The Spider's War (The Dagger and the Coin series) (18 page)

For himself, he remained at the cathedral, overseeing the workmen as they chiseled out the icons of the old local gods and hammered the old statues to gravel. The local dye yard, the only one old enough to have been within the city wall when everything outside it burned, delivered banners to hang over the emptied niches. And as he worked, he took little audiences. A Dartinae boy brought his girl love to the temple putatively to be blessed, though in fact he wanted Vicarian to find if she’d been sexually faithful to him. A merchant captain hauled his crew to the steps of the cathedral to ask which of them had been stealing from the company box. It was the work of a magistrate, but Vicarian did it without charging the tax and fees. All he required was that they all stay for the evening sermon. Their ears and attention to his voice was enough.

But that night, as he rested in the palatial luxury of the rooms they had taken from the governor’s priests, the issue gnawed. He’d spent the better part of a month once, debating
Addadus and Cleymant with his fellow novices, and found the knowledge he’d squeezed from it fascinating. More than fascinating,
important
. The idea that all that wisdom would be swept away by the goddess seemed almost self-evidently mistaken. Her power was to lift up truth, and to celebrate the world as it genuinely was, and that included what had been understood during the goddess’s exile, so long as it was also truth.

Kurrik was wrong to turn away from it, and that his spiritual brother was caught in an error was like having a splinter. It bothered. He lay in his bed, the smells of incense and the sea competing in the air. The walls around him ticked and shifted as the day’s heat radiated away into the humid air. He wondered whether he should go wake Kurrik, explain the error, show him how the work done by philosophers and priests during the goddess’s exile still held value because they reflected the history that had played out. Show him that knowing more made the goddess’s word stronger. The temptation plucked at him.

But it was late, and Kurrik’s anger earlier—though it had been misplaced—wasn’t something he wanted to bring up again just now. He was tired. Better to wait. Perhaps he could write a letter outlining the issue to Basrahip. The high priest was more likely to understand than a minor prelate like Kurrik. He was a good-souled man, but perhaps not the smartest after all.

Vicarian sighed, adjusted his pillow, and tried to will himself to sleep. He remained troubled by the certainty not only that he was right, but that Kurrik was wrong. The anger in him was irrational, but knowing that didn’t comfort him.

Kurrik was
wrong
. And sooner or later, something would have to be done about it.

I
find nothing wrong,” the cunning man said. He was an old Tralgu man with one cropped ear and a gentle voice. He was the sixth of his profession Geder had appealed to. The others had either voiced the same opinion—that the Lord Regent was in fine health—or offered random maladies on a platter. He had taken bad air, or bad water, or he had too much blood or not enough sleep or his spirit had come a bit loose from his body. Of all that he’d heard, that last sounded most likely. None had been able to help.

“If there’s not a problem,” Geder said, “why don’t I feel well?”

In the royal apartments, his palatial bedroom had high windows and thick rugs, tapestries on the walls with scenes from history and legend that had looked out on generations of kings. Now they looked down on his bare chest and exposed legs and the scowling cunning man. It was hard not to feel like a disappointment to them.

The illness—and Geder felt certain it was an illness—had begun, he thought, on the return from killing the last apostate. Oh, his optimism and good cheer at the time might have covered it over, but it had been there. Thin enough to ignore, but present, like a blemish on an apple small enough to overlook, but warning of worms inside. Since then, the illness had grown. Sleeplessness at night, and exhaustion in
the daytime. The almost physical sensation that his mind was stuffed with cotton. The overwhelming sense that something was wrong without anything he could find that justified the dread.

“It started in Asterilhold. In the swamp,” Geder said. “I think it started there.” He’d said the words before, but to no effect. The cunning man flicked his one whole ear thoughtfully and rubbed his canine chin.

“I have a tea I can give you. It may fix nothing, but if it does improve your vigor, that will tell us something.”

“Fine,” Geder said. “That’s fine.”

The cunning man nodded more to himself than to the Lord Regent, and opened his small wooden chest. He hummed to himself as he plucked bits of herbs and stones from his collection, dropping each into an iron pot. Geder watched him for a time. Absent the cunning man’s permission or prohibition, Geder tried covering the softness of his body with his undershirt. The Tralgu didn’t object, so Geder pulled it on entirely. He felt better that way. He hated it when people saw him just in his skin.

The tea smelled peppery as it steeped, and weirdly astringent. Geder drank it quickly to get it over with. Waves of heat and cold pressed out from his throat through his body, leaving him queasy.

“Sleep tonight,” the cunning man said. “Tomorrow, we can talk again?”

“Yes, fine. Yes,” Geder said.

The Tralgu smiled, nodded, and packed away his herbs and daubs and the iron pot. Geder watched him, disconsolate. Something was wrong with him. There was no question about that. Everything was going so well, after all. Antea had conquered the world, or close to it. With the power of the goddess, he’d doubled the empire’s territory. Maybe more
than doubled. He’d gained the respect of every kingdom he didn’t run. Respect or else fear. Same thing, really. He’d exposed the Timzinae threat, killed the apostate, ushered in an age of light and truth that was being born now with terrible birthing pangs in the Timzinae’s own homeland.

Every time he doubted, all he had to do was sit with Basrahip. The huge priest’s deep, rolling voice had the gift of putting everything in its right place. Only lately he’d wanted Basrahip’s reassurances more often, and for longer, and the sense of calm that came after had lasted less.

The Tralgu cunning man bowed and Geder waved him away. Maybe the tea would do something. Maybe tomorrow he’d feel better. Or maybe he was simply heartsick. How many songs were there about the man whose lover had broken him? At least some of those had the injured man wasting away, didn’t they?

For a moment, the memory of walking into the compound in Suddapal flooded back to him, fresh as a cut. He ground his teeth until it went away. God, he’d been such a fool. And everyone knew it. He was going to live and die with that moment pricking him forever.

He wasn’t sick. He’d been poisoned. By Cithrin, whom he’d thought he loved.

The bitch. He clenched his fists until his knuckles ached. The evil, two-faced, manipulative bitch.

“Geder?”

Aster stood in the doorway. His lifted chin made him look both stronger and younger than he was, like a child prepared to fight a mountain. Of course. Of course. The boy had watched King Simeon sicken and die, now here Geder was consulting with a dancing line of cunning men. Aster was frightened. Of course he was frightened. The thought put another stone on Geder’s chest. He wanted to leap up, to
tell Aster that everything was fine. Or, more accurately, he wanted someone else to do it.

Geder Palliako, Lord Regent of Antea, protector and steward of the Severed Throne. It was his duty to care for the prince. Aster was his friend. One of his only friends. Geder wanted to want to comfort him, but all he really felt was tired.

And still…

“Aster,” he said, waving him closer. The prince came with halting, tentative footsteps. “How are you? Did I miss anything important in court, or is it all still the same?”

Aster tried to smile. Managed it, mostly. Geder lowered himself back on the pillows. The cunning man’s tea was doing something odd in his gut, and it didn’t feel particularly healing. Aster sat on the mattress beside him, hands folded together. He struggled to meet Geder’s eyes and failed.

“I was thinking we could walk,” Aster said. “Just down to the Division and back, maybe? Some fresh air?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think so. Perhaps after I sleep a bit, I could manage.”

Aster’s nod came quickly enough that Geder knew he’d had it on the ready. He’d expected the refusal. For a moment, guilt almost made Geder reconsider, but it was too much. It was too far.

“It’s the weather,” he said. “It’s the cold. Just that. The thaw’s sure to come soon, and I’ll be back to myself.”

“All right,” Aster said.

“I’m not that bad,” Geder said with a little forced smile. “I’m just weary. That’s all.”

“Is there anything I can get for you? There was beef stew last night. It was very good.”

“No. Thank you, no. Just. Just a little rest.”

“Do that and you won’t sleep tonight,” the prince said, trying without success to make a joke of it.

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t sleep anyway,” Geder said. Aster flinched at the words, and Geder closed his eyes for a moment. He didn’t need another reason to feel worn. He loved the boy, wanted well for him, all that, but just now—just for today—he wished Aster would go away. Go chase girls or fight boys or read books. Something that didn’t require him. Geder longed to be outgrown.

“I have some good blankets,” Aster said.

“I have blankets,” Geder said. “I have lots of blankets. As many as anyone could need.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Geder said. “I didn’t mean to snap, it’s just that I’m tired. I’ll rest. I’ll be better. Just let me rest for a little, yes? I’ll be up again before sundown. We can play some cards, you and me and Basrahip. Only we’ll always lose to him.”

“It’s all right,” Aster said, his smile a little nearer to genuine now. “I don’t mind losing.”

“That’s because you’re a wise man,” Geder said, taking the prince’s hand. “A wise man who’ll be a wise king one day. You’ll make your father proud.”

They sat for a moment in silence. Geder tried not to wish it was ended and the boy gone elsewhere, but he did. And then, when Aster rose and walked to the door, he immediately wished he would come back. The door closed behind him, and Geder sank, giving his full weight to the mattress. His body felt too heavy, his muscles too slack. He was a puppet version of himself with the strings all cut. Or fouled in each other.

He closed his eyes, hoping that sleep would take him. Hoping that when he woke, he would be himself again. Or maybe someone better. The pillow felt unpleasantly hot against his cheek, and when he turned, his shirt twisted,
clutching at him like a huge cloth hand. He willed his mind to let go, but when he did begin to slide into dream, the voice of the fire was waiting for him, all the way from Vanai. A woman’s body silhouetted by flames, and the sense that he should have sent someone to get her, quick before she burned.

W
inter had always been the slow time in Camnipol. The lords and ladies of court were elsewhere, killing deer and boar in the King’s Hunt or at their holdings managing the lands that they ruled. The feasts and intrigues and ceremonies rarely began before first thaw. If anything, being in the capital carried a nuance of the merchant class. Geder and Aster were above petty status wrangles, but most people concerned themselves with it all deeply. Which was why it was so surprising when the court began to arrive early.

It was only a few at first. Minor families, mostly from the east. Breillan Caust had only just gained a holding for his family on the plains outside Nus, the first actual land his family had commanded in four generations. He and his wife and daughter arrived at the trailing end of a storm, ice and snow caked inches thick on the sides of their carriage. Then, two days later, Mill Veren. Then Sallien Halb. Karris Pyrellin. Sutin Kastellian. Iram Shoat. Not the grand names of court, but their younger cousins and nephews.

At first, Geder was pleased. It gave Aster new faces and people and distractions. But as the trickle grew to a stream, it became… not worrying, but strange. He wondered if it might signal some shift in the customs of the court. Younger nobles longing for the company of their own, perhaps. Or less established members of their houses vying for the attention of the Lord Regent and prince.

It was only when Geder found himself reading over a
report on the strife in Elassae that he understood. The flow of young and minor nobles to court reflected not the age of the people, but the recentness of their holdings. They had all been given lands and titles in the lands that had been Sarakal and Elassae, and now, before the thaw, before the fighting season, they were coming back to the heart of Antea. It was hard for Geder to see it. His mind, considering the map, brushed over the short-term fighting. It was, after all, the death throes of the old world, and not something that would have a permanent effect. But the pattern was there. Those who’d arrived early to Camnipol had not been drawn by the prospect of the court. They had fled the threat of violence.

They were afraid.

Letters and reports had been building up, of course. Since the day he’d overseen the execution of the hostages—that was how he’d come to think of it—he’d been under the weather. The letters that had come in, he’d skimmed. Yes, the news had been delivered to the slaves on the Antean farms. No, there had been no uprisings there. He’d shown that Antea had the strength to do what it had promised, and peace had been the prize for it, so that was as it should be. No need to dwell on it.

The reports from Inentai, most from Ernst Mecelli, had been alarmist as they always were. News from Elassae was understandably sparse. That was fine because, after all, the broad strokes were clear. No city where a temple had been raised in the name of the goddess could fall. Her power wouldn’t allow it. Elassae would fight, would struggle, and would fail. The question was only how long it would take and how much blood—Firstblood and Timzinae both—would be spilled along the way, and in his present funk, that wasn’t a question Geder wanted or needed to meditate upon. There would be time enough later.

Mecelli appeared unexpectedly at the Kingspire early on a cold morning. The sky that day was whiter than bleached cotton, and bright. He wore his riding leathers and stank of the road. He was thinner than Geder thought of when he pictured his advisor. Thinner and older and grim. He bowed when Geder entered the withdrawing room, but that was the only concession he made to etiquette.

“Inentai has fallen,” he said. “I’ve ridden here with the couriers. I would have used a cunning man but… but there weren’t any.”

“No,” Geder said. “It’s not fallen. It can’t. It has a temple. So we might lose control of it for a time, but it won’t—”

The older man cut him off. “A force of seven thousand came south from Borja. We stood against them as long as we could, but most of the men had gone to support Broot’s remnant in Elassae. These letters, these…
recipes
for how best to unmake the priests, had been appearing since midwinter. The priests stood and shouted, but the enemy weren’t listening. We tried to stop them, and we couldn’t.”

“It’s not like that,” Geder said. “I’ll call for Basrahip. He can explain. It’s not like that.”

“You have to raise an army. You have to call the army back.”

“Just rest. I’ll have them bring you tea. Some dried fruit. Would you like some dried apples? Just wait. Just hold together, eh?”

Mecelli collapsed into his chair, his gaze fixed on the flame of the lantern hanging above it. Geder stepped out to the corridor, grabbed the first servant who came to hand, and told her to get the priest. And Canl Daskellin. And to hurry. Even so, it was almost half an hour before Basrahip’s heavy tread approached the door. He entered the room smiling his broad, placid smile, as calm as it was certain.

“Prince Geder,” the priest said, and then to Mecelli, “Lord.”

“We’re dead,” Mecelli said, and the gutter diction was like a slap. “The Lord Regent wanted you to hear it, and by God, I do too. We’re dead. Elassae’s all but taken back from us, Inentai’s fallen. Sarakal
will not hold
.”

Basrahip’s expression sobered, and he lowered he head. “I hear the despair in your voice, my friend,” he said. “But know this: the power of the goddess has already won. No force in the world can stand against her will. She is truth itself, and the allies of deceit will—”

“Stop it!” Mecelli shouted, standing so quickly that his chair tipped back and clattered against the floor. Geder’s heart skipped. Rage darkened Mecelli’s face to purple and the man’s clenched fists promised more than rhetorical violence. “You listen to me, priest. You hear
my
voice. There is not a single Antean soldier left alive in Inentai and there are thousands of sword-and-bows that answer to Borja or the traditional families of Sarakal or a paymaster bent on taking bounties from our dead. Your priests there are burned. Your temple there, they knocked to the ground and pissed on the gravel. It’s
gone
!”