Geder felt the unease in his belly and tried to put it aside.

"I don't... I've decided I don't want to be dressed anymore. I don't need people to put my clothes on me or bathe me or trim my toenails. I've done all of that myself for years, and I managed."

"The dignity of the regency, my lord, like the dignity of a king, is not-"

"I didn't call you here to be lectured," Geder said. "You're here so that I could tell you something. I don't want people to come dress me in the morning. Bring the clothes, draw the bath, and get out. Do you understand that? I want my privacy, and I'll take it."

"Yes, Lord Regent," the older man said, his lips pressed together in disappointment and disapproval. "As you see fit."

"Is this a problem?"

The man practically vibrated, conflicting impulses warring behind pale and watery eyes.

"Tradition, Lord Palliako, and the dignity of the throne argue against a man of your stature and position acting as his own servant. It diminishes-"

"Strip," Geder said.

"My lord?"

"Your clothes. Take them off."

"I don't-"

Geder rose up, gesturing at the impassive faces of his personal guard.

"I have men with swords at my command. I am the regent of Antea. I sit the Severed Throne. When I tell you to do something, I'm not opening a debate. Take off your clothes."

Trembling, his cheeks burning scarlet, the old man undid his robes. His undershirt was a pale yellow silk. His under-garments showed a spot of blood at the flank where the old man had a small round scab, a blemish that would not heal. His pubic hair was the yellow of white cheese and his belly sagged. Geder stood up. There was neither disappointment nor disapproval in the man's face now.

"Why my good sir," Geder said. "What ever is the matter? You don't seem to enjoy this."

The servant didn't speak.

"Do you?"

"Lord?"

"Do you enjoy this?"

"I do not, my lord."

Geder walked up, putting his face inches from the old man's. With each word he spoke, the servant winced.

"Neither. Do. I."

Geder turned on his heel, walking out of the room. Behind him, he heard his personal guard following and the soft sounds of the servant picking up his fallen clothes. And that simply, it was done. The ritual morning humiliations were over, and no one was going to laugh about it. Now the relief that killing King Lechan hadn't provided flowed into him. Odd how the important things in life could be the smallest ones. He considered whether to clear his schedule, take all the audiences slated for the day, and set them to the winds. He could take his books to a comfortable place and have food and drink brought to him. Now that he'd done some- one-small thing genuinely for himself, anything seemed possible.

But no. Not yet. All of that could come on another day.

The banker looked perfectly at home in the grandeur of the meeting chamber. Canl Daskellin sat at his side, the pair of them smiling and joking as if they hadn't seen the king of Asterilhold die that morning. Paerin Clark wore modest clothes of simple cut that looked understated rather than plain. Basrahip sat at the foot of the table, his genial smile the same as ever. Geder looked for Cithrin, but she wasn't there. He tried to keep the disappointment from showing.

"My Lord Regent," Daskellin said as all but Basrahip rose. "Thank you for making time."

"Pleased to do it," Geder said. "I've been looking forward to meeting you. Cithrin speaks highly of you, even behind your back."

"I'm gratified to hear it," Paerin Clark said. "She sends her regrets, my lord. We suffered certain losses in the trouble, and Magistra Cithrin's particular attention was needed to address some of them. I'm sure she would have come if circumstances had been different."

Geder glanced at Basrahip, who nodded. A twist of anxiety Geder hadn't known he was carrying relaxed. He was glad she wasn't avoiding him. And he hadn't made an effort to seek her out, as full as everything had been on his arrival. There would be time. The thought of seeing her again left him feeling a little breathless.

"Tell her I'm sorry she wasn't here," Geder said, smiling. "And I'm very sorry that all of this happened when you were in Camnipol. Really, armed insurrection isn't as common as it's seemed these last couple of years."

Paerin Clark laughed, and Daskellin followed along.

"That does bring me to the reason we came in the first place," the banker said. "Antea is in a difficult transition. The passing of King Simeon followed by the war, and now all of this. Any one of these could shake a kingdom. All three coming as they have are certain to."

"Yes, I'm told that the harvest's going to be a bit thin this year," Geder said. "But it won't be a problem."

"You sound very confident. That's good. Antea will want a steady hand. In that regard, I'm here in part to-"

"Oh stop it," Daskellin said, with a chuckle. "Clark's here to say that his bank would want to put their toes in Camnipol. They don't lend to the nobility. It's policy, and likely a wise one. But they can bring in gold to lend to artisans and merchants. When I went to Northcoast, I thought we'd still be fighting a war when I got back."

"Banks are at their best when there isn't war," Paerin Clark said. "Trade in peacetime is always more reliable and regular. And stabilizing."

"Have you thought about opening a branch here?" Geder asked.

For the first time, Paerin Clark seemed at a loss.

"Yes, actually," he said. "But the climate of court didn't seem open to the idea."

"I think you should," Geder said. "Camnipol's the center of the world. Antea's the greatest empire there is. Seems silly that you shouldn't be here. More trade, right?"

"You heard the part about not lending to nobles?" Daskellin said, and Geder waved the comment away.

"Lend to other people," he said. "Then they'll have enough money on hand that we can tax them."

"Well, if that's something we should consider," the banker said, "perhaps we can talk about the challenges facing Antea in the coming years, and how we might be able to help."

The meeting went longer than Geder had intended, the conversation ranging from the division of Asterilhold into new baronies and holdings under the control of Antean noble houses to the possibility of buying up grain supplies from Sarakal to ease the coming harvest to the new Antean border with Northcoast and the changing diplomatic position with King Tracian. In truth, Geder didn't care deeply about any of it, but Paerin Clark knew Cithrin, and so Geder wanted the man to think well of him.

When at last the meeting ended, Geder made his farewells and walked back to his private rooms, Basrahip at his side.

"So?" Geder asked. "What do you think of him?"

"He means the things that he says," Basrahip answered, "but he chooses what he says very carefully. He is a wise man, but not holy. We will be careful of him."

"Good idea," Geder said. "I agree."

"There is another matter."

"Kalliam," Geder said.

"No. With him, nothing need be said. All his roads have ended. But in his fear of the coming justice, he made the servants of the goddess his targets. His hatred of us has taken its toll. We have lost many, my lord. With the new temples you are sworn to build in these cities that fall before you, I must ask that more of my brethren are permitted to join us."

"How many more?"

"I would send for ten cohorts of ten," Basrahip said.

"A hundred?" Geder said. "Is that all? Of course you can. If it's a question of seeing them with food and shelter, I can send a hundred servants away tonight and not miss them tomorrow. In fact, why not take Kalliam's mansion? I mean, it won't be enough space, I don't think, but there's a poetry in it."

They paused at a small fountain, water pouring over the shoulders of an ancient king and flowing down the half-sized noblemen and women at his feet, and then a miniature horde of carved-stone peasants. Political philosophy as decoration.

"I am grateful to you, Prince Geder."

"You don't need to be. I couldn't do any of this with-out you."

T.

he fear came with night. He couldn't think why that would be. Darkness had been the best part of all that had come before, but now when the sun failed, Geder found the face of Dawson Kalliam coming to him. The flash of the blade. The blood on Basrahip's hand.

Sitting in his library now, his personal guard discreetly at a distance, he knew he was in no danger. But he hadn't seen danger in Kalliam's revel either. If there was one thing to learn, it was that danger came at any time and from any quarter. He fought the darkness with light. Lamps and lanterns and candles glowed in among the papers and piles of books, pressing back the night.

His own collection, product of a lifetime's gathering, wasn't so much as a quarter of what stood in the royal archive, but the archive reflected the tastes and opinions of any number of scholars. It had all the genres in some degree- poetry, moral tales, histories-but speculative essay, his own particular favorite, was thin. And besides that, there was a comfort in reading again what he already read, and he was here for comfort.

The pillow essays traced back to the reign of the second Queen Esteya and addressed everything from points of court politics and rivalries between people whose names were now otherwise forgotten to speculations on the sexuality of the various races. The dialect was simple enough to follow, especially since he was used to translating from other languages. When he'd read it before, it had been a guilty pleasure. Titillating and embarrassing. What he knew of women and their bodies had, for the most part, come from this book and others like it.

It is the nature of women or any race except the Firstblood to be attracted to men most like the original forms of man. The Jasuru find most pleasing men with the thinner scales of colors more near to flesh. Southling women, apart from those given over to being their pod's breeding stock who need not concern us here, choose men with smaller, lighter eyes. Women of the Yemmu will, given the option, provide themselves to males of slighter frame and more upright stance. Indeed the races would, in time, fade back into a single form if it were not for the masculine drive to explore carnally the exotic.

The scandals of Robbe Sastillin are the classic example. Here was a man of noble frame and blood, a man with real possibilities and prospects in the court who took a series of Cinnae girls to his bed. It debased him and ruined the girls, but in the moment each was acting from the base impulse natural to them.

Geder put a fingertip on the passage, leaning back in his chair. It didn't seem plausible to him. Not for the first time, he wished that Basrahip and the goddess could speak to the truth of written words as well as those that were spoken.

Was it true? he wondered. Would a woman of one of the crafted races be drawn to a Firstblood man simply because of his race? Had Cithrin bel Sarcour chosen him because he was himself, or because he was Lord Regent, or because he was a Firstblood? Was there any way to tease apart the logic that had brought them to that singular moment in the darkness? He wondered what Basrahip would tell him if he could bring her to speak of it in the priest's presence. Not that he ever would, but it was hard not to speculate.

He wondered whether she was thinking of him.

Aster's voice startled him.

"Here you are."

Geder clapped the book closed and turned to the prince. Aster looked older now. As if the days underground had sharpened his cheeks. Geder wondered if that was normal. He would have guessed that children grew to adults imperceptibly, each day's change too small to see, each week too small, each month. The changes may be clear if seen year by year by year, but maybe that was wrong. Maybe people stayed just the same for long stretches of time, and then shifted suddenly, becoming someone different than they'd been. Or not different, but older. More mature. More themselves.

"Yes," Geder said. "I was reading. It's a long day, and I thought..."

Aster nodded. His face might not have changed shape. It might only have been the solemnity of his expression that had changed, though why their time with Cithrin would have done that and the death of King Simeon hadn't... Or maybe it was one thing coming as it did after another.

That was certainly how Geder felt about himself.

"You haven't done anything about Kalliam yet."

"I know," Geder said. "I mean, I have. I've given his estate to Basrahip. For priests. That's something. I did something."

Aster sat on the table, his legs swinging under it. His silence was reproach enough.

"It's Jorey," Geder said. "Dawson's his father. I can't execute my friend's father."

"Are you certain he's your friend?"

Geder looked out toward the gardens, but the light had turned the glass to a dark mirror and all he could make out was himself and his books. Piles and piles of words that were neither truth nor lies.

"No," he said. "And I know that I could just ask, and Basrahip would tell me. But I don't want to. Because what if he isn't? What if it all runs so deep that I don't have anyone left? No, don't. I know it makes sense to do the thing. I know I'd be better off knowing. Only, I could read a book first. Or talk with one of Cithrin's bank people. Or anything, really. In any given hour, I can find something I'd rather do than know."

"Why aren't you angry at him?"

"Jorey?"

"Dawson. The father. He tried to kill you."

"I know. And I should be. Maybe I am, just... I mean, it's not like he laughed at me. He takes me seriously enough to think I'm worth killing. It's just that I liked him. I did. And I wish he liked me too."

"I don't think he does," Aster said.

Geder laughed.

"I think you're right. I'll do what needs doing. And I won't die. I promise."

Geder wondered whether this was what it was to have a son. He didn't think so. It was too much like having a friend, and father and sons were something-many things-but not that. Perhaps it was that they both knew what it was to lose someone important. Or that they were the two men in Antea so wrapped in power and privilege that it isolated them.

"What are you going to do?" Aster asked.

"I'll see him punished," Geder said. "I'll see all of it stopped. Whoever it is. And I'll see that this never happens again. Agreed?"

Aster considered silently for a moment, then nodded. Geder put his book on the table, stood, and blew the first candle out. Aster joined him, snuffing each wick until darkness and a breath of smoke was all that was left of the library.

"So," Geder said as they walked out, man and boy side by side, together but not touching, "I know nothing would be possible so long as I'm Lord Regent. But once I'm done with my watch and the throne's yours? How bad do you think the scandal would be if I married a banker?"

Cithrin.

C.

ithrin walked through the charred ruins of the inn. It was dreamlike. Strange. She'd stood there not a month before and heard Smit's voice again. When she had, the stone walls of the inn had been as strong and permanent as mountains. Now soot stained them, and the roof had fallen in where the supporting timbers had burned out. It seemed unlikely that this was the same place. Or even the same city. Perhaps it wasn't.

"I went through it all as best I could, Magistra," the woman said. She was Firstblood, thicker than Cithrin. Darkerskinned with ruddy cheeks and dark smudges of exhaustion and loss under her eyes. "I found what I could, but it was little. They took a good bit before they burned it, and the fire took the rest, most part."