Maybe too slow to matter.
A whip raked Marcus’s shoulder, and he spun away from it, trying to move with the motion of the lash and keep as much of his skin in place as he could. They were on all sides of him now, though the one whose whip he’d cut was staying back to avoid the attacks of his companions. No matter which way Marcus turned, at least one was behind him.
“Stop!” Kit’s voice rang out. “You cannot win this battle. Listen to my voice! You have already lost!”
The man behind him pulled his whip through the air, and Marcus danced aside. Magra turned toward Kit, weapon hissing against the ground. Marcus didn’t call out a warning. Kit knew what he was looking at.
“You have already lost! Everything you love is gone already. Listen to my voice! You can win nothing here,” the actor roared, and the power of the spiders in his voice made what was clearly untrue plausible. If only for a moment.
A moment was enough.
Marcus bared his teeth, roaring, and charged. The Haaverkin man he’d targeted took a step back, and drew a knife with his off hand. Marcus drove the point of his sword through the man’s shin, then tucked his head down and kept on running. The crowd tried to push him back toward the rough battle circle, but Marcus lifted the sword before him, feinting toward anyone who came near. His back was frigid cold now and his breath sounded too loud in his own ears. He glanced back. Kit was close behind him, head down and legs pumping wildly. Behind them, the man with the cut shin was lying flat on the street, and Magra was on his knees beside him, a confused expression on his face. The wound on the big man’s belly was foaming white where it wasn’t the red of blood. So perhaps the venom wasn’t so slow after all. Marcus wrenched his way free of the last of the crowd and ran.
The docks were nearby and a thousand miles away. His first sprint gave way to a steady run, his breath taking up the rhythm of his feet. The streets passed by him, expressions of surprise and outrage and fear flickering before him and being left behind. He had the energy to hope the other players had gotten to the ship. If they’d escaped the attack only so that he had to go back out and retrieve them… Well, that would be disappointing.
At the gangplank leading up to the ship, the captain was arguing with Sandr and Smit. The two actors had spars in their hands, held like clubs, and as Marcus let his stride break, Cary emerged from the deck with a black hunting bow in her hands.
The captain gestured to him with a mixture of relief and alarm. “Look! They’re here now! There’s no call.”
“Marcus!” Smit said, rushing toward him.
“Stop!” Marcus said, then carefully sheathed the sword. He wondered whether, if he’d missed the scabbard and tapped his opened back with the flat, it would have killed him. He guessed so. “All right. Safe now.”
Smit and Cary helped him aboard while Sandr, Kit, and two of the Haaverkin sailors hauled up the plank. They found Hornet belowdecks, struggling into a set of boiled leather dug out of the costumes chest. Marcus sat down heavily on the deck. The ship shifted, the lines cast off. Ice pounded against its sides like monsters beating their way in.
“You’re hurt,” Kit said.
“I’m standing.”
“You’re sitting down”
“Could stand if I wanted to.”
“Fair enough,” Kit said. Cary clambered down with a bottle of seaman’s salve and a handful of rags, and Marcus stripped off his jacket and shirt. They were ripped to rags, as was the skin beneath them. The salve stung like wasps.
“Shouldn’t have stayed with me,” he said.
“I couldn’t see the advantage in leaving you behind,” Kit said gently. “Besides which, I think it all worked out well. This once, at least.”
“Kit?” Marcus said between clenched teeth.
“Yes?”
“That conversation we were having about doubt and understanding?”
“I remember it.”
“Occurs to me that the secret of the world may be don’t do the same stupid thing twice.”
Cary chuckled and the old actor sighed.
“We’ll work at that,” Kit said.
Geder
The spring season in Camnipol opened with the usual ceremony and pomp, but without men. At the Festival of Petals, Geder sat on the dais with Aster and an empty chair. The prince, the regent, and the king. But that was not the only empty chair. Half the great men of court, it seemed, were on campaign. The sons of the great houses were with Jorey or else the occupying forces in Nus and Inentai. Or busy building up their holdings in the territories that had once been Asterilhold. Or overseeing the passage of Timzinae slaves to the farmholds. Wherever they were, it was not here, and so the hall was rich with a great overabundance of women, youths, and old men.
The ballroom was wide and tall. Paper lamps floated by the heat of their own flames, kept from scorching the ceiling only by narrow tethers. Jugglers, gymnasts, rare animals, freaks, and curious objects stood in their niches along the walls to be considered by the court. Cunning men passed through the crowd conjuring balls of flame and telling fortunes. A small orchestra played from beneath the floor, the music filling the air like a scent without the awkwardness of making room for the musicians. Wine and beer flowed freely. The meat was rich and well spiced. After two years of war, the farms of Antea might be drawing sparse crops, but for the evening at least, the ballroom was well fed to the point of decadence.
The ladies of the court had a table of their own, with all the great names present. Daskellin, Caot, Broot, Tilliaken, Skestinin. And now Kalliam again, twice. Sabiha could take her place there on the strength of her being the daughter of Lord Skestinin, but the servants whose job it was to place the seats according to custom had gnawed themselves raw over the problems that Clara presented. Geder hadn’t restored Jorey to his father’s barony yet, and so Clara was both mother of the Lord Marshal and wife of a traitor, honored and tainted. In the end, she’d been placed at the foot of the high table, both present and set apart. Geder would have felt awkward about it, but she was smiling and gracious, so apparently that was all working out well enough.
The dresses of the young women at court this season tended toward the bright and the revealing. Green silk-sheath gowns as bright and rich as a beetle’s shell. Wire-stiffened lacework skirts of pure white that hinted at the legs within them like a thin fog that might part at any moment. Rouged lips and painted eyes. Breasts constrained by white leather corsets. All about him, Geder found invitations toward lust, and he resented each of them individually and the class of them as a whole.
“I saw Basrahip,” Aster said. “Is he coming to the ball?”
Geder turned to the boy and smiled. “No, I didn’t mention it to him. I didn’t think he’d want to.”
Three small lines drew themselves on Aster’s brow, and Geder felt the urge to reach out a thumb and smooth them away again. He didn’t want the boy distressed, but more and more over the course of his regency, he’d found he was unable to prevent it.
“Are you avoiding him because of Cithrin?” Aster asked, and Geder felt it in his sternum like a punch. He answered with a false lightness.
“Oh, probably. The goddess is the power of truth, after all. I may not be quite prepared for that.”
“It’ll be all right,” Aster said. “The goddess chose you, and she knows everything. Basrahip will help.”
How could he? Geder thought, but didn’t say. It would have been too hard to keep the venom out of the words. Instead, he patted Aster’s knee and nodded. The empty chair stood behind them.