She shuddered.
“Was there a question Komme wanted to ask me about this?”
“Not specifically. Your impression of the author. Whether your experience matched what he says.”
“It does,” Cithrin said. “As to the writer … The details are all as I’d expect, or near enough. The conclusions seem sound. I’ve only been in Camnipol once, and that was under peculiar circumstances, but this description is more plausible for me than the one Paerin gave.”
“So you would trust the source?”
“Not without knowing who it is, no,” Cithrin said. “But I’d read the next letter carefully and treat it with respect. And I’d prepare for another Antean war, though I couldn’t say against whom.”
“Sarakal,” Isadau said, rising from her chair. “The report came in from friends of Komme in Asinport that Lord Skestinin’s fleet had sailed east and south. Komme expects Antea will march early in the spring if they haven’t already.”
Cithrin felt a deep dread welling up in her breast, but she only nodded.
“What is the bank’s position?”
Isadau nodded, her chitinous lips pressing together.
“We’ve taken contracts on supplies. Food, of course. And we bought out any insurance contracts for caravans heading north and invested in three roundships that will be ready to offer an alternate route.”
“And the local coin and spice? Will we be moving it?”
Isadau shook her head.
“Antea can’t win against Sarakal,” she said. “The traditional families pester each other and play out their vicious little intrigues, but nothing unites them like a common enemy. At the height of its power, the Antean Empire found it easier to respect the border than challenge it, and whether the new Lord Regent recognizes it or not, Antea is weakened. There may well be a long and bloody fight. The borders may shift. It’s unlikely that Nus will change hands, though I suppose it’s possible. There will doubtless be starvation and blood on both sides, but Sarakal won’t fall.”
“You don’t think he’ll come here, then?”
“Even the great rulers are constrained by the world,” Isadau said. “The empire’s ambitions may be vast and ill-considered, but there are still only so many men, so many horses, so many siege engines, and there’s a great deal of territory in Sarakal that will resist being passed through. If the armies of Antea come to Suddapal, it will be because the nature of the world has changed in a way that hasn’t happened since the dragons fell. So no, they won’t come here. Not in my lifetime, and not in yours.”
Clara
The end of the winter’s hunt had always been a difficult and pleasant time. The long, dark weeks drew near their end, and Dawson returned from whatever corner of the empire his friend and king had taken him. He would come back to the holdfast at Osterling Fells exhausted and moody and spend the better part of a week complaining that the journey back to Camnipol for the opening of the season was coming too soon, that there was too much work to be done on his lands. The progress of every improvement and renovation would be weighed and found wanting, the questions of justice that had waited for his word would be answered and justice meted out, and slowly, his shoulders would relax, his smile become easier. He claimed it was the comfort of being at home and with her, but it was also anticipation. She remembered lying in bed with him, their bodies pleasantly spent, and listening to the gossip from the hunt and the dripping of melting ice. Her husband was a prickly man, loyal as a dog and proud as a cat, and he found the guiding star of his life in preserving the world against change. The fears that haunted his worst nights had always been that his children might inherit a kingdom debased from the one he had been given and that his wife might be discontent. When the time came to leave the Fells for their compound in the city, he was champing at the bit to resume the battles and intrigues of court. It was the work he’d been born to.
And so every spring, Dawson would go through the holdings one last time, giving orders and coin, instructions to his vassals that would take them through another summer and guide the lands that he protected safely to autumn. Every spring, husband and wife would travel the dragon’s road back to Camnipol, the rhythm of the team’s hoofs creating martial music as the couple leaned against one another in the well-cushioned carriage. Every spring, she would take charge of the house and see it washed and cleaned and cared for while he snuck out, sheepish and delighted as a boy, to the Fraternity of the Great Bear to drink and smoke and debate with his friends and his enemies.