Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown

by sun sword

  "You have nothing I desire, Isladar."

  The kinlord smiled. "Nothing at all? Ah, I fear at the moment that there is truth in what you say. A pity. Of the two, desire and fear, I have found in my experiments and studies that desire is the stronger leash. Fear is unreliable."

  "I do not fear you."

  "You do. But you do not let the fear control you. You are wise, Widan, but that is to be expected."

  "You came for a reason?"

  "Ah. Yes. It appears that, this eve, we are to meet with the General, and three… guests. I was sent to accompany you."

  "You were sent to find me."

  "Yes."

  "Very well." Sendari turned, grudging the demon his company on this night, this night of freedom. "Do you know who these companions are?"

  "Ah, yes. The Tyr'agnate Jarrani kai di'Lorenza, the Tyr'agnate Eduardo kai di'Garrardi, and the Second Captain of the Tyran."

  Sendari's feet failed him; he stumbled in the darkness, sliding against grass and the occasional rock as he attempted to right himself. "A Captain of the oathguards? Has Alesso lost all sense?"

  "No. You forget, Widan, that my vision is clearer than either yours or the General's in at least one regard. That man, be he one of your ever-so-honorable oathguards or no, has almost chosen his final home. He is ours."

  By ours, Sendari knew that the kinlord did not refer to the conspirators.

  "You don't seem pleased."

  "Of course I'm pleased," Sendari said, lying and hating the fact that this creature was well aware of it. The Tyran were the only men who swore to serve another man loyally, placing their honor above the value of their lives. They were chosen because they were trusted. Odd, that. The Tyr'agar trusted his Generals to a point, and the Sword of Knowledge not at all; therefore Sendari did not consider the planned betrayal by Alesso of the Tyr he served to be an evil act.

  But the Captain of the oathguards? He wondered if Alesso felt the same shock and the same almost naive sense of disappointment. Naive? Yes. He took a breath, freeing himself from the voice of a child, of a simpleton. "It will make the task simpler."

  "Yes. He will be your most effective weapon; I do not believe that the Kialli will be necessary at all."

  "A pity. The Kialli will be necessary indeed. We've discussed this, Isladar. The last of the line Leonne is not in Annagar; he's a hostage in the keep of the Imperial Kings. His death is in your hands."

  Isladar nodded gravely. "Come, Widan. The night will wane soon enough, and we have need of it."

  The Serra Diora en'Leonne stared at the face of a dozen masks, thinking, as she caressed the feathers of an eagle, that she had worn masks all her life, some lovelier and more complex than this, some gaudy, and some so austere even Ona Teresa could find no fault.

  And yet tonight she wanted no mask, felt she needed none. This was her harem, and these, these were her wives. Oh, they were Illara's as well, but Mara was there, by the lake, beginning an evening of pleasant drinking that might—or might not—turn ugly by dawn's light. She thought it might not although she could not be completely certain.

  The serafs waited for her to make her choice; she touched the feathered mask again and then lifted it quickly, knowing that, if she did not choose, they could not leave. Their evening was already passing.

  "The rest," she told them, "are yours; take the ones that you most like and keep them. This is my first Festival as a Leonne—I want you to remember it kindly." These were fine masks; expensive, jeweled here and there to catch the light, furred, rendered in exquisitely rich paints. As gifts, they were not grand—unless one gave them to serafs.

  Speechless, the younger girls gaped—their first display of poor training, but forgiven because it was the Night of the Festival Moon—while the older women quickly and practically set about the task of choosing among the masks. They knew that Diora spoke honestly, and waiting would only mean that the masks they most liked might be worn or chosen by another. In ones and twos the serafs who served the Serra Diora's harem vanished through the open screen doors that cut her off, this night, from the world that lay hidden for every other day of the year.

  She began to walk toward the garden and Serena appeared, as if by Widan conjuring, at just that moment. "Will you not join me a moment, Na'dio?"

  Diora laughed. "You were sent to make certain that I do not arrive before they wish me to."

  "You wound me," Serena replied, but her smile and her tone revealed a heart momentarily at peace. "But I am not quite so calculating. Na'dani is beginning to wake, and he will fuss, this night of all nights. A baby's life is a Festival Night, whether it be this date, or the next, day or night, dusk or twilight.

  "And you, my dear, my most favored Na'dio, have a very special gift for easing Na'dani's night pains. I thought you might—Ah. He is awake now."

  Diora heard the truth of this for herself although Na'dani's cries were so much weaker and thinner than the vaguely remembered cries of the children she'd grown up with. Hurrying across the wooden floors, she followed Serena into the cradle room, preceding her to the cradle itself, the cradle that had already begun to shake from side to side as the babe kicked and swung his arms and legs in wobbly circles.

  It was, of course, her song that settled the babe, and they all knew it. She did not need to touch him; indeed, she did not need to stand in the same room; she could sing him to sleep while curled in the warm prison of her husband's arms, and the babe would hear her voice as if there was no distance between them.

  And there was no distance.

  Because she loved this child as she could not remember loving a child before him. She loved to touch him, to hold him; the smell of him was more of a wonder than the waters of the Tor Leonne. His tiny body made her arms feel strong, and she loved nothing more than this: to be able to stand, child in her arms, song on her lips for his ears alone.

  The sun has gone down, has gone down, my love

  Na 'dani, Na 'dani child

  Let me take down my helm and my shield bright

  Let me forsake the world of guile

  For the Lady is watching, is watching, my love

  Na'dani, Na'dani dear

  And she knows that the heart which is guarded and

  scarred Is still pierced by the darkest of fear

  When you smile I feel joy

  When you cry I feel pain

  When you sleep in my arms I feel strong

  But the Lord does not care

  For the infant who sleeps

  In the cradle of arms and my song The time it will come, it will come, my love Na 'dani, Na 'dani my own When the veil will fall and separate us May you bury me when you are grown For the heart, oh the heart, is a dangerous place It is breaking with joy, and with fear Worse, though, if you'd never been born to me, Na 'dani, Na 'dani, my dear. "

  He was, of course, asleep before the last of the words left her lips. Asleep, she thought, before she had finished the first stanza of the song. Her arms were her cradle, and she promised, with full heart, that she would protect him as if he were her own child because he was the child of her heart, the first.

  She laid him down almost reluctantly as Serena watched; there were tears in the older woman's eyes. "You would not know that he's not yours," she said softly.

  "I feel that he is mine," was Diora's half-guilty reply.

  "But surely so much can happen to make a life so short, does it matter how many of us love him?"

  "Only if you believe that the winds are jealous," Serena said.

  "Not tonight. Tonight, by the Lady's decree, we do as our hearts desire."

  "Yes, we do," Deirdre said softly.

  Diora had the grace to blush almost guiltily. "I know he's not really mine," she said weakly, lifting her hand from the side of the cradle as if the hand itself, and not the woman it belonged to, was reluctant to let go. "It's just that I've never—"

  "It's the Festival Moon, Diora. And I see that you haven't yet donned your mask."

 
"You aren't wearing one either."

  "No—but we decided there'd be no point anyway. You've never forgotten a voice if you've heard it speak more than two words—there's no chance at all that we could fool you. You've made honest women of all of us; there's hardly any point in lying." She smiled almost ruefully and changed the subject. "I hate it when he cries and there's nothing I can do. You calm him. And you'll protect him. If anyone in the harem can, it's you." For a moment her words were sharp with the intensity of the unspoken plea. Diora took a step back at what she heard in the voice itself and then, in quick succession, two steps forward—for the same reason. It was awkward, but vulnerability did that.

  Deirdre gently turned her face away. "I've never been so afraid, Diora. It's him. I—"

  Silence. The touch of skin beneath two palms, two unblemished, unseasoned palms. Dark eyes met dark eyes beneath the Festival Moon. Deirdre relaxed a moment into the warmth of those hands, and then brought her own up to ring the Serra Diora's wrists.

  "But Na'dani's had his attention for the moment, and before he decides he's hungry, we'd like some of yours. Come."

  Serena smiled at both of them, almost as if she were mother here, and they her daughters. "I will watch over Na'dani. You are both young and energetic; go before the evening is wasted."

  * * *

  Deirdre led her into the Leonne garden—the garden that was protected, on all sides, by the walls of the palace itself. There was a pond here in which small colorful fish swam beneath green lily pads and their white tufts. There were standing stones, smooth and worn with time, that might have once borne a slightly different shape, a different surface. The twisted shapes of dwarf trees, the darkness of their leaves stretching up and out like elderly hands, stood companion to the stones, and of the two, it was difficult to say which had stood longer: the stones or the trees; there was about both the aura that spoke not of beauty, nor, in the end, of peace, but of survival and endurance. Around these, no flowers had been planted, no gaudy colors displayed. The stone and the crippled trees spoke most powerfully when they spoke alone.

  But it was not for this, in the evening's shallows, that the two women came, and if Diora stopped, as she always did, to pay her respectful bow to these monuments, Deirdre dragged her away before she could sink into the contemplation of what they meant.

  Ah, the road took them, pulled them, and they followed.

  Birds came, although they were few, and often easily startled; insects lived within the earth and above the still water, humming with a noise of their own. In the darkness, life itself seemed to celebrate the lack of the Lord's heat, the Lord's fire. The shadows were cool.

  The garden was large; from its center, the walls of the palace were memory unless one looked for them. It was to this center that the winding roads led, and if their path was a lazy one that passed by stone and water and artfully arranged flower, no one complained.

  They walked hand in hand, these two women, these two Leonne wives. The moon's full face was high and bright and easily seen; its light shone like silver warmed by time's passage. Moon shadows flittered in the breeze as the foliage bowed; almost, Diora did likewise.

  But Deirdre pulled her along until she saw the glimmer of lamplight in the garden's heart. There were no serafs here; she saw two women, recognizing them at once by their gait. Ruatha and Faida.

  They wore saris that were simple with pale shades that the lamps, not the moon, brought to light. She thought them too graceful to be here—thought them, for a moment, mourning Leonne wives from centuries gone, come to dance where the living might listen to their sad plight with either pity or terror.

  And who listened to the tales of wives but wives?

  She shook her head; the vision passed, and she stood, her suddenly cold hand in Deirdre's warmer, larger one.

  "I have her," Deirdre said, lifting that hand. "She would have been all night near Na'dani's basket if you hadn't sent me, Faida."

  "Well, you'd have been there all night as well," Ruatha replied cheerfully. Deidre frowned, but the frown was a mask; beneath it there was far too much amusement and affection.

  Faida ran across the path, her feet unfettered by sandals. She swept Diora into a hug, and then pointed up, and up, and up; her hair hung to the hollow of her knees as they stared together at the face of the Lady's Moon. "Diora," she said. "It's the Festival Night."

  "I know."

  "We—Ruatha, Deirdre, and I—are your equals, for just this night."

  "You are more than my equals," Diora replied, gravely and seriously, "on any night."

  "The clans don't recognize it."

  "The clans are not your sister-wife."

  "I told you," Ruatha said wryly.

  "You are spoiling Faida's speech," Deirdre reprimanded gently, prying her hand free from Diora's.

  "Yes, you are."

  "It is the Festival night," Diora replied in her own defense. But she fell silent as she realized that she was, of all things, nervous. Nervous before these women, whom she trusted. Trust. It did not come easily to a Serra, to a woman of the clans, if it came at all.

  "What was I saying?"

  "As if you'd forget. You've been practicing all day, Faida."

  "Ru, let me finish.

  "Tonight, under the Lady's Moon, we're all equal; we can be who we'd like to be; we can say anything without fear of reprisal." She dropped her gaze then, to her feet, to the shadow the moon cast around her body.

  "Faida…"

  "You say it if it's so easy!"

  Ruatha laughed then, and Deirdre laughed, and Diora knew by this that Faida had probably insisted, in her undeniably sweet way, that the gift of first speech be hers.

  "What she's trying to say," Ruatha en'Leonne said, coming forward at last to join her three sister-wives where they stood under the lambent light of the moon, with the moon as witness, "is that we each have gifts for you—but if you accept them, they demand as much back in return." And as she spoke, she drew from her neck one of the many golden chains clasped there, and on the end of that chain were three rings. They were jade, Diora thought, although in the darkness it was hard to tell. "Faida and Deirdre won't say no to me; they wouldn't dare."

  "It would break her heart," Deirdre added, "and there's nothing quite so unhappy as Ruatha's tears." She lifted her ringless hand, the Lady's hand, as Ruatha slid the first of the rings from the chain with remarkably steady hands. She put it on Deirdre's finger, and Deirdre let the hand drop.

  Faida raised a hand, and in her turn, bore the ring that had been such a slight weight around Ruatha's neck.

  Then the three of them turned, as nervous, Diora thought, as she. She knew oath rings when she saw them, even if the darkness obscured them. And she knew that an oath ring was a binding made of love and determination and loyalty; it was blessed by and of the Lady, and one did not accept or wear one lightly. But she had never heard of oath rings given in this fashion: as one woman to three. To swear an oath of the heart to one woman, one accepted a daunting responsibility. To three… she was silent.

  No one thought to raise the lamp to better examine Ruatha's rings; it was what they signified that mattered here, and if one needed lamplight to see it, they would never mean enough.

  Diora en'Leonne, the Serra of the second most important man in the realm, found that she could not speak. There were words trembling on her lips, but her breath could not be moved to utter them.

  For a long moment, they stared at her, and then, shaking far more than Ruatha or Deirdre or Faida, Diora en'Leonne lifted her hand.

  Faida and Deirdre cheered, a loud sound, even a childish one, and certainly not a noise that wives of important clansmen were supposed to be familiar with, but Ruatha only smiled. At least Diora thought it a smile; the shadows made it hard to tell.

  Here, one had to see with the heart.

  "They aren't very fine," Ruatha said. "We didn't want to ask our husband for help. We wanted them to be ours."

  Deirdre lifted a necklac
e that was also strung with rings; they were different, cooler to the touch, but they numbered three as well. To each of her sister-wives, she gave one, placing them in line with Ruatha's upon a single finger. Faida, the first to speak, offered a ring to each as well, her hands the steadiest of the three.

  "Diora?" she asked quietly. "Are you crying?"

  Diora shook her head: Yes. And then, while they watched in shock—and before Faida joined her in tears— she, too, reached into the folds of her sari and drew from it a single, slender chain. It had belonged to her mother, or so Ona Teresa had claimed. And she had made fitting use of it.

  Around the flat gold links hung three rings. Each of the three caught the lamplight in the garden and played with it, scattering light across the plants and the path and the small stone table upon which was placed food, water, and a screen to protect both.

  "You knew!" Faida's voice was heavy with disappointment and accusation.

  Diora found her voice although she let the tears continue to fall. "No. I didn't. I call the Lady herself to bear witness—I did not know. But it is the Night of the Festival Moon, and I thought that maybe—that this one night I could ask, I could dare to ask, of you—"

  The rings were very fine. They were jeweled, and the gold was Lord's gold, heavy and pale. Each ring was identical: at its heart, emerald, and to either side, pearl.

  "These were cut from the same stone," she told them. "I want—"

  But Ruatha shook her head and lifted her hand, signaling for Diora to place this ring, this accepted gift and requested faith, above the two she already bore. And Deirdre followed, and Faida.

  And then they embraced, an awkward press of arms and legs and bodies pressed into too small a space, and no one cried more than Diora. No one laughed louder, either, when they heard the wailing cry of Na'dani approaching them in the gilded darkness of this Festival Night, as he was carried to his mother by a slightly weary Serena.

  Dawn came, a fringe of welcome light on the horizon.

  Diora woke with it, apprehensive. But the rings on her finger were real. Waking at this edge of the Lord's dominion did not take them from her. No moon magic, these, but magic nonetheless. She brought her hand to her face, closed her eyes, and let the cool feel of gold and jade and silver touch her cheek.