The Dragon's Path

bronze-colored arches above them. Competing singers wandered between the tables cadging spare coins from the Antean revelers. An old servant with the red-and-grey armband of Klin’s household led Geder to one of the smallest tables, far from the great fireplace where half a tree burned and popped. Geder kept his cloak. So far from the fire, it was cold.
    Geder allowed a slave girl to give him a plate of food and a wide, cut-crystal glass of yeasty-smelling dark beer. In the midst of the revel, he ate by himself, mulling over questions of truth and deception, war and history. The high table—Alan Klin, Gospey Allintot, and half a dozen of the others of Klin’s favorites—was a ship on the horizon to him. He didn’t notice Daved Broot being ushered to his table until the boy plopped down on a bench.
    “Palliako,” the younger Broot said with a nod.
    “Hello,” Geder said.
    “Good cloak. New?”
    “Recent anyway.”
    “Suits you.”
    Their conversation completed, Broot took a plate and began a campaign of systematically eating as much food as possible. He seemed to take no joy in it, but Geder felt a whisper of admiration for the boy’s determination. Minutes later, when Jorey Kalliam and Sir Afend Tilliakin—two more of Klin’s least favored—came to the table together, Broot had already called for a second plate.
    “How does your father read the situation?” Tilliakin said as the pair took their seats.
    Jorey Kalliam shook his head.
    “I don’t think we can draw any conclusions,” he said, lifting a plate of venison and a flagon of wine out of a servant’s waiting hands. “Not yet.”
    “Still, that little banker Imaniel won’t be going free anytime soon. Lord Klin must be chewing his own guts that he didn’t find that caravan, eh?”
    All thought of dragons, ripples, and eating prowess fell away from Geder. He took a long drink of beer, hiding behind the glass, and tried to think how to ask what the pair were talking about without seeming obvious. Before he could come up with something clever, Broot spoke up.
    “You talking about the letter from Ternigan?”
    “Jorey Kalliam’s father is seeing the whole thing from back home, but I can’t pry details out with a crowbar.”
    Geder cleared his throat.
    “Ternigan wrote a letter?” he said, his voice higher and more strained than he’d meant it to be. Tilliakin laughed.
    “Half a book, the way I heard it,” he said. “The war chests Klin’s been sending home were a little light for some people’s tastes. Ternigan wants to know why. The way I heard it, he’s sending in one of his men to look over Klin’s books, see if he’s been taking more than his share.”
    “That’s not happening,” Jorey said. “At least it isn’t happening yet.”
    Broot’s eyebrows rose.
    “So you
have
heard something,” Tilliakin said. “I knew you were holding out.”
    Jorey smiled ruefully.
    “I don’t know anything certain. Father said that there’s been some concern at court that the Vanai campaign hasn’t done as well for the crown as expected. It’s all grumbling in the court so far. The king hasn’t said anything against the way Klin’s managed things.”
    “Hasn’t said anything
for
him either, though, has he?” Tilliakin asked.
    “No,” Jorey said. “No, he hasn’t.”
    “Ternigan won’t recall him,” Broot said around a mouthful of sausage. “They’d both look bad.”
    “If he does, though, he’ll do it quick. Be interesting to know who he’d put in his place, wouldn’t it?” Tilliakin said, staring pointedly at Jorey.
    Geder looked back and forth between the men, his mind bounding on ahead of him like a dog that has slipped its leash. Klin’s steady stream of taxation demands suddenly took on more significance. Perhaps he wasn’t only finding unpleasant tasks to occupy Geder’s days. Those coins might be going back to Camnipol in place of the ones lost whenthe caravan vanished away. Klin buying back the court’s good opinion.
    The thought was too sweet to trust. Because if it was true, if
he
had put Sir Alan Klin in the bad graces of the king…
    “I think Jorey would make a fine prince for Vanai,” Geder said.
    “God’s wounds, Palliako!” Broot said. “Don’t say that kind of thing where people can hear you!”
    “Sorry,” Geder said. “I only meant—”
    A roar came from the high table. Half a dozen jugglers dressed in fool’s costumes were tossing knives back and forth through the air, blades