The Dragon's Path

Cithrin

Wind rattled the shutters and hissed at the windows. The morning sun was too bright to bear. By simply existing, the world made Cithrin want to vomit. She rolled over on her bed, pressing her hand to her throat. She didn’t want to stand up, and she certainly wasn’t walking to the Grand Market. The attempt alone would kill her.

There was a vague uneasiness muttering at the back of her mind, a reason that staying here would be a problem. She was supposed to go to the café because…

Because…

Cithrin said something obscene, then, without opening her eyes, repeated it slowly, drawing out the sounds. She was supposed to meet with a representative of the tanner’s guild to talk about insuring their trade when the ships went back out. It wouldn’t be long now. Days, perhaps. Not more than two weeks. Then the thrice-damned ships would go out, traveling up the coast while the season still held. They’d make their stops in the north, make what trades they could, and then hunker down for the winter, waiting for the ships from Far Syramys to reach the great island of Narinisle and begin the whole blighted thing over again. And so it would go, on and on and on until the end of all things, whether Cithrin got out of bed or not.

She sat up. Her rooms were in disarray around her. Bottles and empty wineskins crowded the floor. Another gust pushed against the windows, and she felt the air around her press in and then out. It was nauseating. She stood up slowly and walked across to look for a dress to put on that didn’t stink of sweat. Sometime during the night, it appeared she’d knocked against the night pot, because a puddle of cold piss was well on its way to staining the floorboards. The only clothes that didn’t look filthy were the trousers and rough shirt she’d worn as Tag the Carter. For what she had to do, they’d suffice. There were still half a dozen silver coins in her purse, and she shoved them into Tag’s pocket.

By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, she felt more nearly human. She stepped out into the street for a moment, then back in through the bank’s front door.

“Roach,” she said, and the little Timzinae jumped to attention.

“Magistra Cithrin,” he said. “Captain Wester and Yardem just left to collect payment from the brewer just north of the wall and the two butchers in the salt quarter. Barth and Corisen Mout went with them. Enen’s asleep in the back because she drew night watch, and Ahariel is going to get some sausages and come back.”

“I need you to run an errand for me,” Cithrin said. “Go to the café and let the man from the tanner’s guild know I won’t be there. Tell him I’m unwell.”

The boy’s nictatating membranes clicked over his eyes nervously.

“Captain Wester said I should stay here,” Roach said. “Enen’s asleep, and he wanted someone awake in case—”

“I’ll stay down here until someone gets back,” Cithrin said. “I may feel like slow death, but I can still raise a shout if it’s called for.”

Roach still looked uncertain. Cithrin felt a stab of annoyance.

“I pay Wester,” she said. “I pay you too, for that. Now go.”

“Y-yes, Magistra.”

The boy darted out to the street. Cithrin stood in the doorway for a long moment, watching the dark legs scissor and stretch as he ran. Far down the street, he dodged a cart loaded with fresh-caught fish, turned the corner, and vanished. Cithrin counted slowly to twelve, giving him time to reappear. When he didn’t, she walked out into the street and pulled the door shut behind her. The wind was against her and kicking up bits of dust and straw, but she squinted her way to the taproom.

“Good morning, Magistra,” the keeper said as her eyes adjusted to the gloom. “Back already?”

“Seems I am,” she said, fishing the silver coins back out of her pocket. “I’ll take what this buys.”

The keeper took the coins, lifting and dropping his hand as he estimated their weight.

“Your boys know how to go through wine,” he said.

“They don’t drink it,” she said, grinning. “It’s all for me.”

The man laughed. It was a new kind of lie she’d only just discovered, telling the bleak truth lightly and letting everyone around her mistake it for a joke. They don’t drink it; it’s all for me. Come winter, I’m as likely to be in the stocks as free. Nothing I do matters.

He came back with two dark bottles of wine and a small tun of beer. Cithrin tucked the tun under her arm, took a bottle in either hand, and waited as he opened he door for her. Now the wind was at her back, pushing her on like it wanted her to get back home. The sky was blue above her with a skin of white clouds high in the air, but it smelled like rain. Porte Oliva autumns had a reputation for rough weather, and summer was in its last days now. A little cloudburst now and again hardly seemed worth complaining about.

She didn’t go back into the main rooms, heading for her own door instead. Maneuvering up the stairs was hard with the tun still under her arm. She hit the corner of the wall at the top with her elbow. The impact was enough to leave her fingers tingling, but she didn’t drop the bottle.

She’d forgotten about the puddle of piss, but she was feeling well enough now to open her window and pour the night pot’s contents into the alley. She swabbed up the rest with a dirty shift, then threw that out the window too. She’d eaten a link of gristly sausage and a heel of black bread the day before. She knew she ought to be hungry, but she wasn’t. She pulled off her carter’s boots, pulled open the first of the wine bottles, and lay back on her bed, her back against the little headboard.

The wine was sweeter than she was used to, but she could feel the bite of it. Her stomach rebelled for a moment, twisting like a fish on a fire, and she slowed down to sips until it calmed. Her head throbbed once, the beginning of an ache. The wind paused, leaving her in silence. She heard the voices of the two Kurtadam guards rising from below her.

The woman—Enen—laughed. Warmth and calm slid into Cithrin’s blood. She took one last, long drink straight from the bottle’s neck, turned, and set the wine on the floor. The darkness behind her eyes was comfortable and deep. The roar of the wind kicking back up seemed to come from a great distance, and her mind, such as it was, sparked and slipped. Connections came together in unlikely, unrepeatable ways.

She had the sense that Magister Imaniel had left her something for Captain Wester. She thought that it had to do with the canal traffic in Vanai connecting to the docks in Porte Oliva, and also with herbs and spices packed in snow. Without drawing a line between awake and dozing or dozing and asleep, Cithrin’s consciousness faded to darkness. Time stopped, started when she became vaguely aware of angry voices, very far away, and stopped again.

“Get up.”

Cithrin forced her eyes open. Captain Wester stood in the doorway, his arms crossed. The light was dim, the city in twilight and cloud.

“Get out of bed,” he said. “Do it now.”

“Go away,” she said.

“I told you to get out of that God damned bed!”

Cithrin pushed up on one arm. The room shifted, unsteady.

“And do what?” she said.

“You’ve missed five meetings,” Marcus said. “People are going to start talking, and when they do, you’re done. So stand up and do what needs doing.”

Cithrin stared at him, her mouth slack with disbelief and a rising anger.

“Nothing needs doing,” she said. “It’s done. I’m done. I had my chance, and I lost it.”

“I met Qahuar Em. He’s not worth pouting over. Now you—”

“Qahuar? Who cares about Qahuar?” Cithrin said, sitting up. She didn’t remember spilling wine on her tunic, but it tugged where dried wine had adhered to her skin. “It was the contract. I tried for it, and I lost. I had the world by the hair, and I lost. I failed.”

“You failed?”

Cithrin spread her arms, gesturing at the rooms, the city, the world. Pointing out the obvious. Wester stepped closer. In the dim light, his eyes seemed bright as river stones, his mouth as hard as iron.

“Did you watch your wife and daughter burn to death in front of you? Because of you?” he asked. When she didn’t answer, he nodded. “So it could have been worse. You aren’t dead. There’s work that needs doing. Get up and do it.”

“I’m not permitted. I had a letter from Komme Medean that I’m not allowed to trade in his name.”

“So instead you curled up in a mewling ball in his name? I’m sure he’ll be thrilled. Get out of bed.”

Cithrin lay down, pulling her pillow to her chest. It smelled foul, but she held it anyway.

“I don’t take orders from you, Captain,” she said, making the last word an insult. “You take money from me, so you do what I tell you. Now go away.”

“I won’t let you throw away everything you’ve worked for.”

“I worked to keep the bank’s money safe, and I’ve done it. So you’re right. I win. Now go away.”

“You want to keep it.”

“Stones want to fly,” she said. “They don’t have wings.”

“Find a way,” he said, almost gently.

It was too much. Cithrin shouted wordless rage, sat up, and threw the pillow at him as hard as she could. She didn’t want to cry anymore, and here she was, crying.

“I told you to get out!” she screamed. “No one wants you here! I am canceling your contract. Take your wages and your men and lock the door behind you.”

Wester took a step back. Cithrin’s chest went hollow, and she tried to swallow back the words. He bent down, picked up her pillow between thumb and finger, and lobbed it back to her. It landed on the bed at her side with a soft sound like someone being punched in the stomach. He nudged one of the empty wineskins with the toe of his boot and took a long, deep breath.

“Remember that I tried to talk you back to your senses,” he said.

He turned. He walked away.

She had anticipated the pain, braced herself for it, so it wasn’t the anguish of knowing he would leave her that surprised. The surprise was that even knowing, even being ready for it, the despair could still swamp her. It felt like something had died halfway between her throat and her heart, and was curled there inside her body, rotting. She heard him walking down the stairs, each step quieter than the one before. Cithrin snatched up her filthy pillow and screamed into it. It felt like days, just screaming, her body shaking from hunger and exhaustion and the poison of wine, beer, and ale. The muscles in her back and belly were threatening to cramp, but she could no more stop screaming and weeping than she could choose not to breathe.

There were voices below her. Marcus Wester and Yardem Hane. She heard Yardem rumble something that she recognized form its cadence as Yes, sir though the syllables before and after it were a confusion. Then a smaller, higher voice. Roach, perhaps.

They’d all go. All of them.

It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered. Her parents were dead so long ago she didn’t remember them. Magister Imaniel and Cam and Besel, all dead. The city of her childhood was burned and broken. And the bank, the one thing she had ever made for herself, would be taken from her as soon as the auditor arrived. She couldn’t bring herself to think that a few guards leaving early could matter.

But it did.

Slowly, very slowly, the storm within her stilled. It was full dark now, and tiny raindrops tapped against the window like fingernails. She reached for the wine bottle beside the bed and was surprised to find it empty. But there was still the other bottle. And the tun of beer. She would be all right. She only needed to get her strength back. A few more minutes were all she needed.

She hadn’t quite roused herself when the footsteps came. First the steady tramp at the base of the stairway, and then, before it even reached the top, heavier thudding. Something hit the wall of the house, and Yardem grunted. There was a wet sound that might have been rain pouring off the roof, but seemed nearer than that. A light glowed. A lantern in Wester’s hand. And behind him, Yardem Hane and the two Kurtadam guards struggling with a copper basin easily four feet long.

“We should have brought it first and filled it later,” Enen said, her voice straining.

“We’ll know next time,” Marcus said.

Through her doorway, she saw the three guards put down the basin. It was as tall as Marcus’s knee and it sloshed.

“What are you doing?” Cithrin asked, her voice smaller and weaker than she’d expected it to be.

Ignoring her, Yardem handed a round stone jar to the captain and started lighting the candles and lamps in the main room. The two Kurtadam saluted and went back down the stairs. Cithrin sat up, steadying herself with one hand. Marcus walked toward her, and before she could stop him, he grabbed her by the hair and dragged her off the bed. Her knees hit the floor with a thud and a stab of pain.

“What are you doing?” she shouted.

“I tried talking first,” Wester said, and pushed her into the basin. The water was warm. “Take those rags off or else I will.”

“I am not going to—”

In the growing light of the candles, his expression was hard and implacable.

“I’ve seen girls before. I’m not going to be shocked. I’ve got soap here,” he said, pressing the stone jar into her hand. “And be sure to wash your hair. It’s greasy enough to catch fire.”

Cithrin looked at the jar. It was heavier than she’d expected, with a tight-fit lid. She didn’t know the last time she’d washed herself. When he spoke again, his voice was resigned.

“Either you do it, or I will.”

“Don’t watch,” she said, and as she did, she realized that she was agreeing to a contract whose terms she didn’t yet know. All she felt was relief that they hadn’t left her.

Marcus made in impatient sound, but turned to face the stairway. Yardem coughed discreetly and stepped into the bedroom. Cithrin pulled off the carter’s clothes and knelt in the basin. The air felt cold against her skin. A carved wood bowl floated beside her, and she used it to rinse herself. She hadn’t realized how filthy she’d felt until she didn’t anymore.

A familiar voice came from the stairway.

“Is she there?” Cary asked.

“She is,” Marcus said. “Just toss it up for now.”

The actor grunted, and Marcus moved forward, catching a bundle of rope and cloth out of the air.

“We’ll be downstairs,” Cary said, and Cithrin’s street door opened and closed. Marcus untied the rope and passed a length of soft flannel out behind him. Cithrin took the towel from his hand.

“Got a clean dress here too,” he said. “You say when you’re decent.”

Cithrin stepped out of the bath shivering and dried herself quickly. The water in the basin was dark, a scum of suds floating on the top. Shrugging on the dress, she recognized it as one of Cary’s. The cloth smelled of face paints and dust.

“I’m decent,” she said.

Yardem came out of her bedroom. He’d fashioned her blanket into a sack and filled it with empty wineskins and bottles. The tun and her remaining bottle were in with the dead. She reached out, ready to tell him to leave those, that she wasn’t done with them. The Tralgu cocked an ear, his earring jingling. She let him pass.

“I’ve got food coming,” Marcus said. “You have all the bank’s records in here?”

“There’s a transaction ledger at the café,” she said. “And copies of a few of the contracts.”

“I’ll send someone. I am posting a guard at the foot of the stairs and under that window. No drink stronger than coffee comes in. You stay in here until you figure out what we’re going to do to keep your bank for you.”

“There isn’t anything,” she said. “I’ve been forbidden from any more negotiation or trade.”

“And God knows we wouldn’t want to break any rules,” Marcus said. “Whatever you need, you say the words. Everyone gets a good self-pitying drunk now and again, but it’s over. You stay sober and you do what needs doing. Understood?”

Cithrin stepped in close and kissed him. His lips were still and uncertain, the stubble around them rough. He was the third man she’d ever kissed. Sandr and Qahuar and Captain Wester. He stepped back.

“My daughter wasn’t much younger than you.”

“Would you have done this to her?” she asked, gesturing at the basin.

“I’d have done anything for her,” he said. And then, “I’ll have the bath taken away, Magistra. Do you want us to get some coffee since we have to get the books from the café anyway?”

“It will be closed by now. It’s night.”

“I’ll have an exception made.”

“Then yes.”

He nodded and went back down the stairway. Cithrin sat at her little desk. The sound of rain above her mixed with the voices below. There was nothing to be done, of course. All the best efforts and intentions in the world couldn’t change a single number inked in her ledgers. She looked anyway. Yardem and the two Kurtadam came and hauled the basin away again. Roach appeared with a bowl of fish-and-cream soup that tasted of black pepper and the sea. A mug of beer would have gone with it perfectly, but she knew better than to ask. Water was good enough for now.

Her mind felt fragile, a thing that might fall apart at any little jostle, but she tried to imagine herself as the auditor from Carse. What would he see when he looked at all this? She went through the initial listing of inventory that she’d made. Silk, tobacco, gems, jewels, spices, silver, and gold. The pudgy Antean at the mill pond had stolen some, and her estimate of the loss was included, the numbers in black strokes against the cream-colored paper. So there was the beginning. Now to what she’d done with it.

Turning the pages had a sense of nostalgia. The dry hiss of the paper, and here was another artifact of the golden age that had just passed. The contract and receipt from when she’d bought the rooms from the gambler. The onionskin permit and seal that had marked the opening of the bank. She traced her fingertips over it. It hadn’t been a full season since she’d begun. It seemed more than that. It seemed a lifetime. Then the agreements of consignment from the spicer and the cloth merchants. Her valuation, theirs, and the final income from sale. The jewelry had always been the problem. She found herself wondering if there might have been a better way to be rid of it than the one she’d chosen. Maybe if she’d waited until the ships from Narinisle had come in. Or placed them on consignment with a trading house with a heavy export trade. Then she wouldn’t have been flooding her own market. Well, next time.

Distant thunder rolled softly through the steady tapping of rain. Roach, soaked to his scales, brought up the lockbox from the café, a huge earthenware mug of coffee, and a note from Maestro Asanpur hoping that she would feel better soon and saying that the café felt too large without her in it. It was almost enough to reduce her to tears again, but that would have confused the Timzinae boy, so she forced herself to keep composure.

The best trade she’d worked had been the horizontal semi-monopoly with the brewer, cooper, and taphouses. Each person in the chain of production was in business with the bank, and so as soon as the grain and water arrived at the brewery, every trade benefited her, and put her in the position to guarantee business to the next link. If she could make arrangements with a few farmers for dedicated access to their grain crops, it would be a locked-in gold-producing mechanism.

But that would be for the next person, whoever they were. Cithrin sipped at her coffee. It had been a good thought, though, and well performed. In a year, when the remnants of her parents’ investment in the bank came to her, she would have to see if there was some much smaller version of the same plan. It would be painful, she thought, going from Magistra Cithrin bel Sarcour to the bank’s ward again for that last year. But once she reached her naming day, and could enter into business for herself…

The skin on her arm puckered, the fine hairs standing up. Her neck prickled. A feeling of cold fire lit her spine. She closed the books she’d written, shoved them aside, and went back to the older ones, written by other hands now dead. The records of Vanai. The small red-inked notation that marked her arrival at the bank. She closed the book with trembling hands.

Captain Wester had been right.

There was a way.