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.
They passed a field with stacks of rotting hay that testified to some farmer’s tragedy. A vineyard where row after row or trellis supported black, dead-looking woody vines. Now and again, a snow hare would bound along, almost too far away to see. Or a deer would stray near until one of the carters or the guards shot an arrow toward it in hope of fresh venison. From what she could tell, they never hit.
Mostly it was cold. And the days were still getting shorter.
The caravan master stopped them for the night at an abandoned mill. Cithrin pulled her cart to a stop beside the ice sheet of the pond, unhooked her mud-spattered mules, and rubbed them clean as they ate. The sun hung low and bloody in the west. Opal came to check on her, and the woman’s mild eyes seemed pleased by what she saw.
“We’ll make an honest carter of you yet, my dear,” she said.
Cithrin’s smile hurt her cold-burned cheeks. “A carter, maybe,” she said. “Honest is another question.”
The older woman’s eyebrows rose. “More humor,” Opal said. “The world may stop turning. Are you coming to the meal?”
“I don’t think so,” Cithrin said, looking at one of the mules’ hoofs. The small sore she’d seen the day before was still there, but hadn’t gotten worse. “I don’t like being with them.”
“Them?”
“The others. I don’t think they like me. If it wasn’t for me, they’d all be in Bellin sitting around a fire grate. And the captain…”
“Wester? Yes, he is a bit of a bear, isn’t he? I still don’t know quite what to make of him myself,” Opal said, her voice dry and speculative and on the edge of flirtation. “Still, I’m sure he wouldn’t bite unless you asked him.”
“All the same,” Cithrin said. “I think I’ll stay with the cart.”
“I’ll bring you a plate, then.”
“Thank you,” Cithrin said. “And Opal?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
The guard smiled and dropped a small, ironic curtsey. Cithrin watched her walk back toward the mill house. Someone was lighting a fire in there, thin smoke rising from the stone chimney. Around her, the snow glowed gold and then red, and then between one moment and the next, grey. Cithrin laid blankets on her mules and lit a small fire of her own. Opal returned with a plate of stewed greens and wheat cakes, then went back to the voices and music. Cithrin stood to follow her and then sat back down.
As she ate, the stars came out. Snow made the pale blue light of a three-quarter moon seem brighter than it should have been. The cold grew, and Cithrin huddled closer to her small fire. The chill seeped in, pressing on her. Narrowing her. Later, when the captain and the Tralgu had gone out scouting and the others had gone to sleep, she’d sneak into the mill house and find a corner to curl up in. At breakfast, she’d avoid the stares and curiosity of the other carters and come back to her mules as quickly as she could. Daylight was scarce, and the caravan master didn’t leave much time for idle banter. These long, dark, cold hours between work’s end and sleep were the worst part of her day. She passed them by retreating into her mind.