He caught sight of the only Jasuru priest. A man who had been an assassin bent on Geder’s death, and was now a wide-eyed servant of the goddess. He made a point of bowing to Geder every time they met, as if his body could bend itself into a living apology. Geder couldn’t help but wish Basrahip were still there. He hoped things were going well in Kaltfel. The afternoon breeze was cool when he stepped outside. The gardens spread out to his left. To his right, the dueling grounds and the vast canyon of the Division. His land, for now. Everything, as far as he could see and beyond all horizons, his responsibility.
He sat by the shadowed fountain for a time, but he couldn’t focus on the papers and reports here any better than he had in his study. The dead king’s chambers were all around him, and he felt Simeon’s presence. Water sheeted down a bronze dragon almost lost to verdigris, and Geder listened to the splashing as if there might be voices in it. Spirits in the water that could tell him something wise. Something he needed to know. There was nothing, and after a time—long or short, he couldn’t say—he made his way back out into the gardens and the sunlight. Far above, the banner of the goddess was a line of black and red against the side of the spire. He lay back in the manicured grass and looked at it, and then at the distant clouds beyond. If he’d been sitting up, Canl Daskellin and Cyr Emming—two of his three closest counselors—might have noticed him sooner and been less free with their words.
“—off for weeks at a time to apprentice as a midwife,” Emming said, his voice a growl. “For God’s sake. Can you imagine Simeon doing that?”
“I’m not disagreeing with your particulars,” Daskellin said. “But I think you’re exaggerating the problem. No one in four countries is willing to cross him. Not after Dawson Kalliam. Certainly not after Ternigan. He has his dead enemy’s own children toeing his line. And the ladies of the court have nothing but kind words after his unfortunate romance.”
“That. Well, it’s a thin line between kindness and pity, and I for one—”
“Lord Regent!” Daskellin said, his tone bluff and hearty. “We were looking for you. Prince Aster said you were in his father’s old quarters, enjoying the fountain.”
“I was,” Geder said, sitting up. “Then I came here.” Canl Daskellin stood at the edge of the path, his smile polite and rueful. It was an acknowledgment that Geder had heard them. Emming, on the other hand, was scowling severely, nodding, and fighting not to meet Geder’s gaze. The old man’s face was pale. To Geder’s surprise, it wasn’t anger that swept through him, but a strange kind of sympathy. Emming was one of the great men of Antea, and here he was, caught misbehaving. He looked like a guilty dog. If he’d had a tail, it would have been tucked between his knees. It wasn’t so long since Geder himself had felt the sting of embarrassment that he couldn’t recognize its distilled form in his counselor’s face.
Embarassment and also fear. That he feared Geder forgave him much.
“We’ve had hard news, my lord,” Daskellin said. “I thought it best that we speak to you at once.”
Geder levered himself up to his feet, dusting bits of grass and leaf from his knees. His mind raced to a hundred different things that might have gone badly. Had Sabiha gotten sick again? Was there bad news from Jorey? Had the enemy in Porte Oliva killed Lord Skestinin, or the apostate in Kaltfel ambushed Basrahip? Or the siege at Kiaria? Could something have gone badly there? A plague among the men? An assault from behind now that the body of the army had gone west? Geder hadn’t realized he carried so many catastrophes so near the top of his mind until the chance came to for one to come true, and they all spilled out, ready to be made real.
“Mecelli’s written,” Emming said, his gaze fixed on Geder’s collarbone. “He’s still in Inentai.”
“The city is suffering raids,” Daskellin said. “Robbers were attacking outlying towns and farms at first, but they’ve grown bolder. He says they’ve begun coming into the city proper.”
“Well, we can’t let that go on,” Geder said. “They have to be hunted down. Stopped.”
“The force left at Inentai is not a large one,” Daskellin said, nodding. “When the army was at Kiaria, there was a sense that it might return east as reinforcements. With the bulk of the men in Birancour now…”
“We’re stretched thin. Very damned thin,” Emming said.
“It is also possible that some members of the traditional families or their relatives in Borja are sponsoring the raids,” Daskellin said.
“Can we raise more troops?” Geder asked.
Daskellin’s eyes answered before his words. “Raising a second army would be difficult.”
“Hired swords, my lord,” Emming said. “That’s the path to go. The Keshet’s lousy with them, and garrison duty’s what they’re trained at. Get a few hundred of them for a season. Just until the problem in the west’s cleared up. We’ve got the coin for it.”
“Yes, that makes sense,” Geder said.
“Mercenary companies are certainly an option,” Daskellin said. “Mecelli thought we might reach for that, and he was… skeptical. There is a precedent in the east for companies to switch sides if a better offer is made. If we count on professional soldiers to die for us rather than take bribes from the enemy, it may not go as gracefully as we’d like.”
“We can find out if they’re loyal,” Geder said. “There’s a temple in Inentai. They just ask.”
“Yes,” Daskellin said, “and knowing that there’s a force of armed men who won’t answer to the throne guarding Inentai is better than not knowing, but it’s still a problem.”
“What then?”
“With respect,” Daskellin said, “mercenaries are best used where they aren’t needed. I suggest we hire companies to stand guard where there isn’t trouble. Asinport. Nus. Even Suddapal. Then the Antean blades can go to Inentai and ride against the raiders.”
“Good,” Geder said. “Yes. We’ll do that.”
“We can do this once, my lord,” Daskellin said. “If something else happens? A revolt in Nus or a slave uprising on the farms. If Herez or Cabral or Narinisle throw in with Birancour? We’ll have to make choices, or we’re in very real danger of all of it falling into chaos.”
“No,” Geder said. “It’s fine. This isn’t like other wars. This is the goddess reclaiming the world. The old ways don’t apply. Everything is going to be just fine.”
“Damned right,” Emming said, nodding hard. “Damned right.”
Daskellin’s smile was thinner, the angle of his head not as deep. “I hope you are correct, Lord Geder.”
Clara
The assault itself began in flame.
Over the long years of peace, the city of Porte Oliva had outgrown its own defenses. Buildings spilled past the defensive wall and out into the open land. By the time the army arrived, they were empty as a plague town. The soldiers walked through the outlying buildings and then sent forward a priest under the flag of parley. Clara saw none of it, but the reports filtered back quickly. How the parley had been refused, arrows raining from the top of the wall and driving the priest back. How the voices of Porte Oliva had jeered and sung and drowned out the priest’s words. How the chance of surrender had been squandered.
After that, the army had pulled back, out into the open fields. Clara had found her own camp surrounded by soldiers’ tents, and the Lord Marshal’s banner not a hundred yards away. Jorey was so close she could have walked to him. The banners of the other houses took their places around the perimeter of the city—Caot and Essian and Flor and Broot. The first sign of fire came with the fall of twilight, thin pillars of white smoke rising into the air from one place and another around the exposed belly of the city. And then, with night, the flames.