“Just a bite,” she said, “and tell me, have you heard from Elisia?”
The air in the bakery smelled of cinnamon and sugar, and Clara spent her last coin on a cup of lemon tea that tasted sharp and wonderful. For the better part of an hour, Clara took what news she could of her children. Jorey and Sabiha were fighting, which was to be expected given how hard the season had been. With luck they would get through it. It didn’t help that Barriath had vanished one day for places unknown. Ogene had heard that a letter had come to a woman of his acquaintance in Estinport from him, and that the courier had spoken with the accents of Cabral. Elisia was still away with her husband and his family, waiting until the shame of ever having been a Kalliam faded. The good news was that Vicarian’s position within the priesthood had been secured permanently. He was being sent to Kavinpol, which wasn’t his first choice, but regardless, he would not suffer worse for being his father’s son. It was a small victory, and she savored it more than the strawberry cream.
When, too soon, Ogene had to leave, Clara kissed her cheek and hugged her, mindful to do it in the bakery and not on the street where someone might see. Ogene’s reputation had to be safeguarded as well. It was the world they lived in.
After that, it was north toward Lord Skestinin’s little house, dodging carts whose wide wooden wheels tossed up the muck of the street and the dogs who would follow her for half a mile, sniffing at her in hopes that she would share her food with them. She’d remind them that they didn’t like apples, then she’d try and the dog would look reproachful and hurt, and then think how funny it was and that she’d have to tell Dawson, and then she’d weep for a while and go on.
She worried how Jorey would do over the winter. He’d have to go to Estinport. He couldn’t come to Osterling Fells. Poor Jorey, being saved by the girl he’d been saving. It all went back to Vanai, of course, and the guilt of having killed all those people at Palliako’s request.
She slowed as she reached the better part of the city. The ones she knew. There was a temptation to make an extra stop, drop in on someone she used to know, if only to see how they received her. It might only have been her imagination or a reflection of her particular life and place that the high courts of Camnipol were looking more anxious than they had even during the war. There was a pinched look to people’s faces, and more often, she was seeing the wirehaired priests in their brown robes walking among the black cloaks that Palliako appeared to have made into a permanent fashion. Sparrows and crows, Dawson had called them. Every now and then he had managed a truly memorable phrase.
“Mother,” Jorey said when she came into the garden. His embrace was brief but fierce. She kissed his cheek.
“Clara,” Sabiha said, coming to her. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying. Much like Clara’s own, she imagined.
Clara made a point to kiss her as well. There was so little she could do for the two of them and so much they needed.
“I’ve come for my allowance,” Clara said with a smile she only half felt. “I hope the timing isn’t bad.”
“You’re always welcome, Mother,” Jorey said, biting at the words. It was eating him. She saw that.
“You’re kind,” she said. “It’s your weakness. It’s mine too. Sabiha dear, I was wondering if, now that I’m disgraced, I couldn’t spend time with my grandson.”
“Your …” Sabiha said, then flushed.
“I told you to forget him once,” Clara said. “I was wrong to do that. We are not the family we had hoped to be, but we are the family we are. You are important to me, and so he should be as well. If I have your permission.”
“My permission?” Sabiha said.
“Of course, dear,” Clara said. “You’re his mother.”
“You have my permission,” Sabiha said.
“No tears. None of that,” Clara said.
They visited for slightly longer than usual, and Clara would have stayed longer if it weren’t such a long walk home. She left when there would be enough light to make it the whole way. She didn’t like the streets around her boarding house, but she liked them even less at night.
She was almost to the Prisoner’s Span when five men with drawn knives stepped in front of her.
When they lifted the cowl from her head, she was in a wide, dark room. The light came from an iron chandelier overhead, but she wouldn’t have been surprised by torches. Soldiers with bows at the ready were on either side, rising up impossibly high, a wall of men. And before her, a huge black bench topped by Lord Regent Geder Palliako. Clara felt the fear starting to shake her. Her ghost-self wailed and turned away in fear, and she went part way with it. The high priest stood behind her where she could not see him, though Geder could.
“Clara Kalliam,” Geder said. “Forgive the intrusion, but I had some questions I felt I had to put to you. If you lie to me, I will know and you will suffer. Badly. Do you understand?”
Her mouth was dry. How had she come here? What had she done? It was like she’d fallen asleep and come to a nightmare she couldn’t wake from. She felt caught at something, but she didn’t know what.
“I understand you are no longer living at your son’s house,” Geder said. “Is that true?”
Her breath was so ragged, she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to speak. Wouldn’t silence count as a lie? She didn’t want to think what he could do to her. What he would do.
“It is,” she managed.
“Why is that?”
“My presence makes it difficult for Jorey and Sabiha to dissociate from the court’s memories of Dawson.”
“Have you been meeting with Ogene Faskellan?”
“Yes. We have had several visits.”
“Have you been meeting with Ana Mecilli?”
“Yes. Twice, I think.”
To her right, one of the soldiers shifted slightly, the sound sharp and dry. Her heart raced.
“Are you loyal to me?” Geder asked.
Clara shook her head, not no, but I can’t answer that.
“Are you loyal to me?” he asked again, his voice growing harsher.
“I don’t think about you one way or the other, my lord,” she said.
The sound of cloth shifting came from behind her.
“Really?” Geder asked. He sounded genuinely confused.
“You are Lord Regent, and the man who killed my husband, and Jorey’s friend from campaign. You’re the man who helped me to expose Feldin Maas. But none of that particularly affects what I have to do in my day. I suppose it should on some level, but I certainly don’t spend my time considering the question.”
“You’re meeting with all of these people. Are you organizing them against me?”
She laughed. She didn’t mean to. If she’d thought about it, she wouldn’t have, but there it was and the archer didn’t kill her for it.
“No. God, no. The thought never occurred to me. I’ve been trying to hold my family together.”
“Your family?”
“Yes. Barriath’s gone with hardly a word to anyone. Jorey and Sabiha are having a terrible time of it, and not even married a full season yet. Vicarian is the only one who hasn’t been seared by the whole terrible business. Well, and there’s Elisia. She appears to be doing well, but I can’t think she’s happy. Not really.”
“Oh,” Geder said.
“And of course with Dawson gone, there’s no one to hold it all together. There’s not even the house, which when you think about it is a fairly weak way to hold a family together, but we had it once, and now we don’t. And so there’s all this walking.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up, she thought, but her mouth kept tripping on ahead without her.