Daniel Abraham - The Tyrant's Law

But the stream did not stop. More people in larger groups, and of a different nature. As the summer ran its course, whole families came together, carts laden with the possessions of lifetimes. Almost weekly, Magistra Isadau offered the hospitality of the compound to groups too large to find shelter in smaller households. The stories weren’t unexpected. The war in Sarakal was too dangerous, and they had a child or a mother or a cousin in health too fragile to withstand a siege. Often the men of fighting age stayed behind to defend city and country, but not always. Magistra Isadau and her siblings fed their guests and welcomed them to their table. And as if following their example, the fivefold city of Suddapal opened wide its arms and gathered the fugitives of Sarakal into its vast bosom. Even as she watched it, Cithrin understood that the generosity was a symptom of something rotten.

History was clear: refugees of war were seldom if ever welcomed in the cities to which they fled unless they brought with them something of value. And yet all, or nearly all, of the citizens of Inentai were welcomed. And so they all, even the poorest, had something of value. The explanation was simple: by their presence, they carried the story that Suddapal was safe. That image of the city was powerfully reassuring, almost intoxicating, to its citizens, because they knew it wasn’t true.

It was a matter of time before the grand and glorious fabrication collapsed. It would begin with one or two pessimists and dissenters, then a handful more, and then everyone. And when it came, it would come as letters of credit. The carefully coded instruments could be purchased with anything—coin, cloth, spice, steel—and presented at any of the Medean bank’s branches for nine-tenths of the value they’d been bought at. Lightweight, portable, and valueless to anyone besides the one named on them, the papers were perfect for anyone who had come to the conclusion that Suddapal had become a place to flee from rather than to. And they were not greatly in demand. Not yet.

After the day’s work at the trading house was finished, Cithrin followed Magistra Isadau on her walks through the city. They would stroll through the wide commons where the tents and carts of the refugees had become almost a township in themselves, or down to the massive piers where ships from across the Inner Sea came and went. Isadau had introduced Cithrin to many of the secret wonders of the city: an herb market in the third city where three full streets were lined with tables filled with living plants and the scent of soil; an ancient Tralgu cunning man whose talents let him turn berries and water into a sweet, icy slush; the hidden cove at the city’s edge where the Drowned had been bringing the wreckage of old ships and constructing some vast and arcane sculpture just below the waves. Often they would talk about the day’s trades as they walked, or the history of the bank, or more general topics: family, childhood, food, coffee, the hungers of men and of women, the pleasures of books. Cithrin tried to push past her reticence, sensing that Isadau was offering something that she deeply wanted. A better idea, perhaps, of how to become the woman she pretended to be. And Isadau listened carefully and deeply, and tried to make herself clear in reply.

Still, Cithrin felt that half the time they spoke past each other. Isadau was a Timzinae who had lived her whole life among not only her people, but her family. Cithrin was an orphan half-breed who’d never had a close friend among the Cinnae, much less a mother or sister. But she tried, and usually Isadau tried too. So when one day they left the trading house early and walked directly back toward the compound, Cithrin knew something was amiss. And what it was.

“Sold more letters of credit than usual today,” she said.

“I suppose we did,” Isadau said.

“May be there’s a market growing for them.”

“Oh, I think it’s early to say that.”

Cithrin scowled. Isadau’s stride was brisk and wide, and Cithrin had to scurry a little to keep up. They crossed a wide and grassy square, where a spire of black stone in the center was dedicated to the memory of someone or something. Cithrin fought the urge to pluck at Isadau’s sleeve like a child asking for attention.

“This isn’t the usual pattern for the season,” she said. “I’ve been looking through the books. You’ve sold most of them in the autumn or early spring, and even then, not more than ten or fifteen in a season. We took five today .”

“We did,” Isadau said as they turned the corner. The familiar lines of the compound hove into view and Isadau’s pace seemed to increase. Far ahead of them, Jurin and Salan—Isadau’s brother and nephew—were shoeing a horse. They were too far away to hear even the sound of their voices, but the positions of their bodies were eloquent. Jurin with his head turned slightly away from the beast as he spoke to his son. Salan upright and serious. Father and son as they had been since the beginning of time, it seemed. Isadau’s steps faltered, and Cithrin managed to reach her side. The older woman wasn’t even breathing hard. Her gaze was fixed on the men, her smile serene and content. Cithrin felt a moment’s frustration until she saw the tear that streaked down Magistra Isadau’s cheek and was quickly wiped away.

“Tell me, Cithrin,” she said. “Do you think the Porte Oliva branch might be able to make use of our extra capital?”

“I think they’ll need it if they’re to make good on the credit we’re selling,” Cithrin said.

Isadau turned her smile on Cithrin and nodded once.

“We should arrange that, don’t you think?”

Cithrin had been in Vanai when the Antean army came in conquest. This was the same, and it also wasn’t.

She remembered being the only one among many who had feared the coming battle in Vanai. The others had seen it as an evil and an inconvenience and prepared themselves for Antean rule with an air of resignation and the sense that whether it was the prince in the city or the king in Camnipol, taxes would be taxes and beer would be beer and not much call to worry about it. Even Magister Imaniel had been more concerned with keeping the wealth of the bank away from the prince than with fleeing the city himself. He was dead now. They were all dead now, burned with their city.

Suddapal, on the other hand, knew its danger. The fear bloomed in the market houses and the streets, on the piers and in the coffee houses. The whole city waited with bated breath for runners from Inentai with news of the siege, perched to fall on any scrap of information like carrion crows. Every rumor spread through its citizens, ripples in a pond. The debates in the taprooms changed from whether Sarakal would fall utterly to when, from why Antea wouldn’t march on Elassae to whether. The very rich who could afford it and the very poor who were no worse off anywhere left first, some by ship, others on foot. The governor and the council repaired to their estates, pretending to be in conference, though no one expected them to return. The stores of silver and gold, tobacco and spice, silk and gems and rare books filled the storerooms of the compound, and letters of credit left Isadau’s private study, written in cipher and sewn with knots as individual as a written chop.

Cithrin watched it all with dread, but also a strange sense of relief. At least this time, she wasn’t the only one worried. At least Suddapal understood.

The work of the bank also quietly shifted. Depositors came to withdraw their wealth, often arriving at the compound late in the evening rather than coming to the market houses. Even these were often taken as letters of credit rather than the actual coinage, but some coin did spill out. Isadau, on the other hand, began buying debts. If a taproom owed its brewers three months’ payments for their beer, Isadau paid the brewers half the full price today. If the taproom made its payments, the bank’s profit would be massive. If it burned, its owners and workers dead under Antean blades, the money would be lost utterly. Once, Cithrin had chafed under the timid strategies of her notary, Pyk Usterhall. Now she watched Magistra Isadau buy as much as she could of a city doomed to be conquered, and the risk of it took her breath away and left her giddy. It was optimism forged out of silver coins and paper contracts. A statement that Suddapal might change, but it would not be destroyed, that business done now, in the face of disaster, had meaning. It was banking as patriotism, and something more. Faith, perhaps.