The King's Blood

me, sir.”
    “Well, you’re a charming man. I have to stop by the barracks. Come with me.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    The city was blurred, as if the water could wash away not only objects but lines and color themselves. As if the idea of Porte Oliva was dissolving. In the barracks, a dozen guardsmen were sitting in a rough circle playing at dice. Marcus considered them. He’d hired every person in his company except Yardem. They were good people. Solid men and women, loyal to the bank and to him personally.
    Part of him would miss them.
    “Ahariel.”
    “Yes, Captain.”
    Marcus tossed the satchel across the room. The Kurtadam caught it out of the air.
    “There’s some contracts in there need delivering. Do what you can, eh?”
    “Yes, Captain,” the guardsman said, undoing the satchel’s buckles.
    Marcus turned back toward the door. Yardem stood there, his face blank but his ears standing tall and forward.
    “Waiting for something?” Marcus asked.
    “No, sir.”
    “Let’s go, then.”
    T
    he inns and taprooms by the port were thick with bodies huddling out of the weather. Gossip and news and unconfirmed speculations came as cheap as a bowl of barley soup or a bottle of cider. Marcus hadn’t considered that one virtue of living in a single place for more than a year was that it gave a sense of which faces and voices didn’t belong. Those were the ones he followed, because those were the ones who had come from places where the petty wars were being started or fought or guarded against.
    Merrisen Koke and his men were in Lyoneia, fighting for a local lordling against a pod of tribal Southlings. Karol Dannien, on the other hand, had taken garrison work on the border between Elassae and the Keshet. Tiyatra Egencil, smaller and more recently formed than Koke’s company or Dannien’s, was in Maccia enforcing the law for a prince whose guard had turned. Another company Marcus hadn’t heard of calling themselves Black Hounds was supposed to be doing something in Herez, but the details on that were vague.
    The storm blew itself out to sea. When the sunset came late in the day, it turned the high clouds in the south gaudy red and gold. The grey veil beneath them looked almost gentle at this distance. The streets were wet and clean, even the mud washed away. The puppeteers and musicians came out, plying their trades at the street corners and taproom yards. Marcus bought a waxpaper cone of cooked beef for himself and another of eggs and fish for Yardem, and they walked down the wide streets.
    “I like Koke best, but I don’t see going to Lyoneia. Maccia’s close, but Egencil’s new at this, and I don’t know that I trust her yet.”
    “And she’s working for a prince,” Yardem said.
    Marcus shrugged and popped a chip of beef into his mouth. “Why’s that a problem?” he asked around the food.
    “I thought we didn’t work for kings, and that princes were just little kings,” Yardem said.
    “I’m not looking for someone to work for. I have someone to work for. I need someone to hire.”
    Yardem flicked a jingling ear.
    “For what, sir?”
    “I’m going to get Cithrin,” Marcus said. “Thought that was clear enough.”
    “That’s a large favor to ask,” Yardem said. “Even if it was someone from the old days.”
    “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “We don’t have anything like the gold to hire a company.”
    “I know where there’s a bank’s strongbox.”
    Yardem bowed his head and grunted. Marcus went on a half dozen steps before he realized that Yardem had stopped. The Tralgu’s face was perfectly empty. Impassive. Marcus walked back and stood before him.
    “You’ve something to say?”
    “Do I understand, sir, that your plan is to steal from the bank, hire a mercenary company, and march it into the middle of an imperial civil war?”
    “My plan,” Marcus said, his voice conversational but with a buzz of anger, “is to get Cithrin back safe. Whatever I have to do in order to see that happen, I’m doing. If it meant sinking this city in the sea, I’d do it.”
    “This is a mistake, sir.”
    “Are you saying she isn’t worth it?”
    “I’m saying that taking an outside force into a civil war is marching barrels of oil into a fire. Crossing the bank to do it means nothing to come back to, even if you did find her.”
    “What else am I supposed to do? Sit by and wait?”
    “The magistra’s smart. Capable. You could have faith in her.”
    “She’s a girl in the middle