“I’ll repair to the west,” Daskellin said. “I’ll reassure Northcoast and Birancour that we’re only looking to secure our borders, and that Asterilhold’s done that in the west. They aren’t likely to care what we’re doing in the east so long as it doesn’t affect their taxes and trades.”
“And the priests?” Geder asked.
“They will travel with your army,” Basrahip said. “Where they go, you shall find always victory.”
“Well, that’ll be damned pleasant,” Ternigan said. “Nothing goes quite as well as constant, unending victory, ah?”
“I’ll want reports to me in Camnipol,” Geder said. “Daily, if you can.”
“We’ll wear the courier’s hoofs to the quick, Lord Regent,” Ternigan said. “You have my word on it.”
Geder nodded.
“Well, then. Let’s make it official, shall we?”
Without servants to wait on them, Daskellin was the one to clear the table, bring the parchments and the ink. Basrahip shook his head in mock despair and amusement. Making a thing more real by writing it down made as much sense to the priest as cooling something with fire, but Geder shrugged and Basrahip waved him on, as if indulging him.
The pages were short, the wording simple and classic. Geder signed at the end, and then the others each took the pen in turn and stood witness. It took less time from the start to the end than it would to eat a bowl of soup, and after so many weeks of preparation, it felt both exciting and oddly a bit melancholy, as if the pleasant part of the work were over and the tedious stretch about to begin.
“Well, then. That’s it,” Geder said as Daskellin poured the blotting sand over the ink. “War.”
Word spread through the holdfast of Watermarch like it was carried by the wind. The King’s Hunt was ending for the year, and those high nobles who had expected to retire to their holdings for the few weeks before the opening of the court season in Camnipol had news to carry back home with them, and tasks that perhaps they hadn’t expected. Geder heard the excitement in their voices, even when they spoke of other things— the cut of dresses and cloaks, the marriages and liaisons of the court, the scandalous poets and thinly veiled plays —everything was suddenly really about the war. There was almost a sense of relief that came with it. The victory over Asterilhold should have been a time of celebration, and instead it had become a nightmare. Even when the conspirators had been killed, their lands retaken by the Severed Throne, it had left a sour taste in the mouths of the victors.
And in truth, even the battle with Asterilhold had carried a sense of infighting. The bloodlines of Antea and Asterilhold had crossed and mixed for centuries. The noble banners that faced each other in the fields outside Kaltfel had belonged to cousins, even if often at several removes. While there were some Firstblood relations in the traditional families of Sarakal, they were few, and when the nation’s name arose, the image it carried was of a Timzinae or Jasuru, of a chaotic government hardly better than a nomadic tribe with its shoes nailed in one place to keep it from straying. It made the coming slaughter feel cleaner. To see that the enemy came from outside and that they would be brought to their knees by Antean strength was a return to the way things were supposed to be. Even Geder found it relieving.
On those years when the first thaw came after the end of the hunt, tradition called for a final occasion. A ball, a feast, the comparing of honors. Canl Daskellin held the feast in a massive glassed ballroom, braziers burning at the ends of every table keeping the air thick and warm. Outside the massive network of glass, the sea was the color of slate flecked with white, the setting sun a glory of orange and gold. Geder sat at the high table, Prince Aster at one side, Basrahip at the other. It was like something from an old poem, and these men toasting each other and trading barbed rhymes, competing with extemporaneous speeches on patriotism and piety and bragging about how many women they’d bedded in their youth were the dragons of old reborn in human form. It made him wish that his own father attended the hunt, just so that he could be sitting at Geder’s side and watching it all.
And yet he was not wholly at peace.
The seating was, as always, arranged by the status within the court. The nearer to the high table, Geder, and Prince Aster, the more honored. Canl Daskellin, as host, shared the high table, as did his wife and his daughter, Sanna. Sanna wore a gown that left Geder feeling something between embarrassed and excited, and kept smiling at him. Then, one table farther, Ternigan and his family along with Lord Skestinin and his son, Bynal. But not his daughter. Geder tried to ignore the absence, but it gnawed at him from the first soup through the pheasant. When the venison came, he excused himself.
The apartments were in the north wing of the holding, positioned well enough for an honored merchant or the lowest of the noble. When Geder’s personal guard announced him, no servant came to see him in. Sabiha’s hair was the color of wheat, and her cheeks were round and touched with a permanent rose that made her seem younger than she was. The politeness of her expression didn’t match the coolness of her eyes. Now that he’d spent some time with Lord Skestinin, he could see something of him in her, but for the most part she only seemed herself.
The sitting room was cooler than the ballroom, though it had no windows. The lamp that burned on the mantel put out a dull, buttery light that almost forgave the worn upholstery of the divan. Geder understood. Like everything in court, the amenities of the hunt meant something. Not so many years ago, he would have been given a room much like this, if he’d bothered coming to the hunt at all. Still, its shabbiness disturbed him.
“Lord Regent,” she said with the curtsey that etiquette required of her.
“Sabiha,” Geder said. “I was looking for you at the feast. And Jorey. I was looking for both of you.”
“My father thought that, given the situation, it would be better that we not appear.”
“Yes,” Geder said. “Well. I was wondering if I might speak with Jorey for a moment. And … and can I have food sent to you? There’s a whole feast, and some of it’s very good, and just because the politics of the things are what they are, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat.”
He was babbling. He knew it, and he could no more stop it than hold back the springtime. Sabiha’s smile was crooked, and he didn’t know whether she was amused or annoyed. Not that it mattered. He was Lord Regent of Antea. She would accede to his suggestions, whatever they were. If he’d asked her to throw off her gown and dance naked for him, she would have had to or risk the displeasure of the crown. It was odd how having power over people meant not knowing their true minds. Not without Basrahip there to tell him, anyway.
“It would be kind of you, my lord,” Sabiha said.
“Geder. Really, in private, call me Geder.”
“It would be kind of you, Geder,” she said. “Wait here if you’d like. I’ll get Jorey.”
“Thank you,” Geder said. Sabiha walked into the gloom of the corridor. Geder heard her voice, and then Jorey’s, and then hers again. He thought there was a warmth in them, the sound of husband and wife. His own mother had died when he was a child, so he only had the servants and slaves to judge from, but he thought he’d heard the intimate kindness in the servants’ quarters in unguarded moments. That, and books he’d read that spoke of the role of men and of women, and the connection between them. His direct experience was somewhat limited.
Jorey emerged into the light. He still wore his hunting leathers and a grey wool cloak. His hair was unruly and his eyes had a darkness under them. Geder popped up to his feet and wiped his hands on his thighs.
“Jorey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I wanted to find you and say it. Between us.”
Jorey’s smile was thin.
“It wasn’t your doing, my lord,” Jorey said, as if the words pained him. “My father’s actions were unconscionable. The death … the death you gave him—”
“Oh, not that,” Geder said quickly. He didn’t want Jorey to still feel embarrassed about what Dawson had done. “That’s in the past. Over with. I meant the war. You did hear, didn’t you?”
Jorey sat on the divan, looking up at Geder. It was an utter breach of etiquette, but Jorey didn’t seem to notice, and Geder was oddly glad that he hadn’t. Geder had Aster and Basrahip, who knew him for who he was instead of the title he answered to. And the part-Cinnae banker, Cithrin, who’d hidden with him during the worst of the troubles. Even with Jorey Kalliam, Geder could still count his friends on one hand and not use his thumb.
“You’ve decided to invade Sarakal,” Jorey said.
“Yes, that,” Geder said. “Only I named … I named Ternigan as Lord Marshal, and he picked the men he wanted on campaign with him. And after what happened with your father, and Barriath …”
In truth, Barriath Kalliam had chosen exile rather than give his loyalty to Geder. Nor had he been the only one to do so. Others had tried to lie, to swear that they would never betray Geder as others had, but Basrahip had been there to warn of their duplicity. Those died.
