The Widow's House

Clara

I’ve taken worse beatings from my cousins back at Osterling Fells,” Vincen said from behind her.

The square between the Governor’s Palace and the cathedral had been emptied and the platforms razed. The icons and trappings of half a dozen cults and mysteries, detritus of a century of political and religious fashion, had been hauled out of the cathedral and burned. In all, it had taken the better part of a week, and the ceremony of rededication was set to begin at dawn, followed by demonstrations of loyalty by the newest subjects of the Severed Throne. Clara sat on the highest dais in a gown of sea-green silk taken from someone. Vincen played the role of her personal guard and servant, standing behind her. All around them, the surviving great men and women of Porte Oliva sat on the ground in rags. Their humiliation was, after all, part of the celebration.

“They had blades,” Clara said, pretending to consider the cathedral. In truth, given the morning mist, the glare of the torches, and her own imperfect eyesight, the building was little more than an indigo shadow below a dark blue sky. When she spoke, she kept her lips as near motionless as she could. Vincen, she presumed, would do the same.

“They didn’t use them,” Vincen said.

“They would have.”

“Maybe, but they didn’t.”

“One had a knife drawn.”

Vincen cleared his throat. A fanfare sounded, and the men and women of Porte Oliva knelt. Jorey emerged from the Governor’s Palace, flanked by guards with bare blades. Clara watched him, but she could not help but see the fear and hatred of those he passed. For them, he was the conqueror of the city, the general who had brought them all low. Hundreds—perhaps thousands—of people in the city went to sleep at night wishing him dead or worse than dead. She wondered whether they would have had they known how little he’d wanted to come here. He was the puppet of necessity, as much as any of them. And almost against her will, it occurred to her how proud Dawson would have been of him.

She glanced up at Vincen. His face was carefully empty, but his eyes slid down toward her and a faint, complicit smile touched his lips. She breathed in deeply and returned her gaze to her approaching son.

“If we ever get back to Osterling Fells, Vincen?”

“Yes.”

“Remind me to have your cousins whipped.”

Clara rose as Jorey came to sit beside her on the dais. His guards arrayed themselves with Vincen. The sky had grown a shade lighter. The cathedral had begun to take on some detail. The darkness of the great doorway, the dragon’s jade figures worked into the stone. Two cunning men stepped up, both Firstbloods, and apparently trained together, because when they lifted their fists to the sky, a wide white radiance filled the square. The burning torches seemed to dim, and the world all around grew darker. The cathedral’s door swung open, and Vicarian stepped out. He’d traded his plain brown robes for a near-perfect white. His hair was pulled back, and his smile as he walked forward was beatific. Clara felt a knot in her throat.

She expected the thing that had been her son to come to a dais of his own, to rise up and declare the greatness of Antea from a great height. Perhaps with cunning men pouring fire and blood from the air. Instead, he looked around at the kneeling masses with a vast amusement. When he spoke, his voice carried through the space without seeming to shout.

“This is a hard day for many of you, but I’ve come to tell you that it is also a very, very good one. Today the goddess has come to Porte Oliva. Now, I know that isn’t something that many of you can celebrate. Not yet. When the goddess came to Camnipol, I was less than delighted myself, so I know how you feel.”

Vicarian stepped forward, walking among the kneeling and debased like a tutor lecturing to an overlarge collection of students. As a demonstration of personal courage, it took Clara’s breath away. Any of these people might have a small blade hidden on their persons. Any of them might be desperate enough to kill the priest who had desecrated their temple, even though the punishment was death. They might all have been sheep and flowers for all the fear Vicarian showed.

“Many of you have suffered terrible losses. I understand that too. When the goddess first came to us in Antea, I lost my father. The lies of low men had taken too much of him. When the truth came to burn those lies away, it was too much for him. I loved my father. I still do. I miss him. And if I could turn away from the goddess and have him back, I would not do it. That’s hard to understand now, but it will come clearer for you. For all of you. You have passed through terrible darkness and storm, and you may feel that you’ve lost. You haven’t lost. You have been ill, and I am here as the voice of the goddess to tell you that all will be well.”

Clara leaned to Jorey, putting her hand on his arm.

“This is a bit different than the way Basrahip presents himself.”

“He’s not here,” Jorey said with a smile. “It’s exactly what Vicarian’s like.”

For the better part of an hour, Vicarian paced among the citizens of the fallen city, explaining that the goddess was here to save the world. That all lies were clear to her, and that her voice as spoken through the mouths of her priests carried the truth with them that would shatter the false and reclaim those lost to the illusions of the world. Clara watched the people kneeling all around the square. The blankness of resentment and anger was not gone, but it was lessened. A few tried tentative, uncertain smiles. They heard his voice, but they didn’t believe. Not yet.

They would.

In the end, the dawn broke, the fiery disk of sunlight burning away the last of the mist. The cathedral stood revealed, a great red banner with the pale eightfold sigil in its center announcing to the world that only one deity was welcome here and that her claim was absolute.

Afterward, Clara walked with Jorey back across the square and into the wide halls of the Governor’s Palace, Vincen taking his discreet place behind Jorey’s guard. They had been in the rooms so briefly, it was strange that they had become familiar. After so long following the army, sleeping in a new place every night, seeing the same rooms even twice lent a sense of permanence Clara hadn’t foreseen. A breakfast of eggs and fish waited in the garden at the palace’s center. Stone walls rose all around them, giving a sense of isolation and protection without going so far as to feel like a gaol. As she let a servant girl pour fresh coffee for her, Clara wondered about the people who had designed the palace, and the people who had lived in it. What they would make of her presence here.

“That went gracefully,” Jorey said, lifting a poached egg into his mouth.

“Don’t gulp, dear,” Clara said. “And yes, I suppose it did.”

“The sack was… well, those are never pleasant. I was afraid in the aftermath that holding the city would be challenging. But the spider goddess works her magic again. It shouldn’t surprise me anymore.”

“It always astonishes me,” Clara said.

“Puts a premium on Vicarian’s time, though. We lost three priests in the fighting. One burned on the ships, one at the wall, and the last took a crossbow bolt and a sword in the street-by-street work at the end. I don’t know what we’re going to do when the time comes to move on.”

Don’t ask, Clara thought. Don’t ask, and you will not be obligated to write it in a letter to anyone. Jorey shrugged and reached for a cup of coffee for himself. A finch the blue of a noonday sky sped past them as it no doubt had passed the governor of Porte Oliva when he lived. They would believe in the goddess. They would trust in her. They would follow her.

“How long do you imagine it will be before you leave the city?” she asked, trying to keep her tone light.

“As soon as I know which direction to march, I suppose,” Jorey said. “I want this done before we’re pulled into a second winter campaign. And there are fewer and fewer places for her to run to. Once we have this banker, I think we’ll have everything. The dragon. The Timzinae. Feldin Maas and the conspiracy in Asterilhold. It’s all connected, and that woman and her bank are at the center of it.”

“Why would you think that?” Clara asked.

Jorey frowned. “Everyone knows it, Mother.”

“I don’t,” she said. “I look at it, and I see… well, people. Humanity has been struggling for power and advantage since the last time a dragon flew. Perhaps before. I don’t see the need for a grand plot to explain what’s normal.”

“That’s not how it is, Mother,” Jorey said. “I’ve talked with Vicarian about it all the way from Camnipol, and I tried every argument. Every angle. This is the only thing that feels right.”

Oh, my boy, she thought. I should never have let you go.

The conversation moved to safer territory, to Sabiha and Annalise, to her impressions of Birancouri food, to Jorey’s continual amazement that Clara had taken it on herself to follow him. It was easier without Vicarian there. She didn’t need to watch her words, or at least not so closely. It still wouldn’t have done to let Vincen’s name slip out in too familiar a context. She was Jorey’s mother, Dawson’s widow, a woman driven perhaps a bit off center by the tragedies she’d faced. Enough so, at any rate, to forgive her the occasional flight of fancy.

Too soon, Jorey squinted up into the wide square of sky and pushed his plate away.

“My talented brother’s likely done with his priestly duties by now. I suppose I have to get back to work.”

“Does he consult on everything, then?” Clara asked, knowing it would be a sentence in the inevitable letter if he did.

“No, it’s just we’re still questioning people who knew her, and he’s a useful man for that kind of thing.”

“I remember,” Clara said. “Geder had me before a magistrate’s bench that way once myself.”

“And he found beyond all doubt that you were innocent,” Jorey said. “It works, you see?”

We are chasing an invention of our own fancy, and so I no longer believe that Palliako’s campaign can end except in an ever-broadening wave of fear and violence. Even I, who know better, find myself sometimes believing that agents of the Timzinae or the dragons or your own bank were instrumental in beginning this conflict and that Geder Palliako’s actions are understandable given those which came before them. When I remind myself of the truth it feels like waking from a dream into a nation of sleepwalkers. Even talented, intelligent, kind men like the new Lord Marshal have fallen into this dream.

I began these letters in hopes of stopping the madness that has taken my kingdom and my people. I hope you will not think less of me that I now despair.

“Clara,” Vincen said from the doorway, “we have to go now.”

“Just a moment more,” she said.

“Jorey’s already waited to call the march. He’ll have to start soon, and if we’re following along behind again, people will start thinking you prefer it there.”

“Give me a moment to finish my letter.”

He left, closing the door behind him. His footsteps did not recede. She felt better, having him standing guard this way when she was writing things that were so thoroughly dangerous for them all.

I continue my correspondence in hopes that you have some knowledge or perspective of which I am at present unaware. My hope is that you have hope. The forces of Antea are leaving Porte Oliva today and moving north along the dragon’s roads toward Sara-sur-Mar and Porte Silena. It is possible that the Lord Marshal might make the turn toward Herez and Daun, though the news that Callon Cane and his bounties are no longer welcome in Herez make this seem less likely to me. The Lord Marshal has had news that, ejected from Daun, Callon Cane has taken up his trade in Sara-sur-Mar. If, as he believes, Cane is an adventure of your bank, I must urge you to withdraw him to safety at once.

Vincen’s voice came through the door as a murmur. “The supply carts are lining up at the gate.”

“You aren’t anywhere near where you could see that,” Clara said.

“You aren’t anywhere near where you could be sure they aren’t.”

Jorey Kalliem has divided his force, leaving Porte Oliva under the protectorship of his brother, a priest of the spider goddess with all the powers and compromise that implies. A small occupying force will also remain. The majority of the army will proceed with the two remaining priests. If there is any hope of victory, it is in this: the priests are few, and their power is great. Should they be absented from the army, it is possible that Lord Marshal Kalliam might not push on. He is reluctant to conduct a second winter campaign, and should he be sufficiently slowed, the army may retreat to Porte Oliva to winter. I do not know what, if anything, can be accomplished with that time, but

New voices came, sharp and masculine. Vincen responded in kind. Clara grabbed a handful of blotting sand, cast it on the paper, folded the letter, and stuffed it down the front of her dress as the door opened and the younger son of Cyrus Mastellin came in. He had his dead uncle’s unfortunate roundness of face, but he wore it better.

“Lady Kalliam, please forgive the intrusion, but if you wish the escort of the Lord Marshal on your return journey—”

“I shall be there at once,” Clara said. “I was only tying up a few last little things.”

Mastellin nodded, but did not retreat. Jorey had apparently told the boy to come back with her in tow or with permission to leave without her. In the corridor behind him, Vincen stood quiet as a ghost, his expression too innocent to miss his meaning. Yes, you said as much, she thought. You’re very clever. And I am damned if I know how I’m to get this letter free without drawing stares.

“My lady,” Vincen said as she passed. He was enjoying himself entirely too much.

They left the gates behind before midday, Clara riding with Jorey behind the advance guard. She’d said her farewells to Vicarian at his new temple the night before, speaking carefully and pleased to have the occasion behind her. The sun was warm, and the grasslands wide and fragrant with the ripeness that came in the falling point between midsummer and harvest. The story was that she would return to Camnipol, the army acting as her escort until their paths diverged. A small group of sword-and-bows would see her safely back through the pass at Bellin and have her back in the heart of empire by the close of the season. It wasn’t what Clara wanted or hoped, but she’d had to resign herself to it. Otherwise her agreement would have been a lie.

The strangeness of it struck her. All the despair and fear in her letter was truth. When her mind turned to the war, and the spider goddess, the fate of her house and her kingdom, the world looked bleak and empty of redemption. But flirting with Vincen when no one was there to see or riding through the high, green grass with her son at her side and the sun in her eyes was still pleasant. Even a burning world had its moments of peace and sweetness. Perhaps even more, since they were so rare and the alternative so bitter.

The advance guard pushed on, flattening the grass as they passed so that ambush from the sides became less likely. Clara found herself imagining the track they left as the belly marks of a great dragon scratching itself on the ground. The crushed blades were prettier that way, even if it wasn’t truth.

“Mother,” Jorey said, intruding on her private, meaningless thoughts, “I have a favor to ask. When you turn aside, I’ll be sending a courier with you. Reports for Geder.”

“Will you?” she said. That was interesting. Perhaps there would be a chance to see them on the road. Copy them. Change them, even, if there were some advantage to be had.

“I also have a letter… for Sabiha. I was going to put it with the others, but if you carry it, I know it won’t be delivered to the wrong place by mistake.”

“Ah, one of those letters. I understand. I have a collection of them your father wrote to me, once upon a time.”

“Mother!”

“Jorey, dear, one thing that you must be aware of by pure force of logic if nothing else? You were not the first generation to discover sex.”

“I’m not having this conversation,” Jorey said, but there was laughter in his voice. Real laughter, not its bitter twin. “And thank you for agreeing to carry it. And not read it yourself.”

They rode on for a time. The land was surprisingly flat, and the wind made waves in the grass like it was water and their horses were sailboats. It was lovely. That it could not last made it more so.