The Dragon’s Path (42 page)

“The disband’s been called, son. You can go anywhere you’d like. Do anything. It might be wise if you were out of Camnipol for a time. Until this is all settled out.”

Unease cut through Geder’s euphoria for the first time since the fighting stopped. He looked around the night-soaked buildings and streets. Surely his father was jumping at shadows. There was nothing to be afraid of. They’d won. The coup had been stopped.

This
coup.
This
time.

“I suppose there’s no harm in going home now,” Geder said. “I have an essay I’m thinking about that I think you’d find interesting. I’m tracking geographic references by time and comparing them with contemporary maps to—”

“Not Rivenhalm,” Lerer said.

Geder’s words trailed off.

“You should leave Antea,” his father said. “You’re too much a part of politics we don’t fully understand. First Vanai, and now this? For the season at least, you should go
where they can’t reach you. Take a few servants. I’ll give you the money. You can find someplace quiet and out of the way. By autumn, perhaps, we’ll know better where things stand.”

“All right,” Geder said. He felt very small.

“And son? Don’t tell anybody where you’re going.”

S
imeon paced before them all. The king’s face was a mixture of hesitance and determination that Dawson had seen on hunting dogs unsure of how to get down a slope, aware that once they began there would be no stopping. Whatever counsel his old friend had taken in the long night, it hadn’t been with him. On the other hand, he was certain it hadn’t been with Curtin Issandrian either.

The audience chamber they sat in now wasn’t the usual. There were no tapestries or soft velvet cushions, the walls were bare brick. There were no rugs or cushions to support the bent knees of Simeon’s subjects. The king’s guard stood along the walls with swords and armor that could not be mistaken for merely decorative. Prince Aster sat on a silver throne behind his father. It was clear the boy had been crying.

Curtin Issandrian knelt across the aisle from Dawson, his face drawn and pale. Alan Klin was at his side. Canl Daskellin and Feldin Maas had both managed to avoid attention. Odderd Faskellin was dead of an arrow to the throat, and his killer already feeding the gallows flies. Geder Palliako, by all rights the hero of the hour for holding the southern gate, had already left the city. Dawson was alone.

Behind and above the three of them, the viewing galleries were packed. Every man of nobility sat on low, uncomfortable
stools behind the length of woven rope that pretended to separate them from the formal audience. The women stood in the upper gallery, including, somewhere amid the press, Clara. The highest gallery was customarily reserved for the most honored lowborn subjects of the king and ambassadors from foreign courts. Today, it stood empty.

The king stopped pacing, and Dawson didn’t lift his head.

“This ends today,” Simeon said, his voice ringing out to the farthest corners of the chamber. “It ends now.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Dawson said, his voice carefully humble. A moment later, Issandrian and Klin echoed him.

“Antea will not follow the dragon’s path while I sit on the Severed Throne,” Simeon went on. “These petty intrigues and political games will
not
bring confusion and strife to the empire at the heart of the world. I swear my life to it, and as your lord, I expect and demand the same of each of you.”

This time when Dawson said,
Yes, Your Majesty,
Issandrian’s cabal spoke with him.

“Noble blood has been spilled on the streets of Camnipol. Foreign swords have been drawn on our streets,” the king went on. “It no longer matters whether the motives behind it were pure. There must be a reckoning.”

In the corner of his vision, Dawson thought he saw Alan Klin grow even more ashen.

“Do you have any statements before I pass judgment?” the king asked. “Lord Kalliam?”

“No, Your Majesty,” Dawson said. “I abide in loyalty to you and to the Severed Throne.”

“Lord Issandrian?”

“Your Majesty,” Curtin Issandrian said. His voice was shaking. “I wish to draw only two things to your attention. First, I beg that you consider that the violence yesterday
may not have been the intention or plan of any man present. But if Your Majesty is adamant that punishment must be meted out, I ask that you spare my compatriot. The games for Prince Aster were my project, and mine alone. I would not have innocent men suffer simply because they know me.”

It was a pretty speech, Dawson thought. But ill-advised.

“My Lord Issandrian forgets that this is not the first violence that your disagreements with House Kalliam have spawned. If you would like to offer yourself up to be made an example of, I will consider it, but don’t think that anyone will find safety behind your skirts.”

“Majesty,” Issandrian said.

In the silence that followed, Dawson closed his eyes. His leg ached where his weight ground bone and skin into the stone floor, but he wouldn’t shift. Fidgeting would be beneath the dignity of the occasion.

“Dawson Kalliam, Baron of Osterling Fells,” King Simeon said. “I am doubling the duties owed by your holdings for the next five years. You are to absent yourself from the court and Camnipol for not less than half a year, nor are you permitted to raise soldiers or hire mercenaries without the express permission of the throne.”

Dawson didn’t speak, but deepened his bow. His heart was beating faster now, and he was careful not to show his anxiety.

“Curtin Issandrian, Baron of Corsa,” the king went on. “I reclaim all lands previously held by you south of the river Andriann, and dismiss you from your positions as Warden of Estinport and Protector of the East. I am doubling the duties owed by your holdings for the next five years, and you are to absent yourself from the court and Camnipol for not less than half a year, nor are you permitted to raise
soldiers or mercenaries without the express permission of the throne.”

Dawson closed his eyes. He had to force himself not to shake his head. The disappointment sank in his belly like he’d swallowed a stone. The judgment against Klin would necessarily be equal or less. And indeed, King Simeon sent him into the same exile, increased his obligations, and stripped him of minor titles. Feldin Maas, wherever he was hiding, escaped without even that much.

When he called them to stand, Dawson looked up at his old friend. His king. Simeon’s face was flushed, his breath fast, his face still set in a furious scowl. Behind him, Price Aster’s chin was lifted as if in defiance. For a moment, Simeon looked into Dawson’s eyes. If there was a flicker in the king’s apparent outrage, it was the only acknowledgment Dawson would get. The king’s guard stood aside, and Simeon strode out, Aster following, and the galleries burst into a thunderous clamor of voices. Dawson looked across the aisle to where Issandrian and Klin huddled in conversation of their own. Klin looked stunned. Issandrian seemed sad, and Dawson wondered whether it was for the same reason he was.

“Lord Kalliam, sir?”

The captain of the king’s guard was a tall man, broad across the shoulders, with a pug face and apologetic, watery eyes. Dawson nodded to him.

“I’ll have to ask you to be outside the gates by sundown, my lord,” the man said.

“Is my household bound?”

“No, my lord. They can stay if they please.”

Dawson scratched at his aching knee. The captain stood for a moment in silent respect, then moved to Issandrian’s cabal to deliver, Dawson assumed, the same warning. He
turned and walked out. The outer hall was black marble and worked silver. The midday sun glared through tall, unshuttered windows. Clara was there already, waiting for him with Vincen Coe behind her like her shadow. Jorey appeared at the hallway’s end walking toward them quickly. His boots rang on the stone floor.

“I thought that went quite well,” Clara said.

Dawson shook his head once.

“It was a travesty, dear,” he said. “It was the end of the empire.”

The carriage awaited them on the street, the team of horses snorting and impatient, as if the animals felt the changes in the city itself. A hundred others like it crowded the narrow streets, waiting for the assembled nobility of Antea to trickle out from the Kingspire. All of them made way for House Kalliam. A swift return to his home was the traditional last respect given an exile.

The rough cobbles rattled the carriage wheels. No one tried to speak. Dawson watched out the side window as the Kingspire vanished around a corner. They passed through the great square and into the streets of the city. Pigeons rose in great flocks, circled, and returned to earth. Then the Silver Bridge, and the great drop of the Division. Smoke rose from the forges and ovens.

A day ago, noble blood had spilled in these streets. Today, it looked the same as it always had, except to the few like himself who knew better.

At his private mansion, the servants brought out the steps as they always did. Dawson waved away the offered hands. The old Tralgu door servant greeted him solemnly. Within, the servants of the household were preparing the house. Tapestries were being taken down, furnishings draped against dust. His houndsman already had the dogs in their
traveling cages; the animals whimpered their confusion and distress. Dawson knelt by them, pressing his hand against the bars to let the dogs smell him and lick at his fingers.

“I can stay on,” Jorey said.

“Do that,” Dawson said. “I won’t have time to put everything to rights before I leave.”

“Some of the servants have to stay, dear,” Clara said. “The gardens won’t survive without the gardeners to look after them. And the fountain in the rose court still needs repair.”

In the cage, the dog looked up at Dawson. Its huge brown eyes were soft and frightened. He reached through a finger and stroked its muzzle. A jaw strong enough to sever a fox’s spine with a bite leaned gently into him.

“Do what’s best, Clara,” he said. “I trust you.”

“Lord Kalliam?”

Vincen Coe gave a huntsman’s salute. Dawson brought himself to nod.

“Lord Daskellin’s come, my lord,” Coe said. “He’s in the western sitting room.”

Dawson drew himself to his feet. The dog whined as he walked away from it. There was nothing he could do. He had no more comfort to offer. In the sitting room, Canl Daskellin stood at the window, his hands clasped behind his back like a general overseeing the field of battle. His pipe smoke was sweet enough to cloy.

“Canl,” Dawson said. “If there’s anything you want of me, it had best be something quick. I don’t have time for a hand at cards.”

“I came to offer my sympathies and congratulations.”

“Congratulations? For what?”

“We’ve won,” Daskellin said, turning away from the window and striding into the room. “You played your hand
brilliantly. You lured Issandrian into a thrust he couldn’t follow through, then cut his conspiracy down. Now he’s in disgrace. His inner circle is exiled. Stripped of lands and titles. There’s no saying who will take Prince Aster as ward, but it won’t be any of them. There won’t be a farmer’s council in our lifetimes. I’m sorry it came at a price to you, but I swear that your name will be praised as a hero while you’re gone.”

“What good’s winning battles when the war’s lost?” Dawson said. “Did you actually come here to celebrate, Daskellin? Or is this how you gloat?”

“Gloat?”

“Odderd Faskellin was a rabbit and a coward, but he had high blood. He
died
yesterday. In Camnipol, and by foreign hands. That hasn’t happened in centuries. And how did Simeon reply? Increased taxes. Petty exile. A few minor lands and titles shuffled about.”

Daskellin leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. Grey smoke spilled from his lips and nostrils.

“What would you have had him do?”

“Slaughter them all himself. Bind them, take sword in hand, and take their heads with his own hand,” Dawson said.

“It sounds like you’re missing Palliako already,” Canl said dryly. Dawson ignored him.

“An armed company in the streets? It’s treason against the throne, and to answer it with less than death is one step short of open surrender. He made himself a mask of fierceness, and all it did was point out how frightened he is. You should have seen it. Simeon strutting and raging and calling for an ending. It was like watching a shepherd boy trying to shout down wolves.”

“Frightened? Of whom?”

“The power backing Issandrian. He’s afraid of Asterilhold,” Dawson said, and then pointed an accusing finger at Daskellin himself. “And he’s afraid of Northcoast.”

The imitation of a smile bent Daskellin’s lips and he took his pipe from his mouth.

“I am not Northcoast, old friend,” he said. “And if consideration of the reactions of the other courts and kingdoms brought King Simeon to a place of greater mercy, that’s wisdom on his part.”

“That’s permission for every landholder in the kingdom to spread his loyalty as widely as he can,” Dawson said. “As long as answering to a duchess in Asterilhold or a bank in Northcoast makes us safer than standing by Antea, Simeon won’t have a court of his own. He wants to keep the kingdom off the dragon’s path so badly that he’s walking down it.”