Instead, a massive carriage the green of summer leaves had arrived at the holding company. It bore the royal arms, but not the pennants of gold that would have meant King Tracian had come to them. She and Paerin were bundled up the step and into the dark luxury within, Komme following behind. When the driver set them in motion, the whole thing shook like a ship in a storm. By the time they arrived at the palace Cithrin was feeling hot and sweaty and less than well. A servant whose rank she couldn’t divine led them up a set of white marble stairs to a building the size of a decent-sized township. The king’s palace. From its door, she could see the sleeping dragon before the Grave of Dragons and the tower of the Council of Eventide. It was a beautiful city in its way.
What she liked about it most, she thought, was that there wasn’t a hell-deep pit in the middle of it.
The meeting room was a balancing act of bragging and understatement. The walls were hung with cloth dark enough that she had to look twice to see its quality. The chairs were all simply designed, but of rosewood and teak and upholstered with silk so soft she was worried that she’d split it when she sat. Taken as a whole it painted the portrait of a man who knew he was supposed to be grand without being tasteless, and hadn’t quite brought it off.
King Tracian was younger than she’d expected, though of course he hadn’t been the man Marcus had fought against. That had been Lady Tracian. Still, it was strange to see him appearing only a few years older than she was and think that if it hadn’t been for Marcus, this man wouldn’t be here at all. There would be a Springmere on the throne, and Cithrin would have gone through her life without Marcus Wester to protect her. And if Springmere hadn’t frightened himself into killing Marcus’s family …
Too big. It was all too big, the good and the evil too much mixed with each other. And in any case, King Tracian had given his permission for them to sit.
“You’re looking well, Komme,” the king said.
“Some days good, some bad,” Komme said with a shrug. “I hope your little problems are little too?”
“Much better,” the king said with a sour little smile that told Cithrin she was better not knowing what the reference was to. Komme’s smile was warm and apparently genuine, but she had the feeling it might always be.
“I’ve already heard quite a bit about our neighbors and cousins in Antea. This regent. How did we overlook him?”
“He wasn’t anyone until recently,” Komme said. “Minor house. Father of no importance.”
“Fortunes change quickly,” the king said, leaning forward. “What exactly have we found out?”
Paerin’s barely audible exhalation made it clear he was to take the lead. Cithrin sat on her hands.
“The situation in Antea has been unsettled,” Paerin said. “They’ve had two insurrections, the most recent of which led to a protracted battle and the collapse of several noble houses. They’ve conducted a particularly effective war against a traditional enemy. They’ve lost a king to the same ailment of the blood that took his father and which will, we must assume, eventually kill their next king as well.”
His voice and demeanor changed when he spoke like this, and Cithrin watched him, fascinated. He spoke firmly without aggression. His gestures were controlled but flowing. She was certain that the delivery would have been precisely the same if he’d been talking to a man like the king before him or the lowest servant in his house. They had moved beyond class and status, if only for a moment, and they were in the realm where Paerin Clark was the master.
“Palliako has an uncanny talent for mythologizing himself. But ultimately, his personality is unimportant. There are constraints on him that he won’t be able to avoid or to adjust to quickly.”
“Tell me,” the king said.
“He’s lost most of a harvest in two kingdoms,” Paerin said. “If he hadn’t made the war with Asterilhold a matter of conquest, he’d have fewer starving people next spring. But now they’re his, and they’re all his. He’s weakened his own support among the noble classes. He wasn’t precisely one of them to begin with. That his own Lord Marshal led an attack against him and did it in the name of the prince shows just how much work he has to do, just to get up to being an effective leader.
“He is open in ways that King Simeon wasn’t. There’s been the suggestion of a branch bank in Camnipol, which I think worth looking at seriously.”
Paerin folded his fingers together, and the king unconsciously mirrored him.
“Antea isn’t going to collapse, but it isn’t going to be stable either. I’d guess we were looking at five, maybe six years before Palliako poses any threat to trade or to his neighbors. I think he has a long memory, though. Anyone who crosses him while he’s weak will answer for it when he’s strong. Aster is still too young to judge, and by the time he takes the throne, the situation will have changed again.”