“Oh,” Clara said. “I’m afraid I wasn’t.”
For a moment, he was confused. She watched him understand. He lifted his eyebrows and looked at the ground. “Ah,” he said.
“You’ve seen what’s gone on in Antea. Palliako is the worst thing that’s happened to the empire in my lifetime or yours. We’d have been better giving the throne to Aster straightaway. A kindhearted child would be better than the Lord Regent we have now. And, Anton, these priests…”
“Yes, my lady,” Lord Skestinin said. “The foreign priests your late husband led his rebellion against. I… understand and respect your loyalty to his cause.”
She felt for a moment as if he’d spoken in some unfamiliar language. Her laughter was sharp and sudden and only partly related to mirth. There was also disbelief in it. And something sharper for which she had no name. “I can accuse myself of many things these last years, but slavish devotion to Dawson has not numbered among them.”
“We disagree on the point. No, hear me out. I am loyal to the crown. Did I agree with every choice King Simeon made? No, but that doesn’t matter. You can’t pick and choose when to be loyal. That isn’t loyalty. There is a right system to the world, my lady. God, then the king, then the lords of the court. The father rules over the mother rules over the children. The husband rules over the wife. That is the right order of the world from the stars to the lowest nomads in the Keshet.”
His voice had grown louder and rougher. Spots of red appeared on his cheeks. She considered him closely, as she might a particularly colorful insect that had landed on her arm. The brightness of his eyes. The folds of his sea-leathered skin. The jut of his jaw. He had been her son’s commander for years. He was her own family, first by marriage, and now both of their blood flowed in a little girl in Camnipol. How strange, then, that she felt she had never seen him before as he was.
“You’re quite right,” she said. “We do disagree on the point.” He clenched his jaw, his white beard jutting out like a goat’s. A sorrow she had not expected shook her. And then a guilt, and a resentment at being made to feel guilty. She laughed again, but more gently and more to herself. “Still, we needn’t be rude to each other. God help us both, we are family. Is there anything I can do to make your confinement less odious?”
“I wouldn’t ask favors,” Lord Skestinin said. “Gives the wrong impression.”
“Of course. But all this unpleasantness aside, might we not come to a private understanding?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
A gust of wind spat a snowflake in through the window. It spiraled close to the lantern, shining for a moment, then winking out as it melted. “The world is a cruel place, and the next few years are going to be difficult,” Clara said. “I don’t know how this all comes out. And… and they did name her after me.”
Lord Skestinin’s smile was flinty. “The king protects his land. The father protects his child. And his grandchild, however unfortunately conceived. There is no need for agreement between us, Lady Kalliam. Not for that.”
“Should history favor my views over your own, my lord, I will bend stone and bleed fire to see Sabiha kept safe. And not as a favor to you.”
“I am pleased that you still have some honor. Perhaps we may yet be reconciled.”
“It wouldn’t be the strangest thing that’s happened since we left Camnipol. If I see your wife and daughter, is there a message you’d like me to give them?”
“Other than that Lady Kalliam and her exiled son have betrayed the kingdom?”
“Yes, other than that.”
“No,” he said. “It won’t be called for.”
Clara put a hand on his knee. The fur was cold to the touch. “It was good to see you.”
“And you, my lady,” Lord Skestinin said. Etiquette was such a beautiful system of lies. It allowed everyone to pretend when the truth was too ugly to bear. That they all shared in the lie made it at least something that they shared. She rose and called for the guard. The door opened at once, and then closed behind her once she’d reached the hall. The bar ground back into place with a sense of finality. She wondered whether she had just seen her granddaughter’s grandfather for the last time.
“Ma’am?” the gaoler said, bringing her back to herself.
“Yes, of course. They must be waiting,” she said. “Lead on.”
No chance then of Skestinin taking our side?” King Tracian said. He was a young man, and she had a sense that it was more than just his age. He was older than Simeon had been when he took the throne, after all. There was a nervousness about him. An anxiety that seemed to infuse his words and movements. Perhaps it was natural in the son of a usurper. Or it might only be that he was harboring the sworn and public enemy of a kingdom that had recently conquered all its immediate neighbors and had an army camped at his southern border. Or that the last dragon roamed his street. Come to think of it, he had more than enough reason to be uncertain of himself.
“I think he will not,” Clara said, accepting a cup of mulled wine from Komme Medean’s thin hand. There were no servants in the withdrawing room, and none in the hall without. It was not a conversation to be overheard. “It would have been too pretty, I suppose, to have the Lord Marshal and the master of the fleet both in our confidence.”
“Shouldn’t get greedy,” the old banker said. If it was meant to be ironic, he hid it well.
The room was colored with gold. It was in the tapestries on the walls, woven into the carpet beneath her feet. There were other colors—the shining green and indigo of the cushions, the scarlet of the wall hangings, the gentle yellow of the lanterns—but all of them seemed there to offer contrast to the gold. The air was mulled wine and incense, rich without being cloying, which was much rarer in a palace than Clara thought it should be. Incense was too easily overdone. It spoke well of Tracian that he knew to restrain it. There was a plate of raisins and cheese to go with her wine, though she couldn’t bring herself to taste them. Not yet.
The king of Northcoast paced, four steps along the wall, then back the other way, hands clasped behind him. Komme Medean sat beside the wine with his fingers woven together and a calm expression in his eyes. She had the sense that the world might turn to fire and ash, and the banker would have the same calm about him. The king turned again. For a moment, she wasn’t certain what he reminded her of. Ah, yes. A captain pacing his deck.
“It would be a kindness to put him in a larger cell,” she said. “One, perhaps, where he could walk a bit.”
“Did he ask for that?” Tracian said.
“No,” Clara said. “He was quite careful to ask for nothing.”
“We have Barriath’s pirates,” Komme said. “And the ships of Northcoast, of course. I’d be surprised if we couldn’t convince Narinisle and Herez to step in as support at the least. Though they may balk at open battle.”
“Is open battle our plan?” Tracian said. “Because last I checked, we still had an army to the south with orders to bring Cithrin bel Sarcour to Camnipol in chains.”
“Jorey won’t come north,” Clara said. “We’re safe here. For now.”
“With respect, Lady Kalliam,” Komme said as he poured himself more wine, “are we sure of that? Have we had word from the army since you came?”
“I haven’t, but neither was I expecting any. Jorey has no intention of marching on Northcoast. He knows I’ve come, and he will wait until I return.”
“You’re making some assumptions,” the old banker said. “By your own report, the soldiers are overtaxed. There are two of the priests there at least.”
“Only two,” Clara said.
“Only two if no others have arrived in your absence.” Komme’s voice was gentle, but firm. “We speculate on what’s happened in the winter camp, but we can’t know. And though I hesitate to point it out, Lord Marshal of Antea hasn’t been an invitation to a long career since Palliako took the crown.”