“May I come in?”
“Of course, Magistra,” she said, stepping back. The rooms were smaller than her own, but only just. Her desk was, if anything, larger. The account books were open, and a half-written report waited for pen and ink. Cithrin could see the careful marks and numbers of the bank’s private cipher. There was no key. Pyk could read and write directly into the cipher. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“The reports. When will they be ready to go?”
She crossed her arms.
“A week, I think. Not longer than two. Why?”
“I don’t suppose you’d be open to carrying them to the holding company yourself? Spending a little time in North-coast? I could watch things in your absence.”
The sneer took up the better part of her face, as Cithrin had known it would.
“I think not, Magistra. My instructions were quite clear.”
“Well,” she said, holding out a sheet of soft, cream-colored paper, “don’t say I didn’t try to save you.”
Frowning, Pyk took the page and unfolded it. Her eyes scanned it, confusion and distrust growing.
“You’re invited to a feast?” she said.
“I am,” Cithrin said, “but you will have to attend in my place. I’ll be taking the reports to Carse.”
Dawson
T
he funeral ceremony began at the Kingspire. Simeon, King of Imperial Antea, lay on a bed of flowers, red and gold and orange, like a funeral pyre that could not consume its dead. He wore gilt armor that caught the sunlight, and his still features were turned to the sky. All the great families were there: Estinford, Bannien, Faskellan, Broot, Veren, Caot, Palliako, Skestinin, Daskellin, and more and more and dozens more, all those who had sworn their loyalty to Dawson’s old friend, those many years ago. They wore mourning cloth and covered their heads in veils. Though the sky was cloudless, the breeze that tugged his sleeves and drowned the chanting of the priest smelled of rain. Dawson bowed his head.
He didn’t remember meeting Simeon. It must have happened, some singular first time that led to another, that led to two boys of the noblest blood in Antea running wild together. They had taken to the dueling yards, standing second for each other in matters of honor and jest and the small intrigues that forged long friendships. The happy memories betrayed him now, moving him to tears. Once, they had hunted a deer through the forest, breaking away from the hounds and the huntsmen to tear after the beast alone. The deer had led them through some small farmer’s garden, circling the little stone cottage with their horses at its heels until they’d reduced the rows of peas and eggplant to greenish mud. It had seemed sweet then. Ridiculous and hilarious and beautiful. Now Dawson was the only one who would remember that laughter or the comic expression of the farmer rushing out to find the crown prince covered in mud and pulped vegetables.
What had been a shared moment was private now, and always would be. Even if he were to tell the story, it would be a tale told and not the thing itself. The difference between those two was the division between life and death: a lived moment and one entombed.
Simeon had been so young then. So noble and strong. And still, somehow, he had looked up to Dawson. There is nothing in a young man’s world sweeter than being admired by the boy you admire. And then, inevitably, that love had ended, and now even the dream of its recapture was gone. One dead, the other standing with the veil shifting around his nose while a priest a decade older than the corpse being consecrated mumbled and lifted hands toward God. The king’s breath was stopped. His blood turned black and solid in his veins. His heart, once capable of love and fear, was now a stone.
The priest lit the great lantern, and the bells rang out first one, and then a dozen, and then thousands. The brass mouths announced what everyone already knew. All men die, Simeon said in his memory. Even kings. Dawson stepped forward. Etiquette dictated which of the pale-fleshed ash poles he was to take, who he was to carry before, and who behind. He was not so near the front as he wished. But he was close enough to see young Aster walk out to his place at the column’s head.
The boy was pale as cheese. He had accepted coronation in the ceremony immediately before the burial, as tradition demanded. Palliako had, to no one’s surprise, accepted the regency. The great men of the nation had bent their knees to the boy prince, now king. The worked silver crown perched on Aster’s head as if in real danger of sinking to his ears, but his steps were sharp and confident. He knew how to bear himself as if he were a man full-grown, even if the effect was only to more clearly show that he was a child. Geder Palliako, as protector, stood behind him looking considerably less regal than the child prince. The bells stopped together, replaced by the dry report of the funeral drum. With the rest of the hundred bearers, Dawson took his pole and lifted Simeon to his shoulders.