Canl Daskellin, on the other hand, he had expected better of.
“Another letter, dear?” Clara asked as he paced the length of the long gallery.
“He’s telling me nothing. Listen to this,” Dawson said, shaking the pages. He found the passage. “ His majesty remains in poor health. His physicians suspect the weight of the mercenary riot is weighing on him, but expect he will be much improved by the winter. Or this. Lord Maas has been most aggressive in his defense of Lord Issandrian’s good character, and is making the most of having escaped censure. It’s all like this. Provocations and hints.”
Clara put down her needlework. The heat of the afternoon left a beading of sweat across her brow and upper lip, and a lock of her hair had come free of its dressing. Her dress was thin summer cloth that did little to hide the shape of her body, softer than a young woman’s and more at ease with itself. In the golden light spilling through the windows, she looked beautiful.
“What did you expect, love?” she asked. “Direct talk, plainly stated?”
“He might as well not have written,” Dawson said.
“You know that isn’t true, love,” Clara said. “Even if Canl isn’t giving you all the details of the court, the fact that he’s corresponding means something. You can always judge a person by who they write to. Have you heard from Jorey?”
Dawson sat on the divan across from her. At the far end of the gallery, a servant girl stepped through the doorway, saw the lord and lady in the room, and backed out again.
“I had a letter from him ten days ago,” Dawson said. “He says everyone in court is walking quietly and speaking low. Nobody thinks this is over. Simeon was due to name Prince Aster’s ward at his naming day, but he’s postponed it three times now.”
“Why would he do that?” Clara asked.
“The same reason he exiled me for Issandrian’s treasons,” Dawson said. “If he favors us, he’s afraid they will take up arms. If he favors them, then we’ll do it. And with Canl calling the tunes, I can’t say he’s wrong to think it.”
“I could go and ask Phelia,” Clara said. “Her husband’s been put in roughly the same position as Canl, hasn’t he? And Phelia and I haven’t seen each other in ages. It would be good to talk with her again.”
“Absolutely not. Send you into Camnipol alone? To Feldin Maas? It wouldn’t be safe. I forbid it.”
“I wouldn’t be alone. Jorey would be there, and I’d take Vincen Coe to keep me safe.”
“No.”
“Dawson. Love,” Clara said, and her voice had taken on a hardness he rarely heard from her. “I let you stop me when there were foreign mercenaries in the streets, but that’s passed. And if someone doesn’t reach out, the breach will never be healed. Simeon can’t do it, poor bear, because it isn’t something that can be commanded. You and Feldin can’t because you’re men and you don’t know how. The way this happens is you draw your swords, and we talk about who wore the most fetching dress at the ball until you put them back in their scabbards. Just because you don’t feel comfortable with it doesn’t mean it’s difficult.”
“We’ve gone past that now,” Dawson said.
Clara lifted an eyebrow. The silence lasted three heartbeats. Four.
“You need to raise your army, then, don’t you?” she said.
“It’s forbidden. Part of my season of exile.”
“Well, then,” Clara said, picking her needlework back up. “I’ll write to Phelia this evening and let her know I’d be open to an invitation.”
“Clara-”
“You’re quite right. I wouldn’t dream of going without escort. Would you like to speak with Vincen Coe, or shall I?”
The anger that leapt up in Dawson surprised him. He rose to his feet, throwing the pages of Canl Daskellin’s letter to the floor. He badly wanted to take some book or bauble or chair and throw it out the gallery window and into the courtyard. Clara’s eyes were on her work, the thin glimmer of the needle piercing the cloth and drawing through, piercing and drawing. Her mouth was set.
“Simeon is my king too,” she said. “Yours isn’t the only noble blood in this house.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Dawson muttered, forcing the words out through a narrowed throat.
“I’m sorry, dear. What did you say?”
“Coe. I’ll talk to Coe. But if he doesn’t go with you, you aren’t going.”
Clara smiled.
“Send my maid to me when you go, dear. I’ll have her fetch my pen.”
The huntsman’s quarters were outside the great granite-and-jade walls of the holding. A long, low building, the roof’s thatching laced down by long ropes of woven leather and weighted by the skulls and bones of fallen prey. The courtyard had weeds growing at the sides where the boots of men didn’t trample them down and baled hay targets for the archers to practice against. The air stank of dog shit from the adjoining kennels, and a huge shade tree arched above the building’s side, snowy with midsummer blooms.
Voices led Dawson to the back of the building. Five of his huntsmen stood or sat around the table of an ancient stump, raw cheese and fresh bread on the wood. They were young men, stripped to their hose in the heat. Dawson felt a moment’s deep nostalgia. Once he’d been much like them. Strong, sure of his body, and able to lose himself in the joys of a warm day. And when he had been, Simeon had been at his side. The years had robbed them both.
One caught sight of him and leapt to his feet in salute. The others quickly followed. Vincen Coe was in the back, his left eye swollen and dark. Dawson strode over to them, ignoring all but the wounded man.
“Coe,” he said. “With me.”
“My lord,” the huntsman said, and hurried to Dawson’s side. Dawson walked fast down the wide track that led from the holding down toward the pond to the north. The shadows of the spiraling towers striped the land.
“What happened to you?” Dawson said. “You look like you tried to catch a rock with your eyelids.”
“Nothing of importance, lord.”
“Tell me.”
“We drank a bit too much last night, lord. One of the new boys got a bit merry and… made a suggestion I found offensive. He repeated it, and I found myself moved to correct him.”
“He called you a catamite?”
“No, my lord.”
“What, then?”
In spring, before the start of the court season, the pond was clear as water from a stream. In autumn, after Dawson’s return from court, it could be as dark as tea. He’d rarely seen it in the height of summer, the green of the water building on the reflections of the trees to make something almost emerald. Half a dozen ducks made their way across the water, their wakes spreading out behind them. Dawson stood at the edge where the grass had the dampness of mud beneath it. Vincen Coe’s uncomfortable silence became more interesting with every passing breath.
“I could ask the others,” Dawson said. “They’ll tell me if you won’t.”
Vincen looked out over water to the distant mountains.
“He impugned the honor of Lady Kalliam, my lord. And made some speculations that…”
“Ah,” Dawson said. Sour rage haunted the back of his mouth. “Is he still here?”
“No, my lord. His brothers carried him back to his village last night.”
“Carried him?”
“I didn’t leave him in fit state to walk, sir.”
Dawson chuckled. Flies danced across the water before him.
“She’s going back to Camnipol,” Dawson said. “She has the idea that she can make peace with Maas.”
The young huntsman nodded once, but didn’t speak.
“Say it,” Dawson said.
“With permission, sir. That’s not wise. It’s hardest drawing blood the first time, and that’s already happened. It only gets easier.”
“I know it, but she’s determined.”
“Send me instead.”
“I’m sending you in addition,” Dawson said. “Jorey’s still in the city. He can give you a better picture of where things stand. You protected me when this all started. I need you to protect her now.”
The two men stood together. Voices came from behind them. The kennel master shouting to his apprentice. The laughter of the huntsmen. It all seemed to come from another world. One not so far in the past when things had been better and safer and still right.