She tilted her head slightly to one side, a distinctive gesture. "Would she have made a difference, do you really think? In Gorhaut?"
"I like to believe so," Blaise said. "It isn't the kind of thing we can know."
"The dead," said Bertran de Talair quietly, "can drive you hard."
Blaise and the women turned to him. The duke looked oddly unfocused, inward, as if he'd not really meant to say that, as if it opened him more than he wanted. Blaise had another memory in this night of inexorable, unbidden remembrance—that dark stairway in Castle Baude very late at night, a flask of seguignac passing back and forth, the weary sadness in the face of the man who'd just seduced a woman he hadn't even known a fortnight before.
"They can drive you away from the living, as well," said Beatritz the priestess, and in her voice Blaise heard an asperity that told him this was not a new matter between her and the duke. These people had all known each other a long time, he reminded himself. Bertran's mouth narrowed.
"A loving, sisterly thought," he said coldly. "Shall we discuss families again?"
"Twenty years and more down the road, I would name it an adult thought," the High Priestess replied, unperturbed. "Tell me, my lord, what heir would be governing your lands tonight if that arrow had killed you? And if Ademar of Gorhaut chooses to bring an army south, would you say we are stronger or weaker for the hatred between Miraval and Talair? Pray share your thoughts. You will forgive me," she added with sharp sarcasm, "for asking questions about today's world, not requesting sweet verses from two decades ago."
"Enough," said Signe de Barbentain sharply. "Please. Or you will both make me feel that I have lived too long."
It was Ariane who took them past the moment. "More than enough," she murmured, reaching for her wine. She took a sip and set the goblet down, not hurrying. "This is a tiresome, ancient wrangle, and there seem to be new matters that require our consideration. First of all, our bearded friend." The dark eyes turned to Blaise, appraisingly. "Are you?" she asked bluntly. "Are you a friend?"
He had actually been ready for this. "I am a hired coran in the service of the duke of Talair," he replied. The correct answer, the professional one.
"Not good enough," said Ariane calmly. "Not any more. Your father paid a quarter of a million in gold to kill your employer. You will, I am afraid, have to elect to be more than you say, or less. Just as Rudel Correze is not merely another assassin among many, just as his name and lineage create dilemmas out of the ordinary, so, too, do yours. Under the circumstances, rather more so. There may be a war. You know the implications of Gorhaut having ceded lands in the Treaty of Iersen Bridge at least as well as we do. The son of Galbert de Garsenc cannot remain in Arbonne as an ordinary coran any more than Bertran can pretend to be just another troubadour drinking and dicing in The Liensenne." Her voice was even and precise, carrying the tones, in fact, of a commander of men on a battlefield.
And what she said was true. He knew it, even as the old, sour anger came back. It was happening again: wherever he went in the world, alone or in company, in secret or carrying the bright flourish of his reputation into battle or tournament, it seemed that his father was there, with him or before him, barring and bolting doorways, a shadow across the light.
Blaise became aware that his hands were clenched at his sides. Deliberately he forced them to relax. He took a deep breath and turned to the duke.
"I honour my contracts," he said. "I believe you know that."
Bertran gave his small shrug. "Of course I do, but that hardly matters any more. Men, even kings and clerics of the god, do not spend two hundred and fifty thousand to dispose of a singer whose song they feel has embarrassed them. The game had changed, Blaise, it is larger than you and I and our private dealings. You are a player of significance now, whether you want to be or not."
Stubbornly, Blaise shook his head. "I am a coran for hire. Pay me enough and I will serve you in war or peace. Turn me off and I'll seek other employment."
"Stop mouthing rote words, Blaise de Garsenc. It ill becomes you to pretend you do not understand what is being said." Beatritz, tall and implacable, spoke in a voice of grim adjudication. "You are the son of the most important man in Gorhaut. The king is a tool in Galbert's hands, and we all know it. Your family, whatever their inner turmoil, have holdings more powerful than any other in that country, the more so since all the northern lords have been dispossessed by the Treaty. Will you stand before us, before the countess of Arbonne, and claim that the only difference between you and Luth of Baude is that you are better with a sword? Have you been running from your father all these years because you will not oppose him?"
"Not oppose him?" Blaise echoed, shocked into genuine fury. "I have spent my life opposing him, at home and then beyond our walls. I hate everything the Treaty represents. I left Gorhaut so as not to live in a country so stripped of its pride. Everyone there knows it. I have made my statement. What else would you have me do? Ride home in fell wrath and declare myself the true king of Gorhaut?
And stopped, abashed and appalled by the quality of the silence that followed. By the intent, focused, deeply revealing expressions of the two women and the man by the divan. Blaise swallowed with difficulty; his mouth was dry. He closed his eyes for a moment, hearing his own last words as a weirdly distorted echo in the chamber of his skull. Opening his eyes again he turned, slowly, his heart pounding now as if he'd been running a long distance, and looked towards the fire, to where the countess of Arbonne was standing, small and delicate, white-haired, still beautiful, one hand on the back of a chair for support, her astonishing eyes gazing into his, and smiling, smiling now, he saw, with the radiant, indulgent approval of a mother for a child who has passed, all unexpectedly, a test thought to be beyond him.
No one spoke. In the rigid stillness of that room in Tavernel on Midsummer Night, at the hinge, the axis, the heart of the year, the white owl suddenly lifted itself, gliding silently on wide wings to settle on Blaise's shoulder like a benediction or a burden beyond all common measure.
CHAPTER 8
The crimson-clad guard of Carenzu took Lisseut through the late night streets and left her, with another flawless bow, at the doorway of The Liensenne. She stood there for a moment, undecided, listening to the uproar inside, a confused flurry of emotions working within her. As she hesitated, debating whether she wanted the conviviality of the tavern itself or the relative intimacy of a chamber upstairs, the noise subsided and a thin, reedy voice came drifting through the window, singing a plangent hymn to Rian.
Lisseut walked quickly around the corner, went down the laneway in back of the tavern, opened the rear door and started up the stairs. She was truly not of a mind just then to listen to Evrard of Lussan in his pious mode. On the stairway and then in the corridor she passed couples in ardent clinches—most of the chambers had been booked and overbooked long ago—before coming to the doorway of a room that was always reserved for this week and had been for years.
She knocked. It wouldn't be locked, she knew, but she had caused some embarrassment two years ago by walking in on three men and a woman, at what turned out to be an extremely inopportune time. Her difficult relations with Elisse dated from that moment.
By way of reply to her knocking, a reflective, mellifluous voice could be heard singing:
Alone am I and sorrowful for love has gone away,
Gone away on a white horse and left me here to mourn…
She smiled and opened the door. Aurelian, indeed alone, was sitting on one of the two beds, leaning back against the wall as he fingered his lute. His shirt was open at the throat and he had taken off his boots. His long legs extended well out over the side of the bed. He gave her a grave smile of welcome and, still singing, indicated with a motion of his head the table where an open bottle of wine stood, a number of glasses beside it. There was a rumpled scattering of clothes on the other bed and Lisseut saw blood on a shirt. She poured herself some wine, took a quick, much-needed drink, and carrie
d the bottle over to refill Aurelian's goblet as well. There was one small window in the room. She walked to it and looked down. It overlooked the alley; there was no one below, but she could hear sounds from the street and Evrard's music drifting up from the downstairs room. Aurelian continued his own quiet singing, another son, the same theme:
My heart is lonely and brim-full of grief
When I remember the nights that are past,
When my sweet love would offer me
Delights beyond all earthly measure…
"I've never liked that verse," he said, breaking off abruptly, "but it isn't much good trying to talk to Jourdain about anything he's written, is it? I don't even know why I keep singing it."
"The tune," said Lisseut absently, still gazing out the window. "I've told you that before. Jourdain's always better at the music than the words."
Aurelian chuckled. "Fine. You be the one to tell him that." He paused; behind her she could almost feel his scrutiny. "You're too pensive for a Carnival night, my dear. You do know that Valery is recovering?"
"What?" She spun around. "I didn't… he's all right. How?"
"The High Priestess was in Tavernel tonight, don't ask this ignorant troubadour why. Affairs among the great. Valery should probably tithe the goddess from what he earns of Bertran for the rest of his life. She was able to deal with the poison, and the wound itself was minor. He'll be fine, they told us at the temple. So most of us came back here in a wonderful mood. Can't you hear? There are a great many people you know celebrating downstairs, why don't you go down?"
"Why don't you?" She and Aurelian knew each other very well.
He reached for his goblet. "There's only so much carousing I can take these days, even at Midsummer. Am I getting old, Lisseut?"
Lisseut made a face at him. "I don't know, most venerable sage. Are you?" Aurelian was, in fact, only two or three years older than she was, but he'd always been the quietest of them all, slightly removed from the wilder elements of the troubadour life.
"Where is Remy?" she asked, a natural extension of that last thought. She looked at the second, disordered bed, and back to Aurelian.
He arched one eyebrow elaborately. "Silly question. Rather depends on the hour, I'd imagine. He had a few assignations arranged."
"How is he?"
"Wounded pride. Nothing more, but a good deal of that. He'll probably drink himself into a fury tonight. We'd all best tread warily for a few days."
Lisseut shook her head. "Not I. He owes me for a hat and a shirt. Not to mention my own pride. I've no intention whatever of being nice to him. I plan to tell him that he looked like a sulky little boy when En Bertran was chastising him."
Aurelian winced. "The women of Vezét… what is it, do you think? The olive oil? Something about its sweetness that makes you all so fierce, to compensate?"
From the room below, the insistent voice of Evrard penetrated, still invoking Rian in the same tired ways. Feeling suddenly tired herself, Lisseut smiled wanly, laid her glass aside and sat beside Aurelian on the bed, leaning against his shoulder. Obligingly, he shifted a little and put a long arm around her.
"I don't feel very fierce," she said. "It's been a difficult night." He squeezed her arm. "I didn't like that Arimondan," she said after a moment.
"Or the northerner, I saw. But don't think about them. It has nothing to do with us. Think about your song. Alain's downstairs, by the way, happy as a crow in a grainfield. They're all talking about it, you know, even with everything else that happened."
"Are they? Oh, good, I'm so happy for Alain."
"Be happy for his joglar, Lisseut. And don't sign any contracts tomorrow without talking to me first—you're worth a great deal more now than you were this afternoon. Believe it."
"Then why don't you offer me a job?" An old tease, though his news was genuinely exciting. Too much had happened though, she couldn't reach through to any clear emotion, even for something like this.
Characteristically, he chose to take her seriously. "If I write a woman's song like Alain did, trust me, it will be yours. But for the rest, I'm not proud, my dear… I sing my own work still. I started on the roads as a joglar, and I'll end as one, I expect."
She squeezed his knee. "I wasn't being serious, Aurelian." One of the first rank of the troubadours, Aurelian was probably the very best of the joglars, with the possible exception of Bertran's own Ramir, who was getting old now and on the roads far less than he used to be.
Polite applause floated up from below. A new performer began tuning his instrument. Aurelian and Lisseut exchanged wry glances of relief, and then laughed quietly together. She lifted her head and kissed him on the cheek. "How many years in a row now?" she asked, knowing the answer very well.
"Together at Carnival? I am aggrieved and affronted that the nights are etched on my heart while you can't even remember. Four, now, my dear. Does that make us a tradition?"
"Would you like to be one?" she asked. His hand had moved upwards, stroking the nape of her neck. He had a gentle touch; he was a gentle man.
"I would like to know you and be your friend for the rest of my life," said Aurelian quietly. His dark head came down and they kissed.
Feeling a physical sense of release, and a genuine comfort on a night when she needed exactly that, Lisseut slid slowly back down on the bed and laced her fingers through his black, thick hair, pulling him down to her. They made love as they had before, three years running on this night… with tenderness and some laughter, and an awareness of shaping a still place together amid the wildness outside and the music below and the wheeling of the summer stars about the axis of the year.
Some time later, her head on his chest, his arm around her again, the two of them listened to a voice singing one of the oldest tunes, Anselme of Cauvas's most tender song. In The Liensenne someone always came back to it on Midsummer Eve:
When all the world is dark as night
There is, where she dwells, a shining light…
Softly, not entirely certain why she was asking, Lisseut said, "Aurelian, what do you know about Lucianna Delonghi?"
"Enough to avoid her. It's Lucianna d'Andoria now, actually, since she's remarried, but no one but her husband's family will ever call her that. I would not place any sizable wager on Borsiard d'Andoria's long life or domestic happiness."
"Then why did he marry her? He's a powerful man, isn't he? Why would he invite the Delonghi into Andoria?"
Aurelian laughed quietly. "Why do men and women ever do anything less than rational? Why do the teachings of the metaphysicians of the university not guide us all in our actions? Shall we call it the influence of Rian on hearts and souls? The reason we love music more than rhetoric?"
This wasn't what she wanted to know.
"Is she beautiful, Aurelian?"
"I only saw her once, at a distance."
"And?"
"Remy could describe her better."
"Remy is out bedding someone or getting drunk. You tell me."
There was a short pause. The music of Anselme's sweet song drifted up to them.
"She is as beautiful as obsidian in new snow," said Aurelian slowly. "She glitters like a diamond by candlelight. There is fire in her like a ruby or an emerald. What other jewellery shall I give her? She offers the promise of danger and dark oblivion, the same challenge that war or mountains do, and she is as cruel, I think, as all of these things."
Lisseut swallowed with some difficulty. "You sound like Remy when he's had too much wine," she said finally, trying to manage a tone of irony. She had never heard Aurelian speak like that before. "And all this from a distance?"
"From the far end of a table in Faenna," he agreed calmly. "I would never have dared go nearer, but that was near enough. She is not for having, that one. Were it not an impiety I would say that the dark side of the goddess is in her. She destroys what she is claimed by."
"But still she is claimed."
"There is darkness in all of us, and desires we mi
ght prefer to deny by day." He hesitated. "I dream of her sometimes."
Lisseut was silent, unsettled again, sorry now that she had asked. Her confusion of before seemed to have come back in all its jangling discord. They lay together, listening to the music from below, and eventually it was the music that calmed her, as it almost always did. Before it ended they were both asleep. She dreamt, lying in Aurelian's arms, of arrows, though, and heard, in her dream, Rudel Correze's laughter in a garden.
In the morning she would waken with sunlight in the window to find Aurelian gone. Sprawled across the other bed, snoring and sodden, still in his boots and clothes, would be Remy of Orreze. Lisseut would hesitate only a moment, then, offering devout and genuinely grateful thanks to Rian and Corannos both, she would take the basin of water Aurelian had thoughtfully filled for her before he left, and empty it over the sleeping, fair-haired troubadour who'd been her first lover. Then she would flee through the door and down the stairs, leaving his shrieks of outrage behind to awaken all those who yet slumbered in The Liensenne on a bright Midsummer's Day. She would feel much, much better after that.
Every second or third year, in the absence of war or plague, it had been the custom of Guibor IV, count of Arbonne, to spend Midsummer Night in Tavernel at the Carnival, in homage to the goddess and to affirm for his people in the south that he was ever mindful of his duties to them and of the importance of the sea to Arbonne. Once, when young, he had even essayed the Boats and Rings on the river, plucking three garlands before missing the fourth and dousing himself in the river, to emerge with the booming good-natured laughter that was a part of why his country loved him.
On those nights, Signe de Barbentain reflected, lying in a room in the temple of Rian with a small fire to take away the chill that afflicted her now, even in summer, she'd had no concerns about the ancient saying in Tavernel that it was unlucky to lie alone on Midsummer Eve. She had lain with her husband, and the wild sounds outside had seemed part of a fabric of enchantment in the dark.
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