from being part of any of it. She opened it now and considered it again. It was ciphered, of course, but she had spent long enough with Magister Imaniel’s books and papers that she could read it as clearly as if it had been in a normal script.
Magistra Cithrin bel Sarcour, you are to cease all negotiation and trade in our name immediately. Paerin Clark, a senior auditor and representative of the holding company, will attend you as soon as can be arranged. Until that time, no further contracts, deposits, or loans are to be made or accepted. This is unconditional.
It was signed by Komme Medean himself, the old man’s script jagged and shaking from gout. She had shown it to no one. In the eight days since it had come, she’d wrestled with the order. It was the first she’d ever had from the holding company, and precisely what she’d expected. The auditor would come, just as she’d planned at the start. He would recover the bank’s funds, lost from Vanai. All her daydreams of keeping the bank alive, or steering it the way the guide boats were now preparing to lead the trade ships to safety, would end. She would be herself again. Not Tag the Carter, not a smuggler hiding in the shadows, and not Magistra Cithrin. Only without Besel and Cam and Magister Imaniel. Without Vanai.
And so, with respect, she preferred not to.
With a soft breath too slight to call itself a sigh, she ripped the page. Then again, and again, and again. When the pieces were as small as individual numbers and symbols of the cipher, she threw them over the edge of the seawall and watched them spin and flutter.
On the water, the guide boats were crowded around the trade ships. She imagined the voices of the men shouting up to the captains, the captains shouting back. As she watched, the first of the ships began the short, final leg of its annual journey. She turned away and walked back to her bank. The front door stood open to the breeze. As she walked through, Roach jumped to his feet as if she’d caught him doing something. Behind him, Yardem stretched and yawned hugely.
“Where have you been?” Captain Wester said.
“Watching the trade ships arrive, just the same as everyone else in the city,” she said. She felt unaccountably light. Almost giddy.
“Well, your coffee brewer sent three people on from the cafe so far this morning asking after you. They came looking here.”
“What did you tell them?”
“That you were busy, but I expected you’d be back in the cafe after midday,” Wester said. “Was I lying?”
“You? Never,” she said, and laughed at the suspicion on his face.
Despite the heat, Cithrin wore a dark blue dress with full sleeves and a high collar to the meeting at the governor’s palace. Her hair was tucked into a soft cap and pinned in place with a silver-and-lapis hairpin that was from the last of the jewelry she had hauled from Vanai. It would have been more appropriate for a cool day in autumn and left a trickle of sweat running down her back, but the thought of something more revealing in front of Qahuar Em seemed uncomfortable. And of course wearing the necklace or brooch that he’d given her would have been inappropriate.
When he greeted her in the passageway outside the private rooms, his bow was formal. Only the angle of his smile and the merriment in his dark eyes gave a hint of their nights together. He wore a sand-colored tunic with black enameled buttons to the neck, and she found herself aware of the shape of his body beneath it. She wondered, now that they weren’t to be rivals any longer, what would become of the attachment. The servant, a pale-haired Cinnae woman, bowed as they went through the doorway.
A single dark-stained table dominated the room, a bank of windows behind it looking out into the branches of a tree. The shifting branches gave the room a sense of shadow and cool that it didn’t deserve. The Cinnae mercenary rose to his feet as Cithrin stepped into the room and sat again when she did. The Tralgu woman and the representative of the local merchant houses didn’t attend.
“Good year,” the Cinnae man said. “Have you been down to the ships, Magistra?”
“I haven’t had the opportunity,” Cithrin said. “My schedule’s been remarkably full.”
“You should make the time. There were boxes of the most fascinating baubles this year. Little globes of colored glass that chime when you rub them. Quite lovely. I bought three for my granddaughter.”
“I hope the world has been treating you gently, sir,” Qahuar Em said. His voice was almost sharp. Why would he be angry? she wondered.
“Quite well,” the Cinnae said, ignoring the tone. “Quite excellently well, thank you.”
The private door slid open and the governor stepped in. His round face was sweat-sheened, but cheerful. When they began to rise, he waved them back to their seats.
“No need for ceremony,” he said, easing himself into his own chair. “Can I offer any of you something to drink?”
Qahuar Em shook his head, the Cinnae mercenary doing the same half a moment later as if he’d been waiting to see what Qahuar would do. Cithrin’s belly tightened in warning. Something was going on that she didn’t understand.
“Thank you both for coming,” the governor said. “I very much appreciate the work you have all done, and your dedication to Porte Oliva, to me, and to the queen. I am excited to have such excellent minds turning toward the welfare of the city. This is always the most difficult part, isn’t it? Making the decision?”
His wistful sigh said he was enjoying himself. Cithrin answered with a tight smile. Qahuar wasn’t meeting her eyes.
“I have been over the proposals very carefully,” the governor said. “Either of them would have been, I think, an excellent pathway to the prosperity of the city. But I think the flexibility of the five-year contract offered by the gentlemen here present would better serve than the eight that the Medean bank requires.”
Cithrin felt her breath leave her. Despite the heat, something cold settled into her throat and breast. Qahuar Em hadn’t been offering five years. It had been ten.
“Eight years is a very long time,” the Cinnae mercenary said, nodding slowly. His grave expression was a poor mask for his pleasure.
“Between that and the somewhat higher annual fees,” the governor said, “I am very sorry to turn away your proposal, Magistra Cithrin.”
“I quite understand,” Cithrin said as if someone else were speaking. “Now that it’s settled, might I enquire what rates Master Em offered?”
“Oh, it’s a partnership,” the Cinnae said. “Not just his clan, you know. We’re in this together, he and I.”
“I can’t think that there’s need to go into the details,” Qahuar Em said, still not looking at her. His attempts to spare her more humiliation were worse than the mercenary’s gloating.
“It isn’t as though it won’t be known,” the governor said. “Out of courtesy and respect, Magistra, the fees asked were ten hundredths without guarantee or fourteen with.”
The wrong numbers. They were the wrong numbers. It was supposed to be sixteen and nineteen, not ten and fourteen. The offer she’d found in his office had been a trap, and she had fallen into it.
“Thank you, my Lord Governor,” Cithrin said with a nod. “The holding company will very much appreciate your candor.”
“There will be no acrimony, I hope,” the governor said. “The Medean bank is new to our city, but very much honored.”
“None at all,” Cithrin said. Given the hollowness in her chest, she was surprised the words didn’t echo. This couldn’t be happening. “Thank you very much for the courtesy of meeting with me. But I assume you gentlemen have details to discuss.”
They all rose when she did, the governor taking her hand in his greasy fingers and pressing it to his lips. She kept her smile amused and world-wise in defeat, a mask of who she wished she had been. She bowed to the Cinnae mercenary and then to Qahuar Em. The emptiness in her shifted, and something painful bloomed in its place.
She walked carefully from the room, down the stairs, and out through the entrance hall to the square beyond. The sky was an opalescent white, the breeze hot as breath against her cheek. The sweat dampened her armpits, her back, her legs. She stood for a few minutes, confused and stunned. She wasn’t supposed to be here. She needed to get back inside. There were details she needed to work out, contracts to be signed and witnessed. There was the great project to be done. She wasn’t supposed to be out here. She should be inside.
The first sob was like retching: sudden, reflexive, and violent. Not here, she thought. Oh, God, if it’s going to
