She stopped. Jorey went on another few steps before he realized that she had.

"You will disgrace him," she said. "You will renounce him and deny him. Do you understand me? You will turn your back on him and let the whole world see you do it."

"No, Mother."

She raised her hand, commanding silence.

"This isn't a debate at the club. Filial piety is all well and good, but that isn't the time we're living in. You have obligations. To Sabiha and to me."

He was weeping now too, and in the street. Well, if they were going to make a spectacle of themselves, she supposed this would be the day for it. A cart rattled past them and she put her hand on his arm.

"Your father knows that you love and respect him. Nothing will change that. And he knows that you have a wife of your own. A life that he helped to give you. He won't resent your protecting that. We don't have very much left. We aren't giving away what we do."

"Father deserves to have someone beside him."

Clara smiled, her heart breaking just a little more. Her son, loyal as a dog. We raised him well, she thought.

"He does deserve that," she said, "but he wouldn't want it. I'm only his wife, but he deserves to have his sons by his side. Only then he'd be distracted trying to protect us all. He knows you love him. He knows that you honor him in your heart. Seeing that you were suffering with him and because of him would make whatever happens to him worse. So you will renounce him. Change your name, likely. Do whatever you have to do to be as good a man to your Sabiha as Dawson has been to me."

"But-"

"That's what you will do," she said. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Mother," he said.

"Good," she said.

Lord Skestinin's mansions in the city were modest at best, a nod to convention more than an actual working household. He was a naval man. His summer seasons were spent on the sea, not in the court, and his winters were at his holding or, rarely, on the King's Hunt. Clara stowed her few things in a cell hardly larger than her dressing room, made up her face and straightened her gown, and went immediately back out to the street. The hour was almost upon her, and the shock of losing her home pressed her into action.

Curtin Issandrian's mansion looked somewhat reduced, partly because it shared a courtyard with the house that belonged to the Baron of Ebbingbaugh, Geder Palliako. When Aster ascended, Palliako would retire there, and in the meantime it was being kept up as a point of pride. Any mansion would pale if compared to the Lord Regent's, and Issandrian had fallen on hard times.

The door slave announced her, and almost at once, Curtin Issandrian led her into his withdrawing room. She was about to take her pipe from its holder when she realized she'd left all her tobacco at the house. She didn't have any, and she didn't feel right begging that when she'd already come to ask so much of him.

"I heard that your mansion has been confiscated," he said. "I am truly sorry."

"Well, I could hardly expect to keep it. The holding in Osterling Fells is gone too, of course. And I don't think Dawson was actually Baron of Kaltfel for long enough that I'll feel that loss. I'll miss the holding, though. It's a pretty place in winter."

"I recall," the man said, smiling. "Your hospitality was always excellent. Even to your husband's rivals."

"Oh, especially to them," Clara said. "What sort of virtue does it take to be nice to your friends?"

Issandrian laughed at that. Good. He might be willing to hear her out. They talked about small things for a few more minutes. The heat of the day wasn't so bad yet that the with-drawing room became unpleasant. It would come, but not yet.

"I confess I've come for more than kind words and comfort," she said, "though you're quite good at both of those."

"How can I help?" he asked.

"You and my husband are acknowledged enemies."

"Not so far as that, I hope. Rivals, perhaps."

"No. Enemies. And there's a sincerity in being a man's enemy. It puts you in a position to help me. I have nothing to offer you in exchange, but if you can, please speak on behalf of my sons and daughters. Not formally, but in the Great Bear and privately. I should be very grateful."

"Daughters? I thought you only had one."

"Elisia and Sabiha," Clara said.

"Ah," Issandrian said. He didn't look so bad with his hair cut short. Now that he'd worn it this way for a time, it became familiar. The difference was only a difference after all.

"You have always been very kind to me, Lady Kalliam," Issandrian said. "Even when your husband was hoping for my death. I have very little influence anymore, but what I have is yours."

"Thank you," Clara said.

After the first, the rest were easy, or if not easy at least inevitable. If she could go begging to Curtin Issandrian, surely her cousin Erryn Meer would be simple to appeal to. And the women she'd had for needlecraft demonstrations, and the poetry group that Lady Emming had arranged, and so on through the city and through the court and through her day.

She was no stranger to these sorts of little informal audiences, but she'd always been on the other side. Offering sympathy with cookies and support without promises. The form was familiar. The only change was the role she played and the stakes she played for.

Elisia, thankfully, had already shed the Kalliam name. Safe in the bosom of Annerin, she could still be seen in court and her position was secure. Vicarian was less secure, but still better than he might have been. He'd been out of Camnipol for the trouble. He hadn't served in the field. His loyalty was to God and the priesthood of the kingdom. He would have to renounce Dawson, but as long as he did, he should be safe.

Barriath and Jorey were in the greatest danger, and so she concentrated her work there, doggedly calling on everyone she knew, everyone she could think of who might still accept her socially. Anyone to whom she had once been known. She used all those past moments of grace and unnecessary kindness as a tool now. And like any untested tool, sometimes it would work as she hoped. Other times it would fail under strain. She might never know which was which. Nor did it matter, so long as her children were safe.

She stopped at the beginning of evening meals when she could no longer politely intrude uninvited and found a small baker's shop that sold yesterday's rolls with sausages and black mustard and beer. She reached for her pipe again and put it away cursing under her breath. She would have to find a way to afford a bit of tobacco. And for that matter, a bit of food. And whatever shelter she could manage after Lord Skestinin's hospitality came to its inevitable end. One didn't take in the wife of a traitor indefinitely. If Barriath became commander of the fleet or Jorey won a war in the field, she might remake herself as the mother of a respectable man. But for the future that she could imagine, she was doomed to be her husband's wife.

For a few minutes, sitting at the little stall with its splintering wooden tables and unsteady chairs, she let herself stop smiling. She was lost now, and emptied in a way she hadn't ever imagined she would be. Her marriage, her family, the small and peaceable intrigues of the court, and Dawson with his archaic love of duty and his blindness to the inconsistencies of his application of it. Those had been her life since she'd left her own mother's house. She hadn't built that life, but rather grown in it.

Now she felt like a flower plant that had been dug up gently and washed in water. She wasn't injured precisely, but her pale roots were all exposed. If she couldn't find soil, that would be enough to kill her. She knew it like she knew the sun would rise and the autumn would come.

And the center of it all was the powerful absence of Dawson Kalliam. The man who had loved her better than he had understood her. The constant in her life. She could still remember what he had looked like the first night she'd kissed him. The way he'd hidden his fear behind chivalry and she'd wrapped hers in modesty until she was more than half certain neither of them would do anything, and they would sit in that garden, aching for each other until the earth itself grew old. He'd been young and handsome. The best friend of Prince Simeon. And who had she been? The girl that his father had chosen for him. The marriage arranged before either of them had had the chance to refuse it.

She wondered if there might have been something that she could have done that would have changed his course. She wanted there to have been something. If all this disaster was her fault, at least she would have had some control. But it was a fantasy. There was no dinner party or distracting conversation that would have reconciled Dawson to being ruled by Geder Palliako's priests. Stones would fly like birds first.

It had been inescapable. And even if there had been something, it was gone now. She sighed and took a bite of the sausage. Too much gristle and oregano, but otherwise perfectly acceptable, and the black mustard hid an abundance of sins. She wept quietly while she finished her little meal and beer, then gathered herself, regained her smile, and returned to the world. She was heartbroken, and she would be for a very long time, but she needn't be ineffective.

She came back to Lord Skestinin's house near nightfall. Her feet ached and her back. The hem of her dress was filthy from walking in the common street with the dogs and horses. The smell of animal shit seemed a part of the life of the city she might have to get used to. She bore worse. It was nothing.

As she came into the house, she heard Barriath's voice raised in anger and Jorey's responding in kind. Her lips pressed thin, and she followed the sounds of fighting through the dim hallways and into the dining room lit by cheap tallow candles and decorated for a family that didn't live there.

"He's my wife's father," Jorey said.

"And I'm your brother," Barriath roared, his face red to the edge of purple. "When did that stop mattering? Next you'll be cozying up to that son of a whore in the Kingspire, asking him if he'll give you room and a scrap of meat."

Sabiha stood in the doorway at the far side of the room, her knuckles white around a bit of lace handkerchief. Her expression told Clara how much damage Barriath had already done.

"Good God," Clara said, stepping into the room confidently as a bear tamer walking into the pit, "I'd think you were children again and someone had taken your best toys. What is this about?"

"You're taking shelter with Skestinin," Barriath said, turning his wrath on her. "I won't have it. He took my position with the fleet. I served him for years, and as soon as there's a bit of trouble, I'm overboard like old fish."

"There are certain realities-"

"I'm the eldest man in this family. That makes me responsible for our name," Barriath said. "And I won't have my dignity compromised by this."

Clara didn't know what change of expression came to her face, but she saw Jorey's eyes go wide and Barriath's blood-thickened face grow apprehensive. A faint smile touched Sabiha's lips. Clara met her firstborn son's eyes. One day, he would have been Baron of Osterling Fells, she thought. His future had gone away without warning or reason, and grief made people mad. They did things they would never have otherwise done.

She began to speak, paused, and began again.

"My husband," she said, softly and with terrible precision, "is not dead. You are my son. Jorey is my son. Sabiha is my daughter. Lord Skestinin is your family, and it would be best for all of us if he found that burden light."

Barriath scowled, but he looked away. The bear tamed, for the time being.

"Jorey's going to renounce Father," Barriath said. He sounded peevish.

"I know he is, dear," Clara said, sitting down at the table with a sigh. "So are you."

Under Clara's eye, Lord Skestinin's house kept its uneasy peace for the night. Barriath sulked and pouted the way he had since the day he'd drawn breath. Jorey brooded more subtly, and with greater consideration for those around him. Clara sat by an unfamiliar window that looked out on a garden not her own, knotting lace because her needlework was lost to the Lord Regent's justice. Just before bed, Sabiha found her, a small leather sack of pipe tobacco in her hand. Clara had kissed the girl's cheek, but they hadn't said anything. Some nights, Clara decided, were too delicate to risk with words.

In the morning, the news came that Lord Geder Palliako was prepared to announce his judgment on the traitor Dawson Kalliam.

Cithrin.

I.

f Cithrin had known when she went to the tailor that she would be dressing for an execution, she might have made different choices. In Vanai, the gaol had been open, and those waiting to see the magistrate could be seen and mocked, but the justice of the prince was done in private, the bodies of the condemned buried if they had families to watch over them and bear the cost or left on the hills outside the city if not.

Porte Oliva was just the reverse. Waiting to be judged was a private matter, but once the sentence was passed, or the enforcement fees paid, the punishment was open for anyone walking by to see. The idea of holding a ceremony with all the highest levels of the court in attendance in order to carry out a slaughter that everyone knew was coming seemed perverse, and her limited wardrobe didn't support it.

In the end, she chose the darker of her two dresses. The lines of the lighter one were simpler and more sober, but even after consulting with Paerin Clark, she wasn't certain how much of the day was supposed to be a celebration. A bit of face paint to give definition to her eyes, but not so much that she'd start to look like she was melting if the room was too warm. Two bits of jewelry that she'd acquired since the fire she tried in every combination, eventually settling on a thin silver necklace and no bracelet. She didn't want to appear to compete with the nobility. Simple, understated, formal.

She was on the edge of reconsidering her choice of dress when it occurred to her that she wasn't concerned about the opinion of the court. To them, she was a foreigner, a halfbreed, and a merchant. If she'd worn the perfect clothes with the ideal jewels, the ones who had use of a banker would treat her nicely to her face and the others would ignore her.

No, she was worried because Geder would be there. And that had to stop at once. She wasn't a child or one of Sandr's easily impressed stage followers. Something had happened once if they chose to agree that it did, and nothing had if they said it hadn't. Going to court as if he would have time, interest, or attention for her was idiocy. And still, he had talked of allowing the bank to open a branch, so perhaps wanting to dress well in his presence wasn't entirely dim.

Still, she put on the bracelet before she stepped out to the gathering. Not for Geder or Paerin Clark or anyone else. She just liked it.

The heat of summer was losing its grip on the city. The sky overhead was blue, but not rich, and she wouldn't have been at all surprised if Smit's eventual rain came in the next day. She went out to the kitchen where the lowborn among the party were waiting. Elsewhere in the mansion, Baron Watermarch and his wife and daughters were making themselves ready, and no one would be leaving the courtyard until the family was prepared. Fortunately, the cook had put a plate of biscuits and cheese out for the guests to eat before they left.

Paerin Clark was in a simple tunic and hose with a narrow leather belt. Seeing him, she felt more comfortable with her own decision. He smiled and offered a half bow, which she returned, reaching for a biscuit as she did.

"Well, this should be interesting, at least," he said. "It isn't every journey we begin with the celebration of a war hero and stay for his execution."

"Do we know anything about him?" she asked around a mouthful of salt and butter with just enough flour to hold it together. Whatever shortcomings the hospitality might suffer, Daskellin's cooks spared little and the results were lovely. "I've met him several times. He was important to putting Palliako on the throne and he's been swimming-deep in court intrigue since I met him. Rigid thinker, no use for us or our kind."

"I'll keep my mourning short," she said. "Anything I should be watching for?"

"I don't know," Paerin said. "Listen to what people say about the insurrection. If Kalliam has partisans, this will be the time to catch them upset."

"I will," she said. "I would have thought that there would be more punishments. Kalliam wasn't the only house involved in the thing."

"No, it wasn't, but it was the leader. And some of the others made peace. Kalliam was captured. It makes him the extreme case."

The door opened and one of the junior footmen leaned in.

"The lord and lady are walking out," he said. "Come on along or we'll be left behind."

"And here I thought we were waiting for them," Cithrin said.

"Noble blood flows by different rules. Best to nod and bow and be patient."

"And piss before you leave," Cithrin said sourly.

"Yes," Paerin said with a smile. "And that."

Canl Daskellin and his family rode a palanquin with a dozen bearers while Cithrin and Paerin followed at a polite distance in a cart pulled by horses. As they came near the Kingspire, the magnitude of the crowd became clear to her. Every street and alley was packed with the powerful. Their servants shouted and fought, pushing for advantage and arguing precedence and points of etiquette like fishermen coming in from the dock shouted about nets. Their own cart didn't come near the great tower itself, but drew aside perhaps a quarter mile away and stopped.

"My thanks," Paerin Clark called to the carter and tossed a copper coin through the air to him. Cithrin slid down at his side.

"Walking the rest of the way?" she said.

"As befits our station," he said, offering his arm.

The architecture of the chamber was marvelous. No matter where people stood, no matter how tall the person before them was, the view of the raised dais at the end was clear. Geder sat on a plush chair and Aster at his side. Cithrin felt a passing urge to wave to them. Seeing the pair of them together gave everything the feeling of theater. Though of course that wasn't true. Geder wasn't simply playing at Lord Regent, that was who and what he was. Or perhaps playing at it and being it were the same thing.

The priest Basrahip stood to the side, his head bowed as if listening. Cithrin had the irrational sense that he was aware of every conversation in the hall, however quietly spoken.

"You see the woman on the far left in grey?" Paerin said softly enough that the words were almost lost in the murmur of a hundred small conversations. Cithrin craned her head. She saw Canl Daskellin and his family, but none of them wore grey. The daughter especially seemed to be dressed for a celebration. She shifted again, and then found the one Paerinmeant. She was in the first part of her early middle years with a face that seemed to be made without angles. The cloak she wore was the grey of ashes. Two younger men stood at either side, the taller, thicker of the pair affected a full sailor's beard. The smaller had a beard of more recent vintage.

"Kalliam's wife and sons," she said.

"Ah, you've seen them before, then."

"No," she said, and began looking at the people around them. The disgraced family stared straight ahead, expressions empty or despairing or thick with dread, and the people nearby pretended not to notice them. The three might have been ghosts. No one saw them.

No, that wasn't true. Geder did. Cithrin leaned forward. Geder was looking at them, and his expression wasn't angry or vengeful. That was interesting. Down in the darkness, he'd said he wanted every humiliation answered for, and she believed him. But now he looked anxious.

The beat of a drum announced the arrival of the prisoner, and a small wooden door opened not far from Geder and Aster. The man who came through had grey hair pulled back from his face. He wore peasant canvas with smears of dirt and filth on the tunic and legs. His feet were bare and the soles black. He bore himself more regally than Geder, so much so that she felt a little pang of embarrassment on Geder's behalf.

Dawson Kalliam, patriot and traitor, was made to kneel in the center of the room, guards with drawn blades behind him either side. Aster glanced at him nervously.

Cithrin bit her lip. What was she seeing here? Geder's reluctance was written in every angle and underscored each movement. When he cleared his throat, the court went silent.

"I have been petitioned by the ... sons of House Kalliam for permission to speak. I hereby grant this to Jorey Kalliam of House Kalliam."

The crowd murmured as the younger son walked out. This wasn't expected, then. Geder was giving something to the family of the man who'd tried to kill him. She couldn't guess what he wanted in return. Lady Kalliam's eyes were closed, her face nearly the grey of her clothing. The larger of her sons held her hand.