“Lord Regent, you honor my small house,” the smith intoned.
“Thank you. Please don’t let me… please stand up. Yes. Thank you. Please don’t let me interrupt your apprentices. I only need to talk with you.”
Standing, the Jasuru was no taller than Geder, but easily twice as wide and all of it muscle. He nodded to his apprentices, and they scattered back into the forge. The smith crossed his arms and nodded nervously. It was always odd for Geder, seeing men who were so much stronger than him act as though he were the threatening one. It was the office, no doubt. When Aster took the throne, all that would vanish into mist. Still, he’d enjoy it while he could.
“I have a commission for you,” Geder said. “A rather large one, I’m afraid.”
“You’re the Lord Regent, my lord. We’re yours to command,” the smith said.
“Good,” Geder said, pulling the book out from where it rested on his elbow. “Is there a place I can put this? I don’t want to get…” He gestured at the soot and smoke all around them.
“This way, Lord Geder,” the smith said.
For the next hour, Geder and the smith went over the pictures, Geder waving his hands and growing more excited with each new page. The smith remained cautious and thoughtful. It was as if Geder could see the thoughts and strategies forming in the man’s brain. Slowly, the Jasuru’s scowl softened, and he began nodding more than he shook his head. The harpoons with needle-eyes on the ends would be the easiest, he thought. The ballista was possible, perhaps, but there was a man he knew with greater experience in siege engines. He would be pleased to consult with him and bring a full report to Lord Geder.
When a servant came pelting from the Kingspire to remind him of a council meeting, Geder waited for the smith to sketch out copies of the weapons built to destroy the dragons. Reluctantly, he took his book back and trotted to the litter. He couldn’t help but grin. It was the first moment of real happiness he’d felt since the terrible day in Suddapal he’d arrived to find Cithrin—
No, there was no point thinking of that. Not now. Instead, he opened the book again, reviewing the designs of the weapons and imagining how it might feel to wield them. He traced the lines and thought of half a dozen more questions he hadn’t thought to present to the smith. Later, then. He’d have to have a long talk with the man later.
His steps were light as he passed through the lowest floors of the Kingspire, and he bounced on the balls of his feet as if he might break into a delighted little caper at any moment. He could already see the hooked spears flying into the sky, the winged harpoons thrown by modified ballistas looping through the air. Ripping through dragon wings, spilling blood on the earth like rain from a cloud. He imagined himself standing on the corpse of a great dragon the size of a house, sinking a huge two-handed sword in its belly. Cithrin would be there too, drenched in the blood of her conquered masters.
She would look up at him, tears in her eyes. Forgive me, she’d say, her voice breaking just a little, her breasts shuddering with her sobs. Forgive me, Geder. I didn’t know. And he would smile and hold out his hand to her, and she would rise and take it. And they would look after Aster together until he took the throne, not only of Antea but of a purified world. And then he—
“Lord Regent?”
Geder blinked and turned back. He’d walked past the door to the meeting room without noticing he’d done it. The captain of his personal guard hovered behind him, uncertain what to do. His distress was so comical, Geder couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry. My mind’s half gone some days, isn’t it?” he said.
“Ah…” the guard captain said. “If you say so, my lord.”
Cithrin
Porte Oliva did not break, but neither did it remain the same. In all its history, no army had taken it by force. The puppet shows that sprang up outside every public house, in every square and corner told of ancient battles and the bravery of Birancour. But, Cithrin noticed, alongside the epics of war and defiance, there was another genre. Comedies like The Pardoner’s Wife and PennyPenny’s Last Vengeance. Those stories were of clever villains tricking good people into fighting battles on their behalf. When, at the end of the laughter and violence, PennyPenny realized how he had been manipulated, he beat the duplicitous Ga-Go with a stick. Only this time Ga-Go was a pale puppet, with the light hair and eyes of a Cinnae, and instead of the traditional red confetti, tiny coins spilled from her pockets after every blow.
The Grand Market was a place of woe and agony. The few merchants whose trade hadn’t been gutted by the blockade were wise enough to pretend to suffer with the rest. Some days as many as half the stalls went empty. The carts that rolled in along the dragon’s road carrying grain and beer and cloth weren’t enough to make up for the loss of the port. The price of bread had risen, and would rise farther. The price of meat had tripled. Generations ago, the city had spilled out past its own defensive walls, until the great stone archways seemed almost in the city’s center. That geography changed now. The price of buildings within the walls rose almost tenfold, the price of those outside dropped almost to nothing. Cithrin would have liked to buy up some of those, if only as a symbol of solidarity with the city and optimism for its future. The gesture would have been empty. When Geder’s army came—and it would come—those buildings would be char and ash, and the people living in them fled or left for crows. She was as sure of that as her own name.
New ships arrived to join the blockade. Larger ones, including a great roundship that Yardem told her was the flagship of the Antean fleet. The ten Antean ships stood ready to board whatever vessels dared enter the harbor, the red flag with its eightfold sigil claiming ownership of the waters and all that passed upon them. Now and then the governor sent out small harassing forces from the port, and always they were driven back, held at the piers like dogs backed into a cave. The stories in the market said that Antean ships had been harassing fishing boats all along the coast and razing the salt drying yards. Even though anyone might come or go along the roads, the sense of being under siege changed the taste of the water and the scent of the air. The serving girl at Cithrin’s favorite taproom became chilly and cold when she arrived. The boy Pyk had hired to keep the counting house clean came later and later in the day, doing less and less for his pay. Maestro Asanpur’s café saw fewer people at its benches and tables than was usual. Porte Oliva was the home she’d made for herself, and she ached seeing it turn against her.
The question was clear: How was Cithrin to win a war against an army that had already broken the world across its knee? How could gold and silver, silk and spice, contracts and agreements stand in the field against swords? It was ridiculous on the face of it, and like so many things, less ridiculous the more she looked at it.
Cithrin spent her days considering the world through the lens of her new question. She spoke to Yardem about mercenary companies and what was needed to build a successful campaign. She visited the blacksmiths and armorers, the millers and the cunning men, the governor and the captain of the city guard. She drank coffee with Magistra Isadau, each of them prodding the other to some insight or perspective that might open a new pathway for them.
Geder’s army had the advantage of being infected by the priests, which undermined her first line of attack: pay the enemy soldiers to switch sides. It was still possible, but there would need to be other factors at work. No rational fighter would move to the side being slaughtered, no matter what the pay. But there were other places in the management of an army that were like articulated joints of heavy armor—vulnerable, if she could find a way to hit them hard enough. No matter how the priests cried and cajoled, the Antean soldiers would have to eat. If the bank were to let it be known that they would pay an inflated price for tobacco and cotton, the farmers along the path of Geder’s army would till under their wheat and vegetables. No amount of false certainty could pass for food. Swords broke, arrows lost their heads. The bank could buy the ore out of Hallskar and Borja and the Free Cities. She could hire people to break the smelters in the Free Cities and Northcoast, so that Geder’s forces had less chance to repair their goods and resupply. A cunning man she’d found in a tavern in the salt quarter had told her about a kind of grass that rotted out a horse’s stomach. If she found the seeds for that and sowed the pastures along the dragon’s roads from the east, the Antean cavalry might lose half its mounts. More, if she were lucky.