"My cousin"s words were much with me, that eve. He spoke to me not as distant kin, but as father to son, and in truth, we had more in common than my father and I. He was not overly fond of my father, and he likewise held my brother in lesser regard.
"I saw the wisdom in what he said. She is not a wise woman; she is no longer counted beautiful among the men of this land. She was oft indulged by my brother, and clearly indulged by her father before him.
"I saw the opportunity to remake Clemente in my image, and not in the image of my father or my kai. They were not men comfortable with the High Courts; they were seldom seen in Amar, and seldom upon the plateau of the Leonne Court. But should I choose to take my rightful place in the Courts, I might better be served by a woman of cunning and grace.
"I intended to tell her as much, and she saw that in my posture and my expression. But she did not plead or argue. She bowed her head a moment; her hair was unbound and it formed a curtain, a veil, between us.
"I thought she might speak. I knew if she did, it would be difficult. But she had often spoken on my behalf when my kai was annoyed with my pretension and the company I chose to keep. I could not bid her be silent.
"And she asked me only one question."
Marakas nodded, unwilling to break the flow of the Tor"s words with his own. Words in the Dominion were rare, especially given during the Lord"s time. His silence acknowledged their gift.
"She said, "Will you grant us the use of your mother"s domis?" Her hands were in her lap, and they were not still; they were not perfect. She could not school her expression, and I knew it cost her much to say the words. She looked lovely to me then.
"I did not answer the question she asked. My mother had been dead five years, and the domis that she occupied had seen no use. It was not small, but it was not the harem in which she had presided during my brother"s reign. I asked her, "What of your son?"
"And she said, "He knows what waits." Just that. But it was enough. There was death and mourning in her voice, and a dignity that I had not thought she would possess."
Marakas did not speak. But he, too, bowed his head a moment. The son was not yet of age, but heir to the father, and if Ser Alessandro was to rule without question, he could not then leave that boy alive.
Yet he had. Clearly, he had.
"I do not love her as my brother loved her. But I do not love her less; she was as sister to me while he lived. I bid her rise, I bid her summon her son. I drew the sword of Clemente and spoke its secret name in the harem"s heart. It was . . . a test. But she rose, and she left the room while I waited, and when she returned, her son came with her.
"And he seemed to me to be my brother in his youth; dour and determined to go to his fate shorn of dishonesty. He was then twelve years of age. Not yet a man, but by his quiet action, no longer a boy."
His hand fell to his sword as he spoke.
"Ser Janos kai di"Clemente knelt before me, exposing the back of his neck. "Do you offer me your life, Ser Janos?" He looked up at me, his eyes Roberto"s eyes, his expression . . . mine. But he said, "For the good of the clan, I offer it willingly."
""Then offer it upon your feet, boy. Offer it with sword in hand." He had no sword of his own; no named blade. I . . . gave him mine."
Marakas closed his eyes. This was, he thought, a song. Not the song of the Serra Diora, nor a song that might play well in the Courts in which the Lord ruled at his harshest. But there was a beauty in the simple meter of a man"s voice, a man"s memory, that hallowed the words. That made them. All of his judgment was undone; he repented of it, of his anger in the past, of his accusations. All. He took the gift of beauty offered him, and he treasured it; he would always treasure it.
"He was no fool; he rose at once, clumsy now, the grace of acceptance forgotten. He looked younger than his years, where a moment before he had looked beyond them.
""I will have no wife, but the Serra Celina," I told him. "And, Na"jano, I will have no kai but you.""
"He was young, but he was cautious. He was afraid of hope, afraid to return from the state of death that he had managed to achieve, afraid to lose the peace and the determination of that acceptance. Twelve years," he added, shaking his head. "I would not have been such a boy, at twelve. But . . . I would have had Roberto as my guide, and he would not have laid down his life if it meant the loss of mine.
"His mother said nothing. Instead, she watched as her son accepted my sword. His eyes didn"t leave mine; I thought he might drop the sword, or at least cut his foot with its edge, for he lowered it too quickly. But he lowered it point first, and the heft of the blade drove it a half inch into the mats. He knelt, knees to either side of it, and he raised his face, and he lost years as the minutes went by.
""Na"jano."
"Ser Alessandro.
""I am not the man your father was. What I make of Clemente will not be what he made of it. You must be certain that you understand what this means, for when I die, the responsibilities of the Torrean will devolve to you. Will you serve me? Will you be the kai Clemente to a kai such as I have become?""
"He is your kai," Marakas said quietly.
"Yes. No fool, he; he agreed to all that I asked. And his mother agreed to all that I offered."
"If I am not a poor judge of character," Marakas said, after a moment, "what you granted when he was twelve has marked him. You are his kin, certainly, but you are more than that: you have become his . . . hero."
Ser Alessandro laughed. "Such a quaint word, that."
"Yet it was not to the Tyr that he went when we returned from Damar; not by the Tyr"s side that he stood; not for the Tyr that he demanded much of his physicians."
"Aye, perhaps. And perhaps I value his foolishness. But I have wandered, par el"Sol. What I offered the Serra Celina, she understood, and she likewise understands that, risk displeasure of my Tyr or no, I will do what I must, will see the Serra Diora-and the sword she bears-to the last of the Leonnes."
Silence, then. Measured. Profound.
"You did not speak of this-burden-to the kai Lamberto."
"No. It is not my burden to speak of." He rose. "My men are severely depleted; I can take but a handful if I do not wish to strip my city of defenses it may need in future. Will you travel with us?"
"Of course. I, too, have a debt to pay."
The heart of the harem had been moved to less elegant quarters, the privacy of the wives now enforced not by the presence of opaque walls and sliding doors, but by men, armed and armored, who bore the Tor"s crest.
When the seraf came, she was ready.
She had accepted the aid of Serra Celina"s wives, and they had bound her hair in gold and jade; they had offered her saris and silks, and had retrieved from her meager belongings the golden bracelets and chains that spoke of her former wealth. These, Ramdan and Ona Teresa had offered her when the Tor Leonne was miles at their back, and the road before them broken by the thousands of men and women who had chosen the prudence of flight beneath the moon"s fullest, brightest face.
She wore them, missing the rings that had once adorned her hands. Missing, more, the woman upon whom she had impulsively bestowed them. Margret, she thought. What would you say? What would you do were you now within this harem, this domis?
Thinking about it brought the first smile of the long day to her face. Margret was a Matriarch, and if Arkosa chose to spend its peaceful months wandering the length and breadth of Averda, a clansman of note dared to offer her no threat when war had already begun its slow march across his Torrean. Would she sit? No. Would she allow the serafs to demean themselves by tending her? Would she accept the touch of their hands, the bowls of water, the application of powders, kohls, perfume?
Each question anch.o.r.ed the smile, made of it a rueful map by which the canny might find their way to her hidden heart.
No, and no and no.
Margret had most reminded her of Ruatha, of the dead and the lost, but in the end, Margret was none of these things: she lived, breathed Voyani fire, spoke like the most impatient and graceless of men.
But she no longer dismissed all clansmen, all clanswomen, as people beneath note or desire.
The Serra Celina herself gave Diora her fans, as fine as any that she had possessed as the Serra Diora en"Leonne; she brought sweet water and the fruit of the trees that lay hidden behind the cultivated wilderness of Sarel, as if she were seraf. Or as if Diora were a visiting clansman of great power and significance.
All this was offered in silence, but the gift that she most prized was the samisen that was placed in her lap.
For when she played, Ona Teresa"s shuddering convulsions seemed to abate for a time, and Ramdan, never less watchful, could withdraw into the perfection of a seraf"s subservience.
She therefore followed her own inclination, her own desire; she played.
The music brought her many things.
It enforced all silence save her own; it created a distance between her and the rest of the women who gathered here, drifting in ones and twos beyond the periphery of her awareness; it gave her an audience, even if that audience wisely sought shadow, abjuring the harsh sunlight that filtered through the exposed gap of broken screen.
The audience grounded her; she accepted its presence with perfect grace, drawing strength from the fact of it. Hours, days, even months, had been spent in such repose, and when she retreated into music, all war was held in abeyance.
But the harbingers of war did come, finally.
She stood in their shadow, and lifted her head when the notes of the mournful song at last ceased its plaintive echo.
Kallandras of Senniel College bowed. "Serra Diora," he said gravely, kneeling before her as if he did not understand how this gesture unmanned him in the presence of the Clemente wives, "I have brought what you commanded."
He laid the awkward runed box at her feet.
She would have thanked him, but the momentary anxiety of its presence robbed her of some little grace; she set the samisen to one side, to better carry the Sun Sword, hidden in the last of its havens. A man"s sword.
The strange, tall lord stood like white shadow at Kallandras" side, but he did not demean himself by kneeling.
"I . . . thank you, Kallandras," she said quietly, speaking not in the private voice, but in her own, shorn of power.
"Thank Yollana," he replied, with the hint of a smile. "If you dare. She is . . . in a poor mood."
"She is the Matriarch of Havalla," Diora replied, smile bleeding into the edges of her face as she thought of the other Matriarch she now loved. "And she has had some word from her daughters, if I am not mistaken."
"I believe," he replied, equally grave, "that if you are mistaken, so too are any of those who serve Clemente who still know how to listen."
"And a lot of those who don"t serve Clemente," another voice said. Her Torra was rough, accented by the fields, by labor, by the spurious freedom that was Voyani wandering.
Diora looked past the kneeling form of the Northern bard and met the open gaze of Jewel ATerafin, woman of the North.
By her side, Ariel stood. Her smile was shy, and it was hesitant, but it transformed her waif"s face.
"Ariel," Jewel said quietly, and the girl slid to ground, her legs forming lap before the Serra Diora, her posture exposing the sharp lines of shoulder blades, the slender nub of uncounted ribs.
"She thinks you have a beautiful voice," the Northerner continued, blithely unaware of the embarra.s.sment her words caused the child.
Serra Diora smiled gracefully, although she lifted her fan and let it hover just beneath the curve of her lips. "She is gracious," she said.
Jewel ATerafin turned a look upon the child"s back, an I Told You So that the child herself failed to witness. She was no court seraf, this child; all of her grace lay in her youth, and the obeisance that came so naturally to her was tinged by the simplicity of awe.
"Please accept our apologies," Jewel continued quietly. "But Yollana thought it best that we avoid all presence of the Tyr"agnate. He is rumored to . . . hate . . . things Northern."
"It is no mere rumor," Diora said softly. "But perhaps the legend of his hatred is much exaggerated."
Jewel raised a dark brow, and then shunted unruly curls from the sides of her face. Hair such as that, Diora thought, would never be given free reign within any domis of note; it would be attacked with irons and heat, brought into a semblance of straightness; no Serra allowed herself to be so publicly unkempt.
But it suited the woman. She wore vest, shirt, pants; she dressed as if she were already claimed by the Voyanne that her ancestors must have deserted.
"There is no wiser woman than Yollana of the Havalla Voyani," Diora said gravely, "and her advice-when offered-is to be treasured."
"Or feared," Jewel ATerafin said, the gravity of her words displacing the oddity of her appearance. "And heeded."
Diora smiled again, this time bringing the fan up to the periphery of vision. "And heeded," she said, agreeable as only a Serra might be.
"But we"re here."
Again she smiled. Jewel ATerafin was not like Margret of the Arkosa Voyani; not for her the barely hidden depth of anger, the sudden well of fear. The shadow she cast in the harsh light was not one thing, but three: It spoke of herself, the beast she could command in silence, and the man who served her.
Only the man was present, and he had been attired in the finery of Court serafs.
"We"re here," Jewel said again. "The kai Lamberto will come, soon, and when he does, we will either fight or depart."
No question, now, of which was preferable. The Northern hand, lined and darkened by too much exposure to sunlight, rested lightly against the pommel of an obvious dagger.
"Are you ready?" Jewel said, surprising in her frankness.
Diora nodded. With care, she lifted the only burden of import. "I am ready."
"Good. Because he has just entered the room."
The warning was unnecessary; the women of Clemente chose to abase themselves as he pa.s.sed, and she could see the fact of that pa.s.sage in the supine bend of exposed back, exposed neck, the fall of black hair.
He came with Tyran; two men that Diora had not yet seen. They strode an arm"s length from his back, their step in time with his, their hands by their sides.
Kallandras did not rise; Celleriant did not kneel.
And Jewel ATerafin hesitated a moment before she chose to join the bard, and not the lord who served her.
"Serra Diora," he said, his eyes pa.s.sing above the Northerners as if they were beneath notice-or contempt.
"Tyr"agnate." Her own bow served to protect what she now carried.
"If you can be ready, we leave upon the morrow."
She was to be accorded the trappings of the rank a.s.sa.s.sination had taken from her: a palanquin was brought, and it was carried by Lambertan Tyran. She saw it clearly, and with surprise; it seemed a foreign thing, an enclosure, much like a gilded cage.
If Ser Mareo kai di"Lamberto noticed her hesitation, he did not show it; he waited, his hand the hand that drew beaded curtain to one side. An honor.
He waited thus, and she kept him waiting for as long as it took to offer her thanks to the Serra Celina. But the Serra Celina was unnerved by the presence of the Tyr, aware of the shortcomings of her court and her serafs. She bowed to the Serra Diora, as she had not done in the harem, and then, rising slowly, retrieved something from the serafs who waited in her shadow.
This she pressed into Diora"s open hands.
A samisen.
A good one, wood well oiled, top covered in fine wooden inlay and a hint of gold. Diora was seldom speechless, but words deserted her as her fingers clutched the underside of the instrument. She lifted her face, exposing it to the Serra Celina.
The Serra blushed. "It isn"t much," she said softly, so softly her words might not carry to the men who waited. "But it-"
"It is a very fine instrument," Diora said, willing herself to return it. But her will was weak; her hands tight. "Too fine an instrument for traveling. I am honored, Serra Celina, but I-"
"You play it far better than I," the clanswoman said, with warmth. "And having heard it in your hands, I don"t think I could bear to listen to myself-or my wives-coax awkward tunes from its strings again."
Diara opened her lips to speak, attempting to choose the right words.