“Are you laughing at me?”
“A wall is a thing, Prince Geder. A gate is a thing. A well, a granary, a ship. Things. You don’t defeat things. You defeat people, yes? So we see all these beautiful, strong things and think that the ones behind them must be beautiful, strong people. But they are Timzinae and the puppets of Timzinae. They are the slaves of dead masters. There is nothing in this place to stop us.”
“They could be toys made of sticks and tree sap, but we still can’t get to them,” Geder said, but he felt the darkness and anger slipping in him. Losing its hold. Basrahip sat at the desk. In his fingers, the apple seemed tiny. When he bit it, the white of the flesh seemed vaguely obscene.
“Have faith in the goddess,” Basrahip said. “You have kept your promise to her. She will keep faith with you. These walls will bow to you, if you wish them to.”
“How?”
Basrahip smiled.
“Speak to the enemy. Do this.”
“Call the parley, you mean?”
“This,” Basrahip said. “Let us hear our enemy’s voice.”
It took the better part of three days, but on the fourth, a lesser gate swung open and a small group came out carrying the banners of parley. The man who led them was old, his broad scales greying and cracked, but he held himself with a haughtiness and pride so profound they radiated. Mesach Sau, patriarch of his family and war leader of Nus sat across the table from Geder and folded his arms. The nictitating membranes under his eyelids slid slowly closed and open again, blinking without breaking off his stare.
“You wanted to talk,” Sau said.
“Open the gates of the city,” Geder said.
“Kiss my ass.”
Geder looked over. Ternigan and Basrahip both sat on camp stools like matched statues, Ternigan the image of dour seriousness, Basrahip serene and smiling. Geder cleared his throat, and Basrahip’s smile grew a degree wider.
“You cannot win,” the priest said. “Everything you care for is already lost.”
“He can kiss my ass too,” Sau said.
“You should listen to him,” Geder replied.
“You have no hope but surrender. The armies of Antea are powerful beyond measure. Their mercy is your only hope.”
“Is that what I’ve come here for?” the old Timzinae asked, then turned his head and spat on the grass. “We have the food and water to sit on our thumbs and grin until this time next year. Your boys will be starving in a month. We know all about your engineers and their mining, and that’s not going to do you any damned good either.”
“Listen to my voice,” Basrahip said, and it seemed as though his words took on a wild music. Geder felt himself almost lifted by them. “Prince Geder cannot be defeated. He cannot be stopped. It is not in your power to defeat him. If you stand against him, your children will die before your eyes. And their children as well. It is inevitable.”
“This is shit,” Sau said, standing. Geder lifted his hand and ten men approached, bare blades in their hands. Sau turned, his mouth a gape of rage. “We’re under parley! You kill me and you’ll never get another chance, boy.”
“Don’t call me boy,” Geder said. “I’m trying to save your life.”
“You cannot win,” Basrahip said again, as old Sau retook his seat, his hands in fists at his sides. “The dead will rise and march with the soldiers. Any you cut down will stand again, stronger and without fear. You cannot win against the power facing you. Everything you love is already lost.”
The hours of the parley passed slowly, but with every one, Geder felt his fear lose hold. Nothing had changed. The walls of Nus were just as tall, the defenses just as vicious, but what had seemed doomed before began to take on the mantle of possibility, and then credibility, and before sunset, it was certain. Old Sau sat just as proudly in his seat, his head just as high, but tears leaked out of his eyes, the scales of his cheeks black and bright as a fountain.
“I won’t do it,” Sau said, but his voice broke when he said it. “I’ll die before I’ll do it.”
“Another will come,” Basrahip said. His voice had taken on a dry rasp from the hours he’d spent talking. “If you will not, the next one will, and then his family will be the one to take Prince Geder’s mercy and your grandchildren will die bleeding in your streets.”
“I won’t do it. Won’t do it. Better we die than give in to bastards like you.” Sau broke off, sobbing. Geder didn’t clap his hands in delight—it would have been rude—but the impulse was there.
“Go,” Geder said. “We can continue the negotiation tomorrow.”
Sau stood up and turned without a word. He stumbled as he left the camp. The red of the setting sun made the walls of Nus glow like iron in a forge. Geder watched the old man make his journey back to the city, watched him disappear within it.
“I’m damned,” Ternigan said, and his voice was soft with wonder. “He’s going to, isn’t he? We’re going to take this bastard of a city after all.”
“It may take time,” Basrahip said. “Perhaps as long as two full weeks together. But yes, Prince Ternigan. The gates will open to you. The city will fall. Your victory is certain.”
Ternigan shook his head again, pressing a palm to his temple.
“I don’t understand all that I saw here today, my lord,” he said. “But …”
“You don’t have to understand,” Geder said. “Just have faith in it.”
They walked back toward camp slowly. In the broad arch of sky, a handful of stars appeared in the twilight. Then a scattering. Then countless millions.
“We will have to make arrangements for a protectorate,” Ternigan said. “That may be a trick. I thought I’d have much more time. Did you have someone in mind to take control?”
Jorey Kalliam, Geder almost said, but stopped himself. Now that it was asked, he realized it was a question he should have been considering from before he’d left Camnipol. Jorey was still reestablishing himself in court, and while having a few visible honors like the protection of a conquered city would help in that, it would also mean being away from Camnipol. He wished he’d thought to ask. But there would be other cities. Other chances.
That night, they all dined on fresh chicken and a sweet mash made from sugar beets and rice. Ternigan had the captains he commanded compete in extemporaneous poetry praising Antea, the Severed Throne, Geder, and Prince Aster. The night was like something from the histories Geder had read of the great generations of the empire, a bit of the past with new life breathed into its nostrils. It was as if he’d taken all the romances of campaign life and made them real. The comradery, the joy, the bluff masculine competition. All of the things he’d hoped for and never found were his now. All evening, Basrahip and the other priests walked through the camps, speaking with the soldiers, laughing with them, cheering them, and near midnight the whole camp broke into song at once, literally singing Geder’s praises.
He went to bed drunk as much on the affection and loyalty of his men as on any sort of wine, and lay in the darkness grinning and satisfied. He let his mind wander, remembering the darkness of his mood the day he’d seen the city’s defenses. The thought was almost pleasant now, and he turned it in his mind like a glass marble held to the sun, watching it glitter and flash. He’d been so sure that he’d have to return humiliated. He imagined Aster looked up at him again, solid and encouraging even in defeat, and Geder was filled with a kind of love. Aster was such a good child. Geder felt the depth of his own good fortune in getting to deliver the prince a vastly expanded empire when the time finally came for his coronation. A world at peace. It would be a beautiful thing.
And then, after. When Geder was only the Baron of Ebbingbaugh again, he could return to his own life. His books, his holding. Perhaps a wife, or since Cithrin bel Sarcour wasn’t of noble blood, at least a consort. If she’d have him. Or he could travel. Aster could name him as a special ambassador to Birancour, and he’d have reason to visit her in Porte Oliva. He closed his eyes and conjured up
the feeling of her body against him, the sound of her breath. He didn’t know he was falling asleep until a servant’s apologetic voice woke him.
Mesach Sau hadn’t slept. Fatigue showed in his clouded eyes and the droop of his shoulders. He hadn’t bothered with the formalities of parley, but walked directly to the camp, to the sentry. It was as if the old man didn’t particularly care whether he was brought before Geder or killed on the spot. As Geder arrived, Ternigan came trotting from his tent as well. Basrahip, serene and pleasant, was already there.
“I’ll do it,” Sau said, his voice breaking on the words. “Swear that you’ll spare my family, and I’ll open the fucking gates for you.”
Geder turned to Ternigan and swept a hand to indicate the weeping man, defeated even before the sack began.
“And that, Lord Marshal, is how it’s done,” Geder said. “Now. Bring me Inentai.”
Cithrin
Living in the midst of a family changed many of the small details of life. Privacy was often a matter of politeness and etiquette in a way that it wasn’t when she’d had rooms of her own. Bits and pieces of other lives seemed scattered through the halls like fresh rushes, and had Magistra Isadau and Maha, her cousin’s daughter, been speaking of matters of family or politics, even questions of finance and the running of the bank, Cithrin would not, she told herself, have eavesdropped. But instead, she walked down the wide polished granite hall bright with the light of morning, heard the voices of the older Timzinae woman and the girl, and picked out the words love and sex. Her journey to the kitchens suddenly became less immediate. Curiosity sharpened her ears and softened her footsteps and she edged closer to the office chambers.
“That too,” the magistra said. “But not only that.”
“But if you really love him, doesn’t that make it all right? Even if there is a baby from it?”
Maha’s voice was strong, but not confrontational. This wasn’t an argument, but a deposition. A discovery of the facts. Magistra Isadau’s laughter was low and rueful.
“I have loved many, many people,” she said, “and I’ve never meant the same thing by the word twice. Love is wonderful, but it doesn’t justify anything or make a bad choice wise. Everyone loves. Idiots love. Murderers love. Pick any atrocity you want, and someone will be able to justify it out of something they call love. Anything can wear love like a cloak.”
There was a pause, and then the girl’s voice again.
“I don’t understand. What does that mean?” Maha said. Cithrin felt a warm glow of gratitude for the child and the question. She didn’t understand it either.
“Love isn’t a word that means one thing,” the magistra said. Her voice was gentle. Almost coaxing. It was the voice of a woman trying to gentle an animal or call it out from under a table. “You love your father, but not the way you love this hypothetical boy. You love your brothers. You love that girl you spend all your nights with. Mian? You love Mian. Don’t you?”
“I do,” the girl said as if she were conceding a point to a magistrate.
“Someone may love their country or their gods. An idea or a vision of the world. Or because it can mean so many things, it’s possible to call something love that’s nothing to do with it. If the edict comes to march north into Sarakal, chances are it will say it is for the love of our brothers and cousins in the north. But it will be really be fear. Fear that the war will come here otherwise. Does that make sense?”
“Yes.”
“Love is noble,” the magistra said. “And so we wrap it around all the things we think perhaps aren’t so noble in hopes no one will see what they really are. Fear. Anger. Shame.”
“I’m not ashamed,” the girl said.
“You want this hypothetical boy. Don’t. Lie to your mother about it if you’d like, but not to me. He opens your body in ways you can’t control. He fills your mind in ways that disturb you and wash your best self away. You’re drunk with him. And so you want it to be love, just the way the generals want their fear of Antea to be love.”
“But …”
“I’m not telling you what decision you should make. God knows you have enough people to do that for you. But I am reminding you that you love a great many people you don’t want to take your dress off for. Longing isn’t love. Not any more than fear is.”
A discreet scratch interrupted, and then the sound of the office door sliding open.
“Courier come for you, Magistra,” a man’s voice said.
“Bring the reports here, then.”
“Can’t, ma’am. Courier says he can’t give ’em to anyone besides you or Miss Cithrin.”
In an instant, Cithrin was powerfully aware that she was standing in the bright corridor, bent like a child trying to overhear her parents. She turned, back the way she’d come, took a half dozen near-silent steps, and then turned again, collecting herself as if she were only now beginning her interrupted errand.
Maha came into the corridor. The brown, insectile scales that covered her face and neck, her hands and arms, were darker than Cithrin remembered. Perhaps it was how Timzinae blushed. She didn’t know.
Cithrin smiled, and the girl nodded back but didn’t speak. Cithrin strolled down the corridor, wondering what to do. On the one hand, she wanted to go back and see what the courier had brought; on the other, doing so without it being mentioned to her might lead the magistra to suspect she’d been spying. With a sigh, she went on to the kitchens as if she didn’t know anything that she wasn’t expected to.
In truth, Maha wasn’t much younger than Cithrin herself. She wondered what it would have been like to be first coming into herself with older women there to speak with. Her own mother was little more than a few fleeting impressions and entries in an old, yellowing ledger, but had she lived, she might have given Cithrin advice on questions of love and sex, men and hearts. In the kitchen, Cithrin exchanged banter with the cooking servants as they made her a bowl of stewed barley with butter and honey, but her mind was elsewhere. Even the rich sweetness of the first bite hardly registered.
Whom did she love? Did she love anyone? Did anyone love her? Now that she asked the questions straight on, she realized she’d been thinking at the edges of them for some time.
Since, in fact, the day she’d heard that Captain Wester had gone. Now that was interesting.
She considered whether she loved Wester the way she might have a proposal of business. Dispassionately, and from a careful distance. Yes, she thought, maybe she did. She didn’t feel any particular desire toward him, but that was the point Magistra Isadau had been making. Desire and love weren’t the same thing.
Cithrin sat at one of the low stone tables, looking south over the wide sprawl of Suddapal’s third city. Where the land ended in a spray of small islands, she could just see the traffic of tiny boats, black against the throbbing morning blue. Desire wasn’t the same as love. Love, she decided, was when something went away and left you emptier. By that definition, certainly—
“Magistra?”
Cithrin looked up. Yardem Hane towered in the doorway. He looked older than she imagined him, but perhaps it was only the light.
“Yes?”
“A report’s come. Magistra Isadau wanted to consult with you on it.”
“Something from Porte Oliva?”
“Carse,” Yardem said. “I think it’s about the war.”
The pages themselves were fine linen, made without a watermark. Paerin Clark’s hand was, as always, neat and precise.
“More information from the mysterious source?” Cithrin said.
“Or a forgery,” Magistra Isadau said. The cheerfulness in her voice was as false as paint. “Komme wanted you to look it over. See whether you had any insights to add.”
The information was clear and succinct. The first section was a rough accounting of the armies in the field. How many sword-and-bows, how many mounted knights. The supplies of food and fodder. Cithrin found a map of Sarakal and plotted each of the groups against the small nat
ion on the desk before her. With each new mark, her belly grew heavier. Nus, the Iron City, had capitulated, but the garrisons on the path to Inentai hadn’t fallen. Not yet.
“I thought Antea was losing,” Cithrin said.
“They were. They should be,” Magistra Isadau said. Her expression was unreadable. “They go into battle with fewer men and barely enough to supply them. And then they win. They reach a town that should be ready to hold back a siege for months, and it falls in weeks.” The older woman spread her hands.
“They can’t come as far as Elassae, though,” Cithrin said. “They don’t have the men or food. And we’re seeing the refugees from Inentai starting to come through.”
“They don’t have the men or food to take Sarakal either,” the Timzinae woman said. “But they’re doing it.”
Cithrin turned back to the report. The unknown writer went on to list a half dozen other forces outside of the churn of war and violence in Sarakal. These were smaller groups with less than a dozen soldiers, but better supplied. The names of individual captains leading these smaller forces were listed with them. Emmun Siu and fifteen men, the report said, moving into the northern reaches of Borja. Dar Cinlama and twelve men traveling over water to Hallskar. Two groups totaling fifty men answering to Korl Essian bound for Lyoneiea. Another group, the smallest, with only seven people, two horses, and a cart, led by someone named Bulger Shoal requesting diplomatic passage into Herez.
“What are these?” Cithrin asked. “Scouting missions for new invasions?”
“We don’t know,” Magistra Isadau said. “I think Komme was hoping you might have some insight.”
Cithrin cast her mind back through the long months into the darkness under Camnipol. Hallskar, Borja, Lyonaiea, and Herez. She tried to recall whether in the long hours of darkness, Geder or Aster had said anything to connect those places. The office with its gentle arches and brilliant sunlight seemed to defy the memories of darkness and dust.
Magistra Isadau’s nictitating membranes clicked closed and open. Cithrin felt the pressure of the older woman’s attention and frowned, willing herself to think of something—anything—that would justify it.
The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) Page 17
