The King's Blood (7 page)

“Thank you for seeing me, Lord Palliako,” he said. “I’d have understood if you’d refused me.”

“Jorey Kalliam spoke for you.”

“Yes. I’d heard you two were friends. Served in Vanai under Alan Klin, didn’t you?”

“We did,” Geder said.

“Klin, Issandrian, Maas. The triad, and Feldin Maas the only one who didn’t get thrown out of Camnipol that summer. King Simeon sent Dawson Kalliam away instead.”

“Your point?”

Ashford looked pained and sat forward, the glass of wine cradled between his fingertips.

“King Simeon is a good man,” Ashford said. “No one doubts that. King Lechan is too. But no king can be better than his advisors. If he’d known then what he does now, Dawson Kalliam wouldn’t have been exiled and Feldin Maas wouldn’t have been let stay. Simeon needs good men to guide him. Men like you and Kalliam.”

Geder crossed his arms.

“Go on,” he said.

“His son was threatened. Go to any man, peasant or priest or high noble, hold a knife to his child’s throat, and he’ll kill you to keep his own safe. It’s nature. You saved the prince, and Simeon saw justice done when he finished Maas. But it has to stop now. Give Lechan a season—a year—to root out what parts of the conspiracy were in Asterilhold, and there’ll be justice done there too. Bring swords to the border, and a few men’s follies become a tragedy for thousands. And for no reason.”

Geder chewed absently at his thumbnail. Ashford’s sincerity was persuasive, but something bothered him. He started to speak, then stopped.

“Both our courts had rot in them,” Ashford said. “You’ve cut it out of yours. All I’m asking is the time to do the same.” “Maas wanted unification,” Geder said. “The plan was to unite the kingdoms.”

“Maas wanted power, and he made up any story he needed to justify it. If Lechan had gotten word of this, he’d have ended it in the same breath.”

Geder frowned.

“Your king didn’t know?” he asked, annoyed at his own voice for sounding so querulous. The ambassador looked directly into his eyes, his expression was sober. Solemn.

“He didn’t.”

Geder nodded, but he didn’t mean anything by it. It was only a gesture, a thing to fill the silence. If it was true and the king of Asterilhold would have acted against Maas just as much as King Simeon had, then helping to keep peace would be in everyone’s best interests. It would absolutely be the right thing to do. If, on the other hand, the ambassador was only a good actor playing his part on a series of very small stages, taking his side was collaborating against the throne. The good or ill of the kingdom—and more than that, of Aster—rested on Geder’s judgment. He frowned seriously, trying to match gravity with gravity.

The fact was, Geder didn’t know what to think. He felt he might just as well spin a coin.

“I will think on it,” he said carefully.

T

he long months of winter, Geder’s patronage, and a dozen lesser priests from the temple in the mountains past the Keshet had made the temple grander and more polished. Where the grit and grime of centuries had blacked the walls, the tilework glowed now. Most of the traditional religious images and icons had been taken apart and the original material reused to make different images. Most had the eightfold symmetry of the great red silk banner that fluttered over the main entrance. The air was thick with the scent of the nettle oil that burned in the lamps.

In the center of the sacred space, a half dozen priests stood in a circle, laughing and playing a game that seemed to involve pitching hard, uncooked beans into one another’s opened mouths. A half dozen priests and one prince of the realm. Aster’s pale skin and round features stood out in that company. All the priests shared long faces and wiry hair, like members of the same extended family. Their brown robes looked dusty beside Aster’s bright silks and brocade: a songbird among sparrows.

“Geder!” Aster shouted, and Geder waved. It was good to see the prince laughing. Though Aster hadn’t complained, the winter had been hard for him. Especially the weeks after the end of the King’s Hunt and the return to Camnipol for the opening of the season. This was the first time of any significance that Aster had spent away from his father, and the darkness of the holding at Ebbingbaugh had taken its toll. Geder had done what he could, but he’d never had a brother and few enough friends among his peers. They’d played cards together in the dark nights. It was the nearest thing to comfort he could offer.

Basrahip, the high priest, was in his private room. The huge man sat on a low cushion, his eyes closed in meditation. For a moment it was hard to think why the room seemed bare. It had its bed, its desk, a tall cabinet with carved rosewood and inlays of ivory and jet. The fire grate had unlit logs and tinder ready for the spark. The carpet was a deep red with a pattern of gold that seemed to undulate in the lamp’s light. But it wasn’t littered with books and scrolls. So that was the difference.

When Geder, in the doorway, cleared his throat the big man smiled.

“Prince Geder,” Basrahip said.

“Lord Palliako. I’m Lord Palliako. Or Baron Ebbing-baugh. Prince means something very particular here. It’s not like in the east.”

“Of course, of course,” Basrahip said. “My apologies.”

Geder waved the comment away even though the man’s eyes were still closed. Geder waited, shifting from foot to foot, until it became clear that Basrahip was neither likely to open them nor send Geder away.

“Thank you for keeping Aster for the day. The ambassador’s come and gone.”

“We are always pleased to see the young prince,” Basrahip said.

“Good. Anyway. Thank you.”

“Is there more?”

“What? No, nothing else.”

The priest’s eyes opened, and his dark eyes locked on Geder.

“Fine,” Geder said. He’d tested the arcane powers of the Sinir Kushku often enough. He’d known the lie wouldn’t pass. In a way, he’d been counting on it. “May I come in?”

Basrahip gestured toward the little desk with a broad-palmed hand. Geder sat. He felt a bit like a schoolboy answering to his tutor, except that his tutors hadn’t ever sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Last year?” Geder began. “When we were in court, and you would tell me if someone was lying? That was very useful to me. When the ambassador came, it was a thing where if you had been there and could have told me what he meant, it would have… it would have helped.”

“The power of the Righteous Servant burns through the lies of this fallen world,” Basrahip said, as if he were agreeing.

“I know that the temple is your work, and I don’t want to take you from it… I mean I do, but I don’t.”

“You wish the aid of the goddess,” Basrahip said.

“I do. But I’m not comfortable asking. Do you see how that is?”

Basrahip laughed. It was a rich sound, and filled the air like a thunderstorm. The high priest rose from the floor with the strength and grace of a dancer.

“Prince Geder, you ask for what is already yours. You gave this temple to her. You brought her out of the wild and returned her to the world. For all this you are beloved in her sight.”

“So it wouldn’t be too great a favor to ask?” Geder said, hope blooming in his breast.

“It is already yours. I am your Righteous Servant. I will attend you at any time, or at all times. You need only keep the promise you made to her.”

“Ah,” Geder said. “And which promise is that?”

“In each city that comes beneath the power of your will, grant her a temple. It need not be so great as this. Do this for her, and I will never leave your side.”

The relief was like putting cold water on a burn. Geder smiled.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that,” he said. “Really. I’m really not cut out for court life.”

The priest laid a huge hand on his shoulder and smiled gently.

“You are, Prince Geder. So long as your Righteous Servant is with you, you are.”

Clara Kalliam, Baroness of Osterling Fells

W

inter was a different thing for men. She’d seen it for years. Decades now, and
there
was a thought. Decades. With autumn came the close of court, the ending of all the season’s intrigues and duels and political wrestling. The great houses folded up their belongings, put cloths over their furniture to keep the dust away, and returned to the lands that supported them. For a month or two, the lords worked their holdings. The tribute of the farmers and potters and tanners accepted in their name and absence were accounted. The magistrates they’d appointed would consult on whatever issues they’d felt the lord should decide. Justice would be dispensed, tours made of the villages and farms, and a plan drawn up for the management of the holding over the next year. And all of it as quickly as possible so that it could all be finished when the King’s Hunt began, and they all rushed off to one holding or another—or, if they were unlucky, prepared their own homes to act as host to king and royal hunters—and ran down boars and deer until first thaw.

There was no time to rest, and Clara didn’t know how they managed it. How her husband managed it.

For her, the short days and long nights were the time of year when she could rest. Recuperate. For weeks before and after Longest Night, Clara slept long and deep. She spent her days sitting before a fire, her fingers busy with their embroidering and her mind at rest. The stillness of winter was her refuge, and the thought of a year without it inspired the same dread as contemplating a night without sleep. She was an older woman now, the grey in her hair no longer sparse enough to bother plucking out. Her daughter was married and with a child of her own. But even when she’d been young, Clara had known that winter was her season away from the world.

And spring was her return to it.

“There have always been religious cults,” she said. “Lady Ternigan was brought up in the Avish mysteries, and it never seemed to do her any particular harm.”

“I’m just concerned that there won’t be any silver left for the real priests,” Lady Casta Kiriellin, Duchess of Lachloren, said. “Your son’s in training for the priesthood, isn’t he, Clara?”

“Vicarian,” Clara agreed. “But he’s always said there are as many ways to worship as there are worshippers. I’m sure if something new comes along, he’s quite prepared to learn those rites as well.”

Lady Joen Mallian, the youngest of the group, leaned forward. Her skin was pale as daisies and showed every drop of blood in her cheeks. There was a vicious rumor that she had a Cinnae grandmother.

“I’ve heard,” she whispered, “that the Avish mysteries make you drink your own piss.”

“The way Lady Ternigan’s tea tastes, I shouldn’t doubt it,” Casta Kiriellin said, and they all laughed. Even Clara. It was uncalled for and cruel, but Issa Ternigan did serve the strangest teas.

The party was seven strong, each of them dressed in new clothes with bright dyes. Clara always thought of these days as a sort of religious rite. The twittering and gossip and bright colors worn as if by mimicking the glory of flowers they might call forth the buds. The gardens belonged to Sara Kop, Dowager Duchess of Anes, who sat at the head of the table in a dress of glowing white lace as pure as the old woman’s hair. She’d been deaf as a stone for years and never spoke, but she smiled often and seemed to take pleasure in the company.

“Clara, dear,” Lady Kiriellin said, “I’ve heard the most unlikely rumor. Someone’s said your youngest is pitching woo at Sabiha Skestinin. That can’t be right, can it?”

Clara took a long sip from her teacup before she answered.

“Jorey has taken a formal introduction,” she said. “I’m meeting the girl this afternoon, though of course that’s all form and etiquette. I’ve known her peripherally since she was just walking. I can’t fathom why we put ourselves through all the fuss of ritual to pretend to meet someone we already know quite well, especially as Dawson’s the one she’ll really need to win over. But tradition is tradition, isn’t it?”

She smiled and lifted her head, then waited. If anyone was going to bring up the girl’s past, this would be the moment. But there were only polite smiles and covert glances. Jorey’s unfortunate connection to the girl hadn’t passed unnoticed, but neither was it a thing of open derision or false concern. It was good to know, and she tucked the information away in the back of her mind, should she need it later. Joen Mallian suddenly squealed and clapped her hands together.

“Did I tell you I’ve seen Curtin Issandrian? Last night, I was at a reception that Lady Klin held. Nothing formal, you understand, just a dinner party for a few people, and he is my cousin, so I was utterly obligated to go. And who should be there, sitting by the roses as if nothing was odd, but Curtin Issandrian? And you’ll hardly believe it. He’s cut his hair short!”

“No!” one of the other women said. “But that was all he had that made him at all attractive.”

“I can’t believe he’s still being seen with Alan Klin,” said another. “You’d think those two would put a bit more air between them after being lumped in with Feldin Maas.”

Clara sat back a degree in her chair, listening, laughing, sharing bits of barely sweetened cake and biting lemon tea. For an hour, they spoke of everything and nothing, the words pouring out of them all in a flood. Even Clara with her love of winter also saw the joy of talking in company after so many weeks alone. This was how the court wove itself into a single tapestry—small gossip and news, speculations and enquiries, fashions and traditions. Her husband and sons would have made no more sense of it than of birdsong, but for Clara it was all as legible as a book.

She took her leave early enough that she could walk back to her own mansion. Camnipol in spring could be a shockingly beautiful place. In her memory, the city was all of black and gold, and so the real stone and ivy always surprised her. Yes, the streets were cobbled dark and soot marked many walls. Yes, there were great burnished archways throughout the city, tributes to the victories of great generals, some of them generations dead. But there was also a common with a double line of burgundy-leaved trees, a Cinnae boy, pale and thin and ghostly, dancing on the street corner for coins while his mother sawed away on an ancient violin. Clara paused for a moment in an open square at the edge of the Division to watch a theater company declaim on their small, sad wagon-mounted stage. The actors playing tragic young lovers were decent enough, but the grandeur of the view behind them kept distracting her.