The Dragon’s Path (28 page)

“What we’ve done, Captain,” Master Kit said. “It’s what we’ve done, and this is why. You should pull the cart now.”

In the light of the lanterns, Cary twirled once, laughing. One of the queensmen draped a cloak over Cithrin’s shoulders. Marcus realized he’d drawn his knife without knowing it.
They can’t be trusted,
Marcus thought, looking at the
guardians of civil peace in their cloaks of green and gold.
You can’t trust them.

“Captain?” Yardem asked.

“Go. Keep going,” Marcus said and forced himself to turn away.

The break in the seawall was on the far eastern edge of the city. A stone walkway white with snow and gull droppings and black with ice and night looked out over an invisible ocean. Gulls nested in cracks in the walls around them and on the cliffs below. And there, a single crack, no wider than a doorway where the city had constructed a siege weapon long since turned to rust to defend it against an enemy as dead as the bodies Marcus hauled.

They moved quickly and in silence. Yardem strode to the edge and lofted the corpse from his shoulder and into the grey predawn mist. Then Smit and Hornet, like men helping a drunken companion over the threshold. Then, together, the handcart with its human cargo. And last, Sandr and Opal, the woman limping under the weight of her burden, came to the edge. The last of the knife men vanished. There was no splash. Only the hush of the wind, the complaints of the birds, and faraway muttering of the surf.

“Yardem,” Marcus said. “Get back to the rooms. I’ll find Cithrin.”

“Yes, sir,” the Tralgu said, and vanished into the gloom.

“We’ll need money to pay their fines,” Smit said. “Can we afford that?”

“Seems wrong to charge them for public lewdness,” Sandr said. “Most places you have to pay extra for it.”

“I think we can do what we must,” Master Kit said shortly. “You all go back to the cart. I believe the captain and I have some last business. Opal, please stay with us.”

The players stood for a moment and then walked slowly
away. Marcus listened to their footsteps fade. Sandr said something, and Smit replied darkly. Marcus couldn’t make out the words. Master Kit and Opal stood, deeper black in the gloom all around. Marcus wished he could see their faces, and was also glad that he couldn’t.

“I can’t take her to the queensmen,” Marcus said.

“I know,” Master Kit said.

“I didn’t tell anyone else,” Opal said. “The only people who know about the banker girl’s fortune are the ones who knew before.”

“Unless one of your swimming friends down there told someone,” Marcus said.

“Unless that,” Opal admitted.

“It seems to me there are only two choices here, Captain. You won’t appeal to the city’s justice. Either Opal walks free, or she doesn’t.”

“That’s truth,” Marcus said.

“I would very much like you to let her walk away,” Master Kit said. “She’s already lost her place with me, and we’ve helped protect your work here. You’re hurt, but Yardem Hane isn’t. Or Cithrin. I won’t say there’s no harm done, but I hope there’s room for mercy.”

“Thank you, Kit,” Opal said.

Marcus squinted up. The eastern sky had begun to show the first faint lightening of dawn. The stars in the great arch above him still glittered and shone, but the faintest of them had vanished. More would go out in the next few minutes. He’d been told that, in truth, the stars were always there, only during the day you couldn’t see them. He’d heard the same thing said about the souls of the dead. He didn’t believe that either.

“I’d need to know she wouldn’t come after us again,” he said.

“I swear it,” Opal said, jumping at his words. “I swear to all the gods that I won’t make another try.”

Master Kit made a sudden, pained sound, as if someone had struck him. Marcus took a step toward him, but when the man spoke, his voice was clear and strong and unutterably sad.

“Oh, my poor, dear Opal.”

“Kit,” she said, and there was an intimacy in the way she formed the word that made Marcus reassess everything he thought he knew about the two and their past.

“She’s lying, Captain,” Master Kit said. “I wish that she wasn’t, but you have my word that she is. If she leaves here now, it’s with the intention to come back.”

“Well, then,” Marcus said. “That’s a problem.”

The shadow that was Opal turned and tried to bolt, but Marcus stepped in front of her. She clawed at his eyes and made an inexpert try to knee his groin.

“Please. He’s wrong. Kit’s wrong.
Please
let me go.”

The desperation in her voice, the
fear,
made him want to step aside. He was a soldier and a mercenary, not the kind of feral thug who killed women for the joy of it. He moved half a step back, but then remembered Cithrin again, sitting on the cot with her legs drawn to her knees, facing the swords of the patrol with awkward song. He’d promised to protect her if he could. Not only when it was pleasant.

He knew what had to happen next.

“I’m sorry about this,” Marcus said.

G
eder had known, of course, that Klin’s favorites had been given the better accommodations, and that men like himself had taken the leavings. The scale of the insult, however, hadn’t been clear. He sat on a low divan upholstered in silk. High windows spilled light over the floors like God upending a milk jug. Incense touched the air with vanilla and patchai. The goldwork and gems that glowed over the fire grate hadn’t been wrenched apart in the sack. Even before the soldiers of Antea had taken the streets below, it had been understood that the prince’s house was sacrosanct. Not because it was the prince’s, but because it was Ternigan’s. And then Klin’s. And now, unthinkably, his own.

“My Lord Protector?”

Geder jumped to his feet as if he’d been caught touching something he shouldn’t. The chief of household was an old Timzinae slave, his dark scales greying and cracked. He wore the grey and blue of House Palliako now, or as close to them as could be scrounged.

“Your secretaries await, sir,” the Timzinae said.

“Yes,” Geder said, plucking at the black leather cloak he’d brought from his old rooms. “Yes, of course. Take me there.”

The orders had come three days before. The Lord Marshal had called Alan Klin back to Camnipol, to the despair
of some, the delight of others, and the surprise of no one. The astonishing development was who Ternigan had chosen as his replacement until such time as King Simeon named a permanent governor. Geder had read the order ten times at least, checked the seal and signature, and then read it again. Sir Geder Palliako, son of Viscount of Rivenhalm Lerer Palliako, was now Protector of Vanai. He had the order still, folded in a pouch at his belt like a religious relic: mysterious and awesome and entirely unsafe.

His first thought after the first wave of raw disbelief had passed was that Klin had discovered Geder’s betrayal, and that this was his revenge. As he stepped into the meeting chamber, Klin’s appointees peopling every seat except the one on the dais at the front reserved for himself, Geder had the suspicion again. His belly sloshed and he felt his hands trembling. His blood felt weak as water as he took the two steps up and lowered himself uncomfortably into the presentation seat. Once, the room had been a chapel, and the icons of gods in whom Geder didn’t believe surrounded him. Unsympathetic eyes gazed up at him, expressions blank at best, openly contemptuous at worst. A handful of seats were empty. Loyalists of House Klin who had chosen to resign commission and return with him to Antea rather than submit to the new order. Geder wished he could have gone with them.

“Lords,” Geder said. He sounded like someone was strangling him. He coughed, cleared his throat, and began again. “My lords, you will have read by now the orders of Lord Marshal Ternigan. I am, of course, honored and as surprised as I’m sure all of you are as well.”

He chuckled. No one else made a sound. Geder swallowed.

“It’s important that the city not suffer from a sense of unease during this change. I would like each of you to continue
on with the directions and orders given by Lord Klin so that the… ah… change that we are—”

“You mean the policies that have him pulled back to Ternigan?” The questioner was Alberith Maas, eldest son of Estrian Maas and nephew of Klin’s close ally Feldin.

“Excuse me?”

“The orders,” the young man said. “They’re the same ones that put Lord Klin in the crown’s poor grace, and you want us to keep to them?”

“For now,” Geder said, “yes.”

“A bold decision, my Lord Protector.”

Someone sniggered. Geder felt a rush of shame, and then anger. His jaw tightened.

“When I order a change, Lord Maas, I’ll see that you know of it,” he said. “We will all have to work to raise Vanai up from its present disorder.”

So don’t cross me, or I’ll put you in charge of cleaning weeds out of the canals,
Geder thought, but didn’t say. The young man rolled his eyes but kept silent. Geder took a deep breath, letting the air curl slowly out through his nostrils. His enemies sat before him, looking up. Men of greater experience, with greater political connections, and who had not been given the power that Geder now held. For the most part they would be polite. They would say the right things, though often in the wrong tone of voice. In private, they would shake their heads and laugh at him.

Humiliation fueled his rage.

“Alan Klin was a failure.” It was nothing he’d meant to say, and he threw the words out like a slap across the jowls. “The Lord Marshal gave him Vanai, and Klin pissed it away. And each of
you
were part of that failure. I know you are going to leave here and share your jokes and roll your eyes and tell yourselves it’s all a terrible mistake.”

He leaned forward now. The heat in his cheeks felt like courage.

“But, my very good lords, let me make this clear.
I
am the one Lord Ternigan chose.
I
am the one he picked to turn Vanai from an embarrassment into a jewel in King Simeon’s crown. And I intend to do so. If you would rather make light of me and of the duty we are given, say it now, take your things, and crawl back to Camnipol on your bellies. But stand off
my path
!”

He was shouting now. The fear was gone, the humiliation with it. He didn’t remember standing, but he was on his feet now, his finger pointing a general accusation at the group. Their eyes were wide, their brows risen. He could see unease in the angle of their shoulders and the way they held their hands.

Good,
he thought.
Let them wonder who and what Geder Palliako is.

“If Lord Klin has left pressing business, I’ll hear it now. Otherwise, I will have reports from each of you by tomorrow on the state of the city in general, your particular responsibilities within it, and how you propose to do better.”

There was silence for the space of four heartbeats together. Geder let himself feel a trickle of pleasure.

“Lord Palliako?” a man said from the back. “There’s the grain taxes?”

“What about them?”

“Lord Klin was entertaining a proposal to change them, sir. But he didn’t give a decision before he left. You see, fresh grain coming in from the countryside is taxed at two silver to the bushel, but sold from storage in the city runs two and a half. The local granaries appealed.”

“Put them all at two and a half,” Geder said.

“Yes, Lord Protector,” the man said.

“What else?”

There was nothing more. Geder stalked from the room quickly, before the heat of his temper could fully cool. When the brief certainty of anger passed, it passed completely. By the time he returned to his drawing room—
his
drawing room—he was shaking from head to foot. He sat by the window, looking out on the main square of the city, and tried to guess whether he was on the verge of laughter or tears. Below him, dry leaves skittered. The canal lay bare and dry, a team of slaves of several races hauling armfuls of weeds and filth out of it. A handful of Firstblood girls ran across the square, screaming in their play. He told himself that they were his now. Slaves, girls, leaves. All of it. It frightened him.

“Geder Palliako, Lord Protector of Vanai,” he said to the empty air, hoping that by speaking the words they would become plausible. It didn’t work. He tried to imagine what Lord Ternigan had intended when he’d chosen him. Nothing made sense. He took the letter out again, unfolded it, read each word, each phrase, searching for something to reassure him. There was nothing there.

“My Lord Protector,” the old Timzinae said. Geder jumped less this time. “Lord Kalliam has come, as you asked.”

“Bring him in,” Geder said. The old servant hesitated, as if on the verge of pointing out a breach of etiquette, but turned away after only a bow. Geder wondered if meeting in the private drawing room was supposed to be reserved for special occasions. He’d have to find a book on Vanai court etiquette. Next time he spoke to his hired scholars, he’d mention it.

Jorey Kalliam stepped into the room. He was in his best uniform, and bowed before Geder formally. Either Jorey
was also exhausted and apprehensive, or else Geder was seeing all the world as a mirror. The Timzinae wheeled a cart in behind him laden with small shell dishes of pistachios and candied pears. Once the servant had poured them both crystal mugs of cool water, he retreated. The discreet click of the door latch left them alone.