“Imaniel taught you well,” Isadau said.
“So did you.”
Magistra Isadau left the next day, going overland with Jurin, Kani, and almost half the household. They left a few minutes apart so that they might be mistaken for several unrelated groups and to keep within the dictates of the laws against assembly. Isadau was in the last group to go. She wore a simple traveling gown with a split skirt for riding and a hood she had plucked up to hide her face. Astride her little mule, she looked more like a hardland farmer than the voice of the most powerful bank in the world. Cithrin walked beside her to the gate. In the street, four Antean soldiers were laughing and kicking stones down the road like boys. One looked over when the gate opened, but his expression was bored.
“Thank you, Cithrin,” Isadau said. “Please save what you can, but don’t die here. Not for me.”
“I’m in this war to win,” Cithrin said. “If you see Pyk or Komme, tell them what we discussed about putting up a bounty system. I’ll see you again when I see you.”
Isadau urged the little mule on, and Enen closed the gate behind her. Cithrin turned to look at the compound. When she’d come here, it had been a strange, threatening place. Now it was in fact a thousand greater threat to her life, and she didn’t fear it at all. This was her place now. Her word was the word of the bank, and it had the force of gold and Komme Medean behind it.
“Nicely done, ma’am,” Yardem said.
“Thank you. Now let’s go about not regretting it, shall we?”
“Yes, ma’am. There’s the matter of the letter to the Lord Regent.”
“I know. Call for a courier and we’ll send it. But I need to write one other first.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
In Magistra Isadau’s office—Cithrin’s office now—she sat at the desk and gathered her thoughts. The breeze through the windows was chilly, and she kept her cloak on. The flames from the lamp only warmed the air a little. The refugees Isadau had taken in still made music that carried through the afternoon air. The kitchens still filled the world with the scents of baking bread and roasting meat. One might almost imagine it had always been like this, and that it would always be.
She took a clean sheet of paper, a brass-nibbed pen, and a jar of ink. When she wrote, it was directly into the bank’s cipher, as if it were her natural language.
Komme—
I regret to find myself with somewhat awkward news to report. It seems I’ve taken over another of your banks.
Marcus
The fastest route to Camnipol was west to Orsen in the Free Cities, and then following the dragon’s road north through the eastern reaches of the Dry Wastes. The first danger was the Antean army camped before the massive gates of Kiaria. Holding to the south would avoid the soldiery, but the siege was going on too long. The Anteans would be pulling food out of the countryside as quickly as they could, and that meant Kit and Marcus were going to be two travelers in a countryside filled with desperate people. While they had the poisoned sword and Kit’s spiders, neither one would be much good against an unexpected arrow. Then there were the mountains that divided Elassae from the Free Cities. They’d spent more than their fair share of time among mountains in the Keshet, but winter was coming on, and an early snowstorm would also negate all their advantages, though Marcus would sometimes imagine Kit shouting, You shall not snow at the low grey clouds. Those, at least, were the extraordinary dangers. Bandits, hunting cats, snakes, and fevers barely warranted mention.
“It seems to me you’ve been quite cheerful,” Kit said.
“I suppose I am,” Marcus said.
“Not having as many nightmares either.”
“They’ll be back. They always are. But it was good seeing Cithrin and Yardem again.”
“Mmm,” Kit said with an amused smile.
Orsen was the easternmost of the Free Cities, and the best defended. It was built on a high, flat-topped mountain that stood in the center of a plain. Marcus had traveled a fair part of the world and never seen another detail of geography to match the flatness of the landscape interrupted by the massive stone. The mountain was also odd in that its stone was ruddy granite that seemed more in place in Borja or Hallskar. Coming into the valley, the thread of red soil radiating from it showed where centuries of rain and wind had begun to erode the mountain down into the more familiar soil. It seemed to Marcus that something immense and strange had happened here, long ago, and no one knew what it might have been. But there was a dragon’s road and a defensible patch of land, and that was all humanity needed to make itself at home.
Rather than take the time to follow the narrow, switch-backed roads up to the city itself, Marcus and Kit stopped at an inn at the mountain’s foot. The groom, a young and painfully thin man, took their horses. A woman perhaps a decade older than Marcus and still young enough to be vital welcomed them as they entered the dim warmth of the common room. The knot of Antean soldiers at the table nearest the fire looked up at them with flat and empty expressions. Marcus nodded and took a seat not far enough to seem like he was avoiding them, and not so near that his murmurs to Kit could be easily heard.
The lady of the house brought them mugs of good cider and plates of gristly pork with a pepper sauce that kept Marcus from knowing whether the meat had started to turn. He watched the soldiers out of the corner of his eye. The five of them hunched close to each other, talking low. Every few seconds, one or another of them would glance over at Marcus.
No, not at him. At Kit.
“Interesting,” Marcus said.
“What?” Kit asked, drinking his cider and ignoring his meat.
“Our friends at the next table there. I do believe they’re deserters.”
“Really?” Kit said, and began shifting on his bench to glance at them. Marcus put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.
“Think so,” Marcus said. “And I think they recognize you as looking as if you might be one of the priests. Because ever since we stepped in, they’ve been jumpy as mice that smell a cat. And seeing how they outnumber us more than double, I’m thinking we’re in a position that—”
The Anteans rose in a group, drawing their blades. The benches they’d sat on clattered to the ground as Marcus drew his own blade and put himself between the attackers and Kit. The lady of the house screamed and ran out the door. The chances she’d be back with timely help seemed thin.
“There’s no need for violence,” Kit said, and his voice filled the space. “You can put down your—”
“Shut up, you bastard!” the nearest of the Anteans shouted. “One more word out of you, and I swear we’ll cut you down and burn whatever comes out.”
Five men, Marcus thought, was a damned lot of people. But they hadn’t attacked yet. If anything, they seemed more frightened. He backed up slowly, pushing his table with the backs of his legs as he went, trying to clear a path for the men to leave if they wanted to.
“They followed us,” a dark-skinned one at the back said. “Lani, they followed us.”
“Well, and if they didn’t you just told them my name,” the man at the front said. “And thanks for that.”
“Lani?” Marcus said. “My name’s Wester. We don’t need to—”
The attack was fast and disorganized. Lani jumped forward, his blade swinging high. Marcus blocked and made a low counterstrike by long habit. Lani grunted with pain, falling half a step back and preparing for Marcus to press the advantage, but by then two of the others had stepped to their leader’s side. Marcus could see them preparing to attack in unison. He couldn’t block them both.
Kit’s cider mug came from behind him in a low, fast arc and shattered against the nose of the man on Lani’s right. Marcus thrust at the one on the left, who fell back, cursing.