The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin series) (11 page)

“Cary won’t like it,” Yardem said.

“You can tell her, then,” Marcus said, and Yardem flicked a jingling ear. “And truth is, Kit’s just going to have to keep
them together at least long enough to let them scent home. After that, they’ll likely go where we want like water running downhill.”

“Through the pass at Bellin?” Yardem said.

“Depends on how deep the snows are,” Marcus said. “Otherwise… I don’t know. The coast and by ship? I don’t like the idea of marching all the damned way south to the Free Cities again, and I can’t see King Tracian letting them through Northcoast, even if they’re sort of on our side.”

“Complicated,” Yardem agreed. “You’ll go back to Camnipol with them, then?”

“Can’t see leaving Kit behind. It’d be rude,” Marcus said, and smiled. If anyone had asked, he’d have said that being back in Carse, in Northcoast, walking down the streets that Merian and Alys had walked down once a lifetime ago, didn’t bother him. The pleasure he felt at the prospect of leaving—even leaving in disguise at the heart of an enemy army—suggested his assessment might have been optimistic. Any reason not to be here was a good one.

He wondered how much he could really trust Lady Kalliam, now that his life and Kit’s depended on her. He supposed there was an easy way to find out.

The great keep of the holding company came in sight as they rounded a corner. Carts and horses and servants in the colors of half a dozen houses swarmed the street around it. The Medean bank hadn’t been built for the constant traffic that came with governing a kingdom, much less three of them. Perhaps more. They’d have to redesign.

“Why do you bait him?” Cithrin asked.

“Who? Inys? Do I bait him?”

“You do, sir,” Yardem said.

“I don’t know,” Marcus said. Then, “Because he’s self-indulgent with his grief. Because he screwed up badly once,
and now everything he ever does is about that, and God forbid that anyone around him ever be let to forget it for a day.”

“Oh,” Cithrin said. “All right. I understand.”

“I wasn’t going to say it,” Yardem said.

“Say what?” Marcus said, then understood. He disliked the dragon for being too much like Marcus Wester. He shook his head. “You can both go piss up a rope.”

“If you say so, sir.”

“And you two take care of each other while I’m gone. I’ll miss you. Now let’s go break the bad news to Kit.”

C
lara, wrapped in layers of wool and leather against the cold and the wind, pressed her face against the dragon, closed her eyes, and waited for the worst to be over. Inys’s leg shifted as he flew, the huge muscles flowing and flexing against her in a way that felt both intimate and impersonal. The leather straps that kept her from plummeting to her death bit into her legs and back. She couldn’t say whether her feet had gone numb from the lack of blood reaching her toes or the intense cold. She had imagined one time and another what it must be like to fly through the air. Always, she’d evoked ideas of freedom and joy. Now that it came to the actual practice, it felt more like being a baby carried along the edge of the Silver Bridge by a not-entirely-trustworthy nurse.

On the occasions when she did open her eyes, there was little enough to see besides the horizon of stars and the bulk of the vast animal to which she was tied. The land below her was dark, and the few firefly glimmers she saw might have been anything: cities, camps, farmhouses, tricks of her over-tired eyes. The others—Wester and Kit—had straps of their own on other legs. She couldn’t see them, nor could she imagine hearing them over the sound of the wind. Had they fallen to their deaths, she would not have known.

They had left Carse only hours before, with the dull red disk of the sun hovering just above the horizon. She’d felt
then, waddling out to the open space nearest the Graveyard of Dragons, ridiculously overdressed. Her elbows and knees seemed hardly to bend. Barriath walked beside her, and if he found her as laughable as she found herself, he showed respect enough not to say it. The dragon was on a great perch made from a felled pine. The scent of its sap was still fresh. When she saw the harnesses hanging limp from the great beast’s legs, she had to work to stifle her laughter. What would the ladies of the court think if they saw this? Hardly appropriate behavior for a baroness. But what had to be done, would be.

In the shadow of the great wings, two figures were already waiting. The older man with the long face and wiry hair of the priests and an attractive younger woman with a thick braid. They were speaking with an intensity that made her wonder whether they might be lovers or father and daughter, though that didn’t seem likely. The woman’s face was hard, and tears streaked her cheeks. The man’s posture was equal parts sorrow and strength. Clara found herself wondering how they managed to express so much with their bodies alone, but then they were actors. She supposed it was the sort of thing one did without thinking, if only one practiced enough. Like the way her daughter Elisia used to spend the whole day whistling to herself after working with her music tutors.

The woman said something she couldn’t make out, and the old man laughed, then they embraced. Not as lovers would, nor yet parent and child. Family of some sort, though.

“I should be going,” Barriath said.

“Of course you shouldn’t, dear. They need you for Callon Cane or the leader of the little fleet or some such. Besides which, there’s little you could do to look after me that Jorey won’t be able to accomplish. He is still the Lord Marshal.”

And if he took her place, she wouldn’t be reunited with
Vincen Coe, she didn’t say. In truth, the implausible journey she was about to take might have uneased her more deeply without the prospect of Vincen at its end. Of course, she couldn’t explain that to her son. For him, her eagerness might even look like courage. She felt a bit dishonest about that, but didn’t see what else she could do.

The actors stepped apart gracefully, as if they had ended their scene. What fascinating people really. And the woman, at least, seemed vaguely familiar. Clara wondered whether she’d seen her perform somewhere. Barriath took Clara’s hand, turning her. The distress in his eyes reminded her of how he’d looked as a boy. A baby. Of course this was hard for him. Since the day they’d found each other again, he’d been able to play the protector. Now he was sending his mother off into the teeth of danger. What boy could ever see that done and be unmoved?

She raised her laughably puffy arm and touched his face. “No regrets now. We’ve gone past that.”

“Just tell me you won’t take any chances you don’t need to,” he said.

She wondered for a moment what her life might have been if she’d lived by that rule. Nothing like it was, she thought. She wondered what her son would make of all the things she’d so carefully never told him. The rage and despair she’d suffered losing Dawson. The joyful recklessness of standing against Geder Palliako even at the height of his power. She was friend to thieves and cutthroats now. Lover of a man her sons’ age. And none of it could be said.

“I will use my very best judgment,” she said. “And this won’t be our last meeting.”

“You don’t know that,” Barriath said, choking on the words.

“I don’t,” she said. “But I choose to believe it, or else I’d never stand going.”

“I love you, Mother.”

And then they were embracing. Not for the last time, she told herself. There would be another, at least. Somehow. She was weeping now as well. When she could bring herself to let him go, Barriath’s eyes were red and wet. He wiped them angrily with his sleeve and stepped back. She turned to the dragon.

The mercenary captain and his Tralgu second fell into step beside her. The green blade was strapped across the older man’s back. The Tralgu—Yardem, his name was—flicked an ear.

“I know,” Marcus Wester said, as if something had been said. “Watch after it all until I’m back.”

“Will.”

And then she was at the dragon’s leg, and they were helping her into the harness. She still didn’t entirely believe that it was going to happen until the dragon spread its wings, howled like a storm, and fell up into the sky.

That had been hours ago, and the sun had long since fled. Clara couldn’t entirely believe that she’d slept, but her mind had surely lost track of time. A scattering of fires glimmered far to what she presumed was the east, and the ground seemed closer. She could make out the shapes of trees, and a thin silver line that might have been a stream or a dragon’s jade road. Her cheeks were stiff as plaster, and as unfeeling, but she craned her head against the storm wind. The ground was closer. Much closer. The dragon dipped, dipped again, and didn’t rise. The great wings worked, stirring loose snow and winter-killed grass. They landed in a drift that rose to her knees. The ripping storm that had plagued them since Carse vanished instantly, and the calm seemed unreal. Clara sagged against the dragon’s flesh. Now that they weren’t in motion, the warmth of it was like sitting near a fire, and she wondered how much Inys’s heat had sustained her during their flight.

Someone tugged at her, and she opened her eyes. The actor-priest. Kit. Starlight lit his smile, and she felt a little thrill of fear and revulsion. The man might be a tame priest, but the same spiders were in his blood as in the others’.

“I think you’ll find it more comfortable once you’re unharnessed, Lady Kalliam,” Kit said.

“Thank you,” she said, meaning to go on with
I can manage for myself
only it seemed she couldn’t. The straps had worked themselves around her back, and so she suffered the priest’s aid in silence. When she tried to walk, her legs felt half strung and uncertain. Captain Wester was at her side, helping her to keep her balance. He had already stripped off the thick wool traveling clothes to reveal the guard’s tunic beneath. The great green sword was still across his shoulders, but wrapped in rags and leather. The priest was pulling on the grubby robe of a servant with a deep hood to conceal his face and hair. Somehow, he managed to seem smaller than he was. It was quite a talent.

“First light’s not more than an hour from now, and I’d guess we’re at least an hour’s walk from the camp,” Wester said.

“I don’t know that I can manage that,” Clara said.

“Once we start moving, you’ll warm up,” Wester said. “Besides which, if you rest, you’ll cool down. So we’re short on options.”

“You stand before me,” Inys said, his great voice low but all the more threatening for that, “and moan you can find no warmth?”

“Anything that would fuel a fire, that army burned weeks ago,” Marcus said. “And while I’m sure streams of dragon flame could heat some rocks enough to thaw our hands by, I’d prefer not to call attention this way just before we walk up to their sentry posts.”

The dragon snorted his vast derision, but didn’t press the
issue. Clara nodded and began pulling off her own flying gear. She knew the robes she wore underneath were warm and thick enough for uses besides flying through the night sky like a witch out of legends. Still, she did wish they had something to make a little fire with.

“Head out away from the camp before you turn north,” Wester said.

“I shall go as I wish, and do as I please, Stormcrow.”

Now it was the captain’s turn to snort, but when the dragon leaped again into the darkness, it seemed to Clara he was doing as Wester had ordered. Or suggested. It wasn’t easy to know the difference with those two.

“Kit?” Wester said.

“Ready, I think,” the priest said. “I’m not certain which direction to go in, though.”

“That’s all right,” Wester said. “I am. Keep close, both of you.”

He forged through the snow, breaking through the soft white with his legs. Clara found it was easier to walk in his footsteps, and before long the snow thinned, and they found themselves on a track of frozen mud and churned ice. It stretched out to north and south, winding. The ruts of wagon wheels showed in the muck like scars.

“All right,” Marcus said. “Let’s go see if this works.”

“It will,” Clara said.

“Things can always go wrong, lady,” Wester said, but there was a smile in his voice. Clara took the lead. It was a shame, she thought, that they didn’t have horses. Or at least one for her. Coming in on foot was beneath her station, not that a poor beast could have survived being carried all the way from Carse. Even if it didn’t freeze to death, the fright would likely have killed it. But they could have gotten a litter. Something light that the two men could have used to
carry her. Well, it was something to keep in mind for next time.

Next time.
She chuckled.
God, let there never be a next time.

Wester was right: the walking did help. By the time the eastern sky began to come rose and gold, she was feeling almost herself. She was Clara Kalliam, taking a brisk morning’s constitutional with a guard and servant trailing behind her. She wondered whether Jorey had any tobacco left. Almost certainly not, which was a shame.

The track curved around an outcropping of rock, and a voice came across the snow, sharp and angry. “Stop there! What’s the watchword?”

Five archers, arrows nocked, stepped out from behind the stones. They looked terribly thin, the dark leather of their armor hanging loose against their sides. Clara remembered the story—wholly imagined—that the dead rose at night to march in Geder Palliako’s army. She didn’t know if it was amusing or tragic.

“Watchword?” she said crisply, her accent perhaps a bit thicker than it might have been. “Why, I haven’t a clue, dear. Who would have been the one to tell me?”

The archers hesitated. The lead man lowered his bow. “Lady Kalliam?”

“Yes, of course. You are… no, wait. You’re Sarria Ischian’s boy, aren’t you? Connir?”

“Ah… yes, ma’am.”

“I never forget a boy child,” Clara said, something like victory singing in her veins. “The fathers are always so put out if you do. I’ve just returned from Porte Oliva. I hope it’s all right that I haven’t got the watchword? Because it would be terribly inconvenient to go back now.”

The other archers lowered their bows as well. Wester and
Kit stayed carefully behind her, as they ought. The more the guards looked at her, the less they saw anything else. Guards and servants weren’t the sort of people one paid attention to anyway, not when a baroness was present.

“Of course not, ma’am. Only we didn’t know to expect you.”

“My fault,” she said, waving the comment away. “I should have sent word. Where would I find my son?”

“The Lord Marshal’s tent’s up on the western side of camp, ma’am. If he’s not inspecting the troops, he’ll be there.”

“Lovely.”

“Permit me, ma’am. I can lead you.”

“Thank you, Connir. That would be very welcome.”

The mask of habit slipped on so easily, it almost frightened her. Was she the somewhat touched woman of the court wandering about the field of war like it was a garden party? To them, she was. It wasn’t that appearances were deceiving. That was a given. What astonished her every time was that they were so
fluid
.

Her weeks away had done the camp no good. Dawson had always spoken of supply lines and provisioning men in the field, and she had listened with half an ear. These men had been away from their homes for years. The little city of tents and shacks they had cobbled together in the fields of Birancour were less than those of the beggars and thieves who made homes on the sides of the Division. What food there was would have to arrive by cart from Porte Oliva. There was no allied city nearer. All the woods nearby had been cut down for firewood, the game, she had no doubt, hunted to extinction. They were hungry, cold, and far from home.

And she had watched them kill the innocent of Porte Oliva. Had seen the pain and horror in the Timzinae woman’s eyes. These men she walked among, by whom she was greeted with pleasure, had killed. Had stolen. Many,
she was sure, had raped. And her son, her Jorey, was their leader, as Dawson had been before him. Soldiers of the glorious empire or monsters of violence and suffering. So much depended on the story one told about them.

And then he was there, in a group of emaciated men, his hair under a knit cap he’d gotten somewhere. Her Vincen, his eyes bright and his smile as rich and full as it had ever been. Tears leapt to her eyes and she blinked them away. He touched his hand to his heart, and she melted. No one seemed to notice when she dabbed her cuff to her eyes.