by sun sword
Fredero was ever the stoic, and Jevri, the dutiful seraf. But both men could not help but think the change in station inappropriate, for Jevri was not the seraf to serve the harsh and spare Radann.
Oh, he worked.
When Fredero came to tell him that he was to be given his freedom, Jevri acquiesced, as ordered. When he in turn offered his service to the Radann as servitor, Fredero accepted without question. Such had been the Serra Carlatta's will, and Fredero had rarely argued with his mother's wisdom.
Beadwork caught the lamplight; trailed down the edge of a knife and a needle; softened the sheen of crushed silk. Darkness brought a subtle beauty to the light.
And the clansmen were not known for either their subtlety or their appreciation of subtlety. At least, the clansmen of honor were not. Among these, Lamberto was first.
How had it started? Fredero had learned to fight. He was not a small man, and not a fool for all that he chose to wear honor's righteous face. He understood cunning and deceit; he merely chose not to practice either. Jevri saw in this man, daily, a man worthy of a seraf's service. Even the best of the serafs.
But it was not in combat in the service of the Lord that the kai el'Sol was to distinguish himself, for the Radann were all well-versed in the arts of war, and to compare a kill—and the Imperial war provided many—in a roomful of warriors was no way to set oneself apart from the rest of the Radann.
He took care to adjust the inner straps of the headdress that the Radann kai el'Sol would wear. He took less care when offering the Radann kai el'Sol directions on how best to stand—with straight shoulders, for one—while it was being fitted.
This finery was reserved for the height of the moment: the declaration of the winner of the Lord's test. Rumors and money were exchanged with equal facility as the servitors and the cerdan played their favorites from among the five who were to meet for the final time in the sun's heat. Jevri's coin had never been added to that game, although this one year he had been sorely tempted to place his bet upon the Tyr'agnate; the man fought like one sun-maddened.
And if Jevri was almost willing to be parted from his coin, it meant he would earn little for it; he was not a man given to games of chance.
No, it was certainty that he valued. He let the hem of the robe fall away and ran a hand across his weary eyes.
"We're not finished yet," he told the kai el'Sol.
"Jevri—"
"No. It must be perfect today."
Their eyes met; they both glanced away like shy children, not turned blades. Oh, they knew how to argue, at times like this, when no one was there to witness such impropriety. But not today.
Jevri knelt at the hem of the kai el'Sol and found his needle. The beadwork had already been glued into place, but he had had to be certain that the fall was perfect before he fastened with thread and needle these little repositories of sunlight.
He understood the importance of light at the Festival of the Sun.
For a long time—many years—he had tried to understand the puzzle of the Serra Carlatta's choice, for he knew, with some piqued pride, that he had been among the most favored of her serafs; certainly, the one most envied her by other Serras. In the meantime, he had cooked, swept, cleaned, and mended as the Radann Fredero el'Sol required, puzzling, always puzzling.
Until the morning that he saw his first Festival at his Ser's side. Others had eyes for the clansmen, for the combat, for the Serras, the wine, the food, and the Sun Sword. He had eyes for only one thing: the raiment that the Lord's Consort wore. It was splendid in its fashion, a work that was almost—almost—art.
And seeing it, he knew that he could better it, given only time and the proper materials. He had never made a dress so fine, although he was well capable of it, for such a dress was beyond ostentatious; only here, only upon this platform, in this company, could a Serra—the choice of the particular Serra did not concern him—truly shine, wife to the Lord for the Festival's stay.
Oh, it was selfish, and he knew it.
And he wondered, as his heart raced, if the Serra Carlatta understood what she had given him to. Because it was the Radann who decided what dress and what style was appropriate for the Lord's Consort.
It was important; it was so important that he had had to strain and work to prevent himself from blurting it like a common market seraf to his clansmen. But he did wait. And after the Festival's end, he asked for the only favor that he had ever asked. Asked with humility, as befit his station. Asked with grace. Asked with a plea that, try as he might, he could not keep out of his voice.
"Jevri, I am not a rich man. To do as you ask—to get you the material you require—would beggar me. And for what? A woman's dress!"
He had not said no.
Jevri had one weapon left him; he used it now. "Fredero, please."
Silence—a long, almost uncomfortable one. Two men, separated by birth and experience, and bound together by birth and experience, waited to see who would break it.
It was, of course, the Radann Fredero el'Sol. "This must be important. I've known you all my life, and you've never once called me by my adult name."
"I will never ask you for anything else again."
"Don't say that."
But he hadn't. Asked for anything, and certainly not anything as important.
He made his dress, scrimping and saving where he could without injuring the whole—this perfect, singular garment, this creation for the Lord's glory. And just under one year later, fingers near bleeding and eyes reddened by sleep's lack, he presented the garment to the Radann Fredero el'Sol, who in turn presented it to the Lord's Consort.
And the Lord's Consort wore the dress in marvel, in wonder, and in perfect glory, when she was presented to the clansmen. And to the first among clansmen: the Tyr'agar Markaso kai di'Leonne.
The Radann had never seen such an expression cross the Tyr'agar's face. But the Serra who had been chosen Consort was his eldest daughter, and she looked—she looked a thing beyond man, the very Consort made flesh for the Lord's Festival. He had—he, a clansman—reached out to touch the fabric of her skirt, where no other man would have dared, to sully it by giving it the feel of reality. But the wonder remained, and the smile that crept up the left corner of his mouth—for that was where his smile always started—was both reward for Jevri, and reward for his master.
Jevri made every dress for every Festival from that day on. And with each Festival, he outdid himself in the name of, and service of, the Radann Fredero el'Sol. The Radann Fredero par el'Sol. And the Radann Fredero kai el'Sol.
"Jevri?"
But he had never, before this day, given more than a cursory nod to the garments of the Radann.
"Jevri?"
He swore softly, swore to the seraf's god, swore at the seraf's god. His fingers were bleeding in the uneven light.
"Jevri, get help."
"No."
"Why? You've had help before." Fredero craned his neck to the side and down, attempting to catch a glimpse of his shadowed servant. "It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be finished."
Jevri started to argue and then looked at the flickering lamp; the oil was low. Had he truly been so long at so little? He stared down at his hands, shadows welled in the curves time had worn there revealing more than they concealed: He was not a young man, nor even one in the midst of life.
Age settled around his shoulders with a grip that could not be shaken. Nor would be.
"Yes," he told the kai el'Sol, urging his hands on but watching the progress of bent fingers as if they belonged to someone else.
"Good. I'll—"
"It has to be finished. By me."
"Jevri—"
Jevri had never been good with words, although he knew how to listen to nuance. He knew that among the women and the wives there were things that could be asked, and things that must never be questioned. As a seraf in service to the Serra Carlatta, he had had less chance to observe the way the men spoke, but he knew, nonetheless
, that there were things that could never be said, fears that had no natural expression.
Not to a man of the clans.
Not to Fredero par di'Lamberto.
"Fredero. Please."
Silence, always this pause, this uneasiness. Anger would have been a welcome visitor, but between them there was none; not this eve. Nor was there fear, although fear sheltered in different places behind each man's words. There was resignation, a search for, and abandoning of, a dozen different phrases.
"What will you do?" The kai el'Sol said awkwardly.
"I? I will not serve the Radann par el'Sol, no matter what mantle he wears."
"Jevri—"
"I am not a seraf," the older man replied serenely. "And the choice will, this time, be fully my own."
"I see." Silence. "But have you—"
"Kai el'Sol, I will not speak of it. I will not think of it until it is time. You can worry if you like," he added tartly.
"Why thank you."
There was much that was familiar in the passage of time; the slow change in the tinge of the sky's hue; the lowering of the oil that somehow held the Lord's fire in the darkness of night, although it was liquid; the lengthening of shadows and the flickering of vision that accompanied sleep's lack.
But although he had often labored well into the Lady's hours, Jevri el'Sol, born kep'Lamberto, found no comfort in the task, for it was the first, and it was the last, and he knew that when the rays of Sun touched the farthest walls, the robes would not be all that he had hoped for.
He prayed to the Lady for strength and time.
But it was the Lord who answered, pushing the curtain of night away as was his right on this, the longest day of the year.
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Eduardo kai di'Garrardi stood on the plateau. His cerdan had left and the man who would meet him in combat had not yet entered the field; he stood alone. The sun was high; the shadow he cast was shorter and squatter than he.
Sword's Blood had been retired from the field, and not unharmed, but the gashes across flank and foreleg were not deep, and in the gaining of those scars he had more than proved his worth to the clansmen who watched the penultimate battle. Let them talk in their scornful way about the small village that had been the stallion's price; he knew, from this day on, that they would remember the stallion's name when the village was scattered by raiders or worse.
And they would remember his rider.
What Tyr had entered the field of the Lord's Chosen while they held their title? What Tyr had dared to take the political risk, choosing instead to send their par—or, if brave, their kai—to the fight by which a true clansman made himself known?
He had been cautioned against it, but quietly, although he was not a man known for accepting the caution of the timid. But there was more to be won than a combat or two. More than the regard of the nameless clans who gathered in the heat of the high sun on this one day that combat, no matter how terrible the Lord's heat, could not be halted.
He turned his face into the breeze and saw the Flower of the Dominion as she blossomed beneath the blue of the open sky, and he offered her a bow and a wordless promise.
Fredero kai el'Sol was nowhere in sight; she would have seen him, no matter where he stood, for the Serra Diora di'Marano knew how to look. If a fan's folds could protect her from the Lord's gaze, might it not protect her from the gaze of the merely mortal?
She wore gold as if gold were light, as if light were a thing of weight and solidity. Gold hung in strands that were old when her clan was founded, crossing and touching and twining in a heavy spill down pale silk. Gold bound her wrists, catching light and making of it a liquid thing, a warmth that was unmarred by Northern stones; gold sent the light scattering at every movement of every finger.
And upon her finger, like a binding, nestled among the heirlooms in the keeping of the Lord's Radann, three rings, three plain and unadorned rings, as new in their manufacture as the borrowed rings of the Lord's Consort were ancient.
The kai el'Sol had paused a moment when he offered her the rings of the High Festival, for her hands were already adorned. But he had no arguments to offer, and she no defense; it was as if the evening past had robbed them of the ability to speak in any way that was both meaningful and elegant. All that remained was the awkward hesitation of a man and a woman who do not know each other well enough to speak freely, but who know each other too well to be served by the musical syllables of social veneer.
She wondered, idly, if the Serra Teresa had noticed. Wondered, less idly, why it was that the Radann who stood guard were Samadar par el'Sol and Peder par el'Sol. Marakas was, like his kai, nowhere in evidence.
Perhaps, just perhaps, the strangest of the Radann intended to somehow save the life of the kai el'Sol. He was a healer born; it was his gift and curse. Just as the voice was hers. Perhaps, hidden, he thought to wait out the wrath of the General and catch the former Lambertan clansman by the thread of his life.
It was, she thought, very like Marakas.
He did not tend to the fallen on the Lord's field.
Upon that field, no healers were allowed.
The clansmen wanted a death.
Their desire was contained by the muted silence of their breaths and the slight rise of their shoulders, but it found voice in hands that strayed to—and remained upon—the hilts of sheathed swords. Shoulder to shoulder, men sat in their clans' groupings, their banners a wall or a circle around the plateau. If wine or song or the charms of the serafs the clansmen made available had kept the men away for the first two days of the Challenge, none missed the third—for on the third day matters of honor called them, or matters of money, or both. On this day, the title was decided.
The birds in the sky above, circling with black wings spread the height of a man from wingtip to wingtip, caught the wind and made of it a stable platform; they floated, leisurely in their observance of the men below.
And perhaps, just perhaps, one could see such birds and find them beautiful; one could see their flight and their fall without expecting a death must presage it. Perhaps one could see the clansmen watching and find them handsome and honor-bound; could see in the slight flare of nostrils, in the narrowing of eyes and the intensity of attention, no hint of blood-scent, no desire for the spoils of the kill.
Diora could not remember a day when she did not know what vultures did, and the knowledge robbed their flight of beauty in her eyes, although if she studied them carefully, and took care to ignore the revulsion that carrion eaters brought by their very nature, she could see both power and grace in their lazy flight.
In the men, she saw death, but although she could remember no innocence when it came to the flight of vultures, she could remember a time—one so removed it came back to her unexpectedly and awkwardly, very much the reminder of all the things she was not—when she had seen things bright and shiny and expected that there was mercy beneath the patina of power that wielded sword and armor.
That wielded fire and the knowledge of fire.
She turned slightly, scanning the crowd that had gathered across the ring of the plateau, looking for the Radann kai el'Sol.
She saw instead a Widan and his General, and her eyes stayed a moment, surrounded as she was by the tension of a coming kill. In all her hours of prayer, knees bent, eyes upon the face of the moon in the rippling waters of the Tor Leonne, no answer came to her for the one question she asked, time and again—the one thing that she could not explain: Why had she been allowed to live? She was not a selfless woman, but had she a choice of lives to preserve, there was one—one single life—that she would have placed above her own. No choice was offered, and she, ringbound, oathbound, sheltering grief and rage behind her perfectly schooled face, was left without choice. But the why haunted her almost as strongly as the ghosts.
Her father was Widan. And if not for the General Alesso di'Marente, he would not have been a powerful man. What had he been, before the ascent
of the man he called friend? Widan? No; less than that. Widan-Designate—a man born to power, with no will to use it. Who had given him the will, and when? When had he ceased to be—to be what her memory told her he was! When had he become just another dangerous man, another enemy in a pool of enemies too wide and too deep for the simple Leonne Tyr?
The corner of her lips did not dimple or turn downward; her face was her best mask and she wore it for the world to see.
He was not a stupid man. He knew that, having chosen this course, he could not choose another, not now; there could be no turning back. No backward glance.
Yet she thought she saw his eyes upon her before she lifted her fan with delicate grace and turned away, finding it easier to watch the combat for which the clansmen were assembled.
Finding it easier to watch a strange man's death at such a distance that the blood was just a trick of the light, a blur of color that might have easily been the workmanship of a weaver. The sun was at its height; the day was, of the long days in this year, the hottest, the brightest. The living man stopped a moment, lifting a weapon that caught the sun in such a flash it might have been pure light.
From the ground, an answering flash, but weaker; the fallen man was not yet dead, or had not yet accepted the fact. But his defense—such as it was—was meager, weak on a day when weakness itself was the worst of sins. Death was the winner's, to grant or to deny.
She knew that Eduardo di'Garrardi stood as the Lord's Chosen because of the relish with which the death was delivered to the clansmen who waited.
It was not the outcome that Alesso di'Marente desired. He turned to the Widan at this side and saw a frown that was, line for line, his own. It made him chuckle. "Not what we wanted, old friend."
"I fail to see what you find amusing, Alesso. We need Garrardi as an ally—but a Tyr'agnate who has passed the Lord's test is a threat."
"Yes."
"You do not wear the crown yet. There are those who will try to acclaim the Tyr'agnate in your place."