The Dragon's Path
Marcus
Qahuar Em scratched his chin, his head tilted at a considering angle. Marcus kept his expression bland. The table they sat across was polished oak with a burned-in knotwork pattern. It didn't have the green banker's felt that Cithrin used. Marcus had expected that it would, but perhaps the customs were different in Lyoneia. The tiny box that sat on the table was black iron with a lid that hinged on the side and the image of a dragon on the front. If there was some significance to the design she had chosen, he didn't know it.
"I'm sorry," Qahuar Em said. "This is confusing."
"Nothing odd about it," Marcus said. "Banks and merchant houses hold items of interest for each other all the time, I'm told."
"When they're closely allied, and one has people in a city where the other doesn't," Qahuar said. "Neither of those applies here."
"Strange circumstances."
"Which you aren't going to explain to me."
"I'm not," Marcus agreed.
Qahuar reached over and picked up the little box, cupping it easily in one palm. The lid opened with a clank, uncovering a brass key shorter than a finger bone. Marcus scratched his ear and waited for the man to speak.
"Why do I think this is going to be connected to something disagreeable and embarrassing?" Qahuar asked, making it clear from his tone that an answer would be welcome but wasn't expected.
"I'm authorized to sign a statement that it's here at the request of Magistra bel Sarcour," Marcus said. "Press the key into wax and I'll put my thumb across it so there's no question we're talking about the same one. Anything you like."
The box closed again. The near-scaled fingertips tapped the oak with a sound like the first hard drops of a thunderstorm.
"I'm prepared to take no for an answer," Marcus said.
"The magistra and I didn't part on the best of terms," Qahuar said, pronouncing his words carefully. "She sent you rather than come herself. I find it hard to believe she's come to trust me."
"There's ways you can trust an enemy you can't always trust a friend. An enemy's never going to betray your trust."
"I think she would say I'd betrayed hers, and I can argue she did mine."
"Proves my point. You two were being friendly back then," Marcus said with a smile they both knew he didn't mean.
A soft knock came at the meeting room door. A full Jasuru woman in robes of grey and scarlet nodded to both men.
"The men from the shipyard, sir."
Qahuar nodded, and the woman retreated, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
"Going well, that?" Marcus asked.
"Well enough. It will take a year at least to have everything in order, but time moves both ways. Actions can have effects long before they themselves happen."
"Angry letters from the king of Cabral, for example?"
"Sometimes I wish I'd lost," Qahuar said. And then, "For more reasons than one. Captain, we're men well acquainted the world. I think we understand each other. Would you answer a question?"
"You won't mind if I lie?"
"Not at all. You're a man whose name is known all through the west. At the head of a private army, you could command any price you ask, but you're working guard captain for a branch bank. You aren't open to bribery. And - forgive me - you don't like me very much."
"None of that's a question."
"Are you in love with her?"
"I've loved a lot of people, and the word hasn't meant the same thing twice," Marcus said. "The job is to protect her, and I'm going to do the job this time."
"This time?"
Marcus shrugged and kept quiet. The bastard had gotten him to say more than he meant already. Marcus had to give it; Qahuar was good at what he did. The half-Jasuru stood up, his lips pursed. Slowly, deliberately, he put the box in the pouch at his belt.
"I hope I'm not going to regret this," he said.
"I expect it won't matter to you one way or the other," Marcus said. "For what it's worth, though, I appreciate your taking it on."
"You know it's not as a favor to you?"
"Do."
Qahuar Em held out a broad hand. Marcus rose to his feet and took it. It was an effort not to squeeze a little hard, just to show he could. The man's bright green eyes looked amused. And maybe something sadder as well.
"She's a lucky woman," Qahuar said.
God, let's hope so, Marcus thought but didn't say.
Autumn had come to Porte Oliva overnight. Trees that had been lush and full were dropping leaves that were still green in the center. The sunset winds were loud with their skittering. The bay had turned the color of tea, and stank at midday like a compost heap. The queensmen patrolling the twilight streets wore overcoats of wool and green caps that covered their ears. Marcus walked the narrow streets near the port, feeling the first bite of night's chill, and decided maybe he liked the city after all.
He found Master Kit and the others in a torchlit courtyard between a taphouse and an inn. Smit and Hornet were still putting the last adjustments on the stage supports while Master Kit barked instructions to them, not even in costume yet. A young woman was pacing behind them. She was fair-haired with large eyes that left Marcus thinking of babies and a tight-bound dress that showed her figure. Her hands were knotted before her, fingers wrestling one another like fighters in a melee.
Marcus walked over to Master Kit. Instead of saying hello, he nodded to the woman.
"New one?"
"Yes," the old actor said. "I have hope for this one."
"Had hope for the last one too."
"Fair enough. I have expectations of this one," Master Kit said. "Calls herself Charlit Soon, and I find she rehearses wonderfully. Tonight we'll see how she does with an audience. If she stays through tomorrow, I think I've found my full company."
"And she's what? Twelve years old?"
"Cinnae blood some generations back," Master Kit said. "Or that's the story, anyway. She believes it, and it may even be true."
"But you don't believe it?"
"I withhold judgment."
As if she'd heard them, the new actor glanced over at them and then away. Sandr jumped out the back of the cart and waved to Marcus. Either his fear had faded or he was a decent actor. Marcus waved back. Mikel, thin and weedy as ever, came out from the taphouse with a bucket of sawdust, Cary following behind with a broom.
"I heard rumor you might be leaving Porte Oliva."
"It's one possibility," Master Kit said. "We've played here almost an entire theatrical season. I think cities can get full on plays. Show too many, and I believe people become complacent. I don't want what we do to lose its magic. I was thinking of taking the company up to the queen's court at Sara-su-mar."
"Before the winter, or after?"
"I'll know more after Charlit's been onstage for a few nights," Master Kit said. "But probably before. When the ships leave for Narinisle."
"Well, do what's right, but I'll be sorry to see you go."
"I take it you're staying for the foreseeable future?" Kit said. Mikel began spreading the sawdust on the flagstone paving of the courtyard to soak up the damp, Cary sweeping along behind him. It seemed like an odd thing to do. The yard was only going to fill up with mud and piss and rain again.
"I can count the foreseeable future in days," Marcus said. "Weeks at best."
"You'd be welcome to travel with us," Master Kit said. "Yardem and Cithrin too. I think we all miss being caravan guards, just a little. It wasn't a role we'd ever had before, and I don't expect we will again."
"Master Kit?" Sandr called from behind the cart. "One of the swords is missing."
"I believe it's with Smit's bandit robe."
"It isn't."
Lantern flames and barn heat made the interior of the taproom warmer than the streets. The scent of roasting pork and beer competed with the less pleasant smell of close-packed bodies. Marcus kept one hand on his coins as he walked through the press. With so many distractions and people in so small a space, he'd have been shocked if there wasn't at least one cutpurse looking for a little luck. He saw Yardem first, sitting at a back table, then as he got closer, Enen and Roach, Cithrin and... Barth. That was his name. The Firstbloods were Corisen Mout and Barth, and Corisen Mout had the bad front tooth. Feeling unaccountably pleased with himself, Marcus sat at the table.
Cithrin raised her eyebrows, asking.
"It's done," Marcus said. "You? Things went well with the governor?"
"Fine," Cithrin said. "Paid the fee, left the box."
"The receipt?"
"Burned it," Cithrin said. "There won't be a trail back. As long as the governor doesn't get curious and force the lock, we're as ready as we're likely to get."
A servant hurried over, put a tankard of ale on the table in front of Marcus, and reached to take Cithrin's away. She stopped him, and he nodded his bow and darted away.
"What are the chances that the governor's baser instincts will get the better of him?" Marcus asked instead of How much have you drunk? If she were in danger of losing herself, Yardem would have stopped her. Maybe already had.
"Life is risk," she said as Roach, sitting beside her, sipped ale from his own tankard.
"Yardem was just telling us about the shapes of people's souls," Barth said. "Did you know your soul's a circle?"
Marcus shot a pained look at Yardem. The flick of an ear was the closest he got to an apology.
"Don't listen to anything he says, Barth. He's religious. It makes him nervous when things are going well."
"Wasn't aware they were going well, sir," Yardem said dryly.
Over the next hour, Marcus drank his tankard of ale, ate a plate of roast pork with a black sauce hot enough to bring tears to his eyes, and listened to the talk around the table. Barth kept on Yardem about souls and destiny, but Enen and Roach and Cithrin chewed on more practical matters: how many payments would be coming to the bank proper and how many to the room at the cafe, how to assure that no one attacked whoever carried the cafe payments across the city, whether to make arrangements with the queensmen to help enforce their private contracts. All the business and consideration of a bank's owner to her people. Cithrin spoke like a woman sure of her fate, and Marcus admired her for that.
The banging of a stick on a tin pan interrupted them.
"Show's to start!" Mikel's voice threaded through the noise of the taproom. "Come and watch the show! Show's to start!"
Marcus dropped a few coins on the table, rose, and, half joking, offered Cithrin his hand.
"Shall we?" he asked.
She accepted his support with a mocking formality.
"It's what we've come here for," she said. Marcus led her and the members of his new company out to the pleasant cool of the courtyard to watch his old one. The crowd was good. Easily fifty people, and more likely to stop as they went in or out. When Master Kit strode out on the boards, his wiry hair pulled back and a sword strapped to his hip, a few people applauded, Marcus among them. Sandr came out a moment later, pretending to pick his teeth with a blunted dagger.
"You, Pintin, have been my second in command these many years," Master Kit said, thrusting out his chin in parody of heroism. "From the moments of my highest glory and the depths of my despair, you have followed me. Now once again the hounds of war are loosed, and we must fly before them. The armies of dark Sarakal descend upon the city tomorrow."
"Best we get out tonight, then," Sandr said. The crowd chuckled.
"Indeed, ours is not to stand and fight the doomed fight. The city surely shall fall, and before it does, Lady Daneillin - last of her house and gentlest beauty of Elassae - must be taken safe away. That is our great work, Pintin. Our company is to fly this night with the great lady in our charge."
"Yeah, problem with that," Sandr said in his Pintin voice. "The men were on the city wall seeing who could piss the farthest. Seems the magistrate thought it was raining. They're all in the city gaol."
Master Kit paused. The self-importance in his jaw melted.
"What?" he shrieked in comic falsetto. More people laughed. They were warming to it.
Marcus leaned toward Yardem Hane.
"I'm not like that, though," he said. "All that high dramatic talk and sucking my gut in. That's not what I'm like."
"Not at all, sir," Yardem said.
Two days later, Cithrin sat across the cafe table from him. A light rain pattered outside the open doors and windows, the stones at the entrance of the Grand Market darkened almost black. Behind him, two Kurtadam men were talking about the latest news from Northcoast. Another war of succession seemed almost certain. Marcus told himself he didn't care, and for the most part that was true. The world smelled of coffee and raindrops.
"If we have the free coin, I'm thinking about sponsoring one of the Narinisle ships next year," Cithrin said.
Marcus nodded.
"There's going to be uncertainty about the new fleet idea. Especially at first. If it's a success, even just for the first couple of years, it's going to increase the traffic through Porte Oliva. That could be a very good thing for us, so long as we're in position. Known to everyone. Trusted."
"All that assuming," Marcus said.
Cithrin swallowed. She'd lost weight in the last weeks, and her skin, while always pale, was growing pallid. It was odd to him that none of the men who came asking her patronage for a loan or offering to deposit their wealth with her for a discreet return appeared to notice that the anxiety was eating her. She wasn't sleeping enough. But she wasn't drinking herself to sleep either. That counted as strength enough for him.
"All that assuming," she agreed. And then, "Do you ever wish we'd run? Filled our pockets and just... gone?"
"Ask me again once the auditor's left," Marcus said.
She nodded. The ancient, half-blind Cinnae man limped in from the back. The rain seemed to have no good effect on his hips. Cithrin raised her empty cup, and Maestro Ansanpur nodded with a knowing smile and turned back around.
"Magister Imaniel always said that waiting was the hardest thing," she said. "That the easiest way to lose was to get impatient. Do something for the sake of doing something and not because it's right. That always sounded obvious when he said it. He and Cam were the nearest thing I had to parents. I was with the bank almost as soon as I could walk. He knew everything about money and risk and how to appear one way when you're actually something else."
"He'd have made a good general, sounds like," Marcus said.
"No," she said. "I don't know. Maybe. He didn't like soldiers, though. He didn't like war. I remember he used to say that there are two ways to meet the world. You go out with a blade in your hand or else with a purse."
"Really? And here I thought there was money to be made from war."
"There is," Cithrin said. "But only if you're standing in exactly the right place. In the larger sense, there's always more lost in the fight than there is won. The way he said things, it sounded like we were all that kept the swords in their scabbards. War or trade. Dagger and coin. Those were the two kinds of people."
"Sounds like you miss him."
Cithrin nodded, then shrugged, then nodded again.
"I do, but not the way I thought I would. I thought it would all be about wanting to ask him what he knew, but most times when I think of him, it's just that it would be nice to hear his voice. And I don't even think of him as often as I'd expected."
"You've changed since you saw him," Marcus said. "That's one of the things Yardem used to tell me that actually made sense. He said that you don't go through grief like it was a chore to be done. You can't push and get finished quicker. The best you can do is change the way you always do, and the time comes when you aren't the same person who was in pain."
"And did that work for you?"
"Hasn't yet," Marcus said.
Maestro Asanpur returned with a fresh cup in his trembling hand. He placed it before Cithrin with a faint clink of fine ceramic. She blew across the surface of it, scattering the steam with her breath. When she sipped it, her smile lit the old Cinnae's face.
"Thank you, Maestro," she said.
"Thank you, Magistra," he said, and limped forward to close the shutters against the chill.
The patter of the raindrops grew heavier, the splashes like little detonations of white against the grey. She was right. Waiting for battle was the hardest part. Unless you got a dagger in your gut during the battle. Then that was hardest. Or you got through just fine and saw your men dead around you. Then that was.
Yardem appeared at the far side of the square, a darker shadow in a world made from them. He didn't run, didn't even hurry. Marcus watched the Tralgu endure his way past the queensmen and the market. With each step, he seemed to grow more solid. More real. He ducked his head as he came in the door.
"Sir."
"All right," Marcus said, his throat and chest tight. "All right."
Cithrin stood up. She looked calm. It would have taken living with her for the better part of a year to see the fear in her eyes and the angle of her chin.
"The auditor's come, then?" she said.
Yardem flicked his ears and nodded.
"He has, ma'am."