If. If only. He frowned at the direction of his thoughts; they were pathetic and unworthy. The Lady"s presence was obviously heavy on his mind. And why not? It was the Festival of the Moon, after all. He turned his gaze away from the lights upon the hill; the Tor Leonne was not for him this night.
Not this one.
Musicians played in the streets of the Tor Leonne, some good, some bad, and some, Sendari thought, who deserved the Lady"s harshest judgment. Men"s voices were raised in loud and boisterous song, and the drunken boasts of old soldiers destroyed the quiet that usually settled over the city at night. The young men were out roving, and one or two lives were certain to end in some imaginary contest of "honor"; the young boys were out, listening with rapt attention to the sounds of their first Festival. Eating the fruits and the confections and the sweet foods, drinking poor wine and sweet water, watching the comings and goings of clansmen whose deeds they hoped, one day, to rival.
He could hardly remember the days when he had been such a child; they were another country, and the ways to it had long since been destroyed. But he found it unexpectedly poignant to see two young boys together, the younger self-consciously aping the actions of the elder, the elder cautioning the younger and attempting to keep him safe. To watch them, thinking of the days when par and kai had such very different meanings.
Sendari could not pause for long, however; the crowds were thicker, and they surged around him, moving him forward inch by inch. Shaking off the webs of youth, he began to move in their direction.
He found a place to sit beneath the awnings of the silvered trees, a spot which, imbued by the lively atmosphere of the Festival, lost all of its lovely mystery. A fountain, old and slow to move at any but Festival time, gurgled at his back as he sat upon its marble shelf, thinking. And trying not to think. Alora. Adano. Diora.
The Festival of the Sun made the Tor Leonne an easier place to rest one"s feet and gird for battle. Not so this Festival, a half-year away. Moon-touched, he thought night thoughts, too melancholy to be properly grim, which would have been more acceptable to a man of Sendari"s character. "Sendari!"
He started to smile before he realized that he recognized the voice; there were some things that were lodged in places deeper than conscious memory. Lifting an arm, he curved his fingers in greeting.
Captain Alesso par di"Marente, looking very much a child of the night, lifted a goblet in return. "Wine?"
"Not from that vineyard," Sendari said, grimacing as his friend shrugged and half-emptied the gla.s.s. "Then I"ll drink yours."
"I"d guess that you already have." As he tilted his head back, his hair gleamed as if the back of a raven"s wings were brushing the nape of his neck. He was a tall man, and his bearing was one of quiet confidence. He could wield a sword better than most of the warriors that Sendari had seen take the Festival Challenge, and he could handle a mount as if the line that separated horse and rider could be severed at will. Sendari knew this, and accepted it without rancor.
Because Captain Alesso par di"Marente was also a politically canny man, one who understood power. Or rather, he thought, one who understood that power was not necessarily the ground gained by standing like a common oaf and planting one"s sword into another"s chest. Not necessarily.
"How will you spend the Festival Night?"
"I? In study, old friend. I have much to learn, and it is, after all, a night like any other. You?"
"I shall spend it as always, in the arms of those women who could never come to me willingly otherwise. Come," Alesso said, tossing the goblet aside. "I"ve had enough of the Festival crowd."
"Oh?"
"I want peace and a moment for thought."
Sendari laughed.
"What?"
"You, Alesso. When it is quiet, it is too quiet; you must drink or ride or fight to escape the
consequence of a moment"s peace. But here-here, where you should be in your element-you
want peace, and you ask me why I laugh?"
Alesso di"Marente smiled, a sure sign that he had had enough drink for the evening. "If you wish to remain here, remain here."
"You lead, di"Marente."
"As always."
Peace was not, in the end, the quiet that Sendari usually a.s.sociated with the word. Nor was it the
meditative stillness, the silent companionship in which friends need not speak to be understood.
Alesso"s smile, rare, had obviously not been due to drink alone.
"I should have known," Sendari said, panting slightly from the exertion of the forbidden climb.
"Yes," Alesso replied quietly. "You should have."
They stood together, gazing at the Lady"s face as the waters of the lake of the Tor Leonne rippled it. Music came from across the lake; the sound of muted merriment.
"We"re not young men anymore."
"No."
Silence. Sendari did not need to tell Alesso what their transgression here would mean; he knew it.
He always understood the risks of the tasks he chose to undertake. And yet he did not shy away from risk; indeed, as he grew older, he grew both less cautious and more cunning.
"I"ve heard a disturbing rumor, Sendari."
"Ah. You as well?" Sendari listened to the lap of waves against rocks and rushes; it was such an uncommon sound in the South that he had to stop a moment to savor it. "Do you know when war will be declared?"
"The war?" Alesso shrugged. "After the Festival, no doubt. But it wasn"t war that I spoke of."
"What else is there to speak of-or not to speak of? It is in the air, Alesso. The Tyr wishes to advance beyond the cradle of Averda; it has been two summers with very poor harvests in the plains, and he is pressed hard on all sides by the ramifications. There are reasons why I wish to take the test."
"That is the rumor I wished to discuss."
"That-ah." A momentary surprise, and a slightly longer annoyance, flitted across Sendari"s features. The decision should have been a private affair; he had spoken to no one save Teresa about it. He knew how she felt about Alesso di"Marente; it was not from her that the information had come. From who, then? What weakness was there in his household? One of his wives? The serafs? He wanted to ask, but let it drop as he met his companion"s dark gaze. "I should have known. How long?"
"How long have I been watching-and watching over-you?" Alesso looked into the darkness that the full moon kept at bay. "In one way or another, since you were eight." Alesso himself had been ten, an older boy whose daring greatly impressed the child that Sendari had been. The adult that he had become. This continuity, unlooked for, between his childhood self and his adult self caught him off guard, as no doubt Alesso had intended.
"Why?"
"Why," was Alesso"s response, "will you take the test?
Years ago, when invited to do so by Widan Cortano himself, you refused."
Sendari knew that Alesso already knew the answer, and he was angry a moment; the sound of the waters calmed him by slow degrees. "Does it matter?"
His companion spoke again. "She is truly gone."
"This is not the night to discuss her," Sendari said softly, a warning in his voice.
"There will never be such a night," was Alesso"s reply. "Tomorrow, when the Festival Moon is at
her fullest, you will wander the streets like any other stranger, reveling in your choice of freedoms.
"She stood between us a long time, old friend."
"And still does," Sendari surprised himself by saying. "Do not speak of what you do not
understand."
"Then let me speak, instead, of what I do understand.
"You will take the test of the sword, and you will survive it. You will be marked as a Widan, in
the service of clan Marano. Your kai, Adano, will offer your services to the clan Leonne, and
with your cunning, your rise through the ranks of the counselors will be swift."
Alora"s ghost melted into the recesses of his night thoughts, leaving him s.p.a.ce to smile. It was a thin smile. "Will you always plan my life, Alesso?"
"Plan? Not 1.1 merely predict."
Silence again. Uncomfortable, the unsaid between them like a veil or a wall. Sendari gazed at the lake, listening for the sounds of the streets that seemed so far removed they might be imagination.
"Let me ask you a question, Sendari. Let us pretend, for the moment, that the Lady"s Moon holds
sway. Let us take no responsibility for the things said here, between us; they are moon thoughts,
night thoughts. They exist outside of the natural order; they will travel no farther."
Sendari raised a hand to stem the tide of words; Alesso stood silent for as long as it took that hand to fall, shaking slightly, to Sendari"s side.
"Have you never considered killing Adano?"
Because Alesso was his friend, and because the pledge that had been uttered was so unusual for
Alesso, Sendari did not respond the way honor-the way blood- demanded he should. The insult in the question would have been death for a lesser man; it darkened Sendari"s cheeks. With anger.
With shame.
"You take your risk," he said at last. "And I take mine. Of course I"ve considered it. Adano cannot lead Marano where I could have led it, had I been born first." Alesso might have laughed, had he been another man; there was no triumph at all in his expression as he met, and held, Sendari"s dark eyes. "And yet Adano lives."
"Corano kai di"Marente lives as well. Or would you tell me that I am alone in my desire?"
"Oh, no. Why would I tell such a useless lie to you?" he asked, placing his cloak against gra.s.s
and rock alike, as he stared at the moon"s reflection as if, Sendari thought, it were a mirror. He spoke to the moon"s face, to the waters of the lake, to the wind that carried no man"s words. But he spoke in Sendari"s hearing, and that was enough. "I could have killed him. I almost did, twice. It would have been so simple. And then I would be kai, my brothers par; Marente would be mine, and it would be a great clan."
"It is not inconsiderable now." "No? But neither is Marano." Alesso"s smile creased the line of his profile ever so slightly. "But the risk is high, old friend." And it was. Blood did not shed blood in the Dominion of Annagar without great danger-but the worst of the kin crimes was the killing of the kai. Only a handful of times in the history of the Dominion had such a crime occurred, and because of it, the rule of the Lord of Night had finally been brought to an end.
By the clan Leonne. Wielding the Sun Sword in the name of Justice.
"And is it only the risk?"
"Is it only the risk that holds your hand?"
"Mine?" Brooding silence; after a moment, Sendari joined Alesso on the incline, sitting more
carefully. "No. Not risk alone. But I had-"
"Her."
"Yes. I have already shown myself open to weakness of that nature."