The Dragon's Path

Dawson

Dawson Kalliam found Kavinpol ugly. The city squatted with one leg on either side of the river Uder, its buildings stuccoed a scabrous red-grey. The local food founded itself on onions and fish pulled from the same water into which the sewers emptied. Too many cycles of freeze and thaw cracked the streets, leaving pools of half-frozen mud to break the leg of an unwary horse. And in the center of it all, Lord Ternigan’s estate with hunting grounds walled away from the city like a glorified lawn garden. In any other year, Dawson would have stayed on his estate with Clara and whichever of his sons chose to winter there rather than follow the hunt here.

This winter, though, the hunt had taken on a different meaning. Ternigan’s tame deer and hand-raised quail weren’t the prize Dawson tracked. And private audiences with the king were much easier to arrange when it was the king who wanted them.

“God damn it, Kalliam. I’m trying to keep peace, and you’re killing people in the streets?”

The ceiling of the king’s chamber vaulted up into the soot-muddied dimness above them. Great windows looked out over the city, boasts made of glass and iron. Overstated and gaudy, the architecture spoke of glory and power, and what it said was: You may have these or comfort, but not both.

Dawson looked at his childhood friend. The months of winter had etched a frown into the corners of his mouth and left grey at his temples like the first frost. Or perhaps the signs of age and weakness had always been there, and Dawson hadn’t been willing to see them until now. The jewel-studded robes that Simeon wore—even the crown itself—looked less like the raiments of power and greatness than they had in the autumn. Instead, they were the empty form of it, like a dry pitcher waiting to be filled. Dawson knew the response that Simeon and etiquette expected. Forgive me, sire.

“Nobler blood’s spilled in Camnipol every time someone slaughters a pig,” Dawson said. “They were Issandrian’s thugs.”

“You have proof of that?”

“Of course I can’t prove it, but we both know they were. His or Maas’s, it hardly matters. And you wouldn’t be pulling my leash if you believed they were street toughs with poor aim.”

The pause weighted the air. Simeon rose. His boots scraped against the stone floor. Around them, the chamber’s tapestries shifted, and the king’s guard kept their silent watch. Dawson wished they could be truly alone. The guards were servants, but they were also men.

“Your Majesty,” Dawson said, “I think you fail to understand the loyalty all around you. My own included. I have spent the season having private conversations with the highest-born men in Antea, and there is a wide support for you against Issandrian and his pack.”

“Issandrian and his pack are also my subjects,” Simeon said. “I can make the argument that feeding unrest is in itself acting against me.”

“We are acting for you, Simeon. The men I have spoken with are united in your name. I only wish you were with us.”

“If I start declaring war on parts of the nobility only because they happen to be in ascendance at the moment—”

“Is that what you’ve heard me say? Simeon, I have spent months cajoling and promising everyone I could find with any influence on Ternigan. He is ready to pull Klin from Vanai. All he needs is a signal from you.”

“If I take sides in this, it will end in blood.”

“And if you don’t the kingdom will have unending peace and light? You know better than that.”

“The dragons—”

“The dragons didn’t fall because there was a war. There was a war because there wasn’t a leader. A family needs a father, and a kingdom needs a king. It is your duty to lead, and if you fail in that, the day will come when they follow someone else. Then we will be on the dragon’s path.”

Simeon shook his head. The firelight reflected in his eyes. Outside, a cold wind whirled, smelling of winter. Snow like a fall of ashes whirled past the windows.

“A family needs a father,” the king said, as if the words were funny and bitter both. “When Eleora died, I promised her I’d take care of our son. Not the prince, our son.”

“Aster is the prince,” Dawson said.

“If he weren’t, he would still be my son. You have children. You understand.”

“I have three sons and a daughter. Barriath captains a ship under Lord Skestinin, Vicarian is studying for the priesthood, and Jorey’s in Vanai. Elisia married Lord Annerin’s eldest son three years ago, and I’ve barely heard of her since. And none of them, Simeon, have made me timid,” Dawson said. And then, more softly, “What happened to you?”

Simeon laughed.

“I became king. It’s all well and good when we were playing at it in the yards and on the battlefields, but then Father died. It wasn’t play anymore. Issandrian’s cabal isn’t my only problem. Hallskar’s begun harboring raiders again. Northcoast’s aiming for another war of succession and Asterilhold’s backing both sides. The tax revenues from Estinford aren’t what they should be, so someone’s either stealing them or the farms are starting to fail. And in a few years, Aster’s to step up and run it all.”

“Not so few,” Dawson said. “We’re not young, but we’ve got life in us yet. And you know the answer to this as well as I do. Find men you trust, and then trust them.”

“Meaning you and your cabal instead of Issandrian and his?” the king asked dryly.

“Yes. Meaning that.”

“I’d rather you backed away. Let Issandiran’s movement collapse from within.”

“It won’t.”

King Simeon looked up, and his eyes might have held anger or amusement or despair. Dawson sank deliberately to his knee, a man giving obeisance to his king. The angle of his chin and his shoulders made it a challenge. Here is my loyalty. Deserve it.

“You should go, old friend,” the king said. “I need to rest before the feast. I need to think.”

Dawson rose, bowed silently, and left for his own rooms. Lord Ternigan’s estate sprawled. It had been built over the course of centuries by uncountable designers, each it seemed with his own conflicting vision. The result was a labyrinth. Every courtyard and square opened in some unexpected way, hallways angled and turned to avoid obstacles long since unmade. There was no better invitation for a quiet knife from the shadows.

He let the king’s servant put him into his coat, drape the thick black wool cloak across his shoulders, and bow before stepping out into the white wind. Vincen Coe stepped behind him. Dawson didn’t speak to the man, and the hunter offered no report. With only the creak of leather and their snow-muffled footsteps, they crossed the courtyard, passed through a series of overhung walkways, and across a wide, flat bridge where the wind threatened to whip them away like sparrows in a storm. There were warmer paths, but they were better peopled, and so more dangerous. If Issandrian and Maas wanted to strike at Dawson, they’d have to work for it.

The hospitality that Ternigan had offered House Kalliam included a private house that had once belonged to a king’s favored concubine. The stonework had a vulgar sensuality, the gardens before it—no doubt lush in spring—were now hardly more than a collection of twigs and dead scrub. But it was defensible, and Dawson appreciated it for that. He shrugged off his cloak and his bodyguard at the door and entered the warm, dark inner rooms to the smell of mint tea and the sound of a woman weeping.

For a horrible moment, he thought the voice was Clara’s, but the years had trained him to pick her sounds out from any others, and these sobs were not hers. Quietly, he tracked the weeping and, as he drew nearer, Clara’s soothing voice to a sitting chamber where the long-dead concubine had once taken her ease. Now Clara sat there on a low divan, her cousin Phelia—Baroness of Ebbinbaugh and wife of the hated Feldin Maas—sitting on the floor before her, her head resting in Clara’s lap. Dawson met his wife’s gaze, and Clara shook her head without a pause in her soft litany of comfort. Dawson stepped back. He went to the private study to smoke his pipe, drink whiskey, and work on a poem he’d started composing until Clara came, an hour later, and dropped herself unceremoniously into his lap.

“Poor Phelia,” she sighed.

“Domestic trouble?” Dawson asked, stroking his wife’s hair. She plucked the pipe from his mouth and drew a deep lungful herself.

“It seems my husband is making her husband terribly unhappy,” she said.

“Her husband is trying to kill yours.”

“I know, but it hardly seems polite to point it out when the poor thing’s broken down in front of me. Besides which, you’re winning, aren’t you? I can hardly see her asking mercy if the warm winds were blowing on Ebbinbaugh.”

“Asking mercy was she?”

“Not in so many words,” Clara said, relinquishing Dawson’s lap but not his pipe. “But she wouldn’t, would she? Terribly rude, and I’m fairly certain Feldin didn’t know she’d come, so don’t start figuring her into all your calculations and intrigues. Sometimes a frightened woman is only a frightened woman.”

“And still, I don’t plan to make her days any better,” Dawson said. Clara shrugged and looked away. When he spoke next his tone was less playful. “I’m sorry about it. For you and for her. If that helps.”

For a long moment, Clara was silent, sipping smoke from his pipe. In the dim light, she looked younger than she was.

“Our worlds are growing apart, husband,” Clara said. “Yours and mine. Your little wars, my peaces. War is winning out.”

“There’s a time for war,” Dawson said.

“I suppose,” she said. “I… suppose. Still, remember that wars end. Try to be sure that there’s something worth having at the other end. Not all your enemies are your enemies.”

“That’s nonsense, love.”

“No it isn’t,” she said. “It’s just not how you see the world. Phelia’s no part of whatever you and Feldin hate in each other any more than I am. But she’s at stake, as am I and our children. Phelia is your enemy because she has to be, not because she chose it. And when the end comes, remember that a great number of the people on the other side have lost a great deal and didn’t pick the fight.”

“Would you have me stop?” he asked.

Clara laughed, a deep, purring sound. The smoke rose from her mouth, curling in the candlelight.

“Shall I ask the sun not to set while I’m at it?”

“For you, I would,” Dawson said.

“For me, you would try, and you’d batter yourself to nothing in the attempt,” she said. “No, do what you think needs doing. And think about how you would want Feldin to treat me, if he won.”

Dawson bowed his head. Around them, the beams and stones settled in the winter cold, popping and muttering to themselves. When he looked up again, her gaze was on him.

“I will try,” he said. “And if I forget…?”

“I’ll remind you, love,” Clara said. “It’s what I do.”

The feast that night began an hour before sunset and was to last until all the candles had burned themselves out. Lord Ternigan sat at the high table with his wife and brother. Simeon sat at the far end, Aster beside him in red velvet and cloth-of-gold looking embarrassed whenever Lady Ternigan spoke to him. The rider who’d taken top honors in the hunt—the half-Jasuru son of a noble family from Sarakal who was traveling in Antea for God knew what reason—joined them, nodding at everything and contributing nothing.

The best tapestries of Ternigan’s collection hung on the walls, beeswax candles burned in holders of sculpted crystal, and the dogs that lurked around the tables wore cloths on their backs in the colors of every noble house in Antea as a bit of levity to brighten the night. Dawson sat at the second table, near enough to hear what was said, and at the far end of the table with only five people between them, Feldin Maas. Ternigan once again evenhandedly marking that his allegiance was negotiable as a whore’s virtue. Phelia Maas sat her husband’s side stealing watery glances at Dawson. He ate his soup. It had too much salt, not enough lemon, and the fish still had bones in it.

“Lovely soup,” Clara said. “I remember my aunt—not your mother, Phelia, dear, Aunt Estrir who married that awful fop from Birancour—saying that the best thing for river fish is lemon zest.”

“I remember her,” Phelia said, clutching at the connection almost desperately. “She came back for my wedding, and she affected that terrible accent.”

Clara laughed, and for a moment things might almost have been at ease.

Behind Dawson, King Simeon cleared his throat. Dawson couldn’t say what about the sound caught him, but the hair on the back of his neck rose. From the pinched, bloodless lips and the wineglass trapped halfway between table and mouth, it was clear Feldin Maas had heard it too.

“All of this is tribute from your man in Vanai?” Simeon asked with a forced casualness.

“No, Majesty. Most has been in my family for years.”

“Ah, good. That squares better with what I’d heard about Klin and his taxes. For a moment, I thought you’d been holding out on me.”

Maas’s face went pale. He lowered the wineglass to the table. Dawson took a bite of fish and decided that perhaps Clara was right. The lemon did add something to it. King Simeon had just joked that Klin’s gifts from the conquered city wouldn’t be enough to decorate a feast. The tone was light, the only response was laughter, and Sir Alan Klin would be back in Antea by the thaw.

“I hope you’ll excuse me,” Dawson said. “Nature.”

“We understand,” Feldin Maas said, biting the words. “Every bladder gets weak with age.”

Dawson spread his hands in a gesture that could be read as an acknowledgment of the jest or as a provocation. Do your worst, little man. Do your worst.

By the time Dawson reached the edge of the feasting hall, Coe was silently walking behind him. In the wide stone hallway that led to the private retiring rooms, Dawson stopped and Coe stopped with him. It wasn’t long before Canl Daskellin, Baron of Watermarch, appeared, silhouetted by the light from the feast.

“Well,” Daskellin said.

“Yes,” Dawson said.

“Come with me,” Daskellin said. Together the two men walked to a private retiring room. Coe didn’t remain behind, but he gave a greater distance between himself and his betters. Dawson wondered what would happen if he ordered Coe away. On one hand, the huntsman could hardly refuse. On the other, strictly speaking, Coe answered to Clara. Awkward position for the man. Dawson’s mischievous spirit was tempted to try it and see which way the huntsman jumped, but Canl Daskellin spoke and brought his mind back to other matters.

“I’ve managed to catch Ternigan’s ear. His loyalty’s with us.”

“Until the tide turns,” Dawson said.

“Yes, and so we need to act quickly. I believe we can call the candidate for Klin’s replacement. But…”

“I know.”

“I’ve spoken with our friends in Camnipol. Count Hiren would have been the consensus choice if he’d lived.”

“Issandrian’s cousin? What did they like about him,” Dawson said.

“Estranged cousin,” Daskellin said. “But dead cousin in any case. His greatest strength was that he had no love for Issandrian and no direct ties to any of us.”

Dawson spat.

“How is it we’ve come so quickly to the place where we don’t want to seat one of our enemies or one of our own.”

“It’s the danger of conspiracy,” Daskellin said. “Breeds a certain distrust.”

Dawson crossed his arms. In his heart, he wanted his son Jorey in the prince’s chair. He could rely on his own blood in a way that mere politics could never attain. Which was, of course, why he’d sworn against it. Vanai had to be denied to Issandrian. But it couldn’t be taken by any single member of Dawson’s still-fresh alliance without threatening its fracture. Dawson had foreseen the problem. He had his proposal ready.

“Hear me out, Canl. Vanai was always a small piece in this,” Dawson said carefully.

“True.”

“With Klin gone, Issandrian’s lost the tribute, but the city is still his project. Maas agitated for taking it. Klin fought for it, and even controlled the city until now. If we don’t put someone in power who is identified with us, it will remain Issandrian’s in the general opinion.”

“But who of ours can we put in?”

“No one,” Dawson said, “that’s what I mean. We can’t take it from Issandrian in the mind of the court. But now we can control what it says about him. What if the governance of the city were to become a catastrophe? Lose the city to incompetence, and Issandrian’s reputation suffers along with it.”

Daskellin stopped. Between the dimness of the light spilling from the feast chamber and the darkness of the man’s complexion, Dawson couldn’t read his expression. He pressed on.

“My youngest son is there,” Dawson said. “He’s been sending reports. Lerer Palliako’s son is in Vanai. Geder, his name is. Klin’s been using him to do the unpopular work. No one likes or respects him.”

“Why not? Is he dim?”

“Worse than dim, one of those men who only knows what he’s read in books. He’s the kind that reads an account of a sailing voyage and thinks he’s a captain.”

“And you want Ternigan to name Geder Palliako in Klin’s place?”

“If half of what I’ve heard is true,” Dawson said with a smile, “there’s no one better suited to lose Vanai.”