Chapter 2
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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<samp>.9９ｌｉｂ?</samp>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 m<var></var>ental 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.
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