he’d worked with.
The goal of war is peace. The small general leads his army into battle to achieve victory, and so his own nature will force him to return to it. The deep general leads his army into battle to confirm victory, and so the world’s nature will force him to return to it. The wise general leads his army into battle to reshape the world, and so he creates a place which does not need him.
It wasn’t at all like the copy Geder had. His copy hadn’t, he was almost sure, included the verse about the deep general. Deep wasn’t a form Toca used often, and when he did it was usually in reference to the priesthood. Geder wondered if a discussion of warrior priests had been taken out by a later translator.
“Ah,” Basrahip said. “Listening to empty voices again, Prince Geder?”
The high priest was in the main room, sitting on a cushioned bench with his hands on his knees.
“I like books,” Geder said.
“Some are pretty, but they are toys. They mean nothing.”
“Well,” Geder said, closing the book and setting it aside, “it’s something we’re just going to disagree about.”
“For now,” Basrahip agreed.
Geder sat beside the window. The afternoon sun pressed on the back of his hand.
“What did you find out?”
It was little that Geder hadn’t expected. The court was certain that victory was imminent, and the credit for that rested with Geder and his ally and onetime patron Dawson Kalliam. Opinion about how to deal with their conquered neighbor was mixed, but the disagreements were between gentlemen. Of course, there were particulars. One man advocated waiting for Baron Watermarch’s return from North-coast. Another thought that a marriage between Aster and Asterilhold’s Princess Lisbet should be arranged as soon as the suit of peace arrived. Geder might draw the war out long enough to destroy the farmlands and mills and shipyards of the enemy, or he might preserve them for the use of the combined kingdoms in later years.
They talked for hours as the sun slid westward, pulling Camnipol slowly into the red light of sunset, the grey of dusk, and then darkness. The moon had not risen, and the stars shone in the high summer sky. At last, Geder, his head overfull, made his apologies and took himself to bed where men he didn’t know undressed him, powdered his body, and laid him under thin spring blankets. Half awake, he was annoyed to discover that he’d forgotten the tutor’s book. It would have been pleasant to read for a little while before sleep. He had so little time to read anymore…
Morning came clear and cold. He lay in bed for a while, watching the sunlight stream through the windows. Then the ritual humiliation, and he stepped out into the royal family dining hall. Basrahip was already there, as was Aster. The two were talking about something, Basrahip smiling and Aster laughing aloud. Geder sat, and a young servant brought him a length of baked duck and stewed pears, a small loaf of sweet black bread, and honeyed coffee with the grounds thick as mud at the bottom.
“Did I miss something funny?” Geder asked.
“Minister Basrahip’s been doing impressions of the men in court,” Aster said.
“Are they good?”
“No,” Aster said, hooting. “They’re
Basrahip smiled.
“I am no man to play pretend,” he said. “It is not what I am.”
“And thank God for that,” Geder said, plucking a bit of the duck free and popping it in his mouth. It was salty and rich and entirely the perfect way to begin a morning. “I’ve been thinking about the terms of peace with Asterilhold. I think I know what we have to do.”
Priest and boy both sobered, turning their attention to him. Geder sipped the coffee, enjoying the moment of suspense more than he probably should have.
“I don’t think we’d be wise to accept tribute and reparations and still leave them in control of the kingdom. If anything, we’ll have made their court less likely to treat us as friends.”
“And you must build temples to the goddess in the cities you conquer,” Basrahip said.
“Yes, and that,” Geder agreed. He’d forgotten that he needed to do that, but it was certainly true he’d agreed to. “Which means I think we have to move toward uniting the kingdoms.”
Aster’s face went still. “I see,” the prince said.
Geder shook his head and waved a heel of bread.
“No no no. Marrying in won’t work. Being married to a woman doesn’t mean that all of Asterilhold is suddenly going to be placated. This is what got us here at the first, isn’t it? Mixing bloodlines so that there were plausible claims to the Severed Throne in Asterilhold’s court. If we hadn’t tried making peace through marriage generations ago, there wouldn’t have been the opportunity to even appear legitimate now. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now.”
“What, then?” Aster asked.
“
“And the present ruling caste?” Basrahip asked.
“Well, they can’t be trusted, can they? We’ve exposed them, humiliated them, and taken their positions and holdings,” Geder said. “I’m sure they’d do anything in their power to undermine us. And these are the people, some of them, who were plotting to kill Aster. Losing a war doesn’t change who they are, you know.”
“I see,” Basrahip said.
Geder took half of a stewed pear, sucking it into his mouth and pressing the juice out against his palate. Sweetness flooded him.
“No,” he said, around the food. “I wish I saw another way. I do. But to keep Aster safe, I don’t think we can leave our enemies with power. If they can’t be friends and allies, they’ve made their choice. They have to die.”
Dawson
Kaltfel stood on a wide plain rising up from the long strips of farmland like a strange dream. Its spires and towers were built from red stone, its walls stood as high as four men one atop the other. In gentler days, it was the home of the greatest breeders of messenger birds. It had been said that a bird bred in Kaltfel was fashioned with the secrets of the dragons, and for all Dawson knew, it might have been truth. Dawson had been there before as a young man. He still remembered the pale streets and the hot peppers and chocolate they seasoned their coffee with. He had fought a duel in the odd triangular yard that Asterilhold courts employed, and had won. He’d gotten drunk afterwards, and woken in another man’s room, Prince Simeon beside him.
The day his army arrived at the royal city of Asterilhold, Dawson had begun by burning every structure that stood outside the city walls—farmhouses, storehouses, stables, tanners’ yards, dyers’ yards. What still stood when the smoke cleared, they had razed, with the exception of the necropolis to the east of the city. The tombs, he respected. Antea had no quarrel with the dead. After that, his engineers began constructing the siege engines. Trebuchet and catapult rained stones against the great red walls and the sealed gates. They worked in teams, eroding the tops of the walls day and night for seven days. At dawn and dusk, he would send runners through his camps to collect the shit and offal of the day, reset one of the trebuchets, and rain it down into the city itself. Soon his men were including other bits of refuse— dead cats and bloody bandages, spoiled meat alive with maggots. The gates did not open. The enemy did not appear. He hadn’t expected them to. On the ninth day of the siege, a scout had discovered where a buried network of pipes had been emptying the waste of the city into a hidden gully. Dawson’s engineers had destroyed them.
When they ran out of stones, they switched to tar-soaked wood set alight. For three more days, Kaltfel withstood the rain of fire. Twice, smoke began to take hold of the city, and twice the beseiged beat back the
