Cithrin see her anxiety. The others—even Yardem—almost certainly didn’t.
“Probably,” Kit said. “Certainly you believe there are.”
“I also have a lamp there.”
“No, Magistra,” the old actor said. “You do not.”
Isadau sat back in her chair. Her smile might almost have been amused, but her inner eyelids were fluttering madly.
It was profoundly strange. Cithrin had walked out on the Tenthday routine, her mind occupied with thoughts of the bank and the war, Isadau’s network for refugees of the old conflict and the coming one, and her own growing sense of dread. When she came back, Captain Wester was sitting in the courtyard and Master Kit was walking in from the street. She’d heard of people who’d gotten fevers and lost their minds in them. She had to think it felt similar. Isadau didn’t seem to be put off her stride, but for her these were two men loosely associated with the bank who’d arrived much as a courier might. For Cithrin, they were two people she’d trusted and relied on who had left her without a word and arrived without a warning. She wanted to run to them both and hug them and yell at them and make sure they would never go away again, and so instead she fell into a politeness and distance that she hated even as she employed it.
They gathered in a private courtyard with a small fountain and ivy growing up three of the four walls. It was cool and beautiful, and the tiny clapping hands of the ivy’s leaves meshed with the muttering of water to make eavesdropping almost impossible. Marcus and Yardem shared a bench, while Master Kit perched on the fountain’s edge. Cithrin sat in a chair beside Isadau. A servant brought a small wooden table and filled it with cups of cool water and bowls of cut apples. To anyone in the household, it would have seemed nothing more than another meeting among hundreds where the two magistras spoke about the private doings of the bank.
Captain Wester’s absence hadn’t been kind to him. He was thinner than she’d ever seen him, his cheeks gaunt and his neck so ropy that she could trace the individual muscles and tendons. Master Kit also looked worn down by the road, but with him it almost seemed like a shedding of old clothes. His eyes were brighter, his smile just as open and pleasant, and the darkness of his skin a testament to weeks out of doors. He had none of the greyness that dulled Marcus’s skin, and his eyes hadn’t taken the same slight tint of yellow.
And then, just as Cithrin began to feel she had her balance back, Master Kit had pricked his thumb with Yardem’s dagger and tiny black spiders had come out.
“And if you were to speak to me,” Isadau said.
“I would be very difficult to disbelieve,” Master Kit said. “Even those things which you had evidence against, you would eventually find some way to justify.”
“Even if it was absurd?”
Master Kit’s smile was melancholic.
“I have tried to dedicate my life to the discovery of the world as it truly is,” he said, “and even knowing what I knew, it seems I have been unable to avoid believing absurdities. I believe I could convince you of anything.”
Yardem made a low sound in his throat, part growl and part chuckle. Master Kit’s glance was a question.
“Just recalling all our philosophical debates,” Yardem said. “You could have won all of them if you’d cared to.”
“I hope I chose my words carefully enough to respect the beliefs I did not share.”
“All the same,” Isadau said, “you are an abomination.”
Cithrin scowled and began to object, but Kit beat her to it.
“Certainly I agree that I have a potential for evil that those unlike me do not. And I am afraid that this present violence is the fruit that grew from that bloom.”
“What is it they want?” Yardem asked, his voice a low rumble. “The other ones.”
“I believe they want to bring the world together under the banners of the goddess,” Kit said. “To place everything within her and make it part of her flesh. Before I fell from grace, I was told that we were waiting for a sign, and when that sign came we would return to the nations of humanity, stand against the forces of the dragon, and free the world at last from lies and deception.”
“By spreading their story,” Marcus said.
“Until there are no other stories,” Kit finished. “By ignoring or destroying anything that failed to match with the certainties of the goddess who is immune from lies.”
Magistra Isadau sat forward, her head sinking into her hands.
“Geder was that sign,” Cithrin said.
“In a sense, yes,” Master Kit said. “Though if it had not been him now, I suspect it would have been another at another time. I suspect signs are fairly easy to see for one dedicated to seeing them. And if a high priest believed that he had seen the hand of the goddess at work in the world, he would only need to say it, and it would become as true as anything else. As certain, at least. I don’t know the man who has taken the high priest’s place.”
“Basrahip,” Cithrin said. “His name’s Basrahip.”
“I assume he was initiated after I left,” Kit said. “But what he believes, he believes sincerely. And all the other priests will also believe. And then anyone who listens to their voices. And then … everyone.”
“Explains some things,” Yardem said.
Marcus turned to the Tralgu. “Explains what, for instance?”
“Why the Anteans haven’t been sent back with their tails between their legs,” Yardem said. “They’re overreaching badly, except that they keep winning. They’ve found a way to use this on the field. Give false reports to the enemy or some such.”
“Not to mention all the rumors about Geder’s strange powers,” Cithrin said. “All that about how he speaks with the dead and the fallen warriors rise up to fight alongside him. It’s not the man I met. Easier to think that’s one of those tales the priests convince everyone of than that it’s actually true.”
“And right now,” Magistra Isadau said through her fingers, “at this moment, the only people in the world who understand what this war is and what it means are sitting in this garden.”
“Yes,” Marcus said.
“You,” Isadau said, turning to Master Kit. “How do we stop this?”
“I don’t know,” Kit said.
Isadau nodded. The nictiting membranes closed over her eyes.
“Komme has to be told,” she said. “Oh, God. I have a very long letter to write, don’t I?”
For the rest of the day, Cithrin tried to go about her usual routine, but it all seemed false as rehearsing a play. There were contracts to review, but the armies of Antea were on the roads already, carrying the false goddess’s banners. The histories of the bank hadn’t quite all been read through, but Marcus and Master Kit had come and neither were quite the men she’d thought they were. Though that was more the case with Kit than Captain Wester. She tried sleeping, but the late summer sun defied her. She tried working, but her mind escaped its leash. She wanted to be back in Porte Oliva or Carse, someplace where she understood the system of the world. Suddapal, with its echoes of Vanai and Camnipol, was too complicated. Or if it wasn’t the city, she had become too complicated for it.
Master Kit and Captain Wester joined the family at dinner, and anything else would have seemed strange. Kit regaled the table with stories from his years on the road, and Cithrin watched as people fell under the benign and compassionate spell of his voice. It was that same magic that had brought Sarakal into ruins. And Vanai. Only no, Vanai had burned before Geder’s discovery of the temple. That atrocity, at least, hadn’t been driven by the things in Master Kit’s blood.
She’d hoped to find Marcus alone after the meal, to sit with him. Breathe the same air. She felt that she had a thousand questions for him, only she didn’t know what any of them were. In any case, Marcus went to his room claiming exhaustion almost before the last plate of beef found its way to the table. Cithrin sat alone in the crowd as eating gave way to music and talk. The only one who seemed equally distracted was Isadau. When Master Kit withdrew from the hall, Isadau didn’t follow him. So Cithrin did.
The old actor was sitting alone in one of the smaller rooms, a wool blanket draped over his shoulders, when Cithrin came in.
“Kit,” she said.
“Ah, Magistra Cithrin,” Kit said, shifting on his bench to make room for her. “Have I mentioned how pleased I am to find you doing so well? It’s a long way from the last caravan out of Vanai.”
