Dawson

The King's Hunt pressed through the thick-falling snow, the calling of the hounds made fainter and eerie by the grey. Dawson Kalliam leaned in toward his horse's steaming neck, feeling the great animal launch itself into the air. He saw the icy ditch as a blur beneath them, and then it was gone, and the impact of their landing gave way again to the wind-swift chase. Behind him, half a dozen voices rose, but not the king's. Dawson ignored them. To his left, a grey horse with red leather hunter's barding loomed out of the snow. Feldin Maas. Others rode close behind, nothing more than snow-drowned shadows. Dawson leaned closer to his mount, digging heels into its flanks, urging it faster.

The hart had run long and hard, nearly outwitting the hunstmen and their dogs twice. But Dawson had ridden the hills of Osterling Fells in all weather since he was a boy, and he knew the traps of them. The hart had turned down a blind canyon, and it would not return from it. The kill, of course, would be King Simeon's. The race now was to be the first to reach their prey.

The lower branches of a pine stood startling green against the void, marking where the hart had passed. Dawson turned, feeling Feldin Maas and the others crowding close behind him. Someone was shouting. The howls and yaps of the hounds grew louder. He set his teeth, willing himself forward.

Something surged on his right. Not the grey. A white horse without barding. Its rider had no helmet or cap, and the long red-gold hair announced Curtin Issandrian as clearly as a pennant. Dawson dug his heels again, and his horse leapt forward. Too fast. He felt the drumming, pounding rhythm of the gallop roughen and the horse struggled to keep its feet. The white surged forward, passing him, and a moment later the grey with Feldin Maas was at his shoulder.

If the hart had gone another thousand yards, Dawson might have retaken the position of honor, but the doomed beast stood at bay in a clearing too near. Two dogs lay dead at its feet, and the huntsmen held back the rest of the pack with their voices and short whips. A point had broken off the hart's rack, and blood marked its side. Its left hind leg was blood-soaked where an overeager hound had ripped off its dewclaw, and its patchy winter coat gave it the aspect of a traveler at the end of a journey. It turned toward them, breath white and exhausted, as Curtin Issandrian pulled to a stop, Dawson and Feldin Maas just behind him.

"Well played, Issandrian," Dawson said bitterly.

"It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?" the victor said, ignoring him. Dawson had to admit the hart had an air of real nobility to it. Exhausted, beaten, and facing death, there was no sense of fear from it. Resignation, perhaps. Hatred, certainly. Issandrian drew his sword and saluted the beast, and it lowered its head as if in acknowledgment. The second group of riders pelted into the clearing, six together each with the sigils of their houses. The hounds leaped and barked, the huntsmen shouted and cursed.

And then the king.

King Simeon rode into the clearing on a huge black charger, the black leather reins braided with scarlet and gold. Prince Aster rode a pony at his father's side, the child's spine straight with pride and his armor still a little too large for his frame. His personal master of the hunt rode behind and behind him: a huge Jasuru in green-gold armor that matched his scales. King Simeon himself wore dark leathers studded with silver and a black helm that hid the beginnings of jowls and his skewed nose.

Dawson had been on hunts with him since they had both been boys younger than Maas and Issandrian, and he could see the weariness in the king's spine, even if no one else could. The rest of the hunting party rode behind him, the casual hunters more interested in gossip and a clean day's ride than the sport of it. The banners of all the great houses were present, the court of Camnipol come to a clearing in Osterling Fells.

The Jasuru huntsman lifted a spear from his back and held it out to King Simeon. In the king's hands, it seemed longer. The Jasuru huntsman called, and the dogs surged forward, leaping at the hart. Distracting it. King Simeon set the spear, spurred his mount, and charged. At the impact, the hart staggered back, the spear's point deep in its neck. As it fell, Dawson had the visceral sense that the beast was surprised more than pained. Death, however clearly foretold, still came unexpectedly. King Simeon's arm was as strong as ever, his eyes as keen. The hart died fast and without the need for an arrow's grace. When the huntsmen called back the hounds and lifted fists to confirm that the beast was dead, a cheer rose from the noblemen, Dawson's voice among them.

"So who took honors?" King Simeon asked as his huntsman went about unmaking the hart. "Issandrian? Or was it you, Kalliam?"

"It was so near at the end," Issandrian said, "I would say the baron and I arrived together."

Feldin Maas dropped down from his horse with a smirk and went to examine the killed dogs.

"Not true," Dawson said. "Issandrian arrived a good length ahead of me. The honors go to him."

And I will not carry a debt to you, even something as small as that, he thought but did not say.

"Issandrian will have the horns, then," King Simeon said, and then, shouting, "Issandrian!"

The others raised fists and swords, grinning in the snowfall, and called out the victor's name. The feast would come the next day, the venison cooked at Dawson's own hearth, and Issandrian given the place of honor. The thought was like a knot in his throat.

"Are you all right?" the king said, softly enough that the words would not carry.

"Fine, Highness," Dawson said. "I'm fine."

An hour later, as they rode back to the house, Feldin Maas trotted alongside him. Since Vanai's fall and the defeat of the Maccian reinforcements, Dawson had pretended that the news from the Free Cities meant nothing particular to him, but the charade chafed.

"Lord Kalliam," Maas said. "Something for you."

He tossed a twig to Dawson. No, not a twig. A bit of broken horn, red with the dog's blood.

"Small honor's better than none, eh?" Maas said with a grin, then chucked to his mount and moved forward.

"Small honor," Dawson said bitterly and under his breath, the words white as fog.

As they rode back to the holding, the snowfall turned from deep, feathery flakes to mere specks, and the mountains to the east reappeared as the low clouds thinned and broke. The scent of smoke touched the air, and the spiraling towers of Osterling Fells stood in the south. The stone - granite and dragon's jade - glowed with sunlight, and the garlands that hung from the battlements left the impression that the buildings themselves had come to welcome the moment's brightness.

As host, Dawson was to oversee the preparation of the hart. It meant little more than standing in the kitchens for half an hour looking jolly, and still his soul rebelled. He couldn't bring himself to descend into the chaos of servants and dogs. He stalked to the wide stone stairs beside the ovens and stood on the landing that overlooked the preparation tables. Along the wall, pies and loaves of bread cooled, and an ancient woman pressed peacock feathers into a pork loaf that had been sculpted to resemble the bird and candied until it shone like glass. The smell of baked raisins and chicken filled the hot air. The huntsmen arrived with the carcass, and four young men fell to preparing the meat, rubbing salt, mint leaves, and butter into the flesh, carving out the glands and veins that the unmaking had left in. Dawson scowled and watched. The beast had been noble once, and watching it now -

"Husband?"

Clara, behind him, wore the pleasant expression she adopted in the early stages of exhaustion. Her eyes glittered, and the dimples that framed her mouth dug just a fraction deeper than usual. No one would know who hadn't spent a lifetime looking at her. He resented the court for putting that look in her eyes.

"Wife," he said.

"If we might?" she said, taking half a step toward the back hall. Annoyance tightened his mouth. Not with her, but with whatever domestic catastrophe required him now. He nodded curtly and followed her back toward the shadows and relative privacy. Before he left the landing a new voice stopped him.

"Sir! You've dropped this, my lord."

One of the huntsmen stood at the stair. A young man, wide-chinned and open-faced, wearing Kalliam livery. He held out the bit of broken, blood-darkened horn. A servant, calling Baron Kalliam back like a child for a lost bauble.

Dawson felt his face darken, his hands clench.

"What is your name," he said, and the huntsman went pale at the sound of his voice

"Vincen, sir. Vincen Coe."

"You are no man of mine, Vincen Coe. Get your things and leave my house by nightfall."

"M-my lord?"

"Do you want to be whipped in the bargain, boy?" Dawson shouted. The kitchen below them went silent, all eyes turning to them, and then quickly away.

"No, my lord," the huntsman said.

Dawson turned and stalked into the gloom of the corridor, Clara at his side. She didn't rebuke him. In the shadows of the stair, she leaned in speaking quietly and almost into his ear.

"Simeon asked for a warm bath when he came in, and instead of kicking everyone else out of the blue rooms, I had the janitor prepare Andr's house. The one by the eastern wing? It's a more pleasant space anyway, and it has those clever little pipes to keep the water hot."

"That's fine," Dawson said.

"I've left orders that no one else be let in except you, of course. Because I knew that you wanted a moment with him."

"I can't intrude on the king's bath," Dawson said.

"Of course you can, dear. Only tell him I didn't remember to warn you. I was very careful to mention that it was the place you've always preferred after a hunt, so it won't be at all implausible. Unless, of course, he asks the servants and they say you actually use the blue rooms. But prying like that would be rude, and Simeon's never struck me that way, has he you?"

Dawson felt a weight he'd only been half aware of lift from him.

"What did I do to deserve a wife as perfect as you?"

"It was luck," she said, a faint smile penetrating her polite façade. "Now go before he finishes his bath. I'll tend to that poor puppy of a huntsman you just kicked. They really should know better than to approach you when you're in a temper."

Andr's house sat within the walls of the holding proper, tucked beside the chapel hall and otherwise apart from the main buildings. The Cinnae poet whose name it bore had lived in it when Osterling Fells had been the seat of a king with a penchant for the art of lesser races, and Antea only the name of a minor line of noblemen half a day's ride to the north. None of Andr's poems had survived the centuries. The only marks that she had left on the world were a small house that bore her name and a carving in the stone doorway - DRACANI SANT DRACAS - whose meaning was itself forgotten.

King Simeon lay in a bath of worked bronze shaped into a wide Dartinae hand, the long fingers turned back to the palm and dribbling steaming hot water from channels just beneath the claws. A stone bowl of soap rested in a shelf on the thumb. A window of stained glass turned the warm air green and gold. The body servants stood at the back wall with soft cloths to dry the king and black swords to defend him. The king looked up as Dawson stepped into the room.

"Forgive me, sire," Dawson said. "I hadn't known you were here."

"It's nothing, old friend," Simeon said, gesturing to the body servants. "I knew I was intruding on your private haunts. Sit. Enjoy the heat, and I'll make way for you as soon as I have feeling back in my toes."

"Thank you, sire," Dawson said as the servants brought a stool for him. "As it happens, I was hoping to discuss a matter with you in private. About Vanai. There's something it would be best you hear from me."

King Simeon sat up, and for a moment, they weren't lord and subject noble, but Simeon and Dawson again. Two boys of blood and rank, full of their own pride and dignity. Dawson's disdain for the Vanai campaign and outrage at his own son being set to serve under Alan Klin were well-known matters. Still, Dawson rehashed them, building up his anger and self-righteousness to a speed that would carry him through his confession. Simeon listened and the body servants ignored everything with equal care. Dawson watched the old, familiar face as it passed from curiosity to surprise to disappointment and settled at the end in a species of amused despair.

"You have to stop playing games like that with Issandrian's cabal," the king of Imperial Antea said, leaning back in his bath. "And still, I wish to God it had worked. Would have saved me half a world of trouble. You've heard about the Edford Charter?"

"The what?"

"Edford Charter. It's a piece of parchment a priest found in the deepest library of Sevenpol that names the head of a farmer's council under King Durren the White. There's a petition in the north to name a new farmer's council on the strength of it. Any landholder with enough crops to pay in would have a voice in court."

"You can't be serious," Dawson said. "Are they going to drive mules through the palaces? Keep goats in the Kingspire gardens?"

"Don't suggest it to them," the king said, reaching for the bowl of soap.

"It's a gambit," Dawson said. "They'll never do it."

"You don't understand how split the court is, old friend. Issandrian is well loved by the lowborn. If they gain power, he gains with them. And now with Klin as his purse in Vanai, I don't see that I have a great deal of leverage."

"You can't mean - "

"No, there can't be a farmer's council. But there's peace to be made. At midsummer, I'm sending Aster to be Issandrian's ward."

The great bronze fingertips dripped. A passing cloud dimmed the light. King Simeon sat quietly lathering his arms, expressionless as the implications unfolded themselves between them.

"He'd be regent," Dawson said, his voice thick and strangled. "If you died before Aster came of age, Issandrian would be regent."

"Not a sure thing, but he'd have a claim to it."

"He's going to have you killed. This is treason."

"This is politics," Simeon said. "I had hoped Ternigan would keep the city for himself, but the old bastard's independent-minded. He knows Issandrian's cabal is on the rise. Now he's done them a favor without quite throwing himself in their camp. I'll have to woo him. They'll have to woo him. He'll be sitting in Kavinpol getting kissed on both cheeks."

"Curtin Issandrian will kill you, Simeon."

The king lay back, dark water running up his arms and darkening his hair. A scum of soap floated and spun on the water.

"He won't. As long as he has my son, he can call my tunes without the bother of sitting on a throne."

"Then break him," Dawson said. "I'll help you. We can build a cabal of our own. There are men who haven't forgotten the old ways. They're hungry for this. We can rally them."

"We can, yes, but to what end?"

"Simeon. Old friend. This is the moment. Antea needs a true king now. You have it in you to be that man. Don't send your boy to Issandrian."

"The time's not right. Issandrian's on the rise, and opposing him now will only add to the strife. Better to wait until he stumbles. My work now is to see that we don't follow the dragon's path along the way. If I can give Aster the kingdom without a civil war, it will be legacy enough."

"Even if it's not the true Antea?" Dawson said, an ache gathering behind his eyes. "What honor is there in a kingdom that's lost its heritage to these preening, self-important children?"

"If you'd said it before Ternigan handed him Vanai, I might have agreed. But where's the honor in fighting a battle you can't win?"

Dawson looked at his hands. Age had thickened his knuckles and cold chapped his skin. The smell of soap mocked his nose. His boyhood friend, his lord and king, sighed and grunted, shifting in his bath like an old man. Somewhere in Osterling Fells, Curtin Issandrian and Feldin Maas were drinking his wine, toasting each other. Laughing. Dawson's cheeks ached, and he forced himself to relax his jaw.

Where's the honor in fighting a battle you can't win? hung in the air between them. When he could keep the disappointment out of his voice, Dawson spoke.

"Where else would it be, my lord?"