Tell them to be quiet, Dawson thought at the boy. Make them see order.
But instead, Palliako pressed his hands to the table and rested his chin on them. Dawson, disgust filling his throat, shouted.
“Are we schoolboys? Is this what we’ve come to? Squabbling and barking and calling names? My king isn’t cold in the crypt, and we’re descending to melee?” His voice sounded like a storm, the force of it rattling his throat. “Ashford, stop trying to sell us something. Say what terms King Lechan wants.”
“Don’t,” Geder said. He hadn’t raised his chin from the table, so when he spoke, his head bobbed slightly like a toy sailboat on a pond. “I don’t really care what the terms are. Not yet.”
“Lord Regent?” Ashford said.
Geder sat up.
“We must know terms,” Ternigan began, but Palliako shut him down with a glance.
“Lord Ashford. Was the plot against Aster known to you?”
“No,” Ashford said.
Geder’s gaze flicked away and then back. As Dawson watched, Palliako went pale and then flushed. Geder’s breath was coming faster now, like he’d been running a race. Dawson tried to see what had caused the change in his boy’s demeanor, but all he saw was the guards at their attention and the priest at his prayers.
“Was it known to King Lechan?”
“No.”
Dawson saw it this time. It was a small thing, almost invisible, but as soon as the word left Lord Ashford’s lips, the priest shook his broad head. No. Dawson felt the air leave him.
The Lord Regent of Antea was looking to a foreign priest for direction.
When Geder spoke again, his voice was ice and outrage, and Dawson barely heard it.
“You’ve just lied to me twice, Lord Ambassador. If you do it again, I’m sending your hands back to Asterilhold in their own box. Do you understand me?”
For the first time since Dawson had met the man, the ambassador from Asterilhold was dumbfounded. His mouth worked like a puppet’s but no words came out. Geder, on the other hand, had found his voice and wasn’t about to give it up.
“You’ve forgotten who you’re talking to. I’m the man who knows the truth of this. No one else stopped Maas. I did. Me.”
Ashford was licking his lips now, as if his mouth had suddenly gone dry.
“Lord Palliako…”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Geder said. “Do you think I’ll sit here and smile and shake your hand and promise peace while you try and kill my friends?”
“I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Ashford said, battling to regain his composure, “or where you’ve heard it from.”
“You see now, that’s truth,” Geder said.
“But I assure you—I swear to you—Asterilhold had no designs on the young prince’s life.”
Again, the flicker of eyes, and the priest’s subtle refusal. Dawson wanted to leap to his feet but he seemed rooted in his chair. Geder seemed to calm, but his heavy-lidded eyes were dark and merciless. When he spoke, his voice was almost conversational.
“You don’t get to laugh at me.” He turned to the captain of his guards. “Take Lord Ashford into custody. I want the executioner to have his hands off by nightfall and ready to send back to Asterilhold.”
The guard’s calm façade only broke for a moment, and then he saluted. Ashford was on his feet, all etiquette forgotten.
“Are you out of your mind?” he shouted. “Who in hell do you think you are? This isn’t how this works! I’m ambassador.”
The guard captain put a hand on Ashford’s shoulder.
“You have to come with me now, my lord.”
“You cannot do this!” Ashford shouted. Fear fueled the words.
“I can,” Geder said.
Ashford fought, but not for long. When the door had closed behind him, the high men of Antea looked at each other. For a long time, no one spoke.
“My lords,” Geder Palliako, Lord Regent of Imperial Antea said, “we are at war.”
Dawson sat on his couch, the leather creaking under him. Jorey and Barriath were in chairs opposite him, and his favorite hunting dog whined at his knee, forcing her damp nose under his palm.
“He was right before,” Barriath said. “About Feldin Maas. He was right. He knows things. Maybe… maybe he isn’t wrong. Jorey? You served with him.”
“I did,” Jorey said, and the dread in the words was enough.
“We can’t have done this,” Dawson said. “I can’t believe we’ve done this.”
“It isn’t all us,” Barriath said. “If Palliako’s right—”
“I don’t mean the war. I don’t even mean violating the sanctity of the ambassador. The man was a disrespectful, pompous ass. I don’t mean any of that.”
“Then what, Father?” Jorey asked.
In Dawson’s memory, the huge priest’s head moved, a finger’s width one way, and then the other, as Palliako watched. There was no doubt in his mind. The priest had been telling Palliako what to do, and Geder had done it. Simeon had died, and they had given the Severed Throne to a religious zealot who wasn’t even a subject of the crown. The thought nauseated him. If he’d woken in the morning to find the seas had floated into the air and the fish flying where the birds had been, it wouldn’t have been more upsetting than this. Everything was out of joint. The proper order of the kingdom was shattered.
“We have to make this right,” he said. “We have to fix this.”
A scratch came at the door, and it opened a handspan. A frightened-looking footman leaned in.
“There’s a guest, my lords,” he said.
“I’m not receiving them,” Dawson said.
“It’s Lord Regent Palliako, my lord,” the footman said.
Dawson tried to catch his breath.
“Show… show him in.”
“Should we go?” Barriath asked.
“No,” Dawson said, though the proper answer was likely yes. He wanted his family with him.
Geder came in still wearing the same red velvet, though the golden circlet was gone. He looked as he had before, a small man with a tendency toward weight. Uncertain smile, apologetic before he had anything to apologize for.
“Lord Kalliam,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me. Jorey. Barriath. Good to see you both too. I hope Sabiha’s well?”
“She’s fine, Lord Regent,” Jorey said, and Palliako waved it away.
“Please. Geder. You can always call me Geder. We’re friends.”
“All right,” Jorey said.
Palliako sat, and Dawson realized he and his boys hadn’t risen. They should have.
“I’ve come to ask a favor,” Palliako said. “You see, I served under Ternigan? And of course Alan Klin, and the others, served under him. Everything about Vanai was badly done. My part too, though I don’t like to say it, could probably have been done better.”
You are a traitor to your crown and the memory of my friend, Dawson thought.
“Anyway, the short of it is, I don’t trust him. You and your family have always been kind to me. You’ve been my patron, so to speak, when I really didn’t know my way around court. So now that I’m in need of a Lord Marshal, on the one hand it makes sense to appoint Ternigan, only because he’s got the experience most recently. But I would rather it be you.”
Dawson sat forward, his head swimming.
Palliako had betrayed his crown and kingdom, had given the reins of power to a goatherd, begun a war with Asteril-hold that was doomed to slaughter hundreds or thousands on both sides of the border, and now he had come to deliver control of the army into Dawson’s hands. And he was presenting it as asking a favor.