The Dragon's Path

salute. Dawson brought himself to nod.
    “Lord Daskellin’s come, my lord,” Coe said. “He’s in the western sitting room.”
    Dawson drew himself to his feet. The dog whined as he walked away from it. There was nothing he could do. He had no more comfort to offer. In the sitting room, Canl Daskellin stood at the window, his hands clasped behind his back like a general overseeing the field of battle. His pipe smoke was sweet enough to cloy.
    “Canl,” Dawson said. “If there’s anything you want of me, it had best be something quick. I don’t have time for a hand at cards.”
    “I came to offer my sympathies and congratulations.”
    “Congratulations? For what?”
    “We’ve won,” Daskellin said, turning away from the window and striding into the room. “You played your handbrilliantly. You lured Issandrian into a thrust he couldn’t follow through, then cut his conspiracy down. Now he’s in disgrace. His inner circle is exiled. Stripped of lands and titles. There’s no saying who will take Prince Aster as ward, but it won’t be any of them. There won’t be a farmer’s council in our lifetimes. I’m sorry it came at a price to you, but I swear that your name will be praised as a hero while you’re gone.”
    “What good’s winning battles when the war’s lost?” Dawson said. “Did you actually come here to celebrate, Daskellin? Or is this how you gloat?”
    “Gloat?”
    “Odderd Faskellin was a rabbit and a coward, but he had high blood. He
died
yesterday. In Camnipol, and by foreign hands. That hasn’t happened in centuries. And how did Simeon reply? Increased taxes. Petty exile. A few minor lands and titles shuffled about.”
    Daskellin leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. Grey smoke spilled from his lips and nostrils.
    “What would you have had him do?”
    “Slaughter them all himself. Bind them, take sword in hand, and take their heads with his own hand,” Dawson said.
    “It sounds like you’re missing Palliako already,” Canl said dryly. Dawson ignored him.
    “An armed company in the streets? It’s treason against the throne, and to answer it with less than death is one step short of open surrender. He made himself a mask of fierceness, and all it did was point out how frightened he is. You should have seen it. Simeon strutting and raging and calling for an ending. It was like watching a shepherd boy trying to shout down wolves.”
    “Frightened? Of whom?”
    “The power backing Issandrian. He’s afraid of Asterilhold,” Dawson said, and then pointed an accusing finger at Daskellin himself. “And he’s afraid of Northcoast.”
    The imitation of a smile bent Daskellin’s lips and he took his pipe from his mouth.
    “I am not Northcoast, old friend,” he said. “And if consideration of the reactions of the other courts and kingdoms brought King Simeon to a place of greater mercy, that’s wisdom on his part.”
    “That’s permission for every landholder in the kingdom to spread his loyalty as widely as he can,” Dawson said. “As long as answering to a duchess in Asterilhold or a bank in Northcoast makes us safer than standing by Antea, Simeon won’t have a court of his own. He wants to keep the kingdom off the dragon’s path so badly that he’s walking down it.”
    Daskellin knelt by the fire grate, knocking the bowl of his pipe against the soot-stained brick. A rain of ashes fell from it.
    “We disagree,” he said, “but there can be room for a little differences between allies. You’re right, of course, that even with Issandrian’s cabal hobbled, the danger to the kingdom hasn’t entirely passed. Whether you believe me or not, I’d thought to reassure you that I would keep working during your exile.”
    “By selling us to the Medean bank?”
    “By seeing that King Simeon has the support and loyalty he needs.”
    “Spoken like a diplomat,” Dawson said.
    Daskellin bristled, and then as Dawson watched, gathered his temper in. He tucked his pipe into his belt and stood. The smell of old smoke still hung in the room.
    “It’s a dark day for you,” Canl said, “so I’m going to takethat for what you said and ignore what you meant by it. Whatever you think, I didn’t come to gloat.”
    The two stood for a moment, the silence between them stretching. Canl Daskellin made a rueful half-smile, then walked out, putting a hand on Dawson’s shoulder as he passed. Dawson listened to the footsteps draw away, drowning in the noise of his household