The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin) (37 page)

“I see,” Cithrin said.

“I don’t,” Isadau said.

Marcus scratched his neck and accidentally set his cut to bleeding again. “Normal strategy is going to lose. As long as they have the priests, we’re Lady Tracian winning battles and losing the war. But they have a weakness. Something that scares them. I don’t know what it is. As drunk on their own stories as they are, I’m not sure they do either. But whatever they’re looking for, I’m betting it’s the little force in the background that actually matters.”

“When,” Cithrin said, then coughed. “When will you go?”

“Don’t see much advantage in waiting.”

She swallowed. He had known her so long, he could see the mask slipping into place, and it left him aching.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Cithrin bel Sarcour, voice of the Medean bank in Porte Oliva, asked him. Her tone was a thing of ledgers and contracts. Hearing her pull away from him ached, but there was nothing to be done about it.

“Nothing,” he said. “Don’t mind me. Just … I’ll be back. When I can.”

“Of course,” Cithrin said, and the crispness and politeness of her voice meant,
Unless you die or something keeps you or you change your mind
.
Or stop caring whether you come back.

I would never leave you
, he wanted to say, except that it was what he was doing.

The last of the meeting dragged on like a dog with a broken spine. When it was done, Cithrin retreated to her room, chin high and eyebrows arched, her stride low in her hips the way Kit and Cary had taught her to look older than she was. Marcus leaned out the window and spat on the ground. He found Kit and Yardem out by the stables with two fresh horses. The green sword was wrapped in wool and strapped on behind the saddle with his bedroll. Marcus felt a small pang of regret that they wouldn’t have their little Kesheti mule.

“How did it go, sir?” Yardem asked.

“As well as could be expected.”

“Poorly, then.”

Kit made a small sound that lived halfway between a chuckle and a groan. Marcus pulled himself into the saddle.

“It’s a long way to Camnipol,” Marcus said. “Most of it through the leavings of a war, and autumn coming on besides. And at the end, a city full of spider priests. And someone writing letters, but we don’t know his name or what he looks like. So this should be just lovely.”

“But there is hope,” Kit intoned.

“Sure,” Marcus said. “As much as there ever is. Yardem?”

“Sir?”

“The day I take back the company?”

“It’s not today, sir.”

“No. It’s not. Watch after Cithrin for me.”

“I will.”

“And thank you for … Well. Just thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

“All right, then,” he said. “Kit? Let’s go find some trouble.”

Clara

S
he felt young. It was disturbing and strange and wonderful. Her body felt warmer, not as a metaphor for some spiritual truth, but actually warmer. Even as the days grew shorter, the dark pressing its advantage at dawn and dusk, even as the leaves traded their green for yellow and brown and red, she left her jacket and shawl at the boarding house. The cold winds with their promise of the coming snows felt soothing against her skin, like they were holding in check some painless and glorious burn.

She had never seriously imagined taking a lover. Like anyone, she’d admired men, been aware of them. Tempted by some in an unspoken and diffuse sort of way. But to move from that appreciation to action of any sort was impossible. She was a married woman. She loved her husband and been pleased with him. Dawson had been a thoughtful lover, and his delight in her matched hers in him. There had been neither call for another man nor the boredom or complacency that might give reason to hope for such a call. And now she had given way. If the court knew, she would be even more ruined than she had been before, though that was more because Vincen was a servant. If she’d found herself in the arms of some well-positioned widower with property, title, and slightly more years than her own, the only people to object would have been the ones who wanted to anyway. Vincen was young, beautiful, poor, and without standing or blood. He was too good for her and beneath her station. And when she lay in the darkness of his room, the sheet her only clothing, and thought of it all, it seemed not only to do with the animal joys but also with the act of rebellion. Taking Vincen Coe, huntsman and youth, to her bed meant that anything was possible. Anything could be done.

She was rougher with him than she had ever been with Dawson. More selfish. Because that was possible too.

The danger wasn’t that she would be discovered, though that would have been unfortunate. No. The greater peril was that her heart would take the wrong lessons from her experience. That she would become incautious and let the soaring sense of freedom and possibility sweep her to a place where possibilities vanished. A cell in Palliako’s gaols, for instance. Or a grave.

So as the days passed, and the closing of the season grew near, she tried to think. To keep her analysis of the world cool and detached and passionless, and she flattered herself that she succeeded more often than she failed. The siege at Kiaria, like the one at Nus, was taking longer than Palliako had hoped. After Suddapal and Inentai, the war had seemed to have a kind of momentum. Opinion was divided now, some feeling that Ternigan was at fault, others that perhaps even the great armies of Antea with the blessings of their newly adopted goddess were subject to the limits imposed by exhaustion, hunger, and the legendary defenses of the Timzinae stronghold.

It was, Clara thought, probably the opportunity she had been watching for. And because her heart and her flesh were in something of a riot,
probably
was good enough.

All that remained was putting the scheme in place. And for that, there were a few preparations that needed making, and specifically one item that she would require. Because Ernst Mecilli had not been close to Clara, she had no correspondence from him, and even if she had attempted the acquaintance, it would almost certainly have been his wife or daughter who returned the letter. For a sufficiently large sample of his hand, she needed letters. Asking for them seemed dangerously candid, and so she resolved to steal them instead.

C
urtin Issandrian’s home had become shoddy since his fall from grace. The filigree and gilding that had brightened the façade seemed faded, chipped, and tawdry. The torches that marked his gate were old and burned out. The man himself wore the years hard, but his smile was genuine and his manner as gracious as it had ever been. Of all Dawson’s enemies, Clara felt most fond of him.

“A letter from your husband?”

“It would have been just at the end of the war with Asterilhold, when he was still Lord Marshal,” Clara said. “You and I had spoken about the role Alan Klin was playing in the effort, and I mentioned it to Dawson as you requested.”

“For which I am still grateful,” Issandrian said. “Though it seems I don’t have the knack for choosing allies whose stars are on the rise.”

Clara smiled and folded her hands together on her knee, pulling her shawl closer around her shoulders.

“None of us knew then what would come,” she said.
Any more than we know now what may happen next
, she didn’t say. “I thought he said he had written to you on the matter. And I hoped you were the sort of man who keeps his correspondence.”

Issandrian laughed, and the lines around his mouth seemed deeper than they had. How odd that they should both have suffered so much, and so differently.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I am that man. But a letter from Lord Kalliam would have been something to remark on. I can’t think I’d have forgotten it.”

“Would it be forward of me to ask that you check? Just to be sure.”

“If you’d like,” he said.

“Excellent. Thank you so much,” Clara said, rising to her feet as if he had invited her to his private study and she were only accepting. To his credit, he saved her the embarrassment of being corrected and went along with the pretense. The corridors of the manor were wider than her own had been, and the red carpet that marked their center seemed faded and dusty. Through the great windows, she caught glimpses of the estate across the courtyard where Feldin Maas had lived when he lived. Where Clara and Vincen had faced the traitor’s blade with Geder Palliako and Minister Basrahip at their side. Somewhere in that garden, Vincen had tried his best to bleed to death in her arms. He had kissed her for the first time there. It was Geder Palliako’s now, since he’d been named Baron of Ebbingbaugh. It was where he would retire to when Aster claimed the throne.

Without knowing what would come or what shape the world might take, it struck Clara as quite unlikely that Geder would ever live in that house again.

“I hear that Ernst Mecilli is doing quite well for himself these days,” Clara said. “You and he were close, weren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Issandrian said. “A few philosophical debates one time and another, and an unfortunate attempt to negotiate sugar rights in Pût that we both came to regret. But I wouldn’t say we know each other particularly well.”

“It’s just I was thinking of letters, I suppose. Dawson always said Mecilli’s were awful pieces of work. Impossible to tell what the man meant.”

“Really?” Issandrian said as he opened a wide oaken door. “He always seemed cogent enough to me.”

Clara suppressed a smile. Mecilli had written to Issandrian.

“I suppose it might only have been Dawson’s temper,” Clara said. “He would sometimes see what he chose to see.”

“We’re all like that, one way and another.”

So we are
, she thought.

Issandrian’s private study was a thing of beauty. If all the rest of this manor house was gone slightly to seed, this, at least, was maintained. The windows looked out on a small garden, and a stone Cinnae woman looked back, her skin the mottled texture of granite, ivy curling up her side. A whole wall was taken up with books, the leather spines in a dozen different shades. Clara sat on a divan of yellow silk and pretended to look out the window at an angle that let her watch Issandrian’s ghostly reflection in the glass. He took a parquet box down from a shelf and began extracting bundles of folded paper, each wrapped in ribbon. One, she guessed, for each correspondent. As his attention was on the pages, she unwrapped the shawl and pushed it discreetly between the divan and the wall. Her heart was beating fast. Everything was going so well, it was difficult not to giggle.

“Your gardener is doing a lovely job,” she said.

“Hm? Oh, yes, I suppose so. He seems a little tolerant of snails and slugs sometimes.”

“I suppose they need their advocates too,” Clara said.

Issandrian sighed and sat behind his desk.

“I’m sorry, but there is no letter. If there was one, it never arrived here. There was a time I pinned some not inconsiderable hope on hearing a kind word from your husband.”

“Well,” Clara said. “Thank you for looking. It’s probably silly of me. I just hoped to find something written in his hand. We lost everything when they took the estate.”

“You know,” Issandrian said, “Palliako hasn’t named a new baron for Osterling Fells. I’ve heard tell that he’s only waiting until he can give the title back to Jorey. If he does, there may be things you only thought were lost.”

“I can hope,” Clara said.

“It’s been a bad few years, hasn’t it?”

“It has,” Clara said. A brief pang of guilt touched her. Curtin Issandrian was an unlucky man, but he wasn’t a cruel one. If anything, his errors in judgment spoke of too much compassion. To exploit him seemed … not monstrous, but rude. It wasn’t a thing that a well-bred lady would do. She rose to her feet, smoothing the fabric of her skirt, and Issandrian stood as well.

“Thank you again,” she said.

They walked back toward the main halls more quietly. Issandrian’s expression was turned inward, and his hands clasped behind his back. Without the long, flowing hair he’d once affected, he seemed older. More worn. Clara waited until they’d almost reached the main hall, then stopped.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I seem to have forgotten my shawl.”

“I’ll have it fetched for you.”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” she said, turning back. “I’m still spry enough to walk. Wait for me here, I’ll just be a moment.”

She walked with a brisk rolling gait until he turned the first corner. After that, she ran. When she reached his study, it was the work of a moment to yank her shawl back. She plucked the box from its shelf, muttering to herself as she opened it. Her fingers flew through the bundles. Alan Klin. Mirkus Shoat. Two old-looking bundles from Sesil Veren. And there. Four thin letters on cream-colored paper bound with a white ribbon. Lord Mecilli. She wrapped her shawl around them and shoved the box back into place, then hurried out of the study. Issandrian met her halfway back to the hall, and she raised her shawl in triumph.

“It fell behind the divan,” she said. “I was near to giving up when I found it.”

“I’m glad the hunt succeeded without the need for dogs.”

“That would be embarrassing. Setting out the hounds to help poor Lady Kalliam find her things. Too plausible, I suppose.”

“Not at all.”

At the door to the street, she turned to him, placing her hand on his arm as she might with an old friend. Issandrian put his own hand over hers. There was no sense of flirtation, but rather a kind of shared sorrow. For a moment they stood there, old enemies from a conflict that no longer mattered. His stolen letters were in her other hand, and she felt the urge to apologize, not for what she’d done, but on behalf of the world. That they, who should somehow have been friends were not, and would not be. The moment passed, and Clara walked out into the street and turned south for her rooms, Vincen Coe at her side.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Oh, yes,” she said.

Back at the boarding house, Clara untied the white ribbon and laid the letters out on her bed while Vincen retrieved two more lamps from unused rooms. Clara read over each of the letters, searching for particular words and phrases, the personal idioms that would mark a letter as coming from the man himself. There were several. He was quite fond of the phrase
in the unfortunate event that
and the word
abysmal
. Then she took note of the specifics of his hand and the way he formed his letters. She needn’t match it perfectly, of course. The note she intended to write in his name was something written quickly and in a state of agitation. Even if Lord Ternigan were to have letters from the true Mecilli, it would be natural to expect some departures from the usual form.