by sun sword
But they're all wearing masks.
Yes. And because they wear masks, they can be who they are, who they would like to be. As the Lady decrees, he added softly.
As the Lady decrees, she replied gravely. Even then, she had been so grave.
And the Lady decrees that you be my Na 'dio this eve, and not Serra Teresa's perfect lady. Come.
He did not put her down—had no desire to put her down—although on any other evening, it would have shamed him to show so open an attachment to a daughter. Together, they mounted the slope of Tor Leonne. The Festival of the Moon was at its peak. Caught in the passions of youth, or the memories of it, men and women made the shadows noisy with their hope and their merriment and their brief, brief loves.
Only when Sendari reached the railings of the Pavilion of the Moon did he lift his child from his shoulders, and then it was only to hold her, while his arms could take her weight. And that, on Moon-night, might be forever.
See, he said softly. There is light in the darkness. And because it is dark, the light will be more beautiful than any light you have ever seen.
She listened, rapt in her interest, complete in her trust of his promise. It was Moon-night. Ah.
Fireflower bloomed in a brilliant spray of blue petals hundreds of yards above their suddenly upturned faces. Muted whispers, awe, a sudden hush. Blue gave way to crimson, and that to green, and before any of the three colors had faded, a ball of golden seed scattered in the night wind, brighter than the face of the moon itself.
He held her close; he heard her intake of breath, her cry of sweet glee. And he wished, that one year, that he might wear this mask—and she her own—forever.
But Widan Sendari was a wise and cunning man, and the dream of the Festival Moon was little better than a sleeper's delirium; the time had come and gone, and during its passage great powers had been made—and greater power broken. He looked down at her upturned face, seeing the woman his daughter had become in her silence and stillness.
Na'dio, he thought, but he did not say the name aloud again. When was the last time you called me Father? It was a full two quarters and more before the Festival of the Moon, but if she resided within Tor Leonne, he thought he might even find the freedom in which to ask her. The fires were bright enough to give a glow to her eyes.
During the height of the following day, the serafs toiled to clean the blood from the Tyrian platform, supervised by General Alesso di'Marente. He was grim and silent, a man preparing for war now that the first battle had been won.
Or so he seemed to Radann Fredero kai el'Sol.
The day was cold. The evening's work had been done quickly—too quickly—and efficiently. The dead lay in neat rows, their heads set close to the bodies they had fallen from, if they had submitted to the Tyran.
"This was foul work," the General said, his expression smooth and diffident and utterly chilling. "Would you not agree, kai el'Sol?"
He could not speak. He gazed upon the Leonne dead as if sight alone might wake them.
"But I am certain that our investigations will lead us to the… assassins. Obviously, in our endeavors to apprehend the killers of the clan Leonne, I have been forced to close the Tor until further notice. No one—be it seraf maid or Radann el'Sol—is to leave these grounds without my permission. The cerdan have been given orders to shoot to kill, and the mages are keeping the periphery patrolled."
"Sound precautions," Fredero heard his voice as if it were a stranger's—and at that, a stranger that he took an instant dislike to, but could not, for shock, dismiss.
"Thus ends a proud line. It doesn't appear that the Tyr'agar offered resistance at all. But Leonne was beloved of the Lord, and it is right that the Lord's rites be offered to the clan. I trust you to see to this, as the kai el'Soi."
Fredero nodded; refusing to allow the stranger to speak with his voice again.
"Oh, and, kai el'Sol? There will, of course, be a new Tyr'agar crowned by the Radann at the Festival of the Sun." He offered a boon, this General, this killer: He turned and walked away, sparing Fredero the effort, the terrible, treacherous effort, of having to speak his compliance.
And then he was alone with serafs who still scrubbed and oiled and cleaned. Alone with the spirit-emptied bodies of the dead. The light in the open eyes had been guttered by the wind.
But something reflected the sunlight unevenly, and as he approached it, searching for some sign, some meaning by which to decide a course, he saw it clearly.
Kneeling, gently rolling the headless body of Markaso di'Leonne to one side, Fredero kai el'Sol reached out to lift the Sword's crown from its place beneath the large man.
The crown has fallen. He rose, carrying the burden of the truth in the object itself. The dead were dead. But this? They had passed it to him to decide.
And this day, this first of days, no decision came to him; he had not pulled his sword and attacked the General openly, warrior to warrior, the wrath of god against the desires of a traitor.
I am only a man, he thought. But the Lord is impartial. Power is the law in the Lord's land. The crown was heavy in his hands as he walked, slowly and proudly, to the temple.
But the serafs at his back began to speak, and he knew what they said, for he had seen it himself in the silvered glass: His hair had gone gray between dusk and dawn; age had fallen upon him like the decisive blow of a sword. Like the judgment of an angry Lord.
There will be a new Tyr'agar crowned by the Radann at the Festival of the Sun.
Serra Fiona en'Marano sat with her forehead to the sleeping mats in the bedchambers of Widan Sendari. Her hair was a spill of dark brown, artfully interspersed with strands of pearls and a touch of magenta silk that incidentally matched the throws and cushions beside which she waited. She was many years her husband's junior, and as such was considered to be a fine prize; Serra Alora en'Marano had died in childbirth many years before.
Serra Fiona only wished that her cursed daughter had died with her.
The Widan had few concubines, and most of these were gifts; he treated them well, as befit a man of his import and station, and in return, he expected them to serve his interests when visitors came, and to follow the dictates of his wife. In the harem, Serra Fiona ruled both wives—and their children—with a quiet that was usually reserved for the grave.
Unfortunately, with the return of Serra Diora, her position within the harem had been subtly changed, and she did not like it one bit. Her son, Artano, was kai—but Sendari had not seen fit to bring him on the road from Mancorvo; he remained with his father's brother, Tor'agar Adano kai di'Marano. And had he been present, Fiona knew, Artano would have been ignored in all the real ways in favor of Serra Diora—a daughter returned to her clan. A daughter. Her son was a fine youth; almost eleven, and already riding like a clansman. And Sendari showed pride in Artano—when Diora was elsewhere.
"Serra Fiona," the Widan's voice, rising on her name, was her signal; she rose with grace, sitting back on her knees while she continued to wait, her face schooled enough to keep what she felt from tainting its lines. He knew it, of course; he knew far too much about her for her moods, whether masked or no, to be truly hidden. But he was proud of her ability to keep her face smooth and free from the sullen moods that many another less-well-trained wife was prone to.
He sat in repose, the trays of the morning meal half-empty around him. His beard was a peppered spill across a chest that had softened only slightly with age. Lifting his arm, he signaled to the waiting seraf; the man bowed quickly and silently—such a quiet surety of motion was what the Widan most prized in his servants—before leaving his Ser's presence. He bowed once at the screen door, stepped across its threshold, knelt, and then slid it quietly shut.
"You found him," Sendari said, as he met the blue eyes of his young wife. It was a compliment.
She was not to be put off so easily, however. "Widan Sendari," she began, stopping as he lifted a hand.
"Come, Fiona. Join me. It has been many
days since I have had the pleasure of your company."
"As you wish, Widan," she replied. Her movement was a study in stilted grace, but her face was lovely. She crossed the silk mats like an angry cat, stopping at last to kneel in the cushions by his feet, her back quite stiff.
He laughed, his eyes shining with genuine pleasure. Touching her bare shoulders with the flat of palms, he stroked her skin before unwinding the silk sari she wore in one quick and easy motion. She did not respond at all.
"You are enough to quell a man's ardor, Fiona," he said.
"Not," she replied coolly, "the Widan Sendari's." She had to lift her chin ever so slightly as his nose and lips traced the underside of her ivory jaw.
Again he laughed—and this she found most infuriating—before he caught her tightly in his arms. Another man might strike her, dismiss her, force her—but not Sendari. No. His answer to her subtle defiance, her cool anger, was always this slightly indulgent amusement—the same, kind for kind, as he tendered his concubines' children. One day, one day, she thought, she would like to see him angered.
She was younger than he, and not terribly wise.
And if she chose to withhold the delights of a lady's pleasure, he chose to evoke them; it was an uneven battle from start to finish, for Widan Sendari did not enter into any game that he felt he might lose.
Later, tangled in his arms, pearls from a broken strand rolling into the silken folds beneath her back, she was allowed to speak her mind. It was always this way with Sendari; the act of loving gentled him for moments at a time, and if one knew how, one could work around him then.
"It is the Serra Diora Maria di'Marano," she said softly, her chin against his chest. She felt his muscles stiffen beneath her face, and she stiffened in return.
"What of her?"
"You have placed her in the harem, Sendari."
Silence. Then his hands tickling the small of her back—and exposing it to the air. "So I have."
"She is not a concubine."
"I believe I'm aware of that, Fiona."
"She is not your wife."
He laughed. She hated it. "No, she is certainly not my wife. And if she were not my daughter, I swear by the Lady's darkest night that I would not take her if she were offered to me." The laughter faded; she felt his beard brush her hair. "She is my child," he said quietly.
Children did belong in the harem of a powerful man; children, wives, and concubines. Fiona was very glad that he could not see her expression before she replied. "She is no child. Her place is not among us."
"Oh. And is it you, Serra, who will decide the place of my kin?"
She felt the edge in his voice as keenly as if it were a dagger held far enough from the skin that it did not draw blood—but barely. "Sendari, please." Her voice was much meeker. "They do not listen to me while she is present. She is used to the harem of—"
"He is dead. It is finished. She has lost much," he added quietly.
"And I? Am I to be seraf to her desire?" In spite of herself, she pulled back from the comfort of his chest and his chin. The breeze was cool; hours had passed, and the serafs had left the sliders open.
"No," he replied, catching her by either arm. "You will be seraf to mine." He pulled her close again.
Serra Fiona was not to be moved.
"Very well. I will tell you something, but if I hear it repeated in any quarter of my house, I will have your lovely tongue removed." He caught her chin and forced her face up; her blue eyes—striking in their color in this land—met his dark ones, and she shivered slightly. "I am fond of you, Fiona, or I would not have taken you to wife. I am pleased with your talent and your wisdom in quelling the disputes among my women and their children."
She nodded, too nervous to be flattered.
"Serra Diora will no longer be part of the harem after the Festival of the Sun."
There was silence as she counted: Three weeks and two days. "Will you—will you send her away?"
"Women," he said, all anger gone from his voice. "She is not your rival, Fiona. But no. I will not send her away. She will be the Flower of the Dominion, and she will blossom at the Festival of the Sun. The Lord of the Festival will be the man who claims her, who plucks her from the Tor Leonne and takes her back to his Terrean."
"If I were General Alesso, I would keep her."
At that, his smile dimmed and cooled. "Then let us be glad that you are not Alesso. Come; I am not yet tired, and you are the reward for years of planning. I will enjoy you while I am able."
But she held back until he threw up his arms in mock frustration. "Very well! Very well! I will call Serra Teresa to the Tor Leonne."
"And Serra Diora?"
"Can live with her, under Adano's auspices. It will bring peace to an old man's house. Are you well-satisfied, my little cat?"
He was rewarded by the radiant confidence of the smile she showed him only when she was happy. It was odd, with Serra Fiona. In her happiness, she was most vulnerable.
And he, too, was pleased; Serra Teresa was already on the road from Mancorvo.
"I look forward to the Festival," Fiona said, as she curled into his chest, "especially this year. There has been no music, no dancing, no poetry; there has been no color since the—since the night. The Tyr'agnati will bring it with them. They will be coming?"
"Can they refuse? It is the Festival."
"But there is no Tyr."
He kissed her fiercely. "Yes. But there will be, by Festival's end; and he will be a stronger Tyr than we have had for centuries."
Serra Teresa di'Marano came to the Tor Leonne with serafs enough to beggar a Tyr'agnate. She rode on a palanquin carried by cerdan who wore the Marano-marks, and although the palanquin's curtains were properly drawn against the eyes of the commoners who toiled in the streets of the Tor Leonne, there was something in their shimmering fabric, their jewel- and pearl-embroidered raw silk, that was unseemly for an unmarried woman.
It was said that Serra Teresa was a woman of cunning and intelligence—and as such, she was far too valuable to the Marano clan to be married out. It was said that there were offers for her hand from no less a clan than Leonne itself, and whispered further that it was on behalf of the Tyr'agar that those offers had been made. It was even said that the loneliness, the lack of male companionship, had driven her to the shadow of the Lady—but he who carried that rumor carried it at his own peril. The Marano clan was not without power.
And she was at the heart of the Marano clan, although she held no title.
Merchants stopped a moment in the street, if they were coarse enough, to gape at the procession—but while the unadorned circle upon the palanquin's height declared her to be a woman traveling without her lord, no one was bold enough to usurp the right of passage from her train, although it was within their right to do so. Law was theory in the Tor Leonne; power ruled.
Up the winding road the cerdan walked, bending under the weight of the palanquin with an easy grace and a certainty of motion that spoke of long years of practice. The serafs, with their many chests and bags, toiled up the slopes at a respectful distance, and behind them came the riders.
They were only three, but even a witless child could see that their horses, stallions all, were worth as much as the rest of the procession combined. Only the Terrean of Mancorvo produced beasts of such a rich, deep brown, but even for Mancorvans, they were fine—for they came from the field runs of the Tyr'agnate Mareo kai di'Lamberto, and if Lamberto produced poor horses, they did not disgrace themselves by offering them for sale.
Whispers followed the hush, and in them, the name. Marano.
Upon the plateau of the winding road rested the palace of the Tor Leonne, and there was no palace in the whole of the five Terreans that was grander. Gold and copper caught the muted light of cloud-strewn sky and scattered it back through the boughs of trees laden with delicate blossoms and early fruit. By Tyrian decree, nothing grew, and nothing stood, which was taller than the residence of the Tyr, yet even
so, the palace itself seemed deceptively small as the roadway curved toward the Tyrian gates.
The noise of the streets of the Tor below were muted by the hush of wind through leaves, the fall of windblown petals; here, the birds cried in a splendid isolation that was at once wild and contrived.
The Tyr'agar was a man who wanted the heart of nature to unfold in its season before his eyes. Where else could one wander in perfect safety without ever having to look upon another man? Nowhere but here. And it was said that the Tyr availed himself of the wonders of that privacy. Or he had.
The gates were open, as they always were at the morning's height, but there was only one procession that wended its way toward them. Cerdan stood at attention, wearing with pride the uniforms—line for line—that they wore in the service of the clan Leonne. The rising sun glittered at their left breasts as they came to stand, four abreast, between the ancient columns upon which the open gates were hinged. Beneath that sun, ivory, a blend of linens that fell heavily over red silk.
The cerdan that led the Marano procession stepped forward and bowed; the hems of their robes brushed the smooth, stone way as they held the crescent of their swords groundward in the supplicant posture.
"Who seeks to pass?" The oldest man present spoke, his voice deceptively quiet.
"Serra Teresa di'Marano." The Marano cerdan did not rise; they stood upon the soil of the Tyr'agar—the man who ruled at the whim of the Lord—and here, of all places protocol ruled.
"For what purpose?"
That Marano cerdan who had answered first glanced awkwardly over his shoulder, as if seeking counsel. At last, his voice muted, he said, "To visit the court of the Tyr'agar." It was not ritual. But what ritual was left when the Tyr'agar's clan no longer existed?
The older cerdan did not betray emotion; he was the perfect vessel for a Tyr's will. "Who will bear responsibility for her passage?"
"Widan Sendari par di'Marano."
The older man bowed deeply and stepped to one side. "Pass."