The King's Blood

The deep general leads his army into battle to confirm victory, and so the world’s nature will force him to return to it. The wise general leads his army into battle to reshape the world, and so he creates a place which does not need him.
     
    It wasn’t at all like the copy Geder had. His copy hadn’t, he was almost sure, included the verse about the deep general. Deep wasn’t a form Toca used often, and when he did it was usually in reference to the priesthood. Geder wondered if a discussion of warrior priests had been taken out by a later translator.
    “Ah,” Basrahip said. “Listening to empty voices again, Prince Geder?”
    The high priest was in the main room, sitting on a cushioned bench with his hands on his knees.
    “I like books,” Geder said.
    “Some are pretty, but they are toys. They mean nothing.”
    “Well,” Geder said, closing the book and setting it aside, “it’s something we’re just going to disagree about.”
    “For now,” Basrahip agreed.
    Geder sat beside the window. The afternoon sun pressed on the back of his hand.
    “What did you find out?”
    It was little that Geder hadn’t expected. The court was certain that victory was imminent, and the credit for that rested with Geder and his ally and onetime patron Dawson Kalliam. Opinion about how to deal with their conquered neighbor was mixed, but the disagreements were between gentlemen. Of course, there were particulars. One man advocated waiting for Baron Watermarch’s return from North-coast. Another thought that a marriage between Aster and Asterilhold’s Princess Lisbet should be arranged as soon as the suit of peace arrived. Geder might draw the war out long enough to destroy the farmlands and mills and shipyards of the enemy, or he might preserve them for the use of the combined kingdoms in later years.
    They talked for hours as the sun slid westward, pulling Camnipol slowly into the red light of sunset, the grey of dusk, and then darkness. The moon had not risen, and the stars shone in the high summer sky. At last, Geder, his head overfull, made his apologies and took himself to bed where men he didn’t know undressed him, powdered his body, and laid him under thin spring blankets. Half awake, he was annoyed to discover that he’d forgotten the tutor’s book. It would have been pleasant to read for a little while before sleep. He had so little time to read anymore…
    Morning came clear and cold. He lay in bed for a while, watching the sunlight stream through the windows. Then the ritual humiliation, and he stepped out into the royal family dining hall. Basrahip was already there, as was Aster. The two were talking about something, Basrahip smiling and Aster laughing aloud. Geder sat, and a young servant brought him a length of baked duck and stewed pears, a small loaf of sweet black bread, and honeyed coffee with the grounds thick as mud at the bottom.
    “Did I miss something funny?” Geder asked.
    “Minister Basrahip’s been doing impressions of the men in court,” Aster said.
    “Are they good?”
    “No,” Aster said, hooting. “They’re terrible .”
    Basrahip smiled.
    “I am no man to play pretend,” he said. “It is not what I am.”
    “And thank God for that,” Geder said, plucking a bit of the duck free and popping it in his mouth. It was salty and rich and entirely the perfect way to begin a morning. “I’ve been thinking about the terms of peace with Asterilhold. I think I know what we have to do.”
    Priest and boy both sobered, turning their attention to him. Geder sipped the coffee, enjoying the moment of suspense more than he probably should have.
    “I don’t think we’d be wise to accept tribute and reparations and still leave them in control of the kingdom. If anything, we’ll have made their court less likely to treat us as friends.”
    “And you must build temples to the goddess in the cities you conquer,” Basrahip said.
    “Yes, and that,” Geder agreed. He’d forgotten that he needed to do that, but it was certainly true he’d agreed to. “Which means I think we have to move toward uniting the kingdoms.”
    Aster’s face went still. “I see,” the prince said.
    Geder shook his head and waved a heel of bread.
    “No no no. Marrying in won’t work. Being married to a woman doesn’t mean that all of Asterilhold is suddenly going to be placated. This is what got us here at the first, isn’t it? Mixing bloodlines so that there were plausible claims to the Severed