The Widow's House

Clara

After the defenders of the city left the safety of their walls to pour out, selling their lives cheap in the effort to free the crippled dragon, the battle moved on. It entered the city itself, and was hidden from Clara by the great, scarred walls. At one point, shortly before evening, someone in the city had tried to close the gates again, but whatever that plan was, it failed with the defenses unrestored. The falling sun spread shadows across the churned mud and ashes of the ruins outside Porte Oliva. Within the city, the sack.

She knew better than to approach the walls until her son’s army had burned through its anger and its lusts, had celebrated its victory upon the bodies of the conquered. Until then, she was a creature of the fields of ash. There would be enough to learn, enough to report, when morning came and the beasts had remade themselves as men again.

Dawson had told her stories of war before. Of its glories and dangers. As she and Vincen and the other hangers-on picked through the bodies of the fallen—Antean and Birancouri alike—she could conjure up his voice. Battle is the proving ground in which boys discover what it means to be men. She wondered now whether he had truly believed that, or if it was only a story he’d told himself to forgive what could not be forgiven.

A Timzinae woman lay facedown in the ashes, motionless. Dead. If she’d borne a weapon, it was lost amid the rubble. A Firstblood boy was sprawled beside her, his open eyes as empty as stones. Clara couldn’t say by looking which side he’d fought on, but his frame was thin and his face gaunt, so likely one of Jorey’s. A young man of Antea come to find glory in ashes and blood.

“They say the spirits of the dead ride with Geder’s army,” she said.

“They say a lot of things,” Vincen replied. His voice was rough.

“I think it’s true,” Clara said, nodding at the dead boy. “He looks wasted enough he might have been dead for weeks. Months. I think perhaps we are the dead.”

“I’m not,” Vincen said. “And I think you aren’t either.”

Clara knelt by the body, checking it for any small items of value, not because she wanted them, but because it was expected of the kind of scavenger she was pretending to be. “Are you certain of that?”

“I’ve seen a lot of things be killed. Elk. Rabbit. Fox. Bird. Once they’ve died, they don’t suffer. So yes. Fairly certain.”

The dead boy had a little wallet folded over his belt, empty apart from a bit of oak with a mark cut into it in black. A charm against misfortune, a token from a lover or a parent, or a bit of scrap picked up and carried for no reason in particular. It didn’t matter now. The only one who could have put meaning to it was past caring, and the little chip of wood was now forever and irrevocably just a little chip of wood. She tucked it in the fold of the boy’s sleeve. Whatever it had been, it could rest with him. She rocked back on her haunches. Blackened timbers that had been houses and shops, launderers’ yards and cobblers’ stalls, stood all about, like bones made of char.

“My sons did this,” she said. “My husband did much like this in Asterilhold, and then came home to my arms. Can you imagine that? Loving someone who is capable of this?”

Vincen stood. For a long moment, they were both silent.

“Yes,” he said.

“So can I,” she said, “and it astounds me.”

“Hey! You there!” The new voice was rough, the voice of a man hoarse from shouting.

Vincen moved between her and the approaching men, his chin high. There were five of them, all wearing armor not so different from a huntsman’s leathers. One, the leader by his bearing and the adornments on his hilt, was familiar. Kestin Flor. Sir Namen Flor’s first son by his second wife. Clara hunched down and tried to hide her face.

“My lord,” Vincen said. “My congratulations on today’s victory.”

“Fuck you,” Flor said, and the men with him sniggered. “You’re out here desecrating our fallen, and you have the gall to congratulate me? You should be begging for mercy.”

Clara’s throat closed with fear. There was a madness in Flor’s voice. A joy and a violence that sank her heart in black dread. Two of the soldiers moved out to the left, opening Vincen’s flank.

“We’ve done nothing wrong,” Vincen said. “We’re traveling with the caravan. Supporting the soldiers.”

“Feeding off us like ticks, I say,” one of Flor’s men growled.

“I’ve taken nothing from the Antean dead,” Vincen said. “All I have is from the locals. You can have it, if you like. Take all of it.”

“Oh, I will,” Flor said, rolling the words out slowly. Tasting them. “Boys?”

They fell on him together. Four men against one. Soldiers against a man of their own nation. It was fists at first, and then when Vincen fell, feet. Clara felt as if she’d turned to stone. One of them lifted a knife.

When Clara cried out it was not the cry of animal fear that she expected. The words came out of her mouth crisply and as bright as if she’d polished them. “Kestin Amril Flor, you will stop this behavior at once, or by God I will have words with your mother.”

The astonishment on Flor’s face was instantaneous and profound. The thugs paused in their assault, turning to look first at her, and then their commander, and back again. Clara rose to her feet, not daring to look at Vincen. So long as their attention was on her, it was not on him. She had no plan apart from making them not hurt him, and didn’t know what she intended next. Wise or rash, she had played her tile, and now there was nothing but to see it through. The rush of warmth and, yes, of power that surged up in her was likely an illusion, but she embraced it all the same. Flor stepped nearer, his eyes narrow and his mouth hard.

“And who the fuck are you?” he asked. She hoisted an eyebrow and watched the blood drain from his face as he found the answer to his question. “L-Lady Kalliam? What are you doing here?”

“Having my servant attacked by you and your men, it would seem,” she said. The incongruity of her plain, filthy clothes, the smears of ash and mud on her face and in her hair, and her mere existence on the field of battle, she simply ignored. That which was not acknowledged did not exist. It was the simplest rule of court etiquette, and as effective as any cunning man’s art.

“Give up. Who is she?” one of the soldiers asked.

The man beside him bobbed his head and smiled a tight, fearful smile. His voice was little more than a murmur. “She’s the Lord Marshal’s mother, you fucking ass.”

The man with the knife dropped it on the ground and knelt beside Vincen. Vincen’s pained grunt was sweeter than the gentlest flute. He was still alive. His rueful smile was like pouring cold water on a burn.

“I am…” Flor said, and then stumbled over any number of things that he might very well have been. Embarrassed, astounded, confused. Clara allowed herself a chilly smile. “My lady, please accept my apologies. I did not recognize you, and your man here didn’t identify himself. I had no idea.”

Yes, she thought, this is all Vincen’s failing. Part of her wanted to scream at the man, accuse him. Vent her fear and anger, whatever the effect. But there were more important things to attend to. And if they were to move forward, she had to give Flor his excuse, even if it meant a bruise to Vincen’s dignity.

“I see how the mistake was made, Sir Flor,” she said. “I hope you can help me with its remedy?”

Flor licked his lips, uncertain what she meant. She looked down at Vincen, and up again. Flor took the hint.

“Find a litter for the lady and get her boy to the cunning men.”

“He’s not a soldier,” the first of the men said, and the kneeling man punched the speaker’s thigh.

“Do it now,” Flor said, and the men scuttled away.

Clara knelt at Vincen’s side. His eyes were open, but one was swelling. He held his right hand tight against his belly. Still, she had seen worse, and quite recently.

“Very sorry, my lady,” he said. “I shouldn’t have brought us so near the walls. I thought they’d all be in the city proper for the sack.”

“You should have announced your mistress,” Flor said, and Clara’s mind flew to an entirely different meaning of the words. You should have, she thought. You should have announced me to the world, and I should have stood by you before the court and my sons and everyone. What worse could they have done to us than this?

“It’s going to be all right, Vincen,” she said, taking his left hand and holding it to her. “I’ll see to it. Everything will be all right.”

Vincen managed a weak laugh. “If you say so, my lady.”

The mansion of Porte Oliva’s newly deposed governor was as lavish as anything Camnipol had to offer barring the Kingspire itself. Its walls were covered with gold leaf, its divans upholstered in crimson silk. Scrolls with the exotic calligraphy of Far Syramys hung beside the doorway alongside portraits of the kings and queens of Birancour and a particularly gaudy and she suspected overly flattering one of the governor in a library, his eyes lifted to the mysteries of the world and his hand on a map of the city. Scented candles burned in silver holders. The fronds of potted ferns bobbed in the breeze that snaked in through the tall stone windows. A small fountain clucked to itself in the corner. The only two things that were at all out of place were a broad spill of blood slowly turning black on the golden carpet and Clara herself.

She had insisted on accompanying Vincen to the cunning men’s tent the army had raised in a square not far from the defeated wall. The wounded and the dying had lain on cots of sailcloth and board or else the bare ground. The air had been thick and heavy with magic, and the weary nurse had looked over Vincen’s wounds with a practiced eye even as Kestin Flor had railed at him about the importance of saving the life of Lady Kalliam’s personal guard. She noticed that he made no mention of how Vincen came to be wounded, and she thought it rude to press the point. The nurse’s mouth twitched into a scowl as he examined the bruises on Vincen’s ribs. Still, before Clara left, she had the assurance of the old cunning man that Vincen’s injuries, while uncomfortable, were far from serious, and that he would see to it that her man’s care was not taken lightly. Of Clara’s own clothing, he said nothing.

She wondered, sitting on the red silk cushion, what would have happened if she had not spoken. Or if she had spoken a moment later. When she closed her eyes, the knife waited for her like a dream that would not fade with the light. She packed her pipe with tobacco a servant boy had brought her. It was good leaf. Better than anything hauled along from Antea. The spoils of war, she imagined. She wondered whether whoever had bought it was still alive.

When the door opened, she rose to her feet. Jorey and Vicarian came into the room almost together. Seeing them so close rather than through a glass brought tears to her eyes. Vicarian looked bright about the eyes, merry and amused by the world and everything in it. He stood on the blood-spattered carpet, grinning and shaking his head as if he’d stepped into an unexpected party. She smiled at him, wondering whether this was another thing the goddess did to strip men of their humanity. Blind them to the horrors all around them and leave them tossing gilt balls in the slaughterhouse.

Jorey, by comparison, looked as though he had been ill. As if he still were. The pleasure and wonderment in his expression did something to allay it, but she could see the greyness of his skin, the way his cheeks were tight across the bone. From when he’d been a boy of eight, there had always been an expression he had when he was unwell. Something about his eyes or the way he held his mouth. No one else had recognized it but her and Dawson. Only her now, but there it was.

“Mother?” Jorey said. “What are you doing here?”

She shook her head. This was the moment. Whatever she said, truth or lies, would expose her. She could neither dissemble nor confess. The only alternative was to be misunderstood.

“Following you,” she said. “Trying, in my own way, to help.”

“Help, Mother?” Vicarian said. “How were you planning to help?”

“I know it isn’t what you’d have chosen, and I suppose that’s part of why I didn’t send word. Or tell anyone back at home, for that matter. It isn’t the sort of thing a woman of quality does, is it?”

“It really, really isn’t,” Jorey said, sitting down beside her. She scooped up his hand in her own, lacing their fingers together as if he were a child again. Vicarian brought a candle for her pipe, and she drew on the flame until the thick, fragrant smoke filled her lungs. She let tears come into her eyes. What child could press on in the face of a weeping mother? The manipulation of it disgusted her even as she embraced it. This was no time for righteousness.

“I didn’t want to embarrass you,” she said, and her eyes flickered toward Vicarian. It’s true. I didn’t. You can’t catch me out in a lie for saying that. “And I was so frightened, there in the court with you gone.” She sobbed, and it wasn’t even forced. She waited for them to ask what she’d been afraid of. She could say it was Geder without, she hoped, saying why. But if they did ask that, if they pressed…

“Shh. It’s all right,” Jorey said. “I mean, it’s raw madness and God help your reputation if word gets back home, but it’s all right. I’m not angry.”

“No?” she said.

“Of course not,” Vicarian answered, as if Jorey’s opinions were identical to his own. As if the things in his blood already controlled his brother’s mind. “We love you. We’ll always love you. Even when you’ve done something a little unhinged. How long have you been following the army?”

“I… I joined it in the Free Cities. Before the pass at Bellin. We kept to the rear with the caravans. I don’t think anyone suspected me of being anything out of the ordinary. Apart from Vincen. He knew, of course.”

Vicarian sat, slapping his thighs. “Well, at least you had the sense to bring a guard with you. I can’t imagine what you thought you could do.”

“I know,” she said, looking down. You can’t imagine, it’s true. And if that changes, if you do imagine, everything is lost. Don’t imagine.

Jorey sat back in his seat, passing a hand over his chin. His sigh had laughter in it. “You don’t need to go camp in the muck outside the city, do you? Tell me at least you’ll accept my hospitality.”

“I think my dignity would allow me to sleep in a real bed, were one on offer,” Clara said, surprised to find herself blushing. Seeing herself through their eyes—sentimental, silly, unaware of the consequences of her own actions—made her feel almost as if she were the woman they thought she was. The woman she was pretending to be. The sense that Jorey was indulging her as a man might a small child or old woman left her cheeks warm.

“And if I sent you back to Camnipol with a few men to see you made it there safely,” Jorey said. “Would you stay there this time?”

“I could say I would,” Clara said. “If it would make you feel better.”

“Tell me you would stay,” Jorey said.

“I would stay,” Clara lied.

Vicarian howled with laughter, slapping his thighs. “We’re not getting rid of her so easily. Let her be here, brother. She won’t come to harm. The goddess watches us and brings the world to our feet. She’s in less danger with our army around us than from the gossips back home.”

“Fine,” Jorey said, lifting his palms. Dawson would have been enraged that she’d come. That she’d done something so utterly outside of her proper role. But he had been her husband, and Jorey was her son. And perhaps some part of Vicarian still was her son as well. It was a simpler thing, she thought, to tell a wife what she was allowed to be than to say the same to one’s mother. She had held Jorey as a babe, had comforted him when he wept the bitter boyhood tears that no one else could ever be permitted to see. She had thought those things only love when she’d done them. She saw now they had been an investment.

She took his hand. I am sorry, she thought. I love you more than I will ever say, and I am using you. I will go on using you, as long as that is what I have to do to stop Palliako and his priests. And your… the thing that was your brother. I have become a huntsman, and I am so terribly, terribly sorry. Jorey put his hand over hers and smiled.

“Is there any news from home I might have missed during my travels?” she asked. Further discoveries, perhaps, about who sent the false letter to Lord Ternigan?

“You’ll have left before the baby was born, then,” he said. “Sabiha’s named her Annalise. After you.”

“Oh, no. Has she really?”

“Yes,” Jorey said, “and there’s a tale in it. It turns out Geder saved us again…”