“I,” she said, putting the empty skin on the ground, “am drunk enough to sleep now.”
“Well, then. Good night, Magistra.”
She nodded an unsteady bow, but her eyes were bright and merry.
“Sleep well, Lord Regent. We’ll see who has to find a home for the piss pot,” she said, leaned forward with pursed lips, and blew out the candle.
The darkness was utter and absolute. Geder found a blanket by touch and curled himself into it. The welts on his arm were itching, but not badly. He heard her struggling with her own blanket, muttering small curses, shifting, cloth moving against cloth. Her breath was shallow and impatient, and then softer, deeper, fuller. She snored a little, the rattle high in her throat. Geder lay on the dirt, his own arm for a pillow. He heard the patter of soft cat feet, one of the previous owners drawn by the smell of the chicken. The frantic licking of a small, rough tongue. When he moved, the cat fled, and he was sorry that it had. He didn’t mind sharing what was left of the meal.
He hadn’t realized how much the tiny candle flame had warmed the little room, but the air was growing steadily colder. He willed himself to sleep, counting his breaths to himself the way he had when he was younger. Going through his body, forcing each muscle to relax, starting with his feet and ending with the top of his head. It grew colder, but he minded it less. Slowly, by inches, he felt his mind letting go, slipping apart into the quiet darkness. When she shifted against him, he only half noticed she was there.
His last coherent thought was that he was sleeping beside a woman and it didn’t seem strange at all.
Dawson
T
he battle of Camnipol had raged for more than a week now, violence following violence, attack calling forth reprisal calling forth reprisal of its own. Twice now, someone had tried to open the gates, and both times they had been driven back. The city’s food supplies were growing shorter, the water in the cisterns lower. The high summer sun had joined the battle with the worst heat in years. It beat down from an implacable blue sky, turning all the roofs to a burning bronze, wilting the flowers, and driving men to
madness.
Dawson stood on the rooftop of Alan Klin’s estate, his arms behind him, his chin jutting forward with a confidence he didn’t feel. His city was suffering. His nation was suffering. Asterilhold could have reassembled its army and stood outside the walls right now, and not only would Dawson not know it, it wouldn’t have made any difference. The siege they held themselves under was as vicious as any enemy could devise. It was like watching a beloved dog going slowly mad, biting itself to death while Dawson could only look on in horror and sorrow.
Behind him, Alan Klin cleared his throat. And Mirkus Shoat, never a man of particular originality, did as well. Dawson turned to his council. The patriots being mistaken for traitors. Estin Cersillian was dead, caught by a blade in the street. Odderd Mastellin looked small and sheeplike and weary. Only Lord Bannien lived and was not with them. He’d gone in the morning with a dozen men to salvage what he could of his mansion, burned in the night.
“We can’t keep this going,” Klin said.
“I know it.”
In the street below them, there should have been men and women, dogs and children. Servants should have been carrying their masters’ clothing back from the launderer. Horses should have pulled carts of turnips and carrots to the market square. Instead, men with swords walked in groups, wary-eyed. His men, Klin’s, Bannien’s. Aster’s banner flew over the house as well, a visible claim of loyalty that seemed to matter less and less with every passing day.
“If we have King Lechan,” Mastellin said, “we can lay claim to being the legitimate protectors of the throne. We’d hold the enemy of the crown as an enemy.”
“Are we sure no one’s killed him?” Mirkus Shoat asked. Klin’s laugh was low and nasty.
“We’re not sure anyone’s fed him,” he said. “He could be gone to the angels and not a dagger in sight.”
“Then we have to surrender,” Shoat said.
“Never to Palliako,” Dawson said. “If we lay down arms, it must be to the prince. Otherwise everything they say about us will be true.”
“I think you underestimate what they’re saying about us,” Klin said. “And it hardly matters. Until we find one or the other of them, we might as well give arms to Daskellin or Broot or whoever we find walking down the street. There’s no one we can surrender to that can guarantee our safety as far as from here to the gallows.”
“Why not?” Shoat demanded. “Those others could surrender to us.”