The King's Blood tdatc-2 Read online

  Pyk held up a thick-fingered fist. Dozens of pages filled it. Bills of lading, letters of intent, requests that the Medean bank do what it had promised and make whole the eleven merchants and traders who had put their faith in the Stormcrow and been disappointed.

  “And what the fuck am I supposed to do with this?” she asked.

  Cithrin sat on her hands. Outside the little room in the back of the café, songbirds were building a nest. The scent of Maestro Asanpur’s coffee sneaked in through the closed door, calling to Cithrin like the sound of a friend laughing in the next room. She kept her temper in check.

  “Make the payments?” she said.

  The Yemmu woman rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, thank you. I can read the contract. I mean how am I supposed to justify this to the holding company?”

  Pyk began putting the papers into stacks like she was dealing out cards in some deeply complex game. Cithrin wanted to take them from her. Seeing the papers there was like a half-starved man standing in a bakery door but not permitted to enter.

  “It was a good risk,” Cithrin said.

  “Then why am I paying out on it?”

  “Even good risks fail sometimes. That’s why we call them risks. If we only invested in certainties, we wouldn’t turn enough profit to eat.”

  “You cut thumbs on this contract and took in a hundred standard weights of silver. Now I’m supposed to pay out almost a thousand and call it good? Well, thank God we don’t have more good risks, then.”

  “The branch can absorb the loss,” she said as Pyk slapped another page on her piles. It was a yellowed strip with ink the color of rust. Cithrin pointed at it. “Don’t pay that one.”

  “What?”

  “That sheet. It’s from Mezlin Kumas. He’s got a reputation for claiming more cargo than he bought. Just a list like that in his own hand? Not enough. If it doesn’t have the captain’s thumb, you shouldn’t pay out.”

  “Why don’t you go outside and play with a ball of yarn or something,” Pyk said with a sigh. “I’ll take care of this.”

  Cithrin’s outrage felt like heat rising from her belly to her throat. She felt the flush of blood in her cheeks. The tears in her eyes were made from frustration and rage. Pyk put down another sheet over the top of the suspect list, licked her thumb, and went back to dealing out the pages. She didn’t look at Cithrin, and her frown drew a hundred thin lines in the flesh of her cheek.

  “Why don’t you like me?” Cithrin asked.

  “Oh, I can’t imagine, pet,” Pyk said. “Why wouldn’t I like you? Hmm. I’m here to do all your work for you, make all the decisions, take all the responsibility, write the reports, and justify myself to Komme Medean and the holding company. But God forbid that I should actually be the voice of the bank. Because that’s you, isn’t it? You wander around the city playing at being a great lady when you’re not old enough to sign your own contracts.”

  “I didn’t ask them to send you here,” Cithrin said.

  “What you asked for or didn’t ask for is the least interesting thing in my day,” Pyk said. “It doesn’t change anything. The truth is, no matter what you want or intend, no matter what I want or intend, I’m the one who’ll be called to answer for the failure, and you’ll be the one who dines out on the success.”

  “You could let me help you,” Cithrin said. “You know I’m smart enough to carry some of the weight.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Pyk put down the papers and turned to face Cithrin directly. The big woman’s expression was steely and cold.

  “Because you don’t answer for it. You can come in and play at being a banker, but you aren’t one. No, be quiet. You asked, you can keep your pretty little mouth shut and hear the answer. You’re not a banker. You’re an extortionist who got lucky.”

  “That’s not—”

  “Now you get the status in the eyes of the city, you get to call yourself the voice of the bank, you get the nice clothes and the food and the shelter, and you get it all on my back. They can’t fire you until all the poisoned contracts you signed are purged and replaced with something we could enforce. It’ll take years. Me, though? They could send a letter and turn me in the streets tomorrow. They won’t, but they could. You get all the carrot and none of the stick, and I do the job. That’s not enough? I need to like you too? You want to put your hooks in me like you’ve got ’em in your pet mercenary? Well, tough shit, kid.”

  The notary went silent. Cithrin rose. She felt like she’d been punched, her body vibrating from the depth of the notary’s anger, but her head was clear and cold as meltwater. It was as if her body was the only thing frightened.

  “I’ll leave you to your work, then,” Cithrin said. “If there’s anything I can do that would help the branch, please let me know.”

  Pyk made an impatient click in the back of her throat.

  “And, really,” Cithrin said, pointing to the pages laid out on the table, “don’t pay that list.”

  Cithrin walked through the streets in the southern end of the city nearest the port. The puppeteers were out in force, sometimes as many as three working different corners when two of the larger ways crossed. Many were variations on old themes: retellings of PennyPenny the Jasuru with his bouts of comic rage and violence or stories of cleverness and crime with Timzinae Roaches—often with the three black-scaled marionettes tied to a single cross, their movements literally made one. Other times, the stories were of greater local interest. A story of a crippled widow forced to sell her babies only to have them each returned as too much trouble to keep could be just a comic tale with a few bawdy jokes and a trick baby puppet that grew monstrous teeth, but to the residents of the city it was also an elaborate in-joke about a famously corrupt governor. Cithrin stopped in an open square to stand and watch a pair of full-blooded Cinnae girls— paler and thinner even than her—singing an eerie song and swaying with marionettes in the shapes of bloodied men. She noticed the girls had filed their teeth to sharklike points. She wasn’t sure if it was more frightening or pretentious. It was certainly a large personal investment for an effect that limited the range of performances they could do.

  Cithrin mulled over how much of the performer’s craft relied on excellence in a small range and how much on competence over a wide variety of performances. It was, of course, a single instance of a more general problem, and it could be applied to the bank as well. A certain range of contracts— insurance and loans and partnerships and letters of credit— required relatively little additional expertise. To widen the business into renting out guardsmen or guaranteeing merchandise in bank-owned warehouses required more resources and higher expenses, but it also brought in coin that wouldn’t have come in otherwise.

  The Cinnae girls struck a series of high, gliding trills, matching each other in an uncomforting harmony. The one on Cithrin’s left swirled, her dark skirts rising with the motion to show blue-stained legs. Cithrin saw it and didn’t see it.

  It wasn’t only her mutilated tusks that made Pyk like the sharp-toothed puppeteers. Pyk also wanted to limit what the bank did, restrict it to the few areas in which she was comfortable and then increase her profits by reducing cost. Excellence in a narrow circle. It was safe and it was small and it was absolutely against Cithrin’s instincts.

  “Magistra,” Marcus said. She hadn’t noticed him walking up behind her.

  “Captain,” she said. “How are the guards?”

  “We lost a few,” he said. “That Yardem and I took the worst pay cuts pulled the punch a little. Still, I’m keeping either me or Yardem at the main house until people stop being quite so sour about it. I’d hate to be the captain whose guard stole the safebox.”

  The Cinnae girls scowled, their voices growing a degree harsher at the interruption. Cithrin dug out a few weights of copper and dropped them in the open sack between the performers, then took Marcus’s arm and walked west, toward the seawall.

  “I’m not going to win her
over,” Cithrin said. “Not ever. It isn’t just that we dislike each other. We disagree.”

  “That’s a problem.”

  Cithrin felt her mind at work. From the time she’d been old enough to know anything, her world had been the bank. Coins and bills and rates of exchange, how to set prices and how to exploit prices that others had set poorly. It was what she’d had growing up instead of love.

  “I have a proposal I’m looking at from a man who makes his fortune searching for lost things,” Cithrin said. “It isn’t the sort of thing Pyk would be comfortable with, do you think?”

  Marcus looked sideways at her.

  “It doesn’t sound like the sort of thing she would,” he said. “Do banks even do that?”

  “Banks do whatever brings money to banks,” Cithrin said. “Still, it’s given me an idea, and I’d like you to look into it. If you can.”

  “You know you can’t negotiate anything…”

  “I don’t think that would be an issue. And really, nothing may come of this. But if it does, we might be able to bring Pyk enough money to restore the guards.”

  “That’s an interesting thought,” Marcus said. “What kind of business are you looking to start?”

  “Nothing outside the bank. It isn’t really even a new business.”

  “It’s looking for lost things.”

  “Yes.”

  “Something we’ve lost.”

  “Yes.”

  The seawall was whitewashed stone, and looked out over the pale water of the bay. The dropoff where the deeper water began was a blue as profound as indigo. Near the docks, it was shallow enough to be almost the color of sand. A guideboat was leading a shallow-bottomed galley through the reefs and sandbars that protected the city’s seaward face. In the centuries of its life, Porte Oliva had fallen, but never to force.

  Marcus leaned against the wall, looking out over the water. The angle of the sun showed the white hair mixed in among the brown. His eyes were narrowed against the light.

  “And what is it we lost that you’re thinking to look for?”

  “The cargo of the Stormcrow,” she said. “We’re about to pay for it. The pirates have to come to ground somewhere. If we can find where, we might be able to recover some part of what we’ve lost. Even if it was a tenth of the manifest, it would be enough to put the guards back to full pay.”

  Seagulls wheeled past the wall, wide wings riding the rising air where the breeze from the sea broke against the walls of the city. Seven young Timzinae men in the canvas of sailors walked past, laughing and talking too loud. One of them shouted something playful and obscene. Marcus turned to watch them pass.

  “I can ask around, I suppose,” Marcus said. “No harm in that.”

  “It would have to be done quickly.”

  “I can talk quickly,” he said. “What are we trying to do with it? If we find the cargo and bring it back, what do you think we’ll have won?”

  “We’re keeping money for the branch,” Cithrin said.

  “Pyk’s not going to thank us for that.”

  “We wouldn’t be doing it for her.”

  “Ah,” Marcus said. “So it doesn’t help with the real problem.”

  “Not directly. But if the branch does better because of what we do, it may be of use later. When Pyk’s moved on.”

  “And when are you expecting that to be?”

  Annoyance knotted itself between her shoulder blades and she crossed her arms. A seagull swooped past, its shadow darkening her face and then vanishing again.

  “I have to do something,” she said. “I can’t just sit here and watch her play the game so safely that we lose it.”

  “Agreed. And I’m in favor of anything that gets my men paid, not to mention myself. Going behind Pyk’s back only makes it sweeter. But if it works, the branch does better, and she’s more likely to stay.”

  “But if we cut down the bank in order to get rid of her, then we’ve cut down the bank.”

  Cithrin put her palms to her temples. She and Pyk had the same problem at heart.

  “If we could just trade roles,” she said. “I don’t care if I go to banquets and feasts. I just want control of the books.”

  “Don’t think she’s likely to agree to that.”

  “We could kill her,” Cithrin joked.

  “I’m not sure that would win the trust and approbation of the holding company,” Marcus said. “But we’re going to have to do something.”

  Cithrin shook her head. His words were like swallowing pebbles, a weight growing in her belly. She thought of the taproom, but pushed the thought aside. Ale wasn’t going to help. It wasn’t even really going to make her feel better. But it might help her sleep.

  “They’re never going to trust me, are they?” she said. “Komme Medean. The holding company.”

  “They might trust you once they know you better.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll write them some pretty letters,” she said sourly.

  “Can’t hurt,” Marcus said. “Meantime, though, let’s see if we can’t find your pirates.”

  Geder

  Aster was smaller than Geder by half a head, and Geder wasn’t the tallest of men. The boy’s reach was less than Geder’s, and they were about equally strong. The advantage the prince had was this: he was fast.

  The sword hissed through the air as Geder tried to get his own to block it. The blades chimed against each other, the shock of their meeting stinging Geder’s fingers. Aster spun, the blade pulled close to his body, and then reached out. Geder understood the attack too late. Aster’s stroke caught his shoulder, skidded off the dueling leathers, and ended on his ear. The pain was sharp and disorienting. Sword forgotten, he clapped his palm over his ear, staggered back, and fell on his ass. There was blood on his fingers. He heard Aster’s blade clatter to the ground and looked up. The prince’s eyes were round with alarm.

  Geder laughed and held up his bloodied hand.

  “Look!” he said. “It’s my first dueling scar. Thank God there’s not an edge on the blade, or you’d have had my earlobe off.”

  “I’m sorry,” Aster said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “Oh, stop,” Geder said. “I know you didn’t. I’m fine.”

  He rolled to his feet. The dueling grounds of his mansion were in the back gardens, away from the streets. Old ash trees lined the packed clay, their roots lifting and cracking the ancient stone wall. White roses were richly leaved, but not yet so much as budding. When they bloomed, the yard would be drowned in white petals. Geder got to his feet. His ear still stung, but not badly. Aster smiled uncertainly, and Geder grinned.

  “You are a warrior and a man of infinite virtue, my prince,” Geder said, making a florid bow. “I yield to you on this field of honor.”

  Aster laughed and made a formal bow.

  “We should have someone put honey on that ear,” the prince said.

  “Back to the house, then,” Geder said.

  “I’ll race you.”

  “What? You’d run against a poor wounded—” Geder began, and then broke off sprinting for the main house. Behind him, he heard Aster’s protesting yelp and then the pounding of his footsteps.

  Geder’s boyhood had been, for the most part, in Rivenhalm. As the son of the viscount, he’d had the privileges of nobility, but very little to do with them. There had been servants and serfs enough, but the gap between the highest-born peasant and the heir to the holding was too great to bridge. His father had no love of court, and so Geder hadn’t had the chance to know other boys of his class. He read books from the library and built elaborate structures from twigs and string. In the winters, he walked along the frozen river dressed in black furs. In the springs, he carried books to his mother’s grave and sat beside her stone reading until the shadows of evening pulled through the valley.

  He hadn’t thought of himself as lonesome. He had nothing to compare his life with, and so everything about it seemed perfectly normal. As it had alw
ays been. As it would always be.

  When he’d come of age and entered the world of the court, it had been overwhelming, exciting, and humiliating. Everyone knew better than he did. He’d felt sometimes that there was a secret language everyone besides himself had been schooled in. Another man might say something that seemed perfectly innocuous to Geder—an observation on the length of a coat sleeve, a simple rhyme, a reference to the dragon’s roads that passed by Rivenhalm but never through it—and his friends would chuckle. Geder didn’t know what they were laughing at, and so he assumed they were mocking him. Before long they were, whether they’d begun that way or not. It was only after Vanai that he’d gained the respect of the court. And by respect, they meant fear. He liked being feared, because it meant no one laughed at him.

  Aster, on the other hand, was a real friend. Yes, the prince was nearly a decade younger than Geder, and had been sur rounded all his life by friends and playmates. Yes, he knew the court better now than Geder ever would. But he was a boy, and Geder’s ward, and they were safe for each other. Geder could climb trees with him, practice dueling, race and laugh and swim at midnight in the fountains. With a man his own age, Geder would have been too wary of seeming foolish or having the desperation of his friendship mistaken for romantic love. With a woman, he probably wouldn’t have had the assurance to speak in sentences. But with the prince, Geder could play and laugh and joke and all anyone would see was a man being kind to a child.

  The cut on his ear was small but bloody. One of the servants, a lithe Dartinae man with one blind, unglowing eye, dabbed at it with a salve of honey and nettle, then put a bandage over it. Aster’s tutor—a severe man in the employ of King Simeon—found them and led Aster off with an air of proprietary dismay that had Geder and the prince both giggling, the one setting off the other. When he was alone, Geder lay back on a divan and let his eyes close. His ear hurt more than he had let on in front of Aster, but the salve was helping. He was halfway to dozing when a soft sound came from the doorway. He opened an eye. His house master stood just inside the room.