“I probably won’t be remembered at all,” Geder said. “I didn’t really do anything that someone else wouldn’t have done in my place. I’m not special.”
“You are,” Aster said. “You know that.”
Geder let the smile he’d been holding back come through. He was back. He was home. He had Aster with him, and the carriage was warm, and he wasn’t expected to lead an army or sleep in a tent. There was pride, yes. And there was a glow that came from the young prince’s admiration. And more than anything else, there was a relief that it was all finally over.
“We’ll need to talk soon about how to prepare for your coronation,” he said. “Not right away, of course, but in the next two years. Maybe three. You’ll be old enough to take the crown. All I wanted was to keep the empire strong until it was yours. It’s got more than twice the holdings it had. The Timzinae are broken. The goddess has come back to the world and beaten her enemies. I think you’ll be the first king to rule in peace… maybe ever. You’re the one they’ll remember. Not me.”
The carriage lurched around a corner. There were tears in Aster’s eyes. “It’s not going to be right. Not without you.”
Geder pretended to wave the comment away, but in fact it left his heart feeling warmer for the first time since he’d left. And maybe in some expanse of time before that. “I won’t be gone. I only won’t be Lord Regent. No call for a regent when you have a king.”
“Still,” Aster said. Geder thought about taking the boy’s hand, then didn’t. Aster was almost a man now, and too old for taking comfort in hand-holding. So was Geder, for that.
The carriage stopped at the Fraternity of the Great Bear. The carved animal that announced the place was coated in ice, as if the weeks of winter had greyed its pelt with age and weariness. With the precedence of both prince and Lord Regent, there was no one closer to the great doors. Geder and Aster entered the great hall together. Within, the air was warm and fragrant with the smoke of pine and pipe. The silk tapestries were lit by cut-crystal lanterns. Great chains of gold and silver glittered along the walls. A servant girl in a uniform that was just revealing enough to be pleasant but not so much as to provoke offered them both mugs of wine. Aster caught Geder’s eye as if asking permission before he took it. Geder smiled. He didn’t mind. A little mulled wine never hurt anyone.
The others came in afterward, men of the great families laughing and joking. They stopped at the table Geder and Aster had claimed and paid their respects. A Dartinae woman with a viol took her place in one of the niches at the corner of the hall and began playing soft music, her glowing eyes darkening when she closed them in concentration or ecstasy. Geder found himself watching her, appreciating the beauty of her music, of her hands. Of the gentle swell of her breasts. Only that made him think of Cithrin, and he turned away. Better to be distracted than think too much of her again.
The patriarch of one of the minor houses of Asterilhold lifted to prominence by the recent tumult was reciting a lengthy poem. It appeared to be about the nobility and burdens of empire, which Geder thought was perhaps a little obvious and self-serving. He wondered what would happen if he questioned the man about his sincerity with Basrahip present. It would be interesting to know if the old man actually meant all he said, or if he was just trying to curry favor. Or both.
Geder craned his neck. Even though the winter court was thinly attended, anyone who remained in the city was here. There were enough that the tables were filled, the halls crowded. It didn’t feel as thin now, except for the early darkness at the windows and the chill that even the fires and braziers couldn’t quite dispel. It took him some time to find Basrahip among the bodies and motion, despite the priest’s size. But yes, there he was, his head canted forward, listening to someone. To Canl Daskellin, in fact.
The Baron of Watermarch and the high priest of the goddess were in an alcove. Daskellin was gesturing as he spoke, his hands making low smoothing gestures, his head shaking in a constant, barely perceptible no. The man’s skin, usually as dark as a Timzinae’s scales, had an ashen cast. Geder felt a tightening at the back of his neck. He rose, the poet forgotten, and made his way through the crowd. Aster followed in his wake. When he was perhaps half a dozen steps away, Daskellin glanced over, and his face went greyer.
“Lord Regent,” he said, making a fast, birdlike bow. “I’m sorry to interrupt your triumph, but there’s news. From the south.”
“What is it?” Geder said. Aster stepped into the alcove’s mouth, shutting the four of them off from the rest of the fraternity.
Daskellin’s lips pressed thin as a drawn line. “The siege at Kiaria, Lord Palliako. It broke.”
“Well, about time,” Geder said. “I was starting to think the Timzinae’d be holding those walls until the end of the world, eh?”
Daskellin’s confusion passed quickly, replaced by chagrin. “No, my lord. We didn’t win. They broke the siege. Fallon Broot led a counterattack, but it failed. We don’t know if he was captured or killed. The city… Suddapal is no longer under our control.”
Geder heard the words, but couldn’t understand them. Daskellin could as well have said The pigeons have all voted to become crabs. It would have made as much sense. “No,” Geder said. “We put a temple in Suddapal. Once we put a temple there, it can’t fall.” He turned to Basrahip. The wide face was the perfect image of concern and sorrow. “It can’t fall. Can it?”
“It cannot be lost,” Basrahip said, “but even what is not lost can be made to suffer terribly. The blow has been struck, and even though we do not see it, the world knows. Feels within its blood and its flesh. Death throes can be violent and dangerous, even as the final end comes.”
“Oh,” Geder said. Just hours—less than hours—before, they’d been talking about how it was all already ended. How Aster was safe and all the good that Geder had managed for him, and now he couldn’t meet the boy’s eyes for fear of seeing the disappointment in them. Everything he’d said in the carriage came back like a weight. He felt as if he’d swept open the curtains to reveal a grand ball in Aster’s honor and revealed a bunch of panicked servants still setting up the tables. He felt the humiliation like putting his hand in a fire.
“The problem is not only there, my lord,” Daskellin was saying. “Mecelli has written from Inentai. The raids have grown more intense, and there are suggestions that the traditional families have regrouped in the towns of Borja. They may have been coordinating with the enemy in Elassae. He reports that letters like the ones in Asterilhold have begun appearing. And, my lord? There is the question of the farms.”
Geder shook his head, anger flaring in his throat. Daskellin was one of the great men of Antea. Advisor to the crown since before Simeon was king. You’d think he could come out with something more useful than “the question of the farms.” What question? Was he just leaving the phrase out there to make Geder ask? Or was there something so obvious that he should have known what the man meant, and they were all laughing at him on the inside for not knowing?
Geder scowled at Daskellin so fiercely his cheeks ached, and shrugged. Are you planning to explain that?
“Half the farms in the southeast are being manned by war slaves,” Daskellin said. “Timzinae war slaves. It won’t be possible to keep word of the troubles in Suddapal from reaching them. And if they should revolt, we don’t have enough swords to send, even with your army home.”
“And?”
“And… we have the prison,” Daskellin said.
A thrill of horror cut through Geder’s foul mood. Of course they had the prison. He’d had it built when the invasion began. Housing for Timzinae children taken as guarantee of their parents’ good behavior. Only now the parents in Suddapal had misbehaved, and if the farm slaves saw that Suddapal could rise without consequences, trouble would spread like fire. The understanding of what he would have to do sank in his gut, and with it, anger and resentment for the people—not the people, the Timzinae—who’d put him in this position. But Das
kellin, for all his stammering and talking past the point, was right. The thing had to be done.
“Identify all the hostages with parents working the farms,” Geder said. “Pull one out of every ten as witnesses. The others, keep them locked in their cells. The ones with parents in Elassae, throw off the Prisoner’s Span. When it’s done, send the witnesses to the farms under guard and let them tell what they saw.”
“My lord,” Daskellin said, “they’re children.”
“I know what they are!” Geder said, more loudly than he’d meant. “Do you think I like doing this? Do you think it’s something I take pleasure in? It’s not!” All around, the conversations went quiet. The eyes of the court turned toward them. Toward him. Geder lifted his chin, his rage giving him confidence. “This isn’t a choice we made. They knew what would happen. They made the decision. They made us do this. If the roaches can’t be bothered to love their children, I don’t see why we should.”
Entr’acte: Borja
The Low Palace at Tauendak looked down over the river port. The High Palace faced the sea. On the dragon’s road that wound into the city from the east, there were no palaces, no compounds of the rich or powerful, only the defense walls. The first was in stone and as tall as two men, the second twice the height and girded by plates of iron. The wars of the Keshet might sweep north into Borja, but those waves broke against the walls of Tauendak. There were even songs about it.
Ships might come to the seaport from as near as the cities and towns of Hallskar or as far as Cabral and Lyoneia. The river trade was all from Inentai, or had been before the Anteans ate the city. Since then, there hadn’t been many barges at the river port.
Within, the city was broad and flat. Seen from above, Tauendak looked like an exercise in cross-hatching done by some great and godlike artist. Roads ran north to south at the bases of the flat-roofed buildings, caught most of the day in some level of shadow and darkness. Bridges spanned east to west above them, their railings painted yellow. And every few blocks the wide circle of a ramp let oxcarts rise up or sink down. Temples rose above all, red brass and blue tile.
The people of the city were of the Eastern Triad: Jasuru, Yemmu, Tralgu. Timzinae were welcomed, especially those related by marriage to the traditional families that ruled Borja and Sarakal. Dartinae, Haaverkin, and Firstblood were permitted in the city, but barred from certain kinds of trade. Southlings were called Eyeholes, and walked the streets with guards, if at all. Mostly they stayed away. And the Drowned… Well, what could anyone do about the Drowned? They washed through the bay and out again. No one fished for them or sold their flesh at market, because it was ritually unclean, though whether that was because they were another race of humanity or because they were filthier than fish was a matter of some debate.
Damond Gias had been born at the cunning man’s house three streets south of the Red Temple twenty-six years before. As a Jasuru, he had lived in his uncle’s compound, carrying weights of grain and beans and ore from the caravanserai in the east of the city to the ports, carrying weights of fish and rope back to the caravanserai. His cousins and brothers and sisters lived with him until they married. He himself had no interest in women, and the lovers he took among the men of the city had no interest in raising children, so the question of marriage never came up for him. And so it was natural enough that, when the representative of the Regos came and called upon his uncle to give one of the family over in service to the city for ten years, Damond had been picked.
He hadn’t minded. The life of a guardsman wasn’t harder than that of a carter, and the uniform brought a certain level of respect with it. Most violence could be handled with threat, and when that failed, he had a group of well-armed men from across the city who felt that any attack on him was an attack on all of them. Even the odious duties of collecting taxes and closing businesses that hadn’t given up their share to the council weren’t too awful. It had taken years, in fact, to find a duty among the many duties of the city guard that was so soul-crushingly dull, so arbitrary and absurd, that Damond genuinely dreaded it.
Blood duty was a new thing, a ritual from the west that stank of panic and war-fear. But war-fear had its hand on Tauendak too, and so it went. He didn’t have to like it.
“Tilt your head.”
Damond looked up into Joran’s black eyes. The older man had scales three shades lighter than Damond’s own, and a scar across his cheek that spoke of old violence. By summer, Joran’s time in the guard would be ended, and the old man would go back to whatever he had been. It made him a little easier to negotiate with.
“Not today, eh?” Damond said. “It’s my second blood shift in a week, and I spent all my time since then digging that shit out of my ears.”
“You know the rules. Tilt your head.”
“I’ll give you six lengths of copper to forget it. Just for today. And next time, I won’t even ask. I’ll just put my head on the table and let you pour it in my ears. Not even a grumble.”
“The day you don’t grumble, the sky’ll fall into the sea,” Joran said, baring his sharp black teeth in a grin. “I’ll forget this time, but don’t you forget when we come to the taproom that it was six of copper. Or I’ll have it too hot next. I mean it, I won’t haggle on a finished deal.”
“I’d never ask it,” Damond said, grinning back.
“Then get your thick ass out there,” Joran said, putting the cup of wax back with its brothers beside the fire. “You can at least be on time.”
Damond jumped out of the chair, strapped on his blade, and left the close, warm guard’s station for the chill of the streets before the old man could change his mind. In the half light of the rising dawn, he went up the stairs three at a time, and then across the bridge, running east to the river port. Ammu Qort, the day’s prime, was harsh to men he found shirking their duty, but lazy about checking after the work had started. Damond wanted to be in place well before any inspections could be done.
The cut-thumbs letters had begun arriving just before Longest Night, smuggled past Antean ports on ships from the west. Sheaves of them had been handed around the taprooms and temples. Damond had seen only one himself. The forces of madness are all around, it had said. He’d joked with his cousin that anyone who’d worked for the guard had known that for years. For a time, the letters had been the first subject of everyone’s jokes and speculation—whether they were sincere or a kind of expensive joke, whether the things they said were true or pure invention, whether the people making and distributing them had Borja’s best interests at heart. He’d heard that the letters had been written by pirates, or a Northcoast merchant, or some sort of resurgent dragon cult. For himself, he took them lightly.
Someone else, though, hadn’t. A priest had put something in the letters together with a passage of scripture and petitioned the council. The council—probably influenced by Sarakal’s traditional families in exile—had declared new policies for the guard. And Damond, through no fault of his own, had been introduced to blood duty.
Now, he skittered down the stairs where the bridges stopped and run-walked to the inspector’s station. All along the river, a high wall sank down into the muddy depths and rose high above them. Algae greened the stones from the high-water mark down to the surface of the river, and guards only slightly luckier than himself patrolled the thin walk at its top. When he’d started in the guard, there’d been jokes about Timzinae merchants from Sarakal climbing the walls by night to avoid the inspector’s station. Since the war, the jokes seemed less funny.
Barges stood on the water, shadows on the shining river. In years past, a busy morning might see a hundred boats waiting for the station to come open. Since the war, Damond had never seen more than thirty, and usually fewer. The inspector’s station stood at the end of a walled quay. Whatever goods were to be loaded or unloaded stopped here to be counted, considered, and have tariffs levied. Whoever wished to come into the city or leave it was questioned and examined. Tauendak was a city of the pure, and i
t didn’t stay that way by opening itself to all comers. Or that was the story it told, anyway. Damond had believed it until he’d been part of the guard.
The number of people the inspector’s station waved through for expedience or changed its mind about for a bribe had scandalized him at first. He’d settled into a professional cynicism since. The cut-thumbs letters had tightened down the passage, as had the fashion of ransom kidnappings in Lôdi before that and the War of Ten Princes in the Keshet before that. Every time the rules became stricter, they also would eventually relax. Antea’s spread across the world was like that too. Whatever the rich and powerful thought, whatever the priests pretended to find in the ancient scripts, the madness of the Firstbloods wouldn’t come here.
Kana Luk, inspector for the Regos, was at her table in the station when Damond came in. It was still dark enough outside that she had her lantern lit, and the flame glittered on the scales of her cheek and forehead.
“You’re late,” she said.
“I’m early.”
“That was a trick. Your ears aren’t done.”
Damond shrugged. “Joran and I must have forgotten.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” the inspector said.
“I can go back, if you’d like. But it might take a while. You know how Joran heads out once his morning duties are done.”
“Any candlemaker in the medina would have wax enough to do the thing.”
“If it’s worth being late—”
“Don’t bullshit me, boy,” she said, a smile in her gruff voice. “I was making excuses to get out of work before your mother licked off your caul.” Damond grinned and took his place, blade and cloth in hand, but Kana wasn’t done. “You watch yourself. I went to the cunning man last night. He said there was great danger coming.”
“He always says that.”
“Does not. Sometimes he says there’s great fortune coming. Or a man to sweep me away in clouds of passion.”