“Inys was being killed,” Isadau said.
“And that was a shame,” Marcus said. “Doesn’t make opening the gates a wise choice.”
Barriath raised his hand. “It’s a mistake we won’t make twice. What I want to know is who’s at the head of this.” He turned to face Cithrin. His face was as dark as hers was pale. “I came to you because you were standing against Palliako when no one else had the stones for it. Do you still?”
Cithrin blinked slowly and then laughed. Marcus wondered for the first time whether she might be drunk. “I don’t… know.”
Marcus felt his heart sink. This isn’t the way, he thought. Sit straight. Put your chin out the way Kit and Cary taught you. The worst thing a commander could do in the face of defeat was to show weakness, to let the soldiers doubt that they were on the side fated to win. As he watched, Cithrin sank forward, resting her elbows on the table, pressing her fingers into her hair. All around the table, he saw the others looking away from her. Shark and Chisn Rake exchanged a look that seemed to carry some significance he couldn’t read.
“Of course we do,” Marcus said. “Won’t be the first king I’ve killed.”
“You?” Skestinin barked. “The threadbare mercenary? You’d be better off with the bank girl, Barriath. At least she knows her limits.”
“Do you have a plan, Captain?” Barriath asked.
Marcus nodded, his mind reaching in half a dozen directions at once. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about their options, but he hadn’t been expected to take the role of commander. The world had a poor history of meeting his expectations.
“The dragon’s still central, but more for his mind than his use in the field. Especially now that we know Antea’s got weapons designed against him, we can’t risk him in the battle. Barriath’s right that the Antean army’s fragile. They’ve got the priests, but those are going to be less and less an advantage the more people know what they are and find ways to get past their powers. What we need now is… well, is an army.”
“Thin on the ground, those,” Chisn Rake said.
“He’ll find one,” Yardem said.
“What? Pull one out of his asshole, will he?”
“Doubt that,” Yardem said, “but he’ll find one somewhere.”
“Blinded by faith,” the old Tralgu spat. “All you priest-caste are the same.”
“I’m fallen,” Yardem said pleasantly.
“Short-term,” Marcus said, “is we can’t stay on the water forever. Especially with Inys tipping the roundship like a raft every time he twitches in his sleep. We need to fall back, gather up allies, and make sure the Anteans aren’t biting our heels the whole way.”
“Does the bank still back us?” Barriath asked, turning again to Cithrin. She seemed not to have heard the question. Her pale eyes fixed on nothing. Magistra Isadau answered in her place.
“It has no choice. Cithrin and I acted against the army directly in Suddapal and again in Porte Oliva. Callon Cane’s bounty system was funded by the holding company, and if that’s not known yet, it will be. Especially if they capture Pyk Usterhall alive.”
“Not sure of that,” Marcus said. “Pyk can’t lie to them, but she’s stubborn as old wood. They may get less information from her than they expect.” He turned to Skestinin. “You know, now you’ve heard all this, we’ll have to kill you rather than let you loose.”
“That was true the moment you attacked my ship,” Skestinin said. “And your Cinnae master guaranteed my safety.”
“All fairness, sir,” Yardem said, “that was only from the beach to the city. This may call for a renegotiation.”
“Skestinin’s under my protection,” Barriath said. “He’s not at issue. Callon Cane. Will Jorey come after him next?”
“Hard to do, seeing as he’s a fairy tale,” Marcus said.
Isadau tapped the tabletop with her fingers. “Herez disbanded the bounty board. I’d say they, at least, believe that the Anteans may track Cane down next.”
“Perhaps we want them to,” Barriath said, drawing the words out slowly. “If Callon Cane took shelter in some other city… and if there was reason for Jorey to think your mythical ally knew where Cithrin had gone to ground…”
“You’re thinking we could wear them down by running the army up against some more enemies?” Marcus asked. “Not a bad thought.”
“Serve Birancour right if you put them in Sara-sur-Mar,” Isadau said, bitterness in her voice.
Barriath laughed. “All right, then. Sara-sur-Mar. If Jorey wants to fight Birancour, let’s have him fight the whole damned kingdom and not just the one city they threw to the dogs.”
“Not sure how we do that,” Marcus said.
“You took the bank’s hoard,” Barriath said. “Give me enough to make a few payments. I’ll play the role.”
Marcus frowned. “You’d do that? Become Callon Cane?”
“Geder Palliako killed my father in front of me,” Barriath said. “I’ll do more than this to see him burn. Question is, where are you going while I distract my brothers? Do you have any allies left you can rally to the cause?”
“Stollbourne,” Isadau said. “The bank has a branch there, and Narinisle’s across the Thin Sea. So long as we have the fleet, Palliako’s forces won’t be able to cross to us. We can be safe there while Inys heals.”
“Plus which,” Chisn Rake said, “there’s more ships there that know the blue-water trade.”
Marcus shook his head. “It’s not a place I’d pick to draw up a land army, and I’m not sure that strategies built around the dragon are the best we can make,” he said, “but as safe harbors go, there’s not better.”
“Right, then,” Barriath said. “I’ll draw off the hunt in Sara-sur-Mar. The rest of the ships sail for Stollbourne. And once we’ve broken them and raised an army of our own, we march it down Palliako’s throat, take Camnipol back, and string that bastard up by his own guts.”
“Do we?” Cithrin asked. “Is that why we’re doing this?”
Marcus cursed under his breath. She was drunk.
“What other reason would we have?” Barriath asked. His voice was sharp, and Cithrin shied away from it.
The meeting went on through the afternoon as they hashed through details. Barriath, Chisn Rake, and Shark had a long, contentious argument over who would lead the fleet in Barriath’s absence and how to keep the pirates—never well known for loyalty—from turning to mutiny in the same hour that Barriath stepped off the boat. Isadau, Marcus, and Yardem composed a letter to be sent ahead by a single fast ship to apprise the Stollbourne branch of the bank of their plans, and Isadau scratched out a draft in the bank’s private cipher. Through it all, two figures remained silent. Lord Skestinin listened carefully and struggled, Marcus thought, with some concern of his own. And Cithrin sat as if the conversation all around her wasn’t happening and she were alone with the sound of the water lapping at the ship and the creaking of the boards.
Geder
The wind that threw itself across Camnipol the day of the grand audience didn’t rise quite to the level of a storm. The cloaks of the men and women in the street flapped and fluttered, pressed tight against their bodies on one side and streamed away on the other. High, thin clouds formed and were ripped apart and formed again. Moaning and whistling and dust filled the air. Worst, through some terrible accident of angle and flow, the stink of the midden in the depths of the Division was pulled up into the high city streets. Geder couldn’t take a breath without smelling rot and corruption, and even great billowing clouds of incense in the audience hall only covered it over. Sometimes the reek was so thick it seemed less a scent than a taste.
Geder sat the Severed Throne, the crown of the regent on his brows, and huddled in his cloak. His head ached. The short walk from the Kingspire to the hall had felt like a punishment. The great hall itself, wide and tall and muttering now with the voice of the wind, had impressed him as stately and grand once. Today it was a metaphor of hollowness expressed as architecture. The Severed Throne was a chair with more history than cushioning, and the mass of bodies in their cloth-of-gold and worked jewels were actually all the same people he saw at feasts and balls and council meetings, except with the ones he cared for best absent. Jorey. Basrahip.