Issandrian’s thugs.”
“You have proof of that?”
“Of course I can’t prove it, but we both know they were. His or Maas’s, it hardly matters. And you wouldn’t be pulling my leash if you believed they were street toughs with poor aim.”
The pause weighted the air. Simeon rose. His boots scraped against the stone floor. Around them, the chamber’s tapestries shifted, and the king’s guard kept their silent watch. Dawson wished they could be truly alone. The guards were servants, but they were also men.
“Your Majesty,” Dawson said, “I think you fail to understand the loyalty all around you. My own included. I have spent the season having private conversations with the highest-born men in Antea, and there is a wide support for you against Issandrian and his pack.”
“Issandrian and his pack are also my subjects,” Simeon said. “I can make the argument that feeding unrest is in itself acting against me.”
“We are acting for you, Simeon. The men I have spoken with are united in your name. I only wish you were with us.”
“If I start declaring war on parts of the nobility only because they happen to be in ascendance at the moment-”
“Is that what you’ve heard me say? Simeon, I have spent months cajoling and promising everyone I could find with any influence on Ternigan. He is ready to pull Klin from Vanai. All he needs is a signal from you.”
“If I take sides in this, it will end in blood.”
“And if you don’t the kingdom will have unending peace and light? You know better than that.”
“The dragons-”
“The dragons didn’t fall because there was a war. There was a war because there wasn’t a leader. A family needs a father, and a kingdom needs a king. It is your duty to lead, and if you fail in that, the day will come when they follow someone else. Then we will be on the dragon’s path.”
Simeon shook his head. The firelight reflected in his eyes. Outside, a cold wind whirled, smelling of winter. Snow like a fall of ashes whirled past the windows.
“A family needs a father,” the king said, as if the words were funny and bitter both. “When Eleora died, I promised her I’d take care of our son. Not the prince, our son.”
“Aster is the prince,” Dawson said.
“If he weren’t, he would still be my son. You have children. You understand.”
“I have three sons and a daughter. Barriath captains a ship under Lord Skestinin, Vicarian is studying for the priesthood, and Jorey’s in Vanai. Elisia married Lord Annerin’s eldest son three years ago, and I’ve barely heard of her since. And none of them, Simeon, have made me timid, ” Dawson said. And then, more softly, “What happened to you?”
Simeon laughed.
“I became king. It’s all well and good when we were playing at it in the yards and on the battlefields, but then Father died. It wasn’t play anymore. Issandrian’s cabal isn’t my only problem. Hallskar’s begun harboring raiders again. Northcoast’s aiming for another war of succession and Asterilhold’s backing both sides. The tax revenues from Estinford aren’t what they should be, so someone’s either stealing them or the farms are starting to fail. And in a few years, Aster’s to step up and run it all.”
“Not so few,” Dawson said. “We’re not young, but we’ve got life in us yet. And you know the answer to this as well as I do. Find men you trust, and then trust them.”
“Meaning you and your cabal instead of Issandrian and his?” the king asked dryly.
“Yes. Meaning that.”
“I’d rather you backed away. Let Issandiran’s movement collapse from within.”
“It won’t.”
King Simeon looked up, and his eyes might have held anger or amusement or despair. Dawson sank deliberately to his knee, a man giving obeisance to his king. The angle of his chin and his shoulders made it a challenge. Here is my loyalty. Deserve it.
“You should go, old friend,” the king said. “I need to rest before the feast. I need to think.”
Dawson rose, bowed silently, and left for his own rooms. Lord Ternigan’s estate sprawled. It had been built over the course of centuries by uncountable designers, each it seemed with his own conflicting vision. The result was a labyrinth. Every courtyard and square opened in some unexpected way, hallways angled and turned to avoid obstacles long since unmade. There was no better invitation for a quiet knife from the shadows.
He let the king’s servant put him into his coat, drape the thick black wool cloak across his shoulders, and bow before stepping out into the white wind. Vincen Coe stepped behind him. Dawson didn’t speak to the man, and the hunter offered no report. With only the creak of leather and their snow-muffled footsteps, they crossed the courtyard, passed through a series of overhung walkways, and across a wide, flat bridge where the wind threatened to whip them away like sparrows in a storm. There were warmer paths, but they were better peopled, and so more dangerous. If Issandrian and Maas wanted to strike at Dawson, they’d have to work for it.
The hospitality that Ternigan had offered House Kalliam included a private house that had once belonged to a king’s favored concubine. The stonework had a vulgar sensuality, the gardens before it-no doubt lush in spring-were now hardly more than a collection of twigs and dead scrub. But it was defensible, and Dawson appreciated it for that. He shrugged off his cloak and his bodyguard at the door and entered the warm, dark inner rooms to the smell of mint tea and the sound of a woman weeping.
For a horrible moment, he thought the voice was Clara’s, but the years had trained him to pick her sounds out from any others, and these sobs were not hers. Quietly, he tracked the weeping and, as he drew nearer, Clara’s soothing voice to a sitting chamber where the long-dead concubine had once taken her ease. Now Clara sat there on a low divan, her cousin Phelia-Baroness of Ebbinbaugh and wife of the hated Feldin Maas-sitting on the floor before her, her head resting in Clara’s lap. Dawson met his wife’s gaze, and Clara shook her head without a pause in her soft litany of comfort. Dawson stepped back. He went to the private study to smoke his pipe, drink whiskey, and work on a poem he’d started composing until Clara came, an hour later, and dropped herself unceremoniously into his lap.
“Poor Phelia,” she sighed.
“Domestic trouble?” Dawson asked, stroking his wife’s hair. She plucked the pipe from his mouth and drew a deep lungful herself.
“It seems my husband is making her husband terribly unhappy,” she said.
“Her husband is trying to kill yours.”
“I know, but it hardly seems polite to point it out when the poor thing’s broken down in front of me. Besides which, you’re winning, aren’t you? I can hardly see her asking mercy if the warm winds were blowing on Ebbinbaugh.”
“Asking mercy was she?”
“Not in so many words,” Clara said, relinquishing Dawson’s lap but not his pipe. “But she wouldn’t, would she? Terribly rude, and I’m fairly certain Feldin didn’t know she’d come, so don’t start figuring her into all your calculations and intrigues. Sometimes a frightened woman is only a frightened woman.”
“And still, I don’t plan to make her days any better,” Dawson said. Clara shrugged and looked away. When he spoke next his tone was less playful. “I’m sorry about it. For you and for her. If that helps.”
For a long moment, Clara was silent, sipping smoke from his pipe. In the dim light, she looked younger than she was.
“Our worlds are growing apart, husband,” Clara said. “Yours and mine. Your little wars, my peaces. War is winning out.”
“There’s a time for war,” Dawson said.
“I suppose,” she said. “I… suppose. Still, remember that wars end. Try to be sure that there’s something worth having at the other end. Not all your enemies are your enemies.”
“That’s nonsense, love.”
“No it isn’t,” she said. “It’s just not how you see the world. Phelia’s no part of whatever you and Feldin hate in each other any more than I am. But she’s at stake, as am I and our children. Phelia is your enemy because she has to be, not because she chose it. And when the end comes, remember that a great number of the people on the other side have lost a great deal and didn’t pick the fight.”
