The Dragon's Path

think we can get evidence. Letters. But I’m afraid that if I take them to King Simeon, he’ll think they’re forged. I need someone else. Someone he trusts, or at least doesn’t distrust.”
    “Of course,” Geder said. “Absolutely. Who is the traitor?”
    “Baron of Ebbinbaugh,” Jorey said. “Feldin Maas.”
    “Alan Klin’s ally?”
    “And Curtin Issandrian’s, for that, yes. Maas’s wife is my mother’s cousin, which God knows doesn’t sound like much of a toehold, but it’s what we have to work with. She—the wife, I mean. Not my mother. She seems to know more than she’s saying. There’s no question she’s frightened. My mother has her at a needlework master’s knee as we speak in hopes of winning her confidence.”
    “But she hasn’t confessed anything? Told you for certain what’s going on?”
    “No, we’re still well in the realm of suspicions and fears. There’s no proof. But—”
    Geder put up his hand, palm out.
    “I have someone you should meet,” he said.
    T he last time Geder had been to the Kalliam mansion, it had been dressed for a revel in his honor. Without the flowers and streamers and crepe, the austerity and grandeur of the architecture came through. The servants in their livery had the rigid stance of a private guard. The glass in the windows sported no dust. The women’s voices that came from the back hall sounded genteel and proper, even without any individual word being audible. Basrahip sat on a stool in the corner. His broad shoulders and vaguely amused expression made him seem like a child revisiting a playhouse he’d outgrown. The austere cut and rough,colorless cloth of his robes marked him as not belonging to the court.
    Jorey was sitting at a writing desk, fidgeting with pen and ink without actually writing anything. Geder paced behind a long damask-upholstered couch and wished he liked pipes. The occasion seemed to call for the gravity of smoke.
    The choir of feminine voices grew louder, and the hard tapping of formal shoes came from the doorway, louder and then softer as they passed. They hadn’t come in. Geder moved toward the door, but Jorey waved him back.
    “Mother will be seeing the others out,” he said. “She’ll be back in a moment.”
    Geder nodded, and true to Jorey’s word, the footsteps returned, the voices reduced to a duet. When the women stepped into the room, Jorey rose to his feet. Basrahip followed suit a moment later. Geder had danced with the Baroness of Osterling Fells at his revel, but between the months and the whirl of drink and confusion that time had been, he wouldn’t have recognized her. He could see how her own features had influenced Jorey’s, especially around the eyes. Surprise touched her expression and vanished again, less than the flutter of a moth’s wing. Behind her, a sickly-looking woman with a pinched face and dark eyes had to be Phelia Maas.
    “Oh, excuse me,” Clara Kalliam said. “I didn’t mean to intrude, dear.”
    “Not at all, Mother. We were hoping you’d join us. You remember Geder Palliako?”
    “How could I forget the man who held the eastern gate? I haven’t seen you at court this season, sir, but I understand you’ve been traveling. An expedition of some sort? Let me introduce my cousin Phelia.”
    The dark-eyed woman came into the room and held her hand out to Geder. Her smile spoke of relief, as if she’d been dreading something that she thought she’d now avoided. Geder made his bow and saw Lady Kalliam’s eyebrows rise as she noticed the priest in the corner.
    “Ladies,” Jorey said. “This is Basrahip. He’s a holy man Geder brought back from the Keshet.”
    “Really?” Lady Kalliam said. “I hadn’t known you were collecting priests.”
    “It came as a surprise to me too,” Geder said. “But please, won’t you ladies sit?”
    According to his plan, Geder sat Phelia Maas on the couch with her back toward Basrahip and then took his own place across from her. Jorey resumed his place at the writing desk, and his mother took a chair near that happily didn’t block Geder’s view of the priest.
    “Maas,” Geder said, as if recalling something. In truth, he’d planned precisely what to say. “I had an Alberith Maas serving under me in Vanai. A relation of yours?”
    “Nephew,” Phelia said. “My husband’s nephew. Alberith has mentioned you often since his return.”
    “You’re the Baroness of Ebbinbaugh, then?” Geder asked. “Sir Klin was my commander