The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

by Daniel Abraham

  “Are you well, my lady?” he asked. The formality in his voice told her that he knew the answer, and that it was no.

  “I have been thinking, Vincen,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Writing letters has been very useful in gathering my thoughts,” she said, “but I feel the time has come for something more.”

  Cithrin

  The trick to moving the wealth of the bank was not being seen to do so. If word went around that the Medean bank was leaving Suddapal, it would cause any number of problems. The people still under contract with the bank would stop paying their loans, because why give money to someone who wouldn’t be present to take the complaint to the magistrate? The scent of coin and cloth would call pirates and bandits, making it less likely that the goods would survive the trek to Porte Oliva. Tax assessors and agents of the city’s governor, seeing the wealth trickling away, would want to eke out as much as they could quickly, before the chance disappeared. Or the high council might send guards to take command of the gold and use it to hire mercenaries, if any mercenaries would accept the work.

  So Cithrin and Isadau carved the wealth of the bank into smaller pieces. A private crate sent in a caravan through the Free Cities that purported to hold bolts of cotton actually contained silks. A message box sealed with lead and wax sent by courier carried gems and jewelry. An earthenware statue sent as a gift to Pyk Usterhall, notary of the Medean bank in Porte Oliva, was hollow and filled with coin. Technically, it was smuggling, since they only paid the tax on what the goods appeared to be and not what they were. Cithrin’s conscience didn’t bother her on the point. If the governors of the five cities couldn’t assure the safety of her bank, they had already broken their end of the contract. Besides which, every other business and family with ties outside Elassae was doing the same.

  Roach—Halvill, dammit—and Maha married in the private chapel at the compound amid great revelry. The priest was the same she had seen on her very first Tenthday, and he used his skills as a cunning man to make his voice sound grand and resonant. She caught Yardem rolling his eyes and shared his amusement. But when the guard and the pregnant girl sipped from the wide silver wedding cup and swore to make the journey of this life in company, Cithrin found herself inexplicably weeping.

  They were slated to leave the next day on a ship bound for Cabral with enough of the bank’s capital that, if they stole it and ran, they’d be able to set up a very pleasant life together in Far Syramys. But they wouldn’t. Halvill would put it on a cart and trek back to Porte Oliva, just the way he’d promised. Halvill and Maha had forged a new family, it was true, but they both had other ties. Halvill to the bank, Maha to her family and, because of that, the bank.

  Before that, Isadau had arranged a party that would fill the compound for a day and a night. It was a bit more extravagant a celebration than the union of a minor bank guard to a girl with an occupied belly warranted, but Suddapal was in need of reasons to celebrate. And so was Isadau.

  Cithrin wore a dress of pale blue with highlights of cream and a ribbon in her hair. The colors went well with the paleness of her skin and hair inherited from her mother. For jewelry, she chose a thin silver chain necklace. More would have been ostentatious. She knew, looking into her mirror, that she looked too young. Magistra Cithrin bel Sarcour was supposed to be almost a decade older than she actually was, and she knew what Master Kit and Cary would have said. Darken the lines under her eyes, deepen the folds that ran between nose and cheek. Stand with her weight lower in her hips. Tonight, though, she decided to let herself be younger. They all knew her already. Opinions were set. And it was a relief to step out of herself, if only for a moment.

  It was also uncommon for the employees of the bank to take part in the celebrations as if they were equals, but Halvill’s family had insisted that Yardem and Enen sit among them, and so when Cithrin stepped out of her room, Yardem stood before her in the long formal robe of a Tralgu priest. Red tiles as big as her thumbnail marked the collar and ran down the left side. If he had still been an acting priest, they would have been on the right. She only knew that because he’d told her. The air was warm with high summer and the smell of fresh bread and basil mixed with the strumming of guitars. Cithrin doubted there would be much sleep in Isadau’s compound that night.

  “You look handsome, Yardem,” she said. “You can cut quite a figure when you put your mind to it.”

  “Thank you, ma’am,” Yardem said. “Wanted to speak with you before the revels began, though.”

  Cithrin glanced back toward her room in query. Is this a private conversation? Yardem nodded, and they went back inside. Yardem sat on the end of her bed, his elbows resting on his knees. She leaned against the door. She could have taken the chair, but she didn’t want to disarrange the drape of her dress.

  “All respect, ma’am, but I think it’s time we considered leaving Suddapal.”

  “Is there word from Inenetai? Did the Anteans break the siege?”

  “Not so far as I know,” Yardem said. “But there’s other news. Karol Dannien’s taken contract to man the walls at Kiaria. They’ll be boarding up his school at the week’s end and going north. I don’t think there’s any question that the war’s coming here, and if he’s going, it means it’s likely to be here soon.”

  “And better if we weren’t here to greet it,” Cithrin said.

  “Hear it’s lovely in Porte Oliva this time of year,” Yardem said grimly.

  Outside her window, glass shattered and someone laughed. She crossed her arms.

  “You know I can’t go,” she said. “Komme Medean was clear about the terms. A year’s what he called for. It hasn’t been half that. If I walk away now, I’ll have broken my contract with him.”

  “All respect, but he didn’t know he was sending you into the wrong side of a sack.”

  “No,” Cithrin said, “he knew he was sending me to a bank. Navigating wars is part of what we do. Or floods. Or plagues. It’s not as if the business only runs on sunny days. If I leave now, Komme will be right to wonder what I’d do if something happened in Porte Oliva. I wouldn’t leave there, and I won’t here.”

  Yardem’s ears turned back, but he didn’t say more.

  The yard of the compound was bright with fireflies, and the first of the torches were being lit. The men and women who came for the party weren’t the highest in the five cities. The affair might have been held by the Medean bank and Magistra Isadau, but it was still the wedding of a minor guard. Instead, there were carpenters and brewers, dyers and shipwrights. The artisans and small merchants of Suddapal come to glory together. The women wore flowing dresses or fashioned metal corsets or the stained trousers and blouses they’d left work in. The men wore formal robes of silk brocade or rough-cut canvas belted with lengths of rope. No one was overdressed for the occasion, and no one too casual. It wasn’t possible to be.

  The compound’s servants carried out a wide wooden table, then hurried back to fill it with plates of glazed ham and fresh shrimp and roast lamb. Bottles of wine were opened and tuns of beer tapped. And instead of retreating back to their quarters, the servants stayed in the yard. They didn’t mix with the higher orders of guests, but neither did they avoid them. The music rose with the darkness, bright strings strumming against each other, mixing melody and percussion until the stars themselves seemed to throb with it. Cithrin ate a little, drank a lot. The constant knot in her belly, so familiar that she hardly noticed it anymore, loosened a notch, and she felt the blood warm in her cheeks. She heard a woman whooping at the edge of the yard, and a moment later saw a band of ten men leading a cow straddled by Isadau’s sister, Kani. She was listing wildly, and the cow looked, to Cithrin’s admittedly tipsy eyes, long-suffering and patient. A young Timzinae man she didn’t recognize asked Cithrin to dance with him, and she found that she was, in fact, drunk enough to do so.

  It wasn’t about Halvill or Maha. It wasn’t about Isadau or paying respects to the bank. It was about fear, and
the joy that comes in the shadow of fear. It was about celebrating a night when Suddapal was free, and the clear knowledge that such nights might be countably few. It was as intoxicating as the wine.

  When she paused to find some water and meat and give her head a moment to clear, she saw Yardem standing at the entrance to the compound, his ears canted forward. Magistra Isadau stood before him, looking up, her arms folded. She didn’t need to hear the words to know what they were saying. She was gathering herself up, ready to go explain her decision to stay and dress Yardem down for interfering, when a voice speaking her name interrupted her.

  Salan, Jurin’s son, stood before her. In the light from the torches, he looked older than he was. He held himself upright, his bearing almost military, and his clothes had the look of a uniform without actually being one.

  “Magistra Cithrin,” he said again. His breath smelled of wine, and he spoke with the careful diction that came of consciously not slurring his words. “I hoped I might have a word with you.”

  Oh, this can’t be good, Cithrin thought. But she only said, “Of course, Salan. How can I help you?”

  The boy frowned. Cithrin felt her heart squeeze a little tighter with dread. It was such a pleasant evening, and a young man humiliating himself wasn’t going to improve it. If she had excused herself, maybe she could have avoided this for them both, but now it was too late.

  “I know that I am a child to you. My …” He looked down, searching for a word. The nictitating membranes slid closed and open again. “My affection toward you isn’t something to be taken seriously. I understand that.”

  “Salan—”

  “I have volunteered to go with Karol Dannien and his company to Kiaria. I leave within the week. And I didn’t want to leave with you thinking of me as the idiot boy with the hopeless puppy love. It’s not how I want to be remembered. If I could choose to feel differently about you, I would. If I could choose not to embarrass you and myself, I would. I don’t mean to be laughable.”

  “I haven’t laughed,” Cithrin said. “Credit me that much.”

  “I … of course. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to accuse. I only wanted …” He shook his head, then held out his clenched fist, knuckles up. It took Cithrin a moment to realize he was giving her something. She put out her hand, and he released his grip. A thin strand of silver snaked onto her palm, a tiny worked figure. She held the necklace up. The figure was a thin silver bird, its wings outstretched. Cithrin shook her head, about to refuse the gift, when the boy spoke again. “Captain Dannien says we aren’t to bring personal items with us. I was hoping you could hold this safe for me. Until the war’s over.”

  Until the war’s over.

  The Antean armies hadn’t crossed into Elassae. Inentai, at last word, hadn’t fallen. And still, it was a given that the war would come. And its end was so uncertain that until the war’s over could sound like forever. Salan’s black eyes met hers. If she laughed now, he would hate her. He would be right to.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’ll be pleased to.”

  “Thank you, Magistra,” he said, with a small bow, then hesitated, turned, and walked stiffly away. Cithrin fastened the necklace, letting the small silver bird rest just below her collarbone. It was so light and fine, she could almost forget it was there. Almost.

  The music and dancing went on, the wine and the beer. The night grew a few degrees cooler. Cithrin willed herself to enjoy it, to throw herself into the revelry and celebrate Halvill and Maha being young and stupid and making decisions that would shape the rest of their lives without so much as a moment’s consideration. Then she remembered a time not so many years ago when she’d lain down beside an ice-bound pond with an actor. If God hadn’t sent Marcus Wester at the right moment, she might have Sandr’s son on her hip right now, so perhaps she wasn’t in a position to pass judgment.

  The revel ran on, and Cithrin drank and danced, but some of the joy had gone out of it. Given the Timzinae’s small need for sleep, it was quite possible that the music would go on until dawn drowned the torches, but it would have to do so without her. She sought out Halvill and Maha, gave them small presents of her own because custom required it, and then retreated to her own rooms. The sound of guitars and the smell of torch smoke wafted in through the open window, but more softly. She undid her dress stays, changed into the sleeping gown, but she didn’t take to bed. Not yet. The alcohol in her blood was fading, and with it the chance of sleep. She sat, looking into the candleflame. When the scratch came at her door, she realized she’d been waiting for it.

  Isadau looked lovely. The silver of her dress set off the darkness of her scales. Her smile carried a gentleness that Cithrin had come to expect.

  “Good evening,” she said.

  “Magistra,” Cithrin replied. “I saw Yardem talking to you. I assume you’ve come to make the case that I should leave.”

  “Less case and more plan,” Isadau said, sitting where Yardem had sat. “I’m not going to ask you to leave.”

  “You’re going to tell me to?”

  Isadau’s eyes went merry. “Do you think that would work? All I’ve seen of you suggests otherwise.”

  “I don’t have a brilliant record for following the dictates of authority,” Cithrin said, laughing despite herself.

  “Well, then. You came to me to learn how to build up a bank, and I’m not certain how much longer I will be doing that work.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ve protected Komme’s interests as best I can. I have funneled what capital I could out of harm’s way. And as we move forward, I will follow the contracts and honor the deposits that I can. But this is not the holding company. This is my bank, and the power of money is not only that it makes more money.”

  “I wouldn’t tell that to the holding company,” Cithrin said, but the joke fell flat.

  “Money is the physical form of power. And the time is coming for that power to be expended,” Isadau said. “Coins are only objects until they’re used. Then they become something else. Food for the hungry. Passage for the desperate. It’s the magic that we do. We take a bit of metal and use it to remake the world in the shape we want.”

  “To stop a war?”

  “To avoid its worst excesses, yes,” Isadau said. “I have spent my life tending this bank. Building it up like a fortune. And now the time is coming for me to spend it. No one thinks that Antea will stop with Sarakal. Kiaria may stand, but Suddapal will fall. And I will bankrupt this branch saving as many people as I can from it. I will bribe whoever I can. I will suborn and corrupt and trade. I will take risks that have no rationale in the world of finance. Moral risks. They won’t save my city, but they will preserve some part of it. In the end, I doubt the branch will survive.”

  “Or you.”

  “In the end, I doubt I will survive,” Isadau said. “I won’t be a good teacher for you anymore. It will be time for you to go.”

  Cithrin rose from her seat, looked out the window. The flaring torches were hardly brighter than the star-strewn sky.

  “I thought you were saving my heart,” she said. “The part that hadn’t died yet, but was in danger. Isn’t that what Komme said?”

  Isadau hesitated. Cithrin turned to look at her.

  “It is.”

  “You’re choosing to use your power for something besides profit,” Cithrin said. “I understand that there are things of value that aren’t priced. Or … no. I know that, but I don’t understand it. This project you’re taking on is what Komme sent me here to learn.”

  “And so you won’t leave. Even if your life is in threat.”

  “I’m not bent on dying. I’d prefer not to. But I won’t leave you here,” Cithrin said. And then, “It’s your own fault, you know. You gave me a plant.”

  Isadau’s laughter was delight and despair mixed. She rose, taking Cithrin’s hands, and for a moment they embraced. The older woman smelled of cinnamon and smoke. Cithrin rested her cheek on Isadau’s shoulder. S
he could feel the woman weeping.

  “I will tell Yardem I failed,” Isadau said. “Once he hears why, I think he’ll be pleased that I did.”

  “It won’t make his work easier.”

  “He’s flexible enough, I think. You are doing something dangerous and unnecessary and wild. I don’t know whether to thank you or dress you down.”

  “Neither one will alter my position on it,” Cithrin said.

  “I believe you.”

  After Isadau left, Cithrin felt the first tendrils of sleep. It was as if she’d been waiting to say those words, and now that she had, her day could end. She curled under the blanket, one arm raised up as a pillow, and let her mind drift. Coins as bits of metal with the power to make the world the way you wanted it to be. Coins that become food for the hungry or robes for the powerful, but rarely both. It struck her that blades were also metal, also used to remake the world. In the murk of her sleep-soaked mind, something stirred. The half-formed thought that her coins could, perhaps, cut deeper if she could only find how.

  A week later, the news came that Inentai had fallen.

  Geder

  If the siegecraft of Baltan Sorris is to be understood, it must be in the context of Drakkis Stormcrow, for General Sorris was a student of the ancient classic texts. The more common, and in my view mistaken, interpretation is that the early kings of Northcoast had catapults and siege engines capable of lofting stones or burning pitch so high into the air that all parts of a besieged city were under threat from them. What I have shown is that, instead, the instructions Sorris gave were an unconsidered artifact of more ancient wars in which the field of battle was not restricted to the plane of the earth, but included dragons, wyverns, and gryphons capable of attacking from the sky. While this image of Sorris as a hidebound follower of outdated precepts contradicts the traditional account of his military brilliance, I will, in the next section, make the case that it better explains his decisions in the latter half of his career, especially in the Third Siege of Porte Silena and the infamous Four Kings War.