Daniel Abraham - The Tyrant's Law

“Jorey?” she said, fighting a bit for air. “What’s happened? Where’s Sabiha?”

“Sabiha’s with her father by now,” her son said, stepping forward to take her hands. “And I’ve come to take you home.”

The first taste of fear came to her. Vincen came in behind her, taking his place as a servant, and Abatha behind him, her mouth pinched and distrustful. Clara felt her face grow pale.

“Home? I don’t understand. I am home. I live here.”

“Not anymore. It would cause a scandal for the Lord Marshal’s mother to live in a rented room.”

Clara sat down slowly, her head light. Jorey sat on the bench at her side, taking her hand in his own.

“I don’t understand.”

“You’ve heard what happened with Lord Ternigan,” Jorey said. “A messenger bird caught us at Sevenpol. After all that’s happened, Geder decided he wanted someone he trusts as Lord Marshal. And apparently he’s been waiting for the moment to help me redeem myself with the court.”

“You? After all that Dawson did?”

Jorey’s smile lost some of its brightness.

“I repudiated my father in front of the court,” Jorey said. “And Geder … considers me his friend. Apparently that’s enough. He’s given me the army. I’m going to take control of the siege at Kiaria. And what’s more, I’m bringing Vicarian with me. Minster Basrahip has given permission for him to come and study under the priests in the field.”

“My God,” Clara said, pressing her fingers to her lips. “This can’t … this can’t be right.”

“It’s a gift, Mother,” Jorey said. “It’s everything we were hoping for.”

She felt as though her heart were dying. A little hole had opened in her chest, and everything was flowing out through it like water draining from a basin. I don’t want to go. I’m happy here. I can’t be the woman I was before. Don’t go. Don’t do this.

And then, Get a hold of yourself .

She smiled and lifted her chin. Jorey wrapped his hand tightly around hers.

“The last time you went to war with Geder Palliako, it ended badly,” she said. “Are you certain this is what you want?”

Jorey kissed her hand. His smile was gone now, and the beautiful jacket and cloak seemed more like a costume than the clothes of the Lord Marshal of Antea.

“It doesn’t matter what I want, Mother. It’s what I worked for, and it’s what I have to do,” he said. “Can you understand that?”

In the doorway, Vincen Coe stood with his eyes downcast, his expression empty. The nights of sleeping in his arms were over. The mornings waking up beside him. In Lord Skestinin’s house, there would be no more walking arm in arm. He would call her my lady again, and not Clara. The injustice of it was exquisite.

It’s what I worked for, and it’s what I have to do. She had raised him in her image after all.

“I understand,” Clara said. “Let me gather my things.”

Lord Skestinin’s manor had been closed for the winter, and setting a house in order wasn’t a simple task. When Clara stepped down from the carriage, she could already hear the voices leaking out to the street. Inside, the dining room was still draped in dustcloth, and the pale halls were damp from having only just been scrubbed. Three maids were turning down her new room for her. A widow’s room with beautiful view of the winter-dead gardens and a narrow bed. She sat on it as she might have on the creaking frame that she’d become used to. The mattress was so soft, she felt as though she were sinking into it. As if it were devouring her.

“Will there be anything else, my lady?”

Vincen stood in the doorway, and his face looked grey as stone. His hair was pulled back and he stood stiff and straight. He would have rooms in the servants’ quarters now. A bunk and maybe a small stove. A box for his things. I didn’t choose this , she thought. Forgive me.

“Not at the moment, Vincen,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Always, my lady,” he said, and the tone in his voice made one of the maids look up in surprise. So not even that much was permitted. Clara watched him walk away. She waited for the space of two breaths, then rose, pretended to brush dust from her skirts, and strode out to the corridor as if she owned the house and everything in it. Vincen was walking slowly, his hands clasped behind him.

“Coe?” she said. “Might I have a word with you?”

He turned as if stung and stood there silently. She raised her eyebrows.

“C-certainly,” he said.

“Excellent. This way, please.”

She walked toward the gardens, but instead of opening the iron and glass gate that led into the yard, she turned left into the gardener’s alcove. As she’d suspected, it was empty.

“Close the door, please,” she said.

“My lady …”

“Stop that, Vincen. Stop it now.”

He hesitated. There was fury in his eyes.

“Clara,” he said.

“Much better. Now close the door.”

“It will ruin you,” he said. “ I will ruin you. When you were disgraced, it was different. You were like us. But you’re rising again, and if we’re—” He stopped, and began again, his voice hushed. “If we’re seen alone together, it will destroy you.”

“I have been destroyed,” she said. “It didn’t kill me.”

“It will hurt your sons. Your daughters. Your standing in court. I won’t risk you. I can’t do that.”

“Do you really think I would be the first woman in court to have an affair?”

Vincen closed. She saw it happen.

“I’m sure many women in places of power have had affairs with servants,” he said. And there it was. The gulf she could not cross. He was a servant again, and she was a woman of standing.

“You said you would follow me anywhere,” she said. “Perhaps you meant anywhere but back.”

“I will go find my quarters, m’lady. With your permission.”

She stepped over to him, reached past him, and pushed the door closed. His mouth was hard and unresponsive at first. But only at first.

“I have not changed,” she said. “I am the same woman I was this morning. It’s only circumstances.”

“I know, Clara,” he said. “And I’m the same man. It’s just … it’s just that I’m having a terrible day.”

“I am too. But it won’t be the last day there is.”

He kissed her again, and there was a real hunger in it this time. She put her arms around his shoulders and pulled him close. They stood there for a long moment and then stepped back from each other.

“Find your rooms,” she said, “and then explore this house from the basement to the roof. Know it as well as you would a hunting grounds. Learn everyone’s name and their place and, as best you can, their schedules. I will do the same. I don’t know how we can make this work, but we will.”

“And your letters to Carse?”

“Those too,” she said. “Though it seems I won’t be trying to alienate Geder from his new Lord Marshal. Which is a pity as it went so well last time.”

A distant voice caught her. A man’s voice calling Mother!

“Vicarian’s come,” she said, opening the door again and pushing Vincen out before her. “Go. Now. I will find you later tonight.”

She listened to Vincen’s footsteps fade and turned to look at the ghostly reflection of herself in the windows of the gate. The woman who looked back seemed almost unfamiliar. She smoothed her hair.

“Well, then,” she said, and the woman in the glass looked back at her with a gentle smirk. She turned back to the main part of the house, slipping again into the guise of noblewoman and baroness, and followed her boy’s voice to the main part of the house. She found Jorey and Vicarian standing in the front hall grinning at each other. Vicarian’s robes were the brown of the spider priests, and his face looked thinner than when she’d seen him last, but also oddly bright. She had the sense that if she touched him, he would feel fevered.