“I’m Chanda, my lord.”
“Let this be a lesson to you, Chanda,” he said solemnly. “We all have to do shit we don’t enjoy.”
The servant coughed a laugh, and Geder smiled his encouragement until she smiled back. When he nodded, she backed away, still grinning under the oily fur of her race, and trotted off to retrieve Canl Daskellin from whatever waiting area they’d stowed him in while they got Geder’s permission for him to enter. Outside, night had fallen, and the candles in the library remade the window as a dark and deforming mirror. Geder shifted his weight back and forth, watching his reflected head swell to a massive, ungainly monstrosity on a twig-thin body, then shrink down to almost a nub perched on comically heroic shoulders, then back again.
Daskellin appeared behind him, and he turned. Sweat and dirt streaked the older man’s dark skin, and he wore riding leathers that smelled of horse even from where Geder sat.
“Lord Regent,” Daskellin said, “I have a report.”
“From Northcoast?”
“No, from the east. Sarakal, and it seems Elassae.”
Geder shifted in his chair. “I thought you were the ambassador to Northcoast. Why are you bothering with things in the east? It’s not yours to worry about. Mecelli’s supposed to be doing that.”
“He isn’t well, my lord,” Daskellin said. “The cunning men report an army outside Nus. And another massed in Orsen.”
Geder waved the news away. “Cunning men can’t be relied on,” Geder said. “Half the time they get these so-called messages, it turns out they were never actually sent in the first place. Just someone mistook a dream for some crackpot magic and got everyone’s feathers in a whirl over nothing.”
“I’ve had a bird from my man in Orsen. That one at least is true. And Lord Mecelli’s report after Inentai was right. The traditional families are taking back all we won in Sarakal. And more than that, they may not stop at the border of the empire.”
“Inentai is the border of the empire,” Geder said. “It’s just in flux for the moment. It’ll come back under our control. We put a temple in it. No city where we dedicated a temple to the goddess can fall. Just be lost for a bit. You heard what Basrahip said. You know all this.”
“I did hear, Lord Geder,” Daskellin said. “But I also had the reports. And I’ve seen the maps. If we want any hope of defending the empire, we have to raise an army. Possibly two.”
Silence fell between them, dividing the room as effectively as the Division split Camnipol.
“Are you telling me you doubt the protection of the goddess?” Geder asked, slowly.
“I believe in it,” Daskellin said, and the distress in his voice was like listening to a single high note played on a violin forever. It was about more than the news of the armies, more than the news of the war. There was a personal distress and hearing it made Geder’s own soul ring with it like a crystal glass echoing a singer’s pure note. “I don’t doubt her, but I also look at the world. And as much as my faith tells me that we are under her protection, my life’s experience says we need sword-and-bows at the ready. The storm that’s coming? We aren’t prepared to weather it.”
Geder hunched over his book, hand flat against the soft leather cover. The sense of his head being stuffed with wool returned, and with it a deep weariness and anger. He felt the rage bubbling in his chest. It was unfair, monstrously unfair, to bring this all to him. Did Daskellin think he had a cunning man’s stick he could wave and conjure able-bodied fighters out of nothing? The men he’d marched to Asterilhold were all that Camnipol had, and since he’d called the disband, they weren’t even gathered or armed. And Geder was ill, after all. Something was wrong with him, only no one seemed able to see it. Or else to care when they did.
As long as things were going well, everyone celebrated him and threw victories for him and praised him as a hero. But as soon as there was any trouble, no one cared about him at all.
“This is not my fault.”
“Lord Geder?”
“This,” Geder repeated, his voice growing to a shout, “is not my fault. The position we’re in? The unrest in Elassae and Sarakal? You were my advisors. The best men in the kingdom. You served King Simeon and you’ve been in the court. You were supposed to be the ones who knew how to run a campaign!”
Daskellin took a step back as if he’d been struck. His jaw worked as if fighting to get out some sentiment too large for his throat. Rage boiled up from Geder’s belly. He stood, throwing the book at Daskellin’s head as he did it. It missed by a wide margin, but the violence of the intention was clear. For a moment, Geder thought the man would attack him, and in that moment, he welcomed the thought. The prospect of beating Daskellin’s smug, self-serving face with his bare fists was like the hope of water to a man possessed by thirst.
They teetered on the edge of the moment, the air in the room rich with the potential for violence. Daskellin took his lip between his teeth and looked down. When he spoke, his voice shook, but it was not loud.
“If I have failed you, Lord Regent, I apologize. I have always done what I hoped would be best for the throne.”
“And there just now you’ve remembered that I can have you killed,” Geder snapped, but the fire in his gut had died already. He felt as though he was sinking back into himself. He’d thrown a book at the man. That was embarrassing, but it was Daskellin’s own fault. The man should have known better. “I’ll put out the call. We’ll bring back the men I led against the apostate. It’s not an army like Broot had in Elassae or Jorey’s force. And you’ll lead it. You personally. Then I don’t want to hear anything more about how I’m not prepared.”
“Yes, Lord Regent,” Daskellin said.
“And we won’t fall. No matter what we won’t fall, because the goddess is here. She’s remaking the world, and we are her instruments, so we won’t fall. Because of me. Because I brought her here. Everything we’ve gained, we gained because of me. What we’ve lost is your fault.”
“Lord Regent,” Daskellin said, making it sound like a yes without actually saying the word. Geder sneered and turned away. An exhaustion was coming over him, turning his bones to granite and lead. The effort of standing up was too much. Everything was too much. Daskellin was a selfish bastard for taking away what little energy Geder had left.
“You can go,” Geder said. “You’ll have your soldiers tomorrow.”
Daskellin nodded, his jaw still shifted forward like a showfighter’s at the start of a match. “Thank you, Lord Regent,” he said, then turned and, walking stiffly, left. Geder tried to look out the window and failed. His own bent reflection blocked his view of the city. Of the world. Only when he put the candles out could he catch glimpses of the lights of Camnipol and the moon and the stars. He sat for a time in a darkness too deep for reading. The feast was still going. Would be going all night. If he returned to it, he’d be made welcome. Or he could go to the Great Bear and drink distilled wine and smoke pipes and trade stories with whoever was there. He could command any woman in the court to his bed if he wanted to. Make her do whatever he wanted, and if she laughed at him afterward, he could have her thrown into the Division. That was the power of the emperor. The power of the throne.
The thing was, he didn’t want to do any of it. Everything sounded awful. Even the effort to call for more light seemed beyond him. When he’d been a boy in Rivenhalm, he’d dreamed of going to Camnipol, becoming a hero of the court. Now he was here, and he’d done it, and he dreamed of being almost anywhere else.
“It’s only for now,” he said to the darkness and the books. “Soon, she’ll have burned all the lies from the world, and we’ll be at peace. It’ll be all right.”
Or else the confusion he’d glimpsed in Basrahip’s eyes would grow. That bad news would multiply. More cities would fall. No, not fall, but be lost for a time. For longer. The death throes of the old world still had the power to crush everything, and staying out of its thrashing meant being nimble and quick. Geder didn’t feel nimble or quick. In fact, he barely felt anything at all, except muddy in his mind and angry without knowing who or what he was angry with.