“There were,” Ashford said. “In both our courts. Asteril-hold’s not a single thing any more than Antea is. A few people corresponded with Lord Maas about his ambitions. To hold the whole court responsible for the secret actions of a few will drag both our kingdoms into chaos.”
Dawson stroked the dead cat’s fur as he weighed what to say next. The kingdoms of Asterilhold and Antea were like brothers. In centuries before, they had answered to the same High King. Several generations back, the noble houses had made a fashion of intermarrying in hopes that it would drive their nations toward peace. Instead it had confused the bloodlines and given dukes in Asterilhold a plausible claim to the Antean throne. If only you killed enough of the people in between.
It was the fate of all reforms that they turned against the reformers. History was rotten with men and women who had sought to remake the world in the image they had created of it. Inevitably, they failed. The world resisted change, and the nobleman’s role was to protect the right order of things. If only that order were always clear. He caressed the dead animal one last time and let his fingers fall from it.
“What do you propose, then?” Dawson asked.
“You are one of King Simeon’s oldest and most trusted friends. You were willing to sacrifice your reputation and accept exile from the court in order to expose the plot against the prince. No one is better placed to speak in favor of negotiation.”
“And in addition, I was the Palliako boy’s patron.”
“Yes,” Ashford said placidly. “And that.”
“I thought you were a skeptic of the romance of Geder Palliako.”
“The sure-sighted viscount who burned the city he’d been set to protect in order that he rush back to Camnipol and save the throne from insurrection. His mysterious self-exile to the east taken at the height of his triumph and his return with secret knowledge of the traitors within the court,” Ashford said. “It sounds like something a man would pay good coin to have said about him. Next, he’ll be waking dragons to play riddles against them.”
“Palliako’s an interesting one,” Dawson said. “I underestimated him. More than once. He lends himself to that.”
“He’s the hero of Antea, savior and protector of the prince, and darling of the court,” Ashford said. “If that’s being underestimated, the truth must be something out of an old epic.”
“Palliako’s… odd,” Dawson said.
“Does he respect you? Does he listen to your advice?”
Dawson didn’t know the answer to that. Once, when the boy had just come back from Vanai, Dawson had been fairly certain that he could exercise whatever influence he liked over the younger Palliako. Now Geder had a barony of his own and Prince Aster as his ward. There was an argument that he outranked Dawson, if not formally then in effect.
And there was the temple. Ever since the boy’s return from the wilds of the Keshet, it was unclear how much the foreign priests he’d brought back were his pets and how much he was theirs. The high priest, Basrahip, had been central to the raid against Feldin Maas, once Baron of Ebbingbaugh and now bones at the bottom of the Division. From what Dawson understood, without the priest, all might have been lost that night. Geder might not have escaped with the letters of evidence, King Simeon might have gone ahead with his plan to foster Prince Aster with Maas, and the world might be a very different place.
And still, there was an answer to the question that he could honestly give.
“Even if Palliako doesn’t bend his neck back to look up at me, he’ll listen to my son. Jorey served with him in Vanai. They were friends of a sort even before it became the popular thing to do.”
“A word from him would go quite a long way toward throwing oil on these waters. All I’m looking for is a private audience with the king. If I knew what assurances he would need, I could take them home with me. Plots of regicide are no more appealing to King Lechan than King Simeon. If nobles in Asterilhold need be called to justice, Lechan will be the one to do it. There’s no need to field armies.”
Dawson made a small sound in the back of his throat, neither assent nor refusal.
“King Lechan would be very grateful,” Ashford said, “for any aid you could be in mending the breach with his much-loved cousin.”
Dawson laughed now. It was a short, barking sound like one of his dogs.
“Do I seem like a merchant to you, Lord Ashford?” Dawson asked. “I have no interest in turning a profit from serving King Simeon. There is no gift your king could offer me that would bring me to act against my conscience.”
“Then I rely upon your conscience,” Ashford said, dropping the offer of bribery as if it had never been made. “What does it say, Baron Osterling?”
“If it were mine to choose, I’d want the testicles of every man who wrote to Maas in a pickling jar,” Dawson said. “But it isn’t mine. Simeon sits on the Severed Throne, so the decision is his. Yes, I’ll speak with him.”
“And Palliako?”
“I’ll have Jorey approach him. Perhaps the two of you can meet when court is called. It’s only a few weeks from now, and I assume you were going to Camnipol anyway.”
“For the opening of court, as it happens,” Ashford said. “But there’s much to be done before then. With your permission, my lord, I will take my leave of your holding in the morning.”
“What? More Antean nobles to dangle Lechan’s generosity before?” Dawson said.
The ambassador’s smile thinned, but it did not vanish.
“As you say, Lord Kalliam,” Ashford said.
T
he holding at Osterling Fells had been Dawson’s home when he was only a boy, and his memories of it were of snow and cold. The dim patterns he’d divined as a child put autumn’s feasts of pumpkin sweets and brandy-soaked cherries in Camnipol, snow and ice in Osterling Fells. Almost into adulthood, he had thought of the seasons as residing in different cities. Summer lived in the dark-cobbled streets and high walls of Camnipol. The ice and snow of winter belonged to the narrow valley with its thin river. Granted, the conceit had become more poetic in nature. He wasn’t an innocent to think no snow fell on the bridges that spanned the Division or that the summer heat wouldn’t bring hunting dogs to torpor in his father’s kennels. But the idea had the deep resonance—the rightness—of a thing known in youth and never entirely disbelieved.
The holding had stood in its place at the base of a sloping hill, unchanged for centuries. Before Antea rose as a kingdom, the walls of Osterling Fells had been there. Dragon’s jade, eternal and unyielding, wove through the stone and defied wind and weather. The hard granite had eroded in places, and in some even been replaced, but the jade would never fail.
The room he used for his private study was the same that his father had used, and his grandfather, and so on back and back and back. Before this same window, his father had explained that the walls of the holding were like the fabric of the kingdom, that the noble houses were the jade. Without their constancy, even the most glorious structure would eventually fall into ruin.
When his father died, Dawson had taken the holding as his own, raised his own boys within it, and told the same tale over their winter cribs. This land, these walls, are ours, and only the king can take them from us. Anyone else who tries, dies in the attempt. But if the king requires it, then it is his for the asking. That is what loyalty means.
His boys had taken the lesson. Barriath, his eldest, served now under Lord Skestinin in the fleet. Vicarian, second of his sons, and unlikely to inherit, had entered the priesthood. His only daughter, Elisia, had married Lord Annerin’s eldest. Only Jorey still remained with the household, and that only until he was called again to service. He had ridden out once, under Lord Ternigan, fought well, and came back a hero and the friend of a hero, even if it was an unreliable one like Geder Palliako.
Dawson found Jorey in a perch at the top of the South Tower. Dawson had spent time there himself as a boy, sticking his head out the thin window and looking down until
the height made him dizzy. From here, the lands of Osterling Fells spread out like a map. Two of the villages were clearly visible, and the lake. The trees were all the pale green of new leaf, the shadows all thick with the last of the snow. The cold, soft breeze ruffled Jorey’s hair like the feathers of a crow. Two letters—one still sealed with wax the resonant blue of House Skestinin—were forgotten in the young man’s hands.
“Letter from your brother? What news from the north?” Dawson asked, and Jorey started, pushing the letters behind him like a kitchen boy caught with sticky lips and a jar of honey. Jorey’s cheeks flushed as red as if he’d been slapped.
“He’s fine, Father. He says they didn’t lose any ships to the freeze, so they’re expecting to be on the water again. They might already be.”
“That’s as it should be,” Dawson said. “I met with that idiot from Asterilhold.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve agreed to speak with Simeon about meeting with him. He was also asking whether you would speak with Palliako. He seems to think that soft words from Geder would keep the wheels of vengeance from rolling too far.”
Jorey nodded. When his eyes were cast down, he looked like his mother. Clara had the same shape of jaw, the same quiet. The boy was lucky to have that from her.
“Did you say that I would?”
“I said I’d speak to you about it,” Dawson said. “You aren’t bound to anything.”
“Thank you. I’ll think on it.”
Dawson leaned against the wall. A sparrow darted in through the window, whirled twice through the narrow space, and vanished again in a panic of wind and dust.
“Are you against the thought of war or of speaking to the new Baron Ebbingbaugh?” Dawson asked.
“I don’t want to go off to war unless we have to,” Jorey said. The first time he’d faced going on campaign, he’d been equal parts anxiety and joy. The experience of it had pressed both out of him. “But if we have to, we will. It’s only that Geder… I don’t know.”
For a moment, Dawson saw the ghosts of Vanai reflected in his son’s face. The city that Geder Palliako had burned. It was easy to forget that Palliako had that potential for slaughter in him. But perhaps it was hard for Jorey.
“I understand,” Dawson said. “Do what you think best. I trust your judgment.”
For some reason Dawson couldn’t fathom, the blush in Jorey’s cheeks returned and deepened. His boy coughed and wouldn’t meet his eye.
“Barriath sent me a letter,” Jorey said. “I mean another letter. Inside his. It’s from Lord Skestinin. It’s a formal introduction to Sabiha. His daughter.”
The pause that followed seemed to have some weight. Jorey’s dread was as palpable as it was strange.
“I see,” Dawson said. “Introduction to his daughter, you say? Hmm. Well, if you don’t care to make the connection, we could say the letter went astray…”
“I had asked, sir. I asked for the letter.”
“Ah,” Dawson said. “Well. Then good you have it, yes?”
Jorey looked up. His eyes betrayed his surprise.
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose it is. Sir.”
They stood in awkward silence for a moment, then Dawson nodded, turned, and walked back down the narrow spiral stair, his head almost against the stone of the steps above him, with the uncomfortable sense of having given his blessing to something.
Clara, of course, understood at once.
He’d no sooner mentioned Lord Skestinin’s daughter than Clara’s eyebrows tried to rise up to meet her hairline.
“Oh good God,” she said. “Sabiha Skestinin? Who would have guessed that?”
“You know something about the girl?” Dawson asked.
Clara put down her needlework and drew the clay pipe from between her lips, tapping its stem gently against her knee. The window of their private room was open, and the smell of the lilacs mixed with the smoke of her tobacco.
“She’s a clever girl. Very pretty. Sweet-tempered, so far as I can tell, but you know how it is with these girls. They know more ways to lie than a banker. And, more to the point, she’s fertile.”
Dawson’s confusion resolved and he sat on the edge of his bed. Clara sighed.
“She had her boy two years ago by no one in particular,” Clara said. “He’s being raised by one of the family retainers in Estinport. Everyone’s been very good about pretending it doesn’t… he doesn’t exist, but of course it’s common knowledge. I imagine Lord Skestinin’s quite pleased to write letters of introduction for anyone with a drop of noble blood, and lucky for the chance.”
“No,” Dawson said. “Absolutely not. I won’t have my boy wearing secondhand clothes.”
“She isn’t a coat, dear.”
“You know what I mean,” Dawson said, rising to his feet. He should have known. He should have guessed by the shame in Jorey’s body that the girl was a slut. And now Dawson had said that getting the letter was a good thing. “I’ll find him now and put a stop to this.”
“Don’t.”
Dawson turned back at the doorway. Clara hadn’t risen. Her face was soft and round, her eyes on his. Her perfect rosebud lips curled in a tiny smile, and with the light spilling across her, she looked… no, not young again. Better than young again. She looked like herself.
“But, love, if Jorey—”
“There are weeks between now and the first chance he could have to see her. There isn’t a rush.”
He took a step back into the room before he knew he’d done it. Clara put the pipe stem back in her mouth, drawing gently. Smoke seeped out of her nostrils like she was some ancient dragon hidden in a woman’s flesh. When she spoke, her voice was light, conversational, but her eyes were locked on his.
“As I recall, I wasn’t the first girl you ever took to bed,” she said. “I believe you knew exactly what you were about when my bride’s night came.”
“She’s a woman,” he said. “It’s not the same.”
“I suppose it isn’t,” Clara said, a note of melancholy stealing into her voice. “Still, we’re all round-heeled sometimes. I would have fallen back for you months before you made me honest, and we both remember that.”
Dawson’s body began to stir without his will.
“You’re trying to distract me.”
“It’s working,” Clara said. “Indiscreet and unlucky doesn’t make her a bad person. Or a bad wife. Give it time, and let me see what I can learn of her when we’re back in Camnipol. Lord Skestinin might make a very fine ally if Jorey were to lift up his fallen daughter. And really, dear, they may be in love.”
She held out her hand, guiding him down to sit beside her. Her skin wasn’t as smooth as it had been two decades and four children before, but it was still as soft. The amusement in her eyes called forth a softness in his own heart. He could feel his outrage fading. He plucked the pipe from her mouth, leaned forward, and kissed her gently, his mouth filling with her smoke. When he drew back, she was smiling.
“As long as she’s not unfaithful,” Dawson said with a sigh. “I won’t have someone in the family being unfaithful.”
A cloud seemed to pass over Clara’s eyes, a moment’s darkness but nothing more.
“When the time comes,” she said. “We can worry when the time comes.”
Captain Marcus Wester
I
t was a week past his thirty-ninth name day, and Marcus squatted at the alley’s mouth, waiting. A soft rain fell on the nightdark streets, beading on the waxed wool of his cloak. Yardem stood in the shadows behind him, unseen but present. In the house across the narrow square, a shape passed in front of the window—a man peering out into the darkness. A less experienced man might have stepped back, but Wester knew how to keep from being seen. The man in the window retreated. The tapping of raindrops against stone was the only sound.
“It’s not as if I can tell her what to do,” Marcus said.
“No, sir.”
“She’s a grown woman. Well, she’
s almost a grown woman. She’s not a child, certainly.”
“It’s an awkward age, sir,” Yardem agreed.
“She wants control over her life. Autonomy. The problem is that she didn’t have any her whole life, and then had all of it at once. She had free rein with this bank for months. Long enough to see that she could do it well. After getting a taste for it, I don’t see how she turns her back.”
“Yes, sir.”
Marcus sighed. His breath barely misted. It was a warm spring. He tapped his fingertips against his sword’s pommel. Annoyance and concern gnawed at him like rats in the grain house walls.
“I could talk to her,” he said at last. “I could tell her that she’s got to be patient. Give the situation time to change on its own. Could she hear that, d’you think?”
For a moment, the rain was the only reply.
“Did you want me to answer that?” the Tralgu asked.
“I asked it, didn’t I?”
“Could have been a rhetorical point.”
Across the square, a thin line of light marked an opening door. Marcus went still for a few seconds, but the door closed again without opening fully. He eased his grip on his sword.
“No, I really meant it,” he said. “She’s my employer, but she’s also… Cithrin. If you’ve got a suggestion here, I’m open to hearing it.”
“Well, sir, I believe that every soul has its own shape—”
“Ah, God. Not this again.”
“You asked, sir. You might let me answer.”
“Right, sorry. Go ahead. I’ll tell myself it’s all a metaphor for something.”
Yardem’s sigh was eloquent, but he continued.
“Every soul has its own shape, and it determines the person’s path through the world. Your soul is a circle standing on its edge. At your lowest point, you will only rise, and your highest is when you are most likely to fall. Someone else’s soul might be shaped like a blade or a brick or a branching river. Each of them would live the same life differently.”
“Which would make it the same life how?”
“I can explain that if you’d like, sir. It’s theological.”