The King's Blood(82)

It was just the sort of thing that Geder had imagined he would enjoy, one of the unnumbered small privileges of power that he’d gained with the regency. In practice, it felt oppressive. Being the most powerful man in Imperial Antea meant being busy all the time, being constrained by form and etiquette, and carrying the world on his shoulders. He would never again be able to ride out through the streets whenever he saw fit. And never, ever alone. He had traded poking through the old scriptorums for this small corridor that only he and his guards could use, and the exchange seemed less attractive than it had before he’d made it.

The private corridor widened into the royal apartments. High windows looked out over the Division and the spreading land beyond, filling the vaulted ceilings and tall air with light and just a hint of the woodsmoke of the city. These were the rooms where King Simeon had lived. The queen had died in one of the wood-paneled bedrooms. Aster had taken some of his first steps in the candlelit hallway Geder walked through. It was where Aster had grown up. When the boy had become Geder’s ward, Aster had expected to be leaving these walls for years, not months, and now he was back. It was and would always be more Aster’s home than his own.

Geder knew from experience that it might be some time before the meeting he’d left spiraled to its true, if unofficial, close. Basrahip would stay there, and if the others picked and chose their words carefully, knowing that Geder’s right hand was still with them, they didn’t know how much the priest could still divine from the mixture of truth and lies. And a few minutes—an hour or two—entirely his own was welcome in a way that made his joints ache a little.

He heard Aster’s voice reciting lines, and then the tutor— an ancient Cinnae man so frail-looking that he seemed always on the edge of collapse. Geder followed their voices to the study and hung in the shadows of the doorway for a moment.

Aster sat at a small table, looking up at the tutor’s podium. The old Cinnae smiled encouragingly, and Aster began the lines again.

“Information without practice can never grow to knowledge. Knowledge without silence can never grow to wisdom. And so practice and silence, doing and not doing, are at the heart of the right man’s path.”

“Marras Toca,” Geder said. “I didn’t know you were learning military philosophy.”

The tutor’s watery smile greeted him as he stepped into the room.

“You know the text, my Lord Regent?” he asked.

“I read an essay mentioning him that was very important to me. Afterward, I made a point of finding some of his work. I made a translation of it over the winter. I didn’t use silence in mine. I thought stillness was closer to the original meaning.”

“I think it’s dull,” Aster said.

“Some of it’s dry,” Geder said. The room was small, but sun-warmed. “Some of it was pretty interesting, though. Did you read the section about the spiritual exercises?”

“Like a cunning man’s tricks?” Aster said, brightening a little.

“No, they were more like ways to practice thinking. When he’s talking about silence or stillness, it’s not just about not moving around. He’s got a particular technical meaning.”

“Have you done the exercises, my Lord Regent?” the tutor asked.

“No, not really, but I read about them a lot, and I think it’s very interesting. Wise, even,” Geder said, and leaned close to Aster with a rueful little grin. “I’m better at reading about those kinds of things than doing them. Can I see the translation you’re using?”

The tutor leaned over his podium and held out the book. Geder took it carefully. It was very old, and the binding was leather and string. The pages were cloth, and thicker than usual, which gave the thing a feeling of solidity and weight. Geder turned the pages reverently.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

“A teacher of mine gave it to me when I was hardly older than Prince Aster,” the tutor said, smiling. “I’ve kept it with me ever since. I have heard that you have quite the sizable library yourself, my Lord Regent?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I used to have more time to read. And translate. I was working on an essay that tracked the royal houses of Elassae by the dates of their births, and it argued that Timzinae have two annual mating seasons. The actual dates were a little sketchy, but the argument was brilliant.”

Aster sighed and leaned his elbows against his desk, but the old tutor’s eyes were alight.

“It sounds fascinating, my lord. Do you recall the name of the author?”