The Dragon's Path

Geder

Geder had imagined Vanai would be more like Camnipol or Estinport: a great city of stone and jade. The close-built wooden structures and wide canals felt both smaller than he'd expected and larger. Even the Grand Square of the conquered city was small compared to the wide commons of Camnipol, and the richest sections of Vanai were as thick with humanity as the better slums at home. Camnipol was a city. Vanai was a child's scrapwood playhouse that had spread. It was beautiful in its way, strange and foreign and improbable. He wasn't sure yet whether he liked it.

He limped down the rain-darkened streets of occupied Vanai, leaning on the blackwood-and-silver walking stick with every step. Lord Ternigan's address was to begin soon, and while his wound would forgive his absence, Geder had missed too much already. The prospect of going home to regale his father with stories of how he'd collapsed in the battle and spent the two-day sack with a cunning man tending his leg was bad enough.

The canal on the eastern edge of the modest Grand Square was choked with fallen leaves, gold and red and yellow remaking the surface of the dark water. As Geder watched, a turtle rose from below, its black head sticking out of the water. A single bright red leaf adhered to its shell. The turtle made its stately way past what looked at first like a log, but was in fact a corpse wearing the drenched colors of the former prince: a soldier of Vanai hauled in a cart from the battlefield and dropped in the canal as a message to the locals. Other bodies hung from the trees in the parks and along the colonnades. They lay on the stairs of the palaces and the markets and the square of the public gaol where the former prince now ate and shat and shivered before his subjects. The smell of rotting flesh was only kept in check by the cool weather.

Once the prince entered exile, the dead would be gathered up and burned. They had been men once. Now they were political sculpture.

"Palliako!"

Geder looked up. From halfway across the Grand Square, Jorey Kalliam scowled and waved him on. Geder turned away from turtle and corpse, limping manfully across the pavement. The nobles of Antea stood in martial array, waiting only for the few stragglers like himself. Before them, on the bare ground, sat what high officials of the city had been spared. Timzinae merchants and guildsmen, Firstblood artisans and pragmatic noblemen. They wore their own clothing - much of it with a notably imperial cut - and held themselves more like the polite attendees of a religious function than the debased and the conquered. Sodai Carvenallin, the secretary to Lord Ternigan, stood alone on the stone platform they all faced and looked forward with folded arms. Geder hadn't seen the man to speak to since the night they'd gotten drunk together. The night Klin had burned his book. Geder shook the memory away and took his place.

He tried not to notice the new finery around him, but it was impossible. Sir Gospey Allintot's cloak was closed with a broach of worked silver and brilliant ruby. Sozlu Veren had his sword sheathed in a scabbard of dragon's jade and yellowed ivory that could have been made a thousand years before. A chain of gold looped around Jorey Kalliam's neck that looked to be more than a month's rent from all the holdings of Rivenhalm. Their clothes were freshly laundered, their boots shone even in the grey overcast light. The warrior aristocrats of Antea wore their conquest proudly. Geder looked down at his little walking stick. It was the nearest thing he had to spoils of war, and he tried to be proud of it.

"Quite a day," Geder said, nodding toward the low grey clouds. "It was snowing for a bit this morning. Glad we aren't marching in this. Though I suppose we will be soon, eh? Taking tribute to the king."

Jorey Kalliam made a low, affirming sound in his throat but didn't meet Geder's eyes.

"My leg's doing well. All laudable pus," Geder said. "But you heard about Count Hiren? Cut to the arm went septic. He died last night when they tried to amputate. Damn shame. He was a good man."

"He was," Jorey agreed.

Geder tried to follow the man's gaze, but Jorey seemed focused on nothing. Or, no. His eyes moved restlessly, searching for something. Geder searched too, uncertain what he was looking for.

"Something wrong?" Geder asked, his voice low.

"Klin's not here."

Geder looked through the crowd, his attention more focused now. There were gaps in the form, men killed or injured or called away on the Lord Marshal's business. Kalliam was correct. Sir Alan Klin should have stood at the head of the group, the men under his command arrayed behind him. Instead, Sir Gospey Allintot had the place, his chin held high.

"Ill, maybe?" Geder said. Jorey chuckled as if it had been a joke.

The drums announced the Lord Marshal. The collected nobility of Antea lifted their hands in salute, and Lord Ternigan let them remain there for a moment before he returned the gesture. Between them, the powerful men of Vanai accepted their ritual humiliation with polite silence. Jorey grunted, his expression sour. He wasn't searching any longer. Geder followed his gaze, and found Klin standing at the rear of the platform beside the Lord Marshal's secretary. Klin wore a silk tunic and hose of somber red and a black-dyed woolen cloak. The cut spoke less of blades and battle than governance.

Geder felt his belly drop. "Are we staying here?" he asked quietly. Jorey Kalliam didn't answer.

"Lords of Antea," Ternigan said, his voice echoing through the square not quite so loudly as it might have. The Lord Marshal appeared to be coming down with a cold. "I thank you all in the name of King Simeon. Through your valor, the empire has been made again secure. It is my decision that we return now to Camnipol with the tribute which Vanai owes the throne. It's late in the season, and the march is a long one, I'd rather we didn't spend all week getting our boots on. I have asked Sir Alan Klin to remain as Protector of Vanai until such time as King Simeon names a permanent governor. All of you who followed him in battle will follow him in this as well."

His orders given, Ternigan nodded to himself and turned his attention to the men seated on the pavement. As he retold the history of Antean claims upon Vanai, justified the occupation in terms of wars and agreements made six hundred years before between dynastic lines and independent parliaments long since dissolved, Geder's mind stumbled through what had just happened to him.

There would be no return to Camnipol for him, not this season. Possibly not for years. He looked around at the close-built wooden buildings with their steep-pitched roofs crowding the narrow streets, the grand canal where barges and boats made their way through the city and back out to the river, the low grey sky. This wasn't an exotic adventure any longer. This was where he would live. A thousand half-formed plans for his return to Camnipol, to Rivenhalm, to his father's hearth fell apart before him.

Ternigan stepped back from the platform's edge, took a sealed letter from his secretary, and presented it to Alan Klin, Protector of Vanai. Klin stepped forward, opened the letter, and read his charge from the Lord Marshal aloud. Geder shook his head. The despair that grew with every phrase showed him how deeply he'd been anticipating the campaign's end and his freedom from Alan Klin.

The ache in Geder's leg throbbed as Klin assured the men of Vanai that he would treat all races with equanimity, that loyalty to Antea would be rewarded and treachery punished swiftly and terribly. The glory of King Simeon in particular and Antea in the large took up the better part of an hour. Even the others in Geder's cohort were growing restless by the end. Then Klin thanked the Lord Marshal for his service and formally accepted this new charge. His salute was met with a rousing cheer, the men pleased as much that the ceremony had ended as with anything Klin had said. The citizens of Vanai rose to their feet, shaking limbs gone numb and talking among themselves like merchants at a fresh market.

Geder saw mixed reactions among the men of the empire. Some envied Klin and his men their new role. Sir Gospey Allintot was grinning so widely, he seemed to glow. Jorey Kalliam walked away with a thoughtful expression, and Geder struggled to keep up with him.

"We're exiled," Geder said when they were away from the greater mass of their companions. "We won the battle, and in return they exiled us just as sure as the damned prince of the city."

Jorey looked at him with annoyance and pity. "Klin's been aiming for this from the start," he said. "This was always what he hoped for."

"Why?" Geder asked.

"There's power in being the king's voice," Jorey said. "Even in Vanai. And if Klin makes himself useful, when the time comes to trade the city away again, he'll have a place at that table as well. Excuse me. I have to write to my father."

"Yes," Geder said. "I should tell my family too. I don't know what I'll say."

Jorey's laughter was low and bitter.

"Tell them you didn't miss the sack after all."

If there was any question of who among Alan Klin's men were favored, it was answered when Lord Ternigan left the gates of the city. Klin's new secretary, the son of an important Timzinae merchant, took Geder from his bed in the infirmary to his new home: three small rooms in a minor palace that had been storage and still smelled of rat piss. Still, there was a small hearth, and the winds didn't blow through the walls the way they had in his tent.

Each day brought Geder a new order from Lord Klin. A channel gate that was to be locked and disabled, a marketplace in which each of the merchants was to pay for an Antean permit to continue their businesses, a loyalist of the deposed prince to be taken to the jail cells as an example to others. It might be common soldiers who announced the demands and enforced their execution, but a nobleman's presence was required; a face to show that the aristocracy of Antea was present and involved with the business of its new city. And given the tasks assigned him, Geder suspected that he'd be the most hated man in Vanai before the winter passed.

Closing a popular brothel? Geder led the force. Turning the widow and children of a loyalist out of their hovel? Geder. Arresting a prominent member of the local merchant class?

"May I ask the charge?" said Magister Imaniel of the Medean bank in Vanai.

"I'm sorry," Geder said. "I'm ordered to bring you before the Lord Protector, willing or no."

"Ordered," the small man said sourly. "And parading me through the street in chains?"

"Part of my instructions. I'm sorry."

The house of the Medean bank in Vanai was in a side street, and little larger than a well-to-do family's home. Even so, it seemed somehow bare. Only the small, sun-worn magister and a single well-fed woman wringing her hands in the doorway. Magister Imaniel rose from the table, considered the soldiers standing behind Geder, and then adjusted his tunic.

"I don't imagine you know when I'll be able to return to my work," he said.

"I'm not told," Geder said.

"You can't do this," the woman said. "We've done nothing against you."

"Cam," the banker said sharply. "Don't. This is only business, I'm sure. Tell anyone that asks there's been a mistake, and I'm speaking with the very noble Lord Protector to correct it."

The woman - Cam - bit her lips and looked away. Magister Imaniel walked quietly to stand before Geder and bowed.

"I don't suppose we can overlook the chains?" he asked. "My work depends to a great wise on reputation, and..."

"I'm very sorry," Geder said, "but Lord Klin gave - "

"Orders," the banker said. "I understand. Let's be done with this, then."

A crowd had gathered on the street, word of Geder's appearance at the house traveling, it seemed, faster than the birds could fly. Geder walked in the middle of his guardsmen, the prisoner in his clinking iron just behind him. When he looked back, the man's leathery face was a mask of amusement and indulgence. Geder couldn't say if the man's fearlessness was an act or genuine. All along their route past the canals and down the streets, faces turned to see the banker in chains. Geder marched, his walking stick tapping resolutely against the streets. He kept his expression sober, to hide the fact that he didn't know why he was doing the things he did. He had no doubt that by morning the whole city would know he had taken the man in. That it was clearly Klin's intention didn't reassure him.

Sir Alan Klin met them in the wide chamber that had once been the prince's audience hall. All signs of the former government were gone or else covered over by the Antean banners of King Simeon and House Klin. The air smelled of smoke, rain, and wet dogs. Sir Alan rose, smiling, from his table.

"Magister Imaniel of the Medean bank?"

"The same, Lord Protector," the banker said with a smile and a bow. His voice was amiable. Geder might almost have thought Klin hadn't just humiliated the man in front of the city. "It appears I may have given your lordship some offense. I must, of course, apologize. If I might know the nature of my trespass, I will, of course, guard against it in the future."

Klin waved a hand casually.

"Not at all, sir," he said. "Only I spoke with your former prince before he left in exile. He said that you had refused to fund his campaign."

"It seemed unlikely that he would repay the debt," Magister Imaniel said.

"I understand," Klin said.

Geder looked from one to the other. The tone of the conversation was so calm, so nearly collegial, it confused him. And yet there was a hardness in Klin's eyes that - along with the chains still around the banker's wrists and ankles - made everything he said a threat. Klin walked slowly back to the table where the remains of his midday meal were still sitting on a silver plate.

"I have been looking over the reports of the sack," Klin said. "I saw that the tribute to King Simeon taken from your establishment... Well, it seems surprisingly light."

"My former prince may have an exaggerated opinion of my resources," Magister Imaniel said.

Klin smiled. "Is it buried, or have you smuggled it out?"

"I don't know what you mean, my lord," Magister Imaniel said.

"You wouldn't object to my factor auditing your books, then?"

"Of course not. We are pleased that Antea has taken the authority that rightly belonged to it, and look forward to doing business in a more friendly and ordered city."

"And access to your house?"

"Of course."

Klin nodded. "You understand that I will have to hold you until I find the truth of all this? Whatever money your bank holds here is now subject to Antean review."

"I expected as much," Magister Imaniel said, "but I trust you won't take offense that I had hoped for better."

"It's a fallen world. We do what we must," Klin said, and then to the captain of the guard at Geder's left, "Take him to the public gaol. Put him on the lower level, where everyone can see him. If anyone tries to talk with him, take note of what they say and detain them."

Geder watched as the small man was led away. He wasn't sure whether he was intended to follow along or not. But Klin wasn't glaring at him, so perhaps he'd been meant to stay after all.

"Did you follow that, Palliako?" Klin asked when the banker and guards had gone.

"The bank had less money than expected?" Geder said.

Klin laughed in a way that left Geder unsure whether he was being mocked.

"Oh, it's there," he said. "Somewhere. And from what the prince said, there was quite a bit of it. Enough to pay the mercenary forces to outlast a siege. Enough to buy the Maccian forces twice over. Maybe more than that."

"But he kept it from his prince," Geder said.

"Not out of loyalty to us," Klin said. "Bankers answer to no throne. But if they drowned the money, someone will have helped cart it to a canal. If it's buried, someone held the spade. If it's smuggled, someone arranged it. And when that person sees the head of the bank in gaol, they may panic and try to buy their way free."

"Ah," Geder said.

"You're the man associated with the arrest, so you'll need to be available these next few days," Klin said. "Approachable. And whatever you hear, you bring to me."

"Of course, sir."

"Excellent," Klin said. The silence between them stretched, and Geder realized that he'd been dismissed.

He walked back out to the square, found a stone bench under a black-barked tree almost bare of its leaves, and sat. His leg ached, but there was no coolness on his thigh where fresh blood or pus had leaked. Across the street, a group of youths - Firstblood and Timzinae mixing together as if the races were at perfect ease - pretended not to watch him. A flock of crows conversed among themselves in the branches of the trees and then rose like winged smoke into the air. Geder tapped his walking stick against the pavement, the little shock against his fingers oddly reassuring.

For the next few days, he was bait on a hook. He understood that. Perhaps the banker's conspirators would take the chance to buy themselves the good opinion of Antea. Or perhaps they'd stay quiet. Or, quite possibly, they'd arrange an accident for the man most associated with the problem. Klin had put him in danger without so much as making the threat he was under explicit.

And still, it was a handful of days that Geder could make his way through the streets and markets and call it Klin's order. His squire had brought him rumor of a bookseller in the southern quarter. He could make his way there at last. And if he had to go armed and under guard, at least he could go.

For two days Geder wandered the streets and cafes and beer halls of Vanai, but carefully. In church, with the voices of the choir spiraling in the wide air above him, he was still careful not to let anyone sit too near him in the pew. At the fresh market, he picked through the half-rotten volumes in a bookseller's cart, but with a soldier at his back. Then on the third day, a carter named Olfreed came to his rooms with talk of a caravan organized by a well-known ally of the Medean bank called Master Will.

For the first time, Geder heard the name Marcus Wester.