Michelle West - The Sun Sword 03 - The Shining Court

by The Shining Court

  "And in return for this, she partakes of the information I receive as a member of the Astari."

  "You tell her nothing."

  "I tell her nothing, but she is not naive enough to believe that the value of my service is dependent on open words. Can you separate your knowledge, your experience, from yourself in any meaningful way? Can you act upon things that you know as if you don't know them, and never have?"

  The silence lasted a full thirty seconds before she realized it was a question he meant her to answer.

  It lasted a little bit longer before he accepted the fact that she wouldn't.

  "No," he replied. "You can't. No more can I. You can, if you desire, lie about your knowledge."

  Her lips thinned.

  "The Terafin was always wise enough not to put me in the position of having to lie; she understands the politics of what she does—and doesn't—choose to do." He turned. "And perhaps that's not true. She has forced the issue once or twice in my tenure as part of Terafin. And each time I've managed to balance. The House is of value to me. The Terafin is a woman I admire, and she acts, in as much as any ranking member of the patriciate can, with conscience. Perhaps more so than Duvari." He shrugged. "Is this what you came for?"

  Silent, she shook her head.

  "So. You will go South without the army. But you will not go without the permission of The Terafin."

  "No."

  "And you will not take your den."

  "No."

  "Jewel, I fail to see—"

  "I came to tell you that what one woman accepts with ease, another might reject."

  "Were we speaking of women?"

  His smile slid off the mirthless ice of her expression. "Here's something you can give to that bastard."

  He knew she meant Duvari.

  "You don't have to thank me. I imagine you'd find out anyway, in time. Does he have members of other Houses doing the same dance?"

  "Of course. I am the only open member; the only ranking member. And to be honest, he does not put much of his effort into the Houses. They war amongst each other, but they have never had any pretensions to either of the thrones."

  "True enough."

  "Your information?"

  "I know who The Terafin will make her heir."

  "I hope she doesn't intend to announce that information prematurely; it certainly didn't extend the life of the previous heir."

  Her laugh was an angry laugh, ugly with harshness, something that shouldn't have been able to go on as long as it did, it sounded so forced. She shoved her hair out of her eyes, catching strands of it in her House ring. Hurt, as she pulled them out. "The life of the heir is almost never at risk. Not this heir."

  He was absolutely silent then.

  "That's right," she said softly. "It's just me, Jewel the power monger. I guess I've gotten what I wanted."

  "Jewel—"

  "And what I want, what I want from you, patris of the fence-sitters, is commitment."

  "Then ask," he said, and she thought he was paler although it was hard to tell, "when you take the title."

  She hadn't thought she'd continue. Would have been smartest not to. But her words were tumbling faster than she could catch 'em; she couldn't shut up.

  "I won't be here to ask. I'll be in the South, searching among the slaughtered for gods only know what. And you know what? It'll make what we found in Cordufar look pretty. It'll be—"

  He caught her. Shook her. She didn't fight.

  But she didn't stop. Flow broken, the words took a moment to reassert themselves. "Gods, worse; I can hear it now, and I'm not even on the road. And while I'm not here—while I'm not here, everyone will come this close to death—but I can't see who will cross over. I can't see whose bodies are lying in the wake of the Terafin War. And I want—I don't want—I can't save—"

  "Jewel."

  "I'm sorry, Devon," she said, her voice breaking, growing quieter and smaller in the wake of the command he had made of her name. "But I don't want her to die. And I can't stop it."

  He said, "She knows." It was a question; he so seldom asked them it took her a moment.

  She nodded.

  "She knows." He stood, his arms on her shoulders, his face perfectly still. And then he said, "I'll do what I can to protect them."

  "And if it's not in the best interests of the Astari?"

  "Let your den know. Tell them that when I send word—or bring it—they're to follow that word to the letter."

  "Devon—"

  "Don't say it. Don't ask it." He turned to look out the window she had covered with fabric. Stopped. "We had better win this war," he said softly at last, "and it had better be worth the cost."

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  5th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Tor Leonne, Terrean of Raverra

  The most beautiful woman in the Dominion of Annagar faced her interrogators in a silence that they would have thought defiant had she not been so exquisitely deferential, so perfect in manner and grace. Had they not seen her make a weapon of herself—and she, a mere woman, unmarried and inconsequential—at the Festival of the Sun.

  Yet in this room of Southern finery, she, visitor, ostensible prisoner, a woman, was the centerpiece, the thing to which all eyes were drawn.

  They would have said, the four men in the room, that they would never underestimate her again; that once cut by her concealed edge, they would scar, and that edge would be the only thing they would see. And for one man in the room, that was true.

  Cortano di'Alexes simmered as the questions asked by the other three—Sendari par di'Marano, her father but also the canniest of the Widan save himself, Alesso par di'Marente, the newly proclaimed lord of the Dominion of Annagar, and the man who laid claim to the lake of the Tor Leonne, and the Radann Peder kai el'Sol—lost focus, lost sharpness, lost the edge that the Serra herself, Lord scorch her and winds destroy her, had not once lost in the months of her captivity.

  She sat, her hands in her lap, her hair a straight cascade of perfect black across her back and shoulders. Those shoulders were straight, her head slightly bowed, her lips and skin uncolored by the vanities of harem women.

  Which was as it should be; she was, after all, not wife but daughter, and at that, a daughter returned to the father's fold by the death of a husband whose end was known from one edge of the Dominion to the other.

  She should not have been beautiful. She should not have had that power, or any other power. She was dressed like a seraf, allowed no jewelry, no combs, no fragrances. Her father had barely given her leave to speak, but her silence, her modest evasiveness, her momentary pauses—these were parries, weapons, affects. He knew it. Her father must know it; the man was no fool.

  But in the end, having answered all their questions in her own deceptive fashion, she had been dismissed, and Cortano was almost certain that the expression that passed from father to daughter was one of regret. Had he been certain, he might have actually given vent to his growing anger; he was not. And this was not the time.

  But, Lord of Night, his jaw locked when Alesso di'Marente bowed and stared at her retreating back until the screen doors, rolled open by no hand but hers, as if she were no better than humble seraf—and closed the same way—banished all vision of her. Men could be such fools. Fathers. Lovers. Warriors.

  Idiots. They were almost always one and the same.

  To complicate matters, the Tyr'agnate of Oerta, Eduardo di'Garrardi—the biggest fool of them all, and certainly the least cautious—was threatening the alliance they had built. Over her. He refused to understand—and at his level of power, his lack of comprehension could only be refusal, it could not be actual ignorance—that she had made herself a symbol of the Tyr'agar.

  Alesso di'Marente—Alesso di'Alesso—had given Eduardo di'Garrardi his word that, upon taking the Sword and laying claim to Diora, he would grant her, as promised, to the Tyr'agnate. Had it not been for Cortano's presence, had it not been for the calming influence of Jarr
ani di'Lorenza, Tyr'agnate of Sorgassa, Eduardo would not have accepted Alesso's word; would not have allowed himself to be mollified. Another gift from the very fine Serra Diora di'Marano: their alliance had almost splintered.

  Eduardo di'Garrardi did nothing with patience. Having declared himself, it was weakness to recant, weakness to behave in any way with dignity and self-denial. Over a horse, it had been almost contemptible. But over a woman ?

  No, Cortano di'Alexes was not pleased.

  She was sent from the room, and they, four powerful men, gathered, waiting upon a fifth. Not one of them was accustomed to be kept waiting, and in this case it wore on them all, adding to their irritation, their private thoughts, their differences and not the commonality which brought them here, to a place where the Sword of Knowledge could control all witnesses, could prevent all eavesdropping.

  He had not told them.

  He had almost done so; in the days after the Festival of the Sun, in the days after the word of her actions had swept across the dry nation like brushfire, his anger had been sharp enough, hot enough, a thing that consumed.

  But there was so little to consume; it burned in a flash, and because the court of the Tor Leonne was what it was, it was gone by the time he could seek the counsel of the new Tyr'agar.

  What might he have said?

  My daughter was born with a curse. Or, better yet, my daughter's voice can command a man against his will. Her death, certainly. He had wanted it—just for that moment; death and peace. But it was more than her death; it was Teresa's death—and that, too, Lady knew he had desired from time to time—and it would mean questions about his own knowledge, his own use of such a gift in the service of Marano. In the service of Marente's finest son.

  Sendari par di'Marano sat upon cushions that were finer than even the Tyr'agar boasted; he sat beside waters that could have only come from the lake itself—with the inevitable grant of permission levered from the ruling Tyr—and wine that was both sweet and light. That fragrance, for he did not choose to imbibe, twisted 'round the scent of jasmine and spice, the scent of fruits cut and displayed in the cool night air, in such perfect proportion it could only have been planned. Opulence here, for those who knew how to appreciate it.

  He did, and could, but distantly. Everything was at a distance now because things that were not were… costly. Cortano watched like a starving carrion creature.

  Yet if there were only Cortano to be wary of, he might be more at ease.

  "Forgive me, gentlemen."

  Sendari rose at once; they all did.

  "Lord Isladar," the Sword's Edge said, his voice thin but otherwise perfect. He inclined his head as if dealing with an equal, and not a ruling servant of the Lord of Night. "I will not take the trouble of offering you water; you never drink it."

  "As you wish, Cortano, although you must know that I find these customs vaguely enticing. They linger at the edge of my mind the way all ceremony does: As a thing I might once have witnessed, might once have been drawn into or made captive by."

  Just as, the Widan thought sourly, we are now, of course. Captives to flesh. Victims of mortality.

  Ser Cortano di'Alexes stiffened slightly, but Alesso and the Radann kai el'Sol seemed to take the comment in stride. They did not, not quite, see Lord Isladar as an equal; he was a creature, a thing of the night, a thing to be feared, certainly, in the right measure, but not to converse with, man to man. Not to take personally, although both men would have died before they trivialized either his danger or his importance.

  Not to envy for his knowledge and his power and his eternity— merely a thing to be used, as any weapon can be that has sharp edges.

  Much, Sendari thought again, like either he or Cortano. In the eyes of most there was no distinction between unknown and unknowable; it mattered that they could be pointed, that was all. Enough to make a Widan weep with frustration or sneer with disdain—and either, here, would be a costly mistake.

  "There has been," Lord Isladar said quietly, "news from the North. And my Lord requests… a change in plan."

  The festivities that heralded the Festival of the Moon had not yet begun, and the preparations for even their beginning were sadly lacking. It was said that in truth this was due to the lack of any wife, any harem, on Alesso di'Marente's—Alesso di'Alesso's—part, for it was always the women who were responsible for the court finery; the women who felt it necessary to insure, by seraf death if need be, that the preparations for the Festival of the Moon met clan expectations of a husband's rank.

  And what rank was superior to Tyr'agar, first among Tyrs?

  She wondered, idly, who his wife would be. It surprised her; the question itself would have been distasteful in every conceivable way had she actually cared about the answer.

  The door slid open at her back; she stiffened into perfection— always perfection here—and watchful grace. This was her lot; this had been her choice. She was Diora di'Marano, and if she had hoped, half a year away, that the quiet torture of waiting was beyond her, she was still capable of, still expert at, the art of biding time.

  But very few people were granted access to her private rooms, and when she heard the first footfall cross the wooden beam into which the sliding screens were set, some of that tension ebbed.

  "Na'dio," a familiar voice said. It was shaded with concern; she could hear it in the timbre of the single word. Question. Fear.

  She turned to see the oldest of her father's wives: Alana en'Marano. At her back, a beautiful shadow, the youngest, Illana en'Marano. Illana gently nudged her elder into the room and then slid the door firmly, quietly, shut at their backs. As if she had spent a lifetime doing no less.

  They were, of course, allowed the freedom of the harem, but they were cautious; they rarely chose to exercise the freedom granted. They understood, as well as she, that her privacy was an exile, and that that exile was precarious.

  Not even a fool could miss the malice with which the Sword's Edge spoke of Serra Diora—and none of Sendari's wives, with perhaps the exception of the Serra Fiona herself, were fools. How could they be? They had been chosen by the Serra Teresa di'Marano. Still, they were here.

  She rose. "Alana," she said softly. "Illana." She kissed the cheeks they offered, and held their hands a moment longer than necessity or manners dictated.

  The two women exchanged a glance. It was the younger who said, "I brought you a gift."

  "Illana—I am in no position to repay you in kind, and I desire no difficulty for you. The Serra Fiona watches us all."

  "Yes," Alana said coolly, "she does. But less so now. Part of the responsibility for the Festival of the Moon has fallen upon her shoulders—just as the responsibility for the Festival of the Sun did. And she is—"

  The pause told Diora much. That was her gift, and her curse: To hear what the voice contained, when the words themselves could not or did not. She had learned, over the years, to hide such knowledge. She waited.

  "She is almost beside herself," Illana continued smoothly.

  That was surprising. There was no love lost between Sendari's only daughter and the mother of his only son, but Diora knew Fiona well enough to know that no little nicety would escape her, no attention to proper detail. "What has happened?"

  "She has become sufficiently distracted by events that she… has less interest in watching us."

  "That will not greatly please the Widan Cortano."

  "No."

  Silence again. Then, "She is not a friend, Alana. We both know this."

  "Yes."

  The youngest member of Sendari's harem—Diora herself, now an unmarried daughter—reached out and gripped the shaking hands of the oldest. They stood a moment in silence. "Alana," Diora said at last. "Tell me."

  "This year—this year," the old woman said, looking her age, "there will be change in the Festival of the Moon."

  She did not stiffen. Did not frown or offer this almost mother any cause to think she was concerned. The hands that she held, she held
gently and firmly, as if she were the one who were offering support, rather than receiving it. "Yes?"

  "They—there—" She turned to Illana, seeking help. It was almost hard, to watch Alana at a loss for words.

  "They have decided that this year, for the first year, there will be a… Consort to the Lady."

  "A Consort?"

  "Yes. An… equivalent to the Lord's Consort during the Festival of the Sun."

  It was a position she had held herself. While she could stop herself from trembling or stiffening, Diora di'Marano was not— quite—well-versed enough to stop her color from vanishing completely. In a Serra of her station, there was little enough of the Lord's color to begin with; the highborn were guarded from the Lord's vision—for the Lord was a man.

  "They will call the Consort…" and here, Illana's voice dipped and almost failed her, but she was not Alana, and after a moment, she continued, "the Lord of Night."

  Diora's hands froze; they lost warmth; they lost the strength that had sustained her. Alana bowed her head. "You see," she said softly.

  "Yes."

  "Do you know if—"

  "No. My father will not summon the Serra Teresa. They have not spoken pleasant words—any words at all that I am aware of—since the end of the Festival of the Sun; she is with Adano this Moon's turning, and I think she will remain there."

  "Diora—"

  "Illana, Alana, I thank you for the information that you've brought me. I must ask—I must ask you to leave me a moment. It is warm, this day, and I have spent hours in the presence of the… Tyr'agar and his counselors. I am weary."

  "Shall we send you water?"

  "Sweet water," Diora replied absently. Automatically. "Yes, that would be very fine."

  She waited until they had left before turning to face the wall. Before kneeling into the flat, sturdy mats upon which she had lived out most of the last half year. Had she expected more? Had she expected, for some reason, that the Festival of the Moon would be allowed her? The laws of the land had already changed the moment the Leonne clan was assassinated. What the Moon meant, what the Lady's wrath entailed, to the men who now made the Tor Leonne and its Lake their Dominion, was to be lost to her. To be lost entirely.