The Widow's House

Marcus

It was as if Porte Oliva had known they were coming, and what they brought. Flying low over the city, Marcus looked down into streets already made bright with celebratory cloth, squares already filled with musicians and dancing. Upturned faces flashed by him so quickly, he remembered them more than actually saw them. All were in phases of amazement, mouths open, hands pointing, eyes as wide as Southlings’. Inys skimmed above the Grand Market, his feet so low, Marcus expected to hear the canvas tenting rip. He swooped out over the salt quarter, past the seawall, out over the bay. Marcus had never seen so much traffic on water before, and all the sailors shouted as they passed overhead, and he waved down to them. Inys’s great wings chuffed like sailcloth as the dragon turned in a long, slow circle and passed back over the city. There was screaming in the streets now, though whether it was excitement or terror or some combination of the two wasn’t clear. They all sounded the same from where he was.

At the land side of the city, Inys backed, slowed, and touched ground. The huge black talons cut into the grass as Marcus and the players released themselves and stripped off the harnesses. Inys shook his head.

“They have taken down the perches,” he said, the restrained thunder of his voice heavy with disgust. “This little growth has no place for me.”

“In their defense,” Marcus said, “they weren’t exactly expecting the company. Wouldn’t be surprised if they invested in some amenities now there’s a reason for them.”

The dragon growled and turned its head toward the city. A group of queensmen in green and gold were making their way across the meadow, pikes at the ready in a formation that could have been ceremonial or defensive, depending on the need. In the center of the formation, the governor lurked in bright steel armor.

“Well, God smiled,” Marcus said. “You all wait here. I’ll go tell the governor which way the wind’s blowing.”

“I will have food and drink,” Inys said. “And they will build me a true perch.”

“I’ll let them know that,” Marcus said.

The flying harness left his legs weak and numb, but Marcus made his way across the field toward the advancing force all the same. The pins-and-needles pain would come soon, and he’d have to stand in place until it passed. And he wasn’t yet certain he wanted Inys to hear everything that was said.

“Hold!” the guard captain called as Marcus drew near. Marcus raised a hand in greeting as if they were acquaintances meeting on the road. “Who are you, and what is your business with the city?”

“Marcus Wester and I live here, or I used to. Been away for a time on, you know—” He pointed back toward the dragon. Inys, freed of the harnesses, was stretching out on the greensward, scratching his back against the earth like a puppy the size of a house. “Work.”

“Captain Wester?” The governor’s voice trembled. “Is that really you?”

“Governor,” Marcus said.

“Are you well?”

“Bit tired. Long road. Speaking as a metaphor. Wasn’t as much actual road in it as usual.”

The governor came to the front of the group of soldiers. Marcus had never thought much of the man, and the time away from Porte Oliva hadn’t improved him. His thinning hair was slicked back in a younger man’s style, and he wore more glittering rings, if that was possible. Marcus could take some solace in the fear-wide eyes and trembling lips.

“The… the dragon,” the governor said, gesturing over Marcus’s shoulder. Marcus shifted, and a bright flare of pain rose up through both legs as the feeling returned.

“Him. Yes,” he said. “Come to consult with the magistra.”

“It’s… the bel Sarcour woman? It’s here for her?”

“I imagine there’ll be some other people he might want to talk to, but Inys has been out of the world for long enough, he’s still running to catch up on the history. Wouldn’t want to annoy him too much.”

“She’s free, she’s perfectly free,” the governor said. “We haven’t detained her at all.”

Marcus frowned. “All… right.”

“She has always been one of the great citizens of Porte Oliva. We celebrate and support her. We always have.”

“Sure she’ll be pleased to know that.”

They stood for a moment in silence. Marcus watched the governor’s face as he went from distress to relief to a near-childlike shyness. “Do you… might I be introduced? To the dragon?”

“Probably best for the magistra to make those introductions,” Marcus said. “I’m just captain of the guard. Wouldn’t want to presume.”

“No. No no no. Of course. That’s fine. When the magistra sees fit, then.”

“But if you could send word to her?”

The governor turned on his guards, lifting a glittering finger. “You heard Captain Wester. Send a runner to Magistra bel Sacrour. Now!”

The queensmen looked at one another for a moment, then one of them turned and started trotting back toward the city.

“Also, if you have any spare cattle,” Marcus said, pointing back at Inys. The dragon had settled back on its haunches like a huge cat and was watching Sandr, Smit, and Charlit Soon sing and caper before it while Master Kit and Cary stood off a way, in council. “The rest of us could use a bit to eat too. Some bread, maybe. We’ve been eating meat and not much else since Antea.”

“I will have a feast brought to you.”

“And a perch. Inys was saying he’d want someplace in the city with a perch.”

The governor’s eyes lit up. “Of course. Of course. Men! To me!”

Marcus watched the queensmen and the governor retreat. Porte Oliva itself seemed to be watching from across the green like an uncertain boy at a dance. The great defensive wall of the city was barely visible, choked out by the dyers’ yards and breweries and houses that had spilled out beyond it. Peacetime always meant people trading safety for space, and Porte Oliva had seen a long peace up to now. When the war came to the city, the people who’d made that exchange were going to regret it. Marcus shook his leg, and it only hurt a little. He turned back to where the dragon and the players sat in the sun and waited.

The group that came out was small, and he knew them by how they walked before they were close enough to see their faces. Cithrin in a deep blue blouse and skirt cut in the style of Elassae. Yardem in sparring leathers and rings in his ears. Magistra Isadau in a pale blouse that set off the darkness of her scales. Pyk Usterhall in a plain brown robe, arms swinging belligerently at her sides. Cinnae, Timzinae, Tralgu, and Yemmu. With him there as a Firstblood, they had almost half the races of humanity, and one of the dragons who’d made them. Marcus levered himself back to his feet. The players followed behind him. Inys watched with a detached interest, as if this were just another performance put on for his benefit.

Cithrin looked older than she had in Suddapal. Her face was fuller, and while her Cinnae blood would never let her skin fall to a Firstblood brown, she was a little darker in the cheeks and around the eyes. Marcus felt a stab of sorrow he hadn’t expected. When she’d gone to Carse, some lifetime ago, she’d been a girl playing at being a woman. He’d gone to Lyoneia to find the poisoned sword and the wild mountains beyond the Keshet to kill a goddess who couldn’t be killed. He’d been to the cold wastes of Hallskar and flown on a dragon’s foot halfway across the world. He’d seen her for a few short weeks in Elassae. It wasn’t enough. She had only grown a fraction older, and yet she seemed more changed than he was. He wished he had been there to see it happen.

“Captain,” she said, holding out her hands to him. The formality of the word was hard. Magistra floated at the back of his mouth.

“Cithrin,” he said, taking her hands. “Sorry I’ve been gone. I was… anyway. I think we found what Palliako’s men were searching for. And… ah…”

There were tears in her eyes. And then in his as well. “I knew you’d come back.”

“I wanted to,” he said around the lump in his throat. “I’m glad I could.”

And then she was in his arms and he was in hers. A fear he had hardly known he carried uncoiled a little. She was all right. She was safe. The world hadn’t broken her while he was gone, or if it had, not badly. And then the others were around them too, Cary and Kit and Smit and Hornet and Yardem’s wide strong arms around them all. Marcus stood there until he felt it was time to let go again, then extricated himself from the affectionate pile while the players peppered Cithrin with questions and demands and stories. The two other bank women watched, Isadau with an air of indulgence, Pyk with a scowl. Inys, bored, looked away toward the clouds. Marcus stepped away, nodding to Yardem.

“What’s our situation?” Marcus asked.

Yardem flicked his ear thoughtfully. “Complicated, sir. The Lord Regent was infatuated with Cithrin, and when she didn’t return the feeling he took it poorly. Sent his ships to block the harbors. Likely has his army on the way.”

“Huh,” Marcus said. “You ever get the sense that man just wasn’t spanked enough as a child?”

“I see it more as being rewarded for all the wrong things, sir, but I’ve never raised a boy.”

“And you have raised a girl?”

“Younger sister, sir.”

“Yardem, you are a man of endless surprises.”

“Yes, sir. Turns out one of Palliako’s exiles is an experienced sailor. He took over a ship, organized a small pirate fleet, and has been trying to make contact with the magistra. Now he’s managed, the blockade’s broken here, and we’re in conversation about how to address Porte Silena and Sara-sur-Mar. Got us the commander of the Antean fleet in custody as well. Lord Skestinin. Governor has him in a private cell under heavy guard.”

“Well, that’s got to be a good thing.”

“I think so, sir.”

Marcus looked over at Cithrin and the players. Sandr and Hornet were pulling her toward Inys as if the dragon were a personal friend they couldn’t wait to introduce. Marcus started walking toward the dragon too, Yardem falling in step behind him.

“Did the people associate Cithrin with the blockade?” Marcus asked.

“Yes, sir. We were expecting the queen to take her in custody. Trade her for peace.”

Marcus nodded. That’s what the governor had been talking about, then. Made sense. “Well, that’ll be harder today than it was yesterday.”

“It’s good to have allies, sir.”

“The general populace?”

“Vandalism. Some action against the bank. One conspiracy to assassinate her.”

“How’d that last one go?”

“Took care of it without having to bother her.”

“Did you tell her?”

“Didn’t see reason to. She seemed busy.”

“Good man.”

“And you, sir?”

“Found a dragon.”

“And the day you come back and take over the company?”

“That’s today.”

Yardem’s wide, canine smile and low chuckle were his only reply.

As they approached, the dragon reared up, spread his wings, and folded them again. The tips flowed back behind the massive body like the drape of a formal dress. Without planning it, the people stood in a rough semicircle before Inys, like petitioners before a great king. Even Pyk Usterhall’s head was bowed, and Marcus hadn’t been entirely sure her neck bent that way. Inys looked at each of them in turn. Even having traveled as far as he had with the beast, even keeping his unease with the dragon in mind, Marcus felt a certain awe. The sense of being in the presence of something greater than the world; it was almost love. Certainly loyalty. The feeling of the sheepdog for the shepherd. It made his neck itch.

“You then,” Inys said, considering Cithrin. “You are Cithrin. The one who leads the fight against the tainted ones?”

“I am,” Cithrin said.

“This is as it should be,” Inys said. “I am Inys. I have let the world die, to my shame. Your battle is the first step in my redemption. I will aid you. I know what the tainted are, and how they are to be defeated. I will tell you what I know, and together we will burn my brother’s madness from this unending grave.”

Cithrin looked up at the dragon’s head, her expression solemn.

“Good,” she said.

Being back in Porte Oliva was like waking from a long, uncomfortable dream. In the barracks, there were more familiar faces than he’d expected. Even with Pyk’s punishing austerity and a season in Suddapal, Yardem had managed to keep most of the company together. He hadn’t forgotten the puppeteers that set up it seemed at every fourth corner, performing for charity from the crowd or support from some local with a political agenda, but he hadn’t precisely remembered them either. The streets were familiar, the smells of salt and coffee. The dogs that chased each other through traffic, startling horses and dodging between cart wheels with suicidal abandon. It was all familiar, except that it also wasn’t.

Some of the changes were overt. The governor pardoned all the guests of the magistrate’s justice and had a dragon-sized perch constructed in the square between his palace and the cathedral before nightfall. Magistra Isadau was there now too. But more than that, he remembered Porte Oliva as a place he had gnawed himself raw to leave. Before he had left, he’d been the guard captain of one of the most important companies in the city. In the kingdom, for that. He’d had the prospect of a lifetime’s easy work and a comfortable retirement. Instead he’d tracked across three corners of the world. He’d been driven half mad by the jungles of Lyoneia, snuck into a temple filled with spider priests to kill a dark goddess, come near to freezing in a Hallskari ice storm, been whipped by incensed Haaverkin, strapped a venomous sword to his back, and woken the last dragon in the world. Whatever about Porte Oliva had oppressed him before was gone now. The taproom where he’d met a beautiful woman with whom he’d humiliated himself, the little room in the salt quarter where he and Yardem and Cithrin had been attacked, the places where—with the help of Master Kit and the players—they had forged the founding documents of the branch. All of it was comforting and welcoming and peaceful. He couldn’t imagine now why he’d felt so chapped by it all before.

“It’s because his soul is a circle,” Yardem said.

“Oh fuck’s sake, this again?” Marcus said, but with laughter in his voice.

“How’s that?” Barriath Kalliam asked. He was younger than Marcus by a decade and a half. Maybe more. He wore his youth well, though, and he’d spent enough time at sea to have outgrown the boyish romance of violence. Sitting in the taproom nearest the company barracks, he might almost have been one of them. Marcus could imagine liking him.

“It’s his nature that when he is at his lowest, he will inevitably rise. And also when he reaches the highest ground of his life, he’ll fall.” The Tralgu traced a circle in the air, as if showing something real. “My work is to… um…” Yardem shook his head, setting his earrings clattering. He was stupendously drunk. They all were.

“His job is to see to it that my inevitable fall doesn’t wind up with me landing on anyone,” Marcus said.

“More or less,” Yardem agreed.

“I don’t hold much with souls,” Barriath said.

“Wise man,” Marcus said and lifted his mug toward the keeper. She nodded and held up a finger. She’d seen him. She’d be there. That was good enough. “This Palliako. You’ve actually met him, then?”

“More than met him. Watched him slaughter my father.”

“Ah. Sorry. Didn’t know,” Marcus said, though through the haze of alcohol, he suspected he had known that. At least in the abstract. “That’s the sort of thing that will drive a man. Revenge. Only, between us? It’s not as sweet as you think. It doesn’t fix much.”

“I’m willing to try it all the same.”

“Wouldn’t expect less,” Marcus said. “What do you make of him?”

“He’s… petty. Mostly that. He’s a little, mean, petty man who found a gem and thinks it means God loves him.”

“The gem being your empire?” Yardem asked.

Barriath stroked his beard, scowling. “Apparently so.”

“He was an idiot to put you to exile,” Marcus said. “If you’ve hurt a man that deep, better you finish him off. Otherwise, he’ll be around forever, waiting for the chance to come even.”

“My brothers are leading his army,” Barriath said. “The Lord Marshal? My fucking baby brother. Working for Palliako. Can you believe that?”

“No,” Marcus said. “Kill a man’s father and then hand him your army? I can’t imagine ever doing anything like that.”

“Falling on a sword would seem faster,” Yardem agreed. His eyelids were at half-mast. His smile wide and loose.

“And yet they’ve got their blades and arrows pointing toward here and not back at Camnipol,” Barriath said. “I don’t know how he manages it. After all he’s done, I don’t know how he convinces them to keep his side.”

“I do,” Marcus said. “I’ll have Kit show you when he gets back. Only knowing won’t help us when the army comes.”

The keep came by, sweeping up Marcus’s mug and putting a fresh one down before him. He hadn’t actually had that much to drink, and he was already feeling a little swimmy. Either he’d been on the road entirely too long or carrying the poisoned sword against his back during the long flight south had affected him more than he’d realized.

“They were going to hand Cithrin to him in exchange for peace,” Marcus said.

“Were going to try to,” Yardem murmured.

“Now we’ve captured Lord Skestinin, and got a fleet and a dragon answering to her, that’s going to be harder for them to accomplish,” Barriath said raising his own drink in a toast. Marcus matched him, and they drank. Marcus put his mug down hard and closed his eyes. Enough. He’d had enough. He was done now. He took a deep breath and let it seep out through his nostrils.

“Well,” he said, “I hope her majesty had time to work out a fallback plan.”