Cithrin turned this over in her mind. Her heart was beating a little faster, and she felt the flush in her cheeks. This might be the opportunity she’d come all this way to find.
“May I ask you a question?” she said.
“That seems fair.”
“Why is that what you want?”
He nodded. Almost a minute passed.
“You’re young. You’re still making yourself into the woman you’re going to be, looking for the project that your life will become. People sometimes need help to find that. I am older, and in a position of some power, and I think you may become the sort of person I would like to owe me favors later on.”
The smile forced its way to Cithrin’s lips. It felt like victory.
“And here I thought it was altruism,” she said.
“Oh, Magistra.” Paerin Clark smiled. “We don’t do that here.”
The meal began just before sundown around a table of wooden planks no grander than a laborer might sit at. Platters filled the space between: clams in garlic sauce, pasta and cream, bottles of wine, loaves of fresh-baked bread. Komme Medean sat at one end, the swelling in his ankle and knee gone down enough that they looked almost normal. Cithrin and Lauro sat along one side across from Paerin Clark and his wife, Chana, who looked even more like her father than Lauro did. At the other end of the table, the Antean nobleman with skin as dark as coffee. Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch and Protector of Northport and the Regent’s Special Ambassador to Northcoast, grinned and broke bread with his hands.
“Think how I feel,” Daskellin said. “I’m sent on a fast boat with desperate pleas for King Tracian to help us in the war, and by the time I get here, we’ve all but won. It doesn’t make me look smarter, let’s say.”
Komme Medean chortled and nodded.
“I know just how you feel,” he said. “I was trying to win a concession in a sugar plantation on an island off Elassae. Year and a half of negotiation, and I was just sending back the final contracts to their council when the whole damn thing burned flat. Wound up with a concession on a salt cinder in the Inner Sea. Thank God I hadn’t paid for it yet.”
“I remember that,” Cithrin said.
“Do you now?” Komme said.
Canl Daskellin’s gaze turned to her, and she realized how thin the ice was she’d just put herself on. If it came out she’d been living at the Vanai branch, it might come out why. If anyone looked into her age, there could be a great deal at stake.
“Heard about it from Magister Imaniel,” she said without missing a beat. “It was done out of the Vanai branch, wasn’t it?”
Komme Medean pursed his lips as if in thought.
“I suppose it was, now you mention it,” he said. And another danger was stepped past.
“This new regent of yours,” Paerin Clark said. “Geder Palliako. It’s not a name I’ve heard often. I’m surprised we didn’t see a more familiar man.”
“I hope you aren’t looking at me,” Daskellin said. “No, Palliako’s father is a viscount. Unremarkable man. His son’s something different, though. He stopped the showfighters’ coup. He exposed Feldin Maas. There’s a strong case that this war is his private project from the start.”
“What sort of man is he?” Chana asked, then winked broadly at Cithrin and said, “I hear he isn’t married.”
They all laughed because it was expected.
“He’s a strong man,” Daskellin said. “He comes almost from outside the court, and it makes him very independent. His own thoughts. His own plans.”
“Ambitious?” Komme asked, cracking open a clam and pulling out the flesh.
“He’d have to be,” Canl said. “People underestimated him at first. That’s happening less now. His unofficial patron is Dawson Kalliam, and I think he’s got the feeling of riding a tiger.”
“Bad enemy to have,” Paerin said.
“That,” Daskellin said, “is the regent in a phrase. Would someone pass me that wine? I seem to have finished mine.”
“No,” Komme Medean said, feigning horror. “Never that.”
The meal went on until well after dark. The conversation ranged over art and politics and the indignities of travel. Everyone was very casual, and traded jokes and stories. The wine was very good, and left Cithrin feeling a little above herself, warm and happy and more relaxed than was strictly wise. Before he left, Daskellin shook all the men’s hands and embraced Komme Medean like a brother. He also kissed Cithrin on the lips, so he might have been more than a bit tipsy himself.
After he left, servants came in and cleared the table, bringing a stool for Komme’s bad leg. It had gotten visibly worse during the evening, but it was only now that he showed that it bothered him. The others took their seats, and so Cithrin did too.
“Well?” Komme said, his voice perfectly sober and crisp. “What do we have?”
“The regent’s unpredictable,” Chana said. “And Daskellin doesn’t like him.”
“Fears him, though,” Paerin Clark said.
“Do you think so?” Lauro said. “He seemed to speak well of him to me.”
“No,” Cithrin said. “Fears him is right. And there was something else, I couldn’t make out. He’s uneasy about the war. Even though they’re winning it. Why is that?”
It was eerie. All her childhood had been spent around a different table with Magister Imaniel and Cam and Besel having conversations much like this. Analysis, debate, discussion. Dissection. And now here she was in a strange place with different people and utterly at home.
“Either he doesn’t think it’s going to end with Asterilhold or he expects the balance of power in court to shift because of it,” Chana said. “Did you see how nervous he looked when I joked about the regent not having a wife?”
“You’re thinking there might be a political marriage with Asterilhold?” Komme said. “Unification?”
“I think it’s on his mind and he doesn’t want it,” Chana said. “Does he have a daughter?”
“Yes,” Paerin said. “And of the right age.”
“Well then,” Chana said as if the matter were settled.
“I’m not sure,” Komme said. “I think there was something more to it than that. How much do we know about Palliako’s allies?”
“Very little,” Paerin said. “His reputation is as a scholar. And newly pious.”
“Pious, eh? That may be an issue. King Tracian should send a group,” Komme said. “Sound out the court. This new war went awfully well for Antea. It’d be good to know if this Palliako’s gotten a taste for blood. If this doesn’t end with Asterilhold, that will change quite a few calculations.”
“I’ll speak with his majesty,” Paerin Clark said. “I’m fairly sure he’s of a similar mind. Not anything official, I think. Not an embassy. A dozen important people from court. A few powerful merchants.”
“Meaning you,” Lauro said. He sounded peevish.
“Meaning me,” Paerin Clark said. “I have some other contacts in Antea it might be wise to visit. See what we can find.”
Cithrin found herself nodding, but her mind was elsewhere. The wine fumes confused her, but only a bit. In her memory, Paerin Clark was saying, You lack experience. It’s not a criticism, it’s only true. As if the truth couldn’t be critical. Something in the back of her mind shifted. This wasn’t the moment for more brashness. This was when to show some range. She could do that. She cleared her throat and lifted her hand like a schoolgirl asking to be recognized. Komme Medean nodded.
“With your permission, sir,” she said, “when the group goes to Camnipol, I’d like to go too.”
Geder
The Kingspire was as busy as an anthill. Servants and workers and merchants moved through the sacred places of Antea with faster steps and louder voices. It felt like at any moment they all might break into song or else battle. And it wasn’t only the Kingspire. When Geder appeared at a feast or a ball, the sense was the same. The whole court was vibrating with a wild, barely constrained energy. The whole of Camnipol. They were preparing for the celebrations that would come when King Lechan of Asterilhold surrendered to Lord Marshal Kalliam and the short, decisive war— hardly a half a season long—ended with the Severed Throne triumphant.