The Dragon's Path

sponsors, once the laborers had begun the long businessof hauling the goods from ship to warehouse, once the frenzy of trade and goods and the exchange of coin had passed over Porte Oliva like a wind across the water, it would be time to begin the preparation for the next year’s journey. Shipyards would make repairs. The new sponsors would offer contracts and terms to the captains. And Idderrigo Bellind Siden, Prime Governor of Porte Oliva, would consult with the captains and the masters of the guilds, and graciously accept the proposals to change this from one port city among many to the center of trade for a generation to come.
    And in her hand, written in green ink on paper as smooth as poured cream, was the letter that forbade her from being part of any of it. She opened it now and considered it again. It was ciphered, of course, but she had spent long enough with Magister Imaniel’s books and papers that she could read it as clearly as if it had been in a normal script.
    Magistra Cithrin bel Sarcour, you are to cease all negotiation and trade in our name immediately. Paerin Clark, a senior auditor and representative of the holding company, will attend you as soon as can be arranged. Until that time, no further contracts, deposits, or loans are to be made or accepted. This is unconditional.
    It was signed by Komme Medean himself, the old man’s script jagged and shaking from gout. She had shown it to no one. In the eight days since it had come, she’d wrestled with the order. It was the first she’d ever had from the holding company, and precisely what she’d expected. The auditor would come, just as she’d planned at the start. He would recover the bank’s funds, lost from Vanai. All her daydreams of keeping the bank alive, or steering it the way the guide boats were now preparing to lead the trade ships to safety, would end. She would be herself again. Not Tag the Carter,not a smuggler hiding in the shadows, and not Magistra Cithrin. Only without Besel and Cam and Magister Imaniel. Without Vanai.
    And so, with respect, she preferred not to.
    With a soft breath too slight to call itself a sigh, she ripped the page. Then again, and again, and again. When the pieces were as small as individual numbers and symbols of the cipher, she threw them over the edge of the seawall and watched them spin and flutter.
    On the water, the guide boats were crowded around the trade ships. She imagined the voices of the men shouting up to the captains, the captains shouting back. As she watched, the first of the ships began the short, final leg of its annual journey. She turned away and walked back to her bank. The front door stood open to the breeze. As she walked through, Roach jumped to his feet as if she’d caught him doing something. Behind him, Yardem stretched and yawned hugely.
    “Where have you been?” Captain Wester said.
    “Watching the trade ships arrive, just the same as everyone else in the city,” she said. She felt unaccountably light. Almost giddy.
    “Well, your coffee brewer sent three people on from the café so far this morning asking after you. They came looking here.”
    “What did you tell them?”
    “That you were busy, but I expected you’d be back in the café after midday,” Wester said. “Was I lying?”
    “You? Never,” she said, and laughed at the suspicion on his face.
    D espite the heat, Cithrin wore a dark blue dress with full sleeves and a high collar to the meeting at the governor’spalace. Her hair was tucked into a soft cap and pinned in place with a silver-and-lapis hairpin that was from the last of the jewelry she had hauled from Vanai. It would have been more appropriate for a cool day in autumn and left a trickle of sweat running down her back, but the thought of something more revealing in front of Qahuar Em seemed uncomfortable. And of course wearing the necklace or brooch that he’d given her would have been inappropriate.
    When he greeted her in the passageway outside the private rooms, his bow was formal. Only the angle of his smile and the merriment in his dark eyes gave a hint of their nights together. He wore a sand-colored tunic with black enameled buttons to the neck, and she found herself aware of the shape of his body beneath it. She wondered, now that they weren’t to be rivals any longer, what would become of the attachment. The servant, a pale-haired Cinnae woman, bowed as they went through the doorway.
    A single dark-stained table dominated the room,