Her heart leapt at the idea. It wouldn’t be her fault. The guards had turned her away. What could she have done? But, of course, the answer would be obvious. And so she did the obvious.
“Find him or his daughter,” Cithrin said. “Tell them Magistra Cithrin bel Sarcour of the Porte Oliva branch has come with news of the war. And that I have a document that they will be very interested in seeing.”
Geder
Every day brought more bad news from every corner of the empire. The raids in Inentai were escalating, and the enemy had come to recognize the power of the priests. They’d started to bring huge drums that drowned out even the greatest speaking trumpets the spider goddesses’ priests could devise. The second army, as Mecelli had come to call the scraping of loyal Antean sword-and-bows from Nus and Suddapal, were calling the enemy the Children of Thunder. Morale, the reports said, was still high despite the loss of life and the success of the raiders. He could not promise how long that would remain the case.
In Elassae, Fallon Broot had taken the fight to the enemy, defeating the Timzinae in battle after battle, but thus far none had been decisive. He was coming to the conclusion that rather than a genuine campaign, the enemy was trying to draw him farther and farther from Suddapal. He was splitting the small force he had, sending the foot soldiers back to the city where, with the priests to aid them, he hoped they would dig out the roots of insurrection there before the force from Kiaria and the rebellious elements in Suddapal could coordinate. He himself would remain in the field to balance continuing attacks on the Timzinae army with the reestablished siege on the mountain fortress of Kiaria.
Jorey Kalliam and the main army were tracking north in Birancour, moving toward the apparent new stronghold of Callon Cane in Sara-sur-Mar in hopes that by killing or capturing the man, he could find out where Cithrin, the dragon, and the shadowy leaders of the Timzinae conspiracy had fled after Porte Oliva.
The farms throughout the empire were coming near to harvest, but the work of the newly enslaved Timzinae from Sarakal and Elassae had not been as useful as the same work by experienced and free farmers. It might have been because the slaves were reluctant to work for the kingdom that had broken their homes and had their children hostage in the prisons of Camnipol, or it might have been that they didn’t have any experience working farms. Likely, it was something of both. Whatever the causes, the harvest would be thinner than Geder had anticipated. Not starving thin, and so better than the year before, but not as good as he had hoped. Dar Cinlama and the other searchers in the empty places of the world had either found nothing—Korl Essian’s forces in the north of Lyoneia and Cinlama himself—or had stopped sending reports—Emmun Siu in Borja and Bulger Shoal in Herez.
More troubling than any of it was the silence from Kaltfel. It had once been the heart of Asterilhold, and the first city to fall under the sway of the empire when that kingdom fell. It was closer to Camnipol than Estinport or Kavinpol, connected directly by dragon’s roads. It had practically been an Antean city even when it had been under King Lechan’s rule. And of Basrahip and the apostate there, no news at all had come.
“If it were mine to do,” Canl Daskellin said, “I’d look at drawing in.”
The garden was cool around them. A fountain chuckled and muttered, sheeting water down the bodies of twelve of the thirteen races worked in dragon’s jade. Only the Timzinae were not numbered among them, and Geder assumed it meant the statues were even older than the false race. Or that the sculptor had understood that the Timzinae were not, in fact, human as the other races were. Either way, he liked the fountain. The trees around them still sported their summer green, their leaves wide and lush and blocking all but the smallest dapples of sunlight. It would not be many more weeks before the green began to retreat and the yellow and red of autumn took its place.
The seasons were turning again, and the war was not over. Geder felt the pressure of it like a hand laid at the back of his neck.
“Drawing in,” he said. “And what would that look like?”
“Abandon Inentai, for one,” Daskellin said. “It’s rubbing up against Borja and the Keshet. It’s already bleeding us more than it gives back. Split the forces there between Suddapal and Nus, at least for the winter. If it falls to the raiders, we can take it back in the spring.”
Cyr Emming snorted and shook his head. “It controls the dragon’s road between Sarakal and Elassae,” he said. “Let Inentai go, and not only do you have a mountain range keeping your forces in Nus and Suddapal apart, but you’ve got a toehold for an enemy to strike north or south at will.”
“Well, Porte Oliva, then,” Daskellin said. “It’s the farthest there is. Cithrin’s not there. Her bank’s not there. We have other ports in the south. We don’t gain very much by having it, and even sending messages to it is hard now. Once the pass at Bellin closes for the winter, it’ll be even worse.”
“They won’t fall,” Geder said.
“My lord?” Daskellin said.
“They have temples in them. All of them do. And as long as they have temples, they won’t fall. Basrahip said so, and he’s been right about everything up to now. I say we trust him. Keep to the plans we have. They’ve gotten us this far. The danger now is that we break faith. As long as we don’t do that, everything’s going to be fine.”
Emming nodded, and a moment later, Daskellin did as well.
“It’ll be fine,” Geder said.
Basrahip returned in the middle of the night, and without fanfare. Geder woke in the morning and went through his daily rituals of bathing and dressing himself to the point that the body servants wouldn’t see him naked, then putting up with their ministrations. He went to break the night’s fast at the table in the royal quarters. Aster and Basrahip were both sitting already, slabs of beef and bowls of peppers and honey before them, drinking tea and talking.
The huge priest looked profoundly changed. His dark hair had a dusty look and his cheeks were sunken. Even his hands seemed thinner. His left cheek was marked by a deep bruise that began, almost black, at his cheekbone and flowed down grey and green and yellow almost to his chin. The smile he greeted Geder with was beatific.
“Prince Geder!” Basrahip said, rising to his feet. “I bring glorious news.”
“You’re back,” Geder said, aware as he did how inane the words seemed. Of course Basrahip was back. He knew he was back. But just because it was obvious didn’t keep it from seeming the most important thing happening.
“I am,” Basrahip said. “Sit, Prince Geder. Eat.”
“You didn’t send reports,” Geder said, doing as the priest said. “I was worried things were going badly. Thing didn’t go badly?”
“Reports,” Basrahip said, waving a dismissive hand. “Binding ink onto paper is the death of meaning. It pretends to be words, but it is a stone. A bit of wood. A thing without a soul. The work in Kaltfel is too glorious for such blasphemy.”
“I’ve had reports from other places,” Geder said. “All sorts of them. Some days it’s felt like I do nothing but read notes and letters from places where things are actually happening.”
Basrahip grinned and pointed a thumb at Geder as if he’d just agreed with the priest. “And I have come now with my living voice. There is the difference. In these other places, you have death. Killed words that are neither true nor false. It weakens you. Fills you with despair, yes?”
“Some days,” Geder said, trying to make a joke of it.
Basrahip took a plate, spooned peppers and meat onto it, and handed it to Geder. The familiarity and intimacy of it left Geder feeling as if they were just old friends—the kind that made a sort of family—rejoined after too long an absence. That he was the guiding hand of the empire and Basrahip his most trusted advisor fell away, and for a moment he was only Geder and the priest was just the man he knew he could trust.