The Widow's House

Cithrin

Maestro Asanpur pushed his broom, his gaze cast down. The shards and splinters of glass scraped against the café’s floor with each pass of the bristles. His blind eye was watering, but not so much as to call it weeping. The breeze that passed through the shattered windows would have been pleasant in other circumstances. Cithrin shifted from one foot to the other and then stepped forward, careful not to tread where the old Cinnae was cleaning. She picked up the stones from where they’d landed. They were dark and rough and fit easily in her palm. They’d been chosen for throwing. The bricks of the floor bore small white scars where they’d struck.

Maestro Asanpur poured the shattered glass into a tin bucket and held it out to Cithrin. She put the stones in carefully, like she was nestling black eggs into a nest of shards. She wasn’t afraid that he would drop the bucket if she’d simply dropped them, but she wanted to do something gentle as if it would bring something gentle back to her. The impulse was much like prayer.

“I’m sorry,” she said, and the old man shook his head.

“No reason, Magistra. Youth will have its day. Boys have been breaking windows as long as there have been windows.”

Not because of me, Cithrin thought. But so long as he was pretending that the violence was random, it seemed rude to insist on the truth.

With every day that the blockade continued, Porte Oliva seemed to grow darker and more surly. Twice now, she’d woken in the night to the sound of voices in the street outside the counting house. Someone had smeared shit on the front door, leaving a swath of dirty brown and a wide, masculine handprint. After that, Yardem had redone the guard rotation. Now they kept someone in the street night and day, and half a dozen in the counting house itself. He’d also put sword-and-bows outside the apartments that Komme, Pyk, and Isadau kept. He’d hired on more guards to fill the gaps, and for once Pyk hadn’t objected.

Maestro Asanpur stopped his cleaning to prepare her a cup of coffee. Cithrin went to her back room and opened the little strongbox she kept there. The books hadn’t been touched, but next time they might be. Or the café might be burned. She sat at the little table, running her palm over the smooth-lacquered wood, and considered where she could move her work. By being here, she was putting Asanpur and his café at risk. Maybe she should move to the taproom nearest her rooms. God knew she was spending more time drinking than doing the work of the bank anyway.

The emptiness of the ledgers showed the same truths as the broken glass. To the merchants and traders, a bank was a place to go to reduce risks. When the bank itself became the locus of uncertainty, it was like pouring poison in the water. Even the payments due on the loans Pyk had approved were coming in slow. There were stories and explanations for each of them—a child with the flux, a robbery, a delivery of wheat that hadn’t come in. They didn’t matter. The larger picture was unmistakable. Whether they admitted it to themselves or not, they were all waiting for the queensmen’s blades to arrive and shut down the bank.

And in truth, Cithrin was waiting for it too. In the meantime, at least the coffee was good.

When she first heard the sound of voices raised, she realized she had been hearing it for some time. It wasn’t the sound of the Grand Market. That combination of shouts and laughter and complaint was as familiar to her as breath. This was something else. A slow roar that built, voice upon voice, in a chorus like the surf against stones. Cithrin’s belly went tight. She put her cup on the table with a thump that slopped coffee and milk onto the boards and stippled the ledger. She didn’t stop to blot it clean. Heart in her throat, she stepped into the café’s main room, ready to meet her doom if it waited for her there.

Maestro Asanpur stood in the doorway, shifting from side to side as if he were angling for a better view. Outside, people were running. The Grand Market had emptied. The queensmen who guarded it had left their posts. Cithrin came closer and put her hand on the old man’s thin shoulder, torn between relief and alarm.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I can’t say, Magistra,” the old Cinnae said. “They’re all shouting, but I can’t tell what they’re saying.”

“They’re going toward the salt quarter,” she said, her mind dancing across the possibilities. The blockaders were attacking, and the citizens running to battle. Geder had sent an army after all, and they were fleeing it. There was fire, perhaps, or a plague.

Yardem appeared on the far side of the square in his heavy armor. Four other guards were at his side; two Firstblood men, a bronze-scaled Jasusu woman who was new to the company, and Halvill the Timzinae. Cithrin stepped out to meet them, her chin high. The stream of people had thinned by the time they reached her.

“Pyk sent us, ma’am,” Yardem said. “I think you’ll want to see this.”

The crowd on the seawall was so dense, Cithrin was certain people would be crushed. Adolescent boys and girls were climbing up to stand or sit on the raised areas above the clifflike drop to the rocks below. Ancient ballistas had been installed in the gaps since the start of the blockade, though no enemy had ever come near enough to draw their fire. Merchants and carters and street puppeteers pressed themselves in the gaps between the engines of war and the pale stone, staring out to sea. Cithrin’s jaw ached and her belly felt like she was going to be sick. Yardem sighed, squared his shoulders, and leaned close to her, speaking loud to be heard over the voices of the crowd.

“Put your hand in my belt, and stay close.”

“Where are we going?”

“The front,” he said with a wide, canine grin. He turned and Cithrin looped her fingers around the wide, dark leather of his belt, pulling herself close to his back so that no one could force their way between them. Yardem shouted for the people to make way, then waded into the crowd. Halvill and the Jasuru women took positions at Cithrin’s side, their faces fixed in expressions of boredom tempered by the threat of violence. People shouted at them, jostled shoulders against them, pushed. Step by slow step, they made their way through the pack. Even under the open sky with a breeze coming off the water, the air was heavy and close with their bodies and their breath.

And they were clear of it, stepping past a line of the bank guards with drawn blades to a platform at the seawall’s edge. Pyk stood by a small white table, a jug and cup forgotten at her side and a long bronze spyglass pressed to her eye. Out in the deep water beyond the harbor’s edge the tall sails of the blockade stood as they had for weeks, their sails struck. But beyond them, three much smaller curves of white showed against the western water. Small sails in low ships. Cithrin squinted, trying to make out what they were by force of will.

“Pyk,” she said. “What’s happening?”

“The mad bastards took their island,” the Yemmu said. “Look at that. Look at that.”

“I can’t see anything,” she said. Pyk grunted and handed her the spyglass.

It took her a moment to find anything more than waves on the water. The first ship that came into focus was one of the roundships. Its deck was awash with men. She could see the flash of drawn swords, though there seemed to be no fighting. In the crow’s nest, a pack of sailors pointed crossbows to the west. Cithrin followed the water until she found the little sails. They belonged to small galleys with single, triangular sails and no more than a dozen oars. Beside the roundships, the three ships looked like little more than rafts. The flags that flew from their masts had a crest that Cithrin didn’t recognize.

“Who are they?” she said. “What are they doing?”

“You’ll recall there was some mad bastard organizing the pirates into a fleet?” Pyk said. “That appears to be him.”

“Does he know that he’s got three tiny little ships going against ten Antean roundships?” Cithrin asked. “Because it seems someone hasn’t mentioned the fact to him.”

Yardem cleared his throat. “Wind’s against the roundships,” the Tralgu rumbled. “The galleys are outmatched, but they’ll only have to face one ship at a time. Until the wind shifts, anyway.”

“And after that?” Cithrin asked.

“More then,” he said.

The first of the galleys drew close to the roundship. Seeing them side by side, the folly of the attackers seemed to pass into madness. The men in the galley stood with raised shields while the Antean sailors rained arrows and crossbow bolts and barrels down on them. Boarding the roundship from the galley’s low deck would be like climbing a cliff under attack with a force twice their size waiting at the top to slaughter them. The galley’s oars shifted, and the little ship darted forward. An obscure movement in the center of the galley caught Cithrin’s attention. Four men rushed toward the galley’s prow with what looked like spears with strange, curving blades instead of points. The galley shifted and turned, seeming almost to dance in the water. One of the spearmen fell back, dropping his odd spear, but the other three found their way under the roundship’s stern. They reached up, sawing wildly. The sailors on the roundship’s deck swarmed like ants with a kicked hill.

A roar like thunder came from the city, rising up all around her at once. And then as quickly as it had come in, the galley reversed oars and pulled away from its enemy. Pyk’s laughter cut through the cacophony. Cithrin took the spyglass from her eye and was astonished to see her notary capering and making rude gestures with both of her hands. On the piers below the seawall, the makeshift fleet of Porte Oliva was putting out to sea: fishing boats and trading ships that had been trapped in port, guide boats.

“Yardem,” Cithrin shouted. “What happened? I don’t understand.”

The Tralgu held out his wide palm, and Cithrin handed over the spyglass. Yardem stepped forward, frowning. Cithrin waited for what seemed like hours, looking from Yardem to the ships on the water. The two other galleys seemed to be advancing on the second of the roundships. The ship that the first galley had approached was turning now, shifting in the wind. The two galleys darted in toward the second roundship and Yardem chuckled.

“What?” Cithrin demanded, tugging on Yardem’s arm.

“They’re cutting the rigging and breaking the rudders,” Yardem said, turning to look away from the ships to the coast stretching out east of the city. “They’ll be adrift.” A moment later, he made a low chuffing sound that it took Cithrin a moment to recognize as laughter.

“What?” she asked.

“Permission to gather the company guard, miss? Tides being what they are, I expect our Antean friends will be running aground before nightfall. Wouldn’t mind being there to meet them.”

The great roundship lay on the beach, its masts at an angle to land and water. Two others stood out to sea, the current turning them slowly and at random. The wind had shifted, coming in from the sea, carrying the scent of brine and smoke. On the western horizon, the setting sun painted the sky red and gold. Two dozen Antean sailors stood in the surf, waves washing up around their knees. They wore scowls and carried long knives hardly shorter than swords.

Facing them on the shore were the company guard of the Medean bank along with half a dozen queensmen. A larger troop of queensmen was riding the coast, waiting for the next ships to run aground. Yardem stood near the front of the crowd. Anyone who didn’t know him better would have thought he was bored. Cithrin knew better. She sat a brown gelding she’d taken from the stables.

“Stand your ground, men,” an old Firstblood called to the Antean sailors. He had a grey beard and a thick, powerful build. Yardem looked over to her, and Cithrin nodded him on. His ears flicked once and he stepped forward.

“Hoy, Antea,” he shouted, his voice throbbing with a power she’d rarely heard in it before. “Name’s Yardem Hane. Second to Captain Marcus Wester. We’ve come as escort, to take you back to the governor. We can fight first if you’d like.”

“Hane?” the bearded man said. “I know your name. You’re the bank girl’s tool.”

“Yes,” the Tralgu said, drawing his sword as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

“That’s her!” someone shouted, and with no other warning, the Antean sailors charged up out of the water. Yardem shouted out a signal call and the company guards shifted to meet the enemy charge with an air of calm. The bearded commander was shouting now too, trying to call his men back into order, but it was too late. The sailors and the guard came together in a clump, bodies slamming against bodies, blades clashing against blades. Cithrin watched, ready to take flight if the need arose, but fairly certain that it would not. The queensmen held the side, seeing to it that none of the sailors escaped in the chaos while Yardem and his guards—her guards—drove the attackers back into the water. The Anteans broke off, falling back. There were fewer of them now by a third. So far as she could see, none of hers were hurt.

“We can try that again if you’d like,” Yardem called out. “We’ve got no other plans for the evening.”

“Will you vouch for our safety?”

“No,” Yardem said.

“I will,” Cithrin called out. “These are my guard, and they’ll take my word. Throw down your weapons and take the chain, and I’ll see you safely to the governor. All of you. What comes after that is between you and him.”

The bearded man spat. “I suppose I can’t ask better than that,” he called back. “Men! Throw down your blades.”

“She’ll kill us!” one of the sailors shouted.

“If she wanted to do that, we’d be dead,” the bearded commander said, wading up out of the surf. He drew a short ceremonial sword from his side and took it by the blade. Cithrin turned her mount toward him and walked it forward. Yardem shadowed the Antean, his expression blank and calm.

“I offer you our surrender,” the bearded man said.

“I accept,” Cithrin said, taking the blade. “I am Cithrin bel Sacrour, voice of the Medean bank in Porte Oliva.”

“Lord Anton Skestinin, servant to the Severed Throne.”

“I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances, Lord Skestinin,” Cithrin said.

The old man smiled up at her sourly. “You’re a good liar, miss. There was a moment I almost believed you.”

“In line!” Yardem shouted. “Hands in front!”

Cithrin watched while the enemy commander and his men were manacled. The queensmen took control of them once it was done. Cithrin ordered half a dozen of her guard to make the ship fast, running ropes from the roundship itself to the trees nearest the waterline to keep it in place when the tide rose again. She rode back toward Porte Oliva, her head high and her belly relaxed for the first time she could remember. Yardem rode beside her.

“All respect, but I wish you hadn’t come,” he said. “Safer to stay back and let us handle all this.”

“I had faith you would protect me,” she said, and Yardem chuckled.

It was past nightfall when the Antean prisoners were marched into the square between the Governor’s Palace and the cathedral. All the other guests of the magistrate’s justice had been freed in celebration, and the stocks and cages, gallows and torture boxes were all empty, ready, and waiting. The crowd around them seemed to be half the city, and it was all the combined force of Cithrin’s guard and the queensmen could manage to keep them from running riot. Cithrin rode forward and formally turned the prisoners over to the governor. For a moment, the pair of them faced each other in silence. She thought she saw something like disappointment in the man’s face. He had been waiting for the order to put her and her company in chains, and she had complicated things. The thought made her smile wider.

Afterward, Cithrin led the full company of guards to the taproom nearest their barracks, split a purse of silver coins open on the keeper’s table, and told him to keep the beer coming until the coin ran out. She sat in the back, a bottle of good wine in her hand and the taste of victory on her tongue. A group of musicians, scenting the riot and joy, made their way in and struck up a tune.

In truth, though, Cithrin knew her celebration was only part of the city’s general uproar. The blockade was broken, the city freed, the ships of Porte Oliva loosed upon the seas. If it wasn’t something she had done herself, the relief of it was still as sweet. She closed her eyes and felt the rhythm of the music and the fumes of the wine carry her up until she was laughing. Madly, wildly, halfway to tears from it. Geder’s hand could not reach everywhere after all. It was like someone had taken a stone off her heart she hadn’t known was there. She hadn’t known she intended to dance until she was already up, her arm locked with Yardem’s, spinning through the little taproom like the world itself was a child’s top.

The celebration went on in a trail of emptied bottles and shrieking laughter, and Cithrin threw herself into it all. Reckless and wild and joyful, and not at all out of place. All of Porte Oliva had taken to the streets. Time shifted, drawing back from itself until the world seemed to be a symbol for itself, and her hardly more than a flourish upon the page of history. She didn’t know where she was any longer, or who. And then she was being cradled in Yardem’s massive arms like a child being carried by her mother. And then she was in her bed, alone, with cool air on her face.

With morning came a clearer light. She pulled herself out of bed, waiting for the throb of the headache. And it came, but not with the viciousness she’d expected. So that was something. She peeled off the clothes she’d worn the day before, powdered her body, and pulled on a fresh gown and cloak. She could hear voices in the counting room below her. Yardem and Pyk and Isadau. She smiled as she made her way down the stairs. But when she reached the street, she turned right instead of left, moving through the streets alone among the crowd. Even with the blockade lifted, there were a thousand problems and threats and fears, and she would go and face them soon. The joy of relief was still in her, and she wasn’t quite ready to leave it behind. Not yet.

Maestro Asanpur’s café was as busy as she’d seen it in months. The broken windows were not replaced, but the last of the glass had been pulled from them and the frames had been made neat. The smell of coffee and fresh bread mixed with the shouts from the Grand Market. Cithrin bowed to the old Cinnae, and he bowed back.

“A very good day after all, then, yesterday,” Asanpur said.

“And from such inauspicious beginnings,” Cithrin replied.

“Let me make you some coffee, eh?”

“I would like nothing better,” Cithrin said, moving back toward her private room.

Asanpur’s voice held her back. “Do you know anything about this savior of ours? Have you met with him?”

“Nothing,” Cithrin said. “I’d guess whoever he is, he’s locked in private conference while the governor gnaws himself raw deciding whether to jail him as a pirate or welcome him as a hero.”

The voice that answered came from behind her. It was deep and masculine and carried the accents of Imperial Antea. “You’d have guessed wrong.”

He had risen from one of the smaller tables in the back. He looked to be younger than Marcus and older than herself. His beard was a deep nut brown and his face darkened by the sun. He stepped forward, and the café went silent. Even Asanpur forgot his coffee. “You’re Cithrin bel Sarcour, then?”

“I am,” she said. “And am I to understand you claim to be the genius who saved us from our enemies?”

“Not genius,” the man said. “I’ve been warning Lord Skestinin about those rudders for years. He thought I was being overdramatic. I only took the opportunity to prove my point. I’ve spent the last half year poking around Herez looking for a man named Callon Cane. It seems to me that you’re him too.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about,” she said, and the bearded man shook his head.

“I don’t believe that, Magistra. You’re the one person in this world with the balls to stand against Geder Palliako.”

Cithrin felt a pang of some emotion that surprised her. Sorrow, perhaps. Or regret. Or pride. “I am.”

“Well, I am the enemy of your enemy. My name is Barriath Kalliam, by right of blood Baron of Osterling Fells, and I’ve come to help you bleed that bastard white.”