“I will. If that’s what you want from me, I’ll do it.” Basrahip hesitated, shrugged, nodded. It was true. Geder’s eyes narrowed. This was always the hardest part, but he felt he was genuinely getting better at it.
“Would you mean it?”
“Yes.” Basrahip shook his head. No. He wouldn’t, and he knew he wouldn’t, and now Geder knew it too. It was as predictable as it was disappointing.
“Take him back to his cell,” Geder said. “Bring in the next one.”
Two guards stepped forward and hoisted Abden Shadra by his shoulders.
“No!” the Timzinae said. “I’ll swear whatever you want! I’ll do what you say, just don’t send me back there.”
Geder leaned forward.
“You,” he said coldly, “don’t get to lie to me. Take him back.”
The man’s cries echoed as they hauled him back. The great doors opened and then closed again. Two new guards hauled a woman’s form into the light. She was younger, her scales a glossy black. Her dress was rough canvas, and likely given to her in the prison. When they let her go, she sank to her knees, wrapping her arms around her chest. Geder checked his list.
“Sohen?” he asked. “Sohen Bais?”
The woman nodded, but the only sounds she made were sobs. Geder looked at Basrahip, but the priest neither nodded nor shook his head. In the absence of the living voice, there was nothing. A gesture was only a gesture, whatever the intent behind it.
“You have to answer,” Geder said. “You have to actually talk. Do you understand?”
The woman wailed. Geder felt a pang of guilt followed instantly by resentment at having been made to feel guilty. He pressed his thumb against his nose and considered calling the proceedings to an end for the day. He didn’t want to be here anymore. But once he started slacking off his duties, it would only get harder to pick them back up.
“Sohen,” he said, speaking as gently as he could manage. “Sohen. Listen to me. Listen to my voice. It’s going to be all right. It is. No one here wants to hurt you.”
She looked up. Tears ran from her eyes and mucus from her nose. Her mouth was set in a gape. Geder tried a smile, nodding encouragement. She closed her mouth and nodded back. He let his smile widen and felt a little better about himself.
“Good. You’re doing fine. No one here wants to hurt you. You just need to tell me the truth. Your name is Sohen Bais?”
Her voice was a creak. “It is.” Behind her, Basrahip nodded.
“See?” Geder said. “Just like that. You’re doing fine. Now. Do you know who I am?”
There was a feast that night, just like every other damn night of the season. One of Canl Daskellin’s daughters—Alisa—was to marry a young baron from Asterilhold. On the one hand, since he’d conquered Asterilhold, it would be better if the noble classes there were fully engaged with ingratiating themselves to Antea. On the other, it was exactly this sort of political marriage a few generations back that had given rise to the mixed bloodlines that had allowed Feldin Maas to conspire against King Simeon. It was strange how long ago that seemed. Geder sat at the high table with Aster and Lord Daskellin and his family looking out upon the assembled courtiers. The trees in the gardens had been draped with bright cloth. Lanterns of colored glass glowed all around them and scented the air with sweet oil and smoke. The slightest breeze set the trees to nodding to one another like old magistrates impressed with their own wisdom, while the men and women of the court gabbled to each other below them. Geder tapped his knife against his plate, not because he wanted anything. He only felt restless, and it made a pleasing sort of clink.
Sanna Daskellin sat across from her father, near enough that Geder could easily catch her eye, and she his. There had been an incident not long after he’d become Baron of Ebbingbaugh and before he’d been named Lord Regent when he’d been fairly sure that Sanna had been, if not wooing him, at least making it very plain that she was open to being wooed. Tonight, though, her face was a mask of politeness and decorum. Geder couldn’t tell if it was because her father was present or if her opinion of him had changed. She leaned forward a degree, her eyebrow rising in query, and Geder realized he’d been staring at her a bit. He