‘Or one of Brandin’s,’ Alessan murmured.
‘Or Brandin’s,’ Sandre echoed. ‘It is the one thing those two carrion birds have agreed upon—other than the dividing line running down the Palm—that theirs shall be the only magic in this land.’
‘And it is,’ said Alessan, ‘or so nearly so as to be the same thing. I have been searching for a wizard for a dozen years or more.’
‘Alessan!’ Baerd said quickly.
‘Why?’ the Duke asked in the same moment.
‘Alessan!’ Baerd repeated, more urgently.
The man Devin had just learned to be the Prince of Tigana looked over at his friend and shook his head. ‘Not this one, Baerd,’ he said cryptically. ‘Not Sandre d’Astibar.’
He turned back to the Duke and hesitated, choosing his words. Then, with an unmistakable pride, he said, ‘You will have heard the legend. It happens to be true. The line of the Princes of Tigana, all those in direct descent, can bind a wizard to them unto death.’
For the first time a gleam of curiosity, of an actual interest in something appeared in Sandre’s hooded eyes. ‘I do know that story. The only wizard who ever guessed what I was after I came into my own magic warned me once to be wary of the Princes of Tigana. He was an old man, and doddering by then. I remember laughing. You actually claim that what he said was true?’
‘It was. I am certain it still is. I have had no chance to test it though. It is our primal story: Tigana is the chosen province of Adaon of the Waves. The first of our Princes, Rahal, being born of the god by that Micaela whom we name as mortal mother of us all. And the line of the Princes has never been broken.’
Devin felt a complex stir of emotions working within himself. He didn’t even try to enumerate how many things were tangling themselves in his heart. Micaela. He listened and watched, and set himself to remember.
And he heard Sandre d’Astibar laugh.
‘I know that story too,’ the Duke said derisively. ‘That hoary, enfeebled excuse for Tiganese arrogance. Princes of Tigana! Not Dukes, oh no. Princes! Descended of the god!’ He thrust the poker towards Alessan. ‘You will stand here tonight, now, among the stinking reality of the Tyrants and of these dead men and the world of the Palm today and spew that old lie at me? You will do that?’
‘It is truth,’ said Alessan quietly, not moving. ‘It is why we are what we are. It would have been a slight to the god for his descendants to claim a lesser title. The gift of Adaon to his mortal son could not be immortality—that, Eanna and Morian forbade. But the god granted a binding power over the Palm’s own magic to his son, and to the sons and daughters of his son while a Prince or a Princess of Tigana lived in that direct line. If you doubt me and would put it to the test I will do as Baerd would have had me do and bind you with my hand upon your brow, my lord Duke. The old tale is not to be lightly dismissed, Sandre d’Astibar. If we are proud it is because we have reason to be.’
‘Not any more,’ the Duke said mockingly. ‘Not since Brandin came!’
Alessan’s face twisted. He opened his mouth and closed it.
‘How dare you!’ Catriana snapped. Bravely, Devin thought.
Prince and Duke ignored her, rigidly intent on each other. Sandre’s sardonic amusement gradually receded into the deep lines etched in his face. The bitterness remained, in eyes and stance and the pinched line of his mouth.
Alessan said, ‘I had not expected that from you. Under all the circumstances.’
‘You are in no position to have any idea what to expect from me,’ the Duke replied, very low. ‘Under all the circumstances.’
‘Shall we part company now then?’
For a long moment something lay balanced in the air between them, a process of weighing and resolution, complicated immeasurably by death and grief and rage and the stiff, reflexive pride of both men. Devin, responding with his nerve-endings to the tension, found that he was holding his breath.
‘I would prefer not,’ said Sandre d’Astibar finally. ‘Not like this,’ he added, as Devin drew breath again. ‘Will you accept an apology from one who is sunken as low as he has ever been?’
‘I will,’ said Alessan simply. ‘And I would seek your counsel before we must, indeed, part ways for a time. Your middle son was taken alive. He will name me and Devin both tomorrow morning if not tonight.’
‘Not tonight,’ the Duke said, almost absently. ‘Alberico apprehends no danger any more. He will also be quite seriously debilitated by what happened here. He will leave Tomasso until a time when he can enjoy what happens. When he is in a mood to … play.’
‘Tonight, tomorrow,’ said Baerd, his blunt voice jarring the mood. ‘It makes little difference. He will talk. We must be away before he does.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ Sandre murmured in the same strangely detached voice. He looked at the four dead men on the floor. ‘I wish I knew exactly what happened,’ he said. ‘Inside the coffin I could see nothing, but I can tell you that Alberico used a magic here tonight so strong it is still pulsating. And he used it to save his own life. Scalvaia did something, I don’t know what, but he came very near.’ He looked at Alessan. ‘Near to giving Brandin of Ygrath dominion over the whole peninsula.’
‘You heard that?’ Alessan said. ‘You agree with me?’
‘I think I always knew it to be true, and I know I succeeded in denying it within myself. I was so focused on my own enemy here in Astibar. I needed to hear it said, but once will be enough. Yes, I agree with you. They must be taken down together.’
Alessan nodded, and some of his own rigidly controlled tension seemed to ease away. He said, ‘There are those who still think otherwise. I value your agreement.’
He glanced over at Baerd, smiling a little wryly, then back to the Duke. ‘You mentioned Alberico’s use of magic as if it should have a meaning now for us. What meaning then? We are ignorant in these matters.’
‘No shame. If you aren’t a wizard you are meant to be ignorant.’ Sandre smiled thinly. ‘The meaning is straightforward though: there is such an overflow of magic spilling out from this room tonight that any paltry power of my own that I invoke will be completely screened. I think I can ensure that your names are not given to the torturers tomorrow.’
‘I see,’ said Alessan, nodding slowly. Devin did not see anything; he felt as if he were churning along in the turbulent wake of information. ‘You can take yourself through space? You can go in there and bring him out?’ Alessan’s eyes were bright.
Sandre was shaking his head though. He held up his left hand, all five fingers spread wide. ‘I never chopped two fingers in the wizard’s final binding to the Palm. My magic is profoundly limited. I can’t say I regret it—I would never have been Duke of Astibar had I done so, given the prejudices and the laws governing wizards here—but it constrains what I am able to do. I can go in there myself, yes, but I am not strong enough to bring someone else out. I can take him something though.’
‘I see,’ said Alessan again, but in a different voice. There was a silence. He pushed a hand through his disordered hair. ‘I am sorry,’ he said at length, softly.
The Duke’s face was expressionless. Above the white beard and the gaunt cheeks his eyes gave nothing away at all. Behind him the fire crackled, sparks snapping outward into the room.
‘I have a condition,’ Sandre said.
‘Which is?’
‘That you allow me to come with you. I am now a dead man. Given to Morian. Here in Astibar I can speak to no one, achieve nothing. If I am to preserve any purpose now to the botched deception of my dying I must go with you. Prince of Tigana, will you accept a feeble wizard in your entourage? A wizard come freely, not bound by some legend?’
For a long time Alessan was silent, looking at the other man, his hands quiet at his sides. Then, unexpectedly, he grinned. It was like a flash of light, a gleam of warmth cracking the ice in the room.
‘How attached are you,’ he asked, in a quite unexpected tone of voice, ‘to your
beard and your white hair?’
A second later Devin heard a strange sound. It took him a moment to recognize that what he was hearing was the high, wheezing, genuine amusement of the Duke of Astibar.
‘Do with me what you will,’ Sandre said as his mirth subsided. ‘What will you do—tinge my locks red as the maid’s?’
Alessan shook his head. ‘I hope not. One of those manes is more than sufficient for a single company. I leave these matters to Baerd though. I leave a great many things to Baerd.’
‘Then I shall place myself in his hands,’ Sandre said. He bowed gravely to the yellow-haired man. Baerd, Devin saw, did not look entirely happy. Sandre saw it too.
‘I will not swear an oath,’ the Duke said to him. ‘I swore one vow when Alberico came, and it is the last vow I shall ever swear. I will say though that it shall be my endeavour for the rest of my days to ensure that you do not regret this. Will that content you?’
Slowly Baerd nodded. ‘It will.’
Listening, Devin had an intuitive sense that this, too, was an exchange that mattered, that neither man had spoken lightly, or less than the truth of his heart. He glanced over just then at Catriana and discovered that she had been watching him. She turned quickly away though, and did not look back.
Sandre said, ‘I think I had best set about doing what I have said I would. Because of the screening of Alberico’s magic I must go and return from this room, but I dare say you need not spend a night among the dead, however illustrious they are. Have you a camp in the woods? Shall I find you there?’
The idea of magic was unsettling to Devin still, but Sandre’s words had just given him an idea, his first really clear thought since they’d entered the lodge.
‘Are you sure you’ll be able to stop your son from talking?’ he asked diffidently.
‘Quite sure,’ Sandre replied briefly.
Devin’s brow knit. ‘Well then, it seems to me none of us is in immediate danger. Except for you, my lord. You must not be seen.’
‘Until Baerd’s done with him,’ Alessan interposed. ‘But go on.’
Devin turned to him. ‘I’d like to say farewell to Menico and try to think of a reason to give for leaving. I owe him a great deal. I don’t want him to hate me.’
Alessan looked thoughtful. ‘He will hate you a little, Devin, even though he isn’t that kind of man. What happened this morning is what a lifelong trouper like Menico dreams about. And no explanation you come up with is going to alter the fact that he needs you to make that dream a real thing now.’
Devin swallowed. He hated what he was hearing, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it. A season or two of the fees Menico had said he could now charge would have let the old campaigner buy the inn in Ferraut he’d talked about for so many years. The place where he’d always said he’d like to settle when the road grew too stern for his bones. Where he could serve ale and wine and offer a bed and a meal to old friends and new ones passing through on the long trails. Where he could hear and retell the gossip of the day and swap the old stories he loved. And where, on the cold winter nights, he could stake out a place by the fire and lead whoever happened to be there into and out of all the songs he knew.
Devin shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his breeches. He felt awkward and sad. ‘I just don’t like disappearing on him. All three of us at once. We’ve got concerts tomorrow, too.’
Alessan’s mouth quirked. ‘I do seem to recall that,’ he said. ‘Two of them.’
‘Three,’ said Catriana unexpectedly.
‘Three,’ Alessan agreed cheerfully. ‘And one the next day at the Woolguild Hall. I also have—it has just occurred to me—a substantial wager in The Paelion that I expect to win.’
Which drew an already predictable growl from Baerd. ‘Do you seriously think the Festival of Vines is going to blithely proceed after what has occurred tonight? You want to go make music in Astibar as if nothing has happened? Music? I’ve been down this road with you before, Alessan. I don’t like it.’
‘Actually, I’m quite certain the Festival will go on.’ It was Sandre. ‘Alberico is cautious almost before he is anything else. I think tonight will redouble that in him. He will allow the people their celebrations, let those from the distrada scatter and go home, then slam down hard immediately after. But only on the three families that were here, I suspect. It is, frankly, what I would do myself.’
‘Taxes?’ Alessan asked.
‘Perhaps. He raised them after the Canziano poisoning, but that was different. An actual assassination attempt in a public place. He didn’t have much choice. I think he’ll narrow it this time—there will be enough bodies for his wheels among the three families here.’
Devin found it unsettling how casually the Duke spoke of such things. This was his kin they were discussing. His oldest son, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins—all to be fodder for Barbadian killing-wheels. Devin wondered if he would ever grow as cynical as this. If what had begun tonight would harden him to that degree. He tried to think of his brothers on a death-wheel in Asoli and found his mind flinching away from the very image. Unobtrusively he made the warding sign against evil.
The truth was, he was upset just thinking about Menico, and that was merely a matter of costing the man money, nothing more. People moved from troupe to troupe all the time. Or left to start their own companies. Or retired from the road into a business that offered them more security. There would be performers who would be expecting him to go on his own after his success this morning. That should have been a helpful thought, but it wasn’t. Somehow Devin hated to make it appear as if they were right.
Something else occurred to him. ‘Won’t it look a bit odd, too, if we disappear right after the mourning rites? Right after Alberico’s unmasked a plot that was connected with them? We’re sort of linked to the Sandreni now in a way. Should we draw attention to ourselves like that? It isn’t as if our disappearance won’t be noticed.’
He said it, for some reason, to Baerd. And was rewarded a moment later with a brief, sober nod of acknowledgement.
‘Now that cloth I will buy,’ Baerd said. ‘That does make sense, though I’m sorry to say it.’
‘A good deal of sense,’ Sandre agreed. Devin fidgeted a little as he came under the scrutiny of those dark, sunken eyes. ‘The two of you’—the Duke gestured at Devin and Catriana—‘may yet redeem your generation for me.’
This time Devin refused to look at the girl. Instead his glance went over to the corner where Sandre’s grandson lay by the second, dying fire, his throat slashed by a family blade.
Alessan broke the silence with a deliberate cough. ‘There is also,’ he said in a curious tone, ‘another argument entirely. Only those who have spent as many nights outdoors as I have can properly appreciate the depth—as it were—of my preference for a soft bed at night. In short,’ he concluded with a grin, ‘your eloquence has quite overcome me, Devin. Lead me back to Menico at the inn. Even a bed shared with two syrenya-players who snore in marginal harmony is a serious improvement over cold ground beside Baerd’s relative silence.’
Baerd favoured him with a forbidding glare. One that Alessan appeared to weather quite easily. ‘I will refrain,’ Baerd said darkly, ‘from a recitation of your own nocturnal habits. I will wait here alone for Duke Sandre to return. We’ll have to burn this lodge tonight, for obvious reasons. There’s a body that will otherwise be missing when the servants come back in the morning. We’ll meet the three of you by the cache three mornings from now, as early as you see fit to rise from your pillows. Assuming,’ he added with heavy sarcasm, ‘that soft city living doesn’t prevent you from being able to find the cache.’
‘I’ll find it if he gets lost,’ Catriana said.
Alessan looked from one to the other of them, his expression wounded. ‘That isn’t fair,’ he protested. ‘It is just the music. You both know that.’
Devin hadn’t. Alessan was still gazing at Baerd. ‘You know it is only the music I’m going back
for.’
‘Of course I know that,’ Baerd said softly. His expression changed. ‘I’m only afraid that the music will kill us both one of these days.’
Intercepting the look that passed between them then, Devin learned something new and sudden and unexpected—on a night when he’d already learned more things than he could easily handle—about the nature of bonding and about love.
‘Go,’ said Baerd with a scowl, as Alessan still hesitated. Catriana was already by the door. ‘We will meet you after the Festival. By the cache. Don’t,’ he added, ‘expect to recognize us.’
Alessan grinned suddenly, and a moment later Baerd allowed himself to smile as well. It changed his face a great deal. He didn’t, Devin realized, smile very often.
He was still thinking about that as he followed Alessan and Catriana out the door and into the darkness of the wood again.
C H A P T E R 6
As it happened, the long path of that day and night did not lead back to the inn after all.
The three of them returned through the forest to the main road from Astibar to Ardin town. They walked in silence along the road under the arch of the autumn stars, cicadas loud in the woods on either side. Devin was glad of his woollen over-shirt; it was chilly now, there might be a frost tonight.
It was strange to be abroad in the darkness so late. When they were travelling Menico was always careful to have his company quartered and settled by the dinner hour. Even with the stern measures both Tyrants had taken against thieves and brigands, the paths of the Palm were not often travelled by decent folk at night.
Folk such as he himself had been, only this morning. He had been secure in his niche and his calling, had even had—improbably enough—a triumph. He’d been poised on the edge of a genuine success. And now he was walking a road in darkness having abandoned any such prospects or security, and having sworn an oath that marked him for a death-wheel, in Chiara if not here. Both places actually, if Tomasso bar Sandre talked.
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