The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

sluggish and grey. “Let’s see what’s next. How much do you know about the legal differences between spring lettuce and autumn?”
    The scholar’s eyebrows rose as Geder’s heart sank.
    “Well, my lord, that is a fascinating question.”
    It isn’t , Geder thought. No, it really, truly isn’t …
    “Lord Regent?” a familiar voice said from the doorway. Canl Daskellin stood uncertainly, hesitating to step in or to leave. Geder sprang to his feet.
    “Lord Daskellin! Come in, please,” he said, and then turned to the scholar. “I’m afraid the rest will have to wait. War and all. I’ll send someone for you when there’s time.”
    The scholar bowed his way out and Geder led Daskellin to a chair, only realizing when he got there that he’d been pulling at the older man’s sleeve like a puppy worrying a dog’s ear. Daskellin smiled as he sat, but his expression seemed abstracted. It was as if he were still making some internal argument and had not come to a conclusion that entirely satisfied him. The dusting of white at the man’s temples stood out against the darkness of his skin, making him seem older than he was.
    “I’ve been … speaking with Minister Basrahip,” Daskellin said at last.
    “Yes,” Geder said. “Did he tell you I’ve decided to move his temple into the Kingspire? There are all of those levels at the very top that no one ever seems to use, and since the old one was damaged last summer … along with everything else, I suppose. But that way, he’ll have a place that’s protected.”
    “He’d mentioned it, yes,” Daskellin said, tapping his fingertips idly against the spine of a book on taxation precedent. “It wasn’t the meat of our meal, though. It’s the Lord Marshal.”
    “Ternigan?”
    “Not Ternigan, no. Not precisely,” Daskellin said. “More the role of the Lord Marshal in the larger sense. As an extension of the power of the throne.”
    Geder tilted his head. Daskellin licked his lips, his gaze on the farther wall.
    “The king, or in your case the man taking the king’s role, isn’t a leader in the field,” Daskellin said. “His place is to coordinate among his subjects, see to it that the nobility are unified and direct his will through them. Through us.”
    “Of course,” Geder said.
    “But,” Daskellin said, sitting forward, “the minister had a point about the present situation. About Nus, in particular. You’ve read Ternigan’s reports, I assume?”
    “Of course.”
    “Minister Basrahip suggested that if you were to join the Lord Marshal in the field—if you were to be physically present—it might rally the troops and end the siege sooner. And the sooner Nus falls, the more likely we are to recover food and supplies that … Well, we’re going to need them to make it through next winter, aren’t we?”
    “You mean,” Geder said, his heart suddenly leaping within his chest, “you think I should go to the war? To Nus?”
    Daskellin shook his head ruefully.
    “I didn’t,” he said. “Not at first, but the minister kept repeating his arguments, and by the fourth or fifth time he’d said it all, it seemed to have some heft to it. It is critical that things go well in Sarakal, and Ternigan is a fine strategist. Only he isn’t … he isn’t a man who inspires the men around him. He isn’t a hero.”
    “A hero?” Geder echoed, and he felt the smile not as an expression, but only a pressure at the back of his jaw. A bud that was growing into a bloom.
    Thank you , Basrahip, he thought. This is what I wanted.

Clara
    D isruption was, in its way, a constant. No season passed without its share of scandal. In a court the size and complexity of the one that attended the Severed Throne, someone was certainly being sexually unfaithful on a near-daily basis. Someone’s health was failing. Someone had delivered a deathly insult to someone. Really, if nothing else, someone would wear a jacket with an unfortunate cut or rouge their cheeks too much or else too little. Falling from grace, like anything else, had its protocol and its expectations. And, provided one didn’t fall too far, so did returning to court.
    Allies would announce themselves by their invitations. The staunchest might invite the unfortunate soul in need of rescue to a dinner party or hold a luncheon in their name, but that was boldness that bordered on the rash. The more cautious might include the recently fallen into a sewing circle or private tea casual enough that the