Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

Phelia stood at the top of the front steps. Her dress was purple velvet with silver thread all along the sleeves and collar. It should have been beautiful on her. Clara gave her shawl to the footman and went up to Phelia. Her cousin took her hands and smiled tightly.

“Oh, Clara,” Phelia said. “I can’t say how much I’ve missed you. This has been the most awful year. Please, come in.”

Clara nodded to the door slave. It wasn’t the Dartinae woman she was used to seeing, but a severe-looking Jasuru man. He didn’t nod back. She stepped into the relative cool of the Maas front hall.

“Hey! Stop, you!”

Clara turned, surprised to be addressed in so curt a fashion, only to see that the comment had been directed at Vincen Coe. The Jasuru man was on his feet, his palm against Vincen’s chest. The huntsman had gone unnaturally still.

“He’s with me,” Clara said.

“No one goes in armed,” the door slave growled.

“You can wait here, Vincen.”

“All respect, my lady,” the huntsman said, his gaze still fastened to the Jasuru, “but no.”

Clara put a hand to her cheek. Phelia had gone pale, her hands flitting one way and another like birds.

“Leave your blades, then,” Clara said. And then to her cousin, “I assume we can rely on the rules of hospitality?”

“Of course,” Phelia said. “Yes, of course. Of course you can.”

Vincen Coe stood silent for a moment. Clara had to agree that Phelia would have been more convincing if she hadn’t said it three times over. Vincen’s hands went to his belt, undid the clasp, and handed it with sword and dagger still sheathed to the door slave. The Jasuru took it and nodded him through.

“I believe you’ve lost weight since I saw you last,” Clara said, walking at Phelia’s side. “Are you feeling well?”

Her answering smile was so brittle it cracked at the sides.

“It’s been so hard. Ever since the king sent away Curtin and Alan—and you, of course. Ever since then, it’s all been so hard. Feldin hardly sleeps anymore. I wish all this had never happened.”

“Men,” Clara said, patting Phelia’s arm. The woman shied away, and then, as if realizing she ought not, permitted the touch with a nod. “Dawson’s been beside himself. Really, you’d think the world was ending from the way he chews at every scrap of gossip.”

“I love the king and God knows I’m loyal to the throne,” Phelia said, “but Simeon’s handled this all so badly, hasn’t he? A brawl goes out of hand, and he sends people into exile? It only makes everyone feel there’s something terrible happening. There doesn’t have to be.”

She turned up a wide flight of well-polished black stairs. Clara followed her. From the end of the hall they were leaving, Clara heard men’s voices raised in argument but couldn’t make out the words. One of the voices was Feldin Maas, but while the other seemed familiar, she couldn’t put a name to it. She caught Vincen Coe’s eye and nodded him down the hall.

Go find what you can.

He shook his head once. No.

Clara lifted her eyebrows, but by then they’d reached the landing. Phelia ushered them into the wide sitting room.

“You can wait here,” Clara said at the doorway.

“If you wish, my lady,” Vincen Coe said, and turned to stand with his back to the wall like a guard at his duty and didn’t show the vaguest hint of going back down the stairs to investigate. It was all quite vexing.

The sitting room had been redone in shades of red and gold since the last time Clara had seen it, but it still had the low divan by the window that she preferred. And, like a good hostess, Phelia had a pipe prepared for her. Clara plucked up the bone and hardwood bowl and tamped a bit of tobacco into it.

“I don’t know what to do any longer,” Phelia said, sitting on the divan. She was leaning forward with her hands clasped between her knees like a child. “I tell myself things aren’t so terribly bad, but then I wake up in the dark of the night and I can’t get back to sleep. Feldin’s never there. He comes to bed with me, but as soon as I’m asleep he goes back to his letters and his meetings.”

“These are hard times,” Clara said. She lit the pipe from a thin silver candle set there for the purpose and drew in the smoke.

“Curtin was going to take the prince on as his ward, you know. But now that he’s gone, everyone’s been scrambling. I think… I think Feldin may be named. I may be helping to raise a prince.” Phelia giggled. “Can you imagine me raising a prince?”

“Aster’s a boy,” Clara said. “I’ve had three of them. One doesn’t raise boys so much as try to keep fragile things out of their reach.”

“Men aren’t any different,” Phelia said. “They never think about what might break.”

Clara sucked on the stem of the pipe and blew out a cloud of sweet grey smoke before she spoke.

“That is the issue, isn’t it? We have a problem, and it’s spilled over from our court into Northcoast and Asterilhold. Sarakal and Hallskar are likely taking notice as well.”

“I know it.”

“Well then, dear,” Clara said, keeping her voice light, “how shall we solve it?”

“I don’t know why it’s all such a concern. There were ages when Asterilhold, Antea, and Northcoast all answered to the High Kings. Everyone’s intermarried with everyone else. We’re practically a single kingdom already. When you think about it.”

“That is so utterly true,” Clara said, sitting beside her cousin. Phelia was plucking at her dress with her fingertips now, picking away threads and lint that weren’t there.

“I just don’t see why there should be any fuss about swords and bows and such. Nobody can possibly want that, can they? What would fighting gain anyone? It isn’t as if we aren’t already practically one kingdom.”

“Yes, but as long as there’s one throne in Camnipol and another in Kaltfel, they’ll rattle their swords at one another,” Clara said. “It’s what they do, isn’t it?”

Phelia started. Her eyes were wider than they should have been, and her hands gripped her knees until the blood was all gone from her knuckles. Now that was interesting. Clara cleared her throat and went on, pretending not to notice.

“The problem is how to give everyone a way to keep their honor intact without asking very much of them. I know Dawson won’t bring himself to see reason unless we can find a path to it that doesn’t involve stooping under something. I assume your Feldin’s very much the same.”

“But he’s won. Feldin feels he’s won, and if the prince does come to live with us…”

Clara waited.

“You know I admire Dawson,” Phelia said. “He’s always been so staunch. Even when he was being rude to Feldin, it was more from the way Dawson lives in the world as he would like it to be. I never thought it was out of anger or spite.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call my darling husband a man without spite, but I take your meaning, yes.”

Phelia giggled nervously. Her shoulders were hunched like someone braced against a blow.

“Did you hear that Rania Hiren’s pregnant?” Phelia asked. Clara debated for less than a heartbeat, and decided to let her cousin change the subject.

“Not again. How many times is this?”

“Eight, if you count the live births. There were three stillborn.”

“I’m amazed she has the stamina,” Clara said. “And her husband must be a man of some quality. Rania’s the dearest soul under the sky, but after the twins, she did start to look a bit like a mop’s head. It isn’t her fault, of course. It’s just her skin.”

“I have the same sort, though,” Phelia said. “I dread to think what I’ll look like after my first child.”