Daskellin shook his head, breath hissing out through his teeth.
“If it comes to the field, we can hold our own. There are enough landholders who still hate Asterilhold that it’s easy enough to rally them.”
“If Aster dies before he takes the throne?”
“Then we fervently pray his majesty’s royal scepter’s still in working order, because a new male heir is the best hope we have. I’ve had my genealogist look through the blood archives, and Simeon has a cousin in Asterilhold with a legitimate claim.”
“Legitimate?” Dawson asked, leaning forward.
“I’m afraid so, and you can’t guess this. He’s a supporter of the principle of a farmer’s council. We lose the quarter of our support with more sense that guts. The others rally around Oyer Verennin or possibly Umansin Tor, both of whom can also make a claim. Asterilhold backs its man with the help of the group Maas and Issandrian have gathered, we fight a civil war, and we lose.”
Daskellin clapped his hands once. The candle above him sputtered. In the halls of the club, a serving girl shouted and a man laughed. Dawson’s fortified wine tasted more bitter than it had when he started it, and he put the glass down.
“Could this have been the scheme all along?” Dawson asked. “Was Maas using Issandrian and Klin and all that hairwash about a farmer’s council just for this? We may have been aiming at the wrong target all this time.”
“Possibly,” Daskellin said. “Or it might have been a chance he saw and decided to take. We’d have to ask Feldin, and I suspect he might not tell us the truth.”
Dawson tapped the lip of his glass with a finger, the crystal chiming softly.
“We can’t let Aster die,” Dawson said.
“Everything dies. Men, cities, empires. Everything,” Daskellin said. “The timing’s the question.”
Dawson took his dinner with the family in the informal dining hall. Roast pork with apple, honeyed squash, and fresh bread with whole cloves of garlic baked into it. A cream linen cloth on the table. Ceramic dishes from Far Syramys and polished silver utensils. It could as well have been ashes served on scrap iron.
“Geder Palliako’s come back,” Jorey said.
“Really?” Clara said. “I don’t remember where he’d gone. Not to the south, certainly, with so many people having friends and family in Vanai. You can’t expect a decent reception when you’ve killed a person’s cousin or some such. Wouldn’t be realistic. Was he in Hallskar?”
“The Keshet,” Jorey said around a mouthful of apple. “Came back with a pet cunning man.”
“That’s nice for him,” Clara said. She rang for the serving girl, and then, frowning, “We don’t need to throw another revel for him, do we?”
“No,” Dawson said.
He knew, of course, what they were doing. Jorey bringing up odd, trivial subjects. Clara burbling on about them and turning everything into a question for him to answer. It was the strategy they always used in dark times to lift him up out of himself. Tonight, the burden was too heavy.
He’d considered killing Maas. It would be difficult, of course. A direct assault was impossible. In the first place, it was expected and so would be guarded against. In the second, failure meant an even greater sympathy for Maas in the court. The idea of challenging him to a duel and then allowing things to go wrong appealed to him. He and Maas had been on the dueling grounds often enough that it wouldn’t be an obvious convenience, and men slipped all the time. Blades went deeper than intended. He had to ignore the fact that Feldin was younger, stronger, and had lost their last duel only because Dawson was cleverer. The idea was still sweet.
“Fact is,” Barriath said as the serving girl came in, “this boat is sinking, and we’re bailing it out with a sieve.”
“Meaning what?” Jorey said.
“Simeon’s my king and I’ll put my life down at his word, the same as anyone,” Barriath said, “but he’s barely his own master anymore. Father stopped the Edford Charter madness, and now we’re looking at plots from Asterilhold. If we stop that, there will be another crisis after it, and another after that one.”
“I don’t think that’s appropriate talk for the dinner table, dear,” Clara said, accepting a fresh glass of watered wine from the servant.
“Ah, let him talk,” Dawson said. “It’s what we’re all thinking about anyway.”
“At least wait until the help is gone,” Clara said. “Or who knows what they’ll think of us in the small quarters.”
The servant girl left blushing. Clara watched the door close after her, then nodded to her eldest son.
“Antea needs a king,” Barriath said. “Instead it’s got a kindly uncle. I hate to be the one to bring the bad news, but it’s all through the navy. If it weren’t for Lord Skestinin encouraging the captains to lay on the lash and drop troublemakers for the fish, we’d have had a mutiny by now. At least one.”
“I can’t believe that,” Clara said. “Mutiny’s such a rude, shortsighted thing. I’m certain that our men in the king’s navy wouldn’t stoop so low.”
Barriath laughed.
“Mother, if you want truly inappropriate dinner conversation, I can tell you something about how low sailing men stoop.”
“But Simeon is the king and Aster’s still a boy,” Jorey said. It was, Dawson thought, a brave attempt to keep the subject from veering again. “You can’t expect them to be different people than they are.”
“I agree with you, my boy,” Dawson said. “I wish I didn’t.”
“Best thing,” Barriath said, “would be for Simeon to find a protector with a spine to watch over Aster, and then abdicate. A regency could last eight or ten years, and by the time Aster took the crown, the kingdom would be in order.”
Jorey snorted his derision, and Barriath’s face went hard.
“Spare me,” Jorey said. “A regent who could solve all the kingdom’s conflicts in a decade wouldn’t be likely to give up his regency. He’d be king.”
“You’re right,” Barriath said. “And that would be just terrible, would it?”
“That’s starting to sound awfully like the people we’re working against, brother.”
“If you two are going to start fighting, you can leave the table now,” Clara said. Barriath and Jorey looked at their plates, muttering variations on I’m sorry, Mother. Clara nodded to herself. “That’s better. Besides, it’s a waste of effort to argue about the problems you don’t have at the expense of the ones you do. We simply have to convince Simeon that poor Feldin really has gotten himself in too deep with those terrible Asterilhold people.”
“It isn’t as easy as that,” Dawson said.
“Certainly it is,” Clara said. “He’s certain to have letters, isn’t he? That’s what Phelia said. That he was always off at his meetings and letters.”
“I don’t think he’ll be writing to his foreign friends with detailed accounts of treason, Mother,” Barriath said. “Dear Lord Such-and-so, glad to hear you’ll help me slaughter the prince.”
“He wouldn’t have to say it, though. Not outright,” Jorey said. “If there was evidence he was corresponding with this cousin who’d lay claim to the throne, it might be enough.”
“You can always judge people by who they write to,” Clara said with satisfaction. “There’s the inconvenience of actually getting the letters, of course, but Phelia was so desperately pleased to see me last time, I can’t think it will be particularly difficult to arrange another invitation. Not that one can rely on that, of course, which is why I’ve sponsored that needlework master to come show us his stitching patterns. Embroidery seems simple just to look at, but the more complex work can be quite boggling. Which reminds me, Dawson dear, I’m going to require the back hall with the good light tomorrow. There will be about five of us, because after all it seemed a bit obvious to only bring Phelia. That won’t be a problem, will it?”
“What?” Dawson said.
“The back hall with the good light,” Clara said, turning her head to him and raising her eyebrows without actually looking up from cutting her meat. “Because really needlework can’t be done in gloom. It-”