“What have you found?” he asked.
“Nothing, my lord,” the second said.
“We’re wasting time here,” Geder said. “Gather the men. We should move on.”
The second looked around. One of the soldiers—a young Timzinae with black scales that shone like he’d polished them—shrugged.
“My lord, we haven’t turned the basement. If you’d like—”
“Do you really think there’s a point to it?” Geder asked. When the second didn’t reply at once: “Honestly.”
“Honestly, no.”
“Then let’s get the men together and go.”
The caravan master, sitting on a stool, made a rough impatient noise in the back of his throat. Geder turned to him.
“On behalf of empire and king, I apologize for this inconvenience,” he said with a bow.
“Think nothing of it,” the ’van master said sourly.
Outside, the soldiers fell into position as they had every time before. Geder lifted himself to his own saddle carefully. His belt held. The gems and jewels dug at his skin, pinching a little at his sides. None fell out. The caravan guards watched with well-feigned lack of interest as Geder drew his sword in salute, turned his horse, and moved forward at a gentle walk. With every step they took away from the caravan, he felt his spine relax. The sun, already sliding down toward the horizon, half blinded him, and he craned his neck, counting the soldiers behind him to make sure no one had doubled back or been left behind. None had.
At the top of the ridge, Geder paused. His second came to his side.
“We can make camp at the same place as last night, my lord,” he said. “Strike out south and west in the morning.”
Geder shook his head. “East,” he said.
“Lord?”
“Let’s go east,” Geder said. “Gilea’s not far, and we can spend a few days someplace warm before we go back to Vanai.”
“We’re going back?” the second asked, his voice carefully neutral.
“May as well,” Geder said, struggling against his smile. “We aren’t going to find anything.”
Dawson
Winter business.
The words themselves reeked of desperation. From the longest night to first thaw, noblemen took to their estates or they followed the King’s Hunt. They took stock of what sort of men their sons were becoming, reacquainted themselves with wives and mistresses, looked over the tax revenue from their holdings. To the highborn, winter meant domesticity and the work of the hearth. Much as he loved Camnipol, passing through the wind-chilled, smoke-stinking streets put Dawson in the company of professional courtiers, merchants, and other men of uncertain status. But his cause was just, and so he bore the insult to his dignity.
Nor was he the only one to suffer it.
“I don’t understand why you hate Issandrian so deeply,” said Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch, Protector of Northport, and His Majesty’s Special Ambassador to Northcoast. “He’s entirely too pretty and full of himself, it’s true, but if you take being self-impressed and ambitious as sinning, you won’t find any saints in this court.”
Dawson sat back in his chair. Around them, the Fraternity of the Great Bear seemed almost empty. Seats and cushions upholstered in raw silk or Cabral damask sat empty. Black iron braziers squatted in rooms built to be cool in midsummer. The servant girls, so often hard-pressed to tend the needs of the fraternity members, haunted the shadows and doorways, waiting for a sign that something might be wanted. At summer’s height, there might be a hundred men of the best breeding in the empire drinking and smoking and conducting affairs of court in these grand and comfortable rooms. Now, if Dawson spoke too loud, it echoed.
“It isn’t the man,” Dawson said. “It’s the philosophy behind him. Maas and Klin are no better, but Issandrian holds their leashes.”
“Philosophical differences hardly seem to justify… What? Conspiracy?”
“Philosophy always becomes action. Issandrian and Maas and the others are willing to play to the lowest kind of man in order to gain power.”
“You mean the farmer’s council.”
“That’s one place,” Dawson said. “But if they are willing to champion rabble, how long is it before the rabble choose to champion themselves? Already we have restrictions on slavery, on bed servants, on land service. All of that within our lifetimes. And all from men like Issandrian, courting favor from laborers and merchants and whores.”
Canl Daskellin gave out a low grunt. Between the thin winter light silhouetting him and the almost Lyoneian darkness of his skin, Dawson could hardly make out his expression. Still, he hadn’t disagreed. And if he hadn’t had concerns of his own, he wouldn’t have come.
“It’s time for the true spirit of Antea to put things right,” Dawson said. “These hounds think they run the hunt. They must be broken, and if we wait until Prince Aster is living under Issandrian’s roof…”
The silence finished his thought more eloquently than any words could. Daskellin shifted forward in his chair, muttering something obscene under his breath.
“You’re sure the king intends to take that step?”
“I heard it from his own mouth,” Dawson said. “Simeon is a good man, and he could be a good king too, but not without our loyalty. He’s waiting for his chance to put Issandrian in his place. And I am going to provide that chance.”
Soft voices came from the passage beyond, and then faded again. From the street, the clacking of steel-shod hooves. Canl drew a small clay pipe from his jacket and lifted his hand. A servant girl scurried over with a taper. With the first fragrant blue cloud of smoke, she retreated. Dawson waited.
“How?” Daskellin asked. His voice had taken on the firmness of an interrogator. Dawson smiled. The battle was half won.
“Deny Issandrian his strength,” Dawson said. “Recall Alan Klin from Vanai. Alienate Issandrian from the farmers. Shatter his circle.”
“Meaning Maas and Klin.”
“To start, but he has other adherents as well. But that isn’t enough. They gained influence because the men who understand what noble blood means are divided.”
Daskellin took a long draw on his pipe, the ember glowing bright and then fading as he exhaled.
“And thus your conspiracy,” he said.
“Loyalty to the king is no conspiracy,” Dawson said. “It’s what we should have been doing all along. But we slept, and the dogs snuck in. And, Canl, you know that.”
Daskellin tapped the clay stem against his teeth. His eyes narrowed.
“Whatever it is,” Dawson said, “say it.”
“Loyalty to King Simeon is one thing. Becoming the tool of House Kalliam is something else. I am… disturbed by the changes Issandrian and his cabal are suggesting. But trading one man of ambition for another is no solution.”
“You want me to show I’m not Issandrian?”
“I do.”
“What proof do you want?”
“If I help to recall Klin from Vanai, you cannot profit from it. Everyone’s quite aware that your son is under Klin’s command there. Jorey Kalliam cannot take the protectorship of Vanai.”
Dawson blinked, opened his mouth, closed it again.
“Canl,” he began, but Daskellin’s eyes narrowed. Dawson took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he spoke, his voice was harder than he’d meant it to be. “I swear before God and the throne of Antea that my son Jorey will not take protectorship of Vanai when Alan Klin is called home. Further, I swear that no one of my house will take profit from Vanai. Now, will you swear the same, old friend?”
“Me?”
“You have a cousin in the city, I think? I’m sure you wouldn’t want to give the impression that your own support of the throne is merely self-serving?”
Daskellin’s laughter boomed and rolled, a deep sound and warm enough to push back the teeth of winter, if only for a moment.
“God wept, Kalliam. You’ll make altruists of us all.”