It wasn’t how things were supposed to go. He had been given the chance to make his name, and he was failing. He didn’t even understand how he was failing, only that decisions he made spawned two more problems that were each twice as bad as the first. He knew that the soldiers didn’t respect him. That the citizens of the city despised him. He knew too little to run a city with the complexity of Vanai by
himself, and he didn’t have enough allies to do it for him. He wanted Ternigan to call him home the way he had Klin. Being called to account—even to be condemned—would be better than staying here.
Except, of course, that he could already see the disappointment in his father’s expression. Could already hear the falsely bluff consoling words.
You did your best, my boy. I’m still proud of you.
In his imagination, his father tried to protect Geder from the shame of failure. Anything would be better than that. Death at the hands of an angry rabble would be better. Geder’s own humiliations ached, but he could endure them. To watch his father humiliated as well would be too much. There had to be a way. There
had
to.
A servant girl came in with a brush and dustpan and cleared away the broken glass. Geder barely looked at her. The air that seeped in through the broken pane was chilly, but he didn’t call for anyone to repair the window. He had his leather cloak on. He was warm enough. And if he wasn’t, it hardly mattered.
The light shifted along the wall, reddening as the sun completed its arc. A Firstblood man came in, hesitated, and then remade the fire in the grate. Geder’s legs ached, but he didn’t move. The same man returned a short time later with a sheet of leather that he tied over the broken window. The room grew darker.
It was unfair that Ternigan wouldn’t pay the price of this. He was the one who’d put Geder in command without the guidance or loyal men to back him. If anyone deserved to be shamed over the state of things in Vanai it was the Lord Marshal. But of course, that would never happen. Because if Ternigan deserved blame for putting his faith in Geder, then King Simeon would deserve blame for naming Ternigan to
command. No, the blame would be Geder’s to eat, and Geder’s alone.
Still, he couldn’t imagine what Ternigan had been thinking. Everyone had been dumbfounded by the appointment. Even Geder himself had needed Jorey Kalliam’s insight to find a plausible reason for the elevation. No one had thought the choice wise. The only two who’d had any faith in it at all were Geder and Lord Ternigan. They were the only two men who’d thought it possible, and even then…
Or perhaps not. What if
no one
had thought it possible? Not even from the start.
“Oh,” Geder said to the empty room.
When he turned, his knees buckled. He had stood unmoving for too long. He limped to the couch nearest the fire, his mind turned the problem over of its own accord. How many times had he heard it said that Vanai was a small piece played in a much larger game? And he hadn’t understood until now.
First point: as much as it stung to admit, Geder was in no sense equipped to manage the city.
Second point: Ternigan had put him in control of it.
Third: Ternigan was not a fool.
Therefore Ternigan—for whatever reasons and by whatever conflict of loyalties—
wanted
Vanai to fall into chaos. Geder was an acceptable sacrifice.
When he smiled, his injured lip split again. When he laughed, it bled.
Y
our Majesty,
the letter began,
in my role as Protector of Vanai, I have been forced to conclude that the political environment within the greater court makes long-term control of the city impossible.
Geder ran his eyes down the page again. He’d written half a dozen versions of the thing in the course of the night. Some had been angry screeds, others abject apologies. The form he’d finally adopted was modeled closely on a letter sent by Marras Toca to the king of Hallskar several centuries earlier. The full text was reproduced in one of his books, and the rhetoric of it was both moving and understated. Geder had changed enough to clear his conscience of any taint of plagiarism, and still the structure of the thing shone through. Geder sewed the letter, marked the exterior page, and pressed his seal of office into the purple wax. The essay with Marras Toca’s letter rested on the table, and Geder paged through it again, his heart lighter than it had been in weeks. He found the passage he was looking for, and paused to underline the critical phrase.
… the destruction of Aastapal was done by Inys as a tactical gambit to keep it from Morade’s control…
The notation in his own handwriting caught his eye.
Looking at ripples to know where the stone fell.
Oh yes. Once he’d gone back to Camnipol, there would be time for that. Alan Klin might not realize that he’d lost his protectorate by betrayal. Geder, on the other hand, was perfectly aware of it, and he cast his grudges in iron. He would understand Ternigan’s decision and all that lay behind it. But that would come later.
The night had been a trial. The long dark hours had been filled with his mind’s constant drumbeat of how he had been used. How he had been created as a failure, and what the price of it would be. He had wept and he had raged. He’d read his books and the reports of his men and the history of Vanai. Briefly, he’d even slept.
“My lord,” his squire said. “You called for me?”
“Yes,” Geder said, rising to his feet. “There are three
things. First, take this letter and find the fastest rider we have. I want this in Camnipol as soon as it can be accomplished.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Second, take that purse there. You know the scholar I’ve been working with? Buy all the books he has. Then bring them back here and pack them with my things. We’ll be leaving Vanai, and I’ll have them with me.”
“Leaving, my lord?”
“Third, send word to my secretaries. I will meet with them in an hour. Any man who comes late, I’ll have whipped. Tell them so. Whipped and salt poured on the wounds.”
“Y-yes, my lord.”
Geder smiled, and it hurt less now. His squire bobbed a quick bow and scurried out. Yawning and stretching, Geder left his rooms in the palace of the prince of Vanai for the last time. His step was light, his mood undiminished by a night without rest. The air smelled of the subtle promise of spring, and the thin light of morning spilled across the stones where the rioters had been the day before. At the far end of the square, some daring local had hung an effigy of Geder. The dummy had an immense belly, a black cloak that mirrored his, and an expression on the dried gourd of a head that was a masterwork of idiocy. A sign hung around the thing’s neck:
FEED US OR FREE US
. Geder nodded at his other self, a brief and uncharitable salute.
His men sat in the same seats where he’d first addressed them. Many looked tousled from sleep. Jorey Kalliam was among them, his brow set in furrows. Gospey Allintot stood at the rear, his arms crossed and his chin held high. He likely thought he was going to be called to account for the previous day’s riot. Geder stepped to the front of the former chapel. He didn’t sit.
“My lords,” he said sharply. “I apologize for the hour, but I thank you for coming. As Lord Protector, it is my duty and privilege to command you all in this, our final day in the city of Vanai.”
He stood for a moment, letting the words sink in. Eyes brightened. Confusion softened the frowns and loosened the necks. Geder nodded.
“By nightfall, you will have your men outside the city gates and prepared for the march to Camnipol,” Geder said. “I understand food is somewhat scarce, so be sure that gets packed before we pile on any last looting. This isn’t a sack.”
“Then what it is?” Alberith Maas said.
“Don’t interrupt me again, Maas. I’m still in charge here. Sir Allintot, if you would be so good as to see that the canals are shut? We’ll leave those beds dry, I think. And the street gates will need to be shut.”
“Which street gates?”
“The iron ones at the street mouths,” Geder said.
“Yes, sir. I know them. I meant which of them did you want shut.”
“All of them. Lord Kalliam, I would have you guard the city gates. No one comes into the city, and no one besides ourselves leaves it. It is very important that no one escape.”
“We’re leaving?” Maas said.
“I have been forced to conclude,” Geder said, “that the political environment within the greater court makes long-term control of the city impossible. You’ve all seen Sir Klin’s best efforts, and what they came to. I’ve read the histories of Vanai. Do you all know how many times it’s been Antean? Seven. The longest was for ten years during the reign of Queen Esteya the Third. The shortest was three days during the Interregnum. In every case, the city had been given away by treaty or sacrificed in pursuit of some other goal. Which
is to say, Vanai has been lost to politics. Given the situation in Camnipol, we are in the path to do so again.”
“What does
he
know about the situation in Camnipol?” someone muttered loud enough for Geder to hear, but not so loudly he couldn’t pretend otherwise.
“My duty as Protector of Vanai is not to the city itself, but to Antea. If I thought our continued presence here would benefit the crown, I would stay, and so would all of you. But if the history books show anything, it’s that this city has cost good and noble men their lifeblood with no lasting advantage to the Severed Throne, no matter who was seated there at the time. In my role as assigned me by Lord Ternigan in the name of King Simeon, I have determined that Vanai cannot be profitably held. I’ve written as much to King Simeon. The courier with my justification of these orders is already on the dragon’s roads for Camnipol.”
“So we just walk away home?” Maas said. There was outrage in his voice. “We hand it over to whichever of our enemies happens by?”
“Of course not,” Geder said. “We burn it.”
V
anai died at sundown.
If the people had known, if they had understood the threat, the little riot in the square before the palace would have been nothing. But despite the emptying of the canals, the wood and coal and oil spread through the streets and squares, and the arming of the gates, they couldn’t imagine that they faced anything more than retaliation for a stone thrown at Geder’s head. Likely some rioters would be caught and burned. They wouldn’t be the first public executions that Vanai had seen. It was only when the Anteans marched through the gates that the city understood what was happening, and by then it was too late.
History had turned against Vanai. It was a city of narrow streets, of timber waterproofed with oils, of gates at every street mouth. It was smug, and certain that no lasting harm could come to it because none had before. It was the small piece in a much larger game.
Geder sat on a small dais that Sir Alan Klin had left behind. The seat was a leather sling, and a bit narrow for him, but more comfortable than his own field chair. The highest-ranked of his staff stood around him.
He’d rehearsed this moment in his mind. Once it was done, he would stand up, announce that he deemed Vanai no longer in need of protection, and give the order to march. It would be like something from the old epics. Around him, the officers fidgeted, glancing at him as if they weren’t sure he really meant to go through with it.
A hundred yards before him, the gates of Vanai closed, glowing gold from the setting sun. Geder rose to his feet.
“Block the gates,” he said.
The order went out, seeming to echo and grow as it passed from caller to caller. The sound would soon reach the southern gates as well. The engineers had been waiting, and they sprang into action. It took less than a minute for the great gates to be disabled. It wouldn’t have been long work to force them open, but still longer than Vanai had remaining.
“Loose the fire arrows,” Geder said, almost conversationally.
The order went out. Twenty archers lit their arrows and lifted their bows, the streaks of flame little more than fireflies in the light. Then again, and twice more. All around the city, archers wearing his colors would be doing the same as the order reached them. Geder sat down. In his imagination, it had all happened at once, but the sun slipped down below the horizon, the golden world fading to grey, and no
particular sign of fire came. Geder was wondering whether he should have the archers try again when he saw the first trail of smoke rise. As he watched, it spread, but slowly. This might take longer than he’d thought.
The smoke thickened, and when the breeze turned toward him it was close and greasy. An answering tower of smoke rose in the south, the blackness rising so high in the air that it caught the last light of the sun, flaring red for a moment, and then dark again. Geder shifted in his seat. It was getting cold, but he didn’t want to call for his jacket. He hadn’t slept since the night before last, and he could feel the fatigue tugging at him. He forced himself to sit upright.
For a long time, nothing seemed to happen. Some smoke. The sound of distant voices. Geder didn’t think that the fire, once started, could be easily put out, but perhaps. The smoke spread, widening its grasp on the night city. And then, as if coming to itself, fire claimed the city.
The screaming began, voices shrieking and wailing. He’d expected to hear something, of course, but he’d thought it would be like the riot that had disturbed him—God, had it only been the day before? This was a different beast. There was no anger in the sound, only hundreds of voices of raw animal panic. Geder saw movement from his own troops. Someone had slipped out of the city, and the swordsmen of Antea, true to their orders, hunted the refugees down. Geder touched his lip, worrying at the cut. He reminded himself of the effigy hung in the square. They’d started this. It wasn’t his fault they were dying now.