He tried not to notice the new finery around him, but it was impossible. Sir Gospey Allintot’s cloak was closed with a broach of worked silver and brilliant ruby. Sozlu Veren had his sword sheathed in a scabbard of dragon’s jade and yellowed ivory that could have been made a thousand years before. A chain of gold looped around Jorey Kalliam’s neck that looked to be more than a month’s rent from all the holdings of Rivenhalm. Their clothes were freshly laundered, their boots shone even in the grey overcast light. The warrior aristocrats of Antea wore their conquest proudly. Geder looked down at his little walking stick. It was the nearest thing he had to spoils of war, and he tried to be proud of it.
“Quite a day,” Geder said, nodding toward the low grey clouds. “It was snowing for a bit this morning. Glad we aren’t marching in this. Though I suppose we will be soon, eh? Taking tribute to the king.”
Jorey Kalliam made a low, affirming sound in his throat but didn’t meet Geder’s eyes.
“My leg’s doing well. All laudable pus,” Geder said. “But you heard about Count Hiren? Cut to the arm went septic. He died last night when they tried to amputate. Damn shame. He was a good man.”
“He was,” Jorey agreed.
Geder tried to follow the man’s gaze, but Jorey seemed focused on nothing. Or, no. His eyes moved restlessly, searching for something. Geder searched too, uncertain what he was looking for.
“Something wrong?” Geder asked, his voice low.
“Klin’s not here.”
Geder looked through the crowd, his attention more focused now. There were gaps in the form, men killed or injured or called away on the Lord Marshal’s business. Kalliam was correct. Sir Alan Klin should have stood at the head of the group, the men under his command arrayed behind him. Instead, Sir Gospey Allintot had the place, his chin held high.
“Ill, maybe?” Geder said. Jorey chuckled as if it had been a joke.
The drums announced the Lord Marshal. The collected nobility of Antea lifted their hands in salute, and Lord Ternigan let them remain there for a moment before he returned the gesture. Between them, the powerful men of Vanai accepted their ritual humiliation with polite silence. Jorey grunted, his expression sour. He wasn’t searching any longer. Geder followed his gaze, and found Klin standing at the rear of the platform beside the Lord Marshal’s secretary. Klin wore a silk tunic and hose of somber red and a black-dyed woolen cloak. The cut spoke less of blades and battle than governance.
Geder felt his belly drop. “Are we staying here?” he asked quietly. Jorey Kalliam didn’t answer.
“Lords of Antea,” Ternigan said, his voice echoing through the square not quite so loudly as it might have. The Lord Marshal appeared to be coming down with a cold. “I thank you all in the name of King Simeon. Through your valor, the empire has been made again secure. It is my decision that we return now to Camnipol with the tribute which Vanai owes the throne. It’s late in the season, and the march is a long one, I’d rather we didn’t spend all week getting our boots on. I have asked Sir Alan Klin to remain as Protector of Vanai until such time as King Simeon names a permanent governor. All of you who followed him in battle will follow him in this as well.”
His orders given, Ternigan nodded to himself and turned his attention to the men seated on the pavement. As he retold the history of Antean claims upon Vanai, justified the occupation in terms of wars and agreements made six hundred years before between dynastic lines and independent parliaments long since dissolved, Geder’s mind stumbled through what had just happened to him.
There would be no return to Camnipol for him, not this season. Possibly not for years. He looked around at the close-built wooden buildings with their steep-pitched roofs crowding the narrow streets, the grand canal where barges and boats made their way through the city and back out to the river, the low grey sky. This wasn’t an exotic adventure any longer. This was where he would live. A thousand half-formed plans for his return to Camnipol, to Rivenhalm, to his father’s hearth fell apart before him.
Ternigan stepped back from the platform’s edge, took a sealed letter from his secretary, and presented it to Alan Klin, Protector of Vanai. Klin stepped forward, opened the letter, and read his charge from the Lord Marshal aloud. Geder shook his head. The despair that grew with every phrase showed him how deeply he’d been anticipating the campaign’s end and his freedom from Alan Klin.
The ache in Geder’s leg throbbed as Klin assured the men of Vanai that he would treat all races with equanimity, that loyalty to Antea would be rewarded and treachery punished swiftly and terribly. The glory of King Simeon in particular and Antea in the large took up the better part of an hour. Even the others in Geder’s cohort were growing restless by the end. Then Klin thanked the Lord Marshal for his service and formally accepted this new charge. His salute was met with a rousing cheer, the men pleased as much that the ceremony had ended as with anything Klin had said. The citizens of Vanai rose to their feet, shaking limbs gone numb and talking among themselves like merchants at a fresh market.
Geder saw mixed reactions among the men of the empire. Some envied Klin and his men their new role. Sir Gospey Allintot was grinning so widely, he seemed to glow. Jorey Kalliam walked away with a thoughtful expression, and Geder struggled to keep up with him.
“We’re exiled,” Geder said when they were away from the greater mass of their companions. “We won the battle, and in return they exiled us just as sure as the damned prince of the city.”
Jorey looked at him with annoyance and pity. “Klin’s been aiming for this from the start,” he said. “This was always what he hoped for.”
“Why?” Geder asked.
“There’s power in being the king’s voice,” Jorey said. “Even in Vanai. And if Klin makes himself useful, when the time comes to trade the city away again, he’ll have a place at that table as well. Excuse me. I have to write to my father.”
“Yes,” Geder said. “I should tell my family too. I don’t know what I’ll say.”
Jorey’s laughter was low and bitter.
“Tell them you didn’t miss the sack after all.”
If there was any question of who among Alan Klin’s men were favored, it was answered when Lord Ternigan left the gates of the city. Klin’s new secretary, the son of an important Timzinae merchant, took Geder from his bed in the infirmary to his new home: three small rooms in a minor palace that had been storage and still smelled of rat piss. Still, there was a small hearth, and the winds didn’t blow through the walls the way they had in his tent.
Each day brought Geder a new order from Lord Klin. A channel gate that was to be locked and disabled, a marketplace in which each of the merchants was to pay for an Antean permit to continue their businesses, a loyalist of the deposed prince to be taken to the jail cells as an example to others. It might be common soldiers who announced the demands and enforced their execution, but a nobleman’s presence was required; a face to show that the aristocracy of Antea was present and involved with the business of its new city. And given the tasks assigned him, Geder suspected that he’d be the most hated man in Vanai before the winter passed.