The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) (32 page)

“See?” Geder said. “Just like that. You’re doing fine. Now. Do you know who I am?”

T
here was a feast that night, just like every other damn night of the season. One of Canl Daskellin’s daughters—Alisa—was to marry a young baron from Asterilhold. On the one hand, since he’d conquered Asterilhold, it would be better if the noble classes there were fully engaged with ingratiating themselves to Antea. On the other, it was exactly this sort of political marriage a few generations back that had given rise to the mixed bloodlines that had allowed Feldin Maas to conspire against King Simeon. It was strange how long ago that seemed. Geder sat at the high table with Aster and Lord Daskellin and his family looking out upon the assembled courtiers. The trees in the gardens had been draped with bright cloth. Lanterns of colored glass glowed all around them and scented the air with sweet oil and smoke. The slightest breeze set the trees to nodding to one another like old magistrates impressed with their own wisdom, while the men and women of the court gabbled to each other below them. Geder tapped his knife against his plate, not because he wanted anything. He only felt restless, and it made a pleasing sort of clink.

Sanna Daskellin sat across from her father, near enough that Geder could easily catch her eye, and she his. There had been an incident not long after he’d become Baron of Ebbingbaugh and before he’d been named Lord Regent when he’d been fairly sure that Sanna had been, if not wooing him, at least making it very plain that she was open to being wooed. Tonight, though, her face was a mask of politeness and decorum. Geder couldn’t tell if it was because her father was present or if her opinion of him had changed. She leaned forward a degree, her eyebrow rising in query, and Geder realized he’d been staring at her a bit. He shook his head and waved his hand.

“Nothing,” he said. “Just lost in the haze of it all. Running the empire does tend to consume all one’s spare thoughts.”

“And yet you manage it wonderfully,” Sanna said with a smile, so perhaps her view of him hadn’t entirely shifted. Canl Daskellin shifted nearer as the servants refiled his wineglass.

“The fighting season is nearly at an end,” he said. “Summer’s high now, but autumn’s coming. All these leaves will be losing their green before you know it.”

“I suppose that’s so,” Geder said.

“Still,” Daskellin said, “we’ve done better than anyone expected. All of Asterilhold conquered one year, all of Sarakal the next? I don’t think anyone will dare cross the Severed Throne now. You’ve done a brilliant job of it. Brilliant.”

Geder smiled, but he didn’t particularly mean it. He heard the unspoken argument. Autumn would come. The army would have to be brought home and the disband called. The veterans would have to return to their lands and work. The war would have to end. Mecilli had been making the same argument in less oblique terms, and Geder didn’t find Daskellin’s softer approach any more endearing.

“The work’s not done,” Geder said. “Whichever group is behind all this, they’ve evaded me so far, but they can’t hide forever.”

A young man in the colors of House Daskellin fluttered by and Geder’s plate seemed to sprout a pink ham steak, two large bites already taken out where his official taster had already sampled it. There had been a time when Geder had been able to eat his own food without someone hovering over it. Maybe there would be again, someday. He cut a bite free and popped it into his mouth. At least it tasted good.

“Have you considered, my lord,” Daskellin said, his words careful as a cat walking along the top of a wall, “that there might not be a Timzinae conspiracy?”

Geder put down his knife.

“Have you forgotten how I came to be here? One of our own joined with King Lechan of Asterilhold to kill Aster and his father and take the throne. A year after that, my own patron tried to open my side with a knife. He actually cut Basrahip. This court has been so rotten with schemes and lies and covert plans, it’s amazing we didn’t all slaughter each other and hand the throne to the first idiot to wander across the border.”

“Of course no one disputes—”

“Everybody knows Dawson Kalliam was suborned by Timzinae,” Geder said, “and I am close to finding them. Very close. Almost every third person I’ve questioned from the traditional families knows someone who they say might have been involved. Our mistake was thinking we could catch them easily. The ones who escaped when Sarakal fell were the ones who knew the war was coming. The ones who knew there was a reason for it.”

Daskellin’s smile had wilted a bit, but it hadn’t vanished. He lifted a single finger, his skin smooth but as dark as a Timzinae’s.

“I’d thought the reason we’d crossed into Sarakal was to prove the empire wasn’t weak, despite all we’d been through. I would have thought we’d made that clear.”

“By letting our enemies escape?” Geder asked.

“Would my lord care for some of these greens?” Sanna asked, leaning in toward them. Her smile had a nervous edge. “The cooks used garlic and oil and salt, and the flavor is amazing.”

“You’ll have to send them to my taster,” Geder said. “My point—” The servant placed a cup of cool water beside his plate. “My point is that if we stop now, call Ternigan back, give him a triumph, and call the disband, the men who started this will still be out there. And everyone who knows of them will see that. Yes, I’ve heard Mecilli’s arguments, and yes, it will mean some sacrifice. But consider what happens if we’re too timid. We’ll see all the chaos and war we’ve suffered a hundred times over.”

“A hundred more years like these, and we’ll have conquered the stars,” Daskellin said, but Geder didn’t find the joke funny or the flattery convincing.

“We have to press on,” Geder said. “I know winter campaigns aren’t well thought of, but Elassae’s fairly warm, and if Ternigan does as well between now and next spring as he’s done until now, the whole problem will be solved by first thaw.”

“I understand,” Daskellin said. “My only concern is that the roaches may—”

Aster made a false cough that meant he wanted to speak. The boy was so quiet that it was easy to forget that he was there with them. Geder turned to him, even though it meant putting his back to Daskellin.

“If Elassae wants to avoid war, they can,” the boy said sweetly. “All they’d need to do is hand over the conspirators. And if they won’t do that, then we can’t really pretend they haven’t chosen sides.”

Geder felt objections boiling up, but he closed his lips against them. Talking to Aster wasn’t like sitting with Emming or Daskellin. Or even Jorey Kalliam. Aster would be king when he was old enough. The Severed Throne was his, and Geder was only protecting it for him. And Aster watched Geder as he’d watched King Simeon. He studied with his tutors and with Minister Basrahip, and his young mind, while not yet fully formed, was engaged and lively. Already, the shape of his face had changed from the roundness it had had. The first planes and angles were in his cheeks, showing what he would be when he’d grown to manhood. The same was true of his words. Letting him have his voice in the decisions of the crown wasn’t handing him live steel. Geder would still sign the commands. Hearing the boy out was the least he could do.

“So you think we shouldn’t press on?” he said.

“I think giving them the chance to avoid war would be the kind and honorable thing.”

“I agree with the prince,” Daskellin said. “If there is a way to end this gracefully and turn back to the business of rebuilding the kingdom, we should.”

Geder folded his hands together. “I will put together a proclamation for Ternigan to deliver before he comes to any more battles. If they turn over the conspirators—
all
the conspirators—we’ll show mercy. Agreed?”

“I do,” Aster said. “Though honestly, I can’t think they’ll take it. They’re Timzinae. It’s not as if they were people.”

Marcus

T
he dream came again. After so many months away, it was like encountering an old enemy. Marcus knew, even as it began, as the normal meaningless patterns of his sleeping mind began to change to the terrible and familiar, that it wasn’t real. Perhaps it should have helped.

Alys and Merian were there, with him. He couldn’t see their faces anymore. They had been lost from memory years ago, but the sense of their physical presence was unmistakable. His wife. Their daughter. The flood of love and joy filled him against his will. He didn’t want it, but it came. The sense of relief was like an assault, because he knew what would follow it.

The crackling of fire. Merian was screaming. Marcus ran, his legs refusing him. Tree branches held him back, or men’s arms, or the thickened air itself. He panted and gasped, he willed himself forward even as he knew that he was already years too late. The green scabbard bounced against his back, the poison of the blade making him stumble. Merian’s shrieks were like a cat being strangled. Even though he couldn’t reach her, he could feel her breath against his ear.

He was in the fire, cradling her. She was still in his arms, and he thought—as he always did in this part—that she was safe. That he’d saved her. This time, he’d saved her, and when he woke, she would be alive because of it. And then he understood. The grief was wider than oceans. He screamed out for a vengeance that he’d taken almost a decade before.

The burned child in his arms was Merian, but it was also Cithrin. He didn’t put her down, but in the logic of dreams he was also drawing the venomed blade. He felt himself running, and this time the speed was like falling. He would take his revenge.

He woke up trying to bring the blade down.

The stars of the Keshet glowed above him, a vast and milky horde. He muttered an obscenity and rolled to his side. His body ached like someone had beaten him, but at least he wasn’t dreaming anymore. Long experience had taught him that he could. If he closed his eyes again now, it would all begin again from the start. He’d known men with fevers that let them be for months or even years at a time, and then descended again, pulling them into delirium and illness for weeks. This wasn’t so different. Except that it was his, so he had to suffer it.

He sat up, yawned. The sky was clear, but the air smelled like rain. There would be a storm by midday. They’d stop and try to gather some drinking water from it. Not that they needed it. The dragon’s road they were following would meet another in a day or so, and there’d be a few semipermanent buildings there. A trader, a well, a place to sleep with a roof. The height of civilization.

“You’re awake,” Kit said. He was sitting by the dim embers of the last night’s cookfire, the blanket from his bedroll over his shoulders. His expression in the starlight seemed distant. Maybe sad.

“I guess that makes it my watch,” Marcus said.

“If you’d like,” the old actor said, shrugging.

“Doesn’t make sense both of us staying awake.”

“I find myself needing less sleep,” Kit said.

“You find yourself sleeping less than you need to,” Marcus said. “Not the same.”

“I suppose that’s true. Good night, then.”

Kit shifted from sitting down to a curled heap on the ground without actually seeming to move very much. Marcus stood, stretched, tried to decide whether he needed to piss. The mule woke enough to flick a wide ear, then went back to ignoring the men. Near the southern horizon, a plume of smoke stood dark against the dark sky, so dim and subtle that Marcus could only see it in the corner of his eye. A caravan or one of the nomadic cities. They’d have news, perhaps. They’d have something more convincing to eat than the two-days-dead rabbit that was his planned breakfast. Under other circumstances, he’d have discussed the possibility with Kit, come to an agreement. But he didn’t want to spend the time, and Kit didn’t care.

Kit didn’t care about much of anything, it seemed.

“You’re not sleeping,” Marcus said.

“I’m not.”

“Any particular reason for that?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Only I close my eyes, and then they seem to open again.”

“Well, a fine pair we are.”

Kit rose, taking his old position as if he’d never lain down. Marcus scratched at his shoulder. The place where the sword rode against him had a strange burned feel, and every few days a layer of grey skin would flake off. In truth, they were making good progress. They were two men accustomed to travel, carrying only what they needed and perhaps a bit less. If one of them grew sick or stepped on a snake, it would be a bad day, but they were going quickly. They’d be out of the Keshet and into Elassae well before the season turned. He was looking forward to it, and he wasn’t.

“I was a fool,” Kit said. “I feel I’ve wasted my life.”

“If you feel like that, you probably are a fool,” Marcus said.

“I thought of myself as wise,” Kit said. “I carried the secrets of the world with me like a bag of pretty stones. I knew of the goddess, which was a secret held by only a few. And I knew her madness. Her weakness. Her confusion of certainty and truth. And for that I was singular. The only man in the world who saw it all for what it was. I am astounded I could carry that arrogance so long and not notice the burden.”

“Arrogance doesn’t weigh much,” Marcus said. “No heft to it.”

Kit chuckled. “I suppose not. Still, I am ashamed.”

“You should get over that,” Marcus said.

“I appreciate that,” Kit said, “but I think you don’t understand.”

“Might. You thought you were some kind of God-touched cunning man because you had your spider tricks, only it turned out you were more like the rest of us than not. I was the greatest general in an age, determining who sat what throne and shaping the world with my will and a few thousand sharp blades. Only it turned out we were both men, and we both made mistakes. Yours set us off through some of the least pleasant terrain I’ve ever had the poor fortune to walk through and ended with me trying to hack a hunk of stone to death with a magic sword. Mine ended with a couple graves and a lot of bad dreams.”

Kit was silent for a moment. Something scuttled through the grass off to his right, but it didn’t sound big enough that Marcus cared.