The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) Read online

  But because of the mixture of races, the traditional families had links of kinship to Elassae and Borja, and even to the minor houses of Antea. If Sarakal had as little as half a season to prepare, the Lord Marshal and the armies of the empire might be facing pikemen from Elassae and Borjan cavalry along with the native defenses. Food and soldiers could sail from Hallskar into Nus or ride carts from Elassae or the Keshet into Inentai. To be done right—to be done well—the assault had to go as quickly and as unequivocally here as it had in Asterilhold.

  In Asterilhold, where the armies had been led by Dawson Kalliam, Lord Marshal, first hero and then traitor. Even now, months after the fact, Geder saw the old man’s face twisted in rage, Basrahip’s blood on his blade. It seemed unjust that even after Dawson Kalliam’s coup had been defeated and his life ended, Geder still felt haunted by him and his inexplicable betrayal.

  “Lord Regent?” Ternigan said. “Do you have an opinion?”

  Geder looked at the men around the table, painfully aware of having lost the thread of the conversation. There had been a question, and now he was going to look like a fool for not knowing what it was. He cleared his throat and the beginning of a blush rose in his throat.

  “Well, yes. Let me see,” he said. “Minister Basrahip? Would you care to offer an opinion?”

  At his place beside the window, the priest lifted his head and smiled beatifically.

  “There shall be no uprising to distract you,” he said, his voice rough and melodious. “Prince Geder has lifted up temples to the goddess, and those who hear her voice will remain true.”

  “All respect, Minister,” Canl Daskellin said, “there was a temple in Camnipol last summer, and things didn’t go so well there.”

  “They will now,” Basrahip said. Daskellin shuddered and looked away.

  “Still,” Ternigan said, “I think we won’t have the men to control the full nation. Not this season. Nus, without question. We’ll have it by autumn, let whoever’s escaped to the south sue for peace. Gives us a good thick buffer between Antean land and any of these bastards who think they’d care to make trouble for us again.”

  “You will have it all,” Basrahip said. There was no defiance in his tone. At most, a sense of gentle correction as one might hear a tutor take with a pupil. “As the goddess delivered Asterilhold to you, so she will reclaim the lands stolen by the Timzinae. The false race will be cast out and have no home.”

  “That’s lovely, Minister,” Ternigan said. “But these actions carry their own constraints. I have only so many knights. Only so many bows. Only so many blades. Overreaching is worse than failure. A collapse when we’ve outstripped our own support could push us back past our own borders.”

  “It will not happen so,” Basrahip said.

  Ternigan frowned, turning back to the map. His frown wasn’t that of an insulted man, though there was perhaps a bit of that, so much as someone reexamining a puzzle, apprehensive that some criticial clue had been missed.

  “Regardless,” Geder said, “the first part of the campaign is in place, yes?”

  “The blockade will be there,” Lord Skestinin said. “No ships in or out of the port of Nus without our men searching them, and no landings in the coves east or west of the city.”

  “Good,” Geder said. “And the foot troops?”

  “Ten thousand sword-and-bows are camped at Flor, waiting for me,” Ternigan said. “I have sworn statements from half a dozen barons and counts that they’ll raise their levies and ride in after once I give the word. I haven’t done it yet for fear of raising an alarm, but they should arrive just about when the first force needs relief. We’ll be the hammer that breaks the anvil this time, just you watch.”

  “I’ll repair to the west,” Daskellin said. “I’ll reassure Northcoast and Birancour that we’re only looking to secure our borders, and that Asterilhold’s done that in the west. They aren’t likely to care what we’re doing in the east so long as it doesn’t affect their taxes and trades.”

  “And the priests?” Geder asked.

  “They will travel with your army,” Basrahip said. “Where they go, you shall find always victory.”

  “Well, that’ll be damned pleasant,” Ternigan said. “Nothing goes quite as well as constant, unending victory, ah?”

  “I’ll want reports to me in Camnipol,” Geder said. “Daily, if you can.”

  “We’ll wear the courier’s hoofs to the quick, Lord Regent,” Ternigan said. “You have my word on it.”

  Geder nodded.

  “Well, then. Let’s make it official, shall we?”

  Without servants to wait on them, Daskellin was the one to clear the table, bring the parchments and the ink. Basrahip shook his head in mock despair and amusement. Making a thing more real by writing it down made as much sense to the priest as cooling something with fire, but Geder shrugged and Basrahip waved him on, as if indulging him.

  The pages were short, the wording simple and classic. Geder signed at the end, and then the others each took the pen in turn and stood witness. It took less time from the start to the end than it would to eat a bowl of soup, and after so many weeks of preparation, it felt both exciting and oddly a bit melancholy, as if the pleasant part of the work were over and the tedious stretch about to begin.

  “Well, then. That’s it,” Geder said as Daskellin poured the blotting sand over the ink. “War.”

  Word spread through the holdfast of Watermarch like it was carried by the wind. The King’s Hunt was ending for the year, and those high nobles who had expected to retire to their holdings for the few weeks before the opening of the court season in Camnipol had news to carry back home with them, and tasks that perhaps they hadn’t expected. Geder heard the excitement in their voices, even when they spoke of other things—the cut of dresses and cloaks, the marriages and liaisons of the court, the scandalous poets and thinly veiled plays—everything was suddenly really about the war. There was almost a sense of relief that came with it. The victory over Asterilhold should have been a time of celebration, and instead it had become a nightmare. Even when the conspirators had been killed, their lands retaken by the Severed Throne, it had left a sour taste in the mouths of the victors.

  And in truth, even the battle with Asterilhold had carried a sense of infighting. The bloodlines of Antea and Asterilhold had crossed and mixed for centuries. The noble banners that faced each other in the fields outside Kaltfel had belonged to cousins, even if often at several removes. While there were some Firstblood relations in the traditional families of Sarakal, they were few, and when the nation’s name arose, the image it carried was of a Timzinae or Jasuru, of a chaotic government hardly better than a nomadic tribe with its shoes nailed in one place to keep it from straying. It made the coming slaughter feel cleaner. To see that the enemy came from outside and that they would be brought to their knees by Antean strength was a return to the way things were supposed to be. Even Geder found it relieving.

  On those years when the first thaw came after the end of the hunt, tradition called for a final occasion. A ball, a feast, the comparing of honors. Canl Daskellin held the feast in a massive glassed ballroom, braziers burning at the ends of every table keeping the air thick and warm. Outside the massive network of glass, the sea was the color of slate flecked with white, the setting sun a glory of orange and gold. Geder sat at the high table, Prince Aster at one side, Basrahip at the other. It was like something from an old poem, and these men toasting each other and trading barbed rhymes, competing with extemporaneous speeches on patriotism and piety and bragging about how many women they’d bedded in their youth were the dragons of old reborn in human form. It made him wish that his own father attended the hunt, just so that he could be sitting at Geder’s side and watching it all.

  And yet he was not wholly at peace.

  The seating was, as always, arranged by the status within the court. The nearer to the high table, Geder, and Prince Aster, the more honored. Canl Daskellin, as host, shared the high
table, as did his wife and his daughter, Sanna. Sanna wore a gown that left Geder feeling something between embarrassed and excited, and kept smiling at him. Then, one table farther, Ternigan and his family along with Lord Skestinin and his son, Bynal. But not his daughter. Geder tried to ignore the absence, but it gnawed at him from the first soup through the pheasant. When the venison came, he excused himself.

  The apartments were in the north wing of the holding, positioned well enough for an honored merchant or the lowest of the noble. When Geder’s personal guard announced him, no servant came to see him in. Sabiha’s hair was the color of wheat, and her cheeks were round and touched with a permanent rose that made her seem younger than she was. The politeness of her expression didn’t match the coolness of her eyes. Now that he’d spent some time with Lord Skestinin, he could see something of him in her, but for the most part she only seemed herself.

  The sitting room was cooler than the ballroom, though it had no windows. The lamp that burned on the mantel put out a dull, buttery light that almost forgave the worn upholstery of the divan. Geder understood. Like everything in court, the amenities of the hunt meant something. Not so many years ago, he would have been given a room much like this, if he’d bothered coming to the hunt at all. Still, its shabbiness disturbed him.

  “Lord Regent,” she said with the curtsey that etiquette required of her.

  “Sabiha,” Geder said. “I was looking for you at the feast. And Jorey. I was looking for both of you.”

  “My father thought that, given the situation, it would be better that we not appear.”

  “Yes,” Geder said. “Well. I was wondering if I might speak with Jorey for a moment. And … and can I have food sent to you? There’s a whole feast, and some of it’s very good, and just because the politics of the things are what they are, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat.”

  He was babbling. He knew it, and he could no more stop it than hold back the springtime. Sabiha’s smile was crooked, and he didn’t know whether she was amused or annoyed. Not that it mattered. He was Lord Regent of Antea. She would accede to his suggestions, whatever they were. If he’d asked her to throw off her gown and dance naked for him, she would have had to or risk the displeasure of the crown. It was odd how having power over people meant not knowing their true minds. Not without Basrahip there to tell him, anyway.

  “It would be kind of you, my lord,” Sabiha said.

  “Geder. Really, in private, call me Geder.”

  “It would be kind of you, Geder,” she said. “Wait here if you’d like. I’ll get Jorey.”

  “Thank you,” Geder said. Sabiha walked into the gloom of the corridor. Geder heard her voice, and then Jorey’s, and then hers again. He thought there was a warmth in them, the sound of husband and wife. His own mother had died when he was a child, so he only had the servants and slaves to judge from, but he thought he’d heard the intimate kindness in the servants’ quarters in unguarded moments. That, and books he’d read that spoke of the role of men and of women, and the connection between them. His direct experience was somewhat limited.

  Jorey emerged into the light. He still wore his hunting leathers and a grey wool cloak. His hair was unruly and his eyes had a darkness under them. Geder popped up to his feet and wiped his hands on his thighs.

  “Jorey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wanted to find you and say it. Between us.”

  Jorey’s smile was thin.

  “It wasn’t your doing, my lord,” Jorey said, as if the words pained him. “My father’s actions were unconscionable. The death … the death you gave him—”

  “Oh, not that,” Geder said quickly. He didn’t want Jorey to still feel embarrassed about what Dawson had done. “That’s in the past. Over with. I meant the war. You did hear, didn’t you?”

  Jorey sat on the divan, looking up at Geder. It was an utter breach of etiquette, but Jorey didn’t seem to notice, and Geder was oddly glad that he hadn’t. Geder had Aster and Basrahip, who knew him for who he was instead of the title he answered to. And the part-Cinnae banker, Cithrin, who’d hidden with him during the worst of the troubles. Even with Jorey Kalliam, Geder could still count his friends on one hand and not use his thumb.

  “You’ve decided to invade Sarakal,” Jorey said.

  “Yes, that,” Geder said. “Only I named … I named Ternigan as Lord Marshal, and he picked the men he wanted on campaign with him. And after what happened with your father, and Barriath …”

  In truth, Barriath Kalliam had chosen exile rather than give his loyalty to Geder. Nor had he been the only one to do so. Others had tried to lie, to swear that they would never betray Geder as others had, but Basrahip had been there to warn of their duplicity. Those died.

  “Don’t apologize to me for that,” Jorey said. His gaze had wandered to the shadowed corridor. “I’ve had enough of killing to last a lifetime. I only want to go back to Lord Skestinin’s estate and look after my family.”

  Geder nodded, more to himself than to Jorey. He had never taken the youngest of the Kalliams before his private tribunal, never subjected him to the unyielding certainty of Basrahip and the spider goddess. It would have seemed cruel, and after all, Jorey had renounced his father before the full court. To question his honesty or loyalty after that was like questioning whether the sea tasted of salt.

  And there was also some other, deep, wordless reluctance. Geder didn’t want him in there, and he didn’t want to think too closely about why, except that it wasn’t a place for his friends. He sat at Jorey’s side, not touching, but close. Like two men on campaign sitting on the same log before a cookfire.

  “I know how hard this has all been,” Geder said. “You don’t have to worry, though. I’ll be on the throne until Aster’s of age, and I’ll find a way to bring you back into the good graces of the court. You and Sabiha both.”

  Jorey laughed bitterly, but didn’t speak. Geder felt a twist of anxiety in his belly and plucked at the cloth of his sleeve.

  “What … what are you thinking?” he asked.

  “I’m thinking about what makes a man good. Or evil. I’m wondering if I’m a good man or an evil one.”

  “You aren’t evil. An evil person does bad things,” Geder said. “Even your father wasn’t evil. He was … misguided. The Timzinae who poisoned his mind against the throne? They were evil. But he was a brave man, doing what he thought was right, however wrong he was about it. I never thought he was evil.”

  “Never?”

  “Well,” Geder said, almost shyly, “almost never. I did lose my temper with him. There at the end. I mean, he did try to kill me.”

  Jorey’s expression was unreadable—amusement, disgust, despair. He could have meant anything.

  “I know that you count me as your friend, Geder,” he said at last.

  The smile began in Geder’s chest as a warmth, and it spread out through his body.

  “That’s all I wanted, Jorey. I just wanted you to remember that no matter what’s happened, I am your friend.”

  Marcus

  Good kitty,” Marcus said, his sword at the ready, “or … whatever the hell you are.”

  The beast shifted its head, following the shine of steel with distrust. It stood little higher than Marcus’s waist, but nose to tail would easily measure fifteen feet. Its fur was black and mottled as if designed to disappear into the sun-dappled darkness under the jungle canopy. Dagger-long claws cut into the ground as it stepped toward him, and its jaw opened half a handspan as if it were tasting the air.

  “I think it’s trying to get between us,” Kit said.

  “Then stay close to me,” Marcus replied. “I don’t think it has our best interests at heart. Good kitty. Stay back.”

  The beast opened its mouth with a shriek equal parts windstorm and ripping flesh. Its teeth were broad, low, and hooked. The struggle of prey caught in that jaw would only drive the bite deeper. It took another step closer and lowered its body to the ground, bunching up as if to leap.

 
; They were in what Marcus had come to think of as a clearing. The trees were thinner here, and bits of blue sky showed between the arm-broad fronds twenty feet above him. There was room to move without being caught against tree trunks or thick, leathery scrub. That was likely why the beast had chosen this space to make its advance.

  The constant noise of the wilderness—the drip of water from the trees, the high chirping call of the bright yellow frogs that swarmed over the ground at dawn and dusk, the distant scream of monkeys, the clicking of billions of unseen insects from within the rotting carpet of leaf and mold they walked on—was like an auditory fog, obscuring any sound within it. Sweat sheeted down Marcus’s back, and the constant, punishing heat and damp were like a blanket pressed over his face. He was aware of Kit off to his left, but he didn’t dare glance over to see what the old actor was doing.

  “Why would it want its enemies to flank it? I don’t see how it could defend against us both,” Kit said.

  “Same reason you’d put yourself between sheep,” Marcus said. “Lets you put your full attention on the one you’re killing. Can we talk about this later?”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  Marcus shook his sword, and the beast’s eyes flickered toward it. Its pupils were cat slits, its nose two flat pits like a viper’s. Its chest widened and narrowed as it sucked in air. Smelling them. Gathering information. Making its decision.