Basrahip shook his bull-wide head.
“You put too much faith in empty words. No forests live that were not planted after the fire years. All animals that live were sheltered by humanity in the fire years. If you say that the world must be built upon ash, then look for it, and you will find it. Or if you do not, you must find for yourself what became of it. But the fire is true.”
“It’s just in all the histories I’ve read—even the ones written within a generation or two of the fall—no one’s ever mentioned a catastrophe like that. You’d think they would have. I mean, the utter destruction of everything’s not the sort of thing I’d leave out if I were writing a history.”
Basrahip waved the words away with a massive palm.
“Words on paper are not even lies. They are empty. The voice that speaks them is your own, and you mean nothing when you say them except that here on this page are these words. It the least important thing that there is. From the time before the dragons, my priesthood have been the keepers of truth. All truth. You know that no one can lie to the goddess.”
“Well, yes,” Geder said, feeling abashed. “Of course I know that. I mean, you’ve proved it over and over, haven’t you?”
“And you know that her truth cannot be long denied.”
“I’ve seen that too,” Geder agreed.
“With every generation, the priests of the goddess have passed on the true tale of the world in voices that cannot be denied to acolytes who would hear any falsehood. What are your books and scroll to this? The living voice has carried what I say across the ages. Your library was all created by a hand, not a voice. Tell me this. Will you say all books are true?”
“Well, no. Of course not. There are some essays I’ve read that were clearly—”
“And would you say that you can know perfectly which are true and which not?”
“No, but that doesn’t mean they’re useless. I mean, most of them, you can assume are—”
Basrahip stopped, took Geder by the shoulders, and looked deeply into his eyes.
“I ask you this, Prince Geder. If I gave you a meal that you knew was poisoned in part, and also you knew that you could not know where the poison lay, would it be wisdom to eat?”
“Of course not,” Geder said.
“So it is with books,” Basrahip said. “Listen to my voice, my friend. The goddess is there, and she will not lead you astray.”
Namen Flor looked like a reed. His thin body rose up from his feet to a tall, broad face and hair the color of wheat that he wore close-cropped. He stood as Geder entered the candle-bright private chamber. If he was nervous, his voice did not betray it.
“I was told you wished to speak with me, Lord Regent?”
“Yes, I did. Please, sit. No need to be formal. You know Minister Basrahip, don’t you?”
Sir Flor bent his head in a gesture carefully between nod and bow. Physical diplomacy. Geder lowered himself to a divan upholstered in green silk and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Basrahip took a place on the far wall, smiling absently and looking at at the fire dancing in the grate. Flor turned from one to the other, then sat across from Geder and ignored the priest. Geder glanced at Basrahip, and the priest nodded once. He was ready.
“Are you loyal to me, Sir Flor?”
The reedy man seemed to expect the question, because he answered at once.
“Of course, Lord Palliako.”
Basrahip nodded. It was truth, but Geder held up a finger.
“I don’t mean to the throne or to Antea in the abstract. Are you loyal to
Flor frowned.
“Forgive me, my lord, but I don’t see the difference. You are Lord Regent. Being loyal to Antea is being loyal to you.”
Another nod. Well, it wasn’t as good as raw personal devotion, but it would do.
“I have need of your discretion, Sir Flor. How are your spring crops?”
“Not yet sown. I imagine they will be breaking the ground for the first lettuces in a month or so.”
“I would like you to convert your fields to spring wheat. And whichever lands you can spare that are least productive, I will need to borrow from you for the season.”
Flor blinked, then shrugged.
“Of course, my lord. May I ask why?”
Geder leaned back. The truth was, he enjoyed this part. Knowing something another man wanted to know was a kind of power. Maybe the best kind.
“Antea is in perilous times,” Geder said. “The impression abroad is that the trials of the war and the insurrection have weakened us. That we may be vulnerable. As long as the world thinks we are weak, we will be in danger.”
“Yes, I have heard that concern spoken,” Flor said. “And I admit I am concerned that it may in part be true. The forces need to keep Asterilhold from rising—”
“It will not rise,” Basrahip said. “There are temples to the goddess in both its great cities. It will follow Prince Geder.”
“You have heard that Dawson Kalliam was advised by Timzinae?” Geder said. “That before he began his conspiracy, he met with a dozen Timzinae men?”
“I’d heard rumors.”
“It’s common knowledge,” Geder said with a wave of his hand. “Sarakal and Elassae are the nations under the control of Timzinae leaders. The enemies of the empire expect our attention to be in the north and west. That our border with Sarakal will be lightly defended, and weak. They are mistaken. I require your spare field to build a temporary encampment for an army. And the wheat as bread for men and fodder for horses.”
Flor’s face went pale, picturing the expense and the burden to his lands a free garrison would bring. To the man’s credit, he raised no objection.
“For how long will we be hosting the army?”
“Not long. Two weeks, maybe three. However long the Lord Marshal decides it’s needed. Then they’ll be off.”
“To keep the border?”
“To cross it,” Geder said.
Cithrin bel Sarcour, Voice of the Medean Bank in Porte Oliva
Cithrin stood at the boat’s prow. The sea stretched out before her in the early morning light, white and pink and blue as if it had been remade from mother-of-pearl. The air was thick with the scent of brine and tar, the creak of wood and rope. She wore a black wool cloak wrapped tight, its hood raised to cover her straw-white hair. She held her chin high, her gaze soft. To the captain or one of the sailors or one of her own guard, she would appear to be a woman at the height of her power, occupied in the privacy of her thoughts. In truth, she’d drunk too much the night before, and her head felt like a sparrow had built a nest in her skull.
On the horizon, the land was little more than a thickening of the water. From the time she had left Birancour, it had remained the same, a darkness to port. Once they had passed into the Inner Sea, it would have been in theory faster to lose sight of the shore, strike out from the straits that divided the Free Cities from Lyoneia, and make a short blue-water transit to Elassae and Suddapal. But speed was not everything, and even on the relatively gentle waters, winter storms could rise, and the option of finding shelter in a cove or harbor was not to be dismissed lightly. There had been troubles along the way: one of the sailors had slipped from the mast and broken his leg so badly that he’d been lost in a fever since; for two long days they had run from dark-sailed pirates before the thieves gave up the chase; and Roach had been nauseated for so long that the dark chitinous plates of his arms had begun to bend and crack as the flesh beneath them thinned away. On some day, indistinguishable from the ones before and behind it, they had sailed past Newport and the ruins of Vanai where her childhood lay in ashes. And the nearer they drew to the five cities of Suddapal, the more the anxious knot in her belly grew, and the harder
