"I really am hopelessly overindulgent," they heard him complain. "Every single time I look at this excuse for a crest I am reminded that I should have had an artisan design it. There are limits, or there ought to be, to what a father allows!"
Devin recognized the place and the voice in the same moment. An impulse, a striving back towards the ordinary and familiar after what had happened in the night, made him rise.
"Trust me," he whispered as Alessan threw him a glance. me," he whispered as Alessan threw him a glance. "This is a friend." "This is a friend."
Then he stepped out into the road.
"I thought it was a handsome design," he said clearly. "Better than most artisans I know. And, to tell the truth, Rovigo, I remember you saying the same thing to me yesterday afternoon in The Bird."
"I know that voice," Rovigo replied instantly. "I know that voice and I am exceedingly glad to hear it-even though you have just unmasked me before a shrewish wife and a daughter who has long been the bane of her father"s unfortunate existence. Devin d"Asoli, if I am not mistaken!"
He strode forward from the gate, seizing the cart lantern from its bracket. Devin heard relieved laughter from the two women in the cart. Behind him, Alessan and then Catriana stepped into the road.
"You are not mistaken," Devin said. "May I introduce two of my company members: Catriana d"Astibar and Alessan di Tregea. This is Rovigo, a merchant with whom I was sharing a bottle in elegant surroundings when Catriana arranged to have me a.s.saulted and ejected yesterday."
"Ah!" Rovigo exclaimed, holding the lantern higher. "The sister!"
Catriana, lit by the widened cast of the flame, smiled demurely. "I needed to talk to him," she said by way of explanation. "I didn"t much want to go inside that place."
"A wise and a providential woman," Rovigo approved, grinning. "Would that my clutch of daughters were half so intelligent. No one," he added, "should much want to go inside The Bird unless they have a head-cold so virulent that it defeats all sense of smell."
Alessan burst out laughing. "Well-met on a dark road, master Rovigo-the more so if you are the owner of a vessel called the Sea Maid Sea Maid."
Devin blinked in astonishment.
"I have indeed the great misfortune to own and sail that unseaworthy excuse for a vessel," Rovigo admitted cheerfully. "How do you come to know it, friend?"
Alessan seemed highly amused. "Because I was asked to seek you out if I could. I have tidings for you from Ferraut town. From a somewhat portly, red-faced personage named Taccio."
"My esteemed factor in Ferraut!" Rovigo exclaimed. "Well-met, indeed! By the G.o.d, where did you encounter him?"
"In another tavern, I am sorry to have to say. A tavern where I had been playing music and he was ... well, escaping retribution was his own phrase. We two were, as it happened, the last patrons of the night. He wasn"t in any great hurry to return home, for what seemed to me prudent reasons, and we fell to talking.
"It is never hard to fall to talking with Taccio," Rovigo a.s.sented.
Devin heard a giggle from the cart. It didn"t sound like the amus.e.m.e.nt of a ponderous, unmarriageable daughter. He was beginning to take the measure of Rovigo"s att.i.tude to his women. In the darkness he found himself grinning.
Alessan said, "The worthy Taccio explained his dilemma to me, and when I came to mention that I had just joined the company of Menico di Ferraut and was bound this way for the Festival he charged me to seek you out and carry verbal confirmation of a letter he says he"s had conveyed to you."
"Half a dozen letters," Rovigo groaned. "To it, then: your verbal confirmation, friend Alessan."
"Good Taccio bade me tell you, and to swear it as true by the Triad"s grace and the three fingers of the Palm"-Alessan"s voice became a flawless parody of a sententious stage messenger-"that did the new bed not arrive from Astibar before the winter frosts, the Dragon that slumbers uneasily by his side would awaken in wrath unimaginable and put a violent end to his life of care in your esteemed service."
There was laughter and applause from the shadows of the cart. The mother, Devin decided, pursuing his earlier thought, didn"t sound even remotely shrewish.
"Eanna and Adaon, who bless marriages together, forfend that such a thing should ever come to pa.s.s," Rovigo said piously. "The bed is ordered and it is made and it is ready to be shipped immediately the Festival is over."
"Then the Dragon shall slumber at ease and Taccio be saved," Alessan intoned, a.s.suming the sonorous voice used for the "moral" at the end of a children"s puppet-show.
"Though why," came a mild, still-amused female voice from the cart, "all of you should be so intimidated by poor Ingonida I honestly don"t know. Rovigo, are we bereft entirely of our manners tonight? Will we keep these people standing in the cold and dark?"
"Absolutely not, my beloved," her husband exclaimed hastily. "Alix, it was only the conjured vision of Ingonida in wrath that addled my brain."
Devin found that he couldn"t stop grinning; even Catriana, he noticed, had relaxed her habitual expression of superior indifference.
"Were you going back to town?" Rovigo asked.
The first tricky moment-and Alessan left it to him. "We were," Devin said. "We"d taken a long walk to clear our heads and escape the noise, but were just about ready to brave the city again."
"I imagine the three of you would have been besieged by admirers all night," Rovigo said.
"We do seem to have achieved a certain notoriety," Alessan admitted.
"Well," said Rovigo earnestly, "all jesting aside, I could well understand if you wanted to rejoin the celebrations-they were nowhere near their peak when we left. It will go on all night, of course, but I confess I don"t like leaving the younger ones alone too late, and my unfortunate oldest, Alais, suffers from twitches and fainting spells when over-excited."
"How sad," said Alessan with a straight face.
"Father!" came a softly urgent protest from the cart.
"Rovigo, stop that at once or I shall empty a basin on you in your sleep," her mother declared, though not, Devin judged, with any genuine anger.
"You see the way of things?" the merchant said, gesturing expressively with his free hand. "I am hounded without respite even into my dreams. But, if you are not entirely put off by the grievous stridency of my women and the prospect of three more inside very nearly as unpleasant, you are all most welcome, most humbly welcome to share a late repast and a quieter drink than you are likely to find in Astibar tonight."
"And three beds if you care to honour us," Alix added. "We heard you play and sing this morning at the Duke"s rites. Truly, it would be an honour if you joined us."
"You were in the palace?" Devin asked, surprised.
"Hardly," Rovigo murmured in a self-deprecating tone. "We were in the street outside among the crowd." He hesitated. "Sandre d"Astibar was a man I greatly honoured and admired. The Sandreni lands are just east of my own small holding-you have been walking by their woods even now. He was an easy-enough neighbour to the very end. I wanted to hear his mourning sung ... and when I learned that my newest young friend"s company had been selected to perform the rites, well ... Will Will you come in with us?" you come in with us?"
This time Devin left it to Alessan.
Who said, still highly amused, his teeth flashing white in the darkness, "We could not dream of refusing an offer so gracious. It will allow us to toast the safe journey of Taccio"s new bed and the restful slumbers of his Dragon!"
"Oh, poor Ingonida," said Alix from the cart, trying unsuccessfully not to laugh. "You are all so unfair!"
Inside, there was light and warmth and continuing laughter. There were also three undeniably attractive young women whose names flew past Devin-amid screams and blushes-much too fast to be caught. The oldest of these three though-about seventeen, he guessed-had a musical lilt to her voice and an exceptionally flirtatious glance.
Alais was different.
In the light of the hallway of her home the merchant"s oldest daughter turned out to be small and grave and slender. She had long, very straight black hair and eyes of the mildest shade of blue Devin could remember seeing. Beside her, Catriana"s own blue gaze looked more challenging than ever and her tumbling red hair resembled nothing so much as the mane of a lioness.
They were ushered by insistent female hands and voices into immensely comfortable chairs in a sitting-room furnished in shades of green and gold. A huge country fire blazed on the hearth, repudiating the autumn chill. A large carpet in a design that was unmistakably Quileian, even to Devin"s untutored eye, covered the floor. The seventeen-year-old-Selvena, it emerged-sank gracefully down upon it at Devin"s feet. She looked up at him and smiled. He received, and chose to ignore, a quick, sardonic glance from Catriana as she took a seat nearer to the fire. Alais was elsewhere for the moment, helping her mother.
Just then Rovigo reappeared, flushed and triumphant from some back room, carrying three bottles.
"I hope," he said, beaming down upon them, "that you all have a taste for Astibar"s blue wine?"
And for Devin that simple question cast an entirely benevolent aura of fate over his impulsive action in the darkness outside. He glanced over at Alessan, and was rewarded with an odd smile that seemed to him to acknowledge many things.
Rovigo quickly began uncorking and pouring the wine. "If any of my wretched females are bothering you," he said over his shoulder, "feel free to swat them away like cats." A curl of blue smoke could be seen rising from each gla.s.s.
Selvena settled her gown more becomingly about her on the carpet, ignoring her father"s gibe with an ease that bespoke long familiarity with this sort of thing. Her mother-neat, trim, competent, a laughably far cry from Rovigo"s description in The Bird-came in with Alais and an elderly household servant. In a very short while a sideboard was covered with a remarkable variety of food.
Devin accepted a gla.s.s from Rovigo, savouring the icy-clean bouquet. He leaned back in his chair and prepared to be extremely content for the next little while. Selvena rose at a glance from her mother, but only to fill a plate of food for Devin. She brought it back to him, smiling, and settled on the carpet again, marginally nearer than before. Alais served Alessan and Catriana while the two youngest daughters sank down on the floor by their father. He aimed a mock-ferocious cuff at each of them.
Devin doubted if he"d ever seen a man so obviously happy to be where he was. It must have shown in the amused irony of his glance, for Rovigo, catching the look, shrugged.
"Daughters," he lamented, sorrowfully shaking his head.
" "Ponderous cartwheels"," Devin reminded him, looking pointedly at the merchant"s wife. Rovigo winced. Alix, laughter-lines crinkling at her temples, had overheard the exchange.
"He did it again, did he?" she said, tilting her head to one side. "Let me guess: I was of elephantine proportions and formidably evil disposition, and the four girls had scarcely enough good features among them to make up one pa.s.sably acceptable woman. Am I right?"
Laughing aloud, Devin turned to see Rovigo-not at all discomfited-beaming with pride at his wife. "Exactly right," Devin said to Alix, "but I must say in his defence that I"ve never heard anyone give such a description so happily."
He was rewarded with Alix"s quick laughter and a wonderfully grave smile over her shoulder from Alais, busy at the sideboard.
Rovigo raised his gla.s.s, moving it in small circles to make a pattern in the air with the icy smoke. "Will you join me in drinking to the memory of our Duke and to the glory of music? I don"t believe in making idle toasts with blue wine."
"Nor do I," Alessan said quietly. He lifted his own gla.s.s. "To memory," he said very deliberately. "To Sandre d"Astibar. To music." Then he added something else, under his breath, before sipping from the wine.
Devin drank, tasting, for only the third or fourth time in his life, the astonishingly rich, cold complexity of Astibar"s blue wine. There was nothing like it anywhere else in the Palm. And its price reflected that fact. He looked over and saluted Rovigo with his gla.s.s.
"To all of you," Catriana said suddenly. "To kindness on a dark road." She smiled-a smile without any edge or mockery to it. Devin was surprised, then decided it was unfair for him to feel that way.
Not on the road I"m on, she"d said in the Sandreni Palace. And that was something he could understand now. For he too was on that road after all, despite what she"d done to keep him from it. He tried to catch her eye but failed. She was talking to Alix, now seated beside her. Briefly reflective, Devin turned his attention to his food. she"d said in the Sandreni Palace. And that was something he could understand now. For he too was on that road after all, despite what she"d done to keep him from it. He tried to catch her eye but failed. She was talking to Alix, now seated beside her. Briefly reflective, Devin turned his attention to his food.
A moment later Selvena touched his foot lightly. "Will you sing for us?" she asked with a delicious smile. She didn"t move her hand. "Alais heard you, and my parents, but the rest of us have been here all day."
"Selvena!" Mother and older sister snapped the name together. Selvena flinched as if struck but, Devin noticed, it was to her father that she turned, biting her lip. He was looking at her soberly.
"Dear heart," he said, in a voice far removed from the raillery of before, "you have a lesson to learn. Our friends make music for their livelihood. They are our guests here tonight. One does not, light of my life, ask guests to work in one"s home." Selvena"s eyes brimmed with tears. She lowered her head.
In the same serious tone Rovigo said to Devin, "Will you accept an apology? She meant it in good faith, I can a.s.sure you of that."
"I know she did," Devin protested, as Selvena sniffled softly at his feet. "There is no apology needed."
"Truly, none," Alessan added, setting his plate of food aside. "We make music to live, indeed, but we also make music because doing so is most truly to live. It is not work to play among friends, Rovigo."
Selvena wiped her eyes and looked up at him gratefully.
"I shall be happy to sing," Catriana said. She glanced briefly at Selvena. "Unless of course it was only Devin you had in mind?"
Devin winced, even though the slash had not been directed at him. Selvena flinched again, badly fl.u.s.tered for the second time in as many minutes. Out of the corner of his eye Devin saw an intriguing expression cross Alais"s face.
Selvena began protesting earnestly that of course she"d meant all three of them. Alessan seemed amused by the entire exchange. Devin had a sudden intuition, looking at him, that this relaxed, sociable man was at least as close to the centre of the Prince of Tigana as was the arrogantly precise figure he"d seen in the forest cabin.
He escapes this way, he thought suddenly. And even as the idea entered his mind he knew that it was true. He had heard the man play the "Lament for Adaon". he thought suddenly. And even as the idea entered his mind he knew that it was true. He had heard the man play the "Lament for Adaon".
"Well," said Rovigo, smiling at Catriana, "if you are gracious enough to indulge a shameless child I blush to acknowledge as my own, it happens that I do have a set of Tregean pipes in the house-the Triad alone know why. I seem to remember once having a doting father"s fancy that one of these creatures might emerge with a talent of some some sort." sort."
Alix, from several feet away, mimed a blow with a spoon at her husband. Unabashed, his good spirits restored, Rovigo sent the youngest girl off to fetch the pipes while he set about refilling everyone"s gla.s.s.
Devin caught Alais looking at him from the seat she"d taken next to the fire. Reflexively he smiled at her. She didn"t smile back, but her gaze, mild and serious, did not break away. He felt a small, unsettling skip to the rhythm of his heart.
As it turned out, after the meal was over he and Catriana sang for better than an hour to Alessan"s pipes. Part of the way through, as they began one of the rousing old Certandan highland ballads, Rovigo left briefly and returned with a linked pair of Senzian drums. Shyly at first, very softly, he joined in on the refrain, proving as competent at that as at everything else Devin had seen him do. Catriana favoured him with a particularly dazzling smile. Rovigo needed no further encouragement to stay with them on the next song, and the next.
No man, Devin found himself thinking, should need more encouragement to do anything in the world than that look from those blue eyes. Not that Catriana had ever favoured him him with anything remotely resembling such a glance. He found himself feeling somewhat confused all of a sudden. with anything remotely resembling such a glance. He found himself feeling somewhat confused all of a sudden.
Someone-Alais evidently-had filled his gla.s.s a third time. He drank a little more quickly than was good for him, given the legendary potency of blue wine, and then he led the other three into the next number: the last one for the two younger girls, Alix ruled, over protests.
He couldn"t sing of Tigana, and he was certainly not about to sing of pa.s.sion or love, so he began the very old song of Eanna"s making the stars and committing the name of every single one of them to her memory, so that nothing might ever be lost or forgotten in the deeps of s.p.a.ce or time.
It was the closest he could come to what the night had meant to him, to why, in the end, he had made the choice he had.
As he began it, he received a look from Alessan, thoughtful and knowing, and a quick, enigmatic glance from Catriana as they joined with him. Rovigo"s drums fell silent this time as the merchant listened. Devin saw Alais, her black hair backlit by the fire, watching him with grave concentration. He sang one whole verse directly to her, then, in fidelity to the song, he sent his vision inward to where his purest music was always found, and he looked at no one at all as he sang to Eanna herself, a hymn to names and the naming of things.
Somewhere, part of the way through, he had a bright image in his mind of a blue-white star named Micaela aloft in a black night, and he let the keenness of that carry him, high and soaring, up towards Catriana"s harmony and then back down softly to an end.
In the quiet of the mood so shaped, Selvena and the two younger girls went to bed with surprising tranquillity. A few moments later AIix rose as well, and so, to Devin"s disappointment, did Alais.
In the doorway she turned and looked at Catriana. "You must be very tired," Rovigo"s daughter said. "If you like I can show you your room now. I hope you don"t mind sharing with me. Selvena usually does, but she"s in with the girls tonight."
Devin expected Catriana to demur, or worse, at this fairly transparent separation of the women and the men. She surprised him again though, hesitating only a second before rising. "I am am tired, and I don"t mind sharing at all," she said. "It will remind me of home." tired, and I don"t mind sharing at all," she said. "It will remind me of home."
Devin, who had been smiling at the irony of the situation, suddenly found the expression less appropriate than he"d thought. Catriana had seen him grinning though; he wished, abruptly, that she hadn"t. She was sure to misunderstand. It occurred to him, with a genuine sense of unreality, that they had made love together that morning.
For some time after the women had gone the three men sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Rovigo rose at length and refilled their gla.s.ses with the last of the wine. He put another log on the fire and watched until it caught. With a sigh he sank back into his chair. Toying with his gla.s.s he looked from one to the other of his guests.
It was Alessan who broke the silence though. "Devin"s a friend," he said quietly. "We can talk, Rovigo. Though I fear he"s about to be extremely angry with both of us."
Devin sat up abruptly and put aside his gla.s.s. Rovigo, a wry expression playing about his lips, glanced briefly over at him, and then returned Alessan"s gaze tranquilly.
"I wondered," he said. "Though I suspected he might be with us now, given the circ.u.mstances." Alessan was smiling too. They both turned to Devin.
Who felt himself going red. His brain raced frantically back over the events of the day before. He glared at Rovigo. "You didn"t find me in The Bird by accident. Alessan sent you. You had him follow me, didn"t you?" he accused, turning to the Prince.
The two men exchanged another glance before Alessan replied.
"I did," he admitted. "I had a certain suspicion that there would be funeral rites for Sandre d"Astibar coming up and that we might be asked to audition. I couldn"t afford to lose track of you, Devin."