The Widow's House

by Daniel Abraham

  For hours he paged through the designs. Some were clearly fanciful. The sections on the vast, bladderlike airships fitted with prows of viciously curved metal that could tear and rend a dragon’s delicate wings were beautiful, but unconvincing. The bogs of adhesive tar that were meant to foul the dragon’s perch and slow or stop it taking to air were an interesting thought, but there was no guidance on how to concoct them. The ballistas modified with toothed gears that would spin bladed disks into the sky, on the other hand, seemed at least worth the effort of experiment…

  He placed bits of thin cloth on each of the pages that seemed most promising to him. He didn’t feel as though he had been at his study long before the book looked as if it had sprouted a dozen tongues. When he reached the end, he felt the almost forgotten tug of pleasure, the temptation to stay and page through the library for a while. Not for anything specific, though if there were other volumes that touched on the weapons that the ancient dragons used in their wars, he would be interested. Maybe not even to read them, but to find the images and sketches put there by hands a thousand years dead. To find again some small thought that had never occurred to him before and let his mind take fire with it for a time. Basrahip might deride the words as being dead things, but not the pictures, certainly? A picture wasn’t true or false, it just was. And the things the drawings showed could be resurrected. Remade in a new time, and by the skilled hands of smiths who had never heard the old designers speak a word. There was a book about the making of maps, for instance, that he’d gotten years ago in Vanai, and never had the opportunity to more than skip through. In his memory, it had had pages demonstrating the different cartographic styles in half a dozen different hands. He wondered where exactly it had gotten to…

  But no. Or, not no, but another time. He was Lord Regent of Antea, and the Lord Regent could spend a day looking over old books whenever he wanted. Unless the business of court intruded. And the war. And Cithrin. And the players. And, God, had they really had a dragon?

  He hefted the book up under his arm and made his way down the stairs. Servants and courtiers scattered and bowed before him, but he ignored them. He called for his litter, and within moments half a dozen servants and twice the number of guards were carrying him out into the streets of Camnipol. Him and his book besides.

  The smiths and armorers kept a district in the southeast of the city, tucked almost against the city wall. The smoke of the forges thickened the air. When he looked out through the windows, the men and women all along the street were bent double or even kneeling in honor of his passage. Near his destination, a particularly fat old man was being helped to his knees by two younger men.

  The greatest smithy in Camnipol belonged to a massive Jasuru named Honnen Pyre. He and his apprentices rushed out to the street when Geder’s litter stopped there, and they were kneeling, heads bowed, by the time he stepped down. Geder walked over to the Jasuru. He was wider across the shoulders than Basrahip, his skin so stretched by the underlying muscle that his bronze scales didn’t overlap anymore, but showed a lacework of pale skin between them.

  “Lord Regent, you honor my small house,” the smith intoned.

  “Thank you. Please don’t let me… please stand up. Yes. Thank you. Please don’t let me interrupt your apprentices. I only need to talk with you.”

  Standing, the Jasuru was no taller than Geder, but easily twice as wide and all of it muscle. He nodded to his apprentices, and they scattered back into the forge. The smith crossed his arms and nodded nervously. It was always odd for Geder, seeing men who were so much stronger than him act as though he were the threatening one. It was the office, no doubt. When Aster took the throne, all that would vanish into mist. Still, he’d enjoy it while he could.

  “I have a commission for you,” Geder said. “A rather large one, I’m afraid.”

  “You’re the Lord Regent, my lord. We’re yours to command,” the smith said.

  “Good,” Geder said, pulling the book out from where it rested on his elbow. “Is there a place I can put this? I don’t want to get…” He gestured at the soot and smoke all around them.

  “This way, Lord Geder,” the smith said.

  For the next hour, Geder and the smith went over the pictures, Geder waving his hands and growing more excited with each new page. The smith remained cautious and thoughtful. It was as if Geder could see the thoughts and strategies forming in the man’s brain. Slowly, the Jasuru’s scowl softened, and he began nodding more than he shook his head. The harpoons with needle-eyes on the ends would be the easiest, he thought. The ballista was possible, perhaps, but there was a man he knew with greater experience in siege engines. He would be pleased to consult with him and bring a full report to Lord Geder.

  When a servant came pelting from the Kingspire to remind him of a council meeting, Geder waited for the smith to sketch out copies of the weapons built to destroy the dragons. Reluctantly, he took his book back and trotted to the litter. He couldn’t help but grin. It was the first moment of real happiness he’d felt since the terrible day in Suddapal he’d arrived to find Cithrin—

  No, there was no point thinking of that. Not now. Instead, he opened the book again, reviewing the designs of the weapons and imagining how it might feel to wield them. He traced the lines and thought of half a dozen more questions he hadn’t thought to present to the smith. Later, then. He’d have to have a long talk with the man later.

  His steps were light as he passed through the lowest floors of the Kingspire, and he bounced on the balls of his feet as if he might break into a delighted little caper at any moment. He could already see the hooked spears flying into the sky, the winged harpoons thrown by modified ballistas looping through the air. Ripping through dragon wings, spilling blood on the earth like rain from a cloud. He imagined himself standing on the corpse of a great dragon the size of a house, sinking a huge two-handed sword in its belly. Cithrin would be there too, drenched in the blood of her conquered masters.

  She would look up at him, tears in her eyes. Forgive me, she’d say, her voice breaking just a little, her breasts shuddering with her sobs. Forgive me, Geder. I didn’t know. And he would smile and hold out his hand to her, and she would rise and take it. And they would look after Aster together until he took the throne, not only of Antea but of a purified world. And then he—

  “Lord Regent?”

  Geder blinked and turned back. He’d walked past the door to the meeting room without noticing he’d done it. The captain of his personal guard hovered behind him, uncertain what to do. His distress was so comical, Geder couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m sorry. My mind’s half gone some days, isn’t it?” he said.

  “Ah…” the guard captain said. “If you say so, my lord.”

  Cithrin

  Porte Oliva did not break, but neither did it remain the same. In all its history, no army had taken it by force. The puppet shows that sprang up outside every public house, in every square and corner told of ancient battles and the bravery of Birancour. But, Cithrin noticed, alongside the epics of war and defiance, there was another genre. Comedies like The Pardoner’s Wife and PennyPenny’s Last Vengeance. Those stories were of clever villains tricking good people into fighting battles on their behalf. When, at the end of the laughter and violence, PennyPenny realized how he had been manipulated, he beat the duplicitous Ga-Go with a stick. Only this time Ga-Go was a pale puppet, with the light hair and eyes of a Cinnae, and instead of the traditional red confetti, tiny coins spilled from her pockets after every blow.

  The Grand Market was a place of woe and agony. The few merchants whose trade hadn’t been gutted by the blockade were wise enough to pretend to suffer with the rest. Some days as many as half the stalls went empty. The carts that rolled in along the dragon’s road carrying grain and beer and cloth weren’t enough to make up for the loss of the port. The price of bread had risen, and would rise farther. The price of meat had tripled. Generations ago, the city had spilled out past its own defensive walls, until
the great stone archways seemed almost in the city’s center. That geography changed now. The price of buildings within the walls rose almost tenfold, the price of those outside dropped almost to nothing. Cithrin would have liked to buy up some of those, if only as a symbol of solidarity with the city and optimism for its future. The gesture would have been empty. When Geder’s army came—and it would come—those buildings would be char and ash, and the people living in them fled or left for crows. She was as sure of that as her own name.

  New ships arrived to join the blockade. Larger ones, including a great roundship that Yardem told her was the flagship of the Antean fleet. The ten Antean ships stood ready to board whatever vessels dared enter the harbor, the red flag with its eightfold sigil claiming ownership of the waters and all that passed upon them. Now and then the governor sent out small harassing forces from the port, and always they were driven back, held at the piers like dogs backed into a cave. The stories in the market said that Antean ships had been harassing fishing boats all along the coast and razing the salt drying yards. Even though anyone might come or go along the roads, the sense of being under siege changed the taste of the water and the scent of the air. The serving girl at Cithrin’s favorite taproom became chilly and cold when she arrived. The boy Pyk had hired to keep the counting house clean came later and later in the day, doing less and less for his pay. Maestro Asanpur’s café saw fewer people at its benches and tables than was usual. Porte Oliva was the home she’d made for herself, and she ached seeing it turn against her.

  The question was clear: How was Cithrin to win a war against an army that had already broken the world across its knee? How could gold and silver, silk and spice, contracts and agreements stand in the field against swords? It was ridiculous on the face of it, and like so many things, less ridiculous the more she looked at it.

  Cithrin spent her days considering the world through the lens of her new question. She spoke to Yardem about mercenary companies and what was needed to build a successful campaign. She visited the blacksmiths and armorers, the millers and the cunning men, the governor and the captain of the city guard. She drank coffee with Magistra Isadau, each of them prodding the other to some insight or perspective that might open a new pathway for them.

  Geder’s army had the advantage of being infected by the priests, which undermined her first line of attack: pay the enemy soldiers to switch sides. It was still possible, but there would need to be other factors at work. No rational fighter would move to the side being slaughtered, no matter what the pay. But there were other places in the management of an army that were like articulated joints of heavy armor—vulnerable, if she could find a way to hit them hard enough. No matter how the priests cried and cajoled, the Antean soldiers would have to eat. If the bank were to let it be known that they would pay an inflated price for tobacco and cotton, the farmers along the path of Geder’s army would till under their wheat and vegetables. No amount of false certainty could pass for food. Swords broke, arrows lost their heads. The bank could buy the ore out of Hallskar and Borja and the Free Cities. She could hire people to break the smelters in the Free Cities and Northcoast, so that Geder’s forces had less chance to repair their goods and resupply. A cunning man she’d found in a tavern in the salt quarter had told her about a kind of grass that rotted out a horse’s stomach. If she found the seeds for that and sowed the pastures along the dragon’s roads from the east, the Antean cavalry might lose half its mounts. More, if she were lucky.

  Once she started looking at it, there were a hundred tools at her disposal that could harass and degrade the enemy’s army. Some were better targeted than others. Given the choice, she preferred hiring on mercenaries, paying bounties on actions against the enemy, and rewarding Anteans for desertion because they did, for the most part, what she wanted them to do and nothing more. If she convinced the Free Cities to plow under their food, the starvation that came wouldn’t only hurt Antean soldiers. If she filled the bays with iron ores and broke the smelters to gravel, plows would be as difficult to replace as swords.

  War was about damage, though. And if she had to starve a nation to save the world, that was something she could bring herself to do. She sat in her offices, writing out estimates and working through the wording of contracts, estimating timing and schedules, seeing what could and couldn’t be done if she had a week or a month or a season. Time would be as important as gold.

  She was most aware of her fear when she tried to sleep. Those nights, she would take a guard or two to the seawall and watch the blockading ships on the dark water as they patrolled the mouth of the bay or, when the wind permitted, retreated to resupply at the base they’d made on a little island just over the horizon to the southwest. Wolves at the door, and not the only pack running. During the daylight, her mind was too much at work for emotion to intrude.

  She had known since Paerin Clark’s visit what would come next. It still knotted her gut when it came.

  Lord Mastién Juoli, the queen’s master of coin, was a younger man than Cithrin had expected. He was a Kurtadam, his face covered in a thick pelt that seemed as glossy and bright as a child’s, and the silver and lapis beads that were woven into it made her think of young men preening themselves before girls. The youthful foolishness was an affectation, she told herself. An encouragement to underestimate the man. Cithrin was likely younger than he was, and she knew something about being underestimated.

  “Magistra bel Sarcour,” Juoli said, rising and holding out his hand as if they were friends or business acquaintances. “It is a pleasure to meet you at last. I’ve heard many stories.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Cithrin said, taking his fingers in her own for a moment. “I hope they were all exaggerations.” The governor coughed sourly. Likely he’d been looking forward to making introductions. The garden around them was the green of spring, and losing the brightness of new leaves. A cage of finches sufficed for music, and even the servants were absent. Unwelcome. She sat on the stone bench across the little blackwood table from Juoli and the governor himself poured their wine and watered it.

  “I have a cousin in King Tracian’s court,” Juoli said. “You have a reputation for speaking your mind. And, I have to say, for being unswayed by sentiment.”

  “Well,” Cithrin said with a smile she didn’t mean, “at least I’ll be damned for what I am.”

  “The magistra has always been one of the great citizens of Porte Oliva,” the governor said. It was clearly untrue. There were children just walking who’d lived in the city longer than she had, but the governor was laying claim to her. It might only have been because the master of coin was here for her and the governor had been the sort of boy who would grab a toy just because someone else wanted it. Or he might have known how precarious her position was and denied it to keep her off balance. She would understand better as she learned more, but regardless it was interesting.

  “What can I do for you, Lord Mastién?” she said, and sipped her wine.

  “You can help me save our nation,” he said. “We have reason to believe that the army of Imperial Antea is making its way to Birancour. The blockade that’s already begun will become a siege as well. Not only here, but Porte Silena and Sara-sur-Mar as well. Between us, the queen has sent letters demanding assurances that Antea will not violate our borders.”

  “And did Geder promise to behave?” Cithrin asked with a lightness she did not feel.

  “The queen hasn’t had a response. Which brings us to here.”

  “Because she hasn’t had a response from me either.”

  He smiled, and she imagined there was a touch of sorrow in his eyes. “I had hoped not to bring it up, but if we are to repel the forces of the enemy, Birancour will need every resource it has. Your branch of the bank is among the most powerful institutions in Porte Oliva. It is in all of our interests to see this invasion repelled.”

  “It is.”

  “Then certainly you see the need for all the great citizens of Birancour t
o come together. Yourself included. You were in Suddapal, I understand.” He said the words carefully. What he did not say—You have brought this upon us—was all the louder for his silence. Cithrin considered whether to laugh or shout, weep or be sober. She put her cup on the blackwood table with a delicate click.

  “We are all aware of the particular role I’ve played in this,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “If I turn over my bank’s wealth—and let us not pretend this is anything besides surrender—what assurances will the crown offer for my safety and the safety of my people?”

  “You have my word, and the promise of the queen,” Lord Mastién said without hesitation. The words and their phrasing had been ready on his lips. My word, and the promise of the queen. It was less even than a contract, and the queen was in a position to break contracts with impunity. No collateral was offered, no minor cousin put into the bank’s control as hostage. No rights to collect royal taxes. Only a word and a promise.

  “There can be no more meaningful bond than that,” Cithrin said. After all, if the crown had chosen to offer her something more, it could as easily have reneged. What she had suspected coming in and knew now was that the crown wasn’t even willing to pretend to offer hard assurances. It wasn’t a good sign. “I have had my notary reviewing our position. What I can offer the crown, I will.”

  “We ask nothing more,” the governor said with a nod. As if he were in any position to say what the master of coin did or didn’t ask. Cithrin felt a wave of contempt so profound it bordered on hatred. The taste of bile crept up the back of her tongue, and she smiled at the governor.

  “I will have my accounting completed immediately,” she lied.

  “My thanks,” the master of coin said with a little bow. She didn’t think for a moment that he was taken in, but there was little else to say at this point. He’d made his demands, and she had put on a show of acceding to them. The next conversation they had would, she suspected, be less pleasant. They spent almost an hour more chatting about the small business of the kingdom and the city, drinking wine, and decrying Geder Palliako. Both men were polite, and Cithrin maintained her composure though the knot in her gut was almost at the point of pain by the time she left.