“Once Lechan sues for peace,” Emmer Faskellan said, lacing his fingers across his wide belly, “I believe we have established that the Seref Bridge must be permanently under our control. That’s the absolute very least.”
“And reparations,” Gospey Allintot said. “We’ve lost most of the planting season, and it’s not fair that our women and children should go hungry. And we’ve lost good men whose widows and children will need to be supported.”
It was a discussion that had clearly been going on in the rooms of the Great Bear, now translated into Geder’s meeting chambers, a grander venue for the old conversation. The walls here were draped with silk and tapestries from Far Syramys and fine golden chains from Pût, the floor covered with Southling-woven carpets from one of the small nations in the interior of Lyoneia. The table around which they all sat was a single piece of carved basalt from Borja; representations of the thirteen races of humanity made up the legs, all supporting the tabletop-wide stylized crown. Furniture as political sculpture. The air was perfumed with a musky Hallskari incense that made Geder think of rich food and ripe fruit.
Geder’s personal guard stood in the corners of the room, armed and impassive, and Basrahip sat at a small table by the doorway where Geder could see him. The priest was only apparently meditating, his not quite closed eyes glittering under their lids.
It wasn’t the most formal of councils, as many of the most important and powerful men in Antea were presently in the field. This was a gathering of sons and grandfathers and secretaries. Men who’d fought the war from their chairs, and were happy now to congratulate each other on how well they’d done. The only ones present who’d been in the field at all were Gospey Allintot, still recovering from an arrow in the meat of his arm, and Jorey Kalliam, just come with the reports from his father. The army had reached Kaltfel. The final siege was under way.
“If I may?” Jorey said slowly. “What are we trying to achieve? I mean if we want to cripple Asterilhold for a generation, it’s easy enough to do that. But is that what we want?”
“Well, they have to be punished,” Emmer Faskellan said. “My cousin died from their scheming. Died in the streets of Camnipol!”
“That’s what I mean,” Jorey said. “Are we trying to punish them and then go back to the way things were before? Are we trying to take control of Asterilhold? They wanted to unify the nations. Do we?”
“I see what you’re thinking,” Allintot said.
“I don’t,” said Geder. It wasn’t something he would have admitted usually, but this was Jorey.
“Taking the bridge, for example,” Jorey said. “That helps us win the next war if there is one. Maybe it makes one less likely because they’d be afraid of losing. But they didn’t want a war in the first place. Asterilhold was acting with people in our own court. There aren’t any reparations we can demand that will keep that from happening again.”
The group was quiet for a moment.
“Hostages?” Geder said. “We could take hostages. Raise their children. If there was ever any sign of conspiracy, we’d have someone here at hand.”
“I was thinking something more permanent,” Jorey said. “Lechan has two sons and a daughter. If the sons abdicate their rights to the throne and the daughter weds Prince Aster, he’ll become heir to Asterilhold’s throne.”
“This did all start as a drive for unification,” Emmer Faskellan said thoughtfully. “Perhaps it’s inevitable. If that’s true, it would be best if we were the ones to set the terms. They’ll want something done at once, of course. Waiting until Aster’s of age and Lechan dies is too long.”
“You’ve all given me things to think about,” Geder said quickly. He had a sense of where the conversation was heading. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’m called elsewhere.”
A small chorus of Yes, of course and Thank you, Lord Regent rolled through the air as Geder rose and made his private exit. The guards followed him through the narrow passages reserved for the men who sat on thrones and the blades that guarded them. Even Basrahip would have to leave by the normal door and rejoin him elsewhere.
It was just the sort of thing that Geder had imagined he would enjoy, one of the unnumbered small privileges of power that he’d gained with the regency. In practice, it felt oppressive. Being the most powerful man in Imperial Antea meant being busy all the time, being constrained by form and etiquette, and carrying the world on his shoulders. He would never again be able to ride out through the streets whenever he saw fit. And never, ever alone. He had traded poking through the old scriptorums for this small corridor that only he and his guards could use, and the exchange seemed less attractive than it had before he’d made it.
The private corridor widened into the royal apartments. High windows looked out over the Division and the spreading land beyond, filling the vaulted ceilings and tall air with light and just a hint of the woodsmoke of the city. These were the rooms where King Simeon had lived. The queen had died in one of the wood-paneled bedrooms. Aster had taken some of his first steps in the candlelit hallway Geder walked through. It was where Aster had grown up. When the boy had become Geder’s ward, Aster had expected to be leaving these walls for years, not months, and now he was back. It was and would always be more Aster’s home than his own.
Geder knew from experience that it might be some time before the meeting he’d left spiraled to its true, if unofficial, close. Basrahip would stay there, and if the others picked and chose their words carefully, knowing that Geder’s right hand was still with them, they didn’t know how much the priest could still divine from the mixture of truth and lies. And a few minutes—an hour or two—entirely his own was welcome in a way that made his joints ache a little.
He heard Aster’s voice reciting lines, and then the tutor— an ancient Cinnae man so frail-looking that he seemed always on the edge of collapse. Geder followed their voices to the study and hung in the shadows of the doorway for a moment.
Aster sat at a small table, looking up at the tutor’s podium. The old Cinnae smiled encouragingly, and Aster began the lines again.
“Information without practice can never grow to knowledge. Knowledge without silence can never grow to wisdom. And so practice and silence, doing and not doing, are at the heart of the right man’s path.”
“Marras Toca,” Geder said. “I didn’t know you were learning military philosophy.”
The tutor’s watery smile greeted him as he stepped into the room.
“You know the text, my Lord Regent?” he asked.
“I read an essay mentioning him that was very important to me. Afterward, I made a point of finding some of his work. I made a translation of it over the winter. I didn’t use silence in mine. I thought stillness was closer to the original meaning.”
“I think it’s dull,” Aster said.
“Some of it’s dry,” Geder said. The room was small, but sun-warmed. “Some of it was pretty interesting, though. Did you read the section about the spiritual exercises?”
“Like a cunning man’s tricks?” Aster said, brightening a little.
“No, they were more like ways to practice thinking. When he’s talking about silence or stillness, it’s not just about not moving around. He’s got a particular technical meaning.”
“Have you done the exercises, my Lord Regent?” the tutor asked.
“No, not really, but I read about them a lot, and I think it’s very interesting. Wise, even,” Geder said, and leaned close to Aster with a rueful little grin. “I’m better at reading about those kinds of things than doing them. Can I see the translation you’re using?”
The tutor leaned over his podium and held out the book. Geder took it carefully. It was very old, and the binding was leather and string. The pages were cloth, and thicker than usual, which gave the thing a feeling of solidity and weight. Geder turned the pages reverently.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Where did you get it?”
“A teacher of mine gave it to me when I was hardly
older than Prince Aster,” the tutor said, smiling. “I’ve kept it with me ever since. I have heard that you have quite the sizable library yourself, my Lord Regent?”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I used to have more time to read. And translate. I was working on an essay that tracked the royal houses of Elassae by the dates of their births, and it argued that Timzinae have two annual mating seasons. The actual dates were a little sketchy, but the argument was brilliant.”
Aster sighed and leaned his elbows against his desk, but the old tutor’s eyes were alight.
“It sounds fascinating, my lord. Do you recall the name of the author?”
“It was speculative essay, and only about three hundred years ago, so it had an attribution, but…”
“Yes, not much use to it. Not in those days,” the tutor agreed.
Geder turned the pages, the cloth softer than skin under his fingertips. Toca’s section on battle maps looked different in this than the one Geder had. There were at least three more diagrams, and a table of comparison that must have been added in by a later scribe. He traced the ancient ink with his fingertips.
“Could I borrow this?” Geder asked. “I’d like to compare it to mine.”
The tutor’s expression froze, and his hands made small spider’s fists.
“Of course, my lord,” he said. “I would be honored.”
“Thank you,” Geder said. “I will bring it back. I’m just going to go put it in with my books, if you don’t mind.” “Of course not,” the tutor said.
“Does that mean we can do something else?” Aster asked as Geder walked out of the room. The boy’s voice sounded hopeful.
Geder walked with the pages open before him, his finger tracing the words. A little glow of excitement warmed him.
This wasn’t a translation he’d ever seen before, and the original text seemed more complete than the one he’d worked with.
The goal of war is peace. The small general leads his army into battle to achieve victory, and so his own nature will force him to return to it. The deep general leads his army into battle to confirm victory, and so the world’s nature will force him to return to it. The wise general leads his army into battle to reshape the world, and so he creates a place which does not need him.
It wasn’t at all like the copy Geder had. His copy hadn’t, he was almost sure, included the verse about the deep general. Deep wasn’t a form Toca used often, and when he did it was usually in reference to the priesthood. Geder wondered if a discussion of warrior priests had been taken out by a later translator.
“Ah,” Basrahip said. “Listening to empty voices again, Prince Geder?”
The high priest was in the main room, sitting on a cushioned bench with his hands on his knees.
“I like books,” Geder said.
“Some are pretty, but they are toys. They mean nothing.”
“Well,” Geder said, closing the book and setting it aside, “it’s something we’re just going to disagree about.”
“For now,” Basrahip agreed.
Geder sat beside the window. The afternoon sun pressed on the back of his hand.
“What did you find out?”
It was little that Geder hadn’t expected. The court was certain that victory was imminent, and the credit for that rested with Geder and his ally and onetime patron Dawson Kalliam. Opinion about how to deal with their conquered neighbor was mixed, but the disagreements were between gentlemen. Of course, there were particulars. One man advocated waiting for Baron Watermarch’s return from North-coast. Another thought that a marriage between Aster and Asterilhold’s Princess Lisbet should be arranged as soon as the suit of peace arrived. Geder might draw the war out long enough to destroy the farmlands and mills and shipyards of the enemy, or he might preserve them for the use of the combined kingdoms in later years.
They talked for hours as the sun slid westward, pulling Camnipol slowly into the red light of sunset, the grey of dusk, and then darkness. The moon had not risen, and the stars shone in the high summer sky. At last, Geder, his head overfull, made his apologies and took himself to bed where men he didn’t know undressed him, powdered his body, and laid him under thin spring blankets. Half awake, he was annoyed to discover that he’d forgotten the tutor’s book. It would have been pleasant to read for a little while before sleep. He had so little time to read anymore…
Morning came clear and cold. He lay in bed for a while, watching the sunlight stream through the windows. Then the ritual humiliation, and he stepped out into the royal family dining hall. Basrahip was already there, as was Aster. The two were talking about something, Basrahip smiling and Aster laughing aloud. Geder sat, and a young servant brought him a length of baked duck and stewed pears, a small loaf of sweet black bread, and honeyed coffee with the grounds thick as mud at the bottom.
“Did I miss something funny?” Geder asked.
“Minister Basrahip’s been doing impressions of the men in court,” Aster said.
“Are they good?”
“No,” Aster said, hooting. “They’re terrible.”
Basrahip smiled.
“I am no man to play pretend,” he said. “It is not what I am.”
“And thank God for that,” Geder said, plucking a bit of the duck free and popping it in his mouth. It was salty and rich and entirely the perfect way to begin a morning. “I’ve been thinking about the terms of peace with Asterilhold. I think I know what we have to do.”
Priest and boy both sobered, turning their attention to him. Geder sipped the coffee, enjoying the moment of suspense more than he probably should have.
“I don’t think we’d be wise to accept tribute and reparations and still leave them in control of the kingdom. If anything, we’ll have made their court less likely to treat us as friends.”
“And you must build temples to the goddess in the cities you conquer,” Basrahip said.
“Yes, and that,” Geder agreed. He’d forgotten that he needed to do that, but it was certainly true he’d agreed to. “Which means I think we have to move toward uniting the kingdoms.”
Aster’s face went still. “I see,” the prince said.
Geder shook his head and waved a heel of bread.
“No no no. Marrying in won’t work. Being married to a woman doesn’t mean that all of Asterilhold is suddenly going to be placated. This is what got us here at the first, isn’t it? Mixing bloodlines so that there were plausible claims to the Severed Throne in Asterilhold’s court. If we hadn’t tried making peace through marriage generations ago, there wouldn’t have been the opportunity to even appear legitimate now. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.”
“What, then?” Aster asked.
“We take the land. The cities. Asterilhold comes back to being part of Imperial Antea, just the way it was under the High Kings. There are any number of men in the court who deserve reward for the work they’ve done. And with loyal Anteans controlling the place, we’ll have less to worry about. It’s simple, really. I don’t know why it wasn’t obvious earlier.”
“And the present ruling caste?” Basrahip asked.
“Well, they can’t be trusted, can they? We’ve exposed them, humiliated them, and taken their positions and holdings,” Geder said. “I’m sure they’d do anything in their power to undermine us. And these are the people, some of them, who were plotting to kill Aster. Losing a war doesn’t change who they are, you know.”
“I see,” Basrahip said.
Geder took half of a stewed pear, sucking it into his mouth and pressing the juice out against his palate. Sweetness flooded him.
“No,” he said, around the food. “I wish I saw another way. I do. But to keep Aster safe, I don’t think we can leave our enemies with power. If they can’t be friends and allies, they’ve made their choice. They have to die.”
Dawson
Kaltfel stood on a wide plain rising up from the long strips of farmland like a strange dream. Its spires and towers were built from red st
one, its walls stood as high as four men one atop the other. In gentler days, it was the home of the greatest breeders of messenger birds. It had been said that a bird bred in Kaltfel was fashioned with the secrets of the dragons, and for all Dawson knew, it might have been truth. Dawson had been there before as a young man. He still remembered the pale streets and the hot peppers and chocolate they seasoned their coffee with. He had fought a duel in the odd triangular yard that Asterilhold courts employed, and had won. He’d gotten drunk afterwards, and woken in another man’s room, Prince Simeon beside him.
The day his army arrived at the royal city of Asterilhold, Dawson had begun by burning every structure that stood outside the city walls—farmhouses, storehouses, stables, tanners’ yards, dyers’ yards. What still stood when the smoke cleared, they had razed, with the exception of the necropolis to the east of the city. The tombs, he respected. Antea had no quarrel with the dead. After that, his engineers began constructing the siege engines. Trebuchet and catapult rained stones against the great red walls and the sealed gates. They worked in teams, eroding the tops of the walls day and night for seven days. At dawn and dusk, he would send runners through his camps to collect the shit and offal of the day, reset one of the trebuchets, and rain it down into the city itself. Soon his men were including other bits of refuse— dead cats and bloody bandages, spoiled meat alive with maggots. The gates did not open. The enemy did not appear. He hadn’t expected them to. On the ninth day of the siege, a scout had discovered where a buried network of pipes had been emptying the waste of the city into a hidden gully. Dawson’s engineers had destroyed them.
When they ran out of stones, they switched to tar-soaked wood set alight. For three more days, Kaltfel withstood the rain of fire. Twice, smoke began to take hold of the city, and twice the beseiged beat back the flames. On the tenth day, Dawson saw his first sign of real hope. The birds were all set free. The great flocks whirled around the towers, confused and looking for a way to come home. At dusk, they went north. Dawson considered sending huntsmen after them and flinging the corpses of pigeons and rooks back over the walls. He chose not to. The birds and the dead, then. They could escape.
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