The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) (49 page)

Cithrin’s smile felt painted on and chipped at the edges.

“I suppose I am,” she said amiably.

The runners said that Palliako was still a day and a half away, and on the march. He was being accompanied by three hundred sword-and-bows detached from the siege at Kiaria for the sole purpose of seeing that he arrived safely on her doorstep. She didn’t know whether to feel flattered. Every day since she’d had Geder’s letter from Kiaria had been a little harder than the one before, but she told herself that once he had arrived and she could fall into the role she’d prepared for herself, it would be better.

“Where’s Yardem?” Cithrin asked, more as a way to postpone getting food than from any genuine curiosity.

“Off doing a little last-minute work,” Enen said. “Making the rounds of all the people we’ve worked with to let them know not to expect anything from us for a time at least. We figured that with the extra soldiery and Palliako himself and his priests lurking in the doorway, it’d be better to wrap up any outstanding business.”

“Probably true,” Cithrin said. It was the kind of thing that she should have thought. There were enough times in her past for her to know when she was drinking too much, and she was drinking too much. The knowledge made her feel slightly more in control of things, though it wasn’t going to have any particular effect on her actions. She would go right on drinking too much.

When her body finally felt it could stand the idea of food, she ate a sliced apple in cream and drank a cup of coffee, and afterward, she kept it down. She felt an unwarranted pride. She was the voice of the Medean bank in two cities. She was responsible for saving hundreds if not thousands of Timzinae from the occupation. And as her crowning glory, she didn’t puke up her food like a newborn babe.

There were fewer guests in the compound now. The courtyards were empty. The quarters where refugees had slept and eaten and talked and led their lives were abandoned, with only their old straw mattresses and rag-worn clothes left behind. The day before had been taken up with that.

She’d dreaded going to all the refugees who had accreted around the compound and asking them to leave. She knew as well as they did that there was no place to go, and so she’d expected grief and recrimination. Not her best prediction, since for the most part she got as far as explaining that the Lord Regent of Antea and a force of soldiers protecting him were very likely to come to the compound. Almost before she’d finished the last syllable, they were packing up their meager belongings and their confused children and heading out into the winter. They might die of cold in the streets. They might try walking to the Keshet or Orsen without food or water enough to make it two days. Cithrin wished she could go with them.

The only solace she had was the books. Reviewing her ledgers and logs distracted her a bit from what was going to happen next. Something about the flow of income and expenditure soothed her in any case, but now it was also her justification. Leaning heavily on her desk, she could trace her fingers down all the work she’d done in Suddapal. Here were the payments she’d made to the ship captains who’d stolen away with a hold filled with humanity instead of cargo. Here were the reimbursements for drink and food that she’d granted to the men and women who’d agreed to seek out the taprooms and public spaces, moving from group to group and telling about the bounties available in Herez. Here were the loans she might as well have listed as gifts that were to be repaid at other branches. It was an account of all her sins against commerce and profit, and she took as much pride in it as she could.

She wished that Komme Medean were there. Or Paerin Clark. Someone she could talk with about her time commanding the branch. She thought it had all been the right thing, but what if there had been some better way to do the things she’d done, and some way to build on it moving ahead? Geder wouldn’t be able to stay in Suddapal forever. Perhaps he’d only come for a few days, and then go back to Antea and his court. Certainly it wouldn’t be longer than the winter. When he left, she would go back to her work. Unless he wanted her go with him. Would he insist? She imagined herself living in Camnipol, sleeping and eating in the Kingspire, and wondered what it would be like to leave the books and the bank behind. It seemed that it would leave very little room for her.

The compound of the Medean bank was also far from the only place in the city preparing itself for the arrival of its master. The protector’s guards were driving teams of enslaved Timzinae through the streets, cleaning away the winter-killed plants and paving roads that had never known stone. The houses and temples that had burned in the sack were finally being torn down or rebuilt. The few times that Cithrin went out into the city, she felt a sense of dislocation seeing the changes and improvements. It was as if the real city had been spirited away in the night and replaced with the Antean image of what Suddapal should be. It would have been comic if it hadn’t meant that the city as it had been was gone. That a thing once changed could only change again, and not live backward.

That afternoon she was in her room wearing a silk shift and trying on dresses in which she could meet Geder Palliako. A long-sleeved green velvet was her favorite at present, but there was a butter-yellow one with a more Antean cut that displayed her figure better, even though the color was fairly hideous. The scratch came at the doorway as she held the yellow to her chest and tried to decide whether there was a scarf she could add that forgave its failings.

“Come in,” she said, half aware that she wasn’t, strictly speaking, dressed and she didn’t know whom she’d just invited in. It wasn’t something she cared about.

Yardem entered. He was wearing leathers much like his training armor, only with touches of green at the throat and shoulders. Cithrin wondered what Geder would make of it if he arrived to find her encased in armor. The idea was almost funny.

“Magistra,” Yardem said. “How are you?”

“Debased and horrified,” she said lightly, making a joke of it. “And you?”

“Well enough. I needed to speak with you for a moment about the Lord Regent.”

“Speak away. But first, look at these. Which do you think would be the better one to wear when he comes?”

Yardem flicked a jingling ear and sat on the bed.

“Green,” he said. “It’s warmer. The Lord Regent’s forces will be here in the morning.”

“They will,” Cithrin said.

“The plan is you make yourself into Palliako’s bed slave.”

“I prefer the term consort,” Cithrin said, putting down the yellow and picking up the green. The color really was much better. Green it was, then.

“I’m going to ask you to reconsider.”

“What? You mean about Geder?”

“Yes.”

The Tralgu looked up at her. His dark eyes were unreadable. Cithrin felt a knot in her throat and coughed to clear it.

“I can’t,” she said. “It’s the right thing to do.”

Yardem nodded, but his frown undercut the motion. “Walk through that with me?”

Cithrin started undoing the pearl buttons that ran down the green dress’s back, her fingernail clicking against the hard little spheres. The third one was a degree larger than the others, and she had to force it through its hole.

“I have something Geder Palliako has decided he wants. In exchange for it, I can help more people. If I can just play the role, the rewards in information alone will be beyond any normal price.”

“If,” he said.

“You think I can’t maintain the subterfuge?” Cithrin said with a grin as she stepped into the dress and pulled the sleeves onto her arms.

“I don’t,” Yardem said. “A year ago, I think you could have. But not now.”

“You don’t give me credit,” she said. “Button this for me, would you?”

Yardem rose with something like a sigh and began fastening the stays and buttons up her back. It was possible that the green wasn’t elegant enough for the occasion. Cithrin wasn’t certain of the etiquette of giving herself over to the role of Geder’s lover. Maybe a dress wasn’t called for at all. Maybe she should greet him in a little rouge and a smile. She scowled at the thought and pulled the sleeves a bit straighter.

“Well, I think you’re mistaken,” she said. “And considering the good we can do, it’s the obvious risk to take.”

“It’s only a risk if you don’t know the outcome, ma’am,” Yardem said, fixing the last and highest of the buttons. His knuckle brushed the nape of her neck as he finished. “I’d like you to take a moment to pray with me.”

“What?” Cithrin asked, turning toward him. Yardem held out his hands to her, palms up. She hesitated for a moment, then took them. Yardem closed his eyes and lowered his head, and she followed his example. As soon as her eyes were closed, the chaos of her mind whipped at her. She tried to gather herself enough to pray or think kind thoughts or whatever it was she was intended to do, but it was as much as she could manage just to keep from opening her eyes, pulling away, and finding some other small task to distract her. She felt a brief but intense resentment of Yardem for imposing on her this way. She had enough to carry without the additional burden of thinking too closely about it.

Yardem let out a calm breath, and she opened her eyes as he looked up.

“Change your mind, ma’am?”

Sorrow bloomed in her and she moved in, hugging the Tralgu close for a moment before letting him go. “Thank you for trying. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it that you care. But this is what I have to do. I don’t like it and I don’t want it, but this war is what we have. You were the one who told me sex is a woman’s natural weapon.”

Yardem’s ears shot forward.

“I never said that,” he said.

“You did. You’ve just forgotten. It was when we were first going from Vanai to Porte Oliva. We were training, and I kept asking what was a woman’s natural weapon. You said sex was.”

“No, ma’am, I didn’t. We were talking about fighting, and I made the point that on the average, men have longer reach and stronger arms, and weapons are based on reach and strength. A woman who wants to fight has to train harder to come even. I can’t recommend using sex in a melee.”

They were silent for a moment. Something was shifting in Cithrin’s chest. Unwinding like tie rope on a spool losing its tension.

“But,” she began and then wasn’t sure where to go.

Yardem scratched his chin reflectively. “Sling, maybe. Or a short sword. Not sex.”

“But you said—”

“No. I didn’t.”

“Then who did?” Cithrin asked.

“Believe that was Sandr.”

“Oh,” Cithrin said. Then a moment later, “Sandr’s kind of a pig.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

Cithrin looked down. The unwinding sensation in her chest intensified. Something in her was releasing, opening. It felt nauseating and it felt like relief. She pressed her lips together and looked up into Yardem’s face. His expression was as placid and calm as ever.

“Yardem?” she said. “I can’t do this.”

“No, ma’am. You can’t. There’s a ship waiting. I’ve given word to everyone that we’re leaving, so they won’t be caught unprepared. Enen’s packed up all the books and ledgers from the office. We can get whatever else you’d like, but we should hurry. The tide’s going out in two hours.”

Cithrin looked around her room. Her heart was beating fast and strong and true. She plucked the little plant from off her windowsill.

“I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go.”

The ship was small with a shallow draft and wide sails. It slipped away from the dock seeming to go faster than the wind that carried it. Cithrin stood on the deck. She still had the green dress, but Enen had given her a thick cloak of leather lined with wool that she’d wrapped around her shoulders. The sea was choppy with a million tiny waves jittering and seagulls wheeling in the high air. They didn’t have the weight to smooth the swell and drop of the sea, and one of the house guards that Yardem had brought with them was being noisily sick over the side. Cithrin’s stomach, on the other hand, felt more solid and calm than it ever had. She was even hungry.

Suddapal receded. The great dark buildings greyed with distance. The great piers that pressed so far out into the water shrank to twigs and the tall ships became small enough to cover with her outstretched thumb. When she looked down into the water, she was surprised to see dark eyes looking up at hers. A pod of the Drowned had grabbed on to the ship, coasting with it like an underwater tail. Cithrin smiled at them and waved. One waved back, and before long, they had let go and fallen back into the depths of the water. By the time the sun fell into the sea, the city was gone.

And if she ever went back there, it would still be gone.

She felt Yardem come up behind her more than heard him. When she glanced back and up, he was standing there placidly, looking out at the pale white wake drawn out behind them and the darkening water.

“Well,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m about to disappoint the Lord Regent. I don’t imagine he’ll take it well.”

“To judge from his past, likely not,” Yardem said.

“Perhaps I should have left him a letter.”

“Saying what, ma’am?”

“I don’t know. That I’m sorry. That I didn’t mean to hurt him.”

“Not sure that matters, ma’am.”

“It does to me. He’s a terrible person, you know. But he’s also not. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone who managed to make himself so alone.”

Yardem grunted, then cleared his throat. “I’ve known hermits, ma’am. Very few of them burned down cities.”

“Fair point,” Cithrin said. “Still, I wish there was some way to talk just with the best parts of him.”

“Could wish that of anyone,” Yardem said.

The boat rose and fell gently. Rose and fell. It would be weeks yet before she reached Porte Oliva and home. She wondered what it would be like, hearing Pyk Usterhall’s rough, angry voice and sitting with Maestro Asanpur with his single blind eye and his perfect coffee and all the familiar faces again. She wanted to believe that she would fit back into the same place she had before, that she would find them as they had been, but she doubted it would happen.