more.”
“You will wait here,” the priest said.
Geder nodded, but the man had already turned away. The priests were pulling the cart in through the gap in the iron gate, the village men retrieving another much like it. As Geder watched, the priests vanished into their temple, and the other men, waving at him and smiling, went away down the trail, returning to their homes. Geder stayed where he was, caught between the desire to see the temple behind the wall and the fear of being left alone and unable to find his way back through the mountains. The gears in the gate ground themselves closed. The rope-drawn cart vanished around the stones. Geder sat on his horse, trying not to look at the five servants he’d dragged across the known world and into this emptiness. In the distance, a hawk shrieked.
“Should we set up camp, my lord?” his squire asked.
Night fell. Geder sat in his tent, the walls murmuring to themselves in the breeze. At his little desk, by the light of a single candle, he read the books he’d already read ten times over, his eyes taking in the words without the meanings.
The sense of disappointment, of rejection, of rage were slowly building in his belly with the growing certainty that they weren’t going to come out. He’d been left to sit on the doorstep like a beggar until he took the hint and limped away. Back to Camnipol, back to Antea, back to all of the things he’d come from.
He was at his journey’s end. He couldn’t even pretend a reason to push onward. He had crossed two nations, mountains, deserts, only to be snubbed at the end. He turned a page, not knowing what had been on it, and not particularly caring. He imagined himself at home, telling the tale. The Jasuru seer, the dragon bones, the mysterious hidden temple. And then, they would say. What then, Lord Palliako?
And he would lie. He would tell about the degenerate priests and their pathetic, empty cult. He’d write essays detailing whatever perversions came to mind, and ascribe all of them to the temple. If it hadn’t been for him, for Geder Palliako, the place would have been utterly lost to history. If they saw fit to treat him this way, he could see that they were remembered any way he saw fit.
And the priests would neither know nor care, so where was the pleasure in that? The morning would come, he would have the tent loaded, and he’d begin the trip back. Perhaps he could find a merchant in one of the cities of the Keshet who would accept a letter of credit and buy some decent provisions. Or stop at the village and tell them the priests had instructed them to give him their goats. That would be almost worth doing.
“My lord! My lord Palliako!”
Geder was out of the tent almost before he heard the words. This squire was pointing at the dark iron gate. The small side door was still closed, but a deeper shadow had formed between the two massive panels, a line of darkness.
A man came out, walking toward them. Then two more, with blades strapped to their backs. Geder waved his and his servants hurried to light the torches. The first man was huge, broad across hips and shoulders. His hair was gone, and the expanse of his scalp glowed in the moonlight. In the torchlight, his robe looked black, though in truth it could have been any dark color. The guards behind him wore the same robes as the priests had before, but of finer cloth, and undrawn swords with hilts and scabbards of iridescent green.
“Are you Prince Palliako who has come to learn of Sinir Kushku?” the large man asked. Though he spoke softly, his voice had the weight of thunder behind it. Geder felt his blood shift in his veins at the sound.
“I am.”
“What do you offer in return?”
I don’t have anything, Geder thought. A cart, some servants. Most of my silver was spent on the way here, and what do you have to buy with it anyway? It isn’t as if any of you were going to the market fair…
“News?” Geder said. “I can give you reports about the world. Since you’re so… remote.”
“And do you mean the goddess harm?”
“Not at all,” Geder said, surprised by the question. None of the books he’d read had mentioned a goddess.
The big man paused, his attention turning inward for a moment. He nodded.
“Come with me, then, Prince, and let us speak of your world.”
Dawson
Summer in Osterling Fells. Dawson rose with the sun and spent his days riding through his lands, tending to the work that his winter business and the intrigues of the spring had left undone. The canals that fed the southern fields needed to be remade. One of the villages in the west had burned late in the spring, and Dawson saw to the rebuilding. Two men had been found trapping deer in his forest, and he attended the hanging. Where he went, his landbound subjects offered him honor, and he accepted it as his due.
Along the roads, the grass grew higher. The trees spread their broad leaves, shimmering green and silver in the breezes and sunlight. Two days from east to west, four from north to south, with mountain tracks to hunt, his own bed to sleep in, and a bowl of perfect blue skies above him. Dawson Kalliam could hardly imagine a more luxurious prison to waste his weeks in while the kingdom crumbled.
The holding itself buzzed with activity. The men and women of the holding were no more accustomed to the presence of the lord during the long days of summer than they were to his absence during the winter months not taken up by the King’s Hunt. Dawson felt the weight of their consideration. Everyone knew that he had been exiled for the season, and no doubt the servants’ quarters and the stables were alive with stories, speculation, and gossip.
Resenting that made as much sense as being angry at crickets for singing. They were low, small people. They understood nothing that wasn’t put on the table before them. Dawson had no reason to treat their opinions of the greater world with more regard than he would a raindrop or a twig on a tree.
Canl Daskellin, on the other hand, he had expected better of.
“Another letter, dear?” Clara asked as he paced the length of the long gallery.
“He’s telling me nothing. Listen to this,” Dawson said, shaking the pages. He found the passage. “ His majesty remains in poor health. His physicians suspect the weight of the mercenary riot is weighing on him, but expect he will be much improved by the winter. Or this. Lord Maas has been most aggressive in his defense of Lord Issandrian’s good character, and is making the most of having escaped censure. It’s all like this. Provocations and hints.”
Clara put down her needlework. The heat of the afternoon left a beading of sweat across her brow and upper lip, and a lock of her hair had come free of its dressing. Her dress was thin summer cloth that did little to hide the shape of her body, softer than a young woman’s and more at ease with itself. In the golden light spilling through the windows, she looked beautiful.
“What did you expect, love?” she asked. “Direct talk, plainly stated?”
“He might as well not have written,” Dawson said.
“You know that isn’t true, love,” Clara said. “Even if Canl isn’t giving you all the details of the court, the fact that he’s corresponding means something. You can always judge a person by who they write to. Have you heard from Jorey?”
Dawson sat on the divan across from her. At the far end of the gallery, a servant girl stepped through the doorway, saw the lord and lady in the room, and backed out again.
“I had a letter from him ten days ago,” Dawson said. “He says everyone in court is walking quietly and speaking low. Nobody thinks this is over. Simeon was due to name Prince Aster’s ward at his naming day, but he’s postponed it three times now.”
“Why would he do that?” Clara asked.
“The same reason he exiled me for Issandrian’s treasons,” Dawson said. “If he favors us, he’s afraid they will take up arms. If he favors them, then we’ll do it. And with Canl calling the tunes, I can’t say he’s wrong to think it.”
“I could go and ask Phelia,” Clara said. “Her husband’s been put in roughly the same position as Canl, hasn’t he? And Phelia and I haven’t seen each other in ages. It would be good to talk with her again.”
“Absolutely not. Send you into Camnipol alone? To Feldin Maas? It wouldn’t be safe. I forbid it.”
