“This helped, my lord,” Klin said, pushing the execution order across the slab to him. “Some people in court are still close with their families across the border.”
Dawson picked up the page and folded it into his wallet.
“What are we going to do?” Shoat asked, his voice high and tight.
“What needs doing,” a voice said from the shadows. Dawson rose as Lord Bannien, Duke of Estinford, stepped into the light. His face was calm and steady, sandy hair over black eyes. “I took your letters, Kalliam. And I spoke to my son. I have been forced to the same conclusions. Antea has been taken over by foreign sorcerers.”
“Your son told you, then,” Dawson said. “About what happened at the bridge.”
“He did,” Lord Bannien said. “And I am with you. But we must move quickly. If word of this comes out, it’s worth all of our lives.”
“How many men can you bring?” Dawson asked.
“Twenty that I trust utterly for the event itself. A hundred once the die is cast.”
Shoat promised seven, Cersillian and Mastellin ten each, and then the full resources of their houses, for another seventy men.
“I can give twelve for the first attack,” Klin said. “Including myself. But only if we’re agreed that Palliako dies.”
Dawson looked around the ruined space and nodded.
“In three days, Palliako will be staging a revel in my name,” Dawson said. “Celebrating the capture of Asteril-hold. I don’t know this, but I suspect that he means to execute King Lechan at that time. The men can gather at my house. If they arrive in my livery and announce themselves as my honor guard, they can come into the grand hall during the feast. We end Palliako where he sits.”
“I don’t want to start a civil war,” Mastellin said.
“We won’t,” Dawson said. “Once the deed’s done we will all surrender ourselves to Prince Aster. We must not allow any question that we have done this in service to the crown.”
“That relies a great deal on a very young boy’s judgment,” Shoat said. “If he decides to call retribution, we’ll all find ourselves in a small place.”
“If you were planning to avoid risk, you’ve come to the wrong table,” Dawson said. “And if we all die in the effort, it will be a small price against the reclamation of the throne. We kill the traitor and support the king. There is no other path.”
“Agreed,” Bannien said, slapping his palm against the stone. “But killing Palliako’s only striking the sword arm. There is another issue.”
“Of course,” Dawson said. “The priests. They must be rounded up and killed. And the temple will burn.”
Cithrin
C
ithrin had never been so far north in her life. Many of the small details, she knew from the stories and descriptions that Magister Imaniel had given her, but the images she’d built from the words didn’t often match the reality. She knew that the northern coasts were dotted with stone fisher-men’s huts, but in her mind they had been square, solid buildings, like the ones in Vanai only grown small. The mossy, earthen lumps strewn over the grey-green shores looked less like buildings than something that had grown up out of the land itself. She knew to expect the great, soaring lizards that lived on the stone islands and ate fish, but she had imagined them as small dragons instead of the awkward, batlike things they were. And then there were other things, unexpected and strangely wonderful. The days were even longer here, the sun hardly seeming to give over to night before the dawn began to threaten. The winters would reverse that, with the darkness and the cold swelling up to take back their due. And once the sea voyage was done, and their boat safely in its dock at Estinport, Cithrin stepped onto the earth of Imperial Antea.
She had rarely thought of land having its own personality, but as they made their way to great Camnipol, she saw the differences in the world. All her life had been spent near the shores of the Inner Sea. She had traveled through mountains and across the hills to the east of Porte Oliva. She had seen the forests north of the Free Cities. But for most part, those lands had been one thing or else another. Here, everything mixed, hard stone beside rich green meadow beside thick trees. Rich farmland lined the roads, the long, thin fields marked by fences built of rough black stone. The mountains here curved softly toward the sky, like a hill that had been left to rise too long before it was baked. Compared to the Free Cities or even Birancour, Antea seemed sure of itself. Old and staid and eternal. It was the most beautiful landscape she had ever seen, and she wanted to love it. But she didn’t.