“Lord Regent,” Daskellin said, rising as Geder entered. Skestinin also took his feet. Geder waved them back down.
“No need for formalities,” he said. “We’ve all known each other long enough to dispense with that, I think.”
“As you wish, Lord Regent,” Skestinin said.
“Where do we stand?” Geder asked. The men were silent, each seeming to look to the others to speak first. Geder chuckled. “What is it? Is there a problem?”
“I’m worried,” Jorey said. “The problem is that I’m worried.”
“Don’t be,” Geder said. “I know this is your first large command, but—”
“Not about that, actually,” Jorey said. “We have several issues we need to address, and from the reports I’ve had from Elassae…”
“I don’t understand,” Geder said, folding his arms.
“Lord Regent,” Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch, said. “The army is exhausted, and it is stretched thin. These are the same men who three years ago were expected to defend and expand Antea. Now they are defending Antea, Asterilhold, Sarakal, and the vast majority of Elassae. They’ve faced Feldin Maas’s treason and Dawson Kalliam’s revolt.”
Geder glanced over at Jorey, but the new Lord Marshal didn’t flinch at the mention of his father’s name. That was good. Geder was still afraid that Jorey would blame himself for the elder Kalliam’s failures.
“And now a winter siege at Kiaria and the betrayal of yet another commander,” Daskellin continued. “Last summer, we thought they would get as far as Nus and perhaps a bit more. Instead, they took Nus and Inentai and Suddapal.”
“And,” Jorey said. The word hung in the air for a moment as he unfurled a wide parchment scroll. “Here are the dragon’s roads that we control. It seems to me the greatest threat we’re facing now comes from the east. The Keshet has no leaders to speak of, but they’ve got more nomadic princes than we have pigeons in the Division. Inentai’s been the easternmost city of Sarakal for a hundred years, but before that it was the westernmost outpost of the Keshet. There will be raids, and the local forces that used to stave them off are dead or broken, because of us.”
“Also the traditional families of Sarakal had ties of marriage and blood with some of the houses of Borja,” Daskellin said, pointing to the map. “The siege at Kiaria isn’t complete, and we have a very long, poorly defended border along the eastern edge of the empire. To the west… the Free Cities are walking on glass and hoping we don’t think of them. All the kingdoms along the Outer Sea have been friendly at best and quiet at worst. Narinisle, Northcoast, Herez, Princip C’Annaldé, Cabral. They’re well armed, well reinforced. They have relatively few Timzinae, and they wish us no ill.”
“What makes sense,” Jorey said, an apology in his tone, “is to rest any men who aren’t actively in the siege in Inentai. Rotate them out to Kiaria once they have their strength back. Once Kiaria falls, we’ll have broken the Timzinae plot against Antea. We’ll have won.”
Minister Basrahip cleared his throat and turned to Geder. His smile remained mused. “Fight where you will. The goddess will protect you.”
“It’s not loss that I’m worried about,” Jorey said, a bit sharply. “It’s the price of winning.”
Geder looked at the map, scowling. There was a time when he had seen maps as something almost holy: here was the world translated into a form that could fit on a table or in a room. Now he had to struggle to see it as more than ink on parchment. Everything his advisors said could be true, and it wouldn’t matter. Not really.
“What about Birancour?” he said.
“It would be very, very difficult to field an army there,” Jorey said, and the words had the careful precision of practice. Jorey knew what Geder wanted. It was what he was straining against. “The south route would mean marching through the Free Cities and either the pass at Bellin or south along the coast where there aren’t any dragon’s roads. The north path means going through the full length of Northcoast.”
“King Tracian won’t pick a fight with us,” Daskellin said, “but he won’t let us march an army through his country any more than we’d let him through ours.”
Geder put his fingertip on the map, on the southern coast of Birancour where the mountain range ended. A black smudge of ink represented Porte Oliva. His throat thickened and he had to fight to keep his voice from trembling. I am the Lord Regent and the hero of Antea, he thought. I get to demand this.
“She’s there,” he said. “So that’s where we’re going. The goddess is with us. We’ll win. It’ll be all right.”
Jorey nodded. He had to have known. When he met Geder’s gaze he looked old. Tired. It was like he’d already spent his season in the field. “We’ll want to send the fleet from Nus. We can blockade Sara-sur-Mar, Porte Silena, and Porte Oliva. We can strangle their ports without having to march through anyone else’s cities. The queen of Birancour’s an old woman. She won’t want the trouble. When she sues for peace, we can turn her into a friend and have her turn any enemy forces in her territory over to us. And this Callon Cane in Herez? Putting the fleet so close to him will likely put him to flight too.”
Geder looked down at the map. Cithrin sneered. Did you think I hadn’t considered this? All of this? You can’t reach me here. I’m safe from you, and there is nothing you can do about it, you sad, sick little child. Geder’s fist clenched without his willing it, crumpling the parchment in his fingers. Lord Skestinin’s voice was low and reassuring.
“With the capture of Suddapal and the ships in her port, we have a modest fleet already in the Inner Sea. The roundships are ready to go and reinforce them at your word. We can keep the trade ships from Narinisle from reaching port. That alone will make the locals ready to tie the bitch up by her thumbs.”
“If we can rest the men,” Jorey said, “just for a few weeks—”
“We have to go to Porte Oliva,” Geder said. “There isn’t anyplace else.”
Jorey nodded as if he’d understood. And maybe he really had.
“I’ll bring her to you,” he said, then coughed out a single, mirthless chuckle. “Granted, I don’t know quite how, but I’ll find a way, and I will bring her to you. If that’s your command.”
“Do you promise?” Geder asked.
“I promise,” Jorey said. “But once I do, will you let the men rest?”
“Of course,” Geder said. “Lord Skestinin? As Lord Regent of Antea and on the advice of the Lord Marshal, you will prepare the fleet to blockade the ports of Birancour until such time as Cithrin bel Sarcour is handed over to us for her crimes against the empire.”
“Yes, Lord Regent,” Skestinin said.
“Lord Marshal,” Geder said, “You will take command of the troops in Elassae and lead them to Porte Oliva by whatever path you think best.”
“Yes, Lord Regent,” Jorey said. And then a moment later, “I will do the best I can.”
In Geder’s mind, Cithrin lifted an eyebrow. Her smile was cruel and cold, and contempt flowed off of her like cold radiating from ice. She put her palm to her mouth, her shoulders trembling with merriment, and Geder felt the answering rage rising in his throat.
You don’t get to laugh at me.
Clara
Clara sat perfectly still by the fire, her shoulders aching with the tension of fear held rigidly in check. On the divan, her son and daughter took a mild kind of pleasure in stripping her already fragile sense of safety to its bones.
“I had fish for dinner last night,” Elisia said.
The winter months had been kind to her. The cheeks that had lost the plumpness of youth were at least not gaunt, and there was a rosiness to her cheeks that spoke of something more than rouge.