"One moment," said Alessan quietly. "I want you all to witness something." He turned back to Erlein and hesitated, choosing his words. "We both know that you did this tonight without any coercion from me, and against your own best interests, in every way."
Erlein glanced over at the bed, two sudden spots of red forming on each of his sallow cheeks. "Don"t make too much of it," he warned gruffly. "Every man has his moments of folly. I like red-headed women, that"s all. That"s how you trapped me in the first place, remember?"
Alessan shook his head. "That may be true, but it is not all, Erlein di Senzio. I bound you to this cause against your will, but I think you have just joined it freely."
Erlein swore feelingly. "Don"t be a fool, Alessan! I just told you, I ..."
"I know what you just told me. I make my own judgements though, I always have. And the truth is, I have been made to realize tonight-by you and Catriana, both-that there are limits to what I wish to do or see done for any cause. Even my own."
As Alessan finished speaking, he stepped forward quickly and laid a hand on Erlein"s brow. The wizard flinched, but Alessan steadied him. "I am Alessan, Prince of Tigana," he said clearly, "direct in descent from Micaela. In the name of Adaon and his gift to her children, I release you to your freedom, wizard!"
Both men suddenly staggered apart, as if a taut cord had been cut. Erlein"s face was bone-white. "I tell you again," he rasped, "you are a fool!"
Alessan shook his head. "You have called me worse than that, with some cause. But now I will name you something you will probably hate: I will unmask you as a decent man, with the same longing to be free as any of us here. Erlein, you cannot hide any more behind your moods and rancour. You cannot channel into me your own hatred of the Tyrants. If you choose to leave us, you can. I do not expect you will. Be welcome, freely, to our company."
Erlein looked cornered, a.s.sailed. His expression was so confused Devin laughed aloud; the whole situation was clear to him now, and comical, in a bizarre, twisted way. He stepped forward and gripped the wizard.
"I"m glad," he said. "I"m glad you"re with us."
"I"m not! I haven"t said said that!" Erlein snapped. "I haven"t said or done any such thing!" that!" Erlein snapped. "I haven"t said or done any such thing!"
"Of course you have." It was Sandre, the evidence of exhaustion and pain still vivid in his lined, dark face. "You did it tonight. Alessan is right. He knows you better than any of us. Better, in some ways, than you know yourself, troubadour. How long have you tried to make yourself believe that nothing mattered to you but your own skin? How many people have you convinced that that was true? I"m one. Baerd and Devin. Perhaps Catriana. Not Alessan, Erlein. He just set you free to prove us all wrong."
There was a silence. They could hear shouting from the streets below now, and the sound of running footsteps. Erlein turned to Alessan and the two men gazed at each other. Devin was suddenly claimed by an image, another of his intrusions of memory: that campfire in Ferraut, Alessan playing songs of Senzio for Erlein, an enraged shadow by the river. There were so many layers here, so many charges of meaning.
He saw Erlein di Senzio raise his hand, his left hand, with a simulation of five fingers there, and offer it to Alessan. Who met it with his right so their palms touched.
"I suppose I am with you," Erlein said. "After all."
"I know," said Alessan.
"Come!" said Baerd, a second later. "We have work to do." Devin followed him, with Ducas and Sertino and Naddo, towards the back stairs beyond the window. said Baerd, a second later. "We have work to do." Devin followed him, with Ducas and Sertino and Naddo, towards the back stairs beyond the window.
Just before stepping through Devin turned to look back at the bed. Erlein noticed, and followed his gaze.
"She"s fine," the wizard said softly. "She"ll be just fine. Do what you have to do, and come back to us."
Devin glanced up at him. They exchanged an almost shy smile. "Thank you," Devin said, meaning a number of things. Then he followed Baerd down into the tumult of the streets.
She was actually awake for a few moments before she opened her eyes. She was lying somewhere soft and unexpectedly familiar, and there were voices drifting towards and away from her, as if on a swelling of the sea, or like slow-moving fireflies in the summer nights at home. At first she couldn"t quite make the voices out. She was afraid to open her eyes.
"I think she is awake now," someone was saying. "Will you all do me a great courtesy and leave me alone with her for a few moments?"
She knew that that voice though. She heard the sound of a number of people rising and leaving the room. A door closed. That voice was Alessan"s. voice though. She heard the sound of a number of people rising and leaving the room. A door closed. That voice was Alessan"s.
Which meant she could not be dead. These were not Morian"s Halls, after all, with the voices of the dead surrounding her. She opened her eyes.
He was sitting on a chair drawn close to where she lay. She was in her own room in Solinghi"s inn, lying under a blanket in bed. Someone had removed the black silk gown and washed the blood from her skin. Anghiar"s blood, that had fountained from his throat.
The rush of memory was dizzying.
Quietly, Alessan said, "You are alive. Erlein was waiting in the garden below you. He rendered you unconscious and then caught you with his magic as you fell and brought you back."
She let her eyes fall shut again as she struggled to deal with all of this. With the fact of life, the rise and fall of her chest as she breathed, the beat of her heart, this curiously light-headed sensation, as if she might drift away on the slightest of breezes.
But she wouldn"t. She was in Solinghi"s and Alessan was beside her. He had asked all the others to leave. She turned her head and looked at him again. He was extremely pale.
"We thought you had died," he said. "We saw you fall from outside the garden wall. What Erlein did, he did on his own. None of us knew. We thought you had died," he repeated after a moment.
She thought about that. Then she said: "Did I achieve anything? Is anything happening?"
He pushed a hand through his hair. "It is too soon to tell for certain. I think you did, though. There is a great deal of commotion in the streets. If you listen you can hear it."
Concentrating, she could indeed make out the sounds of shouting and running feet pa.s.sing beneath the window.
Alessan seemed unnaturally subdued, struggling with something. It was very peaceful in the room though. The bed was softer than she had remembered it being. She waited, looking at him, noting the perennial unruliness of his hair where his hands were always pushing through it.
He said, carefully, "Catriana, I cannot tell you how frightened I was tonight. You must listen to me now, and try to think this through, because it is something that matters very much." His expression was odd, and there was something in his voice she couldn"t quite pin down.
He reached out and laid his hand over hers where it lay upon the blanket. "Catriana, I do not measure your worth by your father"s. None of us ever has. You must stop doing this to yourself. There was never anything for you to redeem. You are what you are, in and of yourself."
This was difficult ground for her, the most difficult of all, and she found that her heartbeat had quickened. She watched him, blue eyes on his grey ones. His long, slender fingers were covering her own. She said: "We arrive with a past, a history. Families matter. He was a coward and he fled."
Alessan shook his head; there was still something strained in his expression. "We have to be so careful," he murmured. "So very careful when we judge them, and what they did in those days. There are reasons why a man with a wife and an infant daughter might choose-other than fear for himself-to stay with the two of them and try to keep them alive. Oh, my dear, in all these years I have seen so many men and women who went away for their children."
She could feel her tears starting now and she fought to blink them back. She hated talking about this. It was the hard kernel of pain at the core of all she did.
"But it was before before the Deisa," she whispered. "He left before the battles. Even the one we won." the Deisa," she whispered. "He left before the battles. Even the one we won."
Again he shook his head, wincing at the sight of her distress. He lifted her hand suddenly and carried it to his lips. She could not remember his ever having done that before. There was something completely strange about all of this.
"Parents and children," he said, so softly she almost missed the words. "It is so hard; we are so quick to judge." He hesitated. "I don"t know if Devin told you, but my mother cursed me in the hour before she died. She called me a traitor and a coward."
She blinked, moved to sit up. Too suddenly. She was dizzy and terribly weak. Devin hadn"t told her any such thing; he had said next to nothing about that day.
"How could she?" she said, anger rising in her, against this woman she had never seen. "You? A coward? Doesn"t ... didn"t she know anything about ..."
"She knew almost all of it," he said quietly. "She simply disagreed as to where my duty lay. That is what I am trying to say, Catriana: it is possible to differ on such matters, and to reach a place as terrible as that one was for both of us. I am learning so many things so late. In this world, where we find ourselves, we need compa.s.sion more than anything, I think, or we are all alone."
She managed this time to push herself up higher in the bed. She looked at him, imagining that day, those words of his mother. She remembered what she herself had said to her father on her own last night at home, words that had driven him violently out of the house into the dark. He had still been out there somewhere, alone, when she had gone away.
She swallowed. "Did it ... did it end like that with your mother? Was that how she died?"
"She never unsaid the words, but she let me take her hand before the end. I don"t think I"ll ever know if that meant ...
"Of course it did!" she said quickly. "Of course it did, Alessan. We all do that. We do with our hands, our eyes, what we are afraid to say." She surprised herself; she hadn"t known she knew any such thing.
He smiled then, and looked down to where his fingers still covered hers. She felt herself colouring. He said, "There is a truth there. I am doing that now, Catriana. Perhaps I am a coward, after all."
He had sent the others from the room. Her heart was still beating very fast. She looked at his eyes and then quickly away, afraid that after what she had just said it would look like she was probing. She felt like a child again, confused, certain that she was missing something here. She had always, always hated not understanding what was happening. But at the same time there seemed to be this very odd, extraordinary warmth growing inside her, and a queer sensation of light, brighter than the candles in the room should have allowed.
Fighting to control her breathing, needing an answer, but absurdly afraid of what it might be, she stammered, "I ... would you ... explain that to me? Please?"
She watched him closely this time, watched him smile, saw what kindled in his eyes, she even read his lips as they moved.
"When I saw you fall," he murmured, his hand still holding hers, "I realized that I was falling with you, my dear. I finally understood, too late, what I had denied to myself for so long, how absolutely I had debarred myself from something important, even the acknowledging of its possibility, while Tigana was still gone. The heart ... has its own laws though, Catriana, and the truth is ... the truth is that you are the law of mine. I knew it when I saw you in that window. In the moment before you leaped I knew that I loved you. Bright star of Eanna, forgive me the manner of this, but you are the harbour of my soul"s journeying."
Bright star of Eanna. He had always called her that, from the very beginning. Lightly, easily, a name among others, a teasing for when she bridled, a term of praise when she did something well. The harbour of his soul The harbour of his soul.
She seemed to be crying, silently, tears welling up to slide slowly down her cheeks.
"Oh, my dear, no," he said, with an awkward catch to his voice. "I am so sorry. I am a fool. This is far too sudden, tonight, after what you have done. Not tonight. I should never have spoken. I don"t even know if you-"
He stopped just there. But only because she had covered his mouth with her fingers to make him stop. She was still crying, but there seemed to be the most amazing brightness growing inside the room, far more than candles now, more than the moons, a light like the sun beginning to rise beyond the rim of darkness.
She slipped her fingers down from his mouth and claimed the hand he had held her with. We do with our hands what we cannot say We do with our hands what we cannot say. She still said nothing; she couldn"t speak. She was trembling. She remembered how her hands had been shaking when she walked out earlier tonight. So little time ago she had stood in a castle window and known she was about to die. Her tears fell on his hand. She lowered her head but others kept falling. She felt as though her heart were a bird, a trialla, only newly born, spreading wings, preparing to give voice to the song of its days.
He was on his knees beside the bed. She moved her free hand across and ran it through his hair, in a hopeless attempt at smoothing it. It seemed to be something she had wanted to do for a long time. How long? How long could such needs be present and yet never known, never acknowledged or allowed?
"When I was young," she said finally, her voice breaking, but needing to speak, "I used to dream of this. Alessan, have I died and come back? Am I dreaming now?"
He smiled slowly, the deeply rea.s.suring smile that she knew, that they all knew, as if her words had granted him release from his own fear, freed him to be himself again. To offer the look that had always meant that he was with them and so everything would be made all right.
But then, unexpectedly, he moved forward and lowered his head to rest it against the thin blanket covering her, as if seeking his own shelter, one that was hers to give to him. She understood; it seemed-oh, what G.o.ddess could have foretold this?-that she did did have something to offer him. Something more than her death after all. She lifted her hands and closed them around his head, holding him to her, and it seemed to Catriana in that moment as if that newborn trialla in her soul began to sing. Of trials endured and trials to come, of doubt and dark and all the deep uncertainties that defined the outer boundaries of mortal life, but with love now present at the base of it all, like light, like the first stone of a rising tower. have something to offer him. Something more than her death after all. She lifted her hands and closed them around his head, holding him to her, and it seemed to Catriana in that moment as if that newborn trialla in her soul began to sing. Of trials endured and trials to come, of doubt and dark and all the deep uncertainties that defined the outer boundaries of mortal life, but with love now present at the base of it all, like light, like the first stone of a rising tower.
There had had been a Barbadian Tracker in Senzio, Devin learned later that night, and he been a Barbadian Tracker in Senzio, Devin learned later that night, and he was was killed, but not by them. Nor did they have to deal with the kind of search party they"d feared. It was nearly dawn by the time they pieced the story together. killed, but not by them. Nor did they have to deal with the kind of search party they"d feared. It was nearly dawn by the time they pieced the story together.
It seemed that the Barbadians had gone wild.
Finding the poisoned Ygrathen knife on the floor by Anghiar"s body, hearing what the woman cried before she leaped, they had leaped themselves-to all the murderously obvious conclusions.
There were twenty of them in Senzio, an honour guard for Anghiar. They armed themselves, a.s.sembled, and made their way across to the western wing of the Governor"s Castle. They killed the six Ygrathens on guard there, broke down a door, and burst in upon Cullion of Ygrath, Brandin"s representative, as he struggled into his clothing. Then they took their time about killing him. The sound of his screams echoed through the castle.
Then they went back downstairs and through the courtyard to the front gates and hacked to death the four Senzian guards who had let the woman in without a proper search. It was during this that the captain of the Castle Guard came into the courtyard with a company of Senzians. He ordered them to lay down their arms.
The Barbadians were, according to most reports later, about to do so, having achieved their immediate purposes, when two of the Senzians, enraged at the butchery of their friends, fired arrows at them. Two men fell, one instantly dead, one mortally wounded. The dead one was Alberico"s Tracker. There ensued a b.l.o.o.d.y, to-the-death melee in the torchlit courtyard of the castle, soon slippery with blood. The Barbadians were slaughtered to the last man, taking some thirty or forty Senzians with them.
No one knew which man fired the arrow that killed Casalia the Governor as he came hastily down the stairs screaming hoa.r.s.ely at them all to stop.
In the chaos that followed that death no one gave a thought to going down to the garden for the body of the woman who had started it all. There was an increasingly wild panic in the city as the news spread through the night. A huge, terrified crowd gathered outside the castle. Shortly after midnight two horses were seen racing away from the city walls, heading south for the Ferraut border. Not long after that the five remaining members of Brandin"s party in Senzio rode away as well, in a tight cl.u.s.ter under the risen moons. They went north of course, towards Farsaro where the fleet was anch.o.r.ed.
Catriana was asleep in the other bed, her face smooth and untroubled, almost childlike in its peace. Alais could not find rest though. There was too much noise and tumult in the streets and she knew her father was down there, amidst whatever was happening.
Even after Rovigo came back in and stopped at their door to look in on the two of them and report that there seemed to be no immediate danger, Alais was still unable to sleep. Too much had happened tonight, but none of it to her, and so she was not weary as Catriana was, only excited and unsettled in oddly discontinuous ways. She couldn"t even have said all the things that were working upon her. Eventually she put on the robe she"d bought two days before in the market and went to sit on the ledge of the open window.
It was very late by then, both moons were west, down over the sea. She couldn"t see the harbour-Solinghi"s was too far inland-but she knew it was there, with the Sea Maid Sea Maid bobbing at anchor in the night breeze. There were people in the streets even now, she could see shadowy forms pa.s.s in the lane below, and she heard occasional shouts from the direction of the tavern quarter, but nothing more now than the ordinary noises of a city without a curfew, p.r.o.ne to be awake and loud at night. bobbing at anchor in the night breeze. There were people in the streets even now, she could see shadowy forms pa.s.s in the lane below, and she heard occasional shouts from the direction of the tavern quarter, but nothing more now than the ordinary noises of a city without a curfew, p.r.o.ne to be awake and loud at night.
She wondered how near to dawn it was, how long she would have to stay awake if she wanted to see the sunrise. She thought she might wait for it. This was not a night for sleep; or not for her, Alais amended, glancing back at Catriana. She remembered the other time the two of them had shared a room. Her own room at home.
She was a long way from home. She wondered what her mother had thought, receiving Rovigo"s letter of carefully phrased almost-explanation sent by courier across Astibar from the port of Ardin town as they sailed north to Senzio. She wondered, but in another way she knew: the trust shared between her parents was one of the sustaining, defining elements of her own world.
She looked up at the sky. The night was still dark, the stars overhead even more bright now that the moons were setting; it probably lacked several hours yet till dawn. She heard a woman"s laughter below and realized with an odd sensation that that was the one sound she"d not heard earlier that night amid the tumult in the streets. In a curious, quite unexpected way, the woman"s breathless sound, and then a man"s murmur following close upon it served to rea.s.sure her: in the midst of all else, whatever might come, certain things would still continue as they always had.
There was a footstep on the wood of the stairway outside. Alais leaned backwards on the window-ledge, belatedly realizing she could probably be seen from below.
"Who is it?" she called, though softly, so as not to disturb Catriana.
"Only me," Devin said, coming up to stand on the landing outside the room.. She looked at him. His clothing was muddy, as if he"d tumbled or rolled somewhere, but his voice was calm. It was too dark to properly see his eyes. "Why are you awake?" he asked.
She gestured, not sure what to say. "Too many things at once, I suppose. I"m not used to this."
She saw his teeth as he smiled. "None of us are," he said. "Believe me. But I don"t think anything else will happen tonight. We are all going to bed."
"My father came in a while ago. He said it seemed to have quieted down."
Devin nodded. "For now. The Governor was slain in the castle. Catriana did kill the Barbadian. There was chaos up there, and somebody seems to have shot the Tracker. I think that was what saved us."
Alais swallowed. "My father didn"t tell me about that."
"He probably didn"t want to disturb your night. I"ll be sorry now if I have." He glanced past her towards the other bed. "How is she?"
"She"s all right, really. Asleep." She registered the quick concern in his voice. But Catriana had earned that concern, that caring, tonight and before tonight, in ways Alais could scarcely even encompa.s.s within her mind.
"And how are you?" Devin asked, in a different tone, turning back to her. And there was something in that altered, deeper voice that made it difficult for her to breathe.
"I"m fine too, honestly."
"I know you are," he said. "Actually, you are a great deal more than that, Alais."
He hesitated for a moment, seeming suddenly awkward. She didn"t understand that, until he leaned slowly forward to kiss her full upon the lips. For the second time, if you counted the one in the crowded room downstairs, but this was really quite amazingly unlike the first. For one thing, he didn"t hurry, and for another, they were alone and it was very dark. She felt one of his hands come up, brushing along the front of her robe before coming to rest in her hair.
He drew back unsteadily. Alais opened her eyes. He looked blurred and softened, where he stood on the landing. Footsteps went past in the lane below, slowly now, not running as before. The two of them were silent, looking at each other. Devin cleared his throat. He said, "It is ... there are still two or three hours to morning. You should try to sleep, Alais. There will be a ... a great deal happening in the days to come."
She smiled. He hesitated another moment, then turned to walk along the outer landing towards the room he shared with Alessan and Erlein.
She remained sitting where she was for some time longer, looking up at the brightness of the stars, letting her racing heart gradually slow. She replayed in her mind the ragged, very young uncertainty and wonder in his voice in those last words. Alais smiled again to herself in the darkness. To someone schooled by a life of observation, that voice had revealed a great deal. And it had been simply touching her that had done this to him. Which was, if one lingered to think about it and relive the moment of that kiss, a most astonishing thing.
She was still smiling when she left the window-edge and returned to her bed and she did fall asleep then, after all, for the last few greatly altered hours of that long night.
All through the next day everyone waited. A pall of doom like smoke hung over Senzio. The city treasurer attempted to a.s.sert control in the castle, but the leader of the Guard was disinclined to take orders from him. Their shouted confrontations went on all day. By the time someone thought to go down for the girl her body had already been taken away; no one knew where or by whose orders.
The work of the city ground to a halt. Men and women roamed the streets, feeding on rumour, choking on fear. On almost every corner a different story was heard. It was said that Rinaldo, the last Duke"s brother, had come back to the city to take command in the castle; by the middle of the day everyone had heard some version of the tale, but no one had seen the man.
A restless, nervous darkness fell. The streets remained crowded all night long. It seemed that no one in Senzio could sleep. The night was bright and very beautiful, both moons riding through a clear sky. Outside Solinghi"s inn a crowd gathered-there was no room at all inside-to hear the three musicians play and sing of freedom, and of the glory of Senzio"s past. Songs not sung since Casalia had relinquished his claim to his father"s Ducal Throne and allowed himself to be called Governor instead, with emissaries from the Tyrants to advise him. Casalia was dead. Both emissaries were dead. Music drifted out from Solinghi"s into the scented summer night, spilling along the lanes, rising towards the stars.
Just after dawn, word came. Alberico of Barbadior had crossed the border the afternoon before and was advancing north with his three armies, burning villages and fields as he went. Before noon they heard from the north as well: Brandin"s fleet had lifted anchor in Farsaro Bay and was sailing south with a favourable wind.
War had come.