Lord Regent, you should come by the Kingspire anytime you like. I could get you rooms here.”
“My own rooms are fine,” Lehrer said. “They suit me.”
He levered himself to his feet and Geder rose with him. The older man looked frailer than Geder remembered, his hair thinner, his skin more ashen. It was just the winter, Geder told himself. With the summer sun and the court season to keep him busy, his father would get his color back. They stood for a moment, both of them unsure what etiquette demanded. At last, Lerer made a little bow appropriate for the Viscount of Rivenhalm to the Lord Regent, but with an ironic smile that meant for the father and son. Geder followed his example, and then watched as his father turned and walked away. He felt a lingering sense of having failed somehow. Of having disappointed. He shouldn’t have been thinking so much about Basrahip.
Basrahip. He glanced at the stairway, licked his lips, and started walking toward it, forcing his demeanor to be casual.
Basrahip and Dar Cinlama stood together under an archway of pale stone. The priest was speaking too quietly for Geder to make out the words, but his huge hands were gesturing, massaging the air. Cinlama nodded his understanding and agreement, the light from his eyes casting shadows across his cheekbones. The vastly large Firstblood man and the thin, muscular Dartinae looked like a woodcut, an allegory for something more than what they actually were.
“Well, then,” Geder said, walking up to them. “All the plans are made, then, yes?”
“Lord Regent,” Dar Cinlama said as he bowed. The amusement in the man’s voice was probably only Geder’s imagination.
“Yes, Prince Geder,” Basrahip said, putting his hand on the Dartinae man’s shoulder. “My friend Dar and I are quite pleased. Your generosity and wisdom will bring you great rewards from the goddess.”
Geder felt his smile curdle.
“That’s good,” he said. “I’m pleased to hear it.”
Cinlama made another little bow, but Basrahip frowned and Geder bit his lip. He shouldn’t have said anything. The falseness of the words would be clear as daylight to Basrahip. But then, Geder considered, that might have been why he’d said them.
“Forgive me, friend Dar,” Basrahip said. “I must speak with Prince Geder now.”
“No problem with that,” Dar Cinlama said, grinning happily. “I think the list of things I’ll need to prepare should keep me busy for days.”
He bowed to Geder a third time and then trotted away, self-congratulation radiating from him like heat from a fire. Basrahip’s wide face was a mask of concern. Geder crossed his arms.
“What troubles you, Prince Geder?” Basrahip asked, gesturing that they should step into the meeting room that priest and explorer had just abandoned.
“All sorts of things,” Geder said. “The grain stores we’re capturing in Sarakal aren’t as rich as we’d expected. Ternigan’s saying the siege at Nus may take longer than he’d thought it would. I’ve got half a dozen decisions from the grand audience that I still need to do something about, and they’re just gnawing at me. It’s all just …”
Geder held his hand out, trying to express his frustration and the sense of loss that words could not quite encompass. It had all come so suddenly. The sense of being the most important man in the world had been wonderful, and it had been transitory. Geder couldn’t explain it precisely. It was as if everything had been fine before Dar Cinlama had made his petition, and then tasted of ashes afterward. He could no more justify it than deny it away.
He walked to the balcony and looked out over the massive city below him. It was his, for the time being at least. Camnipol was his, and Antea, and so, in a sense, was everything. It stretched out before him like a map of itself—the Division, the wide manors and compounds of the noble classes, the maze of narrow streets in the south. Even the sun high in its blue arch of sky seemed part of Geder’s domain. The air smelled of smoke from a thousand forges, bakeries, and hearths. Tiny shapes moved on the ground far below, distance reducing them all to less than ants. It should have been enough.
Basrahip’s footsteps approached from behind him. Like a boy poking his tongue at a sore tooth, he remembered again the pleasure and interest on the priest’s face when Dar Cinlama had made his proposal.
“I was thinking,” Geder said, “we should move your temple. The highest floors of the