The King's Blood

work that had gone into them, Cithrin had expected something more. Four slim volumes, bound in leather. The notary’s report on everything about the Porte Oliva bank would fit into a satchel. The time had come to decide the details of her journey, and Cithrin, for all her preparation, wasn’t sure.
    The speed at which information traveled was the enemy of certainty. A cunning man’s ritual might pass a simple, urgent message from Porte Oliva to Carse in as little as two days. A pigeon could fly there in five and be more reliable. A single courier on a fast horse could cross the wide plains of Birancour, stopping at the posts and wayhouses, and reach Sara-sur-Mar in ten days’ time, and then by ship to Carse in another five so long as no bandits caught him and the weather on the coast was favorable. A caravan would be even slower, but safer. If she’d wanted it, Cithrin could have planned half a season on the road there and back again.
    She had sat in her room at night with the dragon’s tooth and map before her and imagined the different journeys she might take, letting herself debate whether to stop in Sara-sur-Mar for a time and make her introductions to the queen’s court, whether to take ship directly from Porte Oliva and see the ports in Cabral and Herez along her way, whether to leave by herself dressed as a courier and ride alone in the wide world. Every new version seemed sweeter, more enchanting, more real than the last. She’d settled on a middle way. Marcus and Yardem Hane and herself, traveling on the dragon’s roads all along the way. A small group would move quickly, and the trained blades and little promise of gain would discourage most of the trouble that might come. Rather than pack the dresses and paints and formal attire she’d want in Carse, she would take a letter of credit and purchase them there.
    Then came the news of war.
    “No,” Marcus said. “Not overland. There’ll be refugees on all the roads through Northcoast. Thick in the last parts of Birancour too, for that matter.”
    The counting house was empty apart from the three of them—Marcus, Cithrin, and Pyk. The chalked duty roster showed half a dozen names, but most of them were on the road back from Cemmis township under Yardem’s command, and the others Marcus had set to wait in the street. Their voices were audible, but Cithrin couldn’t make out any words. Her map was stretched out on the floor, with all of them looking at it as if there was a secret message hidden in its lines. Birancour in the south, with the smaller kingdoms clustered around it. Northcoast above and to the right, looking down at it like a disapproving older brother. And beyond it, the war.
    “Sea’s a problem too,” Pyk said, sucking at her teeth.
    “Why?” Cithrin asked.
    “We did just burn a pirate’s ship down to the waterline,” Marcus said. “Might want to give a little time before we offer him a chance at bloody vengeance.”
    Pyk’s expression darkened, but she didn’t speak. Cithrin hadn’t gone to the woman until Marcus had returned with confirmation that their scheme had worked. She’d left the notary in an uncomfortable place. Cithrin had taken action on the bank’s behalf without Pyk’s knowledge, but there had been no formal negotiation, no papers to sign. Nothing she’d done violated the terms under which Cithrin was bound. Only the spirit and intention of the thing was compromised, and in the process, the losses of the Stormcrow ’s insurance contract would be at least partly recovered. Pyk could be unhappy about how it had been done, but the results allowed her as little room for open complaint as for pleasure.
    “Overland to Sara-sur-Mar and then by ship,” Pyk said. “Cuts out the waters near Cabral and keeps her far enough west she’ll miss the worst of it.”
    “Likely the best route,” Marcus said. “It does pass through some rough territory in the center. The farmlands are taxed hard. There’s places where the locals see travelers as either predators or prey.”
    “That’s truth,” Pyk said, though she sounded less worried about it than pleased. “The reports will want guarding.”
    “I don’t want a full caravan,” Cithrin said. “Just Marcus and Yardem will be fine, I think.”
    “The hell they will,” Pyk said.
    “That’s not a choice you get to make,” Marcus said.
    The Yemmu woman’s thick lips went slack in surprise.
    “You’re serious?” she said. “And here I was starting to