The Widow's House

Geder

Geder’s father wheezed out his laughter, tapping the tabletop with the heel of his palm. His hair was whiter than Geder remembered it, and there were lines at the corners of his mouth and eyes that Geder didn’t remember having seen. Perhaps he had, though. Perhaps his father’s age was something that struck him anew every time they saw each other, and Geder only forgot.

“And so,” Lehrer Palliako said, catching his breath and wiping a tear from his eye, “and so there he was. In the… in the kitchen, with his eyes wide as hands, yes? And saying, All this is for me?”

Cyr Emming wheezed along, breathing through his grin. But he kept glancing at Geder, checking to be sure the Lord Regent hadn’t taken offense. All around them, the Fraternity of the Great Bear murmured, shutters opened to the soft night air. The breeze smelled of ripe fruits and roasting pork, the preparations for some celebration or feast that Geder would no doubt be obligated to attend.

“And then,” Lehrer said, fighting to catch his breath. “And then when the next morning came? The next morning? His nurse came and found me. Told me he was ill.”

“No. He hadn’t,” Emming said and turned to Geder. “You hadn’t.”

Geder spread his hands in mock sorrow.

“Three and a half pies, he’d eaten,” Lehrer said. “Three and a half. Two meat, one blackberry, and half a treacle and walnut. He was on his bed with a hand to his gut and a belly out to here!”

“If someone had told me that they were for everyone at the feast, I wouldn’t have done it,” Geder said. “That’s what he always leaves out of this story. I asked if they were all for me, and nobody said no. I thought they were.”

“You were young,” Emming said. “Youth always comes with strange ideas.”

“He was moaning there in his bed,” Lehrer went on. “And he looked green. Honestly green. I was afraid I’d have to call the cunning man.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Geder said. “I only ate a bit too much.”

“A bit too much? A meal too much! Three meals too much! He must have gone faster than his gut could tell him no. I never saw a boy so sick. The feast night came, and he didn’t eat a thing. Only sat at the table looking queasy and miserable,” Lehrer said, then rubbed his hand on Geder’s knee. The old man’s eyes were bright and merry and filled with a kind of fond regret. “My poor boy. You tried so hard to do the right thing. My poor, poor boy.”

Before Geder’s expedition to the Sinir Kushku and his return with Basrahip, the Great Bear had been a place woven from threads of intimidation and desire. The center of masculine life in court, it was the place where Nellin Ostrachallin had composed a series of extemporaneous comic poems so lascivious and specific that Lord Bannien’s son had challenged him to a duel on the spot, certain that the verse was mocking his mistress. It was where, as a young man, Lord Ternigan and Lord Caot had entered into a series of debates before King Simeon that had set the framework of the crown’s policy toward Sarakal for a decade. To name it was to call into the imagination the smell of leather and tobacco and liquors. It was said that the servant girls there were not beyond quiet favors of a sexual nature. In Geder’s early days in the court, it had been a place where being the son of the Viscount of Rivenhalm was much the same as being nobody at all.

Now it was two dozen nicely put-together rooms, some private and some open, where he could sit and visit with his father. The tobacco was still there, but he’d never found a taste for liquor. If the servants would submit to sexual advances, Geder was too petrified by his imaginings of what they would say about him afterward to ever make the experiment. The occasional contest of poetry or rhetoric was amusing enough, but not so profound as his boyhood imaginings of it had been. The expansion of the empire by three new kingdoms had drawn many of the men who would have filled the chairs away to new holdings and cities. Many of the greatest names—Bannien, Kalliam, Maas, Shoat—were dead now. Geder found he almost regretted the change.

Emming’s laughter matched Lehrer’s, the older men moving from hilarity to chuckling like partners coming to rest at the end of a dance. Emming tapped the tabletop and gestured toward the back of the building. Geder nodded as his advisor and, Geder had to suppose, friend rose from the table and made his way back. Even the loftiest men in the kingdom were servants to their bladders.

“All’s well, though?” Lehrer asked, his voice lower now that they were alone.

Geder shrugged. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. There’s so much happening, and the distances are so wide. Even using cunning men instead of birds, I feel like I’m working puppets that are working puppets.”

“Ah,” Lehrer said. “Well. Yes. I’d… I’d give you some words of wisdom, but you have more experience running kingdoms than I do.”

“I had word from Elassae. What used to be Elassae. You know the Timzinae in Kiaria got loose?”

“I’d heard,” his father said.

“Fallon Broot’s gone out to fight them, but they keep fading up into the hills. Won’t come down for an honest battle. And the gates at Kiaria are closed, so there are at least a few still in there. I’m afraid…” Geder’s throat became unaccountably thick. He coughed to clear it. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to burn Suddapal. It’s not what I want, but now that Jorey’s taken Porte Oliva and we’ve been welcomed into Newport, it’s not as though we won’t have any ports on the Inner Sea.”

“Ah, that’s good. That’s good.”

“It’s just that I’d have kept it. If I could. Suddapal, I mean. And the slaves probably won’t take it well.”

“War’s a terrible thing,” Lehrer said, and lapsed into silence for a long moment. One of the servant girls passed by with fresh cups of wine and a silver bowl of fresh bread, butter, and honey. Geder broke off a crust and dipped it into the honey. When his father spoke again, his voice was thin and distant. “I did the best I could by you. I know I wasn’t the father you’d have hoped for. But after your mother died, and running Rivenhalm… I did what I could.”

“What do you mean?” Geder said. “You were wonderful. Look how it turned out. I’m Lord Regent. I’m running the whole kingdom.”

“I suppose that’s what I mean,” Lehrer said, with a smile. “I’d have spared you that, if I could. Over a certain fairly low level, power’s not worth the price of it. Least I’ve never thought so.”

“It’s only for a few years more,” Geder said. “Aster will make a fine king.”

“And may he produce a dozen little princes with whoever he takes as a queen, and save all of us from having to be regent, eh? Truth?”

“True enough, Papa,” Geder said.

The evening went on an hour more, then a little longer. When his father rose to leave, Geder went with him, walking out into the wide night air. Lanterns flickered, spilling little pools of light around the doorway where the carriage waited, a little thing with cracked doors and the colors of Rivenhalm. Geder watched his father ride off over the cobbles, disappearing into the darkness. He wished he’d been able to talk about Cithrin with him. He wanted to talk to somebody, but Basrahip was gone and Aster wouldn’t have understood. His father was the only man he knew who had loved a woman completely and then lost her. And even then, death wasn’t betrayal. It was only as near as Geder knew. And even that… there was no way to begin that subject.

Papa, I was wondering how long I should expect to hurt when I think of her. Does that go on forever? I still think of her body at night. I hate her and I love her both. Is that normal? Is this how things are supposed to be?

How could anyone talk about something like that to their own father? Geder coughed out a small laugh. His own carriage drew up, grand and solid and shining black and gold as if it were a piece of the city itself. He let the footman open the way and help him up. The hooves of his private guard clattered, surrounding him, and the carriage lurched forward, moving into the night. He sat at the window, looking out. They passed the flattened and empty space that had been Lord Bannien’s compound before he and Dawson Kalliam and a handful of others had risen up. Not so far away, there was the gate where he and Jorey Kalliam had brought the army into the streets of Camnipol for the first time in memory to fight against the Feldin Maas’s mercenary showfighters and save King Simeon and Aster from the plots of Asterilhold. Past that, the hole where he had hidden with Cithrin.

Everyone, he supposed, had some private version of the city, made up of the streets and rooms and windows that they knew best. Violence made the landmarks of his personal city. Perhaps even of his world. The wheels of his carriage rattled against the streets, and then changed their sound as they passed over the Silver Bridge. The Division yawned below him, candles and lanterns on both rims defining the void by their absence. He had a moment of inexplicable fear, certain that the bridge would give way, that he would fall into the vast emptiness at the city’s heart. At the far end of the bridge, his carriage turned again and the Kingspire came briefly into sight. The great banner of the goddess flowed from the temple, the darkness turning the red to black. The pale circle at the center caught the moonlight, and the eightfold sigil itself was like a shattered eye looking out over the city, the kingdom, the world.

When the carriage pulled to and Geder let the servants clear the way, he felt at once that something was terribly wrong. The formality of the footman, the way the grooms would not meet his eye, something. It could as well have been a scent on the wind. Without knowing what it was, Geder knew that it was.

The master of the household, an old Firstblood man with hair like snow on black water, waited in the great entrance, his throat tight and his chin high. Geder walked to him with a deepening sense of dread.

“Lord Regent,” the servant said.

“What’s happened?”

“It is nothing… serious, Lord Palliako. Boys suffer worse all the time, but—”

“Boys? What do you mean, boys?” Geder snapped. And then, “Where’s Aster?”

He was on the triangular dueling grounds at the side of the spire, looking out over the Division. It struck Geder how much the boy had grown and changed in the years since his father had died. The war years. Aster stood nearly as tall as Geder now. His arms and legs were thin, but his jaw was no longer the jaw of a little boy. Not a man’s yet, but reaching for it. Geder felt a pang of anxiety at how few years remained before Aster would take the Severed Throne and the empire, and how terribly much there was to be done so that Geder could present him with a world at peace. But that was all for another time. A different night.

He saw Aster’s shoulders tighten at the sound of his approaching footsteps. He looked like a religious icon of anger and shame. Geder stopped.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

Aster turned. Even in the moonlight, the swelling of his left eye was obvious, as was the darkness of the flesh surrounding it. Geder groaned and came forward.

“Who was it?”

“Myrin Shoat,” Aster said, his voice sharp with anger.

“The tall one you’re always sparring with?”

Aster’s gaze was fastened on the ground and wouldn’t rise. His fists pressed his thighs.

“Was it,” Geder said, fumbling for words. “Was it by accident?”

Aster’s jaw clenched and released and clenched again. He shook his head once and went still. Geder sighed. He lowered himself down to sit cross-legged on the dry ground. Aster didn’t move. Geder patted the earth beside him, his hand coming away pale with dust.

“Come. Sit. I’ll look ridiculous if I’m the only one doing it.”

“Dirty,” Aster said.

“They’ll wash it. It’s what they do. Sit with me.”

For a moment, he didn’t think the boy would. He thought Aster would stand there, towering over him, or walk off. Geder wasn’t sure what he’d do if that happened. But four long breaths later, Aster folded his legs and sat down. The lanterns of the servants and guards glimmered from the spire but didn’t approach. Aster’s gaze didn’t rise, but simply fixed on a patch of ground a little closer by.

“You could tell me what happened,” Geder said.

Aster shrugged. It was a tight, constrained gesture.

“I could guess,” Geder said gently. “I mean, if you’d rather. Ah. Let’s see. You were at the Prisoner’s Span, and discovered that one of the people in the cages was actually Sanna Daskellin put in by mistake. You were going to have this Shoat person lower you down, but he dropped you and you hit your eye on the corner of the cage.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Aster said.

“I’m not making fun of you. I’m being ridiculous so that maybe you’ll smile.”

Aster didn’t smile. A tear tracked down from his uninjured eye, silver against his cheek.

“You could tell me,” Geder said again. “I won’t laugh at you.”

Aster was silent for a long moment, motionless as a mouse before a snake. When he spoke, his voice was steady and calm. “He said some things that made me angry, so I hit him. Only I didn’t do it very well.”

“Things about you?”

Aster shook his head.

“Things about your father?”

Aster shook his head.

“Things about me?”

Aster didn’t move, but his gaze shifted up to Geder for a moment before looking down again. Geder shook his head. In another situation, hearing that the boys of the court were mocking him behind his back would have stung and angered him, but Aster’s pain was so raw and immediate, Geder didn’t have to struggle to put himself aside.

“People will always poke fun at their betters,” he said. “It’s a rule, like rain goes down from the sky instead of up toward it. Or thunder comes after lightning, not before. It’s just people.”

“I know,” Aster said. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. You’re going to be king soon, and when you have to hand down justice and portion out lands and make treaties with other kingdoms, they can’t think you’re going to fly off and punch someone just because they’ve said unkind words about you.”

“I know,” Aster said, a sob in his voice. “I didn’t mean to fail you.”

“Fail me? You can’t fail me. I’m the Lord Regent. You’re the prince. I’m the only one who can fail here,” Geder said. Aster nodded, but didn’t look up. “Did you win the fight?”

“No.”

“Ah. Well. You could challenge him to a duel, if you wanted to. Settle it on the field of honor.”

“Do I have to?”

“No. But I thought you might want to. It’s the sort of thing noblemen do sometimes. Not that I have. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a fight that I won.” Aster looked up, confused. Geder nodded. “The first time I went into battle, I caught a bolt in the leg, passed out, and missed half the fighting. It’s true.”

“You faced Feldin Maas.”

“Clara Kalliam’s guard faced Feldin Maas. I ran for the hills with his letters and hoped no one would catch me. Some men fight, some think, some paint or make poems or win women’s hearts. We are what we are. Knowing what our strengths are and what our weaknesses are and making do with them is all any of us have.”

“Is that what you do?”

“I try,” Geder said, and for an instant, sharp as a blade under his fingernail, he was in the empty banker’s compound in Suddapal where Cithrin had once been, and then gone. He closed his eyes against the pain of it and coughed out a rough laugh. “I don’t always do very well.”

“He’s stronger than me,” Aster said. “On the dueling yard? He’s got better reach. If I challenged him I’d only lose.”

“You know, the idea of dueling is that righteousness gives you strength. The combat isn’t just who’s the strongest. It’s who has the truth on his side.”

“That’s lovely,” Aster said, and his voice was almost his usual again, “but I don’t think truth outmatches having a better reach.”

“Probably not,” Geder said.

Far off in the city, a man shouted something, the words blurred by distance. A woman’s voice shouted back. Geder looked up at the goddess’s banner shifting in the breeze and the clouds and stars beyond it. He lay back, bending his knees.

“You’re getting dirt in your hair,” Aster said.

“I’ll wash it back out,” Geder said. “You know… it occurs to me. Not that I’d make the argument myself, but it occurs to me that striking the crown prince of Antea could, in some situations, be considered treason.”

Aster’s good eye went wide.

“I’m not saying it was,” Geder said. “Only that some people might take it that way. If they didn’t have all the information. Or had very strict ideas. And we do have the royal guard. We could just have them wander over to the street outside Shoat’s compound. They wouldn’t have to go in or speak to anyone if we didn’t want them to. They could just go… be there. For a night or two.”

It was a relief and a pleasure to see Aster’s smile.