A Song for Arbonne

by Guy Gavriel Kay

  Rosala said, "Sleeping down the hall, with his nurse." She looked up at Blaise as she spoke those words, her clear blue eyes on his from across the room.

  "Then why don't we leave these untidy affairs and go look in on your baby?" Blaise heard the countess say.

  "I would like that," his brother's wife murmured, rising. Blaise realized that his heart was pounding. "You haven't seen him since the morning, have you?"

  Signe stood up as well, smiling. "But I have been thinking of him all day. Shall we go?"

  Blaise wasn't quite certain how, but he seemed to have crossed the room towards the two of them. The countess looked at him, her elegant features composed. He was staring at Rosala though. He bent, carefully, and saluted her on both cheeks.

  "My lady, this is a great surprise," he said awkwardly, feeling himself flush. He had never been easy with her. "Am I understanding correctly? Have you had a child? Have you had a child here!?"

  Her head was high, her handsome, intelligent features betrayed no distress at all, but up close now he could see marks of weariness and strain. She had burst into this room, even so, at the very real risk of her own life, following a man with a blade to save whoever it might have been who was in danger here.

  She said gravely, "I am sorry you are discovering it in this fashion. I was told you were here, but there seemed to be no easy way to inform you, given that I have left Garsenc without Ranald's knowledge and am not going back." She paused for a moment, to let him begin dealing with that. "I did give birth two days ago, by grace of Corannos, and Rian. My son is asleep down the hall. His name is Cadar. Cadar de Savaric." She stopped a second time. Blaise was feeling as if he had been struck again, a second blow to the head, in the same place the staff had hit before. "You may see him if you like," his sister-in-law concluded.

  "How sweet this is, how truly touching," came an amused voice just behind him. "The lost children of Gorhaut. Surely I was right, there will have to be a ballad about this. Why don't we all go dote upon the child?" He hadn't heard Lucianna coming up; once, his whole being would have been focused on knowing exactly where she was in any room. In the strangest way, Blaise felt an obscure sadness in this change.

  "I don't recall inviting you," Rosala said calmly. "You might still feel like using the blade I saw."

  So she had seen that knife, and probably the blood on him where the dancing blade had pricked. Blaise wondered what she had thought. He wondered what there was to think. Lucianna Delonghi, however, was not accustomed to being discomfited by other women. "I only stab babies when they wake me at night," she murmured in her laziest drawl. "Grown men tend to give greater cause, and different pleasures. Since I am awake, your child is safe for the moment. From me, at any rate. Are you not afraid, though, that dear, impetuous Blaise will seize and spirit him home to his brother and father?"

  "Not really," said Rosala. She looked at Blaise. "Should I be?"

  Lucianna laughed. The countess of Arbonne stood quietly, looking at Massena Delonghi's daughter, her expression thoughtful now, and under that level, appraising scrutiny Lucianna grew still. Blaise's mind was racing, despite the pulses of pain, struggling to sort through the towering implications of all of this. And there was something else as well, half-buried at the base of that tower: a night of storm in Garsenc Castle eight months ago, when he had left for the last time.

  Quickly, he pushed that thought away. She had asked him a question and was waiting for his reply. He said, "Having left them myself, I am unlikely to be the one to take anyone back to that castle. As to that, at least, you need not be concerned. You know they are unlikely to accept this, though."

  "We all know that," asked Signe de Barbentain. "There was some hope earlier that you might have a suggestion."

  "A suggestion about what?" asked Rudel, coming up to them. "Cures for a cracked skull?"

  "Family affairs," Blaise said shortly, though it was more than that, a great deal more, given who and what his family were.

  And it was precisely in that moment that the new thought appeared and immediately began, with unsettling speed, to take shape in him. He made the required introductions and then turned back to look at the others on the far side of the room. He was suddenly thinking hard, and there was a cold logic, a kind of inexorability to where those thoughts were leading him. They didn't make him happy though, not at all.

  Urté de Miraval was talking quietly with Massena Delonghi beside the fire. Quzman the Arimondan was in the process of being bound by the corans of Barbentain; they weren't being especially gentle about it. The man's head was held arrogantly high, however; he didn't bother to struggle. Next to Blaise, Rudel Correze bowed to the countess and then bent low and kissed Rosala's hand. Lucianna murdered something to her cousin, under her breath; Blaise didn't hear what it was.

  He took a deep breath. Life might be easier, he reflected just before he spoke, if he didn't keep making it harder for himself.

  "One moment, if you will," he said quietly, addressing the chancellor of Arbonne. It was interesting, actually: the other conversations stopped the moment he spoke, as if they had been waiting for him. He wasn't used to being the key to a gathering such as this. He wondered how it had happened. Lucianna was standing unnecessarily close to him. He tried to ignore that fact.

  Roban the chancellor, who did not much like him, lifted an eyebrow.

  Blaise said, "I do have a suggestion to make. This affair ultimately concerns only that man and myself." He nodded at the Arimondan. "There is nothing that need involve the countess or the… wider issues of our time. I killed his brother when attacked some time ago. He sees that as cause for vengeance. I might say I would feel the same, had it been my own brother slain." He heard Rosala make a small sound, an indrawn breath behind him. That was interesting too; of all of them, she seemed to be the first to sense where he was going. Or part of his path, at any rate. She could not know it all.

  "What you say is not strictly true." said Massena Delonghi, interjecting soberly. "There remains the matter of the violated truce. Whatever might lie between the two of you, which is indeed your own affair, he was bound to hold back until the fair was over."

  "And it isn't even their own affair in any case," said Rudel, irritatingly intruding himself. "Correct me if I err, but I do seem to recall hearing last summer of a decree by the countess of Arbonne regarding killings between Talair and Miraval."

  Blaise understood what his friend was doing then, and reproached himself. He ought to have known better. Rudel wasn't intruding: he was handing Blaise the next thing to say, if he wanted to say it. And it seemed that he did want to say it, or he would not have begun this at all.

  "As to that, I am in fact no longer a coran of Talair. Not since the attempt on my life on the road. With my identity revealed there it seemed inappropriate to Duke Bertran that he be giving Galbert de Garsenc's son commands as if to any other mercenary. I am with him now only as a friend. There is therefore no breach of the countess's decree in anything that passes between Quzman of Arimonda and myself."

  The Arimondan had begun, again, to smile, the white teeth showing against his dark skin. His magnificent body was ridged and corded with muscle. He was clever, and extremely dangerous.

  "I propose," said Blaise calmly, "that this man and I fight each other at the tournament, and that all affairs of tonight be considered ended with whatever happens then."

  Quzman was looking at him. "I might be forced to regard you as a man, after all," he said. "To the death?"

  Blaise shrugged. It had come. "Why bother, otherwise."

  Behind him, Rudel Correze swore violently under his breath. Which meant that he had not, after all, seen exactly where this had been going. There was some small pleasure in that; he was rarely so far ahead of Rudel. Behind him, Rosala was silent now. It was the countess who spoke, very softly. "I should not allow this. You have a reason, I dare hope?"

  "I hope so as well," Blaise said, not turning, his gaze holding the Arimondan's. The first
moments of a challenge, he had been taught long ago, often determined what followed. It was important not to look away.

  Urté de Miraval smiled broadly. "One thousand in gold on the Arimondan," he said. "If anyone chooses to cover."

  "I will," said Massena Delonghi. "It will add spice to the watching."

  His daughter laughed.

  "It appears," said Signe de Barbentain, "that I am expected to consent to this. I cannot imagine whence that expectation comes. Why should the Arimondan be allowed an even chance at his life?"

  Blaise turned to the courageous, exquisitely beautiful woman who ruled this country. "There is no reason but my asking it of you," he said gravely. "Arbonne has always been known for the greatness of its rulers and their generosity. There are those in Gorhaut who might prefer to deny that."

  He paused; her blue gaze was intently searching his eyes. "I am not one of them, your grace. Not any longer."

  He thought he saw a flicker of understanding, and then sorrow chasing it away, but he was certain of neither thing. Impulsively, he knelt before her. He felt her hand upon his head. The slender fingers curled in his hair and then down his cheek and beard. She lifted his chin to look at him.

  "We are fond of you, Blaise of Gorhaut," she said formally. "We can only hope that this challenge does not bring us a new source of grief. We consent to it, because you have asked us to do so." She looked out over Blaise's head. "The Arimondan will remain in custody until this duel occurs, though he is not to be abused in any way. These two men will fight before us until one of them is dead, and this combat will take place on the first morning of the tournament by our decree. We will retire now. These matters are distasteful to us, and there is a child we have not seen all day."

  In the end, Blaise went down the hall with the countess and Rosala. When they walked in, the baby was awake and nursing with the wet-nurse they had found for him. Blaise looked at him for a long time and then turned to Rosala. He said nothing, nor did he find any answers to unspoken questions in her face. He had not, in fact, expected to.

  On his way back down the corridor alone some time after, he saw Imera waiting for him at a dark place by the stairwell. He had been half expecting this. She gestured with one hand. Looking beyond her, he saw that Lucianna's door stood ajar. Torchlight flickered and shifted in the corridor.

  Once again, desire for her was in Blaise like a wave, like the hard surge of the black, starlit sea against a stony shore. And Blaise understood, standing there in the shadows with Lucianna's servant, that he was unlikely ever to be wholly free of this. In the next heartbeat, he realized, with a feeling akin to that which sometimes came when the white moon broke free of clouds to shine serenely down upon the earth where men and women lived and died, that he could deal with that desire. He was not a slave to it. He could ride above the wave. He took a slow breath, shook his head gently and went past Imera down the dark, winding stairs.

  There were people still awake and lights burning in the great hall of Barbentain. A lanky, dark-haired man was singing. Blaise paused in the doorway, listening for a moment. The voice was resonant and sad, quite beautiful actually. He thought he recognized the man, and one or two of the other musicians. Then he saw a woman he did know for certain: the joglar from Midsummer Eve, Lisseut. Her brown hair looked different tonight. He realized why after a moment: it was bright and clean, not soaked and tangled about her shoulders. Amused at the vivid memory, he waited until her gaze moved away from the singer to scan the room. When she saw him in the doorway, she smiled quickly and lifted a hand. Blaise, after a second, smiled back.

  He was actually thinking about crossing the room to speak with her, but just then someone was at his elbow.

  "I thought I'd wait a little while," Rudel said. "I wasn't entirely certain if you would be coming down before morning."

  Blaise looked over at his friend. "Neither was I," he said quietly, "until just now. I feel free of something, actually."

  Rudel's expression was sober. "Free to die?"

  "We are always free for that. It is the god's gift and his burden."

  "Don't be so pious. Not all of us are fool enough to invite it, Blaise."

  Blaise smiled. "Is this Rudel Correze I am hearing? The most reckless mercenary of us all? If it will make you feel happier I will let you tell me, on the way home, all the reasons why I am a fool."

  "It will make me feel a great deal happier," Rudel said. And proceeded to take up the invitation, in meticulous, lucid detail, all the way back from the castle to Bertran de Talair's palace in Lussan.

  Blaise listened, for the most part, but as they neared Bertran's house again his mind wandered away, touching and withdrawing and then reaching hesitantly back to touch again the last, most difficult thing of a difficult night.

  He had never seen a new-born babe before. The child had had a surprisingly full head of reddish hair and the Garsenc nose already, indisputably. He looked like Ranald. He also looked like Blaise. Rosala, holding him when he had finished nursing with the woman, before he was swaddled again, had revealed nothing at all in words or with her eyes. Nothing, that is, save love, as Blaise watched her watch her son sleep in her arms. They would be coming for him, of course. There was no question at all but that his grandfather and the king of Gorhaut would be coming after that child. Rosala had told Blaise, tersely, about her last encounter with Galbert. He wondered if his father had provoked that clash deliberately. It wasn't a thought he could share with her.

  "You haven't even uttered a word in your own defence," Rudel complained sharply as they came up for the second time in a long night to stand beneath the lights burning outside Bertran's palace.

  "I have none to offer. Every word you speak is true."

  "Well, then?"

  Blaise was silent for a moment. "Tell me, why did you spend so much of the assassination money on a jewel for Lucianna?"

  Rudel grew still. It was quiet on the cobble-stoned street, with the stars shining far above.

  "How do you know that? Did she tell you I—"

  "No. She would never do that. Rudel, I recognized it. You pointed out that red gem to me once, at that jeweller's in Aulensburg. It wasn't a difficult connection to make. Take my meaning though, Rudel: we are all foolish in our different ways." It was quite dark where they stood, even with the two torches behind them. The sky was clear and a breeze was blowing. Both moons were down.

  "I love her," his friend said finally. "I have no business calling any other man, living or dead, a fool."

  Blaise honestly hadn't known, not until he had seen that memorable crimson gem blazing between Lucianna's breasts tonight. There was a sadness in him, shaped of many things.

  He smiled though, and touched his friend on the arm. "You mentioned an amusing tavern quite some time ago. We appear to have been interrupted. If you are willing, I wouldn't mind trying again."

  He waited, and saw Rudel, slowly, return his smile.

  Sunrise saw them homeward, when the morning broke.

  CHAPTER 13

  Tournaments in Arbonne and duels performed in the presence of women were under the aegis of the queen of the Court of Love. It was Ariane de Carenzu, therefore, who was responsible for supervising the formalities attendant upon the challenge issued at the Lussan Fair between Blaise de Garsenc of Gorhaut and Quzman di Perano of Arimonda.

  It was also Ariane who offered the most drily prosaic response of all to what Blaise had done the night before. They had gone to the Carenzu mansion in the morning: Blaise, Bertran, Valery and an extremely pale-looking Rudel Correze. A long night of drinking after a substantial blow to the head had not, it appeared, worked greatly to the advantage of the normally urbane scion of the Correze family.

  For that matter, Blaise wasn't feeling entirely well himself, but he'd been more careful than Rudel in the tavern, and expected to become more functional as the day progressed; certainly by tomorrow at any rate, which was a good thing. Tomorrow he was going to be fighting a man to the death.
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br />   "I have no idea," Ariane said, reclining prettily on an upholstered divan in the room where she received them, "whether what you have done is sheerest folly or only moderately so."

  Her tone was astringent and sardonic, a controlling voice more than a little at odds with the morning freshness of her appearance. She was dressed in pale yellow, the fabric cut with sky blue at bodice and sleeve, with a soft hat of the same mild blue shade on her dark hair, She was looking at Blaise as she spoke and her expression was not particularly mild.

  "I cannot decide, because I do not know how well you fight. I do know that Urté would not have hired the Arimondan—the two Arimondans—if they were not very good indeed."

  "Quzman? He is good," Bertran de Talair murmured. He was pouring an early glass of wine from a flask on a tray. He seemed more amused now than anything else, though his first reaction, when they told him what had happened, had been one of grimly silent reflection. He hadn't shared those thoughts.

  "So is Blaise," said Rudel faintly from the depths of the chair into which he had carefully lowered himself. They could see only the top of his head. "Consider the dead brother and five corans of Miraval."

  "Those were arrows," Valery said quietly. Of all of them, he seemed the most unhappy this morning. "This will be with swords."

  "It need not be," Ariane said. "I could easily—"

  Blaise shook his head quickly. "No point. He uses what he wants, so do I. I would be shamed by an attempt to control the weapons."

  "You may be killed by a failure to do so," Ariane said tartly.

  It was gradually becoming clear to Blaise, a knowledge accompanied by a growing bemusement, that the reactions of those around him to what was about to happen tomorrow were not entirely shaped by the pragmatic appraisal of risks and gains. They were concerned for him. The countess, Bertran and Valery, Rudel certainly, and now it was equally obvious—even to Blaise, who had never been good with understandings of this sort—that Ariane was speaking with more than an abstract interest in the rules of this challenge.