“No, my lord,” the huntsman said.
Dawson turned and stalked into the gloom of the corridor, Clara at his side. She didn’t rebuke him. In the shadows of the stair, she leaned in speaking quietly and almost into his ear.
“Simeon asked for a warm bath when he came in, and instead of kicking everyone else out of the blue rooms, I had the janitor prepare Andr’s house. The one by the eastern wing? It’s a more pleasant space anyway, and it has those clever little pipes to keep the water hot.”
“That’s fine,” Dawson said.
“I’ve left orders that no one else be let in except you, of course. Because I knew that you wanted a moment with him.”
“I can’t intrude on the king’s bath,” Dawson said.
“Of course you can, dear. Only tell him I didn’t remember to warn you. I was very careful to mention that it was the place you’ve always preferred after a hunt, so it won’t be at all implausible. Unless, of course, he asks the servants and they say you actually use the blue rooms. But prying like that would be rude, and Simeon’s never struck me that way, has he you?”
Dawson felt a weight he’d only been half aware of lift from him.
“What did I do to deserve a wife as perfect as you?”
“It was luck,” she said, a faint smile penetrating her polite façade. “Now go before he finishes his bath. I’ll tend to that poor puppy of a huntsman you just kicked. They really should know better than to approach you when you’re in a temper.”
Andr’s house sat within the walls of the holding proper, tucked beside the chapel hall and otherwise apart from the main buildings. The Cinnae poet whose name it bore had lived in it when Osterling Fells had been the seat of a king with a penchant for the art of lesser races, and Antea only the name of a minor line of noblemen half a day’s ride to the north. None of Andr’s poems had survived the centuries. The only marks that she had left on the world were a small house that bore her name and a carving in the stone doorway—DRACANI SANT DRACAS—whose meaning was itself forgotten.
King Simeon lay in a bath of worked bronze shaped into a wide Dartinae hand, the long fingers turned back to the palm and dribbling steaming hot water from channels just beneath the claws. A stone bowl of soap rested in a shelf on the thumb. A window of stained glass turned the warm air green and gold. The body servants stood at the back wall with soft cloths to dry the king and black swords to defend him. The king looked up as Dawson stepped into the room.
“Forgive me, sire,” Dawson said. “I hadn’t known you were here.”
“It’s nothing, old friend,” Simeon said, gesturing to the body servants. “I knew I was intruding on your private haunts. Sit. Enjoy the heat, and I’ll make way for you as soon as I have feeling back in my toes.”
“Thank you, sire,” Dawson said as the servants brought a stool for him. “As it happens, I was hoping to discuss a matter with you in private. About Vanai. There’s something it would be best you hear from me.”
King Simeon sat up, and for a moment, they weren’t lord and subject noble, but Simeon and Dawson again. Two boys of blood and rank, full of their own pride and dignity. Dawson’s disdain for the Vanai campaign and outrage at his own son being set to serve under Alan Klin were well-known matters. Still, Dawson rehashed them, building up his anger and self-righteousness to a speed that would carry him through his confession. Simeon listened and the body servants ignored everything with equal care. Dawson watched the old, familiar face as it passed from curiosity to surprise to disappointment and settled at the end in a species of amused despair.
“You have to stop playing games like that with Issandrian’s cabal,” the king of Imperial Antea said, leaning back in his bath. “And still, I wish to God it had worked. Would have saved me half a world of trouble. You’ve heard about the Edford Charter?”
“The what?”
“Edford Charter. It’s a piece of parchment a priest found in the deepest library of Sevenpol that names the head of a farmer’s council under King Durren the White. There’s a petition in the north to name a new farmer’s council on the strength of it. Any landholder with enough crops to pay in would have a voice in court.”
“You can’t be serious,” Dawson said. “Are they going to drive mules through the palaces? Keep goats in the Kingspire gardens?”
“Don’t suggest it to them,” the king said, reaching for the bowl of soap.
“It’s a gambit,” Dawson said. “They’ll never do it.”
“You don’t understand how split the court is, old friend. Issandrian is well loved by the lowborn. If they gain power, he gains with them. And now with Klin as his purse in Vanai, I don’t see that I have a great deal of leverage.”
“You can’t mean—”
“No, there can’t be a farmer’s council. But there’s peace to be made. At midsummer, I’m sending Aster to be Issandrian’s ward.”
The great bronze fingertips dripped. A passing cloud dimmed the light. King Simeon sat quietly lathering his arms, expressionless as the implications unfolded themselves between them.
“He’d be regent,” Dawson said, his voice thick and strangled. “If you died before Aster came of age, Issandrian would be regent.”
“Not a sure thing, but he’d have a claim to it.”
“He’s going to have you killed. This is treason.”
“This is politics,” Simeon said. “I had hoped Ternigan would keep the city for himself, but the old bastard’s independent-minded. He knows Issandrian’s cabal is on the rise. Now he’s done them a favor without quite throwing himself in their camp. I’ll have to woo him. They’ll have to woo him. He’ll be sitting in Kavinpol getting kissed on both cheeks.”
“Curtin Issandrian will kill you, Simeon.”
The king lay back, dark water running up his arms and darkening his hair. A scum of soap floated and spun on the water.
“He won’t. As long as he has my son, he can call my tunes without the bother of sitting on a throne.”
“Then break him,” Dawson said. “I’ll help you. We can build a cabal of our own. There are men who haven’t forgotten the old ways. They’re hungry for this. We can rally them.”
“We can, yes, but to what end?”
“Simeon. Old friend. This is the moment. Antea needs a true king now. You have it in you to be that man. Don’t send your boy to Issandrian.”
“The time’s not right. Issandrian’s on the rise, and opposing him now will only add to the strife. Better to wait until he stumbles. My work now is to see that we don’t follow the dragon’s path along the way. If I can give Aster the kingdom without a civil war, it will be legacy enough.”
“Even if it’s not the true Antea?” Dawson said, an ache gathering behind his eyes. “What honor is there in a kingdom that’s lost its heritage to these preening, self-important children?”
“If you’d said it before Ternigan handed him Vanai, I might have agreed. But where’s the honor in fighting a battle you can’t win?”
Dawson looked at his hands. Age had thickened his knuckles and cold chapped his skin. The smell of soap mocked his nose. His boyhood friend, his lord and king, sighed and grunted, shifting in his bath like an old man. Somewhere in Osterling Fells, Curtin Issandrian and Feldin Maas were drinking his wine, toasting each other. Laughing. Dawson’s cheeks ached, and he forced himself to relax his jaw.
Where’s the honor in fighting a battle you can’t win? hung in the air between them. When he could keep the disappointment out of his voice, Dawson spoke.
“Where else would it be, my lord?”
Cithrin
The dragon’s roads behind them, the world turned to snow and mud. The cart beneath her lurched through ruts and holes, the mules before her strained and slipped, and the wheels grumbled and spat through the churn the carts ahead of her had left. Cithrin sat, reins in her numbed fingers, her breath making ghosts, and watched the low hills give way to plains, the forests thin and snow-sheeted scrub and brambles take their place. In springtime, the land surrounding the Free Cities might be green and alive, but now it seemed empty and eternal.