“I can come back another time,” Cithrin said, already half turned away.
“Who’s come?” a man’s voice called. “Who is it?”
The woman put a hand on Cithrin’s wrist like holding a dog’s ear to keep it from straying, then leaned back and spoke loudly.
“Magister Nison and Magistra bel Sarcour.”
“And you’re going to keep ’em standing there?”
The woman and Nison exchanged a shrug, and she stepped back, motioning them into the private rooms. The floors were golden-brown wood of a kind Cithrin had never seen before lacquered until it shone like wet stone. Sconces of gold and silver hung from the walls, the polished metal throwing back the light of small, delicate candles. A tapestry hung on the wall unmistakably showing the building that they were presently in, but in colors so bright and vibrant that Cithrin couldn’t begin to imagine what dyes could have done it; it was like looking at the iridescent wing of a butterfly. She wished that she’d stopped to buy some grander dress before she came. Or at least cleaner sandals.
The room they entered was open on one side to a balcony that looked down into the courtyard. The branches of a tree shifted in their spring green, the new leaves catching the sun and glittering like water or coins. Komme Medean lay in the center of the room, reclining on a seat woven from leather straps. Apart from a loincloth, he was naked, his brown skin powdered almost white. His belly was the solid fat of middle age, and a fringe of white hair clung to his scalp. He reminded Cithrin of a lump of bread dough coated with flour and left to rise.
His right leg was bent and of normal human proportion, but his left stood straight out, held in its own sling. The knee and ankle were massive, misshapen, and angry. A young Timzinae in the robes of a cunning man was crouched beside the diseased limb, chanting under his breath. Cithrin had never seen a man with gout before, and while she’d known it was an unpleasant ailment, she hadn’t understood the degree. She forced herself not to stare. Something in the cunning man’s fingers clicked, and he grunted as if in pain. Komme Medean ignored him. Pale brown eyes swept up and down her, evaluating her not the way a man would a woman, but as a carpenter might a plank of lumber.
“I’ve brought the reports from Porte Oliva,” Cithrin said.
“All right. What do you want?” Komme Medean said. And when she didn’t answer immediately, “You carried your reports yourself instead of sending a courier. You came here yourself. You want something. What is it?”
The moment balanced on the edge of a blade. It was true, she’d come all this way, and for this. To speak to the man at the center of the great labyrinth of power and gold and win him over to her. She’d imagined the delicate conversation of a courtier, the half-playful and half-serious questions that Magister Imaniel had raised her with. She’d imagined herself impressing the man slowly over the course of hours or days. And now, instead, she stood before a mostly naked, sick man, as the central question lay out on the floor between them like a broken toy.
The moment stretched, and Cithrin felt her opportunity slipping just beyond her reach. She was embarrassing herself in front of the very man she’d meant to impress. And then, from the back of her mind, an old voice whispered. Cary, the actress who’d helped Cithrin play the part of a banker, of a woman full-grown and at the height of her power. The woman you’re pretending at, her imagined Cary whispered, what would she say?
Cithrin raised her courage and her chin.
“I’ve come to tell you your notary has the soul of a field mouse and the tact of a landslide. And after that, I want to charm you into giving me more of your money and greater freedom to use it,” Cithrin said. Her voice a little hard and buzzing at the edges. “How’m I doing so far?”
The room was silent. Even the cunning man stopped his chanting. And then Komme Medean, soul and spirit of the Medean bank, barked out a laugh, and Cithrin let herself breathe again.
“Bring her a chair, and pass me those reports,” he said. She put the sealed books into his hand. He was a bigger man than he’d seemed at first. He broke the seals and opened the ledgers, reading the ciphered text as easily as if it had been simple letters. “All right, Magistra. Let’s see how you’re doing. So far.”
Geder
A
s a boy, even a young man, Geder had imagined what it would be like to be king. His daydreams had seemed perfectly benign at the time. If he were king, men like Sir Alan Klin would be called to heel. If he were king, he would see that the libraries of Camnipol—of all Antea and its holdings—were well stocked and maintained. If he were king he would command any woman he wanted to his bed, and no one would laugh at him or reject him or comment on the size of his belly. They had been the sort of fantasies a young man could have safely, without any threat that they might one day come true.