Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

“So that when the big men from Carse swoop down here, they’ll find it all more or less intact,” Marcus said. “She can hand it over to them, wash her hands, and there’s no harm done.”

“That’s the plan,” Yardem said carefully.

“Do you see her handing it back to them?”

Yardem stretched his long, thick arms, turning to look at the open brewery as if he were bored and it was in the way. Marcus waited in silence, hoping that the Tralgu would disagree and expecting that he wouldn’t.

“She’s going to try to keep it,” Yardem said.

“She doesn’t know she’s thinking about it, but yes,” Marcus said. “She’s good at this. Maybe very good. And she’s not the kind of girl who stops when she likes something too much.”

Yardem nodded slowly.

“How’s she going to do it?” he asked.

Marcus sipped his ale, washing his mouth with it, then spat it onto the courtyard stones. A dozen pigeons lifted off from the rooftop, spinning across the wide blue overhead.

“I don’t understand half of what she’s doing now,” he said. “Do you?”

“No.”

“I don’t know what she’ll try. Likely she doesn’t either. But when she sees it, she’s going to reach for it. Whether it’s a good idea or not.”

The days that followed Geder’s return to Camnipol flowed around him like river water around a stone. Gatherings at the houses of the highest families in Antea filled his days, celebrations for his own victory in Vanai and for the coming anniversary of Prince Aster’s naming took the nights. Almost the day after his unexpected revel, he began seeing black leather cloaks the image of his own appearing among the brightly dyed fashions of the court. Men who had never bothered to cultivate a connection to House Palliako had begun calling on him. If his father seemed put off by the attention, that was understandable. Changes that came suddenly could feel catastrophic even when they were changes for the better.

The only things that would have made the ripening spring better would have been rooms within the city itself instead of night after night of heading out before the city gates closed and sleeping in his campaign tent and for the nightmares to stop.

“I don’t understand why I shouldn’t order the disband,” Geder said, spreading a spoonful of apple butter over his morning bread. “If I don’t do it soon, Lord Ternigan’s sure to.”

“He doesn’t dare,” Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch, said. “Not until all the foreign swords and bows are safely out of Camnipol.”

“It’s a disgrace,” Marrisin Oesteroth, Earl of Magrifell, said, nodding. “Armed rabble in the streets of Camnipol. And hardly even a Firstblood among them. I don’t know what Curtin Issandrian was thinking, bringing the slave races. Next he’ll be honoring Price Aster with pigs and monkeys.”

Around them, the lesser gardens of House Daskellin glowed in the late morning sun. The golden blossoms of daffodils nodded in the breeze. To the east, the reconstructed stadium loomed, stories tall and painted white and red. The games for the prince were to start the next day, but the preliminary spectacles had been running for days—bear baiting, show fights, archery competition. And with them, a growing tension that reminded Geder of the still, heavy heat of the clear summer day before a storm night.

“Did you smell those Yemmu cunning men?” Odderd Faskellan, Viscount of Escheric and Warden of the White Tower, asked with a snort. “The stink coming off them made my eyes water from the platform. And the Southlings.”

The plain-faced man at Geder’s side—Paerin Clark, he was called, and with no other title given—drank from his cup as if to hide his expression, but the others around them nodded and grunted their agreement and disapproval.

“They fuck their own sisters,” Marrisin Oesteroth said and took a drink of cider. “It’s not their fault that they do. Dragons made them that way. Keep their bloodlines true, just like hunting dogs.”

“Really?” Geder asked. “I read an essay that said that was a myth started by the Idikki Fellowship after the second expulsion. Like Tralgu eating babies, or Dartinae poisoning wells.”

“You’re assuming Tralgu don’t eat babies,” Marrisin Oesteroth said with a laugh, and the others joined in. Including Geder.

The conversation turned to other matters of court: the increasing unrest in Sarakal, the foundering movement to create a farmer’s council, rumors of a second war of succession in Northcoast. Geder listened more than he spoke, but when he did, the men seemed to listen to him. That alone was as intoxicating as the cider. When the last of the food was carried away by the servants, Geder took his leave. There would be another gathering like this tomorrow, and another the day after that. And an informal ball that night, scheduled opposite a feast for King Simeon hosted by Sir Feldin Maas. Geder knew because Alberith Maas had asked grudging permission to attend the feast. Geder had allowed it. The court might be divided, but he assumed it always was. Given the number and quality of people at the gatherings he’d attended, he felt fairly sure that the half that had lifted him up into their number was both larger and more powerful. He could afford to be magnanimous.

The sun shone in the late morning sky, the warmth soaking into Geder’s cloak and leaving his body feeling soft and comfortable. He strolled through the black-cobbled streets, feeling almost as sure of himself as he had during his first days in Vanai. The lowborn man with a long dirty beard saw him coming and scuttled out of his way. A young woman with a beautiful tea-and-milk complexion smiled at him from her slave-drawn carriage. Geder smiled back and watched her turn to watch him as she was borne away. His jaw ached pleasantly from grinning.

The eastern gate of the city was wider than the southern, built beneath a great archway of worked stone that reached almost as high as the Kingspire itself. Horses’ hooves and carriage wheels clattered against the voices of small merchants. The air stank of manure, animals soiling the streets as quickly as prisoners of the petty court could scrape it up. Callers walked under rough wooden signs, announcing whatever news they were paid to repeat: a particular butcher had been soaking his meat in water and selling it by weight, an outbreak of the pox had been traced to a brothel in tanner’s row, a boy had been lost and a reward posted for his return. It was the gossip of any great city, and Geder enjoyed the sound of it without paying attention to the meaning of the words. Every syllable had been paid for, and it was safe to assume most were lies. Geder paused at a stand where a crag-faced Tralgu with a missing leg sold treats of candied lavender and honey stones. When Geder tossed him a coin, the scowling Tralgu caught it overhand, snatching it out of the air.

Outside the walls of Camnipol, the northern plains spread out to the horizon, the green of grass and scrub, but treeless. Anything big enough to burn as firewood had been stripped off the land generations before. What hills there were rose in gentle swells like waves on a calm sea. The camp was scattered just to the east in the shadow of the city. At Jorey Kalliam’s suggestion, Geder had given orders to keep it in order as a military group rather than letting the casual disorder of being home run its course. Despite sitting at Camnipol’s side, the camp had its perimeter, its sentries, its cookfires, and its acting commander. Fallon Broot, Baron of Suderling Heights, rolled toward him as he reentered the camp.

“What news?” Broot asked. “Word yet from Ternigan?”

“Not yet,” Geder said.

“All respect to the man, but there won’t be a good seat left in the stadium if he waits much longer.”