The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) (11 page)

Jurin—the brother—was a farrier, and the stables were his as much as Isadau’s. Kani, who had met Cithrin at the docks, did scribe work for the bank and deliveries for Jurin and errands for her mother without drawing any distinction between them. Yardem and Enen and Roach were expected to work with Isadau’s own guardsmen, sharing the duties of the watch and escorting payments through the city, and they were also guests welcome at the family dinner table. The kitchens smelled of fennel and cumin and cinnamon, and they fed anyone who came. The cook who oversaw them, an old Yemmu man with a black crack running jaggedly through his left tusk, made a great noise and wailing about being interrupted and then kept whoever had come in conversation harder to escape than a honey trap.

There was no tradition of wayhouses in Suddapal. Travelers negotiated hospitality with whatever family opened their doors to the knock. Coming out of her room in the morning was like stepping into the street had been in Porte Oliva. Anyone might be there on any business. And Magistra Isadau’s complex—while larger and better appointed than most—was only one of hundreds that made up the five cities. In the first days, Cithrin could feel her own mind shifting, struggling to put the culture of Elassae into terms of her old experience. The compounds were like villages of a single family, each in competition with the ones around it. Or the compounds were like homes shared through a greater family and in service to all the endeavors the men and women of that family fell into. Or they were like the holdings of the nobility, except without the base of taxation and tribute to hold them up. It was only very slowly and with almost as many steps back as forward that Cithrin came to accept the compound for what it was, and even then it felt profoundly foreign. Nor was its openness the only difference.

“Hold your shoes, ma’am?” Yardem asked.

Tenthday was a moving ceremony, falling on each of the traditional seven weekdays with a mathematical certainty that was like music. Callers marched out from the basilica at dawn, ringing bronze bells and singing the call to prayer. The pious like Mother Kicha and Jurin, and those who wished to be thought well of by the pious, like Isadau and Cithrin, all met the callers barefoot in the streets and joined the procession.

“Thank you,” Cithrin said, handing the leather slippers to Yardem. “This will be more pleasant in the summer when the paving feels less like ice.”

The Tralgu’s wide, canine mouth took on a gentle smile.

“Imagine it will,” he said. His own wide leather boots hung in his hand. Roach stood beside him, his race making him seem more a part of the household than of Cithrin’s guard. Enen was staying behind; there was a whole genre of jokes about what people found at home after the ceremony. Leaving some family behind was considered an acceptable compromise between the worship of God and the nature of humanity. The callers came, bells breaking like waves against the low bass chanting of voices. Cithrin sighed, stood the way Master Kit and Cary had taught her, and joined the household as they stepped into the street. The steady pace allowed even the oldest among them to keep up, and Cithrin let her mind wander as they passed through the wide streets of Suddapal. The group was mostly Timzinae, but the massive bodies of Yemmu lumbered among them, as well as the tall and tall-eared Tralgu. Cithrin was the only Cinnae or Firstblood; her pale skin and hair stood out like a star in the night sky, and she caught more than a few people craning their necks for a glimpse of the newcomer. She tried not to feel awkward about it.

The city here sloped down to the south. The sea was a greater whiteness behind sun-glowing mist. The sky was pale as opal.

Magistra Isadau appeared at her side, and Cithrin nodded formally. Some swift calculation seemed to pass behind the older woman’s eyes before she returned the gesture.

“You’re looking well this morning, Cithrin.”

“Thank you,” Cithrin said over the chant and the bells.

“I saw that you’d begun your review of the books?”

“I have,” Cithrin said, then looked around her. They were where the private business of the bank would be overheard if spoken of, and yet the magistra’s comment felt like an invitation. Cithrin felt a tightening in her gut, like a rat smelling a dog, but not sure yet which direction held the danger. “I’ll want to look over them more this afternoon.”

“I suspect we can make time for it,” Isadau said. “There are some people I would like you to meet after the ceremony.”

Cithrin smiled carefully.

“Whatever you think wise,” she said, keeping her tone cheerful.

“Ati Isadau!” a voice called from behind them. A younger Timzinae boy—thirteen summers or possibly a bit less—was pushing his way through the crowd toward them. Men and women made way for him with expressions of annoyance. He reached them winded, one black-scaled hand clutched to his side. “Ati Isadau,” he said between gasps. “There’s a courier come. Package for you. From the holding company.”

Isadau’s smile seemed warm enough that she might actually have meant it.

“Thank you, Salan,” she said gravely. “I appreciate your letting me know.”

Salan, Cithrin thought. It took her a moment to recall where she’d heard the name. This was the nephew, son of Isadau’s brother, who’d decided to be infatuated with the exotic girl from Birancour. He looked at Cithrin, then tried to bow and walk forward at the same time. All in all, he managed creditably.

“Yes,” Cithrin said. “Thank you.”

The boy started to say something, lost the thread of it, and nodded in a sharp, curt way that was certainly intended to be manly. He fell in step between Cithrin and Isadau, escorting them to the temple.

“I’m studying to be a soldier,” Salan announced, apropos of nothing.

Yardem, at her other side, coughed once. No one who hadn’t traveled with him for years would have recognized the sound as amusement.

“Really?” Cithrin said.

“Entered gymnasium last year,” Salan said. “It’s a good one. It’s run by an old mercenary captain who fought in half the wars in the Keshet.”

“What’s his name?” Cithrin asked.

“Karol Dannien. Master Karol, we call him.”

Cithrin glanced at Yardem. The Tralgu’s expression was bland and blank, but his ears were tipped forward, listening. Her heart beat a little faster. His reaction to the words meant more to her than the words themselves.

“Really?” she said.

“I’ve been there for six months, and I’m already up to third rank,” Salan said proudly. “At the end of summer, Master Karol is taking the ten best fighters to Kiaria to try out for garrison duty. It won’t be me this year. Next year, probably.”

“Garrison duty would be hard work,” Cithrin said. Salan’s breast seemed to broaden with pride, and his expression took on a seriousness that it would have been unthinkably cruel to laugh at.

“Kiaria’s the old-style word for stronghold,” he said. “No one’s ever fought their way in there. Even during Falin’s occupation, Kiaria didn’t fall. And that lasted thirty years. Only the best fighters are allowed to work the garrison there. That’s what Master Karol said.”

“He would know better than I would,” Cithrin said. “Is the gymnasium close to the compound?”

“No, Master Karol’s down by the piers. He has all sorts of different people come through and help train. A month ago, he had a Haaverkin teach a session. Cep Bailan, his name was, and he taught me the tiger choke. You can knock a man unconscious in three breaths. If you do it right.”

The procession turned the last degree in its arc, and the basilica hove into sight. Granite walls rose to twice the height of even so large a man as Yardem, and then three heights more in dark-stained wood. Wide doors of iron-bound oak were open wide, and the chanters stood beside them making graceful figures in the air with wide-spread palms. Isadau put a hand on Salan’s head, the unconscious gesture of a woman to a child.

“Go find us a bench, won’t you?” she asked, and Salan trotted forward, pleased to have a task. Isadau smiled at Cithrin. “He’s terribly proud.”

“I could tell,” Cithrin said. “It’s not a bad thing, having a trade you care about.”

“I suppose. Still, I’d hoped he’d take to something less likely to have him killed. For a time, I thought he’d follow Jurin and be a farrier, but—”

“All respect, ma’am,” Yardem said. “Farriers die too. I’ve known several men that caught a hoof. And standing garrison at Kiaria, he’s more likely to die of boredom than a blade.”

Magistra Isadau set her gaze forward, watching Salan weaving through the crowd as they passed through the wide doors. She rubbed her fingers together, a dry, soft sound like the pages of a codex slipping against each other.

“I suppose that’s true,” she said. “Still, I could hope for something that reminds me less that he’s growing up.”

The interior of the basilica arched above them, vast as a mountain. The dark wood benches seemed to catch the light of the thousand candles, drink it in, and return it rich and mysteriously altered. The air was thick with the smell of ambergris, roses, and thick tropical mint, the warmth of bodies and candleflame. At the nave, a Timzinae priest stood beneath a massive rosewood dragon. The spread wooden wings dovetailed into the walls themselves, so that the whole basilica seemed to be within their span. The massive head had been fashioned with an expression of that could have been compassion or disdain. Or perhaps Cithrin was only seeing in it what she hoped and feared. Either way, it was nicely done.

They slipped into the outer edge of a bench, Yardem at her side. He handed her back her slippers, and she slid numbed and filthy toes into them, grateful that they could at least begin the journey back toward warmth. His own boots, he laid on the ground. The procession was still making its way in, the murmur of voices still growing within the wide and echoing space. Cithrin put her hand on his.

“Karol Dannien,” she said, not whispering—whispering always sounded like whispering, and so it caught attention—but speaking low. “Did you know him?”

“Did,” Yardem said. “It was years ago, though.”

“Still, he might know. He might have had word of Marcus. Captain Wester, I mean.”

“Might,” Yardem said, but his ears were pressing back against his skull and his forehead was furrowed.

“Will you ask?”

“I could,” Yardem said.

“I’m not angry with him,” she said, maybe too quickly. “He was in his rights to leave. His contract allowed it. It’s just … I wanted to talk with him. Say goodbye.”

Ask him why
, she thought, though she would never say it.

Marcus Wester had been the captain of her guard, and before that, the man who’d taken her cause and kept her from being killed. That he’d left while she was gone north to Carse and Camnipol, that he’d stepped away from his work with the bank without so much as letter to explain his choice, shouldn’t have mattered. She didn’t answer to him, and he had kept the word of his agreements. But it irritated. Worse, it hurt.

She had her own work to do, her year’s apprenticeship under Magistra Isadau, and then her return to Porte Oliva and her own branch of the bank and, God help her, Pyk Usterhall. Whatever Marcus was doing, she wouldn’t have been part of it. And still, it would be something to know what had been so much more important than her.

Yardem nodded, and she thought she saw the same distress on his face. He had known Marcus much longer than she had, worked as his second, and even, she thought, taken some responsibility for seeing the captain through his worst times. She felt a passing guilt at reminding him that he had also been left behind. When Yardem spoke, his voice was low and his words as careful as painting eggshells.

“You know that the captain wouldn’t have left without …
reason
.”

“Probably,” Cithrin said. “And still, I’d like to know what called him away. Wouldn’t you?”

Yardem flicked an ear, his earrings jingling against each other.

“I’ll speak with Dannien,” he said. “See what I can find.”

Cithrin squeezed his fingers and took back her own hand. At the nave, the priest raised his hands, and the crowd went silent. The bells had stopped and a deep, throbbing gong sounded three times. The priest closed his hands, opening them again with a shout. Gouts of flame rose from his fingertips into the wide air, swirling gold and green. Yardem grunted. Returning Cithrin’s glance, he shrugged.

“Cunning men shouldn’t be priests,” he said so softly that only she could hear. “Too much temptation to show off.”

“Gaudy,” Cithrin agreed, as the priest’s reedy voice began to recite from the holy books. She set her expression into an attentive half-smile and let her mind wander.

The arrival of the courier, she forgot about completely until Magistra Isadau called for her that night.

M
agistra Isadau sat with her legs crossed and her feet resting atop her desk. The night breeze left the lantern flickering. Her full attention was on a letter in the company cipher that she held in her left hand, so that for a long moment, she didn’t move or acknowledge Cithrin’s presence. When she did, she nodded toward a low upholstered divan. Cithrin sat. Magistra Isadau tapped the papers against her fingertips. In the dim light, the darkness of her scales left her expression unreadable.

“In Carse,” she said, “Paerin argued that Antea would pose little threat for years at the least. You disagreed.”

“I did,” Cithrin said.

Isadau held out the letter. Cithrin hesitated for a moment, then took it from her. The handwriting was unquestionably Paerin Clark’s, the cipher as familiar to her eye as normal script. The words, however, were in a different voice.
We have met, but I cannot think you would remember me. For reasons that will become clear, I prefer not to identify myself to you at this time.
She turned the page over, glancing at the script.

“It appears that someone else has reached your same conclusions,” Magistra Isadau said. “A faceless voice from the wilds. It happens more often than you’d imagine, and usually it’s someone half mad and in need of coin. But this time … Komme and Paerin addressed this to me, but they meant it for you.”