“I can recommend some bodyguards,” Marcus said. “I just lost a few that I wish I’d been able to keep, so I even know where there are some swords looking for coin. I can’t go anywhere. I have a job.”
“You’re still happy working for Cithrin and the bank, then?”
“Being happy isn’t what makes it a job,” Marcus said. “It’s what I do.”
“How long is your contract?”
“I work for Cithrin.”
Kit’s eyebrows came together, knotting up like caterpillars.
“I see.”
“I can find you good men,” Marcus said.
“I don’t want good men. I want you,” Kit said, then laughed. Despite his anxiety, he had a warm laugh. “Oh, I think that didn’t come out the way I meant. I wish you would agree to this, Marcus. I don’t want to force the issue.”
“You couldn’t.”
“I could,” Kit said. “And I am tempted to. But I consider you a friend, and I choose not to. I hope that carries some weight. I have some preparation still to do. I will stay nearby as long as I can, in case you have a change of heart. I would, however, appreciate it if we could keep my presence quiet.”
“Is someone hunting for you?”
“Yes,” Kit said and took another long bite of his cider.
The birthmarked woman came forward, pointing to their cups. Marcus shook his head. He didn’t need more alcohol.
“If you need help, I’ll do what I can for you during the quiet days when the bank doesn’t need me,” Marcus said. “That’s the best I’ve got.”
“I appreciate that.”
For a moment, Marcus was silent, searching for some other word to say. Instead, he clapped the man on the shoulder and left his half-drunk cup on the bench beside him. It wasn’t a long walk to the counting house, but Marcus took it slowly. He hadn’t had the opportunity to refuse work since he’d taken up with Cithrin bel Sarcour and her bank. As he stepped around the horse shit in the street and passed the queensmen in their uniforms of green and gold, it occurred to him for the first time that he might have already taken the last contract of his life.
Working for the bank had no clear ending, no keep to be guarded through the summer or taken by autumn. His men weren’t soldiers but guards. Not even guards, sometimes, but a private force. Thumb-breakers for a moneylender. That wasn’t work that had to end.
For a moment, he imagined himself decades in the future, walking down these same streets. Time would take his hair or turn it white. His joints would thicken and ache. Perhaps he’d find a woman who could put up with his moods and memories. He could work the company until he became so domestic and old and comfortable that he was nothing more than a mascot. The man who’d moved the world once, though you wouldn’t know it to look at him now. A future rolled out before him so clearly, he felt he could reach out and touch the old man’s shoulder.
He had to stop for a moment and look up at the sky. This was what Canin Mise felt sitting in his debtor’s box, buried with his face in the air. This was what death was like. He almost turned back, going to find Master Kit and the cider and whatever madness had taken the old man, only because it wouldn’t be the story he’d seen before him.
But it would mean leaving Cithrin. The counting house was only a couple of streets farther on, and he made himself walk there through simple will. Yardem was waiting for him outside, pacing anxiously.
“Sir?”
“I’m fine.”
“Is there anything—”
“No, Yardem, there’s
The Tralgu put his ears back. Marcus wanted to see anger in the man’s eyes or hurt or something besides concern. Concern looked too much like pity.
“We’ve been doing very well, sir. The bank’s solid. The company’s underfunded just now, but they’re loyal and well trained. Pyk’s an annoyance more than a problem. If you look at where we’ve come since Ellis—”
“You’re not about to feed me some hairwash about how my soul’s a circle, and I’m at the top turning down, are you?”
Yardem’s hesitation meant yes.
“No, sir,” he said.
Clara
Thankfully, Jorey managed to deflect Geder Palliako from using his friends from the Keshet, and so the ceremony was at the high temple, and scheduled for the day after Canl Daskellin’s fireshow had opened the season. It allowed very little time, however, to follow all the forms. Clara had arranged two dinners with Lady Skestinin, and one with both families. Lord Skestinin hadn’t arrived until the morning of the event, and had all but abandoned the fleet to manage that much. Barriath had come with him, and Vicarian had special dispensation to leave his studies and attend the ceremony as well, so all her boys were there on the day. The chances were fair that they would even behave themselves for the most part. For Sabiha’s sake more than Jorey’s.
In fact, if Jorey had chosen a lover specifically to make his brothers behave, he could hardly have done better. The hint of scandal and disapproval that hung over the occasion would, Clara thought, bring the boys together where a match with someone above reproach would have begged for teasing. And really, once the teasing started, there were lines the boys would cross before they knew they existed.
Elisia, on the other hand, had sent regrets. As odd as it felt to hope her daughter was ill, Clara preferred to believe she really did have the flux. People recovered from the flux, after all. Shame and disloyalty were harder to overcome. But that was a problem for another day. The work at hand was more than enough to keep her occupied.
The temple itself was perfect.
The great circle of the floor was white marble carved generations ago and worn smooth as water. The altar stood black and green in the center, the great vaulted dome rising above it. The archways were carved as dragon’s wings, surrounding and enveloping the wide, white air. Clara had instructed her servants to harvest boughs of the cherry trees from her own gardens. The leaves were few and weak, but the blossoms pulled the white of the stone into their petals. The benches all around the circumference sported silk cushions in the colors of the houses for whom they were reserved, red and gold and brown and black and indigo. And at the front, in the places of honor, chairs of worked copper for the girl’s family and bronze for her own. And an extra seat in silver with the grey and blue of House Palliako where Geder and Prince Aster would sit.
Walking through it now, with only hours before the event itself, Clara’s footsteps echoed. The silk damask of her gown whispered. She walked to the chair she would take during the ceremony and looked up into the huge, unseeing eyes of the dragon staring back at her. As with her friends in the high circles of court, her piety had always been another kind of etiquette. God was, and because of that it would be rude to sleep during the high chant or scratch during the conse-cration. Now, staring up, she felt something between sorrow and hope struggling in her, and lifted her hand to the dragon.
“Let them be happy with each other,” she said.
“Do you think they won’t be?” Dawson said from the columns before her.
He wore black and gold today, the colors of the Undying City. Against the pale stone, the cloth seemed richer and darker, like a fold cut from the midnight sky. Clara smiled at him.
“I hope they will. That’s all. And since I’m powerless, I do what one does when one is powerless.”
“Pray?”
She held out her arms as if presenting an example. He walked across the stone, out from under the stone dragon’s shadow. He looked tired and pleased and handsome. He put an arm around her waist and turned to look where she was looking. Clara leaned into him. His arms were as solid and strong now as they had been one day, many, many years before.
