Watching him move first tentatively and then with greater and greater sureness through the streets and roads, Geder had some vague understanding of what his own father had meant by the joy of watching a child discover the world. Geder had found himself noticing the things he’d overlooked and taken for granted only because they astounded his new friend and ally. When, at the trailing edge of summer, they reached Camnipol again, Geder was almost sorry to see the journey’s end.
Add to which, his father seemed oddly uncomfortable with his discoveries.
“I don’t suppose you’ve picked a site for this new temple? Lost goddess and all.”
“I was thinking someplace close to the Kingspire,” Geder said. “There’s the old weavers’ guild hall. It’s been empty for years. I’m sure they’d like someone to take it off their hands.”
Lerer grunted noncommittally. Basrahip began to refold the temple banner. Lerer nodded to the priest, put a hand on Geder’s elbow, and steered him gently out to the corridor, walking casually. Geder hardly noticed that his father was separating him from Basrahip. The dark stone ate the daylight, and the servants found themselves suddenly needed elsewhere.
“That essay,” his father said. “You’re still working on it?”
“No, not really. It’s outgrown itself. It was supposed to be about finding a likely area to be associated with Morade and the fall of the Dragon Empire. Now I’ve got the goddess and the history of the temple and everything. I’ve barely started making sense of it all. No point writing any more until I know what I’m writing about, eh? What about you? Is there any fresh news?”
“I was looking forward to that essay,” Lerer said, half to himself. When he looked up, he forced a smile. “I’m sure there’s fresh news every day, but so far I’ve been able to keep from hearing any of it. These bastards and their court games. I could live until the dragons come back and I still wouldn’t forgive what they did to you in Vanai.”
The word tightened Geder’s stomach. The lines at the corners of Lerer’s mouth were sorrow and anger etched in skin. Geder had the surreal urge to reach out his thumb and rub them smooth again.
“Nothing bad happened in Vanai,” Geder said. “I mean, yes, it burned. That wasn’t good. But it wasn’t as bad as it’s made out. It’s all right, I mean. In the end.”
Lerer’s gaze shifted from one of Geder’s eyes to the other, looking into him. Geder swallowed. He couldn’t think why his heart would be beating faster.
“In the end. As you say,” Lerer said. He clapped his hand on Geder’s shoulder. “It’s good you’re back.”
“I’m glad to be here,” Geder said, too quickly.
With a quiet cough to announce himself, the house steward stepped into the corridor.
“Forgive me, my lords, but Jorey Kalliam has arrived asking after Sir Geder.”
“Oh!” Geder said. “He hasn’t seen Basrahip yet. Where is he? You didn’t leave him in the courtyard, did you?”
Lerer’s hand dropped from Geder’s shoulder. Geder had the sense that he’d somehow said the wrong thing.
“His lordship is in the front room,” the steward said.
Jorey rose from the chair by the window as he came in. The season in the city had put some flesh back into the man’s face. Geder smiled, and the two of them stood looking at each other. Geder read his own uncertainty—should they clasp hands? embrace? make formal greeting?—in Jorey’s expression. When Geder laughed, Jorey, smiling sheepishly, did too.
“I see you’re back from the wild places,” Jorey said. “The travel agrees with you.”
“Does it? I think I just about wept when I could sleep in a real bed again. Going on campaign may be a string of discomfort and indignity, but at least I never worried about being killed by bandits.”
“There are worse things than a good, honest bandit. You were missed here,” Jorey said. “You heard what happened?”
“Exile all around,” Geder said, trying to affect a jaded tone. “I don’t know that I could have helped. I barely had any part except when we held the gate from closing.”
“That was the best part to have in the whole mess,” Jorey said.
“Probably so.”
“Well.”
The silence was awkward. Jorey sat again, and Geder walked forward. The front room, like all of the Palliako rooms in Camnipol, was small. The chairs were worked leather that time had stiffened and cracked, and the smell of dust never left the place. The sounds of hooves against stone and drivers berating one another came from the street. Jorey bit his lip.
“I’m here to ask a favor,” he said, and it sounded like a confession.
“We took Vanai together. We burned it together. We saved Camnipol,” Geder said. “You don’t have to ask favors of me. Just tell me what you need me to do.”
“That’s intended to make this easier, isn’t it? All right. My father believes he’s discovered a plot against Prince Aster.”
Geder crossed his arms.
“Does the king know?”
“The king is choosing not to know. And that’s where you come in. I think we can get evidence. Letters. But I’m afraid that if I take them to King Simeon, he’ll think they’re forged. I need someone else. Someone he trusts, or at least doesn’t distrust.”
“Of course,” Geder said. “Absolutely. Who is the traitor?”
“Baron of Ebbinbaugh,” Jorey said. “Feldin Maas.”
“Alan Klin’s ally?”
“And Curtin Issandrian’s, for that, yes. Maas’s wife is my mother’s cousin, which God knows doesn’t sound like much of a toehold, but it’s what we have to work with. She—the wife, I mean. Not my mother. She seems to know more than she’s saying. There’s no question she’s frightened. My mother has her at a needlework master’s knee as we speak in hopes of winning her confidence.”
“But she hasn’t confessed anything? Told you for certain what’s going on?”
“No, we’re still well in the realm of suspicions and fears. There’s no proof. But—”
Geder put up his hand, palm out.
“I have someone you should meet,” he said.
The last time Geder had been to the Kalliam mansion, it had been dressed for a revel in his honor. Without the flowers and streamers and crepe, the austerity and grandeur of the architecture came through. The servants in their livery had the rigid stance of a private guard. The glass in the windows sported no dust. The women’s voices that came from the back hall sounded genteel and proper, even without any individual word being audible. Basrahip sat on a stool in the corner. His broad shoulders and vaguely amused expression made him seem like a child revisiting a playhouse he’d outgrown. The austere cut and rough, colorless cloth of his robes marked him as not belonging to the court.
Jorey was sitting at a writing desk, fidgeting with pen and ink without actually writing anything. Geder paced behind a long damask-upholstered couch and wished he liked pipes. The occasion seemed to call for the gravity of smoke.
The choir of feminine voices grew louder, and the hard tapping of formal shoes came from the doorway, louder and then softer as they passed. They hadn’t come in. Geder moved toward the door, but Jorey waved him back.
“Mother will be seeing the others out,” he said. “She’ll be back in a moment.”
Geder nodded, and true to Jorey’s word, the footsteps returned, the voices reduced to a duet. When the women stepped into the room, Jorey rose to his feet. Basrahip followed suit a moment later. Geder had danced with the Baroness of Osterling Fells at his revel, but between the months and the whirl of drink and confusion that time had been, he wouldn’t have recognized her. He could see how her own features had influenced Jorey’s, especially around the eyes. Surprise touched her expression and vanished again, less than the flutter of a moth’s wing. Behind her, a sickly-looking woman with a pinched face and dark eyes had to be Phelia Maas.