The King's Blood Read online

  He looked up at her, concern in his eyes.

  “Is that a problem?”

  Cithrin felt shocked and hollowed. He wouldn’t be there when she went back. She tested the thought and found it

  implausible. Of course Marcus would be there. He was always there. Something must have happened, but she couldn’t think what it would be, of what could make it all right.

  “Not a problem,” she said. “Only a surprise.”

  I

  might be able to get you some interest from Geder,” Cithrin said. “Having the patronage of the Lord Regent could make you all quite fashionable.”

  “You’re moving,” Hornet said around a mouthful of pins. “Stop moving.”

  “I’d be quite happy for whatever patronage we could find,” Cary said, lifting one of the mock swords and considering it. “But I’m not sure how much the Lord Regent is going to want to remember his time with the company.”

  “Don’t know about that,” Sandr said. “It was an adventure, wasn’t it? It isn’t like it’s a thing everyone in court will have done.”

  “I don’t think court grandees score points off each other by bragging on who’s lived in the most squalid filth,” Cary said. “Really, that hole reeked.”

  “I suppose it did,” Cithrin said. “Well, if you don’t make yourselves the favorite company of the noble classes of Camnipol, then what? Come back south?”

  “Anyplace that’s not so hot the stones sweat would be fine with me,” Sandr said.

  “Oh, don’t bother leaving for that,” Smit said. “This heat’s about to break. You can smell it, if you know how.”

  Sandr snorted and rolled his eyes.

  “You can’t call the weather,” he said.

  “Sure I can,” Smit said.

  “No you can’t. You always say the same thing. It’s always that there’s a storm coming. You’ll go on for weeks that way.” Sandr shifted his face, lengthening his jaw and pulling down in the eyes somehow that Cithrin didn’t entirely understand. The imitation was so good, he seemed like Smit’s brother. When he spoke, the voice was Smit’s. “Storm’s coming. Mark me, storm’s coming.”

  “And I’m always right,” Smit said. “Sometimes it just takes a little longer for it to get here.”

  “But you could just as well say snow’s coming and claim every winter proved you right.”

  “I would be,” Smit said. “And besides that, storm’s coming.” Cary turned, catching Cithrin’s eye. They smiled at each other. This was Cary’s family, and she loved it. Cithrin loved it too, though it wasn’t hers. They were friends, some of them dear, but her home wasn’t in the cart or on the stage or sleeping in the hayloft above some new stable. Hers was in

  the counting house and the café.

  “All right,” Hornet said. “Let me throw some stitches on that, and you’ll have a nice simple traveler’s dress, perfect for any occasion involving mud, mules, and mischief. And I’ve put in a little pocket here you can hide a knife in case the caravan master sets his aim for your virtue.”

  “I will fear no caravan master,” Cithrin said in an artificial voice, the parody of stagecraft. Her bow was florid and unlikely to match. “My eternal thanks.”

  Hornet returned the gesture in kind, perfectly, and they both laughed.

  Cithrin knew the rule from the first time she’d traveled with the company, back when Master Kit had been its control: run against the stream. In a city struck by plague, comedy. In a rich city in prosperous times, tragedy. The power of the stories they told was in the distance they took the people standing in the audience. Tonight, they were doing The Dog Chaser’s Tale, which was about as low and bawdy a farce as Cithrin had ever seen. They did it well. Sandr’s delivery of the lines had, she was sorry to admit, a certain genius to them. But her attention wasn’t on the stage, but the men and women looking up at it.

  When Smit leaped to the stage with the enormous leather phallus bulging out of his costume, the crowd roared and pointed. Tears streamed down their cheeks. They were hungry for this, Cithrin thought. They were desperate for pleasure, joy, laughter. And of course they were. They’d faced a conspiracy by their neighboring kingdom, the death of their king, war, and now a vicious battle on their own streets. They had earned their desires.

  But she couldn’t look away. A boy barely old enough to shave was laughing so hard he rolled back on the stone-paved ground. On the stage, Charlit Soon pretended to be a cunning man changing his shape into a woman and then being wooed by another man, and an ancient-looking tooth-less woman slapped her knees and roared. It was too much. The laughter bordered on the grotesque. Cithrin sat on the side of the crowd, stage and audience equally in her view.

  There was no sense of victory. There had been when she’d first arrived. There had been banners and cloth, and children running in the streets throwing handfuls of bright and shining confetti. When Antea had conquered Asterilhold, the empire had been giddy and drunk. The defeat of Dawson Kalliam had no joy for them. The hilarity wasn’t a mask. It was one side of a coin, and Cithrin had the growing suspicion that the image on the coin’s other side was a bleakness that Camnipol would be a long time in shedding. It would be comedy along the Division’s side for more than this season. The prospect left her with a feeling of dread and anxiety that was more personal than she liked.

  Cary strode forth on the stage, the mock sword in her hand going limp and flaccid in the middle of her dueling challenge. The crowd laughed, and Cithrin didn’t. She gathered herself and walked along the side of the crowd and into the common room of Yellow House.

  The press of bodies wasn’t as bad inside as out, but the heat was worse. The high summer of Camnipol meant a sunset that lasted until the early dawn was almost beginning. That it was dark now meant it was very late. There were a dozen men and women sitting at tables, drinking cider and beer out of brown mugs and eating hard cheese and twice-baked bread. The lovers of laughter had been drawn outside by the show. The ones who remained in the swelter were a somber bunch, which fit Cithrin’s mood nicely.

  The beer was rich and thick, and the alcohol in it bit at the soft flesh inside her mouth. It was a beer to get drunk with, and tempting as it was, she wasn’t ready to lose herself. Not yet. Something was turning restlessly in the back of her mind. A thought or insight fighting its way into being. She looked down at the rough planks of the table and listened.

  “He was with Asterilhold from the start,” a man behind her said. “You think he was really able to make it to Kaltfel so easy without old Lechan giving permission, may God piss on his dead heart.”

  “But the Lord Regent knew, didn’t he?” the woman beside him said. “Flushed the traitors out. Killed Lechan, and he’ll break down the rest of them when he’s ready. You watch.”

  “You heard what he was doing while the battle was on?”

  “Up in the Kingspire calling the whole damned thing like he was a kid playing sticks.”

  “No,” the woman said. “That’s what they want you to think, but he was out in the streets the whole time. Dressed like a beggar, and he’d go right into the enemy lines and see what they were planning. No one looked at him twice.”

  “That’s true,” another man said. He was older, with a white mustache and bloodshot skin. “I saw him. Knew him. I mean, didn’t know it was him. Old Jem, he called himself. I knew there was something odd up with Old Jem, but I never guessed the truth.”

  “And he talks with the dead,” the first woman said. “My cousin guards the tombs, and the thing all his men know that no one talks about is how the Lord Regent goes there all the time. All the time. Twice a day, sometimes. Walks right into the tombs. My cousin says if you go listen, you can hear Palliako talking just like he was sitting here like we are. Joking and asking questions and having his half of a debate. And sometimes you can hear other voices too, talking back.”

  “He’s no cunning man,” the first man said. “I’ve known cunning men. Half of them couldn’t magic up a fart
. Palliako’s something else, and we’re damned lucky to have him on the throne. Damned lucky.”

  “No one else could have seen through Kalliam,” the man with the white mustache said. “I sure as hell didn’t. And you know what else no one talks about? Kalliam’s advisors? They were all Timzinae. Now you tell me that’s coincidence.”

  Cithrin listened, her hand around her mug. She forgot to drink from it. Instead, she listened to story pile upon story pile upon story as Geder Palliako grew toward legend.

  Clara

  T

  he soldiers came with an edict from the Lord Regent. It wasn’t that Clara had expected it, so much as that she wasn’t surprised when it happened. Indeed, there was a level on which it was a relief. The long days of anticipation after Dawson’s capture had been perverse in their normalcy. Waking in her room without him, speaking with the servants and the slaves, walking through the gardens. It was the same routine that she’d kept while he was away leading the war on Geder’s behalf. Only instead, her husband was in the gaol. The anticipation of consequences had been so terrible that when the first one came, it felt almost like relief.

  She stood in the courtyard before the house as they took her things away. The bed that her children had been conceived and born in. The violets from her solarium. Her gowns and dresses. Dawson’s hunting dogs, whining and looking confused on the thin leather leads. She had a purse of her own and a bag she’d put together during the grace period the captain had allowed her. It wasn’t in the order. If he’d lifted her on his shoulder and thrown her to the street, he would have been within the letter of Geder Palliako’s law. He hadn’t, and she was grateful.

  “They can’t do this,” Jorey said. His voice was tight as a violin string. Outrage made him taut.

  “Of course they can, dear,” Clara said. “You didn’t think they would let us go on living the way we’d been, did you? We’re disgraced.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  I did, though, she thought. I loved your father. And that is a treason in which I persist. She didn’t say it. Only took her youngest son by the hand and led him away.

  The staff of the mansion, servants and slaves, stood at the street, their personal belongings in their hands. They looked like survivors of a cataclysm. Clara went to them, their mistress for the last time. Andrash still had the chain around his neck; his eyes were wide and horrified. Clara raised her hands.

  “I am afraid that, as I think you’ve seen, the needs of the house have been somewhat reduced,” she said. There were tears in her eyes, and she clenched her jaw against them.

  Lift your chin, she told herself. Smile. There, like that.

  “If you have been a slave of the house, I release you from your indenture. I hope your freedom treats you at least as well as your captivity has. If you have been a paid servant, I can offer letters of recommendation, but I’m afraid they may not carry much weight.”

  Someone was sobbing in the back. One of the cook’s girls, Clara thought.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Clara said. “You will all find your new places in the world. This is unpleasant. Painful, even. But it is not the end. Not for any of us. Thank you all very, very much for the work you’ve done here. I am very proud to have had such wonderful people working for me, and I will remember all of you fondly.”

  It took the better part of an hour, going through the whole crowd, saying her goodbyes to each of them in turn. Especially at the end, they kept wanting to embrace her and swear that they’d always be loyal to her. It was sweet, and she hoped at least some of it was true. She was going to need allies in the days ahead. She wasn’t in a position to turn away the kind opinion of a third footman.

  Jorey slung her bag over his shoulder and took her arm. They walked through the streets together. She stopped at a corner stand and bought candied violets from an old Tralgu man with a missing foot. The petals softened against her tongue as the sugar melted. She steered them south, toward the Silver Bridge. Lord Skestinin’s house was on the opposite side of the Division, and Sabiha, bless the girl, had gone ahead to see that they were made welcome.

  “I think this must be seen as an indication that your father will be called to account soon,” she said. “This won’t be easy.”

  “You don’t have to worry, Mother,” he said. “I won’t disgrace him. He won’t have to stand alone.”

  She stopped. Jorey went on another few steps before he realized that she had.

  “You will disgrace him,” she said. “You will renounce him and deny him. Do you understand me? You will turn your back on him and let the whole world see you do it.”

  “No, Mother.”

  She raised her hand, commanding silence.

  “This isn’t a debate at the club. Filial piety is all well and good, but that isn’t the time we’re living in. You have obligations. To Sabiha and to me.”

  He was weeping now too, and in the street. Well, if they were going to make a spectacle of themselves, she supposed this would be the day for it. A cart rattled past them and she put her hand on his arm.

  “Your father knows that you love and respect him. Nothing will change that. And he knows that you have a wife of your own. A life that he helped to give you. He won’t resent your protecting that. We don’t have very much left. We aren’t giving away what we do.”

  “Father deserves to have someone beside him.”

  Clara smiled, her heart breaking just a little more. Her son, loyal as a dog. We raised him well, she thought.

  “He does deserve that,” she said, “but he wouldn’t want it. I’m only his wife, but he deserves to have his sons by his side. Only then he’d be distracted trying to protect us all. He knows you love him. He knows that you honor him in your heart. Seeing that you were suffering with him and because of him would make whatever happens to him worse. So you will renounce him. Change your name, likely. Do whatever you have to do to be as good a man to your Sabiha as Dawson has been to me.”

  “But—”

  “That’s what you will do,” she said. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Mother,” he said.

  “Good,” she said.

  Lord Skestinin’s mansions in the city were modest at best, a nod to convention more than an actual working household. He was a naval man. His summer seasons were spent on the sea, not in the court, and his winters were at his holding or, rarely, on the King’s Hunt. Clara stowed her few things in a cell hardly larger than her dressing room, made up her face and straightened her gown, and went immediately back out to the street. The hour was almost upon her, and the shock of losing her home pressed her into action.

  Curtin Issandrian’s mansion looked somewhat reduced, partly because it shared a courtyard with the house that belonged to the Baron of Ebbingbaugh, Geder Palliako. When Aster ascended, Palliako would retire there, and in the meantime it was being kept up as a point of pride. Any mansion would pale if compared to the Lord Regent’s, and Issandrian had fallen on hard times.

  The door slave announced her, and almost at once, Curtin Issandrian led her into his withdrawing room. She was about to take her pipe from its holder when she realized she’d left all her tobacco at the house. She didn’t have any, and she didn’t feel right begging that when she’d already come to ask so much of him.

  “I heard that your mansion has been confiscated,” he said. “I am truly sorry.”

  “Well, I could hardly expect to keep it. The holding in Osterling Fells is gone too, of course. And I don’t think Dawson was actually Baron of Kaltfel for long enough that I’ll feel that loss. I’ll miss the holding, though. It’s a pretty place in winter.”

  “I recall,” the man said, smiling. “Your hospitality was always excellent. Even to your husband’s rivals.”

  “Oh, especially to them,” Clara said. “What sort of virtue does it take to be nice to your friends?”

  Issandrian laughed at that. Good. He might be willing to hear her out. They talked about small things for a few
more minutes. The heat of the day wasn’t so bad yet that the with-drawing room became unpleasant. It would come, but not yet.

  “I confess I’ve come for more than kind words and comfort,” she said, “though you’re quite good at both of those.”

  “How can I help?” he asked.

  “You and my husband are acknowledged enemies.”

  “Not so far as that, I hope. Rivals, perhaps.”

  “No. Enemies. And there’s a sincerity in being a man’s enemy. It puts you in a position to help me. I have nothing to offer you in exchange, but if you can, please speak on behalf of my sons and daughters. Not formally, but in the Great Bear and privately. I should be very grateful.”

  “Daughters? I thought you only had one.”

  “Elisia and Sabiha,” Clara said.

  “Ah,” Issandrian said. He didn’t look so bad with his hair cut short. Now that he’d worn it this way for a time, it became familiar. The difference was only a difference after all.

  “You have always been very kind to me, Lady Kalliam,” Issandrian said. “Even when your husband was hoping for my death. I have very little influence anymore, but what I have is yours.”

  “Thank you,” Clara said.

  After the first, the rest were easy, or if not easy at least inevitable. If she could go begging to Curtin Issandrian, surely her cousin Erryn Meer would be simple to appeal to. And the women she’d had for needlecraft demonstrations, and the poetry group that Lady Emming had arranged, and so on through the city and through the court and through her day.

  She was no stranger to these sorts of little informal audiences, but she’d always been on the other side. Offering sympathy with cookies and support without promises. The form was familiar. The only change was the role she played and the stakes she played for.

  Elisia, thankfully, had already shed the Kalliam name. Safe in the bosom of Annerin, she could still be seen in court and her position was secure. Vicarian was less secure, but still better than he might have been. He’d been out of Camnipol for the trouble. He hadn’t served in the field. His loyalty was to God and the priesthood of the kingdom. He would have to renounce Dawson, but as long as he did, he should be safe.