The Widow's House

by Daniel Abraham

  At the edge of one pier, Ahariel Akkabrian, Pyk, Smit, and Hornet stood, blades drawn, before a wall of panicking citizens. One guard, one notary, and two actors against the throng. A pair of ship’s boats bobbed on the water behind them, sailors ready at the oars. Magistra Isadau stood in one boat as steady as a mast, her hands clasped at her chest like a statue of abstract grief.

  “Come on!” Marcus shouted, for himself as much as the others. “Just a little bit more. Push, you bastards!”

  The crowd around the boats seemed dense and unyielding as stone. Marcus shoved, and they shoved back. Several of the men in the group had blades and cudgels. If it came to an open fight, the bank and her allies would win, but not without losses, and Cithrin was on the wrong side of the water for that. He sheathed his blade and nodded at Yardem. The Tralgu flicked his ears and put his own back in the scabbard, then back to back they pressed into the group, saying reassuring nonsense about there being room for everyone and the queensmen having the enemy on the run. It was like carving a groove into a wall. Creating a weak spot. When they pressed out and let Enen and Halvill and Cithrin stumble through, the crowd sensed that they’d been tricked. The roar of voices was like a storm wind, wordless and full of threat. Marcus stood on the water’s edge, his heels on the last board, while Enen and Cithrin tumbled into the ship’s boat with Magistra Isadau.

  “Best get out now,” Marcus shouted.

  Smit and Pyk dropped into the second boat. Then Corisen Mout and Ahariel Akkabrian. Yardem was preparing to drop Halvill down to safety when the crowd surged, pushed from behind like a wave. A thick, solid shoulder fixed against Marcus’s chest, and when he stepped back to steady himself, he was falling. Cold water forced itself up his nose, into his mouth. The padding under his armor swelled instantly, and the weight of the steel links pulled him down. His first thought was that he was drowning. The second was that his hands were empty. Above the water, people were shouting. Others had fallen in with him. Cithrin’s screams were like rips in the air. Marcus filled his lungs and dove.

  In the green beneath the surface, the world was quiet. Even calm. He pushed down, ears and eyes aching. There, below him, the sword turned as it fell. He kicked his legs, willing his armor to help him sink faster. Something splashed high above him. The light began to fade. He came nearer the blade. Nearer. And then he had it, his hand around the hilt. He turned. The surface of the water danced above him, the blue of the sky made green by the water and distance. The bottoms of the two boats stood solid as black clouds. A half dozen flailing bodies surrounded the nearest one. Oars dipped down toward him and then vanished as the other pulled away. Marcus aimed himself toward the second one.

  His chest burned as he clawed his way up the thick water, fighting for every inch toward the dancing air. The boat nearest the shore shuddered, and a new body fell into the water, trailing an arc of bubbles and blood. It was too big to be Cithrin. He fought. The urge to breathe grew to a shriek, and he was still too far from the surface. He wasn’t trying to reach the boats anymore. Not any of them. Up was all there was. His mouth opened without his willing it and a great bubble of air gouted out. Don’t breathe in, he thought. If you breathe the water in, that’s drowning. Don’t drown.

  The silver mirror of the surface shivered and teased. Five feet above him. Four. Three. The world began to grey and spin at the edges. He bared his teeth and willed his legs to kick, his arms to move. His body had been remade from clay and stone. It wouldn’t move. Two feet. He lifted the sword, and its tip rose out of the water. Two feet. His sluggish body patted at the water. Two feet. Two feet.

  Three feet, and sinking.

  He barked out his despair, and seawater flowed into his mouth, his lungs. The pain seared him, and then there was something around him, solid and ropy. The root of a great tree. Or no. An arm. Marcus’s head was in air, and he was vomiting, coughing. He was aware, distantly, of screaming voices. Anything farther than his own skin seemed to belong to some different nation. Something hard dug into his ribs like a blow. It was the edge of a boat, and he was being tipped into it. He rolled forward onto the boards. The sword was still in his hand.

  “Don’t… don’t touch the blade,” he managed.

  “Clear on that, sir,” Yardem said and let go his grip around Marcus’s chest.

  Slowly, the world expanded. The sailors working the oars were Barriath Kalliam’s pirates and also Hornet working manfully alongside them with tears streaming down his cheeks. Cithrin and Magistra Isadau were huddled together at the stern, their arms around each other, their eyes wide and lost and horror-filled. Yardem, soaking and stinking of wet dog, sat beside him. Enen and Halvill were at the stern, looking back at the riot on the seafront. They were already halfway to the roundship. Marcus pulled himself to the edge of the boat and retched up another mouthful of fouled seawater.

  “The other boat,” he said.

  “Swamped, sir. A dozen or so people fell into the water. They panicked.”

  “Pyk?”

  “In that boat, sir.”

  “The guards?”

  “They didn’t make it out, sir.”

  “Go back for them, Captain,” Hornet said through a sob. “Please go back for them. Smit’s out there.”

  Marcus pushed himself up. The pier was fifty feet away. It could as well have been a thousand.

  “He’s gone, Hornet. If we go back into that, we’ll be gone too. We have to get to the ship.”

  The heartbroken gasp came not from the actor, but from Cithrin. Carefully, Marcus put his blade back in his scabbard. I hope you were worth it, he thought to the sword. The cost of having you keeps getting higher.

  At the roundship, ropes and swings were waiting to haul them up. Master Kit helped Marcus onto the swaying deck, his eyes dark. He’d seen what had happened to the other boat and been as unable to stop it as Marcus had. Mikel and Sandr and Charlit Soon grabbed Hornet as soon as the swing he rode came near, and they all collapsed together on the deck, weeping and calling Smit’s name. Across the deck, Halvill and his new wife, Maha, stood, their baby between them, their foreheads touching. Only Cary stood apart, her chin lifted and her eyes dry. Marcus thought he saw hatred there, but he couldn’t say for whom. Magistra Isadau and Enen came up the ropes and were lifted over the railing.

  Cithrin came on board last. Her skin, always pale, was white. Even her lips were colorless.

  “You knew,” she said.

  “I had a feeling. It was enough that I made some plans for the worst case. May have underestimated how bad it would get.”

  Cithrin turned to look across the deck. It was wide as a building. The boards were scrubbed, but there was still a hint of green to the old wood. The timbers creaked, and by being so near, almost matched the screams from shore. The ship’s boat was being hauled back into place and the vast sails were being pulled up. When they caught the wind, they bellied out with a crack like breaking stone and the ship lurched a little.

  “We’ve lost it all,” Cithrin said.

  “We have the books and ledgers,” Marcus said. “The immediate wealth of the bank. The gold and jewels and spices. A couple dozen bolts of silk, I think. Hold’s full of it. It’s not the first time we’ve made this experiment. Lose a couple more cities and I’ll have it down to an art. Also took the liberty of putting Lord Skestinin on the other ship over there. Figured Barriath would be in the best position to keep him.”

  “We’ve lost Porte Oliva.”

  “That, yes. We lost the city.”

  “We were supposed to win,” Cithrin said. The words were almost calm.

  “We didn’t.”

  “Oh,” she said, and then didn’t speak again. He put a hand on her shoulder. She was trembling.

  The ship’s captain, a Kurtadam with a moth-eaten pelt and a missing eyetooth, strode over and nodded to Cithrin before turning to Marcus. “Himself’s signaled the ready. Unless you’ve got more coming.”

  “Himself?” Cithrin asked abstractedly.
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br />   “Barriath,” Marcus said, and then to the captain, “No. We’re ready.”

  “Asked where it was you wanted to head,” the captain said.

  “Wherever’s fastest,” Marcus said. “Anyplace but here.”

  The Kurtadam spat over the railing and turned back, shouting orders to the sailors that Marcus didn’t understand and didn’t care to. His clothes were starting to dry, the salt making his skin itch. Weariness bore down on him. Cithrin looked at the city as it grew slowly more distant, the seawall becoming small enough to cover with an outstretched hand. And then a thumb. Soon the only real marks of Porte Oliva were the columns of smoke. He stood by her silently until she spoke.

  “This is my fault,” Cithrin said.

  “It’s not a matter of fault,” Marcus said. “It’s war. People have been doing this since—”

  “Marcus!” Kit shouted.

  The old actor stood at the rail. His hair was pulled back from his face, and the gauntness of age and hard living made him seem more a pirate than the pirates. Marcus stepped forward. The motion of the waves made his steps uncertain.

  “I’m sorry about Smit,” Marcus said.

  “As am I, but I think that isn’t our immediate problem.”

  “We have an immediate problem?”

  Kit gestured out over the water, and Marcus’s gaze followed the gesture. There, almost at the horizon, a black dash marked the sky. As they watched, the darkness grew larger, clearer, closer. Inys flapped twice, hauling himself above the water. His head sank low before him, like a horse on the verge of exhausted collapse. Long ropes streamed down from his body to trail behind him in the sea. His scales shone red with fresh blood.

  “Well, God smiled,” Marcus said sourly. “Where in hell are we supposed to put him.”

  Clara

  After the defenders of the city left the safety of their walls to pour out, selling their lives cheap in the effort to free the crippled dragon, the battle moved on. It entered the city itself, and was hidden from Clara by the great, scarred walls. At one point, shortly before evening, someone in the city had tried to close the gates again, but whatever that plan was, it failed with the defenses unrestored. The falling sun spread shadows across the churned mud and ashes of the ruins outside Porte Oliva. Within the city, the sack.

  She knew better than to approach the walls until her son’s army had burned through its anger and its lusts, had celebrated its victory upon the bodies of the conquered. Until then, she was a creature of the fields of ash. There would be enough to learn, enough to report, when morning came and the beasts had remade themselves as men again.

  Dawson had told her stories of war before. Of its glories and dangers. As she and Vincen and the other hangers-on picked through the bodies of the fallen—Antean and Birancouri alike—she could conjure up his voice. Battle is the proving ground in which boys discover what it means to be men. She wondered now whether he had truly believed that, or if it was only a story he’d told himself to forgive what could not be forgiven.

  A Timzinae woman lay facedown in the ashes, motionless. Dead. If she’d borne a weapon, it was lost amid the rubble. A Firstblood boy was sprawled beside her, his open eyes as empty as stones. Clara couldn’t say by looking which side he’d fought on, but his frame was thin and his face gaunt, so likely one of Jorey’s. A young man of Antea come to find glory in ashes and blood.

  “They say the spirits of the dead ride with Geder’s army,” she said.

  “They say a lot of things,” Vincen replied. His voice was rough.

  “I think it’s true,” Clara said, nodding at the dead boy. “He looks wasted enough he might have been dead for weeks. Months. I think perhaps we are the dead.”

  “I’m not,” Vincen said. “And I think you aren’t either.”

  Clara knelt by the body, checking it for any small items of value, not because she wanted them, but because it was expected of the kind of scavenger she was pretending to be. “Are you certain of that?”

  “I’ve seen a lot of things be killed. Elk. Rabbit. Fox. Bird. Once they’ve died, they don’t suffer. So yes. Fairly certain.”

  The dead boy had a little wallet folded over his belt, empty apart from a bit of oak with a mark cut into it in black. A charm against misfortune, a token from a lover or a parent, or a bit of scrap picked up and carried for no reason in particular. It didn’t matter now. The only one who could have put meaning to it was past caring, and the little chip of wood was now forever and irrevocably just a little chip of wood. She tucked it in the fold of the boy’s sleeve. Whatever it had been, it could rest with him. She rocked back on her haunches. Blackened timbers that had been houses and shops, launderers’ yards and cobblers’ stalls, stood all about, like bones made of char.

  “My sons did this,” she said. “My husband did much like this in Asterilhold, and then came home to my arms. Can you imagine that? Loving someone who is capable of this?”

  Vincen stood. For a long moment, they were both silent.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “So can I,” she said, “and it astounds me.”

  “Hey! You there!” The new voice was rough, the voice of a man hoarse from shouting.

  Vincen moved between her and the approaching men, his chin high. There were five of them, all wearing armor not so different from a huntsman’s leathers. One, the leader by his bearing and the adornments on his hilt, was familiar. Kestin Flor. Sir Namen Flor’s first son by his second wife. Clara hunched down and tried to hide her face.

  “My lord,” Vincen said. “My congratulations on today’s victory.”

  “Fuck you,” Flor said, and the men with him sniggered. “You’re out here desecrating our fallen, and you have the gall to congratulate me? You should be begging for mercy.”

  Clara’s throat closed with fear. There was a madness in Flor’s voice. A joy and a violence that sank her heart in black dread. Two of the soldiers moved out to the left, opening Vincen’s flank.

  “We’ve done nothing wrong,” Vincen said. “We’re traveling with the caravan. Supporting the soldiers.”

  “Feeding off us like ticks, I say,” one of Flor’s men growled.

  “I’ve taken nothing from the Antean dead,” Vincen said. “All I have is from the locals. You can have it, if you like. Take all of it.”

  “Oh, I will,” Flor said, rolling the words out slowly. Tasting them. “Boys?”

  They fell on him together. Four men against one. Soldiers against a man of their own nation. It was fists at first, and then when Vincen fell, feet. Clara felt as if she’d turned to stone. One of them lifted a knife.

  When Clara cried out it was not the cry of animal fear that she expected. The words came out of her mouth crisply and as bright as if she’d polished them. “Kestin Amril Flor, you will stop this behavior at once, or by God I will have words with your mother.”

  The astonishment on Flor’s face was instantaneous and profound. The thugs paused in their assault, turning to look first at her, and then their commander, and back again. Clara rose to her feet, not daring to look at Vincen. So long as their attention was on her, it was not on him. She had no plan apart from making them not hurt him, and didn’t know what she intended next. Wise or rash, she had played her tile, and now there was nothing but to see it through. The rush of warmth and, yes, of power that surged up in her was likely an illusion, but she embraced it all the same. Flor stepped nearer, his eyes narrow and his mouth hard.

  “And who the fuck are you?” he asked. She hoisted an eyebrow and watched the blood drain from his face as he found the answer to his question. “L-Lady Kalliam? What are you doing here?”

  “Having my servant attacked by you and your men, it would seem,” she said. The incongruity of her plain, filthy clothes, the smears of ash and mud on her face and in her hair, and her mere existence on the field of battle, she simply ignored. That which was not acknowledged did not exist. It was the simplest rule of court etiquette, and as effective as any cunning man’s a
rt.

  “Give up. Who is she?” one of the soldiers asked.

  The man beside him bobbed his head and smiled a tight, fearful smile. His voice was little more than a murmur. “She’s the Lord Marshal’s mother, you fucking ass.”

  The man with the knife dropped it on the ground and knelt beside Vincen. Vincen’s pained grunt was sweeter than the gentlest flute. He was still alive. His rueful smile was like pouring cold water on a burn.

  “I am…” Flor said, and then stumbled over any number of things that he might very well have been. Embarrassed, astounded, confused. Clara allowed herself a chilly smile. “My lady, please accept my apologies. I did not recognize you, and your man here didn’t identify himself. I had no idea.”

  Yes, she thought, this is all Vincen’s failing. Part of her wanted to scream at the man, accuse him. Vent her fear and anger, whatever the effect. But there were more important things to attend to. And if they were to move forward, she had to give Flor his excuse, even if it meant a bruise to Vincen’s dignity.

  “I see how the mistake was made, Sir Flor,” she said. “I hope you can help me with its remedy?”

  Flor licked his lips, uncertain what she meant. She looked down at Vincen, and up again. Flor took the hint.

  “Find a litter for the lady and get her boy to the cunning men.”

  “He’s not a soldier,” the first of the men said, and the kneeling man punched the speaker’s thigh.

  “Do it now,” Flor said, and the men scuttled away.

  Clara knelt at Vincen’s side. His eyes were open, but one was swelling. He held his right hand tight against his belly. Still, she had seen worse, and quite recently.

  “Very sorry, my lady,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought us so near the walls. I thought they’d all be in the city proper for the sack.”

  “You should have announced your mistress,” Flor said, and Clara’s mind flew to an entirely different meaning of the words. You should have, she thought. You should have announced me to the world, and I should have stood by you before the court and my sons and everyone. What worse could they have done to us than this?