by sun sword
The night of the Festival Moon.
Lissa was pale.
She did not speak, and while the other wives supped and preened and prepared their masks and their saris for this single flight of freedom in the open streets of the Tor Leonne, she grew whiter still, until even the eager anticipation of her cowives could not be sustained.
"What is it, Lissa, what's wrong?"
"I—I don't feel well." The girl smiled wanly at the oldest of Sendari's consorts, Alana en'Marano.
"The sickness, is it?" The matronly woman caught the young girl's hand and held it tightly. Her face rippled in a frown of concern, and although it was smoothed away quickly, Lissa caught its import.
"What's wrong?" she whispered.
"Nothing. Here." Alana poured sweet water into a goblet and held it under the young girl's lips. "Drink this, Illia, stop flattening that pillow and be useful. Go at once and fetch the Serra. Tell her we've gone to the chambers."
"The Serra left orders that she was not to be disturbed."
"Wind take those orders, Illia, this is important."
"But she—"
"Go and get the Serra. "
Illia did not demur again. Sendari, had he been here, would not have demurred—not when Alana used that tone of voice. The slender young woman vanished at once, racing down the open walkways as if she were a child.
Alana turned to Lissa again, all annoyance draining from her face. And that, of course, made things seem more frightening, for Alana was not known for the sweetness of her disposition. "Lissa, I think it best that you retire to the sleeping chamber. It is warm and crowded here."
"It's—it is hot."
"Come. Give me your arm, girl, and lean on me. You weigh nothing as it is; I can bear your weight a little while."
"Serra—Serra Teresa."
Unmasked and barely dressed, the Serra Teresa looked up, her expression completely neutral. "Illia," she said softly. "Are you not yourself preparing for the Festival Night?" Her words were cool, which was a bad sign; they could get colder still, which would be worse.
Illia knelt to the floor, pleasing in her fluidity and grace, and most intent in her humility. The serafs to either side of Serra Teresa backed away, bowing as well, but less deferentially than Illia did.
"Serra," she said, her tone much more even. "Forgive me for interrupting you. I did not think it wise—but Alana insisted."
"And Alana is now the Serra?"
"No, Serra."
"Good. I will speak with Alana myself. Later."
Illia knew a dismissal when she heard it, which was a very good thing. She flattened herself against the cold floor again, and when she rose, she left without a word.
Serra Teresa's momentary anger faded at once, and she felt something akin to shame, which was distinctly unpleasant and completely uncalled for. Her orders, after all, had been quite clear. It was essential that, this eve of all Festival Nights, no one see the mask she chose, or the clothing she wore. No one, of course, save the serafs who served her alone.
Ah, the sun was down, had been down; the sticks burned low and short, taunting her with their time, their lack of time. She could apologize to Illia on the morrow, and to Alana—but she could not stay to sort out the difficulties of the harem this eve.
Not this eve. They were in place, and awaiting her, and the foreign bard would be waiting as well. She could not be late. Lifting her arms, she nodded at the seraf.
"Bind them," she said. "Bind them as tightly as you can." He was at work at once, as was his companion; they worked in the silence of her thoughts, her fear. She was not in the first blush of youth, nor would she be again; her body was full and not easily hidden beneath the trappings of the clothing that she had chosen. But she bore the pain, and the indignity, very well for a Serra.
How will you spend the Festival Night?
In study. I have much to learn.
Masks.
Diora, wrapped round in the loose-fitting robes of childhood, smiled when she saw him.
And Sendari knew that she was a serious child, even a grave one; her smiles were seldom given, and like any rare thing, prized highly by those who understood them. No one understood them better than he.
Her hair was dark and fine, and so busy were the wives with their own preparations that no one in the harem had thought to catch and pin it into ugly, twisted braids; it hung straight from her head to the blades of her shoulders as if she had stepped out of the lake of the Tor Leonne and been dried by moonlight.
"You aren't wearing a mask," she said gravely.
The lines of her chin changed slightly as she spoke; he thought if he stared at her face hard enough, and long enough, its image would become as deeply ingrained in memory as the words and the gestures by which incantations were focused. Upon which his power was based. "Neither are you." He bowed, and her smile deepened, her large, dark eyes crinkling at the corners. Spells were simple compared to the complexity of life; he could retain them and recall them at whim. But Na'dio—every time he thought he finally understood her, she changed. One day, he would come home to a marriageable daughter.
But not tonight. Tonight was his. He shook himself, smiling down at her upturned face. "If we are to go out in the streets of the Tor Leonne, we must have masks." From the folds of his robes, he drew them out, one large and one delicately small. The latter, he untied gently and held out. "Come, Na'dio. The evening will be short enough; will you miss any of it?"
"No, Father." Her smile was the widest she had yet offered him as she saw the feathers and the golden, rounded beak beneath them. She had asked for this face, and he had remonstrated with her quietly for her boldness.
A wiser father than he would not have rewarded that boldness in any way. But it was the night of the Festival Moon, and her smile was brighter than the Lady's face, sweeter than the most carefully aged wine, more valuable than the Northern jewels.
For her? He thought ruefully, as he tied the mask securely around her face. "Hold still, Na'dio. The mask must be properly fitted or everyone will know who you are."
"Can I help with yours?"
"I think you are not quite tall enough," he replied serenely. "We will let the serafs attend to me."
Kallandras found the Eastern Fount of Contemplation with little difficulty, for he knew the city of two decades past very well, and it had not changed much in the intervening time. Not much at all, really, beneath the blanket of lit shadows that was the Festival of the Moon. His youth was here, and the yearning for it was so sharp he almost felt that he was sixteen years of age again, with all of the attendant loss. He smiled and bowed, fixing his mask in place and pulling his hood over the flattened golden curls that would mark him, immediately, as a foreigner.
Passing as an Annagarian was not difficult this one eve. He could speak like a native, and at that, a native of rank, if he so chose, smoothing away the cultivated blemish of Weston accent. What was hard was passing from place to place without being caught up by revelers who started their drinking the moment the Lady's face allowed.
He carried neither harp nor lute, in keeping with the Festival's spirit. But he carried no sword either. If tonight was a night for the Annagarians to celebrate their hidden selves, it was no such thing for Kallandras. What was hidden, was hidden, and it was not the Lady's Moon whose light could reveal it.
The Eastern Fount was still, but the Circle of Contemplation had been cleared and cleaned, and its brass line polished to a shine for the Festival. Found on the outskirts of the streets that led to the Tor Leonne proper, it was relatively deserted; there were one or two people who had, like the bard, taken refuge for a moment from the noise and the gaiety in the city.
He waited, and watched; time turned.
* * *
She was late.
To dress properly, to acquire clothing appropriate to both station and size—it had taken longer than she anticipated, a thing which rarely occurred. But Serra Teresa did not panic, and did not race through the streets in unseemly
haste. Either he would be there, or he would not.
The Eastern Fount was at the edge of the Tor Leonne; she had chosen it for that reason. The gates were open to the Festival Moon, although the circles of contemplation were almost entirely empty. Three men stood in the darkness, two speaking together in low tones, flagons at their sides, and one—one sitting quietly in the circle.
She would have known the bard anywhere, although until she saw him sitting thus, she hadn't been certain. He was so precise in his choice of place; he sat dead center, and his legs, crossed just so, made him look like a sculpture, and not a man at all.
There were three lamps that burned quite high, and in their glow she could see that his clothing was of the shadows. He carried no harp, no lute; she did not see a sword. But she had misgivings as she saw him sitting.
She missed a step.
Stumbling, she caught his attention; he raised his face, and she saw that he wore the fool's mask; his lips turned up in a smile wider than an actual face, his nose, bright red and large, his skin paler than death. It was sewn into a hood, that his hair might be hidden from view.
We choose what we reveal, she thought, self-consciously touching her own mask. Steel, thin and almost featureless, was cool beneath her fingertips. If her eyes gave life to the austerity of her chosen facade, she could not know.
He rose, offering neither bow nor word; she met him halfway across the courtyard, bowing on the outside edge of the Circle of Contemplation. Then, silently, she raised her left arm, snapping her hand as if flicking away an insect too small to be seen.
"I am sorry," she said. Knowing that no matter how she shaded or lowered her voice, no matter what accent she layered over it, no matter which language she spoke, he would know who she was, she chose not to try.
"No," he said, "you are not."
She shrugged. "Then I am not. I have some regret."
"And I some curiosity." The bard's eyes—she could see them now, recessed beneath the curve of his mask— never left her, although to her right and left the two men who had been conversing so pleasantly now stood. Where they had carried flagons, they now carried short bows; these were strung and readied.
She was impressed by their speed and their silent grace. "I have no time to answer your questions. This is not the way I had hoped to spend this one night." She smiled, her cheeks touching the contours of a mask not rounded to contain such an expression. "You will have the opportunity to ask the Lady."
"I fear," was his neutral reply, "that the Lady will not answer my questions."
The Serra stepped away from him then, distancing herself from the men who would perform the act. "Kill him quickly." She stood prepared for his voice, for the power that made of mere words an unavoidable command. Against her, he could gain little purchase, but against these, much; it was for that reason that she could arrange no absent killing, no normal death. She could speak against his voice, layer her own command over his; hold him back for just long enough. The cerdan knew how to handle their weapons.
They lifted their bows, but instead of calling upon the power that made him so very dangerous, he shook his head softly and said the strangest thing.
"Life is so ironic."
She wanted to walk, and carried herself with all the bursting pride of a child who has not yet been injured enough to understand how harsh the world is.
He wanted to carry her, but he did not insist; the streets of the Tor were tiring for a child of Diora's age and size, and in the end, satisfied by her brief display of independence, she would retire to his arms or his shoulders to seek a safer—and a higher—vantage from which to view the world.
In the darkness of the moonlit night, it was impossible to tell whether she was boy or girl, and her voice, the words that she chose, did not give her away. Nor did the clothing she wore, or the mask.
Na'dio, he thought, as he held her small hand, if only you had been a son. There was no anger in him, but the sorrow was profound, and it grew with time. Diora was a bright child, a grave one; she was, he knew, very much like her father, but at an earlier age.
A son could have studied the Widan's art.
"Father, look!"
He caught her arm quickly, although she no longer needed the restraint, and then looked between the gaps in the gathering crowd before them. Blades rose and fell, catching torchlight and lamplight so briefly they glittered like rippling water. In the circle, ringed with gold-inlaid flares, two men were dancing, their blades circling each other's bodies so closely it appeared certain that one, or the other, would soon bleed.
Diora raised her arms, and he smiled softly, acceding to the unspoken request. He reminded himself, as he lifted her and deftly slid her up on his shoulders, that her weight at this age was not inconsiderable. And it didn't matter.
"They aren't fighting, are they?" she asked; his smile deepened.
"No," he said softly. "They are blade-dancing. And they are very good."
"Why?"
"Why are they good?"
"Why do they dance?"
"Because," he replied, knowing that she wouldn't understand it, "they wish to celebrate their lives, their living." She did not interrupt him when he paused both for breath and to gather his thoughts. "See the blades? They rise and they fall, always, in constant motion. These two have danced together for a long time; if they had not, they could not dance masked. They know, or hope they know, where each other will step, where they will circle, or where they will slash. If they are mistaken, they will fall, either together or separately."
"Oh."
"This close to death, Na'dio, and one feels life keenly, because one holds it so tenuously." She said nothing, and he could see, in his mind's eye, the furrowing of her brow, and the slight widening of her eyes, that spoke of concentration. "Whether or not we dance like this, we all dance," Sendari said. "And in the end, one way or another, we all fail."
She was silent; he knew that she didn't understand, but she was already well enough trained that she would not question him. Teresa's hand.
"Do they love each other?"
He frowned. To be wrong was one thing. To be completely surprised was quite another. He could not even understand the source of the question. The test of the sword was close enough that he felt each failure to anticipate keenly, be it at the hands of a Widan or the words of a four-year-old child. "What is love, Na'dio?"
She reached out with her slender arms and wrapped them around his head like silken bands, pressing the mask's edge into his face. "I love you," she told him, stroking his hair.
Beside him, one of the dance's witnesses looked up, his mask catching light and sparkling with it. Serene, as he could not have been had it been any other night, Ser Sendari di'Marano tilted his shoulders and pulled his daughter from them, folding her tightly in his arms, unmindful of who might see him, unconcerned with the contempt they no doubt felt.
The dancers danced, and he, hugging his young child tightly as he spun away from them, teetered on an edge no less terrible, and no less sharp.
"And I," he said, "love you, Na'dio."
"More than Lissa or Illia or Alana? More than Ona Teresa?"
"More, my vain little girl, than any woman or man in the whole of the Lady's night."
"For always?"
"For always."
"No matter what?"
"No matter what. Although," he added, mock severe, "you are such a perfect child that I know you will never do anything that could possibly displease me."
She hugged him, he hugged her, the moon shone down upon them both. He knew, then, that he would remember this night more sharply and more cleanly than he did his spells and his incantations and his elemental wards. The heart was such a dangerous country.
"Come," he told her, as he saw the height of the moon against the backdrop of stars and darkness. "The skyfires will start soon."
The arrows flew.
And they flew wild.
His arms were suddenly extended, although when he'd
lifted them, she couldn't say; he moved that quickly. Light flashed, a spark, iron against the grindstone. To either side, the men who had stood, armed, crumpled, their robes billowing in a huff as if suddenly emptied.
Serra Teresa froze, then, waiting.
And he bowed. "I," he said softly, "am sorry."
"Yes," she said, hearing the truth in his words as if it came from a very great distance. "Are they dead?"
He did not answer.
"What will you do?"
"If you mean, do I intend to kill you, then no."
Silence, stretched thin. Then, in the deserted fount, Serra Teresa di'Marano very quietly lifted her mask, setting it, like a helm, upon her head.
"I'm afraid," the bard said softly, "that I can do you no like favor." As he spoke, he, too, lifted his mask; she did not understand the words, although the nuances told her more than he wished her to know. Or perhaps they told her what he wished her to know: that he was hidden and driven.
"Why," the bard asked, "did you try to have me killed?"
"You knew they were waiting here," she said softly.
"Does it matter? You tried, and it failed. Why, Serra?"
"Because," she said flatly, knowing that he would hear a lie if she offered it now, "you are a bard of the Northern Colleges."
His eyes narrowed. "And bards are normally worthy of such a death, in such a political clime? I think not. Tell me the truth, Serra Teresa."
She clenched her teeth but felt her lips move; the force of his voice was astonishing. This was not a man whose voice, in the end, she could have contained—not even for the time it would have taken two men to fire an arrow each. A waste. "I tried to kill you," she said, fighting each word, "because you are a bard." It was no different; she had intended to tell him the truth, but was humiliated at the lack of choice he left her.
His eyes widened. "The truth," he said, all power gone from the quiet of his voice. "I confess, Serra, that I hear the resentment you bear us in your voice, but I do not understand it."
"How could you?" she replied, free from his compulsion, but no longer free from her own. "How could you?" She turned, the dead to either side momentarily forgotten; her eyes were flashing oddly in the burning light.