When she was a child, Magister Imaniel had talked to her about the placing of negotiations. The architecture that surrounded a conversation had the power to shape it, he’d said. That was why the bank’s offices were kept so modest. When someone came to place a deposit, everything around them lowered their expectation of a return. When the bank was preparing to put out coin as an investment, it was better done at a cathedral or a palace or a wide open square in the city’s center. Simply by making the space in which the trade took place wide and large, the bank set the scale for the money involved.
As the sun sailed unseen through the sky, lighting the clouds with pale fire, she wondered what he would make of this empty stretch of road, the bone-bare trees spreading out all around, and the road that reached out toward the horizon. It was a humble place, without even the dignity of the dragon’s jade. And it was lonely. She had to take control of Geder’s father, one way or another. And then she had to take control of Geder. She strained her attention toward the vanishing edge of the road, willing her prey to appear and dreading it.
Cary struck up a song, her voice low and murmuring so that the melody wouldn’t give them away. Yardem throbbed a bass accompaniment. The wood itself seemed to take up the song. For a time, it was beautiful.
The distant echo of hoofbeats stopped them, and in the distance three figures appeared, all on horseback. Cithrin, back among the trees at the roadside, scowled. She’d assumed Lehrer Palliako would travel in a carriage. It was possible that the man she wanted wasn’t in the party now approaching. Or perhaps he was and would have a much easier path to escape should it come to violence. Either scenario carried its own difficulties.
Her breath came faster and shallow as the riders approached. Two men, one in a wide, shaggy coat, the other in light leather armor such as a guard or huntsman might wear. The third a woman in plain canvas and patched wool.
Cithrin narrowed her eyes, trying to better see the man in the shaggy coat. He was older, that was sure. The hair that showed at the edges of his leather hat was white. The horse he rode held itself tall and proud. It was hard to think that the father of the Lord Regent would go about his holding in such practical, workmanlike fashion. It was also hard to think that this would be anyone else.
Her heart in her throat, Cithrin lifted her hand to Yardem. He nodded and lifted his voice in a call that sounded like a crow calling twice, and then again three times. A moment later, another false crow came back twice and then once. The others set back along the road were ready. She should have brought more soldiers. Except that soldiers could hardly help looking like soldiers, and actors could better pass unnoticed. Trade-offs. Everything was trade-offs. Always and forever.
Cithrin stepped out from the trees, walking with her weight low in her hips the way Cary had taught her. Cary, Yardem, Sandr, and Lak followed. The hoofbeats shifted, slowed. Yardem and the three players stood behind her, their bodies blocking the way forward at a hundred feet behind, and Barriath and the others did the same. Cithrin’s belly was tighter than knots, and she wished she’d thought to bring a skin of wine. Or something stronger.
She walked alone toward the riders, and the riders stopped before she reached them. Close up, there was no question that this was Geder’s father. They had similar eyes, and the way the old man’s shoulders angled into his thick neck was a prediction of how Geder Palliako would age.
“Lord Palliako,” she said, making her curtsy. “I assume I have the honor of addressing the Viscount of Rivenhalm?”
She braced herself for his reply, ready to leap aside if he charged, or fall back if he drew his sword. The seconds lasted hours.
“You have me at a disadvantage, miss,” the elder Palliako said. “I don’t recall having met, and I would think even at my age, I’d recall a lovely young woman like yourself.”
There was no fear in his voice. His male companion and, Cithrin had to believe, guard placed a hand on the pommel of his sword. The woman in the patched cloak had already drawn a long, vicious-looking knife. Cithrin smiled. When she’d pictured this conversation, it had happened in a carriage where it felt much less like shouting. But here she was, and nothing to be done about it.
“I am an acquaintance of your son’s,” she said. And then a moment later, “I think you’ll have heard of me. I mean you no harm. I’ve come to talk with you. I have an offer I’d like to present.”
The old man blinked. It took only a few seconds for him to understand what this half-Cinnae woman in his road was saying. Who she was, and what her presence implied.
“You’re certain this isn’t an abduction?” the older man said, turning his horse a few degrees. “Because, just between us, it looks a bit like an abduction.”
Well, and it might have been if he’d ridden in a damned carriage. If he left the road, leapt the filthy ditch, and lit out among the trees, she’d never find him again. She stepped to the side of the road and motioned to the others. Yardem, understanding the tactics of the situation, moved first, and the others followed him. None of them drew a weapon. Lehrer Palliako’s way forward was clear, but the man didn’t spur his horse.
“Your son is in danger,” Cithrin said. “He needs your help. And you need mine.”
“My son has a large number of people protecting him. I doubt any new attempt on his life will come to much.”
“It isn’t his life that’s in danger. Geder’s fallen under the influence of corrupt and corrupting men. They’ve turned him into a monster.”
“That seems alarmist,” the older man said, but he didn’t spur his mount. His gaze cut to the side like a man trying not to admit he couldn’t pay his debt. Hope surged in Cithrin’s breast. Hope and fear. She was so close…
“I know what you’ve heard of me, my lord. But I’ve come here at the risk of my life because I know your son is a good man,” she lied. “He’s in trouble.”
Lehrer Palliako didn’t move for a long time. The leather-clad guard shot a worried glance at him. Cithrin clenched her fists. At last, he took a long, shuddering breath and lowered his head. When he spoke, his voice was low.
“I know,” he said.
The holding at Rivenhalm was smaller than Cithrin had imagined. The house itself was wood with only a little stone. It stood tucked on the side of a deep and wooded ravine. The river from which it took its name was in truth hardly more than a wide and vigorous stream that muttered and clapped its way along below. Even without the leaves of summer, the place was dark with shadows. When the crowding trees were in their fullness, Cithrin imagined the house would never rise much above a green and dappled twilight.
Sitting on a small porch with a window that looked out on the steep hillside, Cithrin imagined young Geder Palliako spending long, quiet hours there on the same floorboards she now walked. Here were the rooms and archways and halls where he had been a boy. Where the seeds of the man he’d become had been planted. She tried to find something sinister in it. There was nothing like that. Rivenhalm felt close and cozy and warm inside. But maybe lonesome.
Lehrer Palliako had led them back, his visit to his farmlands forgotten. His servants had taken the cloaks and jackets from the players and guards and the exile Barriath Kalliam as if it were perfectly normal for the great enemies of the empire to arrive unannounced and be welcomed. But perhaps it was more that there was no one much more likely to appear. No one seemed to come to Rivenhalm.