| But Brandin's magic is with them nowThe lion has come himself, not the cub, and because the cub is dead there must be blood for the morning sunShould I have surrendered last week? To the boy?"
Saevar turned to look at the Prince in the blended moonlight, disbelievingHe was speechless for a moment, then found his voice"I would have gone home from that surrender," he said, with resolution, "and walked into the Palace by the Sea, and smashed every sculpture I ever made of you
A second later he heard an odd soundIt took him a moment to realize that Valentin was laughing, because it wasn't laughter like any Saevar had ever heard
"Oh, my friend," the Prince said, at length, "I think I knew you would say thatWill they remember that most about us, do you think, after we are gone?"
"Perhaps," Saevar said"But they will rememberThe one thing we know with certainty is that they will remember usHere in the peninsula, and in Ygrath, and Quileia, even west over the sea, in Barbadior and its Empire
"And we leave our children," Valentin saidSons and daughters who will remember usBabes in arms our wives and grandfathers will teach when they grow up to know the story of the River Deisa, what happened here, and, even more, what we were in this province before the fallBrandin of Ygrath can destroy us tomorrow, he can overrun our home, but he cannot take away our name, or the memory of what we have been
"He cannot," Saevar echoed, feeling an odd, unexpected lift to his heart"I am sure that you are rightWe are not the last free generationThere will be ripples of tomorrow that run down all the yearsOur children's children will remember us, and will not lie tamely under the yoke
"And if any of them seem inclined to," Valentin added in a different tone, "there will be the children or grandchildren of a certain sculptor who will smash their heads for them, of stone or otherwise
Saevar smiled in the darknessHe wanted to laugh, but it was not in him just then"I hope so, my lord, if the goddesses and the god allowThank you for saying thatNot between us and not this nightThe Triad guard and shelter you tomorrow, and after, and guard and shelter all that you have women rolex watches loved,"
Saevar swallowed"You know you are a part of that, my lordA part of what I have loved
Valentin did not replyOnly, after a moment, he leaned forward and kissed Saevar upon the browThen he held up a hand and the sculptor, his eyes blurring, raised his own hand and touched his Prince's palm to palm in farewellValentin rose and was gone, a shadow in moonlight, back towards the fires of his army
The singing seemed to have stopped, on both sides of the riverSaevar knew he should be making his own way back and settling down for a few snatched hours of sleepIt was hard to leave though, to rise and surrender the perfect beauty of this last nightThe river, the moons, the arch of stars, the fireflies and all the fires
In the end he decided to stay there by the waterHe sat alone in the summer darkness on the banks of the River Deisa, with his strong hands loosely clasped about his kneesHe watched the two moons set and all the fires slowly die and he thought of his wife and children and the life's work of his hands that would live after him, and the trialla sang for him all night long
PART ONE - A BLADE IN THE SOUL
Chapter 1
IN THE AUTUMN SEASON OF THE WINE, WORD WENT FORTH from among the cypresses and olives and the laden vines of his country estate that Sandre, Duke of Astibar, once ruler of that city and its province, had drawn the last bitter breath of his exile and age and died
No servants of the Triad were by his side to speak their rituals at his endNot the white-robed priests of Eanna, nor those of dark Morian of Portals, nor the priestesses of Adaon, the god
There was no particular surprise in Astibar town when these tidings came with the word of the Duke's passingExiled Sandre's rage at the Triad and its clergy through the last eighteen years of his life was far from being a secretAnd impiety had never been a thing from which Sandre d'Astibar, even in the days of his power, had shied away
The city was overflowing with people from the outlying distrada and far beyond on the eve of the Festival of VinesIn the crowded taverns and khav rooms truths and lies about the Duke were traded back and forth like wool and spice by folk who had never seen his omega replica watch face and who would have once paled with justifiable terror at a summons to the Ducal court in Astibar
All his days Duke Sandre had occasioned talk and speculation through the whole of the peninsula men called the Palm, and there was nothing to alter that fact at the time of his dying, for all that Alberico of Barbadior had come with an army from that Empire overseas and exiled Sandre into the distrada eighteen years beforeWhen power is gone the memory of power lingers
Perhaps because of this, and certainly because he tended to be cautious and circumspect in all his ways, Alberico, who held four of the nine provinces in an iron grip and was vying with Brandin of Ygrath for the ninth, acted with a precise regard for protocol
By noon of the day the Duke died, a messenger from Alberico was seen to have ridden out by the eastern gate of the cityA messenger bearing the blue-silver banner of mourning and carrying, no one doubted, carefully chosen words of condolence to Sandre's children and grandchildren now gathered at their broad estate seven miles beyond the walls
In The Paelion, the khav room where the wittier sort were gathering that season, it was cynically observed that the Tyrant would have been more likely to send a company of his own Barbadian mercenaries, not just a single message-bearer, were the living Sandreni not such a feckless lotBefore the appreciative, eye-to-who-might-be-lis-tening, ripple of amusement at that had quite died away, one itinerant musician, there were scores of them in Astibar that week, had offered to wager all he might earn in the three days to come, that from the Island of Chiara would arrive condolences in verse before the Festival was over
"Too rich an opportunity," the rash newcomer explained, cradling a steaming mug of khav laced with one of the dozen or so liqueurs that lined the shelves behind the bar of The Paelion"Brandin will be incapable of letting slip a chance like this to remind Alberico, and the rest of us, that though the two of them have divided our peninsula the share of art and learning is quite tilted west towards ChiaraMark my words, and wager who will, we'll have a knottily rhymed verse from stout balenciaga designer Doarde or some silly acrostic thing of Camena's to puzzle out, with Sandre spelled six ways and backwards, before the music stops in Astibar three days from now
There was laughter, though again it was guarded, even on the eve of the Festival, when a long tradition that Alberico of Barbadior had circumspectly indulged allowed more license than elsewhere in the yearA few men with heads for figures did some rapid calculations of sailing-time and the chances of the autumn seas north of Senzio province and down through the Archipelago, and the musician found his wager quickly covered and recorded on the slate on the wall of The Paelion that existed for just such a purpose in a city prone to gambling
But shortly after that all wagers and mocking chatter were forgottenSomeone in a steep cap with a curled feather flung open the doors of the khav room, shouted for attention, and when he had it reported that the Tyrant's messenger had just been seen returning through the same eastern gate from which he had so lately sallied forthThat the messenger was riding at an appreciably greater speed than hitherto, and that, not three miles to his rear was the funerary procession of Duke Sandre d'Astibar being brought by his last request to lie a night and a day in state in the city he once had ruled
In The Paelion the reaction was immediate and predictable: men began shouting fiercely to be heard over the din they themselves were causingNoise and politics and the anticipated pleasures of the Festival made for a thirsty afternoonSo brisk was his trade that the excitable proprietor of The Paelion began inadvertently serving full measures of liqueur in the laced khavs being ordered in profusionHis wife, of more phlegmatic disposition, continued to short-measure all her patrons with benevolent lack of favoritism
"They'll be turned back!" young Adreano the poet cried, decisively banging down his mug and sloshing hot khav over the dark oak table of The Paelion's largest booth"Alberico will never allow it!" There were growls of assent from his friends and the hangers-on who always clustered about this particular table
Adreano stole a glance at the traveling musician who'd made the prada logo brash wager on Brandin of Ygrath and his court poets on ChiaraThe fellow, looking highly amused, his eyebrows quizzically arched, leaned back comfortably in the chair he had brazenly pulled up to the booth some time agoAdreano felt seriously offended by the man, and didn't know whether his umbrage had been more aroused by the musician's so-casual assertion of Chiara's preeminence in culture, or by his flippant dismissal of the great Camena di Chiara whom Adreano had been assiduously imitating for the past half-year: both in the fashion of his verses and the wearing of a three-layered cloak by day and night
Adreano was intelligent enough to be aware that there might be a contradiction inherent in these twinned sources of ire, but he was also young enough and had drunk a more than sufficient quantity of khav laced with Senzian brandy, for that awareness to remain well below the level of his conscious thoughts
Which remained focused on this presumptuous rusticThe man had evidently journeyed into the city to saw or pluck for three days at some country instrument or other in exchange for a handful of astins to squander at the FestivalHow did such a fellow dare sail into the most fashionable khav room in the Eastern Palm and thump his rural behind down onto a chair at the most coveted table in that room? Adreano still carried painfully vivid memories of the long month it had taken him, even after his first verses had appeared in print, to circle warily closer, flinching inwardly at apprehended rebuffs, before he became a member of the select and well-known circle that had a claim upon this booth
He found himself actually hoping that the musician would presume to contradict his opinion: he had a choice couplet already prepared, about rabble of the road spewing views on their betters in the company of their betters
As if on cue to that thought, the fellow slumped even more comfortably back in his chair, stroked a prematurely silvered temple with a long finger and said, directly to Adreano, "This seems to be my afternoon for wagersI'll risk everything I'm about to win on the other matter that Alberico is too cautious to ruffle the mood of the Festival over rolex air king thi |
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