The Dragon's Path

The Cinnae poet whose name it bore had lived in it when Osterling Fells had been the seat of a king with a penchant for the art of lesser races, and Antea only the name of a minor line of noblemen half a day’s ride to the north. None of Andr’s poems had survived the centuries. The only marks that she had left on the world were a small house that bore her name and a carving in the stone doorway— DRACANI SANT DRACAS —whose meaning was itself forgotten.
    King Simeon lay in a bath of worked bronze shaped into a wide Dartinae hand, the long fingers turned back to the palm and dribbling steaming hot water from channels just beneath the claws. A stone bowl of soap rested in a shelf on the thumb. A window of stained glass turned the warm air green and gold. The body servants stood at the back wallwith soft cloths to dry the king and black swords to defend him. The king looked up as Dawson stepped into the room.
    “Forgive me, sire,” Dawson said. “I hadn’t known you were here.”
    “It’s nothing, old friend,” Simeon said, gesturing to the body servants. “I knew I was intruding on your private haunts. Sit. Enjoy the heat, and I’ll make way for you as soon as I have feeling back in my toes.”
    “Thank you, sire,” Dawson said as the servants brought a stool for him. “As it happens, I was hoping to discuss a matter with you in private. About Vanai. There’s something it would be best you hear from me.”
    King Simeon sat up, and for a moment, they weren’t lord and subject noble, but Simeon and Dawson again. Two boys of blood and rank, full of their own pride and dignity. Dawson’s disdain for the Vanai campaign and outrage at his own son being set to serve under Alan Klin were well-known matters. Still, Dawson rehashed them, building up his anger and self-righteousness to a speed that would carry him through his confession. Simeon listened and the body servants ignored everything with equal care. Dawson watched the old, familiar face as it passed from curiosity to surprise to disappointment and settled at the end in a species of amused despair.
    “You have to stop playing games like that with Issandrian’s cabal,” the king of Imperial Antea said, leaning back in his bath. “And still, I wish to God it had worked. Would have saved me half a world of trouble. You’ve heard about the Edford Charter?”
    “The what?”
    “Edford Charter. It’s a piece of parchment a priest found in the deepest library of Sevenpol that names the head of a farmer’s council under King Durren the White. There’s apetition in the north to name a new farmer’s council on the strength of it. Any landholder with enough crops to pay in would have a voice in court.”
    “You can’t be serious,” Dawson said. “Are they going to drive mules through the palaces? Keep goats in the Kingspire gardens?”
    “Don’t suggest it to them,” the king said, reaching for the bowl of soap.
    “It’s a gambit,” Dawson said. “They’ll never do it.”
    “You don’t understand how split the court is, old friend. Issandrian is well loved by the lowborn. If they gain power, he gains with them. And now with Klin as his purse in Vanai, I don’t see that I have a great deal of leverage.”
    “You can’t mean—”
    “No, there can’t be a farmer’s council. But there’s peace to be made. At midsummer, I’m sending Aster to be Issandrian’s ward.”
    The great bronze fingertips dripped. A passing cloud dimmed the light. King Simeon sat quietly lathering his arms, expressionless as the implications unfolded themselves between them.
    “He’d be regent,” Dawson said, his voice thick and strangled. “If you died before Aster came of age, Issandrian would be regent.”
    “Not a sure thing, but he’d have a claim to it.”
    “He’s going to have you killed. This is treason.”
    “This is politics,” Simeon said. “I had hoped Ternigan would keep the city for himself, but the old bastard’s independent-minded. He knows Issandrian’s cabal is on the rise. Now he’s done them a favor without quite throwing himself in their camp. I’ll have to woo him. They’ll have to woo him. He’ll be sitting in Kavinpol getting kissed on both cheeks.”
    “Curtin Issandrian will
kill
you, Simeon.”
    The king lay back, dark water running up his arms and darkening his hair. A scum of soap floated and spun on the water.
    “He won’t. As long as he has my son, he can call my tunes without the bother of sitting on a