chapter 16
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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></a>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,<var>藏书网</var> 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<tt></tt> 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.”
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