“Lord Regent,” she said with the curtsey that etiquette required of her.
“Sabiha,” Geder said. “I was looking for you at the feast. And Jorey. I was looking for both of you.”
“My father thought that, given the situation, it would be better that we not appear.”
“Yes,” Geder said. “Well. I was wondering if I might speak with Jorey for a moment. And … and can I have food sent to you? There’s a whole feast, and some of it’s very good, and just because the politics of the things are what they are, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat.”
He was babbling. He knew it, and he could no more stop it than hold back the springtime. Sabiha’s smile was crooked, and he didn’t know whether she was amused or annoyed. Not that it mattered. He was Lord Regent of Antea. She would accede to his suggestions, whatever they were. If he’d asked her to throw off her gown and dance naked for him, she would have had to or risk the displeasure of the crown. It was odd how having power over people meant not knowing their true minds. Not without Basrahip there to tell him, anyway.
“It would be kind of you, my lord,” Sabiha said.
“Geder. Really, in private, call me Geder.”
“It would be kind of you, Geder,” she said. “Wait here if you’d like. I’ll get Jorey.”
“Thank you,” Geder said. Sabiha walked into the gloom of the corridor. Geder heard her voice, and then Jorey’s, and then hers again. He thought there was a warmth in them, the sound of husband and wife. His own mother had died when he was a child, so he only had the servants and slaves to judge from, but he thought he’d heard the intimate kindness in the servants’ quarters in unguarded moments. That, and books he’d read that spoke of the role of men and of women, and the connection between them. His direct experience was somewhat limited.
Jorey emerged into the light. He still wore his hunting leathers and a grey wool cloak. His hair was unruly and his eyes had a darkness under them. Geder popped up to his feet and wiped his hands on his thighs.
“Jorey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wanted to find you and say it. Between us.”
Jorey’s smile was thin.
“It wasn’t your doing, my lord,” Jorey said, as if the words pained him. “My father’s actions were unconscionable. The death … the death you gave him—”
“Oh, not that,” Geder said quickly. He didn’t want Jorey to still feel embarrassed about what Dawson had done. “That’s in the past. Over with. I meant the war. You did hear, didn’t you?”
Jorey sat on the divan, looking up at Geder. It was an utter breach of etiquette, but Jorey didn’t seem to notice, and Geder was oddly glad that he hadn’t. Geder had Aster and Basrahip, who knew him for who he was instead of the title he answered to. And the part-Cinnae banker, Cithrin, who’d hidden with him during the worst of the troubles. Even with Jorey Kalliam, Geder could still count his friends on one hand and not use his thumb.
“You’ve decided to invade Sarakal,” Jorey said.
“Yes, that,” Geder said. “Only I named … I named Ternigan as Lord Marshal, and he picked the men he wanted on campaign with him. And after what happened with your father, and Barriath …”
In truth, Barriath Kalliam had chosen exile rather than give his loyalty to Geder. Nor had he been the only one to do so. Others had tried to lie, to swear that they would never betray Geder as others had, but Basrahip had been there to warn of their duplicity. Those died.
“Don’t apologize to me for that,” Jorey said. His gaze had wandered to the shadowed corridor. “I’ve had enough of killing to last a lifetime. I only want to go back to Lord Skestinin’s estate and look after my family.”
Geder nodded, more to himself than to Jorey. He had never taken the youngest of the Kalliams before his private tribunal, never subjected him to the unyielding certainty of Basrahip and the spider goddess. It would have seemed cruel, and after all, Jorey had renounced his father before the full court. To question his honesty or loyalty after that was like questioning whether the sea tasted of salt.
And there was also some other, deep, wordless reluctance. Geder didn’t want him in there, and he didn’t want to think too closely about why, except that it wasn’t a place for his friends. He sat at Jorey’s side, not touching, but close. Like two men on campaign sitting on the same log before a cookfire.
“I know how hard this has all been,” Geder said. “You don’t have to worry, though. I’ll be on the throne until Aster’s of age, and I’ll find a way to bring you back into the good graces of the court. You and Sabiha both.”
Jorey laughed bitterly, but didn’t speak. Geder felt a twist of anxiety in his belly and plucked at the cloth of his sleeve.
“What … what are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m thinking about what makes a man good. Or evil. I’m wondering if I’m a good man or an evil one.”
“You aren’t evil. An evil person does bad things,” Geder said. “Even your father wasn’t evil. He was … misguided. The Timzinae who poisoned his mind against the throne? They were evil. But he was a brave man, doing what he thought was right, however wrong he was about it. I never thought he was evil.”
“Never?”
“Well,” Geder said, almost shyly, “almost never. I did lose my temper with him. There at the end. I mean, he did try to kill me.”
Jorey’s expression was unreadable—amusement, disgust, despair. He could have meant anything.
“I know that you count me as your friend, Geder,” he said at last.
The smile began in Geder’s chest as a warmth, and it spread out through his body.
“That’s all I wanted, Jorey. I just wanted you to remember that no matter what’s happened, I am your friend.”
Marcus
Good kitty,” Marcus said, his sword at the ready, “or … whatever the hell you are.”
The beast shifted its head, following the shine of steel with distrust. It stood little higher than Marcus’s waist, but nose to tail would easily measure fifteen feet. Its fur was black and mottled as if designed to disappear into the sun-dappled darkness under the jungle canopy. Dagger-long claws cut into the ground as it stepped toward him, and its jaw opened half a handspan as if it were tasting the air.
“I think it’s trying to get between us,” Kit said.
“Then stay close to me,” Marcus replied. “I don’t think it has our best interests at heart. Good kitty. Stay back.”
The beast opened its mouth with a shriek equal parts windstorm and ripping flesh. Its teeth were broad, low, and hooked. The struggle of prey caught in that jaw would only drive the bite deeper. It took another step closer and lowered its body to the ground, bunching up as if to leap.
They were in what Marcus had come to think of as a clearing. The trees were thinner here, and bits of blue sky showed between the arm-broad fronds twenty feet above him. There was room to move without being caught against tree trunks or thick, leathery scrub. That was likely why the beast had chosen this space to make its advance.
The constant noise of the wilderness—the drip of water from the trees, the high chirping call of the bright yellow frogs that swarmed over the ground at dawn and dusk, the distant scream of monkeys, the clicking of billions of unseen insects from within the rotting carpet of leaf and mold they walked on—was like an auditory fog, obscuring any sound within it. Sweat sheeted down Marcus’s back, and the constant, punishing heat and damp were like a blanket pressed over his face. He was aware of Kit off to his left, but he didn’t dare glance over to see what the old actor was doing.
“Why would it want its enemies to flank it? I don’t see how it could defend against us both,” Kit said.