The Dragon's Path

they mean everything to men like me. It isn’t you I disdain. It’s only what you are.”
    The banker laced his fingers across his knee.
    “Will you hear my news, my lord? Despite what you think I am?”
    “I will.”
    For the better part of an hour, the banker spoke in a low voice, detailing the slow landslide that was happening in Camnipol. As Dawson had suspected, Simeon’s unwillingness to commit his son as the ward of any house came from the fear of making waves. The respect for his kingship was failing on all sides. Daskellin and his remaining allies offered what support they could, but even within the ranks of the faithful, unease was growing. Issandrian and Klin remained in exile, but Feldin Maas was everywhere in the city. It seemed as if the man never slept, and wherever he went, the story he told was the same: the attack of the show fighters had been rigged to throw disgrace on Curtin Issandrian in order that the prince not be sent to his house. The implication was that the convenient appearance of the soldiers from Vanai had been part of a great theater piece.
    “Arranged by me,” Dawson said.
    “Not you alone, but yes.”
    “Lies, beginning to end,” Dawson said.
    “Not everyone believes it. But some do.”
    Dawson rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. Outside, the day was leaning toward night, the sunlight reddening. It was all as he suspected. And Clara was riding into the center of it. The hope she’d offered before she’d left had sounded risky at the time. After this report, it seemed merely naïve. He would have given his hand to have had the banker come a week earlier. Now it was too late. He could as well wish a thrown rock back into his hand.
    “Simeon?” Dawson asked. “Is he well?”
    “The hard times wear on him,” Paerin Clark said. “And, I think, on his son.”
    “I think it isn’t death that kills us,” Dawson said. “I think it’s fear. And Asterilhold?”
    “My sources tell me that Maas is in contact with several important men in the court there. There have been loans of gold, and promises of support.”
    “He’s raising an army.”
    “He is.”
    “And Canl?”
    “He’s trying to, yes.”
    “How long before it comes down to the field?”
    “No one can know that, my lord. If you’re careful and lucky, maybe never.”
    “I can’t think that’s true,” Dawson said. “We have Asterilhold on one hand and you on the other.”
    “No, my lord,” the banker said, “you don’t. We both know I came hoping for advantage, but an Antean civil war won’t profit us. If it does come to pass, we won’t take a side. I’ve done what I can here. I won’t be going back to Camnipol.”
    Dawson sat up straighter. The banker was smiling now, and it looked suspiciously like pity.
    “You’ve abandoned Daskellin?
Now?
”
    “This is one of the great kingdoms of the world,” Paerin Clark said, “but my employer plays his games on larger boards than that. I wish you the best of luck, but Antea is yours to lose. Not mine. I’m traveling south.”
    “South? What’s more important than this in the south?”
    “There’s an irregularity that needs my attention in Porte Oliva.”

Cithrin
     
    C ithrin stood at the top of the seawall, the city spread out behind her and the vast blue of sea and sky ahead. At the edge where the pale, shallow water of the bay turned to deep blue, five ships stood. The towering masts were trees rising from the water. The furled sails thickened the spars. The small, shallow boats of the fishing fleet were rushing into port or else out of the traffic as dozens of guide boats raced out, fighting to be the first to reach the ships and take the honor of guiding them in.
    The trade ships from Narinisle had arrived. Five ships, arriving together and flying the banners of Birancour and Porte Oliva. When they had left, there had been seven. The other two might have become separated by storm or choice or scattered in an attack. They might arrive the next day or the next week or never. On the docks below her, merchants waited in agonies of hope and fear, waiting for the ships to come near enough to identify. And then, once the ships were in their berths, the fortunate among the sponsors would board, compare contracts and bills of lading, and discover whether profits were assured. The unfortunate would wait on the docks or in the port taprooms, digging at the sailors for news.
    And then, once the captains of the ships had answered their