Aster tried to smile. Managed it, mostly. Geder lowered himself back on the pillows. The cunning man’s tea was doing something odd in his gut, and it didn’t feel particularly healing. Aster sat on the mattress beside him, hands folded together. He struggled to meet Geder’s eyes and failed.
“I was thinking we could walk,” Aster said. “Just down to the Division and back, maybe? Some fresh air?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Perhaps after I sleep a bit, I could manage.”
Aster’s nod came quickly enough that Geder knew he’d had it on the ready. He’d expected the refusal. For a moment, guilt almost made Geder reconsider, but it was too much. It was too far.
“It’s the weather,” he said. “It’s the cold. Just that. The thaw’s sure to come soon, and I’ll be back to myself.”
“All right,” Aster said.
“I’m not that bad,” Geder said with a little forced smile. “I’m just weary. That’s all.”
“Is there anything I can get for you? There was beef stew last night. It was very good.”
“No. Thank you, no. Just. Just a little rest.”
“Do that and you won’t sleep tonight,” the prince said, trying without success to make a joke of it.
“It doesn’t matter. I won’t sleep anyway,” Geder said. Aster flinched at the words, and Geder closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t need another reason to feel worn. He loved the boy, wanted well for him, all that, but just now—just for today—he wished Aster would go away. Go chase girls or fight boys or read books. Something that didn’t require him. Geder longed to be outgrown.
“I have some good blankets,” Aster said.
“I have blankets,” Geder said. “I have lots of blankets. As many as anyone could need.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Geder said. “I didn’t mean to snap, it’s just that I’m tired. I’ll rest. I’ll be better. Just let me rest for a little, yes? I’ll be up again before sundown. We can play some cards, you and me and Basrahip. Only we’ll always lose to him.”
“It’s all right,” Aster said, his smile a little nearer to genuine now. “I don’t mind losing.”
“That’s because you’re a wise man,” Geder said, taking the prince’s hand. “A wise man who’ll be a wise king one day. You’ll make your father proud.”
They sat for a moment in silence. Geder tried not to wish it was ended and the boy gone elsewhere, but he did. And then, when Aster rose and walked to the door, he immediately wished he would come back. The door closed behind him, and Geder sank, giving his full weight to the mattress. His body felt too heavy, his muscles too slack. He was a puppet version of himself with the strings all cut. Or fouled in each other.
He closed his eyes, hoping that sleep would take him. Hoping that when he woke, he would be himself again. Or maybe someone better. The pillow felt unpleasantly hot against his cheek, and when he turned, his shirt twisted, clutching at him like a huge cloth hand. He willed his mind to let go, but when he did begin to slide into dream, the voice of the fire was waiting for him, all the way from Vanai. A woman’s body silhouetted by flames, and the sense that he should have sent someone to get her, quick before she burned.
Winter had always been the slow time in Camnipol. The lords and ladies of court were elsewhere, killing deer and boar in the King’s Hunt or at their holdings managing the lands that they ruled. The feasts and intrigues and ceremonies rarely began before first thaw. If anything, being in the capital carried a nuance of the merchant class. Geder and Aster were above petty status wrangles, but most people concerned themselves with it all deeply. Which was why it was so surprising when the court began to arrive early.
It was only a few at first. Minor families, mostly from the east. Breillan Caust had only just gained a holding for his family on the plains outside Nus, the first actual land his family had commanded in four generations. He and his wife and daughter arrived at the trailing end of a storm, ice and snow caked inches thick on the sides of their carriage. Then, two days later, Mill Veren. Then Sallien Halb. Karris Pyrellin. Sutin Kastellian. Iram Shoat. Not the grand names of court, but their younger cousins and nephews.
At first, Geder was pleased. It gave Aster new faces and people and distractions. But as the trickle grew to a stream, it became… not worrying, but strange. He wondered if it might signal some shift in the customs of the court. Younger nobles longing for the company of their own, perhaps. Or less established members of their houses vying for the attention of the Lord Regent and prince.
It was only when Geder found himself reading over a report on the strife in Elassae that he understood. The flow of young and minor nobles to court reflected not the age of the people, but the recentness of their holdings. They had all been given lands and titles in the lands that had been Sarakal and Elassae, and now, before the thaw, before the fighting season, they were coming back to the heart of Antea. It was hard for Geder to see it. His mind, considering the map, brushed over the short-term fighting. It was, after all, the death throes of the old world, and not something that would have a permanent effect. But the pattern was there. Those who’d arrived early to Camnipol had not been drawn by the prospect of the court. They had fled the threat of violence.
They were afraid.
Letters and reports had been building up, of course. Since the day he’d overseen the execution of the hostages—that was how he’d come to think of it—he’d been under the weather. The letters that had come in, he’d skimmed. Yes, the news had been delivered to the slaves on the Antean farms. No, there had been no uprisings there. He’d shown that Antea had the strength to do what it had promised, and peace had been the prize for it, so that was as it should be. No need to dwell on it.
The reports from Inentai, most from Ernst Mecelli, had been alarmist as they always were. News from Elassae was understandably sparse. That was fine because, after all, the broad strokes were clear. No city where a temple had been raised in the name of the goddess could fall. Her power wouldn’t allow it. Elassae would fight, would struggle, and would fail. The question was only how long it would take and how much blood—Firstblood and Timzinae both—would be spilled along the way, and in his present funk, that wasn’t a question Geder wanted or needed to meditate upon. There would be time enough later.
Mecelli appeared unexpectedly at the Kingspire early on a cold morning. The sky that day was whiter than bleached cotton, and bright. He wore his riding leathers and stank of the road. He was thinner than Geder thought of when he pictured his advisor. Thinner and older and grim. He bowed when Geder entered the withdrawing room, but that was the only concession he made to etiquette.
“Inentai has fallen,” he said. “I’ve ridden here with the couriers. I would have used a cunning man but… but there weren’t any.”
“No,” Geder said. “It’s not fallen. It can’t. It has a temple. So we might lose control of it for a time, but it won’t—”
The older man cut him off. “A force of seven thousand came south from Borja. We stood against them as long as we could, but most of the men had gone to support Broot’s remnant in Elassae. These letters, these… recipes for how best to unmake the priests, had been appearing since midwinter. The priests stood and shouted, but the enemy weren’t listening. We tried to stop them, and we couldn’t.”
“It’s not like that,” Geder said. “I’ll call for Basrahip. He can explain. It’s not like that.”
“You have to raise an army. You have to call the army back.”
“Just rest. I’ll have them bring you tea. Some dried fruit. Would you like some dried apples? Just wait. Just hold together, eh?”
Mecelli collapsed into his chair, his gaze fixed on the flame of the lantern hanging above it. Geder stepped out to the corridor, grabbed the first servant who came to hand, and told her to get the priest. And Canl Daskellin. And to hurry. Even so, it was almost half an hour before Basrahip’s heavy tread approached the door. He entered the room smiling his broad, placid smile, as calm as it was certain.