Hallskari salt dyes out of a load of ruined cloth. The things they never spoke of as if by explicit consent were Antea, Camnipol, and what had happened during the long days of hiding.
Which wasn’t to say that they didn’t talk about Geder Palliako.
“So he never left the place?” Paerin Clark said. “You’re sure.”
“Fairly. I suppose he could have gone out while I was and gotten back before me, but he didn’t say it. Neither did Aster. And I don’t know why they’d have lied to me about it.”
“Well, maybe they didn’t,” he said. “It’s just that there were so many stories of people who saw him during the battle, it’s astonishing that there wouldn’t be one of them that was at least partially true.”
“People see what they want to see, I suppose,” she said. “I’d find the idea of a ruler skilled and dedicated enough to take to the streets in costume and defeat the enemies of the crown reassuring. Or terrifying. One or the other.”
“Hmm,” was Paerin’s only reply.
Approached from the east, Carse looked like a different city. The farmhouses and hamlets gave way slowly to larger buildings with more families living in each, and then suddenly the towers that had been on the horizon were all about them, reaching up toward the hazy white sky. And only a little bit beyond that, the cliff and the Thin Sea. She had spent so little time in Carse on her way out. The quest to undermine Pyk Usterhall seemed like something another woman had done. Her relief at being back in the great fortress of the holding company was like coming back to the house of a dear friend. Even a lover.
But it was nothing like home.
Lauro and Komme came to greet the cart. The older man’s gout was between flares, and he looked ten years younger without the lines of pain in his face. Chana was at the market, and Paerin left the cart to a servant so that he could go out to find her there. Magister Nison also appeared, friendly and laughing, and digging for every scrap of information and gossip he could.
A room had been set aside for Cithrin, and she walked up the stairs to it gratefully. It wasn’t large, but it was comfortable: a small bed, a writing desk, a lantern of glass and silver that managed to be both elegant and ornate. The rug was woven from reeds and felt surprisingly soft beneath her feet.
And beside the bed, a satchel made of red leather that she didn’t recognize. When she opened it, a double handful of papers came out, along with a small lacquer box with the image of a stork taking flight inlaid on the lid. Most of the papers were letters from Porte Oliva and Pyk. Cithrin read through them. The loan to a new brewer had gone south, and the stock and equipment sold at cost to the other brewer with whom they had partnered. The ultimate loss was minimal. Dar Cinlama, the explorer who had given Cithrin the dragon’s tooth that was still in her bags, had gone off into the Dry Wastes with a party of a hundred, and hadn’t come back. Either he’d found something of interest or something had found him of interest. The way it was written, she could hear the contempt in the Yemmu woman’s voice.
Certain belongings of Marcus Wester’s had been taken from the warehouse and sold. The proceeds were being held by Yardem Hane. Nothing else was on that letter. No explanation of why Marcus had left or where he’d gone that he couldn’t take his money with him. That was the first order of business when she got home, and no doubts.
The last report wasn’t from Porte Oliva at all, but from the holding company itself. It included records copied from Porte Oliva, and before that from Vanai. It was the complete accounting of the deposits her parents had put in the bank before they died, and how the money had been spent in the meantime. A depositor’s report in the name of Cithrin bel Sarcour.
The lacquer box was listed among the assets.
“You forgot, didn’t you?” Komme Medean said from the doorway. “Chana didn’t think you would, but I knew. I knew.”
“Knew what?”
“You’ve come of age. While you were in Camnipol hiding from God knows what with I frankly can’t believe who, you became a woman. Chana thought that something that important wouldn’t go unnoticed. I thought you’d already crossed that line in your own mind so long ago, it would matter very little to you.”
Cithrin opened the lacquer box. Inside was a necklace of white gold with pale emeralds just the color of her eyes. Cithrin found herself moved.
“I think your mother must have had coloring very much like your own,” Komme Medean said. “Would you like some help fastening it?”
“Please,” she said.
The old fingers were steady and sure. The necklace lay against her collarbone. It wasn’t the right length for the clothes she was wearing now, but the paler dress would leave it looking brilliant. She smiled and bowed her head.
“Thank you,” she said. “I couldn’t have asked for better parents than the bank has been.”
Komme Medean smiled.
“You’re a forger and an extortionist. From what I hear, you like wine entirely too much for your own good. And Pyk Usterhall thinks the part of your brain that measures risk was underfed when you were a babe. None of this has changed. Only one thing is different now than it was when you left.”
“Yes?”
“Yes,” Komme Medean said. “Now I can hold you to your contracts.”
“Does that mean I can stop being the playtoy magistra with Pyk pulling my strings?”
“You hate that, don’t you?” he said.
“I do.”
“No. You’re still too young. Too inexperienced. Four years, two of them in other branches where you can see an established magister. Then we can decide whether Porte Oliva is yours.”
“Two years, six months with a different branch,” she said. “I grew up in Vanai with Magister Imaniel. I’ve already seen a branch function from the inside.”
“Two years, one of them with a different branch. You can’t understand the whole cycle of a year until you’ve seen it start to finish.”
“Done.”
Komme Medean smiled.
“Well,” he said. “I think I’ve just bought myself two years, don’t you?”
Despite Paerin’s comments about her being the new expert on Geder Palliako, Cithrin had been surprised to be included in the formal meeting. She’d assumed that she’d talk with Komme, Paerin, and Chana—possibly Magister Nison or Lauro—and then the information would be distilled and interpreted before it was presented to the king.
Instead, a massive carriage the green of summer leaves had arrived at the holding company. It bore the royal arms, but not the pennants of gold that would have meant King Tracian had come to them. She and Paerin were bundled up the step and into the dark luxury within, Komme following behind. When the driver set them in motion, the whole thing shook like a ship in a storm. By the time they arrived at the palace Cithrin was feeling hot and sweaty and less than well. A servant whose rank she couldn’t divine led them up a set of white marble stairs to a building the size of a decent-sized township. The king’s palace. From its door, she could see the sleeping dragon before the Grave of Dragons and the tower of the Council of Eventide. It was a beautiful city in its way.
What she liked about it most, she thought, was that there wasn’t a hell-deep pit in the middle of it.
The meeting room was a balancing act of bragging and understatement. The walls were hung with cloth dark enough that she had to look twice to see its quality. The chairs were all simply designed, but of rosewood and teak and upholstered with silk so soft she was worried that she’d split it when she sat. Taken as a whole it painted the portrait of a man who knew he was supposed to be grand without being tasteless, and hadn’t quite brought it off.
King Tracian was younger than she’d expected, though of course he hadn’t been the man Marcus had fought against. That had been Lady Tracian. Still, it was strange to see him appearing only a few years older than she was and think that if it hadn’t been for Marcus, this man wouldn’t be here at all. There would be a Springmere on the throne, and Cithrin would have gone through her life without Marcus Wester to protect her. And if Springmere hadn’t frightened himself into killing Marcus’s family …
