Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

Geder felt his belly drop. “Are we staying here?” he asked quietly. Jorey Kalliam didn’t answer.

“Lords of Antea,” Ternigan said, his voice echoing through the square not quite so loudly as it might have. The Lord Marshal appeared to be coming down with a cold. “I thank you all in the name of King Simeon. Through your valor, the empire has been made again secure. It is my decision that we return now to Camnipol with the tribute which Vanai owes the throne. It’s late in the season, and the march is a long one, I’d rather we didn’t spend all week getting our boots on. I have asked Sir Alan Klin to remain as Protector of Vanai until such time as King Simeon names a permanent governor. All of you who followed him in battle will follow him in this as well.”

His orders given, Ternigan nodded to himself and turned his attention to the men seated on the pavement. As he retold the history of Antean claims upon Vanai, justified the occupation in terms of wars and agreements made six hundred years before between dynastic lines and independent parliaments long since dissolved, Geder’s mind stumbled through what had just happened to him.

There would be no return to Camnipol for him, not this season. Possibly not for years. He looked around at the close-built wooden buildings with their steep-pitched roofs crowding the narrow streets, the grand canal where barges and boats made their way through the city and back out to the river, the low grey sky. This wasn’t an exotic adventure any longer. This was where he would live. A thousand half-formed plans for his return to Camnipol, to Rivenhalm, to his father’s hearth fell apart before him.

Ternigan stepped back from the platform’s edge, took a sealed letter from his secretary, and presented it to Alan Klin, Protector of Vanai. Klin stepped forward, opened the letter, and read his charge from the Lord Marshal aloud. Geder shook his head. The despair that grew with every phrase showed him how deeply he’d been anticipating the campaign’s end and his freedom from Alan Klin.

The ache in Geder’s leg throbbed as Klin assured the men of Vanai that he would treat all races with equanimity, that loyalty to Antea would be rewarded and treachery punished swiftly and terribly. The glory of King Simeon in particular and Antea in the large took up the better part of an hour. Even the others in Geder’s cohort were growing restless by the end. Then Klin thanked the Lord Marshal for his service and formally accepted this new charge. His salute was met with a rousing cheer, the men pleased as much that the ceremony had ended as with anything Klin had said. The citizens of Vanai rose to their feet, shaking limbs gone numb and talking among themselves like merchants at a fresh market.

Geder saw mixed reactions among the men of the empire. Some envied Klin and his men their new role. Sir Gospey Allintot was grinning so widely, he seemed to glow. Jorey Kalliam walked away with a thoughtful expression, and Geder struggled to keep up with him.

“We’re exiled,” Geder said when they were away from the greater mass of their companions. “We won the battle, and in return they exiled us just as sure as the damned prince of the city.”

Jorey looked at him with annoyance and pity. “Klin’s been aiming for this from the start,” he said. “This was always what he hoped for.”

“Why?” Geder asked.

“There’s power in being the king’s voice,” Jorey said. “Even in Vanai. And if Klin makes himself useful, when the time comes to trade the city away again, he’ll have a place at that table as well. Excuse me. I have to write to my father.”

“Yes,” Geder said. “I should tell my family too. I don’t know what I’ll say.”

Jorey’s laughter was low and bitter.

“Tell them you didn’t miss the sack after all.”

If there was any question of who among Alan Klin’s men were favored, it was answered when Lord Ternigan left the gates of the city. Klin’s new secretary, the son of an important Timzinae merchant, took Geder from his bed in the infirmary to his new home: three small rooms in a minor palace that had been storage and still smelled of rat piss. Still, there was a small hearth, and the winds didn’t blow through the walls the way they had in his tent.

Each day brought Geder a new order from Lord Klin. A channel gate that was to be locked and disabled, a marketplace in which each of the merchants was to pay for an Antean permit to continue their businesses, a loyalist of the deposed prince to be taken to the jail cells as an example to others. It might be common soldiers who announced the demands and enforced their execution, but a nobleman’s presence was required; a face to show that the aristocracy of Antea was present and involved with the business of its new city. And given the tasks assigned him, Geder suspected that he’d be the most hated man in Vanai before the winter passed.

Closing a popular brothel? Geder led the force. Turning the widow and children of a loyalist out of their hovel? Geder. Arresting a prominent member of the local merchant class?

“May I ask the charge?” said Magister Imaniel of the Medean bank in Vanai.

“I’m sorry,” Geder said. “I’m ordered to bring you before the Lord Protector, willing or no.”

“Ordered,” the small man said sourly. “And parading me through the street in chains?”

“Part of my instructions. I’m sorry.”

The house of the Medean bank in Vanai was in a side street, and little larger than a well-to-do family’s home. Even so, it seemed somehow bare. Only the small, sun-worn magister and a single well-fed woman wringing her hands in the doorway. Magister Imaniel rose from the table, considered the soldiers standing behind Geder, and then adjusted his tunic.

“I don’t imagine you know when I’ll be able to return to my work,” he said.

“I’m not told,” Geder said.

“You can’t do this,” the woman said. “We’ve done nothing against you.”

“Cam,” the banker said sharply. “Don’t. This is only business, I’m sure. Tell anyone that asks there’s been a mistake, and I’m speaking with the very noble Lord Protector to correct it.”

The woman—Cam—bit her lips and looked away. Magister Imaniel walked quietly to stand before Geder and bowed.

“I don’t suppose we can overlook the chains?” he asked. “My work depends to a great wise on reputation, and…”

“I’m very sorry,” Geder said, “but Lord Klin gave—”

“Orders,” the banker said. “I understand. Let’s be done with this, then.”

A crowd had gathered on the street, word of Geder’s appearance at the house traveling, it seemed, faster than the birds could fly. Geder walked in the middle of his guardsmen, the prisoner in his clinking iron just behind him. When he looked back, the man’s leathery face was a mask of amusement and indulgence. Geder couldn’t say if the man’s fearlessness was an act or genuine. All along their route past the canals and down the streets, faces turned to see the banker in chains. Geder marched, his walking stick tapping resolutely against the streets. He kept his expression sober, to hide the fact that he didn’t know why he was doing the things he did. He had no doubt that by morning the whole city would know he had taken the man in. That it was clearly Klin’s intention didn’t reassure him.

Sir Alan Klin met them in the wide chamber that had once been the prince’s audience hall. All signs of the former government were gone or else covered over by the Antean banners of King Simeon and House Klin. The air smelled of smoke, rain, and wet dogs. Sir Alan rose, smiling, from his table.

“Magister Imaniel of the Medean bank?”

“The same, Lord Protector,” the banker said with a smile and a bow. His voice was amiable. Geder might almost have thought Klin hadn’t just humiliated the man in front of the city. “It appears I may have given your lordship some offense. I must, of course, apologize. If I might know the nature of my trespass, I will, of course, guard against it in the future.”