The Widow's House

Marcus

The taproom was in the north of the city where the architecture changed, streets narrowing to a merely human size, the great stone towers replaced by wooden structures no more than three stories high. The yard didn’t open to the dragon’s road itself, but the jade ribbon was less than a minute’s walk to the south. Close enough that random travelers in need of a meal might find their way there by chance. The walls were dark and hung with shields of what seemed a hundred different houses. Low benches lined scarred wooden tables and three-legged stools crowded a fire grate longer than two men lying head to foot. The scents of roasting chicken and a spiced bean soup made the air feel warmer than it was. The players liked it for the keep’s open invitation to performers and cheap beer. Marcus liked it because he’d never been there before.

A thin Jasuru woman in a flowing gown of braided cotton stood at the center of the room, her hands contorted in claws, her eyes narrow. Her black tongue passed over sharp teeth, and her scales shone the color of brass. With a shout, she lifted her right hand, a sphere of bright air forming around her fist. She gritted her teeth, shouted again, and the globe burst into a bright violet flame. There was a scattering of polite applause.

Cary leaned in against the table, her eyes narrow, as the cunning woman called forth a second ball of flame, this one orange.

“Maybe you can tell me,” she said. “Why is it so many cunning men go in for performance?”

“You’d have to ask them,” Marcus said. “Can’t see why they wouldn’t, though. Impressive to look at, some of it.”

At the far end of the table, Hornet said something that made Charlit Soon roll her eyes and Sandr laugh hard enough to slop beer out of his cup. Yardem, sitting beside Hornet, smiled patiently, his ears drooping to the side in a way that made the old soldier look like a patient rabbit. Outside, the night wind had a chill to it that was the first real hint of winter. There would be plenty of warm days still to come. But Carse was almost as far north as Rukkyupal, and if the currents of the ocean warmed Northcoast and chilled Hallskar, it didn’t change the fact that it was late to start a long march for anywhere.

No one had said the words yet, but Marcus was fairly sure they’d be wintering in Carse. Long, dark nights in the cold he’d borne once with Alys and Merian. Walking south to Porte Silena was starting to sound like the better option, even if it meant facing the armies of Antea alone and on foot.

“I just would have thought… you know. Calling fire from the air?” Cary said, moving her hands in tight but dramatic gestures. “That has to be good for something more than copperweights at a taproom.”

“You mean fighting?” Marcus said.

“For instance,” Cary said.

“Not really,” Marcus said. “I mean, it’s impressive to look at, but if it’s not faster than a bow or a blade, it’s not a trick you’d be likely to do twice.”

The actor bit her thumb, considering, and nodded. “That’s a fair point.”

“It’s the difference between what you do and what I do,” Marcus said. “No offense, but what matters to you and Kit and the others is what looks best to an audience. What matters to people like me or Yardem? What kills the other person fastest. The two aren’t the same.”

“No,” Cary said, a distant look coming to her eyes. “I suppose they aren’t.”

Marcus was silent for a moment. Mikel came in from the darkness. His thin frame made him seem younger than he likely was. He grinned and came to the table, where Halvill made room for him. It was odd the way the players and the guards had become a single group after the flight from Porte Oliva. But sea travel had a reputation for changing people in ways that they did not change back. They sat together now in groups that mixed one with the other and made no distinction. Enen and Hornet and Yardem and Charlit Soon all shoulder to shoulder on the bench. Even Magistra Isadau was there, with her niece Maha. The only ones missing were Master Kit and Cithrin.

No. That wasn’t right. They weren’t the only ones.

Marcus looked over at Cary. Her hair was pulled back in a thick braid. Her eyes were dark, seeing something that wasn’t in the room. Of all the players, he felt he knew least which of her feelings were truly hers and which the artifice of her trade. He’d seen her pretend everything from heartbreak to joy, lust to horror, cold rage to naïve trust. He didn’t know that he’d ever seen the actual woman. It was part of why he liked her.

“I’m sorry about Smit,” he said.

“I am too,” she said, and didn’t speak more. Marcus didn’t press.

“Captain!” Sandr called from the foot of the table. “Where’s the magistra? She should come with us. Like the old days!”

“Thing about the old days,” Marcus said. “They’re old.”

In truth, Cithrin was still at the holding company’s compound, and Marcus wasn’t sure anymore whether it was captivity or choice. With the ships in port, the wealth of Porte Oliva had been taken by the king and the proclamation put out that, as an act of loyalty to the sovereign of Northcoast, letters of transfer from the Medean bank were to be treated as the gold they represented. The bank had begun making trades using the papers where real money had been. Marcus had even escorted the first of them at Cithrin’s request, walking through the streets of Carse from the branch run by Magister Nison to a fletcher’s hall partnered with the bank. The journey had been planned in advance, as clearly a show as anything Cary and the players ever did. Marcus, Yardem, Enen, and half a dozen of Magister Nison’s people making a great show of protecting a thin sheaf of papers. It had felt like manning the walls of a fort built from sticks and pillows, but he’d understood the bank’s reasons. If they wanted people to think of their bits of scribble as being the same as gold, then they needed to be protected as gold would be protected. That it was ridiculous didn’t seem to matter, and so he had scowled at the passersby and kept his hand on the hilt of his sword. Unsurprisingly, no one had leapt to the attack and stolen the papers. Marcus wondered whether anyone ever would.

“We’re thinking of putting on The Pardoner’s Wife,” Cary said.

“Really?” Marcus said, trying to recall which play that was.

“Mikel knows all Smit’s lines. It’s a short solve, though. We need more people if we’re going to have the full selection to pull from. And there’s the problem of not having a cart. Or costumes. Or props.”

“Mmm,” Marcus agreed, drinking from his cup. The beer was better than he gave it credit for.

“I was wondering if you thought… Cithrin is in a strange position here, isn’t she? I mean, she’s not precisely locked away and she’s not precisely not, if you see what I mean.”

“You’re wondering if she’s in a position to underwrite the company?”

“Wondering, yes. I don’t want to presume on the friendship, but there’s been a fair amount of work we’ve done and risk we’ve taken doing what amounts to her business.”

“I can ask.”

Cary nodded, swallowed, looked back at the Jasuru woman just as the cunning woman tossed all four of her globes of fire into the air, where they annihilated each other with a series of reports like tiny thunder. The cunning woman spread her arms and grinned. The sweat running down her face and neck made her seem oddly vulnerable. The players shouted and clapped and stamped their feet as she bowed. Enen tossed a bit of silver to her, and half a dozen of the other patrons of the house followed suit. Cary shook her head in disapproval.

“She needs people leading the audience,” Cary said.

“You think?”

“Nothing convinces people to throw coins like a bunch of other people throwing coins.”

“Or letters of transfer,” Marcus said, trying to imagine the Jasuru woman being caught in a storm of crumpled letters.

The door of the taproom slammed open and Kit rushed in. His hair was disheveled and his eyes wide in a way that set Marcus’s heart racing before the old actor was halfway across the room. Yardem’s ears went straight up, and the Tralgu began to pull himself free of the bench.

“Marcus,” Kit said, reaching out, “I think you should come. Now. I believe we have a problem.”

“Antea or Inys?” Marcus asked, already walking to the door. Yardem fell in at his left and Cary at his right. He swallowed the impulse to tell her to stay safe in the taproom. She’d traveled with him more than enough to make her own choices about what risks to take.

“Neither,” Kit said darkly as they passed into the cool night air. “I suspect this is much, much worse.”

In the square outside the palace, a dozen men stood in formal array under a banner of parley. At the center, a thin man in a brown robe held out one arm. In his other was a speaker’s horn. A small crowd had begun to form around them and at a little distance, like the audience at a performance.

“Listen to my voice!” the thin man shouted. “I come to deliver the world and the truth! The seat of Antea has fallen to the corruption of a false priesthood, and King Tracian of Carse is now the greatest hope for the true teaching of the goddess! Come out, my king, and we will deliver the world to you!”

“Well,” Marcus said. “God smiled.”

“I believe I know him,” Kit said. “If I am right, his name is Eshau rol Salvet. He came from the same village I did, but went to the temple two years before I was called to it.”

“Enemy of the goddess?”

“That I can’t speak to,” Kit said. “He was devout the last I saw him, but that was decades ago.”

“Listen to my voice, great king! I bring you victory and grace!” the priest called, and the square echoed with his voice.

“Where’s Inys?” Marcus said, walking quickly forward.

“Flying south last I saw him, sir,” Yardem said.

“Find him.”

“Yes, sir. Any thought how to do that?”

“Be creative.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll do that,” Cary said, and turned back, dashing into the night. Marcus looked after her, then at Yardem. The Tralgu shrugged.

“She’ll do that,” Yardem said.

“Fair enough. Can you go get the sword?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I picked a hell of a night not to carry the damned thing.”

“Did, sir,” Yardem said and loped away to the east and the holding company. Kit, at his side, opened his fists and closed them. Marcus put his hand on the hilt of his sword. The simple steel was good enough for most work, but the thin priest had men at his side, and five of them had blades of their own. One even wore boiled leather armor. Marcus wondered how many of them carried the spiders in their blood. At the palace, the high iron gates swung open and someone in a bright ceremonial armor of Tracian’s guard looked out at the crowd.

This wasn’t good.

“Eshau!” Marcus shouted, marching fast toward the group. “Eshau rol Salvet! As I live and breathe. Who ever thought to see you here.”

The priest turned toward him, eyes wide with surprise. Kit, trotting at Marcus’s side, murmured low, “What are you planning?”

“Planning to distract the bastard while I think of a plan,” Marcus said, then grinned and lifted a hand to the dozen grim faces turned toward him. “You must all be Eshau’s friends, yes? I’d say it’s a pleasure to see you all here, but truth is we weren’t expecting anyone.”

“Who are you?” the priest asked, his gaze shifting from Marcus to Kit and back again.

“Marcus Wester. General Marcus Wester, once was. Captain now. I’ve taken up mercenary work these last couple dozen years, but before that I was the one put Lady Tracian on the throne. King’s mother. So perhaps you’ve heard of me?”

“No,” the priest said. “We are come from Kaltfel, city at the world’s center and true seat of the goddess. We bring the good word that her truth is at last revealed and to call the righteous men of Northcoast to defend her refounded temple against the false priests and vile pretenders who soil her name with their corrupt tongues. A terrible battle is coming, and we alone stand against the forces of lies and falsehood.”

To the south, something bright and silent happened, like lightning from a clear sky, but without the thunder. Marcus ignored it. Anything that wasn’t raining hell on his shoulders right now could wait.

“Yeah, well that sounds like a powerfully amusing pastime, it’s true. But I think you may find the exercise a bit disappointing. You see, we’re fairly short of righteous men just at the moment, and—”

“Who is this, at your side?” the thin priest said.

“I think you know me, Eshau,” Kit said.

“Kitap rol Keshmet. Apostate.”

A murmur passed through the assembled men. The one in armor drew his sword. It was simple blade. Workmanlike. And the man knew how to hold it.

“Apostate. Yes,” Kit said. “And it seems not alone in this.”

“I am no apostate,” the thin man said, lifting his chin proudly. “I am the one true path to her. I have seen the error the old Basrahip fell into. His pride led him astray, but the goddess is incorruptible.”

Marcus raised his hand. “To clarify? She’s incorruptible because she’s made out of rock. We went and checked, Kit and I. Now, here’s the thing. You need to leave. Now.”

“I will not be turned aside,” the thin priest said. A flash of lavender fire rose up into the air behind him, just the color the Jasuru cunning woman had made. Marcus felt a surge of mad hope.

“All right, listen to my damned voice for once,” he said. “There is nothing you’re going to get out of this city. Not in my lifetime. So you and your little set of religious here just turn around and walk back down the road that brought you.”

“What’s going on here?” a too-familiar voice asked from behind him. “Who calls for the right of parley?”

Marcus closed his eyes. “This would be a very good time to go back the hell inside, Your Majesty.”

“King Tracian,” the thin priest said, falling to his knees and spreading his arms. His eyes were glassy and bright. “I come to bring you word of your destiny. You are fated to bring the world to an everlasting peace, and I am your righteous servant.”

“What do you mean?” King Tracian said, stepping forward. He was in a long robe of red velvet, his expression confused but also intrigued. A dozen guards stood behind him, their swords at the ready.

“I bring no false parley,” the priest said.

“He does,” Kit said. “He brings false parley. Everything he says or believes is false. Not even a lie, but a mistake with roots so deep they could pierce the earth to its center.”

The thin priest’s jaw dropped, his eyes widened. For a long, terrible moment, the thin priest looked shocked, lost, and alone. It struck Marcus how odd it must be for a zealot to hear himself called a liar with the power of the spiders in his blood to know the enemy was speaking truth. Little wonder these priests were crazed. The thin priest’s face went dark with rage.

“You are an abomination! Kitap rol Keshmet, I name you Ensanyana! Black-tongue! Thing of darkness!”

“Thing of darkness?” the king said, taking a step back.

“They knew each other when they were boys,” Marcus said as the dozen men drew together, pulling what knives and swords they claimed. “It’s a very long conversation and stranger than you’d enjoy. Consider going back in your palace, eh? I’m trying to keep you alive.”

“Apostate!” the thin priest screamed, and a column of fire fell from the sky. Marcus shied back, the sudden heat an assault. Even closed, his eyes hurt from the brightness, and for a terrible moment he was in his nightmares again, running through the flame to cradle a wife and child already eaten by the flame. He stumbled back, his skin burning. Someone was screaming. He thought for a moment it might be a woman’s voice. Alys returned from the dead by some hellish trick of the spider priests. And then the darkness rolled back over him and the cool night breeze.

When he opened his eyes, the night was a thousand times blacker than it had been before. His face and hands were burned, and his eyes ached. The fleeing audience still filled the night with their screams, and King Tracian had fallen unceremoniously on his ass to Marcus’s right. The thin priest and his dozen men lay blackened and charred on the stones. Inys bent down as if to smell one, then took the corpse between his vast teeth and chewed it thoughtfully. Marcus heard Kit’s voice, soft and reassuring, speaking over King Tracian’s panic-filled gabble. Marcus leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and permitted himself a chuckle.

“The corrupt are everywhere,” the dragon said. “So long as they are, chaos will follow them.”

“Yeah,” Marcus agreed. “Picked up on that.”

From behind the dragon, Cary came with the Jasuru cunning woman behind her. A moment later, Yardem Hane loped into the square, the poisoned sword drawn in his massive hand. The Tralgu slowed, the point to the green blade drifting down toward earth.

“Took too long,” Yardem said as he reached Marcus’s side.

“Appreciate the effort.”

“Still.”

“Life’s full of disappointments,” Marcus said. “Might want to put that thing away.”

Yardem sheathed the blade as Inys lifted up a second corpse and began eating it as well. A glow of fire lit the dragon’s mouth from within like a paper lantern. Marcus stepped across to where the king was only now rising to his feet.

Marcus made a small, ironic salute. “That’s two you owe me now, Majesty.”