“A casual audience, is it, Your Majesty?” Dawson said, and his old friend turned. His smile was melancholy.
“Forgive me if I don’t rise,” Simeon said over the splashing water.
“You’re my king,” Dawson said. “However low you sit, it’s my duty to kneel deeper.”
“You always have loved form,” Simeon said. “Oh, stop that. Stand up, or at least come and sit by me.”
“Form is what gives the world its shape,” Dawson said, rising. “If you don’t hold to tradition, what is there? A thousand different people each with his own idea of justice, every man trying to force his ideas on the next? We’ve seen how that ends.”
“Anninfort,” Simeon said darkly. “You live in a frightening world, old friend, if the only thing between us and that is etiquette.”
“Order has always been precious and fragile. By the time the small things have washed away, the large ones are too powerful to stop. Every man in his place. Those meant to lead, lead. Those meant to follow, follow. Civilization doesn’t fall into anarchy. That’s how it should be. And it’s the world you live in too, Your Majesty.”
“So it is,” Simeon said. “So it is. And still I wish I could leave Aster a better one.”
“Change the nature of all history for one boy?”
“I would. If I could, by God I would do it. A world where not everything rests on his shoulders. Where his own people don’t plot to have him killed.” Simeon seemed to sink in on himself. His skin was greyer than Dawson remembered it, like a pale shirt gone too many times to the launderer’s yard. The king combed his fingers through his hair absently. His reflection in the fountain’s waves was only a smear of white. “I am sorry. You were right about Issandrian and Maas. I thought I could keep peace.”
“You did. Your only error was thinking you could do it without executing anyone.”
“And now…”
“Asterilhold,” Dawson said, and let the word hang in the air. It was what he’d been called here for. Simeon didn’t speak. The water clinked and muttered. Dawson felt a growing unease at the king’s continued silence. What had begun as a thoughtful pause stretched until it seemed almost reproach. Dawson looked up, prepared to defend himself or make apology.
Instead, he cried out in alarm. Simeon’s eyes were wide and blank and unseeing. His mouth was slack. The stink of piss cut through the air as rank yellow stained the king’s lap. It was like an image pulled from nightmare.
And then Simeon coughed, shook his head, looked down.
“Oh,” he said. He sounded exhausted. “Dawson? You’re here. How long was it this time?”
“A few breaths,” Dawson said. His voice was shaking. “What was it?”
Simeon stood, looking down at the urine stain on his shift, the piss running down his legs.
“A fit,” he said. “Just a small fit. I’m sorry you saw this. I thought I was done with them for today. Could you call for my man?”
Dawson trotted across the corridor and shouted for the servant. The man came with a fresh shift already in hand. There was no shock in his expression, no surprise. Dawson and the servant looked away as the king stripped off his soiled clothes and put on the fresh. When they were alone again, Dawson sat at the fountain’s edge. Everything was just the same as before, but the act of seeing it was different. He felt as if he were looking at Simeon for the first time, and what he saw—what had been there all along unnoticed and unremarked—shocked him. What had been the weight of a crown was suddenly something more sinister and profound. Simeon smiled at him knowingly.
“It was like this for my father too, near the end. Some days I’m almost fine. Others… my mind wanders. He was younger when he died. I am three years older than my father. How many men can say that?”
Dawson tried to speak, but his throat was thick. When he did manage, it was little more than a whisper.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Two years,” Simeon said. “For the most part, I’ve been able to keep it hidden. But it’s getting worse. Once was, I’d have weeks or months between them. It’s hours now.”
“What do the cunning men say?”
Simeon chuckled, and the sound was deeper than the water’s laughter. Gentler too.
“They say that all men are mortal. Even kings.” Simeon took a deep breath and leaned forward, his forearms on his knees, his hands clasped. “There is a flower that’s supposed to help. I keep drinking the tea, but I can’t see any difference. I suppose I might be failing faster without it.”
“There will be something. We can send for someone…”
His old friend didn’t answer. There was no need to. Dawson heard the impotence in his own words, and was shamed by them. All men died, always had and always would. It was only surprise that hollowed his chest.
“I wish Eleanora and I had had Aster earlier,” the king said. “I would have loved to see him as a man. With a child of his own, maybe. I remember when Barriath was born. All the jokes were that the boy had eaten you. No one knew where you were or what you were doing. You were gone from all the old places. I resented you for that. I felt left behind.”
“I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”
“No reason for you to be sorry. I just didn’t understand. Then Aster came, and I did. If we’d had him earlier… But then, I suppose it wouldn’t have been him, would it? No more than your Jorey is a younger imitation of Barriath. So I can’t even wish that. This is the world as it had to be to have my boy in it, and so I can’t hate it. Even if I want to.”
“I am so sorry, Your Majesty,” Dawson said.
Simeon shook his head.
“Ignore me,” he said. “I hate it when I get like this. Whine like a schoolboy. Enough. I wanted to talk to you about other things, like the audience with Ashford. What are your thoughts?”
“That you should have it,” Dawson said. “As I said before—”
“I know what you said before. You know more now than you did then. I can’t take the audience if I’m going to piss myself in the middle of it. Right now, they’re frightened of me. Of what I might do. And they’re backing away. If Ashford takes back a report that I’m half mad and dying, that song changes. The last time you brought me advice, I turned you away and came within days of handing my child to a man with plans to kill him. So far as I know you’re still in control of your own bladder. It makes you more competent than your king. So tell me. What do I do?”
Dawson stood and tried to gather his windswept mind. He felt like he’d just fought a duel. His body had the sense of expended effort and exhaustion, even though he’d done nothing more than walk across a room and call for a servant. He had the sudden, visceral memory of pelting down a street, Prince Simeon at his side. He didn’t remember when or where it had happened, but he knew the street had smelled of rain, that Simeon had worn green and he’d worn brown. He swallowed and wiped the back of his hand across his eyes.
“If the fits can be controlled, have the audience immediately,” he said. “Prepare beforehand, and keep it brief. No feasts, no private meals, no second audience. Something formal.”
“And say?”
“That you’ll give Asterilhold the time to clean its own court, but that you expect a full accounting and the heads of those who supported Maas. It’s the only option you have. We can’t fight a war. Not with you in this condition.”
Simeon nodded slowly. His spine seemed more bent now than when Dawson had first arrived, but it might only have been that he saw now what habit had hidden before.
“And if they can’t be controlled?”
“Appoint someone else. An ambassador or warden. If you want someone particular, name him Warden of the White Tower. There hasn’t been one since Odderd Faskellin died. Or else… Ah, God.”
Dawson sat again.
“Or else?” the king prompted.
“If you’re failing fast enough, postpone it and let the regent address it once you’re dead.”
Simeon’s brea
th was sharp as a man struck.
“That’s where we are, aren’t we?” Dawson said.
“We may be,” Simeon said. “Thank you, old friend. That was what I needed to hear, and I don’t believe anyone else would have said the words aloud. Even if everyone were thinking them. Don’t take it amiss if I ask you to retire now. I think I need to rest.”
“Of course, Your Majesty,” Dawson said.
He paused in the archway and looked back. King Simeon had turned away, and Dawson could not see his face. This is the last time I will see him, Dawson thought, and then walked away.
At the gates of the Kingspire, he waved his carriage away. He didn’t want to be carried now. He wanted to walk. The path between the Kingspire and his mansion was miles, but he didn’t care. He adjusted his sword on his belt and started off. He’d spent nights walking and running through the dark streets of Camnipol, racing horses through the empty market squares, drinking until he was too tipsy to walk a straight line and then hanging over the side of a bridge until the vertigo made his head spin. On a night like that, he’d have walked eight miles. Ten. From his dying king to his own drawing rooms weren’t half that.
Despite its name, the Silver Bridge spanned the Division with stone and wood. Its supports dug into the walls of the great canyon, falling away as far below the city as the great tower was high. Dawson paused at the center of the span, looking south. A flock of pigeons wheeled through the shadows below him, whirling above the midden heap hidden by darkness and mist at the bottom. He stood for a long time, his mind scoured and raw. Behind him, the traffic of the city passed over the void, men and women, horses and oxen, nobles and peasants. He wept briefly.
When he walked into the courtyard outside his mansion, an unfamiliar carriage stood by the door. The crest on its side and the colors of its cloth announced House Skestinin. The old Tralgu door servant rose and bowed, his chain rattling as he did.
“My lord,” he said. “It is very good to see you again. The lady was concerned when your carriage returned empty. She is with Sabiha Skestinin in her private rooms. My Lord Jorey asked to have a word at your convenience. He is in your study.” Dawson nodded and the door slave bowed. Dawson’s hunting dogs greeted him just inside the hall, their wide tails flogging the air and sincere canine grins plucking at their mouths. Dawson couldn’t help smiling as he scratched their ears. There was no love so pure as a dog’s for its master.
He thought of going to Clara before he saw his son, but her rooms were at the farthest end of the mansion and his hips ached from walking. He knew, anyway, what Jorey wanted to talk about. He’d been expecting the conversation since Clara had told him to. Dawson commanded his dogs with a gesture, and they sat as he went into his study and closed the door behind him.
Jorey stood at the window, the afternoon light spilling across his face. It occurred to Dawson again how much the boy could look like his mother. Not in the shape of the jaw so much as the eyes and the color of his hair. It seemed so recent that Jorey had been a thin-limbed boy climbing trees and playing swords with fallen branches. He was broad across the shoulders now, his face serious. And the swords he wielded cut.
“Father,” Jorey said.
“Son,” Dawson replied, feeling the just-conquered tears struggling behind his eyes. “You’re looking well.”
“I’m feeling… I need to ask your permission for something. And it may not be something you like hearing.”
Dawson sat with a grunt and then immediately wished he’d thought to call for a drink before he had. Not wine. Not today. But a cup of water would have been welcome.
“You want to marry the Skestinin girl,” Dawson said.
“I do.”
“Even though she brings no honor to the family.”
“She does, though. The world may not see it, but it’s there. She did something stupid once, and she carries it with her now. But she is a good woman. She won’t embarrass you.”
Dawson licked his lips. There were a dozen objections and concerns he’d had when Clara first explained who Sabiha Skestinin was, and more that had grown up and been trimmed back only to grow again since they’d come to Camnipol. Who was the father of the offending child, and was Jorey willing to have that man, whoever he was, hold that bit of scandal over him in court for the rest of his life? Wouldn’t Barriath, who served under Skestinin in the fleet, be the better match? How could he trust the girl to keep her sex in harness when she’d already shown she couldn’t control it unwed?
“Do you still dream about Vanai? The fire?”
“I do,” Jorey said, his expression grim.
“Is that guilt the reason you want a fallen woman for your wife? She’s something you can save?”
Jorey didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“It would be wiser if you didn’t make this alliance,” Dawson said. “The girl’s history shows what she is. We already have connections to Skestinin, so the family gains very little by it. Your brothers aren’t married yet, and it seems odd to have the youngest marry first. When my father came to me and told me who I’d be wed to, I was grateful to him for his guidance and wisdom. I didn’t bring some stray home and beg him to keep it.”
“I see,” Jorey said.
“Do you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“If I tell you now to go to the girl and break things off, will you do it? Out of loyalty to me and to this family?”
“Is that what you’re saying, sir?”
Dawson smiled, and then laughed.
“You wouldn’t,” he said. “You’d go to your mother and arrange some way to force my hand or elope to Borja or some other idiocy. I know you, boy. I’ve changed your diapers. Don’t think you can fool me.”
Something shy and tentative plucked at the corners of Jorey’s mouth. He stepped forward.
“Go,” Dawson said. “Take my permission, and do what you’d have done without it. And take my blessing too. She’s a lucky girl, my new daughter, to have a husband like you.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“Jorey,” Dawson said, catching his son at the doorway. “The world’s briefer than we think, and less certain. Don’t wait to have children.”
Cithrin
The Stormcrow was one of the first ships Cithrin had accepted an insurance contract against, and it took time to put the story together of how she was lost. She was a three-masted roundboat, deep-bellied and well crewed. The captain, a Dartinae man whose eyes glowed green rather than the usual yellow, had walked Cithrin across the deck when the contract had first been made. She still remembered the pride in his voice. He’d told how many times the ship had made the blue-water trade to Far Syramys before he’d settled into his retirement. No more the long, landless weeks navigating by stars and hoping for the distant coasts. Now he was making the simple, riskless trade between the Free Cities, Pût, Birancour, and Narinisle. The storms of the Inner Sea might swamp the little galleys they ran, but not a real ship like the Stormcrow. She’d weathered cyclones in the ocean sea. He’d made light of the pirates that haunted the coast of Cabral. Coast-humpers, he called them. Anyone makes trouble, just set the sail toward open water and let their own cowardice do the rest.
Cithrin had found him charming, his record of delivery impressive, and his confidence in himself so high that he was willing to accept very good terms on the contract. He insured the cargo only. If I lose my ship, I’ll be dead anyway, and the money won’t matter, he’d said. It hadn’t sounded like prophecy at the time.
The ship had wintered in the great port of Stollbourne, sleeping through the winter in the shadow of the floating towers of the Empty Keep. It left Narinisle as soon as the ice broke, heading south for warmer waters and Porte Oliva despite sleet and storm. The journey south was sure and steady. It had joined a group of ships making for Herez and remained in that company for the better part of a week. Then, when the other ships had turned in toward their home ports, it continued south past Cyrin and around the Embers, the sha
rp stones that rose from the depths of the sea off the cape of Cabral.
It passed Upurt Marion, hailing and being hailed by the captain of another roundship just coming north from Lyoneia. The Stormcrow had come that close to home, but never reached Porte Oliva. The other roundship captain said that half a day after the Stormcrow had vanished over the horizon, three small, fast ships bearing the colors of no nation had passed by far to the south, leaning toward the open sea.
After that, more guesswork was involved. Without doubt a storm had blown up three days after that last sighting. It made sense, then, to imagine the Stormcrow pulling in its sails and nailing battens over her hatches, preparing to endure the high, white-topped waves and the vicious, cutting rain. The captain might have taken the lookout down from the crow’s nest with the very real concern that they might be tossed out by the violence of the weather. If so, the pirate ships could have been almost upon her before she knew they were there; black shapes against dark water.
Against an enemy coming in from the sea, the Stormcrow’s defenses had little hope. Pirate ships were smaller and more maneuverable, their rigging unconstrained by the needs of long voyages. Perhaps the Stormcrow tried for open water, and was intercepted. Perhaps she turned for shore and was chased down. The wreckage that had been blown ashore stank of linseed oil. Pouring oil on the waters was a well-known trick for boarding ships in rough seas, and it made it seem more likely that the assault had come nearer the land.
When the attackers came aboard, the Stormcrow would have had her best and final chance for survival. Hooked chains were the most common tools, but there were also sharptined boots and braces that a skilled man could use to scurry up the wooden sides of a ship like an insect. Likely several of the pirates had died on the way up, their bodies fallen into the raging water and swallowed at once. But more would have gained the deck. Cithrin imagined that last struggle as bloody and long, with the crew overwhelmed by inches, the decks black with blood and rain. Thunder roaring over the war of wind and waves, lightning crawling through the storm clouds overhead. But it was just as possible that the captain had tried to surrender and been thrown to his death. Whatever the case, the timbers of the ship and bodies of the crew had found their way to the shore. Of the cargo, nothing.
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