Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

The Silver Bridge spanned the Division from the Kingspire to the noble quarter that topped the western face. The ancient stone rested on a span of dragon’s jade no thicker than a hand’s width, and permanent as the sun or the sea. Dawson rode in a small horse-drawn carriage, eschewing the newer tradition of being pulled by slaves. The wheels rattled and flocks of pigeons flogged the air below him. He leaned out his window, looking down through the strata of ruins and stone that made the Division’s walls. He’d heard it said that the lowest of the ancient buildings, down in the huge midden at the great canyon’s base, were older than the dragons themselves. Camnipol, the eternal city. His city, at the heart of his nation and his race. Apart from his family, Dawson loved nothing better.

And then he had crossed the great span of air, and the driver turned into his narrow private square. His mansion rose up, its clean, sweeping lines elegant free of the gaudy filigree with which upstarts like Feldin Maas, Alan Klin, and Curtin Issandrian tarted up their homes. His home was classic and elegant, and it looked out over the void to the Kingspire and the wide plain beyond it, the noblest house in the city, barring perhaps Lord Bannien of Estinford’s estate.

His servants brought out the steps, and Dawson waved away the offered hands as he always did. It was their duty to offer, and his dignity required that he refuse. The ritual was the important thing. The door slave, an old Tralgu with light brown skin and silver hair at the tips of his ears, stood by the entryway. A silver chain bound him to the black marble column.

“Welcome home, my lord,” the slave said. “A letter has come from your son.”

“Which son?”

“Jorey, my lord.”

Dawson felt a twist in his gut. Had it been from one of his other children, he could have read the news with unalloyed pleasure, but a letter from Jorey was a letter from the loathed Vanai campaign. With trepidation, he held out his hand. The door slave turned his head toward the door.

“Your lady wife has it, my lord.”

The interior of the mansion was dark tapestry and bright crystal. His dogs bounded down the stairway yipping with excitement; five wolfhounds with shining grey fur and teeth of ivory. Dawson scratched their ears, patted their sides, and walked back to the solarium and his wife.

The glass room was a consolation he gave his Clara. It spoiled the lines of the building on the north side, but she could cultivate the pansies and violets that grew in the hills of Osterling. The reminder of home made her more nearly content during the seasons in Camnipol, and she kept the house smelling of violets all through the winter. She sat now in a deep chair, a small desk at her side, the tables of dark blooms arrayed around her like soldiers on parade. She looked up at the sound of his steps and smiled.

Clara had always been perfect. If the years had taken some of the rose from her cheeks, if her black hair was shot with white, he could still see the girl she had been. There had been rarer beauties and sharper poets when Dawson’s father had chosen the womb that would carry his grandchildren. But instead he had picked Clara, and it had taken Dawson no time at all to appreciate the wisdom of that choice. She was good at heart. She might have been a paragon in all other things, but if she had not been good, those other virtues would have turned to ash. Dawson leaned down, kissing her lips as he always did. It was a ritual like refusing the footman’s help and scratching the hounds’ ears. It gave life meaning.

“We’ve heard from Jorey?” he said.

“Yes,” she said. “He’s fine. He’s having a wonderful time in the field. His captain is Adria Klin’s boy Alan. He says they’re getting along quite nicely.”

Dawson leaned against a flower table, arms crossed. The twinge in his belly grew worse. Klin. Another of Feldin Maas’s cabal. It had been like a bone in the throat when the king had placed Jorey under the man, and it still brought a little taste of anger thinking of it.

“Oh, and he says he’s serving with Geder Palliako, but that can’t be right, can it? Isn’t that the strange little pudgy man with the enthusiasm for maps and comic rhyme?”

“You’re thinking of Lerer Palliako. Geder’s his son.”

“Oh,” Clara said with a wave of her hand. “That makes much more sense, because I couldn’t see him going out in the field again at his age. I think we’re all well beyond that. And then Jorey also wrote a long passage about horses and plums that’s clearly some sort of coded message for you that I couldn’t make head or tail of.”

After a moment’s rooting through the folds of her dress, she held out the folded paper.

“Did you win your little fight?” she asked.

“I did.”

“And did that awful man apologize?”

“Better than that, dear. He lost.”

Jorey’s script dotted the pages like well-regulated bird scratches, neat and sloppy at the same time. Dawson skimmed through the opening paragraphs. A few bluff comments about the rigors of the march, an arch comment about Alan Klin that Clara had either not seen or chosen to misunderstand, a brief passage about the Palliako boy who was apparently something of the company joke. And then the important part. He read it carefully, parsing each phrase, picking out the words he and his son had chosen to represent certain key players and strategems. There aren’t any windfall plums this year. Meaning Sir Klin was not the client of Lord Ternigan. Klin took his orders because Lord Ternigan was marshal of the army and not through any particular political alliance. That was useful information to know. My own horse is in real danger of developing a limp on his right side. Horse, not mount. Limp, not lameness. Right side, not left. So Klin’s company was favored to remain in conquered Vanai, and Klin himself the likely temporary governor. Ternigan wasn’t planning to take rule of the city on himself. All the more important, then, that the army stall.

Only stall, of course. Not fail. Never fail. Everything would be in place, if Ternigan’s forces could just withhold victory for a season. That difference between postponement and failure kept his private negotiations with Maccia from crossing the line into treason. As long as the conquest of Vanai was delayed until the spring season, there would be time to get Klin recalled to the court and Jorey put in his place. Governing Vanai would be Jorey’s first step up within the court, and it would take some prestige away from Maas and Klin and their type.

Dawson had worked through the most obscure channels he could, had sent letters to agents in Stollbourne who sent letters to merchants in Birancour who had business in Maccia. Discretion was critical, but he had managed it. Six hundred soldiers would reinforce the free city of Vanai until such time as it was convenient that they not. In spring, they would retreat, Vanai would fall, and by summer Dawson would be drinking with King Simeon and laughing together at his cleverness.

“My lord?”

The servant stood in the solarium’s doorway, bowing his apology. Dawson folded the letter and handed it back to Clara.

“What is it?”

“A visitor, sir. Baron Maas and his wife.”

Dawson snorted, but Clara stood and adjusted her sleeves. Her face took on an almost serene calm, and she smiled at him.

“Now love,” she said. “You’ve had your play at war. Don’t begrudge us our play at peace.”

Objections sprang to mind like dogs after a fox: dueling wasn’t a game, it was honor; Maas had earned the scar and the humiliation that went with it; receiving him now was empty etiquette, and on and on. Clara hoisted an eyebrow and canted her head to the side. All his bluster drained away. He laughed.