The King's Blood

Marcus

It was raining in Porte Oliva when the reports came, the kind of flooding summer storm that began in the morning as a scent on the wind under a perfect blue sky and by mid-day was squalling against the streets and walls. It turned the streets into ankle-deep Rivers And Washed The Trash And Shit and dead animals from their hidden corners and out to the sea. Marcus struggled against the wind, but he didn’t run. Roach had brought word that Pyk needed him at the counting house. Within a minute of stepping outside, he’d been soaked as wet as it was possible to be. Running now seemed pointless.

The tulips in their bowl were vivid red. Several of the petals were lost, and as he came close, a gust of screaming wind whipped another free. Marcus watched it spin away on the surface of the flood: a tiny scarlet boat on a vast river. He pushed his way through the door.

Pyk was pacing the room. Sweat beaded on her wide fore-head, but rain had cooled the room to the point that she could at least move. Yardem sat on a tall stool smelling like wet dog and looking at least as drenched as Marcus. No one else was present.

“Bird came this morning,” Pyk said without preamble. “Sent from the holding company.”

“Good it didn’t wait for afternoon,” Marcus said, wringing out his cuffs. “Did they decide to send a fresh auditor?”

“Other people are going to start getting word of this in the next day or two, so we’re going to have to move quickly. There’s trouble in Antea. According to our man in Camnipol, someone tried to stick the Lord Regent full of knife-sized holes. They’ve closed the gates, and there’s been fighting in the streets ever since. Odds-on bet is civil war.”

The words took a moment to resolve. Yardem’s wide brown eyes were on him, watching him understand.

“I have a list of the contracts I want placed,” Pyk said, “but it has to be done today. Once the word goes out, the prices on grain and metalwork are going to head toward the sky. We may only have hours to do this, and so of course, this is the day we can wash all the ink off a piece of paper just by walking it down to the corner. God hates me, but we’ll do what we can.”

“What about Cithrin?” Marcus said.

Pyk scowled. She wouldn’t meet his eyes.

“The note doesn’t say. The chop is Paerin Clark’s, so he’s the one making report. She’s not mentioned.”

“But she’s in Camnipol,” Marcus said, his voice growing hard. “She’s with him.”

“She went there, but I don’t know how she stands. Safe, dead, or missing, he wouldn’t have spent space on the page for word of her. This isn’t gossip. It’s what will make us coin. He sent us what we need to help the bank, and now it’s ours to follow his lead.”

“I’m going for her,” Marcus said. “You can work the contracts yourself.”

“God’s sake, Wester,” Pyk said, “it’s Camnipol. It’s weeks from here on a fast boat and more over land. By the time you got there, it would all be done. Even the bird’s not going to tell us what’s happening there now. Maybe it’s resolved. Maybe the whole place is burned flat. Either way, our work’s here.”

“I don’t accept that,” Marcus said.

“I don’t accept being the only good-looking woman in a city full of bendy little twig men,” Pyk said, “but it doesn’t change the situation. The magistra’s in Camnipol and we’re here. If you want to take care of her, take care of the things that matter to her. And while you’re at it, do what you’re paid for.”

Pyk lifted a handful of papers. Contracts. Letters of enquiry and agreement. Yardem cleared his throat and Marcus forced himself to take his hand off the pommel of his sword. For a moment, the only sounds were the rush of water and the howl of wind. Pyk walked across the room and held out the papers. Slowly, half against his will, Marcus took them.

“This is dangerous work,” Pyk said. “No one sees these except you and Ears.”

“Ears?”

“She means me, sir.”

“Ah.”

“Nothing else you’re doing matters compared to this,” Pyk said. “Manage it well, and we’ll have enough profit to keep this place afloat the rest of the year. All of the contracts have the names of the people I want them going to. Don’t put them in anyone else’s hands. And get it done now.”

Marcus paged through the contracts. He nodded.

“We have something dry to carry them in?” he asked.

Yardem stood. He held a leather satchel in one hand and a broad oilskin envelope in the other. Marcus took them, folding contracts into envelope and envelope into satchel. Pyk folded her arms, her eyes black and narrow and satisfied.

“Don’t cock this up,” she said.

“We’ll do what needs doing,” Marcus said. “Yardem?”

“Coming, sir.”

Marcus stepped into the storm. The raindrops cut at his face and stung his eyes. Yardem padded along beside him.

“Ears?”

“I think she’s taking a liking to me, sir.”

“Well, you’re a charming man. I have to stop by the barracks. Come with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

The city was blurred, as if the water could wash away not only objects but lines and color themselves. As if the idea of Porte Oliva was dissolving. In the barracks, a dozen guardsmen were sitting in a rough circle playing at dice. Marcus considered them. He’d hired every person in his company except Yardem. They were good people. Solid men and women, loyal to the bank and to him personally.

Part of him would miss them.

“Ahariel.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Marcus tossed the satchel across the room. The Kurtadam caught it out of the air.

“There’s some contracts in there need delivering. Do what you can, eh?”

“Yes, Captain,” the guardsman said, undoing the satchel’s buckles.

Marcus turned back toward the door. Yardem stood there, his face blank but his ears standing tall and forward.

“Waiting for something?” Marcus asked.

“No, sir.”

“Let’s go, then.”

The inns and taprooms by the port were thick with bodies huddling out of the weather. Gossip and news and unconfirmed speculations came as cheap as a bowl of barley soup or a bottle of cider. Marcus hadn’t considered that one virtue of living in a single place for more than a year was that it gave a sense of which faces and voices didn’t belong. Those were the ones he followed, because those were the ones who had come from places where the petty wars were being started or fought or guarded against.

Merrisen Koke and his men were in Lyoneia, fighting for a local lordling against a pod of tribal Southlings. Karol Dannien, on the other hand, had taken garrison work on the border between Elassae and the Keshet. Tiyatra Egencil, smaller and more recently formed than Koke’s company or Dannien’s, was in Maccia enforcing the law for a prince whose guard had turned. Another company Marcus hadn’t heard of calling themselves Black Hounds was supposed to be doing something in Herez, but the details on that were vague.

The storm blew itself out to sea. When the sunset came late in the day, it turned the high clouds in the south gaudy red and gold. The grey veil beneath them looked almost gentle at this distance. The streets were wet and clean, even the mud washed away. The puppeteers and musicians came out, plying their trades at the street corners and taproom yards. Marcus bought a waxpaper cone of cooked beef for himself and another of eggs and fish for Yardem, and they walked down the wide streets.

“I like Koke best, but I don’t see going to Lyoneia. Maccia’s close, but Egencil’s new at this, and I don’t know that I trust her yet.”

“And she’s working for a prince,” Yardem said.

Marcus shrugged and popped a chip of beef into his mouth. “Why’s that a problem?” he asked around the food.

“I thought we didn’t work for kings, and that princes were just little kings,” Yardem said.

“I’m not looking for someone to work for. I have someone to work for. I need someone to hire.”

Yardem flicked a jingling ear.

“For what, sir?”

“I’m going to get Cithrin,” Marcus said. “Thought that was clear enough.”

“That’s a large favor to ask,” Yardem said. “Even if it was someone from the old days.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“We don’t have anything like the gold to hire a company.”

“I know where there’s a bank’s strongbox.”

Yardem bowed his head and grunted. Marcus went on a half dozen steps before he realized that Yardem had stopped. The Tralgu’s face was perfectly empty. Impassive. Marcus walked back and stood before him.

“You’ve something to say?”

“Do I understand, sir, that your plan is to steal from the bank, hire a mercenary company, and march it into the middle of an imperial civil war?”

“My plan,” Marcus said, his voice conversational but with a buzz of anger, “is to get Cithrin back safe. Whatever I have to do in order to see that happen, I’m doing. If it meant sinking this city in the sea, I’d do it.”

“This is a mistake, sir.”

“Are you saying she isn’t worth it?”

“I’m saying that taking an outside force into a civil war is marching barrels of oil into a fire. Crossing the bank to do it means nothing to come back to, even if you did find her.”

“What else am I supposed to do? Sit by and wait?”

“The magistra’s smart. Capable. You could have faith in her.”

“She’s a girl in the middle of a war,” Marcus said, “and we both know what can happen to girls in the middle of wars. I’m going to find her, and I’m going to keep her safe. I’ve never asked you to come with me. If this isn’t something you can do, then it isn’t.”

Yardem’s scowl seemed to change the shape of his bones.

“I’m going to ask you to reconsider this,” he said, his voice low. “The strongbox—”

“Tell me it’s worth more than she is,” Marcus said. “Tell me the bank is worth more than Cithrin.”

They stood in the street. On the horizon, the clouds flicked with lightning, but they were too far away for thunder. Marcus took another bite of his food, and Yardem sighed.

“How do you plan getting to the strongbox, sir?”

“I set who’s on the watch,” Marcus said. “A hammer. A chisel. A cart with a decent team. We know the low roads between here and the Free Cities, or else we can charter a little coast-hugger. Hell, buy a fishing boat and just don’t come back. Could be in Elassae in twenty days. Maccia in considerably less.”

“Still an awfully long way to Camnipol.”

“That’s an argument for starting tonight,” Marcus said.

Buying a handcart took Marcus almost no time. A potter with a small yard near the counting house was willing to part with one, and Marcus was willing to overpay. Finding a hammer and chisel meant finding the smith in his home and explaining what he needed. Decades of hammer blows had made the man nearly deaf.

The plan’s simplicity was its strength.

The street was empty and dark, the righteous men and women of Porte Oliva asleep in their beds and the unrighteous tending to stay nearer the salt quarter. Fewer queensmen patrolled here in the night, and if they did, what could they object to? Marcus and Yardem were known to be part of the bank. If someone came across them on the way to the counting house, they were only on their way to a turn at the watch. And once they left, Marcus assumed they were gone forever. It wasn’t likely that Porte Oliva or anywhere that the Medean bank was a force would be open to him again.

Small price.

In the gloom, Yardem pulled the handcart into the house, locked and barred the door. Marcus went below to the sunken strongbox. The lock was stronger than it looked, and opening it took the best part of an hour. When the lid finally did swing back, silent on well-oiled hinges, Marcus brought his lantern close. Only the most sensitive and valued contracts were kept here. Papers were only paper, and the number of people who could use them was small. Gems, though. Sacks of gold coin, weights of silver. Jewelry and sealed tubes of rare spice. Those were things that anyone could use. Marcus squatted over the box, his free hand going through the wealth of the bank quickly but with consideration.

“Less than it was when we came,” Yardem said.

“That’s to be expected,” Marcus said. “Most of it’s tied up in loans and partnerships. There’s enough, though. Maybe not for a full company and full season, but a couple hundred sword-and-bows. We’ll move faster on the road that way too. Won’t have the long supply lines to slow us down.”

“I’m going to ask you for a favor, sir.”

Marcus looked up. The lantern cast the shadow of Yardem’s chin up over his face, hooding him with it. In that light, he could have been someone else entirely.

“What is it?” Marcus said.

“Once we put that in the cart and walk out the door, it’s done. This is the last chance to reconsider. I’d like you to take a moment and pray with me on this.”

Marcus laughed. “I’m serious, sir.”

“God’s not listening,” Marcus said. “It’s not what he does.”

“I think we might be the ones meant to listen, sir.”

“Get it over with,” Marcus said.

Yardem bowed his head, the black eyes closing. Marcus shifted from foot to foot, waiting. It was seven streets to a stable. More than that to the port. But with what he’d have in hand, buying a way out of the city would be easy. Between the gold and their two swords, the morning would find them elsewhere. Yardem opened his eyes.

“Change your mind, sir.”

“Nope, the spirit didn’t speak. Enough theology,” Marcus said, tossing a small leather sack of gems. Yardem caught them overhand. “Help me load this up.”

Yardem’s hand closed on his shoulder, and the world spun. The stone wall of the basement struck his back like a hammer, and he fell to his hands and knees.

“What in—”

Yardem stepped close, his wide hand on Marcus’s neck. Marcus rolled, pulling his sword free as he did it, but the Tralgu’s other hand clamped on his wrist and twisted. The hand around his throat lifted, and Marcus’s feet lost the floor. As the world began to go red and hazy, he brought a knee up hard into the soft spot just under Yardem’s ribs. He felt something give way and the grip on his throat eased enough that he could draw in a sip of air. There was desperation in the way Yardem pulled at Marcus’s sword arm, working it like a lever, but Marcus went with his momentum and broke the hold.

He swung around, blade at the defense half a heartbeat too late. The hammer he’d bought to break the lock came down gracefully on the bridge of his nose. Something cracked wetly and the world dissolved in pain. He felt his sword wrested from his grip as if it were happening to someone else. He bulled forward blind, his shoulder finding something soft and pushing Yardem back to the ground, but the Tralgu slipped to his left and got an arm around his throat. Marcus kicked, trying to twist his head down low enough to put his teeth on Yardem’s arm, but he couldn’t. His mouth tasted of blood and he couldn’t breathe through his nose. His fingers dug at the thick, strangling flesh. Something smelled like smoke. His leg kicked out from under him, and the world narrowed to a greyish point far away before him and then blinked out.

When Marcus came to, his legs and arms were bound behind him and a cloth was pushed into his mouth and tied there with a leather thong. A sack was pulled over his head, making the process of breathing even more difficult. He was in the handcart, and its wooden wheels were rumbling against the cobblestones. His nose throbbed, sending stabbing pain back into his skull, and he tried to twist into a position where he could rise to his knees or shout for the queensmen. Anything.

“That the package?” an unfamiliar voice asked.

“Is,” Yardem said. “You know where to take it?”

“Do. But I’m not going to vouch for a damned thing if he gets loose along the way. I’m no soldier.”

“I am a soldier,” Yardem said. “He won’t get loose.”

Something lifted him around the middle and dropped him hard against boards. Chains rattled and a wide leather strap wrapped him like a girth. The sack slipped, and Marcus saw the bed of a cart, a wide iron ring set into the planks, and Yardem fixing the chain to it. Rage and willpower lifted him to his knees, and Yardem casually pressed him back down.

“How long are you going to take back there?” the carter asked.

“Almost done,” Yardem rumbled. He pulled at the chain, and Marcus slid down to the boards. His shoulder and hips screamed in pain. His labored breath started the blood flowing from his nostrils. Again. If he craned his neck, he could see the Tralgu’s stoic face looming over him. There was fresh blood on Yardem’s hands and a cut on his ear that Marcus didn’t remember making. Part of Marcus still expected to be released. That it was a joke or a lesson or the start of some overblown religious statement.

The other part of him, that part that understood, stared up and thought, I will kill you for this.

When Yardem spoke, his voice was calm. He might have been talking about the weather or the prospects of a new recruit. He might have been talking about anything.

“The day I throw you in a ditch and take the company, sir? It’s today.”