even than the players.

He had been that young once, that sure of himself and his ability to remake the world in the shape he chose. And it had been true, within bounds. It seemed like something that had happened to someone else, except when it seemed like it had all happened a week before. When he finished his beer, he walked back out in the cold, the singer’s drum still throbbing behind him.

At the yard, Kit was in the back of the cart in a robe of yellow silk, his arms held out to his sides while Mikel and Smit, needles in their mouths, sewed long, quick stitches at the seams.

“It appears I lost a bit of weight in the last year,” Kit said as Marcus pulled himself up to sit beside them.

“Rewards of a vigorous lifestyle,” Marcus said. “Any luck with the boat?”

“Yes,” Kit said. “We have passage two days from now. It won’t quite break our little bank, but we have a few plays we can rehearse on the way that tend to do well with Haaverkin. The sense of humor in Hallskar tends to run to puns, I’m afraid, so we have to make sure we have the lines precisely.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Mikel said around a mouthful of pins. “This is what we do, right?”

“Apparently so,” Smit said pleasantly. “Try not to turn there, Kit. Changes the drape of the thing.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try not to.”

The afternoon passed quickly, the low northern sun dashing for the western horizon. The keep brought torches and braziers out to the yard, and as the sunset stained the clouds rose and gold, Marcus stood out in the crowd to guide the laughter and applause or help to remove the hecklers that popped up, one or two at every show. Charlit Soon joined him. The play wasn’t one she’d done before, and since there hadn’t been time to memorize all the lines, Hornet would be taking the nursemaid’s role and playing it in a high comic falsetto. Marcus nodded to her and she smiled back.

“Don’t believe I thanked you for bringing Master Kit back to us,” she said.

“Didn’t know I was doing it at the time,” Marcus said. “But you’re welcome all the same. It’s good to see him back among family.”

“What about your family?” she asked.

He was on the edge of saying that they were dead. Alys and Merian, gone except in his nightmares. Only he didn’t.

“Suddapal. They’re in Suddapal for the time being. If things grow too dangerous there, I expect I’ll meet them again in Porte Oliva.”

“Cithrin, you mean?”

“And Yardem. And the company,” Marcus said. “They’re what I have. I got to see them for a time on the way north, but I couldn’t stay. They had their job. I had mine. But when the jobs are over …”

“When they’re over,” Charlit Soon agreed, and Sandr leaned out from behind the cart, his face painted red and white and his arms flowing with green ribbons.

“Oh. It’s time,” Charlit Soon said, and trotted to the far side of the yard.

Kit came out, stepping onto the stage, and the yellow silk of his costume seemed like cloth-of-gold in the firelight. He strode forward, the stage shifting a bit under his weight. At the edge, he paused. For a long breathless moment, Marcus saw not an actor, not King Lamas the Gold, but Kit. His friend Kit. And he saw the satisfaction in the old man’s face, the happiness and the belonging. The moment passed, and Kit began hectoring the crowd, declaiming, and bringing them close despite the darkness and the cold, with the promise of miracles and of joy.





Clara




When the season’s end came, Clara was not invited to any of the great parties, but Jorey and Sabiha were. Vicarian had not reappeared since the initiation at the top of the Kingspire, and there was no indication of when he would come back down. And so when the feasts and revels that marked the year’s end came and the streets and courtyards of the great houses filled with slave-drawn carriages and ornate palanquins fighting for positions and rank, Clara found herself outside of all of it. Last year, when Dawson had been newly dead, she’d stumbled through her days like a woman half asleep. Now she walked the edge of the Division or looked out over the southern plains, visited the Prisoner’s Span and the taprooms and the fresh markets. The increase in her allowance meant that even as the others around her struggled, she was able to keep herself near to the daily life to which she’d become accustomed. Things did change around her. The market for day-old bread had become competitive, and she gave up the practice of handing it out as charity. The price of tobacco dropped, though, so she could afford something that was actually worth smoking.

They were small examples of something larger. Years of war had changed Camnipol, and the changes weren’t yet done. Small pleasures went away and new ones appeared, and Clara found that so long as she paid attention to the new, mourning the old wasn’t so bad. If anything, it had become the way she lived her life.

After the last of the great parties, there were a handful of small occasions. Winter teas held in drawing rooms while the servants of the house packed the summer’s things away. A knitting group where several fallen women of the court, herself included, were taught a novel way of making shawls by an ancient Jasuru man with half his teeth missing, one blind eye, and an exquisite talent for lacework. There were farewells and promises that the next year would come and it would be different. As if any were ever the same.

She gathered what gossip and information she could for her letters, though the exercise had taken on an almost formal feeling. She wrote her letters, she sent them out, and nothing ever came back. Not that she’d given anyone a way to reach her. Sometimes she thought that she should. She could give them a false name to send to at the boarding house or direct them to Cold Hammer stables much as she had Ternigan. She never did, though. Part of that was concern for not being caught, but part was also that she liked the way things were now. Sending letters into nowhere and with no response was strangely calming. Like prayer, now that she thought of it.

As for her plan to undercut Lord Ternigan, she’d all but given up hope. Weeks passed, and though Kiaria hadn’t fallen, Ternigan didn’t reply.

Until, one day shortly after the last of Clara’s old friends had left the city, he did.

The morning had begun late, dawn creeping in later and later until it seemed that before long darkness would take the world entirely. Clara had extracted herself from the bed without waking Vincen, washed and dressed herself, and escaped into the grey streets. Frost crept along the bases of the buildings, and the horses in the streets walked slowly in order to keep their footing. At the bakery, she bought an apple tart and a cup of coffee, sitting by the doorway and watching the traffic in the street. It was her day to visit Sabi-ha’s unmentionable son and the family that was raising him, and had it been any other errand, she would have postponed it and gone back to the comfortable warmth of the boarding house. But children came with a different set of rules, and when she had drained the dregs of her cup and licked away the last of her tart, she bought a sugar bun for the boy and made her way to the house.

When she left, near midday, she meant to walk directly back to Vincen. Nothing more was required of her, and an afternoon smoking by the fire and reading poems either to herself or aloud to him sounded more than perfect. But her path was going to take her only a few streets from the stables, and she hadn’t bothered checking in there in days. She turned toward the southern gate.

She was still half a block from it when her former footman stepped out from the front gate and waved her to come closer. Clara’s heart beat a bit faster, and she walked more quickly without breaking into a run. When she drew up to him, he put a hand on her arm and leaned in close enough that his breath was warm against her ear.

“It’s come,” was all that he said. “Lirin Petty’s got a letter.”

The stables themselves were dark and hot in comparison to the street. While the sunlight didn’t warm them, the bodies of the horses in their stalls and the warmth radiating from the manure pile were as good as a brazier. Glancing furtively to be sure they were not being watched, he led her to the back and drew a folded and sealed page from beneath a bale of hay. Clara took it gently, as if it were spun glass.

The thread was simple, the knot work undistinguished. If a letter had been made to seem unremarkable, it would have been like this. The hand, however, was one she had seen many times before. Ternigan, Lord Marshal of Antea, had formed those letters with his own hand. She had to restrain herself from ripping the thread then and there. Instead, she tucked the page away for when she got back to her rooms.

“Thank you very much,” she said.

“Anything, m’lady.”

“Let’s just never mention this,” she said.

“Not ever,” he said.

All the way back to the house, the world seemed brighter and warmer, and her body felt buoyed up with the presentiment of victory.

My dear friend—

I have thought long about what you wrote, and though I am not present in court, do not believe that I am unaware of the sentiments you speak of. The siege of Kiaria is going as well as might be expected given that the men have fought through the swamps of Asterilhold, the streets of Camnipol, and all along the vast stretch of Timzinae-infested Sarakal and Elassae. The instructions I have received from Palliako have become increasingly frustrating. When I tell him the situation, he cites stories written in history books or the assurances of his pet cultists. My patience is wearing thin with his cheap buffoonery.

You have known me many years, and you know that my admiration for and loyalty to King Simeon were unmatched. Like you, I have come to the conclusion that the empire is in grave danger, but everything will rest on how we proceed. Without the support of the full court, I am afraid we would risk another summer like the last, and to be honest I fear that prospect more than I fear Palliako.

Your faith in me is flattering, and I appreciate your confidence more than I can say, especially in these dark hours. Would I accept the regency if it were presented to me? My loyalty to the Severed Throne and Prince Aster would require it. But to seek it out is another matter. Before I can commit to that, I would need to know much more. Who is it that you have recruited to your side? What are your plans to overthrow Palliako cleanly and neatly, for whatever action we take, it must be swift and unequivocal and, unlike Kalliam, it must strike true. The Timzinae threat is real, and I fear that without a steady hand at the wheel, the empire’s opportunity to take its rightful place in the world may be squandered.

I understand that this is not the full-throated acceptance that you might have hoped to have from me, but do not doubt that my appreciation and sympathies are entirely with you. In the future, I suggest that you address your correspondence to a Ceric Adom of Nijestae Town. It is a hamlet not far from my encampment, and Ceric Adom is a creature entirely within my service. Through him I may discreetly retrieve your letters.

I look forward to hearing what state your plans have evolved to and how I may aid them from here. Give my regards and my good faith to the like-minded patriots with whom you serve the interests of the throne. And be assured that I will do anything in my power to safeguard Prince Aster and the empire.

And I agree. Time may be short.

Your loyal friend





“Ternigan hasn’t signed it,” Clara said, “as if the discussion of the state of the army were not identification enough.” She snorted her derision.

Vincen had given the only chair in his little room to her, and sat instead on the edge of the bed. His hair was still unruly from the pillow. He scratched his cheek, fingernails against the roughness of his two-day beard.

“He sounds like he’s agreed,” Vincen said.

“Oh, he’s not so dim as that,” Clara said. “If he’s taken, he will claim that he was drawing the conspirators into the open so that Geder can destroy them before they act.”

Vincen’s forehead furrowed.

“He might actually be doing that. He might have sent word to the Lord Regent already. And the letter that we sent. If Ternigan is loyal to Palliako—”

“Then no harm done,” Clara said. “Geder will have the conspiracy exposed from both sides, and while it may confuse him, he won’t know who we are, and he may very well distrust Mecilli and Ternigan just a bit because the question was raised and the players aren’t obvious. But, my dear, if you knew Ternigan, he’s loyal to whatever direction the wind is blowing. I have very high hopes for this.”

“Still. It’s odd that he took so long to answer, isn’t it?”

“I expect he was hoping things would progress without him. There’s nothing more charming than having all the heavy work done before you offer to lend a hand, don’t you think? Then you get all the goodwill of having offered without the bother of actually doing anything.”

“I suppose that would be the most pleasant mix,” Vincen said with a chuckle. Clara dropped Ternigan’s letter onto the bed beside him and put her hand on his leg just above the knee. Vincen leaned close and kissed her.

With practice, they had become better at it. At first, she had expected that all men would be identical to Dawson, and so discovering the ways that the little differences in the length of an arm or the angle of a jaw made the physical act of love different was actually something of a revelation. It seemed like every time she and Vincen lay down together, she would find that something else she had thought universal had in fact been an idiosyncrasy of her husband and herself. The way that Dawson’s feet would sometimes curl around her own, Vincen’s did not. The small shudder that had passed through Dawson when he reached his climax, Vincen didn’t show.

She had thought that her mourning was done, and for the most part, it was. Exploring Vincen Coe, and more to the point, herself in the context of Vincen, didn’t leave her melancholy. Quite the opposite. But while she would never have said as much, she also felt she was coming better to know who Dawson had been by the contrast. And to learn more about him, to have that small new intimacy with her husband was a gift she hadn’t expected, and all the more precious for that.

Sometime later, when she rose from the bed, she took a moment to retrieve Ternigan’s letter. The page had been bent at the corner, but was otherwise undamaged. Vincen pulled himself out of bed as well, stretching like a satisfied cat.

“We’ll need to have this delivered to the Lord Regent in a way that can’t be followed back to us,” Clara said.

“Mmm. Any thoughts on how you’d like that done?”

“Well. Do you know any couriers that you particularly dislike?”

“I can find something,” Vincen said, laughing low in his throat. “Just let me find my clothes.”

“Don’t hurry,” she said, and then waved away his leer. “I only meant that I have some work still to do here. You may dress if you wish.”

She turned up the lamp and took out her paper, ink, and pen. She held the pen in her left hand, which muddied her letters and made the script look unlike her own, yet still, she thought, passably legible.

Lord Regent Palliako

For reasons I cannot at present reveal, I am passing on to you now two letters which have come into my possession. First is the copy of a message covertly sent by Ernst Mecilli to Lord Marshal Ternigan. The second is his reply. I trust you will take the actions needed to protect yourself and Prince Aster.

A friend





She waited for a long moment to let the ink dry. It wasn’t until she went to fold the letters together that she realized she’d used the same paper for her own letter and the alleged message from Mecilli, but after consideration, she let the matter pass. She’d said that the message was a copy, so one might expect it to have been copied on the same paper.

She sewed all three pages together with a blank sheet at the back on which she wrote, Exclusively for the Eyes of Lord Regent Geder Palliako with her left hand. By the time she was done, Vincen was dressed and his hair combed. Clara gave him the packet and three silver coins from her purse.

“Well, then,” she said. “Shall we bring down a tyrant?”

“Anything, my lady,” Vincen said, and his voice made the words only half a jest. “So long as it’s with you.”

Will you be going on the King’s Hunt again this winter?” Clara asked as she and her son walked through the house toward the winter garden. All around them, the servants were bustling through the halls and corridors. It made her realize again how small Lord Skestinin’s manor really was. Sufficient for a man who spent most of his summers with the fleet, but if he were ever to retire from the position, he’d need to expand. Or else find other rooms for his daughter and son-in-law.

“No, not this year,” Jorey said. “We talked about it, Sabiha and I. I think it would probably help my standing at court more to winter with her and her father.”

“Ah,” Clara said nodding. “So how far along is she, and when were you going to tell me?”

Jorey had the good sense to blush.

“Almost two months, and I was just working up to it,” he said. “If you’d given me until we actually reached the garden, we were going to tell you together.”

“That’s sensible,” Clara said. “I’ll pretend not to know a thing.”

“Mother, I love you, but you are the worst woman in the world at keeping a secret.”

“I suppose I am,” Clara said as they reached the doorway. “I’ll do my best.”

The winter garden made her miss her own solarium. The glass roof and walls had been designed to let in light and hold what little warmth the sun could offer. In the depths of winter, it was as unlivable as any room, but it gave a week or two in the winter and another in the early spring when she could have the illusion of sitting comfortably in the outdoors. It struck her for the first time how decadent it was to have an entire room made for such a small span of time. And still, she missed it.

Sabiha sat under a bench beneath a willow. The wall crowded the tree, but the effect was still lovely. For all her tarnished reputation, Sabiha Skestinin really had been a fortunate match for Jorey. When she stood, there was no mistaking her condition. Second children always did show earlier. Clara looked at the girl’s belly, then at her eyes, and then they were both grinning and weeping. Clara folded the girl into her arms and they stood there for a long moment while Jorey shifted his weight from foot to foot.

“Well done, my dear,” Clara said. “Oh, well done.”

“Thank you,” Sabiha said.

Clara drew her back down to the bench, but kept her hand. Jorey used a wide block of granite as a stool. He looked proud and content. The darkness wasn’t gone from his eyes, but it was lessened. Clara couldn’t help recalling Dawson strutting through the house when she’d first been sure that she was pregnant with Barriath. The memory held no sting.

“So Jorey tells me you’re going north for the winter,” Clara said. “I assume this is why.”

“Father will insist anyway,” Sabiha said. “This way he won’t have to come down and pry us away from the hunt.”

“Would he really do that? How wonderful of him.”

“So I’m afraid we’re going to come back next spring with considerably less court gossip,” Jorey said.

“I’m sure there will be more than enough of that. It never does seem to be in short supply.”

“I know,” Jorey said. “But I know you enjoy it. But we were wondering if you’d want to come with us? Estinport is, as I understand, a single block of ice and salt from now until sometime after the opening of the season, but I’m sure Lady Skestinin would find rooms for all of us. And you could …”

She could. She could be nearer to the sources of power. She could hear what there was to hear concerning the navy and its plans for the coming year. All of it the kind of thing that might be usefully put in an anonymous letter to Carse. And all she would have to leave was everything.

“That’s terribly kind of you, dear,” she said. “But it isn’t time.”