The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

prices being offered for a variety of crimes against the sovereign powers of Antea, the escape of slaves, the death of soldiers from common sword-and-bows to nobles. There was even a massive reward listed for Geder’s death. They were reported as rumors with a request that all the branches reply with whatever similar schemes they were hearing of. Even if the letters went astray or Cithrin found herself being questioned by one of the tainted priests, she could truthfully say that she didn’t have knowledge of the bounties being offered by the bank or anyone else in particular. Komme’s reports said that the prizes were to be collected in Herez from a shadowy figure named Callon Cane, and she could truthfully say that was all she knew for certain. She was cultivating her own ignorance. It was just another way in which the normal logic of her world had been reversed.
    Yardem walked out to the compound’s central yard, and she accompanied him. The compound was still full of the refugees and guests that Isadau had welcomed in, or else the ones who had taken their place. There were men and women and children. The stables were empty, though. The grass on which the horses had grazed was brown and dry. There was less music than there had been when the buildings had been a home for Isadau and her family. It made the place seem empty, even though it was full.
    The sky was pale and strangely opalescent, and the wind carried the threat of storm without the promise of release. Yardem walked off to speak with Enen and the other house guards, leaving Cithrin to make her way out to the gate and the street. Suddapal was not her city. However long she stayed, the roads would always feel a bit too wide, the land a bit too open. She missed glazed windows and negotiations conducted in private. And still, she would have paved the seafront in silver if it would protect the people there.
    She saw the protector’s men coming along the street, dark uniforms marching in a square. Not quite a threat of violence, but ready for it at any moment. And in the center of the square, the brown robes of the priest. She felt the dread in her gut, but only waited for them patiently. They might not be coming for her.
    They were coming for her.
    “Magistra bel Sarcour,” the priest said, bowing slightly. “I hope the day is treating you kindly.”
    “It will do, I suppose,” Cithrin said through her smile. “Unless you have another one on offer?”
    The priest smiled back uneasily. She’d spoken with him three or four times now. Less than she’d expected, since she’d made herself one of the more important people in the city. She couldn’t help wondering if Fallon Broot was keeping them apart out of his own unease with the priesthood. She had noticed that the friendly nonsense of banter seemed to bother the priest, so she employed it liberally.
    “There was a fire last night,” the priest said.
    “I didn’t know that,” Cithrin said, telling the truth.
    “It was near the prison. While the protector’s men were dealing with it, someone threw a rope ladder over the back wall and almost seventy prisoners escaped.”
    “Really?” Cithrin said.
    “Several were the children of people in the employ of your bank.”
    “And I’d imagine several weren’t,” Cithrin said. “Any in any case, it wasn’t anything the bank had a hand in, so I don’t believe I can help you with that.”
    The priest tilted his head and bobbed up and down on the balls of his feet in a way that made him look like a sparrow.
    “You don’t want to know which of your employees’ children were part of the attack?”
    “I don’t,” Cithrin said. “Was there anything else you wanted to ask about, or shall I return to my business?”
    The priest held out a letter.
    “A message came for you by military courier,” the priest said. “From the Lord Regent.”
    “Oh,” Cithrin said. “Perhaps I mistook small talk for interrogation.”
    She took the letter as if it were a normal thing, and not the chance that Geder had changed his mind about her and was about to have her thrown into prison. She kept her smile pleasant and her gaze locked on the priest’s. Making him look away first was a petty thing, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t be a politician in everything, and the man frightened her. She turned back to the compound. Later, she would need to go to the trading house and at least make some pretense at the normal business of the bank, but correspondence