Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

For a horrible moment, he thought the voice was Clara’s, but the years had trained him to pick her sounds out from any others, and these sobs were not hers. Quietly, he tracked the weeping and, as he drew nearer, Clara’s soothing voice to a sitting chamber where the long-dead concubine had once taken her ease. Now Clara sat there on a low divan, her cousin Phelia—Baroness of Ebbinbaugh and wife of the hated Feldin Maas—sitting on the floor before her, her head resting in Clara’s lap. Dawson met his wife’s gaze, and Clara shook her head without a pause in her soft litany of comfort. Dawson stepped back. He went to the private study to smoke his pipe, drink whiskey, and work on a poem he’d started composing until Clara came, an hour later, and dropped herself unceremoniously into his lap.

“Poor Phelia,” she sighed.

“Domestic trouble?” Dawson asked, stroking his wife’s hair. She plucked the pipe from his mouth and drew a deep lungful herself.

“It seems my husband is making her husband terribly unhappy,” she said.

“Her husband is trying to kill yours.”

“I know, but it hardly seems polite to point it out when the poor thing’s broken down in front of me. Besides which, you’re winning, aren’t you? I can hardly see her asking mercy if the warm winds were blowing on Ebbinbaugh.”

“Asking mercy was she?”

“Not in so many words,” Clara said, relinquishing Dawson’s lap but not his pipe. “But she wouldn’t, would she? Terribly rude, and I’m fairly certain Feldin didn’t know she’d come, so don’t start figuring her into all your calculations and intrigues. Sometimes a frightened woman is only a frightened woman.”

“And still, I don’t plan to make her days any better,” Dawson said. Clara shrugged and looked away. When he spoke next his tone was less playful. “I’m sorry about it. For you and for her. If that helps.”

For a long moment, Clara was silent, sipping smoke from his pipe. In the dim light, she looked younger than she was.

“Our worlds are growing apart, husband,” Clara said. “Yours and mine. Your little wars, my peaces. War is winning out.”

“There’s a time for war,” Dawson said.

“I suppose,” she said. “I… suppose. Still, remember that wars end. Try to be sure that there’s something worth having at the other end. Not all your enemies are your enemies.”

“That’s nonsense, love.”

“No it isn’t,” she said. “It’s just not how you see the world. Phelia’s no part of whatever you and Feldin hate in each other any more than I am. But she’s at stake, as am I and our children. Phelia is your enemy because she has to be, not because she chose it. And when the end comes, remember that a great number of the people on the other side have lost a great deal and didn’t pick the fight.”

“Would you have me stop?” he asked.

Clara laughed, a deep, purring sound. The smoke rose from her mouth, curling in the candlelight.

“Shall I ask the sun not to set while I’m at it?”

“For you, I would,” Dawson said.

“For me, you would try, and you’d batter yourself to nothing in the attempt,” she said. “No, do what you think needs doing. And think about how you would want Feldin to treat me, if he won.”

Dawson bowed his head. Around them, the beams and stones settled in the winter cold, popping and muttering to themselves. When he looked up again, her gaze was on him.

“I will try,” he said. “And if I forget…?”

“I’ll remind you, love,” Clara said. “It’s what I do.”

The feast that night began an hour before sunset and was to last until all the candles had burned themselves out. Lord Ternigan sat at the high table with his wife and brother. Simeon sat at the far end, Aster beside him in red velvet and cloth-of-gold looking embarrassed whenever Lady Ternigan spoke to him. The rider who’d taken top honors in the hunt—the half-Jasuru son of a noble family from Sarakal who was traveling in Antea for God knew what reason—joined them, nodding at everything and contributing nothing.

The best tapestries of Ternigan’s collection hung on the walls, beeswax candles burned in holders of sculpted crystal, and the dogs that lurked around the tables wore cloths on their backs in the colors of every noble house in Antea as a bit of levity to brighten the night. Dawson sat at the second table, near enough to hear what was said, and at the far end of the table with only five people between them, Feldin Maas. Ternigan once again evenhandedly marking that his allegiance was negotiable as a whore’s virtue. Phelia Maas sat her husband’s side stealing watery glances at Dawson. He ate his soup. It had too much salt, not enough lemon, and the fish still had bones in it.

“Lovely soup,” Clara said. “I remember my aunt—not your mother, Phelia, dear, Aunt Estrir who married that awful fop from Birancour—saying that the best thing for river fish is lemon zest.”

“I remember her,” Phelia said, clutching at the connection almost desperately. “She came back for my wedding, and she affected that terrible accent.”

Clara laughed, and for a moment things might almost have been at ease.

Behind Dawson, King Simeon cleared his throat. Dawson couldn’t say what about the sound caught him, but the hair on the back of his neck rose. From the pinched, bloodless lips and the wineglass trapped halfway between table and mouth, it was clear Feldin Maas had heard it too.

“All of this is tribute from your man in Vanai?” Simeon asked with a forced casualness.

“No, Majesty. Most has been in my family for years.”

“Ah, good. That squares better with what I’d heard about Klin and his taxes. For a moment, I thought you’d been holding out on me.”

Maas’s face went pale. He lowered the wineglass to the table. Dawson took a bite of fish and decided that perhaps Clara was right. The lemon did add something to it. King Simeon had just joked that Klin’s gifts from the conquered city wouldn’t be enough to decorate a feast. The tone was light, the only response was laughter, and Sir Alan Klin would be back in Antea by the thaw.

“I hope you’ll excuse me,” Dawson said. “Nature.”

“We understand,” Feldin Maas said, biting the words. “Every bladder gets weak with age.”

Dawson spread his hands in a gesture that could be read as an acknowledgment of the jest or as a provocation. Do your worst, little man. Do your worst.

By the time Dawson reached the edge of the feasting hall, Coe was silently walking behind him. In the wide stone hallway that led to the private retiring rooms, Dawson stopped and Coe stopped with him. It wasn’t long before Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch, appeared, silhouetted by the light from the feast.

“Well,” Daskellin said.

“Yes,” Dawson said.

“Come with me,” Daskellin said. Together the two men walked to a private retiring room. Coe didn’t remain behind, but he gave a greater distance between himself and his betters. Dawson wondered what would happen if he ordered Coe away. On one hand, the huntsman could hardly refuse. On the other, strictly speaking, Coe answered to Clara. Awkward position for the man. Dawson’s mischievous spirit was tempted to try it and see which way the huntsman jumped, but Canl Daskellin spoke and brought his mind back to other matters.

“I’ve managed to catch Ternigan’s ear. His loyalty’s with us.”

“Until the tide turns,” Dawson said.

“Yes, and so we need to act quickly. I believe we can call the candidate for Klin’s replacement. But…”

“I know.”

“I’ve spoken with our friends in Camnipol. Count Hiren would have been the consensus choice if he’d lived.”

“Issandrian’s cousin? What did they like about him,” Dawson said.