The Dragon’s Path

by Abraham Daniel

  Geder nodded, and true to Jorey’s word, the footsteps returned, the voices reduced to a duet. When the women stepped into the room, Jorey rose to his feet. Basrahip followed suit a moment later. Geder had danced with the Baroness of Osterling Fells at his revel, but between the months and the whirl of drink and confusion that time had been, he wouldn’t have recognized her. He could see how her own features had influenced Jorey’s, especially around the eyes. Surprise touched her expression and vanished again, less than the flutter of a moth’s wing. Behind her, a sickly-looking woman with a pinched face and dark eyes had to be Phelia Maas.

  “Oh, excuse me,” Clara Kalliam said. “I didn’t mean to intrude, dear.”

  “Not at all, Mother. We were hoping you’d join us. You remember Geder Palliako?”

  “How could I forget the man who held the eastern gate? I haven’t seen you at court this season, sir, but I understand you’ve been traveling. An expedition of some sort? Let me introduce my cousin Phelia.”

  The dark-eyed woman came into the room and held her hand out to Geder. Her smile spoke of relief, as if she’d been dreading something that she thought she’d now avoided. Geder made his bow and saw Lady Kalliam’s eyebrows rise as she noticed the priest in the corner.

  “Ladies,” Jorey said. “This is Basrahip. He’s a holy man Geder brought back from the Keshet.”

  “Really?” Lady Kalliam said. “I hadn’t known you were collecting priests.”

  “It came as a surprise to me too,” Geder said. “But please, won’t you ladies sit?”

  According to his plan, Geder sat Phelia Maas on the couch with her back toward Basrahip and then took his own place across from her. Jorey resumed his place at the writing desk, and his mother took a chair near that happily didn’t block Geder’s view of the priest.

  “Maas,” Geder said, as if recalling something. In truth, he’d planned precisely what to say. “I had an Alberith Maas serving under me in Vanai. A relation of yours?”

  “Nephew,” Phelia said. “My husband’s nephew. Alberith has mentioned you often since his return.”

  “You’re the Baroness of Ebbinbaugh, then?” Geder asked. “Sir Klin was my commander in the Vanai campaign. He and your husband are friends, yes?”

  “Oh yes,” Phelia said with a smile. “Sir Klin is a dear, close friend of Feldin’s.”

  Behind her, Basrahip gazed into the middle distance, his face impassive as if listening intently to something only he could hear. He shook his head once. No.

  “There was a falling-out, though, wasn’t there? I’m sure I heard something like that,” Geder said, pretending a casual knowledge he didn’t have. The woman’s face went still, except for her eyes, which clicked from Geder to Lady Kalliam and back. There was fear in the way she held her hands and the corners of her mouth. Geder felt a slow, pleasant warmth growing in his chest. It was going to work. At his side, Jorey’s mother considered him with interest.

  “I’m sure you misunderstood,” Phelia said. “Alan and Feldin are on excellent terms.”

  No.

  “I always liked Sir Klin,” Geder said for the simple pleasure of being able to lie to a woman who couldn’t lie to him. “I felt terrible when I heard he’d been blamed for the riot. Your husband didn’t suffer for that, I hope.”

  “No, no, thank you. We were very fortunate.”

  Yes.

  “Sir Palliako,” Lady Kalliam said, “to what do we owe the pleasure of your company today?”

  Geder looked at Jorey, then at Lady Kalliam. He’d meant to ask a few innocuous questions, get what insight he could, uncover what could be uncovered. He’d meant to move slowly. The way the woman held herself tighter and tighter, the fragility of her smile, and the scent of fear that came from her like the sweet from roses argued against. He couldn’t scare her so badly she left, but he could scare her badly. He smiled at Lady Kalliam.

  “Well, the truth is I was hoping for an introduction to Baroness Ebbinbaugh here. I had some questions for her. I haven’t spent all the season traveling,” he said pleasantly. “I’ve been looking into the riot. Its roots. And its aftermath.”

  The color had gone from Phelia Maas’s face. Her breath was fast and shallow, like a hand-caught sparrow about to die from fright.

  “I can’t imagine what there is to look into,” she said, her voice thready and faint.

  Geder found it was easier to smile kindly when he didn’t mean it. Outside, a wind chime was singing to itself in random, idiot percussion. Jorey and his mother had both gone perfectly still. Geder laced his fingers over his knee.

  “I know everything, Lady Maas,” he said. “The prince. The riot. The Vanai campaign. The woman.”

  “What woman?” she breathed.

  He didn’t have the first idea what woman, but no doubt there was some woman involved somewhere. It didn’t matter.

  “Say anything,” he said. “Pick any detail. Even things you don’t imagine anyone else could know, and I’ll tell you if they’re true.”

  “Feldin isn’t involved in any of it,” she said. Geder didn’t even need to look at Basrahip.

  “That isn’t true, Lady Maas. I know you’re frightened, but I’m here to help you and your family. I can do that. But I need to know I can trust you. You see? Tell me the truth. It doesn’t matter, because it’s all things I know already. Tell me how it started. Just that.”

  “It was the ambassador from Asterilhold,” she said. “He came to Feldin a year ago.”

  No.

  “You’re lying to me, Baroness,” Geder said, very gently. “Try again.”

  Phelia Maas shuddered. She seemed like a thing made of spun sugar, almost too delicate to support her own weight. She opened her mouth, closed it, swallowed.

  “There was a man. He was going to be part of the farmer’s council.”

  Yes.

  “Yes. I know who you mean. Can you tell me his name?”

  “Ucter Anninbaugh.”

  No.

  “That wasn’t his name. Can you tell me his name?”

  “Ellis Newport.”

  No.

  “I can help you, Baroness. I may be the only man in Camnipol who can. Tell me his name.”

  Her dead eyes met his.

  “Torsen. Torsen Aestilmont.”

  Yes.

  “There,” Geder said. “That wasn’t so hard, was it? Do you understand now that you and your husband have no secrets from me?”

  The woman nodded once. Her chin began to spasm, her cheeks flushed, and a heartbeat later she was bawling like a child. Jorey’s mother swooped to her side, putting an arm around her. Geder sat, watching. His heart was beating quickly, but his limbs were loose and relaxed. When he had denied Alan Klin the secret wealth of Vanai, he’d felt excited. Gleeful. When he’d come to the decision to burn Vanai, he’d felt righteous anger. Maybe even satisfaction. But he wasn’t sure that ever in his life before now—before this moment—he’d felt sated.

  He rose and walked over to Jorey. The man’s eyes were wide. Impressed almost past the point of believing. Geder spread his hands. You see?

  “How did you do that?” Jorey whispered. “How did you know?” There was awe in his voice.

  Basrahip was fewer than three paces away. The bull-huge head was still bowed. The thick fingers bent around each other, hand clasping hand. Phelia Maas’s sobs were like a storm on the sea, and the murmured lullaby of promises and comfort from Lady Kalliam had barely thrown any oil on that water. Geder went to leaned so close his lips brushed the huge man’s ear.

  “I will build all the temples you want, forever.”

  Basrahip smiled.

  Clara

  On one hand, they had seriously misunderstood who and what Geder Palliako was. But on the other, he appeared to be on their side. For the time being, at least.

  Still, Clara’s heart ached for Phelia.

  The bedroom was darkened, heavy curtains pushing the daylight away. Phelia lay on her back, the salt tracks of dried
tears marking the corners of her eyes. Clara sat beside her, stroking her shoulders and arms the way physicians did when someone had taken a blow to the head or received shocking news. When Phelia spoke, the hysteria was gone. There was no more room for pretending that things could end well, and Clara could hear in the woman’s voice that losing that hope had been a relief.

  “Will he really keep Feldin safe?” Phelia asked. “If I give him the letters, will Palliako really see that Simeon doesn’t kill him?”

  “That’s certainly what he said,” Clara said.

  “Do you trust him?”

  “I barely know him, dear.”

  They lapsed again into silence.

  “If the king already knows anyway,” Phelia said. “If he only wants to see who in the court of Asterilhold was involved… I mean, with all that Palliako already knew, Aster was never in any real danger. Not really.”

  “That’s one way to see it.”

  For the better part of an hour, Geder Palliako had coaxed Phelia into admitting everything. Feldin’s complicity in the mercenary riot, his connections in Asterilhold, his alliances within the groups fighting for a farmer’s council. Any one would stand as treason. Together, Clara didn’t see room for mercy. Which wasn’t what Phelia needed to hear now.

  “How did it all get so out of hand?” Phelia asked the darkness. She sighed. It was a small, hard sound. “Tell him I will. I’ll take him to Feldin’s private study. I have a key, but there will be a guard. And he has to swear that it will only be exile.”

  “All right.”

  Phelia took Clara’s hand, holding it like it was the only thing that kept her from falling down a cliff.

  “You won’t make me go alone, will you? You’ll come with me?”

  There was nothing Clara wanted less. Phelia’s eyes glittered in the twilight of the room.

  “Of course, dear,” she said. “Of course I’ll come.”

  In the smoking room, Clara found the men waiting with such anxiety she imagined herself as a midwife come to deliver news of a birth. Dawson stopped his pacing as she walked in. Geder and Jorey looked up from a game of cards they were only half playing. Only the quiet priest seemed unconcerned, but then she supposed unnatural serenity was part of his work. Even Vincen Coe was there, brooding in the shadows the way he so often did. The air was close and hot, like every sip had already been breathed once before.

  “She’s agreed to take Lord Palliako to the letters,” Clara said, “but only if he swears Simeon won’t have Feldin executed and if I’m with her when they go.”

  “Absolutely not,” Dawson said.

  “She will lose her nerve, husband,” Clara said. “You know what she’s like. I’ll take Vincen with me, and we’ll be fine. The four of us—”

  “Five,” Geder said, “with Basrahip.”

  “I’m going too,” Jorey said.

  “Of course you aren’t, dear,” Clara said. “Feldin only allows me because I’m a woman and he finds me feckless and charming. Vincen’s a servant. Lord Palliako and…”

  “Basrahip,” the priest said.

  “Yes, that. Phelia was here for the needlework and had an example she wanted to show me, so I went home with her. Along the way, we bumped into Lord Palliako and his friend and Phelia invited them along so we could hear stories of his summer travels. Perfectly innocent.”

  “I don’t see why I couldn’t be part of that,” Jorey said. “Or Barriath.”

  “Because you are your father’s sons, and I am only his wife. You have a great deal to learn about the place of women. Now, I suggest we do this before Phelia has a change of heart, poor thing.”

  Walking out to the carriage, Clara felt proud of Phelia. The way she held herself. The polite nod she gave to Dawson as they pulled away. The autumn sun was already near the horizon, the flame seeming to dance on the rooftops as the driver threaded his way through the streets. The city seemed clearer than usual, the sounds of wheels and voices sharper and more real than she was used to. The buildings they passed had rich textures in the stone of the walls. They passed a young Tralgu pushing a cart piled high with grapes, and Clara felt she could have counted each individual fruit. She felt as if she’d woken up twice without going to sleep in the middle. She wondered if it was how soldiers felt on the morning of a battle. It seemed likely.

  Geder Palliako smiled at everything. She still thought of him as the pale, pudgy boy who’d ridden off to war in her son’s company. In truth, his travels had left him leaner and darkened by the sun. And more than that, his eyes had changed. Even when he’d returned from the city he’d killed, there had been a shyness to him. It wasn’t there any longer, and she thought he looked less handsome for the loss. She found herself wondering what he had really been doing all those weeks he pretended to have been in the Keshet. When his priest caught her staring, he smiled. She turned away.

  The private courtyard wasn’t half dead any longer. As many lanterns and candles were glowing in the windows of Curtin Issandrian’s mansion as in Feldin Maas’s. The carriage jolted to a stop and a footman ran out with a step for them. Phelia first, and then herself. Geder Palliako, the only man of blood. Vincen Coe and the priest paused, unsure for a moment, and then the priest smiled and waved the huntsman on.

  The door slave was a different man, Firstblood this time, but so thick with muscle he might have been the priest’s twin. Vincen and Geder turned over their swords and daggers. The priest had no weapons.

  “The baron wanted to see you when you came,” the door slave said. “He’s in the rear hall.”

  No honorifics, no my lady. He might have been speaking to anyone for all the respect in his tone. Clara wondered what sort of men Maas had been taking into service, and then instantly answered her own question. Mercenaries. Fighters. Sword-and-bows. The sort of men who kill for pay. And she was going into the enemy camp. Stepping over the threshold, she faltered. Phelia looked at her, alarmed. Clara shook her head and bulled on. She refused to accept support and comfort from someone in her cousin’s position. It would be rude.

  In silence, Phelia led them down the wide corridor toward the room where she’d received Clara the last time she’d been. Fresh-cut flowers and garlands of autumn vine left the air smelling rich. The candlelight softened the corners and warmed the colors of the tapestries and the carpeted runner. Geder coughed. A nervous little sound.

  At the base of the stair, Phelia turned right, and they all followed her. A short hallway that jogged at the end. Fewer candles were lit here. The shadows thickened and pressed in against them. At the far end of the hall, a thin servant’s staircase rose up and a wider set of doors stood closed. They wouldn’t have to go so far.

  “Who’s that?” a man’s voice said.

  In a recess, a man in hunting leather stood up from where he’d been sitting. The guard.

  “My husband sent for me,” Phelia said. “They said he was in his private office.”

  “He ain’t,” the guard said. “Who’re these?”

  “The people my husband asked me to bring,” Phelia said tartly. Clara could hear the fear in her voice, the despair. She felt a surge of pride for the woman’s courage.

  “He is here,” the priest said. His voice had an odd, unpleasant throbbing quality. “You’ve made a mistake. He’s in the room behind you.”

  “No one in there, I’m telling you.”

  “Listen. Listen. You’ve made a mistake,” the priest said again. “He’s in the room behind you. Knock on the door and he’ll answer.”

  From the look on the guard’s face, Clara was fairly sure anyone beside the lady of the household would have already been knocked to the ground and reinforcements shouted for. Instead, the man turned to knock on the oaken door and Vincen Coe stepped up behind him, wrapping an arm across the guard’s neck and lifting him. The man choked and kicked, his hand clawing at Vincen’s arm. Clara closed her eyes, and the sounds alone were worse than the sight. After entirely too long, the guard went slack. Vincen lowere
d the body to the floor and stood with the guard’s drawn sword in his hand. Phelia drew a key from her sleeve, fitted it to the lock, and a moment later they were in Feldin Maas’s private study.

  Vincen brought a candle in from the hallway, and by its light he found and lit the lamps. The room slowly grew lighter, taken by a dark, sullen sort of dawn. Shelves of dark wood and a thin writing desk with a brass inkwell and a white fluff of a feather quill. It was a larger space than Clara had expected. There were no windows, and a lattice of dark and light against one wall led her to think the room had once been used to store bottles. Phelia walked to the shelves like she was walking in her sleep. From amid the clutter of scrolls and codices, she took a simple wooden box, its top fastened with a hook and hinged with leather. She held it out to Geder Palliako.

  “They’re ciphered,” she said. “I don’t know the code.”

  Geder took the box, grinning like a boy with an unexpected present. As soon as it left her hand, Phelia closed in on herself, as if her bones had gone soft and smaller.

  “Thank you, dear,” Clara said. “It was the only way. You know it was the only way.”

  Her shrug was painful to watch.

  “I don’t know how it came this far,” she said. “I truly don’t. If I could have—”

  The roar was inhuman. Anger and wildfire and murder made sound. Clara screamed even before she knew what it was.

  “What in hell is this?”

  Feldin Maas stood in the doorway, a bare blade in his hand. His face was flushed almost purple with rage. Two more men stood behind him, blocked from entering. If he closes that door, Clara thought, we’re trapped. And if we’re trapped, we’re dead.

  “No, Feldin,” Phelia said, walking forward. “It’s the right thing. It’s what we have to do. Lord Palliako’s promised mercy. He knew everything anyway.”

  “You brought them here? You betrayed me?”

  “I—”

  Maas’s sword reached out swift and sudden as a lightning strike. Clara, behind her cousin, didn’t see the blade strike home, but she heard it. She saw the horrible play over Feldin Maas’s face: surprise, horror, grief, rage. Even before the blood, Clara knew the woman was dead.