The Dragon's Path Read online

  “My honor requires it,” Dawson said. “Unless you touched my wife.”

  “I came to talk,” Issandrian said. “I never meant her harm.”

  Dawson stepped to the far side of the room and snapped his fingers, calling the dogs out of his enemy’s path. Issandrian paused in the doorway.

  “Believe what you will, I am loyal to the crown.”

  “And yet you’re making friends in Asterilhold.”

  “And you’re talking with Northcoast,” he said, and then he was gone.

  Dawson sat down. The leader of his pack came whining and pressing her head into his hand. He scratched her ears absently. When he was certain he’d given the man time enough to leave the house, he rose and walked to Clara’s private rooms. She sat on the edge of her daybed, her hands knotted on her lap. Her eyes were wide and her face pale. Everything about her spoke of fear and tension.

  “Where’s Coe?” he said. “I sent him to—”

  Clara raised an arm, gesturing behind him. Coe stood in the shadow behind the open door. The huntsman had a bared sword in one hand, a vicious curved dagger in the other. If Dawson had been an attacker, he’d never have known what killed him.

  “Well done,” he said. In the dimness, it was hard to tell whether Coe blushed. Dawson nodded to the doorway, and closed it behind the huntsman when he was gone.

  “I am so sorry, dear,” Clara said. “The footman brought word that Lord Issandrian was here, and I didn’t even think. I just had them make him comfortable. I couldn’t imagine leaving him to sit on the step like a delivery boy, and I thought if he needed to speak to you, then perhaps it would be best if he did. I never thought that he might have designs…”

  “He didn’t,” Dawson said. “Not this time. If he comes back, though, don’t let him in. Or any of Maas’s people.”

  “I have to see Phelia if she comes. I can’t simply pretend she doesn’t exist.”

  “Not even her, love. After it’s over. Not now.”

  Clara wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. The gesture was unladylike, unplanned, and broke Dawson’s heart a little. He squeezed her knee, trying to impart some comfort.

  “Has it gotten worse, then?” she asked.

  “Issandrian’s gathering soldiers. Cunning men. It may come to blood.”

  Clara took a long breath, the air curling slowly out her nostrils.

  “Very well, then.”

  “Everyone claims to have Simeon’s best interests, but God help us if someone should arrive who has the boldness to actually lead. Asterilhold and Northcoast are lining up to buy both sides, and either one would be as happy to see their puppet on the Severed Throne,” Dawson said. He coughed. “We have to win this while it’s still our war.”

  Geder

  Ariot?” Geder said, his heart sinking. “Why’s there a riot?”

  “People are going hungry, Lord Protector,” Sir Gospey Allintot said. “The farmers have been taking all their grain to Newport.”

  Geder pressed a hand to his chin, determined to keep Sir Allintot from seeing that he was trembling. He’d been told, of course, something about farmers and grain shipments, but in the thousand different things that administering the city required, it hadn’t stood out. Now angry voices roared one against the other until it sounded like a bonfire in the square beyond his windows. Someone was plotting against Vanai, an enemy out of the shadows weakening the fabric of the city. Maccia, perhaps, preparing to retake the city before Antea could solidify its claims. Or the exiled prince gathering allies throughout the countryside. Geder’s thoughts whirled and skittered ahead of themselves, dry leaves driven by wind.

  “Who’s behind it?” he asked, forcing himself to sound calm.

  Sir Allintot cleared his throat.

  “I believe it’s in reaction to your increasing the grain import tax, my lord,” Allintot said. “The farmers make more coin for their grain, even though it means traveling farther, because the Newport tax rates are lower.”

  “So in order to make more money, they’ll let Vanai starve?” Geder said. “That won’t stand. We can send men out. Intercept the grain and bring it here.”

  Sir Allintot cleared his throat again. Either the man was getting sick, or he was struggling to hide laughter.

  “All respect, my lord,” Allintot said. “Even if we put all other things equal, riots are rarely solved by taking troops away from the city. Perhaps my lord might consider reducing the taxes to their previous level. Or, given the gravity of the city’s supplies, slightly lower.”

  “And reduce the amount we have for the crown?” Geder said.

  “Again, all respect, my lord. As long as no grain comes to Vanai, no grain taxes do either. The payments are already short of your stated marks.”

  The shouts from the square swelled. Geder jumped up from his seat and stalked to the window.

  “God damn it. Why can’t they be quiet?”

  They swarmed at the steps leading up to the palace. Two or three hundred people, waving fists and stones and sticks. Two dozen men in Antean armor held firm, blades at the front, bows at the rear. Geder saw Jorey Kalliam pacing among the soldiers. The mob surged forward a few steps, then fell back.

  “I’ll talk to them,” Geder said.

  “My lord?”

  “Tell them I’m coming out,” Geder said. “I’ll explain the problem, and tell them that I’ll fix it.”

  “As you wish, my lord,” Sir Allintot said, and bowed before he left the room.

  Geder had the servants bring the black cloak he’d taken in lieu of taxes. The creak and smell of the leather left him feeling more confident, and the cut really was quite good. It occurred to him, as he descended the wide, polished wood stairs and walked across the wide hall, that he wore the cloak much the way he’d have worn a mask. Because it was well made and impressive, he hid in it, hoping people would see it and not him.

  At his nod, two nervous Timzinae servant girls pulled the doors open, and Geder walked out. The soldiers guarding the palace doors seemed more exposed, now that he was standing behind them instead of looking down from above. The mob seemed larger. The crowd saw him, caught its breath, and screamed. Sticks and fists pumped in the air. Hundreds of faces looked up at him, mouths square and teeth showing. Geder swallowed and walked forward.

  “What are you doing?” Jorey Kalliam said.

  “It’s all right,” Geder said, and raised his hands, commanding silence. “Listen! Listen to me!”

  The first stone seemed like a cunning man’s trick. A dark spot against the sky, smaller than a bird, it rose from the back of the mob and seemed to hang in the air, motionless. It was only in the last few feet that the illusion broke and it sped toward Geder’s face. The impact knocked him back, the world going quiet and distant for a moment, the daylight growing dusky at the edges of his vision. Then the air itself was roaring, the crowd surging forward. The voice that rose over the chaos was Jorey Kalliam’s.

  “Loose bows! Hold position!”

  An arrow passed over Geder from the square, loose fletching buzzing. It struck the wall of the palace and shattered. Someone took his elbow and pulled him up the stairs. The left side of his face tingled, and he tasted blood.

  “Get inside, and stay there,” Jorey shouted. “Don’t go near the windows.”

  “I won’t,” Geder said, and another stone sang past him. He hunched forward, running for the safety of walls around him. As soon as he was through the doors, the slaves closed them and dropped a wooden bar across a set of interior braces. Geder sat on the stairs, arms around his knees, as the shouts from the square became screams. Something loud happened, and a woman’s voice rose in a shriek. He found he was rocking back and forth and made himself stop. His squire appeared at his side, a damp cloth in hand, to wash the blood off Geder’s face.

  After what seemed hours and was likely only minutes, the sounds of violence faded. When the silence had gone long enough, he gestured to the slaves. The doors were unbarred, and Geder
peeked out. Only Antean soldiers stood in the square now. Five bodies lay at the foot of the palace stairs, their blood obscenely bright in the midday sun. The archers still held their places, arrow at the ready, but not yet drawn. Jorey Kalliam stood in the center of the square, half a dozen swordsmen about him. Geder could hear the snap and rhythm of his syllables without making out individual words. Geder turned away and walked back up to his private rooms. Someone had managed to loft a stone high enough to shatter one of the windows. The shards glittered in the sunlight.

  It wasn’t how things were supposed to go. He had been given the chance to make his name, and he was failing. He didn’t even understand how he was failing, only that decisions he made spawned two more problems that were each twice as bad as the first. He knew that the soldiers didn’t respect him. That the citizens of the city despised him. He knew too little to run a city with the complexity of Vanai by himself, and he didn’t have enough allies to do it for him. He wanted Ternigan to call him home the way he had Klin. Being called to account—even to be condemned—would be better than staying here.

  Except, of course, that he could already see the disappointment in his father’s expression. Could already hear the falsely bluff consoling words. You did your best, my boy. I’m still proud of you. In his imagination, his father tried to protect Geder from the shame of failure. Anything would be better than that. Death at the hands of an angry rabble would be better. Geder’s own humiliations ached, but he could endure them. To watch his father humiliated as well would be too much. There had to be a way. There had to.

  A servant girl came in with a brush and dustpan and cleared away the broken glass. Geder barely looked at her. The air that seeped in through the broken pane was chilly, but he didn’t call for anyone to repair the window. He had his leather cloak on. He was warm enough. And if he wasn’t, it hardly mattered.

  The light shifted along the wall, reddening as the sun completed its arc. A Firstblood man came in, hesitated, and then remade the fire in the grate. Geder’s legs ached, but he didn’t move. The same man returned a short time later with a sheet of leather that he tied over the broken window. The room grew darker.

  It was unfair that Ternigan wouldn’t pay the price of this. He was the one who’d put Geder in command without the guidance or loyal men to back him. If anyone deserved to be shamed over the state of things in Vanai it was the Lord Marshal. But of course, that would never happen. Because if Ternigan deserved blame for putting his faith in Geder, then King Simeon would deserve blame for naming Ternigan to command. No, the blame would be Geder’s to eat, and Geder’s alone.

  Still, he couldn’t imagine what Ternigan had been thinking. Everyone had been dumbfounded by the appointment. Even Geder himself had needed Jorey Kalliam’s insight to find a plausible reason for the elevation. No one had thought the choice wise. The only two who’d had any faith in it at all were Geder and Lord Ternigan. They were the only two men who’d thought it possible, and even then…

  Or perhaps not. What if no one had thought it possible? Not even from the start.

  “Oh,” Geder said to the empty room.

  When he turned, his knees buckled. He had stood unmoving for too long. He limped to the couch nearest the fire, his mind turned the problem over of its own accord. How many times had he heard it said that Vanai was a small piece played in a much larger game? And he hadn’t understood until now.

  First point: as much as it stung to admit, Geder was in no sense equipped to manage the city.

  Second point: Ternigan had put him in control of it.

  Third: Ternigan was not a fool.

  Therefore Ternigan—for whatever reasons and by whatever conflict of loyalties—wanted Vanai to fall into chaos. Geder was an acceptable sacrifice.

  When he smiled, his injured lip split again. When he laughed, it bled.

  Your Majesty, the letter began, in my role as Protector of Vanai, I have been forced to conclude that the political environment within the greater court makes long-term control of the city impossible.

  Geder ran his eyes down the page again. He’d written half a dozen versions of the thing in the course of the night. Some had been angry screeds, others abject apologies. The form he’d finally adopted was modeled closely on a letter sent by Marras Toca to the king of Hallskar several centuries earlier. The full text was reproduced in one of his books, and the rhetoric of it was both moving and understated. Geder had changed enough to clear his conscience of any taint of plagiarism, and still the structure of the thing shone through. Geder sewed the letter, marked the exterior page, and pressed his seal of office into the purple wax. The essay with Marras Toca’s letter rested on the table, and Geder paged through it again, his heart lighter than it had been in weeks. He found the passage he was looking for, and paused to underline the critical phrase.

  … the destruction of Aastapal was done by Inys as a tactical gambit to keep it from Morade’s control…

  The notation in his own handwriting caught his eye. Looking at ripples to know where the stone fell.

  Oh yes. Once he’d gone back to Camnipol, there would be time for that. Alan Klin might not realize that he’d lost his protectorate by betrayal. Geder, on the other hand, was perfectly aware of it, and he cast his grudges in iron. He would understand Ternigan’s decision and all that lay behind it. But that would come later.

  The night had been a trial. The long dark hours had been filled with his mind’s constant drumbeat of how he had been used. How he had been created as a failure, and what the price of it would be. He had wept and he had raged. He’d read his books and the reports of his men and the history of Vanai. Briefly, he’d even slept.

  “My lord,” his squire said. “You called for me?”

  “Yes,” Geder said, rising to his feet. “There are three things. First, take this letter and find the fastest rider we have. I want this in Camnipol as soon as it can be accomplished.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Second, take that purse there. You know the scholar I’ve been working with? Buy all the books he has. Then bring them back here and pack them with my things. We’ll be leaving Vanai, and I’ll have them with me.”

  “Leaving, my lord?”

  “Third, send word to my secretaries. I will meet with them in an hour. Any man who comes late, I’ll have whipped. Tell them so. Whipped and salt poured on the wounds.”

  “Y-yes, my lord.”

  Geder smiled, and it hurt less now. His squire bobbed a quick bow and scurried out. Yawning and stretching, Geder left his rooms in the palace of the prince of Vanai for the last time. His step was light, his mood undiminished by a night without rest. The air smelled of the subtle promise of spring, and the thin light of morning spilled across the stones where the rioters had been the day before. At the far end of the square, some daring local had hung an effigy of Geder. The dummy had an immense belly, a black cloak that mirrored his, and an expression on the dried gourd of a head that was a masterwork of idiocy. A sign hung around the thing’s neck: FEED US OR FREE US. Geder nodded at his other self, a brief and uncharitable salute.

  His men sat in the same seats where he’d first addressed them. Many looked tousled from sleep. Jorey Kalliam was among them, his brow set in furrows. Gospey Allintot stood at the rear, his arms crossed and his chin held high. He likely thought he was going to be called to account for the previous day’s riot. Geder stepped to the front of the former chapel. He didn’t sit.

  “My lords,” he said sharply. “I apologize for the hour, but I thank you for coming. As Lord Protector, it is my duty and privilege to command you all in this, our final day in the city of Vanai.”

  He stood for a moment, letting the words sink in. Eyes brightened. Confusion softened the frowns and loosened the necks. Geder nodded.

  “By nightfall, you will have your men outside the city gates and prepared for the march to Camnipol,” Geder said. “I understand food is somewhat scarce, so be sure that gets packed before we pile on any last looti
ng. This isn’t a sack.”

  “Then what it is?” Alberith Maas said.

  “Don’t interrupt me again, Maas. I’m still in charge here. Sir Allintot, if you would be so good as to see that the canals are shut? We’ll leave those beds dry, I think. And the street gates will need to be shut.”

  “Which street gates?”

  “The iron ones at the street mouths,” Geder said.

  “Yes, sir. I know them. I meant which of them did you want shut.”

  “All of them. Lord Kalliam, I would have you guard the city gates. No one comes into the city, and no one besides ourselves leaves it. It is very important that no one escape.”

  “We’re leaving?” Maas said.

  “I have been forced to conclude,” Geder said, “that the political environment within the greater court makes long-term control of the city impossible. You’ve all seen Sir Klin’s best efforts, and what they came to. I’ve read the histories of Vanai. Do you all know how many times it’s been Antean? Seven. The longest was for ten years during the reign of Queen Esteya the Third. The shortest was three days during the Interregnum. In every case, the city had been given away by treaty or sacrificed in pursuit of some other goal. Which is to say, Vanai has been lost to politics. Given the situation in Camnipol, we are in the path to do so again.”

  “What does he know about the situation in Camnipol?” someone muttered loud enough for Geder to hear, but not so loudly he couldn’t pretend otherwise.

  “My duty as Protector of Vanai is not to the city itself, but to Antea. If I thought our continued presence here would benefit the crown, I would stay, and so would all of you. But if the history books show anything, it’s that this city has cost good and noble men their lifeblood with no lasting advantage to the Severed Throne, no matter who was seated there at the time. In my role as assigned me by Lord Ternigan in the name of King Simeon, I have determined that Vanai cannot be profitably held. I’ve written as much to King Simeon. The courier with my justification of these orders is already on the dragon’s roads for Camnipol.”