“Thank you,” Geder said. “What … what can you tell me? How do I write to her? What do I say?”
A servant’s footsteps came down the corridor, paused, and then trotted away quickly. Sabiha was keeping the world at bay. Geder felt a little warmth in his heart for her, just for that.
“What did I do? I talked to her. And I listened to her. I don’t know, Geder. It wasn’t a campaign of war. I didn’t draw battle plans. I saw her at some function. I don’t even recall what, and I thought she was handsome and smart and had twice the soul and spine of anyone else in the room. I wanted to know her better, and I asked for the pleasure of her company.”
“And then it just happened,” Geder said.
“Well, no. There was a time she thought I was just looking to get her skirts up for a few minutes and then never speak to her again, and that took some getting past. And I wasn’t always my best self then either. But we came to understand each other. Trust each other.” Jorey raised his hands, helpless.
“And the other?” Geder asked.
“The other?”
Geder looked down. His skin felt like it was burning in the sun. He wanted nothing in the world more than to leave now. Walk away and pretend the conversation had never taken place. Except he needed to know, and there was no one else he could ask. When he spoke, his voice was low and steeped in shame.
“How do you tell a woman that you … want her?”
“Oh,” Jorey said. And then, “God.”
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just … I don’t know. I’m vaguely grateful and amazed every time Sabiha comes to my bed, and we’re married. How do you tell her? Honestly? Gently. With humor or soberly. Howl it at the moon. I don’t know.”
Relief flooded Geder’s heart like water on a fire.
“I thought I was the only one,” he said.
“No,” Jorey said. “I think men have been trying to find the way to say that for all the generations there have ever been, and the fact that there are generations at all means we must get it right sometimes.”
“Thank you, Jorey,” Geder said. “I should get back to the Kingspire, I think. I have a letter I need to write.”
“Yes,” Jorey said. Just as Geder reached the door, he spoke again. “Good luck, my lord.”
The carriage drove through the night, wheels clattering against cobbles, horseshoes striking stone. Geder leaned against the thin wood and looked out through the window.
“Cithrin,” he said under his breath, “I think men have tried for all the generations there have been to say what I am trying to say now, and that there are generations means they got it right sometimes.”
He could do this. And if he stumbled and got some things wrong, it would be all right. She would understand. It was Cithrin. He closed his eyes and remembered her.
Cithrin
Cithrin:
I don’t care how long it took you. I’m just so happy you wrote. Finding your letter there among all the others was the best moment of my day or week. Maybe of the year, and I helped win a war this year, so that’s even better than it sounds. I thought at first I was only dreaming or that I’d made a mistake. I miss you too. More than I ever thought I would. I know you’re a woman of trade and that the bank has its duties for you, but I was so disappointed when you left Camnipol without our getting to spend more time together.
I am so sorry that the army has been bothering you. I’ve given orders that you and the agents of the bank aren’t to be bothered. If there is any question, Broot will bring it to you and whatever you tell him will have the force of law. I’ve gotten a bit of a reputation as a dangerous man to cross, more through luck than anything I’ve really done, so I don’t think he’ll give you any problems, but if he does, write to me, and I’ll have it taken care of. There are some real advantages to sitting a throne, along with all the unpleasant parts.
And also, I wanted you to know how much I miss you too. Even with all the time we spent together, I felt like we hardly got the chance to explore who and what we are to each other. The last night—the one night …
Oh, this is so much harder to write about than I thought it would be. Jorey says I should be honest and gentle, and I want to be. Cithrin I love you. I love you more than anyone I’ve ever known. All this time that I’ve been running Aster’s kingdom and fighting to protect the empire, it’s been a way to distract myself from you. From your body. Does that sound crass? I don’t mean it to be. Before that night, I’d never touched a woman. Not the way I touched you. Since I had your letter, I can’t deny it anymore. I want you back with me. I want to sit up late at night with your head resting in my lap and read you all the poems we didn’t have when we were in hiding. I want to wake up beside you in the morning, and see you in the daylight the way we were in darkness.
I love you, Cithrin. And it’s such a relief to say it here, I feel lighter and purer and better already. I believe in you. I don’t need to ask if you’ve been as true to me as I have been to you. I know in my heart that you have.
Please, dear, when you can, come back to Camnipol. Let me shower you with roses and gold and silk and whatever else crosses your mind. I am well on my way to bringing peace to the whole world, and there is nothing I want to do with my power more than make you as happy as your letter made me.
And Aster! You should see him, dear one. He already looks like he’s halfway to manhood. When he ascends to the throne, and I’m not Lord Regent anymore, I will be free to—
Magistra?” the courier asked again.
Cithrin looked up. The man stood in her office like a ghost from a dream. His hair was still damp with sweat from his ride, and he stank of horse and the road. She tried to draw a breath, but her lungs felt like they’d been filled with glass.
“Yes,” she said. “I’m here.”
“Orders were I wait for your reply,” he said.
“There isn’t one. Not now,” she said. “This will … take some time.
“Yes, Magistra.”
He hesitated. She was on the edge of shouting at him to get out when she realized he was waiting for a coin. She fumbled with her purse, her fingers awkward and numb, drew out a bit of metal, and gave it over without looking to see what it was. The man bowed and went out. Cithrin sat on the divan, the leather creaking under her, and put her head in her hands. She felt trapped in the moment between being struck and feeling the pain of the blow. Everything had taken on a lightness and unreality. Her stomach was slowly, inexorably knotting itself, the anxiety settling deep in a way she knew meant sleeplessness for weeks to come. Months.
Geder Palliako thought he was in love with her. Love, like something out of the old epics. He’d spilled a little salt with her, and now they were soul mates. She went back to the letter. See you in the daylight the way we were in darkness. Yes, she knew what he meant by that.
“Well, shit,” she said to no one.
But, on the other hand, I’ve given orders that you and the agents of the bank aren’t to be bothered.
She tucked the letter away and pulled herself to her feet. The world still felt fragile, but she could walk and speak, and if she could manage that, she could do anything. She stepped out of her office and down to the guard quarters. Low clouds pressed, threatening an early snow. Enen and Yardem were sparring in the yard, blunted swords clacking against each other. Their focus on each other was intense, and she had to call their names before they stopped.
Yardem strode over. In his leather practice armor, he looked like a showfighter. His ears twitched, his earrings jingling. Enen pulled off her vest. She’d taken the beads out from her otter-slick pelt, and it was dark with sweat.
“Is there a problem, ma’am?” Yardem asked.
“Several,” Cithrin said, “but they aren’t at issue right now. Where do we stand on the evacuation?”
Enen scowled. It wasn’t something they talked of openly. At least it hadn’t been.
“It’s progressin
g,” Yardem said. “We had half a dozen children and their mothers out last week.”
A crow called from the wall of the yard, as if offering its opinion.
“I’m going to have orders soon,” Cithrin said. “I’ll want the two of you to carry them.”
“Orders for what, ma’am?” Enen asked.
“I want to get a hundred more children out this week.”
Yardem and Enen exchanged a glance.
“Not sure how we can do that without asking for trouble,” Yardem said.
“We have an advantage,” Cithrin said. “It seems we’re above the law.”
The snow began in the middle of the afternoon, small hard dots that tapped against the stone streets and blew in little whirlwinds about her ankles. Cithrin had sent word to Magistra Isadau’s network that the work had been compromised and never to speak of it, even to deny it had existed. Word of what the spider priests could do was making its way through the city in whispered conversations and ciphered notes. Giving the information out as widely as she could had been her only defense until now.
But even as the network quietly collapsed, some information still came to her. Seven families had gathered together to hide their children from the Antean forces. They were secreted away in a shed behind a dyer’s yard. A woman and her twelve-year-old son had taken refuge in the crawlspace beneath the house of a minor merchant, and the merchant was starting to get uncomfortable with the prospect of keeping them there. A tanner at the edge of the city had sent a message that he had people in need of help, but without any other details. Suddapal was rich in desperate people.
They started with a single cart with half a dozen large closed crates in it. Yardem drove the team with Cithrin beside him. Enen sat in the cart proper, her blade at the ready. The horses walked through the snowy streets, their breath blowing cold and opaque as feathers. Cithrin tried to bury herself in the grey wool coat she’d worn. The first stop was the merchant’s house. Yardem carried one of the crates on a wheeled pallet, striding to the servant’s entrance with the bored air of a man who did this every day.
When the door opened to them, a nervous-looking Timzinae man stared out.
“I’m Magistra Cithrin. We’re here to accept delivery,”
“Oh, thank God,” the man said, and ushered them in. The runaway Timzinae woman and her son both fit into the crate, though there wasn’t much space to spare. For seven families’ worth of escaped children, they’d need a larger cart.
“God bless you, miss,” the mother said. “Thank you for doing all this for me.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, but she thought, Thank Isadau. I’m doing it for her.
Yardem hauled the crate back out with a bit of help from one of the merchant’s servants. Then it was off to the tanner’s. Six people ranging in age from eight years to seventy were warming themselves in the stinking sheds. Cithrin saw them safely bundled into the cart. The others would have to wait a few hours more.
As the cart trundled back toward the center of the city, torchlight marked where Antean soldiers blocked the road before them. Cithrin’s breath came shorter and she lifted her chin. She had the sudden bone-deep certainty that trusting in Geder’s words had been a terrible mistake.
“Hold!” the guard captain cried.
Yardem pulled the team to a halt. Cithrin thought she heard someone weeping in one of the crates behind her. Please be quiet, she thought. You’ll get us all killed. The guard captain rode forward. He was a broad-shouldered Firstblood, axe and dagger at his side. Snow clung to his hair and beard. Cithrin’s heart fluttered and she fought her body’s sudden need to move—fidget or worry her hands or bite her tongue. She smiled coolly. The captain’s gaze lingered on the crates and he stroked his thin beard. Before he could speak, Cithrin did.
“Do you know who I am?”
The captain blinked. He’d expected to be the one controlling the conversation. His eyes narrowed and a hand fell toward his axe. Cithrin didn’t see Yardem shift in his seat so much as feel him.
“What are you hauling?” the guard growled.
“Don’t change the subject,” Cithrin snapped. “I asked you a question, and I expect an answer. Do you know who I am?”
A nervous pause followed. Cithrin raised her eyebrows.
“Why should I?” the captain asked at last, but his voice had lost some of its power. She’d put him on the defensive, which was either a good thing or the beginning of a terrible cascade.
“Because I am Cithrin bel Sarcour, voice of the Medean bank in Porte Oliva and Suddapal, and you are under specific orders from the Lord Regent that neither I nor anyone in my employ are to be bothered. And yet you are bothering me. Why is that?”
“We had word there were rebels,” the captain said. “Man said they were hiding in a house near here. We’re to check anyone going in or out.”
“You aren’t to check me,” Cithrin said.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the guard said. “But I got orders. It’s just a look in them crates and under your cart to see—”
“Where’s Broot?”
“Ma’am?”
“Where is Broot? The protector Ternigan named. Where is he?”
“At his house?” the captain said, his discomfort making it a question.
“Yardem, drive us to the protector’s manor,” Cithrin said. “You. What’s your name?”
“Amis, ma’am?”
“You can follow us.”
“I … I can’t,” he said. His hand wasn’t by his axe anymore. “I’ve got to stay and check carts.”
“Well, you have a choice, then. You can come with us to the protector and we can clarify that you, Amis, have gone against the express orders of the Lord Regent, or you can let us by and stop wasting my time and interfering with my business. And then, when you and your men go back, you can ask what would have happened to you if you had chosen to take me before the protector.”
He knew he was being toyed with. Even in torchlight, it showed in his eyes. But he wasn’t certain. Cithrin sighed the way the woman she was pretending to be would have. Her belly was so tight it hurt.
“Wait here,” he said. “You and yours don’t move. I’m sending a runner.”
“That was a mistake,” Cithrin said, and leaned back to wait. The captain rode back to his men, and a moment later one of the torches detached from the group and sped off into the city.
Despite the snow and the wind, the cold wasn’t as bitter as she’d expected. The autumn hadn’t given up its hold. Yardem’s breath and hers ghosted, and the horses on the team grew bored and uncomfortable. In the back, Enen paced, her footsteps making the cart sway slightly. All along the street and out along the spread of the city, the falling snow gave buildings and water a sense of half-reality. Sound was muffled and distant, but she still caught the drone of strings for a moment from somewhere not so far away.
“It’s a prettier city than I thought when we came here,” Cithrin said.
“Has its charms,” Yardem agreed.
“Are we going to live through this, do you think?”
Yardem shrugged.
“Couldn’t say.”
“I’ll wager a fifty-weight of silver that we do,” she said.
Yardem looked over at her. His face was damp from the snow and his expression the mild incredulity of not knowing whether she was joking. Cithrin laughed, and Yardem smiled. It seemed to take half the night, and was hardly more than half an hour, before the torches came back. Ten of them. Cithrin leaned forward. Her toes and fingers were numb and her earlobes ached.
The new torches mingled with the old, and she heard the bark of voices. A moment more, and five men were galloping toward her. The one who didn’t carry a torch was the impressively mustached Fallon Broot, Protector of Suddapal, wearing a dining shirt and no jacket.
“Magistra Cithrin,” Broot said, “I am so terribly sorry this has happened. I told my man to spread the word, but some half-wit bastard wasn’t listening. I swea
r on everything holy this will not happen again.”
He bowed deeply in his saddle, as if he were speaking to a queen. Cithrin wondered what Geder had said in his orders that would bend a baron of the Antean Empire double before a half-Cinnae merchant woman. She felt a brief tug of sympathy for the man and his terror.
“Anyone can make a mistake,” she said. “Once is a mistake.”
“Thank you, Magistra. Thank you for understanding.”
“Twice isn’t a mistake. This was once.”
“And never again. You have my word. I’ll have Amis whipped raw as an example to the others.”
Cithrin looked down the street at the fluttering flames. Any of them—all of them—would have pulled the children out of the crates behind her. Would, at best, have driven them through the streets. At worst, the Timzinae would have died here on the snow-damp street of their home. She thought of Isadau and, for a moment, smelled her perfume.
“Do that,” she said, with a smile. “Yardem? I think we’ve lost enough time already.”
“Yes, Magistra,” the Tralgu said and made a deep clicking in his throat. The cart lurched forward, and the line of torches parted to let them through. Cithrin caught a glimpse of Amis as she passed, his face a tragic mask. She smiled.
At the dock, a small ship stood at anchor. The captain was a Yemmu, the bulk of his body making do instead of a jacket. He trundled forward to meet the cart, his eyes narrow.
“You’re late,” he said. “Another hour, we’d have missed the tide entirely.”
“There was some business that needed to be done,” Cithrin said.
“Doing what?”
“Establishing precedent,” she said. “We have the cargo here now. Are you still taking the contract?”
“You’re still paying it?” he said, and his tusks made his grin into a leer.
“I am.”
Yardem, Enen, and half a dozen sailors carried the crates across to the gently rocking deck. Cithrin watched as they disappeared. Each crate was a life or two that wouldn’t end here. A child who wouldn’t sleep in an Antean prison, a mother or father, brother or sister who wouldn’t be parted. And one less hold that the empire would have over its newly conquered lands.
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