“He died a hero,” Lehrer said. “Died saving the throne. Not that you’ll hear any of them say it.”
“I know,” Clara said. “It isn’t fair.” And, she didn’t add, I don’t know what would be. I’m not even sure that fairness is something we need more than mercy. Or forgiveness. Or freedom from the past.
Lehrer turned to look at her now. The whites of his eyes were marbled with red, and he swayed like a drunkard or a man collapsing from fatigue.
“I’d kill every damned one of them if it would bring my boy back,” he said. “Even you.” For a moment, she saw his son in him. She squeezed his fingers gently.
“I know,” she said.
Winning carried its own costs. She saw that now. Even when all went well, there were consequences. She could celebrate their success and still regret the price of it. To her, and to Vincen.
She dressed well to do the thing, as if her clothing were a kind of armor of the heart. As if the wound would come from outside her. She chose a cream dress in a formal cut they called old empire, though in truth it was hardly more than a generation old. It had been tailored to her new body, and it seemed too slight until the servant girl fastened the stays. Then she had her hair plaited into an ornate braid that pulled back and showed the grey at her temples. Her face had been roughened by the wind and the cold and the sun, by a season spent as a soldier. She sent the girl away and applied her powder and rouge herself. War paint for her final battle. The one she could only lose.
She ended by putting on jewelry. Bracelets and a ribbon choker. Not too much. She wanted elegance. Formality. She wanted to make a mask of herself that would carry her through doing what had to be done. Not for her sake, but for the family’s. For the honor and status that had been restored to them. For fear of being a stupid old woman made foolish by an inappropriate lover. She turned away before tears could ruin the paint.
If it was to be done, better it should be done quickly. No wound was ever made less painful by going slowly.
She met him in the little drawing room, where she sat on the divan while he stood. His hair looked like raw honey in the light. His expression held the mixture of amusement and affection that had come to fill her world like the scent of flowers in springtime. She ached already with what she had to do.
“You called for me, Lady?” he said. Formal where they might be overheard. She felt herself drinking in the syllables. She would not be hearing his voice again after tonight.
“I did,” she said, heavy as lead weights. “Close the door.”
“If you like.”
She rose. She hadn’t meant to. In her mind, she’d conducted the whole bloody affair from her seat with the cold dignity of a queen, but here she was. Up and pacing the back of the room. Worrying her hands until the knuckles ached.
“What’s the matter, love?” he asked softly, and she coughed out something like a laugh. Love was the matter.
“Vincen Coe,” she said. “I have—”
Oh, God damn it. A sob choked her. She swallowed it back.
“I have to release you from service. You can go. Tonight. And if any of the things you’ve ever said to me were true, I will not hear from you again.”
He was silent and still. She chanced a look at him, unsure what to expect. Rage, surprise, heartbreak to echo her own. The smile was gone from the corners of his mouth, but nothing else had changed. She knew better than to go on, but she did it anyway.
“My son is going to be given his father’s title, you see? We’ve… we’ve returned to the good grace of the court, and I can’t… We will be found out, you and I. If we haven’t been already.”
“I see. And would that be so bad?” he said. “You’ve done other scandalous things, if I recall.”
“It’s not about me,” she said. “I have a granddaughter who carries my name. You don’t know how cruel the court can be, especially to a girl. If I’m known for taking a lover—”
“Below your dignity?” The words were spoken gently, and still they cut.
“A lover who is half my age, I’ll look a fool. And no, I don’t care for my own sake. If it was only me, I’d take you and retire to the holding and let them all say whatever they pleased to say, king and court and my sons besides. But it’s not only me. I have Annalise to think of.”
Vincen nodded slowly, a deep furrow marking his brow. “I’ll go if it’s your choice. I’ll make no trouble, but… why do you want your granddaughter to live her life with less courage than yours?”
Clara opened her mouth.
Closed it again.
Something in her heart shifted, slipped away. You’ll become a joke in the court. Well, and she had been. A joke and an embarrassment. A curiosity. A noblewoman who chased after her boy’s army like a nurse chasing a wandering child. She’d been the kind of woman polite society turned away from. And she’d saved her family. Her kingdom. She’d ordered men killed before her eyes and engineered the slaughter of a general. She’d been carried by a dragon. Who she chose to share her bed with was almost literally the least interesting thing about her.
She took one slow, shuddering breath. Then another. Something uncurled in her. They stood in silence for a moment, and then, to her own astonishment, she chuckled. It was a low sound, earthy and rich. Vincen tried a smile, and watching him find it was a pure pleasure.
“Are you dressed for an occasion?” Vincen asked, all trace of her attempt to break off their affair gone from his voice.
“No,” she said.
“So… your evening’s open?”
“Why? Are you looking to take advantage of my fragile emotional state?” she asked, wiping back her tears.
“Only if you will it, my lady,” the huntsman said with a sincerity that asked whether he was welcome.
She was shaking, not a great deal, but noticeably. It was like the feeling of looking over a precipice until the dizziness came, and then—at the last instant—stepping back. After a long moment, she rose, walked to the door, impressing herself with the steadiness of her stride, and called for the house girl.
“Do you need something?” Vincen asked.
“I’m going to start with a glass of wine and a pipe while you tell me of your day,” she said. “We’ll see whether anything comes from that.”
“And if the girl spreads rumors that we’re meeting in private?”
“Well,” Clara said, her head still spinning, but less. Much less. “Then I suppose she does.”
Epilogue
The Last Apostate
In Herez, the summer rose and then broke as it always did. The vineyards in the low, rolling hills of the north gave their season’s crop of thick, black grapes, and the Kurtadam women walked with the fur around their feet stained red for a week. In Daun, seat of the kingdom, ambassadors came and went. Couriers and cunning men and merchant caravans as well. As week by week it became clear that the war which had lit two-thirds of the world on fire had burned itself to ash and embers without coming to Herez, King Cyrian became more expansive. A taproom story made the rounds that he’d had to be talked out of a plan to announce his personal responsibility for keeping Herez above the fray, but that might have only been a story. It was foolish enough that the people who heard it wanted to believe it true. There were other rumors that were more plausible, if less entertaining.
The pirate fleet that Callon Cane had led to occupy the bays and smugglers’ coves of Northcoast had fallen into mutiny when Cane was discovered to be an agent of Antea. Or else it was regrouping now with patronage from Narinisle. Or Cane had been the secret name of a cabal of Tralgu and had been found out. The truth that mattered was only that some of the pirates were coming back to their old waters in Cabral, but not so many as had been there before.
Porte Oliva remained under the yoke of Antea, but the signs were clear. With the fall of the regent, the empire’s focus on conquest had waned. The wisest bettors had it that Birancour would reclaim the port by spring, though whether it would pay Antea a ransom
for it or extract payments from the Severed Throne in exchange for peace wasn’t at all clear. The Free Cities, led by Maccia, were threatening to band together against raiders crossing the Inner Sea from Lyoneia’s northern coast.
The high princess of Princip C’Annaldé had taken a Jasuru lover because the chances of an embarrassing pregnancy between the races was so small, but she hadn’t been seen in weeks, so maybe it wasn’t so unlikely as she’d thought. The sailmakers’ guild had come to an agreement with King Sephan of Cabral. In the next year, they would see the blue-water trade to Far Syramys out of the ports west of Daun triple. At least. Maybe more, if the treacherous strategies of Stollbourne could be countered…
Which, so far as Kitap rol Keshmet—once known as Master Kit, but now going by Duvit Koke—was concerned, showed as clear as water that the business of the world was once again flowing between its proper banks. He sat at a little tin mirror, brushing paint into the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes while Sandr and Mikel threw the last stitches on the new costume. It was the first time Kit had played Orcus the Demon King in years. Sandr was already dressed as Allaren Mankiller. The sharp reports of hammers assembling their temporary stage rang in from the yard, but the horses in the stalls ignored the players and the noise magnificently.
“Can’t see why it would cost so much to keep the stage,” Sandr said, not for the first time.
“Far Syramys is a long way,” Cary said from the loft where she was fitting Charlit Soon for her new gown. That Sandr wasn’t craning his neck in hopes of catching a glimpse of the girl’s bare flesh was a good sign. With luck, those two had burned themselves out of each other.
“I know,” Sandr said.
“It’s why they don’t call it Near Syramys,” Mikel said.
“They don’t call it Far Syramys once you get there,” Sandr said. “That would be stupid. Distant shores aren’t still distant when you’re standing on them.”
Mikel put on the empty, wondering smile he used to tease Sandr. “You think they call this Far Herez over there?”
“I don’t know what they call it,” Sandr said. “We can ask once we get there, the same time we try to find a decent stage to replace the perfectly good one Lak’s banging on out there.”
“I have heard many tales of the lands across the ocean sea,” Kit said. “I’ve heard the Raushadam walk on riverbeds, carried down by the stony weight of their skins, and that the Haunadam have wings like bats and butterflies. That the Tralgu who live there have fox ears, and the Southlings speak in languages no one but they can comprehend. There are even tales of a great hive where bees make gold from the flowers instead of honey.”
“Cary!” Sandr called. “He’s monologuing again!”
“It’s your fault,” she shouted back. “You started him on it.”
“But among all the wonders,” Kit said, ignoring them, “spread through even the most exotic and dream-soaked of lands, I’m fairly certain they’ll have trees.”
“I’m not saying they don’t,” Sandr said. “I just…”
“I believe the cost of putting it in the hold for the journey would be four times what it will cost to build a new one when we’re there.”
The hammering stopped, and Kit heard Hornet’s voice, speaking to someone.
“It floats, you know,” Sandr said. “All we’d need to do is tie a rope to it and drag it along behind. We wouldn’t need space in the hold.”
“Fair certain it doesn’t work that way,” Mikel said as a Tralgu man stepped out of the yard and into the stables. Kit turned, looked up into the wide, deceptively gentle eyes looking back at him. Kit’s gut went tight. Sandr and Mikel were silent. Even the horses seemed to sense that something ominous had happened.
“Kit,” Yardem Hane said as Marcus Wester came in at his side. The sickly green hilt rose over the captain’s shoulder, ready to be drawn. Kit heard Cary’s alarmed yelp and the clatter as she and Charlit Soon clambered down the ladder.
“Yardem. Marcus,” he said. “I hadn’t expected to see either of you again.”
“Picked up on that,” Marcus said.
Kit put down his brush with a click. “I think it might be best if the company gave us a moment in private.”
“Not going to happen,” Cary said, stepping between Kit and the two swordsmen. The others moved forward too, slow as the Drowned. Yardem flicked a jingling ear.
Kit put a hand on Cary’s shoulder. “Please,” he said.
The moment balanced on the edge of a blade. He felt Cary deflate under his palm. She walked forward, making her way between Marcus and Yardem without looking back. Charlit Soon followed her, and then the others together. When they were alone with only the horses, Yardem leaned against the wall. Marcus sat on Sandr’s abandoned stool.
“Are you still working for the bank?” Kit asked with a casualness he didn’t feel.
“Hard to say, exactly,” Marcus said. “Now that we’ve hunted you down, I think the next thing’s Inys. There’s been talk coming up from Lyoneia of him. Sightings. Something about a tower rising up out of the sea. But it’s going to mean going south until it starts getting cold again, and by the time we get there…”
“Dragon hunting. What a romantic and adventurous life you lead, Captain.”
Marcus chuckled, recognizing the humor. He leaned back on the stool. “I don’t do any of this because I want to, Kit. I do it because it needs to get done.”
It didn’t sound like a threat, though Kit knew it could be interpreted that way. Whatever meaning the captain intended, Kit knew he believed it to be true. Whatever happened between them now, it would only be from necessity. There was some comfort in that.
“May I ask how you knew I was alive? What did I do wrong?”
“Hm? Oh, that. You made it a theater piece. A grand sacrifice with everyone looking on, right to the moment that Cary pulled their eyes off you. You talked about doing more or less the same thing in the transformation scene in… ah damn it.”
“The Tragedy of Crellia and Somon,” Yardem said.
“Yeah, that one,” Marcus agreed. “Shifting attention to the far side of the stage while you switch out the actor for the puppet? Only this time, I figure it was more hiding behind a rock or some such.”
“I had a servant’s robe too, under my own,” Kit said. “The tower’s collapse complicated things. In the first version, I was going to cast myself into the Division.”
“That would have been good too,” Marcus said.
They were silent. There was no more hammering from the yard. Kit imagined the troupe standing together, waiting to see how this ended. Whether they would need to cast a new Orcus. As long as I am in the world, the danger is as well. He’d written the line for its single performance, and he’d believed it then as well. Only there had seemed a way out. A chance to see a bit more of the humanity. Taste a few new dishes, hear a few more songs, perform on stages he had not yet tried. Kit didn’t think it had been cowardice on his part, though perhaps the fear of death had been part of it.
At least, he thought, I can have a bit of dignity now.
“Did you tell Cithrin?” he asked.
“That you’d fooled her? No. Wasn’t sure it was truth until we tracked you all down, after all. And now that we’ve found you…” Marcus shrugged. “I don’t know. What would the advantage be for anyone? Girl’s got enough on her plate as it stands, trying to remake all of civilization or whatever it is she does.”
“Thank you,” Kit said. “I would rather she remember me as I appeared, rather than as I was.”
“That’s not just you,” Marcus said. He rose, taking the poisoned sword off his shoulder. The scabbard shone green as a beetle’s shell even in the dim light. The nearest of the horses blew out her breath as if she sensed something malign without knowing quite what it was. Marcus held it out. “If you want my advice, keep this under the beds when you aren’t sleeping. Turns out the other thing it’s useful for is keeping the lice down. All the time I carried it
, never had so much as a nit. That’s the only thing I’m going to miss about the damned thing.”
Kit reached out, confused but understanding in a general sense what seemed expected of him. Then he took the sword, and Marcus nodded.
“I don’t believe I understand,” Kit said, holding the blade. “I thought you’d come to finish me.”
“Can’t see it’s come to that, yet.” Marcus said. “Understand the confusion, though. I did offer to kill you once, didn’t I?”
“You did,” Kit said. “And I appreciated it at the time.”
“Offer still stands,” Marcus said. “If once this Inys thing’s done, I start hearing about some actor who’s turned Far Syramys into his own massive stage for the honor of the god of taproom dramas or some such, I can still track you down. Only you did save the world and everyone in it. Seems rude to kill you for the effort.”
“I’m surprised you feel I saved the world,” Kit said, hanging the scabbard from a nail beside his little tin mirror. The two aspects of his life on a single splintered pole. “I’d have called that more a group effort.”
“Can’t put on the play unless you’ve got the players,” Marcus agreed. “But you’ve lived a lot of years in the world without letting those eight-legged bastards spread. There’s still the risk, though, so you should have the blade with you. I won’t need it anymore.”
Kit swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Thank you, my friend. I don’t know how to tell you how grateful I am for this. For all of this.”
“No need. Look, I know you and this one”—Marcus nodded at Yardem—“think the world means something. I don’t. As far as I can tell, life’s just one flaming piece of shit after another, except when it’s a bunch of them all at once. But I do believe in justice. Not the world’s, but the one we make—”
“Technically, you are a part of the world, sir,” Yardem said.
Confusion crossed through Wester’s expression. “Your point?”
“Your justice is the world’s. You were its path of justice unfolding itself.”