Tigana

There was a sound, a drawing of breath, as she came through the doors in the green robes of a rite that had not been performed in two and a half hundred years, her hair drawn back and bound in a net green as the sea.

Trained to control, being what they were, the clergy quickly fell silent. And in silence they made way for her, to follow behind in orderly rows of crimson and smoke-grey.

She knew they would make Scelto trail behind them. He could not be part of this procession of the rites. She knew she had not properly said farewell to him. Hers was not a life meant to be made whole.

They went west down the corridor to the Grand Staircase. At the top of the wide marble stairs Dianora paused and looked down, and she finally understood why the saishan had been so silent. All the women and the castrates were gathered below. They had been allowed out, permitted to come this far to see her pa.s.s by. Holding her head very high and looking neither left nor right she set her foot on the first stair and started down. She was no longer herself, she thought. No longer Dianora, or not only Dianora. She was merging further into legend with every step she took.

And then, at the bottom of the staircase, as she stepped onto the mosaic-inlaid tiles of the floor, she realized who was waiting by the palace doors to escort her out and her heart almost stopped.

There was a cl.u.s.ter of men there. D"Eymon, for one, and Rhama.n.u.s as well, who had stayed in the Palm as she"d been sure he would, and had been named as Brandin"s First Lord of the Fleet. Beside them was Doarde the poet, representing the people of Chiara. She had expected him: it had been d"Eymon"s clever idea that the partic.i.p.ation of one Island poet could help counterbalance the crime and death of another. Next to Doarde was a burly, sharp-faced man in brown velvet hung about with a ransom"s worth of gold. A merchant from Corte, and a successful one clearly enough; very possibly one of the ghouls who had made their fortune preying on the ruins of Tigana two decades ago. Behind him was a lean grey-clad priest of Morian who was obviously from Asoli. She could tell from his colouring, the native Asolini all had that look about them.

She also knew he was from Asoli because the last of the men waiting for her there was from Lower Corte and she knew him. A figure from her own internal legends, from the myths and hopes that had sustained her life this far. And this was the one whose presence here almost froze the blood in her veins.

In white of course, majestic as she remembered him from when she was a girl, gripping the ma.s.sive staff that had always been his signature, and towering over every man there, stood Danoleon the High Priest of Eanna in Tigana.

The man who had taken Prince Alessan away to the south. So Baerd had told her the night he saw his own riselka and went away to follow them.

She knew him, everyone had known Danoleon, his long-striding, broad-shouldered pre-eminence, the deep, glorious instrument that was his voice in temple services. Approaching the doors Dianora fought back a moment of wild panic before sternly controlling herself. There was no way he could recognize her. He had never known her as a child. Why should he have-the adolescent daughter of an artist loosely attached to the court? And she had changed, she was infinitely changed since then.

She couldn"t take her eyes off him though. She had known d"Eymon was arranging for someone to be there from Lower Corte, but had never expected Danoleon himself. In the days when she had worked in The Queen in Stevanien it was well-known that Eanna"s High Priest had withdrawn from the wider world into the G.o.ddess"s Sanctuary in the southern hills.

Now he had come out, and was here, and looking at him, drinking in his reality, Dianora felt an absurd, an almost overwhelming swell of pride to see how he seemed to dominate, merely by his presence, all the people a.s.sembled there.

It was for him, and for the men and women like him, the ones who were gone and the ones who yet lived in a broken land, that she was going to do what she would do today. His eyes rested on her searchingly; they were all doing that, but it was under Danoleon"s clear blue gaze that Dianora drew herself up even taller than before. Behind them all, beyond the doors which had not yet been opened, she seemed to see the riselka"s path growing brighter all the time.

She stopped and they bowed to her, all six men putting a straight leg forward and bending low in a fashion of salute not used for centuries. But this was legend, ceremony, an invocation of many kinds of power, and Dianora sensed that she must now seem to them like some hieratic figure out of the tapestry scrolls of the distant past.

"My lady," said d"Eymon gravely, "if it pleases you and you are minded to allow us, we would attend upon you now and lead you to the King of the Western Palm."

Carefully said, and clearly, for all their words were to be remembered and repeated. Everything was to be remembered. One reason the priests were here, and a poet.

"It pleases me," she said simply. "Let us go." She did not say more; her own words would matter less. It was not what she would say say today that was to be remembered. today that was to be remembered.

She still could not take her eyes from Danoleon. He was the first man from Tigana, she realized, that she had seen since coming to the Island. In a very direct way it eased her heart that Eanna, whose children they all were, had allowed her to see this man before she went into the sea.

D"Eymon nodded a command. Slowly the ma.s.sive bronze doors swung open upon the vast crowd a.s.sembled between the palace and the pier. She saw people spilling across the square to the farthest ends of the harbour, even thronging the decks of the ships at anchor there. The steady murmur of sound that had been present all morning swelled to a crescendo as the doors swung open, and then it abruptly stopped and fell away as the crowd caught sight of her. A rigid, straining silence seemed to claim Chiara under the blue arch of the sky; and out into that stillness Dianora went.

And it was then, as they moved into the brilliant sunshine along the aisle, the shining path that had been made for her pa.s.sage, that she saw Brandin waiting by the sea for her, dressed like a soldier-king, without extravagance, bareheaded in the light of spring.

Something twisted within her at the sight of him, like a blade in a wound. It will end soon It will end soon, she told herself steadily. Only a little longer now. It will all be over soon enough Only a little longer now. It will all be over soon enough.

She went towards him then, walking like a Queen, slender and tall and proud, clad in the colours of the dark-green sea with a crimson gem about her throat. And she knew that she loved him, and knew her land was lost if he was not driven away or slain, and she grieved with all her being for the simple truth that her mother and her father had had a daughter born to them all those years ago.

For someone as small as he was it was hopeless to try to see anything from the harbour square itself, and even the deck of the ship that had brought them here from Corte was thronged with people who had paid the captain for a chance to view the Dive from this vantage point. Devin had made his way over to the mainmast and scrambled up to join another dozen men clinging to the rigging high above the sea. There were compensations inherent in agility.

Erlein was somewhere below amid the crowd on deck. He was still terrified, after three days here, by this enforced proximity to the sorceror from Ygrath. It was one thing, he had said angrily, to elude Trackers in the south, another for a wizard to walk up to a sorceror.

Alessan was somewhere among the crowd in the harbour. Devin had spotted him at one point working his way towards the pier, but couldn"t see him now. Danoleon was inside the palace itself, representing Lower Corte in the ceremony. The irony of that was almost overwhelming, whenever Devin allowed himself to think about it. He tried not to because it made him afraid, for all of them.

But Alessan had been decisive when the courteously phrased request had come for the High Priest to travel north and join men of the other three provinces as formal witnesses to the Ring Dive.

"You will go, of course," the Prince had said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "And we shall be there as well. I need to take the measure of things on Chiara since this change."

"Are you absolutely mad?" Erlein had gasped, not bothering to hide his disbelief.

Alessan had only laughed, though not, Devin thought, with any real amus.e.m.e.nt. He had become virtually impossible to read since his mother had died. Devin felt quite inadequate to the task of bridging that s.p.a.ce or breaking through. Several times in the days following Pasithea"s death he had found himself desperately wishing that Baerd was with them.

"What about Savandi?" Erlein had demanded. "Couldn"t this be a trap for Danoleon. Or for you, even?"

Alessan shook his head. "Hardly. You said yourself, no message was sent. And it is entirely plausible that he was killed by brigands in the countryside as Torre made it seem. The King of the Western Palm has larger things to worry about right now than one of his petty spies. I"m not concerned about that, Erlein, but I do thank you for your solicitude." He smiled, a wintry smile. Erlein had scowled and stalked away.

"What are are you concerned about?" Devin had asked the Prince. you concerned about?" Devin had asked the Prince.

But Alessan hadn"t answered that.

High in the rigging of the Aema Falcon Aema Falcon Devin waited with the others for the palace doors to open, and tried to control the pounding of his heart. It was difficult though; the sense of excitement and antic.i.p.ation that had been building on the Island for three days had started to become overwhelming this morning, and had taken an almost palpable shape when Brandin himself had appeared and walked calmly down to the pier with a small retinue, including one stooped, balding old man dressed exactly like the King. Devin waited with the others for the palace doors to open, and tried to control the pounding of his heart. It was difficult though; the sense of excitement and antic.i.p.ation that had been building on the Island for three days had started to become overwhelming this morning, and had taken an almost palpable shape when Brandin himself had appeared and walked calmly down to the pier with a small retinue, including one stooped, balding old man dressed exactly like the King.

"Brandin"s Fool," the Cortean in the rigging next to him said, when Devin asked, pointing. "Something to do with sorcery, the way they do things in Ygrath." He grunted. "We"re better off not knowing."

Devin had gazed for the first time at the man who had destroyed Tigana and tried to imagine what it would be like to have a bow in his hands right now and Baerd"s or Alessan"s skill at archery. It was a long, but not an impossible shot, down, and across a span of water to strike a single soberly clad, bearded man standing by the sea.

Imagining the flight of that arrow in the morning sun, he remembered another conversation with Alessan, at the rail of the Falcon Falcon the night they reached Chiara. the night they reached Chiara.

"What do we want want to happen?" Devin had asked. to happen?" Devin had asked.

Word had reached the Gulf of Corte just before they sailed that most of the Second Company of Alberico"s Barbadian mercenaries had now been pulled back from the border forts and cities in Ferraut and were marching with the other armies towards Senzio. Hearing that, Alessan"s face had gone pale, and there was a sudden hard glitter in his grey eyes.

Much like his mother"s, Devin had thought, but would not dream of saying.

On the ship Alessan had turned to him briefly at the question and then looked back out to sea. It was very late, nearer dawn than midnight. Neither of them had been able to sleep. Both moons were overhead and the water gleamed and sparkled with their mingled light.

"What do we want to happen?" Alessan repeated. "I"m not completely sure. I think I know, but I can"t be certain yet. That"s why we"re going to watch this Dive."

They listened to the sounds of the ship in the night sea. Devin cleared his throat.

"If she fails?" he asked.

Alessan was silent for so long Devin didn"t think he was going to answer. Then, very softly, he said, "If the Certandan woman fails Brandin is lost I think. I am almost sure."

Devin looked quickly over at him. "Well then, that means ..."

"That means a number of things, yes. One is our name come back. Another is Alberico ruling the Palm. Before the year is out, almost certainly."

Devin tried to absorb that. If we take them then we must take them both If we take them then we must take them both, he remembered the Prince saying in the Sandreni lodge, with Devin hiding in the loft above.

"And if she succeeds?" he asked.

Alessan shrugged. In the blue and silver moonlight his profile seemed more marble than flesh. "You tell me. How many people of the provinces will fight against the Empire of Barbadior for a king who has been wedded to the seas of the Palm by a sea-bride from this peninsula?"

Devin thought about it.

"A lot," he said at length. "I think a lot of people would fight."

"So do I," said Alessan. "Then the next question becomes, who would win? And the one after that is: Is there something we can do about it?"

"Is there?"

Alessan looked over at him then and his mouth crooked wryly. "I have lived my life believing so. We may find it put to the test very soon."

Devin stopped his questions then. It was very bright with the two moons shining. A short while later Alessan touched his shoulder and pointed with his other hand. Devin looked and saw a high, dark ma.s.s of land rising from the sea in the distance.

"Chiara," said Alessan.

And so Devin saw the Island for the first time.

"Have you ever been here before?" he asked softly.

Alessan shook his head, never taking his eyes from that dark, mountainous shape on the horizon.

"Only in my dreams," he said.

"She"s coming!" someone shouted from the topmost rigging of the Asolini ship anch.o.r.ed next to them; the cry was immediately picked up and strung from ship to ship and along the harbour, peaking in a roar of antic.i.p.ation. someone shouted from the topmost rigging of the Asolini ship anch.o.r.ed next to them; the cry was immediately picked up and strung from ship to ship and along the harbour, peaking in a roar of antic.i.p.ation.

And then falling away to an eerie, chilling silence as the ma.s.sive bronze doors of Chiara Palace swung fully back to reveal the woman framed within.

Even when she began to walk the silence held. Moving slowly, she pa.s.sed among the throngs a.s.sembled in the square, seeming almost oblivious to them. Devin was too far away to see her face clearly yet, but he was suddenly conscious of a terrible beauty and grace. It is the ceremony It is the ceremony, he told himself; it is only because of where she is. He saw Danoleon behind her, moving among the other escorts, towering above them.

And then, moved by some instinct, he turned from them to Brandin of Ygrath on the pier. The King was nearer to him and he had the right angle. He could see how the man watched the woman approach. His face was utterly expressionless. Icy cold.

He"s calculating the situation, Devin thought. The numbers, the chances. He"s using using all of this-the woman, the ritual, everyone gathered here with so much pa.s.sion in them-for a purely political end. He realized that he despised the man for that, over and above everything else: hated him for the blank, emotionless gaze with which he watched a woman approach to risk her life for him. By the Triad, he was supposed to be in love with her! all of this-the woman, the ritual, everyone gathered here with so much pa.s.sion in them-for a purely political end. He realized that he despised the man for that, over and above everything else: hated him for the blank, emotionless gaze with which he watched a woman approach to risk her life for him. By the Triad, he was supposed to be in love with her!

Even the bent old man beside him, Devin saw, the King"s Fool, dressed exactly like Brandin, was wringing his hands over and about each other in obvious apprehension, anxiety and concern vivid in his face.

By contrast, the face of the King of the Western Palm was a frigid, uncaring mask. Devin didn"t even want to look at him any more. He turned back to the woman, who had come much nearer now.

And because she had, because she was almost at the water"s edge, he could see that his first sense had been right and his glib explanation wrong: Dianora di Certando clad in the sea-green robes of the Ring Dive was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in all his life.

What do we want to happen? he had asked Alessan three nights ago, sailing to this Island. he had asked Alessan three nights ago, sailing to this Island.

He still didn"t know the answer. But looking down at the woman as she reached the sea a sudden fear rose in him, and an entirely unexpected pity. He grasped the rigging tightly and set himself to watch from high, high above.

She knew Brandin better than she knew anyone alive; it had been necessary, in order to survive, especially in the beginning, in order to say and do the right things in a mortally dangerous place. Then as the years slipped by necessity had somehow been alchemized into something else. Into love, actually, bitterly hard as that had been to acknowledge. She had come here to kill, with the twin snakes of memory and hatred in her heart. Instead, she had ended up understanding him better than anyone in the world because there was no one else who mattered half so much.

And so what came very near to breaking her, as she pa.s.sed through that mult.i.tude of people to the pier, was seeing how ferociously he was struggling not to show what he was feeling. As if his soul was straining to escape through the doorways of his eyes, and he, being born to power, being what he was, felt it necessary to hold it in, here among so many people.

But he couldn"t hide it from her. She didn"t even have to look at Rhun to read Brandin now. He had cut himself off from his home, from all that had anch.o.r.ed him in life, he was here among an alien people he had conquered, asking for their aid, needing their belief in him. She was his lifeline now, his only bridge to the Palm, his only link, really, to any kind of future here, or anywhere.

But Tigana"s ruin lay between the two of them like a chasm in the world. The lesson of her days, Dianora thought, was simply this: that love was not enough. Whatever the songs of the troubadours might say. Whatever hope it might seem to offer, love was simply not enough to bridge the chasm in her her world. Which was why she was here, what the riselka"s vision in the garden had offered her: an ending to the terrible, bottomless divisions in her heart. At a price, however, that was not negotiable. One did not bargain with the G.o.ds. world. Which was why she was here, what the riselka"s vision in the garden had offered her: an ending to the terrible, bottomless divisions in her heart. At a price, however, that was not negotiable. One did not bargain with the G.o.ds.

She came up to Brandin at the end of the pier and stopped and the others stopped behind her. A sigh, rising and falling away like a dying of wind, moved through the square. With an odd trick of the mind her vision seemed to detach itself from her eyes for a moment, to look down on the pier from above. She could see how she must appear to the people gathered there: inhuman, otherworldly.

As Onestra must have seemed before the last Dive. Onestra had not come back, and devastation had followed upon that. Which was why this was her chance: the dark doorway history offered to release, and to the incarnation of her long dream in the saishan.

The sunlight was very bright, gleaming and dancing on the blue-green sea. There was so much colour and richness in the world. Beyond Rhun, she saw a woman in a brilliant yellow robe, an old man in blue and yellow, a younger, dark-haired man in brown with a child upon his shoulders. All come to see her dive. She closed her eyes for a moment, before she turned to look at Brandin. It would have been easier not to, infinitely easier, but she knew that there were dangers in not meeting his gaze. And, in the end, here at the end, this was the man she loved.

Last night, lying awake, watching the slow transit of the moons across her window, she had tried to think of what she could say to him when she reached the end of the pier. Words beyond those of the ritual, to carry layers of meaning down through the years.

But there, too, lay danger, a risk of undoing everything this moment was to become. And words, the ones she would want to say, were just another reaching out towards making something whole, weren"t they? Towards bridging the chasms. And in the end that was the point, wasn"t it? There was no bridge across for her.

Not in this life.

"My lord," she said formally, carefully, "I know I am surely unworthy, and I fear to presume, but if it is pleasing to you and to those a.s.sembled here I will try to bring you the sea-ring back from the sea."

Brandin"s eyes were the colour of skies before rain. His gaze never wavered from her face. He said, "There is no presumption, love, and infinite worthiness. You enn.o.ble this ceremony with your presence here."

Which confused her, for these were not the words they had prepared. But then he looked away from her, slowly, as if turning away from light.

"People of the Western Palm!" he cried, and his voice was clear and strong, a King"s, a leader of men, carrying resonantly across the square and out among the tall ships and the fishing boats. "We are asked by the Lady Dianora if we find her worthy to dive for us. If we will place our hopes of fortune in her, to seek the Triad"s blessing in the war Barbadior brings down upon us. What is your reply? She waits to hear!"

And amid the thunderous roar of a.s.sent that followed, a roar as loud and sure as they had known it would be after so much pent-up antic.i.p.ation, Dianora felt the brutal irony of it, the bitter jest, seize hold of her.

Our hopes of fortune. In her? The Triad"s blessing The Triad"s blessing. Through her?

In that moment, for the first time, here at the very margin of the sea, she felt fear come in to lay a finger on her heart. For this truly was a ritual of the G.o.ds, a ceremony of great age and numinous power and she was using it for her own hidden purposes, for something shaped in her mortal heart. Could such a thing be allowed, however pure the cause?

She looked back then at the palace and the mountains that had defined her life for so long. The snows were gone from the peak of Sangarios. It was on that summit that Eanna was said to have made the stars. And named them all. Dianora looked away and down, and she saw Danoleon gazing at her from his great height. She looked into the calm, mild blue of his eyes and felt herself reach out and back through time to take strength and sureness from his quietude.

Her fear fell away like a discarded garment. It was for Danoleon, and for those like him who had died, for the books and the statues and the songs and the names that were lost that she was here. Surely the Triad would understand that when she was brought to her final accounting for this heresy? Surely Adaon would remember Micaela by the sea? Surely Eanna of the Names would be merciful?

Slowly then, Dianora nodded her head as the roar of sound finally receded; seeing that, the High Priestess of the G.o.d came forward in her crimson gown and helped her free of the dark-green robe.

Then she was standing by the water, clad only in the thin green undertunic that barely reached her knees, and Brandin was holding a ring in his hand.

"In the name of Adaon and of Morian," he said, words of ritual, rehea.r.s.ed and carefully prepared, "and always and forever in the name of Eanna, Queen of Lights, we seek nurture here and shelter. Will the sea welcome us and bear us upon her breast as a mother bears a child? Will the oceans of this peninsula accept a ring of offering in my name and in the name of all those gathered here, and send it back to us in token of our fates bound together? I am Brandin di Chiara, King of the Western Palm, and I seek your blessing now."

Then he turned to her, as a second murmur of astonishment began at his last words, at what he"d named himself, and beneath that sound, as if cloaked and sheltered under it, he whispered something else, words only she could hear.

Then he turned towards the sea and drew back his arm, and he threw the golden ring in a high and shining arc up towards the brightness of the sky and the dazzling sun.

She saw it reach its apex and begin to fall. She saw it strike the sea and she dived.

The water was shockingly cold, so early in the year. Using the momentum of the dive she drove herself downwards, kicking hard. The green net held her hair so she could see. Brandin had thrown the ring with some care but he had known he could not simply toss it near to the pier-too many people would be looking for that. She propelled herself forward and down with half a dozen hard, driving strokes, her eyes straining ahead in the blue-green filtered light.

She might as well reach it. She might as well see if she could claim the ring before she died. She could carry it as an offering, down to Morian.