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《Tigana》
PROLOGUE
BOTH MOONS WERE HIGH, DIMMING THE LIGHT OF ALL BUT the brightest stars. The campfires burned oher side of the river, stretg away into the night. Quietly flowing, the Deisa caught the moonlight and the e of the nearer fires and cast them ba wavery, sinuous ripples. And all the lines of light led to his eyes, to where he was sitting on the riverbank, hands about his khinking about dying and the life hed lived.
There was a glory to the night, Saevar thought, breathing deeply of the mild summer air, smelling water and water flowers and grass, watg the refle of blue moonlight and silver on the river, hearing the Deisas murmurous flow and the distant singing from around the fires. There was singing oher side of the river too, he noted, listening to the enemy soldiers north of them. It was curiously hard to impute any absolute sense of evil to those harmonizing voices, or to hate them quite as blindly as being a soldier seemed to require. He wasnt really a soldier, though, and he had never been good at hating.
He couldnt actually see any figures moving in the grass across the river, but he could see the fires and it wasnt hard to judge how many more of them lay north of the Deisa than there were here behind him, where his people waited for the dawn.
Almost certainly their last. He had no illusions; none of them did. Not sihe battle at this same river five days ago. All they had was ce, and a leader whose defiant gallantry was almost matched by the two young sons who were here with him.
They were beautiful boys, both of them. Saevar regretted that he had never had the ce to sculpt either of them. The Prince he had done of course, many times. The Prince called him a friend. It could not be said, Saevar thought, that he had lived a useless or ay life. Hed had his art, the joy of it and the spur, and had lived to see it praised by the great ones of his province, indeed of the whole peninsula.
And hed known love, as well. He thought of his wife and then of his own two children. The daughter whose eyes had taught him part of the meaning of life on the day shed been born fifteen years ago. And his son, too young by a year to have been allowed to e north to war. Saevar remembered the look on the boys face when they had parted. He supposed that much the same expression had been in his own eyes. Hed embraced both children, and then hed held his wife for a long time, in silence; all the words had been spoken many times through all the years. Theurned, quickly, so they would not see his tears, and mounted his horse, unwontedly awkward with a sword on his hip, and had ridden away with his Priainst those who had e upon them from over the sea.
He heard a light tread, behind him and to his left, from where the campfires were burning and voices were threading in song to the tune a syrenya played. He turo the sound.
"Be careful," he called softly. "Unless you want to trip over a sculptor.”
"Saevar?" an amused voice murmured. A voice he knew well.
"It is, my lord Prince," he replied. " you remember a night so beautiful?”
Valentin walked over—there was more than enough light by which to see—and saly down on the grass beside him. "Not readily," he agreed. " you see? Vidomnis waxing matches Ilarions wane.
The two moons together would make one whole.”
"A strange whole that would be," Saevar said.
"Tis a strange night.”
"Is it? Is the night ged by what we do down here? We mortal men in our folly?”
"The way we see it is," Valentin said softly, his quick mind engaged by the question. "The beauty we find is shaped, at least in part, by what we know the m 99lib. he could. "This is not a war of your making, nor one you could avoid or undo. And besides, I may not be a soldier but I hope I am not a fool. It was an idle question: I see the answer for myself, my lord. In the fires across the river.”
"And the sorcery," Valentin added quietly. "More that, than the fires. We could beat back greater numbers, even weary and wounded as we are from last weeks battle. But Brandins magic is with them now. The lion has e himself, not the cub, and because the cub is dead there must be blood for the m sun. Should I have surrendered last week? To the boy?”
Saevar turo look at the Prin the blended moonlight, disbelieving. He eechless for a moment, then found his voice. "I would have gone home from that surrender," he said, with resolution, "and walked into the Palace by the Sea, and smashed every sculpture I ever made of you.”
A sed later he heard an odd sound. It took him a moment to realize that Valentin was laughing, because it wasnt laughter like any Saevar had ever heard.
"Oh, my friend," the Prince said, at length, "I think I knew you would say that. Oh, our pride. Our terrible pride. Will they remember that most about us, do you think, after we are gone?”
"Perhaps," Saevar said. "But they will remember. The ohing we know with certainty is that they will remember us. Here in the peninsula, and in Ygrath, and Quileia, eve over the sea, in Barbadior and its Empire. We will leave a name.”
"And we leave our children," Valentin said. "The younger ones. Sons and daughters who will remember us. Babes in arms our wives and grandfathers will teach when they grow up to know the story
of the River Deisa, what happened here, and, even more—what we were in this province before the fall.
Brandin of Ygrath destroy us tomorrow, he overrun our home, but he ot take away our name, or the memory of what we have been.”
"He ot," Saevar echoed, feeling an odd, ued lift to his heart. "I am sure that you are right.
We are not the last free geion. There will be ripples of tomorrow that run down all the years. Our childrens children will remember us, and will not lie tamely uhe yoke.”
"And if any of them seem ined to," Valentin added in a different tone, "there will be the children randchildren of a certain sculptor who will smash their heads for them, of stone or otherwise.”
Saevar smiled in the darkness. He wao laugh, but it was not in him just then. "I hope so, my lord, if the goddesses and the god allow. Thank you. Thank you for saying that.”
"No thanks, Saevar. Not between us and not this night. The Triad guard and shelter you tomorrow, and after, and guard and shelter all that you have loved,”
Saevar swallowed. "You know you are a part of that, my lord. A part of what I have loved.”
Valentin did not reply. Only, after a moment, he leaned forward and kissed Saevar upon the brow.
Then he held up a hand and the sculptor, his eyes blurring, raised his own hand and touched his Princes palm to palm in farewell. Valentin rose and was gone, a shadow in moonlight, back towards the fires of his army.
The singing seemed to have stopped, on both sides of the river. It was very late. Saevar knew he should be making his own way bad settling down for a few snatched hours of sleep. It was hard to leave though, to rise and surrehe perfect beauty of this last night. The river, the moons, the arch of stars, the fireflies and all the fires.
In the end he decided to stay there by the water. He sat alone in the summer darkness on the banks of the River Deisa, with his strong hands loosely clasped about his knees. He watched the two moo and all the fires slowly die ahought of his wife and children and the lifes work of his hands that would live after him, and the trialla sang for him all night long.
PART ONE - A BLADE IN THE SOUL Chapter 1
IUMN SEASON OF THE WINE, WORD WENT FORTH from among the cypresses and olives and the laden vines of his try estate that Sandre, Duke of Astibar, once ruler of that city and its province, had drawn the last bitter breath of his exile and age and died.
No servants of the Triad were by his side to speak their rituals at his end. Not the white-robed priests of Eanna, nor those of dark Morian of Portals, nor the priestesses of Adaon, the god.
There was no particular surprise in Astibar towhese tidings came with the word of the Dukes passing. Exiled Sandres rage at the Triad and its clergy through the last eighteen years of his life was far from being a secret. And impiety had never been a thing from which Sandre dAstibar, even in the days of his power, had shied away.
The city was overflowing with people from the outlying distrada and far beyond on the eve of the Festival of Vines. In the crowded taverns and khav rooms truths and lies about the Duke were traded bad forth like wool and spice by folk who had never seen his fad who would have once paled with justifiable terror at a summons to the Ducal court in Astibar.
All his days Duke Sandre had occasioalk and speculation through the whole of the peninsula men called the Palm—and there was nothing to alter that fact at the time of his dying, for all that Alberico of Barbadior had e with an army from that Empire overseas and exiled Sao the distrada eighteen years before. When power is gohe memory of power lingers.
Perhaps because of this, aainly because he teo be cautious and circumspe all his ways, Alberico, who held four of the nine provinces in an iron grip and was vying with Brandin of Ygrath for the ninth, acted with a precise regard for protocol.
By noon of the day the Duke died, a messenger from Alberico was seen to have ridden out by the eastern gate of the city. A messenger bearing the blue-silver banner of m and carrying, no one doubted, carefully chosen words of doleo Sandres children and grandchildren now gathered at their broad estate seven miles beyond the walls.
In The Paelion, the khav room where the wittier sort were gathering that season, it was ically observed that the Tyrant would have been more likely to send a pany of his own Barbadian meraries—not just a single message-bearer—were the living Sandreni not such a feckless lot. Before the appreciative, eye-to-who-might-be-lis-tening, ripple of amusement at that had quite died away, oi musi—there were scores of them in Astibar that week—had offered to wager all he might earn ihree days to e, that from the Island of Chiara would arrive dolences in verse before the Festival was over.
"Too ri opportunity," the rash newer explained, cradling a steaming mug of khav laced with one of the dozen or so liqueurs that lihe shelves behind the bar of The Paelion. "Brandin will be incapable of letting slip a ce like this to remind Alberico— and the rest of us—that though the two of them have divided our peninsula the share of art and learning is quite tilted west towards Chiara. Mark my words—and wager who will—well have a knottily rhymed verse from stout Doarde or some silly acrostic thing of as to puzzle out, with Sandre spelled six ways and backwards, before the music stops in Astibar three days from now.”
There was laughter, though again it was guarded, even on the eve of the Festival, when a long tradition that Alberico of Barbadior had circumspectly indulged allowed more lise than elsewhere in the year. A few men with heads fures did some rapid calculations of sailing-time and the ces of the autumn seas north of Senzio provind down through the Archipelago, and the musi found his wager quickly covered and recorded on the slate on the wall of The Paelion that existed for just such a purpose in a city proo gambling.
But shortly after that all wagers and mog chatter were fotten. Someone in a steep cap with a
curled feather flung open the doors of the khav room, shouted for attention, and when he had it reported that the Tyrants messenger had just been seeurning through the same eastern gate from which he had so lately sallied forth. That the messenger was riding at an appreciably greater speed than hitherto, and that, not three miles to his rear was the funerary procession of Duke Sandre dAstibar being brought by his last request to lie a night and a day in state iy he once had ruled.
In The Paelion the rea was immediate and predictable: men began shouting fiercely to be heard over the dihemselves were causing. Noise and politid the anticipated pleasures of the Festival made for a thirsty afternoon. So brisk was his trade that the excitable proprietor of The Paelion began iently serving full measures of liqueur in the laced khavs being ordered in profusion. His wife, of more phlegmatic disposition, tio short-measure all her patrons with benevolent lack of favoritism.
"Theyll be turned back!" young Adreano the poet cried, decisively banging down his mug and sloshing hot khav over the dark oak table of The Paelions largest booth. "Alberico will never allow it!”
There were growls of assent from his friends and the hangers-on who always clustered about this particular table.
Adreano stole a gla the traveling musi whod made the brash wager on Brandin of Ygrath and his court poets on Chiara. The fellow, looking highly amused, his eyebrows quizzically arched, leaned bafortably in the chair he had brazenly pulled up to the booth some time ago. Adrea seriously offended by the man, and didnt know whether his umbrage had been more aroused by the musis so-casual assertion of Chiaras preeminen culture, or by his flippant dismissal of the great a di Chiara whom Adreano had been assiduously imitating for the past half-year: both in the fashion of his verses and the wearing of a three-layered cloak by day and night.
Adreano was intelligent enough to be aware that there might be a tradi i iwinned sources of ire, but he was also young enough and had drunk a more than suffit quantity of khav laced with Senzian brandy, for that awareo remain well below the level of his scious thoughts.
Which remained focused on this presumptuous rustic. The man had evidently journeyed into the city to saw or pluck for three days at some try instrument or other in exge for a handful of astins to squa the Festival. How did such a fellow dare sail into the most fashionable khav room in the Eastern Palm and thump his rural behind down onto a chair at the most coveted table in that room?
Adreano still carried painfully vivid memories of the long month it had taken him—even after his first verses had appeared in print—to circle warily closer, fling inwardly at apprehended rebuffs, before he became a member of the seled well-known circle that had a claim upon this booth.
He found himself actually hoping that the musi would presume to tradict his opinion: he had a choice couplet already prepared, about rabble of the road spewing views on their betters in the pany of their betters.
As if oo that thought, the fellow slumped even more fortably ba his chair, stroked a prematurely silvered temple with a long finger and said, directly to Adreano, "This seems to be my afternoon fers. Ill risk everything Im about to win oher matter that Alberico is too cautious to ruffle the mood of the Festival over this. There are too many people in Astibar right now and spirits are running too high even with the half-measured drinks they serve io people who should know better.”
He grio take some of the sting from the last words. "Far better for the Tyrant to be gracious,”
he went on. "To lay his old enemy ceremoniously to rest ond for all, and then offer thanks to whatever gods his Emperor overseas is the Barbadians to worship these days. Thanks and s, for he be certain that the geldings Sandres left behind will be pleasingly swift to abandon the unfashionable pursuit of freedom that Saood for in un-gelded Astibar.”
By the end of his speech he was not smiling, nor did the wide-set grey eyes look away from
Adreanos own.
And here, for the first time, were truly dangerous words. Softly spoken, but they had been heard by everyone in the booth, and suddenly their er of The Paelion became an unnaturally quiet space amid the unchecked din everywhere else in the room. Adreanos derisive couplet, so swiftly posed, now seemed trivial and inappropriate in his own ears. He said nothing, his heart beating curiously fast. With some effort he kept his gaze on the musis.
Who added, the crooked smile returning, "Do we have a wager, friend?”
Parrying for time while he rapidly began calculating how many astins he could lay palms on by eriain friends, Adreano said, "Would you care to enlighten us as to why a farmer from the distrada is so free with his moo e and with his views on matters such as this?”
The others smile widened, showing even white teeth. "Im no farmer," he protested genially, "nor from your distrada either. Im a shepherd from up in the south Tregea mountains and Ill tell you a thing.”
The grey eyes swung round, amused, to include the entire booth. "A flock of sheep will teaore about men than some of us would like to think, and goats . . . well, goats will do better than the priests of Morian to make you a philosopher, especially if youre out on a mountain in rain chasing after them with thunder and night ing on together.”
There was genuine laughter around the booth, abetted somewhat by the release of tension. Adreano tried unsuccessfully to keep his own expression sternly repressive.
"Have we a wager?" the shepherd asked one more time, his manner friendly and relaxed.
Adreano was saved the o reply, and several of his friends were spared an amount of grief and lost astins by the arrival, even more precipitous than that of the feather-hatted tale-bearer, of Nerohe painter.
"Albericos given permission!" he trumpeted over the roar in The Paelion. "Hes just decreed that Sandres exile ended when he died. The Dukes to lie in state tomorrow m at the old Sandreni Palad have a full-honors funeral with all nine of the rites! Provided"—he paused dramatically— "provided the clergy of the Triad are allowed in to do their part of it.”
The implications of all this were simply toe for Adreano to brood much upon his own loss of face—young, overly impetuous poets had that happen to them every sed hour or so. But these— these were great events! His gaze, for some reasouro the shepherd. The mans expression was mild and ied, but certainly not triumphant.
"Ah well," the fellow said with a rueful shake of his head, "I suppose being right will have to pensate me for being poor—the story of my life, I fear.”
Adreano laughed. He clapped the portly, breathless Nerone on the bad shifted over to make room for the painter. "Eanna bless us both," he said to him. "You just saved yourself more astins than you have. I would have touched you to make a wager I would have just lost with your tidings.”
By way of reply Nerone picked up Adreanos half-full khav mug and drai at a pull. He looked around optimistically, but the others in the booth were guarding their drinks, knowing the painters habits very well. With a chuckle the dark-haired shepherd frea proffered his own mug. Self-taught o query largesse, Nerone quaffed it down. He did murmur a thank-you when the khav was drained.
Adreano he exge, but his mind was rag down unfamiliar els to an ued clusion.
"You have also," he said abruptly, addressing Nero speaking to the booth at large, "just reaffirmed how shrewd the Barbadian sorcerer ruling us is. Alberico has now succeeded, with one decree, in tightening his bonds with the clergy of the Triad. Hes placed a perfect dition upon the granting of the Dukes last wish. Sandres heirs will have to agree—not that theyd ever not agree to something—and I t even begin to guess how many astins its going>９9ｌｉb? to cost them to assuage the priests and priestesses enough to get them into the San-dreni Palaorrow m. Alberico will now be known as the man
whht the renegade Duke of Astibar back to the grace of the Triad at his death.”
He looked around the booth, excited by the force of his own reasoning. "By the blood of Adaon, it reminds me of the intrigues of the old days whehing was doh this much subtlety! Wheels within the wheels that guided the fate line of the whole peninsula.”
"Well, now," said the Tregean, his expression turning grave, "that may be the cleverest insight weve had this noisy day. But tell me," he went on, as Adreano flushed with pleasure, "if what Albericos done has just reminded you—and others, Ive no doubt, though not likely as swiftly—of the way of things in the days before he sailed here to quer, and before Brandin took Chiara and the western provihen is it not possible"—his voice was low, for Adreanos ears alone in the riot of the room—"that he has been outplayed at this game after all? Outplayed by a dead man?”
Around them men were .９9lｉｂ?rising aling their ats in loud haste to be outside, where events of magnitude seemed to be unfolding so swiftly. The eastern gate was where everyone was going, to see the Sandreni bring their dead lord home after eighteen years. A quarter of an hour earlier, Adreano would have been on his feet with the others, sweeping on his triple cloak, rag to reach the gate in time food viewing post. Not now. His brai to follow the Tregeans voice down this new pathway, and uanding flashed in him like a rushlight in darkness.
“You see, don’t you?" his new acquaintance said flatly. They were alo the booth. Nerone had lio precipitously drain whatever khav had bee unfinished in the rush for the doors and had then followed the others out into the autumn sunshine and the breeze.
“I think I do,” Adreano said, w it out. “Sandre wins by losing.
“By losing a battle he never really cared about,” the other amended, a keenness in his grey eyes. “I doubt the clergy ever mattered to him at all. They weren’t his enemy. However subtle Alberiay be, the fact is that he won this provind Tregea and Ferraut aando because of his army and his sorcery, and he holds the Eastern Palm only through those things. Sandre d’Astibar ruled this city and its province for twenty-five years through half a dozen rebellions and assassination attempts that I’ve heard of. He did it with only a handful of sometimes loyal troops, with his family, and with a guile that was legendary even then. What would you say to the suggestion that he refused to let the priests and priestesses into his death-room last night simply to induce Alberico to seize that as a face-saving dition today?
Adreano didn’t know what he would say. What he did know was that he was feeling a zest, aement, that left him left him unsure whether what he wanted just then was a sword in his hand or a quill and ink to write down the words that were starting to tumble about inside him.
"What do you think will happen,"99lｉｂ? he asked, with a deferehat would have astonished his friends.
"Im not sure," the other said frankly. "But I have a growing suspi that the Festival of Vihis year may see the beginning of something none of us could have expected.”
He looked for a moment as if he would say more than that, but did not.
Instead he rose, king a jumble of s onto the table to pay for his khav. "I must go. Rehearsal-time: Im with a pany Ive never played with before. Last years plague caused havoc among the traveling musis— thats how I got my reprieve from the goats.”
He grihen glanced up at the wager board on the wall. "Tell your friends Ill be here before suhree days from now to settle the matter of Chiaras poetidolences. Farewell for now.”
"Farewell," Adreano said automatically, and watched as the other walked from the almost empty room.
The owner and his wife were moving about colleg mugs and glasses and wiping dowables and benches. Adreano signaled for a last drink. A moment later, sipping his khav—uhis time to clear his head—he realized that hed fotten to ask the musi his name.
Chapter 2
DEVIN WAS HAVING A BAD DAY.
At een he had almost pletely reciled himself to his lack of size and to the fair-skinned boyish face the Triad had given him to go with that. It had been a long time since hed been in the habit of hanging by his feet from trees in the woods he farm bae in Asoli, striving to stretch a little more height out of his frame.
The keenness of his memory had always been a source of pride and pleasure to him, but a number of the memories that came with it were not. He would have been quite happy to be able tet the afternoohe twins, returning home from hunting with a brace of grele, had caught him suspended from a tree upside down. Six years later it still rankled him that his brothers, normally so reliably obtuse, had immediately grasped what he was trying to do.
"Well help you, little one!" Povar had cried joyfully, and before Devin could right himself and scramble away Nico had his arms, Povar his feet, and his burly twin brothers were stretg him between them, cag with great good humor all the while. Enjoying, among other things, the ambit of Devins precociously profane vocabulary.
Well, that had been the last time he actually tried to make himself taller. Very late that same night hed sneaked into the sn twins bedroom and carefully dumped a bucket of pig slop over each of them. Sprinting like Adaon on his mountain hed been through the yard and over the farm gate almost before their r started.
Hed stayed away two nights, theuro his fathers whipping. Hed expected to have to wash the sheets himself, but Povar had dohat and both twins, stolidly good-natured, had already fotten the i.
Devin, cursed or blessed with a memory like Eanna of the Names, never did fet. The twins might be hard people to hold a grudge against—almost impossible, in fact—but that did nothing to lessen his loneliness on that farm in the lowlands. It was not long after that ihat Devin had left home, apprenticed as a sio Menico di Ferraut whose pany toured northern Asoli every sed or third spring.
Devin hadnt been back siaking a weeks leave during the panys northern swing three years ago, and ?again this past spring. It wasnt that hed been badly treated on the farm, it was just that he didnt fit in, and all four of them k. Farming in Asoli was serious, sometimes grim work, battling to hold land and sanity against the stant enents of the sea and the hot, hazy, grey monotony of the days.
If his mother had lived it might have been different, but the farm in Asoli where Garin of Lower Corte had taken his three sons had been a dour, womanless place—acceptable perhaps for the twins, who had each other, and for the kind of man Garin had slowly bee amid the almost featureless spaces of the flatlands, but no source of nurture or warm memories for a small, quick, imaginative you child, whose own gifts, whatever they might turn out to be, were not those of the land.
After they had learned from Menico di Ferraut that Devins voice was capable of more than try ballads it had been with a certain collective relief that they had all said their farewells early one spring m, standing in the predictable greyness and rain. His father and Nico had been turning back to check the height of the river almost before their parting words were fully spoken. Povar lihough, to awkwardly cuff his little, odd brother on the shoulder.
"If they dont treat yht enough," hed said, "you e home, Dev. Theres a place.”
Devin remembered both things: the gentle blow which had been forced to carry more of a burden of meaning down the years than such a gesture should, and the rough, quick words that had followed. The
truth was, he really did remember almost everything, except for his mother and their days in Lower Corte.
But hed beehan two years old when shed died amongst the fighting down there, and only a month older when Garin had taken his three sons north.
Sihen, almost everything was held in his mind.
And if hed been a wagering man—which he wasnt, having that much of careful Asoli in his soul— hed have been willing to put a chiaro or an astin down on the fact that he couldnt recall feeling this frustrated in years. Since, if truth were told, the days when it looked as if he would never grow at all.
What, Devin dAsoli asked himself grimly, did a person have to do to get a drink in Astibar? And on the eve of the Festival, no less!
The problem would have been positively laughable were it not so infuriating. It was the doing, he learned quickly enough—in the first inn that refused to serve him his requested flask of Senzio green wine —of the pinch-buttocked, joy-killing priests of Eanna. The goddess, Devin thought fervently, deserved better of her servants.
It appeared that a year ago, in the midst of their interminable jockeying for asdancy with the clergy of Morian and Adaon, Ean-nas priests had vihe Tyrants token cil that there was too much litiousness among the young of Astibar and that, more to the point of course, such lise bred u And si was obvious that the taverns and khav rooms bred lise . . .
It had takehan two weeks for Alberico to promulgate and begin enf a law that no youth of less thaeen years could buy a drink in Astibar.
Eannas dust-dry priests celebrated—in whatever ascetic fashion such men celebrated—their petty triumph over the priests of Morian and the elegant priestesses of the god: both of which deities were associated with darker passions and, iably, wine.
Tavern-keepers were quietly unhappy (it didnt do to be loudly unhappy in Astibar) though not so much for the loss of trade as for the insidious manner in which the law was enforced. The promulgated law had simply placed the burden of establishing a patrons age on the owner of ean, tavern, or khav room. At the same time, if any of the ubiquitous Barbadian meraries should happen to drop by, and should happen—arbitrarily—to decide that a given patron looked too young . . . well, that was oavern closed for a month and oavern-keeper locked up for the same length of time.
All of which left the sixteen-year-olds in Astibar truly out of luck. Along with, it gradually became evident through the course of a m, one small, boyish-looking een-year-old singer from Asoli.
After three summary ejes along the west side of the Street of the Temples, Devin was briefly tempted to go across the road to the Shrine of Morian, fake aasy, and hope they favored Senzian green here as a means of sucg the overly ecstatic. As another, even less rational, option he plated breaking a window in Eannas domed shrine aing if any of the ball-less imbeciles inside could catch him in a sprint.
He forebore to do so, as much out of genuiion to Eanna of the Names as to an oppressive awareness of how many very large and heavily armed Barbadian meraries patrolled the streets of As- tibar. The Barbadians were everywhere in the Eastern Palm of course, but nowhere was their presence so disturbingly evident as it was in Astibar where Alberico had based himself.
In the end, Devin wished a serious head-cold on himself and headed west towards the harbor and then, following his unfortunately still-funing sense of smell, towards Tannery Lane. And there, made almost ill by the effluence of the tanners craft, which quite overwhelmed the salt of the sea, he was given an open bottle of green, no questions asked, in a tavern called The Bird, by a shambling, loose-limbed innkeeper whose eyes were probably ie to the dark shadows of his windowless, one-room establishment.
Even this nondescript, evil-smelling hole was pletely full. Astibar was crammed to overflowing for tomorrows start of the Festival of Vihe harvest had been a good one everywhere but in Cer-
tando, Devin knew, and there were plenty of people with astins or chiaros to spend, and in a mood to spend them too.
There were certainly no free tables to be had in The Bird. Devin wedged himself into a er where the dark, pitted wood of the bar met the back wall, took a judicious sip of his wiered but not unusually so, he decided—and posed his mind and soul towards a meditation upon the perfidy and unreasonableness of women.
As embodied, specifically, by Catriana dAstibar these past two weeks.
He calculated that he had enough time before the late-afternoon rehearsal—the last before their opening e at the city home of a small wie owomorrow—to muse his way through most of a bottle and still show up sober. He was the experierouper anyhow, he thought indignantly.
He artner. He khe performance routines like a hand knew a glove. The extra rehearsals had been laid on by Menico for the be of the three new people iroupe.
Including impossible Catriana. Who happeo be the reason he had stormed out of the m rehearsal a short while before he khat Menico plao call the session to a halt. How, in the name of Adaon, was he supposed to react when an inexperienew female who thought she could sing—and to whom hed been genuinely friendly since shed joihem a fht ago—said what shed said in front of everyohat m?
Cursed with memory, Devin saw the nine of them rehearsing again in the rented ba on the ground floor of their inn. Four musis, the two dancers, Menico, Catriana, and himself singing up front. They were doing Rauders "Song of Love," a piece rather predictably requested by the wine- merts wife, a piece Devin had been singing for nearly six years, a song he could manage in a stupor, a a, sound asleep.
And so perhaps, yes, hed been a little bored, a little distracted, had been leaning a little closer than absolutely necessary to their , red-headed female singer, putting perhaps the merest shading of a message into his expression and voice, but still, even so ...
"Devin, in the name of the Triad," had snapped Catriana dAs-tibar, breaking up the rehearsal entirely, "do you think you get your mind away from yroin for long enough to do a det harmony? This is not a difficult song!”
The affli of a fair plexion had hurtled Devins face all the way tht red. Menico, he saw—Menico who should have been sharply reprimanding the girl for her presumption—was laughing helplessly, even more flushed than Devin was. So were the others, all of them.
Uo think of a reply, unwilling to promise the tattered shreds of his dignity by yielding to his initial impulse to reach up and whack the girl across the back of her head, Devin had simply spun on his heels a.
Hed thrown one reproachful gla Menico as he went but was not assuaged: the troupe-leaders ample paunch was quivering with laughter as he wiped tears from his round, bearded face.
So Devin had gone looking for a bottle of Senzio green and a dark place to drink it in on a brilliant autumn m in Astibar. Having finally found the wine and the tenuous fort of shadows he fully expected to figure out, about half a bottle from now, what he should have said to that arrogant red-maned creature ba the rehearsal room.
If only she wasnt so depressingly tall, he thought. Morosely he filled his glass again. Looking up at the blaed crossbeams of the ceiling he briefly plated hanging himself from one of them: by the heels of course. For old times sake.
"Shall I buy you a drink?" someone said.
With a sigh Devin turo cope with one of the more predictable aspects of being small and looking very young while drinking alone in a sailors bar.
What he saw was somewhat reassuring. His questioner was a soberly dressed man of middle years with greying hair and lines of worry or laughter radiating at his temples. Even so: "Thank you," Devin said, "but Ive most of my own bottle left and I prefer having a woman to being one for sailors. Im also older than I look.”
The other man laughed aloud. "In that case," he chuckled, genuinely amused, "you give me a drink if you like while I tell you about my tweable daughters and the other two who are on their way to that age soohan Im ready for. Im Rovigo dAstibar, master of the Sea Maid just in from down the coast in Tregea.”
Devin grinned and stretched across the bar for anlass: The Bird was far too crowded to bother trying to catch the owners rheumy eye, and Devin had his own reasons for not wanting to signal the man.
"Ill be happy to share the bottle with you," he said to, "though your wife is uo be well pleased if you press your daughters upon a traveling musi.”
"My wife," said Rovigo feelingly, "would turn ponderous cartwheels of delight if I brought home a cowherd from the Certandan grasslands for the oldest one.”
Devin winced. "That bad?" he murmured. "Ah, well. We at least drink to your safe return frea, and in time for Festival by a fingernail. Im Devin dAsoli bar Garin, at your service.”
"And I at yours, friend Devin, not-as-young-as-you-look. Did you have trouble getting a drink?”
Rovigo asked shrewdly.
"I was in and out of more doorways than Morian of Portals knows, and as dry when I left as when Id entered." Devin rashly she heavy air; even among the odors of the crowd ae the lack of windows, the tannery stench from outside was still painfully disible. "This would not have been my first or my tenth choice as a place for drinking a flask of wine.”
Rovigo smiled. "A sensible attitude. Will I seem etric if I tell you I always e straight here when the Sea Maid is home from a voyage? Somehow the smell speaks of land to me. Tells me Im back.”
"You dont like the sea?”
"I am quite vihat any man who says he does is lying, has debts on land, or a shrewish wife to escape from and—" He paused, pretending to have been suddenly struck by a thought. "e to think of it . . ." he added with exaggerated reflectiveness. Then he winked.
Devin laughed aloud and poured them both more wine. "Why do you sail then?”
"Trade is good,&quo said frankly. "The Maid is small enough to slip into ports down the coast or around on the western side of Senzio or Ferraut that the bigger traders never bother with. Shes also quiough to make it worth my while running south past the mountains to Quileia. It isnt saned, of course, with the trade embargo down there, but if you have tacts in a remote enough plad you dont dawdle about your business it isnt too risky and theres a profit to be made. I take Barbadian spices from the market here, or silk from the north, ahem to places in Quileia that would herwise see such things. I bring back carpets, or Quileian wood carvings, slippers, jeweled daggers, sometimes casks of buinath to sell to the taverns—whatevers going at a good price. I t do volume so I have to watch my margins, but theres a living in it as long as insuraays down and Adaon of the Waves keeps me afloat. I go from here to the gods temple before heading home.”
"But here first," Devin smiled.
"Here first." They touched glasses and draihem. Devin refilled both.
"Whats news in Quileia?" he asked.
"As a matter of fact, I was just there,&quo said. &quea was a stop on the way back. There are tidings, actually. Marius won his bat in the Grove of Oaks again this summer.”
"I did hear about that," Devin said, shaking his head in rueful admiration. "A crippled man, and he must be fifty years old by now. What does that make it—six times in a row?”
"Seven,&quo said soberly. He paused, as if expeg a rea.
"Im sorry," Devin said. "Is there a meaning to that?”
"Marius decided there was. Hes just annouhat there will be no more challenges in the Oak Grove. Seven is sacred, hes proclaimed. By allowing him this latest triumph the Moddess has made known her will. Marius has just declared himself King in Quileia, no longer only the sort of the High Priestess.”
"What?" Devin exclaimed, loudly enough to cause some heads to turn. He lowered his voice. "Hes declared ... a man ... I thought they had a matriarchy there.”
"So," said Rovigo, "did the late High Priestess.”
Traveling across the Peninsula of the Palm, from mountain village to remote castle or manor, to the cities that were the ters of affairs, musis could not help but hear news and gossip of great events.
Always, in Devins brief experiehe talk had been only that: a way to ease the passing of a cold winters night around an inn fire iando, or to try to impress a traveler in a tavern in Corte with a murmured fiding that a pro-Barbadior party was rumored to be f in that Ygrathen province.
It was only talk, Devin had long since cluded. The two ruling sorcerers from east a across the seas had sliced the Palm ly in half between them, with only hapless, det Senzio not formally occupied by either, looking nervously across the water both ways. Its Governor remained paralytically uo decide which wolf to be devoured by, while the two wolves still warily circled each other after almost twenty years, eawilling to expose itself by moving first.
The balance of power in the peninsula seemed to Devin to have beeched in stone from the time of his first awareness. Until one of the sorcerers died—and sorcerers were rumored to live a very long time—nothing much would or could e of khav roreat hall chatter.
Quileia, though, was another matter. One far beyond Devins limited experieo sort out or define.
He couldnt even guess what might be the implications of what Marius had now done in that strange try south of the mountains. What might flow from Quileias having a more than transitory King, one who did not have to go into the Oak Grove every two years and there, naked, ritually maimed, and unarmed, meet the sword-wielding foe who had been chosen to slay him and take his place. Marius had not been slain, though. Seven times he had not been slain.
And now the High Priestess was dead. Nor was it possible to miss the meaning in the way Rovigo had said that. A little overawed, Devin shook his head.
He glanced up and saw that his new acquaintance was staring at him with an odd expression.
"Youre a thoughtful young man, arent you?" the mert said.
Devin shrugged, suddenly self-scious. "Not unduly. I dont know. Certainly not with any insight. I dont hear news like yours every afternoon. What do you think it will mean?”
One answer he was not to receive.
The tavern-keeper, who had quite effitly succeeded in ign Rovigos itent signaling for another bottle of wine now strode to their end of the bar, blager visible on his features even in the darkened room.
"You!" he hissed. "Your name Devin?”
Taken aback, Devin nodded reflexive agreement. The tavern-keepers expression grew even more malevolent.
"Get out of here!" he rasped. "Your Triad-cursed sisters outside. Says your fathers ordered you home and—Morian blast you both!— that hes mio turn me in for serving an underage. You gutter- spawned maggot, Ill teach you to put me at risk of being shut down on the eve of the Festival!”
Before Devin could move, a full pitcher of soured black wine was flung into his face, stinging like fire. He scrambled back, wiping at his streaming eyes, swearing furiously.
When he could see again it was to observe araordinary sight.
Rovigo—not a big man—had moved along the bar and had grabbed the keeper by the collar of his greasy tunic. Without apparent effort he had the man pulled halfway over the bar top, feet kig iually in mid-air. The collar was twisted to a degree suffit to cause the helpless tavern-owners face to begin turning a mottled shade of crimson.
"Goro, I do not like my friends being abused,&quo said calmly. "The lad has no father here and I doubt he has a sister." He cocked an eyebrow at Devin who shook his dripping head vehemently.
"As I say,&quo tinued, not evehing hard, "he has no sister here. He is also patently not underage—as should be obvious to any tavern-owner not blinded by swilling buckets of his own slop after hours. Now, Goro, will you placate me a little by apologizing to Devin dAsoli, my new friend, and him two bottles of corked vintage Certando red, by way of showing your sincere trition? Iurn I may be persuaded to let you have a cask of the Quileian buinath thats sitting on the Sea Maid even now. At an appropriate price or course, given what you extort for that stuff at Festival-time.”
Goros face had aplished a truly dangerous hue. Just as Devi obliged to cautio, the tavern-ave a jerky, vulsive nod and the mert untwisted the collar a little. Gored fetid tavern air into his lungs as if it were sted with Chiaran mountain tainflowers and spluttered a three word apology to Devin.
"And the wine?&quo reminded him kindly.
He lowered the other man—still without any evideion— enough foro to fumble below the bar and resurface with two bottles of what certainly appeared to be Certandan red.
Rovigo let slip another notch of the tightened collar.
"Vintage?" he inquired patiently.
Goro twitched his head up and down.
"Well then,&quo declared, releasing Goro pletely, "it appears we are quits. I suppose," he said, turning to Devin, "that you should go see who is pretending to be your sister outside.”
"I know who it is," Devin said grimly. "Thank you, by the way. Im used to fighting my own battles, but its pleasant to have an ally now and again.”
"It is alleasant to have an ally,&quo amended. "But it seems obvious to me that you arent keen on dealing with this sister, so Ill leave you to do it in private. Do let me once more end my own daughters to your kind remembraheyve been quite well brought up, all things sidered.”
"I have no doubt of that at all," Devin said. "If I do you a servi return I will. Im with the pany of Menico di Ferraut and were here through the Festival. Your wife might enjoy hearing us perform. If you let me know youve e Ill make sure you have good places at either of our public performances, free of charge.”
"I thank you. And if your path or your curiosity leads you southeast of town, now or later in the year, our land is about five miles along the road on the right-hand side. Theres a small temple of Adaon just before and my gate has a crest with a ship on it. One of the girls desig. They are all," he grinned, "very talented.”
Devin laughed and the two men touched palms formally. Rovigo turned back to reclaim their er of the bar. Devin, dismally aware that he was soaked with evil-smelling wine from light-brown hair to waist, with stains splotg his hose as well, walked outside clutg his two bottles of Certandan red.
He squinted owlishly in the sunshine for a few seds before spotting Catriana dAstibar oher side of the lane, scarlet hair blazing in the light, a handkerchief pressed firmly beh her nose.
Devin strode briskly into the road and almost collided with a tanners cart. A brief and satisfying exge of opinions ehe tanner rumbled on and Devin, vowing inwardly not to be put on the defehis time, crossed the lao where Catriana had been ex-pressionlessly the
altercation.
"Well," he said caustically, "I do appreciate your ing all this way to apologize, but you might have chosen a different way of finding me if you were sincere. I rather prefer my clothes unsaturated with spoiled wine. You will offer to wash them for me, of course.”
Catriana simply ignored all of this, looking him up and down coldly. "Yoing to need a wash and a ge," she said, from behind the sted handkerchief. "I hadnt ted on that much of a rea inside. But not having a surplus of astins to spend on bribes I couldnt think of a better way to get tavern-owo bother looking for you." It was an explanation, Devin noted, but not an apology.
"Five me," he said, with exaggerated trition. "I must talk with Menico—it seems we arent paying you enough, in addition to all our other transgressions. You must be used to better things.”
She hesitated for the first time. "Must we discuss this in the middle of Tannery Lane?" she said.
Without a word Deviched a performance bow aured for her to lead the way. She started walking away from the harbor and he fell in stride b.9９ｌｉｂ?eside her. They were silent for several minutes, until out of the range of the tannery smells. With a faint sigh Catriana put away her handkerchief.
"Where are you taking me?" Devin asked.
Aransgression, it seemed. The blue eyes flashed with anger.
"In the name of the Triad where would I be taking you?" Catri-anas voice dripped with sarcasm. "We are going to my room at the inn for a session of love-making like Eanna and Adaon at the dawn of days.”
"Oh, good," Devin snapped, his own anger rekindling. "Why dont we pool our funds and buy another woman to e play Morian —just so I do bored, you uand.”
Catriana paled, but before she could open her mouth Devin grabbed her arm with his free hand and swung her around to face him ireet. Looking up into those blue eyes (and cursing the fact that he had to do that) he snapped: "Catriana, what exactly have I doo you? Why do I deserve that sort of answer? Or what you did this m? Ive been pleasant to you from the day we signed you on—and if youre a professional you know that isnt always the case in troupes on the road. If you must know, Marra, the woman you replaced, was my closest friend in the pany. She died of the plague iando. I could have made life very hard for you. I didnt and Im not. I did let you know from the first that I found you attractive. Im not aware that there is a sin in that if it is doh courtesy.”
He released her arm, abruptly scious that he had been gripping it very hard and that they were in aremely public place, even with the early-afternoon lull. Instinctively he looked around; thankfully there were no Barbadians passing just then. There was a familiar tight feeling in his chest, as of the apprehended return of pain, that always came with the thought of Marra. The first true friend of his life.
Two ed children, with voices that were gifts of Eanna, telling each other fears and dreams for three years in ging beds across the Palm at night. His first lover. First death.
Catriana, released, remained where she was, and there was a look in her own eyes—perhaps at the naming of death—that made him abruptly revise his estimate of her age downwards. Hed thought she was older than him; now he wasnt sure.
He waited, breathing quickly after his outburst, and at length he heard her say very softly, "You sing too well.”
Devin blinked. It was not at all what hed expected.
"I have to work very hard at perf," she went on, her face flushing for the first time. "Rauder is hard for me—all of his musid this m you were doing the Song of Love without even thinking about it, amusing the others, trying to charm me ... Devin, I have to trate when I sing! You were making me nervous and I snap at people when Im nervous.”
Devin drew a careful breath and looked around the empty sunlit street for a moment, thinking. He
said, "Do you know . . . has anyone ever told you . . . that it is possible and even useful to tell things like this to people—especially the people who have to work with you?”
She shook her head. "Not for me. Ive never been able to talk like that, not ever.”
"Why do it now, then?" he risked. "Why did you e after me?”
A longer pause than before. A cluster of artisans apprentices swept around the er, hooting with reflexive ribaldry at the sight of the two of them standing together. There was no mali it though, and they went by without causing any trouble. A few red and golden leaves skipped over the cobbles in the breeze.
"Somethings happened," Catriana dAstibar said, "and Menico told us all that you are the key to our ces.”
"Menico sent you after me?" It was almost pletely improbable, after nearly six years together.
"No," Catriana said, quickly shaking her head. "No, he said youd be ba time, that you always were. I was nervous though, with so much at stake. I couldnt just wait around. Youd left a little, urn, upset, after all.”
"A little," Devin agreed gravely, noting that she finally had the grace to look apologetic. He would have felt even more secure if he hadnt tio find her so attractive. He couldnt stop himself from w—even now—what her breasts would look like, freed from the stiffness of her high-cut bodice.
Marra would have told him, he knew, and even helped him with a quest. They had dohat for each other, and shared the tales after, traveling through that last year on the road before Certando where she died.
"You had better tell me whats happened," he said, f his thoughts back to the present. There was danger in fantasies and in memories, both.
"The exiled Duke, Sandre, died last night," Catriana said. She looked around but the street was empty again. "For some reason—no one is sure why—Alberico is allowing his body to lie in state at the Sandreni Palace tonight and tomorrow m, and then . . .”
She paused, the blue eyes bright. Devin, his pulse suddenly leaping, fi for her: "A funeral? Full rites? Dont tell me!”
"Full rites! And Devin, Menicos been asked to audition this afternoon! We have a ce to do the most talked-about performan the whole of the Palm this year!" She looked very young now. And quite ulingly beautiful. Her eyes were shining like a childs.
"So you came to get me," he murmured, nodding his head slowly "before I drank myself into a useless stupor of frustrated desire." He had the edge now, for the first time. It leasant turnabout, especially coupled with the real excitement of her news. He began walking, f her to fall in stride with him. For a ge.
"It isnt like that," she protested. "Its just that this is so important. Menico said your voice would be the key to our hopes . . . that you were at your best in the m rites.”
"I dont know whether to be nattered by that, or insulted that you actually thought Id be so unprofessional as to miss a rehearsal on the eve of the Festival.”
"Doher," Catriana dAstibar said, with a hint of returning asperity. "We dont have time for either. Just be good this afternoohe best youve ever been.”
He ought to resist it, Devin knew, but his spirits were suddenly much too high.
"In that case, are you sure were not going to your room?" he asked blandly.
More than he could know hung in the balance for the moment that followed. Then Catriana dAstibar laughed aloud and freely for the first time.
"Now that," said Devin, grinning, "is much better. I holy wasnt sure if you had a sense of
humor.”
She grew quiet. "Sometimes Im not sure either," she said, almost absently. Then, in a rather different voice: "Devin, I want this tract more than I tell you.”
"Well of course," he replied. "It could make our careers.”
"Thats right," Catriana said. She touched his shoulder aed, "I want this more than I say.”
He might have sought a promise in that touch had he been a little less perceptive, and had it not been for the way she spoke the words. There was, in faothing at all of ambition in that tone, nor of desire in the way that Devin had e to know desire.
What he heard was longing, and it reached towards a spaside him that he hadnt known was there.
"Ill do what I ," he said after a moment, thinking, for no good reason, of Marra and the tears hed shed.
On the farm in Asoli they had known he was gifted with music quite early but it was an isolated plad none of them had a frame of reference whereby to properly judge or measure such things.
One of Devins first memories of his father—ohat he summoned often because it was a soft image of a hard man—was of Garin humming the tune of some old cradle song to help Devin fall asleep one night when he was feverish.
The boy—four perhaps—had woken in the m with his fever broken, humming the tuo himself with perfect pitch. Garins face had taken on the plex expression that Devin would later learn to associate with his fathers memories of his wife. That m though, Garin had kissed his you child. The only time Devin could remember that happening.
The tune became a thing they shared. An access to a limited intimacy. They would hum it together in rough, untutored attempts at harmony. Later Garin bought a scaled-down three string syrenya for his you child on one of his twice-yearly trips to the market in Asoli town. After that there were actually a few evenings Devin did like to remember, when he and his father and the twins would sing ballads of the sea and hills by the fire at night before bed. Escapes from the drear, wet flatness of Asoli.
When he grew older he began to sing for some of the other farmers. At weddings or naming days, and oh a traveling priest of Morian he sang terpoint during the autumn Ember Days on the "Hymn to Morian of Portals." The priest wao bed him, after, but by then Devin was learning how to avoid such requests without giving offense.
Later yet, he began to be called upon iaverns. There were no age laws for drinking in northern Asoli, where a boy was a man when he could do a day in the fields, and a girl was a woman when she first bled.
And it had been in a tavern called The River in Asoli town itself on a market day that Devin, just turned fourteen, had been singing "The Ride from Corso to Corte" and had been overheard by a portly, bearded man who turned out to be a troupe-leader named Menico di Ferraut and who had taken him away from the farm that week and ged his life.
"Were ," Menico said, nervously smoothing his best satin doublet over his paunch. Devin, idly pig out his earliest cradle song on one of the spare syrenyae, smiled reassuringly up at his employer.
His partner now, actually.
Devin hadnt been an apprentice since he was seventeen. Menico, tired of refusing offers to buy the tract of his young tenor had finally offered Devin journeyman status in the GuiJd and a regular salary—after first making clear how very much the young man owed him, and how loyalty was the only marginally adequate way to repay such a large debt of gratitude. Devihat, in fact, and he liked Meniyway.
A year later, after another sequence of offers from rival troupe-leaders during the summer wedding season in Corte, Menico had made Devin a ten-pert partner in the pany. After making the same speech, almost word for word, as the last time.
The honor, Devin knew, was siderable; only old Eghano who played drums and the Certandarings, and who had been with Menico sihe pany was formed, had another partnership share. Everyone else prentice or a journeyman on short-term tract. Especially now, wheermath of a plague spring in the south had every troupe in the Palm short of bodies and scrambling to fill with temporary musis, dancers, or singers.
A haunting thread of sound, barely audible, plucked Devins attention away from his syrenya. He looked over and smiled. Alessan, one of the three new people, was lightly trag the melody of the cradle song Devin had been playing. On the shepherd pipes ea it sounded uhly and strange.
Alessan, black-haired, though greying at the temples, wi him over the busyness of his fingers on the pipes. They fihe piece together, pipes and syrenya, and humming tenor voice.
"I wish I khe words," Devin said regretfully as they ended. "My father taught me that tune as a child, but he could never remember how the words went.”
Alessans lean, mobile face was reflective. Devin knew little about the Tregean after two weeks of rehearsal other than that the man was extraordinarily good on the pipes and quite reliable. As Meniccs parthat was all that should matter to him. Alessan was seldom around the inn outside of practice- time, but he was always there and punctual for the rehearsals slated.
"I might be able te them up for you if I thought about it," he said, pushing a hand through his hair in a characteristic gesture. "Its been a long time but I khe words once." He smiled.
"Dont worry about it," Devin said. "Ive survived this long without them. Its just an old song, a memento of my father. If you stay with us we make it a winter project to try to track them down.”
Menico would approve of that last bit, he khe troupe-leader had declared Alessan di Tregea to be a find, and cheap at the wages hed asked.
The other mans expressive mouth crooked sideways, a little wryly. "Old songs and memories of fathers are important," he said. "Is yours dead then?”
Devin made the warding sign with his hand out and two fingers curled down.
"Not last I heard, though Ive not seen him in almost six years. Menico spoke to him when he went through the north of Asoli last time, took him some chiaros for me. I dont go back to the farm.”
Alessan sidered that. "Dour Asolini stock?" he guessed. "No place for a boy with ambition and a voice like yours?" His tone was shrewd.
"Almost exactly," Devin admitted ruefully. "Though I wouldnt have called myself ambitious.
Restless, more. And we werent inally from Asoli in fact. Came there from Lower Corte when I was a small child.”
Alessan nodded. "Even so," he said. The man had a bit of a know-it-all manner, Devin decided, but he could play the Tregean pipes. The way they might even have sounded on Adaons own mountain in the south.
In any case, they had no time to pursue the matter.
"Were on!" Menico said, hastily re-entering the room where they were waiting amid the dust and covered furniture of the long-unused Sandreni Palace.
"We do the Lament for Adaon first," he annouelling them something theyd all known for hours. He wiped his palms on the side of his doublet. "Devin that ones yours—make me proud, lad." His standard exhortation. "Then all of us are together on the Cirg of Years. Catriana my love you are sure you go high enough, or should we pitch down?”
"Ill go high enough," Catriana replied tersely. Devin thought her tone spoke to simple nervousness,
but when her gaze met his for a sed he reized that earlier look again: the ohat reached somewhere beyond desire towards a shore he didnt know.
"Id very much like to get this tract," Alessan di Tregea said just then, mildly enough.
"How extremely surprising!" Devin snapped, disc as he spoke that he too was nervous after all. Alessan laughed though, and so did old Eghano walking through the door with them: Eghano who had seen far too mu too many years of t to ever be made edgy by a mere audition. Without saying a word, he had, as he always had, an immediately calming effe Devin.
"Ill do the best I ," Devin said after a moment and for the sed time that afternoon, not really certain to whom he was saying it, or why.
In the end, whether because of the Triad or in spite of them—as his father used to say—h..is best was enough.
The principal auditor was a delicately sted, extravagantly dressed s of the Sandreni, a man— in his late thirties, Devin guessed—who made it ma, in his limp posture and the artificially exaggerated shadows that ringed his eyes, why Alberico the Tyrant didnt appear to be much worried about the desdants of Sandre dAstibar.
Ranged behind this diverting personage were the priests of Eanna and Morian in white and smoke grey. Beside them, vivid by trast, sat a priestess of Adaon in crimson, with her hair cropped very short.
It was autumn of course, and the Ember Days were ing on: Devin wasnt surprised by her hair.
He was surprised to see the clergy there for the audition. They made him unfortable—anacy of his father—but this wasnt a situation where he could allow that to affect him, and so he dismissed them from his thoughts.
He focused on the Dukes elegant son, the only one who really mattered now. He waited, reag as Menico had taught him for a still point inside himself.
Menico cued Nieri and Aldihe two thin dancers in their grey-blue, almost translut, chemises of m and their black gloves. A moment later, after their first linked pass across the floor, he looked at Devin.
And Devin gave him, gave them all, the lament for Adaons autumnal dying among the mountain cypresses, as he never had before.
Alessan di Tregea was with him all the way with the high, heart-pierg grief of the shepherd pipes and together the two of them seemed to lift and carry Nieri and Aldine beyond the surface steps of their dance across the retly swept floor and into the laic, precise articulation of ritual that the "Lament”
demanded and was so rarely granted.
When they finished, Devin, traveling slowly back to the Sandreni Palace from the cedar and cypress slopes ea where the god had died—and where he died again ead every autumn—saw that Sandre dAstibars son was weeping. The tracks of his tears had smudged the carefully achieved shadowing around his eyes—which meant, Devin realized abruptly, that he had for any of the three panies before them.
Marra, young and ily professional would have been sful of those tears, he knew: "Why hire a mongrel and bark yourself?" she would say when their m rituals were interrupted or marked by displays from their patrons.
Devin had been less stern back then. And was even less so now since shed died and he had found himself rather desperately fighting back a shameful public grief when Bur di Corte had led his pany through her m rites iando as a gesture of courtesy to Menico.
Devin also knew, by the sm look the Sandreni s gave him from within the smeared dark rings around his eyes, and the scarcely less transparent glance from Morians fat-fingered priest— why in the name of the Triad were the Triad so ill-served!—that though they might have just won the Sandreni
tract he was going to have to be careful in this palaorrow. He made a mental his knife.
They had won the tract. The sed number hardly mattered, which is why ing Menico had begun with the "Lament." Afterwards Menico carefully introduced Devin as his partner when San-dres son asked to meet him. He turned out to be the middle son of three, omasso. The only one, he explained huskily, holding one of Devins hands tightly between both his own, with an ear for musid an eye for dance adequate to choosing performers equal to so august an occasion as his fathers funeral rites.
Devin, used to this, politely retrieved his fingers, grateful for Menicos experieact: presented as a partner he had some slight immunity from overly aggressive wooers, even among the nobility. He was introduced to the clergy , and promptly k before Adaons priestess in red.
"Your san, sister-of-the-god, for what I sang, and for what I am asked to do tomorrow.”
Out of the er of his eye he saw the priest of Morian ch his chubby, ringed fingers at his sides.
He accepted the blessing and prote of Adaon—the priestesss index firag the gods symbol on his brow—in the knowledge that he had successfully defused one priests burgeoning desire. When he rose and turned, it was to catch a wink—dangerous in that room and among that pany—from Alessan di Tregea, at the back with the others. He suppressed a grin, but not his surprise: the shepherd was discertingly perceptive.
Menicos first price was immediately accepted by Tomasso dAs-tibar bar Sandre, firming in Devins mind what a sorry creature he was to bear such a magnifit name and lineage.
It would have ied him—and led him a step or two further down the head road towards maturity—to learn that Duke Sandre himself would have accepted the same price, or twice as much, and ily the same manner. Devin was not quite twenty though, and even Menico, three times his age, would loudly curse himself back at the inn amid the celebratory wine for not having quoted even more thaortionate sum he had just received in full.
Only Eghano, aged and placid, softly drumming two wooden spoons orestle table, said, "Leave well enough. We need not hold out a greedy palm. There will be more of these from now on. If you are wise youll leave a tithe at each of the temples tomorroill earn it back with i when they usis for the Ember Days.”
Menico, in high good humor, swore even more magnifitly than before, and announced a set iion to hanos wrinkled body as a tithe to the fleshy priest of Morian instead. Eghano smiled toothlessly and tinued his soft drumming.
Menico ordered them all to bed not long after the evening meal. Theyd have an early start tomorrow, pointing towards the most important performance of their lives. He beamed benevolently as Aldine led Nieri from the room. The girls would share a bed that night Devin was sure, and for the first time, he suspected. He wished them joy of each other, knowing that they had e together magically as dahat afternoon and also knowing—for it had happeo him once— how that could spill over into the dles of a late night in bed.
He looked around for Catriana but she had gone upstairs already. Shed kissed him briefly on the cheek though, right after Menicos fierce embrace ba the Sandreni Palace. It was a start; it might be a start.
He bade good night to the others a up to the single room that was the one luxury hed demanded of Menicos tour budget after Marra had died.
He expected to dream of her, because of the m rites, because of unslaked desire, because he dreamt of her most nights. Instead he had a vision of the god.
He saw Adaon on the mountainside in Tregea, naked and magnifit. He saw him torn apart in frenzy and in flowing blood by his priestesses—suborned by their womanhood for this oumn
m of every turnio the deeper service of their sex. Shredding the flesh of the dying god in the service of the two goddesses who loved him and who shared him as mother, daughter, sister, bride, all through the year and through all the years since Eanna he stars.
Shared him and loved him except on this one m in the falling season. This m that was shaped to bee the harbihe promise of spring to e, of winters end. This one single m on the mountaihe god who was a man had to be slain. Torn and slain, to be put into his place which was the earth. To bee the soil, which would be nurtured in turn by the rain of Ean-nas tears and the moist sorrowings of Morians endless underground streams twisting in their need. Slain to be reborn and so loved anew, more and more with each passing year, with ead every time of dying on these cypress-clad heights. Slain to be lamented and then to rise as a god rises, as a man does, as the wheat of summer fields. To rise and then lie down with the goddesses, with his mother and his bride, his sister and his daughter, with Eanna and Morian under sun and stars and the cirg moons, the blue one and the silver.
Devi, terribly, that primal se of women running on the mountaiheir long hair streaming behind them as they pursued the man-god to that high chasm above the torrent of Casadel.
He saw their clothing torn from them as they cried each other on to the hunt. Saw branches of mountain trees, of spiny, bristling shrubs, claw their garments away, saw them rehemselves deliberately naked freater speed to the chase, seizing blood-red berries of sonrai to intoxicate themselves against what they would do high above the icy waters of Casadel.
He saw the god turn at last, his huge dark eyes wild and knowing, both, as he stood at the chasm brink, a stag at bay at the deemed, decreed, perennial place of his ending. And Devin saw the women e upon him there, with their flying hair and blood flowing along their bodies and he saw Adaon bow his proud, glorious head to the doom of their rending hands and their teeth and their nails.
And there at the end of the chase Devin saw that the womens mouths were open wide as they cried to each other iasy uish, in urained desire or madness or bitter grief, but in his dream there was no sound at all to those cries. Instead, pierg through the whole of that wild se among cedar and cypress on the mountaihe only thing Devin heard was the sound ean shepherd pipes playing the tune of his own childhood fever, high and far away.
And at the end, at the very last, Devin saw that when the women came upon the god and caught him and closed about him at that high chasm over Casadel, his face wheuro his rending was that of Alessan.
Chapter 3
EVEN BEFORE THE ING OF CAUTIOUS ALBERICO FROM OVERseas in Barbadior to rule in Astibar, the city that liked to call itself "The Thumb that Rules the Palm" had been known for a certain degree of asceticism. In Astibar the m rites were never done in the presence of the dead as was the practi the ht provinces: such a procedure was regarded as excessive, too fevered an appeal to emotion.
They were to perform in the tral courtyard of the Sandreni Palace, watched from chairs and benches placed around the courtyard, and from the loggias above, leading off the interior rooms owo upper floors. In one of those rooms, marked by the appropriate hangings—grey-blue and black—lay the body of Sandre dAstibar, s over his eyes to pay the nameless doorman at the last portal of Morian, food in his hands and shoes on his feet, for no one living could know how long that final jouro the goddess was.
He would be brought down to the courtyard later, so that all those citizens of his city and its distrada who wished to do so—and who were willing to brave the rec eyes of the Barbadian meraries posted outside—could file past his bier and drop blue-silver leaves of the olive tree in the single crystal vase that stood on a plinth in the courtyard even now.
The ordinary citizens—weavers, artisans, shopkeepers, farmers, sailors, servants, lesser merts— would ehe palace later. They could be heard outside now: gathered to hear the music of the old Dukes m rites. The people drifting into the courtyard in the meantime were the most extraordinary colle of petty and high nobility, and of藏书网 accumulated mertile wealth that Devin had ever seen in one place.
Because of the Festival of Vines, all the lords of the Astibar distrada had e into town from their try estates. And being in town they could hardly not be present to see Sandre mourned—for all that many or most of them had bitterly hated him while he ruled, and the fathers randfathers of some h.９9lｉｂ?ad paid for poison or hired blades thirty years ago and more in the hope that these same rites might have taken place long since.
The two priests and Adaons priestess were already in their scats, seeming, in the manner of clergy everywhere, to be privy to a mystery that they collectively shielded from lesser mortals with the gravity of their repose.
Menicos pany waited in a small room off the courtyard that Tomasso had ordered set aside for their use. All the usual amenities were there, and some that were far from usual: Devin couldnt remember seeing blue wine offered to performers before. Aravagaure, that. He wased though; it was too early and he was too mu edge. To calm himself he walked over to Eghano who was lazily drumming, as he always seemed to be, on a tabletop.
Eghano glanced up at him and smiled. "Its just a performance," he said in his soft sibilant voice. "We do what we always do. We make music. We move on.”
Devin nodded, and forced a smile iurn. His throat was dry though. He went to the side-tables, and one of the two h servants hasteo pour him water in a gold and crystal goblet worth more thahing Devin owned in the world. A moment later Menico signaled and they went out into the courtyard.
The dancers began it, backed by hidden strings and pipes. No voices. Not yet.
If Aldine and Nieri had burned love dles late last night it didnt show—or if it did, only in the tration and iy of their twinned movements that m.
Sometimes seeming to pull the music forward, sometimes following it, they looked—with their thin, whitened faces, their blue-grey tunid the jet-black gloves that hid their palms—truly otherworldly.
Which was as Menico had trained his dao be. Not inviting or alluring as some other troupes approached this dance of the rites, nor a merely graceful prelude to the real performance, as certain other panies ceived it. Menicos dancers were guides, cold and pelling, towards the place of the dead and of m for the dead. Gradually, inexorably, the slow grave movements, the expressionless, almost inhuman faces imposed the silehat roper on that restive, preening audience.
And in that silehe three singers and four musis came forward and began the "Invocation" to Eanna of the Lights who had made the world, the sun, the two moons and the scattered stars that were the diamonds of her diadem.
Rapt and atteo what they were doing, using all the trivances of professional skill to shape an apparent artlessness, the pany of Menico di Ferraut carried the lords and ladies and the mert princes of Astibar with them on a ruthlessly disciplined cresting of sorrow. In m Sandre, Duke of Astibar, they mourned—as roper—the dying of all the Triads mortal children, brought through Morians portals to move on Adaoh under Eannas lights for so short a time. So sweet and bitter and short a season of days.
Devin heard Catrianas voice reag upwards towards the high place where Alessans pipes seemed to be calling her, cold and precise and austere. He felt, even more than he heard, Menid Eghano grounding them all with their deep line. He saw the two dancers— now statues in a frieze, now whirling as captives irap of time— and at the moment that roper he let his own voice soar with the two syreo the space that had bee for them to fill, in the middle range where mortals lived and died.
So Menico di Ferraut had shaped his approach to the seldom-performed Full M Rites long aging forty years of art and a full, much-traveled life to the moment that this m had bee.
Even as he began to sing, Devi swelled with pride and a genuine love for the rotund, unassuming leader who had guided them here and into what they were shaping.
They stopped, as planned, after the sixth stage, for their own sake and their listeners. Tomasso had spoken with Menico beforehand, and the nobles progression past Sandres bier would nolace upstairs. After, the pany would finish with the last three rites, ending on Devins "Lament," and then the body would be brought down and the crowd outside admitted with their leaves for the crystal vase.
Menico led them out from the courtyard amid a silence so deep it was their highest possible accolade.
They reehe room that had been reserved for their use. Caught up in the mood they themselves had created, no one spoke. Devin moved to help the two dancers into the robes they wore between performances and then watched as they paced the perimeter of the room, slender and cat-like in their grace. He accepted a glass of green wine from one of the servants but deed the offered plate of food.
He exged a gla not a smile —not now—with Alessan. Drenio and Pieve, the syrenya-players, were bent over their instruments, adjusting the strings. Eghanmatic as ever, was eating while idly drumming the table with his free hand. Menico walked by, restless and distracted. He gave Devin a wordless squeeze on the arm.
Devin looked for Catriana and saw her just then leaving the room through an inner archway. She glanced back. Their glances met for a sed, then she went on. Light, strangely filtered, fell from a high unseen window upon the space where she had been.
Devin really didnt know why he did it. Even afterwards when so much had e to pass, flowing outwards in all dires like ripples in water from this moment, he was never able to say exactly why he followed her.
Simple curiosity. Desire. A plex longing born of the look in her eyes before and the strange, floating place of stillness and sorrow where they now seemed to be. None or some or all of these. He felt as if the world wasnt quite as it had been before the dancers had begun.
He drained his wine and rose and he went through the same archway Catriana had. Passing through,
he too looked back. Alessan was watg him. There was no judgment iregeans glance, only an i expression Devin could not uand. For the first time that day he was reminded of his dream.
And because of that, perhaps, he murmured a prayer to Morian as he went on through the archway.
There was a staircase with a high, narrow, stained-glass window on the first-floor landing. In the many-colored fall of light he caught a glimpse of a blue-silver gown swirling to the left at the top of the stairs. He shook his head, struggling to clear it, to slip free of this eerie, dreamlike mood. And as he did, an uanding slid into plad he muttered a curse at himself.
She was from Astibar. She was going upstairs as was entirely fit and proper to pay her own farewell to the Duke. No lord or newly wealthy mert was about to deny her right to do so. Not after her singing this m. Oher hand, for a farmers son from Asoli by way of Lower Corte to ehat upstairs room would be sheerest, ill-bred presumption.
He hesitated, and he would have turned back then, had it not been for the memory that was his blessing and his curse and always had been. He had seen the hanging banners from the courtyard. The room where Sandre dAstibar lay was to the right, not the left, at the top of these stairs.
Devi up. He took care now, though still not knowing why, to be quiet. At the landing he bore left as Catriana had dohere was a doorway. He ope. Ay room, long unused, dusty hangings on the walls. Ses of a hunt, the colors badly faded. There were two exits, but the dust came to his aid now: he could see the print of her sandals going towards the door on the right.
Silently Devin followed that trail through the warren of abandoned rooms on the first floor of the palace. He saw sculptures and objects of glass, exquisite in their delicacy, marred by years of overlaid dust. Much of the furniture was gone, much that remained was covered over. The light was dim; most of the windows were shuttered. A great many darkened, begrimed portraits of stern lords and ladies gazed inimically down upon him as he passed.
He bht and again right, trag the path of Catrianas feet, careful to keep from getting too close. She went straight on after that through the rooms along the outer side of the palaohat offered onto the crowded balustrades overlooking the courtyard. It was brighter in these rooms. He could hear murmuring voices off to his right and he realized that Catriana was walking around to the far side of the room where Sandre lay in state.
At length he opened a door which proved to be the last. She was alone inside a very large chamber, standing by the side of a huge fireplace. There were three bronze horses on the mantelpied three portraits on the walls. The ceiling was gilded in what Devin knew would be gold. Along the outer wall where a line of windows overlooked the street there were two long tables laden with food and drink. This room, uhe others, had beely ed, but the curtains were still drawn against the m brightness and the crowd outside.
Ihin, filtered light Devin closed the door behind him, deliberately letting the latch click shut.
The sound was a loud report iillness.
Catriana wheeled, a hand to her mouth, but even in the half-light Devin could see that what blazed in her eyes was fury and not fear.
"What do you think you are doing?" she whispered harshly.
He took a hesitant step forward. He reached for a witticism, a mild, defleg remark to shatter the heavy spell that seemed to lie upon him, upon the whole of the m. He couldnt find one.
He shook his head. "I dont know," he said holy. "I saw you leave and I followed. It ... isnt what you think," he finished lamely.
"How would you know what I think?" she snapped. She seemed to calm herself by an act of will. "I wao be alone for a few moments," Catriana said, trolling her voice. "The performance affected me and I o be by myself. I see that you were disturbed too, but I ask you as a courtesy to leave me to my privacy for just a little while?”
It was courteously said. He could have gohen. On any other m he would have gone. But Devin had already passed, half-knowingly, a portal of Morians.
He gestured at the food oables and said, gravely, a quiet observation of fad not a challenge or accusation, "This is not a room for privacy, Catriana. Wont you tell me why you are here?”
He braced for her rage to flare again, but once more she surprised him. Silent for a long moment, she said at length, "You have not shared enough with me to be owed an ao that. Truly it will be better if you go. For both of us.”
He could still hear muffled voices oher side of the wall to the right of the fireplad the bronze horses. This strange room with its laden, sumptuously covered tables and the grim portraits on the dark walls seemed to be a chamber in some waking trance. He remembered Catriana singing that m, her voice yearning upwards to where the pipes ea called. He remembered her eyes as she paused in the doorway theyd both passed through. Truly he felt as if he were irely awake, not in the world he knew.
And in that mood Devin heard himself say, over a sudden stri in his throat, "Could we not begin then? Is there not a sharing we could start?”
Once more she hesitated. Her eyes were wide but impossible to read in the uain light. She shook her head though and remained where she was, standing straight and very still on the far side of the room.
"I think not," she said quietly. "Not on the road Im on, Devin dAsoli. But I thank you for asking, and I will not deny that a part of me might wish things otherwise. I have little time now though, and a thing I must do here. Please—will you leave me?”
He had scarcely expected to find or feel so much regret, over and above all the nuahe m had already carried. He nodded his head—there was nothing else he could think of to do or say, and this time he did turn to go.
But a portal had indeed been crossed in the Sandreni Palace that m and ily the moment that Devin turhey both heard voices again—but this time from behind him.
"Oh, Triad!" Catriana hissed, snapping the mood like a fishbone. "I am cursed in all I turn my hands to!" She spun back to the fireplace, her hands frantically feeling around the underside of the mantelpiece.
"For the love of the goddesses be silent!" she whispered harshly.
The urgen her voice made Devin freeze and obey.
"He said he knew who built this palace," he heard her mutter under her breath. "That it should be right over—”
She stopped. Devin heard a latch click. A se of the wall to the right of the fire swung slightly open to reveal a tiny cubbyhole beyond. His eyes widened.
"Dont stand there gawking, fool!" Catriana whispered fiercely. &quo９９ｌib?t;Quickly!" A new voice had joihe others behind him; there were three now. Devin leaped for the cealed door, slipped inside beside Catriana, and together they pulled it shut.
A moment later they heard the door on the far side of the room click open.
"Oh, Morian," Catriana groaned, from the heart. "Oh, Devin, why are you here?”
Addressed thusly, Devin found himself quite incapable of framing ae response. For ohing, he still couldnt say why hed followed her; for ahe closet where they were hiding was only marginally large enough for the two of them, and he became increasingly aware of the fact that Catrianas perfume was filling the tiny space with a heady, uling st.
If he had been half in a dream a moment ago he abruptly found himself wide awake and in dangerous proximity to a woman he had seriously desired for the past two weeks.
Catriana seemed to arrive, belatedly, at the same sort of awareness; he heard her make a small sound in a register somewhat different from before. Devin closed his eyes, even though it itch-bla the
hidden closet. He could feel her breath tig his forehead, and he was scious of the fact that by moving his hands only a very little he could encircle her waist.
He held himself carefully motionless, tilting back from her as best he could, his owhing deliberately shallow. He felt more than suffitly a fool for having created this ridiculous situation—he wasnt about to pound his rapidly growing catalogue of sins by making a grope for her in the darkness.
Catrianas robe rustled gently as she shifted positiohigh brushed his. Devin drew a ragged breath, which caused him to inhale more of her st than was entirely good for him, given his virtuous resolutions.
"Sorry," he whispered, though she was the one whod moved. He felt beads of perspiration on his brow. To distract himself he tried to focus on the sounds from outside. Behind him the shuffling of feet and a steady, diffused murmur made it clear that people were still filing past Sandres bier.
To his left, in the room theyd just fled, three voices could be distinguished. One was, curiously, almnizable.
"I had the servants posted with the body across the way—it gives us a moment before the others e.”
"Did you notice the s on his eyes?" a much younger voice asked, crossing to the outer wall where the laden tables were. "Very amusing.”
"Of course I noticed," the first man replied acerbically. Where had Devin heard that tone? Aly. "Who do you think spent an evening sging up two astins from twenty years ago? Who do you think arranged for all of this?”
The third voice was heard, laughing softly. "And a fiable of food it is," he said lightly.
"That is not what I meant!”
Laughter. "I know it isnt, but its a fiable all the same.”
"Taeri, this is not a time for jests, particularly bad ones. We only have a moment before the family arrives. Listen to me carefully. Only the three of us know what is happening.”
"It is only us, then?" the young voice queried. "No one else? Not even my father?”
"Not Gianno, and you know why. I said only us. Hold questions and listen, pup!”
Just then Devin dAsoli felt his pulse accelerate in a quite unmistakable artly because of what he was hearing, but rather more specifically because Catriana had just shifted her weight again, with a quiet sigh, and Devin became incredulously aware that her body was now pressed directly against his own and that one of her long arms had somehow slipped around his neck.
"Do you know," she whispered, almost soundlessly, mouth close to his ear, "I rather like the thought of this all of a sudden. Could you be very quiet?" The very tip of her tongue, for just an instant, touched the lobe of his ear.
Devins mouth went bone dry even as his sex leaped to full, painful ere within his blue-silver hose. Outside he could hear that voice he almost knew beginning a terse explanation of something involving pall-bearers and a hunting lodge, but the void its explanations had abruptly been rendered definitively trivial.
What was not trivial, what was in fact of the vastest importance imaginable was the undeniable fact that Catrianas lips were busy at his ned ear, and that even as his hands moved—as of their own imperative accord—to touch her eyelids and throat and then drift downward to the dreamt-of swell of her breasts, her own fingers were nimble among the drawstrings at his waist, setting him free.
Oh, Triad!" he heard himself moan as her cool fingers stroked him, "Why didnt you tell me before that you liked it dangerous?" He twisted his head sharply and their lips met fiercely for the first time. He began gathering the folds of her gown up about her hips.
She settled ba a ledge against the wall behio make it easier for him, her owh noid and shallow as well.
"There will be six of us," Devin heard from the room outside. "By seoonrise I want you to be...”
Catrianas hands suddenly tightened in his hair, almost painfully, and at that moment the last folds of her robe rode free of her hips and Devins fingers slipped in among her undergarments and found the portal hed been longing for.
She made a small ued sound a rigid for just a sed, before beiremely soft in his arms. His fingers gently stroked the deepest folds of her flesh. She drew an awkward, reag breath, then shifted again, very slightly and guided Devin into her. She gasped, her teeth sinking hard into his shoulder. For a moment, lost in astonished pleasure and sharp pain, Devin was motionless, holding her close to him, murmuring almost soundlessly, not knowing what he was saying.
"Enough! The others are here," the third voice outside rasped crisply.
"Even so," said the first. "Remember then, you two e your own ways from town—not together!—to join us tonight. Whatever you do be sure you are not followed or we are dead.”
There was a brief silehen the door on the farthest side of the room opened and Devin, beginning now to thrust slowly, silently into Catriana, finally reized the voice hed been hearing.
For the same speaker tialking, but now he assumed the delicate, remembered, intonations of the day before.
"At last!" fluted Tomasso dAstibar bar Sandre. "We feared dreadfully that youd all trived to lose yourselves in these dusty recesses, o be found again!”
"No such luck, brother," a voice growled in reply. "Though after eighteen years it wouldnt have been surprising. I wo glasses of wine very badly. Sitting still for that kind of music all m is cursed thirsty work.”
In the closet Devin and Catriana g to each other, sharing a breathless laughter. Then a newer urgency came over Devin, and it seemed to him it was in her as well, and there was suddenly nothing in the peninsula that mattered half so much as the gradually accelerating rhythm of the movements they made together.
Devi her fingernails splay outwards on his back. Feeling his climax gathering he cupped his hands beh her; she lifted her legs and ed them around him. A moment later her teeth sank into his shoulder a sed time and in that moment he felt himself explode, silently, into her.
For an unmeasured, eed space of time they remained like that, their clothing damp where it had been crushed against skin. To Devin the voices from the two rooms outside seemed to e from infinitely far away. From other worlds entirely. He really didnt want to move at all.
At length however, Catriana carefully lowered her legs to the ground to bear her ow. He traced her cheekbones with a finger in the blaess.
Behind him the lords and merts of Astibar were still shuffling past the body of the Duke so many had hated and some few had loved. To Devihe younger geion of the Sandreni ate and drank, toasting ao exile. Devin, ed close with Catriana, still sheathed within her warmth, could not have hoped to find words to say what he was feeling.
Suddenly she seized one of his trag fingers and bit it, hard. He winced, because it hurt. She didnt say anything though.
After the Sandre, Catriana found the latd they slipped out into the room again. Quickly they reaheir clothes. Pausing only long enough to seize a chi-wing apiece, they hastily retraced their path back through the rooms leading to the stairway. They met three liveried servants ing the other way and Devin, feeling exceptionally alert and alive now, claimed Catrianas fingers and
wi the servants as they passed.
She withdrew her hand a moment later.
He glanced over. "Whats wrong?”
She shrugged. "Id as soon it wasnt proclaimed throughout the Sandreni Palad beyond," she murmured, looking straight ahead.
Devin lifted his eyebrows. "What would you rather they thought about us being upstairs? I just gave them the obvious, b explanation. They wont even bother to talk about it. This sort of thing happens all the time.”
"Not to me," said Catriana quietly.
"I didnt mean it that way!" Devin protested, taken aback. But unfortuhey were going dowairs by then, and so it was with a quite ued sense of estrahat he paused to let her re- ehe room before him.
More than a little fused, he took his place behind Menico as they prepared to go back out into the courtyard.
He had only a minor supp role in the first two hymns and so he found his thoughts wandering back over the se just played out upstairs. Back, and then back again, with the memory that seemed to be his birthright fog like a beam of sunlight upoail then another, illuminating and revealing what he had missed the first time around.
And so it was that by the time it was his own turn to step forward to end and the m rites, seeing the three clergy leaning forward expetly, noting how Tomasso struck a pose of rapt atten- tiveness, Devin was able to give the "Lament for Adaon" an undivided soul, for he was fused no longer, but quite decided in what he was going to do.
He began softly in the middle rah the two syrenyae, building and shaping the a story of the god. Then, when the pipes of Alessan came in, Devi his voice leap upward in respoo them, as though in flight from mountai to chasm brink.
He sang the dying of the god with a voice made pure in the caldron of his ow ached the o rise above that courtyard and beyond it, out among the streets and squares of high-walled Astibar.
High walls he inteo pass beyond that night—beyond, and then following a trail he would find, into a wood where lay a hunting lodge. A lodge where pall-bearers were to carry the body of the Duke, and where a number of men—six, the clear voice of his memory reminded him—were to gather in a meeting that Catriana dAstibar had just dohe very best she could short of murder to prevent him learning about. He strove to turn the acrid taste of that knowledge into grief for Adaon, to let it guide and ihe pain of the "Lament.”
Better for both of us, he remembered her saying, and he could recapture in his mind the regret and the ued softness in her voice. But a certain kind of pride at Devins age is perhaps strohan at any e of mortal man, and he had already decided, before even he began to sing, here in this crowded courtyard among the great of Astibar, that he was going to be the judge of what was better, not she.
So Devin sang the rending of the god at the hands of the women, and he gave that dying oregean mountain slope all he had to give it, making his voi arrow arg outwards to seek the heart of everyone who heard.
He let Adaon fall from the high cliff, he heard the sound of the pipes recede and fall a his grieving voice spiral downward with the god into Casadel as the song came to its end.
And so too, that m, did a part of Devins life. For when a portal of Morians has been crossed there is, as everyone knows, never a turning back.
Chapter 4
ESC HIS FATHERS BIER OUT THE EASTERN GATE IN THE hour before suomasso bar Satled his horse to an easy walk and allowed his mind to drift for the first time in forty-eight intensely stressful hours.
The road was quiet. Normally it would have been clogged at this hour with people returning to the distrada before curfew locked the city gates. Normally sundown cleared the streets of Astibar of all save the patrolling Barbadian meraries and those reckless enough to defy them in search of women or wine or other diversions of the dark.
This was not a normal time, however. Tonight and for the wo nights there would be no curfew in Astibar. With the grapes gathered and the distradas harvest a triumphant ohe Festival of Vines would see singing and dang and things wilder than those ireets for all three nights. For these three nights in the year Astibar tried to pretend it was sensuous, det Senzio. No Duke in the old days—and not even dour Alberiow—had been foolish enough to rouse the people unnecessarily by denying them this a release from the sober round of the year.
Tomasso glanced back at his city. The setting sun was red among thin clouds behind the temple- domes and the towers, bathing Astibar in an eerily beautiful glow. A breeze had e up and there was a bite to it. Tomasso thought about putting on his gloves and decided against it: he would have had to remove some of his rings and he quite liked the look of his gems in this elusive, transitory light. Autumn was very definitely upon them, with the Ember Days approag fast. It would not be long, a matter of days, before the first frost touched those last few precious grapes that had bee on chosen vio bee—if all fell rightly—the icy clear blue wihat was the pride of Astibar.
Behind him the eight servants plodded stolidly along the road, bearing the bier and the simple coffin—bare wood save for the Ducal crest above—of Tomassos father. Oher side of them the two vigil-keepers rode in grim silence. Which was not surprising, giveure of their errand and the plex, many-geioned hatreds that twisted between those two men.
Those three men, Tomasso corrected himself. It was three, if one chose to t the dead man who had so carefully planned all of this, down to the detail of who should ride on which side of his bier, who before and who behind. Not to mentioher more surprisiail of exactly which two lords of the province of Astibar should be asked to be his escorts to the hunting lodge for the night-long vigil and from there to the Sandreni Crypt at dawn. Or, to>. put the matter rather more to the point, the real point: which two lords could and should be entrusted with what they were to learn during the vigil in the forest that night.
At that thought Tomasso felt a nudge of apprehension within his rib cage. He quelled it, as he had taught himself to do over the years— unbelievable how many years—of discussing such matters with his father.
But now Sandre was dead and he was ag alone, and the night they had labored towards was almost upon them with this crimson waning of light. Tomasso, two years past his fortieth naming day khat were he not careful he could easily feel like a child again.
The twelve-year-old child he had been, for example, when Sandre, Duke of Astibar, had found him naked iraw of the stables with the sixteen-year-old son of the chief groom.
His lover had beeed of course, though discreetly, to keep the matter quiet. Tomasso had been whipped by his father for three days running, the lash meticulously redisc the closing wounds each m. His mother had been forbidden to e to him. No one had e to him.
One of his fathers very few mistakes, Tomasso reflected, thinking back thirty years in autumn twilight. From those three days he knew he could date his own particular taste for the whip in love- making. It was one of what he liked to call his felicities.
Though Sandre had never punished him that way again. Nor in any other direct manner. When it became clear—past the point of nursing any hope of discretion that Tomassos preferences were, to put it mildly, not going to be ged or subdued, the Duke simply ceased to aowledge the existence of his middle son.
For more than ten years they went on that way, Saiently trying to train Gianno to succeed him, and spending scarcely less time with young Taeri—making it clear to everyohat his you son was in lio his eldest. For over a decade Tomasso simply did within the walls of the Sandreni Palace.
Though he most certainly did elsewhere in Astibar and in a number of the other provinces as well.
For reasons that were agly clear to him now, Tomasso had set out through the course of those years to eclipse the memories of all the dissolute nobility that Astibar still told shocked tales about, even though some of them had been dead four hundred years.
He supposed that he had, to a certain degree, succeeded.
Certainly the "raid" oemple of Morian that Ember Night in spring so long ago was likely to linger a while yet as the nadir or the paradigm (all came down—or up—to perspective, as hed been fond of saying then) of sacrilegious debauchery.
The raid hadnt had any impa his relationship with the Duke. There was ionship to impact upon ever sihat m iraw when Sandre had returned from his ride a destined hour too soon. He and his father simply trived not to speak to or even aowledge each other, whether at family dinners or formal state funs. If Tomasso learned somethihought Sandre should know— which was often enough, given the circles in which he moved and the iger of their times—he told his mother at one of their weekly breakfasts together and she made sure his father heard. Tomasso also knew she made equally sure Sandre was aware of the source of the tidings. Not that it mattered, really.
She had died, drinking poisoned wi for her husband, in the final year of the Dukes reign, still w, to the last m of her life, towards a reciliatioween Sandre and their middle child.
Greater romantics than were either the father or the son might have allowed themselves to think that, as the Sandreni family pulled tightly together in the bloody, retaliatory aftermath of that poisoning, she had achieved her wistful hope by dying.
Both me was not so.
In fact, it was only the ing of Alberico from the Empire of Barbadior, with his will-sapping sorcery and the brutal efficy of his quering meraries, that brought Tomasso and Sao a certain very late-night talk during the Dukes sed year of exile. It was Albericos invasion and one further thing: the moal, irredeemable, inescapable stupidity of Gianno dAstibar bar Saitular heir to the shattered fortunes of their family.
And to these two things there had slowly been added a third bitter truth for the proud, exiled Duke. It had gradually beore and more obvious, past all denial, that whatever of his own character and gifts had been maed in the geion, whatever of his subtlety and perception, his ability to cloak his thoughts and dis the minds of others, whatever of such skills he had passed on to his sons, had gone, all of it, to the middle child. To Tomasso.
Who liked boys, and would leave no heir himself, nor ever a o be spoke aloh pride, in Astibar or anywhere else in the Palm.
In the deepest inlace where he performed the plex act of dealing with his feelings for his father, Tomasso had always aowledged—even back then, and very certainly now on this last evening road Sandre would travel—that one of the truest measures of the Dukes stature as a ruler of men had emerged on that winter night so long ago. The night he broke a decades stony silend spoke to his
middle son and made him his fidant.
His sole fidant in the painfully cautious eighteen-year quest to drive Alberid his sorcery and his meraries from Astibar and the Eastern Palm. A quest that had bee an obsession for both of them, even as Tomassos publiner became more and more etrid decayed, his void gait a parody—a self-parody, in fact— of the ming, lisping lover of boys.
It lanned, all of it, in late-night talks with his father on their estate outside the city walls.
Sandres parallel role had been to settle visibly and loudly into impotent, brooding, Triad-cursing exile, marked by querulous, blustering hunts and too much drinking of his own wine.
Tomasso had never seen his father actually drunk, and he never used his own fluting voice when they were alo night.
Eight years ago they had tried an assassination. A chef, traceable only to the ziano family, had been placed in a try inn in Ferraut he provincial border with Astibar. For over half a year idle gossip in Astibar had touted that inn as a place of growing distin. No one remembered, afterwards, where the talk had begun: Tomasso knew very well how useful it was to plant casual rumors of this sort among his friends iemples. The priests of Morian, in particular, were legendary for their appetites.
All their appetites.
A full year from the time they had set things in motion, Alberico of Barbadior had halted on his way back from the Triad Games— exactly as Sandre had said he would—to take his midday meal at a well- reputed inn in Ferraut he Astibar border.
By the time the su down at the end of that bright late-summer day every person in that inn— servants, masters, stable-boys, chefs, children and patrons—had had their backs, legs, arms and wrists broken and their hands cut off, before being bound, living, upon hastily erected Barbadian sky-wheels to die.
The inn was razed to the ground. Taxes in the province of Ferraut were doubled for the wo years, and for a year in Astibar, Tregea aando. During the course of the following six months every living member of the ziano family was found, seized, publicly tortured and burned in the Grand Square of Astibar with their severed hands stuffed in their mouths so that the screaming might not trouble Alberico or his advisers in their offices of state above the square.
In this fashion had Sandre and Tomasso discovered that sorcerers ot, in fact, be poisoned.
For the six years they had dohing but talk at night in the manor-house among the vineyards and gather what knowledge they could of Alberiself as to the east in Barbadior, where the Emperor was said to be growing older and more infirm with each passing year.
Tomasso began issioning and colleg walking sticks with heads carved in the shape of the male ans of sex. It was rumored that hed had some of his young friends model for the carvers. Sandre hunted. Gianno, the heir, solidated a burgeoniation as a genial, unplicated seducer of women and breeder of childreimate and illegitimate. The younger Sandreni were allowed to maintain modest homes iy as part of Albericos overall policy to be as discreet a ruler as possible—except when danger or civil uhreatened him.
At which time children might die on sky-wheels. The Sandreni Pala Astibar remained very promily shuttered, empty and dusty. A useful, potent symbol of the fall of those who might resist the Tyrant. The superstitious claimed to see ghostly lights flickering there at night, especially on a blue-moon night, or on the spring or autumn Ember Nights when the dead were known to walk abroad.
Then one evening in the try Sandre had told Tomasso, without warning or preamble, that he proposed to die on the eve of the Festival of Viwo autumns hence. He proceeded to he two lords who were to be his vigil-keepers, and why. That same night he and Tomasso decided that it was time to tell Taeri, the you son, what was afoot. He was brave, not stupid, and might be necessary for certain things. They also agreed that Gianno had somehow sired one likely son, albeit illegitimate, and
that Herado—twenty-one by then and showing encing signs of spirit and ambition—was their best hope of having the younger geion share in the u Sandre hoped to create just after the time of his dying.
It wasnt, in fact, a question of who in the family could be trusted: family was, after all, family. The issue ould be useful and it was a mark of how dimihe Sandreni had bee that only two names came readily to mind.
It had been airely dispassionate versation, Tomasso remembered, leading his fathers bier southeast between the darkening trees that flahe path. Their versations had always been like that; this one had been no different. Afterwards though, he had been uo fall asleep, the date of the Festival two years away branded into his brain. The date when his father, so precise in his planning, so judicious, had decided he would die so as to give Tomasso a ce tain, a different way.
The date that had e now and gone, carrying with it the soul of Sandre dAstibar to wherever the souls of such me. Tomasso made a wardiure to avert evil at that thought. Behind him he heard the steward order the servants to light torches. It grew colder as the darkness fell. Overhead a thin band of high clouds was tinted a somber shade of purple by the last upward-angled rays of light. The sun itself was gone, down behind the trees. Tomasso thought of souls, his fathers and his own. He shivered.
The white moon, Vidomni, rose, and then, not long after, came blue Ilarion to chase her hopelessly across the sky. Both moons were nearly full. The procession could have dohout torches in fact, sht was the twinned moonlight, but torchlight suited the task and his mood, and so Tomasso let them burn as the pany cut off the road onto the familiar winding path through the Sandreni Woods, to e at length to the simple hunting lodge his father had loved.
The servants laid the bier orestles waiting in the ter of the large front room. dles were lit and the two fires built up at opposite ends of the room. Food, they had set up earlier that day. It was quickly uncovered on the long sideboard along with the wihe windows were opeo air the and admit the breeze.
At a nod from Tomasso the steward led the servants away. They would go on to the manor further east aurn at daybreak. At vigils end.
And so they were left alone, finally. Tomasso and the lords Nievole and Scalvaia, so carefully chosen two years before.
"Wine, my lords?" Tomasso asked. "We will have three others joining us very shortly.”
He said it, deliberately, in his natural voice, dropping the artificial, fluting tohat was his trademark in Astibar. He leased to see both of them he fact immediately, their glances sharpening as they turo him.
"Who else?" growled bearded Nievole who had hated Sandre all his life. He made no ent on Tomassos voior hid Scalvaia. Such questions gave too much away, and these were men long skilled in giving away very little indeed.
"My brother Taeri and nephew Herado—one of Giannos by-blows, and much the cleverest." He spoke casually, unc two bottles of Sandreni red reserve as he spoke. He poured and hahem each a glass, waiting to see who would break the small silence his father had said would follow. Scalvaia would ask, Sandre had said.
"Who is the third?" Lord Scalvaia asked softly.
Inwardly Tomasso saluted his dead father. Then, twirling his own glass gently by the stem to release the wines bouquet, he said, "I dont know. My father did not name him. He he two of you to e here, and the three of us and said there would be a sixth at our cil tonight.”
That word too had been carefully chosen.
"cil?" elegant Scalvaia echoed. "It appears that I have been misinformed. I was naively of the
impression that this was a vigil." Nievoles dark eyes glowered above his beard. Both men stared at Tomasso.
"A little more than that," said Taeri as he ehe room, Herado behind him.
Tomasso leased to see them both dressed with appropriate sobriety, and to hat, for all the suavely flippant timing of Taeris entrance, his expression rofoundly serious.
"You will know my brother," Tomasso murmured, moving to pour twlasses for the new arrivals. "You may not have met Herado, Giannos son.”
The boy bowed a silent, as roper. Tomasso carried the drinks over to h?is brother and nephew.
The stillness lasted a moment lohen Scalvaia sank down into a chair, stretg his bad leg out in front of him. He lifted his e and poi at Tomasso. The tip did not waver.
"I asked you a question," he said coldly, in the famous, beautiful voice. "Why do you call this a cil, Tomasso bar Sandre? Why have we been brought here under false pretenses?”
Tomasso stopped playing with his wihey had e to the moment at last. He looked from Scalvaia over to burly Nievole.
"The two of you," he said soberly, "were sidered by my father to be the last lords of any real power left in Astibar. Two winters past he decided—and informed me—that he inteo die on the eve of this Festival. At a time when Alberico would not be able to refuse him full rites of burial—which rites include a vigil such as this. At a time when you would both be in Astibar, which would allow me to name you his vigil-keepers.”
He paused in the measured, deliberate recitation a his glance linger on each of them. "My father did this so that we might e together without suspi, or interruption, or risk of beied, to set in motioain plans for the overthrow of Alberico who rules in Astibar.”
He was watg closely, but Sandre had chosen well. her of the two men to whom he spoke betrayed surprise or dismay by so much as a flicker of a muscle.
Slowly Scalvaia lowered his e and laid it down oable by his chair. The stick was of onyx and machial, Tomasso found himself notig. Strange how the mind worked at moments such as this.
"Do you know," said bluff Nievole from by the larger fire, "do you know that this thought had actually crossed my mind when I tried to hazard why your Triad-cursed father—ah, five me, old habits die hard—" His smile was wolfish, rather than apologetid it did not reach his narrowed eyes. "—Why Duke Sandre would name me to hold vigil for him. He must have known how many times I tried to hasten these m rites along in the days when he ruled.”
Tomasso smiled iurn, just as thinly. "He was certain you would wonder," he said politely to the man he was almost sure had paid for the cup of wihat had killed his mother. "He was also quite certain you would agree to e, being one of the last of a dying breed in Astibar. Indeed, in the whole of the Palm.”
Bearded Nievole raised his glass. "You flatter well, bar Sandre. And I must say I do prefer your voice as it is now, without all the dips and flutters and wristy things that normally go with it.”
Scalvaia looked amused. Taeri laughed aloud. Herado was carefully watchful. Tomasso liked him very much: though not, as hed had to assure his father in one diverting versation, in his own particular fashion.
"I prefer this voice as well," he said to the two lords. "You will both have been dedug in the last few minutes, being who and what you are, why I have ducted certain aspey life iain well-known ways. There are advao being seen as aimlessly degee.”
"There are," Scalvaia agreed blandly, "if you have a purpose that is served by such a misception.
You named a name a moment ago, and intimated we might all be rendered happier in our hearts were the
bearer of that name dead one. We will leave aside for the moment ossibilities might follow such a dramatic eventuality.”
His gaze was quite unreadable; Tomasso had been war would be. He said nothing. Taeri shifted uneasily but blessedly kept quiet, as instructed. He walked over and took one of the other chairs on the far side of the bier.
Scalvaia went on, "We ot be unaware that by saying what you have said you have put yourselves pletely in our hands, or so it might initially appear. At the same time, I do surmise that were we, in fact, to rise and begin to ride back towards Astibar carrying word of treachery we would join your father among the dead before we left these woods.”
It was casually stated—a minor fact to be firmed before moving on to more important issues.
Tomasso shook his head. "Hardly," he lied. "You do us honor by your presend are entirely free to leave. Indeed, we will escort you if you wish, for the path is deceptive in darkness. My father did suggest that I might wish to point out that although you could readily have us wristed ah-wheeled after torture, it is exceedingly likely, approag a certainty, that Alberico would then see pelling cause to do the same to both of you, for having been sidered likely aplices of ours. You will remember what happeo the ziano after that unfortunate i in Ferraut some years ago?”
There was a smoothly graceful silence aowledging all of this.
It was broken by Nievole. "That was Sandres doing, wasnt it?" he growled from by his fire. "Not the ziano at all!”
"It was our doing," Tomasso agreed calmly. "We learned a great deal, I must say.”
"So," Scalvaia murmured drily, "did the ziano. Your father always hated Fabro bar zian.”
"They could not have been said to be on the best of terms," Tomasso said blandly. "Though I must say that if you focus on that aspect of things I fear you might miss the point.”
"The point you prefer us to take," Nievole amended pointedly.
Uedly, Scalvaia came to Tomassos aid. "Not fair, my lord," he said to Nievole. "If we accept anything as true in this room and these times it is that Sandres hatred and his desire had moved beyond old wars and rivalries. His target was Alberico.”
His icy blue eyes held Neivoles for a long moment, and finally the bigger man nodded. Scalvaia shifted in his chair wing at a pain in his afflicted leg.
"Very well," he said to Tomasso. "You have now told us why we are here and have made clear your fathers purpose and your own. For my own part I will make a fession. I will fess, in the spirit of truth that a death vigil should inspire, that being ruled by a coarse, vicious, overbearing minor lord from Barbadis little joy to my aged heart. I am with you. If you have a plan I would like to hear it. On my oath and honor I will keep faith with the Sandreni in this.”
Tomasso shivered at the invocation of the a words. "Your oath and honor are sureties beyond measure," he said, a it.
"They are indeed, bar Sandre," said Nievole, taking a heavy step forward from the fire. "And I will dare to say that the word of the Nievolene has never been valued at lesser . The dearest wish of my heart is for the Barbadian to lie dead and cut to pieces—Triad willing, by my own blade. I too am with you—by my oath and honor.”
"Such terribly splendid words!" said an amused voice from the window opposite the door.
Five faces, four white with shod the bearded one flushing red, whipped around. The speaker stood outside the open window, elbows resting on the ledge, in his hands. He eyed them with a mild scrutiny, his face shadowed by the wood of the window frame.
"I have never yet," he said, "known gallant phrases from however august a lio succeed in ousting a tyrant. In the Palm or anywhere else." With an eical motion he hoisted himself upwards,
swung his feet into the room and sat fortably perched on the ledge. "Oher hand," he added, "agreeing on a cause does make a starting point, I will cede that much.”
"You are the sixth of whom my father spoke?" Tomasso asked warily.
The man did look familiar now that he was in the light. He was dressed for the forest not the city, in two shades of grey with a black sheepski over his shirt, and breeches tucked into worn black riding boots. There was a k his belt, without or.
"I heard you mention that," the fellow said. "I actually hope Im not, because if I am the implications are uling, to say the least. The fact is, I never spoke to your father in my life. If he knew of my activities and somehow expected me to find out about this meeting and be here . . . well, I would be somewhat flattered by his fide rather more disturbed that he would have known so much about me. Oher hand," he said for a sed time, "it is Sandre dAstibar were talking about, and I do seem to make six here, dont I?" He bowed, without any visible irony, towards the bier on its trestles.
"You are, then, also in league against Alberico?" Nievoles eyes were watchful.
"I am not," said the man in the window quite bluntly. "Alberieans nothing to me. Except as a tool. A wedge to open a door of my own.”
"And what is it lies behind that door?" Scalvaia asked from deep in his armchair.
But in that moment Tomasso remembered.
"I know you!" he said abruptly. "I saw you this m. You are the Tregean shepherd who played the pipes in the m rites!" Taeri snapped his fingers as the reition came home to him as well.
"I played the pipes, yes," the man on the window-ledge said, quite unruffled. "But I am not a shepherd nor frea. It has suited my purposes to play a role, many different roles, in fact, freat many years. Tomasso bar Sandre ought to appreciate that." He grinned.
Tomasso did not return the smile. "Perhaps then, uhe circumstances, you might favor us by saying who you really are." He said it as politely as the situation seemed to warrant. "My father might have known but we do not.”
"Nor, Im afraid, shall you learn just yet," the other said. He paused. "Though I will say that were I to swear a vow of my own on the honor of my family it would carry a weight that would eclipse both such oaths sworonight.”
It was matter-of-factly said, which made the arrogance greater, not less.
To forestall Nievoles predictable burst of aomasso said quickly, "You will not deny us some information surely, even if you choose to shield your name. You said Alberico is a tool for you. A tool for what, Alessan not-ea?" He leased to find that he remembered the name Menico di Ferraut had mentioned yesterday. "What is your own purpose? What brings you to this lodge?”
The others face, lean and curiously hollowed with cheekbones in sharp relief, grew still, almost masklike. And into the waiting silehat ensued he said: "I want Brandin. I want Brandin of Ygrath dead more than I want my souls immortality beyond the last portal of Morian.”
There was a silence again, broken only by the crackle of the autumn fires owo hearths. It seemed to Tomasso as if the chill of winter had e into the room with that speech.
Then: "Such terribly splendid words!" murmured Scalvaia lazily, shattering the mood. He drew a shout of laughter from Nievole and Taeri, both. Scalvaia himself did not smile.
The man on the window-ledge aowledged the thrust with the briefest nod of his head. He said, "This is not, my lord, a subject about which I permit frivolity. If we are to work together it will be necessary for you to remember that.”
"You, I am forced to say, are an overly proud young man," replied Scalvaia sharply. "It might be
appropriate for you to remember to whom you speak.”
The other visibly bit back his first retort. "Pride is a family failing," he said finally. "I have not escaped it, Im afraid. But I am indeed mindful of who you are. And the Sandreni and my lord Nievole. It is why I am here. I have made it my busio be aware of dissidehroughout the Palm for many years. At times I have enced it, discreetly. This evening marks the first instan which I have yself to a gathering such as this.”
"But you have already told us that Alberico is nothing to you." Tomasso inwardly cursed his father for not havier prepared him for this very peculiar sixth figure.
"Nothing in himself," the other corrected. "Will you allow me?" Without waiting for a reply he lifted himself down from the ledge and walked over to the wine.
"Please," said Tomasso, belatedly.
The man poured himself a generous glass of the vintage red. He drai, and poured another. Only then did he turn back to address the five of them. Herados eyes, watg him, were enormous.
"Two facts," the man called Alessan said crisply. "Learn them if you are serious about freedom in the Palm. One: if you oust or slay Alberico you will have Brandin upon you within three months. Two: if Brandin is ousted or slain Alberico will rule this peninsula within that same period of time.”
He stopped. His eyes—grey, Tomasso notiow—moved from oo the other of them, challenging. No one spoke. Scalvaia toyed with the handle of his e.
"These two things must be uood," the stranger went on in the same tone. "her I in my own pursuit, nor you in yours, afford to lose sight of them. They are the core truths of the Palm in our time. The two sorcerers from overseas are their own balance of power and the only balance of power in the peninsula right now, however different things might have beeeen years ago. Today only the power of one keeps the magic of the other from being wielded as it was when they quered us. If we take them then we must take them both—or make them bring down each other.”
"How?" Taeri asked, too eagerly.
The lean fader the prematurely silvering dark hair turo him and smiled briefly. "Patieaeri bar Sandre. I have a number of things yet to tell you about carelessness before deg if our paths are to join. And I say this with infinite respect for the dead man who seems—remarkably enough—to have drawn us here. Im afraid yoing to have to agree to submit yourselves to my guidance or we do nothing together at all.”
"The Scalvaiane have submitted themselves willingly to nothing and no one in living memory or recorded history," that vulpine lord said, the texture of velvet in his voice. "I am not readily of a mind to bee the first to do so.”
"Would you prefer," the other said, "to have your plans and your life and the long glory of your line snuffed out like dles on the Ember Days because of sheer sloppiness in your preparations?”
"You had better explain yourself," Tomasso said icily.
"I io. Who was it who chose a double-moon night at double mooo meet?" Alessaed, his voice suddenly cutting like a blade. "Why are no rear guards posted along the forest path to warn you if someone approaches—as I just did? Why were no servants left here this afternoon to guard this ? Have you even the fai awareness of how dead the five of you would be—severed hands stuffed into your throats—were I not who I am?”
"My father . . . Sandre . . . said that Alberico would not have us followed," Tomasso stammered furiously. "He was absolutely certain of that.”
"And he is likely to have been absolutely right. But you ot let your focus be so narrow. Your father—I am sorry to have to say it —was aloh his obsession for too long. He was too i upon Alberico. It shows ihing you have dohese past two days. What of the idly curious or the
greedy? The petty informer who might decide to follow you just to see what happened here? Just to have a story to tell iavern tomorrow? Did you—or your father—give even half a thought to such things?
Or to those who might have learned where you plao e and arrao be here before you?”
There was a hostile silence. A log on the smaller fire settled with a crad a shower of sparks.
Herado jumped involuntarily at the sound.
"Will it i you to know," the man called Alessa on, mently, "that my people have been guarding the approaches to this since you arrived? Or that Ive had someone in here since mid- afternoon keeping an eye on the servants setting up, and who might follow them?”
"What?" Taeri exclaimed. "In here! In our hunting lodge!”
"For your prote and my own," the other man said, finishing his sed glass of wine. He glanced upwards to the shadows of the half-loft above, where the extra pallets were stored.
"I think that should do it, my friend," he called, pitg his voice to carry. "Youve earned a glass of wier so long dry-throated among the dust. You may as well e down now, Devin.”
It had actually been very easy.
Menico, purse jingling with more mohan he had ever earned from a single performan his life, had graciously passed their cert at the wine-merts house over to Bur di Corte. Bur, who he work, leased; the wine-mert, angry at first, was quickly mollified upon learning what Menicos hitherto unfinal-ized tariff would now have been iermath of the sensation theyd caused that m.
So, in the event, Devin and the rest of the pany had been given the rest of the day and evening off. Menico ted out for everyone an immediate bonus of five astins and benevolently waved them away to the various delights of the Festival. He didnt even offer his usual warniure.
Already, just past noon, there were wiands on every er, more tha the busier squares.
Each vineyard in Astibar province, and even some from farther afield in Ferraut or Senzio, ha?d its vintages from previous years available as harbingers of what this years grapes would offer. Merts looking to buy in quantity were sampling judiciously, early revelers rather less so.
Fruit vendors were also in abundance, with figs and melons and the enormous grapes of the season displayed beside vast wheels of white cheeses frea or bricks of red ones from northerando.
Over by the market the din was deafening as the people of the city and its distrada vassed the s of this years iti tradesmen. Overhead the banners of the noble houses and of the larger wies flapped brightly iumn breeze as Devin strode purposefully towards what hed just been told was the most fashionable khav room in Astibar.
There were bes to fame. He was reized at the doorway, his arrival excitedly announced, and in a matter of moments he found himself at the dark wooden bar of The Paelion nursing a mug of hot khav laced with flambardion—no awkward questions asked about anyones age, thank you very much.
It was the work of half an hour to find out what he o know about Sandre dAstibar. His questions seemed entirely natural, ing from the tenor who had just sung the Dukes funeral lament.
Devin learned about Sandres long rule, his feuds, his bitter exile, and his sad dee in the last few years into a blustering, drunken hunter of small game, a wraith pared to what he once had been.
In that last text, rather more specifically, Devin asked about where the Duke had liked to hunt.
They told him. They told him where his favorite hunting lodge had been. He ged the subject to wine.
It was easy. He was a hero of the hour and The Paelion liked heroes, for an hour. They let him go eventually: he pleaded an artists strained sensitivity after the ms endeavors. With the be of hindsight he now attached a deal more importahan he had at the time to glimpsing Alessan di Tregea at a booth full of painters and poets. They were laughing about some wager iain verses of dolehat had not yet arrived from Chiara. He and Alessan had saluted each other in an elaborately showy, performers fashion that delighted the packed room.
Back at the inn, Devin had fended off the most ardent of the group who had walked him home a upstairs alone. He had waited in his room, chafing, for an hour to be sure the last of them had gone.
Having ged into a dark-brown tunid breeches, he put on a cap to hide his hair and a woolen overshirt against the ing chill of evening. Then he made his way unnoticed through the now teeming crowds ireets over to the eastern gate of the city.
And out, among several empty wagons, goods all sold, being ridden back to the distrada by sober, prudent farmers who preferred to reload aurn in the m instead of celebrating all night in town spending what theyd just earned.
Devin hitched a ride on a cart part of the way, iserating with the driver oaxes and the poor rates being paid that year for lambs wool. Eventually he jumped off, feigning youthful exuberand ran a mile or so along the road to the east.
At one point he saw, with a grin nition, a temple of Adaon on the right. Just past it, as promised, was the delicately rendered image of a ship on the roadside gate of a modest try house.
Rovigos home—what Devin could see of it, set well back from the road among cypress and olive trees— looked fortable and cared for.
A day ago, a different person, he would have stopped. But something had happeo him that m within the dusty spaces of the Sandreni Palace. He kept going.
A half mile further on he found what he was looking for. He made sure he was alone and then quickly cut to his right, south into the woods, away from the main road that led to the east coast and Ardin town on the sea.
It was quiet in the forest and cooler where the branches and the many-colored leaves dappled the sunlight. There ath winding through the trees and Devin began to follow it, towards the hunting lodge of the Sandreni. From here on he redoubled his caution. On the road he was simply a walker iumn tryside; here he was a trespasser with no excuse at all for being where he was.
Unless pride and the strange, dreamlike events of the m just past could be called adequate excuses. Devin rather doubted it. At the same time, it remaio be seeher he or a certain manipulative red-headed personage was going to dictate the shape and flow of this day and those to e.
If she were uhe impression that he was so easy to dupe—a helpless, youthful slave to his passions, blinded and deafeo anything else by the so-gracious offer of her body— well it was for this afternoon and this evening to shorong an arrogant girl could be.
What else the evening might reveal, Devin didnt know; he hadnt allowed himself to slow down long enough to sider the question.
There was no ohere when he came to the lodge, though he lay silently among the trees for a long time to be certain. The front door was ed but Marra had been very good with such devices and had taught him a thing or two. He picked the lock with the buckle of his belt, went inside, opened a window, and climbed out to relock the . Then he slipped ba through the window, closed it, and took a look around.
There was little option, really. The two bedchambers at the back would be dangerous and not very useful if he wao hear. Devin balanced himself on the broad arm of a heavy wooden chair and, jumping, mao make it up to the half-loft on his sed attempt.
Nursing a shin bruised in the process he took a pillow from one of the pallets stored up there and proceeded to wedge himself into the remotest, darkest er he could find, behind two beds and the stuffed head of an antlered corbin stag. By lying on his left side, eye to a k in the floorboards, he had an almost plete view of the room below.
He tried to guide himself towards a mood of calm and patience. Unfortunately, he soon became irrationally scious of the fact that the glassy eye of the corbin was glitteringly fixed upon him. Uhe circumsta made him nervous. Eventually he got up, turhe chestnut head to one side and
settled in to his hiding-place again.
And right about then, as the grimly purposeful activities of the day gave way to a time when he could do nothing but wait, Devin began to be afraid.
He was under no real illusions: he was a dead man if they found him here. The secred tension in Tomasso bar Sandres words and mahat m made that clear enough. Even without what Catriana had done in her own effort to overhear those words, and then to prevent him from doing so. For the first time Devin began to plate where the rash momentum of his wounded pride had carried him.
When the servants came half an hour later to prepare the room they gave him some very bad moments. Bad enough, in fact, to make him briefly wish that he was bae in Asoli guiding a plow behind a pair of stolid water buffaloes. They were fine creatures, water buffaloes, patient, unplaining.
They plowed fields for you, and their milk made cheese. There was even something to be said for the predictable grey skies of Asoli in autumn and the equally predictable people. None of their girls, for example, were as irritatingly superior as Catriana dAstibar who had got him into this. Nor would any Asolini servant, Devin was quite certain, ever have volunteered, as oriad-blighted fool below was doing even now, t doallet from the half-loft in case one of the vigil-keeping lords should grow weary.
"Goch, dont be more of a fool than you absolutely must be!" the steward snapped officiously in reply. "They are here to keep a waking watch all night—a pallet in the room is an insult to them both. Be grateful you arent depe on your brain to feed your belly, Goch!”
Devin fervently seded the ses of the insult and wished the steward a long and lucrative existence. For the tenth time sihe Sandreni servants had ehe lower room he cursed Catriana, and for the tweime, himself. The ratio seemed abht.
Finally the servants left; heading back for Astibar to bear the Dukes body here. The stewards instrus were painstakingly explicit. With idiots like Goch around, Devin thought spitefully, they had to be.
From where he lay, Devin could see the daylight gradually waning towards dusk. He found himself softly humming his old cradle song. He made himself stop.
His mind turned back to the m. To the long walk through empty, dusty rooms of the palace. To the hidden closet at the end. The sudden silken feel of Catriana when her gown had drifted above her hips.
He made himself stop that too.
It grew steadily darker. The first owl called, not far away. Devin had grown up in the try; it was a familiar sound. He heard some forest animal rooting in the underbrush at the edge of the clearing. On a while a gusting of the wind would set the leaves to rustling.
Then, abruptly, there came a shining of white light through one of the drawn window curtains and Devihat Vidomni was high enough to look down upon this clearing amid the tall trees of the wood, which meant that blue Ilarion would be rising even now. Which meant it would not be very much longer.
It wasnt. There was a wavering of torchlight and the sound of voices. The lock ked, rattled, and the door swung open. The steward led i men carrying a bier. Eye glued to his cra the floor, breathing shallowly, Devin saw them lay it down. Tomasso came in with the two lords whose names and lineage Devin had learned in The Paelion.
The servants uncovered and laid out the food and then they left, Goch stumbling ohreshold and banging his shoulder pleasingly on the doorpost. The steward, last to go, shrugged a discreet apology, bowed, and closed the door behind him.
"Wine, my lords?" said Tomasso dAstibar in the voice Devin had heard from the secret closet. "We will have three others joining us very shortly.”
And from then on they had said what they said and Devin heard what he heard, and so gradually became aware of the magnitude of what he had stumbled upon, the peril he was in.
Then Alessan appeared at the window opposite the door.
Devin couldnt, in fact, see that window but he khe voice immediately and it was with disbelief b on stupefa that he heard Menicos recruit of a fht ago deny being frea at all and then name Brandin, King of Ygrath as the everlasting target of his souls hate.
Rash, Deviainly was, and he would not have dehat he carried more than his own due share of impulsive foolishness, but he had not ever beehan quick, or clever. In Asoli, small boys had to be.
So by the time Alessan named him, and invited him to e down, Devins rag mind had put two more pieces of the puzzle together and he adroitly took the path offered him.
"All quiet, since mid-afternoon," he called out, extrig himself from his er and stepping past the corbins ao the edge of the half-loft. "Only the servants were here, but they didnt do much of a job when they ed the door—the lock was easy to pick. Two thieves and the Emperor of Barbadior could have been up here without seeing each other or anyone down there being the wiser.”
He said it as coolly as he could. Then he lowered himself, with a deliberately showy flip, to the ground. He registered the looks on the faces of five of the men there—all of whom most certainly reized him—but his tration, and his satisfa, lay in the brief smile of approval he received from Alessan.
For the moment his apprehension was gone, replaced by somethiirely different. Alessan had claimed him, given him legitimacy here. He was clearly lio the man who was trollis in the room. And the events were on a scale that spahe Palm. Devin had to fight hard to trol his growiement.
Tomasso went over to the sideboard and smoothly poured a glass of wine for him. Devin was impressed with the posure of the man. He was also aware, from the exaggerated courtesy and the undeniable sparkle in bar Sandres atuated eyes, that although the fluting voice might be faked, Tomasso, iain matters and propensities, was still very much what he was said to be. Devin accepted the glass, careful not to let their fiouch.
"I wonder now," drawled Lord Scalvaia in his magnifit voice, "are we to be treated to a recital here while we pass il? There does seem to be a quantity of musis here tonight.”
Devin said nothing, but following Alessans example did not smile.
"Shall I name you a provincial grower of grapes, my lord?" There was real anger in Alessans voice.
"And call Nievole a grain-farmer from the southwestern distrada? What we do outside these walls has little to do with why we are here, save in two ways only.”
He held up a long finger. "One: as musis we have an excuse to cross bad forth across the Palm, which offers advantages I need not belabor." A sed finger shot up beside the first. "Two: music trains the mind, like mathematics, ic, to precision of detail. The sort of prey lords, that would have precluded the carelesshat has marked tonight. If Sandre dAstibar were alive I would discuss it with him, and I might defer to his experiend his long striving.”
He paused, looking from oo another of them, then said, much more softly: "I might, but I might not. It is a vauhat one, o be sung. As matters stand I only say again that if we are to work together I must ask you to accept my lead.”
He spoke this last directly to Scalvaia who still lounged, elegant and expressionless, in his deep chair.
It was Nievole who answered, though, blunt and direct.
"I am not in the habit of delaying my judgment of men. I think you mean what you say and that you are more versed ihings than we are. I accept. I will follow your lead. With a single dition.”
"Which is?”
"That you tell us your name.”
Devin, watg with rapacious iy, anxious not to miss a word or a nuance, saw Alessans eyes close for an instant, as if to hold baething that might otherwise have shown through them. The others waited through the short silence.
Then Alessan shook his head. "It is a fair dition, my lord. Uhe circumsta is entirely fair. I only pray you will not hold me to it though. It is a grief—I ot tell you how much of a grief it is—but I am uo accede.”
For the first time he appeared to be reag for words, choosing them carefully. "Names are power, as you know. As the two tyrant-sorcerers from overseas most certainly know. And as I have been made to know iterest ways there are. My lord, you will learn my name in the moment of our triumph if it es, and not before. I will say that this is imposed upo is not a choice freely made. You may call me Alessan, which is on enough here in the Palm and happens to be truly the name my mave me. Will you be gracious enough to let that suffiy lord, or must we now part ways?”
The last question was asked in a to of the arrogahat had ihe mans bearing and speech from the moment of his arrival.
Just as Devins earlier fear had given way to excitement, so now did excitement surreo something else, something he could not yet identify. He stared at Alessan. The man seemed youhan before, somehow—uo prevent this almost naked showing of his need.
Nievole cleared his throat loudly, as if to dispel an aura, a resonance of something that seemed to have ehe room like the mingled light of the two moons outside. Another owl hooted from the clearing. Nievole opened his mouth to reply to Alessan.
They never knew what he would have said, or Scalvaia.
Afterwards, on nights when sleep eluded him ached one or both moons sweep the sky or ted the stars in Eannas Diadem in a moonless dark, Devin would let his clear memory of that moment carry him back, trying—for reasons he would have found difficult to explain—to imagine what the two lords would have done or said had all their briefly tangled fate lines run differently from that lodge.
He could guess, analyze, play out sarios in his mind, but he would never know. It was a night-time truth that became a queer, private sorrow for him amid all that came after. A symbol, a displat ret. A reminder of what it was to be mortal and so doomed to tread one road only and that one only once, until Morian called the soul away and Eannas lights were lost. We ever truly know the path we have not walked.
The paths that each of the men in that lodge were to walk, through their own private portals to endings near or far were laid down by the owl that cried a sed time, very clearly, just as Nievole began to speak.
Alessan flung up his hand. "Trouble!" he said sharply. Then: "Baerd?”
The door banged open. Devin saw a large man, his very long, pale-yellow hair held back by a leather band across his brow. There was another leather thong about his throat. He wore a vest and leggings cut in the fashion of the southern highlands. His eyes, even by firelight, gleamed a dazzling blue. He carried a drawn sword.
Which unishable by death this close to Astibar.
"Lets go!" the man said urgently. "You and the boy. The others belohe you son and the grandson have easy explanations. Get rid of the extra glasses.”
"What is it?" Tomasso dAstibar asked quickly, his eyes wide.
"Twenty horsemen on the forest path. tinue yil and be as calm as you —we wont be
far away. Well return after. Alessan, e on!”
The tone of his voice pulled Devin halfway to the door. Alessan was lingering though, his eyes for some reason locked on those of Tomasso, and that look, what was exged in it, became another one of the things that Devin never fot, or fully uood.
For a long moment—a very long moment, it seemed to Devin, with twenty horsemen riding through the forest and a drawn sword in the room—no one spoke. Then: "It seems we will have to tihis extremely iing discussion at a later hour," Tomasso bar Sandre murmured, with genuinely impressive posure. "Will you take a last glass before you go, in my fathers name?”
Alessan smiled then, a full, open smile. He shook his head though. "I hope to have a ce to do so later," he said. "I will drink to your father gladly, but I have a habit I dont think even you satisfy iime we have.”
Tomassos mouth quirked wryly. "Ive satisfied a number of habits in my day. Do tell me yours.”
The reply was quiet, Devin had to strain to hear.
"My third glass of a night is blue," Alessan said. "The third glass I drink is always of blue wine. In memory of something lost. Lest on any single night I fet what it is I am alive to do.”
"Not forever lost, I hope," said Tomasso, equally softly.
"Not forever, I have sworn, upon my soul and my fathers soul wherever it has gone.”
"Then there will be blue wine whe we drink after tonight," said Tomasso, "if it is at all in my power to provide it. And I will drink it with you to our fathers souls.”
"Alessan!" she yellow-haired man named Baerd, "In Adaons name, I said twenty horsemen!
Will you e?”
"I will," said Alessan. He hurled his wineglass and Devins through the window into the darkness. "Triad guard you all," he said to the five in the room. Then he and Devin followed Baerd into the moonlit shadows of the clearing.
With Devin in the middle they ran swiftly around to the side of the farthest from the path that led to the main road. They didnt go far. His pulse pounding furiously, Devin dropped to the ground wheher two men did so. Peering cautiously out from under a cluster of dark-green serrano bushes they could see the lodge. Firelight showed through the open windows.
A moment later Devi lurched like a ship caught by a wave across its bows, as a twig cracked just behind him.
"Twenty-two riders," a voice said. The speaker dropped ly to the ground on Baerds other side.
"The one in the middle of them is hooded.”
Devin looked over. And by the mingled light of the two moons saw Catriana dAstibar.
"Hooded?" Alessaed, on a sharply takeh. "You are certain?”
"Of course I am," said Catriana. "Why? What does it mean?”
"Eanna be gracious to us all," Alessan murmured, not answering.
"I wouldnt be ting on it now," the man named Baerd said grimly. "I think we should leave this place. They will search.”
For a moment Alessan looked as if he would demur, but just then they heard a jingling of many riders from the path oher side of the lodge.
Without another word spoken the four of them rose and silently moved away.
"This evening," murmured Scalvaia, "grows more eventful by the moment.”
Tomasso was grateful for the elegant lords equanimity. It helped steady his own nerves. He looked
over at his brother; Taeri seemed all right. Herado was white-faced, however. Tomasso wi the boy.
"Have another drink, nephew. You look infinitely prettier with color in your cheeks. There is nothing to fear. We are here doily what ermission to be doing.”
They heard the horses. Herado went over to the sideboard, filled a glass and drai at a gulp. Just as he put the goblet down the door crashed loudly open, banging into the wall beside it, and four enormous, fully-armed Barbadian soldiers strode in, making the lodge seem suddenly small.
"Gentlemen!" Tomasso fluted expertly, wringing his hands. "What is it? What brings you here, to interrupt a vigil?" He was careful to souulant, not angry.
The meraries didnt even deign to look at him, let alone reply. Two of them quickly went to check the bedrooms and a third seized the ladder and ran up it to examihe half-loft where the young singer had been hiding. Other soldiers, Tomassistered apprehensively, were taking up positions outside each of the windows. There was a great deal of side among the horses, and a fusion of torches.
Tomasso abruptly stamped his foot in frustration. "What is the meaning of this?" he shrilled as the soldiers tio ignore him. "Tell me! I shall protest directly to your lord. We have Albericos express permission to duct this vigil and the burial tomorrow. I have it in writing under his seal!" He addressed the Barbadian captain standing by the door.
Again it was as if he hadnt even spoken so pletely did they disregard him. Four more soldiers came in and spread out to the edges of the room, their expressions blank and dangerous.
"This is intolerable!" Tomasso whined, staying in character, his hands writhing about each other. "I shall ride immediately to Alber-ico! I shall demand that you all be shipped straight back to your wretched hovels in Barbadior!”
"That will not be necessary," said a burly, hooded figure in the doorway.
He stepped forward and threw back the hood. "You may make your childish demand of me right here," said Alberico of Barbadior, Tyrant of Astibar, Tregea, Ferraut aando.
Tomassos hands flew to his throat even as he dropped to his khe others, too, k immediately, even old Scalvaia with his game leg. A black mind-cloak of numbihreateo desd over Tomasso, trammeling all speed thought.
"My lord," he stammered, "I did not ... I could ... we could not know!”
Alberico was silent, gazing blankly down upon him. Tomasso fought to master his terror and bewilderment. "You are most wele here," he bleated, rising carefully, "most wele, most honored lord. You do us too much honor with your prese my fathers rites.”
"I do," said Alberico bluntly. Tomasso received the full weight of a heavy scrutiny from the small eyes, close-set and unblinking deep in the folds of the sorcerers large face. Albericos bald skull gleamed in the firelight. He drew his hands from the pockets of his robe. "I would have wine," he demanded, gesturing with a meaty palm.
"But of course, of course.”
Tomasso stumbled to obey, intimidated as always by the sheer, bulky physicality of Alberid his Barbadians. They hated him, he knew, and all his kind, over and above everything else these querors felt about the people of the Eastern Palm whose world they now ruled. Whenever he faced Alberiasso was overwhelmingly scious that the Tyrant could crack his bones with bare hands and not think twice about having done so.
It was not a f line of thought. Oeen years of carefully schooling his body to shield his mi his hands steady as they carried a full glass ceremoniously over to Alberico. The soldiers eyed his every movement. Nievole was back by the larger fire, Taeri and Herado together by the small one. Scalvaia stood, braced upon his e, beside the chair in which hed been sitting.
It was time, Tomasso judged, to sound more fident, less guilty. "You will five me, my lord, for my ill judged words to your soldiers. Not knowing you were here I could only guess they were ag in ignorance of your wishes.”
"My wishes ge," Alberico said in his heavy, unging voice. "They are likely to know of those ges before you, bar San-dre.”
"Of course, my lord. But of course. They—”
"I wanted," said Alberico of Barbadior, "to look upon the coffin of your father. To look, and to laugh." He showed no trace of an ination toward amusement. Tomassos blood felt suddenly i his veins.
Alberico stepped past him and stood massively over the remains of the Duke. "This," he said flatly, "is the body of a vain, wretched, fatuous old man who decreed the hour of his owh to no purpose.
No purpose at all. Is it not amusing?”
He did laugh then—three short, harsh barks of sound that were more truly frightening than anything Tomasso had ever heard in his life. How had he known?
"Will you not laugh with me? You three Sandreni? Nievole? My poor, crippled, impotent Lord Scalvaia? Is it not diverting to think how all of you have been brought here and doomed by senile foolishness? By an old man who lived too long to uand how the labyrinthiwistings of his own time could be so easily smashed through with a fist today.”
His ched hand crashed heavily down on the wooden coffin lid, splintering the carved Sandreni arms. With a faint sound of distress Scalvaia sank bato his chair.
"My lord," Tomasso gulped, gesticulating. "What you possibly mean? What are you—”
He got no further than that. Wheeling savagely Alberico slapped him meatily across the face with an open hand. Tomasso staggered backwards, blood spattering from his ripped mouth.
"You will use your natural voice, son of a fool," the sorcerer said, the words more terrifying because spoken in the same flat tone as before. "Will it at least amuse you to know how easy this was? To learn how long Heradianno has beeing to me?" And with those words the night came down.
The full black cloak of anguish and raw terror Tomasso had been fighting desperately to hold back.
Oh, my father, he thought, stri to his soul that it should have been by family that they were now undone. By family. Family!
Several things happehen in aremely short span of time.
"My lord!" Herado cried out in high-pitched dismay. "You promised! You said they would not know!
You told me—”
It was all he said. It is difficult to expostulate with a dagger embedded in your throat.
"The Sandreni deal with the scrapings of dirt uheir own fingernails," said his uaeri, who had drawn the blade from the back of his boot. Even as he spoke, Taeri pulled his dagger free of Herado and smoothly, part of one tinuous motion, sheathed it in his ow.
"One less Sandreni for your sky-wheels, Barbadian!" he taunted, gasping. "Triad send a plague to eat the flesh from your bones." He dropped to his knees. His hands were on the dagger haft; blood illing over them. His eyes sought Tomassos. "Farewell, brother," he whispered. "Morian grant our shadows know each other in her Halls.”
Something was ched around Tomassos heart, squeezing and squeezing, as he watched his brother die. Two of the guards, traio ward a very different sort of blow at their lord, stepped forward and flipped Taeri over on his back with the toes of their boots.
"Fools!" spat Alberico, visibly upset for the first time. "I needed him alive. I wanted both of them alive!" The soldiers bla the fury written in his features.
Then the focus of the room went elsewhere entirely.
With an animal roar of mingled rage and pain Nievole dAstibar, a very big man himself, linked his two hands like a hammer or the head of a mad swung them full into the face of the soldier o him. The blow smashed bones like splintering wood. Blood spurted as the man screamed and crumpled heavily back against the coffin.
Still r, Nievole grappled for his victims sword.
He actually had it out and was turning to do battle when four arrows took him ihroat and chest.
His face went dully slack for an instant, then his eyes widened and his mouth relaxed into a macabre smile of triumph as he slipped to the floor.
And then, just then, with all eyes on fallen Nievole, Lord Scalvaia did the ohing no one had dared to do. Slumped deep in his chair, so motiohey had almost fotten him, the aged patri raised his e with a steady hand, poi straight at Albericos face, and squeezed the spring catch hidden in the handle.
Sorcerers ot, indeed, be poisoned—a minor protective art, ohat most of them master in their youth. Oher hand, they most certainly be slain, by arrow or blade, or any of the other instruments of violeh—which is why such things were forbidden within a decreed radius of wherever Alberiight be.
There is also a well-known truth about men and their gods— whether of the Triad in the Palm, or the varying pantheon worshiped in Barbadior, whether of moddess or dying and reviving god or lord of wheeling stars or single awesome Power above all of these in some rumored prime world far off amid the drifts of space.
It is the simple truth that mortal man ot uand why the gods shape events as they do. Why some men and wome off in fullest flower while others live to dwio shadows of themselves. Why virtue must sometimes be trampled and evil flourish amid the beauty of a try garden. Why ce, sheer random ce, plays su overwhelming role in the running of the life lines and the fate lines of men.
It was ce that saved Alberico of Barbadior then, in a moment that had his name half spelled-out for death. His guards were i upon the fallen men and oaut, bleeding form of Tomasso. No one had spared a glance for the crippled lord in his chair.
It was only the fact—mercilessly random—that that evenings Captain of the Guard happeo have moved into the on Scalvaias side of the room that ged the course of history in the Peninsula of the Palm and beyond. By things so agly small are lives measured and marred.
Alberico, turning in a white rage to snap an order at his captain, saw the e e up and Scalvaias finger jerk upon the handle. Had he been fag straight ahead or turning the other way he would have died of a sharpened projectile bursting into his brain.
It was toward Scalvaia that he turhough, and he was the mightiest wielder of magic, save one, in the Palm in that hour. Even so, what he did—the only sihing he could do—took all the power he had and very nearly more than he could and. There was no time for the spoken spell, the fog gesture. The bolt that was his ending had already been loosed.
Alberico released his hold upon his body.
Watg in terror and disbelief, Tomasso saw the lethal bolt whip through a blurred oozing of matter and air where Albericos head had been. The bolt smashed harmlessly into the wall above a window.
And in that same stilla of time, knowing that an instant later would be an instant too late—that his body could be unknit forever, his soul, her living nor dead, left to howl impotently in the waste that lay in ambush for those who dared essay such magic—Alberimohe lis of his form baself.
It was a hing.
He had a droop to his right eyelid from that day on, and his physical strength was never again what it had been. When he was tired, ever after, his right foot would have a tendency to splay outward as if retrag the strange release of that momentary magic. He would limp then, much as Scalvaia had done.
Through eyes that fought to focus properly, Alberico of Barbadior saw Scalvaias silver-maned head fly across the room to bounce, with a siing sound, on the rush-strewn floor—decapitated by the belated sword of the Captain of the Guard. The deadly e, crafted of stones aals Alberico did nnize, clattered loudly to the ground. The air seemed thid viscous to the sorcerer, unnaturally dense. He was scious of a loose, rattling sound to his breathing and a spasmodic trembling at the back of his knees.
It was another momeched in the rigid, stunned silence of the other men in the room, before he trusted himself to even try to speak.
"You are dung," he said, thickly, coarsely, to the ashen captain. "You are less than that. You are filth and crawling slime. You will kill yourself. Now!" He spoke as if there were sliding soil clogging and spilling from his mouth. With an effort he swallowed his saliva.
Ferociously straining to make his eyes work properly he watched as the blurry form of his captain bowed jerkily and, reversing his sword, severed his own jugular with a swift, jagged slash. Alberico felt a froth e foaming and boiling through his mind. He fought to will ao a palsied tremor in his left hand. He could not.
There were a great many dead men in the room and he very nearly had been one of them. He didnt eveirely feel as if he lived —his body seemed to have reassembled itself in not quite the same way as before. He rubbed with weak fingers at the drooping eyelid. He felt ill, nauseous. The air was hard to breathe. He o be outside, away from this suddenly stifling lodge of his enemies.
Nothing had e to pass as hed expected. There was only one single eleme of his inal design for the evening. Ohing that might yet offer a kind of pleasure, that might redeem a little of what had gone so desperately awry.
He turned, slowly, to look at Sandres son. At the lover of boys. He dragged his mouth upwards into a smile, unaware of how hideous he looked.
&qu him," he said thickly to his soldiers. "Bind him and bring him. There are things we do with this one before we allow him to die. Things appropriate to what he was.”
His vision was still not w properly, but he saw one of his meraries smile. Tomasso bar Sandre closed his eyes. There was blood on his fad clothing. There would be more before they were done.
Alberico put up his hood and limped from the room. Behind him the soldiers lifted up the body of the dead captain and supported the man whose face had been broken by Nievole.
They had to help the Tyrant mount his horse, which he found humiliating, but he began to feel better during the torchlit ride back to Astibar. He was utterly devoid of magic though. Even through the dulled sensations of his altered, reassembled body he could feel the void where his power should be. It would be at least two weeks, probably more, before it all came back. If it all came back. What he had done in the flashing of that instant in the lodge had drained more from him than any aagic ever had in his life.
He was alive though, and he had just shattered the three most dangerous families left in the Eastern Palm. Even more, he had the middle Sandreni son here now as evidence, public proof of the spiracy for the days to e. The pervert who was said to relish pain. Alberico allowed himself a tiny smile within the recesses of his hood.
It was all going to be done by law, and openly, as had been his practice almost from the day hed taken power here. No u born of arbitrary exercise of might would be permitted to rear its dangerous head. They might hate him, of course they would hate him, but not oizen of his four provinces
would be able to doubt the justice or deny the legitimacy of his respoo this Sandreni plot.
Or miss the point of how prehehat response was about to be.
With the prudent caution that was the truest wellspring of his character, Alberico of Barbadian thinking through his as of the hours and days. The high gods of the Empire khis far peninsula lace of stant danger and ern g, but the gods, who were not blind, could see that he knew how to give it what was needful. And it was growing more and more possible that the Emperors advisers bae, who were no more sightless than the gods, would see the same things.
And the Emperor was old.
Alberico withdrew his thoughts from these familiar, too seductive els. He made himself focus oail agaiail was everything in matters such as this. The steps of his planning clicked into place like beads on a djarra string as he rode. Drily, precisely, he assembled the orders he would give. The only ands that caused him an inward flicker of emotiohe ones ing Tomasso bar Sahese, at least, did not have to be made publid they would not be. Only the fession and its revealiails o be known outside his palace walls. Whatever took pla certain rooms underground could be extremely private indeed. He surprised himself a little with the anticipation he felt.
At one point he remembered that hed wahe hunting lodge torched when they left. Smoothly he adjusted his thinking on that. Let the lesser Sandreni and their servants find the dead when they came at dawhem wonder and fear. The doubt would only last a little while.
Then he would cause everything to be made extremely clear.
Chapter 5
“OH, MORIAN," ALESSAN WHISPERED, WISTFUL REGRET INfusing his voice. "I could have sent him to your judgment even now. A child could have put an arrow in his eye from here.”
Not this child, Devin thought ruefully, gauging the distand the light from where they were hidden among the trees north of the ribbon of road the Barbadians had just ridden along. He looked with even more respect than before at Alessan and the crossbow hed picked up from a cache theyd looped past on the way here.
"She will claim him when she is ready," Baerd said prosaically. "And you are the one who has spent his life saying that it will be to no good if either one of them dies too soon.”
Alessan grunted. "Did I shoot?" he asked pointedly.
Baerds teeth flashed briefly in the moonlight. "I would have stopped you in any case.”
Alessan swore suctly. Then, a moment later, relaxed into quiet amusement. The two men had a manner with each other that spoke to long familiarity. Catriana, Devin saw, had not smiled. Certainly not at him. Oher hand, he reminded himself, he was supposed to be the one who was angry. The present circumstances made it a little hard though. He felt anxious and proud aed, all at once.
He was also the only one of the four of them who hadnt noticed Tomasso, bound at wrist and ao his horse.
"Wed better check the lodge," Baerd said as the tra mood slipped away. "Then I think we will have to travel very fast. Sandres son will name you and the boy.”
"We had better have a talk about the boy first," Catriana said in a tohat made it suddenly very easy for Devin to reclaim his anger.
"The boy?" he repeated, raising his eyebrows. "I think you have evideo the trary." He let his gaze rest coldly on hers, and was rewarded to see her flush and turn away. Briefly rewarded.
"Unworthy, Devin," Alessan said. "I hope not to hear that note from you again. Catriana violated all I know of her nature in doing what she did this m. If you are intelligent enough to have e here you will be more than intelligent enough to now uand why she did it. You might suspend your own pride long enough to think about how she is feeling.”
It was mildly said, but Devi as if he had just been punched iomach. Swallowing awkwardly, he looked from Alessan back to Catriana, but her gaze was fixed oars, away from and above them all. Finally, shamed, he looked down at the darkened forest floor. He felt fourteen years old again.
"I dont particularly appreciate that, Alessan," he heard Catriana saying coldly. "I fight my own wars.
You know it.”
"Not to mention," Baerd added casually, "the dazzling inappro-priateness of your chastising anyone alive for having too much pride.”
Alessan chose to ighat. To Catriana he said, &quht star of Eanna, do you think I dont know how you fight? This is different though. What happehis m ot be allowed to matter. I t have this being a battle between you if Devin is to be one of us.”
"If he what?" Catriana wheeled on him. "Are you mad? Is it the music? Because he sing? Why should someone from Asoli possibly be—”
"Hold peace!" Alessan said sharply. Catriana fell abruptly silent. Not having any good idea where to look or what to feel, Devin tio simulate an inteerest in the loamy forest soil beh his feet. His mind a were whirling with fusion.
Alessans voice was gentler when he resumed. "Catriana, what happehis m was not his fault either. You are not to blame him. You did what you felt you had to do and it did not succeed. He
ot be blamed or cursed for following you as ily as he did. If you must, curse me for not stopping him as he went through the door. I could have.”
"Why didnt you then?" Baerd asked.
Devin remembered Alessan looking at him as hed paused in the archway of that inner door that had seemed a gateway to a land of dreaming.
"Yes, why?" he asked awkwardly, looking up. "Why did you let me follow?”
The moonlight urely blue now. Vidomni was over west behind the tops of the trees. Only Ilarion was overhead among the stars, making the night strah her shining. Ghostlight, the try folk called it when the blue moon rode alone.
Alessan had the light behind him so his eyes were hidden. For a moment the only sounds were the night noises of the forest: rustle of leaf in breeze, of grass, the dry crackle of the woodland floor, quick flap of wings to a branear by. Somewhere north of them a small animal cried out and another answered it.
Alessan said: "Because I khe tune his father taught him as a child and I know who his father is and he isnt from Asoli. Catriana, my dear, it isnt just the music, whatever you may think of my own weaknesses. He is one of us, my darling. Baerd, will you test him?”
On the most scious, rational level, Devin uood almost none of this. heless he felt himself beginning to grow cold even as Alessan spoke. He had a swooping sense, like the dest of a hunting bird, that he had e to where Morians portal had led him, here in the shadows of this wood uhe waxing blue moon.
Nor was he made easier wheuro Baerd and saw the stri look on the face of the other man. Even by the dist moonlight he could see how pale Baerd had bee.
"Alessan . . ." Baerd began, his voice roughened.
"You are dearer to me than anyone alive," Alessan said, calm and grave. "You have been more than a brother to me. I would not hurt you for the world, and especially not in this. Never in this. I would not ask unless I was sure. Test him, Baerd.”
Still Baerd hesitated, which made Devins own ay grow; he uood less and less of what was happening. Only that it seemed to matter to the others, a great deal.
For a long moment no one moved. Finally Baerd, walking carefully, as if holding tightly to trol of himself, took Devin by the arm and led him a dozen steps further into the wood to a small clearing among a circle of trees.
ly he lowered himself to sit cross-legged on the ground. After a moments hesitation Devin did the same. There was nothing he could do but follow the leads he was being given; he had no idea where they were going. Not on the road Im on, he remembered Catriana saying in the palace that m. He linked his hands together to keep them steady; he felt cold, and it had little to do with the chill of night.
He heard Alessan and Catriana following them but he didnt look back. For the moment what was important was the enormous thing— whatever it was—that he could see building in Baerds eyes. The blond-haired man had appeared so effortlessly petent until this moment and now, absurdly, he seemed to have bee terribly fragile. Someone who could be shattered with uling ease. Abruptly, and for the sed time in that long day, Devi as if he were crossing over into a try of dream, leaving behind the simple, denned boundaries of the daylight world.
And in this mood, uhe blue light of Ilarion, he heard Baerd begiale, so that it came to him that first time like a spell, something woven in words out of the lost spaces of his childhood. Which is what, in the end, it was.
"In the year Alberico took Astibar," said Baerd, "while the provinces ea aando were each preparing to fight him alone, and before Ferraut had fallen, Brandin, King of Ygrath came to this
peninsula from the west. He sailed his fleet into the Great Harbor of Chiara aook the Island. He took it easily, for the Grand Duke killed himself, seeing how many ships had e from Ygrath. This much I suspect that you know.”
His voice was low. Devin found himself leaning forward, straining to hear. A trialla was singing sweetly, sadly, from a branch behind him. Alessan and Catriana made no sound at all. Baerd went on.
"In that year the Peninsula of the Palm became a battleground in an enormous balang game between Ygrath and the Empire of Barbadior. her thought it could afford to give the other free rein here, halfway betweewo of them. Which is one of the reasons Brandin came. The other reason, as we learned afterward, had to do with his younger, most-beloved son, Stevan. Brandin of Ygrath sought to carve out a sed realm for his child to rule. What he found was something else.”
The trialla was still singing. Baerd paused to listen, as if finding in its liquest voice, gentler even than the nightingales, an echo to something in his own.
"The Chiarans, attempting to rally a resistan the mountains, were massacred on the slopes of Sangarios. Brandin took Asoli province soon after, and word of his power ran before him. He was very strong in his sorcery, even strohan Alberico, and though he had fewer soldiers than the Barbadians in the east, his were more pletely loyal aer trained. For where Alberico was only a wealthy, ambitious minor lord of the Empire using hired meraries, Brandin ruled Ygrath and his were the picked soldiers of that realm. They moved south through Corte almost effortlessly, defeating each provinces army one by one, for none of us acted together in that year. Or after, naturally." Baerds voice wasnt quite detached enough for the irony he was trying for.
"From Corte, Brandin himself tur with the smaller part of his army to meet Alberi Ferraut and pin him down there. He sent Stevan south to take the last free provin the west and then cross over to join him in Ferraut to meet the Barbadians itle that I think they all expected would shape the fate of the Palm.
"It was a mistake, though he could not really have known it theeen years ago. Newly landed here, ignorant of the natures of the different provinces in this peninsula. I suppose he waevan to have a taste of leadership on his own. He gave him most of the army and his best anders, rely藏书网ing on his own sorcery to hold Alberitil the others joined him.”
Baerd paused for a moment, his blue eyes focused inward. When he resumed, there was a imbre to his voice; it seemed to Devin to be carrying many different things, all of them old, and all of them sorrowful.
"At the line of the River Deisa," Baerd said, "a little more than halfway betweeando and the sea at Corte, Stevan was met by the bitterest resistaher of the invading armies was to find in the Palm.
Led by their Prince—for in their pride they had always heir ruler so—the people of that last provin the west met the Ygrathens ahem, ahem back from the river with heavy losses on both sides.
"And Prince Valentin of that province . . . the province you know as Lower Corte, slew Stevan of Ygrath, Brandins beloved son, on the bank of the river at su after a bitter day of death.”
Devin could almost taste the keenness of old grief in the words. He saw Baerd glance over for the first time to where Alessan was standing. her man spoke. Devin ook his own eyes away from Baerd. He trated as if his life depended on his doing so, treating each word spoken as if it were a jeweled mosaic piece to be set into the memory that was his own pride.
And right about then it seemed to Devin that a distant bell began to toll in some recess of his mind.
Ranging a warning. As might a village bell in a temple of Adaon, summoning farmers urgently back from the fields. A far bell heard, faint but clear, from over m fields of waving yellow grain.
"Brandin knew what had happened immediately through his sorcery," Baerd said, his voice like the rasp of a file. "He swept back south a, leaving Alberico a free hand in Ferraut aando. He
came down with the full weight of his sorcery and his army and with the rage of a father whose son has been slain, a the remnant of his last foes where they had waited for him by the Deisa.”
Once more Baerd looked over at Alessan. His face was bleak, ghostly in the moonlight. He said: "Brandin annihilated them. He smashed them to pieces without mercy or respite. Drove them helplessly before him bato their own try south of the Deisa and he burned every field and village through which he passed. He took no prisoners. He had women slain in that first march, and children, which was not a thing hed done anywhere else. But nowhere else had his own child died. So many souls crossed over to Morian for the sake of the soul of Stevan of Ygrath. His father overran that provin blood and fire. Before the summer was out he had leveled all the glorious towers of the city in the foothills of the mountains—the one now called Stevanien. On the coast he smashed to rubble and sand the walls and the harbor barriers of the royal city by the sea. And itle by the river he took the Prince who had slain his son and later that year had him tortured and mutilated and killed in Chiara.”
Baerds voice was a dry whisper now uhe starlight and the light of the single moon. And with it there was still that bell warning of sorrows yet to e, tolling in Devins mind, louder now. Baerd said: "Brandin of Ygrath did something more than all of this. He gathered his magic, the sorcerous power that he had, and he laid doell upon that land such as had never even been ceived before. And with that spell he ... tore its name away. He stripped that erly from the minds of every man and woman who had not been born in that provi was his deepest curse, his ultimate revenge. He made it as if we had never been. Our deeds, our history, our very name. And then he called us Lower Corte, after the bitterest of our a enemies among the provinces.”
Behind him now Devin heard a sound and realized that Catriana was weeping. Baerd said, "Brandin made it e to pass that no one living could hear and then remember the name of that land, or of its royal city by the sea or even of that high, golden place of towers on the old road from the mountains. He broke us and he ravaged us. He killed a geion, and theripped away our name.”
And those last words were not whispered or rasped into the autumn dark of Astibar. They were hurled forth as a denunciation, an indit, to the trees and the night and stars—the stars that had watched this thing e to pass.
The grief in that accusation ched itself like a fist within Devin, more tightly than Baerd could ever have known. Than anyone could have known. For no one since Marra had died really knew what memory meant to Devin dAsoli: the way in which it had e to be the touchstone of his soul.
Memory was talisman and ward for him, gateway ah. It ride and love, shelter from loss: for if something could be remembered it was not wholly lost. Not dead and gone forever. Marra could live; his dour, stern father hum a cradle song to him. And because of this, because this w藏书网as at the heart of what Devin was, the old vengeance of Brandin of Ygrath smashed into him that night as if it had been newly wrought, pounding through to the vulnerable ter of how Devin saw a with the world, and it cut him like a fresh and killing wound.
With an effort he forced himself to steadiness, willing the tration that would allow him to remember this. All of this. Which seemed to matter more than ever now. Especially now, with the echo of Baerds last terrible words fading in the night. Devin looked at the blond-haired man with the leather bands across his brow and about his neck, and he waited. He had been quick as a boy; he was a clever man. He uood what was ing; it had fallen into place.
Older by far than he had been only an ho, Devin heard Alessan murmur from behind him, "The cradle song I heard you playing was from that last province, Devin. A song of the city of towers. No o of that place could have learhat tune in the way you told me you did. It is how I knew you as one of us. It is why I did not stop you when you followed Catriana. I left it to Morian to see what might lie beyond that doorway.”
Devin nodded, abs this. A moment later he said, as carefully as he could, "If this is so, if I have
properly uood you, then I should be one of the people who still hear and remember the hat has been . . . otherwise taken away.”
Alessan said, "It is so.”
Devin discovered that his hands were shaking. He looked down at them, trating, but he could not make them stop.
He said, "Then this is something that has been stolen from me all my life. Will you . . . give it bae? Will you tell me the name of the land where I was born?”
He was looking at Baerd by starlight, for Ilarion too was gone now, over west beyond the trees.
Alessan had said it was Baerds to tell. Devin didnt know why. In the darkhey heard the trialla one more time, a long, desding note, and then Baerd spoke, and for the first time in his days Devin heard someone say: "Tigana.”
Within him the bell he had been hearing, as if in a dream of unknown summer fields, fell silent. And within that abrupt, absolute iillness a surge of loss broke over him like an o wave. And after that wave came another, and then a third—the one bearing love and the other a heart-deep pride. He felt a strange light-headed dizzyiion as of a summons rushing along the corridors of his blood.
Then he saw how Baerd was staring at him. Saw his face rigid and white, the fear transparent even by starlight, and something else as well: bitterest thirst—an ag, deprived hunger of the soul. And then Devin uood, and gave to the other man the release he needed.
"Thank you," Devin said. He dido be trembling anymore. Around a difficult thiess in his throat he went on, for it was his turn now, his test: "Tigana. Tigana. I was born in the province of Tigana. My name . . . my true name is Devin di Tigana bar Garin.”
Even as he spoke, something akin to glory blazed in Baerds face. The fair-haired man squeezed his eyes tightly shut as if to hold that glory in, to keep it from esg into the dispersing dark, to clutch it fiercely to his need. Devin heard Alessan draw an unsteady breath, and then, surprised, he felt Catriana touch his shoulder and then withdraw her hand.
Baerd was lost in a place beyond speech. It was Alessan who said, "That is one of the two aken away, and the deepest. Tigana was our provind the name of the royal city by the sea. The fairest city under Eannas lights you would have heard it named. Or perhaps, perhaps only the seost fair.”
A thread of something that seemed to genuinely long to bee laughter was in his voice. Laughter and love together. For the first time Devin turo look up at him.
Alessan said, "If you were to have spoken with those from inland and south, iy where the River Sperion, desding from the mountain, begins its ruward to find the sea, you would have heard it said that sed way. For we were alroud, and there was always rivalry betweewo cities.”
In the end, hard as he tried, his voice could only carry loss.
"You were born in that inland city, Devin, and so was I. We are children of that high valley and of the silver running of that mountain river. We were born in Avalle. In Avalle of the Towers.”
There was musi Devins mind again, with that name, but this time it was different from the bells hed heard before. This time it was a music that took him back a long way, all the way to his father and his childhood.
He said, "You do know the words then, dont you?”
"Of course I do," said Alessaly.
"Please?" Devin asked.
But it was Catriana who answered him, in the voice a young mht have used, rog her child to sleep on an evening long ago: Springtime m in Avalle And I dont care what the priests say: Im going down to the river today On a springtime m in Avalle.
When Im all grown up, e what may, Ill build a boat to carry me away And the river will take it to Tigana Bay And the sea even further from Avalle.
But wherever I wander, by night or by day, Where water runs swiftly h trees sway, My heart will carry me bad away To a dream of the towers of Avalle.
A dream of my home in Avalle.
The sweet sad words to the tune hed always known drifted down to Devin, and with them came something else. A sense of loss so deep it almost drowhe light grace of Catrianas song. No breaking waves now, or trumpets along the blood: only the waters of longing. A longing for something taken away from him before hed even known it was his—taken so pletely, so prehensively he might have lived his whole life through without ever knowing it was gone.
And so Devi as Catriana sang. Small boys, young-looking for their age, learned very early in northern Asoli how risky it was to cry where someone might see. But something toe for Devin to deal with had overtaken him in the forest tonight.
If he uood properly what Alessan had just said, this song was one his mother would have sung to him.
His mother whose life had been ripped away by Brandin of Ygrath. He bowed his head, though not to shield the tears, and listened as Catriana fihat bitter-sweet cradle song: a song of a child defying orders and authority, even when young, who was self-reliant enough to want to build a ship alone and brave enough to want to sail it into the wideness of the world, urning baor ever losing or fetting the place where it all began.
A child very much as Devin saw himself.
Which was one of the reasons he wept. For he had been made to lose and fet those towers, hed been robbed of any dream he himself might ever have had of Avalle. ana on its bay.
So his tears followed one another downward in darkness as he mourned his mother and his home.
And in the shadows of that wood not far from Astibar those two griefs fused to each other in Devin and became welded in the fe of his heart with what memory meant to him and the loss of memory: and out of that blazing something took shape in Devin that was to ge the running of his life line from that night.
He dried his eyes on his sleeve and looked up. No one spoke. He saw that Baerd was looking at him.
Very deliberately Devin held up his left hand, the hand of the heart. Very carefully he folded his third and fourth fingers down so that what showed was a simulacrum of the shape of the Peninsula of the Palm.
The position for taking an oath.
Baerd lifted his right hand and made the same gesture. They touched fiips together, Devins small palm against the other mans larger, callused one.
Devin said, "If you will have me I am with you. In the name of my mother who died in that war I swear I will not break faith with you.”
"Nor I with you," said Baerd. "In the name of Tigana gone." There was a rustling as Alessan sank to his knees beside them. "Devin, I should be cautioning you," he said soberly. "This is not a thing in whiove too fast. You be oh our cause without having to break your life apart to e with us.”
"He has no choice," Catriana murmured, moving nearer oher side. "Tomasso bar Sandre will name you both to the torturers tonight or tomorrow. Im afraid the singing career of Devin dAsoli may be
over just as it truly begins." She looked down ohree men, her eyes unreadable in the darkness.
"It is over," Devin said quietly. "It ended when I learned my name." Catrianas expression did not ge; he had no idea what she was thinking.
"Very well," said Alessan. He held up his ow hand, two fingers down. Devi with his right. Alessaated. "An oath in your mothers name is stronger for me than you could have guessed,”
he said.
"You knew her?”
"We both did," Baerd said quietly. "She was ten years older than us, but every adolest boy in Tigana was a little in love with Mi-caela. And most of the growoo, I think.”
Another new name, and all the hurt that came with it. Devins father had never spoken it. His sons had never even known their mothers here were more aveo sorrow in this night than Devin could have imagined.
"We all envied and admired your father more than I tell you," Alessan added. "Though I leased that an Avalle man won her in the end. I remember when you were born, Devin. My father sent a gift to your naming day. I dont remember what it was.”
"You admired my father?" Devin said, stunned.
Alessan heard that and his voice ged. "Do not judge him by what he became. You only knew him after Brandin smashed a whole geion and their world. Ending their lives or blighting their souls.
Your mother was dead, Avalle fallen, Tigana gone. He had fought and survived both battles by the Deisa." Above them Catriana made a small sound.
"I never knew," Devin protested. "He old us any of that." There was a new ache inside him. So many avenues.
"Few of the survivors spoke of those days," Baerd said.
"her of my parents did," said Catriana awkwardly. "They took us as far away as they could, to a fishing village here in Astibar down the coast from Ardin, and never spoke a word of any of this.”
"To shield you," Alessan said gently. His palm was still toug Devins. It was smaller than Baerds. "A great many of the parents who mao survive fled so that their children might have a ce at a life unmarred by the oppression and the stigma that bore down—that still bear down—upon Tigana. Or Lower Corte as we must now.”
"They ran away," said Devin stubbornly. He felt cheated, deprived, betrayed.
Alessan shook his head. "Devin, think. Dont judge yet: think. Do you really imagine you learhat tune by ce? Your father chose not to burden you or your brothers with the danger of your heritage, but he set a stamp upon you—a tune, wordless for safety— and he sent you out into the world with something that would reveal you, unmistakably, to anyone from Tigana, but to no one else. I do not think it was o more than Catrianas miving her daughter a ring that marked her to anyone born where she was born.”
Devin glanced back. Catriana held out her hand for him to see. It was dark, but his eyes had adjusted to that, and he could make out a strawining shape upon the ring: a man, half human, half creature of the sea. He swallowed.
"Will you tell me of him?" he asked, turning back to Alessan. "Of my father?”
Of stolid, darin, grim farmer in a wet grey land. Who had, it noeared, e frht Avalle of the towers in the southern highlands of Tigana and who had, in his youth, wooed and won a woman beloved of all who saw her. Who had fought and lived through two terrible battles by a river and who had—if Alessan was right in his last jecture—very deliberately sent out into the world his one quick, imaginative child capable of finding what he seemed to have found tonight.
Who had also, Devin abruptly realized, almost certainly lied when he said hed fotten the words to
the cradle song. It was all suddenly very hard.
"I will tell you what I know of him, and gladly," Alessan said.
"But not tonight, for Catriana is right and we must get ourselves away before dawn. Right now I will swear faith with you as Baerd has done. I accept your oath. You have mine. You are as kin to me from now until the ending of my days.”
Devin turo look up at Catriana. "Will you accept me?”
She tossed her hair. "I dont have much choice, do I?" she said carelessly. "You seem to have entangled yourself rather thhly here." She lowered her left hand though as she spoke, two fingers curled. Her fingers met his own with a light, cool touch.
"Be wele," she said. "I swear I will keep faith with you, Devin di Tigana.”
"And I with you. Im sorry about this m," Devin offered.
Her hand withdrew and her eyes flashed; even by starlight he could see it. "Oh yes," she said sardonically, "Im sure you are. It was very clear, all along, hrettable you found the experience!”
Alessan snorted with amusement. "Catriana, my darling," he said, "I just forbade him to mention aails of what happened. How do I enforce that if y them up yourself?”
Without the fairace of a smile Catriana said, "I am the aggrieved party here, Alessan. You dont enforything ohe rules are not the same.”
Baerd chuckled suddenly. "The rules," he said, "have not been the same since you joined us. Why indeed should this be any differ-ent?”
Catriana tossed her head again but did not deign to reply.
The three men stood up. Devin flexed his ko relieve the stiffness of sitting so long in one position.
"Ferraut ea?" Baerd asked. "Which border?”
"Ferraut," Alessan said. "Theyll have me placed as Tregean as soon as Tomasso talks—poor man. If Id been thinking clearly I would have shot him as they rode by.”
"Oh, very clear thinking, that," Baerd retorted. "With twenty soldiers surrounding him. You would have had us all in s in Astibar by now.”
"You would have deflected my arrow," Alessan said wryly.
"Is there a ce he wont speak?" Devin interjected awkwardly. "Im thinking about Menico, you see. If Im named . . .”
Alessan shook his head. "Everyoalks uorture," he said soberly. "Especially if sorcery is involved. Im thinking about Menico too, but there isnt anything we do about it, Devin. It is one of the realities of the life we live. There are people put at risk by almost everything we do. I wish," he added, "that I knew what had happened in that lodge.”
"You wao check it," Catriana reminded him. " we afford the time?”
"I did, and yes, I think we ," said Alessan crisply. "There remains a piece missing in all of this. I still dont know how Sandre dAstibar could have expected me to be the—”
He stopped there. Except for the drone of the cicadas and the rustling leaves it was very quiet in the woods. The trialla had gone. Alessan abruptly raised one hand and pushed it roughly through his hair. He shook his head.
"Do you know," he said to Baerd, in what was almost a versational tone, "how much of a fool I be at times? It was in the palm of my hand all along!" His voice ged. "e on—and pray we are not too late!”
The fires had both died down in the Sandreni lodge. Only the stars shone above the clearing in the woods. The cluster of Eannas Diadem was well over west, following the moons. A nightingale was
singing, as if in ao the trialla of before, as the four of them approached. In the doorway Alessaated for a moment then shrugged his shoulders in a gesture Devin already reized. Then he pushed open the door and walked through.
By the red glow of the embers they looked—with eyes aced by now to darkness—on the age within.
The coffin still rested on its trestles, although splintered and knocked awry. Around it though, lay dead men who had been alive when they left this room. The two younger Sandreni. Nievole, a quiver of arrows in his throat and chest. The body of Scalvaia dAstibar.
Then Devin made out Scalvaias severed head in a black puddle of blood a terrible distance away and he fought to trol the lurch of siess in his ge.
"Oh, Morian," Alessan whispered. "Oh, Lady of the Dead, be geo them in your Halls. They died dreaming of freedom and before their time.”
"Three of them did," came a harsh, desiccated voice from deep in one of the armchairs. "The fourth should have been stra birth.”
Devin jumped half a foot, his heart hammering with shock.
The speaker rose and stood beside the chair, fag them. He was entirely hidden in shadow. "I thought you would e back," he said.
The sixth man, Devin realized, struggling to uand, straining to make out the tall, gaunt form by the faint glow of the embers.
Alessan seemed quite unruffled. "Im sorry I kept you waiting then," he said. "It took me too long to riddle this through. Will you allow me to express my sorrow for what has happened?" He paused. "And my respect for you, my lord Sandre.”
Devins jaw dropped open as if unhinged. He s shut so hard he hurt his teeth; he hoped no one had sees were moving far too fast for him.
"I will accept the first," said the gaunt figure in front of them. "I do not deserve your respect though, nor that of anyone else. Once perhaps; not anymore. You are speaking to an old vain fool—exactly as the Barbadian named me. A man who spent too many years aloangled in his own spun webs. You were right ihing you said before about carelessness. It has e three sons tonight. Within a month, less probably, the Sandreni will be no more.”
The voice was dry and dispassionate, objectively damning, devoid of self-pity. The tone of a judge in some dark hall of final adjudication.
"What happened?" Alessan asked quietly.
"The boy was a traitor." Flat, unied, final.
"Oh, my lord," Baerd exclaimed. "Family?”
"My grandson. Giannos boy.”
"The his soul is cursed," Baerd said, quiet and fierce. "He is in Morians custody now, and she will know how to deal with him. May he be trammeled in darkness until the end of time.”
The old man seemed not to have even heard. "Taeri killed him," he murmured, wly. "I had not thought he was brave enough, or so quick. Theabbed himself, to deny them the pleasure of whatever they might have learned of him. I had not thought he was so brave," he repeated absently.
Through the thick shadows Devin looked at the two bodies by the smaller fire. Uncle and nephew lay so close to each other they seemed almost iwined on the far side of the coffin. The empty coffin.
"You said you waited for us," Alessan murmured. "Will you tell me why?”
"For the same reason you came back." Sandre moved for the first time, stiffly making his way to the larger fire. He seized a small log and threw it otering flame. A shower of sparks flew up. He
, poking with the iron until a tongue of flame licked free of the ash bed.
The Duke turned and now Devin could see his white hair and beard, and the bony hollows of his cheeks. His eyes were set deep in their sockets, but they gleamed with a cold defiance.
"I am here," Sandre said, "and you are here because it goes on. It goes on whatever happens, whoever dies. While there is breath to be drawn and a heart with which to hate. My quest and your own. Until we die they go on.”
"You were listening, then," said Alessan. "From in the coffin. You heard what I said?”
"The drug had worn off by sundown. I was awake before we reached the lodge. I heard everything you said and a great deal of what you chose not to say," the Duke replied, straightening, a chilly hauteur in his voice. "I heard what you named yourself, and what you chose not to tell them. But I know who you are.”
He took a step towards Alessan. He raised a gnarled hand and poi straight at him.
"I kly who you are, Alessan bar Valentin, Prince of Tigana!”
It was too much. Devins brain simply gave up trying to uand. Too many pieces of information were ing at him from too many different dires, tradig each other ferociously. He felt dizzy, overwhelmed. He was in a room where only a little while ago he had stood among a number of men. Now four of them were dead, with a more brutal violehan he had ever thought to e upon. At the same time, the one man hed known to be dead—the man whose m rites he had sung that very m—was the only man of Astibar left alive in this lodge.
If he was of Astibar!
For if he was, how could he have just spoken the name of Tigana, given what Devin had just learned in the wood? How could he have known that Alessan was—and this, too, Devin fought to assimilate—a Prihe son of that Valentin who had slain Stevan of Ygrath and sht Brandins vengeance down upon them all.
Devin simply stopped trying to put it all together. He set himself to listen and look—to absorb as much as he could into the memory that had never failed him yet—and to let uanding e after, when he had time to think.
So resolved, he heard Alessan say, after a blank silence more than long enough to reveal the degree of his own surprise and wonder: "Now I uand. Finally I uand. My lord, I thought you always a giant among men. From the first time I saw you at my first Triad Games twenty-three years ago. You are even more than I took you for. How did you stay alive? How have you hidden it from the two of them all these years?”
"Hidden what?" It was Catriana, her voice so angry and bewildered it immediately made Devin feel better: he wasnt the only one desperately treading water here.
"He is a wizard," Baerd said flatly.
There was another silehen, "The wizards of the Palm are immuo spells not directed specifically at them," Alessan added. "This is true of all magic-users, wherever they e from, however they find access to their power. For this reason, among others, Brandin and Alberico have been hunting down and killing wizards sihey came to this peninsula.”
"And they have been succeeding because being a wizard has— alas!—nothing to do with wisdom or even simple on sense," Sandre dAstibar said in a corrosive voice. He turned and jabbed viciously at the fire with the iron poker. The blaze caught fully this time and roared into red light.
"I survived," said the Duke, "simply because no one knew. It involved nothing more plex than that. I used my power perhaps five times in all the years of my reign—and always cloaked under someone elses magid I have dohing with magiot a flicker, sihe sorcerers arrived. I didnt eve to feign my death. Their power is strohan ours. Far stronger. It was clear from the time each of
them came. Magic was never as much a part of the Palm as it was elsewhere. We khis. All the wizards khis. You would have thought they would apply their brains to that knowledge, would you not? What good is a finding spell, or a fledglial arrow if it leads oraight to a Barbadiah- wheel in the sun?" There was an acid, mog bitterness in the old Dukes voice.
"Or one of Brandins," Alessan murmured.
"Or Brandins," Sandre echoed. "It is the ohing those two carrion birds have agreed upon—other than the dividing line running down the Palm—that theirs shall be the only magi this land.”
"And it is," said Alessan, "or so nearly so as to be the same thing. I have been searg for a wizard for a dozen years or more.”
"Alessan!" Baerd said quickly.
"Why?" the Duke asked in the same moment.
"Alessan!" Baerd repeated, more urgently.
The man Devin had just learo be the Prince of Tigana looked over at his friend and shook his head. "Not this one, Baerd," he said cryptically. "Not Sandre dAstibar.”
He turned back to the Duke aated, choosing his words. Then, with an unmistakable pride, he said, "You will have heard the legend. It happens to be true. The line of the Princes of Tigana, all those in direct dest, bind a wizard to them unto death.”
For the first time a gleam of curiosity, of an actual i in something appeared in Sandres hooded eyes. "I do know that story. The only wizard who ever guessed what I was after I came into my own magic warned me oo be wary of the Princes of Tigana. He was an old man, and d by then. I remember laughing. You actually claim that what he said was true?”
"It was. I am certain it still is. I have had no ce to test it though. It is our primal story: Tigana is the chosen province of Adaon of the Waves. The first of our Princes, Rahal, being born of the god by that Micaela whom we name as mortal mother of us all. And the line of the Princes has never been broken.”
Devi a plex stir of emotions w within himself. He didnt even try to ee how many things were tangling themselves in his heart. Micaela. He listened and watched, a himself to remember.
And he heard Sandre dAstibar laugh.
"I know that story too," the Duke said derisively. "That hoary, enfeebled excuse fanese arrogance. Princes of Tigana! Not Dukes, oh no. Princes/ Desded of the god!" He thrust the poker toward Alessan. "You will staonight, now, among the stinkiy of the Tyrants and of these dead men and the world of the Palm today and spew that old lie at me? You will do that?”
"It is truth," said Alessan quietly, not moving. "It is why we are what we are. It would have been a slight to the god for his desdants to claim a lesser title. The gift of Adaon to his mortal son could not be immortality—that, Eanna and Morian forbade. But the god granted a binding power over the Palms own magic to his son, and to the sons and daughters of his son while a Prince or a Princess of Tigana lived in that direct line. If you doubt me and would put it to the test I will do as Baerd would have had me do and bind you with my hand upon your brow, my lord Duke. The old tale is not to be lightly dismissed, Sandre dAstibar. If roud it is because we have reason to be.”
"Not any more," the Duke said mogly. "Not since Brandin came!”
Alessans face twisted. He opened his mouth and closed it.
"How dare you!" Catriana snapped. Bravely, Devin thought.
Prind Duke ignored her, rigidly i on each other. San-dres sardonic amusement gradually receded into the deep liched in his face. The bitterness remained, in eyes and stand the pinched line of his mouth.
Alessan said, "I had not expected that from you. Under all the circumstances.”
"You are in no position to have any idea what to expect from me," the Duke replied, very low.
"Under all the circumstances.”
"Shall we part pany now then?”
For a long moment something lay balanced in the air between them, a process of weighing and resolution, plicated immeasurably by death and grief and rage and the stiff, reflexive pride of both men. Devin, responding with his nerve-endings to the tension, found that he was holding his breath.
"I would prefer not," said Sandre dAstibar finally. "Not like this," he added, as Devin drew breath again. "Will you accept an apology from one who is sunken as low as he has ever been?”
"I will," said Alessan simply. "And I would seek your sel before we must, indeed, part ways for a time. Your middle son was taken alive. He will name me and Devin both tomorrow m if not tonight.”
"Not tonight," the Duke said, almost absently. "Alberico apprehends no danger anymore. He will also be quite seriously debilitated by what happened here. He will leave Tomasso until a time when he enjoy what happens. When he is in a mood to ... play.”
"Tonight, tomorrow," said Baerd, his blunt voice jarring the mood. "It makes little difference. He will talk. We must be away before he does.”
"Perhaps, perhaps not," Sandre murmured in the same strangely detached voice. He looked at the four dead men on the floor. "I wish I kly what happened," he said. "Ihe coffin I could see nothing, but I tell you that Alberico used a magic here tonight s it is still pulsating. And he used it to save his own life. Scalvaia did something, I dont know what, but he came very near." He looked at Alessan. "o giving Brandin of Ygrath dominiohe whole peninsula.”
"You heard that?" Alessan said. "You agree with me?”
"I think I always k to be true, and I know I succeeded in denying it within myself. I was so focused on my own enemy here in Astibar. I o hear it said, but once will be enough. Yes, I agree with you. They must be taken down together.”
Alessan nodded, and some of his idly trolled tension seemed to ease away. He said, "There are those who still think otherwise. I value yreement.”
He glanced over at Baerd, smiling a little wryly, then back to the Duke. "You mentioned Albericos use of magic as if it should have a meaning now for us. What meaning then? We are ignorant in these matters.”
"No shame. If you arent a wizard you are meant to be ignorant." Sandre smiled thinly. "The meaning is straightforward though: there is su overflow of magic spilling out from this room tonight that any paltry power of my own that I invoke will be pletely sed. I think I ehat your names are not given to the torturers tomorrow.”
"I see," said Alessan, nodding slowly. Devin did not see anything; he felt as if he were ing along iurbulent wake of information. "You take yourself through space? You go in there and bring him out?" Alessans eyes were bright.
Sandre was shaking his head though. He held up his left hand, all five fingers spread wide. "I never chopped two fingers in the wizards final binding to the Palm. My magic is profoundly limited. I t say I regret it—I would never have been Duke of Astibar had I done so, given the prejudices and the laws g wizards here—but it strains what I am able to do. I go in there myself, yes, but I am not strong enough t someone else out. I take him something though.”
"I see," said Alessan again, but in a different voice. There was a silence. He pushed a hand through his disordered hair. "I am sorry," he said at length, softly.
The Dukes face was expressionless. Above the white beard and the gaunt cheeks his eyes gave
nothing away at all. Behind him the fire crackled, sparks snapping outward into the room.
"I have a dition," Sandre said.
"Which is?”
“That you allow me to e with you. I am now a dead man. Given to Morian. Here in Astibar I speak to no one, achieve nothing. If I am to preserve any purpose now to the botched deception of my dying I must go with you. Prince of Tigana, will you accept a feeble wizard in your ente? A wizard e freely, not bound by some legend?”
For a long time Alessan was silent, looking at the other man, his hands quiet at his sides. Then, uedly, he grinned. It was like a flash of light, a gleam of warmth crag the i the room.
"How attached are you," he asked, in a quite ued tone of voice, "to your beard and your white hair?”
A sed later Devin heard a strange sound. It took him a moment that what he was hearing was the high, wheezing, genuine amusement of the Duke of Astibar.
"Do with me what you will," Sandre said as his mirth subsided. "What will you do—tinge my locks red as the maids?”
Alessan shook his head. "I hope not. One of those manes is more than suffit for a single pany. I leave these matters to Baerd though. I leave a great many things to Baerd.”
"Then I shall place myself in his hands," Sandre said. He bowed gravely to the yellow-haired man.
Baerd, Devin saw, did not look entirely happy. Sandre saw it too.
"I will not swear an oath," the Duke said to him. "I swore one vow when Alberie, and it is the last vow I shall ever swear. I will say though that it shall be my endeavor for the rest of my days to ehat you do nret this. Will that tent you?”
Slowly Baerd nodded. "It will.”
Listening, Devin had an intuitive sehat this, too, was an exge that mattered, that her man had spoken lightly, or less tharuth of his heart. He glanced over just then at Catriana and discovered that she had been watg him. She turned quickly away though, and did not look back.
Sandre said, "I think I had best set about doing what I have said I would. Because of the sing of Alberiagic I must go aurn from this room, but I dare say you need not spend a night among the dead, however illustrious they are. Have you a camp in the woods? Shall I find you there?”
The idea of magic was uling to Devin still, but Sandres words had just given him an idea, his first really clear thought siheyd ehe lodge.
"Are you sure youll be able to stop your son from talking?" he asked diffidently.
"Quite sure," Sandre replied briefly.
Devins brow knit. "Well then, it seems to me none of us is in immediate danger. Except for you, my lord. You must not be seen.”
"Until Baerds doh him," Alessan interposed. "But go on.”
Devin turo him. "Id like to say farewell to Menid try to think of a reason to give for leaving. I owe him a great deal. I dont want him to hate me.”
Alessan looked thoughtful. "He will hate you a little, Devin, even though he isnt that kind of man.
What happehis m is what a lifelong trouper like Menico dreams about. And no explanation you e up with is going to alter the fact that he needs you to make that dream a real thing now.”
Devin swallowed. He hated what he was hearing, but he couldhe truth of it. A season or two of the fees Menico had said he could now charge would have let the old campaigner buy the inn in Ferraut hed talked about for so many years. The place where hed always said hed like to settle when the road grew too stern for his bones. Where he could serve ale and wine and offer a bed and a meal to old friends
and new ones passing through on the long trails. Where he could hear aell the gossip of the day and s the old stories he loved. And where, on the cold winter nights, he could stake out a place by the fire and lead whoever happeo be there into and out of all the songs he knew.
Devin shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his breeches. He felt awkward and sad. "I just dont like disappearing on him. All three of us at once. Weve got certs tomorrow, too.”
Alessans mouth quirked. "I do seem to recall that," he said. "Two of them.”
"Three," said Catriana uedly.
"Three," Alessan agreed cheerfully. "And ohe day at the Woolguild Hall. I also have—it has just occurred to me—a substantial wager in The Paelion that I expect to win.”
Which drew an already predictable growl from Baerd. "Do you seriously think the Festival of Vines is going to blithely proceed after what has occurred tonight? You want to go make musi Astibar as if nothing has happened? Music? Ive been down this road with you before, Alessan. I dont like it.”
"Actually, Im quite certain the Festival will go on." It was San-dre. "Alberico is cautious almost before he is anything else. I think tonight will redouble that in him. He will allow the people their celebrations, let those from the distrada scatter and go home, then slam down hard immediately after. But only ohree families that were here, I suspect. It is, frankly, what I would do myself.”
"Taxes?" Alessan asked.
"Perhaps. He raised them after the ziano poisoning, but that was different. An actual assassination attempt in a public place. He didnt have much choice. I think hell narrow it this time—there will be enough bodies for his wheels among the three families here.”
Devin found it uling how casually the Duke spoke of such things. This was his kin they were discussing. His oldest son, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins—all to be fodder for Barbadian killing-wheels. Devin wondered if he would ever grow as ical as this. If what had begun tonight would harden him to that degree. He tried to think of his brothers on a death-wheel in Asoli and found his mind fling away from the very image. Unobtrusively he made the warding sign against evil.
The truth was, he set just thinking about Menico, and that was merely a matter of costing the man money, nothing more. People moved from troupe to troupe all the time. Or left to start their own panies. Or retired from the road into a busihat offered them more security. There would be performers who would be expeg him to go on his own after his success this m. That should have been a helpful thought, but it wasnt. Somehow Devin hated to make it appear as if they were right.
Something else occurred to him. "Wont it look a bit odd, too, if we disappear right after the m rites? Right after Albericos unmasked a plot that was ected with them? Were sort of lio the Sandreni now in a way. Should we draw attention to ourselves like that? It isnt as if our disappearance woiced.”
He said it, for some reason, to Baerd. And was rewarded a moment later with a brief, sober nod of aowledgment.
"Now that cloth I will buy," Baerd said. "That does make sehough Im sorry to say it.”
"A good deal of sense," Sandre agreed. Devin fidgeted a little as he came uhe scrutiny of those dark, sunken eyes. "The two of you"—the Duke gestured at Devin and Catriana—"may yet redeem yeion for me.”
This time Devin refused to look at the girl. Instead his glance went over to the er where Sandres grandson lay by the sed, dying fire, his throat slashed by a family blade.
Alessan broke the sileh a deliberate cough. "There is also," he said in a curious tone, "anumeirely. Only those who have spent as many nights outdoors as I have properly appreciate the depth—as it were—of my preference for a soft bed at night. In short," he cluded with a grin, "your eloquence has quite overe, Devin. Lead me baenico at the inn. Even a bed shared with two
syrenya-players who snore in marginal harmony is a serious improvement over cold ground beside Baerds relative silence.”
Baerd favored him with a forbidding glare. Ohat Alessan appeared to weather quite easily. "I will refrain," Baerd said darkly, "from a recitation of your own noal habits. I will wait here alone for Duke Sao return. Well have to burn this lodge tonight, for obvious reasons. Theres a body that will otherwise be missing when the servants e ba the m. Well meet the three of you by the cache three ms from now, as early as you see fit to rise from your pillows. Assuming," he added with heavy sarcasm, "that soft city living doesnt prevent you from being able to find the cache.”
"Ill find it if he gets lost," Catriana said.
Alessan looked from oo the other of them, his expression wounded. "That isnt fair," he protested.
"It is just the music. You both know that.”
Devin hadnt. Alessan was still gazing at Baerd. "You know it is only the music Im going back for.”
"Of course I know that," Baerd said softly. His expression ged. "Im only afraid that the music will kill us both one of these days.”
Intercepting the look that passed betweehen, Devin learned something new and sudden and ued—on a night when hed already learned more things than he could easily handle—about the nature of bonding and about love.
"Go," said Baerd with a scowl, as Alessan still hesitated. Catriana was already by the door. "We will meet you after the Festival. By the cache. Dont," he added, "expect tnize us.”
Alessan grinned suddenly, and a moment later Baerd allowed himself to smile as well. It ged his face a great deal. He didnt, Devin realized, smile very often.
He was still thinking about that as he followed Alessan and Catri-ana out the door and into the darkness of the wood again.
Chapter 6
IT HAPPEHE LONG PATH OF THAT DAY AND NIGHT DID not lead back to the inn after all.
The three of them returhrough the forest to the main road from Astibar to Ardin town. They walked in silence along the road uhe arch of the autumn stars, cicadas loud in the woods oher side. Devin was glad of his woolen overshirt; it was chilly now, there might be a frost tonight.
It was strao be abroad in the darkness so late. When they were traveling Menico was always careful to have his pany quartered aled by the dinner hour. Even with the stern measures both Tyrants had taken against thieves and brigands, the paths of the Palm were not often traveled by det folk at night.
Folk such as he himself had been, only this m. He had been secure in his niche and his calling, had even had—improbably enough —a triumph. Hed been poised on the edge of a genuine success. And now he was walking a road in darkness having abandoned any such prospects or security, and having sworn an oath that marked him for a death-wheel, in Chiara if not here. Both places actually, if Tomasso bar Saalked.
It was an odd, lonely feeling. He trusted the men he had joined— he even trusted the girl, if it came to that—but he didnt know them very well. Not like he knew Menichano after so many years.
It occurred to him that the same dilemma applied to the cause he had just sworn to make his own: he didnt know Tigaher, which was the whole point of what Brandin of Ygrath had doh his sorcery. Devin was in the process of ging his life for a story told uhe moon, for a childhood song, an evocation of his mother, something almost purely an abstra for him. A name.
He was ho enough to wonder if he was doing this as much for the adventure of it—for the glamor that Alessan and Baerd and the old Duke represented—as for the depth of old pain and grief hed learned about in the forest tonight. He didnt know the answer. He didnt know how much Catriana fitted into his reasons, how much his father did, or pride, or the sound of Baerds voice speaking his loss to the night.
The truth was that if Sandre dAstibar could stop his son from talking, as he had promised to do, then there was nothing to prevent Devin from carrying oly as he had for the past six years. From having the triumph and the rewards that seemed to lie before him. He shook his head. It was astonishing in a way, but that course, with Meni the road, perf across the Palm—the life hed woken to this m—seemed almost inceivable to him now, as if hed already crossed to the other side of some tremendous divide. Devin wondered how often men did what they did, made the choices of their lives, for reasons that were and unplicated and easily uood as they were happening.
He was jolted from his reverie by Alessan abruptly raising a hand in warning. Without a word spokehree of them slipped into the trees again beside the road. After a moment there was a flicker of torchlight to the west and Devin heard the sound of a cart approag. There were voices, male and female both. Revelers returning home late, he guessed. There was a Festival going on. In some ways it had begun to seem another irrelevahey waited for the cart to go by.
It did not. The horse ulled up, with a soft slap and jingle of reins just in front of where they were hiding. Someone jumped down, then they heard him unlog a on a gate.
"I really am hopelessly overindulgent," they heard him plain. "Every siime I look at this excuse for a crest I am remihat I should have had an artisan design it. There are limits, or there ought to be, to what a father allows!”
Devin reized the plad the voi the same moment. An impulse, a striving back toward the ordinary and familiar after what had happened in the night, made him rise.
"Trust me," he whispered as Alessan threw him a glance. "This is a friend.”
Theepped out into the road.
"I thought it was a handsome design," he said clearly. "Better than most artisans I know. And, to tell the truth, Rovigo, I remember you saying the same thing to me yesterday afternoon in The Bird.”
"I know that voice,&quo replied instantly. "I know that void I am exceedingly glad to hear it—even though you have just unmasked me before a shrewish wife and a daughter who has lohe bane of her fathers unfortunate existence. Devin dAsoli, if I am not mistaken!”
He strode forward from the gate, seizing the cart lantern from its bracket. Devin heard relieved laughter from the two women in the cart. Behind him, Alessan and then Catriana stepped into the road.
"You are not mistaken," Devin said. "May I introduce two of my pany members: Catriana dAstibar and Alessan di Tregea. This is Rovigo, a mert with whom I was sharing a bottle i surroundings when Catriana arrao have me assaulted aed yesterday.”
"Ah!&quo exclaimed, holding the lantern higher. "The sister!”
Catriana, lit by the widened cast of the flame, smiled demurely. "I o talk to him," she said by way of explanation. "I didnt much want to go ihat place.”
"A wise and a providential woman,&quo approved, grinning. "Would that my clutch of daughters were half so intelligent. No one," he added, "should much want to go ihe Bird uhey have a head-cold so virulent that it defeats all sense of smell.”
Alessan burst out laughing. "Well-met on a dark road, Master Rovigo—the more so if you are the owner of a vessel called the Sea Maid.”
Devin blinked in astonishment.
"I have ihe great misfortuo own and sail that un-seaworthy excuse for a vessel,&quo admitted cheerfully. "How do you e to know it, friend?”
Alessan seemed highly amused. "Because I was asked to seek you out if I could. I have tidings for you from Ferraut town. From a someortly, red-faced personage accio.”
"My esteemed factor in Ferraut!&quo exclaimed. "Well met, indeed! By the god, where did you enter him?”
"In aavern, I am sorry to have to say. A tavern where I had been playing musid he was . . .
well, esg retribution was his own phrase. ere, as it happehe last patrons of the night.
He wasnt in any great hurry to return home, for what seemed to me prudent reasons, and we fell to talking.”
"It is never hard to fall to talking with Taccio,&quo assented.
Devin heard a giggle from the cart. It didn’t sound like the amusement of a ponderous, unmarriageable daughter. He was beginning to take the measure os attitude to his women. In the darkness he found himself grinning.
Alessan said, "The worthy Taccio explained his dilemma to me, and when I came to mention that I had just joihe pany of Menico di Ferraut and was bound this way for the Festival he charged me to seek you out and carry verbal firmation of a letter he says hes had veyed to you.”
"Half a dozeers,&quo groaned. "To it, then: your verbal firmation, friend Alessan.”
"Good Taccio bade me tell you, and to swear it as true by the Triads grad the three fingers of the Palm"—Alessans voice became a flawless parody of a seious stage messenger—"that did the new bed not arrive from Astibar before the winter frosts, the Dragon that slumbers uneasily by his side would awaken in wrath unimaginable and put a violeo his life of care in your esteemed service.”
There was laughter and applause from the shadows of the cart. The mother, Devin decided, pursuing his earlier thought, didnt sound eveely shrewish.
"Eanna and Adaon, who bless marriages together, forfend that such a thing should ever e to pass,&quo said piously. "The bed is ordered and it is made and it is ready to be shipped immediately
the Festival is over.”
"Then the Dragon shall slumber at ease and Taccio be saved," Alessan intoned, assuming the sonorous voice used for the "moral" at the end of a childrens puppet-show.
"Though why," came a mild, still-amused female voice from the cart, "all of you should be so intimidated by ponida I holy dont kno, are we bereft entirely of our maonight? Will we keep these people standing in the cold and dark?”
"Absolutely not, my beloved," her husband exclaimed hastily. "Alix, it was only the jured vision of Ingonida in wrath that addled my brain." Devin found that he couldnt stop grinning; even Catriana, he noticed, had relaxed her habitual expression of superior indifference.
"Were you going back to town?&quo asked.
The first tricky moment—and Alessa it to him. "We were," Devin said. "Wed taken a long walk to clear our heads and escape the noise, but were just about ready to brave the city again.”
"I imagihe three of you would have been besieged by admirers all night,&quo said.
"We do seem to have achieved a certain notoriety," Alessan admitted.
"Well," said Rovigo early, "all jesting aside, I could well uand if you wao rejoin the celebrations—they were nowhere heir peak when we left. It will go on all night, of course, but I fess I dont like leaving the younger ones alooo late, and my unfortunate oldest, Alais, suffers from twitches and fainting spells when over-excited.”
"How sad," said Alessan with a straight face.
"Father!" came a softly urgent protest from the cart.
&quo, stop that at once or I shall empty a basin on you in your sleep," her mother declared, though not, Devin judged, with any genuine anger.
"You see the way of things?" the mert said, gesturing expressively with his free hand. "I am hounded without respite even into my dreams. But, if you are irely put off by the grievous strideny women and the prospect of three more inside very nearly as unpleasant, you are all most wele, most humbly wele to share a late repast and a quieter drink than you are likely to find in Astibar tonight.”
"And three beds if you care to honor us," Alix added. "We heard you play and sing this m at the Dukes rites. Truly, it would be an honor if you joined us.”
"You were in the palace?" Devin asked, surprised.
"Hardly,&quo murmured in a self-depreg tone. "We were ireet outside among the crowd." He hesitated. "Sandre dAstibar was a man I greatly honored and admired. The Sandreni lands are just east of my own small holding—you have been walking by their woods even now. He was an easy- enough neighbor to the very end. I wao hear his m sung . . . and when I learhat my young friends pany had beeed to perform the rites, well . . . Will you e in with us?”
This time Devi it to Alessan.
Who said, still highly amused, his teeth flashing white in the darkness, "We could not dream of refusing an offer so gracious. It will allow us to toast the safe journey of Taccios new bed .and the restful slumbers of his Dragon!”
"Oh, ponida," said Alix from the cart, trying unsuccessfully not to laugh, "you are all so unfair!”
Ihere was light and warmth and tinuing laughter. There were also three undeniably attractive young women whose names flew past Devin—amid screams and blushes—much too fast to be caught. The oldest of these three though—about seventeen, he guessed—had a musical lilt to her voice and an exceptionally flirtatious glance.
Alais was different.
In the light of the hallway of her home the merts oldest daughter turned out to be small and grave and slender. She had long, very straight black hair and eyes of the mildest shade of blue Devin could remember seeing. Beside her, Catrianas own blue gaze looked more challenging than ever aumbling red hair resembled nothing so much as the mane of a lioness.
They were ushered by insistent female hands and voices into immensely fortable chairs in a sitting-room furnished in shades of green and gold. A huge try fire blazed on the hearth, repudiating the autumn chill. A large carpet in a design that was unmistakably Quileian, even to Devins untutored eye, covered the floor. The seventeen-year-old—Selvena, it emerged—sank gracefully down upon it at Devi. She looked up at him and smiled. He received, and chose to ignore, a quick, sardonic glance from Catriana as she took a seat -o the fire. Alais was elsewhere for the moment, helping her mother.
Just then Rovigo reappeared, flushed and triumphant from some ba, carrying three bottles.
"I hope," he said, beaming down upon them, "that you all have a taste for Astibars blue wine?”
And for Devin that simple question cast airely benevolent aura of fate over his impulsive a in the darkness outside. He glanced over at Alessan, and was rewarded with an odd smile that seemed to him to aowledge many things.
Rovigo quickly began unc and p the wine. "If any of my wretched females are b you," he said over his shoulder, "feel free to swat them away like cats." A curl of blue smoke could be seen rising from each glass.
Selveled her gown more beingly about her on the carpet, ign her fathers gibe with an ease that bespoke long familiarity with this sort of thing. Her mother—, trim, petent, a laughably far cry fros description in The Bird—came in with Alais and an elderly household servant. In a very short while a sideboard was covered with a remarkable variety of food.
Devin accepted a glass fro, sav the icy- bouquet. He leaned ba his chair and prepared to be extremely tent for the little while. Selvena rose at a glance from her mother, but only to fill a plate of food for Devin. She brought it ba, smiling, aled on the carpet again, marginally han before. Alais served Alessan and Catriana while the two you daughters sank down on the floor by their father. He aimed a mock-ferocious cuff at each of them.
Devin doubted if hed ever seen a man so obviously happy to be where he was. It must have shown in the amused irony of his glance, fo, catg the look, shrugged.
"Daughters," he lamented, sorrowfully shaking his head.
" Ponderous cartwheels, " Devin reminded him, looking pointedly at the merts wife. Rovigo winced. Alix, laughter-lines kling at her temples, had overheard the exge.
"He did it again, did he?" she said, tilting her head to one side. "Let me guess: I was of elephantine proportions and formidably evil disposition, and the firls had scarcely enough good features among them to make up one passably acceptable woman. Am I right?”
Laughing aloud, Devin turo see Rovigo—not at all disfited—beaming with pride at his wife.
"Exactly right," Devin said to Alix, "but I must say in his defehat Ive never heard anyone give such a description so happily.”
He was rewarded with Alixs quick laughter and a wonderfully grave smile over her shoulder from Alais, busy at the sideboard.
Rovigo raised his glass, moving it in small circles to make a pattern in the air with the icy smoke.
"Will you join me in drinking to the memory of our Duke and to the glory of music? I dont believe in making idle toasts with blue wine.”
"Nor do I," Alessan said quietly. He lifted his own glass. "To memory," he said very deliberately. "To Sandre dAstibar. To music." Then he added something else, under his breath, before sipping from the wine.
Devin drank, tasting, for only the third or fourth time in his life, the astonishingly rich, cold plexity of Astibars blue wihere was nothing like it anywhere else in the Palm. And its price reflected that fact. He looked over and saluted Rovigo with his glass.
"To all of you," Catriana said suddenly. "To kindness on a dark road." She smiled—a smile without any edge or mockery to it. Devin was surprised, then decided it was unfair for him to feel that way.
Not on the road Im on, shed said in the Sandreni Palace. And that was something he could uand now. For he too was on that road after all, despite what shed doo keep him from it. He tried to catch her eye but failed. She was talking to Alix, now seated beside her. Briefly reflective, Devin turned his attention to his food.
A moment later Selvena touched his foot lightly. "Will you sing for us?" she asked with a delicious smile. She didnt move her hand. "Alais heard you, and my parents, but the rest of us have been here all day.”
"Selvena!" Mother and older sister she ogether. Selvena flinched as if struck but, Devin noticed, it was to her father that she turned, biting her lip. He was looking at her soberly.
"Dear heart," he said, in a voice far removed from the raillery of before, "you have a lesson to learn.
Our friends make music for their livelihood. They are uests here tonight. One does not, light of my life, ask guests to work in ones home." Selvenas eyes brimmed with tears. She lowered her head.
In the same serious to said to Devin, "Will you accept an apology? She meant it in good faith, I assure you of that.”
"I know she did," Devin protested, as Selvena sniffled softly at his feet. "There is no apology needed.”
"Truly, none," Alessan added, setting his plate of food aside. "We make music to live, indeed, but we also make music because doing so is most truly to live. It is not work to play among friends, Rovigo.”
Selvena wiped her eyes and looked up at him gratefully.
"I shall be happy to sing," Catriana said. She glanced briefly at Selvena. "Unless of course it was only Devin you had in mind?”
Devin winced, even though the slash had not been directed at him. Selvena flinched again, badly flustered for the sed time in as many minutes. Out of the er of his eye Devin saw an intriguing expression cross Alaiss face.
Selvena began protesting early that of course shed meant all three of them. Alessan seemed amused by the entire exge. Devin had a sudden intuition, looking at him, that this relaxed, sociable man was at least as close to the ter of the Prince of Tigana as was the arrogantly precise figure hed seen in the forest .
He escapes this way, he thought suddenly. And even as the idea entered his mind he khat it was true. He had heard the man play the "Lament for Adaon.”
"Well," said Rovigo, smiling at Catriana, "if yracious enough to indulge a shameless child I blush to aowledge as my own, it happens that I do have a set ean pipes in the house—the Triad alone know why. I seem to remember once having a doting fathers fancy that one of these creatures might emerge with a talent of some sort.”
Alix, from several feet away, mimed a blow with a spoon at her husband. Unabashed, his good spirits restored, Rovigo sent the you girl off to fetch the pipes while he set about refilling everyones glass.
Devin caught Alais looking at him from the seat shed takeo the fire. Reflexively he smiled at her. She didnt smile back, but her gaze, mild and serious, did not break away. He felt a small, uling
skip to the rhythm of his heart.
As it turned out, after the meal was over he and Catriana sang for better than an hour to Alessans pipes. Part of the way through, as they began one of the rousing old Certandan highland ballads, Rovigo left briefly aurned with a linked pair of Senzian drums. Shyly at first, very softly, he joined in on the refrain, proving as petent at that as at everything else Devin had seen him do. Catriana favored him with a particularly dazzling smile. Rovigo needed no further encement to stay with them on the song, and the .
No man, Devin found himself thinking, should need more encement to do anything in the world than that look from those blue eyes. Not that Catriana had ever favored him with anythiely resembling such a glance. He found himself feeling somewhat fused all of a sudden.
Someone—Alais evidently—had filled his glass a third time. He drank a little more quickly than was good for him, given the legendary potency of blue wine, and then he led the other three into the he last one for the two younger girls, Alix ruled, over protests.
He couldnt sing of Tigana, and he was certainly not about to sing of passion or love, so he began the very old song of Eannas making the stars and itting the name of every single one of them to her memory, so that nothing might ever be lost or fotten in the deeps of space or time.
It was the closest he could e to what the night had meant to him, to why, in the end, he had made the choice he had.
As he began it, he received a look from Alessan, thoughtful and knowing, and a quick, enigmatic glance from Catriana as they joined with him. Rovigos drums fell silent this time as the mert listened. Devin saw Alais, her black hair backlit by the fire, watg him with grave tration. He sang one whole verse directly to her, then, in fidelity to the song, he sent his vision inward to where his purest music was always found, and he looked at no o all as he sang to Eanna herself, a hymn to names and the naming of things.
Somewhere, part of the way through, he had a bright image in his mind of a blue-white star named Micaela aloft in a blaight, a the keenness of that carry him, high and s, up toward Catri-anas harmony and then back down softly to an end.
In the quiet of the mood so shaped, Selvena and the two younger girls went to bed with surprising tranquility. A few moments later Alix rose as well, and so, to Devins disappoi, did Alais.
In the doorway she turned and looked at Catriana. "You must be very tired,&quos daughter said.
"If you like I show you your room now. I hope you dont mind sharing with me. Selvena usually does, but shes in with the girls tonight.”
Devin expected Catriana to demur, or worse, at this fairly transparent separation of the women and the men. She surprised him again though, hesitating only a sed before rising. "I am tired, and I dont mind sharing at all," she said. "It will remind me of home.”
Devin, who had been smiling at the irony of the situation suddenly found the expression less appropriate thahought. Catriana had seen him grinning though; he wished, abruptly, that she hadnt. She was sure to misuand. It occurred to him, with a genuine sense of uy, that they had made love together that m.
For some time after the women had gohe three men sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts.
Rovigo rose at length and refilled their glasses with the last of the wine. He put an on the fire and watched until it caught. With a sigh he sank bato his chair. Toying with his glass he looked from oo the other of his guests.
It was Alessan who broke the silehough. "Devins a friend," he said quietly. "We talk, Rovigo. Though I fear hes about to be extremely angry with both of us.”
Devin sat up abruptly and put aside his glass. Rovigo, a wry expression playing about his lips,
glanced briefly over at him, and theurned Alessans gaze tranquilly.
"I wondered," he said. "Though I suspected he might be with us now, given the circumstances.”
Alessan was smiling too. They both turo Devin.
Who felt himself going red. His brain raced frantically back over the events of the day before. He glared at Rovigo. "You didnt find me in The Bird by act. Alessa you. You had him follow me, didnt you?" he accused, turning to the Prince.
The two men exged anlance before Alessan replied.
"I did,&>..quot; he admitted. "I had a certain suspi that there would be funeral rites for Sandre dAstibar ing up and that we might be asked to audition. I couldnt afford to lose track of you, Devin.”
"Im afraid I was behind you most of the way dowreet of the Temples yesterday,&quo added. He had the grace to look embarrassed, Devin noted.
He was still furious though, and very fused. "You lied about The Bird then, all that talk about going there whenever you came back from a journey.”
"No, that part was true,&quo said. "Everything I said was true, Devin. Once you were forced down to the waterfront you happeo end up in a place I know very well.”
"And Catriana?" Devin pursued angrily. "What about her? How did she—”
"I paid a boy to run a message back to your inn when I saw that old Goro was letting you stay ihe Bird. Devin, dont be angry. There urpose to all of this.”
"There was," Alessan echoed. "You should uand some of it by now. The whole reason Catriana and I were in Astibar with Men-icos troupe was because of what I expected to see happen with San-dres death.”
"Wait a minute!" Devin exclaimed. "Expected? How did you know he was going to die?”
&quo told me," Alessan said simply. He let a small silence register. "He has been my ta Astibar for nine years now. I formed the same impression of him back then that you did yesterday, and about as quickly.”
Devin, his mind reeling, looked over at the mert, the casual friend hed made the day before.
Who turned out to be not so casual at all. Rovigo put down his glass.
"I feel the same way about Tyrants that you do," he said quietly. "Alberico here or Brandin of Ygrath ruling in Chiara and Corte and Asoli, and in that province Alessan es from whose name I ot hear or remember, hard as I might try.”
Devin swallowed. "And Duke Sandre?" he asked. "How did you know—?”
"I spied on them,&quo said calmly. "It wasnt hard. I used to monitor Tomassos ings and goings. They were wholly focused on Alberico, I was their neighbor here in the distrada, it was easy enough to slip onto their land. I learned of Tomassos deception years ago, and —though I wont say it is a thing I am proud of—last year I was outside their windows at the estate and at the lodge on many different nights while they shaped the details of Sandres death.”
Devin looked quickly over at Alessan. He opened his mouth to say something, then, without speaking, he closed it.
Alessan nodded. "Thank you," he said. He turo. "There are one or two things here, as there have been before, that you are better off not knowing, for your own safety and your familys. I think you know by now it isnt a matter of trust, or any such thing.”
"After nine years I think I do know that,&quo murmured. "What should I know about what happeonight?”
"Alberico arrived just after I joiomasso and the vigil-keepers in the lodge. Baerd and Catriana warned us and I had time to hide —with Devin, who had made his way to the on his own.”
"On his own? How?&quo asked sharply.
Devin lifted his head. "I have my own resources," he said with dignity. Out of the er of his eye he saw Alessan grin, and he suddenly felt ridiculous. Sheepishly he added, "I overhead the Saalking upstairs betweewo sessions of the m rites.”
Rovigo looked as if he had another question or three, but, with a gla Alessan, he held them in.
Devin was grateful.
Alessan said, "When we went back to the afterwards we found the vigil-keepers dead. Tomasso was taken. Baerd has remained behind to take care of a number of things by the tonight. He will burn it later.”
"We passed the Barbadians as we left the city,&quo said quietly, abs this. "I saw Tomasso bar Sah them. I feared for you, Alessan.”
"With some cause," Alessan said drily. "There was an informer there. The boy, Herado, Giannos son was in the service of Alberico.”
Rovigos face registered shock. "Family? Morian damn him to darkness for that!" he rasped harshly.
"How could he do such a thing?”
Alessan gave his small characteristic shrug. "A great deal has broken down sihe Tyrants came, would you not say?”
There was a silence as Rovigo fought to master his shod rage. Devin coughed nervously and broke it: "Your own family," he asked. "Do they—”
"They know nothing of this," the mert said, regaining his calm. "her Alix nor any of the girls had ever seen Alessan or Catriana before tonight. I met Alessan and Baerd in Tregea town nine years ago and we discovered in the course of a long night that we had certain dreams aain enemies in on. The told me something of what their purposes were, and I told them I was willing to assist in those pursuits as best I could without unduly endangering my wife or daughters. I have tried to do that. I will tio try. It is my hope to live long enough to be able to hear the oath Alessan offers when he drinks blue wine.”
He spoke the last words quietly but with obvious passion. Devin looked at the Prince, remembering the inaudible words he had murmured under his breath before he drank.
Alessan gazed steadily at Rovigo. "There is oher thing you should know: Devin is one of us in more than the obvious way. I learhat by act yesterday afternoooo was born in my own province before it fell. Which is why he is here.”
Rovigo said nothing.
"What is the oath?" Devin asked. And then, more diffidently, "Is it something that I should know?”
"Not as anything that matters in the scheme of things. I only spoke a prayer of my own." Alessans voice was careful and very clear. "I always do. I said: Tigana, let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul.”
Devin closed his eyes. The words and the voio one spoke. Devin opened his eyes and looked at Rovigo.
Whose brow was knotted in fierce, angry sternation.
"My friend, Devin should uand this," Alessan said to him gently. "It is a part of the legacy he has taken on. What did you hear me say?”
Rovigo gestured with helpless frustration. "The same thing I heard the first time this happehat night nine years ago, when we switched to blue wine. I heard you ask that the memory of something be a blade in you. In your soul. But I didnt hear . . . Ive lost the beginning again. The something.”
"Tigana," Alessan said again. Tenderly, clear as chiming crystal.
But Devin saw Rovigos expression grow even more baffled and dismayed. The mert reached for his glass and drai. "Will you . . . one more time?”
"Tigana," Devin said before Alessan could speak. To make this legacy, this grief at the heart of things, more truly his oroperly it was his own. For the land was his or it had been, and its name art of his own, and they were both lost. Taken away.
"Let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul," he said, his voice faltering at the end though he tried hard to keep it as steady as Alessans had been.
W, disoriented, visibly distressed, Rovigo shook his head.
"And Brandins magic is behind this?" he asked.
"It is," Alessan said flatly.
After a moment Rovigo sighed and leaned ba his chair. "I am sorry," he said softly. "Five me, both of you. I should not have asked. I have opened a wound.”
"I was the one who asked," Devin said quickly.
"The wound is always open," said Alessan, a moment later.
There was araordinary passion in Rovigos face. It was difficult to realize that this was the same man who had beeing about Senzian rustics as husbands for his daughters. The mert rose abruptly and became busy tending to the fire again, though the blaze was doing perfectly well. While he did so Devin looked at Alessan. The other ma his gaze. They said nothing though. Alessans eyebrows lifted a little, and he gave the small shrug Devin had e to know.
"What do we do now, then?" asked Rovigo dAstibar, returning to stand beside his chair. His color was high, perhaps from the fire. "I am as disturbed by this as I was when we first met. I do not like magic.
Especially this kind of magic. It remains a matter of some . . . signifie to be able to hear one day what I was just debarred from hearing.”
Devi a rush of excitement run through him again: the other element to his feelings this evening.
His pique at having been deceived in The Bird was entirely gohese two, and Baerd and the Duke, were men to be reed with, in every possible way, and they were shaping plans that might ge the map of the Palm, of the whole world. And he was here with them, he was one of them, chasing a dream of freedom. He took a long drink of his blue wine.
Alessans expression was troubled though. He looked, suddenly, as if he were burdened with a new and difficult weight. He leaned slowly ba his chair, his hand going through the tangle of his hair as he looked at Rovigo in silence for a long time.
Turning from one man to the other, Devi abruptly lost again, his excitement fading almost as quickly as it had e.
&quo, have we not involved you enough already?" Alessan asked at length. "I must admit this has bee harder for me now that I have met your wife and daughters. This ing year may see a ge in things, and I ot even begin to tell you how much more danger. Four men died in that tonight, and I think you know as well as I do how many will be death-wheeled in Astibar in the weeks to e. It has beehing for you to keep an ear open here and on your travels, to quietly monitor Albericos doings and Sandres, for you and Baerd and I to meet every so often and touch palms and talk, friend to friend. But the shape of the tale is ging now, and I greatly fear to put you in danger.”
Rovigo nodded. "I thought you might say something like that. I am grateful for your . But Alessan, I made up my mind on this a long time ago. I ... would not expect that freedom could be found or won without a price paid. You said three days ago that the ing spring might mark a turning-point for all of us. If there are ways that I help in the days to e you must tell me." He hesitated, then: "One of the reasons I love my wife is that Alix would echo this were she with us and did she know.”
Alessans expression was still troubled. "But she isnt with us and she doesnt know," he said. "There
have been reasons for that, and there will be more of them after tonight. And yirls? How I ask you to endahem?”
"How you decide for me, or them?&quo replied softly, but without hesitation. "Where is our choice, our freedom, if you do that? I would obviously prefer not to do anything that will put them into actual danger, and I ot afford to suspend my business entirely. But within these fines, is there no aid I offer that will make a difference?”
Finally uanding the source of Alessans doubts, Devi grimly silent. This was something to which he had attached at all, while Alessan had beeling with it all along. He felt chastened and sobered, and afraid now though not for himself.
There will be people put at risk by everything we do, the Prince had said in the forest, speaking of Menico. And now Devin was beginning to uand, painfully, the reality of that.
He didnt want these people hurt. In any way at all. His excitement quite gone, Devin had driven home for him, for the first time, this one among the many ancillary sorrows that lay on the road he seemed to have found. He was brought face-to-face with the distahat road imposed between them and, it now seemed, almost everyohey might meet. Even friends. Even people who might share a part or all of their dream. He thought of Catriana in the palace again, and he uood her even more now than he had an ho.
Watg, letting the growth of wis?.dom guide him into silence, Devin focused on Alessans momentarily unguarded fad he saw him e hard to his decisioched as the Priook a deep, slow breath and so shouldered another burden that was the price of his blood.
Alessan smiled, an odd, rueful smile. "Actually, there is," he said to. "There is something you do now that will help." He hesitated, then, uedly, the smile deepened and it reached his eyes.
"Had you ever given any thought," he said in an elaborately casual voice, "to taking on some business partners?”
For just a moment Rovigo seemed nonplussed, then a quick, answering smile of uanding broadened across his face. I see," he said. "You need access to some places.”
Alessan nodded. "That, and there are more of us now, as well. Devin is with us, and there may be others before spring. Things will be different from the years when it was only Baerd and I. I have been giving thought to this siriana joined us,”
His voice quied, grew crisper. Devin remembered this tone from the . This was the man hed first seen there. Alessan said, "In busiogether you and I will have a more legitimate means of exging information and Im going to need informatiularly this winter. As partners we have reason to be writing each other about any affairs that tou trade. And of course all affairs tou trade.”
"Ihey do," said Rovigo, his eyes i on Alessans face.
"We unicate directly if you have resources for that, or through Taccio in Ferraut." He glanced over at Devin. "I know Tac-cio, by the way, that wasnt a ce either. I assume youd figured that out?" Devin hadnt even thought about it actually, but before he could speak Alessan had turned back to. "I assume you have a courier service you trust?&quo nodded.
Alessan said, "You see, the problem is that although we could still travel as musis, after this ms performance wed be notorious wherever we went. Had I thought about it in time Id have botched the music a little, or told Devin to be a little less impressive.”
"No you wouldnt have," Devin said quietly. "Whatever other things you would have done, ruining the musit one of them.”
Alessans mouth quirked as he aowledged the hit. Rovigo smiled.
"Perhaps so," the Prince murmured. "It ecial, wasnt it?”
There was a brief silence. Rovigo got up and put one more log on the fire.
Alessan said, "It all makes sehere are certain places aain activities that would be awkward for us as performers. Especially well-known performers. As merts, we would have a new access to such places.”
"Certain islands, perhaps?&quo asked quietly, from by the fire.
"Perhaps," Alessan agreed. "If it es to that. Though there it may be a matter of five of one hand, five of the other: artists are wele at Brandins court on Chiara. This gives us another option, though, and I like having options to work with. It has been necessary once or twice for a character Ive assumed to disappear, or die." His voice was quiet, matter-of-fact. He took a sip of his wine.
After a momeurned back to. Who was now stroking his in a fine imitation of a shrewdly avaricious businessman.
"Well," the mert said in a greedy, wheedling voice, "you appear to have made a most . . .
intriguing proposal, gentlemen. I do have to ask one or two preliminary questions. Ive known Alessan for some time, but this particular issue has never e up before, you uand." His eyes narrowed with exaggerated ing. "What, if anything, do you know about business?”
Alessan gave a sudden burst of laughter, then quickly grew serious again. "Have you any moo hand?" he asked.
"Ive my ship just in,&quo replied. "Cash from two days transas and easy credit based on profits over the few weeks. Why?”
"I would suggest buying a reaso not indiscreet amount of grain in the forty-eight hours.
Twenty-four hours, actually, if you .”
Rovigo looked thoughtful. "I could do that," he said. "And my means are suffitly limited that no purchase I made would be large enough to be indiscreet. I have a tact, too—the steward at the Nievolene farms by the Ferraut border.”
"Not from Nievole," Alessan said quickly.
Another silence. Rovigo nodded his head slowly. "I see," he said, startling Devin again with his quiess. "You think we expee fiscation after the Festival?”
"You ," Alessan said. "Among all the other even less pleasant things. Have you another source for buying up grain?”
"I might.&quo looked from Alessan to Devin and back again. "Four partners, then," he said crisply. "The three of you and Baerd. Is that right?”
Alessan nodded. "Almht, but make it five partners. There is oher person who should be brought in to divide our share, if that is all right with you?”
"Why should it not be?&qued. "That doesnt touch my share at all. Will I meet this person?”
"I hope so, sooner or later," said Alessan. "I expect you will be happy with each other.”
"Fine,&quo said crisply. "The usual terms for a traina associatiowo-thirds to the one iing the funds, and ohird to the ones who do the traveling and put iime. Based on what you have just told me I will accept that you are likely to be able to offer information which will be of real value to our venture. I propose a half i each way on all affairs were jointly duct. Is that acceptable?”
He was looking at Devin. With as muposure as he could manage, Devin replied, "It is quite acceptable.”
"It is more than fair," Alessan agreed. His expression was troubled again; he looked as if he would go on.
"It is dohen," said Rovigo quickly. "No more to be said, Alessan. We will go into town tomorrow to have the traina formally drawn up and sealed. Which way do you plan to go after the Festival?”
"Ferraut, I think," said Alessan slowly. "We discuss what es after, but I have something to do there, and an idea for some trade with Senzio we might want to sider.”
"Ferraut?" said Rovigo, ign the latter remarks. A smile slowly widened across his face. "Ferraut!
That is splendid. Absolutely splendid! You save us some money already. Ill give you a cart and all of you take Ingonida her new bed!”
On the stairs Alais couldnt remember when she had last been so happy. Not that she roo moodiness like Selvena, but life at home teo be very quiet, especially when her father was away.
And now so many things seemed to be happening at once.
Rovigo was home after a lorip than usual down the coast. Alix and Alais were ease when he ventured south of the mountains into Quileia, no matter how many times he reassured them of his caution. And on top of that, this trip had e ulingly late in the season of autumn winds. But he was home noalm to palm with his return had e the Festival of Vines. It was her sed one, and Alais had loved every moment of the day and night, abs with her wide, alert eyes all she saw.
Drinking it in.
In the crowded square in front of the Sandreni Palace that m she had stood extremely still, listening to a clear voice soar from the inner courtyard out among the unnatural silence of the people gathered. A voice that lamented Adaoh among the cedars ea so bitterly, so sweetly, that Alais had been afraid she would cry. She had closed her eyes.
It had been a source of astonished pride for her when Rovigo had casually mentioo her and her mother having had a drink the day before with one of the singers who were doing the Dukes m rites. He had even ihe young man, he said, to eet his fainly offspring. The teasing bothered Alais not at all. She would have felt that something was wrong by now had Rovigo spoken about them in any other way. her she nor her sisters nursed any aies about their fathers affe.
They had only to look at his eyes.
On the road home late at night, already badly uled by the thundering clatter of the Barbadian soldiers they had made way for at the city walls, she had been truly frightened when a voice called out to them from the darkness heir gate.
Then, when her father had replied, and she came gradually to uand who this was, Alais had thought her heart would stop from sheer excitement. She could feel the tell-tale color rising in her cheeks.
When it became clear that the musis were ing i had taken a supreme act of self- trol for her tain the mien and posure proper to her parents oldest, most trusted child.
In the house it became easier because the instant the two male guests stepped through the doorway Selvena had goo her predictable mating frenzy. A course of behavior so embarrassingly transparent to her older sister that it drove Alais straight bato her own habitual, detached watchfulness. Selvena had been g herself to sleep for much of the year because it looked more and more as if she would still be unmarried when her eighteenth naming day came in the spring.
Devin, the singer, was smaller and younger-looking than shed expected. But he was and lithe, with an easy smile and quick, intelligent eyes under sandy-brown hair that curled halfway over his ears.
Shed expected him to be arrogant or pretentious, despite what her father had said, but she saw nothing of that at all.
The other man, Alessan, looked about fifteen years older, perhaps more. His black, tangled hair rematurely greying—silvering, actually—at the temples. He had a lean, expressive face with very clear grey eyes and a wide mouth. He intimidated her a little, even though he was joking easily with her father right from the start, ily the manner she knew Rovigo most enjoyed.
Perhaps that was it, Alais thought: few people shed met could keep up with her father, iing or in anything else. And this man with the sharp, quizzical features appeared to be doing so effortlessly. She wondered, aware that the thought was more than a little arrogant on her own part, how a Tregean musi could mahat. Oher hand, she reflected, she didnt know very much about musis at all.
Which made her even more curious about the woman. Alais thought Catriana was terribly beautiful.
With her andi and the startlingly blue eyes uhe blaze of her hair—like a sed fire in the room—she made Alais feel small and pale and bland. In a curious way that bined with Selvenas eous flirtation to relax rather than ule her: this sort of activity, petition, exercise, was simply not something with which she was going to get involved. Watg closely, she saw Catriaer Selvenas soft floung at Devi and she intercepted the sardonic glahe red-haired singer directed at her fellow musi.
Alais decided to go into the kit. Her mother and Menka might need help. Alix gave her a quick, thoughtful glance when she came in, but did not ent.
They quickly put a meal together. Ba the front room Alais helped at the sideboard and then listened and watched from her favorite chair o the fire. Later she had genuine cause to bless Selvenas shamelessness. None of the rest of them would have dreamt of asking their guests to sing.
This time she could see the singers so she kept her eyes open. Devin sang directly to her onear the end and Alais, her color furiously rising, forced herself not to look away. For the rest of that last song about Eanna naming the stars she found her mind straying into els unusual for her—the sort of thing Selvena speculated about at night all the time, iail. Alais hoped they would all attribute her color to the warmth of the fire.
She did wonder about ohing though, having been an observer of people for most of her life. There was somethiween Devin and Catriana, but it certainly wasnt love, or even tenderness as she uood either of those things. They would look at each other from time to time, usually wheher was unaware, and the glances would be more challenging than anything else. She reminded herself again that the world of these people was farther removed from her own than she could even imagine.
The younger ones said their good nights. Selvena doing so with a highly suspicious lack of protest, and toug, shogly, fiip to palm with both men in farewell. Alais caught a glance from her father, and a moment later she rose when her mother did.
It was impulse, nothing more, that led her to iriana to e up with her. Immediately the words were spoken, she realized how they must sound to the other woman—someone so indepe and obviously at ease in the pany of men. Alais flinched inwardly at her own provincial clumsiness, and braced herself for a rebuff. Cat-rianas smile, though, was all graciousness as she stood.
"It will remind me of home," she said.
Thinking about that as the two of them went up the stairs past the lamps in their brackets and the wall-hangings her grandfather had brought back south from a voyage to Khardhun years and years ago, Alais tried to fathom what would lead a girl her owo ve among the rough and tumble of long roads and uain lodging. Of late nights and men who would surely assume that if she was among them she had to be available. Alais tried, but she holy couldnt grasp it. Despite that, or perhaps because of it, something generous in her spirit opened out toward the other woman.
"Thank you for the music," she said shyly.
"Small return for your kindness," Catriana said lightly.
"Not as small as you think," Alais said. "Our room is over here. Im glad this reminds you of home . .
. I hope it is a good memory." That robing a little, but not rudely she hoped. She wao talk to this woman, to be friends, to learn what she could about a life so remote from her own.
They stepped into the large bedroom. Menka had the fire going already and the two bedspreads
turned back. The deep-piled quilts were his autumn, more traband brought back by Rovigo from Quileia where winters were so much harsher than here.
Catriana laughed a little under her breath, her eyebrows arg as she surveyed the chamber.
"Sharing a room does. This is rather more than I knew in a fishermans cottage." Alais flushed, fearful of having offended, but before she could speak Catriana turo her, eyes still very wide, and said casually, "Tell me, will we o tie your sister down? She seems to be i and Im worried about the two men surviving the night.”
Alais went from feeling spoiled and iive to red-faced sho one sed. Then she saw the quick smile oher womans fad she laughed aloud in a release of ay and guilt.
"Shes just terrible isnt she? Shes vowed to kill herself in some dreadfully dramatic way if she isnt married by the Festival year.”
Catriana shook her head. "I knew some girls like her at home. Ive met a few on the road, too. Ive never been able to uand it.”
"Nor I," said Alais a little too quickly. Catriana gla her.
Alais ventured a hesitant smile. "I guess thats a thing we have in on?”
"Ohing," the other woman said indifferently, turning away. She strolled over to one of the woven pieces on the wall. "This is niough," she said, fingering it. "Where did your father find it?”
"I made it," Alais said shortly. She felt patronized suddenly, and it irritated her.
It must have shown in her voice, for Catriana looked quickly back over her shoulder. The two women exged a look in silence. Catriana sighed. "Im hard to make friends with," she said at length. "I doubt its worth your effort.”
"No effort," said Alais quietly. "Besides," she ventured, "I may need your help tying Selvena down later.”
Surprised, Catriana chuckled. "Shell be all right," she said, sitting on one of the beds. "her of them will touch her while they are guests in your fathers house. Even if she slithers into their room wearing nothing but a single red glove.”
Shocked for the sed time, but finding the sensation oddly enjoyable, Alais giggled and sat down on her own bed, dangling her legs over the side. Catrianas feet, she noticed ruefully, easily reached the carpet.
"She just might do that," she whispered, grinning at the image. "I think she even has a red glove hidden somewhere!”
Catriana shook her head. "Then its roping her down like a heifer or trusting the men, I guess. But as I say, they wont do anything.”
"You know them very well, I suppose," Alais hazarded. She still wasnt sure whether any given remark would earn her a rebuff or elicit a smile. This was not, she was disc, an easy woman to deal with.
"Alessan, I know better," Catriana said. "But Devins been on the road a long time and I have no doubt he knows the rules." She glanced away briefly as she said that last, her own color a little high.
Still wary of another reje Alais said cautiously, "I have no idea about that, actually. Are there rules? Do any of them ... do you have problems when you travel?”
Catriana shrugged. "The kind of problems your sisters longing to find? Not from the musis.
Theres an unwritten code, or else the panies would only get a certain kind of woman to tour and that would hurt the musid the music really does matter to most of the troupes. The ohat last, anyway.
Men be quite badly hurt for b a girl too much. Certainly theyll never find work if it happens too often.”
"I see," said Alais, trying to imagi.
"You are expected to pair off with someohough," Catriana added. "As if its the least you do.
Remove yourself as a temptation. So you find a man you like, or some of the girls find a woman, of course. Theres a fair bit of that, too.”
"Oh," said Alais, clasping her hands in her lap.
Catriana, who was really much too clever by half, flashed a glaningled amusement and malice. "Dont worry," she said sweetly, looking pointedly at where Alaiss hands had settled like a barrier. "That glove doesnt fit me.”
Abruptly Alais put her hands to either side of her, blushing furiously.
"I wasnt particularly worried," she said, trying to sound casual. Then, goaded by the others mog expression, she shot back: "What glove does fit you, then?”
The other womans amusement quickly disappeared. There was a small silehen: "You do have some spirit in you, after all," Catriana said judiciously. "I wasnt sure.”
"That," said Alais, moved to a rare anger, "is patronizing. How would you be sure of anything about me? And why would I let you see it?”
Again there was a silence, and again Catriana surprised her. "Im sorry," she said. "Truly. Im really not very good at this. I warned you." She looked away. "As it happens, you hit a nerve and I tend to lash out when that occurs.”
Alaiss anger, as quick to recede as it was slow to kindle, was gone even as the other oke.
This was, she reminded herself sternly, a guest in her house.
She had no immediate ce to reply though, or to try to mend the rift, because just then Menka bustled importantly into the room with a basin of water heated over the kit fire, followed by the you os apprentices with a sed basin and towels draped over both his shoulders. The boys eyes were desperately cast downwards in a room taining two women as he carried the basin and the towels carefully over to the table by the window.
The garrulous fuss Menka iably stirred up wherever she went broke the mood entirely—both the good and the bad parts of it, Alais thought. After the two servants left, the women washed up in silence.
Alais, stealing a gla the others long-limbed body, felt even more ie in her own small, white softness and the sheltered life shed lived. She climbed into bed, feeling as if shed like to begin the whole versation ain.
"Good night," she said.
"Good night," Catriana replied, after a moment. Alais tried to read an invitation to further versation ione, but she wasnt sure. If Catriana wao talk, she decided, she had only to say something.
They blew out their bedside dles and lay silently in the semi-darkness. Alais watched the red glow of the fire, curled her toes around the hot brick Menka had put at the foot of her bed, and thought ruefully that the distao Selvenas side of the room had never seemed so great.
Sometime later, still unsleeping though the fire was down to its embers, she heard a burst of hilarity from the three men downstairs. The warm, carrying sound of her fathers laughter somehow worked its way into her and eased her distress. He was home. She felt sheltered and safe. Alais smiled to herself in the darkness. She heard the men e upstairs soon after, and go to their separate rooms.
She remained awake for a while, with an ear perked to catch the sound of her sister in the hallway— though she didnt really believe even Selvena would do that. She heard nothing, aually she fell asleep.
She dreamt of lying on a hilltop in a strange place. Of a man there with her. L himself upon her. A mild moonless night glittering with stars. She lay with him upon that windy height amid a
scattering of dew-drenched summer flowers, and in the high, unknown place of that dreaming Alais was filled with plex yearnings she could never have named aloud.
It was bitterly cold in the dungeohey had thrown him at last. The stones were damp and icy, they smelled of urine and feces. Hed only been allowed to put ba his linen underclothing and his hose. There were rats in the cell. He couldhem in the blaess but he had been able to hear them from the beginning and hed been bitten twice already as he dozed.
Earlier, he had been he netain of the Guard—the replat for the one whod killed himself—had permitted his men to play with their prisoner before log him up for the night. They all komassos reputation. Everyone knew his reputation. He had made sure of that; it had been part of the plan.
So the guards had stripped him in the harsh brightness of the guardroom and they had amused themselves coarsely, prig him with their swords or with the heated poker from the fire, sliding them around his flaccid sex, prodding him itocks or the belly. Bound and helpless, Tomasso had wanted only to close his eyes and wish it all away.
For some reason it was the memory of Taeri that would him do that. He still couldnt believe his younger brother was dead. Or that Taeri had been so brave and so decisive at the end. It made him want to cry, thinking about it, but he was not going to let the Barbadiahat. He was a Sandreni. Which seemed to mean more to him now, naked ahe end, than it ever had before.
So he kept his eyes open and he fixed them bleakly on the netain. He did his best to ighe things they were doing to him, and the sniggering, brutal suggestions as to what would happen tomorrow.
They werent very imaginative actually. He khe ms reality was going to be worse. Intolerably worse.
They hurt him a little with their blades and drew blood a few times, but nothing very much— Tomasso khey were under orders to save him for the professionals in the m. Alberico would be present then, as well.
This was just play.
Eventually the captaiired of Tomassos steady gaze, or else he decided that there was enough blood flowing down the prisoners legs, puddling on the floor. He ordered his men to stop. Tomassos bonds were cut and they gave him back his undergarments and a filthy pest-ied strip of bla and they took him dowairs to the dungeons of Astibar and they threw him into the blaess of one of them.
The entrance was so low that even on his knees hed scraped his head oone when they pushed him in. More blood, he realized, as his hand came away sticky. It didnt actually seem to matter very much.
He hated the rats though. Hed always been afraid of rats. He rolled the useless bla as tightly as he could and tried to use it as a feeble club. It was hard though in the dark.
Tomasso wished he were a physically braver man. He knew what was ing in the m, and the thought, now that he was alourned his bowels to jelly.
He heard a sound, and realized a moment later that he was whimpering. He fought to keep trol of himself. He was alohough, and in freezing darkness in the hands of his enemies, and there were rats.
He couldirely keep the sounds from ing. He felt as if his heart was broken, as if it lay in jagged pieces at odd angles in his breast. Among the fragments he tried to assemble a curse for Herado and his betrayal, but nothing seemed equal to what his nephew had done. Nothing seemed large enough to enpass it.
He heard another rat and lashed out blindly with his rolled o something and heard a squeal. Again and again he pou the place of that sound. He thought he had killed it. One of them.
He was trembling, but the frenzy of activity seemed to help him fight back his weakness. He didnt weep
any more. He leaned back against the damp slime of the stone wall, wing because of his open cuts. He closed his eyes, though he couldnt see in any case, ahought of sunlight.
It was then that he must have dozed, because he woke suddenly with a shout of pain: one of the rats had bitten viciously at his thigh. He flailed about with the bla for a few moments, but he was shivering now and beginning to feel genuinely ill. His mouth was swollen and pulpy from Albericos blow in the . He found it painful to swallow. He felt his forehead and decided he was feverish.
Which is why, when he saw the wan light of a dle, he was sure he was halluating. He was able to look around though by its glow. The cell was tiny. There was a dead rat near his right leg and there were two more living ones—big as cats—he door. He saw, on the wall beside him, a scratched-out image of the sun with notches for days cut into the rim. It had the saddest faasso could ever remember seeing. He looked at it for a long time.
Then he looked back towards the glowing light and realized with certainty that this was a halluation, or a dream.
His father was holding the dle, dressed in the blue-silver robe of his burial, looking down with an expression different from any Tomasso could ever remember seeing on his face.
The fever must be extreme, he decided; his mind was juring forth in this abyss an image of something his shattered heart so desperately desired. A look of kindness—and even, if one wao reach for the word, even of love—in the eyes of the man whod whipped him as a child and then designated him as useful for two decades of plotting against a Tyrant.
Which had eonight. Which would truly end, most horribly, for Tomasso in the m, amid pain he didnt even have the capacity to imagine. He liked this dream though, this fever-induced fantasy.
There was light in it. It kept the rats away. It even seemed to ease the bone-numbing cold of the wet stones beh him and against his back.
He lifted an unsteady hand towards the flame. Through a dry throat and torn, puffy lips he croaked something. What he wao say was, "Im sorry," to the dream-image of his father, but he couldnt make the words e right.
This was a dream though, his dream, and the image of Sandre seemed to uand.
"You have nothing to be sorry for," Tomasso heard his dream-father say. So gently. "It was my fault and only mihrough all those years and at the end. I knew Giannos limitations from the start. I had too many hopes for you as a child. It ... affected me too much. After.”
The dle seemed to waver a little. A part of Tomasso, a er of his heart, seemed to be knitting itself slowly back together, even though this was only a dream, only his own longing. A last feeble fantasy of being loved before they flayed him.
"Will you let me tell you how sorry I am for the folly that has ned you to this? Will you hear me if I tell you I have been proud of you, in my fashion?”
Tomasso let himself weep. The words were balm for the deepest ache he knew. g made the light blur and swim though, and so he raised his shaking hands arying to wipe the tears away. He wao speak but his shattered mouth could not form words. He nodded his head though, over and over. Then he had a thought and he raised his left hand—the heart hand, of oaths and fidelity—toward this dream of his dead fathers ghost.
And slowly Sandres hand came down, as if from a long, long way off, from years and years away, seasons lost and fotten iurning of time and pride, and father and son touched fiips together.
It was a more solid tact than Tomasso had thought it would be. He closed his eyes for a moment, yielding to the iy of his feelings. When he opehem his fathers image seemed to be holding something out towards him. A vial of some liquid. Tomasso did not uand.
"This is the last thing I do for you," the ghost said in a strange, uedly wistful voice. "If I
were stronger I could do more, but at least they will not hurt you in the m now. They will not hurt you any more, my son. Drink it Tomasso, drink it and this will all be gone. All go away, I promise you.
Then wait for me Tomasso, wait if you in Morians Halls. I would like to walk with you there.”
Tomasso still did not uand, but the tone was so mild, so reassuring. He took the dream-vial.
Again it was more substantial than hed expected it to be.
His father nodded encement. With trembling hands Tomasso fumbled and removed the stopper.
Then with a last gesture—a final mog parody of himself—he raised it in a wide, sweeping, elaborate salute to his own powers of fantasy and he drai to the dregs, which were bitter.
His fathers smile was so sad. Smiles are not supposed to be sad, Tomasso wao say. He had said that to a boy once, in a temple of Morian at night, in a room where he was not supposed to be. His head felt heavy. He felt as if he were about to fall alseep, even though he already was asleep, and dreaming in his fever. He really didnt uand. He especially didnt uand why his father, who was dead, should ask him to wait in Morians Halls.
He looked up again, wanting to ask about that. His vision seemed to be going pletely strange on him though.
He khis was so, because the image of his father, looking down upon him, seemed to be g.
There were tears in his fathers eyes.
Which was impossible. Even in a dream.
"Farewell," he heard.
Farewell, he tried to say, iurn.
He wasnt sure if hed actually mao form the word, or if hed only thought it, but just then a darkness more enpassing than he had ever known came down over him like a bla or a mantle, and the differeween the spoken and the unspoken ceased to matter anymore.
PART TWO – DIANORA Chapter 7
DIANORA COULD REMEMBER THE DAY SHE CAME TO THE Island.
The air that autumn m had been much like it was today at the beginning of spring—white clouds scudding in a high blue sky as the wind had swept the Tribute Ship through the whitecaps into the harbor of Chiara. Beyond harbor and town the slopes mounting to the hills had been wild with fall colors.
The leaves were turning: red and gold and some that g yet to green, she remembered.
The sails of the Tribute Ship so long ago had been red and gold as well: colors of celebration in Ygrath. She khat now, she hadnt known it then. She had stood on the forward deck of the ship to gaze for the first time at the splendor of Chiaras harbor, at the long pier where the Grand Dukes used to stand to throw a ring into the sea, and from where Letizia had leaped in the first of the Ring Dives to reclaim the ring from the waters and marry her Duke: turning the Dives into the lud symbol of Chiaras pride until beautiful Ora had ged the ending of the story hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and the Ring Dives had ceased. Even so, tvery child in the Palm khat legend of the Island.
Yo.９9ｌiｂ?ung girls in each province would play at diving into water for a ring and rising in triumph, with their hair shinio wed a Duke of power and glory.
From he prow of the Tribute Ship, Dianora had looked up beyond the harbor and palace to gaze at the majesty of snow-ed Sangarios rising behind them. The Ygrathen sailors had not disturbed her silehey had allowed her to e forward to watch the Island approach. Once shed been safely aboard ship and the ship away to sea theyd been kind to her. Women thought to have a real ce at being chosen for the saishan were always treated well oribute Ships. It could make a captains fortune in Brandins court if he brought home a hostage who became a favorite of the Tyrant.
Sitting now on the southern baly of the saishan wing, looking out from behind the ornately crafted s that hid the women from gawkers in the square below, Dianora watched the banners of Chiara and Ygrath flap in the freshening spring breeze, and she remembered how the wind had blown her hair about her face more than twelve years ago. She remembered looking from the bright sails to the slopes of the tree-clad hills running up to Sangarios, from the blue and white of the sea to the clouds in the blue sky.
From the tumult and chaos of life in the harbor to the serene grandeur of the palace just beyond. Birds had been wheeling, g loudly about the three high masts of the Tribute Ship. The rising sun had been a dazzle of light striking along the sea from the east. So much vibran the world, so rid fair and shining a m to be alive.
Twelve years ago, and more. She had beey-one years old, and nursing her hatred and her secret like two of Morians three swining about her heart.
She had been chosen for the saishan.
The circumstances of her taking had made it very likely, and Brandins celebrated grey eyes had widened appraisingly when she was led before him two days later. Shed been wearing a silken, pale- cown, she remembered, chosen to set off her dark hair and the dark brown of her eyes.
She had beeain she would be chosen. Shed felt her triumph nor fear, even though shed been pointing her life toward that moment for five full years, even though, in that instant of Brandins choosing, walls and ss and corridors closed arouhat would defihe rest of her days. Shed had her hatred and her secret, and guarding the two of them left no room for anything else.
Or so shed thought at twenty-one.
For all shed seen and lived through, even by then, Dianora reflected twelve years later on her baly, shed known very little— dangerously little—about a great many things that mattered far too much.
Even out of the wind it was cool here on the baly. The Ember Days were upon them but the flowers were just beginning in the valleys inland and on the hill slopes, and the true o of spring was
some time off even this far north. It had been different at home, Dianora remembered; sometimes there would still be snow in the southern highlands when the springtime Ember Days had e and passed.
Without looking backwards, Dianora raised a hand. In a moment the castrate had brought her a steaming mug ean khav. Trade restris and tariffs, Brandin was fond of saying in private, had to be handled selectively or life could be too acutely marred. Khav was one of the selected things. Only in the palace of course. Outside the walls they drank the inferior products of Corte or ral Senzio. Once a group of Senzian khav merts had e as part of a trade embassy to try to persuade him of improvements in the crop they grew and the cup it brewed. ral, indeed, Brandin had said judiciously, tasting. So ral, it hardly seems to be there.
The merts had withdrawn, sternated and pale, desperately seeking to divihe hidden meaning in the Ygrathen Tyrants words. Senzians spent much of their time doing that, Dianora had observed drily to Brandin afterward. Hed laughed. Shed always been able to amuse him, even in the days when she was too young and inexperieo do it deliberately.
Which thought reminded her of the young castrate attendihis m. Scelto was in town colleg her gown for the reception that afternootendant was one of the castrates, sent out from Ygrath to serve the growing saishan in the y.
He was well trained already. Vencels methods might be harsh, but there was no denying that they worked. She decided not to tell the boy that the khav wasnt strong enough; he would very probably fall to pieces, which would be inve. Shed mention it to Scelto a him hahe matter. There was no need for Veo know: it was useful to have some of the castrates grateful to her as well as afraid.
The fear came automatically: a fun of who she was here in the saishan. Gratitude or affe she had to work at.
Twelve years and more this spring, she thought again, leaning forward to look down through the s at the bustling preparations in the square for the arrival of Isolla of Ygrath later that day. At twenty-one shed been at the peak, she supposed, of whatever beauty shed been granted. Shed had nothing of such grace at fifteen and sixteen she remembered—they hadnt even bothered to hide her from the Ygrathen soldiers at home.
At een shed begun to be something else entirely, though by then she wasnt at home and Ygrath was no dao the residents of Barbadian-ruled Certando. Or not normally, she amended, reminding herself—though this was not, by any means, a thing that really needed a remihat she was Dianora di Certando here in the saishan. And across in the west wing as well, in Brandins bed.
She was thirty-three years old, and somehow with the years that had slipped away so absurdly fast she was one of the powers of this palace. Which, of course, meant of the Palm. In the saishan only Solores di Corte could be said to vie with her for access to Brandin, and Solores was six years older than she was—one of the first years harvest of the Tribute Ships.
Sometimes, even now, it was all a little too much, a little hard to believe. The younger castrates trembled if she even glanced slantwise at them; courtiers—whether from overseas in Ygrath or here in the four western provinces of the Palm—sought her sel and support in their petitions to Brandin; musis wrote songs for her; poets declaimed and dedicated verses that spun into hyperbolic raptures about her beauty and her wisdom. The Ygrathens would likeo the sisters of their god, the Chiarans to the fabled beauty of Ora before she did the last Ring Dive frand Duke Cazal—though the poets always stopped that analogy well before the Dive itself and the tragedies that followed.
After one such adjective-bestrewn eifort of Doardes shed suggested to Brandin over a late, private supper that one of the measures of differeween men and women was that power made men attractive, but when a woman had power that merely made it attractive to praise her beauty.
Hed thought about it, leaning bad stroking his beard. Shed been aware of having taken a certain risk, but shed also known him very well by then.
"Two questions," Brandin, Tyrant of the Western Palm, had asked, reag for the hand shed left oable. "Do you think you have power, my Dianora?”
Shed expected that. "Only through you, and for the little time remaining before I grow old and you cease to grant me access to you." A small slash at Solores there, but discreet enough, she judged. "But so long as you ao e to you I will be seen to have power in your court, and poets will say I am more lovely now than I ever was. More lovely than the diadem of stars that s the crest of the girdled world ... or whatever the line was.”
"The curving diadem, I think he wrote." He smiled. Shed expected a pliment then, for he was generous with those. His grey eyes had remained sober though, and direct. He said, "My sed question: Would I be attractive to you without the power that I wield?”
And that, she remembered, had almost caught her out. It was too ued a question, and far too o the place where her twin snakes yet lived, however dormant they might be.
Shed lowered her eyelashes to where their hands were twined. Like the snakes, she thought. She backed away quickly from that thought. Looking up, with the sly, sidelong glance she knew he loved, Dianora had said, feigning surprise: "Do you wield power here? I hadnt noticed.”
A sed later his rich, life-giving laughter had burst forth. The guards outside would hear it, she knew. And they would talk. Everyone in Chiara talked; the Islaself on gossip and rumor. There would be aale after tonight. Nothing new, only a reaffirmation in that shouted laughter of how much pleasure Brandin of Ygrath took in his dark Dianora.
Hed carried her to the bed then, still amused, making her smile and then laugh herself at his mood.
Hed taken his pleasure, slowly and in the myriad of ways hed taught her through the years, for in Ygrath they were versed in such things and he was—then and now— the King of Ygrath, over and above everything else he was.
And she? On her baly now in the springtime m sunlight Dianora closed her eyes on the memory of how that night, and before that night—for years and years before that night—and after, after even until now, her own rebel body a and mind, traitors together to her soul, had slaked so desperate and deep a need in him.
In Brandin of Ygrath. Whom she had e here to kill twelve years ago, twin snakes around the wreckage of her heart, for having done what he had doo Tigana which was her home.
Or had been her home until he had battered and leveled and bur and killed a geion and taken away the very sound of its name. Of her own true name.
She was Dianora di Tigana bren Saevar and her father had died at Sed Deisa, with an awkwardly- handled sword and not a sculptors chisel in his hand. Her mothers spirit had snapped like a water reed in the brutality of the occupation that followed, and her brother, whose eyes and hair were exactly like her own, whom she had loved more than her life, had been driven into exile in the wideness of the world.
Hed been fifteen years old.
She had no idea where he was all these years after. If he was alive, or dead, or far from this peninsula where tyrants ruled over broken provihat had once been so proud. Where the name of the proudest of them all was gone from the memory of men.
Because of Brandin. In whose arms she had lain so many nights through the years with su ache of need, su arg of desire, every time he summoned her to him. Whose voice was knowledge and wit and grace to her, water in the dryness of her days. Whose laughter whe it free, when she could draw it forth from him, was like the healing sun slig out of clouds. Whose grey eyes were the troubling, unreadable color of the sea uhe first cold slanting light of m in spring or fall.
In the oldest of all the stories told in Tigana it was from the grey sea at dawn that Adaon the god had risen and e to Micaela and lain with her on the long, dark, destined curving of the sand. Dianora khat story as well as she knew her name. Her true name.
She also kwo other things at least as well: that her brother or her father would kill her with their hands if either were alive to see what she had bee. And that she would accept that ending and know it was deserved.
Her father was dead. Her heart would scald her at the very thought of her brother so, even if death might spare him a grief so final as seeing where she had e, but ead every m she prayed to the Triad, especially to Adaon of the Waves, that he was overseas and so far away from where tidings might ever reach him of a Dianora with dark eyes like his own in the saishan of the Tyrant.
Unless, said the quiet voice of her heart, uhe m might yet e when she could find a way to do a thing here on the Island that would still, despite all that had happened—despite the iwining of limbs at night and the sound of her own voice g aloud in need assuaged—bring baother sound into the world. Into the voien and women and children all over the Palm, and south over the mountains in Quileia, and north a a beyond all the seas.
The sound of the name of Tigana, gone. Gone, but not, if the goddesses and the god were kind—if there was any love left in them, or pity—not forever fotten or forever lost.
And perhaps—and this was Dianoras dream on the nights she slept alone, after Scelto had massaged and oiled her skin and had gone away with his dle to sleep outside her door—perhaps it would e to pass that if she could indeed find a way to do this thing, that her brother, far from home, would miraculously hear the name of Tigana spoken by a stranger in a world of strangers, in some distant royal court or bazaar, and somehow he would know, in a rush of wonder and joy, in the deep core of the heart she knew so well, that it was through her doing that the name was in the world again.
She would be dead by then. She had no doubts as to that. Brandins hate in this ohing—iter of his vengeance for Stevan—was fixed and unalterable. It was the oar in the firmament of all the lands he ruled.
She would be dead, but it would be all right, fanas name would be restored, and her brother would be alive and would know it had been she, and Brandin . . . Brandin would uand that she had found a way to do this thing while sparing his life on all the nights, the numberless nights, when she could have slain him while he slept by her side after love.
This was Dianoras dream. She used to be driven awake, tears cold on her cheeks, by the iy of the feelings it engendered. No one ever saw those tears but Scelto though, and Scelto she trusted more than anyone alive.
She heard his quick light footsteps at the doorway and then briskly crossing the floor toward her baly. No one else in the saishan moved like Scelto. The castrates were notoriously proo lassitude and to eating too much—the obvious substitutions for pleasure. Not Scelto, though. Slim as hed been whe him, he still sought out those errands the other castrates strove to avoid: trips up into the steep streets of the old town, or even farther north into the hills or part Sangarios itself in search of healing herbs or leaves or simply meadow flowers for her room.
He seemed ageless, but he hadnt been young when Vencel assigned him to Dianora and she guessed that he must be sixty now. If Vencel ever died—a hard thing to imagine, in fact—Scelto was certainly in lio succeed him as head of the saishan.
They had never spoken about it, but Dianora knew, as surely as she knew anything, that he would refuse the position if it were offered to him, in order to remain bound to her. She also knew—and this was the thing that touched her—that this would be true even if Brandin stopped sending for her entirely and she became merely aning igem of history in the saishan wing.
And this was the sed thing shed never expected to find when hate had carried her through autumo Chiara oribute Ship: kindness and g and a friend behind the high walls and ornate ss of the place where women waited among men who had lost their manhood.
Sceltos tread, rapid even after the long climb up the Great Staircase and then another flight up to the
saishan, clicked across the mosaics of the baly floor behind her. She heard him murmur kindly to the boy and dismiss him.
He took aep forward and coughed oo announce himself.
"Is it terribly hideous?" she asked without turning around.
"It will do," Scelto said, ing to stand beside her. She looked over, smiling to see his close- cropped grey hair, the thin, precise mouth, and the terribly broken hook of his nose. Ages ago, hed said when shed asked. A fight over a woman ba Ygrath. Hed killed the other man, who happeo be a noble. Whifortunate fact had cost Scelto his sex and his liberty and brought him here. Dianora had been more disturbed by the story than he seemed to be. Oher hand, she remembered thinking, it had beeo her, while for him it was only the familiar age of his life, from a long time past.
He held up the dark red gown theyd had made in the old town. From his smile which matched her own Dianora k had been worth cajoling Vencel for the funds to have this dohe head of the saishan would want a favor later, he always did, but through such exges was the saishan run, and Dianora, looking at the gown, had s.
"What is Solores wearing?" she asked.
"Hala wouldnt tell me," Surmured regretfully.
Dianora laughed aloud at the straight face he mao maintain. "Im quite sure he wouldnt," she said. "What is she wearing?”
"Green," he said promptly. "High waisted, high neck. Two shades is below the waist. Gold sandals. A great deal of gold everywhere else. Her hair will be up, of course. She has new earrings.”
Dianora laughed again. Scelto allowed himself a tiny smile of satisfa. "I took the liberty," he added, "of purchasing something else while I was in town.”
He reached into a fold of his tunid handed her a small box. She ope and wordlessly held up the gem inside. In the bright m light of the baly it dazzled and shone like a third red moon to join Vidomni and blue Ilarion.
Scelto said, "I thought it would be better with the gown than anything Vencel would offer you from the saishan jewels.”
She shook her head wly. "It is beautiful, Scelto. we afford this? Will I have to go without chocolate for all of the spring and summer?”
"Not a bad idea," he said, ign her first question. "You ate two pieces this m while I was gone.”
"Scelto!" she exclaimed. "Stop that! Go spy on Solores and see what shes spending her chiaros on. I have my habits and my pleasures, and none of them, so far as I see, are particularly evil. Do I look fat to you?”
Almost relutly he shook his head. "I have no idea why not," he murmured ruefully.
"Well you keep thinking about it till you figure it out," she said with a toss of her head. "In the meahat reminds me—the boy this m was fine, except that the khav was very weak. Will you speak to him about how I like it?”
"I did. I told him to make it a little weak.”
"You what? Scelto, I absolutely—”
"You always begin drinking more khav at the end of winter, when the weather begins to turn, and every spring you always have trouble sleeping at night. You know this is true, my lady. Either fewer cups or weaker khav. It is my duty to try to keep you rested and tranquil.”
Dianora eechless for a sed. "Tranquil!" she finally mao exclaim. "I might have frightehat poor child to the tips of his fingernails. I would have felt terrible!”
"I had told him what to say," Scelto said placidly. "He would have blamed it on me.”
"Oh, really. And what if Id reported it directly to Vencel, instead?" Dianora retorted. "Scelto, he would have had that boy starved and lashed.”
Sceltos dignified little sniff veyed quite clearly what he thought about the likelihood of her having done any such thing.
His expression was so wryly knowing that, against her will, Dianora found herself laughing again.
"Very well," she said, surrendering. "The be fewer cups, because I do like it strong, Scelto. It isnt worth the drinking otherwise. Besides, I dont think thats why I t sleep at night. This season simply makes me restless.”
"You were taken as Tribute in the spring," he murmured. "Everyone in the saishan is restless in the season they were taken." He hesitated. "I t do anything about that, my lady. But I thought perhaps the khav might be making it worse." There was and affe in his brown eyes, almost as dark as her own.
"You worry too much about me," she said after a moment.
He smiled. "Who else should I worry about?" There was a little silence; Dianora could hear the noises from far below in the square.
"Speaking of w," said Scelto in a transparent effort to ge the mood, "we may be trating too mu what Solores is doing. We may want to start keeping an eye on the young oh the green eyes.”
"lassica?" Dianora said, surprised. "What ever for? Brandin hasnt even called her to him and shes been here a month already.”
"Exactly," said Scelto. He paused, somewhat awkwardly, which piqued her curiosity.
"What are you saying, Scelto?”
"I, um, have been told by Tesios who has been looking after her that he has never seen or heard of a woman in the saishan with such . . . trol of her body or such . . . capacity for the climax of love.”
He was blushing furiously, which made Dianora abruptly self-scious too. It was a standard practice—with some quite unstan-dard variations—for the women of the saishan to use their castrates to give them physical release if too much time went by between summoo the other wing.
Dianora had never asked Scelto for such a service. Something about the very idea disturbed her: it seemed an abuse, in a way she couldnt articulate. He had been a man, she reminded herself frequently, who had killed someone for love of a woman. Their relationship, close as it was, had never ehat dimension. It was strange, she thought, even amusing, how shy they could both bee at the very mention of the subjed Triad k came up often enough ihouse atmosphere of the saishan.
She turned back to the railing, looking down through the s, to give him time tain his posure. Thinking about what hed said though, she found herself feeling a certain amusement after all.
She was already w out how and when to tell Brandin about this.
"My friend," she said, "you may know me well, but ily the same way and for many of the same reasons I know Brandin very well.”
She glanced back at her castrate. "He is older than you, Scelto— he is almost sixty-five—and for reasons I doirely uand he has said he must live here in the Palm another sixty years or so. All the sorcery in the world would surely not avail him to prolong his life that long if lassica is as ...
exceptional as Tesios suggests. She would wear him out, however pleasantly, in a year or two.”
Scelto blushed again, and glanced quickly back over his shoulder. They were quite alohough.
Dianora laughed, partly out of genuine amusement, but more specifically to mask the recurring sorrow she felt whehis one lie had to be told: the thing she still kept from Scelto. The o that
mattered.
Of course she knew why Brandin o stay here in the Palm, why he o use his sorcery to prolong his life here in what was surely a place of exile for him in a land of grief.
He had to wait for everyone born in Tigana to die.
Only then could he leave the peninsula where his son had been slain. Only then would the full measure of the vengeance he had decreed be poured out on the bloodied ground. For no one would be left alive in the world who had any true memory of Tigana before the fall, of Avalle of the Towers, the songs and the stories and the legends, all the long, bright history-It would truly be gohen. Wiped out.
Seventy hty years wreaking as prehensive an obliteration as millennia had on the a civilizations no one could now recall. Whole cultures that were now only an awkwardly pronouname of a place, or a deciphered, pompous title—Emperor of All the Earth—on a broken pottery shard.
Brandin could go home after sixty years. He could do whatever he chose. By then she would be long dead and so too would be those from Tigana even youhahose born up to the very year of the quest—the last iors.
The last children who could hear ahe name of the land that had been their owy years, Brandin was giving himself. More than enough, given lifespans in the Palm.
Eighty years to oblivion. To the broken, meaningless pottery shard. The books were gone already, and the paintings, tapestries, sculptures, music: torn or smashed or burned ierrible year after Valentins fall when Brandin had e down upon them in the agony of a fathers loss, bringing them the reciprocal agony of a querors hate.
The worst year of Dianoras life. Seeing so much of beauty and splendor crumble to rubble and dust or burn down to ashes of loss. Shed been fifteen, then sixteen. Still too young to prehend the full reality of what was being eradicated. For her fathers death and the destru of his art—the works of his hands and days—she could mourn bitterly. And so too for the deaths of friends and the sudden terrors of an occupied impoverished city. The larger losses, the implications for the future, she couldnt really grasp back then.
Many iy had gone mad that year.
Others had fled, taking their children away to try to shape a life far from the burning or the memory of burning, of hammers smashing into the statues of the Princes in the long covered loggia of the Palace by the Sea. Some had withdrawn so far into themselves—a madness of another kind—that only the merest spark was left within to make them eat and sleep and somehow walk through the waste spaces of their days.
Her mother had been one of those.
On the baly in Chiara so many years later, Dianora looked up at Scelto and realized, from the blinking in his face, that shed been silent for too long.
She forced a smile. Shed been here for a long time; she was good at dissembling. At smiling when it was needful. Even with Scelto whom she hated to deceive. And especially with Brandin, whom she had to deceive, or die.
"lassica is not a ," she said mildly, resuming the versation as if nothing had happened.
Indeed, nothing had happened— only old memories e baothing of weight or import in the world, nothing that mattered or could matter. Only loss.
She said, skillfully laughing, "She is far too unintelligent to divert him and too young to relax him as Solores does. Im glad of your information though—I think we use it. Tell me, is Tesios growing weary tending her? Should I speak to Vencel about assigning someone younger? Or perhaps more than one?”
She made him smile, even as he flushed again. It always seemed to go this way. If she could make
them smile or laugh it would brush away the clouds like a wind, a springtime or an autumn wind, leaving behind the high clear blue of the sky.
Dianora wished, with an ag heart, that shed known how to do that eighteen years ago. For her mother and her brother. For both of them so long ago. No laughter then. No laughter anywhere, and the blue skies a mockery, looking down upon ruin.
Vencel, more awesomely obese every time she saw him, approved Soloress gown, Nesaias, Chylmoenes, and then her own. Only the four of them—experienced enough to know how to cope with the exigencies of a formal reception—were going down to the Audience Chamber. The envy in the saishan during the past week had been acute enough to produce a st, Scelto had said wryly more than once. Dianora hadnt noticed; she was used to it.
Vencels shrewd eyes widened from deep in the manifold creases of his dark face as he studied her.
She had the gem on her brow, set in a band of white gold that held back her hair. Sprawled on his couch of pillows, the head of the saishan played with the billowing folds of his elephantine white robe. The sun shining through the arch of a window behind him glinted distragly from his bald head.
"I do not recall that stone among our treasures," he murmured in his high, discerting voice. It was a voice so utterly insequential that it might lead oo uimate the speaker. Which, as a good many people had discovered over the years, was a serious, sometimes a mortal mistake.
"It isnt," Dianora replied cheerfully. "Though after we return this afternoon may I ask you to guard it in my name among the other treasures?”
Sceltos suggestion, that. Vencel could be corrupt and venal about a great many things, but not when it came to the formal aspects of his office. He was too clever for that. Again, a truth some had paid the ultimate price to discover.
He nodded benignly now. "It seems a very fione from this distance." Obediently, Dianora stepped nearer and ined her head graciously to let him see it more clearly. The st of tainflowers that he always wore after winters end enveloped her. It was too sweet, but not unpleasant.
She had feared Vencel once—a fear mixed of physical revulsion at his grossness and rumors of the things he liked to do with the younger castrates and some of the women who were in the saishan for purely political reasons,,with no hope of ever seeing the outside world or the west wing of the palad Brandins chambers. Long ago though she and the saishan head had reached their uanding. Solores had the same unspoken pact with Vencel, and out of the delicate balance achieved thereby the three of them trolled, as best they could, their enclosed, over-intense, inse-laden world of idle, frustrated women, and half-men.
With a surprisingly delicate finger Veouched the gem on her brow. He smiled. "A good stone,”
he said again, this time in judgment. His breath was fragrant. "I must talk to Scelto about it. I know about such things, you see. Vairstones e from the north, you see. From my own land. They are mined in Khardhun. For years and years I used to play with them as tris, a monarchs toys. In the days when I was more than I am now. For as you know, I have been a King in Khardhun.”
Dianora nodded gravely. For this too art of the unspoken terms of her relationship with Vehat however many times he might speak this wild fabrication of a lie—and he said it many times a day, in one variant or another—she was to nod knowingly, reflectively, as if p the message hidden in the grandeur of his fall.
Only in her rooms aloh Scelto could she give way to fits of girlish giggling at the very thought of the vasty saishan head being more than he was now, or at the subversive, deadly imitatioo could give of VencePs speed gestures.
"You do that wonderfully," she might say ily, as Scelto dressed her hair, or polished her curved slippers till they shone.
"It is a thing I know about, you see," he would reply if certain they were alone, his voice pitched high
above its normal range. He would gesticulate slowly, expansively. "For as you are aware, I have been a King in Khardhun.”
She would laugh like a little girl who knew just how naughty she was being, the more out of trol because of that very fact.
She had asked Brandin about it once. His Khardhun campaign had been only a marginal success, she learned. He was frank with her about such things by then. There was real magi Khardhun, in that hot northern land across the sea, beyond the coastal villages and the desert wastes. A magic far greater than anything in the Peninsula of the Palm and equal to the sorcery of Ygrath.
Brandin had takey aablished a tenuous trol over some lands that lay on the fringes of the great desert stretg north. There had been losses though, serious losses she gathered. The Khardhu had long been celebrated for their skill in battle, nor was this unknown in the Palm: many of them had served as well-paid meraries in the warring provinces before the Tyrants had e and made all such feuding irrelevant.
Vencel had been a herald captured late in the campaign, Brandin told her. Hed already been unmanned: a thing they did to messengers in the north, for no reason Brandin had uood. It had been maly evident where the castrate belonged when brought back to Ygrath. He had already, Brandin firmed, been enormous.
Dianora straightened as Vencel withdrew his finger from the red gleam of the vairstone.
"Will you escort us down?" she asked. A ritual.
"I think not," he said judiciously, as if actually giving thought to the matter. "Perhaps Scelto and Hala mahat office between them. I have some matters that need my attentiohis afternoon, you see.”
"I uand." Dianlanced over at Solores and each of them raised a spread palm in respectful salute. In fact, Vencel hadhe saishan wing in at least five years. Even wheoured the rooms on this floor it was on a cleverly trived rolling platform of cushions. Dianora could not remember the last time shed actually seen him stand upright. Scelto and Soloress Hala atteo virtually all the formal out-of-saishan duties. Vencel believed in delegating.
They went dowairway that led out from the saishan to the world. One flight below they accepted the scrutiny—respectful but careful—of the two guards posted outside the heavy bronze doors that barred access to and from the level where the women were. Dianora respoo their cautious glances with a smile. One of them retur shyly. The guards were ged often; she didnt kher of these two, but a smile was a start at bonding and a friend never hurt.
Scelto and Hala, dressed unobtrusively in browhe four women out of the saishan wing along the main corridor of the palace to the Grand Staircase in the ter. There the two castrates paused to let the women precede them. With some pride but not with hauteur— they were the captives and es of a queror—Dianora and Solores led the way down the sweeping stair.
They were noticed of course. The women of the saishan were always noticed when they came out.
There were a number of people milling about in the marbled vestibule waiting to ehe Audience Chamber; they made way for the four of them. Some of the newer men smiled in a mahat had taken Dianora some time to accept.
Others knew her better and their expressions were rather different. In the arched doorway to the largest of the formal reception rooms she and Solores paused again side by side, this time entirely for effect—the blown beside the green—and then walked together into the crowded room of state.
As she did so—every siime she did so—Dianora offered an inward voig of gratitude for the impulse that had led Brandin to ge the rules for his saishan here in the y he now ruled.
In Ygrath, she khis would never have been allowed. For a man other than the King or one of the castrates to see, let alone hold verse with a saishan woman was death for both of them. And,
Vencel had told her once, for the head of the saishan wing as well.
Things had been different here in Chiara almost from the start. Over the years Dianora had learned enough to know that some of her gratitude should go to Dorotea, Queen of Ygrath, and her decision to remain there with Girald, her elder son, and not apany her husband into his self-imposed exile abroad. Doroteas choice, or, depending on to whom one listened, Brandins decision not to demand the pany of his Queen.
Somewhat instinctively Dianora alreferred the latter version of the story, but she was wise enough to know why that was so, and this was one of the things she never spoke about with Brandin. Not that the matter was taboo; he wasnt that kind of man. It was simply that she wasnt sure if or how she could deal with whatever answer he gave her if the question was ever asked.
In any case, with Dorotea remaining in Ygrath there were few high-born court ladies willing to risk the seas and the Queens displeasure in journeying to the y in the Palm. Which meant areme scarcity of women at Brandins new court in Chiara, and this, in turo a ge in the role of the saishan. The more so since—especially in the early years—Brandin had deliberately ordered the Tribute Ships to search out daughters of distinguished houses in Corte or Asoli. On Chiara he made the choices himself. From Lower Corte, which had once borne a different name, he took no women at all, as a matter of absolute policy. The hatred there ran both ways and too deep, and the saishan was not a place to let it fester.
Hed sent for only a few of the women from his saishan in Ygrath, leaving it largely intact. The politics were straightforward: trol of the saishan was a symbol that would firm the status and authority of Girald, now ruling as Regent of Ygrath in his fathers name.
With such ges here in the y, the new saishan was a very different place from the old; Vencel and Scelto had both told her that. It had another kind of mood to it, a different character entirely.
It also had, among all those women from Corte and Chiara and Asoli and the handful from Ygrath, one woman named Dianora, from Certando. From Barbadian-ruled Certando.
Or so everyone in the palace thought.
It had almost started a war, Dianora remembered.
In the days after her brother left home, sixteen-year-old Dianora di Tigana, daughter of a sculptor who had died in the war, and of a mother who had scarcely spoken sihat day, resolved that she would point her own life towards the killing of the Tyrant on Chiara.
Hardening herself, the way she heard that men in battle were forced to do—the way her father must have tried to do by the Deisa— she had begun preparing to leave her mother in the hollow, eg house that had once been a place crowded with joy. Where the Prince of Tigana had walked in their courtyard, an arm flung about her fathers shoulders, discussing and praising the works in progress there.
Dianora could remember.
Entering the Audience Chamber she checked and approved her refle in the wall of gold-plated mirrors on the far side of the room, then her eyes sought, instinctively, those of dEymon of Ygrath, the cellor. The seost powerful man in the court.
He redictably, already looking towards Solores and herself, his glance precisely as bleak as it always was. It was a look that had bothered Dianora when first she came. Shed thought dEymon had taken a dislike to her, or, worse, that he somehow suspected her. It wasnt long before she realized that he disliked and suspected virtually every person who ehis palace. Everyone received the same glacial, appraising scrutiny. It had beely so, she gathered, in Ygrath as well. DEymons loyalty to Brandin was fanatical and unwavering, and so was his zeal in proteg his King.
Over the years Dianora had developed a respect, grudging at first, and then less so, for the grim Ygrathen. She ted it as one of her own triumphs that he seemed to trust her now. For years now—in fact —or she would never have been allowed to spend a night in Brandins bed while he slept.
A triumph of deception, she thought, with an irony whose teeth were all directed inward against herself.
DEymon made an eical cirg motion with his head and theed the gesture for Solores. It was what they had expected: they were to mingle and verse. her of them was to take the chair set beside the Island Throhey did sometimes—and so had the beautiful, ued Chloese before her surprising, untimely death—but Brandin was quite punctilious whes from Ygrath were among them. At such times the seat beside him stood pointedly empty. For Dorotea, his Queen.
Brandin had not yet e藏书网he room of course, but Dianora saw Rhun, the slack-limbed balding Fool shamble towards one of the servers carrying wine. Rhun, clumsy, grievously retarded, was clad sumptuously in gold and white, and so Dianora khat Brandin would be as well. It was an integral part of the plex relationship of the Sorcerer Kings of Ygrath and their chosen Fools.
For turies in Ygrath the Fool had served as shadoroje for the King. He was dressed like his monarch, ate o him at publis, was there when honors were ferred or judgment passed. And every Kings chosen Fool was someone visibly, sometimes painfully afflicted or malformed.
Rhuns walk was sluggish, his features twisted and deformed, his hands da awkward angles in repose, his speech was badly slurred. He reized people in the court, but not invariably, and not always in the manner one might expect—whietimes carried a message. A message from the King.
That part, Dianora didirely prehend, and doubted she ever would. She khat Rhuns dim, limited mind was mostly under his own trol but she also khat that was not pletely so.
There was sorcery at work in this: the subtle magic of Ygrath.
This much she uood: that in addition t—very graphically—to remind their King of his mortality and his own limitations, the Fools of Ygrath, dressed exactly like their lord, could sometimes also serve as a voice, aernal duit, for the thoughts aions of the King.
Which meant that one could not always be sure whether Rhuns words and as—slurred or awkward as they might be—were his own, or an important revelation of Brandins mood. And that could be treacherous ground for the unwary.
Right now Rhun seemed smiling and tent, bobbing and bowing jerkily at every sed person he entered, his golden cap slipping off every time. He would laugh though, as he bent to pick it up a again on his thinning hair. Every so often an overanxious courtier, seeking to curry favor in any way he could, would hastily stoop to pick up the fallen cap and present it to the Fool. Rhun would laugh at that too.
Dianora had to admit that he made her uneasy, though she tried to hide that beh the real pity she felt for his afflis and his increasingly evident years. But the core truth for her was that Rhun was intimately tied to Brandins magic, he was aension of it, a tool, and Brandins magic was the source of all her loss and fear. And her guilt.
So over the years she had bee adroit at avoiding situations where she might find herself aloh the Fool; his guileless eyes— unnervingly similar to Brandins—gave her gerouble. They seemed, if she looked into them for too long, to have h, to be only a surface, refleg her image back to her in a fashion very different from that of the gold-plated mirrors, and at such times she did not like what she was made to see.
From the doorway, with the polished grace of long experience, Solores drifted tht as Dianora moved left, smiling at people she knew. Nesaia and Chylmoene, chestnut- and amber-tressed, crossed the flether, creating a palpable stir where they passed.
Dianora saw the poet Doarde standing with his wife and daughter. The girl, about seventeen, was obviously excited. Her first formal reception, Dianuessed. Doarde smiled unctuously across the room at her, and bowed elaborately. Even at a distahough, she could read the disfiture in his eyes: a
reception on this scale for a musi from Ygrath had to be bitter gall for the most senior poet in the y. All winter he had preened with pride over his verses that Brandin had se as a goad for the Barbadian when word had e in the fall of the death of Sandre dAstibar. Doarde had been insufferable for months. Today though, Dianora could sympathize with him a little, even though he was a moal fraud in her view.
Shed told Brandin as muce, only to learn that he found the poets pompousness amusing. Fe, hed murmured, he looked elsewhere.
And you destroyed it, shed wao say.
Wanted so much to say. Remembering with an almost physical pain the broken head and suorso of her fathers last Adaon oeps of the Palace by the Sea. The one for which her brother, finally old enough, had served as model for the young god. She remembered looking dry-eyed at the wreckage of that sculpted form, wanting to weep and not knowing where her tears were anymore.
She glanced back at Doardes daughter, at her young, scarcely tained exhilaratioeen.
Just after her oweenth naming day she had stolen half of the silver from her fathers hidden strongbox, begging pardon of his spirit and her mothers blessing in her heart, and asking the passion of Eanna who saw all beh the shining of her lights.
Shed gohout saying good-bye, though she had looked in a last time by carried dlelight, upohin, worn figure of her mother, uneasily asleep in the wideness of her bed. Dianora was hardened, as for battle; she did not weep.
Four days later shed crossed the border into Certando, having forded the river at a lonely plaorth of Avalle. Shed had to be careful getting there—Ygrathen soldiers were still ranging the tryside and in Avalle itself they were hammering at the towers, bringing them down. Some yet stood, she could see them from her crossing-place, but most were rubble by then, and what she saw of Avalle was through a s of smoke.
It wasnt even Avalle by theher. The spell had been laid down. Brandins magic. The city where the pall of smoke and summer dust hung so heavily was now called Stevanien. Dianora could remember not being able to uand how a man could he ugly wreckage of a place so fair after a child he had loved. Later that would bee clearer to her: the name had nothing to do with Brandins memory of Stevan. It was solely for those living there, and elsewhere in what had been Tigana: a stant, inescapable reminder of whose death had meant their ruin. The Tiganese now lived in a provinamed Lower Corte—and Corte had been their bitterest foe for turies. The city of Tigana was the city of Lower Corte now.
And Avalle of the Towers was Stevahe vengeance of the King of Ygrath went deeper than occupation and burning and rubble ah. It enpassed names and memory, the fabric of identity; it was a subtle thing, and merciless.
There were a number ees in the summer Dianora we, but none had anythiely resembling her own fixed purpose and so most of them went much further away: to the far side of the Certandan grainlands, to Ferraut, Tregea, Astibar itself. Willing, anxious even, to live uhe spreading tyranny of the Barbadian lord in order to put as much distance as they could between themselves and their images of what Brandin of Ygrath had doo their home.
But Dianora was ging to those images, she was nursing them within her breast, feeding them with hate, shaping hatred with memory. Twin snakes inside her.
She only went a handful of miles across the border into Certando. The late-summer fields of had been yellow and tall, she remembered, but all the men were gone, away to the north a where Alberico of Barbadior, having carefully solidated his quests of Ferraut and Astibar, was now moving south.
He was master of Certando by the end of the fall, and had taken Borifort in Tregea—the last major
stronghold to stand against him— by the following spring after a winter siege.
Long before then Dianora had found what she was looking for, in the western highlands of Certando.
A hamlet—twenty houses and a tavern—south of Sinave and Forese, the two great forts that watched each other oher side of the border that divided Certando from what she learo call Lower Corte.
The land so he southern mountains was not nearly as good as it was farther north. The growing season was shorter. Cold winds swept down from the Braccio and Sfares early in fall bringing snow soon after and a long white winter. Wolves would howl in the wintry nights and sometimes in the m strange footmarks could be found in the deep snow—marks that came down from the mountains and theurned.
Once, long ago, the village had beeo one of the roads f northeast from the main highway down from the Sfaroni Pass —in the days when there was still overland trade with Quileia to the south. That was why the aavern was se in a village now so small, why it had four rooms upstairs for the travelers who had not e freat many years.
Dianora hid her fathers silver south of the village on a thickly wooded slope away from the goatherd runs, and she went to work as a serving girl iavern. There was no moo pay her of course. She worked for her room and the sty board available that first summer and fall, and she labored in the fields with the other women and the young boys t home what they could of the harvest.
She told them she was from the north, near Ferraut. That her mother was dead and her father and brother had goo war. She said her uncle had begun to abuse her and so she had run away. She was good with ats and she had the northern speech right enough for them to believe her. Or at least to ask no questions. There were many tras in the Palm in those days, questions were seldom pushed too far. She ate little and worked as hard as any in the fields. There was actually little enough to do in the inn, with the men away to war. She slept in one of the rooms upstairs, she even had it to herself. They were kind enough to her after their fashion, and giveure of things in that time.
When the light and the place were right—m usually, and iain of the higher fields—she could look away to the west across the border towards the river ahe remaining towers and the smoke above what had been Avalle. One m, late in the year, she realized that she couldnt see anything anymore. That she hadnt, in fact, seen anything for some time. The last tower was gone.
Around that time the men had begun to e home, beaten and weary. There was wain i and waiting on tables or behind the ter of the bar. She was also expected—and had been preparing herself for this as best she could all through the fall—to take a man up to her room if he offered the going rate.
Every village seemed to need one suan, and she was the obvious didate here. She tried to make herself not mind, but this was the most difficult thi. She had a mission though, a reason for being here, a vengeao enact, and this, even this, she would tell herself, going up the stairs with someone, art of it. She hardened herself, but not always, and not quite enough.
Perhaps that showed through. Several men asked her to marry them. One day she caught herself thinking about one of them as she wiped dowables after lunch. He was quiet and kind, shy wheook her upstairs, and his eyes would follow her movements iavern with a fierce tration whenever he was there.
That day was when she k was time for her to leave.
She was a little surprised to realize that almost three years had gone by. It ring.
She slipped away one night, again without a farewell, remembering her arrival even as she went.
Meadow flowers were blooming beside the path into the hills. The air was and mild. By the mingled light of the two moons she found her buried silver and walked away without looking back, taking the road north towards the fort at Sinave. She was een years old.
een, and sometime in the past two years she had growiful. Her angular boniness had
softened, even as her face lost its last traces of girlhood. It was oval, wide at the cheekbones, almost austere. It ged when she laughed though—and for some reasoill knew how to laugh— being warm and animated, the ued dan her dark eyes seeming to promise things that went deeper than amusement. Men who had seen her laughing or who had caused her to smile at them would enter that look again in their dreams, or in the memories that lay on the border of sleep and dream, years after Dianora had gone away.
At Sihe Barbadians disturbed her, with their oppressive size and careless, casual brutality. She forced herself to be calm and to lihere. Two weeks would be enough she judged. She had to leave an impression and a memory.
A carefully structed memory of an ambitious, pretty try girl from some hamlet he mountains. A girl usually silent during the tavern talk at night but who, when she did speak, told vivid, memorable tales of her home village to the south. Told them with the distinctively laic di and round vowels that would have marked her anywhere in the Palm as being from the highlands of Certando.
The tales were usually sad—most stories were in those years—but on a while Dianora would offer a wonderfully droll imitation of some highland rustic voig his sidered opinion o affairs in the wider world, and those at the table where she was sitting would laugh for a long time.
She appeared to them to have some money, earned very likely in the way that pretty girls usually came to have some money. But she shared a room with another woman at the better of the two hostelries within the walls of the fort, aher of them was ever seen to invite a man upstairs. Or to accept an invitation to go elsewhere. The Barbadian soldiers might have been a problem—ihey had beehe winter—but orders had e from Astibar, and the meraries were under a tighter rein that spring.
What she wao do, Dianora fided one night to the loosely knit group of young men and women she had joined, was to work in a tavern or dining-place that saw a better class of person ing through its doors. Shed had two hands full and more, thank you, of the other sort of inn, she declared.
Someoiohe Queen in Stevanien, across the border in Lower Corte.
With a heartfelt, inward sigh of relief Dianora began asking questions about it.
Questions to which shed known the answers for three days; during which time shed sat among these selfsame people every night planting subtle hints in the hope that the name might emerge spontaneously.
Subtlety, shed finally decided, was wasted among youandans here on the border, and so shed practically had t the versatioo the subject she wanted.
Now she listened, seemingly enraptured and wide-eyed, as two of her ret acquaintances animatedly described the , most elegant Ygrathen innovation in Lower Corte. A dining-place that boasted a master chef brought all the way from Ygrath itself by the current Governor of Stevanien and its distrada. The Governor, it emerged, was notoriously fond of wine and food, and of good music played in fortable chambers. He had helped establish the new chef in a set of rooms on the ground floor of a former banking-house, and now he basked in the reflected glory of the most elaborate, most luxurious eating-pla the Palm. He dihere himself several times a week, Dianora learned.
For the sed time.
Shed picked up all of this in gossip among the merts during her days cheg out the prices and styles of clothing available in Fort Sinave. She needed some things fit for the city, she knew. It might make a difference.
From the very first time shed heard the name shed realized that The Queen would be perfect for the stage of her plan to ge her past.
What she learned from the merts was that no one from Lower Corte was allowed to dine here.
Traders from Corte were cordially greeted, as were those from farther afield, in Asoli or Chiara itself. Any Ygrathen, naturally, soldier, mert or whoever he might be—e to seek his fortune in the
y—was graciously ushered in to salute the portrait of Queen Dorotea that hung on the wall opposite the door. Even those merts crossing the lihat divided the Eastern Palm from the West were more than wele to leave some of whatever currency they carried in The Queen.
It was only the Kings true ehe denizens of Lower Corte, of Stevaself, who were forbidden to stain or sully the ambieh their pustulent, heir-murdering presence.
They never did, Dianora learned from a Ferraut trader bound baorth a with leather from Stevahat he expected to sell at a profit, even with that years tariff levels. What the inhabitants of Stevanien had done in respoo the ban was simply refuse to work for the ablishment. her as servers or kit help or stable hands, nor even as musis or artisans to help decorate and maintain the splendid rooms.
The Governor, when he learned what was happening, had vowed in red-faced rage to force the ptible inhabitants to work wherever they were required by their masters of Ygrath. Force them with 藏书网dungeon and lash and a death-wheel or three if needed.
The master chef, Arduini, had demurred.
One did not, Arduini had said, in a much-quoted display of artistic temperament, build up and maintain aablishment of quality by using enforced, surly labor. His standards were simply too high for that. Eveable-boys at his restaurant, said Arduini of Ygrath, were to be trained and willing, and to have a certain style to them.
There had been widespread hilarity when that was reported: stylish stable-hands, indeed. But, Dianora learhe amusement had turo respect quite soon, because Arduini, pretentious or not, did know what he was doing. The Queen, the Ferraut trader told her, was like an oasis amid the deserts of Khardhun. In dispirited, broken Steva cast a warm glow of Ygrathen civility and grace. The mert lamehough discreetly on this side of the border, the plete absence of any such traits in the Barbadians who had occupied his own province.
But yes, he said, in respoo Dianoras apparently casual question, Arduini was still struggling with staff problems. Stevanien was a backwater, and a backwater, moreover, in the most oppressively taxed and militarily subjugated provin the Palm. It was o impossible to get people to travel there, or stay, and sinone of the trickle of adventurers from Ygrath had e so far from home to wash dishes or clear tables or tend to a stable—however stylish a stable it might be—there appeared to be a ieed for workers from elsewhere in the Palm.
In that moment Dianora had ged every plan she had. She cast the line of her life, with a silent prayer to Adaon, in the dire of this formation. She had been intending, with some real apprehension, to go northwest to Corte. That had always been the o-last destination in her plans. She had seriously wondered, almost every night as she lay awake, whether three years iando would be enough to shake off anyone pursuing the true history of her life. Shed had no good ideas about what else she could do, though.
Now she did.
And so it was that a few nights latSr, in the largest of the taverns in Fort Sinave, a cheerful crowd of young people watched their new friend drink more than was good for her for the first time since shed arrived. More than one of the men saw cause for cautious optimism in that, with respect to possibilities later in the evening.
"Youve settled it then!" Dianora cried itractive, south-try voice. She leaned for suppainst the shoulder of a bemused cartwright. "Hand to the new plow for me tomorrow. Im over the border as soon as I to visit The Queen of Ygrath! Triad bless her days!”
Triad shelter and hold my soul, she was thinking as she spoke, absolutely sober, cold to her bones with the sense of the words she was so glibly shouting.
They silenced her, laughing uproariously—in part to cover her words. In Barbadiaando it was a
long way from the path of wisdom to thus salute Ygraths Queen. Dianiggled quite endearingly but she subsided. The cartwright and another man tried to see her up to her room afterwards, but found themselves charmingly put off and drinking together amid off-duty meraries in the one all-night tavern Fort Sinave possessed.
She was just a little too untutored, too try, to succeed in her ambitious hopes, they agreed sagely.
They also agreed, a few drinks later, that she had the most extraordinarily appealing smile. Something about her eyes, what happeo them when she leased.
In the m Dianora was dressed and packed and waiting very early at the main gate of the fort.
She struck a bargain for passage to Stevanien with a pleasant-enough middle-aged mert from Senzio carrying Barbadian spices for the luxury trade. His only reason foing to dreary, flatteevanien, she learned as they started west, was because of the new restaurant, The Queen. She took that ce as a good omen, closing the fingers of her left hand over the thumb three times to make the wish e true.
The roads were better than she remembered; certainly the merts traveling them seemed to feel safer. Rolling along in the cart, she asked the Senzian about it. He grinned sardonically.
"The Tyrants have ed out most of the highway brigands. Just a matter of proteg their own is. They want to make sure no one else robs us before they do with their border tariffs and taxes.”
He spat, discreetly, into the dust of the road. "Personally I preferred the brigands. There were ways of dealing with them.”
Not long after that she saw evidence of what he was talking about: they passed two death-wheels beside the roadway, the bodies of would-be thieves spreadeagled upon them, spiraling lazily in the sun, severed hands rotting in their mouths. The smell was very bad.
The Senzian stopped just across the border to do some dealing in the fort of Forese. He also paid his transit duties there scrupulously, waiting patiently in lio have his cart examined and levied. The death- wheels, he pointed out to her after, in the acerbizian manner, were not reserved fhway thieves and captured wizards.
Thus delayed, they spent the night at a coach-house on the well-traveled road, joining a party of Ferraut traders for dinner. Dianora excused herself early ao bed. Shed paid for a room alone and took the precaution of pushing an oak dresser in front of her door. Nothing disturbed her though, except her dreams. She was ba Tigana a she wasnt, because it wasnt there. She whispered the o herself like a talisman or a prayer before falling into a restless sleep shot through with images of destru from the burning year.
They spent the sed night at another inn beside the river, just outside the walls of Stevanien, having arrived after sundown curfew closed the city gates. They ate alohis time, and she talked to the Senzian until late. He was det and sober, belying the cliches about his det province, and it was clear that he liked her. She enjoyed his pany, and she was even attracted to his dry, witty manner. She went to bed alohough. This was not the village iando: she had no obligations.
Or not those kinds of obligations. And as for pleasure, or the ordinary needs of human iion . . .
she would have been holy unprehending if anyone had mentiohem to her.
She was een years old and in Tigana that-had-been.
In the m, just ihe city walls, she bade farewell to the Senzian, toug palm to palm only briefly. He seemed somewhat affected by the night before but she turned and walked away before he could find whatever words his eyes were reag for.
She found a hostelry not far away, one where her family had ayed. She wasnt really worried about being reized though; she knew how much she had ged and how many girls named Dianora there were scattered across the Palm. She paid in advance for three nights lodging a her belongings there.
Then she walked out into the streets of what had been Avalle of the Towers not very long ago.
Avalle, on the green banks of the Sper-ion just before the river turned west to find the sea. There was an ache building in her as she went, and what hurt most of all, she found, was how much the same a place could be after everything had ged.
She went through the leather distrid the wool district. She could remember skipping along beside her mother when they had all e inland to Avalle to see one of her fathers sculptures ceremoniously placed in some square gia. She even reized the tiny shop where shed purchased her first grey leather gloves, with s hoarded from her naming day in the summer for just such a thing.
Grey was a color frown young women, not for little girls, the red-bearded artisan had teased. I know, six-year-old Dianora had said proudly that autumn long ago. Her mother had laughed. Once upon a time her mother had been a woman who laughed. Dianora could ..remember.
In the wool quarter she saw women and girls w tirelessly, carding and spinning as they had for turies in doorways open to the early-summer early-m light. Over by the river she could see and smell the dyeing sheds and yards.
When Quileia beyond the mountains to the south had folded inward upon its matriarchy, hundreds upon hundreds of years ago, Avalle had lost a great deal. More perhaps than any other city in the Palm.
Once poised directly on one of the two main trade routes through the mountains, it had found itself in danger of sudden insequentially. With a collective iy b on genius the city had decisively shifted its orientation and focus.
Within a geion that city of banking and trade to north and south had bee the principal ter in all of the Palm for works iher and for sumptuously dyed wool.
Hardly missing a beat, Avalle pursued its new prosperity and its pride. And the towers kept rising.
With a catch to her heart Dianora finally aowledged that she had been carefully w her way around the edges of Stevahe outlying districts, the artisans quarters, looking outwards only and into doorways. Not into the ter, up towards the hill. Where the towers were gone.
And so, realizing that, she did look, standing stock still in the middle of a wide square at the bottom of the street of the Woolguild. There was a small, very beautiful temple of Morian fronting the square, done in marble of a muted rose color. She gazed at it for a moment, then looked up and beyond.
And in that moment Dianora had a truth brought home to her with finality: how something seem quite unged in all the small surface details of existence where things never really ge, men and women being what they are, but how the core, the pulse, the kernel of everything still have bee utterly unlike what it had been before.
The wide beautiful streets seemed even wider than before. But that was because they were almost empty. There was a muted swell of noise over to her left where the riverside market still was, but the sound was not a fra, her memory told her, not a fra of what it had been in ms that were lost.
There were too few people. Too many were gone, or dead, and the Ygrathen soldiers were all the more visible because of how empty the streets were. Dianora let her gaze travel past the temple up the line of the broad boulevard beside it towards the heart of the city.
We and we will build wide and straight, the people of Avalle had said; even in the very beginning, when towns everywhere else were tortuous warrens of twisty alleys and crooked lanes easy to defend. There will be no city like ours in all the world, and if need es for defense we will defend ourselves from our towers.
Which were gohe squat ugly skyline jarred Dianora with a painful distinuity. It was as if the eye was tricked, looking ceaselessly for something it knew had to be there.
From the earliest days of that broad, elegant city on the banks of the Sperion towers had been associated with Avalle. Assertions of Tiganese pride—sheer arrogahey called it in the provinces of
Corte and Chiara and Astibar. They were symbols of internee rivalry as well—as eaoble family or wealthy guild of bankers or traders or artisans thrust its own tower as high as and then higher than they could truly affraceful or warlike, red stone or sandy rey, the towers of Avalle pushed up towards Eannas heaven like a forest withiy walls.
The domestiflicts had actually bee dangerous for a time, with murder and sabotage not nearly unon enough, and the best masons and architects claiming stupefying fees. It had beehird Prince Alessan in Tigana by the sea who had put ao the insanity in the simplest possible way more than two hundred years ago.
He issioned Orsaria, the most celebrated of the architects, to build for him a pala Avalle.
And that palace was to have a tower, said Prince Alessan, that would be—and would remain, by force of law—the highest iy.
So it had been. The spire of the Priower, slender and graceful, ed in bands of green and white to serve as a memory of the sea this far inland, put ao the petition for the summit of Avalle. And from then on also, by that Prince Alessans example which became and then tradition, the princes and princesses of Tigana were born in Avalle, in the palace beh that spire, to mark them as belonging to both of the cities-, to Tigana of the Waves and Avalle of the Towers.
There had been over seventy towers once, Dianora knew, ed in glory by that green and white preeminence. Once? Four years ago.
What, Dianora thought, her vision hurting for that absence, is a person who moves through her days as she has always moved, who speaks and walks and labors, eats, makes love, sleeps, sometimes even finds access to laughter, but whose heart has been cut out from her living body? Leaving no scar at all to be seen. No wound by whiember the sliding blade.
The rubble had all been cleared away. There was no smoke, save from over by the dyeworks, to mar the clear blue of the sky. The day was mild and bright, birds sang a wele to the ing warmth. There was nothing, nothing at all to show that there had ever been towers in this place. In this low, steadily dwindling town of Stevanien here in its remote er of the Peninsula of the Palm, in the most oppressed province of them all.
What is such a person? Dianora thought again. That person whose heart was gone? She had no answer, how could she have an answer? Loss coiled to life within her, and hate followed it again, as if both of them were new-born, colder and sharper than before.
She walked up that wide boulevard into the ter of Stevanien. She passed the soldiers barracks and the doors of the Governors Palaot far away she found The Queen. She was hired immediately. To start that same night. Help was badly needed. Help was hard to find. Arduini of Ygrath, who did all his own hiring, decided that this pretty creature from Certando had a certain style to her. She would have to do something though, he admonished her, about that wretchedly vulgar highland at. She promised to try.
Within six months she eaking almost like a native of the city, he observed. By then he had her out of the kit and into the front room waiting on tables, clad in the cream and dark-brown colors around which he had designed his establishment. Colors that happeo suit her very well.
She was quiet, deft, unassuming, and polite. She remembered names and patrons preferences. She learned quickly. Four months later, in the spring before she turwenty-one, Arduini offered her the coveted position at the front of The Queeing guests and supervising the staff ihree rooms of dining.
She astonished him by refusing. She astonished a great many people. But Dianora khat this would be far too promi a position for her own purposes. Which had not ged. If she was to travel north into Corte soon, and clearly marked by now as being from Certando, she o have been associated with The Queen, but not so very promily. Promi people had questions asked about
them, that much she knew.
So she feigned an attack of try-girl ahe night Arduini made his offer. She broke two glasses and dropped a platter. Then she spilled Senzian green wine on the Governor himself.
Tearfully she went to Arduini and begged for more time to grow sure of herself. He agreed. It helped that he was in love with her by then. He invited her, gracefully, to bee his mistress. In this, too, she demurred, pleading the iable tension that such a liaison would elicit withiaff, badly damaging The Queen. It was the right argument; his establishment was Arduinis true mistress.
In fact, Dianora had resolved to let no man touch her now. She was in Ygratheory and she had a purpose. The rules had ged. She had tentatively decided to leave in the fall, north towards Corte.
She had been weighing possibilities and excuses for doing so whes had overtaken her so spectacularly.
Slowly cirg the Audience Chamber, Dianora paused to greet Doardes wife whom she liked. The poet seized the opportunity to present his daughter. The girl blushed, but dipped her head, hands pressed together, in a creditable manner. Dianora smiled at her and moved on.
A steward caught up to her, bearing khav in a black chalice set with red gemstones. A gift, years ago, from Brandin. It was her trademark on occasions such as this: she never drank anything strohan khav at public receptions. With a guilty glaowards the doorway where she knew Scelto would be stationed against the wall, she took a grateful sip of the hot drink. Praise the Triad and the growers ea, it was dark and rid very strong.
"My dear lady Dianora, you are looking more magnifit than ever.”
She turned, smoothly suppressing an expression of distaste. She had reized the voieso of Ygrath, a minor nobleman from overseas who had retly arrived at Brandins court on the first ship of the season, solely in the hope of being a major nobleman in the y. He was, so far as Dianora had been able to tell, talentless and venal.
She smiled radiantly at him and allowed him to touch her hand. "My dear Neso, how kind of you to lie so skillfully to an aging woman.”
She rather liked saying that sort of thing: for, as Scelto had shrewdly observed once, if she was old, what did that make Solores?
Neso hasteo offer all the emphatic, predictable denials. He praised her gown and the vairstone, noting with a courtiers eye and tongue how exquisitely the stones of her chalice echoed her colors that day. Then, l his voice towards an unearned intimacy he asked her for the eighth time at least if she happeo have heard anything further about the planned disposition of that very trivial office of Taxing Master in north Asoli.
It was, in fact, a lucrative position. The incumbent had made his fortune, or enough for his own purposes evidently, and was returning to Ygrath in a few weeks. Dianora hated that sort of graft and she had even been bold enough to say so to Brandin once. A little amused— which had irritated her—he had prosaically pointed out how difficult it was to get men to serve in places as devoid of attra as the north of Asoli without them a ce at modest wealth.
His grey eyes beh the thick dark eyebrows had rested upon her as shed wrestled and then finally e to terms with the depressing truth i in this. Shed finally looked up and nodded a relut agreement. Which made him burst into laughter.
"I am so relieved," chuckled Brandin of Ygrath, "that my clumsy reasoning and gover meet with your approval." She had goo the roots of her hair, but then, catg his mood, had laughed herself at the absurdity of her presumption. That had been several years ago.
Now all she did was try, discreetly, to see that positions such as this one did not go to the most transparently greedy of the motley crew of petty Ygrathen courtiers from whom Brandin had to choose.
Neso, she had resolved, was not getting this posting if she could help it. The problem was that dEymon
seemed, for inscrutable reasons of his own, to be fav Nesos appoi. Shed already asked Scelto to see if he could find out why.
Now she let her smile fade to an early benevolent look of as she gazed at the sleek, plump Ygrathen. L her voice but without leaning towards him she murmured, "I am doing what I . You should know that there seems to be some opposition.”
Nesos eyes narrowed on the far side of the curl of smoke rising from her khav. With practiced subtlety they flicked past her right shoulder to where she knew dEymon would still be standing by the Kings door. Neso looked back at her, eyebrows raised very slightly.
Dianave a small, apologetic shrug.
"Have you a ... suggestion?" Neso asked, his brow furrowed with ay.
"Id start by smiling a little," she said with deliberate tartness. There was no point in intriguing in such a way that the whole court knew of it.
Neso forced an immediate laugh and then applauded stagily as if shed offered an irresistible witticism.
"Five me," he said, smiling as ordered. "This matters a great deal to me.”
It matters a great deal more to the people of Asoli, you greedy bloodleech, Dianora thought. She laid a hand lightly on Nesos puffed sleeve.
"I know it does," she said kindly. "I will do what I . If circumstances . . . allow me to.”
Neso, whatever he was, was ner to this sort of thing. Once more the false laugh greeted her e. "I hope to be able to assist the circumstances," he murmured.
She smiled again and withdrew her hand. It was enough. Scelto was going to receive some more mohat afternoon. She hoped it would e to a det part of the vairstones cost. As for dEymon, she would probably end up talking directly to him later in the week. Or as directly as discussions ever got with that man.
Sipping at her khav she moved on. People came up to her wherever she went. It was bad politi Brandins court not to be on good terms with Dianora di Certando. versing absently and insequentially she kept an ear pitched for the discreet raps of the Heralds staff that would be Brandins sole annou. Rhun, she noted, was making faces at himself in one of the mirrors and laughing at the effect. He was in high humor, which was a good sign. Turning the other way she suddenly noticed a face she liked. Ohat was undeniably tral to her own history.
In could be said, in many ways, to have been the Governors own fault. So anxious was he to assuage the evident frustration of Rhamanus, captain of that years Tribute Ship, that he ordered the Certandan serving-girl—who had apologized so very charmingly after the spilled-wine i some time ago—t rather more of The Quee vihan were entirely good for any of them at the table.
Rhamanus, young enough to still be ambitious, old enough to feel his ces slipping away, had made some pointedly acid remarks earlier in the day on board the river galley about the state of affairs in Stevanien and its environs. So much of a backwater, so desultory in its colle of duties and taxes, he murmured a little too casually, that he wasnt even sure if the galley run upriver in spring was worthwhile . . . uhe present administrative circumstances.
The Governor, long past the point of ambition but needing a few more years here skimming his share of border tariffs and internal levies, along with the criminal justice fines and fiscations, had winced inwardly and cursed the juns of his plas. Why, wherove so hard to be det and untentious ihing he did, to leave any waters he entered as unruffled as possible, did he have so little luck?
Short of a massive midsummer military assertion there was no way to foroney oods out of this impoverished region. If Brandin had seriously wao extract real wealth out of Stevanien he
would have beeer advised not to have so successfully smashed the city and its distrada to its knees.
Not that the Governor would have eve of letting such a furtive thought e anywhere near his lips. But the reality was that he was doing the best he could. If he squeezed the leather or the wool guilds any harder than he was they would simply start to fold. Stevanien, already thinly inhabited—and particularly bereft of men in their prime years—would bee a town of ghosts ay squares. And he had explicit instrus from the King to prevent that.
If the Kings various orders and demands rammed so violently up against each other, in such patent tradi, what, in all fairness, was a middle-echelon administrator to do?
Not that such a plaint could be used with this bristly, unhappy Rhamanus. What care would the captain have for the Governors dilemmas? The Tribute Ship captains were judged by what came home to Chiara in their holds. Their job was to put as much pressure on the local administrators as they could— even to the point, sometimes, of f them to surrender a portion of their own levies t the tents of the ship o the mark. The Governor had already resigned himself, dismally, to doing just that by the end of the week if the last hurried sweep of the distrada that hed ordered didnt produough to satisfy Rhamanus. It wouldnt, he khis was an ambitious captain he was dealing with, and there had been a tenuous harvest in Corte last fall—Rhamanuss stop.
His retiremee iern Ygrath, on the promontory hed already chosen in his mind, seemed farther away this evening than ever before. He signaled for another round of wine for all of them, inwardly grieving for the blue-green sea and the splendid hunting woods by the home hed probably never be able to build.
Oher hand (as they liked to say here), it appeared that his attempt to soothe the ire of this Rhamanus had been uedly successful. The Governor had asked his wonderful Arduini—the true and only joy there was for him in this benighted place—to prepare an evening meal for them of an unfettable order.
"All of my meals are unfettable," Arduini had bridled predictably, but had been mollified by a judiixture of flattery, gold ygras, and a quiet reminder (almost certainly not the truth, the Governor reflected uantly) that their guest that evening had ready access to the ear of the King on Chiara.
The meal had been an asding series of revelations, the service prompt, soothing, and unobtrusive, the wines a sequence of plementary graotes to Arduinis undeniable artistry. Rhamanus, a man eared to keep his trim physique with some difficulty, had progressed from edgihrough guarded appreciation, to increasing pleasure, ending up in a volubly expansive good humor.
Somewhere in the o-last bottle of dessert wine imported from bae in Ygrath he had also bee quite drunk.
Which was the only explanation, the only possible explanation, for the fact that, after the dinner was over and The Queen closed for the night, hed had their evenings dark-haired waitress formally seized as Tribute for Brandin in Chiara and bundled directly onto the galley in the river.
The serving-girl. The serving-girl from Certando.
Certando, oher side of the border, where Alberico of Barbadior held sway, not, alas, Brandin of Ygrath.
The Governor of Stevanien had been awake dawn from a fitful, wine-fogged slumber by a terrified, apologetic Clerk of the cil. Unclothed and without so much as a whiff of his m khav he had heard—through the ominous pounding of a colossal headache—the nature of the news.
"Stop that galley!" he roared, as the horrifying implications fought their way through tister upon his slowly emerging sciousness. He had tried to roar, anyway. What came forth itiful squeal that had been, heless, suffitly explicit to send the clerk flying, his gown flapping in his haste to obey.
They blocked the River Sperion, stopping Rhamanus just as he was raising anchor.
Unfortuhe Tribute captain then proceeded to reveal a stubborhat ran stupefyingly ter to the most rudimentary political good sense. He refused to surrehe girl. For one wild, halluatory moment of insanity the Governor actually plated st the galley.
The river galley of Brandin, King of Ygrath, Lord of Burrakh in Khardhun, Tyrant of the western provinces of the Peninsula of the Palm. Said galley then flying—rather pointedly—Brandins own device as well as the royal banner of Ygrath.
Death-wheels, the Governor reflected, were lovingly made for minor funaries who essayed such maneuvers.
Desperately, his brain curdling in the unfair brightness of the m sunlight by the river, the Governor tried to find a way of unig reason to a Tribute captain seized by the mahroes of a midsummer madness.
"Do you want to start a war?" he shouted from the dock. He had to shout from the dock; they would him on the galley. The wretched girl was o be seen; stowed, doubtless in the captains . The Governor wished she were dead. He wished that he himself was dead. He wished, in the most grievous inner sacrilege of all, that Arduini the master chef had never set foot in Stevanien.
"And why," Captain Rhamanus called blandly from the middle of the river, "should my doing my precise duty by my King cause any such a thing?”
"Has the sea salt rotted your miserable excuse for a brain?" the Governor screamed, ill-advisedly. The captains brow darkehe Governor pushed on, dripping with sweat in the sun.
"Shes a Certandan, in the name of the seven holy sisters of the god! Do you have any idea how easy it will be to goad Alberito starting a border war over this?" He mopped at his brow with the square of red cloth a servaedly produced.
Rhamanus, cursedly posed despite having drunk at least as much as the Governor the night before, seemed unimpressed.
"As far as Im ed," he pronounced airily, the words drifting over the water, "shes living in Stevanien, shes w in Stevanien, and she was taken in Stevanien. By my reing that makes her perfectly suitable for the saishan, or whatever our King, in his wisdom, decides to do with her." He leveled a finger suddenly at the Governor. "Now clear the river of these boats or I will ram and sink them in the name of each of the seven sisters and the King of Ygrath. Unless," he added, leaning forward, l his hand to the railing, "you would care to farspeak Chiara and have the Kile this himself?”
They had a saying here in the y: naked between a fist and a fist. It was a phrase for the place where that insidious, cleverly calculated, viciously unfair proposition put the man to whom it was addressed. A phrase that described in precise and graphic terms where the Governor of Stevanien abruptly felt himself to be. The red cloth swabbed repeatedly, and iually, at his forehead and neck.
One did not farspeak the King without, it had been painstakingly impressed upon all the regional administrators in the Western Palm, very pelling reason. The power demanded of Brandin to sustain such a link with his non-sorcerous underlings was siderable.
One most particularly did not willingly uake such a course of a in the very early m hours when the King might be asleep. Most relevant of all, perhaps, one did not hasten to bespeak the mental presence of ones monarch with a mind clogged and befuddled with the miasmic aftermath of wine, and over an issue that—in essence—might be seen to involve no more tharibute seizure of a on farm girl.
That was one of the fists.
The other was war on the border. With the brain-battering possibility of more than that. For who, in
the name of the sisters and the god, knew how the devious pagan mind of Alberico of Barbadior worked?
How he might regard—or decide tard—an i such as this? Despite Rhamanuss glib analysis, the fact that the girl worked in The Queen made it obvious that she wasnt really a Lower Cortean. In the name of the sisters, they couldnt even seize a Lower Cortean for tribute! They werent allowed to, by order of the King. To take the woman, she had to be Certandan. If Rhamanus waue she was a resident of Stevaniehat made her a Lower Cortean which meant that they couldnt take her! Which meant that ... he didnt know what that meant. The Governor held out his sopping kerchief and it was exged for a fresh one. His brai as if it was frying in the sun.
All he had wanted out of his deing years in service was the quiet, mildly lucrative postings his familys long, if fairly minor, support of Brandins inal claim to succession in Ygrath had earhem.
That was it. All he wanted. With a det house on that eastern promontory one day where he could watch the sun e up out of the sea and go hunting in the woods with his dogs. So very much to ask?
Instead, a fist and a fist.
He briefly sidered washing his hands of the whole affair—ahe cursed inhabitants of this peninsula chew on that for a phrase! —letting the imbecilic Tribute captain row his galley down the river just as he pleased. In fact, he realized, lamentably too late, if he had stayed in bed and pretended hed not received the message in time he would have beeirely blameless in this affair of a drunken captains blunder. He closed his eyes, tasting the exquisite, vanished sweetness of such a possibility.
Too late. He was standing by the riverside in the blinding light and the heat of the sun, and half of Stevanien had heard what he and Rhamanus had just shouted bad forth across the water.
With a small, diffident prayer to his own patron gods of food and forest, and a poignantly clear image of that seaside estate, the Governor chose his fist.
"Let me on board then," he said as briskly as he could manage. "Im not about to farspeak the King while standing on this dock. I want a chair and some quiet and aremely strong mug of whatever passes for khav on a galley.”
Rhamanus was visibly nonplussed. The Governor was able to derive a certain sour pleasure from that.
They gave him everything he asked for. The woman was taken below ded he was left alone in the captains . He took a deep breath and then several more. He drank the khav, scalding his tongue which, as much as anything else, woke him up. Then, for the first time in three years of office, he narrowed his mind down to a pinpoint image as Brandin had taught him, and he framed, question-ingly, the name of the King in his thoughts.
With profoundly uling speed Brandins crisp, cool, always slightly mog voice was in his head. It was dizzying. The Governor fought to keep his posure. As carefully but as quickly as he could —speed mattered, they had all been taught—he outlihe situation they faced. He apologized twice, en route, but dared not risk the time required for a third, however much his lifetimes instincts bade him to. What good were a career diplomats lifetime instincts when enmeshed in sorcery? He felt sick to his stomach with the strain and the distinuity of the farspeaking.
Then, with a surging of his spirit, with glory, with paeans of praise to twenty differeies chorusing within him, the Governor of Stevanien was given to uand that his King was not angered.
More: that he had beely corre this farspeaking. That the political timing could not be better for such a testing of Albericos resolve. That, accly, Rhamanus should indeed be allowed to take the girl as Tribute but, and the King stressed this, very clearly identified as a Certandan. A Certandan who happeo be in Lower Corte. That fact was to be their claim of authority: no evasions about her being a resident of Stevanien or some such thing. They would see what sort of spirit this minor Barbadian sorcerer had after all.
The Governor had done well, the King said.
The image of the house by the sea grew almost indestly vivid in the back of the Governors
mind even as he heard himself babbling—silently over the link Brandin made—his most abject protestations of love and obediehe King cut him short.
"We must end now," he said, "Do go easier on the wine down there." Then he was gohe Governor sat alone in the captains for a long time, trying to reassure himself that Brandins last tone had been amused, not reproving. He was fairly certain it was. He was almost sure.
A very tense period had ehe galley was allowed to leave that same m. In the fht that followed the King had far-spoken him twice. Oo order the barrison at Forese quietly increased but not by so much as to amount to further provocation in itself. The Governor spent an anguished sleepless night trying to calculate what number of soldiers would suit that and.
Reinforts from the city of Lower Corte arrived up the river to supplement his own forces in Stevanien. Later he was instructed by the King to watch for a possible Barbadian envoy from Certando, and to greet such a oh utmost cordiality, referring all questions to Chiara for resolution. He was also waro be on full alert for a retaliatory border raid from Sinave—and to annihilate any and all Barbadian troops that might veo Lower Corte. The Governor had very little personal experie annihilation but he swore to obey.
Merts, he was told, were to be advised to delay their plans to travel east for a little while; no orders, nothing official, merely a piece of advice a prudent businessman might wish to heed. Most did.
In the end nothing happened.
Alberico chose to entirely ighe affair. Short of a willio have things escalate a long way there was nothing else he could do without losing face. For a while there eculation he might punish some mert or iti musi from the Western Palm who happeo be in his provinces, but there was no sign of this either. The Barbadians simply treated the girl as having been aablished resident of Lower Corte—exactly as Rhamanus had so blithely opihe m hed seized her.
In the Ygrathen provihough, the girl was deliberately described as Certandan from the start— the woman from Barbadiaory that Brandin had seized, mog Alberico all the while. She was said to be beautiful as well.
Rhamanus made his slression home through the rest of that summer and into the early fall.
The galley took them downriver and all the collected inland tributes were transferred to the great Tribute Ship itself with its broad, filling sails. Slowly it made its the coast, colleg taxes and tariffs at the designated places in Corte and Asoli.
The harvest had indeed been bad in Corte, they had tle to meet the quotas there. Twice they rested at anchor for long periods while the captain led a pany to an inland post. And all the while Rhamanus searched for women who might be useful as more than hostages or symbols of Ygraths ma dominance. Women who might credit the saishan itself and so make the career of a certain Tribute captain who was just about ready for a landside posting after twenty years at sea.
Three possibilities were found. One was of noble birth, her existence revealed by an informer. She was taken only after her fathers manor in Corte had been, somewhat regretfully, buro the ground.
At length, iumn turning of the year, beautiful even in flat, unlovely Asoli when the rains chose to relent, the Tribute Ship slipped through the tricky passages of the Strait of Asoli aered the waters of the Chiaran Sea. A few days later, red and gold sails billowing triumphantly, it had sailed into the Great Harbor of the Island, celebrated in song for more years than could be ted.
The Tribute Ship of Rhamanus had carried gold and gems and silver and age of various kinds. It bore leather from Stevanien and wood carvings from Corte and great huge wheels of saull cheese from the west coast of Asoli. They had spices and herbs and knives, stained glass and wool and wihere were two women from Corte and one from Asoli, and besides these three there was another woman and this one was different. This one was the dark-haired, brown-eyed beauty known throughout the peninsula by the time their voyage ended as the woman whod e o starting a war.
Dianora di Certando, her name was.
Dianora, who had inteo e to the Island from the very first, from the earliest glimmerings of her plan when she had sat alone before a dead fire one summer night in her fathers silent house. Who had hardened herself—as men in battle were said to have to do—to the thought of being captured and brought here and locked for life ihe saishan of the Tyrant. She had worked it out that far five years ago, a girl with death in her heart, with a father dead and a brone and a mone even farther away: images of all three of them rising in her dreams from the ashes of the burning in her land.
Ah was still there, still with her on that ship. She still had those dreams, but with them now, as fabled Chiara drew nearer uhe brightness of the sky was something else: a bemused, an almost numbed incredulity at how the line of her life had run. How things had fallen out so pletely wrong, a so precisely as she had planned from the first.
She had tried to see that as an omen, closing her left hand three times over her thumb to make her wish e true, as she ehat new world.
Chapter 8
IT WAS STRANGE, DIANORA THOUGHT, STILL MOVING THROUGH the crowded Audience Chamber as spring sunlight filtered down on Brandins court from the stained- glass windows above, how the so clear portents of youth were alchemized by time into the many-layered ambiguities of adult life.
Sipping from her jeweled cup she sidered the alternative. That she had simply allowed things to bee nuanced and difficult. That the real truths were exactly the same as they had been on the day she arrived. That all she was doing was hiding: from what she had bee, and what she had not yet done.
It was the tral question of her life and once more she pushed it away to the edges of her awareness. Not today. Not in any daytime. Those thoughts beloo nights alone in the saishan when only Scelto by her dht know how sleepless she was, or find the tracks of tears along her cheeks when he came to wake her in the m.
Night thoughts, and this was bright day, in a very public place.
So she walked over towards the man shed reized a her smile reach her eyes. Balang her chalice gracefully she sketched a full Ygrathen salute to the portly, soberly dressed persoh three heavy gold s about his neck.
"Greetings," she murmured, straightening and moving nearer. "This is a surprise. It is rare ihat the so-busy Warden of the Three Harbors deigns to spare a moment from his so-demanding affairs to visit old friends.”
Unfortunately Rhamanus was as hard to ruffle or discert as he had ever been. Dianora had been trying to get a rise out of him ever sihe night hed had her bundled like a brown heifer out of the street in front of The Queen and onto the river galley.
Now he simply grinned, heavier with the years gone by and, latterly, his shore-bound duties, but unmistakably the man whht her here.
One of the few men from Ygrath she genuinely liked.
"Not so much flavor from you, girl," he mock-growled. "It is not for idle women who do nothing all day but put their hair up and down and up again for exercise to criticize those of us who have stern and arduous tasks that shorten hts and put grey in our hair.”
Dianora laughed. Rhamanuss thick black curls—the envy of half the saishan—showed not a trace of grey. She let her gaze linger expressively on his dark locks.
"Im a liar," Rhamanus ceded with untroubled equanimity, leaning forward so only she could hear.
"Its been a dead-quiet winter. Not much to do at all. I could have e to visit but you know how much I hate these goings-on at court. My buttons pop when I bow.”
Dianora laughed again and gave his arm a quick squeeze. Rhamanus had been kind to her on the ship, and courteous and friendly ever since, even when shed been merely another new body— if a slightly notorious one—in the saishan of the King. She knew he liked her and she also knew, from dEymon himself, that the former Tribute Ship captain was an effit and a fair administrator.
She had helped him get the posting four years ago. It was a high honor for a seaman, supervising harbor rules and regulations at the three main ports of Chiara itself. It was also, to judge from Rhamanuss slightly threadbare clothing, a little too he seat of power for any real gains to be extracted.
Thinking, she clicked her tongue against her upper teeth, a habit Brandin teased her about. He claimed it always signaled a request or a suggestion. He knew her very well, which frightened her at least as much as it did anything else.
"This is the merest thought," she said now to Rhamanus quietly, "but would you have any i at
all in living in north Asoli for a few years? Not that I want to get rid of you. Its a dreadful place, everyone knows that, but there are opportunities and Id as soon a det man reaped them as some of the greedy clutch that are h about here.”
"The taxing office?" he asked, very softly.
She nodded. His eyes widened slightly but, schooled to discretion, he gave no n of i or surprise.
What he did do, an instant later, was glance quickly beyond her shoulder towards the throne. Dianora was already turning by then, an inexplicable sense, almost an antenna, having alerted her.
So she was fag the Island Throne and the doorway behind it by the time the heralds staff rapped the floor twiot loudly, and Brandin came into the room. He was followed by the two priests, and the priestess of Adaon. Rhun shambled quickly over to stand near by, dressed identically to the King except for his cap.
The truer measure of power, Brandin had once said to her, wouldnt be found in having twenty heralds deafen a room by proclaiming ones arrival. Any fool in funds for a day could rivet attention that way. The more testing course, the truer measure, was to enter unobtrusively and observe what happened.
What happened was what always happehe Audience Chamber had been collectively poised as if on the edge of a cliff for the past ten minutes, waiting. Now, just as collectively, the court plummeted into obeisanot one person in the whole crowded room was still speaking by the time the heralds muted staff of office proclaimed the King. In the silehe two discreet raps on the marbled floor sounded like eg thunder.
Brandin was in high good humor. Dianora could have told that from halfway across the room, even if she hadnt had a hint from Rhun already. Her heart was beating very fast. It always did whenever Brandiered a room where she was. Even after twelve years. Even still, ae everything. So many lines of her life led to or from this man or came together, hopelessly iwined, in him.
He looked to dEymon first, as always, and received the others expressionless bow, sketched low in the Ygrathen fashion. Then, as always, he turned and smiled at Solores.
Then at Dianora. Braced as she was, as she always tried to be, she still could not quite master what happeo her when the grey eyes found and held her own. His glance was like a touch, a gliding presence, fiery and glacial both—as Brandin was.
And all this from a look across a very crowded room.
Once, in bed, years before, she had dared to ask him a question that had long troubled her.
"Is there sorcery involved when you love me here, or when we first meet in a public place?”
She hadnt known what answer she wanted, or what to expect by way of rea. Shed thought he might be flattered by the implication, or at least amused. You could never be sure with Brandin though, his mind ran through too many different els and with too much subtlety. Which is why questions, especially revealing ones, were dangerous. This had been important to her though: if he said yes she was going to try to use that to kindle her killing anger again. The anger she seemed to have lost here irange world that was the Island.
Her expression must have been very grave; he turned on his pillow, head propped on one hand tard her from beh level brows. He shook his head.
"Not in any way you are thinking. Nothing that I trol or shape with my magic, other thater of children. I will not have any more heirs, you know that." She did know that; all his women did.
He said, after a pause, carefully, "Why do you ask? What happens to you?”
For a sed she thought shed heard uainty in his voice, but one could never be sure of such things with Brandin. "Too much," shed answered. "Too much happens." And shed been speaking, for that oime, the unshielded truth of a no longer i heart. There was an acute uanding in his
clear eyes. Which frightened her. She moved herself—moved by all the layers of her o slide ainst his body again and then above and upon it that it might begin once more, the whole process. All of it: betrayal and memory mixed with yearning, as in the amber-colored wihe Triad were said to drink— too potent for mortals to taste.
"Are you truly serious about that posting in Asoli?" Rhamanuss voice was soft. Brandin had not goo the thro was making a relaxed circuit of the room—more evidence of his benign mood. Rhun, with his lopsided smile, shambled in his wake.
"I fess I had never even given it a thought," the former Tribute captain added.
With an effort Dianora forced her thoughts ba. For a sed she had fotten her own query. Brandin did that to her. It was not a good thing, she thought. For many reasons it was not a good thing.
She turned again to Rhamanus. "Im quite serious," she said. "But Im not sure if you would want the position—even if it were possible. You have more status where you are, and this is Chiara, after all. Asoli offer you some ce at wealth, but I think you have an idea what would be involved. What matters to you, Rhamanus?”
It was more bluntly put than courtesy would have deemed appropriate, especially with a friend.
He blinked, and fingered one of his s of office.
"Is that what it es down to?" he asked hesitantly. "Is that how you see it? a man not perhaps be moved by the prospect of a new challenge, or even—at the risk of sounding foolish—by the desire to serve his King?”
Her turn to blink.
"You shame me," she said simply, after a moment. "Rhamanus, I swear you do." She stilled his quick protests with a hand on his sleeve. "Sometimes I wonder what is happening to me. All the intriguing that goes on here.”
She heard footsteps approag and what she said oken as much to the man behind as to the one in front of her. "Sometimes I wonder what this court is doing to me.”
"Should I be w as well?" asked Brandin of Ygrath.
Smiling, he joihem. He did not touch her. He very seldom touched the saishan women in publid this was an Ygratheion. They knew his rules. Their lives were shaped by his rules.
"My lord," she said, turning and sketg her salutation. She kept her voice airily provocative. "Do you find me more ical than I was when this terrible man brought me here?”
Brandins amused glance went from her to Rhamanus. It was not as if hed he reminder of which Tribute captain had brought him Dianora. She khat, and he knew she did. It art of their verbal dance. His intelligeretched her to her limits, and then ged what those limits were.
She noticed, perhaps because the subject had e up with Rhamanus, that there was as much grey in his beard now as black.
He nodded judiciously, simulating a deep over the question. "I would have to say so, yes.
You have grown ically manipulative in almost exactly the same proportion as the terrible man has grown fat.”
"So much?" Dianora protested. "My lord, he is very fat!”
Both men chuckled. Rhamanus patted his belly affeately.
"This," he said, "is what happens when you feed a man cold salt meat for twenty years at sea and then expose him to the delights of the Kings city.”
"Well then," said Brandin, "we may have to send you away somewhere until you are sleek as a seal again.”
"My lord," said Rhamanus instantly, "I am yours to and in all things." His expression was sober and intense.
Brandiered that and his tone ged as well. "I know that," he murmured. "I would that I had more of you at court. At both of my courts. Portly or sleek, Rhamanus, I am not unmindful of you, whatever our Dianora may think.”
Very high praise, a promise of sorts, and a dismissal for the moment. Bright-eyed, Rhamanus bowed formally and withdrew. Brandin walked a couple of paces away, Rhun shuffling along beside him.
Dianora followed, as she was expected to. O of earshot of a the Fool, Brandin turo her. He was, she was sorry to see, suppressing a smile.
"What did you do? Offer him north Asoli?”
Dianora heaved a heartfelt sigh of frustration. This happened all the time. "Now that," she protested, "is unfair. You are using magic.”
He let the smile e. She khat people were watg them. She knew what they would say amongst each other.
"Hardly," Brandin murmured. "I wouldnt waste it or drain myself on something so transparent.”
"Transparent!" she bridled.
"Not you, my ical manipulator. But Rhamanus was too serious too quickly when I jested about posting him away. And the only position of significe currently available is north Asoli and so . . .”
He let the senterail off. Laughter lingered in his eyes.
"Would he be such a bad choice?" Dianora asked defiantly. It was genuinely discerting how easily Brandin could sound the depths of things. If she allowed herself to dwell on that she could bee frightened again.
"What do you think?" he asked by way of reply.
"I? Think?" She lifted her plucked eyebrows in exaggerated arches. "How should a mere object of the Kings occasional pleasure veo have an opinion on such matters?”
"Now that," said Brandin nodding briskly, "is an intelligent observation. I shall have to sult Solores, instead.”
"If you get an intelligent observation out of her," Dianora said tartly, "I shall hurl myself from the saishan baly into the sea.”
"All the way across the harbor square? A long leap," said Brandin mildly.
"So," she replied, "is an intelligent observation for Solores.”
And at that he laughed aloud. The court was listening. Everyone heard. Everyone would draw their own clusions, but they would all be the same clusion in the end. Scelto, she reflected, was likely to receive discreet tributions from sources other than Neso of Ygrath before the day was out.
"I saw something iing on the mountain this m," Brandin said, his amusement subsiding.
"Something quite unusual.”
This, she realized, was why hed wao speak to her alone. Hed been up on Sangarios that m; she was one of the few who knew about it. Brandihis venture quiet, in case he should fail. Shed been prepared to tease him about it.
At the beginning of spring, just as the winds began to ge, before the last snows melted iando and Tregea and the southern reaches of what had been Tigana, came the three Ember Days that marked the turning of the year.
No fires not already burning were lit anywhere in the Palm. The devout fasted for at least the first of the three days. The bells of the Triad temples were silent. Men stayed within their doors at night, especially after darkfall on the first day which was the Day of the Dead.
There were Ember Days in autumn as well, halfway through the year, wheime of m came for Adaon slain on his mountain in Tregea, when the sun began to fade as Eanna mourned and Morian folded in upon herself in her Halls underground. But the spring days inspired a colder dread, especially in the tryside, because so much depended upon what would follow them. Winters passing, the season of sowing, and the hope of grain, of life, in the summers fullo e.
In Chiara there was an added ritual, different from anything elsewhere in the Palm.
On the Island the tale was told that Adaon and Eanna had first e together in love for three full days and nights on the summit of Sangarios. That in the surging climax of her desire ohird night Eanna of the Lights had created the stars of heaven and strewn them like shining lace through the dark.
And the tale was told that nine months later—which is three times three—the Triad was pleted when Morian was born in the depths of winter in a cave on that same mountain.
And with Morian had e both life ah into the world, and with life ah came mortal man to walk uhe newly ars, the two moons of the nights warding, and the sun of day.
And for this reason had Chiara always asserted its preeminence among the nine provinces of the Palm, and for this reason as well did the Island name Morian as guardian of its destiny.
Morian of Portals, who had sway over all thresholds. For everyone khat all islands were worlds unto themselves, that to e to an island was to e to another world. A truth known uhe stars and moons, if not always remembered by the light of day.
Every three years then, at the beginning of each Year of Morian, on the first of the springtime Ember Days, the young men of Chiara would vie with each other in a dawn race up to the summit of San-garios, there to pluck a blood-dark sprig of sonrai, the intoxig berries of the mountain, uhe watchful eye of the priests of Morian who had kept vigil on the peak all night long among the waking spirits of the dead. The first man down the mountain was anointed Lord of Sangarios until the such run in three years time.
In the old days, the very old days, the Lord of Sangarios would have been hunted down and slain on his mountain by the women six months later on the first of the Ember Days of fall.
Not anymore. Not for a long time. Now the young champion was likely to find himself in fierce demand as a lover by women seeking the blessing of his seed. A different sort of hunt, Dianora had said to Brandin once.
He hadnt laughed. He didnt find the ritual amusing. In fact, six years ago the King of Ygrath had elected to run the course himself, the m before the actual race. He had do again three years past. No small achievement, really, for a man of his years, sidering how hard and how long the rurained for this. Dianora didnt know what to find more whimsical: the fact that Brandin would do this thing, in such secrecy, or the ebullient mase pride hed felt both times hed made it up to the summit of Sangarios and down again.
In the Audience Chamber Dianora asked the question she was clearly expected to ask: "What did you see, then?”
She did not know, for mortals seldom do know when they approach a threshold of the goddess, that the question would mark the turning of her days.
"Something unusual," Brandied. "I had of course outstripped the guards running with me.”
"Of course," she murmured, giving him a sidelong glance.
He grinned. "I was alone oh part of the . The trees were still very thi either side, mountain ash, mostly, some sejoias.”
"How iing," she said.
This time he quelled her with a look. Dianora bit her lip and schooled her expression dutifully.
"I looked over to my right," Brandin said, "and saw a large grey rock, almost like a platform at the
edge of the trees. And sitting on the rock there was a creature. A woman, I would swear, and very nearly human.”
"Very nearly?”
She wasnt teasing anymore. Withiual archway of a portal of Morian we sometimes do know that a thing of importance is happening.
"Thats what was unusual. She certainly wasirely human. Not with green hair and such pale skin. Skin so white I swear I saw blue veih, Dianora. And her eyes were unlike any Ive ever seen. I thought she was a trick of light—the sun filtering through trees. But she didnt move, or ge in any way, even when I stopped to look at her.”
And now Dianora kly where she was.
The a creatures of water and wood and cave went ba time as far as the Triad did almost, and from the description she knew what he had seen. She kher things as well and was suddenly afraid.
"What did you do?" she asked, as casually as she could.
"I wasnt sure what to do. I spoke; she didnt answer. So I took a step towards her and as soon as I did she leaped down from the rod backed away. She stopped among the trees. I held out my open palms, but she seemed to be startled by that, or offended, and a moment later she fled.”
"Did you follow?”
"I was about to, but by then one of the guards had caught up to me.”
"Did he see her?" she asked. Too quickly.
Brandin gave her a curious look. "I asked. He said no, though I think he would have answered that way, regardless. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. "It would have firmed she was real," she lied.
Brandin shook his head. "She was real. This was no vision. In fact," he added, as if the thought had just occurred to him, "she reminded me of you.”
"With . . . what was it? Green skin and blue hair?" she replied, letting her court instincts guide her now. Something large was happenihough. She labored to hide the turmoil she felt. "I thank you so much my gracious lord. I suppose if I talked to Scelto and Vencel we could achieve the skin color, and blue hair should be easy enough. If it excites you so dramatically . . .”
He smiled but did not laugh. "Green hair, not blue," he said, almost absently. "And she did, Dianora,”
he repeated, looking at her oddly. "She did remind me of you. I wonder why. Do you know anything about such creatures?”
"I do not," she said. "Iando we have no tales of green-haired women in the mountains." She was lying. She was lying as well as she could, wide-eyed and direct. She could scarcely believe what she had just heard, what he had seen.
Brandins good humor was still with him.
"What mountain tales do you have iando?" he queried, smiling expetly.
"Stories of hairy things that walk on legs like tree stumps a goats and virgins in the night.”
His smile broadened. "Are there any?”
"Goats, yes," she said with a straight face. "Fewer virgins. Hairy creatures with such specific appetites are not an iive to chastity. Are you sending out a party to search for this creature?" A question so important she held her breath awaiting his reply.
"I think not," Brandin said. "I suspect such things are only seehey want to be.”
Which, she knew for a fact, was absolutely true.
"I havent told a you," he added uedly.
There was no dissembling in the expression she felt e over her face at that. But over and above everything else there was something new inside her with these tidings. She badly o be aloo think. A vain hope. She wouldhat ce for a long time yet today; best to push his story as far back as she could, with all the other things she was alushing to the edges of her mind.
"Thank you, my lord," she murmured, aware that they had been talking privately for some time.
Aware, as ever, of how that would be strued.
"In the meantime," Brandin suddenly said, in a quite different tone, "you still have not yet asked me how I did on the run. Solores, I have to tell you, made it her first question.”
Which carried them bailiar ground.
"Very well," she said, feigning indifference. "Do tell me. Halfway? Three-quarters?”
A glint of royal indignation nickered in the grey eyes. "You are presumptuous sometimes," he said. "I indulge you too much. I went, if you please, all the way to the summit and came down again this m with a cluster of sonrai berries. I will be extremely ied to see if any of tomorrows runners are up and down as quickly.”
"Well," she said quickly, unwisely, "they wont have sorcery to help them.”
"Dianora, have done!”
And that tone she reized and knew shed gooo far. As always at suents she had a dizzying sense of a pit gaping at her feet.
She knew what Brandin needed from her; she khe reason he granted her lise to be eous and imperti. She had long uood why the wit and edge she brought to their exges were important to him. She was his terbalao Soloress soft, uioning, undemanding shelter. The two of them, in turn, balang dEymons ascetic exercise of politid gover.
And all three of them in orbit around the star that Brandin was. The voluntarily exiled sun, removed from the heavens it knew, from the lands and seas and people, bound to this alien peninsula by loss and grief and revenge decreed.
She knew all this. She khe King very well. Her life depended on that. She did not often stray across the lihat was always there, invisible but inviolate. When she did it was likely to be over something as apparently trivial as this. It was such a paradox for her how he could shrug off or laugh at or even invite her caustientary on court and y—a bridle like a boy with affronted pride if she teased about his ability to run up and down a mountain in a m.
At such times he had only to say her name in a certain way and endless chasms opened before her in the delicately inlaid floor of the Audience Chamber.
She tive here, more slave than courtesan, at the court of a Tyrant. She was also an impostor, living an ongoing lie while her try slowly died away from the memories of men. And she had sworn to kill this man, whose glance across a room was as wildfire on her skin or amber wine in her mortal blood.
Chasms, everywhere she turned.
And now this m he had seen a riselka. He, and very possibly a sean as well. Fighting back her fear she forced herself t casually, to arch her eyebrows above a face schooled to bland un.
"This amuses me," she said, reag for self-possession, knowing precisely what his need in her was, even now. Especially now. "You profess to be pleased, even touched, by Soloress doubtlessly agitated query about your mountain run. The first thing she asked, you say. How she must have wondered whether or not you succeeded! A when I—knowing as surely as I know my own hat you
were up on the summit this m—treat it lightly, as something small, never in doubt . . . why then the King grows angry. He bids me sternly to have done! But tell me, my lord, in all fairness, which of us, truly, has honored you more?”
For a long time he was silent and she khat the court would be avidly marking the expression on his face. For the moment she cared nothing for them. Or even for her past, or his enter on the mountaihere was one specific chasm here that began and ended in the depths of the grey eyes that were now searg her own.
When he spoke it was in a different voice again, but this tone she happeo know exceedingly well and, in spite of everything that had just been said, and in spite of where they were and atg them, she felt herself go weak suddenly. Her legs trembled, but not with fear now.
"I could take you," said Brandin, King of Ygrath, thickly, his face flushed, "on the floor of this rht now before all of my gathered court.”
Her throat was dry. She felt a nerve flutter beh the skin of her wrist. Her own color was high, she knew. She swallowed with some difficulty.
"Perhaps tonight would be wiser," she murmured, trying to keep her tone light but not really managing it, uo hide the swift response in her eyes—spark to spark like the o of a blaze. The jeweled khav chalice trembled in her hand. He saw that, and she saw that he did and that her response, as always, served as kindling for his own desire. She sipped at her drink, holding it with both hands, ging to self-trol.
"Better tonight, surely," she said again, overwhelmed as always by what was happening to her. She knew what he needed her to say though, now, at this moment, in this room of state thronged with his court and emissaries from home.
She said it, looking him in the eyes, articulating carefully: "After all my lord, at ye you should marshal your strength. You did run part a hill this m.”
An instant later, for the sed time, the Chiaran court of Brandin of Ygrath saw their King throw back his handsome, bearded head and they heard him laugh aloud in delight. Not far away, Rhun the Fool cackled in simultaneous glee.
"Isolla of Ygrath!”
This time there were trumpets and a drum, as well as the heralds staff resounding as it struck the floor by the double doors at the southern end of the Audience Chamber.
Standing most of the way towards the throne, Dianora had time to observe the stately progress of the woman Brandin had called the fi musi in Ygrath. The assembled court of Chiara was lined several rows deep, flanking the approach to the King.
"A handsome woman still," murmured Neso of Ygrath, "and shes fifty years old if shes a day.”
Somehow he had mao end up o her in the front row.
His unctuous tone irritated her, as always, but she tried not to let it show. Isolla was clad in the simplest possible robe of dark blue, belted at the waist with a slender gold . Her hair, brown with hints of grey, was cut unfashionably short—although the spring and summer fashion might ge after today, Dianora thought. The y always took its cue in these matters from Ygrath.
Isolla walked fidently, not hurrying, down the aisle formed by the courtiers. Brandin was already smiling a wele. He was always immensely pleased when one or another of Ygraths artists made the long, often dangerous, sea voyage to his sed court.
Several steps behind Isolla, and carrying her lute in its case as if it were an artifameasurable worth, Dianora saw—with genuine surprise—the poet a di Chiara, clad in his ubiquitous triple- layered cloak. There were murmurs from the assembly: she wasnt the only one caught off guard by this.
Instinctively she threw a glance across the aisle to where Doarde stood with his wife and daughter.
She was in time to see the spasm of hate ahat flickered across his face as his younger rival approached. An instant later the revealing expression was gone, replaced by a polished mask of sneering disdain at as vulgar l of himself to serve as porter for an Ygrathen.
Still, Dianora sidered, this was an Ygrathen court. a, she guessed in a flash of intuition, had probably had one of his verses set to music. If Isolla was about to sing a song of his it would be a dazzling coup for the Chiara. More than suffit to explain why he would offer to further exalt Isolla—and Ygrathen artists—by serving as a bearer for her.
The politics of art, Dianora decided, was at least as plex as that of provinces and nations.
Isolla had stopped, as roper, about fifteen steps from the dais of the Island Throne, very close to where Dianora and Neso stood.
ly she proceeded to perform the triple obeisance. Very graciously—a mark of high honor— Brandin rose to his feet to bid her wele. He was smiling. So was Rhun, behind him and to his left.
For no reason she would ever afterwards be able to name or explain Dianora turned from monard musi back to the poet bearing the lute. a had stopped a further half a dozen paces behind Isolla and had k on the marble floor.
What detracted from the grace of the tableau was the dilation of his eyes. Nilth leaves, Dianora cluded instantly. Hes drugged himself. She saw beads of perspiration on the poets brow. It was not warm in the Audience Chamber.
"You are most wele, Isolla," Brandin was saying with genuine pleasure. "It has been far too long since we have seen you, or heard you play.”
Dianora saw a make a small adjustment in the way he held the lute. She thought he reparing to open the case. It did not look like an ordinary lute though. In fact— Afterwards she was able to know ohing only with certainty: it had beeory of the riselka that made her so sharp to see. The story, and the fact that Brandin wasain if the sean—his guard—had seen her or not.
One ma a fork ih. Two me a death.
Either way, something was to happen. And now it did.
All eyes but hers were on Brandin and Isolla. Only Dianora saw a slip the velvet cover off the lute. Only Dianora saw that it was not, in fact, a lute. And only she had heard Brandins tale of the riselka.
"Die, Isolla of Ygathl" a screamed hoarsely; his eyes bulged as he hurled the velvet away and leveled the crossbow he carried.
With the lightniion of a man half his years Brandin reflexively threw out his hand to cast a sorcerers shield around the threatened singer.
Exactly as he was expected to, Dianora realized.
"Brandin, no!" she screamed. "Its you!”
And seizing the gape-mouthed Neso of Ygrath by the near shoulder she propelled herself and him both into the aisle.
The crossbow bolt, aimed meticulously to the left of Isolla on a line for Brandi, buried itself instead in the shoulder of a stupefied Neso. He shrieked in pain and shock.
Her momentum drove Dianora stumbling to her knees beside Isolla. She looked up. And for the rest of her days never fot the look she met in the singers eyes.
She turned away from it. The emotion, the hatred was too raw. She felt physically ill, trembling with aftershock. She forced herself to stand; she looked at Brandin. He hadnt even lowered his hand. There was still the shimmer of a protective barrier around Isolla.
Who had never been in da all.
The guards had a by now. Hed been dragged to his feet. Dianora had never seen anyone look so white. Even his eyes were white, from the drug. For a moment she thought he was going to faint, but then a threw his head back as far as he could in the iron grip of the Ygrathen soldiers. He opened his mouth, as if in agony.
"Chiara!" he cried once, and then, "Freedom for Chiara!" before they silenced him, brutally.
The ech for a long time. The room was large and the stillness was almost absolute. No one dared to move. Dianora had a sehat the court wasnt evehing. No one wahe slightest attention drawn to them.
On the mosailaid floor Neso moaned again in fear and pain, breaking the tableau. Two soldiers ko tend to him. Dianora was still afraid she was going to be sick; she couldnt make her hands stop trembling. Isolla of Ygrath had not moved.
She could not move, Dianora realized: Brandin was holding her in a mindlock like a flower pressed flat on a sheet. The soldiers lifted Neso and helped him from the room. Dianora stepped back herself, leaving Isolla alone before the King. Fifteen very proper paces away.
"a was a tool," Brandin said softly. "Chiara has virtually nothing to do with this. Do not think that I am unaware of that, I offer you nothing now but an easier death. You must tell me why you did this." His voice was rigidly measured, careful and unied. Dianora had never heard such a tone from him. She looked at Rhun: the Fool was weeping, tears streaking his distorted features.
Brandin lowered his hand, freeing Isolla to move and speak.
The blazing flash of hatred left her features. In its place was a defiant pride. Dianora wondered if she had actually thought the deception would work. If after the King had been slain she had really expected to walk freely from this room. And if not—if she had not expected to do so—what did that mean?
Holding herself very straight, Isolla gave part of an answer. "I am dying," she said to Brandin. "The physis have given me less than a season before the growth inside reaches my brain. Already there are songs I o longer remember. Songs that have been mine for forty years.”
"I am sorry to hear it," said Brandin formally, his courtesy so perfect it seemed a violation of human nature. He said, "All of us die, Isolla. Some very young. Not all of us plot the death of our King. You have more to tell me before I may grant you release from pain.”
For the first time Isolla seemed to waver. She lowered her gaze from his eerily serene grey eyes. Only after a long moment did she say, "You had to have known that there would be a price for what you did.”
"Exactly what is it that I did?”
Her head came up. "You exalted a dead child above the living one, and revenge above your wife.
And more highly than your own land. Have you spared a thought, a fra of a thought, for any of them while you pursued your unnatural vengeance for Stevan?”
Dianoras heart thudded painfully. It was a spoken in Chiara. She saw Brandins lips tighten in a way she had seen only a handful of times. But when he spoke his voice was as rigidly trolled as before.
"I judged that I had sidered them fairly. Girald has governan Ygrath as he was always going to have. He even has my saishan, as a symbol of that. Dorotea I invited here several times a year for the first several years.”
"Invited here that she might wither and grow old while you kept yourself young. A thing no Sorcerer- King of Ygrath has ever done before, lest the gods punish the land for that impiety. But frath you never spared a thought, did you? And Girald? He is no King—his father is. That is your title, not his.
What does the key to a saishan mean against that reality? He is even going to die before you, Brandin, unless you are slain. And what will happen then? It is unnatural! It is all unnatural, and there is a price to be paid.”
"There is always a price," he said softly. "A price for everything. Even for living. I had not expected to pay it in my own family." There was a silence. "Isolla, I must extend my years to do what I am here to do.”
"Then you pay for it," Isolla repeated, "and Girald pays and Dorotea. And Ygrath.”
And Tigana, Dianora thought, no lorembling, her own ache e back like a wound in her.
Tigana pays too; in broken statues and fallen towers, in children slain and a name gone.
She watched Brandins face. And Rhuns.
"I hear you," the King said at length to the singer. "I have heard more than you have chosen to say. I need only ohing further. You must tell me which of them did this." It was said with visible regret.
Rhuns ugly face was screwed up tightly, his hands gestured with a random helplessness.
"And why," said Isolla, drawing herself up and speaking with the frigid hauteur of one who had nothio lose, "should you imagiheir purposes to be at odds in this? Why the one or the other, King of Ygrath?" Her voice rang out, harsh as the message it bore.
Slowly he he hurt was clear in him now; Dianora could see it in the way he stood and spoke, however much he trolled himself. She didnt eveo look at Rhun.
"Very well," Brandin said. "And you, Isolla? What could they have offered to make you do this thing.
you really hate me so much?”
The womaated only for an instant. Then, as proudly, as defiantly as before, she said, "I love the Queen so much.”
Brandin closed his eyes. "How so?”
"In all the ways that you forsook when you chose exile here and love of the dead over the heart and the bed of your wife.”
In any normal, any halfway normal time there would have been a rea to this from the court.
There would have had to be. Dianora heard nothing though, only the sound of a great many people breathing carefully as Brandin opened his eyes again to look down upon the sihere was an unveiled triumph in the Ygrathen womans face.
"She was invited here," he repeated almost wistfully. "I could have pelled her but I chose not to do so. She had made her feelings clear and I left the choice to her. I thought it was the kinder, fairer a. It would appear that my sin lies in not having ordered her to take ship for this peninsula.”
So many different griefs and shapes of pain seemed to be warring for preemihin Dianora.
Behind the King she could see dEymon; his face was a sickly grey. He met her eyes for only an instant then quickly looked away. Later she might think of ways to use this sudden asdancy over him but right now she felt only pity for the man. He would offer tn tonight, she knew. Offer, probably, to kill himself after the old fashion. Brandin would refuse, but after this nothing would be quite the same.
Freat many reasons.
Brandin said, "I think you have told me what I had o know.”
"The Chiaran acted alone," Isolla volunteered uedly. She gestured at a, in the bone- crag grip of the soldiers behind her. "He joined us when he visited Ygrath two years ago. Our purposes appeared to march together this far.”
Brandin nodded. "This far," he echoed quietly. "I thought that might be the case. Thank you for firming it," he added gravely.
There was a silence. "You promised me an easy death," Isolla said, holding herself very straight.
"I did," Brandin said. "I did promise you that." Dianora stopped breathing. The King looked at Isolla without expression for what seemed an unbearably long time.
"You have no idea," he said at last, in a voice little above a whisper, "hoy I was that you
had e to make musie again.”
Then he moved his right hand, ily the same casual gesture he would use to dismiss a servant or a petitioner.
Isollas head exploded like an overripe fruit smashed with a hammer. Dark blood burst from her neck as her body collapsed like a sack. Dianora was standing too near; the blood of the slain attered thickly on her gown and face. She stumbled backwards. A hideous illusion of reptiliaures was coiling and twisting in the place where Isollas head had been mashed to a formless, oozing pulp.
There was screaming everywhere and a frenzied pandemonium as the court backed away. One figure suddenly ran forward. Stumbling, almost falling in its haste, the figure jerked out a sword. Then awkwardly, with great clumsy two-handed slashes, Rhun the Fool began hag at the dead body of the singer.
His face was weirdly distorted with rage and revulsion. Foam and mucus ran from his mouth and nose. With one savage butchers blow he severed an arm from the womans torso. Something dark and green and blind appeared to undulate from the stump of Isollas shoulder, leaving a trail of glistening black slime. Behind Dianora someone gagged with horror.
"Stevan!" she heard Rhun cry brokenly. And amid nausea and chaos and terror, an overwhelming pity suddenly laid hard siege to her heart. She looked at the frantically lab Fool, clad exactly like the King, bearing a Kings sword. Spittle flew from his mouth.
"Music! Stevan! Music! Stevan!" Rhun shouted obsessively, and with each slurred, ferocious articulation of the words his slender, jeweled court sword went up and down, glinting brilliantly ireaming light, hewing the dead body like meat. He lost his footing on the slippery floor ao his knees with the force of his own fury. A grey thing with eyes on waving stalks appeared to attach itself like a bloodleech to his knee.
"Music," Rhun said one last time, softly, with ued clarity. Then the sword slipped through his fingers a in a puddle of blood beside the mutilated corpse of the singer, his balding head slewed awkwardly down and to one side, his white-and-gold carments hopelessly soiled, weeping as though his heart was broken.
Dianora turo Brandin. The King was motionless, standily as he had been throughout, his hands relaxed at his sides. He gazed at the appalling se in front of him with a frighteniat.
"There is always a price," he said quietly, almost to himself, through the incessant screaming and tumult that filled the Audience Chamber. Dianora took oant step towards him then, but he had already turned and, with dEymon quickly following, Brandihe room through the door behind the dais.
With his departure the slithering, oleaginous creatures immediately disappeared, but not the mangled body of the singer or the pitiful, crumpled figure of the Fool. Dianora seemed to be alohem, everyone else had surged back towards the doors. Isollas blood felt hot where it had landed on her skin.
People were tripping and pushing each other in their frantic haste to quit the room now that the King was gone. She saw the soldiers hustling a di Chiara away through a side door. Other soldiers came forward with a sheet to cover Isollas body. They had to move Rhun away to do it; he dido uand what was happening. He was still weeping, his face grotesquely screwed up like a hurt childs.
Dianora moved a hand to wipe at her cheek and her fingers came away streaked with blood. The soldiers placed the sheet over the singers body. One of them gingerly picked up the arm Rhun had severed and pushed it uhe sheet as well. Dianora saw him do that. There seemed to be blood all over her face. On the very edge of losing all trol she looked around for help, any kind of help.
"e, my lady," said a desperately needed voice that was somehow by her side. "e. Let me take you back to the saishan.”
"Oh, Scelto," she whispered. "Please. Please do that, Scelto.”
The news blazed through the dry tinder of the saishaing it afire with rumor and fear. An assassination attempt from Ygrath. With Chiaran participation.
And it had very nearly succeeded.
Scelto hustled Dianora down the corridor to her rooms and with a bristling protectiveness slammed the door on the nervous, fluttering crowd that g and hovered in the hallway like so many silk-clad moths. Murmuring tinuously he undressed and washed her, and then ed her carefully into her warmest robe. She was shivering untrollably, uo speak. He lit the fire and made her sit before it.
In docile submission she drank the mahgoti tea he prepared as a sedative. Two cups of it, oer the other. Eventually the trembling stopped. She still found it difficult to speak. He made her stay in the chair before the fire. She didnt want to leave it anyway.
Her brai battered, numb. She seemed to be utterly incapable of marshaling any uanding, of shaping ae respoo what had just happened.
Ohought only kept driving the others aounding in her head like the hammer of a heralds staff on the floor. A thought so impossible, so disabling, that she tried, with all she could, through the blinding pulse of an onrushing headache, to block it out. She couldnt. The hammering crashed through, again and again: she had saved his life.
Tigana had been a single pulsebeat away from ing bato the world. The pulsebeat of Brandin that the crossbow would have ended.
Home was a dream shed had yesterday. A place where childreo play. Among towers he mountains, by a river, on curving sweeps of white olden sand beside a palace at the edge of the sea.
Home was a longing, a desperate dream, a name in her dreams. And this afternoon she had dohe ohing she could possibly have doo bar that name from the world, to lock it into a dream. Until all the dreams, too, died.
How was she to deal with that? How possibly cope with what it meant? She had e here to kill Brandin of Ygrath, to end his life that lost Tigana might live again. And instead . . .
The shivering started once more. Fussing and murmuring, Scelto built up the fire and brought yet another bla for her knees a. When he saw the tears on her face he made a queer helpless sound of distress. Someone knocked loudly on her door sometime later and she heard Scelto driving them away with language she had never known him to use before.
Gradually, very slowly, she began to pull herself together. From the color of the light that gently drifted down through the high windows she khat the afternoon would be waning towards dusk. She rubbed her cheeks and eyes with the backs of her hands. She sat up. She had to be ready when twilight came; twilight was when Brandio the saishan.
She rose from her chair, pleased to find that her legs were steadier. Scelto rushed up, protesting, but when he saw her face he quickly checked himself. Without another word he led her through the inner doors and down that hallway to the baths. His ferocious glare silehe attendants there. She had a sehat he would have struck them if they had spoken; she had never heard of him doing a single violent aot since he had killed a man and lost his own manhood.
She let them bathe her, let the sted oils soften her skin. There had been blood on it that afternoon.
The waters swirled around her and then away. The attendants washed her hair. After, Scelto paihe nails of her fingers and toes. A soft shade, dusty rose. Far from the color of blood, far from anger rief.
Later she would paint her lips the same shade. She doubted they would make love, though. She would hold him and be held. She went back to her room to wait for the summons.
From the light she knew when evening had fallen. Everyone in the saishan always knew when evening fell. The day revolved towards and then away from the hour of darkness. She sent Scelto outside, to receive the word when it came.
A short time after he came bad told her that Brandin had sent for Solores.
Anger flamed wildly within her. It exploded like . . . like the head of Isolla of Ygrath in the Audience Chamber. Dianora could scarcely draw breath, so fierce was her sudden rage. Never in her life had she felt anything like this—this white hot caldron in her heart. After Tigana fell, after her brother was driven away, her hatred had been a shaped thing, trolled, eled, driven by purpose, a guarded flame that shed known would have to burn a long time.
This was an inferno. A caldron boiling over inside her, prodigious, overmastering, sweeping all before it like a lava flow. Had Brandin been in her room at that moment she could have ripped his heart out with her nails ah—as the women tore Adaon on the mountainside. She saw Scelto take an involuntary backwards step away from her; she had never known him to fear her or anyone else before. It was not an observation that mattered now.
What mattered, all that mattered, the only thing, was that she had saved the life of Brandin of Ygrath today, trampling into mud spattered blood the clear, unsullied memory of her home and the oath shed sworn in ing here so long ago. She had violated the essence of everything she once had been; violated herself more cruelly than had any man whod ever lain with her for a in that upstairs room iando.
And iurn? Iurn, Brandin had just sent for Solores di Corte, leavio spend tonight alone.
Not, not a thing he should have done.
It did not matter that even within the fiery heat of her own blazing Dianora could uand why he might have dohis thing. Uand how little need he would have tonight for wit or intelligence, for sparkle, for questions gestions. Or desire. His need would be for the soft, unthinking, reflexive gentlehat Save. That she herself apparently did not. The cradling worship, tenderness, the soothing voice. He would need shelter tonight. She could uand: it was what she oo, needed desperately, after what had happened.
But she from him.
And so it came to be that, alone in her bed that night, sheltered by no one and by nothing, Dianora found herself naked and uo hide from what came when the fires e finally died.
She lay unsleeping through the first and then through the sed chiming of the bells that marked off the triads of the dark hours, but before the third chiming that heralded the ing of grey dawn two things had happened within her.
The first was the inexorable return of the sirand of memory shed always been careful to block out from among all the myriad griefs of the year Tigana was occupied. But she truly was uered and exposed in the dark of that Ember Night, drifting terribly far from whatever ms her soul had found.
While Brandin, on the far wing of the palace sought what fort he could in Solores di Corte, Dianora lay as in an open spad alone, uo defley of the images that now came sweeping back from years ago. Images of love and pain and the loss of love in pain that were far too keen—too icy keen a wind in the heart—to be allowed at any normal time.
But the finger of death had rested ?9９lib.on Brandin of Ygrath that day, and she alone had guided it away, steering the King past the darkest portal of Morian, and tonight was an Ember Night, a night of ghosts and shadows. It could not be anything like a normal time, and it was not. What came to Dianora, terribly, oer another in unceasing progression like waves of the dark sea, were her last memories of her brother before he went away.
He had been too young to fight by the Deisa. No one under fifteen, Prince Valentin had proclaimed before riding sternly north to war. Alessan, the Princes you child, had been taken away south in hiding by Danoleon, the High Priest of Eanna, when word came that Brandin was ing down upon them.
That was after Stevan had been slain. After the one victory. They had all known; the weary men who
had fought and survived, and the women and the aged and the childre behind—that Brandins ing would mark the end of the world they had lived in and loved.
They hadnt known then how literally true that was: what the Sorcerer-King of Ygrath could do and what he did. This they were to learn in the days and months that followed as a hard and brutal thing that grew like a tumor and theered in the souls of those who survived.
The dead of Deisa are the lucky ones. So it was said, more and more often, in whispers and in pain in the year Tigana died, by those who ehe dying.
Dianora and her brother were left with a mother whose mind had snapped like a b with the tidings of Sed Deisa. Even as the vanguard of the Ygratheered the city itself, occupying the streets and squares of Tigana, the noble houses and the delicately colored Palace by the Sea, she seemed to let slip her last awareness of the world to wander, mute ale, through a spaeither of her children could travel to with her.
Sometimes she would smile and nod at invisible things as she sat amid the rubble of their courtyard that summer, with smashed marble all around her, and her daughters heart would ache like an old wound in the rains of winter.
Dianora set herself to run the household as best she could, though three of the servants and apprentices had died with her father. Two others ran away not long after the Ygrathens came and the destru began. She couldnt even blame them. Only one of the women and the you of the appreayed with them.
Her brother and the apprentice waited until the long wave of burnings and demolition had passed, then they sought work clearing away rubble or repairing walls as a limited rebuilding started under Ygrathen orders. Life began to return towards a normality. Or assed for normality in a city now called Lower Corte in a province of that name.
In a world where the very word Tigana could not be heard by aher than themselves. Sooopped using it in public places. The pain was too great: the twisting feeling ihat came with the blank look of inprehension on the faces of the Ygrathens or the traders and bankers from Corte who had swarmed quickly down to seek rofit they could among the rubble and the slow rebuilding of a city. It was a hurt for which, truly, there was no name.
Dianora could remember, with jagged, sharp-edged clarity, the first time shed called her home Lower Corte. They all could, all the survivors: it was, for each of them, a moment embedded like a fish hook in the soul. The dead of Deisa, First or Sed, were the lucky ones, so the phrase went that year.
She watched her brother e into a bitter maturity that first summer and fall, grieving for his vanished smile, laughter lost, the childhood too soon gone, not knowing how deeply the same hard lessons and absences were etched in her own hollow, unlovely face. She was sixteen ie summer, he turned fifteen in the fall. She made a cake on his naming day, for the apprehe one old woman, her mother, her brother and herself. They had no guests; assembly of any kind was forbidden throughout that year. Her mother had smiled when Dianave her a slice of the dark cake—but Dia-nora had known the smile had nothing to do with any of them.
Her brother had known it too. Preternaturally grave he had kissed his mother on the forehead and then his sister, and had go into the night. It was, of course, illegal to be abroad after nightfall, but somethi driving him out to walk the streets, past the random fires that still smoldered on almost every er. It was as if he was daring the Ygrathen patrols to catch him. To punish him for having been fourteen in the season of war.
Two soldiers were knifed in the dark that fall. Twenty death-wheels were hoisted in swift response.
Six women and five children were among those bound aloft to die. Dianora knew most of them; there werent so very many people left iy, they all knew each other. The screaming of the children, then their diminishing cries were things she needed shelter from in her nights forever after.
No more soldiers were killed.
Her brother tio go out at night. She would lie awake until she heard him e in. He always made a sound, deliberately, so she would hear him and be able to fall asleep. Somehow, he knew she would be awake, though she had never said a word.
He would have been handsome, with his dark hair and deep brown eyes if he hadnt been so thin and if the eyes were not shadowed and ringed by sleeplessness and grief. There was not a great deal of food that first winter—most of the harvest had been burned, and the rest fiscated—but Dianora did the best she could to feed the five of them. About the look in his eyes there was nothing she could do. Everyone had that look that year. She could see it in her mirror.
The following spring the Ygrathen soldiers discovered a new form of sport. It had probably beeable that they would, one of the evil growths that sprang from the deep-sown seeds of Brandins vengeance.
Dianora remembered being at an upstairs window the day it began. She was watg her brother and the apprentio longer an apprentice, of course—walking through a sun-brightened early m across the square on their way to the site where they were lab. White clouds had been drifting by overhead, scudding with the wind. A small cluster of soldiers came from the opposite side and accosted the two boys. Her windoen to air the room and catch the freshness of the breeze; she heard it all.
"Help us!" one of the soldiers bleated with a smirk she could see from her window. "Were lost," he moaned, as the others quickly surrouhe boys. He drew sly chuckles from his fellows. One of them elbowed another in the ribs.
"Where are we?" the soldier begged.
Eyes carefully lowered, her brother he square and the streets leading from it.
"Thats no good!" the soldier plained. "What good are street o me? I dont even know what cursed town Im in!" There was laughter; Dianora wi what she heard in it.
"Lower Corte," the appretered quickly, as her brother kept silent. They noticed the silehough.
"What town? You tell me," the spokesman said more sharply, prodding her brother in the shoulder.
"I just told you. Lower Corte," the appreervened loudly. One of the soldiers cuifed him on the side of the head. The boy staggered and almost fell; he refused to lift a hand to touch his head.
Her pulse pounding with fright, Dianora saw her brother look up then. His dark hair gleamed in the m sunlight. She thought he was going to strike the soldier who had dealt that blow. She thought he was going to die. She stood up at her window, her hands ched on the ledge. There was a terrible silen the square below. The sun was very bright.
"Lower Corte," her brother said, as though he were choking on the words.
Laughing raucously the soldiers let them go.
For that m.
The two boys became the favorite victims of that pany, which patrolled their district between the Palace by the Sea and the ter of towhe three temples stood. None of the temples of the Triad had been smashed, only the statuary that stood outside and withiwo had been her fathers work.
A young, seductively graceful Morian, and a huge, primal figure of Eanna stretg forth her hands to make the stars.
The boys began leaving the house earlier and earlier as spring wore on, taking roundabout routes in an attempt to avoid the soldiers. Most ms, though, they were still found. The Ygrathens were bored by then; the boys very efforts to elude them offered sport.
Dianora used to go to that same upstairs window at the front of the house when they left by way of the square, as if by watg whatever happened, sharing it, she could somehow spread the pain among
three, not two, and so ease it for them. The soldiers almost always accosted them just as they reached the square. She was watg on the day the game ged to something worse.
It was afternoon that time. A half-day of work only, because of a Triad holiday—part of the aftermath to the springtime Ember Days. The Ygrathens, like the Barbadians to the east, had been scrupulous not to tamper with the Triad and their clergy. After their lunch the two boys went out to do an afternoons work.
The soldiers surrouhem in the middle of the square. They never seemed to tire of their sport.
But that afternoon, just as the leader began his familiar litany of being lost a group of four merts came trudging up the hill from the harbor and one of the soldiers had an inspiration born of sheerest malice.
"Stop!" he rasped. The merts did, very abruptly. One obeyed Ygrathen ands in Lower Corte, wherever one might be from.
"e here," the soldier added. His fellows made way for the merts to stand in front of the boys.
A premonition of something evil touched Dianora in that moment like a cold finger on her spine.
The four traders reported that they were from Asoli. It was obvious from their clothing.
"Good," the soldier said. "I know hoing you lot are. Now listen to me. These brats are going to heir city and their provio you. If you tell me what they say, on my honor and in the name of Brandin, King of Ygrath, Ill give the first man who says the name bae twenty gold ygras.”
It was a fortune. Even from where she sat, high up and sed behind her window, Dianora could see the Asoli traders react. That was before she closed her eyes. She knew what was ing and how it was going to hurt. She wanted her father alive in that moment with a longing so acute she almost wept.
Her brother was dowhough, among soldiers who hated them. She forced back her tears and opened her eyes. She watched.
"You," said the soldier to the apprehey always started with him—"your province had another name oell them what it was.”
She saw the boy—Naddo was his name—go white with fear er, or both. The four merts, oblivious to that irrelevance, leaned forward, straining with anticipation. Dianora saw Naddo look at her brother fuidance, or perhaps for dispensation.
The soldier saw the glance. "None of that!" he shen he drew his sword. "For your life, say the name." Naddo, very clearly, said, "Tigana.”
And of course not one of the merts could say back the word he spoke. Not for twenty golden ygras or twenty times so many. Dianora could read the bafflement, the balked greed in their eyes, and the fear that fronting sorcery always brought.
The soldiers laughed and jostled each other. One of them had a shrill cackle like a rooster. They turo her brother.
"No," he said flatly before they could even and him. "You have had your sport. They ot hear the name. We all know it— what is left to prove?”
He was fifteen, and much too thin, and his dark-brown hair was too long over his eyes. It had been over a month since shed cut it for him; shed been meaning to do so all week. One of her hands was squeezing the window-ledge so tightly that all the blood had rushed away; it was white as ice. She would have cut it off to ge what was happening. She noticed other faces at other windows along the street and across the square. Some people had stopped down below as well, seeing the large clustering of men, sensing the sudden tension that had taken shape.
Which was bad, because with an audiehe soldiers would now have to clearly establish their authority. What had been a game when done in private was something else now. Dianora wao turn away. She wanted her father back from the Deisa, she wanted Prince Valentin bad alive, her mother
back from whatever try she wahrough.
She watched. To share it. To bear witness and remember, knowing evehat such things were going to matter, if anything mattered in the days and years to e.
The soldier with the drawn blade placed the tip of it very carefully against her brothers breast. The afternoon sunlight glinted from it. It was a w blade, a soldiers sword. There came a small sound from the people gathered around the edges of the square.
Her brother said, a little desperately, "They ot hold the name. You know they ot. You have destroyed us. Is it necessary to go on causing pain? Is it necessary?”
He is only fifteen, Dianora prayed, gripping the ledge like death, her hand a claw. He was too young to fight. He was not allowed. Five him this. Please.
The four Asolini traders, as one man, stepped quickly out e. One of the soldiers—the oh the high laugh—shifted unfortably, as if regretting what this had e to. But there was a crowd gathered. The boy had had his fair ce. There was really no choiow.
The sword pushed delicately forward a short way and then withdrew. Through a torn blue tunic a welling of blood appeared and hung a moment, bright in the springtime light, as if yearning towards the blade, before it broke and slid downwards, staining the blue.
"The name," said the soldier quietly. There was y in his voiow. He rofessional, and he reparing himself to kill, Dianora realized.
A witness, a memory, she saw her younger brother spread his feet then, as if to anchor himself in the ground of the square. She saw his hands to fists at his sides. She saw his head go back, lifting towards the sky.
And then she heard his cry.
He gave them what they demanded of him, he obeyed the and, but not sullenly or diffidently, and not in shame. Rooted in the land of his fathers, standing before the home of his family he looked towards the sun a a name burst forth from his soul.
"Tigana!" he cried that all should hear. All of them, everyone in the square. And again, louder yet: "Tigana!" And then a third, a last time, at the very summit of his voice, with pride, with love, with a lasting, unredeemed defiance of the heart.
"TIGANA!”
Through the square that cry rang, along the streets, up to the windows where people watched, over the roofs of houses runniward to the sea or eastward to the temples, and far beyond all of these—a sound, a name, a hurled sorrow in the brightness of the air.
And though the four merts could not g to the hough the soldiers could not hold it, the women at the windows and the children with them and the men riveted stoill in street and square could hear it clearly, and clutch it to themselves, and they could gather and remember the pride at the base of that spiraling cry.
And that much, looking around, the soldiers could see plainly and uand. It was written in the faces gathered around them. He had done only what they themselves had ordered him to do, but the game had been turned i, it had turned out wrong in some way they could but dimly prehend.
They beat him of course.
With their fists a and with the flats of their cared-for blades. Naddo too—for being there and so a part of it. The crowd did not disperse though, which would have been the usual thing when a beating took place. They watched in a silennatural for so many people. The only sound was that of the blows falling, for her boy cried out and the soldiers did not speak.
When it was over they scattered the crowd with oaths and imprecations. Crowds were illegal, even though they themselves had caused this oo form. In a few moments everyone was gohere were
only faces behind half-drawn curtains at upstairs windows looking down on a square empty save for two boys lying itling dust, bloht on their clothing in the clear light. There had been birds singing all around and all through what had happened. Dianora could remember.
She forced herself to remain where she was. Not to run down to them. To let them do this alone, as was their right. And at length she saw her brother rise with the slow, meditated movements of a very old man. She saw him speak to Naddo and then carefully help him to his feet. And then, as she had known would happen, she saw him, begrimed and bleeding and hobbling very badly, lead Naddo east without a backwards looks, towards the site where they were assigo work that day.
She watched them go. Her eyes were dry. Only whewo of them turhe er at the far end of the square and sone from sight did she leave her window. Only then did she loosen her white- clawed hold on the wood of the window-ledge. And only then, invisible to everyoh her curtains drawn, did she allow her tears to fall: in love, and for his hurts, and terrible pride.
When they came home that night she and the servant-womaed water and drew baths for them and afterwards they dealt with the wounds and the blad purpling bruises as best they could.
Later, over dinner, Naddo told them he was leaving. That same night, he said. It was too much, he said, awkwardly twisting in his seat, speaking to Dianora, for her brother had turned his face away at Naddos first annou.
There was no life to be made here, Naddo said with passionate urgency through a torn and swollen mouth. Not with the viciousness of the soldiers and the even more vicious taxes. If a young man, a young man such as himself, was to have any hope of doing something with his life, Naddo said, he had to get away. Desperately his eyes besought her uanding. He kept glang nervously over to where her brother had now fully turned his ba both of them.
Where will you go, Dianora had asked him.
Asoli, hed told her. It was a hard, wet land, unbearably hot and humid in summer, everyone khat. But there was room there for new blood. The Asolini made people wele, hed heard, more so than in the Barbadian lands to the east. He would never ever go to Corte or Chiara. People from Tigana did not go there, he said. Her brother made a small sound at that but did not turn; Naddo glanced over at him again and swallowed, his Adams apple bobbing in his throat.
Three other young men had made plans, he said to Dianora. Plans to slip out from the city tonight and make their way north. Hed known about it for some time, he said. He hadnt been sure. He hadnt known what to do. What had happehis m had made up his mind for him.
Eanna light your path, Dianora had said, meaning it. He had been a good apprentid then a brave and loyal friend. People were leaving all the time. The province of Lower Corte was a bad pla a very bad time. Naddos left eye was pletely swollen shut. He might easily have been killed that afternoon.
Later, when hed packed his few belongings and was ready to leave, she gave him some silver from her fathers hidden store. She kissed him in farewell. Hed begun weeping then. He ended himself to her mother and opehe front door. Ohreshold hed turned back again, still g.
"Goodbye," hed said, in anguish, to the figure staring stonily into the fire on the front-room hearth.
Seeing the look on Naddos face Dianora silently willed her brother to turn around. He did not.
Deliberately he k and laid an on the fire.
Naddo stared at him a moment loheuro look at Dianora, failed to achieve a tremulous, tearful smile, and slipped out into the dark and away.
Much later, when the fire had been allowed to die, her brother went out as well. Dianora sat and watched the embers slowly fade, then she looked in on her mother ao bed. When she lay down it seemed to her that a weight ressing upon her body, far heavier than the quilted forter.
She was awake when he came in. She always was. She heard him step loudly on the landing as was his habit, to let her know he was safely home, but she didhe sound, which should have been
the opening and closing of his bedroom door.
It was very late. She lay still for another moment, surrounded and mastered by all the griefs of the day. Then, moving heavily, as if drugged or in a waking dream, she rose and lit a dle. She went to her door and ope.
He was standing in the hallway outside. And by the flickering of the light she bore she saw the river of tears that without surcease down his bruised, distorted face. Her hands began to shake.
She could not speak.
"Why didnt I say goodbye to him?" she heard him say in a strangled voice. "Why didnt you make me say goodbye to him?" She had never heard so much hurt in him. Not even when word had e that their father had died by the river.
Her heart ag, Dianora put the dle down on a ledge that once had held a portrait bust of her mother by her father. She crossed the narrow distand took her brother in her arms, abs the hard rag of his sobs. He had never cried before. Or never so that she could see. She guided him into her room and lay down beside him on her bed, holding him close. They wept together, thus, for a very long time. She could not have said how long.
Her windoen. She could hear the breeze sigh through the young leaves outside. A bird sang, and another answered it from across the lahe world lace of dreaming or of sorrow, one or both of those. One or both. In the sanctuary of night she slowly pulled his tunic over his head, careful of his wounds, and then she slipped free of her own robe. Her heart was beating like the heart of a captured forest creature. She could feel the race of his pulse when her fiouched his throat. Both of the moons had set. The wind was in all the leaves outside. And so.
And so in all that darkness, dark over and about and close-gathered around them, the full dark of moonless night and the darkness of their days, the two of them sought a pitiful illicit shelter in each other from the ruin of their world.
"What are we doing?" her brother whispered once.
And then, a space of time later when pulsebeats had slowed again, leaving them ging to each other iermath of a headlong, terrifying need, he had said, one hale in her hair, "What have we done?”
And all these long years later, alone in the saishan on the Island as this most hidden memory came back, Dianora could remember her reply.
"Oh, Baerd," shed said. "What has been doo us?”
It lasted from that first night through the whole of spring and into the summer. The sin of the gods, it was named, what they did. For Adaon and Eanna were said to have been brother and sister at the beginning of time, and Morian was their child.
Dianora didnt feel like a goddess, and her mirror offered no illusions: only a too thin face with enormous, staring eyes. She knew only that her happierrified her, and ed her with guilt, and that her love for Baerd was the whole of her world. And what frightened her almost as much was seeing the same depth of love, the same astonished passion in him. Her heart misgave her stantly, even as they reached for their fugitive joy: tht this forbidden flame in a land where any kind htness was lost or not allowed.
He came to her every night. The woma downstairs; their mother slept—and woke—in her own world. In the dark of Dianoras room they escaped into each other, reag through loss and the knowledge in search of innoce.
He was still driven to go out some nights to walk the empty streets. Not as often as before, for which she gave thanks and sought a kind of justification for herself. A number of young men had been caught after curfew and killed on the wheels that spring. If what she was doi him alive she would face whatever judgment lay in wait for her in Morians Halls.
She couldnt keep him every night though. Sometimes a need she could not share or truly uand would drive him forth. He tried to explain. How the city was different uhe two moons or one of them or the stars. How sht and shadow let him see it as Tigana again. How he could walk silently down towards the sea and e upon the darkened palace, and how the rubble and ruin of it could somehow be rebuilt in his mind in darkowards what it had been before.
He had a need for that, he said. He never baited the soldiers and promised her he never would. He didnt even want to see them, he said. They crashed into the illusions he wanted. He just o be abroad inside his memory of the city that had gone. Sometimes, Baerd told her, he would slip through gaps he knew in the harbor walls and walk along the beach listening to the sea.
By day he labored, a thin boy at a strong mans job, helping to rebuild what they were permitted to rebuild. Rich merts from Corte—their a enemies—had been allowed to settle iy, to buy up the smashed buildings and residential palaces very inexpensively, and to set about rest them for their own purposes.
Baerd would e home at the end of a day sometimes with gashes and fresh bruises, and ohe mark of a whip across his shoulders. She khat if one pany of soldiers had eheir sport with him there were others to pick it up. It was only happening here, shed heard. Everywhere else the soldiers restraihemselves and the King of Ygrath was g with care, to solidate his provinces against Barbadior.
In Lower Corte they were special, though. They had killed his son.
She would see those marks on Baerd and she had not the heart to ask him to deny himself his lost city at night when the need rose in him. Even though she lived a huerrors and died half a hundred deaths every time the front door closed behind him after dark—until she heard it open again and heard his loved, familiar footstep oairs, and then the landing, and then he came into her room to take and hold her in his arms.
It went on into summer and then it ended. It all ended, as her knowi had forewarned her from that first time in darkness, listening to the birds singing and the wind irees outside.
He came home no later than he usually did from walking abroad one night when blue Ilarion had been riding aloh藏书网alleged leader of this alleged plot. He might kidnap a boy from a temple of Morian, Astibar was saying, but plot against a Tyrant? With Nievole and Scalvaia?
No, the city was simply too sophisticated to fall for that. Ah the slightest sense of geography or eics could see what was really going on. How, by trumping up this "threat" from three of the five largest landowners in the distrada, Alberico was merely creating a sleek cover for an otherwise naked land grab.
It was only sheerest ce, of course, that the Sandrees were tral, the Nievolene farms lay to the southwest along the Ferraut border, and Scalvaias vineyards were in the richest belt in the north where the best grapes for the blue wine were grown. An immensely ve spiracy, all the taverns and khav rooms agreed.
And every single spirator was dead ht, as well. Such swift justice! Su accumulation of evidence against them! There had been an informer among the Sandreni, it roclaimed. He was dead. Of course. Tomasso bar Sandre had led the spiracy, they were told. He too, most unfortunately, was dead.
Led by Astibar itself all four provinces of the Eastern Palm reacted with bitter, sardonic disbelief.
They may have been quered, ground uhe heavy Barbadian heel, but they had not been deprived of their intelligence or rendered blind. They knew a Tyrants scheming when they saw it.
Tomasso bar Sandre as a skilled, deadly plotter? Astibar, reeling uhe eic impact of the fiscations, and the horror of the executions, still found itself able to mock. And then there arrived the first of the viciously funny verses from the west—from Chiara itself— written by Brandin himself some said, though rather more likely issioned from one of the poets who hovered about that court. Verses lampooning Alberico as seeing plots hatg in every barnyard and using them as an excuse to seize fowls aable gardens all over the Eastern Palm. There were also a few, not very subtle sexual innu- endos thrown in food measure.
The poems, posted on walls all over the city—and then in Tregea aando and Ferraut—were torn down by the Barbadians almost as fast as they went up. Unfortuhey were memorable rhymes, and people dido read or hear them more than once . . .
Alberico would later aowledge to himself that hed lost trol a little. He would also admit inwardly that a great deal of his rage stemmed from a fierdignation and the aftermath of fear.
There had been a spiracy led by that ming Sandreni. They had very nearly killed him in that cursed in the woods.
This once, he was telling the absolute truth. There was no pretense or deception. He had every claim of justi his side. What he didnt have was a fession, or a witness, or any evide all. Hed needed his informer alive. Or Tomasso. Hed waomasso alive. His dreams that first night had been shot through with vivid images of Sandres son, bound and stripped and curved invitingly backwards on one of the maes.
Iermath of the perverts inexplicable death, and the unanimous word from all four provinces
that no one believed a word of what had happened, Alberico had abandoned his inal, carefully measured respoo the plot.
The lands were seized of course, but in addition all the living members of all three families were searched out ah-wheeled in Astibar. He hadnt expected there to be quite so many, actually, when he gave that order. The stench had been deplorable and some of the children lived an unsably long time on the wheels. It made it difficult to trate on business iate offices above the Grand Square.
He raised taxes in Astibar and introduced, for the first time, transit duties for merts crossing from one of his provio another, along the lines of the existing tariff levied for crossing from the Eastern to the Western Palm. Let them pay—literally—if they chose not to believe what had happeo him in that .
He did more. Half the massive Nievolene grain harvest romptly shipped home to Barbadior. For an a ceived in anger he sidered that oo be inspired. It had pushed the price of grain down bae in the Empire, which hurt his familys two most a rivals while making him exceptionally popular with the people. In so far as the people mattered in Barbadior.
At the same time, here in the Palm, Astibar was forced t in mrain than ever from Certando and Ferraut, and with the new duties Alberico was going to rake a healthy cut of that inflated price as well.
He could almost have slaked his anger, almost have made himself happy, watg the effects of all this ripple through, if it wasnt that small things kept happening.
For one, his soldiers began to grow restless. With an increase in hardship came an increase in tension; more is of frontation occurred. Especially in Tregea where there were always more is of frontation. Under greater stress the meraries demanded—predictably—higher pay. Which, if he gave it to them, was going to soak up virtually everything he might gain from the fiscations and the new duties.
He sent a letter home to the Emperor. His first request iwo years. Along with a case of Astibar blue wine—from what were now his owes in the north—he veyed an urgeeration of his plea to be brought uhe Imperial aegis. Which would have meant a subsidy for his meraries from the Treasury in Barbadior, or even Imperial troops under his and. As always, he stressed the role he alone played in blog Ygrathen expansion in this dangerous halfeninsula. He might have begun his career here as an indepe adventurer, he ceded, with what he saw as a urn of phrase, but as an older, wiser man he wished to bind himself more tightly and more usefully to his Emperor than ever before.
As for wanting to be Emperor, and wanting the cloak of Imperial san thrown over him— however belatedly—well, such things surely did not have to be put into a letter?
He received, by way of reply, a wall-hanging from the Emperors Palace, endations on his loyal ses, and polite regret that circumsta home precluded the granting of his request for finang. As usual. He was cordially io sail home to all suitable honors and leave the tiresome problems of that far land overseas to a ial expert appointed by the Emperor.
That, too, was as usual. Turn your erritory over to the Empire. Surrender your army. e home to a parade or two, then spend your days hunting and your money on bribes and hunting gear. Wait for the Emperor to die without naming a successor. Then knife and be knifed in the brawl to succeed him.
Alberico sent back sihanks, deep regrets, and another case of wine.
Shortly thereafter, at the end of the fall, a number of men in the disgruntled, out-of-favor Third pany withdrew from servid took late-season ship for home. The anders of the First and Sed used that same week to formally present—purely ce of course—their new wage demands and to casually remind him of past promises of land for the meraries. Starting, it wabbr>９9lｉｂ.s
suggested delicately, with their anders.
Hed wao order the two of them throttled. Hed wao fry their greedy, wine-sodden brains with a blast of his own magic. But he couldnt afford to do it; added to which, exerg his powers was still a process of some real strain so soon after the enter in the woods that had nearly killed him.
The enter that no one in this peninsula even believed had taken place.
What he had done was smile at the two anders and fide that he had already marked off in his mind a signifit portion of the newly claimed Nievolene lands for one of them. Siferval, he said, more in sorrow than in anger, had been put out of the running by the duct of his own men, but these two . . . well, it would be a hard choice. He would be watg them closely over the while and would announce his decision in due course.
How long a while, exactly, had pursued Karalius of the First.
Truly, he could have killed the man even as he stood there, helmet under his arm, eyes hypocritically lowered in a show of deference. Oh, spring, perhaps, hed said airily, as if such matters should not be of great moment to men of good will.
Sooner would be better, had said Grancial of the Sed, softly.
Alberico had chosen to let his eyes show just a little of what he felt. There were limits.
Sooner would let whichever of us you choose have time to see to the proper handling of the land before spring planting, Grancial explained hastily. A little ruffled, as he should be.
Perhaps it is so, Alberico had said, nonittally. I will give thought to this.
"By the way," he added, as they reached the door. "Karalius, would you be good enough to sehat very petent young captain of yours? The oh the forked black beard. I have a special, fidential task that needs a man of his evident qualities." Karalius had blinked, and nodded.
It was important, very important, not to let them grow too fident, he reflected after they had gone and hed mao calm himself. At the same time, only a genuine fool antagonized his troops. The more so, if he had ultimate plans to lead them home. By invitation of the Emperor, preferably, but not necessarily. Not, to be sure, necessarily.
On further refle, triggered by that line of thought, he did raise taxes in Tregea, Certando, and Ferraut to match the new levels in Astibar. He also sent a courier to Siferval of the Third in the Cer- tandan highlands, praising his ret work in keeping that province quiet.
You lashed them, theiced them. You made them fear you, and know that their fortunes could be made if you liked them enough. It was all a matter of balance.
Unfortunately, small things tio g with the balang of the Eastern Palm as autumn turned into winter in the unusually cold weeks that followed.
Some cursed poet in Astibar chose that dank and rainy season to begin posting a series of elegies to the dead Duke of Astibar. The Duke had died in exile, the head of a scheming family, most of whom had beeed by then. Verses lauding him were maly treasonous.
It was difficult though. Every single writer brought in during the first sweep of the khav rooms denied authorship, and then—with time to prepare—every writer in the sed sweep claimed to have written the verses.
Some advisers suggested peremptory wheels for the lot of them, but Alberico had been giving thought to a larger issue. To the marked differeween his court and the Ygrathens. On Chiara, the poets vied for access to Brandin, quivering like puppies at the slightest word of praise from him. They wrote paeans of exaltation to the Tyrant and obse, scathing attacks on Alberico at request. Here, every writer in the Eastern Palm seemed to be a potential rabble-rouser. An enemy of the state.
Alberico swallowed his anger, lauded the teical skill of the verses, a both sets of poets go free. Not before suggesting, however, as benignly as he could mahat he would enjoy reading verses
as well-crafted on one of the many possible themes of rich satiric possibility having to do with Brandin of Ygrath. He had managed a smile. He would be very pleased to read such verses, hed said, w if one of these cursed writers with their lofty airs could take a hint.
None did. Instead, a new poem appeared on walls all over the city tws later. It was about Tomasso bar Sandre. A lament about his death, and claiming—unbelievably—that his perverse sexuality had been a deliberately chosen path, a liviaphor for his quered, subjugated land, for the perverse situation of Astibar uyranny.
Hed had no choice after that, once hed uood what the poet was saying. Not b with inquiries again, hed had a dozen writers pulled at random out of the khav rooms that same afternoon, and then broken, wristed, and sky-wheeled among the still-crowded bodies of the families of the spirators before sundown. He closed all khav rooms for a month. No more verses appeared.
In Astibar. But the same evening his axes were proclaimed in the Market Square in Tregea, a black-haired womaed to leap to her death from one of the seven bridges in protest against the measures. She made a speech before she jumped, and she left behind— the gods alone knew how shed e into possession of them—a plete sheaf of the "Sandreni Elegies" from Astibar. No one knew who she was. They dragged the icy river for her body but it was never found. Rivers ran swiftly in Tregea, out of the mountains to the eastern sea.
The verses were all over that provihin a fht, and had crossed to Certando and southern Ferraut before the first heavy snows of the winter began to fall.
Brandin of Ygrath sent aly fur-clad courier to Astibar with aly phrased note lauding the Elegies as the first det creative work hed seen emanating from Barbadiaory. He offered Alberico his si gratulations.
Alberico sent a polite aowledgment of the ses and offered to ission one of his newly petent verse-makers to do a work on the glorious life and deeds in battle of Prince Valentin di Tigana.
Because of the Ygrathens spell, he knew, only Brandin himself would be able to read that last word, but only Brandin mattered.
He thought hed won that one, but for some reason the womans suicide in Tregea left him feeling too edgy to be pleased. It was too intense an a, harking back to the violence of the first year after hed landed here. Things had been quiet for so long, and this level of iy—of very publitensity— never boded well. Briefly he even sidered rolling back the axes, but that would look too much like a giving in rather than a gesture of benevolence. Besides, he still he money for the army.
Bae the word was that the Emperor was sinking more rapidly now, that he was seen in public less and less often. Alberiew he had to keep his meraries happy.
In the dead of winter he made the decision to reward Karalius with fully half of the former Nievolene lands.
The night after the annou was made public—among the troops first, then cried in the Grand Square of Astibar—the horse barn and several of the outbuildings of the Nievolene family estate were buro the ground.
He ordered an immediate iigation by Karalius, then wished, a day later, that he hadnt. It seemed that they had found two bodies in the sm ruins, trapped by a fallehat had barred a door.
One was that of an informer lio Grancial and the Sed pany. The other was a Barbadian soldier: from the Sed pany.
Karalius promptly challenged Grancial to a duel at any time and place of the latters choosing.
Grancial immediately named a date and place. Alberico quickly made it clear that the survivor of any subat would be death-wheeled. He succeeded in halting the fight, but the two anders stopped speaking to each other from that point on. There were a number of small skirmishes among men of the two panies, and one, in Tregea, that was not so small, leaving fifteen soldiers slain and twice as many
wounded.
Three local informers were found dead in Ferrauts distrada, stretched on farmers wagon-wheels in a savage parody of the Tyrants justice. They couldnt evealiate—that would involve an admission that the men had been informers.
Iando, two of SifervaFs Third pa absent from duty, disappearing into the snow- white tryside, the first time that had ever happened. Siferval reported that local women did not appear to be involved. The men had beeremely close friends. The Third pany ander offered the obvious, disagreeable hypothesis.
Late in the winter Brandin of Ygrath sent another suave envoy with another letter. In it he profusely thanked Alberico for his offer of verses, and said hed be delighted to read them. He also formally requested six Certandan women, as young and ely as the one Alberico had so kindly allowed him to take from the Eastern Palm some years ago, to be added to his saishan. Unfivably the letter somehow became publiformation.
Laughter was deadly.
To quell it, Alberico had six old women seized by Siferval in southwesterando. He ordered them blinded and hamstrung a down under a couriers flag on the snow-clad border of Lower Corte between the forts at Sinave and Forese. He had Siferval attach a letter to one of them asking Brandin to aowledge receipt of his new mistresses.
Let them hate him. So long as they feared.
On the way back east from the border, Siferval said in his report, he had followed an informers tip and found the two runaway soldiers living together at an abandoned farm. They had beeed oe, with one of them—the appropriate one, Siferval had reported— castrated first, so that he could die as hed lived. Alberico sent his endations.
It was an uling wihough. Things seemed to be happening to him instead of moving to a measure he dictated. Late at night, and then at other times as well, more and more as the Palm gradually turowards a distant rumor of spring, Alberico found himself thinking about the ninth provihat no o trolled, the one just across the bay. Senzio.
The grey-eyed mert was making a great deal of sense. Even as he found himself relutly agreeing with the maocio wished the fellow had chosen someone elses roadside tavern for his midday repast. The talk in the room was veering in dangerous dires and, Triad knew, enough Barbadian meraries used the main highway between Astibar and Ferraut towns. If one of them stopped in here now, he would be unlikely ireme to indulge the current tenor of the versation as merely an excess of springtime energy. Ettocios lise would probably be gone for a month. He kept glang nervously towards the door.
"Double taxation now!" the lean man was saying bitterly as he pushed a hand through his hair. "After the kind of winter weve just had? After what he did to the price of grain? So we pay at the border, and now we pay at the gates of a town, and where in the name of Morian is profit?”
There were trut murmurs of agreement all around the room. In a tavern full of merts on the road, agreement redictable. It was also dangerous. Ettocio, p drinks, was not the only man keeping an eye on the door. The young fellow leaning on the bar looked up from his crusty roll and wedge of try cheese to give him an uedly sympathetic look.
"Profit?" a wool-mert from northern Ferraut said sarcastically. "Why should Barbadior care if we make a profit?”
"Exactly!" The grey eyes flashed in vigorous agreement. "The way I hear it, all he wants to do is soak the Palm for everything he , in preparation frab at the Emperors Tiara ba Barbadior!”
"Shush!" Ettouttered under his breath, uo stop himself. He took a quick, rare pull at a mug of his own beer and moved along the bar to close the window. It was a shame, because the spring
day was glorious outside, but this was getting out of hand.
"hing you know," the lean trader was saying now, "hell just ght ahead and seize the rest of our land like hes already started to do in Astibar. Any wagers were servants or slaves within five years?”
One mans ptuous laughter rode over the snarling chorus of resporiggered by that. The room fell abruptly silent as everyouro front the person eared to find this observation diverting. Expressions were grim. Ettoervously wiped down the already bartop in front of him.
The warrior from Khardhun tinued laughing for a long time, seemingly oblivious to the stares he was receiving. His sculpted, black features registered genuine amusement.
"What," said the grey-eyed one coldly, "is so very funny, old man?”
"You are," said the old Khardhu cheerfully. He grinned like a deaths head. "All of you. Never seen so many blind men in one room before.”
"You care to explaily what that means?" the Ferraut wool-mert rasped.
"You explained?" the Khardhu murmured, his eyes wide in mock surprise. "Well, now. Why in the name of yods or mine or his should Alberico bother trying to enslave you?" He jabbed a bony fiowards the trader whod started all this. "If he tried that my guess is theres still enough manhood in the Eastern Palm—barely —that you might take offense. Might even . . . rise up!" He said that last in an exaggerated parody of a secretive whisper.
He leaned back, laughing again at his own wit. No one else did. Ettocio looked nervously at the door.
"Oher side of the ," the Khardhu went on, still chug, "if he just slowly squeezes you dry with taxes and duties and fiscations he get to exactly the same place without making anyone mad enough to do anything about it. I tell you, gentlemen," he took a long pull at his beer, "Alberico of Barbadiors a smart man.”
"And you," said the grey-eyed man leaning across his own table, bristling with anger, "are an arrogant, i fner!”
The Khardhus smile faded. His eyes locked on those of the other man aocio was suddenly very glad the warriors curved sword was checked with all the other ons behind the bar.
"Ive been here some thirty years," the black man said softly. "About as long as youve been alive, Id wager. I was guarding mert trains on this road when you were wetting your bed at night. And if lam a fner, well . . . last time I inquired, Khardhun was a free try. We beat back our invader, which is more than anyone here in the Palm say!”
"You had magic!" the young fellow at the bar suddenly burst out, over the ed din that ensued.
"We didnt! Thats the only reason! The only reason!”
The Khardhu turo face the boy, his lip curling in pt. "You want to rock yourself to sleep at night thinking thats the only reason, you ght ahead, little man. Maybe itll make you feel better about paying your taxes this spring, or about going hungry because theres no grain here in the fall. But if you want to know the truth Ill give it to you free of charge.”
The noise level had abated as he spoke, but a number of men were on their feet, glaring at the Khardhu.
Looking around the room, as if dismissing the boy at the bar as unworthy of his attention, he said very clearly, "We beat back Brandin of Ygrath when he invaded us because Khardhun fought as a try. As a whole. You people got whipped by Alberid Brandin both because you were too busy w about your border spats with each other, or which Duke or Prince would lead your army, or which priest or priestess would bless it, or who would fight on the ter and who on the right, and where the battlefield would be, and who the gods loved best. Your nine provinces ended up going at the sorcerers one by one, finger by finger. And they got so pieces like chi-bones. I always used to think," he drawled into what had bee a quiet room, "that a hand fought best when it made a fist.”
He lazily sigtocio for another drink.
"Damn your i Khardhu hide," the grey-eyed man said in a strangled voice. Ettocio turned from the bar to look at him. "Damn you forever to Morians darkness for being right!”
Ettocio hadnt expected that, aher had the others in the room. The morimly introspective. Aocio realized, more dangerous as well, entirely at odds with the brightness of the spring outside, the cheerful warmth of the returned sun.
"But what we do?" the young fellow at the bar said plaintively, to no one in particular.
"Curse and drink and pay our taxes," said the wool-mert bitterly.
"I must say, I do sympathize with the rest of you," said the lorader from Senzio smugly. It was an ill-advised remark. Eveocio, notoriously slow to rouse, was irritated.
The young man at the bar ositively enraged.
"Why you, you ... I dont believe it! What right do you have—" He hammered the bar in i fury. The plump Senzian smiled in the superior manner all of them seemed to have.
"What right indeed!" The grey eyes were icy as they returo the fray. "Last time I looked, Senzio traders all had their hands jammed so deep in their pockets paying tribute mo ahat they couldnt eveheir equipment out to please their wives!”
A raucous, bawdy shout of laughter greeted that. Even the old Khardhu smiled thinly.
"Last / looked," said the Senzian, red-faced, "the Governor of Senzio was one of our own, not someone shipped in from Ygrath or Barbadior!”
"What happeo the Duke?" the Ferraut mert snapped. "Senzio was so cowardly your Duke demoted himself to Governor so as not to upset the Tyrants. Are you proud of that?”
"Proud?" the lean mert mocked. "Hes got no time to be proud of anything. Hes too busy looking both ways to see which emissary from which Tyrant he should offer his wife to!”
Again, coarse, bitter laughter.
"Youve a mean tongue for a quered man," the Senzian said coldly. The laughter stopped. "Where are you from that youre so quick to cut at other mens ce.”
&quea," said the other quietly.
"Occupied Tregea," the Senzian corrected viciously. "quered Tregea. With its Barbadian Governor.”
"We were the last to fall," the Tregean said a little too defiantly. "Borifort held out lohan anywhere else.”
"But it fell," the Senzian said bluntly, sure of his advantage now. "I wouldnt be so quick to talk about other mens wives. Not after the stories we all heard about what the Barbadians did there. And I also heard that most of your wome that unwilling to be—”
"Shut your filthy mouth!" the Tregean snarled, leaping to his feet. "Shut it, or Ill close it for you permaly, you lying Senzian scum!”
A babble of noise erupted, louder than any before. Furiously ging the bell over the bar, Ettocio fought to restore order.
"Enough!" he roared. "Enough of this, or youre all out of here right now!" A dire threat, and it quelled them.
Enough for the Khardhu warriors sardonic laughter to be audible again. The man was on his feet. He dropped s oable to pay his at, and surveyed the room, still chug, from his great height.
"See what I mean?" he murmured. "All these stick-like little fingers jabbing and poking away at each other. Youve always dohat, havent you? Guess you always will. Until theres nothi here but
Barbadior and Ygrath.”
He swaggered to the bar to claim his sword.
"You," said the grey-eyed Tregean suddenly, as Ettocio handed over the curved, sheathed blade. The Khardhu turned slowly.
"You know how to use that thing as well as you use your mouth?" the Tregean asked.
The Khardhus lips parted in a mirthless smile. "Its been reddened once or twice.”
"Are you w for anyht now?”
Ily, appraisingly, the Khardhu looked down oher man. "Where are you going?”
"Ive just ged my plans," the other replied. "Theres no moo be made up in Ferraut town.
Not with double duties to be paid. I re Ill have to go farther afield. Ill give you going rates to guard me south to the Certandan highlands.”
&quh try there," the Khardhu murmured reflectively.
The Tregeans face twitched with amusement. "Why do you think I want you?" he asked.
After a moment the smile was returned. "When do we go?" the warrior said.
"Were gone," the Tregean replied, rising and paying his own at. He claimed his own short sword and the two of them walked out together. When the door opehere was a brief, dazzling flash of sunlight.
Ettocio had hoped the talk would settle down after that. It didnt. The you the bar mumbled something about uniting in a on front—a remark that would have been merely insane if it wasnt so dangerous. Unfortunately—from Ettocios point of view, at any rate—the ent was overheard by the Ferraut wool-trader, and the mood of the room was so aroused by then that the subject wouldnt die.
It went on all afternoon, even after the boy left as well. And that night, with airely different crowd, Ettocio shocked himself by speaking up during an argument about aral primacy between an Astibarian wine-dealer and another Senzian. He made the same point the tall Khardhu had made—about nine spindly fihat had been broken one by one because they never formed a fist. The argument made seo him; it sounded intelligent in his own mouth. He noticed men nodding slowly even as he spoke. It was an unusual, flattering response—men had seldom paid any attention to Ettocio except when he called time iavern.
He rather liked the new sensation. In the days that followed he found himself raising the point whehe opportunity arose. For the first time in his life Ettocio began to get a reputation as a thoughtful man.
Unfortunately, one evening in summer he was overheard by a Barbadian merary standing outside the open window. They didnt take away his lise. There was a very high level of tension across the whole of the Palm by then. They arrested Ettocio and executed him on a wheel outside his own tavern, with his severed hands stuffed in his mouth.
A great many men had heard the argument by then, though. A great many had nodded, hearing it.
Devin joihe other four about a mile south of the crossroads inn on the dusty road leading to Certando. They were waiting for him. Catriana was alone in the first cart but Devin climbed up beside Baerd in the sed.
"Bubbling like a pot of khav," he said cheerfully in respoo a quizzical eyebrow, Alessan rode up on one side. Hed buckled on his sword, Devin saw. Baerds bow was on the cart, just behind the seat and within very quick reach. Devin had had occasion, several times in six months, to see just how quick Baerds reach could be. Alessan smiled over at him, riding bareheaded in the bright afternoon.
"I take it you stirred the pot a little after we left?”
Devin grinned. "Didnt need much stirring. The two of you have that routine down like professional
players by now.”
"So do you," said the Duke, tering up oher side of the cart. "I particularly admired your spluttering ahis time. I thought you were about to throw something at me.”
Devin smiled up at him. Saeeth flashed white through the improbable black of his skin.
Dont expect tnize us, Baerd had said when theyd parted in the Sandreni woods half a year ago. So Devin had been prepared. Somewhat, but not enough.
Baerds own transformation had been discerting but relatively mild: hed grown a short beard and removed the padding from the shoulders of his doublet. He wasnt as big a man as Devin had first thought.
Hed also somehow ged his hair frht yellow to what he said was his natural dark brown. His eyes were brown now as well, not the bright blue of before.
What he had doo Sandre dAstibar was something else entirely. Even Alessan, whod evidently had years to get used to this sort of thing, gave a low whistle when he first saw the Duke. Sandre had bee—amazingly—an aging black fighting man from Khardhun across the northern sea. One of a type that Devin knew had been on on the roads of the Palm twenty or thirty years ago in the days when merts went nowhere except in pany with each other, and Khardhu warriors with their wickedly curved blades were mu demand as insurance against outlaws.
Somehow, and this was the uny thing, with his own beard shaven and his white hair tinted a dark grey, Sandres gaunt, black fad deep-set, fierce eyes were exactly those of a Khardhu merary.
Which, Baerd had explained, had been almost the first thing hed noticed about the Duke when hed seen him in daylight. It was what had suggested the rather prehensive disguise.
"But how?" Devin remembered gasping.
"Lotions and potions," Alessan had laughed.
It turned out, as Baerd explained later, that he and the Prince had spent a number of years in Quileia after Tiganas fall. Disguises of this sort—cs for skin and hair, even tints for eyes—were a perfected, important art south of the mountains. They assumed a tral role in the Mysteries of the Moddess, and in the less secret rites of the formal theater, and they had played pivotal, plex parts iumultuion-torn history of Quileia.
Baerd did not say what he and Alessan had been doing there, or how he had e to learn this secret craft or possess the implements of it.
Catriana didnt kher, which made Devin feel somewhat better. Theyd asked Alessaernoon, and had received, for the first time, an ahat was to bee routihrough the fall and winter.
In the spring, Alessan told them. In the spring a great deal would be made clearer, one way or ahey were moving towards something of importance, but they would have to wait until then. He was not going to discuss it now. Before the Ember Days of spring they would leave their current Astibar—Tregea—Ferraut loop and head south across the wide grainlands of Certando. And at that point, Ales-san had said, a great many things might ge. One way or another, hed repeated.
He hadnt smiled, saying any of this, though he was a man with an easy smile.
Devin remembered how Catriana had tossed her hair then, with a knowing, almost an angry look in her blue eyes.
"Its Alienor, isnt it?" she demanded, virtually an accusation. "Its that woman at Castle Borso.”
Alessans mouth had twisted in surprise and then amusement. "Not so, my dear," hed said. "Well stop at Borso, but this has nothing to do with her at all. If I didnt know better, if I didnt know your heart belonged only to Devin, Id say you sounded jealous, my darling.”
The gibe had ehe desired effect. Catriana had stormed off, and Devin, almost as embarrassed himself, had quickly ged the subject. Alessan had a way of doing that to you. Behind the deep,
effortless courtesy and the genuine camaraderie, there existed a lihey learned not to try to cross. If he was seldom harsh, his jests— always the first measure of trol—could sting memorably. Even the Duke had discovered that it was best not to press Alessan oain subjects. Including this o emerged: when asked, Sandre said he knew as little as they did about what would happen e spring.
Thinking about it, as fall gave way to winter and the rains and then the snows came, Devin was deeply aware that Alessan was the Prince of a land that was dying a little more with each passing day.
Uhe circumstances, he decided, the wonder wasnt that there were places they could not trespass upon but, rather, how far they could actually go before reag the guarded regions that lay within.
One of the things Devin began to learn during that long winter atience. He taught himself to hold his questions for the right time, or to restrain them entirely and try to work the answers for himself.
If fuller knowledge had to wait for spring, then he would wait. In the meantime he threw himself, with an unleashed, even an unsuspected passion, into what they were doing.
A blade had been planted in his own soul that starry autumn night in the Sandreni Woods.
Hed had no idea what to expect when theyd set out five days later with Rovigos horse-drawn cart and three other horses, bound for Ferraut town with a bed and a number of wooden carvings of the Triad.
Taccio had written Rovigo that he could sell Astibarian religious carvings at a serious profit to merts from the Western Palm. Especially because, as Devin learned, duty was not levied on Triad-related artifacts: part of a successful attempt by both sorcerers to keep the clergy placated aralized.
Devin learned a great deal about trade that fall and winter, and about certain other things as well.
With his new, hard-won patience he would listen in silence as Alessan and the Duke tossed ideas bad forth on the long roads, turning the rough coals of a cept into the diamonds of polished plans. And even though his own dreams at night were of raising a surging army to liberate Tigana and storm the fabled harbor walls of Chiara, he quickly came to uand—on the cold paths of day—that theirs would have to be a wholly different approach.
Which was, in fact, why they were still in the east, not the west, and doing all they could—with the small glittering diamonds of Alessan and Sandres plans—to ule things in Albericos realm. Oriana fided to him—on one of the days when, for whatever reason, she deemed him worth speaking to—that Alessan was, in fact, moving much mgressively than he had the year before when shed first joihem. Devin suggested it might be Sandres influence. Catriana had shaken her head. She thought that art of it, but that there was something else, a new urgency from a source she didnt uand.
Well find out in the spring, Devin had shrugged. Shed glared at him, as if personally affronted by his equanimity.
It had been Catriana though whod suggested the most aggressive thing of all as winter began: the faked suicide in Tregea. Along with the idea of leaving behind her a sheaf of the poems that that young poet had written about the Sandreni. Adreano was his name, Alessan had informed them, unwontedly subdued: the name was on the list of the twelve poets Rovigo had reported as being randomly death- wheeled during Albericos retaliation for the verses. Alessan had been uedly disturbed by that news.
There was other information iter fro, aside from the usual c business details.
It had been held for them in a tavern in north Tregea that served as a mail drop for many of the merts in the northeast. They had been heading south, spreading what rumors they could about u among the soldiers. Rovigos latest report suggested, for the sed time, that an increase in taxes might be immi, to cover the meraries pay demands. Sandre, who seemed to know the Tyrants mind astonishingly well, agreed.
After dinner, when they were alone around the fire, Catriana had made her proposal. Devin had been incredulous: hed seen the height of the bridges ea and the speed of the river waters below. And it
was winter by then, growing colder every day.
Alessan, still upset by the news from Astibar, and evidently of the same mind as Devioed the idea bluntly. Catriana pointed out two things. One was that she had been brought up by the sea: she was a better swimmer than any of them, aer than any of them knew.
The sed thing was that—as Alessan knew perfectly well, she said—a leap such as this, a suicide, especially in Tregea, would fit seamlessly into everything they were trying to achieve in the Eastern Palm.
"That," Devin remembered Sandre saying after a silence, "is true, Im sorry to say.”
Alessan had relutly agreed to go tea itself for a closer look at the river and the bridges.
Four evenings later Devin and Baerd had found themselves crouched amid twilight shadows along the riverbank in Tregea town, at a point that seemed to Devin terribly far away from the bridge Catriana had chosen. Especially in the windy cold of winter, in the swiftly gathering dark, beside the even more swiftly rag waters that were rushing past them, deep and blad cold.
While they waited, he had tried, unsuccessfully, to sort out his plex mixture of feelings about Catriana. He was too anxious though, and too cold.
He only khat his heart had leaped, moved by some odd, tripled jun of relief and admiration and envy when she s to the baly where they were. She even had the wig in one hand, so it would not be tangled up somewhere, and found. Devin stuffed it into the satchel he carried while Baerd was vigorously chafing Catrianas shivering body and bundling her into the layers of clothing theyd carried. As Devin looked at her—shaking untrollably, almost blue with the cold, her teeth chattering—he had felt his envy slipping away. What replaced it ride.
She was from Tigana, and so was he. The world might not know it yet, but they were w together—however elliptically—t it back.
The following m their two carts had slowly rattled out of town, going north ao Ferraut again with a full load of mountain khav. A light snow had been falling. Behind them the city was in a state of massive ferment and turmoil because of the unknown dark-haired girl from the distrada who had killed herself. After that i Devin had found it increasingly hard to be sharp or petty with Catriana.
Most of the time. She did tio indulge herself in the of deg that he was invisible every on a while.
It had bee difficult for him to vince himself that they had actually made love together; that he had really felt her mouth soft on his, or her hands in his hair as she gathered him into her.
They never spoke of it, of course. He didnt avoid her, but he didnt seek her out: her moods swung too uably, he never knew what response hed get. A newly patient ma her e to ride a cart or sit before a tavern fire with him when she wao. She did, sometimes.
In Ferraut town that winter for the third time, after the leap in Tregea, they had all been wonderfully fed by Ingonida—still in raptures over the bed theyd brought her. Taccios wife tio display a particularly solicitous affe for the Duke in his dark disguise—a detail which Alessan took some pleasure in teasing Sandre about when they were alone. In the meahe rotund, red-faced Taccio copiously wihem all.
There had been another mail packet waiting fro in As-tibar. Which, when opened, proved to tain two letters this time, one of which gave off—even after its time in transit—araordinary effusion of st.
Alessan, his eyebrows elaborately arched, presehis pale-blue emanation to Devin with infinite suggestiveness. Ingonida crowed and clasped her hands together in a gesture doubtless meant to signify romantic rapture. Taccio, beaming, poured Devin another drink.
The perfume, unmistakably, was Selvenas. Devins expression, as he took cautious possession of the envelope, must have been revealing because he heard Catriana giggle suddenly. He was careful not to
look at her.
Selvenas missive was a single headloence—much like the girl herself. She did, however, make one vivid suggestion that induced him to dee whehers asked ily if they might peruse his unication.
In fact, though, Devin was forced to admit that his i was rather more caught by the five lines Alais had attached to her fathers letter. In a small, businesslike hand she simply reported that shed found and copied another variant of the "Lament for Adaon" at one of the gods temples in Astibar and that she looked forward to sharing it with all of them when they came east. She sig with her initial only.
In the body of the letter Rovigo reported that Astibar was very quiet sihe twelve poets had beeed among the families of the spirators in the Grand Square. That the price of grain was still going up, that he could usefully receive as much green Senzian wine as they could obtain at current prices, that Alberico was widely expected to announce, very soon, a beneficiary among his anders for the greater part of the fiscated Nievolene lands, and that his best information was that Senzian linens were still underpriced in Astibar but might be due to rise.
It was the news about the Nievolene lands that triggered the stage of spark-to-spark discussioween Alessan and the Duke.
And those sparks had led to the blaze.
The five of them did a fast run along the well-maintained highway north to Senzio with more of the religious artifacts. They bought green wih their profit oatuettes, bargained successfully for a quantity of linens—Baerd, somewhat surprisingly had emerged as their best iator in such matters— and doubled quickly back to Taccio, paying the huge new duties at both the provincial border forts and the city-walls.
There had been another letter waiting. Among the various masking pieces of business news, Rovigo reported that an annou on the Nievolene lands was expected by the end of the week. His source was reliable, he added. The letter had been written five days before.
That night Alessan, Baerd, and Devin had borrowed a third horse from Taccio—who was deeply happy to be told nothing on theif iions—and had set out on the long ride to the Astibar border and then across to a gully by the road that led to the Nievolees.
They were back seven days later with a new cart and a load of unspun try wool for Taccio to sell. Word of the fire had preceded them. Word of the fire was everywhere, Sandre reported. There had already been a number of tavern brawls in Ferraut towween men of the First and Sed panies.
They left the new cart with Taccio aed, heading slowly back towards Tregea. They didhree carts. They were partners in a modest ercial vehey made what slight profit they could, giveaxes and duties that trammeled them. They talked about those taxes and duties a great deal, often in publietimes more frankly than their listeners were aced to hearing.
Alessan quarreled with the sardonic Khardhu warrior in a dozen different inns and taverns on the road, and hired him a dozen different times. Sometimes Devin played a role, sometimes Baerd did. They were careful not to repeat the performanywhere. Catria a precise log of where they had been and what they had said and dohere. Devin had assured her they could rely on his memory, but she kept her notes heless.
In public the Duke now called himself "Tomaz." "Sandre" was an unon-enough name in the Palm, and for a merary from Khardhun it would be suffitly odd to be a risk. Devin remembered growing thoughtful when the Duke had told them his new name ba the fall. Hed wondered what it was like to have had to kill his son. Even to outlive his sons. To know that the bodies of everyone even distantly related to himself were being spreadeagled alive on the death-wheels of Barbadior. He tried to imagine how all of that would feel.
Life, the processes of living and what it did to you, seemed to Devin to grow more painfully plex all through that fall and winter. Oftehought of Marra, arbitrarily cut off on the way to her maturity, to whatever she had been about to bee. He missed her with a dull ache that could grow into something heavy and difficult at times. She would have been someoo talk to about such things. The others had their own s and he didnt want to burden them. He wondered about Alais bren Rovigo, if she would have uood these things he was wrestling with. He didnt think so; she had lived too sheltered, too secluded a life for such thoughts to trouble her. He dreamt of her one night though, an uedly intense series of images. The m he rode beside Catriana in the lead cart, unwontedly quiet, stirred and uled by the nearness of her, the crimson fall of her hair in the pale winter landscape.
Sometimes he thought about the soldier in the Nievolene barn— who had lost a roll of did carried a jug of wio a lonely place away from the singing, and had had his throat slit there while he slept. Had that soldier been born into the world only to bee a rite of passage for Devin di Tigana?
That was a terrible thought. Eventually, mulling it over through the long, cold winter rides, Devin worked his way through to deg it was uhe man had ied with other people through his days. Had caused pleasure and sorrow, doubtless, and had surely known both things. The moment of his ending was not what denned his journey under Eannas lights, or however that journey was named in the Empire of Barbadior.
It was difficult to sort out though. Had Stevan of Ygrath lived and died so that his fathers grief might work the destru of a small provind its people and their memories? Had Prince Valentin di Tigana been born only to swing the killing blade that caused this to happen? And what about his you son then?
And what about the you son of the Asolini farmer who had fled from Avalle when it became Stevaruly, it was hard to puzzle through.
In Senzio one m, with the first elusive hints of spring softening the northern air, Baerd had e back from the celebrated ons market with a bright, beautifully balanced sword for Devin.
There was a black jewel in the hilt. He offered no explanation, but Devi had to do with what had happened in the Nievolene barn. The gift did nothing to answer any of his new questions, but it helped him heless. Baerd began giving him lessons during their midday breaks on the road.
Devin worried about Baerd, in part because he khat Alessan did.
His first impression in the had been mostly wrong: a big, blond man, intimidatingly cool and petent. But Baerd was dark-haired and not actually large at all and, though his petence ran to su astonishing number of things that it could still be intimidating after six months, he wasnt really cool.
Only guarded, careful. Closed tightly around the kernel of the hurt he had lived with for a long time.
In some ways, Devin realized, Alessan had it easier than Baerd. The Prince could find a temporary release in talk, in laughter, and most of all, and almost always, in music. Baerd seemed to have no release at all; he walked through a world shaped and reshaped every single moment around the knowledge that Tigana was gone.
It would drive him out at night sometimes, away from sleep, or from a fire theyd built up by a road.
He would rise without warning, ly, quietly, and go out into the darkness alone.
Devin would watch Alessan watg Baerd as he went away.
"I knew a man like him once," Sandre said gravely one night after Baerd had left a warm room in a tavern for a fog-shrouded winter night iregean hills near Borifort. "He used to have to go away by himself to fight off a o kill.”
"That would be a part of it," Alessan had said.
Thoughts of winter, mood of a winters night.
But it ring now, and as the sap of the earth rose green-gold to the warming light so did Devin feel his own mood lifting to the stir and quiing of the world through which they rode.
Wait for springtime, Alessan had said amid the browns and reds of autumn trees and the bare, harvested vines. And spring on them now, with the Ember Days approag fast and at last—at long last—they were on the road for Certando and whatever answers lay there. Devin could not quell and did not want to quell the sense rising within him like sap in the green woods that whatever was going to happen was going to begin to happen soon.
In the sed cart beside Baerd he felt gloriously, importantly alive. Ahead of them the glint of afternoon sunlight in Catrianas hair was doing something strange and wonderful to his blood. He was aware of Baerd giving him a curious scrutiny, and caught a half-smile playing across the others face. He didnt care. He was even glad. Baerd was his friend.
Devin began a song. A very old ballad of the road, "The Song of the Wayfarer": Im a long way from the house where I was born And this is just another winding trail, But when the sun goes down both of the moons will rise And Eannas stars will hear me tell my tale . . .
Alessan, whatever his mood might be, was almost always ready to join in a song and, sure enough, Devin had the Tregean pipes with him by the sed verse. He looked over and caught a wink from the Prince riding beside them.
Catriana glanced back at them reprovingly. Devin gri her and shrugged, and Alessans pipes suddenly spun into a wilder dance of invitation. Catriana tried and failed to suppress a smile. She joihem ohird verse and thehem into the song.
Later, in the summer, Devin would revive that image of the five of them in the first hour of the long ride south and the memory would make him feel very old.
He was young that day. In a way they all were, briefly—even Sandre, joining in on the choruses he knew in a passable baritone voice, reborn into his new identity, with a new hope to his long, unfading dream.
Devin took the third song back from Catriana, a his high clear voice along the road before them to lead the way down the sunlit, winding trail to Certando, to the Lady of Castle Borso, whoever she might be, and to whatever it was that Alessan had to find in the highlands.
First though, nearing sundown, they overtook a traveler on the road.
In itself that wasnt unusual. They were still in Ferraut, in the populated try north of Fort Ciorone where busy highways frea and Corte met the north-south road they were on. Solitary travelers, oher hand, were suffitly rare for Devin to join Baerd in sing the sides of the road to see if others were hidden in ambush.
A routine precaution, but they were in try where thieves would not survive long and in any case it was still daylight. Then as they drew nearer Devin saw the small harp slung over the mans back. A troubadour. Devin grihey were almost always good pany.
The man had turned and was waiting for them to catch up. The deep bow he offered Catriana as she pulled the lead cart to a halt beside him was of such courtly grace it almost looked like a parody on the lonely road.
"Ive been enjoying the sound of you for the last mile," he said, straightening. "I must say Im enjoying the sight of you even more." He was tall, no longer young, with long, greying hair and quick eyes. He gave Catriana the sort of smile for which the troubadours of the Palm were notorious. His teeth were white and even in a leathery face.
"Heading south with the spring?" she asked, smiling politely at his flattery. "The old route?”
"I am indeed," he replied. "The old route at the usual time. And Id hate to tell someone as young aiful as you how many years Ive been doing it.”
Devin jumped down from beside Baerd and strolled closer to the man to firm something. "I could probably guess," he said, grinning, "because I think I remember you. We did a wedding season in
Certando together. Did you play harp for Bur di Corte two years ago?”
The sharp eyes looked him up and down. "I did," the troubadour admitted after a moment. "Im Erlein di Senzio and I was with damned Bur for a season all right. Then he cheated me of my wages and I decided I was happier on my own again. I thought those were professional voices behind me. You are?”
"Devin dAsoli." The lie came easily. "I was with Menico di Ferraut for a few years.”
"And have clearly moved on to other, better things," Erlein said, glang at their laden carts. "Is Menico still on the road? Is he any fatter than he was?”
"Yes to both," Devin said, cealing the guilt that still assailed him whehought of his former troupe-leader. "So is Bur last I heard.”
"Rot him," Erlein said mildly. "He owes me money.”
"Well," Alessan said, looking down from his horse, "we t do anything about that but if you like we run you up to Ciorone and a bed before curfew. You ride with Baerd," he added quickly, as Erlein gla the empty seat beside Catriana.
"I would be most profoundly grateful—" Erlein began.
"I dont like Fort Ciorone," Sandre broke in suddenly. "They cheat you there and too many people learn what youre carrying and where yoing. Too many of the wrong kind of people. Its a mild night ing—I think were better off out here.”
Devin glanced over at the Duke in surprise. This was the first time hed offered any such opinion.
"Well, really Tomaz, I dont see why—" Alessan began.
"You hired me, mert," Sandre growled. "You wanted me to do a job for you and Im doing it.
You dont want to listen, pay me now and Ill find someone who will." His eyes were fierce within the hollows of his blaed face.
And his tone was ohat none of them could mistake. Whatever it was, Sandre had a reason for what he was doing.
"A little courtesy if you please," Alessan surning his horse to face the Dukes. "Or I will iurn you away a you carry your old bones back to find someone else idiot enough to put up with you. I have managed," he said, swinging back to Erlein, "to find the most arrogant Khardhu on the roads of the Palm.”
"They are all arrogant," the troubadour replied with a shake of his head. "es with the curved swords.”
Alessan laughed. So too, following his lead, did Devin. "Theres a good hour of daylight left," Baerd said in a plaining voice. "We make the Fort easy. Why sleep on the ground?”
Alessan sighed. "I know," he said. "But Im sorry. Were o this run and Tomaz isnt. I suppose we ought to listen to him or were wasting his fee, arent we?" He looked back at Erlein and shrugged.
"There goes your ride to Ciorone.”
"t lose what you never had," the troubadour smiled. "Ill manage.”
"Youre wele to share our fire," Devin interjected, trusting that hed read the Dukes brief glance correctly. He still wasnt sure what Sandre was doing.
Surprisingly, Erlein flushed; he looked somewhat embarrassed. "As to that, I thank you, but Ive nothing with me t to table or hearth.”
"You have been on the road a long time," Sandre said in a quieter voice. "I havent heard a Palm-borhat phrase in years. Its a lost tradition, that one.”
"You have a harp, dont you?" Catriana said, at just the right moment and in her sweetest voice. She glanced directly at Erlein for an instant, then demurely lowered her eyes again.
"I do," said the troubadour after a moment, affirming the obvious. He was dev Catriana with
his gaze.
"Then you are far from empty-handed," Alessan said crisply. "Devin and my sister both sing, as youve heard, and I mahese pipes a little bit. A harp will go geer dinner uhe stars.”
"Say no more," said Erlein. "Youll be better pany by a long go than my mouth talking wisdom with only my own ears to hear.”
Alessan laughed again.
"Theres trees over west, and a stream beyond them, if I remember rightly," Sandre said. "A good plap.”
Before anyone else could say a word Erlein di Senzio had jumped up aled himself at Catrianas side. Devin, his mouth agape, closed it quickly at Sandres hidden, urgeure.
Catriana pulled west off the road to lead them toward the trees the Duke had pointed out. Devin heard her giggle at something the troubadour said.
He was looking at Sahough. So were Baerd and Alessan.bbr>９９ｌｉｂ?
The Duke gla Erlein whose back was to the four of them, then very briefly he held up his left hand with the third and fourth fingers carefully curled down. He gazed at Alessan deliberately and then back to the man beside Catriana.
Devin didnt uand. An oath? he thought, fused.
Sandre lowered his hand but his eyes remained locked on the Prihere was an odd, challenging expression in them. Alessan had suddenly gone pale.
And in that moment Devin uood.
"Oh, Adaon," Baerd whispered on a rising note, as Devin leaped up on the cart beside him. "I do not believe this!”
her did Devin.
What Sandre was telling them, quite plainly, was that Erlein di Senzio was a wizard. One who had cut two fingers in his linking to the magic of the Palm.
And Alessan bar Valentin rince of the blood of Tigana. Which meant, if the old tale of Adaon and Micaela was true, that he could bind a wizard to his service. Sandre had not believed it ba the in the fall. Devin remembered that.
But now he was giving Alessan his ce. Which explaihe challenge in his gaze.
A ce, or at least the beginnings of a ce. Thinking as fast as he ever had in his life, Devin turo Baerd. "Follow my lead whe there," he said softly. "I have an idea." Only later would he have time to reflect what a ge six months had made. Only six months, one Ember season to another.
For him to speak so to Baerd, speak and be listeo ...
There was indeed a stream, as Sandre had known, uessed. Not far from its banks they halted the carts. The usual twilight routine began. Catriana seeing to the horses, Devin to wood for the fire. Alessan and the Duke laid out the sleeping-rolls and ahe cooking gear and the food they carried.
Baerd took his bow and disappeared into the trees. He was ba twenty minutes, no more than that, with three rabbits and a plump, wingless grele.
"Im impressed," Erlein said from beside Catriana and the horses. His eyes were wide. "Im very impressed.”
"Im buying your music for later," Baerd said with a rare smile. The one he usually reserved for bargaining sessions at town fairs.
Devin had been watg Erlein as unobtrusively as he could. When he could mao focus oroubadours left hand—whiever seemed to be still for more than an instant—there did seem to be an odd blurring, an occluding of air around it.
He had been waiting for Baerd to e baow he waited no longer.
"You," he said, grinning at the returning hunter, "look like something that should be hunted yourself.
Yoing to terrify every civilized mert we meet. You need a haircut before you are fit for society, my friend.”
Baerd was very quick.
"I wouldnt talk, scamp," he shot back, tossing his prey over to Sandre by the wood gathered for the fire. "Not the way you look yourself. Or are you deliberately trying to be scruffy to scare away Alienor at Borso?”
Alessan laughed. So did Erlein.
"Nothing scares away Alienor," the troubadour chuckled. "And that one is exactly the right age for her.”
"What right age?" Alessan grinned slyly. "Over twelve and not yet buried suits her fine.”
"I dont like that," Catriana said primly as the five men laughed.
"Sorry," Alessan said trying to keep a straight face, as she stepped in front of him, hands firmly on her hips.
"You are not at all sorry, but you should be!" Catriana snapped. "You know very well I dont like that kind of talk. How do you think it makes me look? And you only do it when youre idle. Do something useful. Cut Devins hair. He does look awful, even worse than usual.”
"Me?" Devin squeaked in protest. "My hair? What do you mean? Its Baerd, not me! What about him?
Hes the one who—”
"You all need a haircut," Catriana pronounced with a blunt finality that admitted of al. Her cold scrutied critically on Erleins shaggy mane for a sed. She opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it, in a brilliant miming of polite restraint. Erlein flushed. His right ha uneasily to tug at his shoulder-length strands.
His left hand opped playilessly with some pebbles hed gathered by the stream.
"I think," Devin said spitefully, "that youve just insulted uest. That should make him feel properly wele here.”
"I didnt say a word, Devin," she flared.
"You didnt have to," Erlein said ruefully. "Those magnifit eyes were somewhat less than pleased with what they saw.”
"My sisters eyes are almost never pleased with what they see," Alessan grunted. He was crouched beside one of the packs and after a moments rummaging pulled out a scissors and a b. "I am fairly obviously being ordered to duty here. Theres half an hour of light left. Whos first victim?”
"Me," said Baerd quickly. "You arent toug me in twilight, Ill tell you that much.”
Erlein watched with i as Alessan led Baerd over to a rock by the stream and proceeded—quite petently, in fact—to trim the other mans hair. Catria back to the horses, though not before Erlein another quick, enigmatic glance. Saacked the wood for the fire and began skinning the rabbits and the grele, humming tunelessly to himself.
"More wood, lad," he said abruptly to Devin, without looking up. Which erfect, of course.
Oh, Marian, Devin thought, a heady blend of excitement and pride rag through him. They are all so good.
"Later," was all he said, lounging casually on the ground. "Weve got enough for now and Im with Alessan.”
"No youre not," Alessan called from by the river, pig up Sandres gambit. "Get the wood, Devin.
There isnt enough light to do three of you. Ill cut yours tomorrow, and Erleins now if he wants. Catriana
will just have to endure you looking fearsome for one more night.”
"As if a haircuts going to ge that!" she called from the other side of the clearing. Erlein and Baerd laughed.
Grumbling, Devin stood up and ambled off toward the trees.
Behind him he heard Erleins voice.
"Id be grateful to you," the troubadour was saying to Alessan. "Id hate to have another woman look at me the way your sister just did.”
"Ignore her," Devin heard Baerd laugh as he strode back toward the fire.
"She is impossible to ignore," Erlein said in a voice pitched to carry to where the horses were tethered. He stood up and walked over to the riverbank. He sat down on the ro front of Alessan. The sun was a red disk, westering beyond the stream.
Carrying an armful of wood, Devin looped quietly around in the growing shadows to where Catriana stood among the horses. She heard him e up but tinued brushing the brown mare. Her eyes never left the two men by the river.
her did Devins. Squinting into the setting sun it seemed to him as if Alessan and the troubadour had bee figures in some timeless landscape. Their voices carried with an unnatural clarity in the quiet of the gathering twilight.
"When was this last done for you?" he heard Alessan ask casually, his scissors busy in the long grey tangles of Erleins hair.
"I dont even remember," the troubadour fessed.
"Well," Alessan laughed, bending to wet his b iream, "on the road we doly have to keep up with court fashions. Tilt a little this way. Yes, good. Do you brush it across in front or straight back?”
"Back, by preference.”
"Fine." Alessans hands moved up to the of Erleins head, the scissors flashing as they caught the last of the sun. "Thats an old-fashioned look, but troubadours are supposed to look old-fashioned, arent they? Part of the charm. You are bound by Adaon s name and my own. I am Alessan, Prince of Tigana, and wizard you are mine!”
Devin took an involuntary step forward. He saw Erlein try, re-flexively, to jerk away. But the hand of binding held his head, and the scissors, so busy a moment before, were no against his throat. They froze him for an instant and an instant was enough.
"Rot your flesh!" Erlein screamed as Alessan released him and stepped back. The wizard sprang from the stone as if scalded, and wheeled to face the Prince. His face was torted with rage.
Fearing for Alessan, Devin began moving toward the river, reag for his blade. Then he saw that Baerd had an arrow already notched to his bow, and trained on Erlei. Devin slowed his rush and then stopped. Sandre was right beside him, the curved sword drawn. He caught a glimpse of the Dukes dark fad in it—though he couldnt be absolutely sure in the uain light—he thought he read fear.
He turned back to the two men by the river. Alessan had laid down the scissors and b ly on the rock. He stood still, hands at his sides, but his breath was ing quickly.
Erlein was literally shaking with fury. Devin looked at him and it was as if a curtain had been drawn back. In the wizards eyes hatred and terror vied for domination. His mouth worked spasmodically. He raised his left hand and poi at Alessan in a gesture of violeion.
And Devin saw, quite clearly now, that his third and fourth fingers had indeed been chopped off. The a mark of a wizards binding to his magid the Palm.
"Alessan?" Baerd said.
"It is all right. He ot do anything with his power now against my will." Alessans voice was quiet, almost detached, as if this was all happening to someone else entirely. Only then did Devin realize that the wizards gesture had been an attempt to cast a spell. Magic. He had hought to be so near it in his life. The skin prickled at the back of his neck, and not because of the twilight breeze.
Slowly Erlein lowered his hand and slowly his trembling stopped. "Triad curse you," he said, low and cold. "And curse the bones of your aors and blight the lives of your children and your childrens children for what you have doo me." It was the voice of someone wronged, brutally, grievously.
Alessan did not flinch or turn away. "I was cursed almost een y..
with fur. It was faste the throat but Devin could dis the swell of her breasts beh. Her hair had been looseumbling over her shoulders and down her ba a black
cascade.
Deviated, his mouth dry again, his mind scattered and lagging. He put up a hand to try thten the hopeless tangle of his hair.
She shook her head. "Leave it like that," she said. Her free hand with the long dark nails came up and pushed through his brown curls. "Leave it," she said again, and turned.
He followed her. Her and the single dle and the unleashed chaos of his blood down a long corridor then a shorter ohrough an angled sequenpty publis then up a curving flight of stairs.
At the top of the stairs an e spill of light came from beyond a pair of open doors. Devin passed through those doors behind the Lady of Castle Borso. He had time tister the blaze of the fire, the rich, intricate hangings on the walls, the profusion of extravagant carpets on the floor, and the huge opied bed strewn with pillows of all colors and sizes. A lean hunting dog, grey and graceful, regarded him from by the fire but did not rise.
Alienor laid her dle down. She closed the two doors and turo him, leaning back against the polished wood. Her eyes were enormous, unily black. Devi his pulse like a hammer. The rush of his blood seemed loud in his veins.
"I am burning up," Alienor said.
Somewhere a part of him, where proportion lived and irony took shape, wao protest, even to be amused at such a pronou. But as he looked at her he saw the quiing draw of her breathing and how shallow it was, saw the deep flush of her c . . . one of his hands as if of its own will came up and touched her cheek. It was burning hot.
With a sound deep ihroat Alienor trapped his hand with one of her own and saeeth in the flesh of his palm.
And with that pain desire was loosed in Devin as it never had been in his life. He heard an oddly distorted sound and realized it had e from him. He took a half-step toward her and she was in his arms. Her fingers locked and twisted in his hair and her mouth met his with an avidness, a huhat raked the rising fires of his owo a point where awareness fled and drifted far away.
Everything was gone, oing. Tigana. Alessan, Alais, Catriana. His memories. Memory itself, that was his most sure anchor and his pride. Even the memory of the hallways to this room, the roads and years and rooms, all the other rooms that led to this one. And her.
He tore at the fastenings of her robe and buried his face between her breasts as they spilled free. She gasped, and her hands clawed at his shirt until it came away. He felt her nails tear the skin along his back.
He twisted his head and bit her then and tasted blood. He heard her laugh.
Never, ever, had he done such a thing before.
Somehow they seemed to be on the bed among the colored splay of the pillows. And then Alienor was naked above him, impaled on his sex, her mouth desding to his own as the two of them surged together through the arc of an act that strove to cast the world away. As far away as it could be hurled.
For an instant Devin thought he uood. In some unthinking flash of visceral illuminatiohought he grasped why Alienor did this. The nature of her need, which was not what it seemed to be.
Given another moment, a still pla the firmament, he could have reached out to put a o it, a frame for the blurred awareness. He reached . . .
She cried out with her climax. Her hands slid along his skin, curving down. Desire obliterated thought, any straining towards thought. With a rag twist he virtually threw her to one side and swung himself above her, never leaving the warm shelter betweehighs. Cushions scattered around them, fell on the floor. Her eyes were tightly shut, her mouth f soundless words.
Devin began to drive himself into her as if to drive away all the demons and the hurts, all the brutal deadening truths that were the world of the Palm in their day. His own climax when it came left him
shuddering and limp, lost to where he was, only dimly ging to what he ko be his name.
He heard her whispering it softly, over and over. She moved gently out from under him. He rolled over on his back, eyes closed. He felt her fingers glide along his skin. He could not move. She laying with his hands, caressing and guiding them out from his sides. Her lips and fingers danced down his chest and belly, over his satiated sex and further down, expl along his thighs and legs, and down.
By the time he was aware of what shed done he was bound hand and foot to the four posts of her bed, spreadeagled beh her. His eyes flew open, startled and alarmed. He struggled. Uselessly—he was held in bonds of silk looped and knotted.
"That," said Alienor in a husky voice, "was a wonderful beginning to a night. Shall I teach you something now?" She reached, naked and magnifit, flushed and scored with his marks upon her, and brought something up from the floor beside the bed. His eyes grew wide when he saw what it was she held.
"You are binding me against my will," Devin said, a little desperately. "This is not my idea of how to e together in love." He twisted hard again, at shoulder and hip; the silken bonds held firm.
Alienors answering smile was luminous. She was more beautiful in that moment than he could ever have imagined a woman being. In the huge dark pools of her eyes something stirred, primal and dangerous and terrifyingly arousing. He felt, improbably soon, a quiing in his sex. She saw it. Her smile deepened. One long fingernail stroked lightly, almost meditatively along his gathering tumesce.
"It will be," murmured his dark lady, the Lady of Castle Borso. Her lips parted showing the sharp white teeth behind. He registered the taut firmness of her nipples as she opened her legs to straddle him again. He saw her caress what she had claimed from the carpet by the bed. Beyond her, by the fire, the wolfhound had its handsome head raised, watg them.
"It will be," Alienor said again. "Trust me. Let me teach you now, and show you, this, and then this, and soon it will be your idea of how to e together. Oh yes, Devin, it will be very soon.”
She moved upon his body and the dlelight was deflected and then hidden as she came down over him. He struggled but only for a moment for his heart ounding again and desire was overwhelmingly upon him, just as Alienor was, just as her own plex needs could be seen rising in her again, in the darkness of her eyes before they closed, in her movements above him, and in the ragged, reag, upward straining of her breath.
And before the night was over, before the half of it had passed, with the last dles of winter burning down, she had proven herself right, terribly, over and ain. And at the end even, she was the one who lay bound and opeween the four pillars of the world that was her bed and Devin was no longer quite sure of who he was that he should be doing to her the things he was. The things that made her whisper and then cry aloud his name as she did, over and again. But he did know that she had ged him and had found a place within him where his o seek oblivion was equal to her own.
The dle on his side of the bed burned out some time later. There was a small, sted drifting of smoke. The pattern of light and shade in the room ged; her of them was asleep, they both noticed it. The fire was down to its embers; the dog still lay before it, its magnifit head stretched out on its paws.
"You had better go," Alienor said, stroking his near shoulder absently. "While theres a dle for you to carry. It is easy to lose your way in the dark.”
"You observe the Ember Days?" he asked, a little surprised at such piety. "No fires?”
"No fires," she said ruefully. "Half my household staif would leave me, and I dont even want to guess at what the tenant farmers or the villagers would do. Storm the castle. Call down some a curse with ears of soaked in blood. These are the southern highlands, Deviake their rites seriously up here.”
"As seriously as you take yours?”
She smiled at that and stretched like a cat. "I suppose so. The fanners will do things tonight and tomorrow that I prefer not to know about." With a sinuous motion she curled downwards towards the foot of the bed and reached for something on the carpet by the bedposts. Her body was a smooth, dlelit curve of white flesh, with the marks he had made oill showing red.
She straightened and handed him his breeches. It felt abrupt, a dismissal, and Devin gave her a long stare, not moving. She met the look, but her eyes were her hard nor dismissive.
"Dont be angry," Alienor said softly. "You were too splendid to be leaving in anger. Im telling you truths: I do observe the Ember rites and it is hard to find your way back without a light." She hesitated a moment, then added, "And I have always slept alone since my husband died.”
Devin said nothing. He rose and dressed. His shirt he found halfway between the bed and the doors. It was shredded so badly it should have been amusing. He wasnt amused though. In fact, he was angry— or some feeling beyond anger, or beside it, a more plex thing. Lying naked and uncovered among the scattered pillows of her bed, Alienor watched him clothe himself. He looked at her, marveling still at her feline magnifid evee the ge of mood— even aware of how easy it would be for her to stir his desire again.
But as he gazed at her a dormant thought surfaced from wherever thought had been driven in the primitive frenzy of the last few hours. He arrahe shirt as best he could and walked over to claim one of the dles in a brass holder.
She had turned on her side to follow his movements, her head now resting on one hand, the black hair tumbling about her, her body offered to his sight as a gift, a glory in the shifting light. Her eyes were wide and direct, her smile generous, even kind.
"Good-night," she said. "I dont know whether you know it, but you are wele back should you choose to e one day.”
He hadnt expected that. He knew, without having to be told, that she was h him with this. But his thought, his disquiet from before was strong now and intermingled with other images, so that, although he smiled iurn and nodded, it was her pride nor honor that he felt.
"Good-night," he said and turo go.
At the doors he stopped and, as much because he had remembered Alessan saying that the blue wine had begun with her as for any other single reason that he khen or later—Devin turned back to her.
She had not moved. He looked, drinking in the opulence of the chamber and the proffered beauty of the woman on the bed. Even as he stood there another dle died on the far side of the room.
"Is this what happens to us?" Devin said then, quietly, reag for words to frame this new, hard thought. "When we are no longer free. Is this what happens to our love?”
He could see her eyes ge, even from this distand in this wavering of light and dark. For a long time she looked back at him.
"You are clever," she said finally. "Alessan has chosen well in you.”
He waited.
"Ah!" said Alienor throatily, simulating astonishment. "He actually wants an answer. A true answer from a lady in her castle at the edge of the world." It may have been a trick of the uain light, but she seemed to look away then, beyond where Devin stood, even beyond the tapestried walls of her room.
"It is one of the things that happens to us," she said at last. "A kind of insurre in the dark that somehow stands against the laws of day that bind us and ot be broken now.”
Devin thought about it.
"Possibly that," he agreed softly, w it through. "Or else an admission somewhere in the soul that we deserve no more than this, nothing that goes deeper. Since we are not free and have accepted that.”
He saw her flinch then, and close her eyes.
"Did I deserve that?" she asked.
A terrible sadness passed over Devin. He swallowed with some difficulty. "No," he said. "No, you didnt.”
Her eyes were still closed when he left the room.
He felt heavy and burdened, beyond merely tired; laden with the weight of his thoughts, slowed by them. He stumbled going dowairwell and had to fling out his free hand to brace himself against the stone wall. The motiohe dle unguarded and it went out.
It was very dark then. The castle was utterly still. Moving carefully, Devin reached the bottom of the stairs a the spent flame down on a ledge there. At intervals, high in the walls, tall thin windows let slanting moonlight fall across the corridor but the angle and the hour did not allow for any real illumination.
Briefly he sidered going back for another dle but then, after standing still a moment to let his eyes adjust, Devi out along what he thought to be the way they had e.
He was lost very soon, though not really alarmed. In his present mood there seemed to be something apposite about padding thus silently down the darkened hallways of this a highland castle in the dead of night, the stones cold against his feet.
There are n turnings. Only paths we had not knoere meant to walk, Who had told him that? The words had e unbidden to his mind from some recess of memory. He turned into an unfamiliar corridor and passed through a long room hung with paintings. Part of the way through, he found a voice for the words: it had been the old priest of Morian at the goddesss temple by his familys farm in Asoli. He had taught the twins and then Devin how to read and do sums, and when it appeared that the you boy, the small one, could sing he had given Devin his first lessons in the rudiments of harmony.
N turnings, Devin thought again. And then, with?99liｂ? a shiver he could not suppress, he remembered that this was not just the nadir of a night, it was the end of wihe first of the Ember Days—when the dead were said to walk abroad.
The dead. Who were his dead? Marra. His mother, whom he had never known. Tigana? Could a try, a province, be said to have died? Could it be lost and mourned like a living soul? He thought of the Barbadian he had slain in the Nievolene barn.
He did qui his pace then, over the dark, sporadically moonlit stones of the vast and silent castle.
It seemed to Devin that he walked for an eime—or a time outside of time—passing no one, hearing nothing save for his owhing or the soft tread of his feet, before he finally reized a statue in an alcove. He had admired it by torchlight earlier in the evening. He knew his room was just ahead and around a er to the right. Somehow he had e ehe wrong way along the whole far wing of Castle Borso.
He also knew, from earlier in the evening, that the room directly opposite the small fiatue of the bearded archer drawing a bow, was Catrianas.
He looked up and down the corridor but saw only greater and lesser shadows among the bands of white moonlight falling from above. He listened, and heard no sound. If the dead were abroad they were silent.
N turnings, Ploto the priest had told him long ago.
He thought of Alienor, lying with her eyes closed among her bright cushions and all her dles and he was sorry for what hed said to her at the end. He was sorry for many things. Alessans mother was dying. His own was dead.
Ice is for deaths and endings, Alienor had said to Catriana in the hall.
He was cold, and very sad. He moved forward and ehe silence, knog gently on Catrianas door.
Shed had a restless night, for many reasons. Alienor had disturbed her: both the unbridled sensuoushat emanated from the woman, and the obviously close, unknown past she shared with Alessan and Baerd.
Catriana hated unknown things, information hidden from her. She still didnt know what Alessan was going to do tomorrow, what this mysterious meeting in the highlands was all about, and ignorance made her uneasy and even, on a less aowledged level, afraid.
She wished she could be more like Devin sometimes, matg his seemingly tranquil acceptance of what he could or could not know. She has seen him st away the pieces of what he did leam and patiently waiting to receive another piece, and then putting them together like the tiles of a childrens puzzle game.
Sometimes she admired that, sometimes it made her wild and ptuous to see him so accepting of Alessans occasional retice or Baerds ic reserve. Catriana o know. She had been ignorant for so much of her life, shielded from her own history in that tiny fishing village in Astibar. She felt that there was so much lost time to be regained. Sometimes it made her want to weep.
That was how shed been feeling this evening before drifting into a shallow, uneasy sleep and a dream of home. She ofte of home since shed left, especially of her mother.
This time she saw herself walking through the village just after sunrise, passing the last house— Tendos, she even saw his dog—and then rounding the familiar curve of the shore to where her father had bought a derelict cottage and repaired it and raised a family.
In her dream she saw the boat already far out, trawling among the early-m swell of the sea. It seemed to be springtime. Her mother was in the doorway of the cottage mendis in the good light of the sunrise. Her eyes had been going bad for years and it was hard for her to work with her needle in the evenings. Catriana had gradually takehe night-time needlework in her last year at home.
It was a beautiful m in the dream. The stones of the beach gleamed and the breeze was fresh and light off the water. All the other boats were out as well, taking advantage of the m, but it was easy to tell whie was their own. Catriana walked up the path and stood by the newly mended porch, waiting for her mother to look up and see her ao her feet with a cry, and fold her daughter in her arms.
Her mother did glance up from her work, but only to gaze seaward, squinting toward the light, to check the position of their boat. An old habit, a nervous one, and ohat had probably done much to hurt her eyes. Shed a husband and three sons in that small boat though.
She didnt see her daughter at all. Catriana realized with a queer pain that she was invisible here.
Because she had gone, because she had left them and wasnt there any lohere was mrey, she saw, in her mothers hair, and her heart ached as she stood there in mild sunlight to see how worn and hard her mothers hands were, and how tired the kind face was. She had always thought of her mother as a young woman, until Tiena, the baby, had died in the plague six years ago. Things had ged after that.
It isnt fair, she thought, and in the dream she cried aloud and was not heard.
Her mother sat on a wooden chair on the por the early light, w os, occasionally looking up to check the position of one small boat among so many bobbing on this alieern sea so far from the one shed loved.
Catriana woke, her body twisting violently away from all the hurts embedded in that image. She opened her eyes, waiting for her heartbeat to slow, lying under several blas in a room in Castle Borso.
Alienors castle.
Alienor, who was the same age as Catrianas worn, tired mother. It truly was not fair. Why should she be carrying such guilt, seeing such sad, hurtful images in her sleep, for having gone away? Why, when it
was her mother who had givehe ring when she was fourteen, in the year the baby died. The ring that marked her as from Tigana and by the sea for anyone who khe a symbols, and for no one else.
The ring that had so marked her for Alessan bar Valentin two years ago when he and Baerd had seen her selling eels and fresh-caught telanquy in Ardin town just up the coast from the village.
She had not been a trusting person at eighteen. She could not have said, then or now, why shed trusted the two of them and joihem for that walk upriver out of towhe market was done. If pushed to an answer she would have said that there was something about Baerd that had reassured her.
It was on that walk that they had told her about her ring and about Tigana, and the axis of her life had tilted another way. A new running of time had begun from that moment, and with it the o know.
At home that evening after dinner, after the boys had goo bed, she told her parents that she now knew where they were from, and what her ri. And she asked her father what he was going to do to help her bring Tigana back, and what he had been doing all these years. It was the only time in her life shed ever seen her mild, innocuous father in a rage, and the only time hed ever struck her.
Her mother wept Her father stormed about the house in the awkward manner of a man uing, and he swore uporiad that hed not taken his wife and daughter away before the Ygrathen invasion and the fall only to be sucked bato that a grief now.
And thus had Catriana learhe sed thing that had ged her life.
The you of the boys had begun g. Her father had stomped out then, slamming the door, rattling the windows. Catriana and her mother had looked at each other in silence a long time while a frightened child gradually subsided in the loft above their heads. Catriana held up her hand and showed the ring shed worn for the past four years. She had looked a question with her eyes, and her mother had nodded onot weeping now. The embrace they exged was ohey both expected to be their last.
Catriana had found Alessan and Baerd at the best-known of the inns in Ardin town. It had been a bright night, she remembered, both moons high and nearly full. The night wat at the inn had leered at her and groped when she sidled by him up the stairs toward the room hed identified.
She had knocked and Alessan had opeo her name. His grey eyes, even before she spoke, had been curiously dark, as if anticipating a burden rief.
"I am ing with you," she had said. "My father was a coward. We fled before the invasion. I io make that up. I will not sleep with you though. Ive never slept with any man. I trust you both?”
Awake in Castle Borso she blushed in the darkness, remembering that. How impossibly young she must have souo them. her man had laughed though, or even smiled. She would never fet that.
" you sing?" was all that Alessan had said.
She fell asleep again, thinking about music, about all the songs shed sung with him, crossing the Palm for two years. This time when she dreamt it was about water—about swimming in the sea at home, her greatest, sweetest joy. Diving for shells at summer twilight among the startled flashing fish, feeling the water her like a sed skin.
Then without warning or transition the dream ged and she was on the bridge in Tregea again in a gathering of winter dark and wind, more terrified than she had imagined a soul could be. Only herself to blame, her own pride, her gnawing, ing, unslaked o make redress for the fact that they had fled. She saw herself mount and balan the railing again, saw the rag, black tumultuous water far below, heard, evehe loud rush of the river, the pounding of her heart . . .
And woke a sed time just before the nightmare of her leap. Woke because what she had heard as the beat of her heart was a knog at her door.
"Who is it?" she called.
"Devin. Will you let me e in?”
Abruptly she sat up in bed and pulled the topmost blao her .
"What is it?" she called.
"Im not sure, actually. May I e in?”
"The door isnt locked," she said finally. She made sure the blas were c her, but the room was so dark it didnt really matter.
She heard him enter, but saw only the outline of his form.
"Thank you," he said. "You should lock your door, you know.”
She wondered if he had any idea how much she hated being told things like that. "The only person likely to be roaming tonight was our hostess, and she was uo be ing for me. Theres a chair to your left.”
She heard him reach for it and sink back with a sigh into the deep armchair. "I suppose thats true enough," he said in a drained voice. "And Im sorry, you dont really need me to be telling you how to take care of yourself.”
She listened for irony but heard none. "I seem to have maolerably well without yuidance," she said mildly.
He was silent. Then: "Catriana, I holy dont know why Im here. Im in such a strange mood tonight. I feel ridiculously sad.”
There was somethiremely odd in his voice. She hesitated a moment, then, carefully adjusting the blas, reached over to strike a flint.
"You light fires on the Ember Days?" he asked.
"Evidently.”
She lit the dle by her bed. Then, somewhat regretting the ishness of that reply, added, "My mother used to light one—just one, as a remio the Triad, she used to say. Though I only uood what she meant after I met Alessan.”
"Thats strange. So did my father," Devin said wly. "Ive hought about that. I never knew why he did it. My father was not a man who explaihings.”
She turo look at him, but he was deep in the chair and the wings hid his face.
"A reminder of Tigana?" she said.
"It would have to have been. As if ... as if the Triad didnt deserve full devotion or observance because of what th..eyd allowed." He paused, then in a meditative tone added, "Its another example of our pride, isnt it? Of that Tiganese arrogance Sandre always talks about. We make bargains with the Triad, we balance scales with them: they take away our name, we take aart of their rites.”
"I suppose so," she said, though it didnt really strike her that way. Devin talked like this sometimes.
She didhe a as one of pride, or bargaining, just as a remio the self of how great a wrong had e to pass. A reminder, like Alessans blue wine.
"My mother is not a proud woman," she said, surprising herself.
"I dont know what mine was like," he said in that tightened voice. "I dont even know if I could say that my father is proud. I guess I dont know very much about him either." He really did sound peculiar.
"Devin," she said sharply, "lean forward. Let me look at you." She checked her blas; they covered her to the .
Slowly he shifted forward: the dlelight spilled across his wildly disheveled hair, the torn shirt and the visible scratches and marks of teeth. She felt a quick surge of anger, and then a slower, deeper ahat had nothing to do with him. Or not directly.
She masked both reas behind a sardonic laugh. "She was roaming, I see. You look like youve been to war.”
With an effort he managed a brief smile, but there was something somber in his eyes: she could read it even by dlelight.
It uled her. "What is it then?" she pursued with broad sarcasm, "You tired her out and came here wanting more? I tell you—”
"No," he said quickly. "No, it isnt that. It is ... hardly that, Catriana. It has been a ... difficult night.”
"You certainly look as if it was," she retorted, her hands gripping the blas.
He pushed on doggedly. "Not that way. Its se. So plicated. I think I learned something there. I think—”
"Devin, I really dont want the details!" She was angry with herself for how edgy this sort of thing made her feel.
"No, no. Not like that, though yes, there was that at the beginning. But . . ." He drew a breath. "I think what I learned was something about what the Tyrants have doo us. Not just Brandin, and not just in Tigana. Alberico too. Both of them, and to all of us.”
"Susight," she mocked, reflexively. "She must be even more skillful than you imagined.”
Which silenced him. He leaned ba the chair again and she couldnt see his face. In the quiet that followed her breathing grew calmer.
"Im sorry," she said at length. "I didhat. Im tired. Ive had some bad dreams tonight. What do you want from me, Devin?”
"Im not sure," he said. "I guess, to be a friend.”
Again she felt pushed and uneasy. She resisted an instinctive, nervous urge to suggest he go write a letter to one os daughters. She said, "Ive never been good at that, even as a child.”
"Nor I," he said, shifting fain. He had pushed his hair into a semblance of order. He said, "It is more than that between you and I though. You hate me sometimes, dont you.”
She felt her heart thump. "We do not have to discuss this, Devin. I dont hate you.”
"Sometimes you do," he pursued in that strange, dogged tone. "Because of what happened in the Sandreni Palace." He paused, and drew a shaky breath. "Because I was the first man you ever made love with.”
She closed her eyes. Tried, unsuccessfully, to will that last sente to have been spoken. "You knew?”
"Not then. I figured it out later.”
Pieces of another puzzle. Patiently putting it together. Figuring her out. She opened her eyes and gazed bleakly at him. "And is it your idea that discussing this iing subject will make us friends?”
He winced. "Probably not. I dont know. I thought Id tell you I want to be." There was a silence. "I holy dont know, Catriana. Im sorry.”
Surprisingly, her shod anger had both passed. She saw him slump back again, exhausted, and she did the same, reing against the wooden headboard of her bed. She thought for a while, marveling at how calm she felt.
"I dont hate you, Devin," she said finally. "Truly, I dont. Nothing like that. It is an awkward memory, I wohat, but I dont think it has ever hindered us in what we have to do. Which is what really matters, isnt it?”
"I suppose so," he said. She couldnt see his face. "If that is all that matters.”
"I mean, its true what I said before: Ive always been bad at making friends.”
"Why?”
Pieces of the puzzle again. But she said, "As a girl, Im not sure. Maybe I was shy, perhaps proud. I
never felt easy in our village, even though it was the only home Id ever known. But since Baerd igana for me, since I heard the hat has been all there is in the world for me. All that ts for anything at all.”
She could almost hear him thinking about that.
He said, "Ice is for endings.”
Which is exactly what Alienor had said to her. He went on, "You are still a living person, Catriana.
With a heart, a life to live, access to friendship, even to love. Why are you sealing yourself down to the ohing only?”
And she heard herself reply: "Because my father never fought. He fled Tigana like a coward before the battles at the river.”
She could have ripped her tongue bleeding from her mouth, out at the very root, the moment she had spoken.
"Oh," he said.
"Not a word, Devin! Dont say a word!”
He obeyed, sitting very still, almost invisible in the depths of his chair. Abruptly she blew out the dle; she didnt want light now. And then, because ?９９lｉｂ. was dark, and because he was so obligingly silent she was gradually able tain trol of herself. To move past the meaning of this moment without weeping. It took a long time in the darkness but eventually she was able to draw a long, steady breath and know she was all right.
"Thank you," she said, irely sure what she was thanking him for. Mostly, the silence.
There was no reply. She waited a moment then softly called his name. Again no answer. She listened, aually was able to make out the steady rise and fall of his breathing in sleep.
She had enough of a sense of irony to find that amusing. He had evidently had a difficult night though, and not just in the obvious ways.
She thought about waking him and sending him back to his own room. It would most certainly raise eyebrows if they were seen leaviogether in the m. She discovered, though, that she didnt really care. She also realized that she minded less than shed expected that hed figured out the oruth about her and had just learned another. About her father, but really more about herself. She wondered about that, why it didnt bother her more.
She sidered putting one of the blas over him but resisted the impulse. For some reason she didnt really want him waking in the m and knowing shed dohat. Rovigos daughters did that sort of thing, not she. Or no: the younger daughter would have had him in this bed and inside her by now, strange moods and exhaustion notwithstanding. The older? Would have woven a new quilt at miraculous speed and tucked it around him with a ached as to the lineage of the sheep that had given the wool and the history of the pattern shed chosen.
Catriana smiled to herself in the darkness aled back to sleep. Her restlessness seemed to have passed and she did not dream again. When she woke, just after dawn, he was gone. She didnt learn until later just how far.
chapter 11
ELENA STOOD BY THE OPEN DOOR OF MATTIOS HOUSE LOOKING up the dark road to the moat and the raised drawbridge, watg the dles flicker and go out one by one in the windows of Castle Borso. At intervals people walked past her into the house, only a nod or a brief greeting if anything at all. It was a nig.. of battle that lay ahead of them, and everyone arriving was aware of that.
From the village behihere came no sound at all, and no light. All the dles were long snuffed out, fires banked, windows covered over, even the ks at the base of doors blocked by cloth s. The dead walked on the first of the Ember Nights, everyone khat.
There was little noise from within the house behihough fifteen or twenty people must have arrived by now, crowding into Mattios home at the edge of the village. Elena didnt know how many more Walkers were yet to join them here, or later, at the meeting-place; she did know that there would be too few. There hadnt been enough last year, or the year before that, and they had lost those battles very badly. The Ember Night wars were killing the Walkers faster than young ones like Elena herself were growing up to replace them. Which is why they were losing each spring, why they would almost certainly lose tonight.
It was a starry night, with only the one moon risen, the white crest of Vidomni as she waned. It was cold as well, here in the highlands at the very beginning of spring. Elena ed her arms about herself, gripping her elbows with her hands. It would be a different sky, a differeo the night entirely, in only a few hours, whetle began.
na walked in, giving her quick warm smile, but not stopping to talk. It was not a time for talking. Elena was worried about na tonight; she had just had a child two weeks before. It was too soon for her to be doing this. But she was hey were all needed, and the Ember Night wars did not tarry for any man or woman, or for anything that happened in the world of day.
She nodded in respoo a couple she didnt know. They followed na past her into the house.
There was dust on their clothing; they had probably e from a long way east, timing their arrival here for after the sundown closing of the doors and windows iown and in all the lonely farmhouses out in the night of the fields. Behind all those doors and windows, Elena khe people of the southern highlands would be waiting in darkness and praying.
Praying for rain and then sun, for the earth to be fruitful through spring and summer to the tall harvest of fall. For the seedlings of grain, of , to nourish when sown, take root and then rise, yellow and full of ripened promise, from the dark, moist, giving soil. Praying —though they knew nothing within their ed dark homes of what would actually happen tonight—for the Night Walkers to save the fields, the season, the grain, save and succor all their lives.
Elena instinctively reached up to fihe small leather or she wore about her neck. The orhat held the shriveled remnant of the caul in which she had been born, as all the Walkers had beehed iransparent birthing sac as they came g from the womb.
A symbol of good fortune, birthwomen he caul elsewhere in the Palm. Children borhed in that sac were said to be destined for a life blessed by the Triad.
Here at the remote southern edges of the peninsula, in these wild highlands beh the mountains, the teags and the lore were different. Here the a rites went deeper, further back, were passed from hand to hand, from mouth to mouth down from their beginnings long ago. In the highlands of Certando a child born with a caul was not said to be guarded from death at sea, or naively named for fortune.
It was marked for war.
For this war, fought each year on the first of the Ember Nights that began the spring and so began the
year. Fought in the fields and for the fields, for the not yet risen seedlings that were hope and life and the offered promise of earth renewed. Fought for those in the great cities, cut off from the truths of the land, ignorant of such things, and fought for all the living here iando, huddled behind their walls, who knew only enough to pray and to be afraid of sounds in the night that might be the dead abroad.
From behind Elena a hand touched her shoulder. She turo see Mattio looking quizzically at her.
She shook her head, pushing her hair back with one hand.
"Nothi," she said.
Mattio did not speak, but the pale moonlight showed his eyes bleak above the full black beard. He squeezed her shoulder, out of a habit of reassurance more than anything else, before turning to go baside.
Elena watched him go, heavy-striding, solid and capable. Through the open doorway she saw him sit down again at the long trestle-table, across from Donar. She gazed at the two of them for a moment, thinking about Verzar, about love and then desire.
She turned away again to look out into the night toward the huge brooding outline of the castle in whose shadow she had spent her whole life. She felt old suddenly, far older than her years. She had two small children sleeping with her mother and father tonight in one of those shut-up cottages where no lights burned. She also had a husband sleeping in the burying field—a casualty, one of so many, of the terrible battle a year ago when the numbers of the Others seemed to have grown so much larger than ever before and so cruelly, malevolently triumphant.
Verzar had died a few days after that defeat, as all the victims of the night battles did.
Those touched by death in the Ember Night wars did not fall in the fields. They aowledged that cold, final tou their souls— like a finger on the heart, Verzar had said to her—and they came home to sleep and wake and walk through a day or a week or a month before yielding to the ending that had claimed them for its own.
In the north, iies, they spoke of the last portal of Morian, of longed-fra her dark Halls. Of priestly intercessions invoked with dles and tears.
Those born with the caul in the southern highlands, those who fought in the Ember wars and saw the shapes of the Others who came to battle there, did not speak in such a way.
Not that they would ever be so foolish as to deny Morian of Portals or Eanna or Adaon; only that they khat there were powers older and darker thariad, powers that went beyond this peninsula, beyond even, Donar had oold her, this very world with its two moons and its sun. Once a year the Night Walkers of Certando would have—would be forced to have—a glimpse of these truths under a sky that was not their own.
Elena shivered. There would be more claimed for death tonight, she knew, and so fewer to fight the year, and fewer the . And where it would end she did not know. She was not educated in such things. She was twenty-two, a mother and a widow and a wheelwrights daughter in the highlands. She was also a child born with the caul of the Night Walkers into a time when all the battles were being lost, year by year.
She was also known to have the best eyesight in the dark of all of them, which is why Mattio had placed her here by the door, watg the road for the one Donar had said might e.
It was a dry season; the moat, as hed expected, was shallow. Once, long ago, the lords of Castle Borso had been pleased to keep their moat stocked with creatures that could kill a man. Baerd didnt expect to find such things; not now, not for a long time now.
He waded across, hip-deep, uhe high stars and the thin light of Vidomni in the sky. It was cold, but it had been many years sihe elements bothered him muor did it disturb him to be abroad on an Ember Night. Indeed, it had bee a ritual of his owhe years: knowing that all across the Palm the holy days were observed and marked by people waiting in silent darkness behind their walls
offered him a deepened sense of the solitude his soul seemed to need. He rofoundly drawn to this sense of moving through a scarcely breathing world that lay as if crouched in primitive darkness uhe stars with no mortal fires cast back at the sky—only whatever flames the Triad created for themselves with lightning out of the heavens.
If there were ghosts and spirits awake in the night he wao see them. If the dead of his past were walking abroad he wao beg their fiveness.
His own pain un of images that would not let him go. Images of vanished serenity, of pale marble under moonlight such as this, of graceful porticos shaped of harmonies a man might spend a lifetime studying to uand, of quiet voices heard and almost uood by a drowsy child in another room, of sure, fident laughter following, then m sunlight in a known courtyard and a steady, strong, sculptors hand upon his shoulder. A fathers hand.
Then fire and blood and ashes on the wind, turning the noon sun red.
Smoke ah, and marble hammered intments, the head of the god flying free, to bounce like a boulder on scorched earth and then be ground remorselessly down into powder like fine sand. Like the sand on the beaches walked in the dark later that year, infinite and meaningless by the cold ung sea.
These were the bleak visitants, the panions of his nights, these and more, endlessly, through almost een years. He carried, like baggage, like a cart yoked to his shoulders, like a round stone in his heart, images of his people, their world destroyed, their name obliterated. Truly obliterated: a sound that was drifting, year by year, further away from the shores of the world of men, like some tide withdrawing in the grey hour of a winter dawn. Very like such a tide, but different as well, because tides came back.
He had learo live with the images because he had no choice, unless it was a choice to surrender.
To die. Or retreat into madness as his mother had. He defined himself by his griefs; he khem as other mehe shape of their own hands.
But the ohing that could drive him awake, barred utterly from the chambers of sleep or any kind of rest, what could force him abroad now, as he had been driven abroad as a boy in a ruined place, was, in the end, none of these things. her a flash of splendone, nor an image of death and loss. It was, instead, over and above everything else, the remembrance of love among those ashes of ruin.
Against the memory of a spring and summer with Dianora, with his sister, his barriers could not hold in the dark.
And so Baerd would go out into the nights across the Palm, doubly moonlit, or singly, or dark with only stars. Among the heathered summer hills of Ferraut, or through the laden vineyards of autumn in Astibar or Senzio, along snow-mantled mountain slopes in Tregea, or here, on an Ember Night at the beginning of spring in the highlands.
He would go out to walk in the enveloping dark, to smell the earth, feel the soil, listen to the voice of winters wind, taste grapes and moonlit water, lie motionless in a forest tree to watch the night predators at their hunt. And on a great while, when waylaid or challenged by brigand or merary, Baerd would kill. A night predator in his own inatioless and soon gone. Another kind of ghost, a part of him dead with the dead of the River Deisa.
In every er of the mainland Palm except his own, which was gone, he had dohese things for years upon years, feeling the slow turning of the seasons, learning the meaning of night in this forest and that field, by this dark river, or on that mountain ridge, reag out or back or inward all the time toward a release that was ever and again denied.
He had been here in the highlands many times before on this same Ember Night. He and Alessa back a long way and had shared a great deal with Alienor of Borso, and there was the other, larger reason why they came south to the mountains at the beginning of every sed year. He thought of the
news from the west. From home. He remembered the look on Alessans face reading Danoleoer and his heart misgave him. But that was for tomorrow, and more Alessans burden than his own, however much he might want— as he always wao ease or share the weight.
Tonight was his own, and it called to him. Alone in the darkness, but hand in hand with a dream of Dianora, he walked away from the castle. Always before he had go and then south from Borso, curving his way into the hills themselves below the Braccio Pass. Tonight, for no reason he knew, his footsteps led him the other way, southeast. They carried him along the road to the edge of the village that lay beh the castle walls and there, as he passed a house with an uedly open door, Baerd saw a fair-haired woman standing in the moonlight as if she had been waiting for him aopped.
Sitting at the table, resisting the temptation to t their numbers one more time, trying to appear as if all were as normal as it could be on this night of war, Mattio heard Elena call his name and then Donars from outside the house. Her voice was soft, as it always was, but his senses were pitched toward her, as they had been for years. Even before poor Verzar had died.
He glanced across the table at Donar, but the older man was already reag for his crutches and rising to swing on his ooward the door. Mattio followed. A number of the others looked over at them, edgy and apprehensive. Mattio forced himself to smile reassuringly. na caught his eye and began speaking soothingly to a few of the more visibly nervous people.
Not at all easy himself, Mattio stepped outside with Donar and saw that someone had e. A dark- haired maly bearded and of middle height, stood motionless before Elena, glang from her to the two of them, not speaking. He had a sword slung in a scabbard on his ba the Tregean fashion.
Mattio looked over at Donar whose face was quite impassive. For all his experienber Night wars and of Dift he could not repress a shiver.
"Someone may e," their one-legged leader had said yestereve. And now someone was indeed here in the moonlight in the very hour before battle. Mattio looked over at Elena; her eyes had not left the stranger. She was standing very straight, slender and motionless, hands holding her elbows, hiding fear and wonder as best she could. But Mattio had spent years watg her, and he could see that her breathing was shallow and fast. He loved her for her stillness, and for wanting to hide her fear.
He gla Dain, and then stepped forward, extending two open palms to the stranger.
Calmly he said, "Be wele, though it is not to be abroad.”
The other man nodded. His feet were planted wide and solid on the earth. He looked as though he knew how to use his sword. He said, "Nor, as I uand the highlands, is it a night to have doors and windows open.”
"Why would you think you uand the highlands?" Mattio said. Too quickly. Elena still had not looked away from this man. There was an odd expression on her face.
Moving a little o stand beside her, Mattio realized that he had seen this man before. This was one who had e several times to the Ladys castle. A musi, he seemed to remember, or a mert of some sort. One of those landless men who endlessly crossed and recrossed the roads of the Palm. His heart, which had lifted to see the sword, sank a little.
The stranger had not respoo his sharp retort. He appeared, as much as the moonight revealed, to be giving the matter thought. Then he surprised Mattio.
"Im sorry," he said. "If I am trespassing upon a in ignorance, five me. I walk for reasons of my own. I will leave you to your peace.”
He actually turned away then, clearly intending to leave.
"No!" Elena said urgently.
And in the same moment Donar spoke for the first time.
"There is no peace tonight," he said in the deep voice they all trusted so much. "And you are not
trespassing. I thought someone might e along this road. Elena was watg for you.”
And at that the straurned. His eyes seemed wider in the dark, and something new, cooler, more appraising, gleamed in them now.
"e for what?" he asked.
There was a silence. Donar shifted his crutches and swung forward. Elena moved to one side to let him stand in front of the stranger. Mattio looked across at her; her hair was falling over one shoulder, white-gold in the moonlight. She ook her eyes from the dark-haired man.
Who was gazing steadily at Donar. "e for what?" he repeated, mildly enough.
Still Donar hesitated, and in that moment Mattio realized with a shock that the miller, their Elder, was afraid. A siing lurch of apprehension rose in Mattio, for he suddenly uood what Donar was about to do.
And then Donar did it. He gave them away to one from the north.
"We are the Night Walkers of Certando," he said, his voice steady and deep. "And this is the first of the Ember Nights of spring. This is ht. I must ask you: wherever you were born, was there a mark .
. . did the birthwomen who attended declare a blessing found?" And slowly he reached a hand inside his shirt and drew forth the leather sac he wore there, holding the caul that had marked him at his birth.
Out of the side of his eye Mattio saw Elena biting her lower lip. He looked at the stranger, watched him absorb what Donar had said, and he began gauging his ces of killing the man if it should e to that.
This time the sileretched. The muted sounds from the house behind them seemed loud. The dark-haired mans eyes had grown wide now, and his head was lifted high. Mattio could see that he was weighing what lay behind what had just been revealed.
Then, still not speaking, the stranger moved one hand to his throat and reag inside his shirt he brought out, so that the three of them could see, by starlight and moonlight, the small leather sac he too wore.
Mattio heard a small sound, a release of breath, and realized belatedly that he had made it himself.
"Earth be praised!" Elena murmured, uo stop herself. She had closed her eyes.
"Earth, and all that springs from it aurns," Donar added. His voice, amazingly, trembled.
They left it for Mattio to finish. "Returns, t forth again in the cycle that has no end," he said, looking at the stranger, at the sac he bore, almost identical to Mattios own, to Elenas, to Donars, to the ohey all carried, every one of them.
It was with the words of invocation spoken in sequence by the three of them that Baerd finally uood what he had stumbled upon.
Two hundred years ago, in a time of seemingly unending plagues, a time of harvest failures, of violend blood, the Carlozzini heresy had taken root here in the south. And from the highlands it had begun to spread throughout the Palm, gaining momentum and adherents with frightening speed. And against Carlozzis tral teag: that the Triad were younger deities, subject to and agents of an older, darker set of powers, the priesthood of the Palm had grimly and in cert set their hands.
Faced with such rare and absolute unity among the clergy, and caught up in the panic of a decade of plague and starvation, the Dukes and Grand Dukes and even Valti, Prince of Tigana, had seen themselves as having no choice. The Carlozzini had been hunted down and tried and executed all across the peninsula, by whatever means executions were ducted in each provin that time.
A time of violend blood. Two hundred years ago.
And now he was standing here showing the leather that held the caul of his birth, and speaking to three who had just declared themselves to be Carlozzini.
And more. Night Walkers, the one-legged old man had said. The vanguard, the secret army of the sect. Chosen in some way that no one knew. But now he did know, they had shown him. It occurred to him that he might be in danger now, having been grahis knowledge, and ihe bigger, bearded man seemed to be holding himself carefully, as if prepared for violence.
The woman who had stood watch was weeping though. She was very beautiful, though not in the way of Alienor, whose every movement, every spoken word might hint at a feline undercurrent of dahis woman was too young, too shy, he could not make himself believe in a threat from her. Not weeping as she was. And all three of them had spoken words of thanks, of praise. His instincts were on guard, but not in a way that warned of immediate danger. Deliberately Baerd forced his muscles to relax. He said, "What have you to tell me, then?”
Elena wiped the tears from her face. She looked at the stranger again, abs his square, , quiet solidity, his reality, the improbable fact that he was here. She swallowed with difficulty, painfully aware of the rag of her heart, trying to move past the moment when she had seen this man emerge from night and shadow to stand before her. And then the long interval when they had faced each other in the moonlight before she had impulsively reached out to touch his hand, to be sure that he was real. And had only then called for Mattio and Donar. Something odd seemed to be happening to her. She made herself trate on what Donar was saying.
"What I tell you now gives you power of life ah reat many people," he said softly.
"For the priesthood still want us destroyed and the Tyrant in Astibar will bide by what the clergy say in such things. I think you know this.”
"I know this," the dark-haired one echoed, equally quietly. "Will you say why you are fiding in me?”
"Because tonight is a night of battle," Donar said. "Tonight I lead the Night Walkers into war, aerday at su I fell into a sleep and dreamt of a stranger ing to us. I have learo trust my dreams, though not to know when they will e.”
Elena saw the stranger nod, calm, unruffled, aowledging this as easily as he had aowledged her presen the road. She saw that his arms were ridged with muscle under his shirt, and that he held himself as a man who had known fighting in his days. There seemed to be a sadness in his face, but it was really too dark to tell so much, and she chided herself for letting her imagination ru such a time.
Oher hand, he was abroad and alone on an Ember Night. Men without griefs of their own would never do such a thing, she was certain. She wondered where he was from. She was afraid to ask.
"You are the leader then, of this pany?" he said to Donar.
"He is," Mattio cut in sharply. "And you would do well not to dwell upon his infirmity." From the defiance of his to was clear he had misinterpreted the question. Elena knew how protective he was of Donar; it was one of the things she most respected in him. But this was too huge, too important a moment for misuandings. She turo him and shook her head urgently.
"Mattio!" she began, but Donar had already laid a hand on the blacksmiths arm, and in that moment the stranger smiled for the first time.
"You leap at a slight that is not meant," he said. "I have known others, as badly injured or worse, who led armies and governed men. I seek only to find my bearings. It is darker here for me than it is for you.”
Mattio opened his mouth and then closed it. He made a small, awkward gesture of apology with his shoulders and hands. It was Donar who replied.
"I am Elder of the Walkers, yes," he said. "And so mine, with Mattios aid, is leadership in battle. But you must know that the war we are to fight tonight is not like any battle you might know. When we e out again from this house it will be under a different sky ehan the one above us now. And uhat sky, in that challenging world of ghosts and shadows, few of us will appear as we do here.”
The dark-haired man shifted uneasily for the first time. He glanced downward, almost relutly, to
look at Donars hands.
Donar smiled, and held out his left hand, five fingers spread wide.
"I am not a wizard," he said softly. "There is magic here, yes, but we step into it and are marked for it, we do not shape it. This is not wizardry.”
The stranger length. Then said, with careful courtesy, "I see that. I do not uand it, but I only assume you are tellihese things to a purpose. Will it please you now to tell me what that is?”
And so Donar said then, finally, "Because we would ask aid of you in our battle tonight.”
In the silehat followed, Mattio spoke, and Elena had an idea how much pride he swallowed in saying: "We have need. Very great need.”
"Who do you fight?" the other man said.
"We call them the Others," Elena said herself, as her Donar nor Mattio spoke. "They e to us year by year. Geion after geion.”
"They e to ruin the fields and blight the seedlings and the harvest," Donar said. "For two hundred years the Night Walkers of Certando would battle them on this Ember Night, and for all this time we were able to hold them in check as they e upon us from the west.”
Mattio said, "For almost twenty years now, though, it has grown worse and worse for us. And on the last three Ember Nights we have been very badly beaten. Many of us have died. Aandhts have grown worse; you will know about that, and about the plagues here. They have—”
But the stranger had flung up a hand suddenly, a sharp, ued gesture.
"Almost twenty years? And from the west?" he said harshly. He came a step nearer and turo Donar. "The Tyrants came almost twenty years ago. And Brandin of Ygrath landed in the west.”
Daze was steady as he leaned on his crutches looking at the other man. "This is true," he said, "and it is a thought that has occurred to some of us, but I do not think it signifies. Our battles on this night each year go far beyond the daily s of who governs in the Palm in a givee>ion, and how they govern, and from where they e.”
"But still—" the stranger began.
"But still," Donar said, nodding his head, "there are mysteries to this that are beyond my power to grasp. If you dis a pattern that I do not . . . who am I to question or deny that it might be true?”
He reached up to his ned touched the leather sac. "You carry the mark we all bear, and I dreamt your presence here tonight. Notwithstanding that, we have no claim upon you, all, and I must tell you that death will be there to meet us in the fields whehers e. But I also tell you that our need goes beyond these fields, beyoando, and even, I think, beyond this Peninsula of the Palm.
Will you fight with us tonight?”
The stranger was silent a long time. He turned away and looked upwards then, at the thin moon and stars, but Elena had a sehat his truer vision was inwards, that he was not really looking up at the lights.
"Please?" she heard herself say. "Will you please?”
He made no sign that he had even heard her. Wheurned back it was to look at Donar once more.
He said, "I uand little of this. I have my own battles to fight, and people to whom I owe a sworn allegiance, but I hear no evil in you, and no untruth, and I would see for myself the shape these Others take. If you dreamt my ing here I will let myself be guided by your dream.”
And then, as her eyes began brimming with tears again, Elena saw him turn to her. "Yes, I will," he said levelly, not smiling, his dark eyes grave. "I will fight with you tonight. My name is Baerd.”
And so it seemed that he had heard her, after all.
Elena mastered her tears, standing as straight as she could. There was a tumult, a terrible chaos, rising withihough, and in the midst of that chaos it seemed to Elena that she heard a sound, as of a sie plucked on her heart. Beyond Donar, Mattio said something but she didnt hear what it was. She was looking at this stranger, and realizing, as his gaze met her own, that she had been right before, that her instincts had not misled. There was so deep a sadness in him it could not possibly be missed by any man or woman with eyes to see, even in night and shadow.
She looked away, and then closed her eyes tightly for a moment, trying to hold baething of her heart for herself, before it all went seeking in the magid the strangeness of this night. Oh, Verzar, she thought. Oh, my dead love.
She opened her eyes again and took a careful breath. "I am Elena," she said. "Will you e in ahe others?”
"Yes," said Mattio gruffly, "e in with us, Baerd. Be wele in my home." This time she heard the hurt that came through in his voice, though he tried to mask it. She winced inwardly at that sound, g for him, for his strength and his generosity, hating so much to give sorrow. But this was an Ember Night and the tides of the heart could scarcely be ruled even by the light of day.
Besides, she had a very grave doubt, already, as the four of them turo go into the house, whether there would be any joy for her to find in what had just happeo her. Any joy in this stranger who had e to her out of darkness, in ao or called by Donars dream.
Baerd looked at the cup that the woman named na had just placed in his hands. It was of earthenware, rough to the touch, chipped at one edge, the unpainted color of red soil.
He looked from na to Donar, the older, maimed man—the Elder, they called him—to the bearded oo the irl, Elena. There was a kind of light in her face as she looked back at him, even in the shadows of this house, aurned away from that as something —perhaps the ohing—he could not deal with. Not now, perhaps not ever in his life. He cast his gaze out over the pany assembled there. Seventeen of them. Nine me women, all holding their own cups, waiting for him.
There would be more at the meeting-place, Mattio had said. How many more they could not tell.
He was being reckless, he knew. Swept away by the power of an Ember Night, by the undeniable truth of Donars dream, the fact that they had been waiting for him. By, if he were ho with himself, the look in Elenas eyes when he had first e up to her. A plex tempting of fate, that aspect of it, something he seldom did.
But he was doing it now, or about to do it. He thought of Ales-san, and of all the times hed chided or derided the Prince, his brother of the soul, for letting his passion for music take him down one dangerous path or another. What would Alessan say now, or quick-tongued Catriana? Or Devin? No, Devin would say nothing: he would watch, with that careful, focused attention, and e to his own clusions in his own time. Sandre would call him a fool.
And perhaps he was. But something had responded deep within him to the words Donar had spoken.
He had borhe caul of his birth iher all his life, a minor, a trivial superstition. A charm against drowning, he had been told as a child. But it was more here, and the cup he held in his hands would mark his acceptance of that.
Almost twenty years, Mattio had said.
The Others from the west, Donar had said.
There might be little in it, reat deal, or nothing at all, or everything.
He looked at the woman, Elena, and he draihe cup to the lees.
It was bitter, deathly bitter. For one panicked, irrational moment he feared he was undone, poisoned, a blood sacrifi some unknown Carlozzini rite of spring.
Then he saw the sour face na made as she drank from her own cup, and saw Mattio wince
ruefully at the taste of his, and the panic passed.
The long table had been put away, lifted from its trestles. Pallets had been spread about the room for them to lie upon. Elena moved towards him aured, and it would have been ungracious to hold back. He walked with her toward one wall and took the pallet she offered him. She sat down, unspeaking, on the one beside it.
Baerd thought of his sister, of that clear image of walking hand in hand with Dianora down a dark and silent road, only the two of them abroad in the wide world.
Donar the miller swung himself towards the pallet on Baerds other side. He leaned his crutches against the wall and subsided o.
"Leave your sword here," he said. Baerd raised his eyebrows. Donar smiled, a hieratic expression, devoid of mirth. "It will be useless where we are going. We will find our ons in the fields.”
Baerd hesitated a moment lohen, aware of eveer recklessness, of a mystic folly he could not have explained, he slipped the back-scabbard over his head and laid it against the wall beside Donars crutches.
"Close your eyes," he heard Elena saying from beside him. "It is easier that way." Her voice sounded oddly distant. Whatever he had drunk was beginning to act upon him. "It will feel like sleep," she said, "but it will not be. Earth grant us grace, and the sky her light." It was the last thing he heard.
It was not sleep. Whatever it was, it was not sleep, for no dream could be this vivid, no dream-wind this keen in his face.
He was in an open field, wide and fallow and dark, with the smell of spring soil, and he had no memory at all of ing here. There were a great many people—two hundred perhaps, or more—in the field with him, and he had no memory of any of them either. They must have e from other villages in the highlands, from gatherings in other homes like Mattios.
The light was strange. He looked up.
And Baerd saw that the moon in the sky was round and large and full, and it was green like the first green-gold of spring. It shoh that green and golden light among stars in stellations he had never seen. He wheeled around, dizzied, disoriented, his heart pounding, searg for a pattern that he knew in the heavens. He looked south, to where the mountains should be, but as far as his eyes could tra the green light he saw level fields stretg away, some fallow, some fully ripe with summer grain in a season that should only be spring. No mountains at all. No snoeaks, no Braccio Pass with Quileia beyond. He spun again. No Castle Borso to north or east. Or west?
West. With a sudden premonitiouro look there. Low hills rose and fell in seemingly endless progression. And Baerd saw that the hills were bare of trees, of grass, bare of flower and shrub and bush, bleak and waste and barren.
"Yes, look there," Donars deep voice said from behind him, "and uand why we are here. If we lose tonight the field in which we stand will be desolate as those hills year when we e back. The Others are down into these grainlands now. We have lost the battles of those hills over the past years. We are fighting in the plain now, and if this goes on, one Ember Night not far from now our children or their children will stand with their backs to the sea and lose the last battle of our war.”
"And?" Baerds eyes were still on the west, on the grey, stony ruin of the hills.
"And all the crops will fail. Not just here iando. And people will die. Of hunger or of plague.”
"All over the Palm?" He could not look away from the desolation that he saw. He had a vision of a lifeless world looking like that. He shivered. It was siing.
"The Palm and beyond, Baerd. Make no mistake, this is no local skirmish, no battle for a small peninsula. All over this world, and perhaps beyond, for it is said that ours is not the only world scattered by the Powers among time and the stars.”
"Carlozzi taught this?”
"Carlozzi taught this. If I uand his teag rightly, our own troubles here are bound up with even graver dangers elsewhere; in worlds we have never seen or will see, except perhaps in dream.”
Baerd shook his head, still looking out at the hills in the west. "That is too remote for me. Too difficult. I am a worker in stone and a sometime mert and I have learned how to fight, against my will and ination, over many years. I live in a peninsula overrun by enemies from overseas. That is the level of evil I grasp.”
He turned away from the western hills then and looked at Donar. Ae the warning theyd given him, his eyes widened with amazement. The miller stood on two sound legs; his grey, thinning hair had bee a thick dark brown like Baerds own, aood with his broad shoulders straight and his head held high, a man in his prime.
A woman came up to them, and Baerd knew Elena, for she was not greatly ged. She seemed older here though, less frail; her hair was shorter, though still white-gold despite the strangeness of the light. Her eyes, he saw, were a very deep blue.
"Were your eyes that same color an ho?" he asked.
She smiled, pleased and shy. "It was more than an hour. And I dont know what I look like this year.
It ges a little for me every time. What color are they now?”
"Blue. Extremely blue.”
"Well thehey have always been blue. Perhaps remely blue, but blue." Her smile deepened. "Shall I tell you what you look like?" There was an ingruity, a lightness in her voice. Even Donar had an amused expression playing about his lips.
"Tell me.”
"You look like a boy," she said with a little laugh. "A fourteen-or fifteen-year-old boy, beardless now and much too thin and with a shock of brown hair I would love to cut if we had but half a ce.”
Baerd felt his heart thud like a mallet in his breast. It actually seemed to stop for an instant before beginning again, laboriously, to beat. He turned sharply away from the others, looking down at his hands.
They did seem different. Smoother, less lined. And a knife scar hed got in Tregea five years ago was not there. He closed his eyes, feeling suddenly weak.
"Baerd?" Elena said behind him, ed. "Im sorry. I did not mean to—”
He shook his head. He tried to speak but found that he could not. He wao reassure her, her and Donar, that it was all right, but he seemed, unbelievably, to be weeping, for the first time in almost twenty years.
For the first time sihe year he had been a fourteen-year-old boy forbidden to go to war by his Princes orders and his fathers. Forbidden to fight and die with them by the red banks of the River Deisa when all the shining had e to an end.
"Be easy, Baerd," he heard Donar saying, deep ale. "Be easy. There is always a strangeness here.”
Then a womans hands were briefly upon his shoulders and then reag around him from behind to meet and clasp at his chest. Her cheek rested against his bad she held him so, strong and sharing and generous, while he brought his hands up to cover his face as he cried.
Above them on the Ember Night the full moon was green-gold and around them the strange fields were fallow, or newly sown, or full with ripened grain before the planting-time, or utterly bare and desolate and lost, in the west.
"They are ing," someone said, walking up to them. "Look. We had best claim our ons.”
He reized Mattios voice. Elena released him and stepped back. Baerd wiped his eyes and looked
to the west again.
And he saw then that the Ember war was giving him another ce. A ake right what had gone so bitterly wrong in the world the summer he was fourteen.
Over the hills from the west, far off yet but unnaturally clear in the unnatural light, the Others were ing: and they were clad, all of them, in the livery of Ygrath.
"Oh, Morian!" he whispered on a sharply takeh.
"What do you see?" Mattio said.
Baerd turhe man was leaner, and his black beard was differently trimmed, but he was reizably the same. "Ygrathens," he said on a rising note of excitement. "Soldiers of the King of Ygrath. You may never have seen them here, this far east, but that is exactly what they are, your Others.”
Mattio looked suddenly thoughtful. He shook his head, but it was Donar who spoke.
"Be not deceived, Baerd. Remember where we are, what I have told you. You are not in our peninsula, this is no battle of the day against your invaders from overseas.”
"I see them, Donar. I know what I see.”
"And shall I tell you that what I see out there are hideous shapes in grey and dun, naked and hairless, dang and coupling with each other as they mock us with their numbers?”
"And the Others for me are different again," Mattio said bluntly, almost angrily. "They are large, larger than men, with fur on their spines running down into a tail like the mountain cats. They walk upon two legs but they have claws on their hands, and razored teeth in their mouths.”
Baerd wheeled again, his heart hammering, looki in the eerily lucid green light of wherever they were. But still, in the middle distance, p down out of the hills, he saw soldiers with ons: swords and pikes and the undulating knives of Ygrath.
He turo Elena, a little desperate.
"I do not like to name what I see," she murmured, l her eyes. "They frighteoo much.
They are creatures of my childhood fears. But it is not what you are seeing, Baerd. Believe me. Believe us. You may see the Others in the shape of your hearts hate, but this is not the battle of your daytime world.”
He shook his head in fierce denial. There was a deep surging in his spirit, a rushing of blood in his veins. The Others were nearer now, hundreds of them, streaming out of the hills.
"I am always fighting the same battle," he said to her. To her and the two men. "All my life.
Wherever I am. And I know what I see out there. I tell you that I am fifteen years old now, not fourteen or I could not be here. They would not have allowed me." A thought struck him. "Tell me: is there a stream west of us, a river below where they are desding now?”
"There is," Donar said. "Do you want to join battle there?”
A red, fierce joy was running through Baerd, wild and untrollable.
"I do," he said. "Oh, I do. Mattio, where do we claim our ons?”
"There." Mattio pointed southeast to a small nearby field where tall stalks of were growing, in defiance of what should have been the season. "e. They will be at your stream very soon.”
Baerd did not speak. He followed Mattios lead. Elena and Donar went with them. Other men and women were in that field of already and Baerd saw that they were reag down to pluck a stalk to be their on in the night. It was uny, incredible, but he was beginning to take a part of the measure of this place, to uand the magic that was at work here, and a er of his mind, which worked outside and around the stern logic of day, grasped that the tall yellow grain that was so endangered was the only on possible tonight. They would fight for the fields with grain in their hands.
He stepped in among the others in that field, careful of where he walked, and he bent down and grasped a stalk for himself. It came free easily, even willingly to his hand in that green night. He walked out on to fallow ground again aed it in his hand and swung it cautiously, and he saw that already the stalk had stiffened like metal fed. It sliced through the air with a keen whistling sound. He tested it with a finger and drew blood. The stalk had grown as sharp as any blade hed ever held, and as true to his hand, and it was many-edged like the fabled blades of Quileia, turies ago.
He looked away to the west. The Ygrathens were desding the of the hills. He could see the glint of their ons uhe moon. This is not a dream, he told himself. Not a dream.
Donar was beside him, grim and unwavering. Mattio stood beyond, a passionate defian his face.
Men and women were gathering behind them and all around, and all of them held swords in their hands, and all of them looked the same: stern and resolute and unafraid.
"Shall we go?" Donar said then, turning to look out upon them all. "Shall we go and fight them for the fields and for our people? Will you e with me now to the Ember war?”
"For the fields!" the Night Walkers cried, and raised their living swords aloft to the sky.
What Baerd di Tigana bar Saevar cried he cried only in his heart and not aloud, but he went forward with all of them, a stalk of like a long blade in his hand, to do battle uhe pale green moon of that ented place.
Whehers fell, scaly and grey, blind and crawling with maggots, there was never any blood.
Elena uood why that was so, Donar had told her years ago: blood meant life, and their foes tonight were the ehe opposite, of any kind of life. When they fell to the swords nothing flowed from them, nothing seeped away into the earth.
There were so many of them. There always were, swirling in a grey mass like slugs, p down out of the hills and swarming into the stream where Donar and Mattio and Baerd had e to make their stand.
Elena prepared herself to fight, amid the loud, whirling, green-tinted chaos of the night. She was frightened, but she knew she could deal with that. She remembered how deathly afraid shed been in her first Ember war, w how she—she who could scarcely have even lifted a sword in the daytime world—could possibly battle such hideous creatures as the nightmare ones she saw.
But Donar and Verzar had assuaged her fears: here in this green night of magic it was the soul and the spirit that mattered, here it was ce and desire that shaped and drove the bodies in which they found themselves. Ele so much stronger on the Ember Nights, so much more lithe and quick. That had frightened her, too, the first time and even afterward: uhis green moon she was someone who could kill. It was a realization she had to deal with, an adjustment to be made. They all did, to one degree or another. None of them were exactly what they were uhe sun or the two moons of home. Donars body on this night of war reached backwards, further every year, toward a lost image of what he once had been.
Just as Baerds very clearly, reached back as well, more than one might have guessed or expected.
Fifteen, he had said. Not fourteen, or he would not have been allowed. She didnt uand that, but she had no time to puzzle such things out. Not now. The Others were iream, and now they were trying to clamber out, clad in the hideous shapes her mind gave them.
She dodged a scything axe-blow from a creature dripping with water as it scrambled up the bank towards her, and as she did she gritted her teeth and slashed downward with an instinctive deadliness she would have never known was hers. She felt her blade, her living sword, ch hard through scaly armor and bury itself in the maggot-ied body of her foe.
She pulled the on free with an effort, hating what she had done, but hating the Others more, infinitely more. She turned—barely in time to bloother asding blow and withdraw a step before two neejawed assailants on her right. She lifted her blade in a desperate attempt to ward.
Then suddenly only one of the Others was standing there. Theher of them.
She lowered her sword and looked at Baerd. At her stranger on the road, her promise given by the night. He smiled grimly at her, tight-lipped, standing over the bodies of the Others he had just killed. He smiled, and he had saved her life, but he said nothing to her at all. He turned a forward to the edge of the river. She watched him go, saw his boys body stride into the thiess of battle, and she wasnt sure whether to give way to a rush of hope because of his deadly skill or to grieve for the look in his too young eyes.
Again, no time for such thoughts. The river seethed and boiled now with the ing of the Others as they waded into it. Screams of pain, cries e and fury cut the green night like blades of sound. She saw Donar along the bank to the south swinging his sword two-handed in wheeling circles of denial. Saw Mattio beside him, slashing and stabbing, -footed among the fallen bodies, absolute in his ce.
All about her the Night Walkers of Certando plunged into the caldron of their war.
She saw a woman fall, then another, swarmed over and hacked down by the creatures from the west.
She cried out herself then, in fury and revulsion, and she moved back up to the edge of the river, running to where na was, her sword swinging forward, her blood—her blood which was life, and the promise of life—raging with the o drive them back. Baow, tonight, and then again a year from now, and after that, and again and again on each of these Ember Nights, that the spring sowing might be fruitful, that the earth be allowed to bear its bounty in the fall. This year and the year, and the .
In the midst of that chaos of noise and motion, Elena glanced up. She checked the height of the still- climbing moon, and then—she could not stop herself—she looked to the of the devastated hills beyond the stream, apprehension clutg at her heart. There was no ohere. Not yet.
There would be, though. She was almost certain there would be. And then? She pulled herself back from that. What would happen would happen. Arouhere was war, here and now, and more than enough terror ihers massed before her, surging up out of the river oher side.
She tore her thoughts from the hill and struck downwards, hard, feeling her blade bite into a scabrous shoulder. She heard the Other make a wet, bubbly sound. She jerked her sword free and spu barely in time to block a sideways blow, scrambling to keep her footing. nas free hand braced her from behind; she didnt even have time to look but she knew who it was.
It was wild uhe unknown stars, uhe green light of that moon, it was frenzy and chaos; there was screaming and shouting everywhere now, and the riverbank was muddy, slippery and treacherous. Elenas Others were wet and grey, dark with their parasites and open sores. She ched her teeth and fought, letting this Ember Night bodys grace be guided by her soul, the stalk that was her sword dang with a life that seemed to e from within itself as much as it did from her. She lashed with mud and water, and she was sure there must be blood, but there was no time to cheo time now to do anything at all but parry and hammer and slash, and fight to keep ones footing on the slope of the riverbank, for to fall would be to die.
She was aware, in scattered, halluatory flashes, of Donar beside her and na for a time. Then she saw him stride away with a handful of others to quell a movement to the south. Baerd came up on her left at one point, guarding her open side, but when she glanced ain—and now the moon was very high—she saw he was gohen she saw where. He was in the river, not waiting for the Others to e to him. He was attag them ier, screaming i words she could not uand. He was slim and young and very beautiful, and deadly. She saw bodies of the Others piling before his feet like grey sludge blog the stream. He would be seeing them differently, she knew. He had told them what he saw: he would be seeing soldiers of Ygrath, of Brandin, the Tyrant in the west.
His blade seemed almost to vanish in a blur, it moved so fast. Knee-deep iream he stood rooted like a tree and they could not force him back, or survive in front of him. The Others were falling back from him there, scrambling to withdraw, trying to work their way around their owo get further dowream. He was driving them away, battling alone ier, the moonlight strange on
his fad strange on the living stalk that was his sword, and he was a fifteen-year-old boy. Only that.
Elenas heart ached for him, even as she fought an overwhelming weariness.
She willed herself to hold her own ground, north of where he was, up on the muddy bank. na was further south along the river now, fighting beside Donar. Two men and a woman from another village came up beside Elena, and together the four of them fought for their stretch of slippery ground, trying to move in cert, to be of one mind.
They were not fighters, not trained for battle. They were farmers and farmers wives, millers and blacksmiths and weavers, masons and serving-girls, goatherds in the hills of the Braccie. But ead every one of them had been born with a caul in the highlands and named in childhood for Carlozzis teags and for the Ember war. And uhe green moon—which had passed its apex and would be setting now—the passion of their souls taught their hands to speak for life with the blades the tall grain had bee.
So the Night Walkers of Certando did battle by that river, fighting for the deepest, oldest dream of the widespreading try fields beyond all the high city walls. A dream of Earth, of the life-giving soil, rid moist and flourishing in its cycle of seasons and years; a dream of the Others driven back, and farther back, and finally away, one bright year none of them would live to see.
And there came a time, amid the tumult and the frenzy, the loud, blurred, spinning violence by the river, when Elena ahree panions fed a respite for themselves. She had a moment to look up and she saw that the stream was thinning of foes. That the Others were milling about, disanized and fused west of the river. She saw Baerd splash further into the water, hip-deep now, g for the eo e to him, cursing them in a voice so torme was scarcely knowable as his own.
Elena could barely stand. She leaned on her sword, sug in air with heaving sobs, utterly spent.
She looked over and saw that one of the men who had fought beside her was down on one knee, clutg his right shoulder. He bled from an ugly, ragged wound. She k beside him, tearing weakly at her clothing for a strip to bind it with. He stopped her though.
He stopped her and touched her shoulder and, mutely, he pointed across the stream. She looked where he pointed, away to the west, fear rising in her again. And hi that moment of seeming victory Elena saw that the of the hill was y anymore. That there was something standing there.
"Look!" a man cried just then, from further down the river. "He is with them again! We are undone!”
Other voices took up that cry along the riverbank, in grief and horror and cold fear, for they saw, they all saw now, that the shadow figure had e. Within the darkest spaces of her heart Elena had known that he would.
Just as he almost always had these last years. Fifteen years, twenty; though never before that, Donar had said. When the moon began to set, green and full, just when—so much of the time—it seemed as if they might have a ce to force the Others back, that dark figure would appear, to stand ed in fog and mist as hi a shroud at the back of the enemy ranks.
And it was this figure the Walkers would see e forward in the years of their defeats, when they were retreating, having been driven back. It was he who would step onto the bitterly tested places of battle, the lost fields, and claim them for his own. And blight and disease and desolation spread where he passed, wherever he walked upon the earth.
He stood now on the of the wasted hills west of the river, clouds of obsg mist rising and flowing all around him. Elena could not dis his faone of them ever had—but from within that smoke and darkness she saw him raise his hands and stretch them out toward them, reag, reag for the Walkers on the riverbank. And as he did Ele a sudden shaft of ess e into her heart, a terrible, numbing chill. Her legs began to tremble. She saw that her hands were shaking and it seemed that there was nothing she could do, nothing at all, to hold her ce to her.
Across the stream the Others, his army or his allies or the amorphous projes of his spirit, saw
him stretch his arms toward the battlefield. Elena heard a sudden savage exultation in their cries; she saw them massi of the river to e at them again. And she remembered, weary and spent, with a grim despair reag into her heart, that this was exactly how it had been last year, and the spring before that, and the spring before as well. Her spirit ached with the knowledge of loss to e, even as she fought to find a way to ready her exhausted body to faother charge.
Mattio was beside her. "No!" she heard him gasp, with a dull, hopeless insistence, blindly fighting the power of that figure on the hill. "Not this time! Not! Let them kill me! Not retreat again!”
He could scarcely speak, and he was bleeding, she saw. There was a gash in his right side, another along his leg. Wheraighteo move to the river she saw that he was limping. He was doing it though, he was moving forward, even into the face of what was being leveled at them. Ele a sob escape her dry throat.
And now the Others were ing again. The wounded man beside her struggled gamely up from his knees, holding his sword in his left hand, his useless right arm dangling at his side. Further along the bank she saw men and women as badly wounded or worse. They were all standing though, and lifting their blades. With love, with a shafting of pride that was akin to pain, Elena saw that the Night Walkers were not retreating. None of them. They were ready to hold this ground, or to try. And some of them were going to die now she knew, many of them would die.
Then Donar was beside her, and Elena fli what she saw in his white face. "No," he said.
"This is folly. We must fall back. We have no choice. If we lose too many tonight it will be even worse spring. I have to play for time, to hope for something that will make a ge." The words sounded as if they were scraped from his throat.
Ele herself beginning to cry, from exhaustion as much as anything else. And even as she was nodding from within the abyss of her weariness, trying to let Donar see her uanding, her support, wanting to ease the rawness of his pain, even as the Others drew near again, triumphant, hideous, unwearied, she abruptly realized that Baerd wasnt with them on the bank. She wheeled toward the river, looking for him, and so she saw the miracle begin.
He was never in any doubt, all. From the moment the mist-ed figure appeared on the black hill Baerd knew what it was. In an odd way he had known this even before the shadow-figure came.
It was why he was here, Baerd realized. Dht not know it, but this was why the Elder had had a dream of someone ing, why Baerds steps that night had taken him to the place where Elena was watg in the dark. It seemed to have been a long time ago.
He couldhe figure clearly but that didnt matter, it really didnt. He knew what this was about.
It was as if all the sorrows and the lessons and the labors of his life, his and Alessans together, had brought him to this river uhis green moon that someone here might kly what the figure on the black hill was, the nature of its power. The power the Night Walkers had not been able to withstand because they could not uand.
He heard a splash behind him and knew instinctively that it would be Mattio. Without turning he handed him his strange sword. The Others—the Ygrathens of his dreams and hate—were massing again on the western bank.
He ighem. They were tools. Right now they did not matter at all. They had beeen by the ce of Donar and the Walkers; only the shadow-figure signified now, and Baerd knew what was o deal with that. Not a prowess of blades, not even with these swords of grain. They were past that now.
He drew a deep breath, and he raised his hands from his sides and pointed up at that shrouded figure on the hill, exactly as the figure ointing down at them. And with his heart full to overflowing with old grief and a youainty, scious that Alessan would say it better, but knowing that this had bee his task, and knowing also what had to be done, Baerd cried aloud irangeness of that
night: "Be gone! We do not fear you! I know what you are and where your power lies! Be gone or I shall name you now and cut your strength apart—we both know the power of onight!”
Gradually the raucous cries subsided oher side of the river, and the murmurs of the Walkers faded. It grew very still, deathly still. Baerd could hear Mattios labored, painful breathing just behind him. He didnt look back. He waited, straining to pee the mist that ed the figure on the hill.
And as he stared it seemed to him, with a surge in his heart, that the upraised arms were lowered slightly.
That the cealing mist dissipated a very little.
He waited no longer.
"Be gone!" he cried again, more loudly yet, a ringing sureness in his voiow. "I have said I know you and I do. You are the spirit of the violators here. The presence of Ygrath in this peninsula, and of Barbadior. Both of them! You are tyranny in a land that has been free. You are the blight and the ruin in these fields. You have used yi the west to shape a desecration, to obliterate a name. Yours is a power of darkness and shadow uhis moon, but I know you and ame you, and so all your shadows are gone/”
He looked, and even as he eaking the words that came to him he saw that they were true! It was happening. He could see the mist drifting apart, as if taken by a wind. But even in the midst of joy something checked him: a knowledge that the victory was only here, only in this unreal place. His heart was full ay at one and the same time. He thought of his father dying by the Deisa, of his mother, of Dianora, and Baerds hands went flat and rigid at his sides, even as he heard the murmurs of disbelieving hope rising at his back.
Mattio whispered something in a choked voice. Baerd k would be a prayer.
The Others were milling about in disarray west of the stream. Even as Baerd watched, motionless, his hands held outwards, his heart in turmoil, more of the shadows cloaking their leader lifted and spread, beginning to blow away over the brow of the hill. For one moment Baerd thought he saw the figure clearly. He thought he saw it bearded and slim, and of medium height, and he knew which of the Tyrants that one would be, whie had e from the west. And something rose within him at that sight, crashing through to the surface like a wave breaking against his soul.
"My sword!" he rasped. "Quickly!”
He reached back. Mattio placed it in his hand. In front of them the Others were starting to fall back, slowly at first, then faster, and suddenly they were running. But that didnt even matter; that didnt matter at all.
Baerd looked up at the figure on the hill. He saw the last of the shadows blowing away and he lifted his voice more, g aloud the passion of his soul: "Stay for me! If yrath, if you are truly the sorcerer of Ygrath I want you now! Stay for me—I am ing! In the name of my home and of my father I am ing for you now! I am Baerd di Tigana bar Saevar!”
Wildly, still screaming his challenge, he splashed forward and clambered out of the stream, scrambling up the other bank. The ruih felt cold as ice through his wet boots. He realized that he had entered a terrain that had no real place for life, but tonight, now, with that figure before him on the hill, that didnt matter either. It didnt matter if he died.
The army of the Others was in flight, they were throwing down their ons as they ran. There was no oo gainsay him. He glanced up again. The moon seemed to be setting unnaturally fast. It looked as if it was resting now, round and huge, on the very of the black hill. Baerd saw the figure standing there silhouetted against that green moon; the shadows were gone, almost he saw it clearly again across the dead lands between.
Then he heard a long laugh of mockery, as if in respoo his g of his was the laughter of his dreams, the laughter of the soldiers in the year of the fall. Still laughing, not hurrying at all, the
shadow-figure turned and stepped down from the of the hill and away to the west.
Baerd began to run.
"Baerd, wait!" he heard the woman, na, cry from behind him. "You must not be on the wastelands when the moon goes down! e back! We have won!”
They had won. But he had not, whatever the Walkers of the highlands might think, or say. His battle, his and Alessans, was no nearer resolution than it had been before tonight. Whatever he had done for the Night Walkers of Certando, this nights victory was not his, it could not be. He khat in his heart. And his enemy, the image of his souls hate, khat as well as he and was laughing at him even now just out of sight beyond the brow of that low hill.
"Stay for me!" Baerd screamed again, his young, lost voice ripping through the night.
He ran, flashing over the dead earth, his heart bursting with the need for speed. He overtook stragglers among the army and he killed them as he ran, not even breaking stride. It hardly mattered, it was only for the Walkers in their war, for year. The Others scattered north and south, away from him, from the lihat led to the hill.
Baerd reached the slope a straight up, scrabbling for a foothold on the cold waste ground.
Then he breasted the hill with a surge and a gasp.
Aood upon the summit, exactly where the shadow-figure had stood, and he looked away to the west, toward all the empty valleys and ruined hills beyond, and saw nothing. There was no ohere at all.
He turned quickly north and then south, his chest heaving, and saw that the army of the Others, too, seemed to have entirely melted away. He spun back to the west and then he uood.
The green moon had set.
He was alone in this wasteland under a clear, high dome of brilliant, alien stars and Tigana was no o ing back than it had ever been. And his father was still dead and would never e ba, and his mother and sister were dead, or lost somewhere in the world.
Baerd sank to his knees on the ruined hill. The ground was cold as winter. It was colder. His sword slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers. He looked at his hands by starlight, at the slim hands of the boy he had been, and then he covered his face with those hands for the sed time in that Ember Night, and he wept as though his heart were breaking now and not broken long ago.
Elena reached the hill and began to climb. She was breathless from running but the slope was not steep. Mattio had grabbed her arm whearted to ehe river. He had said it might meah to be among the ruined lands after moo, but Donar had told her it would be all right now. Donar had been uo stop smiling since Baerd had made the shadow-figure withdraw. There was a stunned, incredulous glory in his face.
Most of the Walkers had gone back, wounded and weary, intoxicated with triumph, to the field where they had claimed their ons. From there they would be drawn home before sunrise. So it had always happened.
Carefully avoiding Mattios eyes, Elena had crossed the river and e after Baerd. Behind her as she went she could hear the singing begin. She knew what would follow in the sheltering hollows and the darkness of that field after an Ember victory. Ele her pulse accelerate with the very thought. She could guess what Mattios face would have revealed as she walked away from him into the river and then across. In her heart she offered him an apology, but her stride as she went did not falter, and then, halfway to the hill, she began to run, suddenly afraid for the man she sought, and for herself, alone in all this wide dark emptiness.
Baerd was sitting on the of the hill, where the shadow-figure had stood in front of the setting moon just before he fled. He glanced up as she approached, and a queer, frightened expression flickered
for an instant across his fa the starlit dark.
Elena stopped, uain.
"It is only me," she said, trying to catch her breath.
He was silent a moment. "Im sorry," he said. "I wasnt expeg anyone. For a moment ... for a moment you looked almost exactly like a ... like something I saw once as a boy. Something that ged my life.”
Elena didnt know what to say to that. She had thought no further thaing here. Now that she had found him she was suddenly unsure of herself again. She sat down on the dead earth fag him. He watched her, but said nothing else.
She took a deep breath and said, bravely, "You should have expected someone. You should have known that I would e." She swallowed hard, her heart pounding.
For a long moment Baerd was very still, his head tilted a little to one side, as if listening to the echo of her words. Then he smiled. It lit up his young, too thin fad the hollow, wounded eyes.
"Thank you," he said. "Thank you for that, Elena." It was the first time hed used her name. In the distahey could hear the singing from the field. Overhead the stars were almost impossibly bright in the black arch of the sky.
Ele herself flushing. She glanced down and away from his direct gaze. She said, awkwardly, "After all, it is dangerous here in the dead lands, and you wouldnt have known. Not having been here before. With us, I mean. You wouldnt even know how to get bae.”
"I have an idea," he said gravely. "I imagine we have until sunrise. And in any case, these arent the dead lands anymore. We won them back tonight. Elena, look at the ground where you walked.”
She turo look back. And caught her breath in wonder and delight to see that along the path shed taken to this hill white flowers were blooming in what had been barreh.
Even as she watched she saw that the flowers were spreading in all dires from where she had passed. Tears sprang to her eyes and spilled liding unheeded down her cheeks, making her vision blur. She had seen enough though, she uood. This was the Earths respoo what they had doonight. Those delicate white flowers ing to life uhe stars were the most beautiful things she had seen in all her days.
Quietly, Baerd said, "You have caused this, Elena. Your being here. You must teach Donar and na and the others this. When you win the Ember war it is not only a matter of holding the line of battle. You must follow the Others and drive them back, Elena. It is possible tain lands lost in battle years before.”
She was nodding. Hearing in his words an echo of something known and fotten long ago. She spoke the memory: "The land is ruly dead. It always e back. Or what is the meaning of the cycle of seasons and years?" She wiped her tears away and looked at him.
His expression in the darkness was much too sad for a moment such as this. She wished she knew a way to dispel that sorrow, and not only for tonight. He said, "That is mostly true, I suppose. Or true for the largest things. Smaller things die. People, dreams, a home.”
Impulsively Elena reached forward and took his hand. It was fine and slender and it lay in hers quietly but without response. In the distance, east of the river, the Night Walkers were singing songs to celebrate and wele the spring, to cry the blessing of the season on the crops that summer would see.
Elena wished with all her heart that she were wiser, that she might have an ao what lay so deeply and hurtfully ihis man.
She said, "If we die that is part of the cycle. We e ba another form." But that was Donars thought, his way of speaking, not her own.
Baerd was silent. She looked at him, but she could find nothing withio say that wouldnt sound
wrong, or be someone elses words. So instead, thinking it might somehow help him to speak, she asked, "You said you khe shadow-figure. How, Baerd? you tell me?" It was a strange, almost an illicit pleasure to speak his name.
He smiled at her thely. He had a gentle face, especially young as it was now. "Donar had all the clues himself, and Mattio, all of you. You had been losing for twenty years or so they told me. Donar said I was too much tied to the transitory battles of day, do you remember?”
Elena nodded.
"He wasnt wholly wrong," Baerd went on. "I saw Ygrathen soldiers here, and they were not truly so of course. I uand that now. Dearly as I might have wished them to be. But I wasnt wholly wroher." For the first time his hand put an answering pressure on her own. "Elena, evil feeds on itself. And the evils of day, however transitory, must add to the power of what you face here on the Ember Nights.
They must, Elena, it ot but be so. Everything ects. We ot afford to look only at our own goals. That is the lesson the dearest friend of my life has taught me. The Tyrants in our peninsula have shaped a wrong that goes deeper than who governs in a given year. And that evil has spilled over into this battlefield where you fight Darkness in the name of Light.”
"Darkness adding to Darkness," she said. She wasain what had led her to say that.
"Exactly," Baerd said. "Exactly so. I uand your battles here now, how far they go beyond my own war in the daylight world. But going far beyond doeshere is no e. That was Donars mistake. It was before him all along, if only he could have seen.”
"And the naming," Elena asked. "What did the naming have to do with it?”
"Naming has everything to do with it," Baerd said quietly. He withdrew his hand from hers and rubbed it across his eyes. "Names matter even more here in this plaagic than they do at home where we mortals live and die." He hesitated. And after a silence made deeper by the singing far away, he whispered, "Did you hear me name myself?”
It seemed almost a silly question. He had cried it at the top of his voice. All of them had heard. But his expression was too intense for her to do anything but answer.
"I did," she said. "You named yourself Baerd di Tigana bar Saevar.”
And moving very slowly then, very deliberately, Baerd reached for and claimed her hand, and brought it to his lips, as though she were the lady of one of the highland castles, and not only the wheelwrights widowed daughter from the village below Borso.
"Thank you," he said, in a queer voice. "Thank you so much. I thought ... I thought it might possibly be different tonight. Here.”
The back of her hand was tingling where his lips had touched her and her pulse was suddeically fast. Fighting for posure, Elena asked, "I dont uand. What did I do?”
His sorrow was still there, but somehow it seemed gentler now, less naked in his face. He said, quite calmly, "Tigana is the name of a land that was taken away. Its loss is part of the evil that brought the shadow-figure to this hill, and to all your other battlefields for twenty years now. Elena, you wont uand this pletely, you t, but believe me when I tell you that you could not have heard the name of that land ba your village, whether by the light of day or uhe two moons. Not even if I spoke it to you from as near as we are now, or cried it louder than I did withiream.”
And now, finally, she did uand. Not the difficult sum of what he was trying to vey, but the thing that mattered more for her: the source of his grief, of that look in the dark of his eyes.
"And Tigana is your home," she said. Not a question. She knew.
He nodded. Very calm. He was still holding her hand, she realized. "Tigana is my home," he echoed.
"Men call it Lower Corte now.”
She was silent a long moment, thinking hard. Then, "You must speak of this to Donar," she said.
"Before m takes us back. There may be something he knows about such matters, something he do to help. And he will want to help.”
Something flickered in his face. "Ill do that," he said. "Ill speak to him before I go.”
They were both silent then. Before I go. Elena pushed that away as best she could. She became aware that her mouth was dry and her heart was still pounding, almost as it had in battle. Baerd did not move.
He looked so young. Fifteen, he had said. She glanced away, uain again, and saw that all around them now the hill itself was covered with a carpet of white flowers.
"Look!" she said, delighted and awed.
He looked around, and smiled then, from the heart.
"Yht them with you," he said.
Below them a, in the field of across the river only a few voices were still singing. Elena knew what that would mean. This was the first of the Ember Nights of spring. The beginning of the year, of the cycle of sowing and harvest. And tonight they had won the Ember war. She knew what would be happening among the men and women in that field. Overhead, the stars seemed to have e o be almost as close to them as the flowers.
She swallowed, and summoned her ce again. She said: "There are other things that are different about tonight. Here.”
"I know," Baerd said softly.
And then he moved, finally, and was on his knees before her among all the young white flowers. He released her palm then, but only to take her face between his two hands, so carefully it seemed as if he feared she might break or bruise to his touch. Over the rapidly growing thunder of her pulse, Elena heard him whisper her name once, as if it were a kind of prayer, and she had time to answer with his—with all of his name, as a gift—before he lowered his mouth to hers.
She could not have spoken after that, for desire and need crashed over her and bore her away as something—a chip of wood, a fragment of bark—carried by a huge and rushing wave. Baerd was with her, though. They were together here in this place, and then they were naked among the newly sprung white flowers of that hill.
And as she drew him down and into her, feeling the keenness of longing and an ag tenderness, Elena looked up for a moment past his shoulder at all the cirg, luminous stars of the Ember Night.
And it came to her as a wonderful and joyous thought that every single diamond of those stars would have a name.
Then Baerds rhythm ged above her, and her own awakened desire with it, and all thoughts scattered from her like dust strewween those stars. She moved her head so her mouth could seek and find his own and she closed her arms around him and gathered him to her and closed her eyes, and they let that high wave carry them into the beginning of spring.
chapter 12
THE COLD AND A CRAMPED STIFFNESS WOKE DEVIN ABOUT AN hour before su took him a moment to remember where he was. It was still dark in the room. He massaged.. his ned listeo Catrianas quiet breathing from under her blas in the bed. A rueful expression crossed his face.
It was strange, he reflected, twisting his head from side to side to try to ease the soreness, how only a few hours in a soft armchair could leave one feeling more knotted and unfortable than a whole night out on cold ground He felt surprisingly awake though, given the night hed just had and the fact that he couldnt have been asleep for more than three hours or so. He sidered going back to his own bed but realized that he wasnt going to be able to sleep any more that night. He decided to go down to the kits and see if any of the household staff could be io make him a pot of khav.
He left the room, trating on closing the door silently behind him. So much so that when he saw Alessan standing in the hallway watg him from in front of his own door he jumped involuntarily.
The Prince walked over, eyebrows arched.
Devin shook his head firmly. "We just talked. I slept in the chair. Got a kink in my o show for it.”
"Im sure," Alessan murmured.
"No, really," Devin insisted.
"Im sure," Alessaed. He smiled. "I believe you. If you had essayed more I would have heard screaming—yours with an unpleasant injury, most likely.”
"Very likely," Devin agreed. They walked away from Catrianas door.
"How was Alienor though?”
Devi himself going red. "How . . . ?" he began, then gradually became aware of the dition of his clothing and the amused scrutiny Alessan was giving him, "Iing," he offered.
Alessan smiled again. "e downstairs with me and help solve a problem. I need some khav for the road anyhow.”
"I was on the way to the kits myself. Give me two mio ge my clothes.”
"Not a bad idea," Alessan murmured, eyeing the torn shirt. "Ill meet you down there.”
Devin ducked into his own chamber and quickly ged. Food measure he pulled on the vest Alais had sent him. Thinking of her, of her sheltered, quiet innoce, took him back—by polarity—to what had happened last night. He stood stock-still in the middle of his room for a moment and tried to prrasp what he had done, and had doo him.
Iing, he had just called it. Language. The process of sharing with words seemed such a futile exercise sometimes. A remnant of the sadness hed felt, leaving Alienor, washed back over him and it picked up Catrianas sorrows too. He felt as if hed been washed up by the sea on some grey beach at a bleak hour.
"Khav," Devin said aloud. "Or Ill never get out of this mood.”
On the way downstairs he realized, belatedly, what Alessan had meant by "for the road." His meeting, wherever it was, was today— the enter theyd been pointing toward for half a year.
And after tha99lｉb?t he would be ridi. To Tigana. Where his mother lay dying in a Sanctuary of Eanna.
Wide awake, his mind snapping from night refles into the sharper agitations of the day, Devin followed a glow of light to the huge kits of Castle Borso and he paused in the arched doorway, looking within.
Sitting by the r fire, Alessan was carefully sipping steaming khav from an oversized mug. In a chair beside him Erlein di Senzio was doing the same. The two men were both gazing into the flames while all around them there was already a purposeful stir and bustle i.
Devin stood in the doorway a moment, unnoticed, and found himself looking closely at the two men.
In their silent gravity they seemed to him to be a part of a frieze, a tableau, emblemati some plex way of all such pre-dawn hours for those on the long roads.
her man was a strao this hour, Devio sitting thus before a castle kit fire among the servants in the last dark hour before dawn, easing into wakefulness and a fugitive warmth, preparing for the road again and whatever turnings it might offer in the day that had not yet begun.
It seemed to Devin that Alessan and Erlein, sitting together as they were, were bonded in some way that went beyond the harsh thing that had happened by that twilit stream in Ferraut. It was a lihat had nothing to do with Prind wizard, it was shaped of the things they each had dohe same things done. Memories they would each have and could share, if these two men could truly share anything after what had happened between them.
For years they had each been traveling. There had to be so many images that overlapped and could evoke the same mood, emotions, the same sounds and smells. Like this one: darkness outside, the edge of grey dawn and the castle stir the sun would bring, chill of the corridors and knowledge of wind outside the walls, cut by the crackle and roar of the kit fire; the reassuring steam and smell rising from their cradled mugs; sleep and dream reg, the mind slowly turning forward to the day that lay ahead swathed in ground mist. Looking at their stillness amid the bustle of the kit Devi another return of the sadhat seemed to be his legacy from this long strange night in the highlands.
Sadness, and a distinct stir of longing. Devin realized that he wahat shared history for himself, wao be a part of that self-tained, aplished fraternity of men who khis se so well.
He was young enough to savor the romance of it, but old enough —especially after this past winter and his time with Menico—to guess at the price demanded for those memories and the tained, solitary, petent look of the two men in front of him.
He stepped through the doorway. A pretty servant noticed him and smiled shyly. Without a word she brought him a scalding mug of khav. Alessan glanced over at him and hooked a third chair with his long leg, pulling it into a position near him by the fire. Devin walked over and sank gratefully dowhe warmth. His stiffened neck was still b him.
"I didnt even have to be charming," Alessaed cheerfully. "Erlein was already here and had started in on a fresh pot of khav. There were people i all night to keep the fires going.
Couldnt have lit new ones on an Ember Day.”
Devin nodded, sipping carefully and with intense gratitude from his steaming mug. "And the other question you mentioned?" he asked guardedly, with a gla Erlein.
"Solved," the Prince said promptly. He seemed unnaturally bright, brittle as kindling. "Erleins going to have to e with me. Weve established that I t let him get too far away or my summons wont work. And if thats the case, well he simply has to go where I go. All the way west. We really do seem to be tied together, dont we?" He flashed his teeth in a smile at the wizard. Erlein didnt bother to respond; he tio sip his drink, gazing expressionlessly into the fire.
"Why were you up so early?" Devin asked him, after a moment.
Erlein made a sour face. "Slavery doesnt agree with my rest," he mumbled into his khav.
Devied to ighat. There were times when he really did feel sorry for the wizard, but not when Erlein trotted out his reflexive self-pity.
A thought struck Deviuro Alessan. "Is he going to your meeting this m, too?”
"I suppose," Alessan said with apparent carelessness. "A small reward for his loyalty and the long ride hell have afterward. I expect to travel without stopping very much." His tone was genuinely odd; too deliberately casual, as if denying the very possibility of strain.
"I see," Devin said, as rally as he could manage. He turned his gaze to the fire a it there.
There was a silence. When it stretched, Devin looked bad saw Alessan looking at him.
"Do you want to e?" the Prince asked.
Did he want to e? For half a year, from the moment Devin and Sandre had joihe other three, Alessan had been telling them that everything they wao achieve would point toward and wait upon a meeting in these southern highlands on the first of the Ember Days.
Did he want to e?
Devin coughed, spilling some khav oone floor. "Well," he said, "not if Im in the way, naturally. Only if you think I could be useful and if maybe I could . . .”
He trailed off because Alessan was laughing at him.
Even Erlein had been roused from his sulk to a faint, relut snort of amusement. The two older men exged a glance.
"You are a terrible liar," the wizard said to Devin.
"Hes right," Alessan said, still chug. "But never mind. I dont actually think you be useful— it isnt iure of what I have to do. But Im certain you wont do any harm and you and Erlein keep each other eained. Itll be a very long ride.”
"What? To the meeting?" Devin asked, startled.
Alessan shook his head. "Only two or three hours there, depending oate of the pass this m. No, Devin, Im inviting you west with me." His voice altered. "Home.”
"Pigeon!" the balding, burly-chested man cried, though they were still some distance away. He sat in a massive oak chair set squarely down in the middle of the Braccio Pass. There had been early spring flowers blooming on the lower slopes but not very many this far up. Oher side of the path piled rod stone yielded to forest. Further up, to the south, there was only rod snow.
Carrying-poles were attached to the oak chair and six men stood behind it in burgundy livery. Devin thought they were servants, but when he came nearer he saw from their ons that he was wrong: these were soldiers, and guards.
"Pigeon," the man in the chair repeated loudly. "You have risen in the world! Y panions this time!”
It was with a genuine sense of disorientation that Devin realized that the childish name and the raucous, carrying words were addressed to Alessan.
Who had the oddest look to his face all of a sudden. He said nothing by way of reply though as they rode up to the seven men in the pass. Alessan dismounted; behind him Devin and Erlein did the same. The man in the chair did not rise to greet them, but his bright, small eyes followed every move that Alessan made. His enormous hands were motionless on the carved arms of the chair. He wore at least six rings; they sparkled in the light of the m sun. He had a hooked much-broken nose in a leathery, weather- beaten face that showed two livid scars. One was an old wound, slanting down his right cheek in a white lihe other, much more ret, raked redly across his forehead to the greying, reg hairline above his left ear.
"pany for the ride," Alessan said mildly. "I wasnt sure if youd e. They both sing. Could have soled me on the way back. The young one is Devin, the other is Erlein. Youve grown monstrous fat in a year.”
"And why should I not grow fat?" the other roared in delight. "And how dare you doubt that I would e! Have I ever not kept faith with you?" The tone was boisterous ireme, but Devin saw that the small eyes were alert and very watchful.
"Not ever," Alessan agreed calmly. His own febrile manner had goo be replaced by an almost preternatural calm. "But things have ged siwo years ago. You dont need me anymore. Not since last summer.”
"Not need you!" the big man cried. "Pigeon, of course I need you. You are my youth, my memory of what I was. And my talisman of fortune in battle.”
"No more battles though," said Alessan quietly. "Will you allow me to offer my humblest gratulations?”
"No!" the rowled. "No, I will not allow you. No such mewling courtly claptrap from you.
What I want is for you to e here and hug me and stop this imbecilic maundering! Who are we to be cluttering like this? The two of us!”
And with the last words he propelled himself upright with a ferocious push of his two muscled arms.
The huge oak chair rocked backwards. Three of the liveried guards sprang to bala.
The big man took tard, crippled, hopping steps forward as Alessan strode to meet him. And in that moment Devin abruptly realized—a bucket of ice down the length of his spine—who this scarred, maimed man had to be.
"Bear!" said Alessan, laughter catg in his throat. He threw his arms fiercely about the other man.
"Oh, Marius, I truly didnt know if you would e.”
Marius.
Stupefied by more than altitude and a sleepless night, Devin saw the self-ed King of Quileia— the crippled man whod killed seven armed challengers bare-handed hi the sacred grove—lift the Prince of Tigana off his feet and kiss him loudly on both cheeks. He lowered a red-faced Alessan to the path and held him at arms length for a close scrutiny.
"It is true," he said at length as Alessans grin faded. "I see it. You ?really did doubt me. I should be ed, Pigeon. I should be wounded and hurt. What did Pigeon Two say?”
"Baerd was sure you would be here," Alessan admitted ruefully. "Im afraid I owe him money.”
"At least one of you has grown up enough to have some sense,”
Marius growled. Then something seemed tister with him. "What? You two young scamps were wagering on me? How dare you!" He was laughing, but the blow he suddenly clapped on Alessans shoulder made the other man stagger.
Marius hobbled back to his chair and sat down. Again Devin was struck by the all-embrag nature of the glance he turned on them. Only for an instant did it flit over Devin himself, but he had the uny sehat Marius had, in that one sed, sized him up quite prehensively, that he would be reized and remembered should they meet by ce even a decade hence.
He experienced a weird, fleeting moment of pity for the seven warriors who had had to battle this man, bringing merely swords or spears, and armor and two good legs to meet him in a night grove.
Those arms like tree-trunks and the message in those eyes told Devin all he o know about which way the balance would have tilted in those battles despite the ritual maiming—the severed aendons—of the sort who was supposed to die in the grove, to the greater glory of the Moddess and her High Priestess.
Marius had not died. For anyones greater glory. Seven times he had not died. And now, sihat seventh time, there was a true King in Quileia again and the last High Priestess was dead. It had been Rovigo, Devin remembered suddenly, who had first given him that news. In a rancid tavern called The Bird, either half a year or half a lifetime ago.
"You must have been slipping or lazy or already fat last summer in the Grove," Alessan was saying.
He gestured toward the sariuss forehead. "Tonalius should never have been able to get that close to you with a blade.”
The smile on the face of the King of Quileia was not, in truth, a pleasant thing to see. "He didnt,”
Marius said grimly. "I used our kick-drop from the twenty-seven tree and he was dead before we both hit the ground. The scar is a farewell token from my late wife in our last enter. May the sacred Mother of us all guard her ever-blessed spirit. Will you take wine and a midday meal?”
Alessans grey eyes blinked. "We would be pleased to," he said.
"Good," said Marius. He gestured to his guards. "In that case, while my men attend to laying things out for us you tell me, Pigeon, and I hope you will tell me, why you hesitated just now before accepting that invitation.”
It was Devins turn to blink; he hadnt eveered the pause.
Alessan was smiling though. "I wish," he said, with a wry twist of his mouth, "that you would miss something on a while." Marius smiled thinly, but did not speak. "I have a long ride ahead of me. At least three days, flat out. Someone I must get to, as soon as I .”
"More important than me, Pigeon? I am desolated.”
Alessan shook his head. "Not more important, or I wouldnt be here now. More pelling perhaps.
There was a message from Da-noleon waiting for me at Borso last night. My mother is dying.”
Mariuss expression ged swiftly. "I am deeply sorry," he said. "Alessan, truly I am." He paused.
"It could not have been easy for you to e here first, knowing that.”
Alessan gave his small characteristic shrug. His eyes moved away from Marius, gazing past him up the pass toward the high peaks beyond. The soldiers had finished spreading a quite extravagant golden cloth over the level ground in front of the chair. Now they began laying out multi-colored cushions upon it and putting down baskets and dishes of food.
"We will break bread together," Marius said crisply, "and discuss what we are here to discuss—then you must go. You trust this message? Is there danger for you iurning?”
Devin hadnt even thought about that.
"I suppose there is," Alessan said indifferently. "But yes, I trust Danoleon. Of course I do. He took me to you in the first place.”
"I am aware of that," Marius said mildly. "I remember him. I also know that uhings have greatly ged he is not the only priest in that Sanctuary of Eanna, and your clergy in the Palm have not been noted for their reliability.”
Alessan gave his shrug again. "What I do? My mother is dying. Ive not seen her in almost two decades, Bear." His mouth crooked. "I dont think I am likely to be reized by many people, even without Baerds disguises. Would you not say I have ged somewhat since I was fourteen?" There was a slight challenge in the words.
"Somewhat," Marius said quietly. "Not so much as one might think. You were a grown mahen, in many ways. So was Baerd when he came to join you.”
Again Alessans eyes seemed to drift a the line of the pass, as if chasing a memory or a far-off image to the south. Devin had an acute sehat there was much more being said here than he was hearing.
"e," Marius said, levering his hands on the chair arms. "Will you join me on our carpet in the meadow?”
"Stay in the chair!" Alessan rapped sharply. His expression remained ingruously benign and untroubled. "How many men came here with you, Bear?”
Marius had not moved. "A pany to the foothills. These six through the pass. Why?”
Moving easily, smiling carelessly, Alessan sat down on the cloth at the Kings feet. "Hardly wise, t so few up here.”
"There is little enough danger. My enemies are too superstitious to veo the mountains. You knoigeon. The passes were named as taboo long ago when they shut down trade with the Palm.”
"In that case," Alessan said, still smiling, "I am at a loss to explain the bowman I just saw behind a rock up the trail.”
"You are certain?" Mariuss voice was as casual as Alessans, but there was suddenly i his eyes.
"Twiow.”
"I am deeply distressed," said the King of Quileia. "Such a person is uo be here for any reason other than to kill me. And if they are breaking the mountain taboo I am going to be forced to rethink a number of assumptions. Will you take some wine?" He gestured, and one of the men in burgundy poured with a hand that trembled slightly.
"Thank you," Alessan murmured. "Erlein, you do anything here without it being known?”
The wizards face went pale, but he too kept his voice level. "Not any sort of attack. It would take too much power, and there is nothio s it from any Tracker in the highlands.”
"A shield for the King?”
Erleiated.
"My friend," Alessan said gravely, "I need you and I am going to tio need you. I know there is danger in using yic—for all of us. I must have ho ahough, to make intelligent decisions. Pour him some wine," he said to the Quileian soldier.
Erlein accepted a glass and drank. "I do a low-level s behind him against arrows." He stopped. "Do you want it? There is some risk.”
"I think I do," Alessan said. "Put up the shield as unobtrusively as you .”
Erleins mouth tightened but he said nothing. His left hand moved very slightly from side to side.
Devin could see the two missing fingers now, but nothing else happened, so far as he could tell.
"It is done," Erlein said grimly. "The risk will increase the longer I hold it up." He drank again from his wine.
Alessan nodded, accepting a wedge of bread and a plateful of meat and cheese from one of the Quileians. "Devin?”
Devin had been waiting. "I see the rock," he said quietly. "Up the path. On the right side. Arre. Send me home.”
"Take my horse. Theres a bow in the saddle.”
Devin shook his head. "He may notid Im not good enough with the bow anyhow. Ill do what I . ye to be noisy in about twenty minutes?”
"We be very noisy," said Marius of Quileia. "The climb back up and around will be easier to your left as you go down, just past the point where this path bends. Id very much like this person alive, by the way.”
Devin smiled. Marius suddenly roared with laughter and Alessan followed suit. Erlein was silent as Alessa an imperious hand out toward Devin.
"If you fot it then you fetch it, thimble-brain! Well be here, enjoying our meal. We may leave something for you.”
"It wasnt my fault!" Devin protested loudly, letting his smile fade to petulance. He turned back to where the horses were tethered. Shaking his head, visibly dissolate, he mounted his grey and rode dowh along which they had e.
As far as the bend irail.
He dismounted ahered the horse. After a moments thought he left his sword where it was, hanging from the saddle. He was aware that it was a decision that might cost him his life. Hed seen the wooded slopes beside the pass though; a sword would be awkward and noisy when he began to climb.
Cutting to the west he soon found himself among the trees. He doubled back south and up, as far off the line of the pass as the terrain allowed. It was hard, sweaty going, and he had to hurry, but Devin was fit and hed always been quid agile—pensations for a lack of size. He scrambled up the steep slopes, weaving among mountain trees and dark serrano bushes, grasping roots wedged deep into the slanting soil.
Part of the , the trees briefly gave out before a short, steep cliff to the south a. He could go up or he could go around, angling back toward the pass. Devin tried to guess his bearings but it was difficult—no sounds reached him this far off the trail. He couldnt be sure if he was already above the place where the Quileian cloth read for lunch. Twenty minutes, hed told them. He gritted his teeth, offered a quick prayer to Adaon, and began to climb the rock. It occurred to him that there was something profoundly ingruous about an Asolini farmers son from the northern marshes struggling up a cliff- fa the Braccie.
He wasnt an Asolini farmers son though. He was from Tigana and his father was, and his Prince had asked him to do this thing.
Devin skittered sideways along the rock-face trying not to dislodge any pebbles. He reached an outcrop of stone, ged grip, hung free for a sed, and then boosted himself straight up and onto it.
He scrambled quickly across some level ground, dropped flat on his stomad, breathing hard, looked up to the south.
And then straight down. He caught his breath, realizing how lucky hed been. There was a single figure hiding behind a boulder almost directly below him. Devin had quite certainly been visible on the last part of his climb where the cliff-face broke clear of the trees. His silence had served him well though, for the figure below was oblivious to him, avidly i on the group feasting oh. Devin couldhem, but their voices carried to him now. The sun moved behind a cloud and Devin instinctively flattened himself, just as the assassin glanced up to gauge the ge in the light.
For an archer it would matter, Devin knew. It was a long shot, downhill and partly sed by the guards. There would also be time, most likely, for only one arrow. He wondered if the tips were poisoned.
Probably, he decided.
Very carefully he started crawling uphill, trying to work his way further around behind the assassin.
His brain was rag as he slipped into a higher stand of trees. How was he going to get close enough to deal with an archer?
Just then he heard the sound of Alessans pipes followed, a measure later, by Erleins harp. A moment after that a number of voices started in on one of the oldest, most rollig highland ballads of all. About a legendary band of mountain outlaws who had ruled these hills and crags with arrogant impunity until they were surprised aed by Quileia aando together.
Thirty brave men rode apace from the north And forty Quileiahem side by side. There in the mountains each pledged to the other And Gan Burdash high in his roost defied!
The booming voiarius led the others into the refrain. By then Devin had remembered something and he knew what he was going to try to do. He was aware that there was more than a of luna his planning, but he also knew he didnt have much time, or many options.
His heart ounding. He wiped his hands dry on his breeches and began moving more quickly through the trees along the line of the ridge hed climbed. Behind him was the singing; beh him now, perhaps fiftee east of this higher ridge and twenty feet below was an assassin with a bow. The sun came out from behind the clouds.
Devin was above and behind the Quileian now. Had he been carrying a bow and been at all aplished with one he would have had the other at his mercy.
Instead, what he had was a knife, and a certain pride and trust in his own coordination, and a tall giant of a mountain piree rising all the to his ridge from just behind the boulder that sheltered the archer. He could see the other clearly now, clad in a masking green for the mountain trail, with a strung bow and half a dozen arrows to hand.
Devin knew what he had to do. He also knew—because there had been woods at home, if not mountain passes—that he could not climb down that tree with any hope of silenot even with the loud, seriously off-key voices sing his sounds from below.
Which left, so far as he could judge, only the oion. Others might have pla better, but others werent on this ridge. Devin wiped his damp palms very carefully dry again and began trating on a large branch that stretched out and away from the others. The only ohat might do him any good. He tried to calculate angle and distance as best he could, given an almost total lack of experie this particular maneuver. What he was about to try was not a thing one did for practice, anywhere.
He checked the hang of the dagger in his belt, wiped his hands one last time, and stood up. Absurdly, the flash of memory that came to him then was of the day his brothers had surprised him hanging upside down from a tree, trying to stretch his height.
Devin smiled tightly and stepped to the edge of the cliff. The branch looked absurdly far away, and it was only half of the way down to the level of the pass. He swore an inward oath that if he survived this Baerd was going to teach him how to use a bow properly.
From the path below he heard the ragged voices swirliically towards the climax of the ballad: Gan Burdash ruled in the mountais And with his band he ranged fr to glen, But seventy brave men tracked him to his lair And when the moons had set the peaks were free again!
Devin jumped. Air whistled past his face. The branch flew up to meet him, blurred, very fast. He stretched his hands, clutched it, swung. Only a little. Only enough to ge his angle of dest, cut his momentum. Bring him directly down upon the killer behind the rock.
The branch held, but the leaves crackled loudly as he pivoted. Hed known they would. The Quileian flung a startled glance skyward and grappled for the bow.
Not nearly fast enough. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Devin plummeted like some hunting bird of these high places. By the time his target began to move Devin was already there.
Our kick-drop from the twenty-seven tree, he thought.
Falling, he tilted his torso so that it angled sideways across the upper body of the Quileian and he kicked out hard with both feet as he did. The impact was siing. He felt his legs make jarring tact, even as he crashed into the other, driving all the air from his own lungs.
They smashed into the ground together, tumbling and rolling away from the base of the boulder.
Devin gasped agonizingly for breath, he felt the world sway and rock wildly in his sight. He gritted his teeth and groped for his dagger.
Then he realized it was not necessary.
Dead before we both hit the ground, Marius had said. With a shuddering heave Devin forced air into his tortured lungs. There was an odd, knifing pain running up his right leg. He forced himself to ig.
He rolled free of the unscious Quileian and struggled, gasping and wheezing, for another breath of precious air. And then he looked.
The assassin was a woman. Under all the circumstances, not a great surprise. She was not dead. Her forehead appeared to have glanced off the roder the impact of his sprawling dest. She was lying on her side, bleeding heavily from a scalp wound. He had probably broken a number of her ribs with his kick. She had a profusion of cuts and scrapes from their tumble down the slope.
So, Devin noted, did he. His shirt was torn and he was badly scratched again, for the sed time in half a day. There was a joke, something that ought to be amusing in that, but he couldnt reach to it. Not yet.
He seemed to have survived though. And to have done what hed been asked to do. He mao draw one full, steadying breath just as Alessan and one of the Quileian soldiers came sprinting up the path. Erlein was just behind them, Devin saw with surprise.
He started to stand, but the world spuically and he had to be braced by Alessan. The Quileian guard flipped the assassin over on her back. He stood staring down upon her and then spat, very deliberately, into her bleeding face.
Devin looked away.
His eyes met Alessans. "We saw you jump from down there. Youre really supposed to have wings before trying that sort of thing," the Prince said. "Didnt anyone ever tell you?”
The expression in the grey eyes belied the lightness of his tone. "I feared for you," he added softly.
"I couldnt think of anything else to do," Devin said apologetically. He was aware of a deep pride beginning to well up within him. He shrugged. "The singing was driving me mad. I had to do something to stop it.”
Alessans smile widened. He reached an arm around and squeezed Devins shoulder. Baerd had dohat too, in the Nievolene barn.
It was Erlein who laughed at the joke. "e back down," the wizard said. "Ill have to out those cuts for you.”
They helped him desd the slope. The Quileian carried the woman and her bow. Devin saw that it was made of a very dark wood, almost black, and was carved into a semblance of a crest moon.
From one end of it there hung a gathered and twisted lock of greying hair. He shivered. He had a fair idea of whose it would be.
Marius was on his feet, one hand on the back of his chair, as he watched them e down. His eyes barely flicked over the four men and the carried assassin. They locked, cold and grim, on the black curve of the moon bow. He looked frightening.
And the more so, Devin thought, because not at all afraid.
"I think ast the o dan words around each other," Alessan said. "I would like to tell you what I need and you will tell me if you do it and that will be all we need say.”
Marius held up a hand to stop him.
He had now joihe three of them among the cushions on the golden cloth. The dishes and baskets had been cleared away. Two of the Quileians had taken the woman back up over the pass to where the rest of their pany waited. The other four were posted some distance away. The sun was high, as high as it would get at noon this far south, this early in the spring. It had turned into a mild, generous day.
"This Bear is a very bad word-dancer, Pigeon," the King of Quileia said soberly. "You know that.
You probably know something else: how much it will grieve me to deny you any request at all. I would like to do this differently. I would like to tell you what I ot do, so you will not ask it and force me to refuse.”
Alessan nodded. He remained silent, watg the King.
"I ot give you an army," Marius said flatly. "Not yet, and perhaps never. I am too green in
power, too far from the stability I home to lead or even order troops over these mountains. There are several hundreds of years of tradition I have to set about ging in very little time. I am not a young man anymore, Pigeon.”
Devi a leap of excitement within himself and struggled to master it. This was too serious an occasion for childlike feelings. He could hardly believe he was here, though, so close to—at the very heart of—something of this magnitude. He stole a sidelong gla Erlein and then looked more closely: the same quick spark of i was ihers face. For all his years and his long travels, Devin seriously doubted if the troubadour-wizard had ever been so o great events.
Alessan was shaking his head. "Bear," he said, "I would never ask you for that. For our sake as much as for your own. I will not have my name remembered as the man who first ihe newly awakened might of Quileia north into the Palm. If an army ever ventures from Quileia through these passes—and I hope we are both long dead before such a day—the wish of my heart will be for it to be slaughtered and driven back with losses so bloody that no King in the south ever tries again.”
"If there is a King in the south and not another four hundred years of the Mother and her priestesses.
Very well," Marius said, "then tell me what it is you do need.”
Alessans legs were ly crossed, his long fingers laced in his lap. He looked for all the world as if he was discussing nothing of greater moment than, perhaps, the sequence of songs for an evenings performance.
Except that his fingers, Devin saw, were so tightly squeezed t>.ogether they were white.
"A question first," Alessan said, trolling his voice. "Have you received letters to open trade?”
Marius nodded. "From both of your Tyrants. Gifts, messages of felicitation, and generous offers to reopen the old trade routes by sea and land.”
"And each urged you to s the other as being untrustworthy and unstable in his power.”
Marius was smiling faintly now. "Are you intercepting my mail, Pigeon? Each did exactly that.”
"And what," Alessan asked, direct as an arrow, "have you replied?" For the first time, unmistakably, there was a taut cord of tension in his voice.
Marius heard it too. "Nothi," he said, his smile fading. "I want a few more messages from each of them before I move.”
Alessan looked down and seemed to notice his ched fingers for the first time. He uhem and ran a hand, predictably, through his hair.
"You will have to move, though," he said with some difficulty. "You will obviously rade. In your position you have to begin showing Quileia some of the bes you offer. Traffiorth will be the quickest way, wont it?" There was an awkward kind of challenge in his tone.
"Of course," Marius said simply. "I have to do it. Why else am I King? It is only a question of timing—and with what happehis m I think my timing has just been moved up.”
Alessan nodded, as if hed known all this already.
"What will you do, then?" he asked.
"Open the passes for both of them. No preferences, no tariffs for either. I will let Alberid Brandin send me all the gifts and goods and envoys they want. Ill let their trade make me truly a King—a King whs new prosperity to his people. And I o start doing it soon. Immediately, I now suspect. I have to put Quileia so firmly on a new path that the old one recedes as fast as I make it.
Otherwise Ill die having dohing but live somewhat lohan most Year Kings, and the priestesses will be in pain before my bones are picked underground.”
Alessan closed his eyes. Devin became aware of the rustling of leaves all around them and the sporadic calling of birds. Then Alessan looked up at Marius again, the grey eyes wide and calm, and he
said, bluntly: "My request: that you give me six months before deg on trade. And something else, in that interval.”
"The time alone is a great deal," Marius said very softly. "But tell me the rest, Pigeon. The something else.”
"Three letters, Bear. I hree letters sent north. First letter: you say yes to Brandin, ditionally.
You ask for time to solidate your own position before exposing Quileia to outside influences. You make it clear that your ination toward him is based on his appearing strohan Alberiore likely to endure. Sed letter: you reject, sorrowfully, all overtures from Astibar. You write Alberico that you are intimidated by Brandins threats. That you would dearly love to trade with the Empire of Barbadior, o trade with them, but the Ygratheo in the Palm for you to risk offending him. You wish Alberico all good fortune. You ask him to keep in tact with you, discreetly.
You say you will be watg events in the north with close i. You have not yet given Brandin a final decision, and will delay as long as you . You send your warmest regards to the Emperor.”
Devin was lost. He reverted to his trick of the winter: listen, remember, think about it later. Mariuss eyes were bright though, and the cold, uling smile was back.
"And my third letter?" he asked.
"Is to the Governor of the Province of Senzio. immediate trade, no tariffs, first choice of prime goods, secure anche in your harbors for their ships. Expressing deep admiration for Senzios brave independend enterprise in the face of adversity." Alessan paused. "And this third letter, naturally—”
"Will be intercepted by Alberico of Barbadior. Pigeon, do you know what you would be setting in motion? How incredibly dangerous a game this is?”
"Wait a minute!" Erlein di Senzio suddenly interjected, starting to rise.
"You be silent!" Alessan literally she and in a voice Devin had never heard him use.
Erleins mouth snapped shut. He subsided, breathing harshly, his eyes coals of anger and burgeoning uanding. Alessan didnt even look at him. her did Marius. The two of them sat on a golden carpet high in the mountains, seemingly oblivious to the existence of anything in the world but each other.
"You do know, dont you?" Marius said finally. "You kly." There was a certain wonder in his voice.
Alessan nodded. "Ive had enough time to think about it, Triad knows. Ohe trade routes open I think my provind its name are lost. With what you offer him, Brandin will be a hero in the west, not a Tyrant. He will be so secure that there will be nothing I do, Bear. Your Kingship may be my undoing. And my homes.”
"Are you sorry you helped me to it?”
Devin watched Alessale with that. There were currents of emotion running here, far beh the surface of what he could see and uand. He listened, and remembered.
"I should be sorry," Alessan murmured at length. "In a way it is a kind of treachery that I am not. But no, how I possibly regret what we worked so hard to achieve?" His smile was wistful.
Marius said, "You know I love you, Pigeon. Both of you.”
"I know. We both know.”
"You know what I am fag bae.”
"I do. I have reason to remember.”
In the silehat followed Devi a sadness e over him, an echo of his mood at the end of the night. A sense of the terrible spaces that always seemed to lie between people. The gulfs that had to be
crossed for even a simple toug.
And how much wider those gulfs must be for men such as these two, with their long dreams and the burdens of being who they were, and what. How hard it seemed, how brutally hard, for hands to reach out across so much history and such a weight of responsibility and loss.
"Oh, Pigeon," said Marius of Quileia, his voice little more than a whisper, "you may have been an arrow shot from the white moon into my heart eighteen years ago. I love you as my son, Alessan bar Valen-tin. I will give you six months and your three letters. Build a boo my memory if you hear that I have died.”
Even with what little he uood, oermost edges of this, Devi a lump gather in his throat, making it difficult to swallow. He looked at the two of them and he couldnt have said which man he admired more in that moment. The one who had asked, knowing what he asked, or the one who had given, knowing what he gave. He had an awarehough, humbling, inescapable, of how far yet he had to travel—a distance he might raverse—before he could name himself a man after the fashion of these two.
"Does either of you have any idea," Erlein di Senzio broke into the stillness, his voice grim as death, "how many i men and women may be butchered because of what you are about to do?”
Marius said nothing. Alessan wheeled on the wizard though.
"Have you any idea," he said, his eyes like chips of grey ice, "how close I am to killing you for saying that?" Erlein paled but did not draw baor did his own eyes flinch away.
"I did not ask to be born into this time, charged by my birth with trying to set it right," Alessan said, his voice held tightly again as if under a leash. "I was the you child. This should have been my brothers burdeher or both of them. They died by the Deisa. Among the lucky ones." Bitterness cracked through for a moment.
And was beaten back. "I am trying to act for the whole of the Palm. Not just fana and her lost name. I have been reviled as a traitor and a fool for doing so. My mother has cursed me because of this. I will accept that from her. To her I will hold myself atable for blood ah and the destru of what Tigana was if I fail. I will not hold myself subject to your judgment, Erlein di Senzio! I do not need you to tell me who or what is at risk in this. I need you to do what I tell you, nothing more! If yoing to die a slave you might as well be mine as anyone elses. Yoing to fight with me, Senzian.
Whether through your will ainst it yoing to fight with me for freedom!”
He fell silent. Devi himself trembling, as if a titanic thuorm had shaken the sky above the mountains and gone.
"Why do you let him live?" Marius of Quileia asked.
Alessan fought to collect himself. He seemed to sider the matter. "Because he is a brave man in his own way," he answered at length. "Because it is true that his people will be placed i danger by this. Because I have wronged him by his lights, and by my own. And because I have need of him.”
Marius shook his large head. "It is bad to have need of a man.”
"I know, Bear.”
"He may e back to you, even years later, and ask you for something very large. Something your heart will not let you refuse.”
"I know, Bear," said Alessan. The two men looked at each other, sitting motionless on the golden carpet.
Devin turned away, feeling like an intruder on that exge of glances. Iillness of that pass below the heights of the Braccie birds out with pierg sweetness and, looking up to the south, Devin saw that the last of the high white clouds had drifted apart, revealing the dazzle of sunlit snow on the peaks. The world seemed to be a plaore beauty and more pain than he could ever have
imagi to be.
When they rode back down from the pass Baerd was waiting for them a few miles south of the castle, alone on his horse among the green of the foothills.
His eyes widened when he saw Devin and Erlein, and a rare amusement was visible even behind his beard, as Alessan pulled to a halt in front of him.
"You," said Baerd, "are even worse at these things than I am, despite everything you say.”
"Not worse. As bad, perhaps," Alessan said, ruefully dug his head. "After all, your only reason for refusing to e was so that he wouldnt feel ara pressure to—”
"And after lashing me verbally for that, you go and take two plete strao reduce the pressure even more. I stand my ground: you are worse than I am.”
"Lash me verbally," Alessan said.
Baerd shook his head. "How is he?”
"Well enough. Urain. Devin stopped an assassination attempt up there.”
"What?" Baerd glanced quickly at Devin, noting the torn shirt and hose and the scrapes and cuts.
"Yoing to have to teach me how to use a bow," Devin said. "Theres less wear and tear.”
Baerd smiled. "I will. First ce we have." Then something seemed to occur to him. "An assassination?" he said to Alessan. "In the mountains? Surely not!”
Alessans expression was grim. "Im afraid so. She carried a moon bow with a lock of his hair. The mountain taboo has obviously been lifted—at least for the purposes of murder.”
Baerds features creased with . He sat on his horse quietly a moment, then: "So he had no option really. He o act immediately. He said no?”
"He said yes. We have six months and he will send the letters." Alessaated. "He asked us to build a boo his memory if he dies.”
Baerd suddenly turned his horse away. He sat staring fixedly off to the west. The late-afternoon sun was shedding an amber glow over the heather and bra of the hills.
"I love that man," Baerd said, still gazing into the distance.
"I know," said Alessan. Slowly, Baerd turned ba. They exged a look in silence.
"Senzio?" said Baerd.
Alessan nodded. "You will have to explain to Alienor how to set up ierception. These two will e west with me. You and Catriana and the Duke go north and then intea. We start reaping what weve sown, Baerd. You know the timing as well as I do, and youll know what to do until we meet again, who well want from the east. Im not sure abo—Ill leave that to you.”
"Im not happy about separate roads," Baerd murmured.
"her am I, if you must know. If you have an alternative Id be grateful to hear it.”
Baerd shook his head. "What will you do?”
"Speak to some people on the way. See my mother. After that it depends on what I find. My own reaping in the west before summer es.”
Baerd glanced briefly at Devin and Erlein. "Try not to let yourself be hurt," he said.
Alessan gave his shrug. "Shes dying, Baerd. And Ive hurt her enough ieen years.”
"You have not!" the other replied with sudden anger. "You only wound yourself if you think that way.”
Alessan sighed. "She is dying unknown and alone in a Sanctuary of Eanna in a province called Lower Corte. She is not in the Palace by the Sea in Tigana. Do not say she has not been hurt.”
"But not by you!" Baerd protested. "Why do you do this to yourself?”
Again the shrug. "I have made certain choices in a dozen years since we came back from Quileia. I am willing to accept that others may disagree with those choices." His eyes flicked to Erlein. "Leave it, Baerd. I promise not to let this unbalance me, even without you there. Devin will help if I need help.”
Baerd grimaced behind his beard and looked as if he would pursue the matter further, but when he spoke again it was in a different voice. "You think this is it, then? You think it truly might happen now?”
"I think it has to happen this summer or it never will. Unless, I suppose, someone does kill Marius in Quileia and we go back to stasis here, with nothing at all to work with. Which would mean that my mother and a great many other people were right. In which case you and I will simply have to sail into Chiara harbor and storm the palace walls alone and kill Brandin of Ygrath and watch the Palm bee an outpost of Barbadiors Empire. And rice Tigana then?”
He checked himself. Then tinued in a lower voice: "Marius is the one wild card we have ever had, the ohing Ive been waiting for and w for all these years. And hes just agreed to let us play him as we need. We have a ce. It may not hurt to do some praying, all of us, in the days to e. This has been long enough in arriving.”
Baerd was very still. "Long enough," he echoed finally, and something in his voice sent a chill into Devin. "Eanna light your path through the Ember Days and beyond." He paused, gla Erlein. "All three of you.”
Alessans expression spoke a world of things. "And yours, the three of you," was all he said though, before he turned his horse and started away to the west.
Following him, Devin glanced bad saw that Baerd had not moved. He sat astride his horse watg them, and the sunlight fell on his hair and beard burnishing them back toward the golden color Devin remembered from their first meeting. He was too far away for his expression to be dised.
Devin raised a hand in farewell, palm spread wide and then, surprised and gladdened, saw Erlein abruptly do the same.
Baerd lifted one arm high in salute to them, then twitched his horses reins and turned north to ride away.
Alessaing a steady pato the setting sun, did not look back at all.
PART FOUR - THE PRICE OF BLOOD chapter 13
TIME BEFORE DAWN—SHE WASNT SURE WHAT HOUR IT was—Dianora rose from bed and walked to the windows overlooking her baly. In the end, she had not slept all night. her, as it happened, had her brother, a very long way to the south, fighting in the Ember war and then sharing the beginning of spring on a hilltop won from the Darkness.
She herself had shared nothing with ahat night, lying alone in her bed, visited by ghosts and memories. Now she looked out upon a cold darkhat had little in it of springtime or the promise of growth to e. The late stars still shohough the moon had long si. A wind blew in from off the sea. She could just make out the banners flapping from the masts of the ships in the harbor beyond the Ring Dive pier.
One of those ships was newly in from Ygrath. It had carried Isolla the singer here. It would not carry her back.
"Khav, my lady?" Scelto said quietly from behind her.
She nodded without turning. "Please. And then e sit with me, we have something to talk about.”
If she moved quickly enough, she thought, if she set it all in motion without giving herself time for hesitation or fear, she might possibly do this thing. Otherwise she was lost.
She could hear Scelto bustling effitly in the small kit that art of her suite of rooms.
The fire had bee going all night. Ygrath might not observe the same spring and autumn rituals as the Palm, but Brandin had seldom interfered with local s ion, and Dianora never lit a new flame on any of the Ember Days. her did most of the women in the saishan, if it came to that. The eastern wing of the palace would be a dark place after su for two more nights.
She thought about stepping out on the baly, but it looked much too cold. There were no signs of life yet down below. She thought about a di Chiara. At suhey would probably bring him out, his bones broken, to die on a wheel in the sight of the people. She turned her mind away from that image too.
"Here is the khav," Scelto said. "I made it very strong," he added awkwardly.
She did turn at that, and her heart ached a little to see the helpless worry in his eyes. She knew how he would have grieved for her last night. The marks of sleeplessness were in his face; she supposed they were in her own as well. She could guess how she must look this m. She forced a smile and accepted the mug he offered. It was warm to her hand and f, even before she drank.
She sat in one of the chairs by the window and motioned him to the other. He hesitated a moment and then sat down. She was silent, weighing her words. She realized, abruptly, that she had no idea how to do this subtly. So much, she thought wryly, for the ical manipulator of the court.
Taking a deep breath, she said, "Scelto, I o be out on the mountain this m alone. I know all of the difficulties, but I have my reasons and they are important. How we arra?”
His smooth brow furrowed. He said nothing though, and she realized that he was thinking about an ao her question, n to judge or uand it. She had feared a different sort of rea, but realized, belatedly, that she should not have. Never with him.
He said, "It will depend oher they do the mountain run today.”
Her heart swelled with love for him. He hadnt even asked her reasons. "Why would they not run it?”
she asked stupidly, and realized the answer even as he replied.
"a," he said. "I dont know if the King will allow the spring run on the same day as aion. If they are doing the race the9９ｌｉｂ?n you will be io e watch the ending from the Kings pavilion in the meadow as you always are.”
"I have to be alone," she repeated. "And up the mountain.”
"Aloh me," he modified. It was almost a plea.
She sipped her khav. This was the difficult part. "Some of the way, Scelto," she said. "There is a thing I must do there by myself. I will have to leave you part.”
She watched him wrestle with that. Before he could speak she added, "I would not say this if it were not necessary. There is no one I would rather have by my side.”
She did not say what it was necessary for and she saw him fighting to hold back the question. He did hold it back though, and she knew what it would have cost him.
He rose. "Ill have to find out what is happening then. Ill be back soon. If they are running we will at least have an excuse to be outside. If they arent, well have to think further on this.”
She nodded gratefully and watched him go, and trim, infinitely reassuring in his petence.
She finished her khav, looking out the window. It was still dark outside. She walked into the other room to wash and dress herself, doing so with some care, knowing it might matter today. She chose a simple brown woolen robe, aed it at the waist. This was an Ember Day, not a time for splendor of apparel.
There was a hood to hide her hair; that too might matter.
By the time she was done Scelto had returned. He had a queer expression on his face.
"They are running," he said. "And a is not going to be executed on the wheel.”
"What happeo him?" she asked, feeling an instinctive dread.
Scelto hesitated. "The word is being put about that he has been granted a merciful death already.
Because the actual spiracy was from Ygrath and a was merely a victim, a tool.”
She nodded. "And what has really happened.”
Sceltos face was troubled. "This may be a thing you were better not to know, my lady.”
It probably was, she thought. But she had e too far in the night, and had too far yet to go. This was n for sheltering, to seek shelter. "Perhaps," was all she said. "But I would prefer you to tell me, Scelto.”
He said, after a moment: "I have been told that he is going to be . . . altered. Rhun is growing old and the King must have a Fool. It is necessary to have one in readiness, and it take a long time, depending on the circumstances.”
The circumstances, Dianora thought, sied. Such as whether the Fool-in-waiting had been a healthy, gifted, normal young man with a love of his home.
Even uanding what the Fools of Ygrath were to their Kings, even grasping that a had forfeited his life by what he had doerday, she still could not stop her stomach from turning at the implications of Sceltos words. She remembered Rhun hag at Isollas body yesterday. She remembered Brandins face. She forced her mind away from that. She couldnt afford to think about Brandin this m. In fact, she was better off not thinking about anything at all.
"Have I been summoned yet?" she asked tersely.
"Not yet. You will be." She could hear tension in his voice; the news about a had evidently disturbed him as well.
"I know I will," she said. "I dont think we wait though. If I go out with the others it will be impossible to slip away. What do you think would happen if we two tried to walk down together now?”
Her tone was steady and calm; Sceltos face grew thoughtful. "We try," he said after a moment.
"Then e.”
Her fear was very simple: if she waited too long, or sidered this too much she would be paralyzed by doubt. The thing was to move, and to keep on moving, until she reached a certain place.
What would happen then, if anything, she would leave to the Triads grace.
Her heart beating rapidly, she followed Scelto out of her rooms and into the main saishan corridor.
The first thin streaks of light were showing now through the windows at the eastern end. The two of them went the other assing two young castrates who were moving toward Vencels rooms. Dianora looked straight at them. She leased—for the first time—to see fear spark in the eyes of both of the boys. Today fear was a on, a tool, and she would need all the tools she could find.
Scelto led her, not hurrying, down the wide stairway towards the double doors that led to the outside world. She caught up to him just as he rapped. When the guard outside opened she stepped through without waiting for his challenge or Sceltos annou. She fixed him with a cool glance as she went by, and saw his eyes widen as he reized her. She began walking down the long hallway. As she went past the uard she saw that he was the young one shed smiled at yesterday. Today she did not smile.
Behind her she heard Scelto speak one quick, cryptitence, and then another in ao a question. Then she heard his footsteps ing down the corridor. A moment later the door swung shut behind them. Scelto caught up to her.
"I think it will take a brave man to stop you today," he said quietly. "They all know what happened yesterday. It is a good m to be trying this.”
It was the only m she would ever be trying this, Dianora thought.
"What did you tell them?" she asked, tinuing to walk.
"The only thing I could think of. Yoing to a meeting with dEymon about what happened yesterday.”
She slowed a little, sidering that, and as she did, the glimmerings of a proper plan came to her, like the first faint illumination of the sun rising in the east above the mountains.
"Good," she said, nodding her head. "Very good, Scelto. That is exactly what Im doing." Two uards walked past them, taking no notice at all. "Scelto," she said, when they were alone again, "I need you to find dEymon. Say I want to speak with him alone before we all go out this afternoon for the end of the race. Tell him Ill be waiting in the Kings Garden two hours from now.”
Two hours might ht not be enough; she didnt know. But somewhere in the vast expanse of the Kings Garden on the north side of the palace she khere was a gate that led out to the meadows, and then the slopes of Sangarios beyond.
Scelto stopped, f her to do the same.
"Yoing to go without me, arent you?" he said.
She would not lie to him. "I am," she said. "I expect to be ba time for that meeting. After you give him the message go back to the saishan. He doesnt know were out already, so hell have to send for me. Make sure the message goes directly to you, I dont care how.”
"They usually do," he said quietly, clearly unhappy.
"I know that. When he does send well have our excuse for being out. Two hours from now e back down yourself. I should be in the garden with him. Look for us there.”
"And if you arent?”
She shrugged. "Stall. Hope. I have to do this, Scelto, I told you.”
He looked at her a moment longer, and then nodded his head ohey went on. Just before reag the sweep of the Grand Staircase on their left Scelto turned right and they went down a smaller stairwell to the ground level. It brought them out into another east-west corridor. There was no ohere.
The palace was only just beginning to stir.
She looked over at Scelto. Their eyes met. For a fleeting moment she was sorely tempted to fide in him, to make an ally of a friend.
What could she say, though? How explain in the middle of a dawn corridor the dark night and the train of years that had led her here?
She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Go now," she said. "Ill be all right.”
Without looking back she walked alone a little way down the hallushed open two glass doors leading to the labyrinth of the Kings Garden, a out into the grey, cold beginning of dawn.
It hadnt always been known as the Kings Garden, nor had it always been as wild as it was now. The Grand Dukes of Chiara had shaped this pleasure ground for themselves over successive geions, and it had ged over the years as tastes and styles in the Island court had ged.
When Brandin of Ygrath had first arrived it had been a glittering exercise in topiary: hedges artfully trimmed in the shapes of birds and animals, trees precisely spaced and arrahroughou藏书网t the enormous walled expanse of the garden, wide walks with sculpted be easy intervals, eae under a sejoia planted frand shade. There had beeidy box-hedged maze with a lovers seat at the ter, and rows and rows of flowers carefully arrayed in plementary colors.
Tame and b, the King of Ygrath had labeled it the first time he walked through.
Within two years the garden had ged again. A great deal this time. The walkways were less wide noled and with leaves in summer and fall. They twisted seemingly at random through the densely planted groves of trees—brought down with some labor from the mountain slopes and the forests on the north side of the Island. Some of the sculpted benches remained, and the thid fragrant flower beds, but the bird hedges and the animal bushes had been the first things to go, and the , symmetrically pruned shrubs and serrano bushes had been allowed to grow out, higher and darker, like the trees. The maze was gohe whole of the garden was a maze now.
An underground stream had been tapped and diverted and now the sound of running water was everywhere. There were leafy pools one might stumble upon, with ing trees for shade in the summers heat. The Kings Garden was a strange plaow, not rown and most certainly not ed, but deliberately shaped to give a sense of stillness and isolation and even, at times, of danger.
Times such as this, with the dawn wind still cold and the scarcely risen sun just beginning to warm the air. Only the earliest buds were on the branches of the trees, and only the first flowers of the season— anemones and wild a roses—adding flashes of color to the wan m. The wirees stood tall and dark against the grey sky.
Dianora shivered and closed the glass doors behind her. She took a deep breath of the sharp air and looked up at the clouds piled high above the mountain, hiding the peak of Sangarios. Over to the east the clouds were beginning to break up; it would be a mild day later. Not yet though. She stood at９9ｌiｂ? the edge of the wildness of an end-of-winter garden and tried to guide herself towards steadiness and calm.
She khere was a gate in the northern wall, but she wasnt sure she remembered where. Brandin had showed it to her one summers night years ago when they had walked for miles aimlessly amid fireflies and the drone of crickets and the sound of unseen water splashing in the darkness beyond the torchlit paths. He had brought her to a gate hed stumbled upon one day, half-hidden by climbing vines and a rose bush. He had shown it to her in the darkness, with torches behind them and blue Ilarion overhead.
He had held her hand that night as they walked, she remembered, and talked to her about herbs and the properties of flowers. He had told her an Ygrathen fairy tale of a forest princess born in some far distant otherworld, on an ented bed of snow-white flowers that bloomed only in the dark.
Dianora shook her head, pushing the memory away, a off briskly down one of the smaller, pebbly paths leading northeast through the trees. After twenty strides she could no longer see the palace when she looked back. Overhead the birds were beginning to sing. It was still cold. She put up her hood, feeling, as she did so, like the brown-robed priestess of some unknown sylvan god.
And thinking so, she prayed to the god she did know and to Morian and Eanna, that the Triad might send her wisdom and the clear heart she had e out this Ember m to find. She was intensely aware of what day this was.
At almost exactly the same moment, Alessan, Prince of Tigana was riding out from Castle Borso in the Certandan highland towards a meeting in the Braccio Pass that he thought might ge the world.
Dianora walked past a bed of anemones, muall and delicate yet to pick. They were white, which made them Eannas. The red ones were Morians, except in Tregea where they were said to be stained by the blood of Adaon on his mountain. She stopped and looked down at the flowers, their fragile petals shaken by the breeze; but her thoughts were back with Brandins fairy tale of the far arincess born under summer stars, cradled on such flowers.
She closed her eyes then, knowing that this would not do.
And slowly, deliberately, searg out pain as a spur, a goad, she built up a mental image of her father riding away, and then of her mother, and then of Baerd among the soldiers in the square. When she opened her eyes to go on there were no fairy tales in her heart.
The paths twisted hopelessly, but the main ass was to the north over the mountain and she kept that in front of her as best she could. It was strao be wandering like this, almost lost among the trees, and Dianora realized, with a start, that it had been a great many years since shed last been so alone.
She had only two hours and a long way to go. She quied her pace. A little later the sun came up on her right and the ime she looked up part of the sky was blue above her and gulls were wheeling against that blue. She pushed back her hood and shook her long hair free, and just then she saw the thick, high grey stone of the northern wall through a s of ohve trees.
Vines and clumps of laren moss were growing along the wall, purple and dark green. The path e the olives, f east a. She stood a moment, irresolute, trying to orient herself within a memory of summer and torches at night. Then she shrugged a west, because her heart always did that.
Ten minutes later, winding past a pool and a ruffled refle of white clouds within it, Dianora came to the gate.
She stopped, suddenly cold again, though the m was warmer now with the sun. She looked at the arched shape and the rusted iron hihe gate was very old; there seemed to have been something carved on it once, but whatever image or symbol had been there was almost entirely worn away. The gate was rown with ivy and vihe rose bush she remembered was bare yet on this first day of spring, but the thorns were long and sharp. She saw the heavy bolt, as rusted as the hihere was no lock, but she was suddenly uaiher she would even be able to move the corroded bolt. She wondered who had last gohrough this gate into the meadows beyond. Who and when and why. She thought about climbing, and looked up. The wall was te high, but she thought there might be hand and toeholds there. She was about to move forward when she heard a sound behind her.
Thinking about it afterwards she tried to uand why she hadnt been more frightehan she was. Somewhere in her mind, she decided, she must have thought that this might happen. The grey ro the mountainside had been only a starting point. There was no reason i n the world to expect that she might find that rock, or find what she here.
She turned in the Kings Garden, alone among the trees and the earliest flowers, and saw the riselka bing her long green hair beside a pool.
They are only found when they want to be, she remembered. And then she had ahought and she looked quickly around to see if anyone else was there.
They were quite alone in the garden though, or in this part of the garden. The riselka smiled, as if reading Dianoras mind. She was naked, small and very slender, but her hair was so long it almost served her as a robe. Her skin was as translut as Brandin had said it had been and the eyes were enormous, almost frighteningly so, pale as milk in the pale white face.
She looks like you, Brandin had said. Or, no. She reminded me of you, was what hed said. And in an eerie, chilling fashion Dianora had a sense of what he meant. She had a memory of herself in the year
Tigana fell, too thin and pale, her eyes almost as huge as these in the hollows of her face.
Brandin had never seen or knowhen.
shivered. The riselkas smile deepehere was nothing of Warmth in her, or fort. Dianora didnt know if she had expected either of those. She didnt really know what she had expected to find. She had e for the clear path of the old foretelling verse, and it seemed that if she was to find it, it would be here among the intricately winding ways of the Kings Garden.
The riselka was beautiful, heartbreakingly so, in a fashion that had little to do with mortal beauty.
Dianoras mouth was dry. She didnt even try to speak. She stood very still in her plain brown robe, her owrx dark hair unbound and falling down her back, and she watched the riselka lay a bone-white b down oone bench by the pool and motion to her.
Slowly, her hands beginning to tremble, Dianora walked off the path and under an arch of trees to stand before that pale, elusive creature of legend. She was so near she could see the green hair shine in the soft m light. The pale eyes had shadings to them, ah. The riselka lifted one hand, its fingers longer and more slehan any mortals could be, and she brought it up to Dianoras fad touched her.
The touch was cool, but not so cold as she might have feared. Gently, the riselka stroked her cheek and throat. And then, the hieratic, alien smile deepening again, she slipped her hand further down, undid a button of Dianoras robe, and reached within to touch her breasts. One, and theher, not hurrying, smiling that entirely secret smile all the while.
Dianora was trembling; she could not make herself stop. Incredulous and afraid, she felt her body respond involuntarily to the exploration of that touch. She could see the riselkas childlike breasts half- hiddeh the curtain of hair. Her knees were weak suddenly. The riselkas smile showed small, sharp, very white teeth. Dianora swallowed, feeling a hurt inside her she could not even begin to uand. She shook her head mutely, uo speak. She felt herself beginning to weep.
The riselkas smile faded. She withdrew her hand and, almost apologetically it seemed, did up the robe again. She reached, as gently as before, and touched one of the tears on Dianoras cheek. Then she brought her fio her lips and tasted it.
She is a child, Dianora thought suddenly, a thought cast up on the beach of her mind as if by a tide.
And even as it came to her, she khat this was true, however many years this creature might have lived. She wondered if this was the same slender, numinous figure Baerd had met under moonlight by the sea the night he went away.
The riselka touched and then tasted aear. Her eyes were se Dianora had a sehat she could fall into them and never e out again. It was a deeply seductive imagining, a pathway to oblivion. She looked for another moment and then slowly, with an effort, shook her head again.
"Please?" she said then, whispered it, needing, and afraid of her need. Afraid that words or need or longing—anything—could drive a riselka away.
The green-haired creature turned, and Dianoras hands ched at her sides. But the riselka looked back over her shoulder, grave now, unsmiling, and Dianora uood that she was to follow.
They came to the edge of the pool. The riselka was looking down into the water and so Dianora did the same. She saw a refle of blue sky overhead, of a single white gull slig across the space above the pool, dark green cypresses like sentinels and the branches of other trees not yet in leaf. And even as she looked, she realized, with a chill like winter e back too soon, what was wrong. The wind was blowing above them and all around, she could hear it among the trees and feel it on her fad in her hair, but the water of the pool was like the glass of her mirror, absolutely calm, unruffled by so much as a tendril of the breeze or any movement in its owhs.
Dianora drew back from the edge and turo the riselka. The creature was looking at her, the green hair lifted by the breeze and blown back from her small white face. The eyes were darker now, cloudy,
and she no longer looked like a child. She looked like a power of the natural world, or an emissary of such a power, and not oh any warmth for mortal man or woman. No kindness or shelter there. But Dianora, fighting a rising fear, reminded herself that she had not e here for shelter, but for a signing of her road, and she saw then that the riselka held a small white stone in her hand, and she saw her throw that stoo the pool.
No ripples. No movement at all. The stone sank without a trace of its passage. But the surface of the water ged soon after, and darkened, and then the refles were gone. No cypresses. N circle of sky overhead. No bare trees framing the slant of gulls. The water had grown too dark, it cast nothing back. But Dianora felt the riselka take her hand and draw her gently but inexorably back to the edge of the pool, and she looked down, having e out from the saishan to find this truth, this signing.
And in the dark waters she saw a refle.
Not herself or the riselka, nor anything at all of the Kings Garden on this first of the Ember Days.
Instead, an image of another season, late spring or summer, another place, bright with color, a great many people gathered, and, somehow, she could evehe sound of them in the image, ah that sound, stantly, was the surge and sigh of waves.
And in the depths of the pool Dianora saw an image of herself, clad in a robe green as the riselkas hair, moving aloween those gathered people. And then she saw, in the pool, where her steps were leading her.
Fear touched her in that moment with an icy hand for one sed and then was gone. She felt her rag heartbeat slow, and then grow slower yet. A deep calm came over her. And a moment later, not without its burden of sorrow, came acceptance. For years her nights had known dreams of su ending.
This m she had e out of the saishan looking for this certainty. And now, above this pool, her path came clear to her at last and Dianora saw that it led to the sea.
The sounds of gathered people faded away, and then all the images, the bright sun of summer. The pool was dark again giving nothing back at all.
Some time later, it might have been moments or hours, Dianora looked up again. The riselka was still beside her. Dianora looked into the pale eyes, so much lighter than the ented waters but seemingly as deep, and she saw herself as a child again, so many years ago. Yet not so many, a blink of an eye or the moment it took an autumo fall, as this creature would measure time.
"Thank you," she whispered. And: "I uand.”
And she stood very still, not fling at all, as the riselka rose up on tiptoe and kissed her, soft as the wing of a butterfly, upon the lips. There was no hint of desire this time, in the giving or receiving. This was the aftermath, the mation had e and gohe riselkas mouth tasted of salt. The salt, Dianora knew, of her own tears. She no longer felt any fear at all; only a quiet sadness like a smooth stone in the heart.
She heard a ripple of sound and turned back to the pool. The cypresses were reflected again, their images ruffled and broken now by the movement of the water in the wind.
When she looked away again, pushing her hair back from her face, she saw that she was alone.
When she came back out to the open space before the palace doors dEymon was waiting for her, dressed formally in grey, his Seal of Office about his neck. He was sitting on one of the stone benches, his staff resting beside him. Scelto hovered by the doors, and Dianora saw the flash of relief he could not hide when she came out from among the trees.
She stopped and looked at the cellor allowing a slight smile to show on her face. It was artifice of course, but an act she could do unsciously by now. In dEymons normally inscrutable expression she read edginess and anger, and ns of what had happened yesterday. He would probably be spoiling for a fight, she guessed. It was difficult, amazingly difficult, to switch back to the manners and affairs of state. It was also something that had to be done.
"You were late," she said mildly, walking towards him. He had risen, with perfect courtesy, as she approached. "I went walking in the garden. There are anemones beginning already.”
"I recisely on time," dEymon said.
She might once have been intimidated, but not now. He would be wearing the Seal as an attempt to reinforce his authority, but she knew how badly yesterday would have uled him. She was fairly certain he would have offered to kill himself last night; he was a man for whom the old traditions mattered. In any case, she was armored against him: she had seen a riselka this m.
"Then I must have been early," she said carelessly. "Five me. It is good to see you looking so well after yesterdays . . . fusions. Have you been waiting long?”
"Long enough. You wao talk about yesterday, I gather. What is it?" Dianora didnt think she had ever heard an insequential remark from dEymo alone a pleasantry.
Refusing to be rushed she sat down on the bench he had just vacated and brushed her brown robe smooth over her knees. She clasped her fingers in her lap and looked up, letting her expression grow suddenly as cold as his own.
"He almost died yesterday," she said flatly, deg only in that moment what her tack would be.
"He would have died. Do you know why, cellor?" She didnt wait for his answer. "The King almost died because your people were too plat or too slovenly to bother searg a party of Ygrathens.
What did you think? That danger could only e from the Palm? I expect yesterdays guards to be dealt with, dEymon. And soon.”
The use of his name and not his title was deliberate. He opened his mouth and closed it, visibly biting back a swift retort. She ushing things, Triad knew how hard she ushing with this, but if ever there was going to be a ce for her to do so, this would be it. DEymons face was white with anger and shock. He took a deep breath to trol himself.
"They have bee with already," he said. "They are dead.”
She hadnt expected that. She managed, with an effort, to keep her disfiture out of her eyes.
"There is more," she went on pressing her advantage. "I want to know why a di Chiara was not watched when he went to Ygrath last year.”
"He was watched. What would you have had us do? You knoas behierdays attack.
You heard.”
"We all heard. Why did you not know about Isolla and the Queen?" This time the bite she put into the words was real, not merely tactical.
For the first time she saw a flicker of hesitation in his eyes. He fingered his Seal, then seemed to bee aware that he was doing so and dropped his hand to his side. There was a brief silence.
"I did know," he said finally. His eyes met her own, a question in them like an angry challenge.
"I see," said Dianora a moment later, and looked away. The sun was higher now, slanting aost of the clearing. If she moved a little along the bench its warmth would fall upohe harsh, unspokeion in dEymons eyes hung in the air: Would you have told the King, knowing these things about his Queen?
Dianora was silent, trag implications to their endings. With this admission, she realized, dEymon was hers, if he hadnt already been so after his failure yesterday and what she had doo save the King.
She was also, she thought, in fairly immediate danger as a sequehe cellor was not a man to be treated lightly, ever. Most of the saishan had their suspis as to how Chloese di Chiara had died ten years ago, and why.
She looked up, a her rising anger keep the ay from showing. "Wonderful," she said acidly.
"Such effit security. And now, of course, because of what I was forced to do your pet courtier Neso simply has to receive the posting in Asoli, doesnt he. With a wound of honor earned saving the life of the
King. How marvelously clever of you, dEymon!”
She had miscalculated. For the first time he smiled, a narrow, mirthless expression. "Is that what this is about?" he asked softly.
She bit back a swift denial. It was not inve for him to think so, she realized.
"Among other things," she admitted, as if grudgingly. "I want to know why you have been fav him for the Asoli posting. I had been meaning to talk to you about this.”
"I thought as much," he said, a measure of his usual placy returning. "I have also been keeping track of some—not all, I have no doubt—of the gifts Scelto has been receiving in your hese past weeks. That lendid necklace yesterday, by the way. Did Nesos money pay for it? In an attempt to have you win me over to his side?”
He was immensely well-informed, and he was shrewd. She had always knowhings. It was never wise to uimate the cellor.
"It helped pay for it," she said briefly. "You havent answered my question. Why do you favor him?
You must know what sort of man he is.”
"Of course I know," dEymon replied impatiently. "Why do you think I want him out of here? I want him posted to Asoli because I dont trust him at court. I want him away from the King and in a place where he be killed without undue invenience. I trust that answers your question?”
She swallowed. Never, ever uimate him, she told herself again. "It does," she said. "Killed by whom?”
"That should be obvious. It will be put about that the Asolini did it themselves. I expect it will not take Neso long to give them cause.”
"Of course. And then?”
"And then the King will iigate and find that Neso was guilty of gross corruption, which we need not doubt he will be. We execute some man or other for the murder but the King declares his firm renunciation of Nesos methods and greed. He appoints a axing Master and promises fairer measures iure. I think that should quiet affairs in north Asoli for a time.”
"Good," said Dianora, trying to ighe casual indifference of that some man or other. "Aidy. I have only ohing to add: the new officer will be Rhamanus." She was taking another risk, she knew. When it came down to bedrock, she tive and a e, and he was the cellor of Ygrath and of the Western Palm. Oher hand, there were other ways to measure the balance here, and she fought to focus on those.
DEymon looked coolly down at her. She kept her gaze on his, her eyes wide and disingenuous.
"It has long amused me," he said at length, "that you so favored the man who captured you. One would think you hadnt mihat you wao e.”
Perilously, unily o the mark, but she could see he was baiting her, not serious in his thrust.
She forced herself to relax, and smiled. "How could I mind being here? Id never have had a ce at pleasaings such as this. And in any case," she let her tone ge, "I do favor him, yes. On behalf of the people of this peninsula I do. And you know that that will always be my , cellor. He is a det man. There are not many such Ygrathens, Im afraid.”
He was silent a moment. Then: "There are more than you think." But before she could mao interpret either his words or the surprising voi which they were spoken, he added, "I seriously thought of having you poisoned last night. Either that, gesting you be freed and made a citizen of Ygrath.”
"What extremes, my dear!" She could feel herself growing cold though. "Didnt you teach us all that balance is everything?”
"I did," he said soberly, not rising to her bait. He never did. "Have you any idea what youve doo
the equilibrium at this court?”
"What," she said with real asperity, "would you have preferred me to do yesterday?”
"That is not at all the point. Obviously." There was a rare spot of color in his cheeks. When he resumed, though, it was in his usual tones. "I was thinking of Rhamanus for Asoli myself. It shall be as you suggest. In the meantime, I very nearly fot to mention that the King has sent for you. I intercepted the message before it reached the saishan. He will be waiting in the library.”
She shot to her feet, as agitated as he must have known she would be. "How long ago?" she asked quickly.
"Not very. Why? You doo mind being late. There are anemones in the garden, you could tell him that.”
"I could tell him some other things as well, dEymon." Anger almost choked her. She fought for trol.
"And so could I. And so, I suppose, could Solores. We seldom do, do we? The balance, as you have just pointed out, is everything. That is why I should still be very careful, Dianora, despite what happened yesterday. The balance is all. Do not fet it.”
She tried to think of a response, a last word, but failed. Her mind was whirling. He had spoken of killing her, of freeing her, had agreed with her choice for Asoli, and then threatened her again. All in a span of minutes! And all the while the King had been waiting for her, and dEymon had known.
She turned, abruptly and dismally scious of her nondescript robe and the fact that she had no time to go back up to the saishan and ge. She could feel herself flushing with anger and ay.
Scelto had evidently overheard the cellors last remarks. His eyes above the broken nose were vividly ed and apologetic, though with dEymon intercepting the message there was nothing he could have done.
She stopped by the palace doors and looked back. The cellor stood alone in the garden leaning upon his stick, a tall, gray, thin figure against the bare trees. The sky above him had turned overcast again.
Of course it has, Dianora thought spitefully.
Then she remembered the pool and her mood ged. What did these court maneuvers matter, in the end? DEymon was only doing what he had to do, and so now, would she. She had seen her path. She found herself able to smile, letting that inner quiet desd upon her again, though with a stone of sorrow at its ter still. She sank low in a very formal curtsey. DEymon, taken aback, sketched an awkward bow.
Dianora turned ahrough the doors that Scelto was holding for her. She went back down the corridor and up the stairs, along a north-south hallast two heavy doors. She stopped in front of the third pair of doors. Out of reflex and habit more than anything else she checked her refle in the bronze shield that hung on the wall. She adjusted her robe and pushed both hands through her hopelessly wind-blown hair.
Then she knocked on the library doors aered, holding hard to her calm and the vision of the pool, a round stone of knowledge and sorrow in her heart that she hoped would anchor it in her breast and keep it from flying away.
Brandin was standing with his back to the door looking at a very old map of the then known world that hung above the larger of the fires. He did not turn. She looked up at the map. On it, the Peninsula of the Palm and even the larger land mass of Quileia beyond the mountains running all the way south to the Ice, were dwarfed by the size of Barbadior and its Empire to the east and by Ygrath to the west overseas.
The velvet window curtains of the library were drawn against the m light and a fire was blazing, which bothered her. She found it difficult to deal with flames on an Ember Day. Brandin held a fire-iron in one hand. He was dressed as carelessly as she, in black riding clothes and boots. His boots
were muddy; he must have been out riding very early.
She put the enter with dEymon behind her, but not the riselka in the garden. This man was the ter of her life; whatever else had ged that had not, but the riselkas vision had offered her a path, and Brandin had let her lie alone and awake all last night.
She said, "Five me, my lord. I was with the cellor this m and he chose to only just now tell me you were waiting here." "Why were you meeting with him?" The nuanced, familiar voice was only mildly ied. He seemed engrossed in the map.
She did not lie to the King. "The Taxing Master question in Asoli. I wao know why he favored Neso.”
There was a faint hint of amusement in his voice. "Im sure dEymon told you something plausible.”
He turned finally, and gazed at her for the first time. He looked exactly the same as he always did, and she knew what always happened when their glances first met.
But she had seen a riselka an ho and something seemed to have ged. Her calm did not leave her; her heart stayed home. She closed her eyes for an instant, but more to aowledge the meaning of that ge and the passing of a long truth than anything else. She felt that she would weep, for many reasons, if she were remely careful now.
Brandin sank into a chair by the fire. He looked tired, as much as anything. It showed only in small ways, but she had known him a long time. "I will have to give it to Neso now," he said. "I think you know that. Im sorry.”
Some things, it seemed, had not ged: always that grave, ued courtesy when he spoke to her of such things. What need had the King of Ygrath to apologize to her for choosing one of his courtiers over another? She moved into the room, ging to her resolution, and at his gesture she took the chair opposite his. Brandins eyes rested on her with an odd, almost a detached scrutiny. She wondered what he would see.
She heard a sound from the far end of the room and, glang over, saw Rhun sitting by the sed fire, aimlessly leafing through a picture-book. His presence reminded her of something, and she felt her anger suddenly e back.
"Of course you have to offer it to Neso," she said. "Asoli is his prize fallantry in the service of his King." He scarcely responded. Briefly his mouth quirked, his expression mildly ironic; he still seemed preoccupied though, only half attending to what she said.
"Gallantry, ce. Theyll call it something of that sort," he said absently. "Not getting out of the way in time, it really was. DEymon was already arranging last night to have word spread that it was Neso who saved my life.”
She would not rise to that. She refused. She didnt even uand why he was saying this to her.
She said, instead, looking across the room at Rhun, not at the King: "That makes sense, and you must surely know that I dont care. What I do not uand is why you are putting out lies about as fate." She took a breath, and then plunged ahead. "I know the truth. It is su ugly, vicious thing to do.
If you must prepare a Fool to follow Rhun, why mar a whole man and a healthy one? Why do such a thing?”
He did not answer for a long time and she was afraid to look at him. Rhun, too far away to hear, and heless stopped leafing through his book and was looking over at them.
"As it happens, there are prets," was what Brandin said at length, his toill mild. But then, a moment later, he added, "I should probably have takeo away from you a long time ago. You both learn too much, too quickly.”
She opened her mouth, but no words came out. What could she say? She had asked for this. For exactly this.
But then, glang out of the er of her eye, she saw that Brandin was smiling. An odd smile, and there was something strange about his eyes as he looked at her. He said, "As it also happens, Scelto would have been right this m, but his tidings are wrong by now.”
"What do you mean?" She felt the stirrings of a genuine uneasiness. There was a strao his mahis m that she could not lay a finger on. It was more than tiredhough, she khat much.
"I resded yesterdays orders after my ride," Brandin said quietly. "a is probably dead by now. An easy death. Exactly as word has been put about.”
She discovered that her hands were clutg each other in her lap. She said fatuously, without thinking, "Is this true?”
He only raised his eyebrows, but she felt herself flush deep red. "I have o deceive you, Dianora. I told them te for witnesses among the Chiarans, so there would be no doubt. What would firm it for you: shall I have his head sent to your rooms?”
She looked down again, thinking of Isollas head bursting like a smashed fruit. She swallowed; he had dohat with a gesture of his hand. She looked back at the King. Mutely she shook her head. What happened on that ride? What was happening here?
Then, abruptly, she remembered what else had occurred to him yesterday. On the mountai a place where a grey rock stood beside the ruraan sees a riselka: his path forks there.
Brandin turned back towards the fire, one leg crossed over the other. He laid the point of the iron down on the hearthstone, leaning it against his chair.
"You havent asked me why I ged the orders. Thats unlike you, Dianora.”
"Im afraid to," she said, truthfully.
He glanced over at that, his dark brows level now, the gray eyes intimidating with their intelligence.
"Thats unlike you as well.”
"You arent very . . . like yourself either this m.”
"Fair enough," he said quietly. He looked at her for a moment in silehen seemed to sider something else. "Tell me, did dEymon make things difficult for you just now? Did he ... warn you, or threaten?”
It wasn t sorcery, she told herself fiercely. Not mind-reading. It was only Brandin being what he was, aware of all the nuahat affected those in their orbits around him.
"Not directly," she said awkwardly. Once she might have seen this as an opportunity, but the mood this m was se. "He was . . . upset about yesterday. Afraid, I think, of balances shifting here at the court. Once word is safely out that it was Neso who saved your life I think the cellor will be easier. It wont be a difficult story for him to spread; things happened very fast. I doubt anyone saw it clearly.”
This time, Brandins smile as he listened was one she knew and cherished: equal to equal, their minds sharing the track of a plex thought. But when she finished, his expression ged.
"I did," he said. "I saw it clearly.”
She looked away and down again, at her hands in her lap. Your path is clear now, she told herself as sternly as she could. Remember that. She had been offered a vision of herself in green beside the sea. And her heart was her own now after last night. There was a stone holding it there, safe within her breast.
Brandin said, "It would be easy to tell the Neso story, I agree. But I did a great deal of thinking last night and then on my ride this m. Ill be talking to dEymon later today, after we watch the runners e home. The tale that goes around will be the true one, Dianora.”
She wasnt sure she had heard him rightly, and then she was sure, and something seemed to reach a brim and then spill over a little, like an overflowing wineglass inside her.
"You should go riding more often," she mumbled. He heard. He laughed softly but she didnt look up.
She had a very strong sehat she couldnt afford to look up.
"Why?" she asked, i on her interlocked fingers. "Why to both things, then: as fate, and now this?”
He was silent so long that eventually she did glance up, cautiously. He had turned back to the fire though, and rodding it with the iron. On the far side of the room Rhun had closed his book and was now standing beside his table looking over at the two of them. He was dressed in black, of course. Exactly like the King.
"Did I ever tell you," said Brandin of Ygrath, very softly, "the legend my nurse used to tell me as a child about Finavir?”
Her mouth was dry again. Something in his tohe way he was sitting, the distinuity of his reply.
"No," she said. She tried to think of something witty to add, but failed.
"Finavir, or Finvair," he went on, not really waiting for her response, not looking over at her. "When I grew older and looked in the books of such tales it was writteher way, and hi one or two other fashions sometimes. That often happens with the stories that e from before the days when we wrote things down.”
He leahe iron against the chair arm again and sat back, still gazing into the flames. Rhun had walked a little o them, as if drawn by the story. He was leaning against one of the heavy windoeries now, kneading a bunched fold of it in both hands.
Brandin said, "In Ygrath the tale is sometimes told and sometimes believed that this world of ours, both here in the southern lands and north beyond the deserts and the rain forests—whatever lies there —is but one of many worlds the gods sent into Time. The others are said to be far off, scattered among the stars, invisible to us.”
"There has been such a belief here as well," Dianora said quietly when he paused. "Iando. In the highlands they once had a teag that was much the same, though the priests of the Triad burned people for saying as much." It was true; there had been mass burnings for the Carlozzini heresy in the plague years, long ago.
Brandin said, "We never burned or wheeled people for that thought. They were laughed at sometimes, but that is ahing.
What my nurse used to tell me was what her mother told her, and her mothers mother before, I have no doubt: that some of us are born over and again into various of these worlds until, at the last, if we have ear by the manner of our lives, we are born a final time into Finavir or Finvair which is the of all the worlds to where the true gods dwell.”
"And after that?" she asked. His quiet words seemed to have bee a part of the unfolding spell of this day.
"After, no one knew, or would tell me. Nor did any of the parts and books I read when I grew older." He shifted in his seat, his beautiful hands resting on the carved arms of the chair. "I never liked my nurses legend of Finavir. There are other kinds of stories, some of them quite different and many of them I loved, but for some reason that oayed with me. It bothered me. It seemed to make our lives here merely a prelude, insequential in themselves, of importanly for where they would lead us . I have always o feel that what I am doing matters, here and now.”
"I think I would agree with you," she said. Her own hands were gentle in her lap now; he had shaped a different mood. "But why are you tellihis, if you have never liked the story?”
The simplest of questions.
And Brandin said, "Because during the nights this past year and more I have had recurring dreams of
being reborn far away from all of this, in Finavir." He looked straight at her then for the first time since beginning the tale, and his grey eyes were calm and his voice was steady as he said: "And in all of those dreams you have been at my side and nothing has held us apart, and no one has e between.”
She had had n. all, though perhaps the clues had been there all along and she too blind to see. And suddenly she was blind now, helpless tears of shod wonder overflowing in her eyes and a desperate, urgent hammering that she ko be her heart.
Brandin said, "Dianora, I needed you so much last night I frightened myself. I did not send for you only because I had to somehow try to e to terms with what happeo me when you blocked as arrow. Solores was a court deception, no more than that: so they might not think me unmanned by danger. I spent the whole night pag or at my desk, trying to riddle out where my life has now e.
What it means that my wife and only living son should try to kill me, and fail only because of you. And thinking about that, ed by it, I only realized near dawn that I had left you alone all night. My dear, will you ever five me for that?”
I want time to stop, she was thinking, wiping vainly at her tears, trying to see him clearly. I want o leave this room, I want to hear these words spoken over and over, endlessly, until I die.
"I made a decision on my ride," he said. "I was thinking about what Isolla had said and I was finally able to accept that she was right. Since I will not, since I ot possibly ge what I am itted to doing here, I must be prepared to pay all of the price myself, not through others in Ygrath.”
She was shaking, quite uo stop her tears. He had not touched her, or even moved towards her.
Behind him Rhuns face was a twisted mask of pain and need, and something else. The thing she sometimes saw there, and could not face. She closed her eyes.
"What will you do?" she whispered. It was hard to speak.
And theold her. All of it. Named for her the fork in the road he had chosen. She listened, her tears falling more slowly now, welling up from an over-full heart, and at length she came to uand that the wheel was ing full circle.
Listening to Brandins grave voice over the crackle of flames on an Ember Day, Dianora saw only images of water in her mind. The dark waters of the pool in the garden, and the vision of the sea shed been given there. And though she had no gift of foreknowing she could see where his words were taking them, taking them all, and now she uood the showing of the pool.
She searched her heart and knew, with an enormous grief, that it was his, it had not e back to her after all. Yet even so, and most terribly of all, she knew what was about to e, what she was going to do.
She had dreamt on hts alohrough her years in the saishan of finding a path like the ohat ening for her now with the words he spoke. At one point, listening to him, thinking thus, she could bear the physical distaween them no longer. She moved from her chair to the carpet at his feet and laid her head in his lap. He touched her hair and began stroking it, down and down, ceaselessly, as he spoke of what had e to him in the night and on his ride; spoke of being willing, finally, to accept the price of what he was doing here in the Palm; and spoke to her about the ohing she could never have made herself ready for. About love.
She wept quietly, she could not stop weeping as his words tio flow, as the fire slowly died on the hearth. She wept for love of him, and for her family and her home, for the innoce she had lost to the years and for all that he had lost, and she wept most bitterly of all for the betrayals yet to e. All the betrayals that lay waiting outside this room where time, which would not stop, was going to carry them.
chapter 14
“RIDE!” ALESSAN CRIED, POINTING TOWARDS A GAP IN THE hills. "Theres a village beyond!”
Devin swore, lowered his head over his horses neck, and dug his heels into the animals flanks, following Erlein di Senzio west towards the gap and the low red disk of the sun.
Behind him, thundering out of the brown twilight hills, were at least eight, possibly a dozen brigands of the highlands. Devin hadnt looked back, after their first startled glimpse of the outlaws and the shouted and to halt.
He didnt think they had a ce, however close this village might be. They had been riding at a bone-jarring pace for hours and the horses Alienor had given them were tired. If this was to be a flat-out race against fresh-mounted outlaws they were probably dead. He gritted his teeth and rode, ign the ache in his leg and the sting of reopened cuts from his leap in the mountains earlier that day.
The wind whistled past him as they rode. He saw Alessan turn in his saddle, an arrow notched to his fully drawn bow. The Prince fired backwards ond then again into the twilight, his muscles ridged and corded with the effort. An improbable, desperate attempt at such speed in the wind.
Two men screamed. Devin quickly looked bad saw one of them fall. A handful of erratic arrows dropped well short of the three of them.
"Theyve slowed!" Erlein rasped, glang back as well. "How far to this village!”
"Through the gap and twenty minutes beyond! Ride!" Alessan did not shoot again, bending low te more speed from his owhey fled into the wind along the track of the suween the shadowy bulk of two heathery hills and into the gap between.
They did out.
Just where the path bent to follow the curve of the encroag ridges eight riders were waiting in a line across the gap, bows calmly leveled at the three of them.
They pulled their horses to rearing halts. Devin flung a glance back over his shoulder and saw the pursuing outlaws entering the pass behind them. There was one riderless horse, and another man clutched at his shoulder where an arrow was still embedded.
He looked at Alessan, saw the desperate, defiant look in the Princes eye.
"Dont be a fool!" Erlein snapped. "You t run through and you t kill this many men.”
"I try," Alessan said, his eyes darting across the defile and up the steep hills oher side, wild to find a way out. He had stopped his horse though, and did not raise the bow.
"Straight into a trap. What a splendid ending to two decades of dreaming!" His voice was corrosively bitter, raw with self-laceration.
It was true though, Devin realized, rather too late. This pass between the hills was a natural place for an ambush, and the Triad khere were enough outlaws hi the wilds of southerando, where even the Barbadian meraries seldom went, and ho men were never abroad this close to the fall of night.
Oher hand, they hadnt had much choice, given how far they had to go, and how fast.
It didnt seem as if they were going to get there. Or anywhere. There was still enough light to make out the outlaws, and their appearance did not reassure. Their clothing might be random and carelessly worn, but the horses were far from the beaten-dowures most brigands rode. The men in front of them looked disciplined, and the onry leveled at the three of them was formidable. This had also been, very clearly, a carefully laid trap.
One man rode a few paces forward from the silent line. "Release your bows," he said with easy
authority. "I dont like talking with armed men.”
"her do I," Alessan replied grimly, staring at the man. But a moment later he let his bow fall to the ground. Beside Devin, Erlein did the same.
"And the boy," the outlaw leader said, still softly. He was a big man of middle years, with a large fad a full beard that showed deep red in the waning light. He wore a dark wide-brimmed hat that hid his eyes.
"I dont carry a bow," Devin said shortly, letting fall his sword. There was mog laughter at that from the men in front of them.
"Magian, why were your men in arre?" The bearded man said, more loudly now. He himself had not laughed. "You knew my instrus. You knoe do this.”
"I didnt think we were," came an angry voice behind them, amid a clattering of hooves. Their pursuers had e up. The trap was closed, before and behind. "He fired a long way in half-light and wind. He was lucky, Ducas.”
"He wouldnt have had a ce to be lucky if you had done your job properly. Wheres Abhar?”
"Took an arrow ihigh and fell. Tone back t him.”
"Waste," the red-bearded man scowled. "I dont like waste." He was a dark, bulky presence, silhouetted against the low sun. Behind him the other seven riders kept their bows leveled.
Alessan said, "If waste offends you, you wont like this evenings work at all. We have nothing to give you beyond our ons. Or our lives, if you are the sort who kill for pleasure.”
"Sometimes," the man named Ducas said, not raising his voice. He sounded ulingly calm, Devin thought, and very mu trol of his band. "Will my two men die? Do you use poisoned arrows?”
Alessans expression was ptuous. "Not even against the Barbadians. Why? Do you?”
"Sometimes," the outlaw leader said again. "Especially against the Barbadians. These are the highlands, after all." He smiled for the first time, a cold, wolfish grin. Devin had a sudden sehat he wouldnt want to have this mans memories, or his dreams.
Alessan said nothing. It was growing darker in the pass. Devin saw him glance over at Erlein, a sharp query in his face. The wizard shook his head, a minute, almost invisible gesture. "Too many," he whispered. "And besides—”
"The grey-haired one is a wizard!" came an emphatic voice from the line beyond Ducas.
A ky, round-faced man moved his horse forward beside the leaders. "Dont even think of it," he tinued, looking straight at Erlein. "I could bloything you tried." Startled, Devin gla the mans hands, but at this dista was too dark for him to see if two fingers were missing. They would have to be though.
They had e upon another wizard; much good it would do them.
"And precisely how long do you think it would take a Tracker to find you then?" Erlein was saying, his voice silken. "With the back-spill of magi the both of us leading to this place?”
"There are a sufficy of arrows trained on your heart and throat," the leader interjected, "to ehat su event would not happen. But I fess this grows more iing every moment. An archer and a wizard riding abroad on an Ember Day. Arent you afraid of the dead? What does the boy do?”
"Im a singer," Devin said grimly. "Devin dAsoli, lately from the pany of Menico di Ferraut, if that means anything to you." The thing, obviously, was to keep the talk going somehow. And he had heard stories—wishful thinking on the road, perhaps—of outlaw bands sparing musis in exge for a night of song. Something occurred to him: "You thought we were Barbadians, didnt you? From a distahats why you laid the trap.”
"A singer. A clever singer," Ducas murmured. "If not clever enough to stay indoors on an Ember
Day. Of course we thought you were Barbadians. Who in the eastern peninsula but Barbadians and outlaws would be abroad today? And all of the outlaws for twenty miles around are part of my band.”
"There are outlaws and outlaws," Alessan said softly. "But if you were hunting Barbadian meraries you are men with the same hearts as ours. I tell you—and I do not lie, Ducas—that if you hinder us here, or kill us, you will be giving sufort to Barbadior —and to Ygrath—as they could not have ever dreamt of asking of you." There was, not surprisingly, a silehe cold wind knifed into the pass, stirring the young grasses in the growing dark.
"You have a rather large opinion of yourself, it appears," Ducas said at length, thoughtfully. "Perhaps I should know why. I think it is time for you to tell me exactly who you are, and where you are riding at dusk on an Ember Day, and I will draw my own clusions.”
"My name is Alessan. I am ridi. My mother is dying and has summoned me to her side.”
"How devoted of you," Ducas said. "But one ells me nothing, a is a big place, my friend with the bow. Who are you and where are you riding?" The voice was an uncoiled whip this time.
Devin jumped. Behind Ducas seven bs were drawn back.
Devin, his heart pounding, saw Alessaate. The sun was almost gone now, a red disk cut in half by the horizon beyond the pass. The wind seemed to be blowing harder, promising a chilly night to e after this first day of spring.
There was a chill in Devin as well. He gla Erlein, and discovered that the wizard was staring at him, as if waiting. Alessan had not yet spoken. Ducas shifted meaningfully in his saddle.
Devin swallowed and, knowing that however hard this was for him, it had to be easier than it would be for Alessan, he said: "Tigana. He is from Tigana, and so am I.”
He was careful to look straight at the outlaw wizard as he spoke, not at Ducas or the other riders. He saw out of the er of his eye that Alessan was doing the same thing, so as not to have to see the blank look of inprehension they both knew would follow. The wizard would be different. Wizards could hear the name.
A murmur rose from the gathered men, before them and behind. And then one man spoke aloud amid the shadows of falling dusk in that lonely place. A voice from the line behind them.
"By the blood of the god!" that voice cried from the heart. Devin wheeled around. A man had dismounted and was striding quickly forward to stand in front of them. Devin saw that the man was small, not much bigger than himself, perhaps thirty years old or a little more, and that he was moving awkwardly and clearly in pain, with Alessans arrow in his arm.
Ducas was looking at his wizard. "Sertino, what is this?" he said, with an edge in his voice. "I do not—”
"Sorcery," the wizard said bluntly.
"What? His?" Duodded towards Erlein.
"No, not his." It was the wounded man who spoke, his eyes never leaving Alessans face. "Not this poor wizards. It is real sorcery, this. It is the power of Brandin of Ygrath that keeps you from hearing the name.”
With an angry motion Ducas swept his hat off, revealing a balding dome with a fringe ht red hair. "And you, Naddo? How do you hear it, then?”
The man on the ground swayed unsteadily on his feet before replying. "Because I was boroo, and so Im immuo the spell, or another victim of it, whichever you prefer." Devin heard the tautness in his voice, as of someone holding hard to his self-trol. He heard the man called Naddo say, looking up at Alessan. "You have been asked for your name, and you only gave him a part. Will you tell us the rest?
Will you tell me?" It was hard to see his eyes now, but his voice told an old story.
Alessan was sitting on his horse with an easiness, even after a day in the saddle, that seemed to deny
even the possibility of weariness, or the tension of where they were. But then his right hand came up and pushed once, unsciously, through his already tangled hair, and Devin, seeing the familiar gesture, khat whatever he himself was feeling now, it was doubled and redoubled in the man he followed.
And then iillness of that pass, with the only other sounds the whistle of wiween the hills and the stirring of the horses on the young grass, he heard: "My name is Alessan di Tigana bar Valen-tin.
If you are as old as you appear to be, Naddo di Tigana, you will know who I am.”
With a prig of hairs on his ned a shiver he could not trol, Devin saw Naddo drop to his knees on the cold ground even before the last words were spoken.
"Oh, my Prince!" the wounded man cried in a raw voice. And c his face with his one good hand, he wept.
"Prince?" said Ducas, very softly. There was a restive movement among the outlaws. "Sertino, you will explain this to me!”
Sertino the wizard looked from Alessan to Erlein, and then down at the weeping man. A curious, almost a frightened, expression crossed his pale, round face.
He said, "They are from Lower Corte. It had a different name before Brandin of Ygrath came. He has used his sorcery to take that name away. Only people born there, and wizards because of our own magic, hear the true hat is what is happening here.”
"And Prinaddo called him that.”
Sertino was silent. He looked over at Erlein, and there was still that odd, uneasy look on his face. He said, "Is it true?”
And Erlein di Senzio, with an ironic half-smile, replied, "Just do him cut your hair, brother.
Unless you like being bound into slavery.”
Sertinos mouth fell open. Ducas slapped his kh his hat. "Now that," he snapped, "I do not uand at all. There is too much of this I do not uand. I want explanations, from all of you!" His voice was harsh, much louder than before. He did not look at Alessan though.
"I uand it well enough, Ducas," came a voice from behind them. It was Magian, the captain of the group that had driven them into the gap. He moved his horse forward as they turo look at him. "I uand that we have made our fortuonight. If this is the Prince of a province Brandin hates then all we need do is take him west to Fort Forese across the border and turn him over to the Ygrathens there.
With a wizard to boot. And who knows, one of them probably likes boys in his bed, too. Singing boys.”
His smile was a wide loose thing in the shadows.
He said, "There will be rewards. Land. Perhaps even . . .”
He said nothing more than that. Ever. In rigid disbelief Devin saw Magians mouth fall open and his eyes grow briefly wide, then the man slid slowly sideways off his horse to fall with a clatter of sword and bow on the ground beside Erlein.
There was a long-handled dagger in his back.
One of the outlaws from the line behind him, not hurrying at all, dismounted and pulled the dagger free. He wiped it carefully on the dead mans surcoat before sheathing it again at his belt.
"Not a good idea, Magians," he said quietly, straightening to look at Ducas. "Not a good idea at all.
We arent informers here, and we dont serve the Tyrants.”
Ducas slapped his hat ba his head, visibly fighting for trol. He took a deep breath. "As it happens, I agree. But as it also happens, Arkin, we have a rule here about ons drawn against each other.”
Arkin was very tall, almost gaunt, and his long face was white, Devin saw, even among the shadows of dusk. He said, "I know that, Ducas. It is wasteful. I know. You will have tive me.”
Ducas said nothing for a long time. her did anyone else. Devin, looking past the dead man, saw the two wizards gazing fixedly at each other in the shadows.
Arkin was still looking at Ducas.
Who finally broke the silence. "You are fortuhat I agree with you," he said.
Arkin shook his head. "We would not have stayed together this long otherwise.”
Alessaly dismounted from his horse. He walked over towards Ducas, ign the arrows still trained on him. "If you are hunting Barbadians," he said quietly, "I have some idea as to why. I am doing the same thing, in my own way." He hesitated. "You do as your dead man suggested: turn me in to Ygrath, and yes, I suspect there would be a reward. Or you kill us here, and have doh us. You also let us go our own way from this place. But there is oher, quite different thing you do.”
"Which is?" Ducas seemed to have regained his self-trol. His voice was calm again, as it had been at the beginning.
"Join me. In what I seek to do.”
"Which is?”
"To drive both Tyrants from the Palm before this summer is out.”
Naddo looked up suddenly, a brightness in his face. "Really, my lord? We do this? Even now?”
"There is a ce," Alessan said. "Especially now. For the first time there is a ce." He looked back at Ducas. "Where were you born?”
"In Tregea," the other man said after a pause. "In the mountains.”
Devin had a moment to think about how pletely things had shifted here, that Alessan should be asking the questions now. He felt a stirring within him, of hope renewed and of pride.
The Prince was nodding his head. "I thought it might be so. I have heard the stories of a red-headed Captain Ducas who was one of the leaders at Borifort in Tregea during the Barbadiahere. They never found him after the fort fell." He hesitated. "I could not help but notice the color of your hair.”
For a moment the two men were motionless as in a tableau, one on the ground the other on his horse.
Then, quite suddenly, Ducas di Tregea smiled.
"What is left of my hair," he murmured wryly, sweeping off his hat again with a wide gesture.
Releasing his reins he swung down off his horse and, striding forward, held out an open palm to Alessan. Who met both—the smile and offered hand—with his own.
Devin found himself gasping with the rush of relief that swept over him, and then cheering wildly at the top of his voice with twenty outlaws in that dark Certandan pass.
What he noticed though, even as the cheering reached a cresdo, was that her wizard was shouting. Erlein aino sat very still, almid on their horses, as if trating on something.
They gazed at each other, expressions identically grim.
And because he noticed, because he seemed to be being the sort of man who saw things like this, Devin was the first to fall silent, and he had even instinctively raised a hand to quiet the others. Ales-san and Ducas lowered their linked palms and gradually, as sileuro the pass, everyone looked at the wizards.
"What is it?" Ducas said.
Sertino turo him. "Tracker. Northeast of us, quite close. I just felt the probe. Hell not fihough, Ive done no magic for a long time.”
"I have," said Erlein di Senzio. "Earlier today, in the Braccio Pass. Only a light spell, a s for someone. Evidently it was enough. There must have been a Tracker in one of the southern forts.”
"There almost always is," Sertino said flatly.
"What," Ducas said, "were you doing in the Braccio Pass?”
"Gathering flowers," Alessan said. "Ill tell you later. Right now we have Barbadians to deal with.
How many will be with the Tracker?”
"Not less thay. Probably more. We have a camp in the hills south of here. Shall we run for it?”
"Theyll follow," Erlein said. "Hes got me traced. The spill of my magic will mark me for another day at least.”
"I dont much feel like hiding in any case," Alessan said softly.
Devin turned quickly to look at him. So did Ducas. Awkwardly, Naddo rose to his feet.
"How good, exactly, are your men here?" Alessan said, a challenge in his tone and in the grey eyes.
And in the shadows of what was now almost full-dark Devin saw the Tregean outlaw leaders teeth suddenly flash. "They are good enough, and to spare, to deal with a score of Barbadians. This will be more than weve ever tackled, but weve never fought beside a Prince before. I think," he added, in a meditative voice, "that I too am grown tired of hiding, suddenly.”
Devin looked over at the wizards. It was hard to make out their features in the dark, but Erlein said, in a hard-edged voice: "Alessan, the Tracker will have to be killed immediately, or hell send an image of this place back to Alberico.”
"He will be," said Alessan quietly. And in his voice, too, there was a new he presence of something Devin had never heard. A sed later he realized that it was death.
Alessans cloak flapped in a gust of wind. Very deliberately he drew his hood over his face.
The hard thing for Devin was that Albericos Tracker turned out to be twelve years old.
They sent Erlein ridi out of the pass, as the lure. He was the one being followed. He had Sertino di Certando, the other wizard, and two other men with them, one of whom was the wounded Naddo, who insisted on being of use even though he could not fight. They had taken the arrow from his arm and ba as best they could. It was clear that he was in difficulty, but even more clear that in the presence of Alessan he was not about to give way to that.
A short while later, uhe stars and the low eastward crest of Vidomni, the Barbadiaered the pass. There were twenty-five of them, and the Tracker. Six carried torches, which made things easier.
Though not for them.
Alessans arrow and Ducass met irackers breast, fired from slopes on opposite sides of the defile. Eleven of the meraries fell uhat first rain of arrows before Devin found himself galloping furiously down with Alessan and half a dozen other men out of their cealment in hollows in the pass.
They ao close the wester, even as Ducas and nine men sealed off the easterhe Barbadians had entered from.
And so on that Ember Night, in the pany of outlaws in the highlands of Certando far from his lost home, Alessan bar Valentin, Prince of Tigana, fought the first true battle of his long war of return. After the drawn-out years of maneuvering, a subtle gathering of intelligend the delicate guiding of events, he drew blade against the forces of a Tyrant in that moonlit pass.
No subterfuge, no hidden manipulation anymore from the wings of the stage. This was battle, for the time had e.
Marius of Quileia had made a promise to him that day, against wisdom and experiend beyond hope. And with Mariuss promise everything had ged. The waiting was over. He could loosen the rigid bonds that had held his heart so tightly leashed all these years. Tonight in this pass he could kill: in memory of his father and his brothers and all the dead of the River Deisa and after, in that year when he himself had not beeted to die.
They had spirited him away and hidden him in Quileia south of the mountains, with Marius, then a captain of the High Priestesss guard. A man with his own reasons for f and cealing a young
Prince from the northlands. That had been almost een years ago, when the hiding had begun.
He was tired of hiding. The time of running was over now; the season of war had begun. True, it was Barbadior, not Ygrath, whose soldiers drew blade against them now, but in the end it was all the same.
Both Tyrants were the same. He had been saying that for all the years since hed e baorth to the peninsula with Baerd. It was a truth hammered into shape like metal on the hard fe of his heart. They had to take them both, or be no nearer freedom than before.
And in the Braccio Pass this m the taking had begun. The keystone had bee in the arch of his design. And so tonight in this dark defile he could unbind his pent-up passion, his own long memories of loss, a his sword arm free.
Devin, lab to keep up with the Prince, rode into his first bat with raw panid exhilaration vying for mastery in his breast. He did not shout as most of the outlaws did; he was trating as much as anything else on ign the ache in his wounded leg. He gripped the dark sword Baerd had bought for him, holding it with the blade curving upwards as he had been taught in wintry m lessons that seemed unimaginably remote from this nights happenings.
He saw Alessan drive straight into the circled ranks of the meraries, unswerving as one of his arrows, as if to put behind him in this o of direct response all the years when such a thing was not allowed.
Frantically, gritting his teeth, Devin followed in Alessans wake. He was alohough, and half a dozehs behind, when a yellow-bearded Barbadian loomed up beside him, enormous on his horse.
Devin cried out in shock. Only some blind survival instind the reflexes he had been born with saved his life. He pulled his horse hard to the left, veering for a space he saw, and then leaning back to his right, as low to the ground as he could manage, he cut upwards with all his strength. He felt a searing pain in his wounded leg and almost fell. The windrush of the Barbadians blade sliced empty air where Devins head had been. A heartbeat later Devi his own wickedly curved sword cleave through leathery armor and into flesh.
The Barbadian screamed, a liquid, bubbling sound. He swayed wildly on his mount as his sword fell from his grasp. He brought one hand to his mouth in a curiously childlike gesture. Then, like the slow toppling of a mountain tree, he slid sideways in his saddle and crashed to the ground.
Devin had already pulled his sword free. Wheeling his horse in a tight circle, he looked for adversaries. No one was ing though. Alessan and the others were ahead of him, pounding against the meraries, driving to meet Ducas and Arkins group pressing forward from the east.
It was almost over, Devin realized. There was nothing, really, for him to do. With a plex mixture of emotions that he didnt even try to uand just theched the Princes blade rise and fall three times and he saw three Barbadians die. One by ohe six torches dropped to the ground and were extinguished. And then— only moments after they had ridden into the pass, it seemed to Devin —the last of the Barbadians had been cut down and slain.
It was then that he saw what was left of the Tracker and realized how young he had been. The body had been hideously trampled in the melee. It lay twisted and splayed unnaturally. Somehow the face had been spared, though for Devin, looking down, that was actually the worst thing. The two arrows were still embedded in the childs body, though the upper shaft of one of them had been broken off.
Devin turned away. He stroked the horse Alienor had given him, and whispered to it. Then he forced himself to ride back towards the man hed killed. This was not the same as the sleeping soldier in the Nievolene barn. It was not, he told himself. This had been open warfare and the Barbadian had been armed and armored, and he had swung his massive blade seeking Devins life. Had the Barbadians and the Tracker e upon him and Alessan and Erlein alone in the wilderness Devin had no illusions, all, as to what their fate would have been.
It was not the same as in the barn. He said it within himself once again, as he gradually became aware
of the eerie, disorienting calm that seemed to have desded upon the pass. The wind still blew, as cold as before. He glanced up, and realized belatedly that Alessan had quietly ridden to his side and was also looking down at the man Devin had slain. Both horses stamped and snorted, made restless by the frenzy just past and the smell of blood.
"Devin, believe me, I am sorry," Alessan murmured softly, so that no one else would hear. "It is hardest the first time, and I gave you no ce to prepare.”
Devin shook his head. He felt drained, almost numb. "You didnt have much choice. Maybe it was better this way." He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Alessan, you have larger things to worry about. I chose freely in the Sandren Woods last fall. You arent responsible for me.”
"In a way I am.”
"Not in a way that matters. I made my own choice." "Doesnt friendship matter?”
Devin was silent, rendered suddenly diffident. Alessan had a way of doing that to you. After a moment the Prince added, almost as an afterthought, "I was ye when I came back from Quileia.”
For a moment he seemed about to add something, but in the end he did not. Devin had an idea of what he meant though, and something kindled quietly within him like a dle.
For a moment lohey looked down at the dead man. Only a crest, Vidomnis pale light was still bright enough to show the staring pain in his face.
Devin said, "I chose freely, and I uand the need, but I dont think Im ever going to get used to this.”
"I know I never have," said Alessan. He hesitated. "Either one of my brothers would have been so much better at what I was kept alive to do.”
Devin turhen, trying to read the expression on the Princes fa the shadows. After a moment he said, "I never khem, but will you allow me to say that I doubt it? Truly I doubt it, Alessan." After a moment the Priouched his shoulder. "Thank you. There are those who would disagree, Im afraid.
But thank you, heless.”
And with those words he seemed to remember something, or be recalled to something. His voice ged. "We had better ride. I must speak with Ducas, and then well have to catch up with Erlein and go on. Weve a lot of ground to cover yet." He looked at Devin apprais-ingly. "You must be exhausted. I should have asked before: how is y? you ride?”
"Im fine," Devin protested quickly. "Of course I ride." Someone behind them laughed sardonically. They both turo discover that Erlein and the others had, in fact, returo the pass.
"Tell me," the wizard said to Alessan, sharp mockery in his voice, "what did you expect him to say?
Of course hell tell you he ride. Hed ride all night, half-dead, for you. So would this one"—he gestured towards Naddo behind him—"on barely an hours acquaintance. I wonder, Prince Alessan, how does it feel to have such a power over the hearts of men?”
Ducas had ridden over while Erlein eaking. He said nothing though, and it was too dark now with the torches extinguished, to make out anyones features clearly. One had to judge by the words, and the iions given them.
Alessan said quietly, "I think you know my ao that. In any case, Im uo think too highly of myself with you around to point these things out to me." He paused, then added, "Triad for-fend you would ever voluo ride all night in any cause but your own.”
"I," said Erlein flatly, "have no choi the matter anymore. Or have you fotten?”
"I have not. But Ive no mind to repeat that quarrel now, Erlein. Ducas and his men have just put their lives at risk to save your own. If you—”
"To save my own! I would never have been at risk if you hadnt pelled me to—”
"Erlein, enough! We have a great many things to do and I am not of a mind to debate.”
In the darkness Devin saw Erleich a mog bow on horseback. "I most humbly cry your pardon," he said in an exaggerated tone. "You really must let me know when you are of a mind to debate.
Youll cede it is an issue of some importao me.”
Alessan was silent for what seemed a long time. Then, mildly, he said, "I think I guess what is behind this now. I uand. It is meeting another wizard, isnt it? With Sertino here you feel what has happeo you the more.”
"Dont pretend you uand me, Alessan!" said Erlein furiously.
Still calmly, Alessan said, "Very well then, I wont. In some ways I may never uand you and how you have lived you life—I told you that the eveni. But for now this issue is a closed one. I will be prepared to discuss it the day the Tyrants are gone from the Palm. Not before.”
"You will be dead before that. We will both be dead.”
"Dont touch him!" Alessan said sharply. Belatedly Devin saw the Naddo had raised his good hand to strike the wizard. More quietly the Prince added, "If we are both dead, then our spirits wrangle in Morians Halls, Erlein. Until then, no more. We will have a great deal to do together in the weeks to e.”
Ducas coughed. "As to that," he said, "we two also had better speak. There is a fair bit Id like to know before I go further than this nights work, much as it has pleased me.”
"I know," said Alessan, turning to him in the dark. He hesitated. "Will you ride with us for a little.
Only as far as the village. You and Naddo, because of his arm.”
"Why there, and why because of the arm? I dont uand," Ducas said. "You should know that we are not much wele in the village. For obvious reasons.”
"I guess. It wont matter. Not on an Ember Night. You will uand whe there. e.
I want my good friend Erlein di Senzio to see something. And I suppose Sertino had better join us too.”
"I wouldnt miss this for all the blue wine in Astibar," said the pudgy Certandan wizard. It was iing, at aime it might even have been amusing, to note what a healthy distance he tio keep between himself and the Prihe words he spoke were facetious, but his tone was deadly serious.
"e on then," said Alessan brusquely. He turned his horse past Erleins, almost brushing against the other man, and started west out of the pass. The ones he had named began to follow. Ducas spoke a few terse ands to Arkin, too low for Devin to hear. Arkiated for a moment, clearly torn, wanting to e with his leader. But then, without speaking, he turned his horse the other way. When Devin glanced back a moment later, he saw that the outlaws were rifling the Barbadians bodies for ons.
He turo look over his shoulder again a few moments later but they were in open try by then, with the hills in shadow to the south a and a grassy plain rolling north of them. The entrao the pass could no longer even be seen. Arkin and the others would be gone from within it soon, Devin knew, leaving only the dead. Only the dead for the sgers; one of them killed by his own sword, and another one a child.
The old man lay on his bed in the darkness of an Ember Night and the always darkness of his own affli. Far from sleep, he listeo the wind outside and to the woman iher room clig her prayer beads and intoning the same litany over and over.
"Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls. Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us, Morian guard our souls. Eanna love us . . .”
His hearing was very good. It was a pensation most of the time, but sometimes—as tonight, with the raying like a demehing—it was a curse of a particularly insidious kind. She was using
her old beads; he could tell the thin, quick sound even through the wall separating their chambers. He had made her a new ring of beads of rare, polished tanchwood three years ago for her naming day. Most of the time she used that ring, but not on the Ember Days. Then she went back to her old beads and she prayed aloud for most of three days and nights.
In the earliest years here he had slept those three nights in the barn with the two boys who had brought him here, so much did her unceasing litany disturb him. But he was old now, his bones creaked and ached on windy nights such as this, so he kept to his own bed under piled blas and endured her voice as best he could.
"Eanna love us always, Adaon preserve us from all perils, Morian guard our souls and shelter us.
Eanna love us . . .”
The Ember Days were a time of trition and ato, but they were also a time when one was to t and give thanks for ones gifts. He was a ical man, for suffit and varied reasons, but he would not have called himself unreligious, and he would not, in fact, have said hed lived a life unblessed, despite the blindness of almost two decades. He had lived much of his life ih ao power.
The length of his days was a blessing, and so too was the lifelong grace of his hands with wood. Only a form of play at first, a diversion, it had bee something more than that in the years sihey had e here.
There was also his ift of skill, though few people knew of that. Had it been otherwise he would never have been able to shape a quiet life in this highland village, and a quiet life was essential because he was hiding. Still.
The very fact of his survival on the long, sightless journey all those years ago was a blessing of a special kind. He was under no illusions: he would never have survived without the loyalty of his two young servants. The only ohey had allowed to stay with him. The only ones who had wao stay.
They werent young nor were they servants any lohey were farmers on land they owned with him. No longer sleeping on the front-room floor in their first small farmhouse nor out in the barn as they had in the earliest years, but in their own homes with wives beside them and children near by. Lying in darkness he offered thanks for that, as gratefully as for anything he had ever been given himself.
Either of them would have let him sleep in their home these three nights, to escape the unending drone of the woman iher room, but he would not presume to ask so muot on the Ember Nights, not on any night. He had his own sense of what ropriate, and besides, he liked his own bed more and more with the passing years.
"Eanna love us as her children, Adaon preserve us as his children . . .”
He wasnt, clearly, going to be able to fall asleep. He thought about getting up to polish a staff or a bow, but he knew Menna would hear him, and he knew she would make him pay for profaning an Ember Night with labor. Watery pe, sour wine, his slippers cruelly moved from where he laid them down.
"They were in my way," she would say when he plaihen, when fires were allowed again: bur, undrinkable khav, bitter bread. For a week, at least. Menna had her own ways of letting him know what mattered to her. After all the years they had their tacit uandings much as any old couple did, though of course he had never married her.
He knew who he was, and what ropriate, even in this fallen state, far from home, from the memory of wealth or power. Here on this small farm-holding bought with gold fearfully hidden on his person during that long, blind journey seventeen years ago, sure that a murderous pursuit was riding close behind.
He had survived, though, and the boys. ing to this village on a day in autumn long ago: strangers arriving in a dark time. A time when so many people had died and so many others were brutally uprooted all across the Palm in the wake of the Tyrants ing. But the three of them had somehow endured, had even mao make the land put forth a living for them in good years. Iandos bad years latterly
he had had to deplete his dwindled reserve of gold, but what else was it for, at this point?
Really, what else would it be for? Menna and the two boys—they were no longer boys, of course— were his heirs. They were all he could claim as family now. They were all he had, if one didnt t the dreams that still came in his nights.
He was a ical man, having seen a great deal in the days before his darkness came, and after, in a different way of seeing, but he was not so burdened by irony as to defeat wisdom. He khat exiles always dreamt of home and that the sorely wronged never really fot. He had no illusions about being unique in this.
"Eanna love us, Adaon preserve us from—Triad save us!”
Menna fell silent, very abruptly. And for the same reason the old man sat suddenly upright in bed, wing at a sharp protest from his spihey had both heard it: a sound outside in the night. In the Ember Night, when no one should be abroad.
Listening carefully he caught it again: the sound, delicate and faint, of pipes playing in the darkness outside, passin>g by their walls. trating, the old man could make out footsteps. He ted them.
Then, his heart beating dangerously fast, he swung out of bed as quickly as he could and began to dress.
"It is the dead!" Menna wailed in the far room. "Adaon preserve us from vengeful ghosts, from all harm. Eanna love us! The dead have e for us. Morian of Portals guard our souls!”
Despite his agitation the old man paused to hat Menna, even in her fear, still included him in prayers. For a moment he was genuinely moved. In the moment he ruefully aowledged the inescapable fact that the succeeding two weeks of his life—at least— were likely to be sheerest domestient.
He was going outside, of course. He kly who this was. He finished dressing and reached for his favorite stick by the door. He moved as quietly as he could, but the walls were thin and Mennas hearing almost as good as his own: there was no point in trying to slip out unheard. She would know what he was doing. And would make him pay the price.
Because this had happened before. On Ember Nights and hts for almost ten years now. Sure of foot ihe house he went to the front door and used his stick to roll back the k-blocker on the floor. Then he opehe door a out. Menna raying again already: "Eanna love me, Adaon preserve me, Morian guard my soul." The old man smiled a wintry smile. Two weeks, at least. Watery pe in the m. Burnt, tasteless khav. Bitter mahgoti tea. He stood still for a moment, still smiling faintly, breathing the crisp, cool air. Mercifully, the wind had died down a little, his bones felt fine. Lifting his face to the night breeze he could almost taste the spring to e.
He closed the door carefully behind him and began tapping his way with the stick along the path towards the barn. He had carved this stick wheill had his sight. Many times he had carried it in the palace, an affectation at a dissolute court. He had never expected to in this way. Its head was the head of an eagle with the eyes lovingly detailed, wide and fiercely defiant.
Perhaps because he had killed for the sed time in his life that night, Devin was remembering that other much larger barn from the winter just past, in Astibar.
This one was far more modest. Only two milk cows and a pair of plow horses stabled. It was well- made though, and warm, with the smell of the animals and straw. The walls had no ks to admit the knife of wind, the straw was freshly piled, the floor swept , the tools along the walls ly laid and stacked.
In fact, if he wasnt careful, the smell and the feel of this barn would take him much further back than last winter: back to their own farm in Asoli, which he tried o think about. He was tired though, boired, after two sleepless nights, and so he supposed he was vulnerable to such memories. His right knee ached fiercely, where he had twisted it on the mountain. It was swollen to twice its normal size and sharply sensitive to touch. Hed had to walk slowly, making a real effort not to limp.
No one spoke. No one had spoken sihey had reached the outskirts of this village of some twenty homes. The only sound for the last few moments after they tethered the horses and began to walk had been Alessans pipes softly playing. Playing—and Devin wondered if he alone khis, or if Nadd too—a certain nursery melody from Avalle.
Here in the barn Alessan was still playing, as gently as before. The tune was one more thing that seemed to be trying to carry Devin back to his family. He resisted: if he went that way in the dition he was in right now he would probably end up g.
Devin tried to imagine how the haunting, elusive melody would sound to anyone huddled ihe walls of their lightless homes on this Ember Night. A pany of ghosts passing by, that was what they would seem to be. The dead abroad, following a small, fotten tune. He remembered Catriana singing in the Sandreni Woods: But wherever I wander, by night or by day, Where water runs swiftly h trees sway, My heart will carry me bad away To a dream of the towers of Avalle.
He wondered where she was tonight. And Sandre. Baerd. He wondered if he would ever see any of them again. Earlier this evening, pursued into the pass, he had thought he was about to die. And now, two hours later, they had killed twenty-five Barbadians with those same outlaws who had pursued them, and three of the outlaws were here with them in this unknown barn listening to Alessan play a cradle song.
He didnt think he would uand the strangeness of life if he lived to be a hundred years old.
There was a sound outside and the door swung open. Devin stiffened involuntarily. So did Ducas di Tregea, a hand reag for his sword. Alessan looked at the door, but his fingers never faltered on the pipes and the musitinued.
An old man, slightly stooped, but with a leonine bed-back mane of white hair, stood for a moment, backlit by the sudden moonlight, before he stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind him with a stick he carried. After that it was dark again in the barn and hard to see for a few moments.
No one spoke. Alessan did not even look up again. Tenderly, with feeling, he fihe tune. Devin looked at him as he played and wondered if he was the only man here who uood what music meant to the Prince. He thought about what Alessan had been through in this past day alone, about what it was he was riding towards, and something plicated and awkward stirred in his heart as he listeo the wistful ending of the song. He saw the Pri his pipes aside with a motion ret. Laying down his release, taking up the burdens again. All the burdens that seemed to be his legacy, the price of his blood.
"Thank you for ing, old friend," he said now, quietly, to the man in the doorway.
"You owe me, Alessan," the old man said in a clear strong voice. "You have ned me to sour milk and spoiled meat for a month.”
"I was afraid of that," Alessan said in the darkness. Devin could hear affe and an ued amusement in his voice. "Menna has not ged, then?”
The other man snorted. "Menna and ge do not coexist," he said. "You are with new people, and a friend is missing. What has happened? Is he all right?”
"He is fine. A half-days ride east. There is much to tell. I came with some reason, Rinaldo.”
"So much is clear to me. One man with a leg that is torn inside. Another with an arrow wound. The two wizards are not happy but I do nothing about their missing fingers aher is ill. The sixth man is now afraid of me, but he need not be.”
Devin gasped with astonishment. Beside him Ducas swore aloud.
"Explain this!" he growled furiously. "Explaihing!”
Alessan was laughing. So, more softly, was the man he had called Rinaldo. "You are a spoiled ay old man," the Prince said, still chug, "and you enjoy shog people simply for the sake of doing it. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
"There are so few pleasures left to me in my age," the other retorted. "Would you dehis ooo? There is much to tell, you say? Tell me.”
Alessans voice grew sober. "I had a meeting in the mountains this m.”
"Ah, I was w about that! And what follows?”
"Everything, Rinaldo. Everything follows. This summer. He said yes. We will have the letters. Oo Alberico, oo Brandin, and oo the Governor of Senzio.”
"Ah," said Rinaldo again. "The Governor of Senzio." He said it softly, but could not quite disguise the excitement in his voice. He took a step forward into the room. "I never dreamt I would live to see this day. Alessan, we are going to act?”
"We have already begun. Ducas and his men joined with us tonight in battle. We killed a number of Barbadians and a Tracker pursuing a wizard with us.”
"Ducas? That is who this is?" The old man gave a low whistle, a curiously ingruous sound. "Now I know why he is afraid. You have your share of enemies in this village, my friend.”
"I am aware of that," said Ducas drily.
"Rinaldo," Alessan said, "do you remember the siege of Borifort when Alberico first came? The stories about a red-bearded captain, one of the leaders of the Tregeans there? The one who was never found?”
"Ducas di Tregea? This is he?" Again the whistle. "Well met then, Captain, though not, as a matter of fact, for the first time. If I remember rightly, you were in the pany of the Duke ea when I paid a formal visit there some twenty years ago.”
"A visit from where?" Ducas asked, visibly struggling to get his bearings. Devin sympathized: he was doing the same thing, and he knew rather more than the red-bearded man did. "From . . . from Alessans province?" Ducas hazarded.
"Tigana? But of course," Erlein di Senzio interjected harshly. "Of course he is. This is just another petty injured lordling from the west. Is that why yht me here, Alessan? To show how brave an old man be? You will five me if I choose to pass on this lesson.”
"I didhe beginning of that." It was Rinaldo, speaking softly to the wizard. "What did you say?”
Erlein fell silent, turning from Alessan to the man by the door. Even in darkness Devin could see his sudden fusion.
"He named my province," Alessan said. "They both think you are from my home.”
"An eous slander," Rinaldo said calmly. He swung his large, handsome head towards Ducas and Erlein. "I am vain enough to have thought you might know me by now. My name is Rinaldo di Senzio.”
"What! Senzio?" Erlein exclaimed, shocked out of his own posure. "You t be!”
There was a silence.
"Who, exactly, is this presumptuous man?" Rinaldo asked, of no one in particular.
"My wizard, Im afraid," Alessan replied. "I have bound him to me with Adaons gift to the line of our Princes. I spoke to you of that once, I think. His name is Erlein. Erlein di Senzio.”
"Ah!" said Rinaldo letting his breath out slowly. "I see. A bound wizard and a Senzian. That explains his anger." He moved another few steps forward, sweeping his stick over the ground in front of him.
It was in that moment that Devin realized that Rinaldo was blind. Ducas registered it in the same moment: "You have no eyes," he said.
"No," Rinaldo said equably. "I used to, of course, but they were judged inappropriate for me by my nephew, at the suggestion of both Tyrants seventeen years ago this spring. I had the temerity to oppose
Casalias decision to lay down his Ducal status and bee a Governor instead.”
Alessan was staring fixedly at Erlein as Rinaldo spoke. Devin followed his glahe wizard looked more fused than Devin had ever seen him.
"I do know who you are, then," he said, almost stammering.
"Of course you do. Just as I know you, and knew your father, Erlein bar Alein. I was brother to the last real Duke of Senzio and am uo the craven disgrace who styles himself Casalia, Governor of Senzio now. And I roud to be the one as I am shamed to call myself the other.”
Visibly fighting for trol, Erlein said, "But then you knew what Alessan lanning. You knew about those letters. He told you. You know what he intends to do with them! You know what it will mean for our province! And you are still with him? You are helping him?" His voice rose erratically at the end.
"You stupid, petty little man," Rinaldo said slowly, spag the words for weight, his own voice hard as stone. "Of course I am helping him. How else are we to deal with the Tyrants? What other battleground is possible in the Palm today but our poor Senzio where Barbadior and Ygrath circle each other like wolves and my crapulous nephew drowns himself in drink and spills his seed in the backsides of whores!
Do you want freedom to be easy, Erlein bar Alein? Do you think it drops like as from trees in the fall?”
"He thinks he is free," Alessan said bluntly. "Or would be, if it wasnt for me. He thinks he was free until he met me by a river in Ferraut last week.”
"Then I have nothing more to say to him," said Rinaldo di Senzio, with pt.
"How did you . . . how did you find this man?" It was Sertino, speaking to Alessan. The Certandan wizard still kept to the far side of the room from the Prince, Devin noted.
"Finding such men has been my labor for twelve years and more now," Alessan said. "Men and women from my home or yours, from Astibar, Tregea ... all over the peninsula. People I thought could be trusted and who might have reason to hate the Tyrants as much as I. And a desire to be free that matched my own. Truly free," he said, looking at Erlein again. "Masters of our own peninsula.”
With a faint smile he turo Ducas. "As it happened, you hid yourself well, friend. I thought you might be alive, but had no idea where. We lived in Tregea on and off for more than a year but no one we spoke to knew, or would say anything about your fate. I had to be terribly clever tonight to lure you into finding me instead.”
Ducas laughed at that, a deep sound in his chest. Then, s, he said, "I wish it had happened earlier.”
"So do I. You have no idea how much. I have a friend I think will take to you as much as you will to him.”
"Shall I meet him?”
"In Senzio, later this spring, if events fall right. If we make them fall right.”
"If that is so, you had best start by telling us how you hem to fall," Rinaldo said prosaically.
"Let me tend to your two wounded while you tell what we should know.”
He moved forward, tapping the ground ahead of him as he came up to Devin. "I am a Healer," he explained gravely, the sharpness gone from his voice. "Y is bad and needs dealing with. Will you let me try?”
"So that is how you knew us," Ducas said, wonder in his voice again. "I have never known a true Healer before.”
"There are not many of us aend not to announce ourselves," Rinaldo said, the empty sockets of his eyes fixed on nothingness. "That was so even before the Tyrants came: it is a gift with limits and a priow we keep ourselves hidden for the same reason the wizards do, or almost the same: the Tyrants are happy to seize us, and force us serve them until they wear us out.”
" they do that?" Devin asked. His voice was hoarse. He realized that he hadnt spoken for a long time. He ged at the thought of what he would sound like if he tried to sing tonight. He couldnt remember the last time he had been so exhausted.
"Of course they ," said Rinaldo simply. "Unless we choose to die on their death-wheels instead.
Which has been known to happen.”
"I will be happy to learn of any differeween that coer and what this man has doo me,”
Erlein said coldly.
"And I will be happy to tell you," Rinaldo shot back, "as soon as I finish my work." To Devin he said, "There should be straw behind you. Will you lie down a me see what I do?”
In a few moments Devin found himself prone on a bed of straw. With an old mans gingerly caution Rinaldo k beside him. The Healer began rubbing his palms slowly against each other.
Over his shoulder Rinaldo said, "Alessan, Im serious. Talk while I work. Begin with Baerd. I would like to know why he isnt with you.”
"Baerd!" a voiterrupted. "Is that your friend? Baerd bar Saevar?" It was Naddo, the wounded maumbled forward to the edge of the straw.
"Saevar was his father, yes," Alessan said. "You knew him?”
Naddo was so distraught he could scarcely speak. "Knew him? Of course I knew him. I was ... I ...”
He swallowed hard. "I was his fathers last apprentice. I loved Baerd as ... as an older brother. I ... we ...
parted badly. I went away in the year after the fall.”
"So did he," Alessan said gently, laying a hand on Naddos trembling shoulder. "Not long after you did. I know who you are now, Naddo. He has often spoken to me of that parting. I tell you that he grieved for the manner of it. That he still does. I expect he will tell you himself when you meet.”
"This is the friend you mentioned?" Ducas asked softly.
"It is.”
"He has spoken to you of me?" Naddos voice skirled high with wonder.
"He has.”
Alessan was smiling again. Devin, weary as he was, found himself doing the same. The man before them sounded remarkably like a young boy just then.
"Do you . . . does he know what happeo his sister? To Dianora?" Naddo asked.
Alessans smile faded. "We do not. We have searched for a dozen years, and asked in a great many places, wherever we find survivors of the fall. There are so many women of that name. She went away herself, some time after he left in seare. No one knows why, or where she went, and the mother died not long after. They are . . . their loss is the deepest hurt I know in Baerd.”
Naddo was silent; a moment later they realized that he was fighting back tears. "I uand that," he said finally, his voice husky. "She was the bravest girl I ever khe bravest woman.
And if she wasnt really beautiful she was still so very . . ." He stopped for a moment, struggling for posure, and then said quietly: "I think I loved her. I know I did. I was thirteen years old that year.”
"If the goddesses love us, and the god," Alessan said softly, "we will find her yet.”
Devin hadnt known any of this. There seemed to be so many things he hadnt known. He had questions to ask, maybe even more than Ducas had. But just then Rinaldo, on his knees beside him, stopped rubbing his palms together and leaned forward.
"You need rest quite badly," he murmured, so softly none of the others could hear. "You need sleep as much as y needs care." As he spoke he laid one haly on Devins forehead and Devin, for all his questions and all his perturbatio himself suddenly beginning to drift, as on a wide calm sea towards the shores of sleep, far from where men were speaking, from their voices and their grief and their
need. And he heard nothing more at all of what was said in the barn that night.
Chapter 15
THREE DAYS LATER AT SUHEY CROSSED THE BORDER south of the two forts and Deviered Tigana for the first time since his father had carried him away as a child.
Only the most struggling musis came into Lower Corte, the panies down on their lud desperate fagements of any kind, however slight the pay, however grim the ambience. Even so long after the Tyrants had quered, the iti performers of the Palm khat Lower Corte meant bad lud worse wages, and a serious risk of falling afoul of the Ygratheher ihe province or at the boing in or out.
It wasnt as if the story wasnt known: the Lower Corteans had killed Brandins son, and they were paying a pri blood and money and brutally heavy oppression for that. It did not make for a genial setting, the artists of the roads agreed, talking it over in taverns or hospices in Ferraut or Corte. Only the hungry or the newly beguured to take the ill-paying, risk-laden jobs in that sad provin the southwest. By the time Devin had joined him Menico di Ferraut had been traveling for a very long time and had more than enough of a reputation to be able to eschearticular one of the nine provinces.
There was sorcery involved there too; no one really uood it, but the travelers of the road were a superstitious lot and, given an alternative, few would willingly veo a place where magic was known to be at work. Everyone khe problems you could find in Lower Corte. Everyone khe stories.
So this was the first time for Devin. Through the last hours of riding in darkness he had been waiting for the moment of passage, knowing that sihey had glimpsed Fort Sinave north of them some time ago, the border had to be near, knowing what lay oher side.
And now, with the first pale light of dawn rising behind them, they had e to the line of boundary s that stretched north and south betweewo forts, and he had looked up at the of the old, worn, smooth monoliths, and had ridden past it, had crossed the border into Tigana.
And he found to his dismay that he had no idea what to think, how to respond. He felt scattered and fused. He had shivered untrollably a few ho when they saw the distant lights of Sinave in darkness, his imaginatiolessly at work. I’ll be home soon, he had told himself. In the land where I was born.
Now, ridi past the , Devin looked around pulsively, searg, as the slow spread of light claimed the sky and theops of hills and trees and finally bathed the springtime world as far as he could see.
It was a landscape much like what they had been riding through for the past two days. Hilly, with dense forests ranging in the south on the rising slopes, and the mountains visible beyond. He saw a deer lift its head from drinking at a stream. It froze for a minute, watg them, and then remembered to flee.
They had seen deer iando, too.
This is home! Devin told himself again, reag for the respohat should be flowing. In this land his father had met and wooed his mother, he and his brothers had been born, and from here Garin di Tigana had fled northward, a ith infant sons, esg the killing anger of Ygrath. Devin tried to picture it: his father on a cart, one of the twins on the seat beside him, the other—they must have taken turns—in the back with what goods they had, cradling Devin in his arms as they rode through a red su darkened by smoke and fires on the horizon.
It seemed a false picture in some way Devin could not have explained. Or, if ly false, it was unreal somehow. Too easy an image. The thing was, it might everue, it might be exactly true, but Devin didnt know. He couldnt know. He had no memories: of that ride, of this plao roots, no history. This was home, but it wasnt. It wasnt really even Tigana through which they rode. He had never
even heard that il half a year ago, let alone any stories, legends, icles of its past.
This was the province of Lower Corte; so he had known it all his life.
He shook his head, edgy, profoundly uled. Beside him Erlein glanced over, an ironic smile playing about his lips. Which made Devin even more irritable. Ahead of them Alessan was riding alone.
He hadnt said a word sihe border.
He had memories, Devin knew, and in a way that he was aware was odd or even twisted he ehe Prihose images, however painful they might be. They would be rooted and absolute and shaped of this place which was truly his home.
Whatever Alessan was feeling or remembering now would have nothing of the unreal about it. It would all be raw, brutally actual, the trampled fabric of his own life. Devin tried, riding through the cheerful birdsong of a glorious spring m, to imagine how the Prince might be feeling. He thought that he could, but only just: a guess more than anything else. Among other things, perhaps first of all things, Alessan was going to a place where his mother was dying. No wonder he had urged his horse ahead; no wonder he wasnt speaking now.
He is entitled, Devin thought, watg the Prince ride, straight-backed and self-tained in front of them. Hes entitled to whatever solitude, whatever release he needs. What he carries is the dream of a people, and most of them dont even know it.
And thinking so, he found himself drawn out of his own fusion, his struggling adjustment to where they were. Fog on Alessan he found his aveo passion again to the burning inward respoo what had happened here—and was still happening. Every hour of every day in the ransacked, broken-down provinamed Lower Corte.
And somewhere in his mind a—fruits of a long winter of thought, and of listening in silence as older and wiser men spoke— Devihat he was not the first and would not be the last person to find in a single man the defining shape and lis for the so much harder love of an abstra or a dream.
It was then, looking all around at the sweep of land uhe wide arch of a high blue sky, that Devi something pluck at the strings of his heart as if it were a harp. As if he were. He felt the drumming of his horses hooves on the hard earth, following fast behind the Prince, and it seemed to Devin that that drumming was with the harp-strings as they galloped.
Their destiny was waiting for them, brilliant in his mind like the colored pavilions on the plain of the Triad Games that took place every three years. What they were doing now mattered, it could make a differehey were riding at the very ter of events iime. Devi something pull him forward, lifting and bearing him into the riptide, the maelstrom of the future. Into what his life would have been about when it was over.
He saw Erlein glance ain, and this time Devin smiled back at him. A grim, fierce smile. He saw the habitual, reflexive irony leave the wizards lean face, replaced by a flicker of doubt. Devin almost felt sorry for the man again.
Impulsively he guided his horse o Erleins brown and leaned over to squeeze the other mans shoulder.
"Were going to do it!" he said brightly, almost gaily.
Erleins face seemed to pinch itself together. "You are a fool," he said tersely. "A young, ignorant fool." He said it without vi though, an instinctive response.
Devin laughed aloud.
Later he would remember this moment too. His words, Erleins, his laughter uhe bright, blue cloudless sky. Forests and the mountains on their left and in the distance before them now the first glimpse of the Sperion, a glinting ribbon flowing swiftly north before beginning its curve west to find the
sea.
The Sanctuary of Eanna lay in a high valley set within a sheltering and isolating circle of hills south a of the River Sperion and of what had been Avalle. It was not far from the road that had once borne such a volume of trade bad forth from Tigana and Quileia through the high saddleback of the Sfaroni Pass.
In all nine provinces Eannas priests and Morians, and the priestesses of Adaon had such retreats.
Founded in out-of-the arts of the peninsula—sometimes dramatically so—they served as ters of learning and teag for the newly initiated clergy, repositories of wisdom and of the s of the Triad, and as places of withdrawal, where priests and priestesses who ight lay down the pad burdens of the world outside for a time or for a lifetime.
And not just the clergy. Members of the laity would sometimes do the same, if they could afford "tributions" that were judged as appropriate s for the privilege of sheltering for a space of days or years within the ambit of these retreats.
Mahe reasons that led people to the Sanctuaries. It had long been a jest that the priestesses of Adaohe best birth doctors in the Palm, so numerous were the daughters of distinguished or merely wealthy houses that elected to sojourn at one of the gods retreats at times that might otherwise have been inve for their families. And, of course, it was well known that an ierminately high pertage of the clergy were culled from the living s these same daughters left behind when they returo their homes. Girl children stayed with Adaon, the boys went to Morian. The white-robed priests of Eanna had always claimed that they would have nothing to do with such goings-on, but there were stories belying that, as well.
Little of this had ged wheyrants came. her Brandin nor Alberico was so reckless or ill-advised as to stir up the clergy of the Triad against their rule. The priests and the priestesses were allowed to do as they had always dohe people of the Palm were graheir worship, odd and even primitive as it might seem to the new rulers from overseas.
What both Tyrants did do, with greater or lesser success, lay the rival temples against each other, seeing—for it was impossible not to see—the tensions and hostilities that rippled and flared among the three orders of the Triad. There was nothing new in this: every Duke, Grand Duke, or Prin the peninsula had sought, in each geion, to turn this shifting three-way fri to his own at. Many patterns might have ged with the cirg of years, some things might ge past all reition, and some might be lost or fotteirely, but not this one. Not this delicate, reciprocal dance of state and clergy.
And so the temples still stood, and the most important oill flourished their gold and machial, their statuary, and their cloth-of-gold vestments for services. Save in one plaly: in Lower Corte, where the statues and the gold were gone and the libraries looted and burhat art of something else though, and few spoke of it after the earliest years of the Tyrants. Even in this benighted provihe clergy were otherwise allowed to tihe precisely measured round of their days in city and town, and in their Sanctuaries.
And to these retreats came a great variety of men and women from time to time. It was not only the awkwardly fed who found reason to ride or be carried away from the turbulence of their lives. In times of strife, whether of the soul or the wider world, the denizens of the Palm always khat the Sanctuaries were there, perched in snowbound precipitous eyries or half-lost in their misty valleys.
And the people knew as well that—for a price—such a withdrawal into the regimen, the carefully modulated hours of retreats such as this one of Eanna in its valley, could be theirs. For a time. For a lifetime. Whoever they might have been iies beyond the hills.
Whoever they might have been.
For a time, for a lifetime, the old woman thought, looking out the window of her room at the valley in
sunlight at springs return. She had never been able to keep her thoughts from going back. There was so much waiting for her in the past and so little here, now, living through the agonizingly slow dest of the years. Season after season falling to the earth like shot birds, arrows in their breasts, through this lifetime that was her own, and her only one.
A lifetime of remembering, by curlews cry at dawn or call to prayer, by dlelight at dusk, by sight of ey smoke rising straight and dark into winters wan gray light, by the driving sound of rain on roof and window at winters end, by the creak of her bed at night, by call to prayer again, by drone of priests at prayer, by a star falli in the summer sky, by the stern cold dark of the Ember Days ... a memory within ead every motion of the self or of the world, every sound, each share of color, each st borne by the valley wind. A remembrance of what had been lost t oo this place among the white-robed priests with their unending rites and their unendiiness, and their acceptance of what had happeo them all.
Which last is what had nearly killed her in the early years. Which, indeed, she would say—had said last week to Danoleon—was killing her now, whatever the priest-physi might say about growths in her breast.
They had found a Healer in the fall. He had e, anxious, febrile, a lank, sloppy man with nervous motions and a flushed brow. But he had sat down beside her bed and looked at her, and she had realized that he did have the gift, for his agitation had settled and his brow had cleared. And wheouched her—here, and here—his hand had been steady and there had been no pain, only a not unpleasant weariness.
He had shaken his head though in the end, and she had read an ued grief in his pale eyes, though he could not have known who she was. His sorrow would be for simple loss, for defeat, not g who it was who might be dying.
"It would kill me," he said quietly. "It has e too far. I would die and I would not save you. There is nothing I do.”
"How long?" she had asked. Her only words.
He told her half a year, perhaps less, depending on how strong she was.
How strong? She was very strong. More so than any of them guessed save perhaps Danoleon, who had known her lo by far. She sent the Healer from the room, and asked Dao leave, and then the one slow servant the priests had allowed to the woman they knew only as a widow from ae north of Stevanien.
As it happened she had actually known the woman whose identity she had assumed; had had her as one of the ladies of her court for a time. A fair-haired girl, green eyes and an easy manner, quick to laugh.
Melina bren Tonaro. A widow for a week; less than that. She had killed herself in the Palace by the Sea when word came of Sed Deisa.
The deception was a necessary shielding of identity: Danoleons suggestion. Almost een years ago. They would be looking for her and for the boy, the High Priest had said. The boy he was taking away, he would soon be safely goheir dreams carried in his person, a hope living so long as he lived.
She had been fair-haired herself, in those days. It had all happened such a long time ago. She had beelina bren Tonaro and had e to the Sanctuary of Eanna in its high valley above Avalle.
Above Stevanien.
Had e, and had waited. Through the ging seasons and the unging years. Waited for that boy to grow into a man such as his father had been, or his brothers, and then do what a desdant in direct line of Micaela and the god should know he had to do.
Had waited. Season after season; shot birds falling from the sky.
Until last autumn, when the Healer had told her the cold large thing she had already guessed for herself. Half a year, he had said. If she was strong.
She had sent them from her room and lain in her iron bed and looked out at the leaves on the valley trees. The ge of colors had e. She had loved that once; her favorite season for riding. As a girl, as a woman. It had occurred to her that these would be the last fall leaves she would ever see.
She had turned her mind from such thoughts and had begun to calculate. Days and months, and the numbering of the years. She had dohe arithmetic twice, and a third time to be sure of it. She said nothing to Danoleon, not then. It was too soon.
Not until the end of winter, with all the leaves gone and ice just beginning to melt from the eaves, did she summon the High Priest and instruct him as to the letter she wanted sent to the place where she knew—as he knew, alone of all the priests—her son would be on the Ember Days that began this spring.
She had dohe calculations. Many times.
She had also timed it very well, and not by ce. She could see Danoleon wanting to protest, to dissuade, to speak of dangers and circumspe. But the ground was out from under his feet, she could see it in the way his large hands grew restless and the way his blue eyes moved about the room as if seeking an argument on the bare walls. She waited patiently for him to meet her gaze at last, as she knew he would, and then she saw him slowly bow his head in acceptance.
How did one deny a mother, dying, a message to her only living child? Areaty to that child to e bid her farewell before she crossed over to Morian. Especially when that child, the boy he himself had guided south over the mountains so many years ago, was her last link to what she had been, to her own broken dreams and the lost dreams of her people?
Danoleon promised to write the letter and have it sent. She thanked him and lay ba her bed after he went out. She was genuinely weary, genuinely in pain. Hanging on. It would be half a year just past the Ember Days of spring. She had dohe numbers. She would be alive to see him if he came. And he would e; she knew he would e to her.
The window had been open a little though it was still cold that day. Outside, the snow had lain ile drifting folds in the valley and up the slopes of the hills. She had looked out upon it but her thoughts, uedly, had been of the sea. Dry-eyed, for she had not wept since everything fell, not onot ever, she walked her memory-palaces of long ago and saw the waves e in to break and fall on the white sands of the shore, leaving shells and pearls and ifts along the curving beach.
So Pasithea di Tigana bren Serazi. Once a princess in a palace by the sea; mother of two dead sons, and of one who yet lived. Waiting, as winter he mountains tur in that year.
"Two things. First, we are musis," said Alessan. "A newly formed pany. Sedly: do not use my name. Not here." His voice had taken on the clipped, hard ces Devin remembered from the first night in the Sandreni lodge when this had all begun for him.
They were looking down on a valley runni in the clear light of afternoon. The Sperion lay behind them. The uneven, narrow road had wound its way for hours up around the shoulders of an asding sequence of hills until this highest point. And now the valley unrolled before them, trees and grass touched by the earliest green-gold of spring. A tributary stream, swift-running with the melting snows, slanted northwest out of the foothills, flashing with light. The temple dome in the midst of the Sanctuary gleamed silver in the middle distance.
"What hen?" Erlein asked quietly. He seemed subdued, whether because of Alessans tone or the awareness of danger, Devin did not know.
"Adreano," the Prince said, after a moment. "I am Adreano dAstibar today. I will be a poet for this reunion. For this triumphant, joyous homeing.”
Devin remembered the he young poet death-wheeled by Alberico last winter, after the sdal of the "Sandreni Elegies." He looked closely at the Prince for a moment and then away: this was not a day to probe. If he was here for any reason it was to try, somehow, to make things easier for Alessan. He didnt know how he was going to go about doing that though. He felt badly out of his depth again, his
earlier rush of excitement fading before the grimness of the Princes manner.
South of them, t above the valley, the peaks of the Sfare loomed, higher even than the mountains above Castle Borso. There was snow on the peaks and even on the middle slopes; winter did not retreat so swiftly this high up, this far south. Below them though, north of the toured foothills, in the sheltered eastwest running of the valley Devin could see green buds swelling orees. A grey hawk hung in an updraft for a moment, almost motionless, before wheeling south and down to be lost against the backdrop of the hills. Down on the valley floor the Sanctuary seemed to lie within its walls like a promise of pead serenity, ed away from all the evils of the world.
Devi was not so.
They rode down, not hurrying now, for that would have been unusual in three musis e here at midday. Devin was keenly, anxiously aware of dahe man he was riding behind was the last heir to Tigana. He wondered what Brandin of Ygrath would do to Alessan if the Prince was betrayed and taken after so many years. He remembered Marius of Quileia in the mountain pass: Do you trust this message?
Devin had rusted the priests of Eanna in his whole life. They were too shrewd, by far the most subtle of the clergy, by far the most apt to steer events to their own ends, which might lie out of sight, geions away. Servants of a goddess, he supposed, might find it easier to take the longer view of things. But everyone khat all across the peninsula the clergy of the Triad had their own triple uanding with the Tyrants from abroad: their collective sileheir tacit plicity, bought in exge for being allowed to preserve the rites that mattered more to them, it seemed, than freedom in the Palm.
Even before meeting Alessan, Devin had had his own thoughts about that. On the subject of the clergy his father had never been shy about speaking his mind. And now Devin remembered again Garins single dle of defiawice a year on the Ember Nights of his childhood in Asoli. Now that he had begun to think about it, there seemed to be a great many nuao the flickering lights of those dles in the dark. And more shadings to his own stolid father than he had ever guessed. Devin shook his head; this was not the time to wander down that path.
When the hill track finally wound its way down to the valley floor, a wider, smoother road began, slanting towards the Sanctuary in the middle of the valley. About half a mile away from the stoer walls, a double row of trees began oher side of the approach. Elms, ing into early leaf. Beyond them oher side Devin saw men w in the fields, some lay servants and some of them priests, clad not in the white of ceremony, but in nondescript robes of beige, beginning the labors that the soil dema winters end. One man was singing, a sweet, clear tenor voice.
The eastern gates of the Sanctuary plex were open before them, simple and unadorned save for the star-symbol of Eanna. The gates were high though, Devin noted, and of heavy wrought iron. The walls that enclosed the Sanctuary were high as well, and the stone was thick. There were also towers—eight of them—curving forward at intervals around the wide embrace of the walls. This was clearly a place built, however many hundreds of years ago, to withstand adversity. Set within the plex, rising serenely above everything else, the dome of Eannas temple shone in the sunlight as they rode up to the open gates and passed within.
Just inside Alessan pulled his horse to a halt. From ahead of them and some distance over to the left they heard the ued sound of childrens laughter. In an open, grassy field set beyond a stable and a large residence hall a dozen young boys in blue tunics were playing maracco with sticks and a ball, supervised by a young priest in the beige work-robes.
Devin watched them with a sudden sharp sadness and nostalgia. He could remember, vividly, going into the woods heir farm with Povar and Nico when he was five years old, to cut and carry home his first maracco stick. And then the hours—minutes more often —snatched from chores whehree of them would seize their sticks and one of the battered succession of balls Nico had patiently wound together out of layers and layers of cloth, to whoop and slash their way about in the mud at the end of the
barnyard, pretending they were the Asolini team at the uping Triad Games.
"I scored four times one game in my last year of temple schooling," Erlein di Senzio said in a musing voice. "Ive never fotten it. I doubt I ever will.”
Surprised and amused, Devin glanced over at the wizard. Alessan turned in his saddle to look back as well. After a moment the three men exged a smile. In the distahe childrens shouts and laughter gradually subsided. The three of them had been seen. It was uhat the appearance of strangers was a o here, especially so soon after the melting of the snow.
The young priest had left the playing field and was making his way over, as was an older man with a full black leather apron over his robes of beige, ing from where the sheep and goats and cows were kept in pens oher side of the tral avenue. Some distan front of them lay the arched entrao the temple and beside it on the right and a little behind, the smaller dome of the observatory— for in all her Sanctuaries the priests of Eanna tracked and observed the stars she had named.
The plex was enormous, even more so than it had seemed from above on the hill slopes. There were a great many priests and servants moving about the grounds, entering and leaving the temple itself, w among the animals, or in the vegetable gardens Devin could see beyond the observatory. From that dire as well came the unmistakable ging of a blacksmiths fe. Smoke rose up there, to be caught and carried by the mild breeze. Overhead he saw the hawk again, or a different one, cirg lazily against the blue.
Alessan dismounted and Devin and Erlein did the same just as the two priests came up to them, at almost exactly the same moment. The younger one, sandy-haired and small like Devin, laughed aured at himself and his colleague.
"Not much of a greeting party, Im afraid. We werent expeg visitors this early in the year, I must admit. No one even noticed you riding down. Be wele though, be most wele to Eannas Sanctuary, whatever the reason you have e to us. May the goddess know you and name you hers." He had a cheerful manner and an easy smile.
Alessaurhe smile. "May she know and surely name all who dwell within these walls. To be ho, we wouldnt have beeain how to deal with a more official greeting. We havent actually worked out our entrance routines yet. And as for early in the year— well, everyone knows new-formed panies have to get moving soohaablished ones or they are likely to starve.”
"You are musical performers?" the older priest asked heavily, wiping his hands on the leather apron he wore. He was balding and brown and grizzled, and there where two of his froh ought to have been.
"We are," said Alessan with some attempt at a grand manner. "My name is Adreano dAstibar. I play the Tregean pipes, and with me is Erlein di Senzio, the fi harp player in all of the peninsula. And I must tell you truly, you havent heard singing until youve listeo our young panion Devin dAsoli.”
The younger priest laughed again. "Oh, well done! I should bring you along to the outer school to give a lesson to my charges ioric.”
"Id do better to teach the pipes," Alessan smiled. "If music is part of your program here.”
The priests mouth twitched. "Formal music," he said. "This is Eanna, not Morian, after all.”
"Of course," said Alessan hastily. "Very formal music for the young ones b here. But for the servants of the goddess themselves . . . ?" He arched one of his dark eyebrows.
"I will admit," said the sandy-haired young priest, smiling again, "to a preference for Rauders early music myself.”
"And no one plays it better than we," Alessan said smoothly. "I see we have e to the right place. Should we make our obeisao the High Priest?”
"You should," said the older man, not smiling. He began untying the apron-strings at his back. "Ill take you to him. Savandi, your charges are about to it assault upon each other or worse. Have you no trol at all over them?”
Savandi spun to look, swore feelingly in a quite uly fashion, and began running towards the games field shouting imprecations. From this dista did indeed seem to Devin that the maracco sticks were being used by Savandis young charges in a fashion distinctly at variah the accepted rules of the game.
Devin saw Erlein grinning as he watched the boys. The wizards lean face ged when he smiled.
When the smile was a true one, not the ironic, slipping-sideways expression he so ofteo indicate a sour, superior disdain.
The older priest, grim-faced, pulled his leather apron over his head, folded it ly, and draped it over one of the bars of the adjat sheepfold. He barked a name Devin could not make out and another young man—a servant this time—hastily emerged from the stables on their left.
"Take their horses," the priest ordered bluntly. "See that their goods are brought to the guest house.”
"Ill keep my pipes," Alessan said quickly.
"And I my harp," Erlein added. "No lack of trust, you uand, but a musi and his instrument...”
This priest was somewhat lag in Savandis fortable manner. "As you will," was all he said.
"e. My name is Torre, I am the porter of this Holy Sanctuary. You must be brought to the High Priest." He turned a off without waiting for them, on a path going around to the left of the temple.
Devin and Erlein looked at each other and exged a shrug. They followed Torre and Alessan, passing a number of other priests and lay servants, most whom smiled at them, somewhat making up for their dour, self-appointed guide.
They caught up to the other two as they rouhe southern side of the temple. Torre had stopped, Alessan beside him. The balding porter looked around, quite casually, then said, almost as casually:
420 TIGANA "Trust no one. Speak truth to Danoleon or myself. These are his words. You have been expected. We thought it would be anht, perhaps two before you came, but she said it would be today.”
"Then I have proved her right. How gratifying," said Alessan in an odd voice.
Devi suddenly cold. Off to their left, in the games field, Savandis boys were laughing again, lithe shapes clad in blue, running after a white ball. From within the dome he could hear, faintly, the sound of ting. The end of the afternoon invocations. Two priests in formal white came along the path from the opposite dire, arm in arm, disputing animatedly.
"This is the kit, and this the bakehouse," Torre said clearly, pointing as he spoke. "Over there is the brewhouse. You will have heard of the ale we make here, I have no doubt.”
"Of course we have," murmured Erlein politely, as Alessan said nothing.
The two priests slowed, registered the presence of the strangers and their musical instruments, a on. "Just over there is the High Priests house," Torre tinued, "beyond the kit and the outer school.”
The other two priests, resuming their argument, swept briskly around the curve of the path that led to the front of the temple.
Torre fell silent. Then, very softly, he said: "Eanna be praised for her most gracious love. May all tongues give her praise. Wele home my Prince. Oh, in the name of love, be wele home at last.”
Devin swallowed awkwardly, looking from Torre to Alessan. An untrollable shiver ran along his spihere were tears, bright-sparkling in the brilliant sunlight, in the porters eyes.
Alessan made no reply. He lowered his head, and Devin could not see his eyes. They heard childrens laughter, the final notes of a sung prayer.
"She is still alive then?" Alessan asked, looking up at last.
"She is," said Torre emotionally. "She is still alive. She is very—" He could not finish the sentence.
"There is no point ihree of us being careful if yoing to spill tears like a child," Alessan said sharply. "Enough of that, unless you want me dead.”
Tulped. "Five me," he whispered. "Five me, my lord.”
"No! Not my lord. Not even when we are alone. I am Adreano dAstibar, musi." Alessans voice was hard. "Now take me to Danoleon.”
The porter wiped quickly at his eyes. He straightened his shoulders. "Where do you think we are going?" he snapped, almost managing his earlier tone again. He spun on his heel and strode up the path.
"Good," Alessan murmured to the priest, from behind. "Very good, my friend." Trailing them both, Devin saw Torres head lift at the words. He gla Erlein but this time the wizard, his expression thoughtful, did not return the look.
They passed the kits and theer school where Sa-vandis charges—children of noblemen or wealthy merts, seo be educated—would study and sleep. All across the Palm such teag art of the role of the clergy, and a source of a goodly portion of their wealth. The Sanctuaries vied with each other to draw student boarders—and their fathers money.
It was silent within the large building now. If the dozen or so boys on the games-field with Savandi were all the students in the plex, then Eannas Sanctuary in Lower Corte was not doing very well.
Oher hand, Devin thought, who of those left in Lower Corte could afford Sanctuary schooling for their children now? And what shrewd businessman from Corte or Chiara, having bought up cheap land here in the south, would not send his son home to be educated? Lower Corte lace where a clever man from elsewhere could make money out of the ruin of the inhabitants, but it was not a place to put
down roots. Who wao be rooted in the soil of Brandins hate?
Torre led them up the steps of a covered portid then through the open doorway of the High Priests house. All doors seemed to be open to the spring sunshine, after the shuttered holiness of the Ember Days just past.
They stood in a large, handsome, high-ceilinged sitting-room. A huge fireplaihe southwestern end and a number of fortable chairs and small tables were arranged on a deep-piled carpet. Crystal deters on a sideboard held a variety of wines. Devin saw two bookcases on the southern wall but no books. The cases had beeo stand, discertingly empty. The books of Tigana had been burned. He had been told about that.
Arched doorways in both the eastern aern walls led out to porches where the sunlight could be caught in the m and at eve.
On the far side of the room there was a closed door, almost certainly leading to the bedchamber.
There were four cleverly designed, square recesses in the walls and another smaller one above the fire where statues would once have stood. These toone. Only the ubiquitous silver stars of Eanna served for painted decoration on the walls.
The door to the bedroom opened and two priests came out.
They seemed surprised, but not unduly so, to see the porter waiting with three visitors. One man was of medium height and middle years, with a sharp fad close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair. He carried a physis tray of herbs and powders in front of him, supported on a thong about his neck.
It was at the other man that Devin stared, though. It was the other man who carried the High Priests staff of office. He would have atention even without it, Devin thought, gazing at the figure of what had to be Danoleon.
The High Priest was an enormous man, broad-shouldered with a chest like a barrel, straight-backed despite his years. His long hair and the beard that covered half his chest were both white as new snow, even against the whiteness of his robe. Thick straight eyebrows met in the middle of a serene brow and above eyes as clear and blue as a childs. The hand he ed about the massive staff of office held it as if it were no more than a cowherds hazel switch.
If they were like this, Devin thought, awed, looking up at the man who had been High Priest of Eanna in Tigana when the Ygrathens came, if the leaders were all like this then there were truly great men here before the fall.
They couldnt have been so different from today; he khat rationally. It was only twenty years ago, however much might have ged and fallen away. But even so, it was hard not to feel daunted in the anding presence of this maurned from Dao Alessan: slight, unprepossessing, with his disorderly, prematurely silvered hair and cool, watchful eyes, and the nondescript, dusty, road-stained riding clothes he wore.
But wheurned back to the High Priest he saw that Danoleon was squeezing his owightly shut as he drew a ragged breath. And in that moment Devin realized, with a thrill that was oddly akin to pain, where, despite all appearahe truth of power lay between these men. It was Danoleon, he remembered, who had taken the boy Alessan, the last prince of Tigana, south and away in hiding across the mountains all those years ago.
And would not have seen him again sihat time. There was grey in the hair of the tired man who stood before the High Priest now. Danoleon would be seeing that, trying to deal with it. Devin found himself hurting for the two of them. He thought about the years, all the lost years that had tumbled and spun and drifted like leaves or snow betweewo, then and now.
He wished he were older, a wiser man with a deeper uand-big. There seemed to be so many truths or realizations of late, h at the edge of his awareness, waiting to be grasped and claimed, just out of reach.
"We have guests," Torre said in his brusque manner. "Three musis, a newly formed pany.”
"Hah!" the priest with the medie-tray grunted with a sour expression. "Newly formed? Theyd have to be to venture here and this early in the year. I t remember the last time someone of any talent showed up in this Sanctuary. you three play anything that wont clear a room of people, eh?”
"It depends on the people," said Alessan mildly.
Danoleon smiled, though he seemed to be trying not to. He turo the other priest. "Idrisi, it is just barely possible that if we offered a warmer wele we might be graced with visitors happier to display their art." The other man grunted what might ht not have been an apology uhe scrutiny of that placid blue gaze.
Daurned back to the three of them. "You will five us," he murmured. His voice was deep and soothing. "We have had some discerting news retly, and right now we have a patient in some pain. Idrisi di Corte, here, our physi, tends to be distressed when such is the case.”
Privately, Devin doubted if distress had much to do with the Cortean priests rudeness, but he kept his peace. Alessan accepted Danoleons apology with a short bow.
"I am sorry to hear that," he said to Idrisi. "Is it possible we might be of aid? Music has long been known as a sn ease for pain. We should be happy to play for any of your patients." He was ign for the moment, Devin he news Danoleon had mentioned. It was uo be an act that Danoleon had given them Idrisis formal name—making clear that he was from Corte.
The physi shrugged. "As you please. She is certainly not sleeping, and it do no harm. She is almost out of my hands now, in any case. The High Priest has had her brought here against my will.
Not that I do very muymore. In truth she belongs to Morian now." He turo Danoleon.
"If they tire her out, fine. If she sleeps it is a blessing. I will be in the infirmary or in my garden. Ill che here tonight, unless I have word from you before.”
"Will you not stay to hear us play, then?" Alessan asked. "We might surprise you.”
Idrisi grimaced. "I have no leisure for such things. Tonight in the dining hall, perhaps. Surprise me.”
He flashed a small, ued smile, gone as quickly as it appeared, a past them with brisk, irritated strides out the door.
There was a short silence.
"He is a good man," Danoleon said softly, almost apologetically.
"He is a Cortean," Torre muttered darkly.
The High Priest shook his handsome head. "He is a good man," he repeated. "It angers him when people die in his care." His gaze went back to Alessan. His hand shifted a little on his staff. He opened his mouth to speak.
"My lord, my name is Adreano dAstibar," Alessan said firmly. "This is Devin . . . dAsoli, whose father Garin you may perhaps remember from Stevanien." He waited. Danoleons blue eyes widened, looking at Devin. "And this," Alessan finished, "is our friend Erlein di Senzio, who plays harp among ifts of his hands.”
As he spoke those last words, Alessan held up his left palm with two fingers curled down. Danoleon looked quickly at Erlein, and then back to the Prince. He had grown pale, and Devin was suddenly made aware that the High Priest was a very old man.
"Eanna guard us all," Torre whispered from behind them.
Alessan looked pointedly around at the open archways to the porches. "This particular patient is near death then, I take it?”
Danoleons gaze, Devin thought, seemed to be dev Alessan. There was an almost palpable hunger in it, the need of a starving man. "Im afraid she is," he said keeping his toeady only with an
obvious effort. "I have given her my own chamber that she might be able to hear the prayers iemple. The infirmary and her own rooms are both too far away.”
Alessan nodded his head. He seemed to have himself on a tightly held leash, his movements and his words rigidly trolled. He lifted the Tregean pipes in their browher sheath and looked down at them.
"Then perhaps we should go in and make music for her. It sounds as if the afternoon prayers are done.”
They were. The ting had stopped. In the fields behind the house the boys of the outer school were still running and laughing 藏书网in the sunlight. Devin could hear them through the open doorways. He hesitated, unsure of himself, then coughed awkwardly and said: "Perhaps you might like to play alone for her? The pipes are soothing, they may help her fall asleep.”
Danoleon was nodding his head in anxious agreement, but Ales-san turned back to look at Devin, and then at Erlein. His expression was veiled, unreadable.
"What?" he said at length. "Would you abandon me so soon after our pany is formed?" And then, more softly: "There will be nothing said that you ot know, and some things, perhaps, that you should hear.”
"But she is dying," Devin protested, feeling something wrong here, something out of balance. "She is dying and she is—" He stopped himself.
Alessans eyes were se.
"She is dying and she is my mother," he whispered. "I know. That is why I want you there. There seems to be some news, as well. We had better hear it.”
He turned and walked towards the bedroom door. Danoleon was standing just before it. Alessan stopped before the High Priest and they looked at each other. The Prince whispered something Devin could not hear; he leaned forward and kissed the old man on the cheek.
Then he went past him. At the door he paused for a moment and drew a long steadying breath. He lifted a hand as if to run it through his hair but stopped himself. A queer smile crossed his face as if chasing a memory.
"A bad habit, that," he murmured, to no one in particular. Then he opehe door a in and they followed him.
The High Priests bedchamber was almost as large as the sitting room in the front, but its furnishings were starkly simple. Two armchairs, a pair of rustic, worn carpets, a wash-stand, a writing desk, a trunk for ste, a small privy set apart in the southeastern er. There was a firepla the northern wall, twin to the one in the front room, sharing the same ey. This side was lit, despite the mildness of the day, and so the room was wahough both windows were open, curtains drawn bait some slanting light from uhe eaves of the porticoes to the west.
The bed on the back wall uhe silver star of Eanna was large, for Danoleon was a big man, but it too was simple and unadorned. No opy, plain pinewood posts in the four ers, and a pine headboard.
It was also empty.
Devin, nervously following Alessan and the High Priest through the door, had expected to see a dying woman there. He looked, more than a little embarrassed, towards the door of the privy. And almost jumped with shock when a voice spoke from the shadows by the fire, where the light from the windows did not fall.
"Who are these strangers?”
Alessan himself had turned unerringly toward the fire the momeered the room—guided by what sense, Devin never knew —and so he appeared trolled and unsurprised when that cold voice
spoke. Or when a woman moved forward from the shadows to stand by one of the armchairs, and then sit down upon it, her back very straight, her head held high looking at him. At all of them.
Pasithea di Tigana bren Serazi, wife to Valentin the Prince. She must have been a woman of unsurpassed beauty in her youth, for that beauty still showed, even here, even now, at the threshold of the last portal of Morian. She was tall ahin, though part of that, clearly, was due to the illness wasting her from within. It showed in her face, which ale almost to transluce, the cheekbohrust into too sharp relief. Her robe had a high, stiff collar which covered her throat; the robe itself was crimson, atuating her unnatural, other-worldly pallor—it was as if, Devin thought, she had already crossed to Morian and was looking back at them from a farther shore.
But there were golden rings, very much of this world, on her long fingers, and one dazzling blue gem gleamed from a necklace that hung down over her robe. Her hair was gathered and bound up in a blaet, a style long out of fashion in the Palm. Devin knew with absolute certainty that current fashion would mean nothing, less than nothing, to this woman. Her eyes looked at him just then with swift, uling appraisal, before moving on to Erlein, and theing, finally, upon her son.
The son she had not seen since he was fourteen years old.
Her eyes were grey like Alessans, but they were harder than his, glittering and cold, hiding their depths, as if some semi-precious stone had been caught a just below the surface. They glinted, fierd challenging, in the light of the room, and just before she spoke again—not even waiting for an ao her first question—Devin realized that what they were seeing in those eyes was rage.
It was in the arrogant face, in the high carriage and the fihat held hard to the arms of her chair.
An inner fire of ahat had passed, long ago, beyond the realm of words or any other form of expression. She was dying, and in hiding, while the man who had killed her husband ruled her land. It was there, it was all there, for anyone who knew but half the tale.
Devin swallowed and fought an urge to draw back toward the door, out e. A moment later he realized that he bother; as far as the woman in the chair was ed he her, a nothing.
He wasnt even there. Her question had not bee to be answered; she didnt really care who they were. She had someone else to deal with.
For a long time, a sequenoments that seemed to hang forever in the silence, she looked Alessan up and down without speaking, her white, imperious features quite unreadable. At last, slowly shaking her head, she said: "Your father was such a handsome man.”
Devin fli the words and the tone, but Alessan seemed scarcely to react at all. He nodded in calm agreement. "I know he was. I remember. And so were my brothers." He smiled, a small, ironic smile. "The strain must have run out just before it got to me.”
His voice was mild, but when he finished he glanced sharply at Danoleon, and the High Priest read a message there. He, in turn, murmured something to Torre who quickly left the room.
To stand guard in front, Devin realized, feeling a chill despite the fire. Words had just been spokehat could kill them all. He looked over at Erlein and saw that the wizard had slipped his harp out of its case. His expression grim, the Senzian took a positiohe eastern window and quietly began tuning his instrument.
Of course, Devin thought: Erlein knew what he was doing. They had e in here ostensibly to play for a dying woman. It would be odd if no music emerged from this room. Oher hand, he didnt much feel like singing just now.
"Musis," the woman in the chair said with pt to her son. "How splendid. Have you e to play a jingle for me now? To show me how skillful you are in su important thing? To ease a mothers soul before I die?" There was something almost unbearable ione.
Alessan did not move, though he too had gone pale now. In no other way did he betray his tension though, save perhaps in the almost too casual stahe exaggerated simulation of ease.
"If it would please you, my lady mother, I will play for you," he said quietly. "There was a time I remember when the prospeusic would indeed have brought you pleasure.”
The eyes of the woman in the chair glittered coldly. "There was a time for music. When we ruled here. When the men of our family were men in more than name.”
"Oh, I know," said Alessan, a little sharply. "True men and wondrous proud, all of them. Men who would have stormed the ramparts of Chiara alone and killed Brandin long ago, if only through his abject terror at their ferocious determination. Mother, you not let it rest, even now? We are the last of our family and we have not spoken in een years." His voice ged, softened, grew uedly awkward. "Must we wra, our speech be no more thaters were? Did you ask me here simply to say again what you have written so many times?”
The old woman shook her head. Arrogant and grim, implacable as the death that had e for her.
"No, not that," she said. "I have not so much breath io waste. I summoned you here to receive a mothers dying curse upon your blood.”
"No!" Devin exclaimed before he could stop himself.
In the same sed Daook a long stride forward. "My lady, no indeed," he said, anguish in his deep voice. "This is not—”
"I am dying," Pasithea bren Serazi interrupted harshly. There were spots ht unnatural color in her cheeks. "I do not have to listen to you anymore, Danoleon. To anyone. Wait, you told me, all these years. Be patient, you said. Well, I have no more time for patience. I will be dead in a day. Morian waits for me. I have no more time to linger while my craven child gambols about the Palm playing ditties at rustic weddings.”
There came a discordant jangling of harpstrings.
"That," said Erlein di Senzio from the eastern window, "is ignorant and unfair!" He stopped, as if startled by his own outburst. "Triad knows, I have no cause to love your son. And it is now more thao me whence his arroganes and his lack of care for other lives, for anything but his own goals. But if you name him a coward simply for n to kill Brandin of Ygrath then you are dying a vain, foolish woman. Which, to be perfectly frank, does not surprise me at all in this province!”
He leaned back against the ledge, breathing hard, looking at no one. In the silehat followed Alessan finally moved. His stillness had seemed inhuman, unnatural, now he sank to his knees beside his mothers chair.
"You have cursed me before," he said gravely. "Remember? I have lived muy life in the shadow of that. In many ways it would have been easier to die years ago: Baerd and I slain trying to kill the Tyrant in Chiara . . . perhaps even killing him, through some miracle of intervention. Do you know, we used to speak of it at night, every single night, when we were in Quileia, still boys. Shaping half a hundred different plans for an assassination on the Island. Dreaming of hoould be loved and honored after death in a provih its name restored because of us.”
His voice was low, almost hypnoti its ces. Devin saw Danoleon, his face w with emotion, sink bato the other armchair. Pasithea was still as marble, as expressionless and cold. Devin moved quietly toward the fire, in a vain attempt to quell the shivering that had e over him. Erlein was still by the window. He laying his harp again, softly, sies and random chords, not quite a tune.
"But we grew older," Alessa on, and an urgency, a terrible o be uood had e into his voice. "And one Midsummers Eve Marius became Year King in Quileia, with our aid. After that whehree spoke the talk was different. Baerd and I began to learn some true things about power and the world. And that was when it ged for me. Something new came to me in that time, building and building, a thought, a dream, larger and deeper than trying to kill a Tyrant. We came back to the Palm and began to travel. As musis, yes. And as artisans, merts, athletes oime in a Triad Game year, as
masons and builders, guards to a Senzian banker, sailors on a dozen different mert-ships. But even before those journeys had begun, mother, even before we came baorth over the mountains, it had all ged for me. I was finally clear about what my task in life was to be. About what had to be done, or tried. You know it, Danoleon knows; I wrote you years ago what my new uanding was, and I begged your blessing for it. It was such a simple truth: we had to take both Tyrants together, that this whole peninsula might again be free.”
His mothers voice overrode his steady passion then, harsh, implacable, unfiving: "I remember. I remember the day that letter came. And I will tell you again what I wrote you then to that harlots castle iando: you would buy Cortes freedom, and Astibars and Tregeas at the price of Tiganas name. Of our very existen the world. At the cost of everything we ever had or were before Brandin came. At the price of vengeand our pride.”
"Our pride," Alessan echoed, so softly now they could barely hear. "Oh, our pride. I grew up knowing all about our pride, mother. You taught me, even more than father did. But I learned something else, later, as a man. In my exile. I learned about Astibars pride. About Senzios and Asolis aandos. I learned how pride had ruihe Palm in the year the Tyrants came.”
"The Palm?" Pasithea demanded, her voice shrill. "What is the Palm? A spur of land. Rod earth and water. What is a peninsula that we should care for it?”
"What is Tigana?" Erlein di Senzio asked bluntly, his harp silent in his hands.
Pasitheas glance was withering. "I would have thought a bound wizard should know that!" she said corrosively, meaning to wound. Devin bli the speed of her perception; no one had told her about Erlein, she had deduced it in minutes from a scattering of clues.
She said: "Tigana is the land where Adaon lay with Micaela when the world was young and gave her his love and a child and a gods gift of power to that child and those who came after. And now the world has spun a long way from that night and the last desdant of that union is in this room with the entire past of his people falling through his hands." She leaned forward, her grey eyes blazing, her voice rising in indit. "Falling through his hands. He is a fool and a coward, both. There is so much more than freedom in a peninsula in any single geion at stake in this!”
She fell back, coughing, pulling a square of blue silk from a pocket in her robe. Devin saw Alessan begin a movement up from his knees, and then check himself. His mother coughed, ragly, and Devin saw, before he could turn his eyes away that the silk came away red when she was done. On the carpet beside her Alessan bowed his head.
Erlein di Senzio, from the far side of the room, perhaps too far to see the blood, said, "And shall I now tell you the legends of Senzios pre-eminence? Of Astibars? Will you hear me sing the story of Eanna on the Island shaping the stars from the glory of her love-making with the god? Do you know Certandos claim to be the heart and soul of the Palm? Do you remember the Carlozzini? The Night Walkers in their highlands two hundred years ago?”
The woman in the armchair pushed herself straight again glaring at him. Fearing her, hating her words and manner and the terrible thing she was doing to her son, Devin heless felt humbled in the face of so much ce and such a force of will.
"But that is the point," she said more softly, sparirength. "That is the heart of this. you not see it? I do remember those stories. Ah an education or a library, any fool who has ever heard a troubadours seal wailing remember them. hear twenty different songs of Eanna and Adaon on Sangarios. Not us, though. Dont you see? Not Tigana anymore. Who will sing of Mi-caela uhe stars by the sea when we are gone? Who will be here to sing, when one meion has lived and died away in the world?”
"I will," said Devin, his hands at his sides.
He saw Alessans head e up as Pasithea turo fix him with her cold eyes. "We all will," he
said, as firmly as he could. He looked at the Prind then, f himself, back to the dying old woman raging in her pride. "The whole Palm will hear that song again, my lady. Because your son is not a coward. Nor some vain fool seeking a youh and shallow fame. He is trying for the larger thing and he is going to do it. Something has happehis spring and because of it he is going to do what he has said he will do: free this peninsula and bring back Tiganas o the world.”
He finished, breathing in hard gasps as if he had been running a race. A moment later, he felt himself go crimson with mortification. Pasithea bren Serazi was laughing. Mog him, her frail thin body rog in the chair. Her high laughter turned into another desperate fit of coughing; the blue silk came up, and when it was withdrawn there was a great deal of blood stain. She clutched at the arms of her chair to steady herself.
"You are a child," she pronounced finally. "And my son is a child for all the grey in his hair. And I have no doubt that Baerd bar Saevar is exactly the same, with half the grad the gifts his father had.
Something has happehis spring, " she mimicked with cruel precision. Her voice grew hard and cold as midwinter ice: "Do you infants have any idea what has really just happened in the Palm?”
Slowly her son rose from his ko stand before her. "We have been riding for a number of days and nights. We have heard no tidings. What is it?”
"I told you there was news," Danoleon said quickly. "But I had no ce to give you the—”
"I am pleased," Pasithea interrupted. "So very pleased. It seems I still have something to tell my son before I leave him forever. Something he hasnt learned or thought out all by himself already." She pushed herself erect again in the chair, her eyes cold and bright like frost under blue moonlight. There was something wild and lost in her voice though, trying to break through. Some terrible fear, and of more thah. She said: "A messenger came yesterday at su, at the end of the Ember Days. An Ygrathen, riding from Stevanien with news from Chiara. News sent Brandin had sent it by his sorcerous link to all his Governors with instrus to spread the tidings.”
"And the tidings are?" Alessan had braced himself, as if preparing to receive a blow.
"The tidings? The tidings, my feckless child, are that Brandin has just abdicated as King of Ygrath.
He is sending his army home. And his Governors. All those who choose to stay with him must bee citizens of this peninsula. Of a new dominion: the Kingdom of the Western Palm. Chiara, Co..e, Asoli, Lower Corte. Four provinces under Brandin on the Island. He has annouhat we are free of Ygrath, no longer a y. Taxes are to be shared equally among us now, and they have been cut in half.
Beginnierday. Cut by siderably more than half here in Lower Corte. Our burden will now be equal with the others. The messenger said that the people of this provihe people your father ruled— were singing Brandins name ireets of Stevanien.”
Alessan, moving very carefully, as if he were carrying something large and heavy, that might shift and fall, turoward Danoleon. Who was nodding his head.
"It seems that there was an assassination attempt on the Island three days ago," the High Priest said.
&quinating in Ygrath: the Queen and Brandins son, the Regent. It apparently failed only because of one of his Tribute women. The one from Certando who almost started a war. You may remember that, twelve, fourteen years ago? It seems that in the wake of this Brandin has ged his mind about what he has been doing. Not about staying in the Palm, or about Tigana and his revenge, but about what must be done in Ygrath if he tinues here.”
"And he is going to tinue here," Pasithea said. "Tigana will die, still be lost forever to his vengeance, but our people will be singing the Tyrants name as it dies. The name of the man who killed your father.”
Alessan was nodding his head reflexively. He seemed, in fact, scarcely to be listening, as if he had suddenly withdrawirely inside himself. Pasithea fell silent in the face of that, looking at her son. It
grew deathly still in the room. Outside, far away, the untrolled shouts and laughter of the children in the field came to their ears again, the louder for the silehin. Devin listeo that distant mirth and tried to slow the chaos of his heart, to attempt to deal with what they had just heard.
He looked at Erlein, who had laid down his harp on the window-ledge and walked a few steps into the room, his expression troubled and wary. Devin tried desperately to think, to gather his scattered thoughts, but the news had caught him hopelessly unprepared. Free of Ygrath. Which was what they wanted, wasnt it? Except that it wasnt. Brandin was staying, they were not free of him, or the weight of his magid Tigana? What of Tigana now?
And then, quite uedly, there was something else b him. Something different. A distrag, niggling awareugging at the er of his mind. Telling him there was something he should know, should remember.
Then, equally without warning, the something slid forward and into place. In fact . . .
In fact, he kly what was wrong.
Devin closed his eyes for a moment, fighting a sudden paralyzing fear. Then, as quietly as he could, he began w his way along the western wall away from the fireplace where he had been standing all this time.
Alessan eaking now, almost to himself. He said: "This ges things of course. It ges a great deal. Im going to ime to think it through, but I believe it may actually help us. This may truly be a gift not a curse.”
"How? Are you genuinely simple?" his mother snapped. "They are singing the Tyrants name ireets of Avalle!”
Devin wi the old he desperate pain at the heart of that cry, but he forced himself to keep moving. A terrifyiainty was rising within him.
"I hear you, I uand. But dont you see?" Alessan dropped to his knees on the carpet again, close to his mothers chair. "The Ygrathen army is going home. If he has to fight a war it will have to be with an army of our people and what few Ygrathens stay with him. What ... oh, mother! . . . what do you think the Barbadian in As-tibar will do when he hears this?”
"He will do nothing," Pasithea said flatly. "Alberico is a timorous man spun neck-deep in his own webs, all of which lead back to the Emperors Tiara. At least a quarter of the Ygrathen army will stay with Brandin. And those people singing are the most oppressed people in the peninsula. If they are joyous, what do you think is happening elsewhere? Do you not imagine an army be raised in Chiara and Corte and Asoli to fight against Barbadior for a man who has renounced his own Kingdom for this peninsula?”
She began coughing again, her body rog even more harshly than before.
Devin didnt know the answer. He couldnt even begin to guess. He khat the balance had pletely shifted, the balance Alessan had spoken about and played with for so long. He also knew something else.
He reached the window. Its ledge was about the height of his chest. He was a small man; not for the first time he regretted it. Then he gave thanks for his pensations, offered a quick prayer to Eanna and, hands flat on the ledge for leverage, pushed upward hard and swung himself like a gymnast through to the portico. He heard Pasithea still coughing behind him, a hard, painful sound. Danoleon cried out.
He stumbled and fell, crashing into a pillar with his shoulder and hip. He pushed up and off, scrambling to his feet in time to see a figure in beige robes leap up from a crouch beside the window, swearing furiously, and sprint away. Devin grappled for the k his belt, a blind, thought-obliterating rage rising in him. It had been too uproarious in the games field. The same sound as before, when the priest had left them alone.
Only this time the priest had left them alone while he spied on this room.
Alessan was at the window, Erlein just behind him.
"Savandi!" Devin gasped. "He was listening!" He spat the words over his shoulder because he was already running after the other man. He spared a fleeting moment of thanks, and wonder, for whatever Rinaldo the Healer had doo his leg in that Certandan barn. Then anger swept over him again, and fear, and the absolute o catch the other man.
He vaulted the stone balustrade at the bad of the portico without breaking stride. Savandi, sprinting for all he was worth, had cut west toward the back of the Sanctuary grounds. In the distan their left Devin could see the children playing in the field. He gritted his teeth and ran. These cursed priests! he was thinking, fury almost choking him. Will they undo everything, even now?
If Alessans identity became known anywhere in this Sanctuary Devin had little doubt how swiftly that knowledge would reach Brandin of Ygrath. He had no doubts at all about what would happen then.
And then he was assailed by another whirling thought, ohat terrified him. He drove himself to eveer speed, legs pumping, his lungs sug for air. The mindlink. What if Savandi could link to the King? What if Brandins spy could directly tact him in Chiara now?
Devin cursed in the depths of his heart but not aloud, sparing his breath for speed. Savandi, lithe and quick himself, raced dowh past a small building on the left and cut sharply right, about twenty strides ahead of Devin, around the back part of the temple itself.
Devin sped around the er. Savandi was o be seen. He froze for a moment, seized by panic. There was no door into the temple here. And only a thick barrier of hedges, just ing into green on the left.
Then he saw where the hedges were quivering and he leaped for that spot. There forced low down. He dropped to his knees and scrambled through, scratg his arms and face.
He was in a cloistered area, large, beautifully serene, gracefully laid out, with a splashing fountain at the ter. He had no time to value such things though. At the northwest er the cloister gave onto another portid a long building with a small domed roof at the near end. Savandi was just now sprinting up the steps to the portid then through a doorway into the building. Devin looked up. At one sed-story window an old man could be seen, white haired and hollow-cheeked, gazing down without expression on the sunlit cloister.
Running flat out for the doorway, Devin realized where he was. This was the infirmary, and the small dome would be a temple for the sick who sought the fort of Eanna but could not venture dowh to her larger dome.
He took the three steps to the porti one flying leap and burst through the doorway, knife in hand.
He was aware that following so fast he was an easy target for an ambush if Savandi chose to lie in wait.
He didnt think that would happen though—whily increased his deeper fear.
The man seemed to be rag away from where his fellow priests might be found, iemple itself, the kits, the dormitory or the dining room. Which meant that he didnt expect help or aid, that he couldnt really be hoping to escape.
Which meant, in turn, that there robably only ohing he was going to try to do, if Devin gave him enough time.
The doorway gave onto a long corridor and a stairway leading upward. Savandi was out of sight but Devin, glang down, gave a quick prayer of thanks to Eanna: running across the damp ground of the cloister the priest had picked up mud on his shoes. The trail was unmistakable oone floor and it went down the corridor and not up the stairs.
Devin sped in pursuit, flying down the hallway, skidding into a left turn around a er at the far end. There were rooms at intervals all along and an arched entrao the infirmarys small temple at the opposite end. Most of the doors were open; most of the rooms were empty.
But then, in that short corridor he came to one closed door; Savandis trail led there and stopped.
Devin clutched the handle and threw his shoulder hard against the heavy wood. Locked. Immovable.
Sobbing for breath he dropped to his knees, grappling in his pocket for the twist of wire he was never without: not since Marra had been alive. Since she had taught him all he knew about locks. He untwisted and tried to shape the wire, but his hands were trembling. Sweat streamed into his eyes. He wiped it furiously away and fought for calm. He had to get this door open before the man inside sent the message that would destroy them all.
Aerior door opened behind him. Steps thudded quickly down the hallway.
Without looking up, Devin said: "The man who touches or hinders me dies. Savandi is a spy for the King of Ygrath. Find me a key for this door!”
"It is done!" came a voice he knew. "It is open. Go!”
Devin flung a glance over his shoulder and saw Erlein di Senzio standing there with a sword in his hand.
Springing to his feet Devin twisted the handle again. The door swung open. He charged into the room. There were jars and vials lining shelves around the walls, and instruments on tables. Savandi was there, on a ben the middle of the room, hands at his temples, visibly straining to trate.
"Plague rot your soul!" Devin screamed at the top of his voice. Savandi seemed to snap awake. He rose with a feral snarl, grabbing for a surgical blade oable beside him.
He never reached it.
Still screaming, Devin on him, his left hand gouging at the priests eyes. He slashed forward and up with his right in a hard and deadly arc, plunging his blade iween Savandis ribs. Once, he stabbed, and then again, raking savagely upward, feeling the blade twist, grinding against boh a siiion. The young priests mouth gaped open, his eyes widened in astonishment. He screamed, high and short, his hands flying outward from his sides. And then he died.
Devin released him and collapsed on the bench, fighting for breath. Blood pounded in his head; he could feel a vein pulsing at his temple. His vision blurred for a moment and he closed his eyes. When he opehem he saw that his hands were still shaking.
Erlein had sheathed his sword. He moved to stand beside Devin.
"Did . . . did he send . . . ?" Devin found that he couldnt even speak properly.
"No." The wizard shook his head. "You came in time. He didnt link. No message went.”
Devin stared down at the blank, staring eyes and the body of the young priest who had sought to betray them. How long? he wondered. How long was he doing this?
"How did you get here?" he asked Erlein, his voice hoarse. His hands were still shaking. He dropped the bloodied kh a clatter oabletop.
"I followed from the bedchamber. Saw which way you went until I lost you around the back of the temple. Then I needed magic. I traced Savandis aura here.”
"We came through the hedges and across the cloister. He was trying to shake me.”
"I see that. Youre bleeding again.”
"Doesnt matter." Devin took a deep breath. There were footsteps in the corridor outside. "Why did you e? Why do this for us?”
Erlein looked defensive for an instant, but quickly regained his sardonic expression. "For you? Dont be a fool, Devin. I die if Alessan does. Im bound, remember? This was self-preservation. Nothing else.”
Devin looked up at him, wanting to say something more, something important, but just then the footsteps reached the doorway and Danoleoered quickly with Torre close behind. her of them said a word, taking in the se.
"He was trying to mind-link with Brandin," Devin said. "Erlein and I got to him in time.”
Erlein made a dismissive sound. "Devin did. But I had to use a spell to follow them and another on the door. I dont think they were strong enough to draw attention, but in case there is a Tracker anywhere around here we had better get moving before m.”
Danoleon seemed not to have even heard. He was looking down at Savandis body. There were tears on his face.
"Dont waste yrief on a carrion bird," Torre said harshly.
"I must," the High Priest said softly, leaning upon his staff. "I must. Dont you uand? He was born in Avalle. He was one of us.”
Devin abruptly turned his head away. He felt sick to his stomach, hit by a resurgence of the raging white fury that had sped him here, and had driven him to kill so violently. One of us. He remembered Sandre dAstibar in the in the woods, betrayed by his grandchild. He was seriously afraid he was going to be ill. One of us.
Erlein di Senzio laughed. Devin wheeled furiously around on him, his hands ched into fists. And there must have been something murderous in his eyes, for the wizard quickly sobered, mockery leaving his face as if wiped away with a cloth.
There was a short silence.
Danoleon drew himself up and straightened his massive shoulders. He said, "This will have to be dealt with carefully or the story will spread. We t have Savandis death traced tuests. Torre, when we leave lock this room with the body in it. After dark, whehers are asleep we will deal with him.”
"Hell be missed at dinner," Torre said.
"No he wont. You are the porter. You will see him ride through the gate late this afternoon. He will be going to see his family. It fits, just after the Ember Days, and in the wake of the news from Chiara. He has ridden out often enough, and not always with my permission. I think I have an idea why now. I wonder if he ever really rode to his fathers house. Unfortunately for Savandi, this time he is going to be killed by someone on the road just outside our valley.”
There was a hardo the High Priests voice that Devin had not heard before. One of us. He looked down at the dead man again. His third killing. But this one was different. The guard in the Nievolene barn, the soldier in the hill pass, they had been doing what they had e to the Palm to do. Loyal to the power they served, hiding nothing of their nature, true to their ma cause. He had grieved for their dying, for the lines of life that had brought him together with them.
Savandi was otherwise. This death was different. Devin searched his soul and found that he could not grieve for what he had do was all he could do, he realized with a sense of real uneasiness, to refrain from plunging his dagger again in the corpse. It was as if the young priests corrosive treachery to his people, his smili, had tapped some violence of passion Devin hadnt known lay within him.
Almost exactly, he thought suddenly, the way that Alienor of Castle Borso had done, in a very different sphere of life.
Or, perhaps, at the heart of things, not so very different after all. But that was too hard, too dangerous a knot to try to untie just now, iaring presence of death. Which reminded him of something, made him suddenly aware of an absence. He looked quickly up at Danoleon.
"Wheres Alessan?" he said sharply. "Why didnt he follow?”
But even before he was answered, he khere could only be one reason in the world why the Prince hadnt e.
The High Priest looked down at him. "He is still in my chamber. With his mother. Though I am afraid it may be over by now.”
"No," Devin said. "Oh, no." And rose, ao the door, and into the corridor, and then out through the eastern doorway of the infirmary into the slanting light of late afternoon, and began, again, to run.
Along the back curve of the temple dome, past the same small building as before and a little garden he hadnt noticed ing here, then back, flying, dowh to the High Priests house, and up onto the portico between the pillars, as if rewindis like a ball of wool, to the window through which he had leaped such a little while ago. As if he could race baot only past Savandi, past their ing here, but all the way back, with a sudden, i longing, to where the seeds of this grief had been planted wheyrants came.
But time was not rewound, her in the heart nor in the world as they k. It moved on, and things ged, for better or for worse; seasons ged, the hours of sunlit day went by, darkness fell and lingered and gave way to light at dawn, years spun after each other one by one, people were born, and lived by the Triads grace, and they died.
And they died.
Alessan was still in the room, still on his knees on the simple carpet, but beside the bed now, not by the heavy, dark oak chair as before. He had moved, time had moved, the sun was further west along the curving sky.
Devin had wao somehow run his way back through the moments that had passed. That Alessan might not have bee alone, not with this. On his first day in Tigana since he was a boy. He was no longer a boy; there was grey in his hair. Time had run. Twenty years worth of time had run and he was home again.
And his mother lay on the High Priests bed. Alessans two hands were laced around one of her own, cradling it gently as one might hold a small bird that would die ht if clutched too fast but would fly away forever if released.
Devin must have made some kind of sound at the window for the Prince looked up. Their eyes met.
Devin ached inside, wordless with sorrow. His heart felt bruised, besieged. He felt hopelessly ie to the needs of such a time as this now was. He wished that Baerd were here, or Sandre. Even Catriana would know what to do better than he.
He said, "He is dead. Savandi. We caught him in time." Alessan nodded, aowledging this. Then his gaze went down again to his mothers face, serene now as it had not been before. As it very likely had not been for the last long years of her life. Time, moving inexorably forward for her, taking memory, taking pride. Taking love.
"Im sorry," Devin said. "Alessan, Im so sorry.”
The Prince looked up again, the grey eyes clear but terribly far away. Chasing images backward along a skein of years. He looked as if he would speak but did not. Instead, after another moment, he gave his small shrug, the calm, reassuring motion of acceptance, of shouldering another burden, that they all knew so well.
Devin suddenly felt as if he could not bear it anymore. Alessans quiet acquiesce was as a final blow in his ow. He felt torn open, wounded by the hard truths of the world, by the passing of things. He lowered his head to the windowsill a like a child in the presence of something toe for his capacity.
In the room Alessa in silence by the bed, holding his mothers haween his own. And the westering sun of afternoo light in a golden slant through the window and across the chamber floor, to fall upon him, upon the bed, upon the woman lying there, upon the golden s that covered her grey eyes.
chapter 16
SPRING CAME EARLY IN ASTIBAR TOWN. IT ALMOST ALWAYS did along that sheltered northwestern side of the province, overlooking the bay and the strung-out islands of the Archipelago. East and south the unblocked winds from the sea pushed the start of the growing season back a few weeks ahe smaller fishing boats close to shore this early in the year.
Senzio was already fl, the traders in Astibar harbor reported, the white blossoms of the sejoia trees making the air fragrant with the promise of summer to e. Chiara was still cold it was said, but that happened sometimes in early spring on the Island. It wouldnt be long before the breezes from Khardhuled the air and the seas around her.
Senzio and Chiara.
Alberico of Barbadior lay down at night thinking about them, and rose up in the m doing the same, after intense, agitated nights of little rest, shot through with lurid, disturbing dreams.
If the winter had been uling, rife with small is and rumors, the events of early spring were something else entirely. And there was nothing small, nothing only marginally provocative about them.
Everything seemed to be happening at once. ing down from his bedchamber to his offices of state, Alberico would find his mood darkening with every step in the appreheicipation of what might be reported to him.
The windows of the palace were open now to let the mild breezes sweep through. It had been some time si had been warm enough to do that and for much of the autumn and wihere had been bodies rotting oh-wheels in the square. Sandreni bodies, Nievolene, Scalvaiane. A dozes wheeled at random. Not ducive to opening windows, that. Necessary though, and lucrative, after his fiscation of the spirators lands. He liked when y and gain came together; it didnt happen often but when it did the marriage seemed to Alberico of Barbadior to represent almost the purest pleasure to be found in power.
This spring however his pleasures had been few and trivial in scope, and the burgeoning of roubles made those of the winter seem like minor, ephemeral afflis—brief flurries of snow in a night. What he was dealing with now were rivers in flood, everywhere he looked.
At the very beginning of spring a wizard was detected using his magi the southern highlands, but the Tracker and the twenty-five men Siferval had immediately sent after him had been slaughtered in a pass by outlaws, to the last man. An act and revolt almost impossible to believe.
And he couldnt even properly exact retribution: the villages and farms scattered through the highlands hated the outlaws as muore than the Barbadians did. And it had been an Ember Night, with man abroad to see who might have dohis unpreted deed. Siferval sent a hundred men from Fort Ortiz to hunt the brigands down. They found no trace. Only long dead campfires in the hills. It was as if the twenty-five men had been slain by ghosts: which, predictably, is what the people of the highlands were already saying. It had been an Ember Night after all, and everyone khe dead were abroad on suights. The dead, hungry for retribution.
"How clever of the dead to use new-fletched arrows," Sifervals writte had offered sardonically, when he sent ttains to carry the tidings north. His men had retreated quickly in whey- faced terror at the expression on Albericos face. It was, after all, the Third pany which had allowed twenty-five of its men to be killed, and had the out another hundred inpetents to do no more than elicit laughter, wandering about in the hills.
It was maddening. Alberico had been forced to fight ba urge to torch the Certandan hamlet o those hills, but he knew how destructive that would be in the longer run. It would undermine all the bes of the focused restraint hed used in the affair of the San-dreni plot. That night his eyelid
began to droop again, the way it had in the early autumn.
Then, very shortly after, came the news from Quileia.
He had nourished such hopes there after the shog fall of the Matriarchy. It was su enormous, ripe new market for trade, an absolute harvest for the Empire. And one, most importantly, that would be brought into Barbadiors aegis by that ever vigilant guardian of the western borders of the Empire, AJberico of the Eastern Palm. So much rich hope and promise there, and so little actual prospect of difficulty. Even if this Marius, this crippled priestess-killer on his precarious throne, chose to trade west with Ygrath as well as east that was all right. Quileia was more than large enough to offer bounty both ways. For a time. Soon enough it should be possible to make the uncouth fellow see the many- faceted advantages of fog his dealings towards Barbadior.
In the evolution of the Barbadian Empire there had emerged a number of ways, a great many time- honored ways, some subtle, some rather less so, of causio see things in a particular light. Alber- ico had a few thoughts of his own about even newer means of persuadiy monarchs to view matters usefully. He fully inteo explore them, once he was home.
Home, as Emperor. For that, after all, was the point, the point of absolutely everything. Except that the events of the spring utterly refused to cooperate.
Marius of Quileia sent a gratifyingly swift reply to Albericos latest benevolent offer to trade. An emissary delivered it directly into the hands of Siferval in Fort Ortiz.
Unfortunately, that brief gratification had been smashed and annihilated wheter reached Astibar, carried north this time, in reition of its importance, by Siferval himself. Couched in uedly sophisticated language it tained a message that, however politely and circuitously phrased, was flat and clear: the Quileiafully judged that Brandin of Ygrath was the greater, firmer power in the Palm, and as such, and being but green in his own power, he could not risk incurring the anger of the King of Ygrath by trading with Alberico, a minor lord of the Empire, much as he might want to.
It was a letter that could easily drive a man into a killing rage.
Fighting for self-trol, Alberico had seen ging apprehension in his clerks and advisors, and even a quickly veiled fear in the eyes of the captain of the Third pany. Then, when Siferval handed over the sed letter, the one, he explaihat he had so cleverly arrao extrad copy from the saddle pouch of the arrulous Quileian emissary, Alberico felt all trol deserting him.
He had been forced to turn away, to stride aloo the windows at the back of the offices of state and draing breaths of air to calm his boiling mind. He could feel the tell-tale treminning again in his right eyelid; the fluttering hed never been able to get rid of sihat night hed almost died in the Sandreni Woods. His huge hands grasping the window-ledge with a grip of iroruggled for the equanimity that would let him carefully weigh the implications of this intercepted message, but calm was a swiftly reg illusion and his thoughts in the m sunlight were blad foaming like the sea in storm.
Senzio! The Quileian fool sought to link himself with those dissolute puppets in the ninth provi was almost impossible to credit that a man, however o the world stage, could be su imbecile.
His back to his advisors and his captains, staring blindly out the window down upoht Grand Square, Alberico abruptly began to sider how this was going to look to the wider world. To the part of the world that mattered: the Emperor, and those who had his ear, and who saw themselves as rivals to Alberico. How would the tidings be read, if Brandin of Ygrath was busily trading south, if Sen-zian merts were blithely sailing past the Archipelago and down the coast beyond Tregea and the mountains to Quileian ports and all the fabled goods of that land, so loo themselves uhe priestesses?
If the Empire alone was denied access to this new market. Denied access because Alberico of
Barbadior was judged too infirm in his power here as pared to the Ygrathen in the west . . . Alberico felt himself beginning to sweat; a cold trickle of moisture slid down his side. There asm of pain in his chest as a muscle ched near his heart. He forced himself to breathe slowly until it passed.
From the source of so much promise it suddenly seemed as if a dagger had materialized, more sharp and deadly than any enemy of his ba Barbadiht have fashioned.
Senzio. He had been thinking and dreaming about the ninth province all through the months of id snow, seeking a way in his restless nights to break out, tain trol of a situation that increasingly seemed to be operating upon him, instead of he upon it, as master of his destiny.
And that had been in the winter, even before this news from beyond the mountains.
Then, shortly after, even as the first flowers began blooming in the gardens of Astibar, there was more. In the very same week word came from the west that someone had tried to kill Brandin of Ygrath.
Had tried, and failed. For one blissful night Alberico played out glorious sarios of triumph in his sleep. Dreaming, over and ain, so keen was the pleasure, that the assassin—using a crossbow, they had learned—had succeeded in his purpose. Oh, it would have been so perfect, it would have been timed so flawlessly for him, dovetailing so ly with his needs. It would have had to be seen as a gift, a shining upon his face, from the high gods of the Empire. The entire Peninsula of the Palm would have been his in a year, in half a year. Quileias crippled monareeding the outer world so desperately, would have had to embrace whatever terms of trade Alberico then chose to offer him.
And the Empire? His, a year after all of that, at the very worst.
With su unchallenged power base here, he would not have even o wait for the ailing Emperor to finally die. He could have sailed home with his armies as the champion and the hero of the people. Having first showered them with grain, with gold, with freely flowing wine from the Palm, and all the newly rediscovered wealth of Quileia.
It would have been glorious. For that one night Alberico let himself dream, smiling in his sleep. Then he woke, and came dowairs again to the offices of state and found all three of his captains waiting, grim-faced. A new messenger was there with them. From the west again, a single day after the first, with hat smashed twenty years of balang into tiny, sharp-edged fragments that would never again be reassembled as they had been.
Brandin had abdicated in Ygrath and named himself King of the Western Palm.
On Chiara, the messenger reported, trembling at his lords visage, they had begun celebrating within hours of the annou.
"And the Ygrathens?" Karalius of the First asked sharply, though he had no real right to speak.
"Most will go home," the messenger said. "If they stay they must bee citizens, only equal citizens, of the new kingdom.”
"You say they will go home," AJberico said, his gaze flat and heavy, masking the feverish ing of his emotions. "Do you know this, have you been told this, or do you only guess it to be so?”
The messeurned grey, stammering some reply about logid obvious sequences and what anyone could predict . . .
"Have this mans to out then have him killed," Alberico said. "I dont care how. Feed him to the animals. My messengers brihe hey learn. I draw what clusions are to be drawn.”
The messenger fainted dead away, toppling sideways to the floor. It could be seen that he had soiled himself. Grancial of the Sed pany signaled quickly for two men to carry him out.
Alberico didnt bother to watch. In a way he was glad the man had spoken as fatuously as he had. He had needed an excuse to kill just then.
He gestured with two fingers, and his steward hastily ushered everyo of the room but the three captains. Not that any of the lesser officials seemed ined to li that particular moment. Which
was as it should be. He didnt trust any of them very much.
He didirely trust his captaiher, but he hem, and they needed him, and he had been careful to keep them at odds and on edge with each other. It was a workable arra. Or it had been, until now.
But nohat mattered, and Brandin had just thrown the peninsula into chaos. Not that the Palm actually mattered, not in itself. It was a gateway, a stepping-stone. He had moved out of Barbadior as a young man, in order to rise in the world aurn as a leader in his prime, and there was no point, no point at all to twenty years of exile if he could not sail home in triumph. In more than triumph. In mastery.
He turned his ba the captains ao the window, surreptitiously massaging his eye. He waited, to see who would speak first, and what he would say. There was a fear growing within him that he ains to hide. Nothing was falling right, none of his caution and discretion seemed to have borhe fruit it should.
Karalius said, very softly from behind him, "My lord, there is opportunity here. There is great opportunity.”
Which is exactly what he was afraid the man would say. Afraid, because he k was true and because it meant moving again, and quickly, itting himself to dangerous, decisive a. But a here and not in the Empire, not bae, where he had been readying himself to return. War far away in this savage, obdurate peninsula where he could lose all, a lifetimes sowing, in striving for a quest he hardly cared about.
"We had best go carefully," Grancial said quickly. More to oppose Karalius than anything else, Alberiew. But he hat we.
He turned and fixed the Sed pany captain with a wintry glance. "I will indeed do nothing without thought," he said, plag clear emphasis on the first wrancial flicked his eyes away.
Siferval smiled beh his curling blond moustaches.
Karalius did not. His expression remained sober and thoughtful. He was the best of the three, Alberiew. Also the most dangerous, for the two things went hand in hand in such a man. Alberioved around behind his huge oak desk and sat down again. He looked up at the First pany leader and waited.
Karalius said again, "There is opportunity now. There will be turmoil in the west, disruption, Ygrathens sailing home. Shall I tell you what I think?" His pale skin was flushed with a growiement. Alberiderstood that: the man saw ces of his own, land ah for himself.
It would be a mistake to let Karalius unfold too much. He would end up thinking the planning was his. Alberico said, "I kly what you think, to the very words you would speak. Be silent. I know everything that will be happening in the west except ohing: we do know how many of the Ygrathen army will stay. My guess is that most will leave, rather than be lowered to the level of people they have had mastery over all these years. They did not e here to bee insequential figures in the Palm.”
"her," said Siferval pointedly, "did we.”
Alberico suppressed his anger yet again. It seemed he had been forced to do that so much of late with these three. But they had their own purposes, their own long drawn-out plans, ah and fame were at the heart of them. As they had to be for all ambitious men in the Empire: toward what else should an ambitious man aspire?
"I am aware of that," he said, as calmly as he could.
"Then what do we do?" Grancial asked. A real question, not a challenge. Grancial was the weakest and the most loyal—because of that weakness—of the three.
Alberico looked up. At Karalius, not at Grancial.
"You gather my armies," he said deliberately, though his pulse was rag very fast. This was dangerous and might be final, every instinct within him told him that. But he also khat time and the gods had thrown a glittering gem down toward him from the heavens, and if he did not move it would fall away.
"You gather my armies in all four provinces and take them north. I want them massed together as soon as possible.”
"Where?" Karaliuss eyes were almost shining with anticipation.
"Ferraut, of course. On the northern border with Senzio." Senzio, he was thinking. The ninth. The jewel. The battleground.
"How long will it take you?" he asked the three of them.
"Five weeks, no more," Grancial said quickly.
"Four," said Siferval, smiling.
"The First pany," said Karalius, "will be on the border three weeks from now. t on it.”
"I will," said Alberico. And dismissed them.
He sat alo his desk for a long time after, toying with a paperweight, thinking upon all sides of this, over and around and about. But however he looked upon it all the pieces seemed to slide into place.
There ower to be grasped here, and triumph, he could almost see that shimmering jewel falling through the air, over water, over land, into his reag hand.
He was ag. Shapis himself, not being impacted upon. His enemy would be vulnerable, enormously so, until this new chaos settled in the west. Quileias choice could be forced and be no choice at all. The Empire could be made to see, on the eve of his final journey home, just what his sorcery and his armies could do. The time was a jewel, truly, falling from the heavens, waiting to be clasped.
To be set upon his brow.
He was still uneasy though, almost unily so, sitting alone as the m brighterying to vince himself of the truth of all this shining promise. He was more than uneasy; his mouth was dry and the spring sunlight seemed strao him, almost painful. He wondered if he was ill. There was something gnawing away like a rat in darkness at the unlit ers of his thoughts. He forced himself to turn towards it, trying to make a torch of his careful rationality, to look within himself and root out this ay.
And then indeed he did see it, and uood, in that same moment, that it could not be rooted out, not ever be aowledged to a living soul.
For the truth, the poisonous gall of truth, was that he was afraid. Deathly afraid, in the deepest inlaces of his being, of this other man. Of Brandin of Ygrath, now Brandin of the Western Palm. The name had been ged, the balance ged utterly.
The truth of fear was exactly as it had been for almost twenty years.
A short while later he left the room a dowairs and underground to see how they killed the messenger.
Alais kly why she was being grahis unpreted gift of a journey in the Sea Maid with her father: Selvena was getting married at the end of summer.
i bar Edinio, whose father owned a good-sized estate of olive trees and vineyards north of Astibar, and a modest but successful banking house iy, had asked Rovigo for his sed daughters hand early in the spring. Rovigently forewarned by his sed daughter, had given his sent, a decision calculated, among other things, to forestall Selvenas oft-proclaimed iion to do away with herself should she still be living at home and unwed by the autumn. i was ear and pleasant if a little dull, and Rovigo had done business with Edinio in the past and liked the man.
Selvena was tempestuously ecstatic, about plans for the wedding, about the prospect of running her
own home—Edinio had offered to set the young couple up in a small house on a hill above his vineyards —and, as Rovigo overheard her telling the younger girls one evening, about the anticipated pleasures of the marriage bed.
He leased for her happiness and rather looking forward to the celebration of the marriage. If he had moments of sadhat he strove to mask, he attributed it to the natural feelings of a man who saw that his girl-child had bee a woman rather soohan he had been prepared for. The sight of Selvena making a red glove for her bridal night affected Rovigo more than he had thought it would. He would turn from her bright, feverish chatter to Alais, and quiet and watchful, and something akin to sadness would touch his spirit amid the anticipatory bustle of the house.
Alix seemed to uand, perhaps eveer than he did himself. His wife had taken to patting his shoulder at sporadiexpected moments, as if gentling a restive creature.
He was restive. This spring the news from the wider world was uable and of seemingly enormous sequence. Barbadian troops were beginning to clog the roads as they moved up to northern Ferraut, on the border of Senzio. From the newly declared Kingdom of the Western Palm had e no clear response as yet to this provocation. Or hat had re>ached Astibar. Rovigo hadnt heard a word from Alessan since well before the Ember Days, but he had been told a long time ago that this spring might mark the beginning of something new.
And something was in the air, a sense of quiing and of ge that fit itself to the mood of burgeoning spring and the beyond it, into danger and the potential for violence. He seemed to hear it a everywhere, iramp of armies on the march, in the lowered voien in taverns, looking up too quickly whenever anyone came through the door.
One m when he woke, Rovigo had an image that lingered in his mind, of the great floods of solidly packed river ice he had glimpsed many years ago far to the south on a long voyage down the coast of Quileia. And in his mind-picture, as he lay in bed, suspended between asleep and fully awake, he had seemed to see that ice breaking up and the river waters beginning to run again, carrying the floes crashing and grinding down to the sea.
Over khav that same m, standing i, he had annouhat he was going into town to see about equipping the Maid for her first run of the season down tea, with goods, perhaps wine—perhaps Edinios wio trade for a ships holds worth of early spring wool and Tregean goats cheese.
It was an impulsive decision, but not an inappropriate one. He usually made a run south in the spring, if a little later in the season, mostly for trade, partly to learn what he could for Alessan. He had been doing it for years, for both reasons, ever since hed met Alessan and Baerd, spending a long night in a southern tavern with them, and ing away with the knowledge of a shared passion of the soul and a cause that might be a lifetime in the unfolding.
So this spring voyage art of his yearly routine. What was not, what was truly impulsive, was his offer, between one sip of early m khav and the , to take Alais with him.
His eldest, his pride, his clever one. He thought her beautiful beyond words. No one had asked for her hand. And though he knew she was truly pleased for Selvena and not grieving at all for herself, this knowledge didnt stop him from feeling a difficult sorrow whenever he looked at her amid the already buildiement of Selvenas wedding preparations.
So he asked her, a little too casually, if she wao e with him, and Alix glanced up quickly from her labors i with a sharp, worried look in her dark eyes, and Alais said, even more quickly, with a fervor rare for her: "Oh, Triad, yes! I would love to e!”
It happeo be her dream.
One of her oldest dreams, never requested, never even spoken aloud. Alais could feel how high her tell-tale color had suddenly bee. She watched her father and mother exge a glahere were
times when she ehem that union of their eyes. No words were spoken, they dido need words much of the time. Then Alais saw her mother nod, and she turned in time to catch her fathers slow smile in respoo that, and she knew she was going to sea in the Maid for the first time in her life.
She had wao do so for so long she couldnt even think back to a time when the desire hadhere. She remembered being a small girl, light enough to be lifted up by her father while her mother carried Selvena, going down to the harbor in Astibar to see the new ship that was the key to their small fortune in the world.
And she had loved it so much. The three masts—they had seemed so tall to her then—aspiring toward the sky, the dark-haired figurehead of a maiden at the prow, the bright-blue coat of fresh paint along the railings, the creak of the ropes and the timber. And the harbor itself: the smell of pitd pine and fish and ale and cheese, wool and spid leather. The rumble of carts laden with goods going away to some far part of the known world, or ing in from distant places with hat were a kind of magic to her.
A sailor in red and green walked by with a monkey on his shoulder and her father called a familiar greeting to him. Her father seemed to be at home here, he khese men, the wild, exotic places from which they came a. She heard shouts and sudden raucous laughter and voices raised in profane dispute over the weight of this or the cost of that. Then someone cried out that there were dolphins in the bay; that was when her father had lifted her up on his shoulders so she might see them.
Selvena had begun to cry at all the fierotion, Alais remembered, and they had gone back to their cart shortly after and ridden aast the watchful, looming presence of the Barbadians, big, fair- haired men on their big horses, guarding the harbor of Astibar. She had been too young to uand what they were about, but her fathers abrupt silend expressionless face, riding by them, had told her something. Later, she learned a great deal mrowing up into the occupied reality of her world.
Her love of the ships and the harbor had never gone away. Whenever she could she would go with Rovigo down to the water. It was easier in winter, when they all moved to the town house in Astibar, but even in spring and summer and early fall she would find excuses, reasons and ways to apany him into town and down to where the Maid was berthed. She gloried in the se, and at night she dreamt her dreams of os opening before her and salt spray off the waves.
Dreams. She was a woman. Women did not go to sea. And dutiful, intelligent daughters roubled their fathers by even asking to be allowed such a thing. But it seemed that, sometimes, on some ms pletely unforeseen, Eanna could look down from among her lights in the sky, and smile, and something miraight be freely offered that would never have been sought.
It seemed she was a good sailor, adjusting easily to the swing and roll of the ship on the waves as the coastline of Astibar scrolled by on their right. They sailed north along the bay and then threaded their way through the islands of the Archipelago and into the wideness of the open sea, Rovigo and his five seamen handling the ship with an ease that seemed to her both relaxed and precise. Alais was exhilarated, watg everything in this unknown world with an iy that made them laugh and tease her for it.
There was no mali the jests though; she had known all five of these men for most of her life.
They swung around the northern tip of the province; a cape of storms, one of the men told her. But that spring day it was an easy, mild place, and she stood at the railing as they turned back south, and watched the green hills of her province pass by, sloping down to the white sand of the shores and the fishing villages dotted along the coast.
A few nights later there was a storm, off the cliffs of northern Tregea. Rovigo had seen it ing at su, or smelled it in the air, but the coastline was rocky and forbidding here, with no place to put in for shelter. They braced for the squall, a respectful distance off shore to keep clear of the rocks. When it hit, Alais was down below in her , to keep out of the way.
Even this weather, she was grateful to discover, didnt bother her very much. There was nothing
pleasant about it, feeling the Sea Maid groan and shake, buffeted in darkness by wind and rain, but she told herself that her father had endured infinitely worse in thirty years at sea, and she was not going to let herself be frightened or disfited by a minor spring squall from the east.
She made a point of going back up on deck as soon as she felt the waves and the wind die down. It was still raining, and she covered her head with the hood of her cape. Careful to stay clear of where the men were lab, she stood at one rail and looked up. East of them the swiftly scudding clouds revealed rifts of clear sky and briefly Vidomnis light shohrough. Later the wind died down even more, the rain stopped and the clouds broke up, and she saw Eannas bright, far stars e out above the sea, like a promise, like a gift. She pushed back her hood and shook out her dark hair. She took a deep breath of the fresh air, and knew a moment of perfect hap?piness.
She looked over and saw that her father was watg her. She smiled at him. He did not return the smile, but as he walked over she could see that his eyes were tender and grave. He leaned on the rail beside her, looki at the coastline. Water glistened in his hair and in the short beard he was growing. Not far away—a series of dark, massive forms touched by the moonlight—the cliffs ea moved slowly by.
"It is in you," her father said quietly, over the slap and sigh of the waves. "In your heart and in your blood. You have it more than I do, from my father and from his." He was silent a moment, then slowly shook his head, "But Alais, my darling, a woman ot live a life at sea. Not in the world as it is.”
Her dream. Clear and bright as the glitter of white Vidomnis light upon the waves. Laid out and then undone in such simple words.
She swallowed. Said, a speech long rehearsed, never spoken: "You have no sons. I am eldest. Will you surrehe Maid and all you have worked to achieve when you . . . when you no longer wish to pursue this life?”
"When I die?" He said it gently, but something heavy and hurtful took shape, pressing upon her heart.
She looped her hand through the crook of his arm, holding tight, and moved o him, to lean her head on his shoulder.
They were silent, watg the cliffs go by and the play of moonlight on the sea. The ship was never quiet, but she liked the made. She had fallen asleep the past few nights hearing the Sea Maids endless litany of sounds as a night song.
She said, her head still on his shoulder, "Could I be taught? To help you in your business, I mean.
Even if not to actually sail on the journeys.”
Her father said nothing for a time. Leaning against him, she could feel his steady breathing. His hands were loosely clasped together over the rail.
He said, "That be done, Alais. If you want it, it be done. Women run businesses all over the Palm. Widows, most often, but not only them." He hesitated. "Your mother could keep this going, I think, if she wao, if she had good advisors." He turned his head to look down at her, but she did not lift hers from his shoulder. "It is a sharp, cold life though, my darling. For a woman, for a man, without a hearth at the end of day for warmth. Without love to carry you outward and home.”
She closed her eyes at that. There was somethihat went to the heart of things. They had never pressed her, never harried ed, though she was almost twenty years old and it was time, it was well past time. And she had had that orange dream many nights through the dark of the winter just past: herself and a shadowy figure against the moon, a man in a high, unknown place, among flowers, uhe arch of stars, his body lowered to her own, her hands reag to gather him.
She lifted her head, withdrew her arm. Said carefully, looking down at the waves: "I like i. Im happy for Selvena. Shes ready, shes wahis for so long and I think hell be good to her. But father, I need more than what she will have. I dont know what it is, but I need more.”
Her father stirred then. She watched him draw a deep breath and then slowly let it out. "I know," she
heard him say. "I know you do, my darling. If I knew what, or how, and could give it, it would be yours.
The world and the stars of Eanna would all be yours.”
She cried then, which she seldom did. But she loved him and had caused him grief, and he had spoken just now, twice, of dying one day, and the white moon on the cliffs and sea after the storm was like nothing she had ever known or was likely to know again.
Catriana couldhe road as she climbed the slope from the dell, but from the distant sounds and the way Baerd and Sandre were both standing, rigidly watchful on the grass at the edge of the trees, she could tell that something was wrong. Men, she had long since cluded, were signifitly worse than women at hiding their feelings in situations such as this.
Her hair still wet after bathing in the pond—a favorite place of hers, ohey had passed every time they went bad forth between Ferraut aando—she hurried up the slope to see what was happening.
The two men said nothing as she appeared beside them. The cart had been pulled into the shade off the north-south road and the two horses let free to graze. Baerds bow and quiver were lying in the grass beside the trees, close to hand if he hem. She looked at the road and saw the Barbadian troops passing by, marg and riding, raising a heavy cloud of dust all around them.
"More of the Third pany," Sandre said, a cold anger in his voice.
"It looks like theyre all going, doesnt it?" Baerd murmured grimly.
Which was good, it was more than good, it was exactly what they wahe ahe grimness were almost wholly uncalled for; they seemed to be some instinctive male respoo the nearness of the enemy. Catria like shaking them both.
It was clear, really. Baerd himself had explai to her and Sandre, and to Alienor of Borso on the day Alessa Marius of Quileia in the mountains and rode west with Devin and Erlein.
And listening that day, f herself to be posed in Alien-ors presence, Catriana had finally uood what Alessan had meant, all this time, when hed said they would have to wait until spring.
They had been waiting for Marius to say yes or no. To say if he would risk his own unstable and his life for them. And that day in the Braccio Pass hed said he would. Baerd told them a little, a very little, about why.
Ten days later she and Baerd and Sandre had been on wat the hills outside Fort Ortiz when the emissaries came riding along the road carrying the Quileian flag and were met with ceremonious honor outside the walls and escorted within by the Barbadians.
m the Quileians had ridden on, not hurrying, down the road to the north. Two hours after their departure the gates of the fort had opened again and six men had ridden out ireme haste. One of them—it was Sandre who —was Siferval himself, captain of the Third pany.
"It is done," Baerd had said, a kind of awe in his voice. "I ot believe it, but I think we have do!”
A little more than a week later the first troops had begun to move, and they knew he was right. It wasnt until some days after that, in an artisans village in northerando, trading for carvings and finished cloth, that they learned, belatedly, what Brandin of Ygrath had done in Chiara. The Kingdom of the Western Palm.
"Are you a gambling man?" Sandre had said to Baerd. "The dice are rolling now, and no one will hold or trol them until they stop." Baerd had said nothing in reply, but something stunned, o sho his expression, made Catriana go over and take his hand in hers. Which was not really like her at all.
But everything had ged, or was ging. Baerd was not the same sihe Ember Days and their stay at Castle Borso. Something had happeo him there, too, but this part he didnt explain. Ales-
san was gone, and Devin—and though she hated to admit it, she missed him almost as much as the Prince.
Even their role here in the east had pletely altered now.
They h９９ｌiｂ.ad waited in the highlands for the emissaries, in case something should g. But now Baerd kept them moving at speed from town to town and he was stopping to speak to men and to some women Catriana had never even heard about, telling them to be ready, that there might be a summer rising.
And with some of them, not many, only a select few, his message was very specific: Senzio. Head north to Senzio before Midsummer. Have a on with you if you .
And it was these last words that brought home to Catriana most sharply, most potently, the fact that the time for a had truly e. It on them. No more oblique disruptions or h on the edge of events. Events had a ter now, which was or would soon be in Senzio, and they were going there. What was to happen she did know. If Baerd did, he wasnt telling.
What he did tell her, and Saoo, were the names of people.
Scores of them. Names he had held in memory, some for a dozen years. People who were with them in this, who could be trusted. Who o be told, here in the provinces ruled by Barbadior, that the movement of Albericos troops was their own signal to be ready at last. To watch the unfolding of events and be prepared to respond.
They would sit together at night, the three of them, around a campfire uars or in a secluded er of an inn in some hamlet or village, and Baerd would recite for them the hey o know.
It was only ohird night, falling asleep afterward, that Catriaedly realized that the reason they o be told this was if Baerd were to die, with Alessan away in the west.
"Ricaso bar Dellano," Baerd would say. "A cooper in Marsilian, the first village south of Fort Ciorone. He was born in Avalle. Could not go to war because of a lame foot. Speak to him. He will not be able to e north, but knows the others near by and will spread the word and lead our people in that district if the need for a rising es.”
"Ricaso bar Dellano," she would repeat. "In Marsilian.”
"Porrena bren Cullion. In Delonghi, just ihe Tregean border on the main road from Ferraut.
Shes a little older than you, Catriana. Her father died at the Deisa. She knows who to speak to.”
"Porrena," Sandre would murmur, trating, his bony, gnarled hands clasped together. "In Delonghi." And Catriana marveled at how many here seemed to be, how many lives Baerd and Alessan had touched iravels through a dozen years siurning from Quileia, readying themselves and these unknown others for a time, a season, a moment iure—which was now.
Which they had lived to see. And her heart was filled with hope as she whispered the names over and over to herself like talismans of power.
They rode through the weeks, through the fl of spring, at an almost reckless pace, barely simulating their role as merts. Making bad, hasty transas where they stopped, unwilling to liain for better ones. Pausing only long enough to find the man or woman who was the key in that village or this cluster of farms, the one who khe others and would carry the word.
They were losing money, but they had astins to spare from Alie-nor. Catriana, being ho with herself, realized that she was still relut to aowledge the role that woman had played in Alessans doings for so many years. Years in which she herself had been growing up in ignorance, a child in a fishing village in Astibar.
Once, Baerd let her make the ta a town. The woman was a weaver, widely known for her skill. Catriana had found her house at the edge of the village. Two dogs had barked at her approad had been stilled by a mild voice from within. Inside, Catriana had found a woman only a little youhan her mother. She had made certain they were alone, and then, as Baerd had instructed, had shown her
dolphin ring and given Alessans name and had spoken the message.
The same message of readiness as everywhere else. Then she carefully wo men and spoke Baerds seessage: Senzio. Midsummer. Tell them to be armed if they .
The woman had gone pale, standing up abruptly as Catriana began to speak. She was very tall, even more so than Catriana herself. When the seessage was done she had remained motionless a moment and then stepped forward to kiss Catriana on the mouth.
"Triad bless you and keep you and the both of them," she had said. "I did not think I would live to see this day." She was g; Catriana tasted salt on her lips.
She had walked out into the sunshine and back to Baerd and Sahey had just finished a purchase of a dozen barrels of Cer-tandan ale. A wretched transa.
"Were going north, you fools," she had exclaimed, exasperated, her trade instincts taking over.
"They dont like ale in Ferraut! You know that.”
"Then well have to drink it ourselves," Sandre said, swinging up on his horse and laughing. Baerd, who so rarely used to laugh, but who had ged sihe Ember Days, began to chuckle suddenly. And then, sitting beside him on the cart as they rode out of town, so did she, listening to the two of them, feeling the freshness of the breeze blowing through her hair, and, as it seemed, through her heart.
It was that same day, early iernoon, that they came to the dell she loved and Baerd, remembering, pulled the cart off the road to let her go down to the pool and bathe. When she climbed back up her man was laughing or amused anymore, watg the Barbadians go by.
It was the way the two of them were standing that caused the trouble, she was sure of it. But by the time she came up beside them it was already too late. It would have been mostly Baerd whose look drew their attention. Sandre in his Khardhu guise was a matter of almost plete indiffereo the Barbadians.
But a mert, a minor trader with a single cart and a sed sy horse, who stood gazing at an army passing in the way that this one did, coldly, his head arrogantly high, not eveely submissive or chastened let alone showing any of the fear proper to such a situation . . .
The language of the body, Catriana thought, could be heard far too clearly sometimes. She looked at Baerd beside her, his dark eyes fixed in stony appraisal of the pany passing by. It wasnt arrogance, she decided, not just a male pride. It was something else, something older. A primitive respoo this display of the Tyrants power that he could no more hide than he could the dozen barrels of ale they carried on the cart.
"Stop it!" she whispered fiercely. But even as she did she heard one of the Barbadians bark a terse and and half a dozen of them detached from the moving n of men and horses and galloped over toward them. Catrianas mouth went dry. She saw Baerd glance over to where his bow lay in the grass. He shifted his stance slightly, to balance himself better. Sandre did the same.
"What are you doing?" she hissed. "Remember where we are!”
She had time for no more. The Barbadians came up to them, huge men on their horses, looking down on a man and a woman of the Palm and this gaunt, grey-haired reli Khardhun.
"I dont like the look of your face," the leader said, staring at Baerd. The mans hair was darker than most of the others, but his eyes were pale and hard.
Catriana swallowed. This was the first time in a year theyd had a frontation so direct with the Barbadians. She lowered her eyes, willing Baerd to be calm, to say the right things.
What she did not know, for no one who had not been there could knohat Baerd was seeing in that moment.
Not six Barbadians on horses by a road iando, but as many Ygrathen soldiers in the square before his fathers house long ago. So many years, and the memory still sharp as a wound from only
yesterday. All the normal measures of time seemed to fall apart and blow away in moments such as this.
Baerd forced himself to avert his gaze before the Barbadians glare. He knew he had made a mistake, khis was a mistake he would always make if he wasnt careful. He had been too euphoric though, rushing too fast on a floodtide of emotion, seeing this marg n as dang to the tune he and Alessan had called. But it was early yet, far too early, so much lay unknown and untrollable iure. And they had to live to see that future or everything would have been wasted. Years and lives, the patient juring of dream into reality.
He said, eyes cast down, voice low, "I am sorry if I have offended. I was only marveling at you. We have not seen so many soldiers on the road in years.”
"We moved aside to make way," Sandre added in his deep voice.
"You be silent," the Barbadian leader rasped. "If I wish to verse with servants I will inform you.”
One of the others sidled his horse toward Sandre, f him to step backward. Catriana, behind him, felt her legs grow weak. She reached out and gripped the railing of the cart; her palms were damp with fear.
She saw two of the Barbadians staring at her with frank, smirking appraisal, and she was suddenly aware of how her clothing would be ging to her body after her swim in the pond.
"Five us," Baerd repeated, in a muffled tone. "We meant no harm, no harm at all.”
"Really? Why were you ting our numbers?”
"ting? Your numbers? Why would I do such a thing?”
"You tell me, mert.”
"It is not so," Baerd protested, inwardly cursing himself as an amateur and a fool. After twelve years, something so clumsy as this! The situation was careening out of trol, and the simple fact was that he had indeed been ting the Barbadian numbers. "We are only traders," he added. "Only minor traders.”
"With a Khardhu warrior fuard? Not so minor, I would say.”
Baerd blinked, and clutched his hands together deferentially. He had made a terrible mistake. This man was dangerously sharp.
"I was afraid for my wife," he said. "There have been rumors of outlaws in the south, of great u.”
Which was true. There were, in fact, more than rumors. Twenty-five Barbadians had been slaughtered in a pass. He was fairly certain Alessan had been there.
"Your wife or yoods?" one of the other Barbadians sneered. "We know which you people value more." He looked past Baerd to where Catriana stood, and there was a loose, heavy-lidded look in his face. The other soldiers laughed. Baerd quickly lowered his head again; he didnt want them to see the death that was in his eyes. He remembered that kind of laughter, the resonance of it. Where it could lead.
Had led, in a square in Tigaeen years ago. He was silent, eyes downcast, murder in his heart, bound close with memory.
"What are you carrying?" the first Barbadian rapped out, his voice blunt as a trowel.
"Ale," Baerd said, squeezing his hands together. "Only barrels of ale for the north.”
"Ale for Ferraut? You are a liar. Or a fool.”
"No, no," Baerd said hastily. "Not Ferraut. We got a very good price. Eleven astins the barrel. Good enough to be worth taking all the way north. We are bound for Astibar with this. We sell it for three times that.”
Which would have been true, had he not paid twenty-three astins for each of these.
At a gesture from the leader two of the Barbadians dismouhey cracked open one of the barrels, using their swords as levers. The pu, earthy smell of Certandan beer surrouhem all.
The leader looked over, saw his men nod, and turned back to Baerd. There was a malicious smile on his face.
"Eleven astins a barrel? Truly a good price. So good, that even a grasping mert will not hesitate to dohem to the army of Barbadior that defends you and your kind.”
Baerd had been half expeg this. Careful to stay in character, he said, "If . . . if it is your desire, then yes. Would you . . . would you care to buy it, at only the price I paid?”
There was a silence. Behind the six Barbadians the army was still marg down the road. It had almost passed them by. He had a det estimate of how many there were. Then the man on the horse in front of him drew his sword. Baerd heard Catriana make a small sound behind him. The Barbadian leaned forward over the neck of his horse, oended, and delicately touched Baerd on his bearded cheek with the flat of his blade.
"We do not bargain," he said softly. "Nor do we steal. t gifts. Offer us a gift, mert." He moved the blade a little. Baerd could feel it nig and fretting against his face.
"Please accept . . . please accept this ale from us as a gift to the men of the Third pany," he said.
With an effort he kept his eyes averted from the mans face.
"Why thank you, mert," the man said with lazy sarcasm. Slowly, sliding it along Baerds cheek like an evil caress, he drew back his sword. "And since you have given us these barrels, you will surely not begrudge us the horse and cart that carry them?”
"Take the cart as well," Baerd heard himself saying. He felt suddenly as if he had left his body. As if he were floating above this se, looking down.
And it was as from that high, detached vantage point that he seemed to see the Barbadians move to claim their wagon. They attached the cart-horse to the traces again. One of them, youhahers, slung their packs and food out onto the ground. He looked shyly back at Catriana, a little abashed, then he mounted quickly up on the seat and clucked at the horse, and the cart rolled slowly away to where the tail of the Barbadian n was moving along the road. The five other men, leading his horse, followed after him. They were laughing, the easy, spilling laughter of men among each other, sure of their plad of the shape of their lives. Baerd glanced over at his bow again. He was fairly certain he could kill all six of them, starting with the leader, before anyone could intervene.
He didnt move. None of them moved until the last of the n was out of sight, their cart rumbling after it. Baerd turhen and looked at Catriana. She was trembling, but he knew her well enough to know it was as much with anger as with fear.
"Im sorry," he said, reag up a hand to touch her arm.
"I could kill you Baerd fiving me such a fright.”
"I know," he said. "And I would deserve to be dead. I uimated them.”
"Could have been worse," Sandre said prosaically.
"Oh, somewhat," Catriana said tartly. "We could all be lying dead here now.”
"That would indeed have been worse," Sandre agreed gravely. It took her a moment to realize he was teasing her. She surprised herself by laughing, a little wildly.
Sandre, his darkened face sober, said something quite ued then. "You have no idea," he murmured, "how dearly I wish you were of my blood. My daughter, granddaughter. Will you allow me to take pride in what you are?”
She was so surprised she could think of nothing to say. A moment later, deeply moved, she went forward and kissed him on the cheek. He put his long, bony arms around her and held her to his chest for a moment, carefully, as if she was fragile, or very precious, or both. She couldnt remember the last time someone had held her that way.
He stepped back, clearing his throat awkwardly. She saw that Baerds expression was unwontedly soft, looking at the two of them.
"This is all extremely lovely," she said, deliberately dry. "Shall we spend the day here telling each
other lendid people we think we are?”
Baerd grinned. "Not a bad idea, but not the very best. I think well have to double back to where we bought the ale. We need another cart and horse.”
"Good. I could use a flask of ale," Sandre said. Catriana glanced quickly back at him, caught the wry look in his eye, and laughed. She knew what he was doing, but she would never have expected to be able to laugh so soon after seeing a swainst Baerds face.
Baerd collected his bow and quiver from the grass. They shouldered their packs and made her ride the horse—nothing else, Sandre said, would lht. She waue but couldnt. And she was secretly grateful for the ce to ride; her knees were still weak.
It was very dusty along the road for a mile or two because of the army, and they kept to the grass beside it. Her horse startled a rabbit and before she could eveer the fact, Baerd had notched an arrow and shot, and the animal was dead. They traded it a short while later at a farmhouse for a pitcher of ale and some bread and cheese and the on.
Late in the day, by the time they had made their slow way back to the village, Catriana bad vinced herself that the i had been unfortunate, but not really important after all.
Eight days later they were in Tregea town. They had seen no other soldiers iervening week, their path having taken them far off the major roads. They left the new cart and goods at their usual inn and walked down to the tral market. It was late iernoon, a warm day for spring. Looking north between the buildings toward the docks, Catriana could see the masts of the first ships to e up the river after the winter. Sandre had stopped at a leather stall to have repairs doo the belt that held his sword. As she and Baerd moved through the crowded square, a Barbadian merary, older than most, moving with a limp, and probably drunk on spring wiumbled out of a tavern, saw her, and lurched over to grope clumsily at her breasts aween her legs.
She shrieked, more startled than anything else.
And a moment later wished with all her heart that she had not done so. Baerd, just ahead of her, wheeled, saw the man, and with the same deadly, reflexive speed that had killed the rabbit, flattehe Barbadian with a colossal blow to the side of his head.
And Catriana knew—knew in that moment with utter and absolute certainty—that he was striking out not just against a drunken reserve guard, but against the officer who had touched him with a sword by that grove iando a week before.
There was a sudden, frightened silence around them. And then an immediate babble of sound. They looked at each other for a blurred, flashing sed.
"Run!" Baerd ordered harshly. "Meet tonight by the place where you came up from the river last winter. If I am not there go on by yourselves. You know the here are only a handful left. Eanna guard you all!”
Then he was gone, sprinting through the square the way they had e, as a cluster of meraries began fanning out quickly through the crowd toward them. The man on the ground had not moved.
Catriana didnt wait to see if he would. She cut off the other way as fast as she could run. Out of the er of her eye she saw Sa the leather stall watg them, his face loose with shock. She was careful, desperately careful, not to look at him, not to run that way. That one of them, oh, Triad please be willing, one of them might make it from this place alive and free, with the names known and the dream still carried toward Midsummerss fires.
She darted down a crowded street and then sharply left at the first crossing into the warren of twisting lahat made up the oldest quarter ea he river. Over her head the sed stories of houses leaned crazily out towards each other, and what filtered through of the sunlight was pletely blocked in places by the enclosed bridges that ected that ramshackle buildings oher side of the street.
She looked bad saw four of the meraries following her, pounding loudly down the lane. One
of them shouted a and to halt. If any of them had a bow, Catriana thought, she was quite likely to die in the few seds. Dodging from side to side she cut tht down an alleyway and then quickly right again at the first crossing, doubling back the way she had e.
There were three names on Baerds list here in Tregea, and she knew where two of them might be found, but there was no way she could go to them for succor, not with the Barbadians so close behind.
She would have to lose the pursuit herself, if she could, and leave it to Sao make the tact. Or Baerd, if he survived.
She ducked uhe flapping ends of someones wash hanging above the street, and knifed over to her left toward the water. There were people milling about in the lanes, glang up with mild curiosity as she went by. Their glances would ge in a moment, she knew, when the Barbadians rumbled through after her.
The streets were a hopelessly jumbled maze. She wasain where she was, only that the river was north of her; at fleeting intervals she could glimpse the topmost masts of the ships. The waterfront would be dangerous though, much too open and exposed. She doubled back south again, her lungs sug for air. Behind her, she heard a crashing sound and then a cacophony of irate shouts and curses.
She stumbled going around another er tht. Every moment, every turning, she expected this chaos of lao lead her straight bato her pursuers. If they fanned out she robably finished. A wheelwrights cart blocked the lane. She flattened herself against the wall and sidled sideast. Came to another crossing of roads. Spriraight through this time, past half a dozen children playing a skipping game with ropes. Tur the sed crossing.
And was grabbed hard just above her right elbow. She started to scream, but a hand was quickly slapped over her mouth. She bared her teeth to bite, violently twisting to escape. Then suddenly she froze in disbelief.
"Quietly, my heart. And e this way," said Rovigo dAstibar removing his palm from her mouth.
"No running. They are two streets over. Look as if youre walking with me." Hand on her arm he guided quickly into a tiny, almost deserted lane, looked bace over his shoulder, and then propelled her through the doorway of a fabric shop. "Now down behind the ter, quickly.”
"How did you . . . ?" she gasped.
"Saw you in the square. Followed you here. Move, girl!”
She moved. An old woman took her hand and squeezed it, then lifted a hinged ter and Catriana ducked through and dropped to the floor behind it. A moment later the hinge swung up again and her heart stopped as a shadoeared above her holding something long and sharp.
"Five me," whispered Alais bren Rovigo, kneeling beside her. "My father says your hair might give you away when we leave." She held up the scissors she carried.
Catria rigid for a moment, then, closing her eyes without a word, she slowly turned her ba the other woman. A moment later she felt her loresses gathered and pulled. And then the long sharp cloth-cutters scissors rasped ly through in a line above her shoulders, severing a decades growth in a moment in the shadows.
There was a burst of side, a clatter and hoarse shouting. It approached, reached them, went loudly past. Catriana realized that she was shaking; Alais touched her shoulder and then diffidently withdrew her hand. Oher side of the ter the old woman moved placidly about in the shadows of her sho was o be seen. Catrianas breath came in ragged scs of air and her right side ached; she must have crashed into something in her wild careen. She had no memory of doing so.
There was something lying on the ground beside her feet. She reached down and gathered the thick red curtain of her severed hair. It had happened so fast shed hardly had time to realize what was being done.
"Catriana, Im so sorry," Alais whispered again. There was real grief in her voice.
Catriana shook her head. "Nothing . . . this is less than nothing," she said. It was difficult to speak.
"Only vanity. What does it matter?" She seemed to be weeping. Her ribs hurt terribly. She put a hand up and touched the shorn remains of her hair. Theurned sideways a little, on the floor of the shop, down behind the ter, and leaned her head wearily against the other womans shoulder. Alaiss arms came up and arouhen, holding her close while she cried.
Oher side of the ter the old woman hummed tunelessly to herself as she folded and sorted cloth of many colors and as many diifereures, w by the wan light of afternoon as it filtered down to the street in a quarter where the leaning houses mostly blocked the sun.
Baerd lay in the mild darkness by the river, remembering how cold it had been the last time he was here, waiting with Devin at wiwilight to see if Catriana would e floating down to them.
He had lost the pursuit ho. He kregea very well. He and Alessan had lived here for more than a year off and on after their return from Quileia, rightly judging this wild, mountainous province as a good place to seek out and nurture any slow flames of revolution.
They had been principally looking for one man they had never found, a captain from the siege of Borifort, but they had discovered others, and spoken to them, and bound them to their cause. And they had been back here many times over the years, iy itself and in the mountains of its distrada, finding in the harsh simple life of this province a strength and a direess that helped carry them both through the terribly slow, twistingly i paths of their lives.
He had knowys maze of streets infinitely better than the Barbadians who were barracked here. Known which houses could be quickly climbed, which roofs led to others, and which to avoid as dangerous dead-ends. It had been important, in the life theyd led, to know such things.
Hed cut south and the from the market, and then scrambled up to the roof of The Shepherds Crook, their old tavern here, using the slanting cover of the adjat woodpile as a springboard. He remembered doing the same thing years ago, dodging the night watch after curfew. Running low and quickly he crossed two roofs and then spanned a street by crawling along the top of one of the ramshackle covered bridges that linked houses oher side.
Behind him, far behind him very soon, he heard the sounds of pursuit being balked by seemingly ient things. He could guess what those things might be: a milk-cart with a loose wheel, a quickly gathered crowd watg two men brawl ireet, a keg of wine spilled as it was wheeled into a tavern. He kregea, which meant knowing the spirit of its people too.
In a short time he was a long way from the market square, having covered the distairely from roof to roof, flitting light-footed and unseen. He could have almost ehe chase had he not been so worried about Catriana. At the higher, southern fringes ea the houses grew taller and the streets wider. His memory did not fail him though; he knew which ways to angle in order to tinue w upward till he came to the house he sought and leaped to land on its roof.
He remaihere for several moments, listening carefully for sounds of alarm ireet below.
He heard only the ordinary traffic of late afternoon though, and so Baerd slipped the key out from its old hiding-plader the one burnt shingle, unlocked the flat trapdoor and slipped down, noiselessly, into Tremazzos attic.
He lowered the door behind him and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Down below, in the apothecarys shop itself he could hear voices quite clearly, and he quickly made out the unmistakable rumble of Tremazzos bass tones. It had been a long time, but some things seemed o ge.
Around him he could smell soaps and perfumes, and the odors, astri or sweet, of various medications. When he could see a little in the gloom he found the tattered armchair that Tremazzo used to leave up here for them and sank down into it. The very a brought back memories from years ago.
Some things did not ge.
Eventually the voices below fell silent. Listening carefully he could make out only the one distinctive, heavy tread in the shop. Leaning over, Baerd deliberately scratched the floor, the sound a rat might make in an atti. But only a rat that could scratch three times quickly, and then once again.
Three for the Triad as a whole, and one more for the god aloregea and Tigana shared an a link to Adaon, and they had chosen to mark it when they devised their signal.
He heard the footsteps below stop, and then, a moment later, resume their measured tread, as if nothing had happened. Baerd leaned ba the chair to wait.
It didnt take long. It was late in the day by now, nearly time to close up shop in any case. He heard Tremazzo sweeping the ter and floor and then the bang of the front door being shut and the click of the bolt driven home. A moment later the ladder was moved into place, footsteps asded, the lower door swung back, and Tremazzo came into the attic, carrying a dle. He uffing from exertion, bulkier than ever.
He set the dle on a crate and stood, hands on wide hips, looking down at Baerd. His clothes were very fine, and his black beard was ly trimmed to a point. And sted, Baerd realized a sed later.
Grinning, he rose to his feet aured at Tremazzos finery, pretending to sniff the air. The apothecary grimaced. "ers," he grunted. "It is the fashion of the day. What they expeow in a shop like this. Soon well be as bad as Senzio. Was it you that caused all the hue and cry this afternoon?”
No more than that; no greeting, no effusions. Tremazzo had always been thus, cool and direct as a wind out of the mountains.
"Im afraid so," Baerd replied. "Did the soldier die?”
"Hardly," Tremazzo said in his familiar, dismissive tones. "You arent strong enough for that.”
"Was there word of a woman caught?”
"Not that I heard. Who is she?”
"One of us, Tremazzo. Now listen, there is real news, and I need you to find a Khardu warrior and give him a message from me.”
Tremazzos eyes widened briefly as Baerd began, then narrowed with tration as the story unfolded. It didnt take long to explain. Tremazzo was nothing if not quick. The bulky apothecary was not a man to venture north to Senzio himself, but he could tact others who were ahem know. And he should be able to find Sa their inn. He went down the ladder once more aurned, puffing, with a wheel of bread and some eat, and a flask of good wio go with them.
They touched palms briefly, then he left in search of Sandre. Sitting among the sundry items stored above an apothecarys shop, Baerd ate and drank, waiting for darko fall. When he was sure the sun had set he slipped out onto the roof again and started baorth through the town. After a while he worked his way down to the ground and, careful of the torches of the watch, threaded eastward through the winding streets to the place at the edge of the city where Catriana had e ashore from her winter leap. There, he sat down in the grass by the river in the almost windless night aled himself to wait.
He had never really feared he would be caught. Hed had too many years of living this way, body honed and hardened, senses sharpened, mind quiember things, to seize and act upon opportunity.
None of which explained or excused what hed doo get them into this in the first place. His impulsive blow at the drunken Barbadian had been an act of unthinking stupidity, regardless of the fact that it was also something that most of the people in that square had loo do themselves at oime or another. In the Palm of the Tyrants today one suppressed such longings or died. Or watched people one cared for die.
Which lead him back to Catriana. Iarry spring darkness he remembered her emerging like a ghost from winter water. He lay silent in the grass thinking of her, and then, after a time, perhaps predictably, of Elena. And then, always and forever, certain as dawn or dusk or the turning of the seasons, of Dianora who was dead or lost to him somewhere in the world.
There was a rustle, too small to be alarming, in the leaves of a tree behind him. A moment later a trialla began to sing. He listeo it, and to the river flowing, alone and at home in the dark, a man shaped and defined by his need for solitude and the silent play of memory.
His father, as it happened, had dohe same thing by the Deisa, the night before he died.
A short time later an owl called from along the riverbank just west of him. He hooted softly in reply, sileng the triallas song. Sandre came up silently, scarcely disturbing the grass. He crouched down and then sat, grunting slightly. They looked at each other.
"Catriana?" Baerd murmured.
"I dont know. Not caught though, I think. I would have heard. I lingered in the square and around it.
Saw the guards e back. The man you hit is all right. They were laughing at him, after. I think this will pass.”
Baerd deliberately relaxed his tensed muscles. He said, versationally, "I am a very great fool sometimes, had you noticed?”
"Not really. Youll have to tell me about it some time. Who was the extremely large man who accosted me?”
"Tremazzo. Hes been with us for a long while. We used his upper ste room for meetings when we lived here, and after.”
Sandre grunted. "He came up to me outside the inn and offered to sell me a potion to ehe lust of any woman or boy I desired.”
Baerd found himself grinning. "Rumors of Khardu habits precede you.”
"Evidently." Saeeth flashed white in the darkness. "Mind you, it was a good price. I bought two vials of the stuff.”
Laughing quietly, Baerd felt a curious sensation, as if his heart were expanding outward toward the man here with him. He remembered Sahe night they had met, when all the plans of his old age had been undone, when a final, savage end had e for the whole Sandreni family. A night that had not e to an end until the Duke had used his magic to go into Albericos dungeons and kill his own son.
Tomasso. Any woman or boy I desired.
Baerd felt humbled by the strength of the old man with him. Not on half a year and more of hard traveling, through the bitter cold and rutted tracks of winter, had Sandre breathed so much as a request for a halt or an easier paot once had he balked at a task, shown weariness, been slow to rise in the predaness of the road. Not once given any sign of the rage or the grief that must have choked him whenever word reached them of more bodies death-wheeled in As-tibar. He had given them a gift of all he had, his knowledge of the Palm, the world, and especially of Alberico; a lifetimes worth of subtlety and leadership, offered without arrogand without reserve, nothing held back.
It was men such as this, Baerd thought, who had been the glory and the grief of the Palm in the days before it fell. Glory in the grandeur of their power, and grief in their hatreds and their wars that had let the Tyrants e and take the provinces one by one in their solitary pride.
And sitting there by the river in darkness Baerd felt again, with certainty, in the deep core of his heart, that what Alessan was doing— what he and Alessan were doing—was right. That theirs was a goal worth the striving for, this reag out for wholeness in the Palm,藏书网 with the Tyrants driven away and the provinces bound together in a sharing of the years that would e. A goal worth all the days and nights of a mans life, whether or not it was ever reached, could ever be made real. A goal that lay beside and was bound together with the other vast and bitter thing, which was Tigana and her name.
Certain things were hard for Baerd bar Saevar, almost impossible in fact, and had been since his youth had been torn away from him in the year Tigana fell. But he had lain with a woman on an Ember Night just past, in a place of deepest magid had felt in that green darkness as if the stern bindings that
ed and held his heart were loosening. And this was a dark place too, a quiet oh the river flowing, and things had begun to take shape in the Palm that he had feared would never happen while he lived.
"My lord," he said softly to the old man sitting there with him, "do you know that I have e to love you iime we have been together?”
"By the Triad!" Sandre said, a little too quickly. "And I havent even given you the potion!”
Baerd smiled, said nothing, able to guess at the bindings the old Duke must have within himself. A moment later though, he heard Sandre murmur, in a very different voice: "And I you, my friend. All of you. You have given me a sed life and a reason for living it. Even a hope that a future worth knowing might lie ahead of us. For that you have my love until I die.”
Gravely, he held out a palm and the two of them touched fingers in the darkness. They were sitting thus, motionless, when they heard the sound of an oar splash gently ier. Both men rose silently, reag for their swords. Then they heard an owl hoot from the river.
Baerd called softly back, and a moment later a small boat bumped gently against the sloping bank and Catriana, stepping lightly, came ashore.
At the sight of her Baerd drew a breath of pure relief; he had been more afraid for her than he could ever have said-. There was a man behind her in the boat holding the oars but the moons had not yet risen and Baerd couldnt see who it was.
Catriana said, "That was quite a blow. Should I be flattered?”
Sandre, behind him, chuckled. Baerd felt as though his heart would overflow with pride in this woman, in the calm, matter-of-faess of her ce. Matg her toh an effort he said only, "You shouldnt have shrieked. Half ea thought you were being ravished.”
"Yes, well," she said drily. "Dive me. I wasnt sure myself.”
"What happeo your hair?" Sandre asked suddenly from behind, and Baerd, moving sideways, saw that it had indeed been cropped away, in a ragged line above her shoulders.
She shrugged, with exaggerated indifference. "It was in the way. We decided to cut it off.”
"Who is we?" Baerd asked. Something within him was grieving for her, for the assumed casualness of her manner. "Who is in the boat? I assume a friend, given where we are.”
"A fair assumption," the man in the boat answered for himself. "Though I must say I could have picked a better place for our -traina to have a business meeting.”
&quo!" Baerd murmured, with astonishment and a swift surge of delight. "Well met! It has been too long.”
&quo dAstibar?" Sandre said suddenly, ing forward. "Is that who this is?”
"I thought I khat voice,&quo said, shipping his oars and standing up abruptly. Baerd moved quickly down to the bank to steady the boat. Rovigo took two precise strides and leaped past him to the shore. "I do know it, but I ot believe I am hearing it. In the name of Morian of Portals, have you e back from the dead, my lord?”
Even as he spoke he k iall grass before Sandre, Duke of Astibar. East of them, beyond where the river found the sea, Ilarion rose, sending her blue light along the water and over the waving grasses of the bank.
"In a manner of speaking I have," Sandre said. "With my skin somewhat altered by Baerds craft." He reached doulled Rovigo to his feet. The two men looked at each other.
"Alessan wouldnt tell me last fall, but he said I would be pleased when I learned who my other partner was,&quo whispered, visibly moved. "He spoke more truly than he could have known. How is this possible, my lord?”
"I never died," Sandre said simply. "It was a deception. Part of a poor, foolish old mans scheme. If Alessan and Baerd had not returo the lodge that night I would have killed myself after the Barbadians came a." He paused. "Which means, I suppose, that I have you to thank for my present state, neighbo. For various nights through the years outside my windows. Listening to the spinning of our feeble plots.”
Uhe slanting blue moonlight, there was a certain glint in his eye. Rovigo stepped back a little, but his head was high and he did not avert his gaze. "It was in a cause that you now know, my lord," he said. "A cause you have joined. I would have y tongue before betraying you to Barbadior. I think you must know that.”
"I do know that," Sandre said after a moment. "Which is a great deal more than I say for my own kin.”
"Only one of them,&quo said quickly, "and he is dead.”
"He is dead," Sandre repeated. "They are all dead. I am the last of the Sandreni. And what shall we do about it, Rovigo? What shall we do with Alberico of Barbadior?”
Rovigo said nothing. It was Baerd who answered, from the waters edge.
"Destroy him," he said. "Destroy them both.”
PART FIVE - THE MEMORY OF A FLAME chapter 17
SCELTO WOKE HER VERY EARLY ON THE M OF THE RITual. She had spent the night alone, as roper, and had made s the evening before at the temples of Adaon and Morian both. Brandin was careful now to be seen all rites and proprieties of the Palm. Iemples the priests and the priestesses had been almost fawning in their solicitude. In what she was doing there ower for them and they k.
Shed had a short aless sleep and wheo touched her awake, gently, and with a mug of khav already to hand, she felt her last dream of the night slipping away from her. Closing her eyes, only half scious, she tried to chase it, sensing the dream reg as if down corridors of her mind. She pursued, trying to reclaim an image that would hold it, and then, just as it seemed about to fade and be lost, she remembered.
She sat up slowly in bed and reached for the khav, cradling it in both hands, seeking warmth. Not that the room was cold, but she had now remembered what day it was, and there was a chill in her heart that went beyond foreboding and touched certainty.
When Dianora had been a very small girl—perhaps five years old, a little less than that—she had had a dream of drowning one night. Sea waters closing over her head, and a vision of something dark, a shape, final and terrible, approag to draw her down into lightless depths.
She had e awake gasping and screaming, thrashing about in bed, uain of where she even was.
And then her mother had been there, holding Dianora to her heart, murmuring, rog her bad forth until the frantic sobbing ceased. When Dianora had finally lifted her head from her mothers breast, she had seen by dlelight that her father was there as well, holding Baerd in his arms in the doorway.
Her little brother had been g too, she saw, shocked awake in his own room across the hall by her screams.
Her father had smiled and carried Baerd over to her, and the four of them had sat there in the middle of the night on Dianoras bed while the dles cast light in circles around them, shaping an island in the dark.
"Tell me about it," she remembered her father saying. Afterward he had made shadow figures for them with his hands on the wall and Baerd, soothed and drowsy, had fallen asleep again in his lap. "Tell me the dream, love.”
Tell me the dream, love. On Chiara, almost thirty years after, Dianora felt an ache of loss, as if it had all been but a little while ago. Days, weeks, no time at all. When had those dles in her room lost their power to hold back the dark?
She had told her mother and father, softly so as not to wake Baerd, some of the fear ing ba the stumbling words. The waters closing over her, a shape in the depths drawing her down. She remembered her mother making the sign against evil, to unbind the truth of the dream and deflect it away.
The m, before opening his studio and beginning his days work, Saevar had taken both his children past the harbor and the palace gates and south along the beach, and he had begun to teach them to swim in a shallow cove sheltered from the waves and the west wind. Dianora had expected to be afraid when she realized where they were going, but she was never really afraid of anything when her father was with her, and she and Baerd had both discovered, with whoops of delight, that they loved the water.
She remembered—se, the things one remembered—that Baerd, bending over in the shallows that first m, had caught a small darting fish between his hands, and had looked up, eyes and mouth ically round with surprise at his own achievement, and their father had shouted with laughter and pride.
Every fine m that summer the three of them had goo their cove to swim and by the time autumn came with its chill and then the rains Dianora felt as easy ier as if it were a sed skin to her.
Once, she remembered—and there was no surprise to this memory lingering—the Prince himself had joihem as they walked past the palace. Dismissing his retinue, Valentin strolled with the three of them to the cove and disrobed to pluo the sea beside their father. Straight out into the waves he had gone, long after Saevar stopped, past the sheltering headland of the cove and into the choppy whitecaps of the sea. Then he had turned around and e back to them, his smile bright as a gods, his body hard and lean, droplets of water sparkling in his golden beard.
He was a better swimmer than her father was, Dianora could see that right away, even as a child. She also knew, somehow, that it really didnt matter. He was the Prince, he was supposed to be better at everything.
Her father remaihe most wonderful man in the world, and nothing she could imagine learning was ever going to ge that.
Nothing ever had, she thought, shaking her head slowly in the saishan, as if to draw free of the ging, spidery webs of memory. Nothing ever had. Though Brandin, in another, better world, in his imaginary Finavir, perhaps . . .
She rubbed her eyes and then shook her head again, still struggling to e awake. She wondered suddenly if the two of them, her father and the King of Ygrath, had seen each other, had actually looked each other in the eye that terrible day by the Deisa.
Which was such a hurtful thought that she was afraid that she might begin to cry. Which would not do. Not today. No one, not eveo—especially not Scelto, who knew her too well—must be allowed to see anything in her for the few hours but quiet pride, and a certainty of success.
The few hours. The last few hours.
The hours that would lead her to the margin of the sea and then down into the dark green waters which were the vision of the riselkas pool. Lead her to where her path came clear at last and then came, not before time, and not without a certain relief beh the fear and all the loss, to an end.
It had unfolded with such direct simplicity, from the moment she had stood by the pool in the Kings Garden and seen an image of herself amid throngs of people in the harbor, and then alone uer, drawn toward a shape in darkhat was no longer a source of childhood terror but, finally, of release.
That same day, in the library, Brandin had told her he was abdig in Ygrath in favor of Girald, but that Dorotea his wife was going to have to die for what she had done. He lived his life in the eyes of the world, he said. Even had he wished to spare her, he would have no real choice.
He didnt wish to spare her, Brandin said.
Then he spoke of what else had e to him on his ride that m through the pre-dawn mists of the Island: a vision of the Kingdom of the Western Palm. He was going to make that vision real, he said.
For the sake of Ygrath itself, and for the people here in his provinces. And for his own soul. And for her.
Only those Ygrathens willing to bee people of his four joined provinces would be allowed to stay, he said; all others were free to sail home to Girald.
He would remain. Not just for Stevan and the response shaped in his heart to his soh, though that would hold, that was stant; but to build a united realm here, a better world than he had known.
That would hold, that was stant.
Dianora had listeo him, had felt her tears beginning to fall, and had moved to lay her head in his lap beside the fire. Brandin held her, moving his hands through her dark hair.
He would need a Queen, he had said.
In a voice she had never heard before; one she had dreamt of for so long. He wao have sons and
daughters here in the Palm now, Brandin said. To start again and build upon the pain of Stevans loss, that something bright and fair might emerge from all the years of sorrow.
And then he spoke of love. Drawing his hands gently through her hair he spoke of loving her. Of how that truth had finally e home into his heart. Once, she would have thought it far more likely that she might grasp and hold the moons than ever hear him speak such words to her.
She wept, uo stop, for in his words it was all gathering now, she could see how it was ing together, and such clarity and presce was too much for a mortal soul. For her mortal soul. This was the Triads wine, and there was too much bitter sorrow at the bottom of the cup. She had seen the riselka, though, she knew what was ing, where the path would lead them now. For one moment, a handful of heartbeats, she wondered what would have happened had he whispered these same words to her the night before instead of leaving her aloh the fires of memory. And that thought hurt as much as anything ever had in all her life.
Let it go! she wao say, wanted so much to say that she bit her lip holding back the words. Oh, my love, let the spell go. Let Tigana e bad all the worlds brightness will return.
She said nothing. Knowing that he could not do so, and knowing, for she was no longer a child, that grace could not be e by so easily. Not after all these years, not with Tigana and Stevan twiogether and embedded so deep down in Brandins own pain. Not with what he had already doo her home. Not in the world in which they lived.
Besides which, and above everything else, there was the riselka, and her clear path unfolding with every word whispered by the fire. Dianora felt as if she knew everything that was going to be said, everything that would follow. And each passing moment was leading them—she could see it as a kind of shimmer in the room—towards the sea.
Almost a third of the Ygrathens stayed. It was more than hed expected, Brandin told her, standing on the baly above the harbor two weeks later, watg most of his flotilla sail away, back to their home, to what had been his home. He was exiled now, by his own will, more truly than he had ever been before.
He also told her later that same day that Dorotea was dead. She didnt ask how, or how he knew. His sorcery was still the thing she did not ever want to face.
Shortly after that came bad tidings though. The Barbadians were beginning to move north toward and through Ferraut, all three armies apparently heading for the border of Senzio. He had not expected that, she saw. Not nearly so soon. It was too unlike careful Alberiove with such decisiveness.
"Something has happehere. Something is pushing him," Brandin said. "And I wish I knew what it was.”
He was weak and vulnerable now, that was the problem. He ime and they all k. With the Ygrathen army mostly gone Brandin needed a ce to shape a ructure of order in the western provio turn the first giddy euphoria of his annou into the bonds and allegiahat would truly fe a kingdom. That would let him summon an army to fight in his name, among a quered people lately so hard-oppressed.
He ime, desperately, and Alberico wasnt giving it to him.
"You could send us," dEymon the cellor said one m, as the dimensions of the crisis began to take shape. "Send the Ygrathens we have left and position the ships off the coast of Senzio. See if that will hold Alberico for a time.”
The cellor had stayed with them. There was never any real doubt that he would. For all his trauma—he had looked ill and old for days after Brandins annou—Dianora khat dEymons deepest loyalty, his love, though he would have shied awkwardly away from that word, was given to the man he served and not to the nation. Moving through those days almost numbed by the divisions in her ow she envied dEymon that simplicity.
But Brandin flatly refused to follow his suggestion. She remembered his face as he explained,
looking up from a map and strews of paper covered with numbers. The three of them together around a table iting-room off the Kings bedchamber; Rhun a nervous, preoccupied fourth on a couch at the far end of the room. The King of the Western Palm still had his Fool, though the King of Ygrath was named Girald now.
"I ake them fight alone," Brandin said quietly. "Not to carry the full burden of defending people I have just made them equal to. This ot be an Ygrathen war. For ohing, they are not enough, we will lose. But it is more than that. If we send an army or a fleet it must be made up of all of us here, or this Kingdom will be finished before I start.”
DEymon had risen from the table, agitated, visibly disturbed. "Then I must say again what I have said before: this is folly. The thing to do is to go home and deal with what has happened in Ygrath. They need you there.”
"Not really, dEymon. I will not flatter myself. Girald has been ruling Ygrath for twenty years.”
"Girald is a traitor and should have beeed as such with his mother!”
Brandin looked up at him, the grey eyes suddenly chilly.
"Must we repeat this discussion? DEymon, I am here for a reason and you know that reason. I ot go ba that: it would cut against the very core of what I am." His expression ged. "No maay with me, but I am bound myself to this peninsula by love and grief, and by my own nature, and those three things will hold me here.”
"The Lady Dianora could e with us! With Dorotea dead you would need a Queen in Ygrath and she would be—”
"DEymonl Have done." The tone was final, ending the discussion.
But the cellor was a brave man. "My lord," he pushed on, grim-faced, his voice low and intense, "if I ot speak of this and you will not send our fleet to face Barbadior I know not how to advise you.
The provinces will not go to war for you yet, we know that. It is too soon. They ime to see and to believe that you are one of them.”
"And I have no time," Brandin replied with what had seemed an unnatural calm after the sharp tension of the exge. "So I have to do it immediately. Advise me on that, cellor. How do I show them? Right now. How do I make them believe I am truly bound to the Palm?”
So there it was, and Dianora khat the moment had e to her at last.
I ot go ba that; it would cut against the very core of what I am. She had never really nursed any fantasies of his ever freely releasing and unbinding his spell. She knew Brandin too well. He was not a man who went back or reversed himself. In anything. The core of what he was. In love and hate and in the defining shape of his pride.
She stood up. There was an odd rushing sound in her ears, and if she closed her eyes she was certain she would see a path stretg away, straight and clear as a line of moonlight on the sea, very bright before her. Everything was leadihere, leading all of them. He was vulnerable, and exposed, and he would urn back.
There was an image of Tigana fl in her heart as she rose. Even here, even now, an image of her home. In the depths of the riselkas pool there had been a great many people gathered under banners of all the provinces as she walked down to the sea.
She placed her hands carefully on the back of her chair and looked down at him where he sat. There was grey in his beard, more, it seemed, each time she noticed it, but his eyes were as they had always been, and there was no fear, no doubt in them as they looked back at her. She drew a deep breath and spoke words that seemed to have been given to her long ago, words that seemed to have simply waited for this moment to arrive.
"I will do it for you," she said. "I will make them believe in you. I will do the Ring Dive of the Grand
Dukes of Chiara as it used to be done on the eve of war. You will marry the seas of the peninsula, and I will bind you to the Palm and to good fortune in the eyes of all the people when I bring you back the sea- ring from the sea.”
She kept her gaze steady on his own, dark and clear and calm, as she spoke at last, after so many years, the words that set her on the final path. That set him, set them all, the living and the dead, the named and the lost, on that path. As, loving him with a sundered heart, she lied.
She finished her khav and rose from bed. Scelto had drawn the curtains bad she could see sunrise just beginning to lighten the dark sea. The sky was clear overhead and the banners in the harbor could just be seen, moving lazily in the dawn breeze. There was already a huge crowd gathered, hours before the ceremony was to start. A great many people had spent the night in the harbor square, to be sure of a plaear the pier to see her dive. She thought she saw someone, a tiny figure at such a distance, lift a hand to point to her window and she stepped quickly back.
Scelto had already laid out the clothes she would wear, the garments of ritual. Dark green for the going down: her outer robe and sandals, the hat would hold her hair and the silken uuni which she would dive. For afterwards, after she came back from the sea, there was another robe, white, richly embroidered with gold. For when she was to represent, to be the bride e from the sea with a g in her hand for the King.
After she came back. If she came back.
She was almost asto her own calm. It was easier actually because she hadnt seen Brandin since early the day before, as roper for the rite. Easier too, because of how brilliantly clear all the images seemed to be, how smoothly they had led her here, as if she was choosing or deg nothing, only following a course set down somewhere else and long ago.
Easier, finally, because she had e to uand and accept, deeply, and with certitude, that she had been born into a world, a life, that would not let her be whole.
Not ever. This was not Finavir, or any such dreamplace. This was the only life, the only world, she was to be allowed. And in that life Brandin of Ygrath had e to this peninsula to shape a realm for his son, and Valentin di Tigana had killed Stevan, Prince of Ygrath. This had happened, could not be unmade.
And because of that death, Brandin had e down upon Tigana and her people and torn them out of the known past and the still unfolding pages of the world. And was stayio seal that truth forever—blank and absolute—in vengeance for his son. This had happened and was happening, and had to be unmade.
So she had e here to kill him. In her fathers name and her mothers, in Baerds name and her own, and for all the lost and ruined people of her home. But on Chiara she had discovered, in grief and pain and glory, that islands were truly a world of their own, that things ged there. She had learned, long ago, that she loved him. And now, in glory and pain and wonder, had been made to uand that he loved her. This had all happened, and she had tried to u, and had failed.
Hers was not a life meant to be made whole. She could see it now so clearly, and in that clarity, that final uanding, Dianora found the wellspring of her calm.
Some lives were unlucky. Some people had a ce to shape their world. It seemed—who could have foretold?—that both these things were true of her.
Of Dianora di Tigana bren Saevar, a sculptors daughter; a dark-haired dark-eyed child, gawky and unlovely in her youth, serious and grave, though with flashes of wit and tenderness, beauty ing to her late, and wisdom ing later, too much later. ing only now.
She took no food, though shed allowed herself the khav—a last cession to years of habit. She didnt think that doing so would violate any rituals. She also k didnt really matter. Scelto helped her dress, and then, in silence, he carefully gathered and pinned her hair, binding it in the dark greehat
would hold it back from her eyes when she dived.
When he was done she rose and submitted herself, as always befoing out into the world, to his scrutiny. The sun now; its light flooding the room through the drawn-back curtains. In the distahe growing noise from the harbor could be heard. The ust be very large by now, she thought; she didnt go back to the window to look. She would see them soon enough. There was a quality of anticipation to the steady murmur of sound that gave evidence, more clearly than anything else, of the stakes being played for this m.
A peninsula. Two different dominions here, if it came to that. Perhaps even the very Empire in Barbadior, with the Emperor ill and dying as everyone knew. And one last thing more, though only she khis, and only she would ever know: Tigana. The final, secret lying on the gaming table, hidden uhe card laid down in the name of love.
"Will I do?" she asked Scelto, her voice determinedly casual.
He didnt follow that lead. "Yhten me," he said quietly. "You look as though you are no longer entirely of this world. As if you have already left us all behind.”
It was uny how he could read her. It hurt to have to deceive him, not to have him with her on this last thing, but there was nothing he could have done, no reason to give him grief, and there were risks in the doing so.
"Im not at all sure thats flattering," she said, still lightly, "but I will attempt to think of it that way.”
He refused to smile. "I think you know how little I like this," he said.
"Scelto, Albericos entire army will be on the border of Senzio two weeks from now. Brandin has no choice. If they walk into Senzio they will not stop there. This is his very best ce, probably his only ce, to link himself to the Palm in time. You know all this." She forced herself to sound a little angry.
It was true, it was all true. But none of it was the truth. The riselka was the truth this m, that and the dreams shed dreamt alone here in the saishan through all the years.
"I know," Scelto said, clearly unhappy. "Of course I know. And nothing I think matters at all. It is just . . .”
"Please!" she said, to stop him before he made her cry. "I dont think I debate this with you now, Scelto. Shall we go?" Oh, my dear, she was thinking. Oh, Scelto, you will undo me yet.
He had stopped, fling at her rebuke. She saw him swallow hard, his eyes lowered. After a moment he looked up again.
"Five me, my lady," he whispered. He stepped forward and, uedly, took her hands, pressing them to his lips. "It is only for you that I speak. I am afraid. Please five.”
"Of course," she said. "Of course. There is really nothing tive, Scelto." She squeezed his hands tightly.
But in her heart she was bidding him farewell, knowing she must not cry. She looked into his ho, g face, the truest friend shed had for so many years, the only real friend actually, since her childhood, and she hoped against hope that in the days to e, he would remember the way she had gripped his hands and not the casual, careless sound of her words.
"Lets go," she said again, and turned her face away from him, to begin the long walk through the palad out into the m and then down to the sea.
The Ring Dive of the Grand Dukes of Chiara had been the most dramatigle ritual of temporal power in the Peninsula of the Palm. From the very beginning of their dominion on the Island, the leaders of Chiara had known that theirs ranted by and subject to the waters that surrouhem.
The sea guarded them ahem. It gave their ships—always the largest armada in the peninsula — access to trade and plunder, and it ed them about and enclosed them in a world within the world. No wonder, as the tale-tellers said, no wo was on the Island that Eanna and Adaon had e together
to engender Morian and make the Triad plete.
A world within the world, girdled by the sea.
It was said to have been the very first of the Grand Dukes who had begun the ceremony that became the Ring Dive. It had been different in those early days. Not actually a dive, for ohing, only a ring thrown as a gift into the sea in propitiation and token of aowledgment, in the days when the world turs face toward the sun and the sailing season began in ear.
Then one spring, a long time after that, a woman dived into the sea after the ring when the Grand Duke of that time cast it in. Some said later she had been crazed with love ious possession, others that she was only ing and ambitious.
Iher case, she surfaced from the waters of the harbor with the ring bright in her hand.
And as the crowd that had gathered to watch the Grand Duke wed the sea shouted and babbled in wild fusion and wohe High Priest of Morian in Chiara suddenly cried aloud, in words that would run down through all the years, o be lost: "Look and see! See how the os accept the Grand Duke as husband to them! How they offer back the sea-ring as a bride piece to a lover!”
And the High Priest moved to the very end of the pier beside the Duke and ko help the woman rise from the sea and so he set in motiohing that followed. Sarohe Grand Duke was but o his power and as yet unwed. Letizia, who had e into the city from a farm in the distrada and had dohis unpreted thing, was yellow-haired and ely and very young. And their palms were joiogether then and there over the water by Mellidar, that High Priest of Morian, and Saronte placed the sea-ring oizias finger.
They were wed at Midsummer. There was war that autumn against Asoli and Astibar, and young Saronte di Chiara triumphed magnifitly in a naval battle in the Gulf of Corte, south of the Island. A victory whose anniversary Chiara still remembered. And from that time onward, the newly shaped ritual of the Ring Dive was enshrined for use in time of Chiaras need.
Thirty years later, he end of Sarontes ln, in one of the recurring squabbles for prece among the Triads clergy, a newly anointed High Priest of Eanna revealed that Letizia had been near kin to Mellidar, the priest of Morian who had drawn her from the water and bouo the Duke. Eannas priest ihe people of the Island to draw their own clusions about the schemes of Morians clergy and their endless striving for preeminend power.
A number of events, none of them pleasant, had unfolded among the Triads servants in the months following that revelation, but none of these disturbances had e o toug the bright new sanctity of the ritual itself. The ceremony had taken hold on the imagination of the people. It seemed to speak to something deep within them, whether of sacrifice or homage, of love or danger, or, in the end, of some dark, true binding to the waters of the sea.
So the Ring Dive of the Grand Dukes remained, long after all those feuding clergy of the Triad had been lowered to their rest, their names only half-remembered, and only because of their part iory of the Dive.
What had finally brought ao the ceremony, in much more ret times, was the death of Ora, wife to Grand Duke Cazal, two hundred and fifty years ago.
It was not, by any means, the first such death: the women who volunteered to dive for the Grand Dukes always had it made absolutely clear to them that their lives were worth infinitely less than the ring they sought to reclaim from the sea. To e back without the ri one an exile from the Island for life, known and mocked throughout the whole peninsula. The ceremony was repeated with another woman, another ring, until one of the thrs was found and claimed.
By trast, the woman who carried a sea-ring back to the pier was acclaimed as the luck of Chiara and her fortune was made for life. Wealth and honor, an arranged marriage into nobility. More than one had borne a child trand Duke. Two had followed Letizia to the sorts throne. Girls from
families of little prospect were not chary about risking their lives for such a glittering, halluatory future.
Ora di Chiara had been different, and because of her and after her everything had ged.
Beautiful as a legend and as proud, Grand Duke Cazals young bride had insisted on doing the Ring Dive herself, sing to allocate such a glittering ceremony to some ill-bred creature from the distrada on the eve of a dangerous war. She had been, all the iclers of the day agreed, the most beautiful vision any of them had ever seen as she walked down to the sea in the dark-green of ritual.
When she floated, lifeless, to the surface of the water some distance from the shore, in full sight of the watg throng, Duke Cazal had screamed like a girl and fainted dead away.
After which there had been rioting and a terrified pandemonium unmatched before or sin the Island. In one isolated temple of Adaon on the north shore, all the priestesses had killed themselves when one of their number brought back the news. It was the wrath of the god that was ing, so the portents were read, and Chiara almost strangled on its fear.
Duke Cazal, foolhardy and broken, was slain in battle that summer against the joined armies of Corte and Ferraut, after which Chiara ewo geions of eclipse, rising to pain only after the bitter, destructive war fought between the erstwhile allies who had beaten it. Such a process, of course, was hardly hy. It had been the way of things in the Palm as far back as the records went.
But no woman had dohe Ring Dive sinestra died.
All the symbols had ged with her, the stakes had risen too high. If another womao die in the Dive, with that legacy of chaos a . . .
It was far too dangerous, successive Grand Dukes declared, the oer the other, and they found ways to keep the Island safe in its sea-girt power without the san of that most potent ceremony.
When the Ygrathe had been sighted een years ago the last Grand Duke of Chiara had killed himself oeps of Eannas temple, and so there had been no oo cast a ring into the sea that year, even had there been a woman willing to dive for it, in searorians intercession and the gods.
It was eerily silent in the saishan when she and Scelto left her rooms. Normally at this hour the corridors would be loud with the stir and bustle of the castrates, fragrant and colorful with the sted presence of women moving languorously to the baths or to their m meal. Today was different. The hallways were empty and still save for their own footsteps. Dianora suppressed a shiver, se did the deserted, eg saishan seem.
They passed the doorway to the baths and therao the dining rooms. Both were empty and silent. They turned a er toward the stairway that led down and out of the womens wing, and there Dianora saw that one person at least had remained, and was waiting for them.
"Let me look at you," Vencel said, the usual words. "I must approve you before you go down.”
The saishan head rawled as always among the many-colored pillows of his rolling platform.
Dianora almost smiled to see his vast bulk, and to hear the familiar words spoken.
"Of course," she said, and slowly turned full circle before his scrutiny.
"Acceptable," he said at length. The ary judgment, though his high distinctive voice sounded more subdued than she had ever heard it. "But perhaps . . . perhaps you would like to wear that vairstone from Khardhun about your throat? For luck? I brought it with me for you, from the saishan treasures.”
Almost diffidently Vencel extended a large soft hand and she saw that he was holding the red jewel she had worn the day Isolla of Ygrath had tried to kill the King.
She was about to demur when she remembered that Scelto had brought this back for her as something special for that day, just before she had dressed to go down. Remembering that, and moved by VencePs gesture, she said, "Thank you. I would be pleased to wear it." She hesitated. "Would you put it on for me?”
He smiled, almost shyly. She k before him and with his deft and delicate fihe enormous saishan head clasped the jewel on its about her neck. Kneeling so near she was overwhelmed by the st of tainflowers that he always wore.
Vencel withdrew his hands and leaned back to look at her. In his dark face his eyes were unwontedly soft. "In Khardhun we used to say to someone going on a journey Fortune find you there and guide you home. Such is my wish today." He hid his hands in the billowing folds of his white robe and looked away, down the empty corridor.
"Thank you," she said again, afraid to say more. She rose and glanced over at Scelto; there were tears in his eyes. He wiped them hastily away and moved to lead her dowairs. Halfway down she looked back at Vencel, an almost inhumanly vast figure, draped in billowing white. He was gazing expressionlessly down after them, from among the brilliantly colored panoply of his pillows, aic creature from another world entirely, somehow carried ashore and stranded here in the saishan of Chiara.
At the bottom of the stairs she saw that the two doors had bee unbarred. Scelto would not have to knoot today. He pushed the doors open and drew back to let her pass.
In the long hallway outside the priests of Morian and the priestesses of Adaon were waiting for her.
She saw the scarcely veiled triumph in their eyes, a collective glittering of expectation.
There was a sound, a drawing of breath, as she came through the doors in the green robes of a rite that had not been performed in two and a half hundred years, her hair drawn bad bound in a green as the sea.
Traio trol, being what they were, the clergy quickly fell silent. And in silehey made way for her, to follow behind in orderly rows of crimson and smoke-grey.
She khey would make Scelto trail behind them. He could not be part of this procession of the rites. She knew she had not properly said farewell to him. Hers was not a life meant to be made whole.
They we down the corridor to the Grand Staircase. At the top of the wide marble stairs Dianora paused and looked down, and she finally uood why the saishan had been so silent. All the women and the castrates were gathered below. They had been allowed out, permitted to e this far to see her pass by. Holding her head very high and lookiher left nht she set her foot on the first stair and started down. She was no longer herself, she thought. No longer Dianora, or not only Dianora.
She was merging further into legend with every step she took.
And then, at the bottom of the staircase, as she stepped onto the mosailaid tiles of the floor, she realized aiting by the palace doors to escort her out and her heart almost stopped.
There was a cluster of men there. DEymon, for one, and Rhamanus as well, who had stayed in the Palm as shed been sure he would, and had been named as Brandins First Lord of the Fleet. Beside them was Doarde the poet, representing the people of Chiara. She had expected him: it had been dEymons clever idea that the participation of one Island poet could help terbalahe crime ah of another. o Doarde was a burly, sharp-faced man in brow hung about with a ransoms worth of gold. A mert from Corte, and a successful one clearly enough; very possibly one of the ghouls who had made their fortune preying on the ruins of Tigana two decades ago. Behind him was a lean grey- clad priest of Morian who was obviously from Asoli. She could tell from his c, the native Asolino all had that look about them.
She also knew he was from Asoli because the last of the men waiting for her there was from Lower Corte and she knew him. A figure from her own internal legends, from the myths and hopes that had sustained her life this far. And this was the one whose presence here almost froze the blood in her veins.
In white of course, majestic as she remembered him from when she was a girl, gripping the massive staff that had always been his signature, and t over every man there, stood Dahe High Priest of Eanna in Tigana.
The man who had taken Prince Alessan away to the south. So Baerd had told her the night he saw his
own riselka a away to follow them.
She knew him, everyone had known Danoleon, his long-striding, broad-shouldered preemihe deep, glorious instrument that was his voi temple services. Approag the doors Dianora fought back a moment of wild panic before sternly trolling herself. There was no way he could reize her.
He had never known her as a child. Why should he have—the adolest daughter of an artist loosely attached to the court? And she had ged, she was infinitely ged sihen.
She couldnt take her eyes off him though. She had known dEymon was arranging for someoo be there from Lower Corte, but had never expected Danoleon himself. In the days when she had worked in The Queen in Steva was well-known that Eannas High Priest had withdrawn from the wider world into the goddesss Sanctuary in the southern hills.
Now he had e out, and was here, and looking at him, drinking in his reality, Dianora felt an absurd, an almost overwhelming swell of pride to see how he seemed to dominate, merely by his presence, all the people assembled there.
It was for him, and for the men and women like him, the ones whone and the ones who yet lived in a broken land, that she was going to do what she would do today. His eyes rested on her seargly; they were all doing that, but it was under Danoleons clear blue gaze that Dianora drew herself up even taller than before. Behind them all, beyond the doors which had not yet been opened, she seemed to see the riselkas path growing brighter all the time.
She stopped and they bowed to her, all six men putting a straight leg forward and bending low in a fashion of salute not used for turies. But this was legend, ceremony, an invocation of many kinds of power, and Dianora sehat she must now seem to them like some hieratic figure out of the tapestry scrolls of the distant past.
"My lady," said dEymon gravely, "if it pleases you and you are mio allow us, we would attend upon you now and lead you to the King of the Western Palm.”
Carefully said, and clearly, for all their words were to be remembered aed. Everything was to be remembered. One reason the priests were here, and a poet.
"It pleases me," she said simply. "Let us go." She did not say more; her own words would matter less.
It was not what she would say today that was to be remembered.
She still could not take her eyes from Danoleon. He was the first man from Tigana, she realized, that she had seen sining to the Island. In a very direct way it eased her heart that Eanna, whose children they all were, had allowed her to see this man before she went into the sea.
DEymon nodded a and. Slowly the massive bronze doors swung open upon the vast crowd assembled between the palad the pier. She saw people spilling across the square to the farthest ends of the harbor, even thronging the decks of the ships at anchor there. The steady murmur of sound that had bee all m swelled to a cresdo as the doors swung open, and then it abruptly stopped and fell away as the crowd caught sight of her. A rigid, straining silence seemed to claim Chiara uhe blue arch of the sky; and out into that stillness Dianora went.
And it was then, as they moved into the brilliant sunshine along the aisle, the shining path that had been made for her passage, that she saw Brandin waiting by the sea for her, dressed like a soldier-king, without extravagance, bareheaded in the light of spring.
Something twisted withi the sight of him, like a blade in a wound. It will end soon, she told herself steadily. Only a little longer now. It will all be over soon enough.
She went toward him then, walking like a queen, slender and tall and proud, clad in the colors of the dark-green sea with a crimson gem about her throat. And she khat she loved him, and knew her land was lost if he was not driven away or slain, and she grieved with all her being for the simple truth that her mother and her father had had a daughter born to them all those years ago.
For someone as small as he was it was hopeless to try to see anything from the harbor square itself
and even the deck of the ship that had brought them here from Corte was thronged with people who had paid the captain for a ce to view the Drive from this vantage point. Devin had made his way over to the mainmast and scrambled up to join another dozen men ging to the rigging high above the sea.
There were pensations i in agility.
Erlein was somewhere below amid the crowd on deck. He was still terrified, after three days here, by this enforced proximity to the sorcerer from Ygrath. It was ohing, he had said angrily, to elude Trackers in the south, another for a wizard to walk up to a sorcerer.
Alessan was somewhere among the crowd in the harbor. Devin had spotted him at one point w his way towards the pier, but couldnt see him now. Danoleon was ihe palace itself, representing Lower Corte in the ceremony. The irony of that was almost overwhelming, whenever Devin allowed himself to think about it. He tried not to because it made him afraid, for all of them.
But Alessan had been decisive when the courteously phrased request had e for the High Priest to travel north and join men of the other three provinces as formal wito the Ring Dive.
"You will go, of course," the Prince had said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "And we shall be there as well. I o take the measure of things on Chiara sihis ge.”
"Are you absolutely mad?" Erlein had gasped, not b to hide his disbelief.
Alessan had only laughed, though not, Devin thought, with any real amusement. He had bee virtually impossible to read since his mother had died. Devi quite ie to the task ing that space or breaking through. Several times in the days following Pasitheas death he had found himself desperately wishing that Baerd were with them.
"What about Savandi?" Erlein had demanded. "Couldnt this be a trap for Danoleon. Or for you, even?”
Alessan shook his head. "Hardly. You said yourself, no message was sent. And it is entirely plausible that he was killed by brigands in the tryside as Torre made it seem. The King of the Western Palm has larger things to worry abht now than one of his petty spies. Im not ed about that, Erlein, but I do thank you for your solicitude." He smiled, a wintry smile. Erlein had scowled and stalked away.
"What are you ed about?" Devin had asked the Prince.
But Alessan hadnt answered that.
High in the rigging of the Aema Fal Devin waited with the others for the palace doors to open, and tried to trol the pounding of his heart. It was difficult though; the sense of excitement and anticipation that had been building on the Island for three days had started to bee overwhelming this m, and had taken an almost palpable shape when Brandin himself had appeared and walked calmly down to the pier with a small retinue, including oooped, balding old man dressed exactly like the King.
"Brandins Fool," the Cortean in the riggio him said, when Devin asked, pointing.
"Something to do with sorcery, the way they do things in Ygrath." He grunted. "Were better off not knowing.”
Devin had gazed for the first time at the man who had destroyed Tigana and tried to imagine what it would be like to have a bow in his hands right now and Baerd or Alessans skill at archery. It was a long, but not an impossible shot, down, and across a span of water to strike a single soberly clad, bearded man standing by the sea.
Imagining the flight of that arrow in the m sun, he remembered another versation with Alessan, at the rail of the Fal the night they reached Chiara.
"What do we want to happen?" Devin had asked.
Word had reached the Gulf of Corte just before they sailed that most of the Sed pany of
Albericos Barbadian meraries had now been pulled back from the border forts and cities in Ferraut and were marg with the other armies towards Senzio. Hearing that, Alessans face had gone pale, and there was a sudden hard glitter in his gray eyes.
Much like his mothers, Devin had thought, but would not dream of saying.
On the ship Alessan had turo him briefly at the question and then looked back out to sea. It was very late, nearer dawn than midnight. her of them had been able to sleep. Both moons were overhead and the water gleamed and sparkled with their mingled light.
"What do we want to happen?" Alessaed. "Im not pletely sure. I think I know, but I t be certaihats why were going to watch this Dive.”
They listeo the sounds of the ship in the night sea. Devin cleared his throat.
"If she fails?" he asked.
Alessan was silent for so long Devin didnt think he was going to ahen, very softly, he said, "If the Certandan woman fails Brandin is lost I think. I am almost sure.”
Devin looked quickly over at him. "Well then, that means . . .”
"That means a number of things, yes. One is our name e back. Another is Alberico ruling the Palm. Before the year is out, almost certainly.”
Devin tried to absorb that. If we take them then we must take them both, he remembered the Prince saying in the Sandreni lodge, with Devin hiding in the loft above.
"And if she succeeds?" he asked.
Alessan shrugged. In the blue and silver moonlight his profile seemed more marble than flesh. "You tell me. Hoeople of the provinces will fight against the Empire of Barbadior for a king who has been wedded to the seas of the Palm by a sea-bride from this peninsula?”
Devin thought about it.
"A lot," he said at length. "I think a lot of people would fight.”
"So do I," said Alessan. "Then the question bees, who would win? And the oer that is: Is there something we do about it?”
"Is there?”
Alessan looked over at him then and his mouth crooked wryly. "I have lived my life believing so. We may find it put to the test very soon.”
Devin stopped his questions then. It was very bright with the two moons shining. A short while later Alessan touched his shoulder and pointed with his other hand. Devin looked and saw a high, dark mass of land rising from the sea in the distance.
"Chiara," said Alessan.
And so Devin saw the Island for the first time.
"Have you ever been here before?" he asked softly.
Alessan shook his head, aking his eyes from that dark, mountainous shape on the horizon.
"Only in my dreams," he said.
"Shes ing!" someone shouted from the topming of the Asolini ship anchored o them; the cry was immediately picked up and strung from ship to ship and along the harbor, peaking in a roar of anticipation.
And then falling away to an eerie, chilling silence as the massive bronze doors of Chiara Palace swung fully back to reveal the woman framed within.
Even when she began to walk the silence held. Moving slowly, she passed among the throngs assembled in the square, seeming almost oblivious of them. Devin was too far away to see her face clearly
yet, but he was suddenly scious of a terrible beauty and grace. It is the ceremony, he told himself; it is only because of where she is. He saw Danoleon behind her, moving among the other escorts, t above them.
And then, moved by some instinct, he turned from them to Brandin of Ygrath on the pier. The King was o him and he had the right angle. He could see how the man watched the proach.
His face was utterly expressionless. Icy cold.
Hes calculating the situation. Devin thought. The numbers, the ces. Hes using all of this—the woman, the ritual, everyohered here with so much passion in them—for a purely political end. He realized that he despised the man for that, over and above everything else: hated him for the blaionless gaze with which he watched a proach to risk her life for him. By the Triad, he was supposed to be in love with her!
Even the bent old man beside him, Devin saw, the Kings Fool, dressed exactly like Brandin, was wringing his hands over and about each other in obvious apprehension, ay and vivid in his face.
By trast, the face of the King of the Western Palm was a frigid, ung mask. Devin didnt even want to look at him anymore. He turned back to the woman, who had uearer now.
And because she had, because she was almost at the waters edge, he could see that his first sense had been right and his glib explanati: Dianora di Certando clad in the sea-green robes of the Ring Dive was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in all his life.
What do we want to happen? he had asked Alessan three nights ago, sailing to this Island.
He still didnt know the answer. But looking down at the woman as she reached the sea a sudden fear rose in him, and airely ued pity. He grasped the rigging tightly a himself to watch from high, high above.
She knew Brandier than anyone alive; it had been necessary, in order to survive, especially in the beginning, in order to say and do the right things in a mortally dangerous place. Then as the years slipped by y had somehow been alchemized into something else. Into love, actually, bitterly hard as that had been to aowledge. She had e here to kill, with the twin snakes of memory and hatred in her heart. Instead, she had ended up uanding him better than anyone in the world because there was no one else who mattered half so much.
And so what came very o breaking her, as she passed through that multitude of people to the pier, was seeing how ferociously he was struggling not to show what he was feeling. As if his soul were straining to escape through the doorways of his eyes, and he, being born to power, being what he was, felt it necessary to hold it in, here among so many people.
But he couldnt hide it from her. She didnt even have to look at Rhun to read Brandin now. He had cut himself off from his home, from all that had anchored him in life, he was here among an alien people he had quered, asking for their aid, needing their belief in him. She was his lifeline now, his only bridge to the Palm, his only link, really, to any kind of future here, or anywhere.
But Tiganas ruin lay betweewo of them like a chasm in the world. The lesson of her days, Dianora thought, was simply this: that love was not enough. Whatever the songs of the troubadours might say. Whatever hope it might seem to offer, love was simply not enough te the chasm in her world.
Which was why she was here, what the riselkas vision in the garden had offered her: ao the terrible, bottomless divisions in her heart. At a price, however, that was not iable. One did not bargain with the gods.
She came up to Brandin at the end of the pier and stopped and the others stopped behind her. A sigh, rising and falling away like a dying of wind, moved through the square. With an odd trick of the mind her vision seemed to detach itself from her eyes for a moment, to look down on the pier from above. She could see how she must appear to the people gathered there: inhuman, otherworldly.
As Ora must have seemed before the last Dive. Ora had not e back, aation had followed upon that. Which was why this was her ce: the dark doorway history offered to release, and to the ination of her long dream in the saishan.
The sunlight was very bright, gleaming and dang on the blue-greehere was so much color and riess in the world. Beyond Rhun, she saw a woman in a brilliant yellow robe, an old man in blue and yellow, a younger, dark-haired man in brown with a child upon his shoulders. All e to see her dive. She closed her eyes for a moment, before she turo look at Brandin. It would have been easier not to, infinitely easier, but she khat there were dangers in not meeting his gaze. And, in the end, here at the end, this was the man she loved.
Last night, lying awake, watg the slow transit of the moons across her window, she had tried to think of what she could say to him when she reached the end of the pier. Words beyond those of the ritual, to carry layers of meaning down through the years.
But there, too, lay danger, a risk of undoing everything this moment was to bee. And words, the ones she would want to say, were just another reag out towards making something whole, werent they? Towards bridging the chasms. And in the end that was the point, wasnt it? There was ne across for her.
Not in this life.
"My lord," she said formally, carefully, "I know I am surely unworthy, and I fear to presume, but if it is pleasing to you and to those assembled here I will try t you the sea-ring back from the sea.”
Brandins eyes were the color of skies before rain. His gaze never wavered from her face. He said, "There is no presumption, love, and infinite worthiness. You enhis ceremony with your presence here.”
Which fused her, for these were not the words they had prepared. But then he looked away from her, slowly, as if turning away from light.
"People of the Western Palm!" he cried, and his voice was clear and strong, a Kings, a leader of men, carrying resonantly across the square and out among the tall ships and the fishing boats. "We are asked by the Lady Dianora if we find her worthy to dive for us. If we will place our hopes of fortune io seek the Triads blessing in the war Barbadis down upon us. ..What is your reply? She waits to hear!”
And amid the thunderous roar of assent that followed, a roar as loud and sure as they had known it would be after so much pent-up anticipation, Dianora felt the brutal irony of it, the bitter jest, seize hold of her.
Our hopes of fortune. Ihe Triads blessing. Through her?
In that moment, for the first time, here at the very margin of the sea, she felt fear e in to lay a finger on her heart. For this truly was a ritual of the gods, a ceremony of great age and numinous power and she was using it for her own hidden purposes, for something shaped in her mortal heart. Could such a thing be allowed, however pure the cause?
She looked back then at the palad the mountains that had defined her life for so long. The snows were gone from the peak of Sangarios. It was on that summit that Eanna was said to have made the stars.
And hem all. Dianora looked away and down, and she saw Danoleon gazing at her from his great height. She looked into the calm, mild blue of his eyes a herself reach out and back through time to take strength and sureness from his quietude.
Her fear fell away like a discarded garment. It was for Danoleon, and for those like him who had died, for the books and the statues and the songs and the hat were lost that she was here. Surely the Triad would uand that when she was brought to her final ating for this heresy? Surely Adaon would remember Micaela by the sea? Surely Eanna of the Names would be merciful?
Slowly then, Dianora nodded her head as the roar of sound finally receded; seeing that, the High Priestess of the god came forward in her crimson gown and helped her free of the dark-green robe.
Then she was standing by the water, clad only ihin green uunic that barely reached her knees, and Brandin was holding a ring in his hand.
"In the name of Adaon and of Morian," he said, words of ritual, rehearsed and carefully prepared, "and always and forever in the name of Eanna, Queen of Lights, we seek nurture here and shelter. Will the sea wele us and bear us upon her breast as a mother bears a child? Will the os of this peninsula accept a ring of in my name and in the name of all those gathered here, and send it back to us in token of our fates bound together? I am Brandin di Chiara, King of the Western Palm, and I seek your blessing now.”
Theuro her, as a seurmur of astonishment began at his last words, at what hed named himself, ah that sound, as if cloaked and sheltered u, he whispered something else, words only she could hear.
Theurowards the sea and drew back his arm, ahrew the golden ring in a high and shining arc up towards the brightness of the sky and the dazzling sun.
She saw it reach its apex and begin to fall. She saw it strike the sea and she dived.
The water was shogly cold, so early in the year. Using the momentum of the dive she drove herself downwards, kig hard. The gree held her hair so she could see. Brandin had thrown the ring with some care but he had known he could not simply toss it o the pier—too many people would be looking for that. She propelled herself forward and down with half a dozen hard, driving strokes, her eyes straining ahead in the blue-green filtered light.
She might as well reach it. She might as well see if she could claim the ring before she died. She could carry it as an , down to Morian.
Her fear, amazingly, was entirely gone. Or perhaps it was not so amazing after all. What was the riselka, what did its vision offer if not this certainty, a sureo carry her past the old terror of dark waters, to the last portal of Morian? It was ending now. It should have ended long ago.
She saw nothing, kicked again, f herself deeper and further out, towards where the ring had fallen.
There was a sureness in her, a brilliant clarity, an awareness of how events had shaped themselves towards this moment. A moment when, simply by her dying, Tigana might be redeemed at last. She khe story of Ora and Cazal; every person in this harbor did. They all knew what disasters had followed uporas death.
Brandin had gambled all on this one ceremony, having no other choi the face of battle brought to him too soon. But Alberico would take him now; there could be no other result. She kly what would follow upon her death. Chaos and shrill denunciation, the perceived judgment of the Triad upon this arrogantly self-styled King of the Western Palm. There would be no army in the west to oppose the Barbadian. The Peninsula of the Palm would be Albericos to harvest like a vineyard, rind like graih the millstones of his ambition.
Which ity, she supposed, but redressing that particular sorrow would have to be someone elses task. The souls quest of aneion. Her own dream, the task shed set herself with an adolests pride, sitting by a dead fire in her fathers house long years ago, had been t Tiganas name bato the world.
Her only wish, if she were allowed a wish before the dark closed over her and became everything, was that Brandin would leave, would find a place to go far from this peninsula, before the end came. And that he might somehow e to know that his life, wherever he went, was a last gift of her love.
Her owh didnt matter. They killed women who slept with querors. They hem traitors and they killed them in many different ways. Drowning would do.
She wondered if she would see the riselka here, sea-greeure of the sea, agent of destiny, guardian of thresholds. She wondered if she would have some last vision before the end. If Adaon would
e for her, the stern and glorious god, appearing as he had to Micaela on the beach so long ago. She was not Micaela though, nht and fair and i in her youth. She didnt think that she would see the god.
Instead, she saw the ring.
It was tht and just above, drifting like a promise or an answered prayer down through the slow, cold waters so far below the sunlight. She reached out, in the dreamlike slowness of all motion in the sea, and she claimed it and put it on her fihat she might die as a sea-bride with sea-gold upon her hand.
She was very far under now. The filtered light had almost disappeared this far down. She knew her last gathered air would soon be gone as well, the need for the surface being imperative, reflexive. She looked at the ring, Brandins ring, his last and only hope. She brought it to her lips, and kissed it, and theurned her eyes, her life, her long quest, away from the surfad the sunlight, and love.
Downward she went, f herself as deep as she could. And it was then, just then, that the visions began to e.
She saw her father in her mind, clearly, holding his chisel and mallet, his shoulders and chest covered with a fine powder of marble, walking with the Prin their courtyard, Valentins arm familiarly thrown about his shoulders, and then she saw him as he had been before he rode away, awkward and grim, to war.
Then Baerd was in her mind: as a boy, sweet-natured, seemingly always laughing. Then weeping outside her door the night Naddo left them, then ed close in her arms in a ruined moonlit world, and lastly in the doorway of the house the night he went away. Her mother —and Dianora felt as if she were somehow swimming back through all the years to her family. For ah 1 these images of her mother were from before the fall, before the madness had e, from a time when her mothers voice had seemed able to gehe evening air, her touch still soothe all fevers away, all fear of the dark.
It was dark now, and very cold in the sea. She felt the first agitation of what would soon be a desperate need for air. There came to her then, as on a scroll unrolling through her mind, viges of her life after shed left home. The village iando. Smoke over Avalle seen from the high and distant fields. The man—she couldnt even remember his name—who had wao marry her. Others who had bedded her in that small room upstairs. The Queen in Stevanien. Arduini. Rhamanus on the river galley taking her away. The opening sea before them. Chiara. Scelto.
Brandin.
And so, at the very end, it was he who was in her mind after all. And over and above the hard, quick images of a dozen years and more Dianora suddenly heard again his last words on the pier. The words she had been fighting to hold back from her awareness, had tried not to even hear or uand, for fear of what they might do to her resolve. What he might do.
My love, hed whispered, e bae. Stevan is gone. I ot lose you both or I will die.
She had not wao hear that; anything like that. Words were power, words tried to ge you, to shape bridges of longing that no one could ever really cross.
Or I will die, he had said.
And she knew, could not even try to deny within herself that it was true. That he would die. That her false, benefit vision of Brandin living somewhere else, rememberienderly, was simply another lie in the soul. He would do no such thing. My love, he had called her. She knew, gods how she and her home had cause to know, what love meant to this man. How deep it went in him.
How deep. There was a r sound in her ears noressure of water so far below the surface of the sea. Her lungs felt as if they were going to burst. She moved her head to one side, with difficulty.
There seemed to be something there, beside her in the darkness. A darting figure further out to sea. A glimmer, glimpse of a form, of a man od she could not say. But it could not be a man down here.
Not so far below the light and the waves, and not glowing as this form was.
Another inward vision, she told herself. A last ohen. The figure seemed to be swimming slowly away from her, light shining around it like an aureole. She ent now. There was an ag in her, of longing, a yearning for peace. She wao follow that gentle, impossible light. She was ready to rest, to be whole and untormented, without desire.
And then she uood, or thought she did. That figure had to be Adaon. It had to be the god ing for her. But he had turned his back. He was moving away, the calm glow reg away towards blaess here in the depths of the sea.
She did not belong to him. Not yet.
She looked at her hand. The ring upon it was almost invisible, so faint was the light. But she could feel it there, and she knew wh it was. She knew.
Far down in the dark of the sea, terribly far below the world where mortal men and women lived and breathed the air, Dianora turned. She pushed her hands above her, touched palms together and parted them, cleaving the water upwards, hurling her body like a spear up through all the layers of the sea, of dark-greeh, towards life again and all the unbridged chasms of air and light and love.
When he saw her break the surface of the sea, Devi. Even before he saw the flash of gold sparkling on the hand she lifted in weariness, that they all might see the ring.
Wiping at his streaming eyes, his voice raw from screaming with all the others on the ship, on all the ships, all through the harbor of Chiara, he then saw something else.
Brandin of Ygrath, who had named himself Brandin di Chiara, had dropped to his knees on the pier and had buried his fa his hands. His shoulders were shaking helplessly. And Devin uood then h he had been before: that this was not, after all, a man who was only pleased and happy that a stratagem had worked.
With agonizing slowhe woman swam to the pier. An eager priest and priestess helped her from the sea and supported her and ed her shivering form in a robe of white and gold. She could scarcely stand. But Devin, still weeping, saw her lift her head high as she turo Brandin and offered him the sea-ring in a trembling hand.
Then he saw the King, the Tyrant, the sorcerer who had ruihem with his bitter, annihilating pather the woman into his arms, gently, with tenderness, but with the unmistakable urgency of a man deprived and hungry for too long.
Alessan reached up and removed the child from his shoulders, setting it carefully down beside its mother. She smiled at him. Her hair was yellow as her gown. He smiled back, reflexively, but found himself turning away. From her, from the man and woman embrag feverishly o them. He felt physically ill. There was a quite substantial level of jubilant chaos erupting all around in the harbor. His stomach was ing. He closed his eyes, fighting nausea and dizziness, the tumultuous overflow.
When he opened his eyes it was to gaze at the Fool—Rhun, they had said his name was. It was deeply uling to see how, with the King releasing his own feelings, clutg the woman in that grip of transparent he Fool, the surrogate, seemed suddey and hollow. There was a blank, weighted sado him, jarring in its distinuity amid the exultation all around. Rhun seemed a still, silent point of numbness amid a world of tumult and weeping and laughter.
Alessan looked at the bent, balding figure with his weirdly deformed face, a a blurred, disorienting kinship to the man. As if the two of them were linked here, if only in their inability to know how to react to all of this.
He had to have been shielding himself, Alessaed in his mind for the tenth time, the tweh.
He had to. He looked at Brandin again, and then away, hurting with fusion and grief.
For how many years in Quileia had he and Baerd spun adolest plots of making their way here? Of ing upoyrant and killing him, their cries of Tiganas name ringing in the air, hurtling bato the world.
And this m, now, hed been scarcely fiftee away, unsuspected, unknown, with a dagger at his belt and only one row of people between him and the man whod tortured and killed his father.
He had to have been shielding himself against a blade.
But the thing was, the simple fact was, that Alessan couldnt know that. He haded it; hadnt tried. He had stood and watched. Observed. Played out his own cool plan of shapis, steering them towards some larger abstra.
His eyes hurt; there was a dull pulsing behind them, as if the suht for him. The woman in yellow had not moved away; she was still looking up at him with a slantwise glance hard not to uand. He didnt know where the childs father was, but it was clear that the woman didnt greatly care just now. It would be iing, he thought, with that perverse, detached quirk of his mind that was always there, to see how many children were born in Chiara nine months from now.
He smiled at her again, meaninglessly, and made some form of mumbled excuse. Thearted back alohrough the celebrating, uproarious crowd towards the inhe three of them had been paying for their room by making music these past three days. Music might help right now, he thought.
Very often music was the only thing that helped. His heart was still rag weirdly, as it had started to do when the woman broke the surface of the water with the ring on her hand after so long undersea.
So long a time he had actually begun to calculate if there was anything he could do to make use of the shod fear that was going to follow upon her death.
And then she had e up, had been there before them ier and, in the sed before the r of the crowd began, Brandin of Ygrath, who had been rigidly motionless from the moment she dived, had collapsed to his knees as if struck from behind by a blow that had robbed him of all his strength.
And Alessan had found himself feeling ill and hopelessly fused even as the screams of triumph aasy began to sweep across the harbor and the ships.
This is fine, he told himself now, f his ast a wildly dang ring of people. This will fit, it be made to fit. It is ing together. As I plahere will be war. They will face each other. In Senzio. As I planned.
His mother was dead. He had been fiftee away from Brandin of Ygrath with a blade in his belt.
It was tht in the square, and much too loud. Someone grabbed his arm as he went by and tried to draw him into a whirling circle. He pulled away. A woman careened into his arms and kissed him full upon the lips before she disengaged. He didnt know her. He didnt know anyone here. He stumbled through the crowd, pushed and pulled this way and that, trying numbly to steer himself, a cork in a flood, towards The Trialla, where his room was, and a drink, and music.
Devin was already at the crowded bar when he finally made it back. Erlein was o be see. Probably still on the ship; staying afloat, as far from Brandin as he could. As if the sorcerer had the fai stilla of i in pursuing wizards right now.
Devin, mercifully, said nothing at all. Only pushed over a full glass and a flagon of wine. Alessan draihe glass and then another very quickly. He had poured and tasted a third when Devin quickly touched his arm and he realized, with a sense of almost physical shock, that hed fotten his oath. The blue wihird glass.
He pushed the flagon away and buried his head in his hands.
Someone eaking beside him. Two men arguing.
"Youre actually going to do it? Youre a goat-begotten fool!" the first one snarled.
"Im joining up," the sed replied, in the flat ats of Asoli. "After what that woman did for him I figure Brandins blessed with luck. And someone who styles himself Brandin di Chiara is a long sight better than that butcher from Barbadior. What are you, friend, afraid of fighting?”
The other man gave a harsh bark of laughter. "You simple-minded dolt," he said. He flattened his voi broad mimicry. "After what that woman did for him. We all know what she did for him, night after night. That woman is the Tyrants whore. She spent a dozen years coupling with the man who quered us all. Spreading her legs for him for her own gain. And here you are, here all of you are, making a whore into a Queen over you.”
Alessan pushed his head up from his hands. He shifted his feet, pivoting for leverage. Then, without a word spoken, he hammered a fist with all the strength of his body and all the tormented fusion of his heart into the speakers face. He felt bones crader his blow; the man flew backwards into the bar and halfway over it, scattering glasses and bottles with a splintering crash.
Alessan looked down at his fist. It was covered with blood across the knuckles, and already beginning to swell. He wondered if hed broken his hand. He wondered if he was going to be thrown out of the bar, or end up in a free-wheeling brawl for this stupidity.
It didnt happen. The Asolini who had proclaimed his readiness for war clapped him on the back with a hard, cheerful blow and the owner of The Trialla—their employer, in fact—grinned broadly, pletely ign the shards of broken glass along the bar.
"I was hoping someone would shut him up!" he roared over the raucous tumult in the room. Someone else came over and wrung Ales-sans hand, which hurt amazingly. Three men were shouting insistent demands to buy him a drink. Four others picked up the unsan and began carting him unceremoniously away in searedical aid. Someone spat on the mans shattered face as he was carried by.
Alessan turned away from that, back to the bar. There was a single glass of Astibar blue wine in front of him. He looked quickly at Devin who said nothing at all.
Tigana, he murmured under his breath, as a Cortean sailor behind him bellowed ?９９ｌｉb?is praise and ruffled his hair and someone else pushed over to pound his back, Oh, Tigana, let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul.
He draihe glass. Someo Devin—immediately reached to pick it up and smash it on the floor. Which started a predictable sequence of other men doing the same with their own drinks. As soon as he detly could he made his way out of the room a upstairs. He remembered to touch Devins arms in thanks as he went. In their room he found Erlein lying on his bed, hands behind his head, gazing fixedly at the ceiling. The wizard glanced over as Alessan came in, and his eyes quickly narrowed and grew frankly curious.
Alessan said nothing. He fell onto his pallet and closed his eyes which were still hurting. The wine, naturally hadnt helped. He couldnt stop thinking about the woman, what she had done, how she had looked rising like some supernatural creature from the sea. He couldnt force out of his mind the image of Brandiyrant falling to his knees and burying his fa his hands.
Hiding his eyes, but not before Alessan, fiftee away, only that, had seen the shattering relief and the blaze of love that had shohrough like the white light of a falling star.
His hand hurt terribly, but he flexed it gingerly and didnt think hed broken anything. He holy couldnt have said why hed felled that man. Everything hed said about the woman from Certando was true. All of it was true, yet none of it was the real truth. Everything about today was brutally fusing.
Erlein, uedly tactful, cleared his throat in a way that offered a question.
"Yes?" Alessan said wearily, not opening his eyes.
"This is what you wao happen, isnt it?" the wizard asked, unwontedly hesitant.
With an effort Alessan opened his eyes and looked over. Erlein ropped on one elbow gazing at him, his expression thoughtful and subdued. "Yes," he said at length, "this is what I wanted.”
Erlein nodded slowly. "It means war, then. In my province.”
His head was still throbbing, but less than before. It was quieter up here, though the noise from below still peed, a dull, steady background of celebration.
"In Senzio, yes," he said.
He felt a terrible sadness. So many years of planning, and now that they were here, where were they?
His mother was dead. She had cursed him before she died, but had let him take her hand as the ending came. What did that mean? Could it be made to mean what he to?
He was on the Island. Had seen Brandin of Ygrath. What would he tell Baerd? The slender dagger at his side felt heavy as a sword. The woman had been so much more beautiful than hed expected her to be.
Devin had had to give him the blue wine; he couldnt believe that. Hed hurt a hapless, i man so brutally just now, had shattered the bones of his face. I must look truly terrible, he thought, for even Erlein to be so geh me now. They were going to war in Senzio. This is what I wanted, he repeated to himself.
"Erlein, Im sorry," he said, risking it, trying tle upwards from this sorrow.
He braced for a stinging reply, he almost wanted one, but Erlein said nothing at all at first. And when he spoke it was mildly. "I think it is time," was what he said. "Shall we go dolay? Would that help?”
Would that help? Since when did his people—Erlein, eveo mio him so much?
They went back dowairs. Devin was waiting for them on the makeshift stage at the back of the Trialla. Alessan took up his Tregean pipes. His right hand was hurting and swollen, but it was not going to keep him from making music. He needed musiow, very badly. He closed his eyes and began to play.
They fell silent for him in the densely crowded room. Erlein waited, his hands motionless on the harp, and Devin did, leaving him a spa which to reach upwards alone, yearning towards that high note where fusion and pain and love ah and longing could all be left behind him for a very little while.
chapter 18
NORMALLY WHEN SHE WENT UP ON THE RAMPARTS OF HER castle at su was to look south, watg the play of light and the ging colors of the sky above the mountains. Of late though, as springtime turowards the summer they had all been waiting for, Alienor found herself climbing to the northern ramparts instead, to pace the guards walk behind the ellations or lean upon the ch stone, gazing into the distance, ed in her shawl against the chill that still came when the su down.
As if she could actually see as far as Senzio.
The shawl was a new one, brought by the messengers from Quileia that Baerd had told them would e. The on藏书网es who carried the messages that could, if all went right, turn the whole world upside down.
Not just the Palm: Barbadior too, where the Emperor was said to be dying, and Ygrath, and Quileia itself where, precisely because of what he was doing for them, Marius might not survive.
The Quileian messengers had stopped on their way to Fort Ortiz, as ropriate, to pay their respects to the Lady of Castle Borso and t her a gift from the new King of Quileia: an indigo- colored shawl, a color almost impossible to find here in the Palm, and one which was, she knew, a mark of nobility in Quileia, It was evident that Alessan had told this Marius a fair bit about her involvement with him over the years. Which was fine. Marius of Quileia, it seemed, was one of them; in fact, as Baerd had explai the afternoon after Alessan had ridden into the Braccio Pass and then away west, Marius was the key to everything.
Two days after the Quileians passed through, AJienan a habit of springtime rides that took her, casually, far enough afield to ate one or two ht stays at neighb castles. At which time she relayed a quite specific message to a hah 0 dozen equally specific people.
Senzio. Before Midsummer Not long afterwards, a silk-mert and then a singer she rather liked came down to Castle Borso with word of tremendous troop movements among the Barbadians. The roads were absolutely clogged with meraries marg north, they said. She had raised her eyebrows in quizzical mystification, but had allowed herself more wihan was ary each of those two nights, and had rewarded both men later, after her own fashion.
Up on the ramparts at su now, she heard a footstep oair behind her. She had been waiting for it.
Without turning, she said, "You are almost too late. The sun is nearly gone." Which was true; the color of the sky and the thin, u clouds in the west had darkened from pink through crimson and purple most of the way down to the indigo she wore about her shoulders.
Elena stepped out on the parapet.
"Im sorry," she said, inappropriately. She was always apologizing, still uneasy in the castle. She moved to the guards walk beside Alienor and looked out over the gathering darkness of the late-spring fields. Her long yellow hair fanned over her shoulders, the ends lifting in the breeze.
Ostensibly she was here to serve as a new lady-in-waiting to Alienor. She had brought her two young children and her few belongings into Borso tws after the Ember Days had ended. It was sidered a good idea that she be established here well before the time that might matter. It appeared, incredibly enough, that there could actually e a time when her being here might matter.
Tomaz, the gaunt, aged Khardhu warrior had said that it would be necessary for one of them to stay here. Tomaz, who was very clearly not from Khardhun, and just as clearly unwilling to say who he really was. Alienor didnt care about that. What mattered was that Baerd and Alessan trusted him, and in this matter Baerd was deferring to the dark, hollow-cheeked man absolutely,
"One of whom, exactly?" Alienor had asked. The four of them had been alone: herself, Baerd and Tomaz, and the red-headed young girl who didnt like her, Catriana.
Baerd hesitated a long time. "One of the Night Walkers," he said finally.
She had raised her eyebrows at that, the small outward gesture serving to show all she repared to reveal of her inward astonishment.
"Really? Here? They are still about?”
Baerd nodded.
"And that is where you were last night when you went out?”
After a sed Baerd nodded again.
The girl Catriana blinked in ma surprise. She was clever and quite beautiful, Alienor thought, but she still had rather a great deal to learn.
"Doing what?" Alienor asked Baerd.
But this time he shook his head. She had expected that. There were limits with Baerd; she erying to push towards them. One night, ten years ago, she had fouly where his boundaries of privacy lay, in one dimension at least. Surprisingly perhaps, their friendship had deepened from that time on.
Now, uedly, he grinned. "You could have them all stay here, of course, not just one.”
She had grimaced with a distaste only partly feigned. "One will be suffit, thank you. Assuming it is enough for your purposes, whatever those are?" She said that last to the old man disguised as a Khardhu warrior. His skin c was really very good but she knew all about Baerds teiques of disguise.
Over the years he and Ales-san had shown up here in an effective diversity of appearances.
"Im not absolutely sure what our purposes are," Tomaz had replied frankly. "But insofar as we need an anchor for what Baerd wants us to at least be able to try, one of them in this castle should be enough.”
"Enough for what?" shed probed again, not really expeg anything.
"Enough for my magic to reach out and find this place," Tomaz had said bluntly.
This time it was she who blinked and Catriana who looked unruffled and superior. Which was unfair, Alienor decided afterwards; the girl must have known the old man was a wizard. That was why she haded. Alienor had enough of a sense of humor to find their by-play amusing, and even to feel a little regretful when Catriana had gone.
Two days afterwards Elena had e. Baerd had said it would be a woman. He had asked Alienor to take care of her. She had raised her eyebrows at that as well.
On the northern ramparts she glanced over iwilight. Elena had e up without a cloak; her hands were cupping her elbows tightly against her body. Feeling unreasonably irritated, Alienor abruptly removed her shawl and draped it over the others shoulders.
"You should know better by now," she said sharply. "It gets cold up here when the sun goes down.”
"Im sorry," Elena said again, quickly motioning to remove the shawl. "But youll be chilled now. Ill go down a something for myself.”
"Stay where you are!" Alienor snapped. Elena froze, apprehension in her eyes. Alienor looked out past her, past the darkening fields and the emerging flickers of light where night dles and fires were being lit in houses and farms below. She looked beyond all these uhe first stars of the evening, her eyes straining north, her imagination winging far beyond her sight to where the others would all be gathering now, or soon.
"Stay here," she said, mently. "Stay with me.”
Elenas blue eyes widened in the darkness as she looked over. Her expression was grave, thoughtful.
Uedly, she smiled. And then, even more astonishingly, she moved nearer and drew her arm
through Alienors, pulling her close. Alienor stiffened for a sed, then allowed herself to relax against the other woman. She had asked for panionship. For the first time in more years than she could remember, she had asked for this. A pletely different kind of intimacy. It felt, of late, as if something rigid and hard was falling away inside her. She had waited for this summer, for what it might mean, for so many years.
What had the young one said, Devin? About being allowed more tharansience of desire, if only one believed it was deserved. No one had ever said such a thing to her in all the years since aro of Borso had died fighting Barbadior. In which dark time his young widow, his bride, alone in a highland castle with her grief and rage, had bee upon the road towards what she had bee.
He had goh Alessan, Devin. By now, they would probably be in the north as well. Alienor looked out, lettihoughts stream like birds arrowing away through darkness, across the miles between, to where all of their fates would be decided when Midsummer came.
Dark hair and light blown bad mingled by the wind, the two women stood together in that high place for a long time, sharing warmth, sharing the night and the waiting time.
It had long been said, sometimes in mockery, sometimes with a bemusement that bordered ohat as the days heated up in summer, so did the night-time passions of Senzio. The hedonistic self- indulgence of that northern province, blessed with fertile soil ale weather, was a byword in the Palm and evehe seas. You could get whatever you wanted in Senzio, it was said, provided you were willing to pay for it. And fight someoo keep it, the initiated often added.
Towards the end of spring that year it might have been thought that burgeoning tensions and the palpable threat of war would have dampehe noal ardor of the Senzians—and their endless flow of visitors—for wine, for lovemaking in diverse binations, and for brawling iaverns and streets.
Someone might indeed have thought such a thing, but not anyone who knew Senzio. In fact, it actually seemed as if the looming portents of disaster—the Barbadians massed ominously on the Ferraut border, the ever-increasing numbers of ships of the Ygrathen flotilla anchored at Farsaro Island off the northwestern tip of the province—were simply spurs to the wildness of night in Senzio town. There were no curfews here; there hadnt been for hundreds of years. And though emissaries of both invading powers were promily housed in opposite wings of what was now called the Governors Castle, Senzians still boasted that they were the only free province i.n the Palm.
A boast that began t more hollow with each passing day and sybaritiight as the entire peninsula braced itself for a flagration.
In the face of whirushing intrusion of reality Senzio town merely intensified the already manic pace of its dark hours. Legendary watering-holes like The Red Glove or Thetaph were packed with sweating, shouting patrons every night, to whom they dispeheir harsh, overpriced liquors and a seemingly endless stream of available flesh, male or female, in the warrens of airless rooms upstairs.
Those innkeepers who had elected, for whatever reasons, not to trade in purchased love had to offer substantially different is to their patrons. For the eponymous owner of Solinghis, a tavern not far from the castle, good food, det vintages and ales, and rooms in which to sleep were assurances of a respectable if not aravagant living, derived primarily from merts and traders disined to traffi the ality of night, or at least to sleep a amid that overripe corruption.
Solinghis also prided itself on , by day ht, the best music to be found iy at any given time.
At this particular moment, shortly before the dinner-hour one day late in the spring, the bar and table patrons of the almost full tavern were enjoying the music of an urio: a Senzian harper, a piper from Astibar, and a young Asolini tenor who—acc to a rumor started a couple of days before—was the singer who had disappeared after perf Sandre dAstibars funeral rites last fall.
Rumors of every kind were rife in Senzio that spring, but few believed this one: such a prodigy was
unlikely ireme to be singing in a put-together group like this. But in fact the young tenor had an exceptional void he was matched by the playing of the other two. Solinghi di Senzio was immensely pleased with their effe business over the past week.
The truth was, he would have given them employment and a room upstairs if they made music like boarhounds in lust. Solinghi had been a friend of the dark-haired man who was now calling himself Adreano dAstibar for almost ten years. A friend, and more than that; as it happened, almost half the patrons of the inn this spring were men who had e to Senzio expressly to meet the three musis here. Solinghi kept his mouth shut, poured wine and beer, supervised his cooks and serving-girls, and prayed to Eanna of the Lights every night before he went to sleep that Alessan knew what he was doing.
This particular afternoorons enjoying the young tenors rousiion of a Certandan ballad were rudely snapped out of their bar-pounding rhythm when the doors to the street were pushed open, revealing a largish cluster of new ers. Nothing of note in that, of course. Or not until the singer cut himself off in the middle of a chorus with a shouted greeting, the piper quickly laid down his pipes and leaped off the stage, and the harper lowered his own instrument and followed, if more slowly.
The enthusiasms of the reunion that ensued would have led to predictably ical clusions about the nature of the men involved, given the way of such things in Senzio, had the new party not included a pair of exceptionally attractive young women, oh short red hair, oh raven-dark. Even the harper, a dour, unsmiling fellow if ever there was one, was drawn almost against his will into the circle, to be crushed against the bony breast of a cadaverous looking Khardhu merary who towered over the rest of the party.
A moment later another kind of reunion occurred. Oh a different resohat even stilled the excitement of the newly mingled group. Another man rose and walked diffidently over to the five people who had just arrived. Those who looked closely could see that his hands were trembling.
"Baerd?" they heard him say.
There followed a moment of silehen the man whom hed addressed said "Naddo?" in a tone even the most i Senzian could interpret. Any lingering doubts about that were laid to rest a sed later by the way the two men embraced each other.
They eve.
More than one man, eyeing the two women with frank admiration, decided that his ces of a versation, and who knew what else, might be better than theyd first appeared if the men were all like that.
Alais had been moving through the days siregea in a state of excitement that brought an almost tinuous flush to her pale skin and made her more delicately beautiful than she knew. What she did know is why she had been allowed to e.
From the moment the Sea Maid s landing-boat had silently returo the ship in the moonlit harbor ea, bearing her father and Catriana and the two men theyd goo meet, Alais had been aware that something more than friendship was involved here.
Then the dark-skinned man from Khardhu had looked at her appraisingly, and at Rovigo with an amused expression on his lined face, and her father, hesitating for only a moment, had told her who this really was. And then, quietly, but with an exhilarating fiden her, hed explained what these people, his new partners, were really doing here, and what he appeared to have been doing i with them freat many years.
It appeared that it had not beeirely a ce after all that theyd met three musis on the road outside their home during the Festival of Vines last fall.
Listening ily, trying not to miss a syllable or an implication, Alais measured her own inward respoo all of this and leased beyond words to discover that she was not afraid. Her fathers void manner had much to do with that. And the simple fact that he was trusting her with this.
It was the other man—Baerd, they named him—who said to, "If you are truly set on ing with us to Senzio, then we will have to find a pla the coast to put your daughter ashore.”
"Why, exactly?" Alais had said quickly befo could answer. She could feel her color rising as all eyes turo her. They were down below deck, crowded in her fathers .
Baerds eyes were very dark by dlelight. He was a hard-looking, even a dangerous-seeming man, but his voice when he answered her was not unkind.
"Because I dont believe in subjeg people to unnecessary risks. There is danger in what we are about to do. There are also reasons for us to face those dangers, and your fathers assistand that of his men if he trusts them, is important to us. For you to e would be a danger without y. Does that make sense?”
She forced herself to be calm. "Only if you judge me a child, incapable of any tribution." She swallowed. "I am the same age as Catriana and I think I now uand what is happening here. What you have been trying to do. I have ... I say that I have the same desire as any of you to be free.”
"There are truths in that. I think she should e." It was, remarkably, Catriana. "Baerd," she went on, "if this is truly the time that will decide, we have no business refusing people who feel the way we do.
Nht to decide that they must huddle in their homes waiting to see if they are still slaves or not when the summer ends.”
Baerd looked at Catriana for a long time but said nothing. He turo, deferring to him with a gesture. In her fathers face Alais could see worry and love warring with his pride in her. And then, by the light of the dles, she saw that inner battle end.
"If we get through this alive,&quo dAstibar said to his daughter, his life, his joy in life, "your mother will kill me. You know that, dont you?”
"Ill try to protect you," Alais said gravely, though her heart was rag like a wild thing.
It had beealk at the railing of the ship, she knew. She k absolutely. The two of them looking at the cliffs under moonlight after the storm.
I dont know what it is, she had said, but I need more.
I know, her father had replied. I know you do. If I could give it, it would be yours. The world and the stars of Eanna would all be yours.
It was because of that, because he loved her a what he had said, that he was allowio e with them to where the world they knew would be put into the balance.
Of that jouro Senzio she remembered two things particularly. Standing at the rail early one m with Catriana as they moved north up the coast of Astibar. Oiny village, and then another and ahe roofs of houses bright in the sun, small fishing boats bobbiween the Sea Maid and the shore.
"That one is my home," Catriana said suddenly, breaking a silence, speaking so softly only Alais could hear. "And that boat with the blue sail is actually my fathers." Her voice was odd, eerily detached from the meaning of the words.
"We have to stop, then!" Alais had murmured urgently. "Ill tell my father! Hell—”
Catriana laid a hand on her arm.
"Not yet," shed said. "I t see him yet. After. After Senzio. Perhaps.”
That was one memory. The other, very different, was of rounding the northern tip of Farsaro Island early in the m and seeing the ships of Ygrath and the Western Palm anchored in the harbor there.
Waiting for war. She had been afraid then, as the reality of what they were sailing towards was brought home to her in that vision, at once brightly colorful and forbidding as grey death. But she had looked over at Catriana, and her father, and then at the old Duke, Sandre, who named himself Tomaz now, and she had seen shadings of doubt and ay in each of them as well. Only Baerd, carefully ting the flotilla,
had a different kind of expression on his face.
If shed been forced to put a o that look she would have said, hesitantly, that it was desire.
The afternoon they had e to Senzio, and had moored the Maid in the crowded harbor and gone ashore, and so had e, at the end of the day, to an inn all the others seemed to know about. And the five of them had walked through the doors of that tavern into a flashing of jht and sudden as the sun e up from the rim of the sea.
Devin embraced her tightly and then kissed her on the lips, and then Alessan, after a moments visible ay at her presend a searg gla her father, did exactly the same. There was a lean-faced grey-haired man named Erlein with them, and then a number of other men iavern came up—Naddo was one name, Ducas another, and there was an older blind man with those two whose name she never caught. He walked with the aid of a magnifit stick. It had the most extraordinary carved eagles head, with eyes so pierg they seemed almost to be a pensation for the loss of his own.
There were others as well, from all over, it seemed. She missed most of their here was a great deal of he innkeeper brought them wiwo bottles of Senzio green and a third one of Astibars blue wine. She had a small, careful glass of each, watg everyorying to sort through the chaotic babble of all that was said. Alessan and Baerd drew briefly apart for a moment, she noticed; when they returo the table both men looked thoughtful and somewhat grim.
Then Devin and Alessan and Erlein had to go bad make their music for an hour while the others ate, and Alais, flushed and terribly excited, inwardly relived the feel of the two mens lips upon hers. She found herself smiling shyly at everyone, afraid that her face was giving away exactly what she was feeling.
Afterwards they made their stairs behind the broad back of the innkeepers wife to their rooms. And later, when it was quiet on that upper level Catriana led her from the room they were put in, down the hall to the bedroom Devin and Alessan and Erlein shared.
They were there, and a number of other men—some of the ones shed just met, and a feere strangers. Her father entered a moment later with Sandre and Baerd. She and Catriahe only women there. She had a moment to feel a little strange about that, and to think about how far she was from home, before everyone fell silent as Alessan pushed a hand through his hair and began to speak.
And as he did, Alais, trating, gradually came to uand with the others the dimensions, the truly frightening shape, of what he proposed to do.
At a certain poiopped and looked at three men one by o Duke Sandre first, then at a round-faced Certandan named Sertino sitting with Ducas, and finally, almost challengingly, at Erlein di Senzio.
The three of them were wizards, she uood. It was a hard thing to e to terms with. Especially Sahe exiled Duke of Astibar. Their neighbor in the distrada all her life.
The man called Erlein was sitting on his bed, his back against the wall, hands crossed over his breast.
He was breathing hard.
"It is clear to me now that you have lost your mind," he said. His voice shook. "You have lived in your dreams so long youve lost sight of the world. And now yoing to kill people in your madness.”
Alais saw Devin open his mouth and then snap it shut without speaking.
"All of this is possible," Alessan said, with an ued mildness. "It is possible I am pursuing a path of madness, though I think not. But yes, there are likely to be a great many people killed. We always khat; the real madness would have been iending otherwise. For the moment though, pose your spirit and ease your soul. You know as well as I do, nothing is happening.”
"Nothing? What do you mean?" It was her father.
Alessans expression was wry, almost bitter. "Havent you noticed? You were in the harbor, you walked through the town. Have you seen any Barbadian troops? Any Ygrathens, soldiers from the west?
Nothing is happening. Alberico of Barbadior has his entire army massed on the border, and the man refuses to order them north!”
"He is afraid," said Sandre flatly in the silehat followed. "Hes afraid of Brandin.”
"Perhaps," her father said thoughtfully. "Or else he is just cautious. Too cautious.”
"What do we do then?" asked the red-bearded Tregean named Ducas.
Alessan shook his head. "I dont know. I holy dont know. This is ohing I never expected. You tell me," he said. "How do we make him cross the border? How do we bring him to war?" He looked at Ducas and then at each of the others in the room.
No one answered him.
They would think he was a coward. They were fools. They were all fools. Only a fool went lightly into war. Especially a war such as this, that risked everything fain he hardly cared about. Senzio?
The Palm? What did they matter? Should he throw twenty years away for them?
Every time a messenger arrived from ba Astibar something in him leaped with hope. If the Emperor had died . . .
If the Emperor had died he and his men were gone. Away from this blighted peninsula, home to claim an Emperors Tiara in Barbadior. That was his war, the one he wao fight. The ohat mattered, the only thing that had really mattered all these years. He would sail home with three armies and wrest the Tiara from the court favorites h there like so many iual fluttering moths.
And after that he could make war back here, with all the gathered might of Barbadior. The Brandin of Ygrath, of the Western Palm, whatever he chose to name himself, the him try to stand before Alberiperor of Barbadior.
Gods, the sweetness of it ...
But no such message came from the east, no such glittering reprieve. And so the bald reality was that he found himself camped with his meraries here on the border between Ferraut and Senzio, preparing to face the armies of Ygrath and the Western Palm, knowing that the eyes of the entire world would be upon them now. If he lost, he lost everything. If he won . . . well that depended on the cost. If too many of his men died here, what kind of an army would he have to lead home?
And too many men dying was a vivid prospeow. Ever since what had happened in the harbor of Chiara. Most of the Ygrathen army had indeed sailed home, exactly as anticipated, leaving Brandin crippled and exposed. Which is why Alberico had moved, why the three panies were here ah them. The flow and shape of events had seemed to be on their side, in the clearest possible way.
Then the Certandan woman had fished a ring from the water for Brandin.
She haunted his dreams, that never-seen woman. Three times now shed surfaced like a nightmare in his life. Back when Brandin had first claimed her for his saishan she had nearly drawn him into an insane war. Siferval had wao fight, Alberiembered. The Third pany captain had proposed st across the border into Lower Corte and sag Stevaself.
Gods. Alberico shuddered even now, long years after, at the thought of such a war far to the west against the Ygrathens in all their power. He had swallowed his bile and absorbed all the mog gibes Brandi east. Even then, long ago, he had preserved his discipline, kept his eyes on the real prize bae.
But he might have had the Peninsula of the Palm without effort this spring, a pure gift fallen from the sky, if that same Dianora di Certando had not saved the Ygrathens life two months ago. It had been there for him, gently floating down: with Brandin assassihe Ygrathens would have all sailed home and the western provinces would have lain open before him like so much ripe fruit.
Quileias crippled King would have hobbled across the mountains to abase himself before Alberico, begging for the trade he needed. No elaborate letters then about fearing the mighty power of Ygrath. It would have all been so easy, so ... elegant.
But it was not so, because of the woman. The woman from one of his own provihe irony was corusg, it was like acid in his soul. Certando was his and Dianora di Certando was the only reason Brandin was alive.
And now—her third time in his life—she was the only reason there was an army from the west, a flotilla anchored in the Bay of Farsaro, waiting for Alberiake the slightest move.
"They are fewer than us," his spies reported daily. "And not as well armed.”
Fewer, the three captains echoed each other in mindless litany. Not as well armed, they gibbered. We must move, they chorused, their imbecilic faces looming in his dreams, set close together, hanging like lurid moons too he earth.
Anghiar, his emissary in the Governors Castle at Senzio, sent word that Casalia still favored them; that the Governor realized that Brandin was not as strong as they. That he had been persuaded to see the virtue of tilting even further towards the Barbadior. The emissary from the Western Palm, one of the few Ygrathens who had decided to stay with Brandin, was having a more difficult time each passing day gaining audieh the Governor, but Anghiar dined with plump, sybaritic Casalia almost every night.
So now even Anghiar, who had grown lazy and self-indulgent, morally corrupt as any Senzian during his years there, was saying the same thing as all the others: Senzio is a vineyard ripe for harvesting.
e!
Ripe for harvesting? Didnt they uand? Didnt any of them realize that there was sorcery to re with?
He knew how strong Brandin was; he had probed and backed quickly away from the Ygrathens power in the year they had both e here, and that had been when he himself was in his prime. Not hollow and weakened, with a bad foot and a drooping eye after almost being killed in that cursed Sandreni lodge last year. He was not the same anymore; he k, if none of the others did. If he went to war it had to be a deade in the light of that. His military edge had to be enoug?9９ｌｉb?o offset the Ygrathens sorcery. He o be certain. Surely any man not a fool could see that that had nothing to do with cowardice! Only with a careful measuring of gains and losses, risks and opportunities.
In his dreams in his tent on the border he thrust the vaoon faces of his captains back up into the sky, and under five moons, not two, he slowly dismembered and defiled the staked-out body of the woman from Certando.
Then the ms would e. Digesting messages like rancid food, he would begin to wrestle again, endlessly, with the other thing that was nagging him this season like an ied wound.
Somethi wroirely wrong. There was an aspect about this whole of events—from the autumn onwards—that jarred within him like a jangling, dissonant chord.
Here on the border with his army all around him he was supposed to feel as if he were calling the measure of the dance. F Brandin and the entire Palm to respond to his tune. Seizing trol again after a winter of being impacted upon in all those trivial, discerting, cumulative ways. Shapis so that Quileia would have no choice but to seek him out, so that bae in the Empire they could not mistake his power, the vigor of his will, the glory of his quests.
That was how he was supposed to feel. How he had indeed briefly felt the m hed heard that Brandin had abdicated in Ygrath. When hed ordered his three armies north to the border of Senzio.
But something had ged sihat day and it was more than just the presence of opposition now waiting in the Bay of Farsaro. There was something else, something so vague and undefined he couldnt even talk about it—even if hed had ao talk to— couldnt even pin it down, but it was there, nagging at him like an old wound in rain.
Alberico of Barbadior had not got to where he was, achieved this power base from which a thrust for the Tiara was immi, without subtlety and thoughtfulness, without learning to trust his instincts.
And his instincts told him, here on the border, with his captains and his spies and his emissary in Senzio literally begging him to march, that something was wrong.
That he was not calling the tune. Someone else was. Somehow, someone else was guiding the dangerous steps of this dance. He had truly no idea who it could be, but the feeling was there each m when he woke and it would not be shaken off. her would it e clear for him uhe spring sun, in that border meadht with the banners of Barbadior, with irises and asphodels, and fragrant with the st of the surrounding pines.
So he waited, praying to his gods for word of a death bae, agonizingly aware that the world might soon be laughing at him if he drew back, knowing, as spies kept hastening south in relays, that Brandin was getting stronger in Farsaro every day, but held there on the border by his craftiness, his instinct for survival, by that ache of doubt. Waiting for something to e clear.
Refusing, as the days slipped past, to dao what might be someone elses tune, however seductively the hidden pipes might play.
She was numbingly afraid. This was worse, infinitely worse than the bridge in Tregea. There she had embraced and accepted danger because there was more than a hope of surviving the leap. It had been only water down below, however frigid it might be, and there had been friends waiting in the darkness around the bend to claim her from the river and chafe her back to life.
Tonight was different. Catriana realized with dismay that her hands were shaking. She stopped in the shadows of a lao try to steady herself.
She reached up nervously to adjust her hair uhe dark hood, fingering the jeweled blab shed set in it. On the ship ing here Alais, who had said she was used to doing so for her sisters, had evened and shaped her inal swift cropping on the floor of the shop in Tregea. Catriana knew her appearance erfectly acceptable now—more than that, actually, if the reas of men in Senzio these past days meant anything.
And they had to mean something. For that was what had brought her out here in the darkness alone, pressed against a rough stone wall in a lane, waiting now for a noisy swarm of revelers to pass by ireet before her. This was a better part of town, so he castle, but there was no truly safe quarter of Senzio for a woman alone ireets at night.
She wasnt out here for safety though, which is why none of the others knew where she was. They would never have let her e. Nor would she, being ho with herself, have knowingly let any of them uake anything like this.
This was death. She was under no illusions.
All afternoon, walking through the market with Devin and Rovigo and Alais, she had been shaping this plan and remembering her mother. That single dle always lit at su on the first of the Ember Days. Devins father had dohe same thing, she remembered him saying. Pride, hed thought it was: withholding something from the Triad because of what they had allowed to happen. Her mother wasnt a proud woman, but her had she permitted herself tet.
Tonight Catriana saw herself as being like one of her mothers forbidden dles on those Ember Nights while all the rest of the world lay shrouded in darkness. She was a small flame, exactly like those dles; ohat would not last the night, but ohat, if the Triad had any love at all for her, might shape a flagration before she went out.
The drunken revelers finally staggered by, heading in the dire of the harbor taverns. She waited another moment and then, muffled in her hood, went quickly into the street, keeping to the side of it and started the other way. Toward the castle.
It would be much better, she thought, if she could somehow make her hands be still and slow her
rag heart. She should have had a glass of wine back at Solinghis before slipping away, using the outside back stairs so that none of the others would see her. Shed sent Alais down to dinner alone, pleading a womans illness, promising to follow soon if she could.
She had lied so easily, had even managed a reassuring smile. Then Alais was gone and she was alone, realizing in that precise instant, as the room dently closed, that she would never see any of the ain.
Ireet she shut her eyes, feeling suddenly unsteady; she put her hand on a shop-front for support, drawing deep breaths of the night air. There were tainflowers not far away, and the unmistakable fragrance of sejoia trees. She was o the castle gardens then. She bit her lips, to force color into them.
Overhead the stars were bright and close. Vidomni was already risen in the east, with blue Ilarion to follow soon. She heard a sudden peal of laughter from the street over. A womans laughter followed by shouting. The voice of a man. More laughter.
They were going the other way. As she looked up a star fell in the sky. Following its track to her left she saw the garden wall of the castle. The entrance would be further around that way. Entrances and endings, faced alone. But she had been a solitary child, and then solitary as a woman, drawn into an orbit of her own that took her away from others, even those who would be her friends. Devin and Alais only the latest of those who had tried. There had been others bae in the village before she left. She knew her mother had grieved for her proud solitude.
Pride. Again.
Her father had fled Tigana before the battles at the river.
There it was. There it was.
Carefully she drew back her hood. With real gratitude she discovered that her hands were steady now. She checked her earrings, the silver band about her throat, the jeweled or in her hair. Then she drew onto her hand the red glove shed bought in the market that afternoon and she walked across the street and around the er of the garden wall into the blaze of light at the entrao the Governors Castle of Senzio.
There were fuards, two outside the locked gates, two just within. She allowed her hooded cloak fall open, to let them see the black gown she wore beh.
The two guards outside the gates gla each other and visibly relaxed, removing their hands from their swords. The other two moved he better to see by torchlight.
She stopped in front of the first pair. She smiled. "Would you be kind enough," she said, "to let Anghiar of Barbadior know that his red vixen has e?" And she held up her left hand, sheathed in the bright red glove.
She had actually been amused at first by Deviion and Rovigos in the marketplace. Casalia, the plump, uhy looking Governor had ridden through, side by side with the emissary from Barbadior. They had been laughing together. Brandins emissary from the Western Palm had been several paces behind, among a cluster of lesser Senzians. The image and the message were as clear as they could be made.
Alais and Catriana had been standing at a silk-merts stall. They had turo see the Governo by.
He had not gone by. Instead, Anghiar of Barbadior laid a quick restraining hand on Casalias braceleted wrist and they stopped their prang horses directly in front of the two women. Thinking ba it, Catriana realized that she and Alais must have made a striking pair. Anghiar, blond and beefy, with an upturned moustache and hair as long as her own was now, evidently thought so.
"A mink and a red vixen!" he said, in a voice pitched for Casalias ear. The plump Governor laughed, too quickly, a little too loudly. Anghiars blue eyes stripped the women to their flesh uhe bright sun.
Alais looked away, but not down. Catriahe Barbadians gaze as steadily as she could. She would
not turn away from these men. His smile only deepened. "A red vixen, truly," he repeated, but this time to her, and not to Casalia.
The Governor laughed anyhow. They moved on, their party following, including Brandins emissary, looking grimly unhappy for all the beauty of the m.
Catriana had bee aware of Devin at her shoulder and Rovigo beside his daughter. She looked at them aered the ched fury in their eyes. It was then that shed felt amusement, however briefly.
"That," she said lightly, "is exactly how Baerd looked before he almost had us both killed in Tregea. I dont think Im prepared to repeat the experience. I have no hair left to cut.”
It was Alais, cleverer by far than Catriana had realized at first, who laughed, carrying them past the moment. The four of them walked on.
"I would have killed him," Devin said quietly to her as they paused by a leather goods booth.
"Of course you would have," she said easily. Then realizing horobably sounded, and that he was quite serious in what hed said, she squeezed his arm. Not something she would have done six months before. She was ging, they all were.
But just about then, amusement and anger both fading, Catriana began to think about something. It seemed to her that the brightness of the day slid abruptly into shadow for a moment though there were no clouds in the sky at all.
She realized afterwards that she had decided to do it almost as soon as the idea took shape in her mind.
Before the m market had closed she had mao be alone long enough to purchase what she needed. Earrings, gown, blab. Red glove.
And it was while doing these things that shed begun to think about her mother and to remember the bridge in Tregea. Not surprisingly: the mind worked in patterns like that. Such patterns were why she was doing this, why shed even been able to think of it. When night fell she would have to e away by herself, telling none of them. A lie of some sort for Alais. No farewells; they would stop her, just as she would have stopped any of them.
But something had to be dohey all k. A move had to be made, and that m in the market Catriana had thought shed discovered what that move might be.
Shed spent the first part of this solitary walk through darkness wishing she were braver though, that her hands would not tremble as they were. But theyd stopped shaking after all when she reached the garden wall and saw a star fall in the blue-black velvet sky.
"Well have to search you, you uand," said one of the two guards outside the gates, a crooked smile on his face.
"Of course," she murmured, stepping nearer. "There are so few bes to standing watch here, arent there?" The other one laughed, and drew her forward, not uly, into the light of the torches and then a little past them, to the more private shadows at the side of the square. She heard a brief, low-pitched altercatioweewo men oher side of the gate, ending in a cise six-word order. One of them, maly outranked, relutly began heading inward through the courtyard to find Anghiar of Barbadior and tell him his dreams had just e true, or some such thing. The other hastily unlocked the gates with a key on a ring at his belt and came out to joihers.
They took some with her, but were not unkind, nor did they presume too mu the end. If she was going to the Barbadian and found favor there, they could be at risk in offending her. She had ted on something like that. She mao laugh softly once or twice, but not so much as to ence them.
She was thinking of patterns still, remembering the very first evening shed e to Alessan and Baerd.
The night porter at the inn groping for her as she went by, leering, sure of why she was there.
I will not sleep with you, shed said when they opeo her knock. I have never slept with any man.
So much irony in her life, looking back from these tangled shadows, the guards hands moving over her.
What mortal khe way their fate line would run? Iably perhaps, she thought about Devin in the hidden closet of the Sandreni Palace. Which had worked our rather differently in almost every way than she had expected it to. Not that shed been thinking of futures or fates that day. Not then.
And now? What should she be thinking now, as the patterns began to unfold again? The images, she told herself, cloaked in shadow with three guards: hold hard to the images. Entrances and endings, a dle starting a blaze.
By the time they were doh her the fuard was back with two Barbadians. They were smiling too. But they treated her with some courtesy as they led her through the open gates and across the tral courtyard. Light spilled erratically downward from interior windows above. Before they passed inside she looked up at the stars. Eannas lights. Every one of them with a name.
They went into the castle through a pair of massive duarded by four more men, then up two long flights of marble stairs and along a bright corridor on the highest level. At the end of this last hallway a door artly open. Beyond it, as they approached, Catriana caught a glimpse of a room elaborately furnished in dark, rich colors.
In the doorway itself stood Anghiar of Barbadior, in a blue robe to match his eyes, holding a glass of green wine and dev her with his gaze for the sed time that day.
She smiled, a him take her red-gloved fingers in his own manicured hand. He led her into the room. He closed and locked the door. They were alohere were dles burning everywhere.
"Red vixen," he said, "how do you like to play?”
Devin had been edgy all week, uneasy in his own skin; he khey all felt the same way. The bination of building tension and enforced idleness, coupled with the awareness—one had only to look at Alessans faetimes—of how close they were to a culmination, created a pervasive, dangerous irritability among them all.
In the face of such a mood Alais had beeraordinary, a blessing of grace these past few days.
Rovigos daughter had seemed to grow wiser aler a more at ease among them with each passing day, as if sensing a need, a reason for her to be here, and so moving to fill that need. Observant, unceasingly cheerful, effortlessly versational, with questions and bright responses and a declared passion for long aes from all of them, she had, almost single-handedly, prevehree or four mealtimes from degeing into sullen grimness or fractious rancor. Blind Rinaldo the Healer seemed almost in love with her, so much did he seem to flourish when she was by his side. He wasnt the only one of them, either, Devin thought, almost grateful that the tensions of the time were preventing him from addressing his own inward feelings.
Ihouse atmosphere of Senzio Alaiss delicate, pale beauty and diffident grace singled her out like some flower transplanted here from a garden in a cooler, milder world. Which was, of course, exactly true. An observer himself, Devin would catch Rovigo gazing at his daughter as she drew one or another of their new panions into versation, and the look in the mans eyes spoke volumes.
Now, at the end of dinner, having spent the last half-hour turning their market expedition of the m and afternoon into a veritable sea-voyage of discovery, Alais excused herself briefly a back upstairs. Her departure was followed by an abrupt return of grimo the table, an inexorable reversion to the single dominating preoccupation of their lives. Even Rovigo was not immune: he leaowards Alessan and asked a sharp, low-voiced question about the latest foray outside the city walls.
Alessan and Baerd, with Ducas and Arkin and Naddo, had been scouting the distrada, searg out likely battlefields, and so the best place for them to position themselves wheime came for their own last roll of dice. Devin didnt much like thinking about that. It had to do with magid magic always bothered him. Besides which, there had to be a battle for anything to happen, and AJberico of Barbadior
was hunkered down in his meadow on the border and showing no signs of moving at all. It was enough to drive men mad.
They had begun spending more time apart from each other in the days and evenings, partly for reasons of caution, but undeniably because too much proximity in this mood was good for none of them.
Baerd and Ducas were in one of the harbor taverns tonight, braving the blandishments of the flesh- merts to keep in touch with the Tregeans men and Rovigos sailors, and a number of the others who had made their way north in respoo a long-awaited summons.
They also had a rumor to spread: about Rinaldo di Senzio, the Governors exiled uncle, said to be somewhere iy stirring up revolution against Casalia and the Tyrants. Devin had briefly wondered about the wisdom of that, but Alessan had explained, even before Devin could ask: Rinaldo was greatly ged ieen years; few people even knew he had been blinded. He had been a much-loved man: for Casalia to have released such a word would have been dangerous back then. They had gouged Rinaldos eyes to ralize him, and the it very quiet The old man, huddled quietly now in a er of Solinghis, was unlikely ireme to be reized, and the only thing they could really do these days was tribute as much as they could to raising tensions iy. If the Governor could be made more anxious, the emissaries a little more uneasy . . .
Rinaldo himself said little, though it was he himself who had first suggested starting the rumor. He seemed to be coiling athering himself; with a war to e the demands on a Healer would be severe, and Rinaldo was not young anymore. When he did speak it was mostly with Sahe two old men, enemies from rival provinces iime before the Tyrants, now eased and distracted each other with whispered recolles from bygone years, stories of men and women who had almost all crossed to Morian long ago.
Erlein di Senzio was seldom with them the past few days. He played his music with Devin and Alessan but teo eat and drink alone, sometimes in Solinghis, more often elsewhere. A few of his fellow Senzians had reized the troubadour over the course of their time here, though Erlein seemed no more effusive with them than he was with any of their own party. Devin had seen him walking one m with a woman who looked so much like him he was sure she was his sister. He had thought of walking over to be introduced, but had up to enduring Erleins abrasiveness. One might have hought that as events hung fire here, poised on the edge of a climax, the wizard would lay down his own grudges finally. It was not so.
He wasnt worried about Erleins absences because Alessan wasnt. For the man to betray them in any way was certaih for himself. Erlein might be enraged and bitter and sullen, but he wasnt, by any stretch, a fool.
He had gone elsewhere to dihis evening as well, though he would have to be ba Solinghis soon; they were due to play in a few minutes and for their music Erlein was never late. The music was their only sanctuary of harmony these last few days, but Devihat only really applied to the three of them. What some of the others scattered about the city were doing for release he couldnt imagine. Or, yes he could. This was Senzio.
"Somethings wrong!" Blind Rinaldo said abruptly beside him, tilting his head as if sniffing the air.
Alessan stopped sketg the distrada terrain oablecloth and looked up quickly. So did Rovigo.
Sandre had already half-risen from his chair.
Alais hurried up to the table. Even before she spoke Devi a finger of dread touch him.
"Catrianas gone!" she said, fighting to keep her voice low. Her eyes flicked from her father to Devin, theed on Alessan.
"What? How?&quo said sharply. "We would have had to see her when she came down, surely?”
"The back stairs outside," Alessan said. His hands, Devin, noticed, had suddenly flattened on the
tabletop. The Priared at Alais. "What else?”
The girls face was white. "She ged her clothes. I dont uand why. She bought a black silk gown and some jewelry in the market this afternoon. I was going to ask her about it but I ... I didnt want to presume. Shes so hard to ask questions of. But theyre gone. All the things she bought.”
"A silk gown?" Alessan said incredulously, his voice rising. "What in Morians name . . . ?”
But Devin already knew. He knew absolutely.
Alessan hadnt been with them that m, her had Sahey had no way of uanding.
A bone-deep fear dried his mouth and began hammering at his heart. He stood up, tipping over his chair, spilling his wine.
"Oh, Catriana," he said. "Catriana, no!" Stupidly, fatuously, as if she were in the room, and could still be stopped, still be kept among them, dissuaded from going out into the dark aloh her silk and jewels, with her unfathomable ce and her pride.
"What? Devin, tell me, what is it?" Sandre, voice like a knife. Alessan said nothing. Only turhe grey eyes brag for pain.
"Shes goo the castle," Devin said flatly. "Shes goo kill Anghiar of Barbadior. She thinks that will start the war.”
Even as he spoke he was moving, rational thought quite gone, something deeper than that, infinitely deeper, driving him, though if she had reached the castle already there was no hope, no hope at all.
He was flying when he reached the door. Even so, Alessan was right beside him, with Rovigo only a step behind. Devin knocked someone down as they burst into the darkness. He didnt look back.
Eanna, show grace, he prayed silently, over and over as they raced toward the risen moons. Goddess of Light, let it not be like this. Not like this.
He said nothing though. He sped toward the castle in the dark, fear in his heart like a living thing, bringing the terrible knowledge of death.
Devin knew how fast he could run, had prided himself on his speed all his life. But moving as if possessed, scarcely toug the ground, Alessan was with him when they reached the Governors Castle.
They careened around a er side by side and came to the garden wall and there they stopped, looking upast the branches of a huge, spreading sejoia tree. They could hear Rovigo e up behind them, and someone else further back. They did not turn to see. They were both looking at the same thing.
There was a figure silhouetted against torchlight in one of the highest windows. A figure they knew.
Wearing a long dark gown.
Devin dropped to his knees in the moonlit lane. He thought about climbing the wall, about screaming her name aloud. The sweet st of tainflowers surrounded him. He looked at Alessans face, and then quickly away from what he saw there.
How did she like to play?
Mostly, she didnt, and especially not like this. She had not been the playing kind. She had liked swimming, and walks along the bea the ms, mostly aloher walks inland into the woods, pig mushrooms or mahgoti leaves for tea. She had liked music always, and the more since meeting Alessan. And yes, some six or seven years ago she had begun to have her own itent dreams of finding love and passion somewhere in the world. Not often though, and the man seldom had a fa those dreams.
There was a mans face with her now though, and this was not a dream. Nor was it play. It was death.
Entrances and endings. A dle shaping fire before it went out.
She was lying on his bed, o his sight and touch save for the jewelry shining at wrist and throat and ears and in her hair. Light blazed from all ers of the room. It seemed that Anghiar liked to watch his women respond to what he did. e on top of me, hed murmured in her ear. Later, she had replied.
He had laughed, a husky sound deep in his throat, and had moved to be above her, naked as well, save for his ruffled white shirt which hung open showing the delicate blond hairs on his chest.
He was a skillful lover, a deeply experienced o was what let her kill him, in the end.
He lowered his head to her breasts before entering her. He took one nipple in his mouth, surprisingly gently, and began to run his tongue in circles over it.
Catriana closed her eyes for a moment. She made a sound, one she thought was right. She stretched her hands catlike above her head, moving her body sinuously uhe pressure of his mouth and hands.
She touched the blab in her hair. Red vixen. She moaned again. His hands were ohighs, moving upward aween, his mouth was still at her breast. She slid the b free, pressed the catch so the blade sprang open. And then, moving without haste, as if she had all the time in the world, as if this single momehe gathered sum of all the moments of her life, she brought her on dolu into his throat.
Which meant that his life was over.
You could buy anything you wanted in Senzios on market. Anything at all. Including a womans or with a hidden blade. And poison on the blade. An or for the hair, in black, with shining jewels, one of which released the spring that freed the blade. An exquisite, deadly thing.
Grafted in Ygrath, of course. For that was tral to her plan tonight.
Anghiars head snapped ba shock. His mouth twisted in an involuntary snarl as his eyes bulged wide in staring agony. There was blood pumping from his throat, soaking into the sheets and the pillows, c her.
He screamed, a terrible sound. He rolled off her, off the bed, onto the carpeted floor, clutg desperately at his throat. He screamed again. There was so much blood pulsing from him. He tried to stop it, pressing his hands to the wound. It didnt matter. It wasnt the wound that would kill him. She watched him, heard the screaming stop, followed by a wet, bubbling sound. Anghiar of Barbadior toppled slowly over on one side, mouth still open, blood leaking from his throat onto the carpet. And then his blue eyes clouded and closed.
Catriana looked down at her hands. They were steady as stone. And so was the beat of her heart. In a moment that was all the moments in her life. Entrances and endings.
There was a furious pounding on the locked door. Frantic shouting, a panic-stri volley of curses.
She was not yet dohey could not be allowed to take her. She knew what sorcery could do to the mind. If they had her alive they had all of her friends. They would know everything. She was under no illusions, had known there was a final step from the time she formed this plan.
They were battering against the door now. It was large and heavy, would hold a moment or two. She rose up and put on the gown again. She did not want to be naked now, she couldnt have really said why.
Bending over the bed she took the Ygrathen on, that glittering agency of death, and, careful of the treated blade, laid it beside Anghiar to be quickly found. It was necessary that it be found.
There was a sharp splintering sound from the door, more shouting, a tumult of noise in the corridor.
She thought about setting fire to the room—dle to blaze, it appealed to her—but no, they had to find Anghiars body aly what had killed him. She opehe casement window and stepped up on the ledge. The window was elegantly designed, easily tall enough for her to stand upright before it. She looked outward and down for a moment. The room was over the garden, far above it. More than high enough. The st of the sejoia trees came drifting up, and the heavy sweetness of tainflowers, and there were ht flowers whose names she did not know. Both moons had risen now, Vidomni and Ilarion watg her. She looked at them for a moment but it was to Morian she prayed, for it was toward Morian she was crossing, through the last portal of all.
She thought of her mother. Of Alessan. Of his dream that had bee hers, and for which she was now to die in a land not her own. Briefly she thought of her father, knowing how much this all had to do
with making redress, with the way each geion seemed to put its mark upon the , one way or another. Let it be enough, she prayed then, aiming the thought like an arrow of the mind toward Morian in her Halls.
The door burst inward with a grinding crash. Half a dozeumbled into the room. It was time.
Catriana turned back from the stars and the two moons and the garden. She looked down at the men from the window-ledge. There was a singing in her heart, a cresdo of hope and pride.
"Death to Barbadiors servants!" she screamed at the top of her voice. "Freedom for Senziol" she cried, and then: "Long live King Brandin of the Palm!”
One man, quicker thahers, reacted, springing across the room. He was not quite quiough, not as fast as she. She had already turhe acid of those last, necessary words eating in her brain. She saw the moons again, Eannas stars, the wide, waiting darkness between them and beyond.
She leaped. Felt the night wind in her fad in her hair, saw the dark ground of the garden begin to hurtle up toward her, heard voices for an instant, and then all, only the loud, rushing wind. She was alone, falling. She had always been alo seemed. Endings. A dle. Memories. A dream, a prayer of flames, that they might e. Then a last doorway, an uedly gentle darkness seemed to open wide before her in the air. She closed her eyes just before she went through.
chapter 19
AWARM NIGHT, THE FRAGRANCE OF FLOWERS. MOONLIGHT orees, on the pale stones of the garden wall, on the woman standing in the high window.
Devin hears a sound to his left and quickly turns. Rovigo running up, to stid with shock as his gaze follows Alessans upward. Behind him now es Sah Alais.
"Help me!" the Duke orders harshly, dropping to the cobblestones beside Devin. His expression is wild, distraught, he has a knife in his hand.
"What?" Devin gasps, unprehending. "What do you . . . ?”
"My fingers! Now! Cut them! I he power!" And Sandre dAstibar slaps the hilt of the knife hard into Devins palm and curls his ow hand around a loose slab of stone ireet. Only his third and fourth fingers are extehe wizards fingers, of binding to the Palm.
"Sandre . . ." Devin begins, stammering.
"No words! Cut me, Devin!”
Devin does as he is told. Wing, gritting his teeth against pain against grief, he poises the sharp slim blade and brings it down on Sandres exposed fingers, cleaving through. He hears someone cry out.
Alais, not the Duke.
But in the moment the ks through flesh to grind against stohere is a swift and dazzling flash. Sandres darkened face is illuminated by a a of white light that flares like a star about his head and dies away, leaving them blinded for a moment ier-image of its glow.
Alais is on the Dukes other side, kneeling to quickly a square of cloth about his bleeding hand.
Sandre lifts that hand, with an effort, silent in the face of pain. Without a word spoken, Alais helps him, her fingers supp his arm.
From high above they hear a sharp, distant crash, the sound of men shouting. Silhouetted iall window, Catriana bees su??ddenly taut. She screams something. They are too far away to make out the words. Too terribly far. They see her turn though, to the darkness, to the night.
"Oh, my dear, no. Not this!" Alessans voice is a ragged whisper scoured up from his heart.
Too late. Far, far too late.
On his knees in the dusty road, Devin sees her fall.
Not wheeling or tumbling to death, but graceful as she has always been, a diver cleaving the night downward. Sahrusts forward his maimed wizards hand, straining upward. He speaks rapid words Devin ot uand. There is a sudden weirdly dist blur in the night, a shimmer as of unnatural heat in the air. Sandres hand is aimed straight at the falling woman. Devi stops for a moment, seizing at this wild, impossible hope.
Then it starts beating again, heavy as age, as death. Whatever Sandre has tried, it is not enough. He is too far, it is too hard a spell, he is too o this power. Any of these, all, none. Catriana falls. Unstayed, unchecked, beautiful as a moonlit fantasy of a woman who fly. Down to a broken, crumpled ending behind the garden wall.
Alais bursts into desperate sobs. Sandre covers his eyes with his good hand, his body rog bad forth. Devin hardly see for the tears in his eyes. High above them, in the window where she had stood, the blurred forms of men appear, looking downward into the darkness of the garden.
"We have to move away!&quo croaks, the words scarcely intelligible. "They will be searg.”
It is true. Devin knows it is. And if there is any gift, anything at all they offer back to Catriana now, to where she might be watg with Morian, it is that her dying should not have been meaningless
or in vain.
Devin forces himself up from his knees, he helps Sao rise. Theurns to Alessan. Who has not moved, nor taken his eyes from the high window where there are still men standing auring.
Devin remembers the Prihe afternoon his mother died. This is the same. This is worse. He wipes at his eyes with the backs of his hands. Turns to: "We are too many to stay together. You and Saake Alais. Be very careful. They may reize her—she was with Catriana when the Governor saw them. Well go another way a you in our rooms.”
Theakes Alessan by the arm, and turns him—the Prince does not resist, follows his lead. The two of them start south, stumbling down a lahat will take them away from the castle, from the garden where she lies. He realizes he is still holding Sandres bloodied dagger. He jams it into his belt.
He thinks about the Duke, about what Sandre has just doo himself. He remembers—his mind playing its familiar tricks with time and memory—a night in the Sandreni lodge last fall. His own first night that has led him here. When Saold them he could not take Tomasso out of the dungeon alive because he lacked the power. Because hed never sacrificed his fingers in the wizards binding.
And now he has. For Catriana, not his son, and to no good at all. There is something that hurts so mu all of this. Tomasso is nine months dead, and now she lies in a garden in Senzio, dead as any of the men of Tigana who fell in war by the Deisa years ago.
Which was the whole point for her, Devin knows. She had told him as mu Alienors castle. He begins tain, uo stop himself. A moment later he feels Alessans hand upon his shoulder.
"Hold hard, for a little longer yet," the Prince says. His first words since her fall. "You lead me and Ill lead you, and afterwards we will mourn together, you and I." He leaves the hand on Devins shoulder.
They make their way through the dark lanes and the torchlit ones.
There is already an uproar ireets of Senzio as they go, a careening, breathless thread of rumor about some happening at the castle. The Governor is dead, someone shouts feverishly, sprinting wildly past them. The Barbadians have crossed the border, a woman screams, leaning out from a window above a tavern. She has red hair, Devin sees, and he looks away. There are no guards ireets yet; they walk quickly and are not stopped by anyone.
Thinking back upon that walk, later, Devin realizes that never, not for a single moment, did he doubt that Catriana had killed the Barbadian before she jumped.
Back at Solinghis Devin wanted nothing more than to go upstairs to his room and close his eyes and be away from people, from all the invading tumult of the world. But as they came through the door, he and the Prince, a loud, impatient cheer suddenly rose in the packed front room, running swiftly toward the back as well. They were well overdue for the first of the evenings performances, and Solinghis was jammed with people whod e to hear them play, regardless of the increasing noises from outside.
Devin and Alessan exged a glance. Music.
There was no sign of Erlein, but the two of them slowly made their way through the crowd to the raised platform in the middle space betweewo rooms. Alessan took up his pipes and Devin stood beside him, waiting. The Prince blew a handful of testing, tuning notes and then, without a word spoken, began the song Devin had known he would begin.
As the first high, mournful notes of the "Lament For Adaon" spun out into the densely crowded rooms there was a brief, discerted murmur, and then silence fell. Into which stillness Devin followed Alessans pipes, lifting his voi lament. But not for the god this time, though the words were not ged. Not for Adaon falling from his high place, but for Catriana di Tigana fallen from hers.
Men said after that there had never been such a stillness, such rapt attention among the tables in Solinghis. Even the servants waiting on patrons and the cooks is behind the bar stopped what they had been doing and stood listening. No one moved, no one made a sound. There were pipes playing, and a solitary voice singing the oldest song of m in the Palm.
In a room upstairs Alais lifted her head from her tear-soaked pillow and slowly sat up. Rinaldo, tending to Sandres maimed hand, turned his blind face toward the door and both men were still. And Baerd, who had e back here with Ducas to tidings that smashed his heart in a way he had not thought could ever happen to him again, listeo Alessan and Devin below and he felt as if his soul were leaving him, as it had on the Ember Night, to fly through darkness searg for pead a home, for a dreamt-of world in which young women did not die in this way.
Out ireet where the sound of the pipes and that pure lamenting voice carried, people stopped in their loud pursuit of rumor or the restless chasing of nights pleasures and they stood outside the doors of Solinghis, listening to the notes of grief, the sound of love— held fast in the spell of a music shaped by loss.
For a long time after it was remembered in Senzio, that haunting, heartbreaking, utterly ued of the "Lament" on the mild, moonlit night that marked the beginning of war.
They played only the one song and then ehere was nothi iher of them. Devin claimed two open bottles of wine from Solinghi behind the bar and followed Alessan upstairs. One bedroom door artly open: Alaiss, that had been Catrianas too. Baerd was waiting in the doorway; he made a small choking sound and stepped forward into the hallway and Alessan embraced him.
For a long time they stood locked together, swaying a little. When they drew back both of their faces looked blurred, unfocused. Devin followed them into the room. Alais was there and Rovigo. San-dre.
Rinaldo, Ducas and Naddo. Sertino the wizard. All of them crowded into this one room; as if being in the room from which shed gone would somehow hold her spirit o them.
"Did ahink t wine?" Rinaldo asked in a faint voice.
"I did," Devin said, going over to the Healer. Rinaldo looked pale and exhausted. Devin gla Sandres left hand and saw that the bleeding had been stopped. He guided Rinaldos hand to one of the witles and the Healer drank, not b to ask flass. Devin gave the other bottle to Ducas, who did the same.
Sertino was gazing at Sandres hand. "Yoing to have to get in the habit of masking those fingers," he said. He held up his ow hand, and Devin saw the now-familiar illusion of pleteness.
"I know," Sandre said. "I feel very weak right now though.”
"Doesnt matter," Sertino replied. "Two missing fingers seen will meah for you. However weary we are, the masking must be stant. Do it. Now.”
Sandre looked up at him angrily, but the Certandan wizards round pink face showed nothing but . The Duke closed his eyes briefly, grimaced, and then slowly held up his ow hand. Devin saw five fihere, or the illusion of such. He couldo stop thinking about Tomasso, dead in a dungeon in Astibar.
Ducas was him the bottle. He took it and drank. Passed it over to Naddo, ao sit beside Alais on the bed. She took his hand, which had never happened before. Her eyes were red with weeping, her skin looked bruised. Alessan had slumped on the floor by the door, leaning against the wall.
His eyes were closed. In the light of the dles his face looked hollowed out, the cheekbones showing in angular relief.
Ducas cleared his throat. "We had best do some planning," he said awkwardly. "If she killed this Barbadian there will be a search through the city tonight, and Triad knows what tomorrow.”
"Sandre used magic, as well," Alessan said, not opening his eyes. "If theres a Tracker in Senzio hes in danger.”
"That we deal with," Naddo said fiercely, looking from Ducas to Sertino. "We did it once already, remember. And there were more thay men with that Tracker.”
"You arent in the highlands of Certando now,&quo said mildly.
"Doesnt matter," Ducas said. "Naddht. If enough of us are down ireet ainos with us to point out the Tracker then Id be ashamed of my men if we couldnt trive a brawl that killed him.”
"Theres a risk," Baerd said.
Ducas suddenly smiled like a wolf, cold and hard, without a trairth. "Id be grateful for a risk to take tonight," he said. Devin uood exactly what he meant.
Alessan opened his eyes and looked up from his place against the wall. "Do it, then," he said. "Devin run any messages back here to us. Well move Sa, back to the ship if we have to. If you send word that—”
He stopped, and then uncoiled ihe movement to his feet. Baerd had already seized his sword from where it was leaning against the wall. Devin stood up, releasing Alaiss hand.
There came another rattle of sound from the stairway outside the window. Then the window opened as a hand pulled the glass outward and Erlein di Senzio stepped carefully over the ledge and into the room with Catriana in his arms.
Iony silence he looked at them all for a moment, taking in the se. Theuro Alessan. "If you are worried about magic," he said in a paper-thin voice, "then you had best be very worried. I used a great deal of power just now. If theres a Tracker in Senzio then anyone near me is extremely likely to be captured and killed." He stopped, then smiled very faintly. "But I caught her in time. She is alive.”
The world spun and rocked for Devin. He heard himself cry out with an inarticulate joy. Saerally leaped to his feet and rushed to claim Catrianas unscious body from Erleins arms. He hasteo the bed and laid her down. He was g again, Devin saw. So, uedly, was Rovigo.
Devin wheeled back to where Erlein stood. In time to see Alessan cross the room in two swift strides and the exhausted wizard in a bear hug that lifted Erlein, feebly protesting, off the ground.
Alessan released him and stepped back, the grey eyes shining, his face lit by a grin he couldo trol. Erlein tried, without success, to preserve his own ary ical expression. Then Baerd came up and, without warning, seized the wizard by the shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.
Agairoubadour struggled to look fierd displeased. Again he failed. With airely unving attempt at his usual scowl, he said, "Careful, you. Devin flattened me to the ground when you all ran out the door. Im still bruised." He threw a glare at Devin, who smiled happily back at him.
Sertino handed Erlein a bottle. He drank, a long, thirsty pull. He wiped at his mouth. "It wasnt hard to guess from the way you were running that something was seriously wrong. I started to follow, but I dont run very fast anymore so I decided to use magic. I got to the far end of the garden wall just as Alessan and Devin reached the near side.”
"Why?" Alessan asked sharply, wonder in his voice. "You never use yic. Why now?”
Erlein shrugged elaborately. "Id never seen all of you run anywhere like that before." He grimaced.
"I suppose I was carried away.”
Alessan was smiling again; he couldo hold it in for very long. Every few seds he glanced quickly over at the bed, as if to reassure himself of who was lying there. "Then what?" he asked.
"Then I saw her in the window, and figured out what was happening. So I ... I used my magic to get over the wall and I was waiting in the gardeh the window." He turo Sandre. "You sent an astonishing spell from so far, but you didnt have a ce. You couldnt know, never having tried, but you t stop someone falling that way. You have to be beh them. And they usually have to be unscious. That kind of magic works on our own bodies almost exclusively; if we want to apply it to someone else their will has to be suspended or everythis muddled when they see what is happening and their mind begins to fight it.”
Sandre was shaking his head. "I thought it was my weakness. That I just wasnt strong enough, even
with the binding.”
Erleins expression was odd. For a sed he seemed about to respond to that, but instead he resumed his tale. "I used a spell to make her lose sciousness partway down, and a stronger oo catch her before she hit. Then a last to get us over the wall again. By then I was pletely spent, and terrified they would trace us immediately if there was a Tracker anywhere in the castle. But they didnt, there was too much chaos. I think something else is happening back there. We hid behind the main temple of Eanna for a time, and then I carried her here.”
"Carried her through the streets?" Alais asked. "No oiced that?”
Erlein gri her, not unkindly. "It isnt that unusual in Senzio, my dear." Alais flushed crimson, but Devin could see that she didnt really mind. It was all right. Everything was suddenly all right.
"We had better get down into the street then," Baerd said to Ducas. "Well have to get Arkin and some of the others. Regardless of whether there are Trackers, this ges things. When they dont find her body in the garden theres going to be an unbelievable search of the town tonight. I think there will have to be some fighting.”
Ducas smiled again, more like a wolf than ever. "I hope so," was all he said.
"One moment," said Alessan quietly. "I want you all to witness something." He turned back to Erlein aated, choosing his words. "We both know that you did this tonight without any coer from me, and against your ow is, in every way.”
Erlein glanced over at the bed, two sudden spots of red f on each of his sallow cheeks. "Dont make too much of it," he warned gruffly. "Every man has his moments of folly. I like red-headed women, thats all. Thats how you trapped me in the first place, remember?”
Alessan shook his head. "That may be true, but it is not all, Erlein di Senzio. I bound you to this cause against your will, but I think you have just joi freely.”
Erlein swore feelingly. "Dont be a fool, Alessan! I just told you, I ...”
"I know what you just told me. I make my own judgments though, I always have. And the truth is, I have been made to realize tonight—by you and Catriana, both—that there are limits to what I wish to do or see done for any cause. Even my own.”
As AJessan finished speaking, he stepped forward quickly and laid a hand on Erleins brow. The wizard flinched, but Alessan steadied him. "I am Alessan, Prince of Tigana," he said clearly, "dire dest from Micaela. In the name of Adaon and his gift to her children, I release you to your freedom, wizard!”
Both men suddenly staggered apart, as if a taut cord had been cut. Erleins face was bone-white. "I tell you again," he rasped, "you are a fool!”
Alessan shook his head. "You have called me worse than that, with some cause. But now I will name you something you will probably hate: I will unmask you as a det man, with the same longing to be free as any of us here. Erlein, you ot hide anymore behind your moods and rancor. You ot el into me your own hatred of the Tyrants. If you choose to leave us, you . I do not expect you will. Be wele, freely, to our pany.”
Erlein looked ered, assailed. His expression was so fused Devin laughed aloud; the whole situation was clear to him now, and ical, in a bizarre, twisted way. He stepped forward and gripped the wizard.
"Im glad," he said. "Im glad youre with us.”
"Im not! I havent said that!" Erlein snapped. "I havent said or done any such thing!”
"Of course you have." It was Sahe evidence of exhaustion and pain still vivid in his lined, dark face. "You did it tonight. Alessan is right. He knows you better than any of us. Better, in some ways, than you know yourself, troubadour. How long have you tried to make yourself believe that nothing mattered
to you but your own skin? Hoeople have you vihat that was true? Im one. Baerd and Devin. Perhaps Catriana. Not Alessan, Erlein. He just set you free to prove us all wrong.”
There was a silehey could hear shouting from the streets below now, and the sound of running footsteps. Erlein turo Alessan and the two men gazed at each other. Devin was suddenly claimed by an image, another of his intrusions of memory: that campfire in Ferraut, Alessan playing songs of Senzio for Erlein, an enraged shadow by the river. There were so many layers here, so many charges of meaning.
He saw Erlein di Senzio raise his hand, his left hand, with a simulation of five fihere, and offer it to Alessan. Who met it with his right so their palms touched.
"I suppose I am with you," Erlein said. "After all.”
"I know," said Alessan.
"e!" said Baerd, a sed later. "We have work to do." Devin followed him, with Ducas aino and Naddo, toward the back stairs beyond the window.
Just before stepping through Devin turo look back at the bed. Erlein noticed, and followed his gaze.
"Shes fine," the wizard said softly. "Shell be just fine. Do what you have to do, and e back to us.”
Devin glanced up at him. They exged an almost shy smile. "Thank you," Devin said, meaning a number of things. Then he followed Baerd down into the tumult of the streets.
She was actually awake for a few moments before she opened her eyes. She was lying somewhere soft and uedly familiar, and there were voices drifting towards and away from her, as if on a swelling of the sea, or like slow-moving fireflies in the summer nights at home. At first she couldnt quite make the voices out. She was afraid to open her eyes.
"I think she is awake now," someone was saying. "Will you all do me a great courtesy and leave me aloh her for a few moments?”
She khat voice though. She heard the sound of a number of people rising and leaving the room.
A door closed. That voice was Alessans.
Which meant she could not be dead. These were not Morians Halls, after all, with the voices of the dead surrounding her. She opened her eyes.
He was sitting on a chair drawn close to where she lay. She was in her own room in Solinghis inn, lying under a bla in bed. Someone had removed the black silk gown and washed the blood from her skin. Anghiars blood, that had fountained from his throat.
The rush of memory was dizzying.
Quietly, Alessan said, "You are alive. Erlein was waiting in the garden below you. He rendered you unscious and then caught you with his magic as you fell and brought you back.”
She let her eyes fall shut again as she struggled to deal with all of this. With the fact of life, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, the beat of her heart, this curiously light-headed sensation, as if she might drift away on the slightest of breezes.
But she wouldnt. She was in Solinghis and Alessan was beside her. He had asked all the others to leave. She turned her head and looked at him again. He was extremely pale.
"We thought you had died," he said. "We saw you fall from outside the garden wall. What Erlein did, he did on his own. None of us knew. We thought you had died," he repeated after a moment.
She thought about that. Then she said: "Did I achieve anything? Is anything happening?”
He pushed a hand through his hair. "It is too soon to tell for certain. I think you did, though. There is a great deal of otion ireets. If you listen you hear it.”
trating, she could indeed make out the sounds of shouting and runni passih
the window.
Alessan seemed unnaturally subdued, struggling with something. It was very peaceful in the room though. The bed was softer than she had remembered it being. She waited, looking at him, noting the perennial unruliness of his hair where his hands were alushing through it.
He said, carefully, "Catriana, I ot tell you hhtened I was tonight. You must listen to me now, and try to think this through because it is something that matters very much." His expression was odd, and there was something in his voice she couldnt quite pin down.
He reached out and laid his hand over hers where it lay upon the bla. "Catriana, I do not measure your worth by your fathers. None of us ever has. You must stop doing this to yourself. There was never anything for you to redeem. You are what you are, in and of yourself.”
This was difficult ground for her, the most difficult of all, and she found that her heartbeat had quied. She watched him, blue eyes on his grey ones. His long, slender fingers were c her own.
She said: "We arrive with a past, a history. Families matter. He was a coward and he fled.”
Alessan shook his head; there was still something strained in his expression. "We have to be so careful," he murmured. "So very careful when we judge them, and what they did in those days. There are reasons why a man with a wife and an infant daughter might choose— other than fear for himself—to stay with the two of them and try to keep them alive. Oh, my dear, in all these years I have seen so many men and women who went away for their children.”
She could feel her tears starting now and she fought to blink them back. She hated talking about this.
It was the hard kernel of pain at the core of all she did.
"But it was before the Deisa," she whispered. "He left before the battles. Even the one we won.”
Again he shook his head, wing at the sight of her distress. He lifted her hand suddenly and carried it to his lips. She could not remember his ever having dohat before. There was something pletely strange about all of this.
"Parents and children," he said, so softly she almost missed the words. "It is so hard; we are so quick to judge." He hesitated. "I dont know if Devin told you, but my mother cursed me in the hour before she died. She called me a traitor and a coward.”
She blinked, moved to sit up. Too suddenly. She was dizzy and terribly weak. Devin hadnt told her any such thing; he had said o nothing about that day.
"How could she?" she said, anger rising in her, against this woman she had never seen. "You? A coward? Doesnt . . . didnt she know anything about . . .”
"She knew almost all of it," he said quietly. "She simply disagreed as to where my duty lay. That is what I am trying to say, Catriana: it is possible to differ on such matters, and to reach a place as terrible as that one was for both of us. I am learning so many things so late. In this world, where we find ourselves, we need passion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone.”
She mahis time to push herself up higher in the bed. She looked at him, imagining that day, those words of his mother. She remembered what she herself had said to her father on her own last night at home, words that had driven him violently out of the house into the dark. He had still been out there somewhere, alone, when she had gone away.
She swallowed. "Did it ... did it end like that with your mother? Was that how she died?”
"She never unsaid the words, but she let me take her hand before the end. I dont think Ill ever know if that meant . . .”
"Of course it did!" she said quickly. "Of course it did, Alessan. We all do that. We do with our hands, our eyes, what we are afraid to say." She surprised herself; she hadnt known she knew any such thing.
He smiled then, and looked down to where his fingers still covered hers. She felt herself c. He
said, "There is a truth there. I am doing that now, Catriana. Perhaps I am a coward, after all.”
He had sent the others from the room. Her heart was still beating very fast. She looked at his eyes and then quickly away, afraid that after what she had just said it would look like she robing. She felt like a child again, fused, certain that she was missing something here. She had always, always hated not uanding what was happening. But at the same time there seemed to be this very odd, extraordinary warmth growing inside her, and a queer sensation of light, brighter than the dles in the room should have allowed.
Fighting to trol her breathing, needing an answer, but absurdly afraid of what it might be, she stammered, "I ... would you . . . explain that to me? Please?”
She watched him closely this time, watched him smile, saw what kindled in his eyes, she even read his lips as they moved.
"When I saw you fall," he murmured, his hand still holding hers, "I realized that I was falling with you, my dear. I finally uood, too late, what I had deo myself for so long, how absolutely I had debarred myself from something important, even the aowledging of its possibility, while Tigana was still gohe heart . . . has its own laws though, Catriana, and the truth is ... the truth is that you are the law of mine. I k when I saw you in that window. In the moment before you leaped I khat I loved you. Bright star of Eanna, five me the manner of this, but you are the harbor of my souls journeying.”
Bright star of Eanna. He had always called her that, from the very beginning. Lightly, easily, a name among others, a teasing for when she bridled, a term of praise when she did something well. The harbor of his soul.
She seemed to be g, silently, tears welling up to slide slowly down her cheeks.
"Oh, my dear, no," he said, with an awkward catch to his voice. "I am so sorry. I am a fool. This is far too sudden, tonight, after what you have done. Not tonight. I should never have spoken. I dont even know if you—”
He stopped just there. But only because she had covered his mouth with her fio make him stop.
She was still g, but there seemed to be the most amazing brightness growing ihe room, far more than dles now, more than the moons: a light like the sun beginning to rise beyond the rim of darkness.
She slipped her fingers down from his mouth and claimed the hand he had held her with. We do with our hands what we ot say. She still said nothing; she couldnt speak. She was trembling. She remembered how her hands had been shaking when she walked out earlier tonight. So little time ago she had stood in a castle window and known she was about to die. Her tears fell on his hand. She lowered her head but others kept falling. She felt as though her heart were a bird, a trialla, only newly born, spreading wings, preparing to give voice to the song of its days.
He was on his knees beside the bed. She moved her free hand across and ran it through his hair, in a hopeless attempt at smoothing it. It seemed to be something she had wao do for a long time. How long? How long could sueeds be present a never known, never aowledged or allowed?
"When I was young," she said finally, her voice breaking, but needing to speak, "I used to dream of this. Alessan, have I died and e back? Am I dreaming now?”
He smiled slowly, the deeply reassuring smile that she khat they all knew, as if her words had granted him release from his own fear, freed him to be himself again. To offer the look that had always meant that he was with them and so everything would be made all right.
But then, uedly, he moved forward and lowered his head to rest it against the thin bla c her, a..s if seeking his ower, ohat was hers to give to him. She uood; it seemed— oh, what goddess could have foretold this?—that she did have something to offer him. Something more than her death after all. She lifted her hands and closed them around his head, holding him to her, and it
seemed to Catriana in that moment as if that new-born trialla in her soul began to sing. Of trials endured and trials to e, of doubt and dark and all the deep uaihat defihe outer boundaries of mortal life, but with love now present at the base of it all, like light, like the first stone of a rising tower.
There had been a Barbadian Tracker in Senzio, Devin learned later that night, and he was killed, but not by them. Nor did they have to deal with the kind of search party theyd feared. It was nearly dawn by the time they pieced the story together.
It seemed that the Barbadians had gone wild.
Finding the poisoned Ygrathen knife on the floor by Anghiars body, hearing what the woman cried before she leaped, they had leaped themselves—to all the murderously obvious clusions.
There were twenty of them in Senzio, an huard fhiar. They armed themselves, assembled, and made their way across to the western wing of the Governors Castle. They killed the six Ygrathens on guard there, broke down a door, and burst in upon Cullion of Ygrath, Brandins representative, as he struggled into his clothing. Theook their time about killing him. The sound of his screams echoed through the castle.
Then they went back downstairs and through the courtyard to the front gates and hacked to death the four Senzian guards who had let the woman in without a proper search. It was during this that the captain of the Castle Guard came into the courtyard with a pany of Senzians. He ordered them to lay down their arms.
The Barbadians were, acc to most reports later, about to do so, having achieved their immediate purposes, when two of the Senzians, e the butchery of their friends, fired arrows at them. Two men fell, one instantly dead, one mortally wouhe dead one was Albericos Tracker.
There ensued a bloody, to-the-death melee iorchlit courtyard of the castle, soon slippery with blood.
The Barbadians were slaughtered to the last man, taking some thirty or forty Senzians with them.
No one knew which man fired the arrow that killed Casalia the Governor as he came hastily dowairs screaming hoarsely at them all to stop.
In the chaos that followed that death no one gave a thought to going down to the garden for the body of the woman who had started it all. There was an increasingly wild pani the city as the news spread through the night. A huge, terrified crowd gathered outside the castle. Shortly after midnight two horses were seen rag away from the city walls, heading south for the Ferraut border. Not long after that the five remaining members of Brandins party in Senzio rode away as well, in a tight cluster uhe risen moons. They went north of course, toward Farsaro where the fleet was anchored.
Catriana was asleep iher bed, her face smooth and untroubled, almost childlike in its peace.
Alais could not fihough. There was too muoise and tumult ireets and she knew her father was down there, among whatever was happening.
Even after Rovigo came ba and stopped at their door to look in owo of them a that there seemed to be no immediate danger, Alais was still uo sleep. Too much had happeonight, but none of it to her, and so she was not weary as Catriana was, oed and uled in oddly distinuous ways. She couldnt even have said all the things that were w upon her.
Eventually she put on the robe shed bought two days before in the market ao sit on the ledge of the open window.
It was very late by then, both moons were west, dowhe sea. She couldhe harbor— Solinghis was too far inland—but she k was there, with the Sea Maid bobbing at anchor in the night breeze. There were people ireets even now, she could see shadowy forms pass in the lane below, and she heard occasional shouts from the dire of the tavern quarter, but nothing more now than the ordinary noises of a city without a curfew, proo be awake and loud at night.
She wondered how o dawn it was, how long she would have to stay awake if she wao see the sunrise. She thought she might wait for it. This was not a night for sleep; or not for her, Alais
amended, glang back at Catriana. She remembered the other time the two of them had shared a room.
Her own room at home.
She was a long way from home. She wondered what her mother had thought, receiving Rovigos letter of carefully phrased almost-explanatio by courier across Astibar from the port of Ardin town as they sailed north to Senzio. She wondered, but in another way she khe trust shared between her parents was one of the sustaining, defining elements of her own world.
She looked up at the sky. The night w9９lｉｂ?as still dark, the stars overhead even more bright now that the moons were setting; it probably lacked several hours yet till dawn. She heard a womans laughter below and realized with an odd sensation that that was the one sound shed not heard earlier that night amid the tumult ireets. In a curious, quite ued way, the womans breathless sound, and then a mans murmur following close upon it served to reassure her: in the midst of all else, whatever might e, certain things would still tinue as they always had.
There was a footstep on the wood of the stairway outside. Alais leaned backward on the window- ledge, belatedly realizing she could probably be seen from below.
"Who is it?" she called, though softly, so as not to disturb Catri-ana.
"Only me," Devin said, ing up to stand on the landing outside the room. She looked at him. His clothing was muddy, as if hed tumbled or rolled somewhere, but his voice was calm. It was too dark to properly see his eyes. "Why are you awake?" he asked.
She gestured, not sure what to say. "Too many things at once, I suppose. Im not used to this.”
She saw his teeth as he smiled. "None of us are," he said. "Believe me. But I dont think anything else will happen tonight. We are all going to bed.”
"My father came in a while ago. He said it seemed to have quieted down.”
Devin nodded. "For now. The Governor was slain in the castle. Catriana did kill the Barbadian. There was chaos up there, and somebody seems to have shot the Tracker. I think that was what saved us.”
Alais swallowed. "My father didnt tell me about that.”
"He probably didnt want to disturb yht. Ill be sorry now if I have." He glanced past her toward the other bed. "How is she?”
"Shes all right, really. Asleep." She registered the quick in his voice. But Catriana had earhat , that g, tonight and before tonight, in ways Alais could scarcely even enpass within her mind.
"And how are you?" Devin asked, in a different tourning back to her. And there was something in that altered, deeper voice that made it difficult for her to breathe.
"Im fioo, holy.”
"I know you are," he said. "Actually, you are a great deal more than that, Alais." He hesitated for a moment, seeming suddenly awkward. She didnt uand that, until he leaned slowly forward to kiss her full upon the lips. For the sed time, if you ted the one in the crowded room downstairs, but this was really quite amazingly uhe first. For ohing, he didnt hurry, and for ahey were alone and it was very dark. She felt one of his hands e up, brushing along the front of her robe before ing to rest in her hair.
He drew basteadily. Alais opened her eyes. He looked blurred and softened, where he stood on the landing. Footsteps went past in the lane below, slowly now, not running as before. The two of them were silent, looking at each other. Devin cleared his throat. He said, "It is ... there are still two or three hours t. You should try to sleep, Alais. There will be a ... a great deal happening in the days to e.”
She smiled. He hesitated another moment, then turo walk along the outer landing toward the room he shared with Alessan and Erlein.
She remained sitting where she was for some time longer, looking up at the brightness of the stars, letting her rag heart gradually slow. She replayed in her mind the ragged, very young uainty and wonder in his voi those last words. Alais smiled again to herself in the darkness. To someone schooled by a life of observation, that voice had revealed a great deal. And it had been simply toug her that had dohis to him. Which was, if one lio think about it and relive the moment of that kiss, a most astonishing thing.
She was still smiling when she left the window-ledge auro her bed and she did fall asleep then, after all, for the last few greatly altered hours of that long night.
All through the day everyone waited. A pall of doom like smoke hung over Senzio. The city treasurer attempted to assert trol in the castle, but the leader of the Guard was disined to take orders from him. Their shouted frontatio on all day. By the time someohought to go down for the girl her body had already been taken away; no one knew where or by whose orders.
The work of the city ground to a halt. Men and women roamed the streets, feeding on rumor, choking on fear. On almost every er a different story was heard. It was said that Rinaldo, the last Dukes brother, had e back to the city to take and in the castle; by the middle of the day everyone had heard some version of the tale, but no one had seen the man.
A restless, nervous darkness fell. The streets remained crowded all night long. It seemed that no one in Senzio could sleep. The night was bright and very beautiful, both moons riding through a clear sky.
Outside Solinghis inn a crowd gathered—there was no room at all io hear the three musis play and sing of freedom, and of the glory of Senzios past. Songs not sung since Casalia had relinquished his claim to his fathers Ducal Throne and allowed himself to be called Governor instead with emissaries from the Tyrants to advise him. Casalia was dead. Both emissaries were dead. Music drifted out from Solinghis into the sted summer night, spilling along the lanes, rising toward the stars.
Just after dawn, word came. Alberico of Barbadior had crossed the border the afternoon before an９9ｌｉb?d was advang north with his three armies, burning villages and fields as he went. Before noon they heard from the north as well: Brandins fleet had lifted anchor in Farsaro Bay and was sailing south with a favorable wind.
War had e.
All through Senzio town people left their homes, left the taverns and the streets and began thronging, belatedly, to the temples of the Triad.
In the almost deserted front room of Solinghis that afternoon one man tio play the Tregean pipes, faster and faster and higher and higher, in a wild, almost fotten tune.
chapter 20
THE SEA WAS AT THEIR BACK, AT THE END OF A LONG goatherds track that wound down the slope to the sands just south of where theyd beached the ships and e ashore. About two miles north of them the walls of Senzio rose up, and from this height Dia-nora could see the gleaming of the temple domes and the ramparts of the castle. The sun, rising over the pine forests to the east, was bronze in a close, deep blue sky. It was warm already this early in the day; it would be very hot by mid-m.
By which time the fighting would have begun.
Brandin was ferring with dEymon and Rhamanus and his captains, three of them neointed from the provinces. From Corte and Asoli and Chiara itself. Not from Lower Corte, of course, though there were a number of men from her provin the army below them in the valley. She had wondered briefly, lying awake one night in the flagship off Farsaro, if Baerd was one of them. She knew he wouldhough. Just as Brandin could not ge in this, her could her brother. It went on.
However much might alter, this sihing would go on until the last geion that kigana died.
And she? Sihe Dive, since rising from the sea, she had been trying hard not to think at all.
Simply to move with the events she had set in motion. To accept the shining fact of Brandins love for her and the terrible uainties of this war. She no longer saw the riselkas path in her minds eye. She had some sense of what that meant, but she made an effort not to dwell upon it during the day. Nights were different; dreams were always different. She was owner and captive, both, of a bitterly divided heart.
With her two guards just behind her she moved forward on the of the hill and looked out over the wide east-west running valley. The dense green pine woods were beyond, with olive trees growing on steeper ridges to the south and a plateau north leading to Senzio town.
Down below the two armies were just stirring, men emerging from their tents and sleeping-rolls, horses being saddled and harnessed, swords ed, bs fitted and readied. Metal glinted in the young sun all along the valley. The sound of voices carried easily up to her in the clear bright air. There was just enough breeze to take the banners and lift them to be seen. Their own device was new: a golden image of the Palm itself, picked out against a background of deep blue for the sea. The meaning of Brandins chosen image was as clear as he could make it—they were fighting in the name of the Western Palm, but the truer claim was to everything. To a united peninsula with Barbadior driven away. It was a good symbol, Dianora knew. It was also the proper, the necessary step for this peninsula. But it was being taken by the man who had been King of Ygrath.
There were even Senzians in Brandins army, besides the men of the four western provinces. Several hundred had joihem from the city iwo days siheyd landed in the southern part of the bay.
With the Governor dead and a squabble for meaningless poing on in the castle, the official policy of Senziarality was in tatters. Helped, no one doubted, by Albericos decision to torch the lands through which he had e, ialiation for Barbadiahs iy. Had the Barbadians moved faster Rhamanus might have had trouble landing the fleet in the face of opposition, but the winds had been with them, and they reached the city a full day before Alber-ico. Which let Brandin choose the obvious hill from which to overlook the valley, and to align his men where he wahem. It was an advahey all k.
It had seemed less of ohe m whehree armies of Barbadior arrived emerging out of the smoke of burning to the south. They had two banners, not ohe Empires red mountain and golden tiara against their white background, and Albericos own crimson boar on a yellow field. The red in both banners seemed to dot the plain like stains of blood, while horsemen and foot-soldiers arrayed themselves in crisp, precisely drilled ranks along the eastern side of the valley. The soldiers of the Barbadian Empire had quered most of the known world to the east.
Dianora had stood on the hill watg them e. It seemed to take forever. She went away into their tent and then came back, several times. The sun began to set. It was over behind her in the west
above the sea before Alberieraries had all marched or ridden into the valley.
"Three to one, perhaps a little better than that," Brandin had said, ing up beside her. His shreying hair was uncovered, ruffled by the late afternoon breeze.
"Are they too many?" she had asked, quietly so no one else would hear.
He looked at her quickly, then took her hand. He often did that now, as if uo bear not having touched her for ah of time. Their love-making sihe Dive had taken on an urgency that would leave them both shattered and drained afterwards, scarcely able to form thoughts of any kind. Which was at the ter of things for her, Dianora knew: she wao numb her mind, to still the voices and the memories. Obliterate the image of that clear, straight path disappearing in the darkness of the sea.
On the hill the day the Barbadians came Brandin laced his fihrough her own and said, "They may be too many. It is hard to judge. I am stronger in my power than Alberi his. I think that on this hill I am worth the differen the armies.”
Quietly spoken, a careful statement of relevant facts. Nance, only the steady, always enduring pride. And why should she doubt his sorcery? She kly what it had done in war some twenty years ago.
That versation had beeerday. Afterwards she had turo watch the sun go down into the sea. The night had been bright and glorious, with Vidomni waxing and Ilarion at her full, blue and mysterious, a moon of fantasy, of magic. She had wondered if they would have time to be alohat night, but in fact Brandin had been down on the plain among the tents of his army through most of the dark hours, and speaking with his captains after that. DEymon, she knew was going to remain up here with him tomorrow, and Rhamanus—more a sailor than a military ander—would be on the hill as well to lead the men of the Kings Guard in defense, if matters came to that. If matters came to that they were probably dead, she knew.
Both moons had set by the time Brandin came back to their tent on that hill above the sea. Awake in bed, waiting, she could see his weariness. He had maps with him, sketches of terrain to study one last time, but she made him put them down.
He came over to the bed still fully clothed and lay down. After a moment he rested his head in her lap. her of them spoke for a long time. Then Brandin shifted a little and looked up at her.
"I hate that man down there," he said quietly. "I hate everythiands for. There is no passion in him, no love, no pride. Only ambition. Nothing matters but that. Nothing in the world move him to pity rief but his own fate. Everything is a tool, an instrument. He wants the Emperors Tiara, everyone knows it, but he doesnt want it for anything. He only wants. I doubt anything in his life has ever moved him to feel anything for anyone else . . . love, loss, anything.”
He subsided. He was repeating himself in his exhaustion. She pressed her fingers against his temples, looking down at his face as he turned again and his eyes closed and his brow gradually grew smooth under her touch. Eventually his breathing steadied and she knew he was asleep. She stayed awake, her hands moving like a blind womans over him, knowing from the light outside that the moons were down, knowing the m was war and that she loved this man more than the world.
She must have slept, because the sky was grey with the ing of dawn when she opened her eyes again, and Brandin was gohere was a red anemone on the pillow beside her. She looked at it without moving for a moment, then picked it up and crushed it to her fahaling the fragile st. She wondered if he khe legend of that flower here. Almost certainly not, she thought.
She rose, and a few moments later Se in with a mug of khav in his hand. He was wearing the stiff leather vest of a messenger; lightweight ie armainst arrows. He had volunteered to be one of the score of such men running orders and messages up and down the hill. He had e to her first though, as he had every m in the saishan for a dozen years. Dianora was afraid that thinking about that would make her cry: a brutal omen on such a day. She managed a smile and told him to go
back to the King, who needed him more this m.
After he left, she slowly drank her khav, listening to the growing noises outside. Then she washed and dressed herself a out of the tent into the rising sun.
Two men of the Kings Guard were waiting for her. They went wherever she did, a discreet step or two behind, but not more than that. She would be guarded today, she knew. She looked for Brandin and saw Rhun first. They were both he front of the flattened ridge, both bare-headed, without armor, though with identical swords belted at their sides. Brandin had chosen to dress today in the simple brown of an ordinary soldier.
She was not fooled. None of them were, or could be.
Not long after that they saw him step alooward the edge of his hill and raise one hand above his head for all the men in both armies to see. Without a word spoken, any warning at all, a dazzling blood- crimson flare of light sprang from that upthrust hand like a flame into the deep blue of the sky. From below they heard a roar of sound, as, g their Kings name aloud, Brandins outnumbered army moved forward across the valley to meet the soldiers of AJberi a battle that had been ing for almost twenty years.
"Not yet," Alessan said steadily, for the fifth time, at least. "We have waited years, we must not be too soon now.”
Devin had a sehat the Prince was cautioning himself more than anyone else. The truth was that until Alessan gave the word there was nothing for them to do but watch as men from Barbadior and Ygrath and the provinces of the Palm killed each other uhe blazing Senzian sun.
It was noon or a little past it, by the sun. It was brutally hot. Devin tried to grasp how the men below must feel, hag and battering each other, slipping on blood, treading the fallen in the broiling caldron of battle. They were too high and far away tnize anyone, but not so distant that they couldnt see men die or hear their screams.
Their vantage point had been chosen by Alessan a week before with a sure predi of where the two sorcerers would base themselves. And both had doly as he judged they would. From this sloping ridge less than half a mile south of the higher, broader rise of land where Brandin was, Devin gazed dowhe valley and saw two armies kogether in a pitiless sending of souls to Morian.
"The Ygrathen chose his field well," Sandre had said with an almost detached admiration earlier that m as the cries of horses and men began. "The plain is wide enough to allow him room to maneuver, but not so broad as to let the Barbadians flank around him without serious trouble in the hills. They would have to climb out of the valley, and then along the exposed slopes and back down again." "And if you look, you will see," Ducas di Tregea had added, "that Brandin has most of his archers on his ht flank, toward the south, in case they do try that. They could pick the Barbadians off like deer among the olives on the slopes if they attempt to go around.”
One ti of Barbadians had, in fact, tried just that an ho. They had been slaughtered and driven back by a rain of arrows from the archers of the Western Palm. Devin had felt a quick surge of excitement, but then that gealed within him into turmoil and fusion. The Barbadiayranny, yes, and all that it meant, yet how could he possibly exult in any kind of triumph for Brandin of Ygrath?
But should he then desire the death of men of the Palm at the hands of Alberieraries? He didnt know what to think or feel. He felt as though his soul was being stripped raw and exposed here, laid out for burning uhe Senzian sky.
Catriana was standing just ahead of him, o the Prince. Devin didnt think hed seen them apart from each other since Erlein had brought her back from the garden. Hed spent a disoriented, difficult hour the m after that, struggling to adjust to the shining thing that had so clearly overtaken them. Alessan had looked as he did when he made music, as if hed found a hearthstone in the world. When Devin had glanced over at Alais it was to find her watg him with a curious, very private smile on her face; it left
him even more fused than before. He had a sehat he wasnt even keeping up with himself, let aloh the ges around him. He also khat there wasnt going to be any time to deal with such things, not with what was ing to Senzio.
In the wo days, the armies had arrived from north and south bringing with them a bone-deep awareness of destiny hanging before them all as if suspended on some balance scale of gods in the summer air.
On their ridge above the battle Devin looked bad saw Alais water to Rinaldo in the partial shade of a twisted olive tree that g to the slope of their ridge. The Healer had insisted on ing with them instead of remaining hidden with Solinghi in town. If lives are at risk then my place is there as well, was all hed said, and hed carried his eagle-headed staff up here with all of them before sunrise.
Devin glanced beyond them to where Rovigo stood with Baerd. He should probably be with those two, he knew. His own responsibility here was the same as theirs: to guard this hill if either sorcerer or both should send troops after them. They had sixty men: Ducass band, Rovigos brave handful of mariners, and those carefully chosen men who had made their solitary way north to Senzio in respoo the messages scattered across the provinces. Sixty men. It would have to be enough.
"Sandre! Ducas!" Alessan said sharply, snapping Devin out of reverie. "Look now, and tell me.”
"I was about to," Sandre said with an emerging note of excitement in his voice. "It is as we guessed: with his own presen the hill Brandin is not outnumbered after all. His power is too much strohan Alberiore so than I guessed, even. If you are asking my reading right now, I would say that the Ygrathen is on the edge of breaking through in the ter before the hour is out.”
"Soohan that," Ducas said in his deep voice. "When such things begin they happen very fast.”
Devin moved forward to see more clearly. The seethier of the valley was as choked with men and horses as before, many of them dead and fallen. But if he used the banners as his frame of refere seemed, even to his untutored eye, that Brandins men were pushing their front lines forward now, though the Barbadians were still more numerous by far.
"How?" he muttered, almost to himself.
"He weakens them with his sorcery," a voice to his right said. He looked over at Erlein. "The same way they quered us years ago. I feel Alberic to defend them, but I think Sandre has it right: the Barbadian is weakening as we speak.”
Baerd and Rovigo came quickly up from where they too had been looking down.
"Alessan?" Baerd said. Only the name, no more.
The Priurned and looked at him. "I know," he said. "We were just thinking the same thing. I think it is time. I think it has e." He held Baerds gaze for another moment; her of them spoke.
Then Alessan looked aast the friend of his life, to the three wizards.
"Erlein," he said softly. "You know what must be done.”
"I do," said the Senzian. He hesitated. "Pray for the Triads blessing upohree of us. Upon all of us.”
"Whatever yoing to do, you had better hurry," Ducas said bluntly. "The Barbadiaer is starting to give.”
"We are in your hands," Alessan said to Erlein. He seemed about to say something more, but did not.
Erlein turo Sandre aino who had moved o him. All of the others stepped back a little, to leave the three of them alone.
"Link!" said Erlein di Senzio.
On the plain at the back of his army, but o them and in their midst—because distatered in magic—Alberico of Barbadior had spent the m w if the gods of the Empire had
abandoned him at last. Even the dark-horned god of sorcerers and the night-riding Queen on her Mare.
His thoughts, such thoughts as he could mao coherently form uhe ceaseless, mind-pounding onslaught of the Ygrathen, were black with awareness of ruin; it seemed to him as if there were ashes in his heart choking his throat.
It had seemed so simple once. All that would be needed were planning and patiend discipline, and if he had any qualities, any virtues at all, they were those. Twenty years worth of each of them here in the service of his long ambition.
But now as the merciless bronze sun reached its zenith and slipped past and began its dest toward the sea, Alberiew with finality that he had been right at the first and wrong at the last. Winning the whole of the Palm had never mattered, but losing it meant losing everything. Including his life. For there was o run, or hide.
The Ygrathen was brutally, stupefyingly strong. He had known it, he had always known it. Had feared the man not as a coward does, but as one who has taken the measure of something and knows exactly what it is.
At dawn, after that crimson bea had flamed from Brandins hand on his hill in the west, Alberico had allowed himself to hope, even briefly to exult. He had only to defend his men. His armies were almost three times as strong and they were fag only a small number of the trained soldiers of Ygrath.
The rest of the army of the Western Palm was a flung-together melange of artisans and traders, fishermen and farmers and scarcely bearded boys from the provinces.
He had only to blunt the thrust of Brandins sorcery from the hill a his soldiers do their work.
He had o push his own powers outward against his foe. Only to resist. Only defend.
If only he could. For as the m wore on and gathered heat to itself like a sm cloak, Alberico felt his mind-wall begin, by grudging, agonizing degrees, to flatten and bend uhe passioeady, numbing insistence of Brandins attack. Endlessly the Ygrathens waves of fatigue and weakness flowed down from his hill upon the Barbadian army. Wave after wave after wave, tireless as the surf.
And Alberico had to block them, to absorb and s those waves, so his soldiers could fight on, unafraid, unsapped in their ce and strength save by the swelteri of the sun—which was blazing down upon the eoo.
Well before noon some of the Ygrathens spell began to leak through. Alberico couldnt hold it all. It just kept ing and ing, monotonous as rain or surf, without alteration in rhythm ree. Simple power, hugely p forth.
Soon—far too soon, too early in the day—the Barbadians began to feel as if they were fighting uphill, even on a level plain, as if the sun actually was fiercer above their heads than on the men they fought, as if their fidend ce were seeping away with the sweat that poured from them, soaking through their clothing and armor.
Only the sheer weight of numbers kept them level, kept that Senzian plain in balance all m long. His eyes closed, sitting in the great, opied chair they had brought for him, Alberiopped at his fad hair tinuously with water-soaked cloths and he fought Brandin of Ygrath through that m with all his power and all the ce to which he could lay claim.
But shortly after noon, cursing himself, cursing the maggot-eaten soul of Scalvaia dAstibar who had so nearly killed him nine months ago—and who had weakened him enough, after all, to be killing him now—cursing his Emperor for living too long as a useless, se, emaciated shell, Alberico of Barbadior frohe bleak, pitiless reality that all his gods were indeed leaving him here uhe burning sun of this far-off land. As the messages began streaming back from the crumbling front ranks of his army, he began preparing himself, in the way of his people, for death.
Then the miracle happened.
At first, his mind too punishingly battered, he couldnt even grasp what was taking place. Only that the colossal weight of magic p down from the hill was suddenly, inexplicably, lightening. It was a fra, a half of what it had been only a moment before. Alberico could sustain it. Easily! That level of magic was less than his own, even weakened as he was now. He could even push fainst that, instead of only defending. He could attack! If that was all that Brandin had left, if the Ygrathen had suddenly reached the end of his reserves . . .
Wildly mind-sing the valley and the hills around for a clue, Alberico suddenly came upohird matrix of magid abruptly realized—with a glory fl out of the ms ashes in his heart—that the horned god was with him yet after all, and the Night Queen in her riding.
There were wizards of the Palm here, and they were helping him! They hated the Ygrathen as much as he! Somehow, for whatever inprehensible reason, they were on his side against the man who was King of Ygrath, whatever he might pretend to call himself now.
"I am winning!" he shouted to his messengers. "Tell the captains at the front, revive their spirits. Tell them I am beating the Ygrathen back!”
He heard sudden glad cries around him. Opened his eyes to see messengers sprinting forward across the valley. He reached out toward those wizards—four or five, he judged, by their strength, perhaps six of them—seeking te with their minds and their power.
But in that he was balked. He kly where they were. He could even see where they were—a ridge of land just south of the Ygrathens hill—but they would not let him join with them or know who they were. They must still be afraid of what he did to wizards when he found them.
What he did to wizards? He would glory in them! He would give them land ah and power, honor here and in Barbadior. Riches beyond their starved, pinched dreams. They would see!
No matter that they did not open to him! It truly mattered not. So long as they stayed, aheir powers to his defehere was e. Together they were a match for Brandin. And all they had to do was be a match: Alberiew he still had more than twice the army in the field that the other had.
But even as hope bato his soul with these thoughts, he felt the weight beginning to return. Unbelievably, the Ygrathens prowing again. Frantically he checked: the wizards on their ridge were still with him. Yet Brandin was still pushing forward. He was s! So accursedly, unimaginably strong. Even against all of them he was exerting his might, tapping deeper into his wellspring of sorcery. How deep could he go? How much more did he have?
Alberico realized, the knowledge like ice amid the inferno of war, the savage heat of the day, that he had no idea. all. Which left him only the one course. The only one hed ever had from the moment the battle had begun.
He closed his eyes again, the better to focus and trate, a himself, with all the power in him, to resist again. To resist, to hold, to keep the wall intact.
"By the seven sisters of the god!" Rhamanus swore passionately. "They are regaining the ground they lost!”
"Something has happened," Brandin rasped in the same moment. They had erected a opy above him for shade and had brought a chair for him to sit upon. He was standing though—one hand on the back of the chair for support at times—the better to look down on the course of battle below.
Dianora was standing close to him, in case he needed her, for water or fort, for anything at all that she could give, but she was trying not to look down. She didnt want to see any more men die. About the screaming in the valley she could do nothing though, and every cry below seemed to fly upward and sheath itself in her like a knife made of sound and human agony.
Had it been like this by the Deisa when her father died? Had he screamed so with his own mortal wound, seeing his lifes blood leave him, not to be held back, staining the river red? Had he died in this
kind of pain uhe vengeful blades of Brandins men?
It was her own fault, this siess rising. She should not be here. She should have known what images war would unleash in her. She felt physically ill: from the heat, the sounds, she could actually smell the age below.
"Something has happened," Brandin said again, and with his voice a clarity came bato the maelstrom of the world. She was here and he was the reason why, and if the others could not, Dianora who knew him so well, could hear a new note in his voice, a marginal clue to the strain he was enduring.
She walked quickly away and then back, a beaker of water in her hand and a cloth to wet his brow.
He took the water, seeming almost oblivious to her preseo the touch of the cloth. He closed his eyes, and then slowly turned his head from side to side, as if blindly seeking something.
Then he opened his eyes again and pointed. "Over there, Rhamanus." Dianora followed his gaze. On a ridge of land south of them, across the uummocky ground, a number of figures could be dised.
"There are wizards there," Brandin said flatly. "Rhamanus, youll have to take the Guard after them.
They are w with Alberico against me. I dont know why. One of them looks like a Khardhu, but he isnt; I would reize Khardhun magic. There is somethiremely odd about this.”
His eyes were a dark, clouded grey.
" you match them, my lord?" It was dEymon, his tone deliberately ral, masking any hint of .
"I am about to try," Brandin said. "But I am gettio the limit of the power I safely tap.
And I t turn my magi them alohey are w with Alberico. Rhamanus, youll have to get those wizards for me yourself. Take everyone here.”
Rhamanuss ruddy face was grim. "I will stop them or die, my lord. I swear it.”
Dianora watched him step out from uhe opy and summon the men of the Kings Guard. In pairs they fell into step behind him and started quickly down the goat-track leadi and south. Rhun took a couple of steps after them, and then stopped, looking fused and uain.
She felt a toud turned from the Fool as Brandin took her hand. "Trust me, love," he murmured.
"And trust Rhamanus." After a sed he added, with what was almost a smile: "He brought you to me.”
The her go and turned his attention back to the plain below. And now he did sit down in the chair. Watg, she could literally see him gather himself to renew his assault.
She looked over at dEymon, then followed the cellors narrowed, speculative gaze south again, across to the cluster of people on that slope half a mile away. They were near enough that she could see the dark-skinned figure Brandin said wasnt really a Khardhu. She thought she could make out a red- haired woman as well.
She had no idea who they were. But suddenly, for the first time, looking around at their own thinned- out numbers on the hill, she felt afraid.
"Here they e," Baerd said, looking north, a hand up to s his eyes.
They had been waiting for this, and watg for it from the moment the wizards linked, but anticipation was not reality and, at the sight of the picked men of Brandins Guard moving swiftly down their hill and beginning to cross the grouween, Devi began thumping hard. There had been war all m in the valley below; now it was ing to them.
"How many?&quo asked, and Devin was grateful to hear the tension in the merts voice: it meant he was not alone in what he was feeling now.
"Forty-nine, if he sent them all, and Alessan thought he would," Baerd replied, not turning around.
"That is always the number of the Kings Guard in Ygrath. It is sacred for them.”
Rovigo said nothing. Devin glao his right and saw the three wizards standing closely together.
Erlein aino had their eyes closed, but Sandre was staring fixedly downwards to where Alberico of Barbadior was at the back of his army. Alessan had been with the wizards but now he came quickly over to joihirty or so men spread out behind Baerd on the ridge.
"Ducas?" he asked quietly.
"I t see any of them," Baerd said, with a quick gla the Prihe last of the Ygrathen Guard had now desded their hill. The vanguard were already moving rapidly over the uneven grouween. "I still dont believe it.”
"Let me take my men to meet them below," Ducas had urged Alessan, the moment the wizards had linked. "We know he will be ing after us.”
"Of course we do," Alessan had said, "but oorly armed and trained. We he advantage of height up here.”
"Speak for yourself," Ducas di Tregea had growled.
"There isnt any cover down there. Where could you hide?”
"You are telling me whether there is cover?" Ducas replied, feigning anger. His mouth widened in his wolfish grin. "Alessan, go teach your fio know your fingernails! I was fighting running battles and ambushes in this kind of terrain while you were still numbering oak trees or some such thing in Quileia.
Leave this to me.”
Alessan had not laughed. After a moment though, he nodded his head. Not waiting for more, red- bearded Ducas and his twenty-five men had immediately melted away down the slopes of their ridge. By the time the Ygrathehe Guard, the outlaws were down below, hidden among the gorse aher, the high grass and the scattered olive and fig trees in the grouween the hills.
Squinting, Devin thought he could see one of them, but he wasnt sure.
"In Marians name/" Erlein di Senzio suddenly cried from the east end of the ridge. "He is pushing us back again!”
"Then hold!" Sandre snarled. "Fight him! Go deeper!”
"I havent got any deeper to go!" Sertino gasped.
Baerd leaped from his crouch staring at the three of them. He hesitated, visibly wracked by doubt for a moment, therode swiftly over to the wizards.
"Sandre, Erlein? you hear me?”
"Yes, of course." Sandres darkened face was streaming with perspiration. He was still stari, but his gaze was unfocused now, inward.
"Then do it! Do what we talked about. If hes pushing all of you back we have to try or there is no point to any of this!”
"Baerd, they could be ..." Erleins words came out one by one as if forced from his lips.
"No, hes right!" Sertino gasped, cutting in. "Have to try. The mans . . . to. Ill follow you two . . . know where to reach. Do it!”
"Stay with me then," Erlein said, in a voice leeched of all strength. "Stay with me, both of you.”
There were sudden shouts and then screaming below them. Not from the battlefield. From the ground to the north. All of them but the wizards wheeled around to see.
Ducas had sprung his trap. Firing from ambush his outlaws unleashed a score of arrows at the Ygrathens, and then swiftly let fly as many more. Half a doze, ten of their attackers fell, but the Kings Guard of Ygrath were armored against arrows even in the blazi, and most of them pushed oing with frightening agility despite the weight they carried, moving toward Ducass spread-out men.
Devin saw three of the downed me up again. One pulled an arrow from his own arm and stumbled resolutely on, pressing toward their ridge.
"Some of them will have bows. We have to cover the wizards," Alessan snapped. "Any man with any kind of shield, over here!”
Half a dozen of the men remaining on the hill rushed over. Five had makeshift shields of wood or leather, the sixth, a man of some fifty years, limped behind them on a twisted foot, carrying nothing but an a, battered sword.
"My lord Prince," he said, "my body is shield enough for them. Your father would not let me go north to the Deisa. Do not deny me now. Not again. I staween them and any arrows, in Tiganas name.”
Devin saw the suddenly blank, frightened look on many of the faear them: a name had been spoken that they could not hear.
"Ricaso," Alessan began, looking around. "Ricaso, you need not . . . You shouldnt have even e here. There were other ways to . . ." The Priopped. For a moment it looked as if he would refuse the man as his father had, but he said nothing more, only nodded his head ond strode away. The lame man and the other five immediately placed themselves in a protective circle around the wizards.
"Spread out!" Alessan ordered the others. "Cover the north and the west sides of the ridge. Catriana, Alais—keep your eyes on the south in case some of them make it around behind us. Shout if you see anything move!”
Sword in hand, Devin raced for the northwest edge of their hill. There were men fanning out all around him. He looked over as he ran, and caught his breath in dismay. Ducass men were in pitched battle on the uneven ground with the Ygrathens, and though they were holding their own, taking a man, it seemed, for every one of them that fell, that meant that they were falling. The Ygrathens were quid superbly trained and ferociously determined. Devin saw their leader, a big man no longer young, hurl himself against one of the outlaws and hammer the man flat to the ground with a blow of his shield.
"Naddo! Look out!”
A scream, not a shout. Baerds voice. Wheeling, Devin saw why.
Halfway to the other hill, Naddo had just beaten ba Ygrathen, and was tinuing a fighting withdrawal toward a clump of bushes where Arkin and two others were. What he didnt see was the man who had flanked wide to the east and was now rushing toward him from behind.
What the running Ygrathen didnt see was the arrow that hit him, fired from the summit of the ridge by Baerd di Tigana with all the strength of his arm and the skill of a lifelong discipline. Far away, unbelievably far, the Ygrathen grunted and fell, an arrow in his thigh. Naddo whirled at the sound, saw the man, and dispatched him with a quick sword.
He looked up at the ridge, saw Baerd, and quickly waved his thanks. He was still waving, hand aloft in salute to the friend he had left as a boy, when an Ygrathen arrow took him in the chest.
"No!" Devin cried out, a fist of grief g about his throat. He looked toward Baerd, whose eyes had gone wide with shock. Just as Devin took a step towards him he heard a quick scrabbling sound and a grunt, and behind him Alais screamed, "Look out!”
He turned back just in time to see the first of half a dozen Ygrathens surging up the slope. He had no idea how theyd got here so fast. He howled a sed warning for the others and rushed forward to ehe first man before he gaihe summit of the ridge.
He didnt make it. The Ygrathen and balanced, with a shield in his left hand. Charging at him, trying to drive the man backward down the slope, Devin swung his sword as hard as he could. It ged oal shield sending shock waves all along his arm. The Ygrathen thrust straight ahead with his own blade. Devin saw it ing and twisted desperately to one side. He felt a sudden tearing pain as the
sword ripped him above the waist.
He let himself drop, ign the wound, and as he fell forward he chopped viciously for the unprotected back of the Ygrathens knee. He felt his sword bite deep into flesh. The man cried out and pitched helplessly forward, trying, even as he tumbled, t his own blade down on Devin again.
Devin rolled frantically away, dizzy with pain. He clawed to his feet, clutg his ripped side.
In time to see the prone Ygrathen killed by Alais bren Rovigo with a swordthrust in the back of his neck.
It seemed to Devin that he knew a moment of almost halluatory stillhen in the midst of age. He looked at Alais, at her clear, mild, blue eyes. He tried to speak. His throat was dry. Their gazes locked for a sed. It was hard for Devin to absorb, to uand this image of her with a reddened sword in her hand.
He looked past her, and instantly the stillness was gone, shattered. Fifteen, perhaps twenty of the Ygrathens were up on the summit. More were ing. And some of them did have bows. He saw an arrow fly, to be embedded in one of the shields around the wizards. There was a sound of quick footsteps asding the slope to his left. No time to speak, even if he could have. They were here to die if they had to, it had always been possible. There was a reason why they had e. There was a dream, a prayer, a tune his father had taught him as a child. He held his left hand tightly to his wound and turned from Alais, stumbling fripping his sword, to meet the man scrambling up the ridge.
A mild day, the sun in and out of the clouds pushed swiftly along by the breeze. In the m they had walked in the meadows north of the castle gathering flowers, armfuls of them. Irises, anemones, bluebells. The sejoia trees were just ing into flower now this far south; they left the white blossoms for later in the season.
They were ba Castle Borso drinking mahgoti tea just past midday when Elena abruptly made a small, frightened sound. She stood up rigidly straight, her hands clutg at her head. Her tea spilled unregarded, staining the Quileian carpet.
Alienor quickly laid her own cup down. "It has e?" she said. "The summons? Elena, what I do?”
Elena shook her head. She could scarcely hear the other womans words. There was a clearer, harder, more pelling voi her head. Something that had never happened before, not even on the Ember Nights. But Baerd had been right, her stranger who had e to them out of darkness and ged the shape of the Ember wars.
He had returo the village late in the day that followed, after his friends had e down from the pass and ridde. He had spoken to Donar and Mattio and to na and Elena and said that what the Night Walkers shared had to be a kind of magic, if not the same as wizardry. Their bodies ged in the Ember Nights, they walked under a green moon through lands that were not there by the light of day, they wielded swords of growing that altered uheir hands. They were wedded in their own fashion, he had said, to the magic of the Palm.
And Donar had agreed that this was so. So Baerd had told them, carefully, what his purpose was, and that of his friends, and hed asked Elena to e to Castle Borso until summers end. In case, hed said, in case it ossible for their power to be tapped in this cause.
Would they do this? There would be danger. He had asked it diffidently, but there had been ation in Elena as she looked into his eyes and answered that she would. Nor ihers when they agreed. He had e to them in their owhey owed him at least this much, and more. And they too were living through tyranny in their own land. His cause in the daylight was their own.
Elena di Certando? Are you there? Are you in the castle?
She didnt know this mind-voice, but within its clarity she could sense a desperation; there seemed to be chaos all around him.
Yes. Yes, I am, Im here. What . . . what must I do?
I dont believe it! A sed voice joihem, deeper, as imperative. Erlein, you have reached her!
Is Baerd there? she asked, a little desperately herself. The sudden link was dizzying, and the sense of tumult all around; she swayed, almost fell. She reached out and put both her hands on the high back of a chair. The room in Castle Borso was beginning to fade for her. Had Alienor spoken now she would not have even heard.
He is, the first man said quickly. He is here with us and we have terrible need of help. We are at wart you link to your friends? To the others? We will help you. Please! Reach for them!
She had ried such a thing, not by daylight nor even uhe green moon of the Ember Nights.
She had never known anything like this wizards link, but she felt their power resting in her, and she knew where Mattio would be, and Donar; and na would be at home with her child. She closed her eyes and reached out for the three of them, straining to focus her mind on the fe, the mill, nas house in the village. To focus, and then to call. To summon.
Elena, what . . . ? Mattio. She had him.
Join me! she sent quickly. The wizards are here. There is war.
He asked no more questions. She could feel his steadying presen her mind as the wizards helped her open to him. She registered his own sudden, disoriented shock at the link to the other men. Two of them, no three, there was a third ohere as well.
Elena, has it e? Have they sent? Donar in her mind, seizing at truth like a on to his hand.
I am here, love! nas mind-voice, quid bright, exactly the same as her speech. Elena, what must we do?
Hold to each other and open to us! the deep presence of the sed wizard was there to answer. We may now have a ce. There is danger, I will not lie, but if we hold together—for on this peninsula —we may yet break through! e, join us, we must fe our minds into a shield. I am Sandre dAstibar and I never died. e to us now!
Elena opened her mind to him, and reached out. And in that moment she felt as though her own body was entirely gone, as if she were no more than a duit, like a very unlike what happened on the Ember Nights. A clammy fear of this unknown thing rose in her. Defiantly she fought it back. Her friends were with her, and— unbelievably—the Duke of Astibar was there, and alive, and Baerd was with him in far-off Senzio, battling against the Tyrants.
He had e to them, to her, in their own war. She had heard him weep and had lain with him in love on a hill in the Ember dark after the green moon had set. She would not fail him now. She would lead the Carlozzini to him along the pathway of her mind and her soul.
Without warning they broke through. The link was fed. She was in a high plader a fiercely blazing sun, seeing with the eyes of the Duke of Astibar on a hill in Senzio. The vision rocked with stomach-ing dislocation. Then it steadied and Elena saw men killing each other in a valley below, armies grappling together in the heat like beasts in a vulsive embrace. She heard screaming so loud she felt the sound as pain. Then she became aware of something else.
Sorcery. North of them, that hill. Brandin of Ygrath. And in that moment Elena and the three ht Walkers uood why they had been summoned, feeling in their own minds the punishi of the assault they had to resist.
Ba Castle Borso, Alienor stood by, helpless and blind in her uainty, uanding nothing of this at all, only knowing that it was happening, that it o last. She wao pray, to reach back toward words not thought or spoken in almost twenty years. She saw Elena bring her hands up to cover her face.
"Oh no," she heard the girl whisper in a voice thin as old part. "S! How an
be s?”
Alienors hands gripped each other so tightly the knuckles were white. She waited, desperately seeking a clue to what was happening to all of them, so far to the north where she could not go.
She did not, could not hear Sandre dAstibars reply to Elena: He is strong yes, but with you we will be stronger! Oh, children, we do it now! In the name of the Palm, together we be strong enough!
What Alienor did see was how Elenas hands came down, how her white face grew calm, the wild, primitive terror leaviaring eyes.
"Yes," she heard the other woman whisper. "Yes.”
Then there was silen that room in Castle Borso uhe Braccio Pass. Outside, the cool wind of the highlands blew the high white clouds across the sun and away, and across it and away, and a single hunting hawk hovered on motionless wings in that passing of light and shadow over the face of the mountains.
In fact, the man scrabbling up the slope of the cliff was Ducas di Tregea. Devin had actually begun to swing his sword before he reized who it was.
Ducas reached the summit in two hard, ing strides and stood beside him. He was a fearful sight.
His face was covered in blood, dripping down into his beard. There was blood all over him, a on his sword. He was smiling though, a terrible red look of battle-lust and rage.
"You are hurt!" he said sharply to Devin.
"I wouldnt talk," Devin grunted, pressing his left hand to his torn side. "e on!”
Quickly they turned back east. More than fifteen of the Ygrathens were still on their summit, pressing fainst the untrained band of men Alessan had kept back to defend the wizards. The numbers were almost even, but the Ygrathehe picked and deadly warriors of that realm.
Even so, even with this, they were not getting through. And they would not, Devin realized with a surge of exultation in his heart, rising high over pain and grief.
They would not, because fag them, side by side, swinging blades together in their longed-for battle after all the long waiting years that had run by, were Alessan, Prince of Tigana, and Baerd bar Saevar, the only brother of his soul, and the two of them were absolute and deadly, and eveiful, if killing could be so.
Devin and Ducas rushed over. But by the time they got there five Ygrathens only were left, then three. Then only two. One of them made as if to lay down his sword. Before he could do so, a figure moved forward with an awkward, deceptive swiftness from the ring guarding the wizards. Dragging his lame foot, Rie up to the Ygrathen. Before anyone could stay him he swung his old, half-rusted blade in a passionate, scything arc, cleaving through the links in armor to bury itself in the mans breast.
Then he fell to his knees on the ground beside the soldier hed killed, weeping as though his soul out of him.
Which left one of them only. And the last was the leader, the large, broad-chested man Devin had seen down below. The mans hair lastered flat to his head, he was red-faced with heat and exhaustion, sug hard for breath, but his eyes glared at Alessan.
"Are you fools?" he gasped. "Fighting for the Barbadian? Instead of with a man who has joihe Palm? Do you want to be slaves?”
Slowly Alessan shook his head. "It is twenty years too late for Brandin of Ygrath to join the Palm. It was too late the day he landed here with an invading force. You are a brave man. I would prefer not to kill you. Will you give us an oath in your own name and lay down your sword in surrender?”
Beside Devin, Ducas snarled angrily. But before the Tregean could speak, the Ygrathen said: "My
name is Rhamanus. I offer it to you in pride, for no dishonor has ever attached to that name. You will have no oath from me though. I swore oo the King I love before I led his Guard here. I told him I would stop you or die. It is an oath I will keep.”
He raised his sword toward Alessan, aured—though not seriously, Devin realized afterwards—to strike at the Prince. Alessan did not even move to ward the blow. It was Baerd whose blade came up and the downward to bite with finality into the neck of the Ygrathen, driving him to the ground.
"Oh, my King," they heard the man say then, thickly, through the blood rising in his mouth. "Oh, Brandin, I am so sorry.”
Then he rolled over on his bad lay still, his sightless eyes staring straight at the burning sun.
The sun had been burning hot as well, the m he had defied the Governor and taken a young serving-girl for tribute down the river from Stevanien, so many years ago.
Dianora saw a man raise his sword on that hill. She turned her head away so she would not see Rhamanus die. There was an ache in her, a growing void; she felt as if all the chasms of her life were opening in the ground before her feet. He had been an enemy, the man who had seized her to be a slave.
Sent to claim tribute for Brandin, he had burned villages and homes in Corte and Asoli. He had been an Ygrathen. Had sailed to the Palm in the invading fleet, had fought in the last battle by the Deisa.
He had been her friend.
One of her only friends. Brave a and loyal all his life to his King. Kind and direct, ill-at- ease in a subtle court . . . Dianora realized that she was weeping for him, for the good life cloven like a tree by that strangers desding sword.
"They have failed, my lord." It was dEymon, his voice actually showing—or was she imagining it?—the fai hint of emotion. Of sorrow. "All of the Guards are down, and Rhamanus. The wizards are still there.”
From his chair uhe opy Brandin opened his eyes. His gaze was fixed on the valley below and he did not turn. Dianora saw that his face was chalk-white now with strain, even in the red heat of the day. She wiped quickly at her tears: he must not see her thus if he should ce to look. He might need her, whatever strength or love she had to give. He must not be distracted with for her. He was one man alone, fighting so many.
And more, in fact, than she even knew. For the wizards had reached the Night Walkers iando by now. They were linked, and they were all bending the power of their minds to Albericos defense.
From the plain below there came a roar, even above the steady noise of battle. Cheering and wild shouts from the Barbadians. Dianora could see their white-clad messengers sprinting forward from the rear where Alberico was. She saw that the men of the Western Palm had been stopped in their advance.
They were still outnumbered; terribly so. If Brandin could not help them now then all was done, all over.
She looked south toward that hill where the wizards were, where Rhamanus had been cut down. She wao curse them all, but she could not.
They were men of the Palm. They were her own people. But her own people were dying in the valley as well, uhe heavy blades of the Empire. The sun was a brand overhead. The sky a blank, pitiless dome.
She looked at dEymoher of them spoke. They heard quick footsteps on the slope. Scelto stumbled up, fighting for breath.
"My lord," he gasped, dropping to his knees beside Brandins chair, "we are hard-pressed ... in the ter and on the right. The left is holding . . . but barely. I am ordered ... to ask if you want us to fall back.”
And so it had e.
I hate that man, he had said to her last night, before falling asleep in utter weariness. / hate everythiands for.
There was a silen the hill. It seemed to Dianora as if she could hear her owbeat with some curious faculty of the ear, dising it even above the sounds from below. The noises in the valley seemed, oddly, to have receded now. To be growing fainter every sed.
Brandin stood up.
"No," he said quietly. "We do not fall back. There is o retreat, and not before the Barbadian.
Not ever." He was gazing bleakly out over Sceltos kneeling form, as if he would pee the distah his eyes to strike at Albericos heart.
But there was something else in him now: something new, beye, beyond the grimness of resolution and the everlasting pride. Dianora se, but she could not uand. Theuro her and she saw in the depths of that grey gaze a bottomless well of pain opening up such as she had never seen in him. Never seen in anyone, in all her days. Pity and grief and love, he had said last night.
Something was happening; her heart was rag wildly. She felt her hands beginning to shake.
"My love," Brandin said. Mumbled, slurred it. She saw death in his eyes, an abscess of loss that seemed to be leaving him almost blind, stripping his soul. "Oh, my love," he said again. "What have they done? See what they will make me do. Oh, see what they make me do!”
"Brandin!" she cried, terrified, not uanding at all. Beginning again to weep, frantically.
Grasping only the open sore of hurt he had bee. She reached out toward him, but he was blind, and already turning away, east, toward the rim of the hill and the valley below.
"All right," said Rinaldo the Healer, and lifted his hands away. Devin opened his eyes and looked down. His wound had closed; the bleeding had stopped. The sight of it made him feel queasy; the unnatural speed of the healing, as if his seill expected to find a fresh wound there. "Yoing to have an easy scar for women to know you by in the dark," Rinaldo added drily. Ducas gave a bark of laughter.
Devin winced and carefully avoided meeting Alaiss eye. She was right beside him, ing a roll of linen around his torso to bind the wound. He looked at Ducas instead, whose own cut above his eye had been closed by Rinaldo in the same way. Arkin, who had also survived the skirmish down below, was bandaging it. Ducas, his red beard matted and sticky with blood, looked like some fearful creature out of childhood night terrors.
"Is that too tight?" Alais asked softly.
Devin drew a testing breath and shook his head. The wound hurt, but he seemed to be all right.
"You saved my life," he murmured to her. She was behind him now, tying up the ends of his bandage. Her hands stopped for a moment and then resumed.
"No I didnt," she said in a muffled voice. "He was down. He couldnt have hurt you. All I did was kill a man." Catriana, standihem, glanced over. "I ... I wish I hadnt," Alais said- And began to cry.
Devin swallowed and tried to turn, to offer fort, but Catriana was quicker than he, and had already gathered Alais in her arms. He looked at them, w bitterly what real fort there could be to offer on this bare ridge in the midst of war.
"Erleinl Now! Brandin is standing!" Alessans cry khrough all other sounds. His heart suddenly thumping again, Devi quickly toward the Prind the wizards.
"It is upon us then," said Erlein, in a hard, flat voice to the other two. "I will have to pull out now, to track him. Wait for my signal, but move when I give it!”
"We will," Sertino gasped. "Triad save us all." Sweat down the pudgy wizards face. His hands were shaking with strain.
"Erlein," Alessan began urgently, "He must use it all. You know what you—”
"Hush! I kly what I must do. Alessan, you have set this in motion, yht us all here to Senzio, every single person, the living and the dead. Now it is up to us. Be still, unless you want to pray.”
Devin looked north to Brandins hill. He saw the King step forward from under his opy.
"Oh, Triad," he heard Alessan whisper then in a queerly high voice. "Adaon, remember us.
Remember your children now!" The Prince sank to his knees. "Please," he whispered again. "Please, let me have been right!”
On his hill to the north of them Brandin of Ygrath stretched forth one hand and theher uhe burning sun.
Dianora saw him move forward to the very edge of the hill, out from the opy into the white blaze of the light. Scelto scrambled away. Beh them the armies of the Western Palm were being hammered baow, ter a and right. The cries of the Barbadians had taken on a quality of triumphant malice that fell like blows upon the heart.
Brandin lifted his right hand and leveled it ahead. Then he brought up his left beside it so that the palms were toug each other, the ten fingers pointing together. Pointing straight to where Alberico of Barbadior was, at the rear of his army.
And Brandin of the Western Palm, who had been the King of Ygrath when he first came to this peninsula, cried aloud then, in a voice that seemed to flay and shred the very air: "Oh, my son! Stevan, five me what I do!”
Dianora stopped breathing. She thought she was going to fall. She reached out a hand for support and didnt even realize it was dEymon who braced her.
Then Brandin spoke again, in a voice colder than she had ever heard him use, words none of them could uand. Only the sorcerer down in the valley would know, only he could grasp the enormity of what was happening.
She saw Brandin spread his legs, as if to brace himself. Then she saw what followed.
"Now!" Erlein di Senzio screamed. "Both of you! Get the others out! Cut free now!”
"Theyre loose!" Sertino cried. "Im out!" He collapsed in a heap to the ground as if he might never rise again.
Something was happening oher hill. In the middle of day, uhe brilliant sun, the sky seemed to be ging, to be darkening where Brandin stood. Something—not smoke, not light, some kind of ge in the very nature of the air—seemed to be p from his hands, boili and down, disorienting to the eye, blurred, unnatural, like a rushing doom.
Erlein suddenly turned his head, his eyes widening with horror.
"Sandre, what are you doing?" he shrieked, grabbing wildly at the Duke. "Get out, you fool! In Eannas name, get out!”
"Not . . . yet," said Sandre dAstibar, in a voice that carried its own full measure of doom.
There had been more of them. Four more ing to his aid. Not wizards now, a different kind of magic of the Palm, one he hadnt even known about, didnt uand. But it didnt matter. They were here and on his side, if sed from his mind, and with them, with all of them bending their power to his defense, he had even been able to reach out, and forward, to assert his own strength against the enemy.
Who were falling back! There was glory after all uhe sun, and hope, more than hope, a glittering vista of triumph spreading in the valley before him, a pathway made smooth with the blood of his foes, leading straight from here back across the sea and home to the Tiara.
He would bless these wizards, honor them! Make them lords of unimagined power, here in this
y or in Barbadior. Wherever they wanted, whatever they chose. And thinking so, Alberico had felt his own magic flow like intoxig wine in his veins and had sent it p forth against the Ygrathens and the men of the Western Palm, and his armies had laughed aloud in triumph aheir swords to be suddenly as light as summer grass.
He heard them beginning to sing, the old battle-song of the Empires legions, quering in far lands turies ago. And they were! It was happening again. They werent just meraries; they were the Empires legions, for he was, or would be, the Empire. He could see it. It was here, it was shining before him in the blazing day.
Then Brandin of Ygrath rose and stepped to the rim of his hill. A distant figure alone uhe sun in that high place. And a moment later, Alberico, who was a sorcerer himself, felt, for he could not have actually heard, the dark, absolute words of invocation that Brandin spoke, and his blood froze in his veins like i the dead of a winter night.
"He ot," he gasped aloud. "Not after so long! He ot do this!”
But the Ygrathen was. He was reag for all, summoning everything, every last stilla of his magic, holding nothing baothing, not even the power that had sustaihe vengeahat had kept him here all these years. He was emptying himself to shape a sorcery such as had never been wielded before.
Desperately, still half disbelieving, Alberico reached out for the wizards. To tell them to brace, to be ready. g that there were eight of them, hat they could hold against this. That all they had to do was survive this moment and Brandin would be nothing, a shell. Waste, for weeks, months, years! A hollow man with no magi him anymore.
Their minds were closed, barred against him. They were still there though, and defending, braced.
Oh, if the horned god and the Night Queen were with him! If they were with him yet, he might still . . .
They were not. They were not with him.
For in that instant Alberico felt the wizards of the Palm cut loose, melting away without warning, with terrifying suddenness, to leave him naked and alone. On the hill Brandin had now leveled his hands and from them came blue-grey death, an occluding, obliterating presen the air, foaming and boiling down across the valley toward him.
And the wizards were gone! He was alone.
Or almost gone, almost alone. One man was still linked, one of them had held with him! And then that one mind opened up to Alberico like the locked door of a dungeon springing back, letting light flood in.
The light of truth. And in that moment Alberico of Barbadior screamed aloud in terror and helpless rage, for illumination came at last and he uood, too late, how he had been undone, and by whom destroyed.
In the name of my sons I curse you forever, said Sandre, Duke of Astibar, his remorseless image rising in Alberiind like an apparition of horror from the afterworld. But he was alive. Impossibly alive, and here in Senzio on that ridge, with eyes implacable and utterly merciless. He bared his teeth in a smile that summohe night. In the name of my children and of Astibar, die now, forever cursed.
The free, he too was gone, as that blue-grey death came boiling down the valley from Brandins hill, from his outstretched hands, with blurred, annihilating speed, and Alberico, still reeling with shock, clawing frantically upward from his chair, was strud enveloped and ed by that death, as a tidal wave of the raging, enged sea will take a sapling in low-lying fields.
It swept him away with it and sundered his body, still screaming, from his soul, and he died. Died in that far Peninsula of the Palm two days before his Emperor passed to the gods in Barbadior, failing at last one m to wake from a dreamless sleep.
Albericos army heard his last scream, and their own cries of exultation turo panic-stri horror; in the face of that magi the hill the Barbadia a fear such as men should never have had to endure sweep over them. They could scarcely grip their swords, or flee, or even stand upright before their foes who advanced untouched, unharmed, exalted, uhat dread, sun-blighting sorcery, and began to carve ahem with hard and deadly wrath.
Everything, thought Brandin of Ygrath, of the Western Palm, weeping helplessly on his hill as he looked dowhe valley. He had been driven to this and had answered, had summoned all he had ever had to this final purpose, and it was enough. It was suffit and nothing less would have been. There had been too much magic opposed to him, ah had been waiting for his people here.
He knew what he had been made to do, khe price of holding nothing back. He had paid that prid aying it now, would go on doing so with every breath he drew until he died. He had screamed Stevans name, aloud and in the eg chambers of his soul, before the summoning of that power. Had known that twenty years of vengeance for that too-soon shattered life were now undone uhis bronze sun. Nothing held back. It was over.
There had been men dying below him though, fighting under his banner, in his name, and there had been reat for them from that plain. Nor for him. He could not retreat. He had been driven to this moment, like a bear to a rocky cliff by a pack of wolves, and the price was being paid now. Everywhere the price was being paid. There was butchery in the valley; a slaughter of Barbadians. His heart was g. He was a grieving, torn thing, all the memories of love, of a fathers loss flooding over him, another kind of tidal wave. Stevan.
He wept, adrift in an o of loss, far from any shore. He was aware, dimly, of Dianora beside him, clutg his hands between her own, but he was lost inside his pain, pone now, the core of his being shattered intments, shards, a man no longer young, trying without any hope at all, to ceive of how to shape a life that could possibly go forward from this hill.
Then the hing happened. For he had, in fact, fotten something. Something he alone could possibly have known.
And so time, which truly would not stop, frief or pity or love, carried them all forward to the moment no sorcerer or wizard or piper on his ridge had foreseen.
The weight had been the weight of mountains crushing his mind. Carefully, exquisitely judged to leave him that fai spark of self-awareness, which was where the purest torture lay. That he might always kly who he was and had been, and what he was being made to do, utterly uo trol himself. Pressed flat uhe burden of mountains.
Whiow were gone. He straightened his back, of his own will. He tur. Of his own will. He tried to lift his head higher but could not. He uood: too many years in the same skewed, sunken position. They had broken the bones of his shoulder several times, carefully. He knew what he looked like, what they had turned him into in that darkness long ago. He had seen himself in mirrors through the years, and in the mirrors of others eyes. He kly what had been doo his body before they started on his mind.
That didnt matter now. The mountains were gone. He looked out with his own sight, reached back with his own memories, could speak, if he wished to speak, with his own thoughts, his own voice, however much it had ged.
What Rhun did was draw his sword.
Of course he had a sword. He carried whatever on Brandin did, was given each day the clothing the King had chosen; he was the vent, the duit, the double, the Fool.
He was more than that. He kly how much more. Brandin had left him that delicately measured scrap of awareness at the very bottom of his mind, uhe burying, piled-up mountains. That had been the whole point, the essence of everything; that and the secrecy, the fact that only they two knew
and only they would ever know.
The men who had maimed and disfigured him had been blind, w on him in their darkness, knowing him only by the insistent probing of their hands upon his flesh, reag through to bohey had never learned who he was. Only Brandin knew, only Brandin and he himself, with that dim flickering of his identity so carefully left behind after everything else was go had been so elegantly trived, this ao what he had dohis respoo grief and rage. This vengeance.
No one living other than Brandin of Ygrath knew his true name and uhe weight of mountains he had had no too speak it himself, only a heart to cry for what was being doo him. The exquisite perfe of it, of that revenge.
But the mountains that had buried him were gone.
And on that thought, Valentin, Prince of Tigana, lifted his sword on a hill in Senzio.
His mind was his own, his memories: of a room without light, black as pitch, the voice of the Ygrathen King, weeping, telling what was being doo Tigana even as they spoke, and what would be doo him in the months and the years to e.
A mutilated body, his owures sorcerously imposed upon it, was death-wheeled in Chiara later that week then buro ash and scattered to the winds.
In the bla the blind men began their work. He remembered trying not to scream at first. He remembered screaming. Much later Brandin came and began and ended his own part of that careful patient work. A torture of a different kind; much worse. The weight of mountains in his mind.
Late in that same year the Kings Fool from Ygrath died of a misadventure in the newly occupied Palace of Chiara. And shortly afterwards, Rhun, with his weak, blinking eyes, his deformed shoulder and slack mouth, his nearly crippled walk, was brought shambling up from his darkness into twenty years of night.
It was very bright here now, almost blindingly so in the sunlight. Brandin was just ahead of him. The girl was holding his hand.
The girl. The girl was Saevars daughter.
He had knowhe moment she was first brought to be preseo the King. She had ged in five years, greatly ged, and she would ge much more as the years spun past, but her eyes were her fathers, exactly, and Valentin had watched Dianrow up. When he had heard her hat first day, as a woman from Cer-tando, the dim, allowed spark of his mind had flickered and burned, for he knew, he knew what she had e to do.
Then, as the months passed and the years, he watched helplessly with his rheumy eyes from uhe crush of his mountains, as the terrible interwovenness of things added love to everything else. He was bound to Brandin unimaginably and he saw what happened. More, he was made to be a part of it, by the very nature of the relationship between the Kings and the Fools of Ygrath.
It was he whave expression—beyond his trol, he had no trol—to what was growing in the heart of the King. Ba a time when Brandin still refused to admit even the idea of love into a soul and a life shaped by vengeand loss it was Rhun—Valentin— who would find himself staring at Dianora, at Saevars dark-haired daughter, with another mans soul in his eyes.
No more, not ever again. The long night had been rolled back. The sorcery that had bound him was go was over; he stood in sunlight and could speak his true name if he chose. He took an awkward step forward and then, more carefully, another. No oiced him though. They never noticed him. He was the Fool. Rhun. Even that name, chosen by the King. Only the two of them ever to know. Not for the world, this. The privacy of pride. He had even uood. Perhaps the most terrible thing of all: he had uood.
He stepped uhe opy. Brandin was ahead of him he edge of the hill. He had never
struck a man from behind in all his days. He moved to one side, stumbling a little, and came up on the Kings right hand. No one looked at him. He was Rhun.
He was not.
"You should have killed me by the river," he said, very clearly. Slowly, Brandin turned his head, as if just now remembering something. Valentin waited until their eyes met and held before he drove his sword into the Ygrathe, the rince killed his enemies, however many years it might take, however much might have to be endured before su ending was allowed.
Dianora could not even scream she was so stunned, so unprepared. She saw Brandin stagger backward, a blade in his chest. Then Rhun— Rhun!—jerked it clumsily free and so much blood followed.
Brandins eyes were wide with astonishment and pain, but they were clear, so luminously clear. And so was his voice as she heard him say: "Both of us?" He swayed, still on his feet. "Father and son, both? What a harvest. Prince of Tigana.”
Dianora heard the name as a white burst of sound in her brain. Time seemed to ge, to slow unbearably. She saw Brandin sinking to his knees; it seemed to take forever for him to fall. She tried to move toward him; her body would not respond. She heard an elongated, weirdly distorted sound of anguish, and saw stark agony in dEymons face as the cellors blade ripped into and through Rhuns side.
Not Rhun. Not Rhun. Valentin the Prince.
Brandins Fool. All those years. The thing that had been doo him! And she beside him, beside that suffering. All those years. She wao scream. She could not make a sound, could scarcely breathe.
She saw him falling too, the maimed, broken form crumpling to the ground beside Brandin. Who was still on his knees, a red wound in his chest. And who was looking at her now, only at her. A sound finally escaped her lips as she sank down beside him. He reached out, so slowly, with such a colossal effort of will, with all the trol he had, aook her hand.
"Oh, love," she heard him say. "It is as I told you. We should have met in Finavir.”
She tried again to speak, to answer him, but tears were streaming down her fad closihroat. She gripped his hand as tightly as she could, trying to will life from herself over into him. He slumped sideways against her shoulder, and so she lowered him to her lap and ed her arms around him, the way she had last night, only last night when he slept. She saw the brilliantly clear grey eyes slowly grow cloudy, and then dark. She was holding him like that when he died.
She lifted her head. The Prince of Tigana, on the ground beside them, was looking at her with so mupassion in his newly clear eyes. Which was a thing she could not possibly endure. Not from him: not with what he had suffered and what she was, what she herself had done. If he only knew, what words would he have for her, what look would there be in those eyes? She could not bear it. She saw him open his mouth as if to speak, then his eyes flicked quickly to one side.
A shadow crossed the sun. She looked up and saw dEymons sword lifted high. Valentin raised a hand, pleading, to ward it.
"Wait!" she gasped, f the one word out.
And dEymon, almost mad with his own grief yet stayed for her voice. Held back his sword. Valentin lowered his hand. She saw him draw breath against the massive final reality of his own wound, and then, closing his eyes to the pain and the fierce light, she heard him speak. Not a cry, only the one word spoken in a clear voice. The one word which was—oh, what else could it have ever been?—the name of his home, offered as a shining thing for the world again to know.
And Dianora saw then that dEymon of Ygrath did know it. That he did hear the name. Which meant that all men now could, that the spell was broken. Valentin opened his eyes and looked up at the cellor, reading the truth of that knowledge in dEymons face, and Dianora saw that the Prince of
Tigana was smiling as the cellors sword came down from its great height and drove into his heart.
Even ih the smile remained oerribly afflicted face. And the echo of his last word, the single name, seemed to Dianora to be hangi and spreading outward in ripples through the air around the hill, above the valley where the Barbadians were all dying now.
She looked down at the dead man in her arms, cradling his head and the greying hair, and she could not stop her tears. In Finavir, he had said. Last words. Another named place, farther away than dream.
And had been right, as so many many times he had been right. They ought to have met, if the gods had any kindness, any pity at all for them, in another world than this. Not here. For love was what it was, but it was not enough. Not here.
She heard a sound from uhe opy and turned in time to see dEymon slump fainst Brandins chair. The hilt of his sword was against the seat-back of the chair. The blade was buried in his breast. She saw it and she pitied him his pain but she could not prrieve. There was nothi within her for such a sorrow. DEymon of Ygrath could not matter now. Not with the two men lying here with her, beside each other. She could pity, oh, she could pity any man or woman born, but she could not grieve for any but these two. Not now.
Not ever, she realized.
She looked over then and saw Scelto, still on his khe only other living person on this hill. He too was weeping. But for her, she realized, even more than for the dead. His first tears had always been for her. He seemed to be far away though. Everything seemed oddly remote. Except Brandin. Except Valentin.
For the last time she looked down at the man for whose love she had betrayed her home and all her dead and her own vengeance sworn before a fire in her fathers house so long ago. She looked down upon what remained of Brandin of Ygrath with his soul gone, and slowly, tenderly, Dianora lowered her head and kissed him upon the lips in farewell. "In Finavir," she said. "My love." Then she laid him on the ground beside Valentin and she stood.
Looking south she saw that three men and the woman with red hair had desded the slope of the wizards ridge and were beginning to swiftly cross the uneven grouween. She turo Scelto whose eyes had now a terrible foreknowledge in them. He knew her, she remembered, he loved her and he knew her much too well. He knew all save the ohing, and that o she would take away with her. That was her own.
"In a way," she said to him, gesturing at the Prince, "it would almost be better if no one ever knew who he was. But I dont think we do that. Tell them, Scelto. Stay, ahem when they get here.
Whoever they are, they ought to know.”
"Oh, my lady," he whispered, weeping. "Must it end like this?”
She knew what he meant. Of course she knew. She would not dissemble with him now. She looked at the people—whoever they were—ing quickly across the ground from the south. The woman.
A brown-haired man with a sword, another darker one, a third man, smaller thaher two.
"Yes," she said to Scelto, watg them approach. "Yes, I think it must.”
And so she turned a him with the dead on that hill, to wait for those who were ing even now. She left the valley behind, the hill, left all the noises of battle and pain, walking down the northernmost of the goatherds tracks as it wou along the slope of the hill out of sight of everyone.
There were flrowing along the path: sonrai berries, wild lilies, irises, anemones, yellow and white, and then there was a scarlet one. In Tregea they said that flower had been made red by the blood of Adaon where he fell.
There were no men or women on that slope to see her or to stay her as she went, nor was the distance very far to level ground and then to the beginnings of the sand and finally to the margin of the sea where there were gulls wheeling and g overhead.
There was blood on her garments. She discarded them in a small pile on the wide sweep of that white sand. She stepped into the water —it was cool, but not nearly so cold as the sea of Chiara had been on the m of the Dive. She walked out slowly until it came to her hips and then she began to swim. Straight out, headi, toward where the sun would set when it finally went down to end this day. She was a good swimmer; her father had taught her and her brother long ago after a dream she had had. Valentin the Prince had even e with them oo their cove. Long ago.
When she began, at length, to tire she was very far from the shore, out where the blue-green of the o near land ges to the darker blue of the deep. And there she dived, pushing herself downward, away from the blue of the sky and the bronze sun and it seemed to her as she went down that there was an odd illumination appearing ier, a kind of path here in the depths of the sea.
She had not expected that. She had not thought any such thing would be here for her. Not after all that had happened, all that she had done. But there was indeed a path, a glow of light defining it. She was tired now, and deep, and her vision was beginning to grow dim. She thought she saw a shape flicker at the edge of the shimmering light. She could not see very clearly though, there seemed to be a kind of mist ing down over her. She thought for a moment the shape might be the riselka, though she had not earhat, or even Adaon, though she had no claim at all upon the god. But then it seemed to Dianora that there was a last gathering htness in her mind at the very end, and the mist fell back a little, and she saw that for her it was her of these, after all, not the riselka, nor the god.
It was Morian, e in kindness, e in grace, t her home.
Alone of the living on a hill with the dead, Scelto stood and posed himself as best he could, waiting for those he could see beginning to climb the slope.
Whehree men and the tall woman reached the summit he k in submission as they surveyed in silence what had happened here. What death had claimed upon this hill. He was aware that they might kill him, even as he k. He wasnt sure that he cared.
The King was lying only an arms length away from Rhun who had slain him. Rhun, who had been a Prince here in the Palm. Prince of Tigana. Lower Corte. If he had a space of time later, Scelto sehat the pieces of this story might begin to e together for him. Even numbed as he was now, he could feel a lang hurt in his mind if he dwelt upon that history. So much done in the name of the dead.
She would be he water by now. She would not be ing back this time. He had not expected her to return on the m of the Dive; she had tried to hide it, but he had seen something in her when she woke that day. He hadnt uood why, but he had known that she was readying herself to die.
She had been ready, he was certain of it; something had ged for her by the waters edge that day.
It would not ge again.
"You are?”
He looked up. A lean, black-haired man, silvering at the temples, was looking down at him with a clear grey gaze. Eyes curiously like Brandins had been.
"I am Scelto. I was a servant in the saishan, a messeoday.”
"You were here when they died?”
Scelto he mans voice was calm, though there was a disible sense of effort in that, as if he were trying with his too superimpose some pattern of order upon the chaos of the day.
"Will you tell me who killed the King of Ygrath?”
"His Fool," Scelto said quietly, trying to match the manner of the other man. In the distance below them the noises of battle were subsiding at last.
"How? At Brandins request?" It was one of the other men, a hard-looking, bearded figure with dark eyes and a sword in his hand.
Scelto shook his head. He felt overwhelmingly weary all of a sudden. She would be swimming. She
would be a long way out by now. "No. It was an attack. I think . . ." He lowered his head, fearful of presuming.
"Go on," said the first maly. "You are in no danger from us. I have had enough of blood today.
More than enough.”
Scelto looked up at that, w. Then he said, "I think that when the King used his last magic he was too i on the valley and he fot about Rhun. He used so mu that spell that he released the Fool from his binding.”
"He released more than that," the grey-eyed man said softly. The tall woman had e to stand beside him. She had red hair and deep blue eyes; she was young and very beautiful.
She would be far out among the waves. It would all be over soon. He had not said farewell. After so many years. Despite himself, Scelto choked back a sob. "May I know," he asked them, not even sure why he his, "may I know who you are?”
And quietly, without arrogance or even any real assertion, the dark-haired man said, "My name is Alessan bar Valentin, the last of my line. My father and brothers were killed by Brandin almost twenty years ago. I am the Prince of Tigana.”
Scelto closed his eyes.
In his mind he was hearing Brandins voice again, clear and cold, laden with irony, even with his mortal wound: What a harvest. Prince of Tigana. And Rhun, just before he died, speaking that same name uhe dome of the sky.
His own revenge was here then.
"Where is the woman?" the third man asked suddenly, the younger, smaller one. "Where is Dianora di Certando who did the Ring Dive? Was she not here?”
It would be over by now. It would be calm and deep and dark for her. Green tendrils of the sea would grace her hair and twine about her limbs. She would finally be at rest, at peace.
Scelto looked up. He was weeping, he didnt even try to stop, or hide his tears now. "She was here,”
he said. "She has goo the sea again, to an ending in the sea.”
He didnt think they would care. That they could possibly care about that, any of them, but he saw then that he was wrong. All four of them, even the grim, warlike oh the brown hair, gretly still and then turned, almost as oo look west past the slopes and the sand to where the sun was setting over the water.
"I am deeply sorry to hear that," said the man named Alessan. "I saw her do the Ring Dive in Chiara.
She was beautiful and astonishingly brave.”
The brown-haired man stepped forward, an ued hesitation in his eyes. He wasnt as stern as he had first seemed, Scelto realized, and he was younger as well.
"Tell me," the man. "Was she ... did she ever . . ." He stopped, in fusion. The other man, the Prince, looked at him with passion in his eyes.
"She was from Certando, Baerd. Everyone knows the story.”
Slowly, the other man nodded his head. But wheurned away it was to look out toward the sea again. They dont seem like querors, Scelto thought. They didnt seem like men in the midst of a triumph. They just looked tired, as at the end of a very long journey.
"So it wasnt me, after all," the grey-eyed man was saying, almost to himself. "After all my years of dreaming. It was his own Fool who killed him. It had nothing to do with us." He looked at the two dead men lying together, then back at Scelto. "Who was the Fool? Do we know?”
She was gone, claimed by the dark sea far down. She was at rest. And Scelto was so tired. Tired of grief and blood and pain, of these bitter cycles of revenge. He knew what was going to happen to this man
the moment he spoke.
They ought to know, she had said, before she walked away to the sea, and it was true, of course it was true. Scelto looked up at the grey-eyed man.
"Rhun?" he said. "An Ygrathen bound to the King many years ago. No one very important, my lord.”
The Prince of Tigana nodded his head, his expressive mouth quirking with an inward-directed irony.
"Of course," he said. "Of course. No one very important. Why should I have thought it would be otherwise?”
"Alessan," said the younger man from the front of the hill, "I think it is over. Down below, I mean. I think ... I think the Barbadians are all dead.”
The Prince lifted his head and so did Sen of the Palm and of Ygrath would be standing beside each other down in that valley.
"Are you going to kill us all now?" Scelto asked him.
The Prince of Tigana shook his head. "I told you, I have had enough of blood. There is a great deal to be done, but I am going to try to do it without any more killing now.”
He went to the southern rim of the hill and lifted his hand in some signal to the men on his e.
The woma over and stood beside him, a an arm around her shoulders. A moment later they heard the notes of a h out over the valley and the hills, clear and high aiful, sounding ao battle.
Scelto, still on his knees, wiped at his eyes with a grimy hand. He looked over and saw that the third man, the one who had tried to ask him something, was still gazing out to sea. There ain there he could not uand. There had been pain everywhere today though. He had had it in his grasp, even now, to speak truth and unleash so much more.
His eyes swung slowly down again, away from the hard blue sky and the blue-green sea, past the man at the western edge of the hill, past dEymon of Ygrath slumped across the Kings chair with his own blade in his breast, and his gaze came to rest owo dead men beside each other on the ground, so hat they could have touched had they been alive.
He could keep their secret. He could live with it.
EPILOGUE THREE MEN ON HORSES IN THE SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS LOOKING over a valley to the east. There are pine and cedar woods beyond, hills oher side. The Sperion River sparkles in the distance, flowing down out of the mountains, not far from where it will begin its long curve west to find the sea. The air is bright and cool, with a feel of autumn in the breeze. The colors of the leaves will be ging soon and the year-round snow on the highest peaks of the mountains will begin moving down, closing the pass.
Iranquil green of the valley below them, Devihe dome of Eannas temple flash in the m sunlight. Beyond the Sanctuary he just make out the winding trail they had ridden down in the spring, ing here from the east across the border. It seems a lifetime ago. He turns in the saddle and looks north over the rolling, gradually subsiding hills.
"Will we be able to see it from here, later?”
Baerd glances over and then follows his gaze. "What, Avalle and the Towers? Easily, on any clear day. Meet me here in a years time and youll see my green-and-white Priower, I promise you.”
"Where are you getting the marble?" Sandre asks.
"Same place as Orsaria did for the inal tower. The quarry is still available, believe it or not, about two days ride west of us he coast.”
"And youll have it carried here?”
"By sea to Tigana, then on river barges up the Sperion. The same way they did it back then." Baerd has shaved his beard again. He looks years younger, Devin finds himself thinking.
"How do you know so much about it?" Sandre asks with lazy mockery. "I thought all you knew was archery and how not to fall on your face when you were out alone in the dark.”
Baerd smiles. "I was always going to be a builder. I have my fathers love of stone if not his gift. Im a craftsman though, and I knew how to look at things, even back then. I think I know as much as any man alive about how Orsaria built his towers and his palaces. Including one in Astibar, Sandre. Would you like me to tell you where your secret passages are?”
Sandre laughs aloud. "Dont boast, you presumptuous mason. Oher hand, it has been almost twenty years since I was in that palace, you may have to remind me of where they are.”
Grinning, Devin looks over at the Duke. It has taken him a long time to adjust to seeing Sahout his dark Khardhu guise. "You will be going back after the wedding, then?" he asks, feeling a sadness at the thought of another parting ahead.
"I think I must, though I will say that Im torn. I feel too old f anyone now. And it isnt as if I have any heirs to groom.”
After a moments stillness, Saakes them smoothly past the darkness of those memories: "To be ho, the thing that is me mht now is what Ive been doing here in Tigana. The mind- linking with Erlein aino and the wizards weve mao find.”
"And the Night Walkers?" Devin asks.
"Indeed, Baerds Carlozzini as well. I must say Im pleased that the four of them are ing with Alienor to the wedding.”
"Not as pleased as Baerd is, Im sure," Devin adds slyly. Baerd gives him a look, and pretends to be absorbed in sing the distant line of the road south of them.
"Well, hardly as pleased," Sandre agrees. "Though I do hope hell spare his Elena for a small part of the time shes here. If we are going to ge the attitude of this peninsula to magic theres er time to start than now, wouldnt you say?”
"Oh, certainly," Devin says, grinning broadly.
"Shes not my Elena," Baerd murmurs, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the road.
"She isnt?" Sandre asks in mock surprise. "Then whos this Baerd person she keeps usio relay messages to? Would you know the fellow?”
"Never heard of him," Baerd says laically. He keeps a straight face for a moment lohen gives way to laughter. "Im beginning to remember why I preferred keeping to myself. And what about Devin, if youre on that subject? You dont think Alais would be sending him messages if she could?”
"Devin," says the Duke airily, "is a mere child, far too young and io be getting involved with women, especially the likes of that guileful, experienced creature from Astibar." He attempts to look stern and fails; both of the others know his real opinion os daughter.
"There are no inexperienced women in Astibar," Baerd retorts. "And besides, hes old enough. He even has a battle scar on his ribs to show her.”
"Shes seen it already," Devin says, enjoying this enormously. "She taped it up after Rinaldo healed me," he adds hastily as both of the others raise their eyebrows. "No thrill there." He tries and fails to ceive of Alais as guileful aive. The memory of her on the window-ledge in Senzio keeps ing ba of late though; the particular smile on her face as he stumbled along the outside landing to his own room.
"They are ing, arent they?" the Duke asks. "It occurs to me that I could sail home with Rovigo.”
"Theyll be here," Devin firms. "They had a wedding of their own last week, or theyd have arrived by now.”
"I see you are intimately versed iiming," Baerd says with a straight face. "Just what do you plan to do aftbbr>er the wedding?”
"Actually," Devin says, "I wish I khere must be ten different things Ive thought about." He evidently sounds more serious than hed meant to, for both of his friends turn their attention fully to him.
"Such as?" Sandre asks, Devin takes a breath as it out. He holds up both hands and starts ting on his fingers. "Find my father and help him settle here again. Find Menico di Ferraut and put together the pany we should have had before you people side-tracked me. Stay with Alessan and Catriana in Tigana ahem with whatever they have to do. Learn how to handle a ship at sea; dont ask me why. Stay in Avalle and build a tower with Baerd." He hesitates; the others are smiling. He plunges onward: "Spend anht with Alienor at Borso. Spend my life with Alais bren Rovigo. Start chasing down the words and music of all the songs weve lost. Go over the mountains to Quileia and find the twenty-seven tree in the sacred grove. Start training for the sprint ra summers Triad Games. Learn how to shoot a bow—which reminds me, you did promise me that, Baerd!”
He stops, because they are laughing now, and so is he, a little breathlessly. "You must have gone past ten somewhere in that list," Baerd chuckles.
"There are more," Devin says. "Do you want them?”
"I dont think I could stand it," Sandre says. "You remioo painfully of how old I am and how young you are.”
Devin sobers at those words. He shakes his head. "hink that. I dont think there was a moment last year when I didnt have to work to keep up with you wherever we went." He smiles at a thought "You arent old, Sandre, youre the you wizard in the Palm.”
Sandres expression is wry. He holds up his left hand; they clearly see the two missing fingers.
"Theres truth to that. And I may be the first to break the habit of sing what we are, because I never got into the habit.”
"Youre serious about dropping the sing?" Baerd asks.
"Utterly serious. If we are to survive in this peninsula as a whole nation in the world we are going to
need magiatch Barbadior and Ygrath. And Khardhun, e to think of it. And I dont even knoowers they have in Quileia now; it has been too many years since we dealt with them. We o longer hide our wizards, or the Carlozzini, we t afford to be as ignorant as weve always been about how magic is shaped here. Even the Healers, we dont uand anything about them. We have to learn ic, value it, search wizards out and train them, find ways to trol them too. The Palm has to disciagic will undo us again one day the way it did twenty years ago.”
"You think we do that first thing though?" Devin asks. "Make a nation here, out of the nine we are?”
"I know we . And I think we will. I will wager you bht now that Alessan di Tigana is named King of the Palm at the Triad Games year.”
Devin turns quickly to Baerd, whose color has suddenly risen. "Would he take it?" he asks. "Would he do that, Baerd?”
Baerd looks at Sandre and then slowly back to Devin. "Who else could?" he answers finally. "I dont even think he has a choice. The knitting together of this peninsula has been his lifes cause since he was fifteen years old. He was already on that path when I found him in Quileia. I think ... I think what hed really like to do is find Menico with you, Devin, and spend a few years making music with you two, and Erlein, and Catriana, and some dancers, and someone who play the syrenya.”
"But?" Sandre asks.
"But hes the man who saved us all, everyone knows it, everyone knows who he is now. After a dozen years of being on the roads he knows more people who matter in each provihan anyone else.
Hes the one who gave the rest of us the vision. Ahe Prince of Tigana, too, and in his prime. Im afraid"—he grimaces at the word— "I dont see how he avoid this, even if he wao. I think for Alessan it is just beginning now.”
They are silent a moment.
"What about you?" Devin asks. "Will you go with him? What do you want?”
Baerd smiles. "What do I want? Nothing nearly so high. Id badly like to find my sister, but Im beginning to accept that shes . . . gone, and I think that I may never know where, or how. Ill be there for Alessan whenever he needs me, but what I most want to do is build things. Houses, temples, bridges, a palace, half a dozen towers here in Avalle. I o see things rising, and I ... I suppose its part of the same thing, but I want to start a family. We need children here again. Too many people died." He looks away for a moment toward the mountains and then back again. "You and I may be the lucky ones, Devin.
We arent Princes or Dukes or wizards. Were only ordinary men, with a life to start.”
"I told you he was waiting for Elena," Sandre says gently. Not a gibe, the voice of a friend, speaking with deep aflFe. Baerd smiles, looking into the distance again. And in that moment his expression ges, it grows charged with a fierce, bright pleasure: "Look!" he cries, pointing. "Here he es!”
From the south, winding out of the mountains and the hills of the highlands along a road that has not been used in hundreds of years there es a caravan, many-colored, stretg back a long way. There is music playing beside it and ahead, with men and women riding and on foot, donkeys and horses laden with goods, at least fifty banners flapping in the wind. And now the tunes drift up to the three of them, bright and gay, and all the colors are flashing in the m light as Marius, King of Quileia es riding down from the mountain pass to the wedding of his friend.
He is to spend the night in the Sanctuary where he will be formally weled by the High Priest of Eanna—whom he will remember as the man whht a fourteen-year-old boy to him over the mountains long ago. There are barges waiting in Avalle to take them down the river to Tigana in the m.
But the right of first greeting is Baerds, in Alessans name, and he has asked the two of them to ride
here with him.
"e on!" he cries now, joy in his face. He urges his horse forward down the sloping path. Devin and Sandre gla each other and hasten to follow.
"I will never uand," Devin shouts, as they catch up to Baerd, "how you possibly be so pleased to see a man who calls you Pigeon Two!”
Sandre gives a cackle of glee. Baerd laughs aloud, and mimes a blow at Devin. The three of them are still laughing as they slow their horses to swing around a cluster of sonrai bushes at a wide curve in the downward trail.
And it is there that they see the riselka, three men see a riselka, sitting on a rock beside the sunlit path, her long sea-green hair blowing ba the freshening breeze.天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》