The Widow's House

Clara

The day of the ambush began with light rains. Her son’s army had reached the river the day before, and the trees that grew around the long, slow water seemed to speak in soft voices full of sharp consonants as the raindrops hit the leaves. Clara sat by her tent, smoking her pipe, listening to the noise of the soldiers breaking camp, and watching the faint light of dawn grow stronger. The smell of wet earth and smoke made the air rich and thick as perfume. Her simple breakfast—boiled eggs and coffee—tasted better for being eaten here.

The distance between herself and the soldiers was a social fiction, and like all social fictions terribly important. Traveling in disguise behind the army was a thing of scandal, but it could be explained away as the eccentricity of an older woman who had, after all, been through so much in recent years. It was little reflection on Jorey that his mother was odd. Had she then been incorporated into the army, though, it would have been his eccentricity, and a thousand times harder to overlook. So instead, her tent stood a little way off, had its own cookfire and her own servant, because Vincen was still playing that role where there were so many people about to see if he played some other. And so she was not with the army, but rather accompanied by it. She and Jorey pretended they were in two separate journeys that happened, as if by happy coincidence, to overlap for a time.

And perhaps that was true. Perhaps that was the metaphor for being a mother to a son. It left her feeling soft and calm and only a little melancholy to think so.

“It’s raining,” Vincen said, appearing from the scrub with a pan of river water.

“It is.”

“You’re getting damp.”

“Not very much so,” she said. “And besides, my alternative is to huddle in a tent as if a little water would melt me. I’m too old for that kind of pretense.”

“Not too old for the pretense of being old,” he said.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“It seems to me you’ve given yourself a great deal of freedom in how you live your life,” Vincen said, “and you keep claiming it’s because you’re old. For one thing, you really aren’t that old. And for another, there are any number of women in court who die after long lives without ever doing half the things you have.”

“It is rude, you know, to dissect a woman’s story of herself before lunch.”

“The only thing wrong with it is the way it makes you seem less,” Vincen said, hanging the pan over her little hissing fire to boil away the impurities. “You aren’t yourself because you’re old. You’re just Clara.”

“I don’t know who taught you how to flatter, but they did a brilliant job,” she said.

“I’m still learning,” Vincen said. And a moment later, “You might want to go talk with Jorey today. I heard he had a visitor. A merchant from Sara-sur-Mar’s been in the Lord Marshal’s tent for the better part of the morning.”

“Really?” Clara said. “Is there opinion on what exactly his business is?”

“Nothing I’d rely on,” Vincen said.

“Well, then perhaps I should go and find out.”

“You probably should,” Vincen said, with a false solemnity. “After all, you’re very old.”

After she’d finished her pipe, Clara made her way down the path toward Jorey’s tents. Her own little encampment was well within the circle of the sentries and patrols. No one challenged her. Indeed, many of the thin-faced, hard-eyed men knew her already and seemed to view her with a kind of indulgence. She felt as though she were in danger of becoming something of a mascot to the army.

The state of the men had come as something of a surprise. The campaign had left them hard and slight, like dried-meat versions of themselves. Even Jorey was thinner about the cheeks now, his gaze prone to a fixedness that she couldn’t entirely interpret. They moved through the countryside, camp to camp and day to day, with an air of exhaustion balanced against determination, and it left her wanting to send them all home. Many of them had wives and children back in Antea. Farms or trades from which they’d been plucked by the obligations of their lords. She wished that she could tell them all to go back. To sleep in their own beds again. To eat their own food and drink beer and wine and sing along to the performers who stopped at the taprooms and street corners. But of course that was impossible. And even if she had convinced them, Geder’s priests would have said the opposite and won.

“I’m sorry, my lady,” the guard outside Jorey’s great tent of framed leather said as she came near. “The Lord Marshal’s in conference.”

“Is he?” Clara said, raising her eyebrows. “With whom?”

“Couldn’t say, my lady,” the man said.

“Couldn’t or won’t?” Clara said with a smile. “Well, don’t you mind. There’s nothing I have to say that can’t wait a bit. I’ll just sit until he comes free.”

“It’s… it’s raining, my lady.”

“Well, hopefully he’ll come free soon.”

The guard licked his lips. “Just wait here a moment, my lady,” he said and ducked into the tent. The voices that came from within were too muffled to make out words, but she could still recognize the sounds of the individual men. The guard and Jorey. The eerie, unpleasant voice of one of the remaining brown-robed priests. And then another, unfamiliar one. When they emerged, the priest and the guard flanked a wide-shouldered Jasuru man with scales the color of bronze and an embarrassed expression. His gaze flickered to Clara and then rapidly away. She wondered who he was.

“The Lord Marshal’s free, ma’am,” the guard said, and so she had to go in and see Jorey rather than follow the Jasuru. It was expected of her.

“Mother,” Jorey said. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d meant to come ask after that letter you wanted me to carry home, but now I’m curious about that man who just left. He isn’t one of ours, is he? Though of course, I mean yours. The only one I really have is Vincen.”

“I can get you more servants if you want them,” Jorey said. “It wouldn’t be a problem.”

“That’s kind of you, dear, but I wasn’t fishing.” At least not for that, Clara thought as she sat. The Lord Marshal’s tent was as large as some shacks. Whole families lived in the poorer quarters of Camnipol in rooms with less space than this. It occurred to her that, since the bulk of the army had come from the siege at Kiaria, the framed leather walls around her had likely been Lord Ternigan’s before her plan had set him at odds with Geder. It made the space seem ominous.

“He’s a merchant from Sara-sur-mar,” Jorey said. “By which I mean a smuggler. He came because he had information to sell.”

“Really? That seems presumptuous. Was it something you actually paid for?”

“It was,” Jorey said, leaning over his little camp desk. A thin, cheap scroll showed lines of pale ink. A map, perhaps. “Callon Cane’s appeared there. Set up a house. Started paying bounties for acts performed against Antea.”

“That’s a poor choice on his part,” Clara said. “If I were in his position, I’d choose someplace to work that wasn’t where my enemy was walking toward next.”

“Well, you aren’t leading a campaign of sabotage and murder designed to bring down the throne,” Jorey said. “Our new friend knows of a way past the city walls. A smuggler’s tunnel. He sold us the directions to it and the path to Cane’s house. I questioned him with one of the priests. The information’s good. It isn’t a trap, or if it is, it’s not one he knew about.”

“Not a spy, then,” Clara said. “Just a profiteer.”

His eyes went empty for a moment, and he sighed. “Father would hate this.”

“He would,” Clara said. “But which part of it were you thinking of?”

Jorey’s laugh was short and bitter. “I was imagining how he’d feel about sending men in like thieves in the night. Crawling through tunnels and assassinating the enemy rather than facing him in the field. But you’re right. There are a hundred other aspects of this that he’d have hated as much. Or more.”

“Thieves in the night?” Clara said.

“We can’t afford another siege. The men are exhausted. I’m exhausted. When Vicarian was here, he’d talk me out of it. Convince me all of this was possible, but without him, now…” Jorey shook his head. “We shouldn’t have won at Porte Oliva. It was luck, and Geder sending those weapons. If the dragon comes again, we won’t have surprise to help us. Most of these men have been fighting since Sarakal. They’ve won and won and won, and the only triumph we’ve given them is another march. Another battle. Another chance to die.”

“It’s war,” Clara said.

“It’s not, though. Wars end. This is something else,” Jorey said, and dropped his head into his hands. “Maybe I’m looking at it from the wrong end. Maybe this is all the hand of the goddess. The gates opening in Porte Oliva. The tunnel in Sara-sur-Mar. Maybe it’s all the spider goddess giving us ways to win the battles when we can barely keep marching anymore, and I’m only being ungrateful.”

“Is that what Vicarian would have said?” Clara asked.

“It is,” Jorey said. “And when he said it, I’d be convinced. But he’s not here, and I’m just not as persuasive.”

“So few of us are,” Clara said, “but—”

“I am trying, Mother. I am trying as hard as I can to be this man. To be the nobleman and servant of the crown. I am trying to forget that my father died at Geder’s hand. I tell myself how much we owe him, and how kind he’s been. To me, to you. To Sabiha. And most of the time, I can do it. I can remember how he came to the wedding because I asked him to. How he took care of Sabiha when the baby was coming. Vicarian’s let the past go. He doesn’t struggle anymore. I want to be like him. I want to believe that all of this is going to come to some perfect and glorious end, and that you and Sabiha and Annalise will all be fine if I can just do what needs doing and not feel anything. And some days, I almost manage.”

He wasn’t weeping. Even the pain in his voice was dry. Her son’s soul had become a desert. All the replies she could think of—It will be all right and Trust your instincts and Geder is a monstrosity—would have made the moment worse. She took Jorey’s hand and sat with him for a time in silence.

Jorey called the march not long after, and Clara retired to the little cart Jorey had found for her. The grasslands were behind them, the river on their left as they moved north toward Sara-sur-Mar. Vincen drove her team of two old, tired mules with their moth-eaten rumps and long, broad ears. Clara chewed on a knuckle, her mind busy and unquiet.

“We have to get word to him,” she said.

“Who, my lady?” Vincen said.

“Callon Cane. Jorey has a path into the city that will reach him. I’ve seen the map. I think… I think I might be able to steal it. Or copy it. We have to move faster than Jorey does.”

“Or else we lose another ally,” Vincen said.

“Or else we lose Jorey, I think.”

Vincen looked over his shoulder, his brow furrowed. “Find the map, then, and I’ll go.” The meaning of the words was deeper than mere syllables. Of course I will risk my life to save someone you love. Clara smiled and Vincen turned back to the mules and reins. She smiled at his back and shook her head. He was an impossibility, she thought. Men like Vincen Coe simply didn’t exist. And perhaps neither did women like herself. He’d been right, of course, that it wasn’t age that had freed her. It was loss. Her husband had died and she had been stripped of all the roles that had defined her. It should have felt like a vine suddenly missing the trellis it had grown upon, and it had. And it had also been like a cage opening. Jorey was still in that cage, only his was crueler, and the demands it made might be more than he could stand.

She could imagine him, if things went forward as they were now, ten years older, twenty. The misery of pretending to be a man that at heart he was not would tell on him. He would grow bitter, and his wife and daughter would know it. His mother would as well, for that matter. Because, of course, pretending a thing did not make it true.

Vincen stopped the cart, the mules jostling one another and looking back at him. Vincen had no attention to spare them. His head was shifting, like a dog tasting the wind. She tried to follow his gaze, but all she saw were trees by the roadside, scrub beyond them. All she heard were the voices of the soldiers and the distant murmur of the river in its bed.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Something. Something isn’t right.”

“Should I find Jorey?” she asked, and the horns of the advance guard sounded. Vincen cursed and yanked on the reins. The mules hunkered down, their great ears set in defiance. There were more sounds now. Men yelling. Shouting. She looked back down the road, and the sword and bows were struggling into formation, some blades at the ready, some waving uncertainly as a banner in a whirlwind, trying to find the source of their peril.

“Get down, Clara,” Vincen said.

“What is it?”

“We have to get you someplace safe.”

She moved forward quickly, lowering herself to the road. The dragon’s jade felt oddly slick under her feet, like the road itself had become uncertain where it should be. “What’s happening?”

“We’re being attacked. They’ll try to drive us into the water.”

“How do we stop them?” Clara asked.

Vincen drew his sword with one hand and a dagger with the other. He pressed the hilt of the dagger into her hand. “I don’t know.”

The riders burst out from among the trees to their right, proud, tall men in the green and gold of Birancour. She could see four of them, though the screaming seemed to come from everywhere. Up the river and down. The nearest of them looked from her to Vincen and back again, scowling, then spurred his mount in a charge. Vincen dodged behind the cart, pulling Clara with him. The queensman sank his blade into the side of the first mule. The animal screamed and tried to run, the cart lurching and creaking. There were more men boiling out of the brush. Clara tried to keep the moving cart between her and the attackers. The mules ran forward, trying to find a path not already blocked by trees or water, the enemy or the army all around them. She heard Vincen shout before she realized that she’d left him behind.

Something deep happened, and the sounds around her all went quieter. Still there, but also distant. Her head hurt at the back, and she was on her knees now without knowing quite how she got there. A man moved into her view. His tunic was green and gold, and the club he held in his hand was tipped with lead and blood. He lifted it again, preparing to bring it down on her, so she pushed the dagger in her hand out, into the man’s crotch. His eyes went wide. It was hard to move her arms. They seemed very distant, but she did it again as he fell. His mouth was round with surprise and distress. She pushed the blade into his neck. It was like cutting an orange. She’d thought killing a man would be harder.

A roar came, like a windstorm or a wave. The thin, black-clad soliders of Antea. The brown-robed priest she’d seen speaking with Jorey earlier strode into her line of sight. He was shouting. Flee or put your weapons down! You have already lost! The goddess cannot be defeated. Everything you love is already gone! You cannot win! You cannot win! You cannot win!

And with each phrase, she felt herself folding down. The dying man at her feet looked up at her in wonder and despair. We cannot win, she thought. Everything we love is already lost. Already gone. The spider goddess will take it all and leave us with nothing, and there is nothing to be done. Listen to my voice! Antea cannot be defeated! You cannot win!

I cannot win.

“Here!” a man’s voice called. “To me! To me!”

A familiar-looking man pulled her to her feet. There was blood all down the front of her dress. The sounds of the battle were closer now, louder and more real. The pain at the back of her head was sharper, and she felt what must have been a trickle of her own blood running down the back of her neck.

“Lady Kalliam!” the man said. “Are you well? Can you run?”

“I’m fine,” she said. “A little tap on the head, but these little fucks will have to do better if they want to kill me.”

The man laughed.

“Come with me,” he said. “I’ll see you to safety.”

“Yes,” she said. “No. Wait. Where’s Vincen?”

The man shook his head. Her heart went cold.

“Where is Vincen Coe?”