A dozen replies came to Marcus. When you’ve watched your family die, say that again and Grow up, boy, while you still have the chance and Yes, I’m better than you; my ship isn’t burning.
“We’ll leave soon,” he said. “I have guards posted. Don’t try to go without us.”
Outside, the little two-masted ship roared in flame. Black smoke billowed from her, carrying sparks and embers up to wheeling birds. Marcus walked down the rise to where the carts were lining up, prepared to head back home. One of his younger Kurtadam was in the medical wagon, his arm being shaved and bound. Beneath the pelt, his skin looked just like a Firstblood’s.
The dead enemy sailor was laid out under tarps. The rest, bound in ranks with arms bent back, were sullen and angry. Marcus’s men were grinning and trading jokes. It was like the aftermath of a battle, only this time there’d hardly been any bloodshed. The wet sand was smooth where the waves washed their footprints away. The mules, ignoring the smell of flames and the banter of soldiers, pulled wagons filled with silks and worked brass back toward the road. The smells of salt and smoke mixed.
Marcus felt the first tug of returning darkness at the back of his mind. The aftermath of any fight—great battle or tap-room dance—always had that touch of bleakness. The brightness and immediacy of the fight gave way, and the world and all its history poured back in. It was worse when he lost, but even in victory, the darkness was there. He put it aside. There was real work to be done.
Yardem stood by the head wagon, a Cinnae boy on a lathered horse at his side. A messenger. As he approached, the boy dropped down and led his mount away to be cared for.
“Where do we stand?” Marcus asked.
“Ready to start back, sir. But might be best if I led the column. The magistra wants you back at the house as soon as you can get there.”
“What’s happened?”
Yardem shrugged eloquently.
“An honest war,” he said.
Cithrin
The reports were completed and sealed, the pages sewn shut and wax pressed all around with the seal of the Medean bank interspersed with Pyk’s personal sign. With all the work that had gone into them, Cithrin had expected something more. Four slim volumes, bound in leather. The notary’s report on everything about the Porte Oliva bank would fit into a satchel. The time had come to decide the details of her journey, and Cithrin, for all her preparation, wasn’t sure.
The speed at which information traveled was the enemy of certainty. A cunning man’s ritual might pass a simple, urgent message from Porte Oliva to Carse in as little as two days. A pigeon could fly there in five and be more reliable. A single courier on a fast horse could cross the wide plains of Birancour, stopping at the posts and wayhouses, and reach Sara-sur-Mar in ten days’ time, and then by ship to Carse in another five so long as no bandits caught him and the weather on the coast was favorable. A caravan would be even slower, but safer. If she’d wanted it, Cithrin could have planned half a season on the road there and back again.
She had sat in her room at night with the dragon’s tooth and map before her and imagined the different journeys she might take, letting herself debate whether to stop in Sara-sur-Mar for a time and make her introductions to the queen’s court, whether to take ship directly from Porte Oliva and see the ports in Cabral and Herez along her way, whether to leave by herself dressed as a courier and ride alone in the wide world. Every new version seemed sweeter, more enchanting, more real than the last. She’d settled on a middle way. Marcus and Yardem Hane and herself, traveling on the dragon’s roads all along the way. A small group would move quickly, and the trained blades and little promise of gain would discourage most of the trouble that might come. Rather than pack the dresses and paints and formal attire she’d want in Carse, she would take a letter of credit and purchase them there.
Then came the news of war.
“No,” Marcus said. “Not overland. There’ll be refugees on all the roads through Northcoast. Thick in the last parts of Birancour too, for that matter.”
The counting house was empty apart from the three of them—Marcus, Cithrin, and Pyk. The chalked duty roster showed half a dozen names, but most of them were on the road back from Cemmis township under Yardem’s command, and the others Marcus had set to wait in the street. Their voices were audible, but Cithrin couldn’t make out any words. Her map was stretched out on the floor, with all of them looking at it as if there was a secret message hidden in its lines. Birancour in the south, with the smaller kingdoms clustered around it. Northcoast above and to the right, looking down at it like a disapproving older brother. And beyond it, the war.
“Sea’s a problem too,” Pyk said, sucking at her teeth.
“Why?” Cithrin asked.
“We did just burn a pirate’s ship down to the waterline,” Marcus said. “Might want to give a little time before we offer him a chance at bloody vengeance.”
Pyk’s expression darkened, but she didn’t speak. Cithrin hadn’t gone to the woman until Marcus had returned with confirmation that their scheme had worked. She’d left the notary in an uncomfortable place. Cithrin had taken action on the bank’s behalf without Pyk’s knowledge, but there had been no formal negotiation, no papers to sign. Nothing she’d done violated the terms under which Cithrin was bound. Only the spirit and intention of the thing was compromised, and in the process, the losses of the Stormcrow’s insurance contract would be at least partly recovered. Pyk could be unhappy about how it had been done, but the results allowed her as little room for open complaint as for pleasure.
“Overland to Sara-sur-Mar and then by ship,” Pyk said. “Cuts out the waters near Cabral and keeps her far enough west she’ll miss the worst of it.”
“Likely the best route,” Marcus said. “It does pass through some rough territory in the center. The farmlands are taxed hard. There’s places where the locals see travelers as either predators or prey.”
“That’s truth,” Pyk said, though she sounded less worried about it than pleased. “The reports will want guarding.”
“I don’t want a full caravan,” Cithrin said. “Just Marcus and Yardem will be fine, I think.”
“The hell they will,” Pyk said.
“That’s not a choice you get to make,” Marcus said.
The Yemmu woman’s thick lips went slack in surprise.
“You’re serious?” she said. “And here I was starting to think you weren’t an idiot. Or am I the only one who’s thought through the implications? Northcoast was on the edge of a fresh war of succession last year. King Tracian’s ass has barely warmed up his throne. Now Asterilhold—his neighbor with the longest and least defensible border—is marching into the field against Imperial Antea.”
“Your point being?” Cithrin asked archly.
“You want to go there with Marcus Wester in tow? Because the way I remember it, last time he was in Northcoast he killed their king.”
“And gave the throne to Lady Tracian,” Marcus said.
“So now that it’s her nephew wearing the crown, maybe you’ve come to take it back,” Pyk said. “If I were king of Northcoast and you came waltzing back into my kingdom with sword music already singing in my ears, you know what I’d do? Lock your pretty little ass up just to be on the safe side. And I’d start looking pretty damn funny at whoever it was that brought you, and I don’t mean the magistra here.”
“I’ll be fine,” Marcus said.
Pyk hoisted her eyebrows but didn’t say anything more. A shout came from the street, and then laughter. A single sharp rap on the door announced Yardem Hane. The Tralgu’s ears were canted forward, giving him an earnest, attentive look.