The Widow's House

by Daniel Abraham

  “Take it you’ve got a preference, father,” Yardem said.

  “Damned right I do,” the older Tralgu growled.

  “We’re not running,” Barriath said. “Palliako’s forces are stretched past thin. He can’t keep this up.”

  “That’s what we said when they came to Porte Oliva,” Magistra Isadau said. “That’s why we thought we were safe.”

  “We were safe,” Marcus said, “until someone opened the gates.”

  “Inys was being killed,” Isadau said.

  “And that was a shame,” Marcus said. “Doesn’t make opening the gates a wise choice.”

  Barriath raised his hand. “It’s a mistake we won’t make twice. What I want to know is who’s at the head of this.” He turned to face Cithrin. His face was as dark as hers was pale. “I came to you because you were standing against Palliako when no one else had the stones for it. Do you still?”

  Cithrin blinked slowly and then laughed. Marcus wondered for the first time whether she might be drunk. “I don’t… know.”

  Marcus felt his heart sink. This isn’t the way, he thought. Sit straight. Put your chin out the way Kit and Cary taught you. The worst thing a commander could do in the face of defeat was to show weakness, to let the soldiers doubt that they were on the side fated to win. As he watched, Cithrin sank forward, resting her elbows on the table, pressing her fingers into her hair. All around the table, he saw the others looking away from her. Shark and Chisn Rake exchanged a look that seemed to carry some significance he couldn’t read.

  “Of course we do,” Marcus said. “Won’t be the first king I’ve killed.”

  “You?” Skestinin barked. “The threadbare mercenary? You’d be better off with the bank girl, Barriath. At least she knows her limits.”

  “Do you have a plan, Captain?” Barriath asked.

  Marcus nodded, his mind reaching in half a dozen directions at once. It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about their options, but he hadn’t been expected to take the role of commander. The world had a poor history of meeting his expectations.

  “The dragon’s still central, but more for his mind than his use in the field. Especially now that we know Antea’s got weapons designed against him, we can’t risk him in the battle. Barriath’s right that the Antean army’s fragile. They’ve got the priests, but those are going to be less and less an advantage the more people know what they are and find ways to get past their powers. What we need now is… well, is an army.”

  “Thin on the ground, those,” Chisn Rake said.

  “He’ll find one,” Yardem said.

  “What? Pull one out of his asshole, will he?”

  “Doubt that,” Yardem said, “but he’ll find one somewhere.”

  “Blinded by faith,” the old Tralgu spat. “All you priest-caste are the same.”

  “I’m fallen,” Yardem said pleasantly.

  “Short-term,” Marcus said, “is we can’t stay on the water forever. Especially with Inys tipping the roundship like a raft every time he twitches in his sleep. We need to fall back, gather up allies, and make sure the Anteans aren’t biting our heels the whole way.”

  “Does the bank still back us?” Barriath asked, turning again to Cithrin. She seemed not to have heard the question. Her pale eyes fixed on nothing. Magistra Isadau answered in her place.

  “It has no choice. Cithrin and I acted against the army directly in Suddapal and again in Porte Oliva. Callon Cane’s bounty system was funded by the holding company, and if that’s not known yet, it will be. Especially if they capture Pyk Usterhall alive.”

  “Not sure of that,” Marcus said. “Pyk can’t lie to them, but she’s stubborn as old wood. They may get less information from her than they expect.” He turned to Skestinin. “You know, now you’ve heard all this, we’ll have to kill you rather than let you loose.”

  “That was true the moment you attacked my ship,” Skestinin said. “And your Cinnae master guaranteed my safety.”

  “All fairness, sir,” Yardem said, “that was only from the beach to the city. This may call for a renegotiation.”

  “Skestinin’s under my protection,” Barriath said. “He’s not at issue. Callon Cane. Will Jorey come after him next?”

  “Hard to do, seeing as he’s a fairy tale,” Marcus said.

  Isadau tapped the tabletop with her fingers. “Herez disbanded the bounty board. I’d say they, at least, believe that the Anteans may track Cane down next.”

  “Perhaps we want them to,” Barriath said, drawing the words out slowly. “If Callon Cane took shelter in some other city… and if there was reason for Jorey to think your mythical ally knew where Cithrin had gone to ground…”

  “You’re thinking we could wear them down by running the army up against some more enemies?” Marcus asked. “Not a bad thought.”

  “Serve Birancour right if you put them in Sara-sur-Mar,” Isadau said, bitterness in her voice.

  Barriath laughed. “All right, then. Sara-sur-Mar. If Jorey wants to fight Birancour, let’s have him fight the whole damned kingdom and not just the one city they threw to the dogs.”

  “Not sure how we do that,” Marcus said.

  “You took the bank’s hoard,” Barriath said. “Give me enough to make a few payments. I’ll play the role.”

  Marcus frowned. “You’d do that? Become Callon Cane?”

  “Geder Palliako killed my father in front of me,” Barriath said. “I’ll do more than this to see him burn. Question is, where are you going while I distract my brothers? Do you have any allies left you can rally to the cause?”

  “Stollbourne,” Isadau said. “The bank has a branch there, and Narinisle’s across the Thin Sea. So long as we have the fleet, Palliako’s forces won’t be able to cross to us. We can be safe there while Inys heals.”

  “Plus which,” Chisn Rake said, “there’s more ships there that know the blue-water trade.”

  Marcus shook his head. “It’s not a place I’d pick to draw up a land army, and I’m not sure that strategies built around the dragon are the best we can make,” he said, “but as safe harbors go, there’s not better.”

  “Right, then,” Barriath said. “I’ll draw off the hunt in Sara-sur-Mar. The rest of the ships sail for Stollbourne. And once we’ve broken them and raised an army of our own, we march it down Palliako’s throat, take Camnipol back, and string that bastard up by his own guts.”

  “Do we?” Cithrin asked. “Is that why we’re doing this?”

  Marcus cursed under his breath. She was drunk.

  “What other reason would we have?” Barriath asked. His voice was sharp, and Cithrin shied away from it.

  The meeting went on through the afternoon as they hashed through details. Barriath, Chisn Rake, and Shark had a long, contentious argument over who would lead the fleet in Barriath’s absence and how to keep the pirates—never well known for loyalty—from turning to mutiny in the same hour that Barriath stepped off the boat. Isadau, Marcus, and Yardem composed a letter to be sent ahead by a single fast ship to apprise the Stollbourne branch of the bank of their plans, and Isadau scratched out a draft in the bank’s private cipher. Through it all, two figures remained silent. Lord Skestinin listened carefully and struggled, Marcus thought, with some concern of his own. And Cithrin sat as if the conversation all around her wasn’t happening and she were alone with the sound of the water lapping at the ship and the creaking of the boards.

  Geder

  The wind that threw itself across Camnipol the day of the grand audience didn’t rise quite to the level of a storm. The cloaks of the men and women in the street flapped and fluttered, pressed tight against their bodies on one side and streamed away on the other. High, thin clouds formed and were ripped apart and formed again. Moaning and whistling and dust filled the air. Worst, through some terrible accident of angle and flow, the stink of the midden in the depths of the Division was pulled up into the high city streets. Geder couldn’t take a breath without smelling rot and corruption, an
d even great billowing clouds of incense in the audience hall only covered it over. Sometimes the reek was so thick it seemed less a scent than a taste.

  Geder sat the Severed Throne, the crown of the regent on his brows, and huddled in his cloak. His head ached. The short walk from the Kingspire to the hall had felt like a punishment. The great hall itself, wide and tall and muttering now with the voice of the wind, had impressed him as stately and grand once. Today it was a metaphor of hollowness expressed as architecture. The Severed Throne was a chair with more history than cushioning, and the mass of bodies in their cloth-of-gold and worked jewels were actually all the same people he saw at feasts and balls and council meetings, except with the ones he cared for best absent. Jorey. Basrahip.

  The new priest was a thin man with one pale eye and a thin scrub of beard. He stood now in Basrahip’s place, doing the same work Basrahip had done—nodding when the petitioners to the throne spoke true, shaking his head when they lied, keeping still when the words were in fact only meaningless gabble devoid of anything that could be called truth or falsehood.

  “I have no wish to reopen old wounds,” Curtin Issandrian said, standing before the throne with his palms out like the statue of an orator come to life. “And the question of a farmer’s council has been one that’s caused division and strife in years past. I have hope that in our newfound prosperity and the victories and glories of our conquests we can let go of the old arguments that divided us and consider the question with fresh eyes. And more importantly fresh hearts.”

  The years hadn’t been kind to the man. The long, flowing hair that had been a sort of personal banner was cut between his ear and shoulder now, and ashy. His face had lost its handsomeness to an excess of jowls and a darkness at the eyes. His voice was as sweet and compelling as it had been, back when Issandrian had been the darling of the court and Geder the butt of its jokes. Everything else about him spoke of being outside the court’s favor. Even his cloak was cut in last year’s fashion.

  “The changes we have seen over even the past year are greater,” Issandrian said, “than any since the reign of King Osteban. The farm slaves we had before had entered indenture as a choice or from a magistrate’s judgment. Now Timzinae work the fields under the righteous lash of Antean farmers. But the needs and skills of those farmers—good men and loyal citizens of the empire though they are—must also change. If we are to support them, they must have a voice within the court. If we are to—”

  “What are you asking me for?” Geder snapped. Issandrian’s speech stumbled against itself. His hands fell to his sides. Impatience bit at Geder’s gut, and he leaned forward. “You want something, yes? Just say it and be done.”

  Issandrian glanced back at the priest. The grand audience had been more fun when no one knew that Geder’s ability to tell truth from lies had rested in the grace of the spider priests. As soon as they’d inducted a wave of Anteans into the priesthood, the knowledge had entered the cycle of gossip. It was common knowledge now, and it left Geder almost feeling that the audience was with them more than him now.

  “I would ask the crown to consider forming a farmer’s council to advise the court,” Issandrian said.

  “Thank you. The answer is no. I’ll hear the next petition now.”

  Issandrian’s shoulders fell, but there was nothing for it. He bowed because he had to and was led away. The wind raked its nails across the great hall’s roof and chewed at the windows. Onin Pyrellin rose next and launched into a speech about his father’s service to the crown as a prelude, Geder knew, to asking that the protectorship of Nus be given to him.

  It was a sign of the empire’s sudden glorious expansion that so few heads of the great families were at court. Fallon Broot was ruling Suddapal. Savin Caot and Ernst Mecelli were managing the defense of Inentai from the Borjan raiders. Mikellin Faskellan was in Anninfort, consolidating the still-recent conquest of Asterilhold. Lord Skestinin was lost to the enemy. Dawson Kalliam was dead for his treason. Lord Bannien was dead for his. Mirkus Shoat, Earl of Rivencourt, dead. Estin Cersillian, Earl of Masonhalm, dead. Feldin Maas, whose barony was now Geder’s, dead. Lord Ternigan, dead. King Simeon, dead. The march of victory in the field and the needed purge of corrupt elements in the court left them stretched tight as the skin of a drum. They were a court of wives, daughters, and third sons now.

  He became aware that Onin Pyrellin had stopped speaking and was looking up at him expectantly. Geder pressed a hand to his cheek and looked out over the crowd. He wasn’t halfway through the petitions of the nobility yet, and there was the merchant class after that, and the poor and landless after them. An endless procession of people who wanted, and he was the one they all thought could provide whatever it was. Justice or favor or status.

  In the crowd, he caught sight of Sabiha Kalliam. Her mother was at her side. Little Annalise would be with the wet nurse, then, and they were here to ask him to ransom back Lord Skestinin. He would have to tell them no. And beside them, Laren Shoat, here to ask pardon for his family and a return of their titles and lands. And beside him, Namen Flor with God only knew what concerns that would be Geder’s concerns too, before it was all done with.

  Go home, he thought. All of you just go home and whatever the problems were you thought you had, just forget them. Start over. Do it without bothering me.

  “I’m sorry,” Geder said. “You lost my attention. Start again.”

  Pyrellin’s mouth pressed tight, but he started in again detailing his father’s glories and Geder tried to attend to it all this time.

  He went on as long as he could stand it, refreshing himself with cucumber water, apples, and cheese. The regent’s crown chafed his temples, but he left it on because it was expected of him. He found that, now that everyone knew that lying before the throne was impossible, no one tried. The pale-eyed priest might almost not have been there for all the use he was, and Geder regretted the loss.

  The white-gold light of afternoon pressed in through the windows and the stinking wind had died to a low, disconsolate muttering when Geder finally called the halt, thanked the court, declared once again his loyalty to the throne and to Aster who would sit it in a few years’ time, and made his way out. His back ached, his head hurt, his eyes felt like someone had poured grit into them, but the grand audience was done for another year, and good riddance. The pale-eyed priest walked with him as Basrahip would have done, only Geder took no comfort in this man’s presence.

  “You did well today, Prince Geder,” the priest said as they reached his private rooms at the Kingspire’s base. “You rule with wisdom and grace.”

  “And you’d think the rewards would be better for that,” Geder said. A servant boy accepted the regent’s crown from him and scuttled away with it. “Do we have any word from Basrahip? Is he coming back soon?”

  “Alas, the apostate’s corruption was narrow but deep,” the priest said, his hands lifted in apology as if he had some responsibility for what had happened in a different city. “The Basrahip’s messengers tell me that he has rooted out much of the weed of lies and blasphemy, but one corrupted priest remains. If that man is sacrificed to her glory and her truth, he will return to us.”

  Geder lumbered toward the stairs, and from there to his rooms. He wondered where Aster was. He’d more than half expected the boy to attend the grand audience. It was going to be Aster’s task before very long, and better that he see as many examples of it as possible before it was his ass in that damned uncomfortable chair. Geder couldn’t really blame him for finding something better to do, though. He would have been elsewhere too, if he could have been.

  “What do you mean, if? What else would he do with the bastard?”

  “All is in accordance with her will,” the priest said. “If it is her will that the apostate be sacrificed, then he will be sacrificed.”

  “But he’s going to be killed. That’s what Basrahip went out there for. He’s a threat to the empire, and the empire is the chosen of the goddess. The aposta
te needs to die, and Basrahip’ll kill him. There’s no if in there.”

  “The goddess is wise beyond our knowing,” the priest said, trotting a little to keep up. Geder wished he would just go away. “Her purity will cleanse the world, and all things fold to her wishes. If the Basrahip finds this apostate and ends him, it will be because she wills it.”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Geder said, reaching the stairs. “Basrahip’s been very clear. The goddess has come to bring peace to the world. I’m her chosen, and so Antea is her chosen. We’re spreading out and building her temples and bringing peace. That’s what we do. Whatever opposes us fails. That’s all.”

  “I have also heard the Basrahip’s living voice,” the priest said. He sounded a little hurt. Geder wondered if a day on the throne had left him cranky. Probably, it had. “We are not in disagreement, Prince Geder. If it is the will of the goddess, all the world will bow down before you.”

  Geder stopped, turned, poked the man’s chest with a single stiff finger as he spoke. “What you heard Basrahip say and what I heard him say seem to be very different. I’ll walk you through this one last time, and then I’m going to go eat my dinner and take my bath and sleep, I hope, until a day and a half from now. The goddess has come to bring peace to the world, and so she will. I am the chosen of the goddess, so I have her blessing and her protection. Every city I take, I raise a temple to her. Lies and deceit are purged from the world. The new age is going to dawn with the last evil of the dragons burned out of the world. Nowhere in there anywhere is an if.”

  “I fear I have given you some offense, Prince Geder,” the priest said, his eyes growing wide.

  “I’m not offended,” Geder said, biting each word off as he spoke it. “You’re not listening. When you say if—if the goddess wants it, if it’s her will—it’s like we don’t know what’s going to happen. But we do. Not all the fine, fiddly little details, maybe, but the important part is known. We’re going to win. The world is going to be better and purer and right. And here’s an if for you. If you aren’t certain of that, you’re the one who’s outside of her grace.”