The Dragon's Path

by Daniel Abraham

  The young huntsman nodded once, but didn’t speak.

  “Say it,” Dawson said.

  “With permission, sir. That’s not wise. It’s hardest drawing blood the first time, and that’s already happened. It only gets easier.”

  “I know it, but she’s determined.”

  “Send me instead.”

  “I’m sending you in addition,” Dawson said. “Jorey’s still in the city. He can give you a better picture of where things stand. You protected me when this all started. I need you to protect her now.”

  The two men stood together. Voices came from behind them. The kennel master shouting to his apprentice. The laughter of the huntsmen. It all seemed to come from another world. One not so far in the past when things had been better and safer and still right.

  “Nothing will hurt her, my lord,” Vincen Coe said. “Not while I live.”

  Three days after Clara left, riding off in the open carriage that had brought them with Vincen Coe riding close behind, the unwelcome guest arrived.

  The heat of the day had driven Dawson out of the holding proper and into the winter garden. Out of its season, it looked plain. The flowers that would offer up blooms of gold and vermillion in the falling days of the year looked like tough green weeds now. Three of his dogs lay panting in the heat, dark eyes closed and pink tongues lolling out. The glasshouse stood open. Closed, it would have been hotter than an oven. The garden slept, waiting for its time, and when that time came, it would transform itself.

  By then, Clara would have returned. He had spent time away from her, of course. He had court business and the hunt. She had her circle and the management of the household. And yet when she left him behind, the solitude was harder to bear gracefully. He woke in the mornings wondering where she was. He lay down at night wishing she would walk in through the dressing room door, alive with news and insight and simple inane gossip. Between the two moments, he tried not to think of her, or of Feldin Maas, or the possibility of her being used somehow against him.

  “Lord Kalliam.”

  The servant was a young Dartinae girl, new to his service. Her eyes burned in the manner of her race.

  “What is it?”

  “A man’s come asking audience, my lord. Paerin Clark, sir.”

  “Don’t know him,” Dawson said, but half a breath later, he did. The pale banker, agent of Northcoast, and seducer of Canl Daskellin. Dawson stood. At his feet, the dogs sat up, looking from him to the servant girl and back while they whined softly. “Is he alone?”

  The girl’s eyes widened, suddenly anxious.

  “He has a retinue, my lord. A driver and footmen. And I think his private man.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In the lesser hall, my lord.”

  “Tell him I’ll see him in a moment,” Dawson said. “Bring him ale and bread, put his men in the servants’ hall, and then get me my guard.”

  The pale man looked up when the doors of the lesser hall swung open and stood when Dawson entered. That Dawson had four swordsmen in hunting leathers behind him didn’t so much as raise the man’s eyebrows. The bread on the plate before him had a single bite taken from it, the pewter ale tankard might not have been touched.

  “Baron Osterling,” the banker said with a bow. “Thank you for seeing me. I apologize for arriving unannounced.”

  “Are you running Canl Daskellin’s errands now, or he running yours?”

  “I’m running his. The situation in the court is delicate. He wanted you informed, but he doesn’t trust couriers and some things he wouldn’t want written in his hand regardless.”

  “And so he sends the puppet master of Northcoast?”

  The banker paused. The faintest touch of color came to his skin, and the polite smile he always wore.

  “My lord, without giving offense, there are one or two points it might be best if we clarified. I am a subject of Northcoast, but I am not a member of its court, and I am not here at the bidding of my king. I represent the Medean bank and only the Medean bank.”

  “A spy without a kingdom, then. So much the worse.”

  “I apologize, my lord,” the banker said. “I see I am not welcome. Please forgive the trespass.”

  Paerin Clark bowed deeply and started toward the door, taking the court and Camnipol with him. Just because you don’t feel comfortable with it doesn’t mean it’s difficult, Clara said in his memory.

  “Wait,” Dawson said, and took a deep breath. “Who’s wearing the prettiest dress at the twice-damned ball?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You came for a reason,” Dawson said. “Don’t be such a coward you abandon it the first time someone barks at you. Sit. Tell me what you have to tell.”

  Paerin Clark came and sat. His eyes seemed darker now, his face as blank as a man at cards.

  “It isn’t you,” Dawson said, sitting across the table and ripping off a crust of the bread. “Not as a man. It’s what you are.”

  “I’m the man Komme Medean sends when there’s a problem,” Paerin Clark said. “No more, no less.”

  “You’re an agent of chaos,” Dawson said, softly, trying to pull the sting from the words. “You’re a man who makes poor men rich and rich men poor. Rank and order mean nothing to men like you, and they mean everything to men like me. It isn’t you I disdain. It’s only what you are.”

  The banker laced his fingers across his knee.

  “Will you hear my news, my lord? Despite what you think I am?”

  “I will.”

  For the better part of an hour, the banker spoke in a low voice, detailing the slow landslide that was happening in Camnipol. As Dawson had suspected, Simeon’s unwillingness to commit his son as the ward of any house came from the fear of making waves. The respect for his kingship was failing on all sides. Daskellin and his remaining allies offered what support they could, but even within the ranks of the faithful, unease was growing. Issandrian and Klin remained in exile, but Feldin Maas was everywhere in the city. It seemed as if the man never slept, and wherever he went, the story he told was the same: the attack of the show fighters had been rigged to throw disgrace on Curtin Issandrian in order that the prince not be sent to his house. The implication was that the convenient appearance of the soldiers from Vanai had been part of a great theater piece.

  “Arranged by me,” Dawson said.

  “Not you alone, but yes.”

  “Lies, beginning to end,” Dawson said.

  “Not everyone believes it. But some do.”

  Dawson rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. Outside, the day was leaning toward night, the sunlight reddening. It was all as he suspected. And Clara was riding into the center of it. The hope she’d offered before she’d left had sounded risky at the time. After this report, it seemed merely naïve. He would have given his hand to have had the banker come a week earlier. Now it was too late. He could as well wish a thrown rock back into his hand.

  “Simeon?” Dawson asked. “Is he well?”

  “The hard times wear on him,” Paerin Clark said. “And, I think, on his son.”

  “I think it isn’t death that kills us,” Dawson said. “I think it’s fear. And Asterilhold?”

  “My sources tell me that Maas is in contact with several important men in the court there. There have been loans of gold, and promises of support.”

  “He’s raising an army.”

  “He is.”

  “And Canl?”

  “He’s trying to, yes.”

  “How long before it comes down to the field?”

  “No one can know that, my lord. If you’re careful and lucky, maybe never.”

  “I can’t think that’s true,” Dawson said. “We have Asterilhold on one hand and you on the other.”

  “No, my lord,” the banker said, “you don’t. We both know I came hoping for advantage, but an Antean civil war won’t profit us. If it does come to pass, we won’t take a side. I’ve done what I can here. I won’t be going back t
o Camnipol.”

  Dawson sat up straighter. The banker was smiling now, and it looked suspiciously like pity.

  “You’ve abandoned Daskellin? Now?”

  “This is one of the great kingdoms of the world,” Paerin Clark said, “but my employer plays his games on larger boards than that. I wish you the best of luck, but Antea is yours to lose. Not mine. I’m traveling south.”

  “South? What’s more important than this in the south?”

  “There’s an irregularity that needs my attention in Porte Oliva.”

  Cithrin

  Cithrin stood at the top of the seawall, the city spread out behind her and the vast blue of sea and sky ahead. At the edge where the pale, shallow water of the bay turned to deep blue, five ships stood. The towering masts were trees rising from the water. The furled sails thickened the spars. The small, shallow boats of the fishing fleet were rushing into port or else out of the traffic as dozens of guide boats raced out, fighting to be the first to reach the ships and take the honor of guiding them in.

  The trade ships from Narinisle had arrived. Five ships, arriving together and flying the banners of Birancour and Porte Oliva. When they had left, there had been seven. The other two might have become separated by storm or choice or scattered in an attack. They might arrive the next day or the next week or never. On the docks below her, merchants waited in agonies of hope and fear, waiting for the ships to come near enough to identify. And then, once the ships were in their berths, the fortunate among the sponsors would board, compare contracts and bills of lading, and discover whether profits were assured. The unfortunate would wait on the docks or in the port taprooms, digging at the sailors for news.

  And then, once the captains of the ships had answered their sponsors, once the laborers had begun the long business of hauling the goods from ship to warehouse, once the frenzy of trade and goods and the exchange of coin had passed over Porte Oliva like a wind across the water, it would be time to begin the preparation for the next year’s journey. Shipyards would make repairs. The new sponsors would offer contracts and terms to the captains. And Idderrigo Bellind Siden, Prime Governor of Porte Oliva, would consult with the captains and the masters of the guilds, and graciously accept the proposals to change this from one port city among many to the center of trade for a generation to come.

  And in her hand, written in green ink on paper as smooth as poured cream, was the letter that forbade her from being part of any of it. She opened it now and considered it again. It was ciphered, of course, but she had spent long enough with Magister Imaniel’s books and papers that she could read it as clearly as if it had been in a normal script.

  Magistra Cithrin bel Sarcour, you are to cease all negotiation and trade in our name immediately. Paerin Clark, a senior auditor and representative of the holding company, will attend you as soon as can be arranged. Until that time, no further contracts, deposits, or loans are to be made or accepted. This is unconditional.

  It was signed by Komme Medean himself, the old man’s script jagged and shaking from gout. She had shown it to no one. In the eight days since it had come, she’d wrestled with the order. It was the first she’d ever had from the holding company, and precisely what she’d expected. The auditor would come, just as she’d planned at the start. He would recover the bank’s funds, lost from Vanai. All her daydreams of keeping the bank alive, or steering it the way the guide boats were now preparing to lead the trade ships to safety, would end. She would be herself again. Not Tag the Carter, not a smuggler hiding in the shadows, and not Magistra Cithrin. Only without Besel and Cam and Magister Imaniel. Without Vanai.

  And so, with respect, she preferred not to.

  With a soft breath too slight to call itself a sigh, she ripped the page. Then again, and again, and again. When the pieces were as small as individual numbers and symbols of the cipher, she threw them over the edge of the seawall and watched them spin and flutter.

  On the water, the guide boats were crowded around the trade ships. She imagined the voices of the men shouting up to the captains, the captains shouting back. As she watched, the first of the ships began the short, final leg of its annual journey. She turned away and walked back to her bank. The front door stood open to the breeze. As she walked through, Roach jumped to his feet as if she’d caught him doing something. Behind him, Yardem stretched and yawned hugely.

  “Where have you been?” Captain Wester said.

  “Watching the trade ships arrive, just the same as everyone else in the city,” she said. She felt unaccountably light. Almost giddy.

  “Well, your coffee brewer sent three people on from the café so far this morning asking after you. They came looking here.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “That you were busy, but I expected you’d be back in the café after midday,” Wester said. “Was I lying?”

  “You? Never,” she said, and laughed at the suspicion on his face.

  Despite the heat, Cithrin wore a dark blue dress with full sleeves and a high collar to the meeting at the governor’s palace. Her hair was tucked into a soft cap and pinned in place with a silver-and-lapis hairpin that was from the last of the jewelry she had hauled from Vanai. It would have been more appropriate for a cool day in autumn and left a trickle of sweat running down her back, but the thought of something more revealing in front of Qahuar Em seemed uncomfortable. And of course wearing the necklace or brooch that he’d given her would have been inappropriate.

  When he greeted her in the passageway outside the private rooms, his bow was formal. Only the angle of his smile and the merriment in his dark eyes gave a hint of their nights together. He wore a sand-colored tunic with black enameled buttons to the neck, and she found herself aware of the shape of his body beneath it. She wondered, now that they weren’t to be rivals any longer, what would become of the attachment. The servant, a pale-haired Cinnae woman, bowed as they went through the doorway.

  A single dark-stained table dominated the room, a bank of windows behind it looking out into the branches of a tree. The shifting branches gave the room a sense of shadow and cool that it didn’t deserve. The Cinnae mercenary rose to his feet as Cithrin stepped into the room and sat again when she did. The Tralgu woman and the representative of the local merchant houses didn’t attend.

  “Good year,” the Cinnae man said. “Have you been down to the ships, Magistra?”

  “I haven’t had the opportunity,” Cithrin said. “My schedule’s been remarkably full.”

  “You should make the time. There were boxes of the most fascinating baubles this year. Little globes of colored glass that chime when you rub them. Quite lovely. I bought three for my granddaughter.”

  “I hope the world has been treating you gently, sir,” Qahuar Em said. His voice was almost sharp. Why would he be angry? she wondered.

  “Quite well,” the Cinnae said, ignoring the tone. “Quite excellently well, thank you.”

  The private door slid open and the governor stepped in. His round face was sweat-sheened, but cheerful. When they began to rise, he waved them back to their seats.

  “No need for ceremony,” he said, easing himself into his own chair. “Can I offer any of you something to drink?”

  Qahuar Em shook his head, the Cinnae mercenary doing the same half a moment later as if he’d been waiting to see what Qahuar would do. Cithrin’s belly tightened in warning. Something was going on that she didn’t understand.

  “Thank you both for coming,” the governor said. “I very much appreciate the work you have all done, and your dedication to Porte Oliva, to me, and to the queen. I am excited to have such excellent minds turning toward the welfare of the city. This is always the most difficult part, isn’t it? Making the decision?”

  His wistful sigh said he was enjoying himself. Cithrin answered with a tight smile. Qahuar wasn’t meeting her eyes.

  “I have been over the proposals very carefully,” the governor said. “Either of them would have been, I think, an excel
lent pathway to the prosperity of the city. But I think the flexibility of the five-year contract offered by the gentlemen here present would better serve than the eight that the Medean bank requires.”

  Cithrin felt her breath leave her. Despite the heat, something cold settled into her throat and breast. Qahuar Em hadn’t been offering five years. It had been ten.

  “Eight years is a very long time,” the Cinnae mercenary said, nodding slowly. His grave expression was a poor mask for his pleasure.

  “Between that and the somewhat higher annual fees,” the governor said, “I am very sorry to turn away your proposal, Magistra Cithrin.”

  “I quite understand,” Cithrin said as if someone else were speaking. “Now that it’s settled, might I enquire what rates Master Em offered?”

  “Oh, it’s a partnership,” the Cinnae said. “Not just his clan, you know. We’re in this together, he and I.”

  “I can’t think that there’s need to go into the details,” Qahuar Em said, still not looking at her. His attempts to spare her more humiliation were worse than the mercenary’s gloating.

  “It isn’t as though it won’t be known,” the governor said. “Out of courtesy and respect, Magistra, the fees asked were ten hundredths without guarantee or fourteen with.”

  The wrong numbers. They were the wrong numbers. It was supposed to be sixteen and nineteen, not ten and fourteen. The offer she’d found in his office had been a trap, and she had fallen into it.

  “Thank you, my Lord Governor,” Cithrin said with a nod. “The holding company will very much appreciate your candor.”

  “There will be no acrimony, I hope,” the governor said. “The Medean bank is new to our city, but very much honored.”

  “None at all,” Cithrin said. Given the hollowness in her chest, she was surprised the words didn’t echo. This couldn’t be happening. “Thank you very much for the courtesy of meeting with me. But I assume you gentlemen have details to discuss.”

  They all rose when she did, the governor taking her hand in his greasy fingers and pressing it to his lips. She kept her smile amused and world-wise in defeat, a mask of who she wished she had been. She bowed to the Cinnae mercenary and then to Qahuar Em. The emptiness in her shifted, and something painful bloomed in its place.