The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

seminary. I think it’s because we’re supposed to spend so much time praying that we all get bored.”
    “Don’t be impious, dear,” Clara said without any real heat in her voice. “And don’t speak with your mouth full.”
    “Yes, Mother,” Vicarian said. With his mouth full.
    Though she had known that he might arrive at some point, her middle son’s arrival in Camnipol had been a pleasant surprise. It had occasioned dinners at Lord Skestinin’s manor three nights in a row with the family and a few close friends. Elisia had even come with her child, Corl, but without her husband. Seeing her daughter and grandson had been joyful in a way that Clara hadn’t expected, but even as she cooed over the boy, her other self was noting that dining with Jorey and Sabiha wasn’t too shameful for Elisia’s delicate social sensibilities any longer. It would be interesting to see if the effect outlasted Vicarian’s visit. If so, it would hardly have been a year before Dawson’s treason was being forgotten. Only, no. Not forgotten. Ascribed to someone else. The attempt on Geder’s life and the plot against Simeon and Aster were both hidden assaults by a vast and shadowed Timzinae conspiracy now, and in the process, the truth of the matter was forgotten. It was eerie to watch it happen, but it was also to Jorey’s benefit, so while she could see the rank injustice of it, she couldn’t think it entirely evil.
    “I’m not sure you can accuse him of impiety, Mother,” Elisia said. “It’s his newfound piety that brought him, after all.”
    “My piety’s not newfound,” Vicarian said. “It’s my appreciation for what it’s going to take to get a placement worth having. Everyone with any power at all is tripping over their toes to study under Minister Basrahip.”
    “Is his cult that important?” Clara said. “Why, it seems only yesterday everyone was laughing down their sleeves at it.”
    “It’s nearly the only important sect in the kingdom now,” Vicarian said. “Temples are going up in Kaltfel, Asinport, Nus. Now Inentai and Suddapal. And everyone’s assuming Kiaria, once Ternigan’s burned it clean enough for civilized habitation. All of them are dedicated to the spider goddess. Anyone who’s keeping strictly to the old rites won’t be placed there. And there’s talk of converting the temple in Kavinpol. This is the first time Minister Basrahip has taken on initiates from outside wherever he was out in the Keshet. Everyone put in for it.”
    “But you got lucky,” Jorey said.
    Vicarian grinned, and Clara could see for a moment the boy he’d been at six years old. “May have called in a couple favors for it.”
    It was what she had hoped for, of course. After Dawson’s death, she had done everything she could to see that her children were safe, that they had the chance to reinvent themselves in Palliako’s court. She had only lost Barriath, and that to exile rather than death. And yet she sat in the dining hall with the richest dinner she’d enjoyed in months, the windows all opened, and the evening breeze setting the candles to flutter and snap, and her pleasure was tainted by doubt. She felt she was helping her boys scramble up a tree as she cut it down. But that was simplistic. If Palliako fell and a new Lord Regent took his place, the court would still be made from the same people. Rearranged by the rupture, perhaps, as they had been before and would be again.
    Still, she could wish that Vicarian had saved his favors for a better occasion.
    After the last of the meal was finished, Elisia made her farewells and went off, Corl and his nurse trailing along behind with her guardsmen. Clara wasn’t sure when walking with guards had become normal for members of court, but it was now. Then they sat together in Lord Skestinin’s narrow drawing room. The taste of Jorey’s tobacco reminded her what real leaf was like. She was in real danger of becoming used to the cheap-ground that sold in the alley mouths near the Prisoner’s Span. They joked and played at tiles and cards. Except that Dawson and Barriath weren’t there, it was a perfect evening, and it passed too quickly into night.
    When, at last, Clara prepared to make her own farewells, Jorey took her discreetly aside.
    “I haven’t been keeping you up with everything,” he said. “I didn’t want to raise hopes if I wasn’t sure. But from the last letters I’ve had, I think Lord Skestinin is going to back me at court.