by Melanie Rawn
“As I have begged before, please call me Granon.” He gestured away from the happy jostle around the carts. She walked with him toward a carved stone trough and sat on its edge. “You don’t quite believe all this, do you, Lady Sarra?”
“Not in the least,” she admitted frankly. “Enlighten me.”
“With pleasure.” He smiled down at her. “It’s a long tale, and for its duration I’ll have your attention all to myself.”
“Shorten it,” she advised, handing him back the cup.
“As you wish. There has been great outrage over the capture and execution of Mage Guardians—so, too, with those of the Rising, many of whom were beloved citizens of their Shirs. This was the spark. The kindling was long suspicion of Anniyas’s power, and the Feirans’. Resentments, grievances—”
“And thwarted schemes? Domni Isidir, why are you with the Rising?”
“Because my great-grandmother told me to be, of course! Truly told, Lady Sarra, you’re right about the scheming. It is, I believe, Dombur’s motive.”
“And what might yours be?”
“Besides the esteemed First Isidir Daughter’s commands—” And here his expression changed into honest contempt. “I personally had no desire to be ruled in any way by Garon Anniyas. Decision on your Slegin inheritance opened certain doors a crack, one of which the late First Councillor would have kicked down at her first opportunity.”
“Giving her son her chair at the Council Table,” Sarra said, nodding. “I thought something like that at the time.”
“Then you are even more perspicacious than you are beautiful—and your beauty is unsurpassed.”
“Do you honestly think Garon Anniyas could have taken what Glenin Feiran desired—or held it long, even if he did?”
“I should’ve remembered the impossibility of flattery around you. In my view, there wasn’t much to choose between them. And whereas a woman’s rule is traditionally preferable to man’s, a woman like that. . . .” He ended with an eloquent shrug.
“Tell me more about how you became involved.”
He sat on the trough beside her and gave her the wineglass. “I am, to be brutally blunt, the most promising of all my hundreds of cousins. I prepared from childhood for the Assembly and Council. Telomir Renne approached me some years ago. Obliquely, of course. After a time, I approached our redoubtable First Daughter—and found that Renne had spoken to her even before he spoke to me. With her approval, I became part of the Rising.” He laughed suddenly. “And only a week ago did I learn the Rising leader at Ryka was Flera Firennos!”
“Certainly a shock,” Sarra agreed. “Go on.”
“Here tonight is but a fraction of the whole. We three of the Council—I brought in Irien Dombur after his election—are the most visible. There are dozens of Assembly members, dozens more government officials of varying ranks. Each is at the center of a wheel—”
“—with spokes reaching to four or five others, and connected to another wheel by an axle,” she finished.
“Why, yes. But, naturally, you are at the center of your own wheel.”
Sarra nodded and stood. “Just so long as we’re all rolling along in the same direction, Domni Isidir.”
“Granon. Please.”
“And at the same speed,” she added. “Thank you for the information, and the confirmation. Oh, and the wine.” Before he could say anything else, she smiled, set the glass on the stone, and walked off.
Claiming the next available cup—a huge pewter tankard meant for ale—she began to drink in earnest, hoping it would cool her anger. She’d been kept in ignorance all her life. About Cailet, about the Rising, about everything that was important. Knowledge was power; she’d seen that demonstrated by both her sisters. From now on, Sarra and ignorance were going to be total strangers.
But she had a few things to attend to first. Skirting the bonfire, she found Flera Firennos and crouched beside her chair. “May I ask a favor, Lady?”
Feet tapping in time to the music, the old woman glanced down. “Hmm? Oh, of course, my dear.”
“There’s a young woman of your Name who lives in Cantratown with her little boy. He’s three or four.”
She frowned, trying to sort through innumerable relations. “Firennos, Cantratown . . . oh, do you mean Rina? Is she a friend of yours? I must confess I don’t like her much. And her mother is a harridan. My great grandmother’s cousin’s granddaughter—or was she great grandmother’s sister?”
“Rina Firennos, that must be her. Unmarried.”
“And not likely to be. She’s one of those girls who takes to her bed anything she happens to fancy, and if a child comes of it—well, who cares who fathered the poor mite? I don’t approve of loose living and no husband and no two children with the same father. After all, who’s going to raise the babies if there’s no husband around the house?”
“I agree,” Sarra said. “And she’s no friend of mine. But the father of her son was very dear to me. Valirion Maurgen.”
“You don’t mean that highly attractive boy who was with you at Ryka Court? Dark, with a roving eye? The build of a wrestler and the look of a pirate?”
Sarra laughed at the description, and how much Val would have appreciated it. “That’s him, head to toe. He was the father of Rina’s little boy.”
“Was? Oh, yes, I heard about that business at Lilen’s in Longriding. You’ve sent someone there and on to Ostinhold, haven’t you?”
Sarra wondered in amazement how the old lady had ever maintained her pose of senility. “At the Captal’s order. But Val’s son—”
“You want to raise him?”
“I think the Maurgens would. I talked with Biron—Val’s twin brother, he’s over there dancing with Elin Alvassy. I know it’s scandalous even to think of giving custody to the father’s family, but he’s only a son—and he’s all the Maurgens have left of Val.”
The Lady took a swig of wine, then said flatly, “She’ll want compensation.”
“She’ll get it.” But not from the Maurgens; Sarra owned a goodly portion of Sheve now, and what was money for if not to use to good purpose?
“Well, seeing as how I loathe that whole branch of the family, and Rina has two daughters and is pregnant yet again—no morals at all, that girl—I’ll look into it.” She eyed Sarra narrowly. “And what about you, then? You’re not the type to spread wide for anything you’re not married to. That Minstrel of yours seems a likely husband to me—especially if you found him in a whorehouse.”
Sarra blushed, but couldn’t help laughing again. Had Allynis Ambrai and Flera Firennos ever met, they would either have gotten on famously or murdered each other. Strong wills of the same Generation found no middle ground. Sarra, two Generations younger than Councillor Firennos, could simultaneously deplore the old lady’s indelicate reference and grin at her blunt honesty.
“He’s not ‘my’ Minstrel—” Remembering the last time she’d said that, she appended, “—yet.”
“Then what are you standing around for? I met my first and best husband at a St. Sirrala’s Ball!” She gave Sarra a push. “Off with you, girl!”
And just in time, too. Tiomarin Garvedian was eyeing Col with profound interest—She’s absolutely scrutinizing him, Sarra thought indignantly, marching down the steps to claim what was hers.
2
Collan behaved himself. He really did. When that good-looking Blood coaxed Sarra away for private conversation, he went on dancing with Imi Gorrst and only glanced over at them twice.
Well, three times. Maybe four.
He wasn’t jealous. Isidir wasn’t even Sarra’s type. Over-pretty, overmannered, overdressed—Nervy, he thought in disgust, griping about what he’s got on when I’m tarted up like a cheap bower cockie. But at least he hadn’t chosen what he wore. He wasn’t responsible.
A woman’s astonished voice saying, “That’s Collan?” turned his head. The gorgeous Garvedians were w
atching him: Lusira with a smile, her cousin Tiomarin with startled fascination. He gave them a grin but not the wink that usually went with it—and when he realized he was already adapting his normal responses to beautiful women, he ground his teeth.
Dancing was starting to hurt his foot. Liberal application of alcohol—down his throat, not down his boot—helped some. When next he saw Sarra, she was accepting the hand of Riddon Slegin to begin a new dance. Fine, Col nodded to himself. Stick with the ones she thinks of as brothers or cousins. Miram Ostin approached to ask when Cailet would join them. He told her what he’d told Sarra: that she’d be here soon. By then Sarra was dancing with Telomir Renne. Desse’s son—that was weird enough, but that Sarra and Cailet were sisters—! He tried to work out how, and whether they were Liwellans or Rilles. After all, he deserved to know; whatever their Name was, it would be his children’s.
Children: the word waltzed dreamily around in his mind as he whirled Miram around the bonfire in three-quarter time. A daughter, of course—a First Daughter to carry on the Name (whatever it was) . . . a little girl with Sarra’s black eyes . . . Sarra’s golden hair . . . Sarra’s smile—and his own talent for music. He could just see her, frowning over complex fingering and then laughing when she got it right and the lute sang in her hands. . . .
And a son, too, but not with his looks, which had gotten him into all sorts of trouble with women. Often quite delectable trouble, to be sure, but whereas such adventures were barely acceptable in a practically Nameless traveling Minstrel, they were frowned on by the upper reaches of society.
Not that any of his offspring would turn out perfect little Bloods—like that oh-so-charming Isidir over there, bowing to Sarra at the completion of their dance. Collan scowled, not noticing when Miram’s surprise gave way to a sudden impish grin of understanding.
Well, he’d just have to make Sarra marry him. Husbands raised the children. That was how things were done, and they’d damned well be done that way for his children. No battalion of nurses and tutors and high-nosed flunkies would turn his daughters and sons into—
Sarra floated past, clasped much too closely in the arms of the other Council Blood, Dombur. Mine, snarled something that thirty Generations had not bred out of the male animal, and Collan stalked forward, prepared to do battle.
A hand touched his elbow. He turned. Bard Falundir’s blue eyes, brighter for wine, held a deeper gleam of amusement. Collan laughed and put an arm around the bony shoulders.
“Damn that old man for not letting me remember you. I hope I’ve done right by your songs all these years—and your lute.”
Falundir smiled, humming low in his throat like a cat purring. A crippled hand lifted, the back of the palm bumping Col’s cheek in gentle affection.
“One thing. How come I heard you earlier? Are you Mageborn? Did I only dream your voice?” He sighed in exasperation. “If I guess, will you let me know I’m right?”
A brow arched playfully. Then Falundir drew back, pointing first to the impromptu orchestra and then at Col.
“Now? Here?” When the Bard nodded, Collan flexed his fingers nervously and admitted, “For a while there, I never thought I would again.”
Falundir nodded solemnly. He knew; how he knew was as much of a mystery as how Collan had heard his voice, but that was something to puzzle out later.
Riddon caught sight of Col holding a lute and yelled for quiet. Eventually he got it. Retuning the borrowed instrument as he mounted the first few steps leading up to the Octagon Court, Collan faced the murmuring crowd, remembering the first time he’d faced a large gathering. It seemed, he told himself ironically, that although then he had been a slave and now he was free, he was condemned to other men’s dreadful clothing.
Gazing out at the eager faces around the snapping bonfire, he wondered what he could possibly play for them. For himself. For Sarra and Cailet and Taig and Verald and even old Gorynel Desse.
His gaze met Falundir’s and suddenly his fingers quivered like tuning forks. Slowly, reverently, he began the opening chords of “The Long Sun.”
3
Brushing sweat from her forehead, Cailet backed away to evaluate her work. River rocks and stones broken from the walkway formed a hollow circle almost seven feet across. Within, she’d piled kindling—what half-charred wood she’d been able to find—and chopped planks and railings of two of the barges they’d come to Ambrai in. Soon the body of Auvry Feiran would lie there. Flames and wood smoke would rise. By tomorrow there would only be ashes.
Perhaps sometime between now and then she’d be able to cry.
A splash turned her head. The river rippled with the plunge of talons and the sweep of wings. The bird called success to its mate as it flew nestward clutching a silvery slithering fish. A moment later the water stilled, a smoothly perfect black mirror for a billion newborn stars.
Cailet turned aching eyes to the sky. The Ladymoon had set. The stars reigned supreme—companions of solitary nights in The Waste, a vast sparkling painting that changed with the seasons. It was spring now. Fielto rode Her horse low in the sky and Velenne’s Lute was below the horizon, though Colynna’s coiled strings were still visible. The long knotted rope Tamas had left on the stellar deck straggled down to the spill of dense stars that was Mittru’s River, where Ilsevet’s hand held a fish. Stories in the stars, written long ago in light. But no new story would ever shine there. What people did mattered even less to the stars than the bird’s dinner mattered to the river.
She found solace in that. It put triumph into perspective, eased the sting of failure.
Stripping naked, she slid into the shallows. Chill and clear, the water seemed to wash through her skin to her bones—even where crusty scabs tingled, where half her breast was gone. Gingerly she touched the mutilated part, then what remained: the nipple’s aureole, the firm flesh that curved to the center of her breastbone. Had her father not absorbed the worst and deflected the rest, Glenin’s magic would have charred the heart from her chest.
She stretched her arm and felt only a twinge of pain, a tug at abused muscles. The loss could be disguised. Not Warded, as she had done earlier; some sort of undergarment could hide—
No. She would cast this Ward the instant she woke every morning of her life. As a reminder.
She dove deep, then surfaced to float on her back in the shallows. She was no longer the girl who’d loved those stars. So much lost, so much forced into a mind unprepared to receive it. She could no longer gaze up at the night sky with a lifting heart, feeling its magic. The Mage Captal could never be free of her own magic again. From now on she would be set apart. Her life was precious: not for who she was, but for what she had become. The river’s current tightened like a trap around her body. She fought back panic. She had duties, obligations, responsibilities—all those solid, worthy words that wrapped a life in prison bars of solid gold.
Coward.
She emerged silently from the water, shaking out her wet hair, and dressed, binding herself into her regimentals. Less than a day hers, these clothes, yet she felt she’d worn them for a lifetime. Telo Renne’s clever needle had mended old scars in the material, reweaving holes and taking minuscule stitches no one but Cailet would ever know were there. She was scarred now, too. But the Ward would hide the wound as seamlessly as Telo’s work, and no one would ever know.
She returned to the stone circle and built a small fire in sandy soil. Trees stood watch, bird song stilled now, cries and calls of the river creatures gone. A mile away, with the bulk of the Octagon Court between, came the muted music and laughter of celebration. Triumph. Patiently she coaxed the fire alight, wondering what she’d won.
Was there such a thing as a “clean” victory? Everything was paid for, one way or another. Was it all just a balance of wins against losses, hoping that the tilt went toward the former?
When the flames caught, Cailet got to her feet and looked to where the tall, still body la
y. Was Auvry Feiran’s death a victory? Was she the only one who would feel her father’s loss?
Half-closing her eyes, she spoke a soft word.
Nothing happened. Nothing. No stirring in the night air, no whisper of magic. She felt, heard, sensed only the throbbing of her weariness.
The corpse was heavy now, as if the deeds of a lifetime had settled on him. She hooked her elbows beneath his shoulders, dragging him toward the pyre. She stumbled, fell to her knees. Her hands slipped from around wide-arching ribs—and then she felt it. A small pouch, hidden in a pocket of his longvest, concealed by the cloak. She rocked back on her heels, loosening the drawstrings.
Into her hand fell two tiny silver pins. Sword and Candle. Auvry Feiran had never been acknowledged as more than a Prentice. He had forsworn his allegiance to the Guardians. But here, secretly with him always, were the honored symbols of a Warrior Mage. More: a Captal’s Warder.
She rubbed her fingers over the silver tokens. Polishing them. Feeling their shape and meaning. The Guide and the Guardian.
He had guided Glenin to the Malerrisi. But he had been Cailet’s guardian at the end. She closed her fist over the tokens and watched firelight dance warm over the cold dead face of her father.
Sliding the insignia into her tunic pocket, she hooked her elbows once more beneath the mighty shoulders. The body was paradoxically lighter, and not just by the insignificant weight of two small silver pins. She caught her breath, wondering if she’d been guided to finding them, wondering if she dared attempt magic again. But now she was strangely unwilling.
When the corpse rested within the circle, Cailet knelt before the fire, searching for a long twig to carry to the kindling. She tried to dismiss the burning in her eyes as fatigue. She knew better. She could give Auvry Feiran a pyre the size of a temple with flames halfway to the stars, and it wouldn’t change a damned thing. Ambrai, Roseguard, even Malerris Castle—all the lives maimed and destroyed, all the magic used for evil—there was no mercy in the whole starry sky that could encompass this man. And his daughter knew it.