“I didn’t think much of it. He was a Firstblood. She was Cinnae. I could tell it had been a matter of contention, and that they had taken each other’s side against the world. I suppose I admired that, but for me they were simply money. An account that we would take or not take, pay out on or take a loss. Business. When the letter came from Imaniel that they had died and no one was willing to take you, the only thing I asked was whether their account had enough to support you until you were of age. We called you ‘the liability.’ Not by your name. Not ‘the child.’ And now…”
“You’re getting sentimental in your old age,” she said.
“I am,” he said, annoyance creeping into his voice. “I used to be so hard-hearted, and now it seems like a kitten sneezes, and I’m suddenly made of snow. Soft, I am. Old and soft.”
He shook his head. The fire settled in the grate. Cithrin lifted her chin. “May I ask who told you about my plan?”
“No one told me. But I can smell a change in the weather. I called Yardem Hane and put it to him. He said you’d come up with a flavor of… extortion? Is that it?”
“No,” Cithrin said. “Just a way to sell dead priests to the only man in a position to buy. In the coin that matters to him more than coins. Or power.”
“Abduct his father and offer the trade.”
“If it comes to that. There may be a more elegant solution, but it’s good to have a fallback. Have you come to forbid me?”
Komme turned to the fire. The relected fire made him look like an old Dartinae for a moment, eyes glowing and fierce. “Hane argued in favor of your idea. He said… he said he’d seen the shape of your soul, and that keeping you here would bankrupt the world. Break it. And that if I tried to stop you, the death of civilization would be my fault personally.”
“He said that?”
“The bit about the soul, yes,” Komme said. “The rest, I’m paraphrasing. Geder Palliako is a tyrant who has ended kingdoms and crippled races, and you want to do business with him.”
“He’s a small man in a large position, and he’s the only one in the world who can buy what I’m selling,” Cithrin said. And then a moment later, “We’ve just said the same thing.”
“He hates you more deeply than he hates anything. He’s cracked his empire’s back to catch you.”
“At least I’m important to him. And this is how bankers do things, isn’t it? Not armies in the field, but intrigues in back rooms?”
“The way bankers do things is to keep the profit and farm out the risk,” Komme said. “I’m taking the banker’s path. I don’t know what way you’re going. The odds of anything good coming of this are terrible.”
“I agree,” Cithrin said. “But that’s true of taking the safer route too. Mine has better odds than doing nothing, and the stakes are the same.”
“They are, aren’t they?” Komme said, and then lapsed into silence. When he rose, it was with a sigh. He reached down and put his hand on the crown of her head like a father placing a blessing on his child. “Good luck. I’ve had a rich and fascinating life. Seen a dragon. There’s been nothing as interesting as your mind.”
She watched him as he left. He didn’t look back. When the door closed behind him, she took the seat he’d left behind, pressing thoughtful fingertips to her lips and watching the fire dance. He’d said goodbye. Not in any straightforward way, but it was the story under his words. He was the man who, whether he’d meant to or no, had sheltered her all through her life, whose sense of risk and reward had built the financial empire she’d used. He had learned her plan, given his blessing, and said his farewells.
She didn’t know if it was more disturbing that he made the odds that she’d fail or that he thought she should try anyway.
The docks at Carse lay at the bottom of the great pale cliffs. The stairways that clung to the stone face were built of wood, and exposed constantly to the salt air and storm and sun and wind. She’d heard it said that they were rebuilt every ten years or so. The cliff face was dotted with old holes where previous incarnations of the stairs had been. And if an attacker ever came by sea, the steps could be burned, and the invader trapped at the bottom of a wall higher than any siege ladder could hope to reach. Walking down to the ship, Cithrin realized how much the violence of Suddapal and Porte Oliva had changed the way she made sense of the world. When she’d first walked up these steps, the idea of burning them wouldn’t have occurred to her.
Ice covered the dock in a thin sheet. A slack-jawed Jasuru boy in sailor’s canvas walked the length of it with an iron bar, shattering the frozen seawater until the dark wood was white with chips and shards that Cithrin took on faith were surer footing. The little sloop that waited for her looked too small, its draft too shallow. Barriath Kalliam stood on the ladder that reached to the deck, his weight shifting as the ship rose and fell with the motion of the sea. He was speaking to a thin Timzinae woman Cithrin recognized as Shark, one of the commanders of the piratical fleet Barriath had assembled.
On the little deck itself, three figures in oiled skins shifted, talking among themselves. Cithrin reached the ladder and Barriath met her eye. His nod was curt, but not unfriendly. His smile was perhaps a bit self-satisfied. Cithrin wondered whether every man looked at a woman he’d bedded with the same proprietary smugness. She drew her deliberate gaze down his body—neck, shoulders, chest, belly, groin—and lingered there a moment before looking back up. She didn’t feel any particular accomplishment in knowing what the skin looked like beneath his leathers, but she could see the uncertainty in his expression at being viewed as he had viewed her. Uncertainty and also a tentative shade of hope.
“Magistra Cithrin,” Shark said as Cithrin moved past her. Black water shifted beneath them both. “Best of luck to you and yours. Hope you cut their cocks off and shove ’em up their holes.”
“Thank you,” Cithrin said. The Timzinae woman nodded once to her and once to Barriath, then went back to the docks and marched away toward another of the dozen ships tied there.
“Shark’s going to keep order while I’m gone,” Barriath said. “I imagine when I get back she’ll have appropriated the better half of the ships and headed out to sink some trade ships coming back from Far Syramys.”
“Good to know what to expect,” Cithrin said, stepping onto the gently shifting deck. It was small enough that her words carried to the three waiting figures, and one of them laughed. The sound was familiar. Cary pulled back her hood. Her dark hair had a threading of white to it, and her mouth had taken a hardness since Smit’s death in Porte Oliva, but she was still beautiful. More so for being unanticipated.
“What are you doing here?” Cithrin said.
“Learning to play the sailor,” Cary said.
From beneath another of the hoods, Hornet picked up the thought. “You’ll note she didn’t say learning to sail, Magistra. Luck is I’ve spent a few years on the ropes. Lak has too.”
“You couldn’t expect us to stay here,” Cary said. “We’ve no props, no costumes. Half a stage at best. And with Master Kit gone, we’ve lost our Orcus the Demon King, Lord Frost, Annanbelle Coarse, Bakkan the Elder. Anything that takes gravity or makes its humor by undercutting it.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” Yardem said.
“They’re looking for you, though,” Cithrin said. “All Antea’s looking for the troupe since Inys landed on you coming back from Hallskar.”
Cary shook her head. “If they’re still looking, it’ll be for an acting company heading for the border. We’re a trade boat from Narinisle to Borja on the last leg of the blue-water trade. Yardem here’s Mikah Haup, tradesman of Lôdi. We’re his hired crew.”
“I won’t pass for a sailor,” Cithrin said.
“I won’t be mistaken for anyone but myself,” Barriath said. “Under Lord Skestinin, I patrolled this stretch of water for the better part of a decade. If it comes to someone being that near to us, we’ll be belowdecks.”