The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

of him.”
    “Could wish that of anyone,” Yardem said.
    The boat rose and fell gently. Rose and fell. It would be weeks yet before she reached Porte Oliva and home. She wondered what it would be like, hearing Pyk Usterhall’s rough, angry voice and sitting with Maestro Asanpur with his single blind eye and his perfect coffee and all the familiar faces again. She wanted to believe that she would fit back into the same place she had before, that she would find them as they had been, but she doubted it would happen.
    She saw now that she had changed, though she still didn’t quite understand what she’d become. There was a contradiction in it, because Yardem was right. A year before, she would have been able to go through with it, and now she couldn’t. She had become capable of fewer things, and yet she felt freed. She wondered if Magistra Isadau was waiting in Porte Oliva. It was the sort of question that she could answer if anyone could.
    “If I’d stayed,” she said. “If I’d been his lover, do you think he might have changed?”
    Yardem stood silently for a long moment, his arms crossed and his ears canted forward.
    “No,” he said.

Clara
    W ell, it’s mostly the bits the butcher usually throws away, but there’s enough salt in it, anyway,” Aly said, putting the soup bowl in front of Clara.
    “I’m sure it’s fine,” Clara said, picking up her spoon.
    “I’m sure it’s not,” the other woman said, laughing. “But the company makes it better, eh?”
    Aly lived in a small apartment on the fifth story of a narrow building. Her table was small enough that it was cramped even just with the two of them. The weak winter sunlight pressed in through dingy curtains and made the place seem warm and cozy, even though it was in fact almost as cold as the street.
    With the court gone from Camnipol and the winter turning the black-cobbled streets to grey, Clara had given more time to the friends she’d made at the Prisoner’s Span. Ostin Soukar, the odd little man who kept forcing his way into homes that weren’t his, and being caught by the magistrates’ men because he’d fallen asleep there. Ishia Man, who was sweet as honey sober but fought like a bull when he got drunk. Aly Koutinen and her son Mihal. They were criminals, and some of them violent. There were many, many people she had met and spoken with whom she’d not choose to be in a room alone with, but taken as a whole, they were not particularly better or worse than the noblemen who debated at the Great Bear and fought in the dueling yards.
    “Did you hear about Sasin?” Aly said.
    “No,” Clara said, sipping at the weak, watery soup. “And I don’t dare to ask what’s happened this time.”
    “Tried to take the begging cup from that one-legged Tralgu sets up by the northern gate. You know the one? Well, the one-legged bastard hopped up on his one foot and beat poor Sasin blue with his cane. Now they’re both in the pens with all those roach babies.”
    “Well, warmer than the cages, at least,” Clara said.
    “Don’t know,” Aly said. “I’d rather take my chances with the wind than live around Timzinae. I think it’s wrong to put them in gaols with real people. Animals live in a menagerie, and they’re all just a kind of dragon that got made short and stupid. I say put ’em where they belong. Bread?”
    “Please,” Clara said. “And … wait, where’s my bag? Ah, here. I’ve brought my own contribution to the meal.”
    Aly’s eyes brightened as Clara pulled the little jar from her bag.
    “No. Really? You’ve got butter?”
    “Just a little bit,” Clara said. “But enough to share. Here you go.”
    Aly grinned and began spreading the soft cream on the dark crust of bread.
    “You know,” Clara said, “the Timzinae weren’t any part of what Dawson did.”
    “Yeah?” Aly said. “Well, not what I’ve heard, but I suppose you’d be in a better place to know. Still, there’s no question that they’ve been conspiring against the throne. If not your man, then the others. And really, dear, you might not have known it. They had their little hooks into Lord Ternigan, after all, and who would have thought that?”
    “I suppose,” Clara said, taking back the butter jar.
    After their little meal, Aly walked down the street with her and east, toward the Division. Vincen was huddled by a smithy along with a dozen other people, watching the smith hammering away at his anvil, drawn by the warmth of the forge.