The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5

by Michelle West

  Ser Alessandro kai di’Clemente met her gaze, his eyes widening as he recognized her exposed face. He gestured sharply, and his Toran fell back a step.

  “I understand,” he said softly, “why you chose to forgo the open road, par el’Sol.”

  “Will you allow us to pass, kai Clemente?”

  “That is a complicated question,” the Tor’agar replied, his gaze fixed upon the face of the Flower of the Dominion. “But you have been on a dark road, and you must be in need of rest and refreshment. Allow me to offer you the hospitality of my domis. It would be my honor to have such noteworthy guests.”

  She heard all the words that he did not choose to speak. None of them brooked refusal.

  The Radann Marakas par el’Sol was no fool. “The honor,” he said, bowing, “is ours.”

  The Tor’agar nodded. And then he bowed to the Serra Diora di’Marano, and gently offered her his hand.

  If the cerdan were ill pleased at being unhorsed, they did not show it. Ser Alessandro offered horse to Yollana of Havalla and her companion; he offered horse to Jewel ATerafin; he offered horse to Kallandras of Senniel College, and to the Radann par el’Sol.

  But he paused a moment, the line of his lips shifting as Avandar approached the horse upon which the Northern ATerafin woman sat so awkwardly. They spoke quietly, and he helped the child he bore into the saddle; the woman enfolded her in arms that were a shade too stiff. “You failed to introduce the child.” He spoke quietly.

  “We found her wandering the road in Raverra. Her parents are dead,” the Radann replied. Again, his hand found the hilt of his sword.

  “And you travel with her?” Ser Alessandro smiled; the smile was as sharp as sword’s edge. “You have always been an unusual servant of the Lord, par el’Sol. It seems that the fate of the helpless and the barely free continue to be of concern to you. I am impressed. But the Lord’s steel must hide beneath the gentleness of your demeanor. I would not have guessed, years ago, that you would have risen to the rank you now hold.”

  “The ATerafin has chosen to extend the protection of her House to the child; she eats little, and she interferes with nothing.”

  “I see. She is not a seraf?”

  “She bears no brand.”

  “Good.” He placed foot in the stirrup of one of Mancorvo’s finest horses; a great, black beast with gold markings. “We must ride in haste,” he said quietly. “Word will travel.”

  Marakas par el’Sol nodded. “You travel in numbers.”

  “Indeed. There are bandits upon the roads, and worse.” His smile was grim. “Twenty mounted men might give pause to even the most foolhardy of outlaws.”

  The dwelling of the Tor’agar of Clemente was not so grand a dwelling as Marakas might have expected, for the lands in Mancorvo were rich. Yet if it was not grand, it was deceptive in its simplicity; it was built of stone, and the gates, great, rolling walls, were of steel and wood. Men stood upon the curtain walls that girded the city; men armed with spears and, to Marakas’ great surprise, bows.

  Ser Alessandro noted his surprise with an ironic smile. “We have learned that not everything that comes out of the North is evil.”

  “It is said that weapons of distance breed poor warriors.”

  “Indeed, I have heard it said,” the kai Clemente replied. “If you are unfortunate, you will judge for yourself the truth of that adage.”

  Radann Marakas par el’Sol stilled a moment. “You are at war?”

  “We are Mancorvan, but we do not border Averda. We are not yet at war, but we are not unprepared for it, as you have seen.”

  “The armies—”

  “There are guests in great number along the Southern border of the Terrean,” the kai Clemente replied evenly. “The Southern border, and the Eastern one.”

  The lands claimed by the clan Clemente were neither.

  “What word, Tor’agar, has come from the South?”

  “Do you not know? For it is said that the Radann kai el’Sol himself rides at the behest of the Tyr’agar.”

  Marakas par el’Sol stiffened slightly. But he did not deny the truth of those words. “The Radann are not Widan; what message travels, travels by roads that are easily seen by men.”

  “You were not sent.”

  It was not a question.

  The Tor’agar turned a moment to gaze upon the Serra Diora di’Marano. “And you have come with a small party, indeed, to guard such a treasure. Come, par el’Sol. I was present at the Lake of the Tor Leonne at the culmination of the Festival of the Lord. I saw the hands of the Flower of the Dominion draw, from the waters of the Tor Leonne, the Sun Sword. I saw the ashes of the kai el’Sol scattered by the winds. I heard her plea, and I was not . . . unmoved . . . by its strength.” His eyes narrowed. “But we had no word that she, jewel to crown, was no longer upon the plateau.

  “Her presence here explains much.”

  Marakas par el’Sol offered no further words; none were wanting, and he was learned enough to keep his own counsel.

  “My Toran will see to our horses,” Ser Alessandro said, “and I myself will lead you to the rooms you will occupy for your visit.”

  He spoke to his men; the Toran came at once and took the bridles of the Mancorvan horses, and the horses, light-footed and ill-pleased to be so confined, went quietly at their command. He felt a twinge of envy; the horses of Mancorvo were indeed as fine as any in the Dominion, and although Marakas came from the Southern Terreans, he was the Lord’s man: he understood their value.

  But he did not understand their lord, and he was troubled.

  Unbidden, memory returned.

  The first time he had seen this man, and the last, Ser Alessandro had been the par, not the kai, and he had closed the eyes of a fallen friend in the aftermath of the kai el’Sol’s bitter judgment. His just judgment.

  He had also taken the unblooded blade of the son of the Tor’agnate of clan Manelo, and cut his own arm, so that the Tor’agnate might see his son’s blade, and know that he had not died completely unmanned.

  Ser Alessandro had offered no threat, no enmity, to Fredero kai el’Sol—but that was simple prudence, for Fredero was younger brother to Mareo kai di’Lamberto, the Tyr’agnate who claimed rulership of the Terrean of Mancorvo.

  As if he were privy to that memory, Ser Alessandro turned. “Yes,” he said softly, “I remember our first encounter. And I remember what occurred after the departure of the Radann kai el’Sol. The Tor’agnate, Ser Amando kai di’Manelo, was ill-pleased by the death of his son. Had the man who killed him not been Radann, there would be blood feud between their clans that might last generations.”

  “The Radann claim no kin-ties.”

  “Indeed. And it is folly to war against the Lord. Ser Franko chose his weapon and his course, and he suffered the Lord’s judgment.”

  The words were smooth as stone; cool as stone, and just as hard.

  “He was my cousin,” Ser Alessandro added. “And almost brother to me.”

  Marakas par el’Sol closed his eyes as the gates of the city of Sarel rolled shut at their backs.

  “I do not like it,” Yollana said quietly, in the confines of a finely appointed room. There were no windows, although the edifice itself was of stone, and allowed them. The Havallan Matriarch, and her “kin” had been given quarters that suited the needs of Serras, and Yollana was no Serra, to be comforted by pretty, gleaming planks of wood, by jade-colored mats, by flat tables adorned with bowls and the pink blossoms of the trees of the Northern Terreans. Nor was she impressed by the painted fans that adorned the walls, by the translucent paper that, nestled in wooden lattice, was the only door to this half prison.

  No open road here. No Voyanne.

  But she was tired, and her injuries were grave; although she spoke her mind, as was her wont, her voice was weak. The Serra Teresa did not leave her side. Clothed as Voyani, darkened by more exposure to the Lord’s gaze than she had had in the whole of her life at Court, she served as seraf, the g
race of her movements uninhibited by the loss of the rank she had enjoyed as the unmarried sister of a man who served the Lambertan Tyr.

  “What of the kai Clemente?” Yollana asked, waving away the slender bowl with its clear, sweet water. “Will he hinder us, Teresa? Does he mean us harm?”

  Teresa was silent a moment; the water that would not be imbibed, she put to use cleansing the wounds that Yollana had taken at the hands of the dead. Those wounds were dark and ugly, but none so disturbing as the one that had robbed her of sight.

  “He is not our friend,” she said at last, when Yollana stilled enough to allow the Serra to remove the eye patch and treat what was left of the eye. “But I do not believe he knows, himself, what he intends for us.”

  Yollana closed her good eye. “And if he intends us ill?”

  “There is little that we can do. But I think he will be cautious. He will not hold you, Yollana; he is prudent enough not to seek the enmity of the Havalla Voyani, not when he is so obviously prepared for war.”

  The old woman snorted. “Where is my pipe?”

  “Here.”

  “Fill it, then,” she said gruffly. “And get me some pillows. This place is too soft and too empty.”

  Teresa’s smile was gentle. She was accustomed to command and dictate, and very few of those commands had come so gracelessly into her presence. But she had obeyed few as willingly as she obeyed this woman’s. She filled the bowl of Yollana’s pipe. “There is no fire here,” she said.

  “I am capable of lighting a pipe,” the old woman replied. But her hands shook as she lifted it. “Na’tere, what will you do?”

  “What I have always done,” was the serene reply.

  “And that?”

  “What is necessary, Matriarch. No less than that, and possibly no more. If we must leave, we will leave; there is not a force in this world that could contain Kallandras of Senniel College if he chooses to speak, and if he bids the gates open, they will open.”

  “Is he proof against arrows?”

  “I do not know. But if any man is, I would say it is he. He is blessed by the Lady.”

  “Aye, and cursed by her.”

  The Serra frowned.

  But Yollana would say no more of the bard. Instead, she said, “Where is your niece?”

  To the Serra Diora di’Marano, grander rooms were offered. The light that had been denied the rest of her companions was offered to her; she was granted high windows, and a seat of stone by their edge. But the seat itself was cool in the open breeze, and the window looked down from a height.

  She had lived her life in Marano and in the Tor Leonne, and had been surrounded, always, by things of beauty and grace; in this room, with its vast ceilings, she found little that was familiar. The floors gleamed, flat and new; the walls were adorned with hangings, gold embroidered everywhere above the standard of the clan Clemente.

  But this was not the harem’s heart; she was certain of it. There was one door, and it, hinged and wooden; there were no sliding screens, no slender halls, no passage to and from the rooms of the Serra of the Tor’agar and her wives. No; these were men’s rooms, and to her surprise, she found that she missed the orderly maze that lay at the heart of any harem in which she had dwelled, however briefly.

  But few were the men who thought their wives in need of protection within their own strongholds; such doors as these were made for one purpose, and one alone: to keep intruders out.

  Or to keep guests in.

  Ramdan was by her side; the Tor’agar had, as was customary, failed to notice the seraf’s perfect presence. But to Ramdan, silk saris had been offered, and fans that were larger and more valuable than the simple fan he had carried in the folds of his desert robes.

  Those robes had also been replaced; he wore instead the loose, wide legs of seraf pants, the long, wide sleeves of silk that denoted his value. His hair had been cleaned and drawn back across the lines of his silent face; his hands had been washed. The dust of the road no longer troubled or disturbed him: he looked every inch the man that she had known for the whole of her life.

  He had helped her dress; had taken from her the robes that had served her so well in the Sea of Sorrows. But he had not allowed those robes to be carried away; he had seen to their cleaning himself, and had seen to their care. She wondered if she would ever have cause to wear them again, and was not certain, now that she felt the softness of silk, saw the brilliance of blue and white, of silver and gold, that she desired to do so.

  And yet there was a freedom in the anonymity and necessity of those robes that she had never otherwise known. She took the fan that Ramdan offered; she allowed him to brush out the strands of her gleaming hair. It had been a long, long time since she had had the luxury to see it thus tended.

  When he was finished, he bound it carefully in combs of gold and jade; her combs. She had never asked him what he had chosen to take with him when he had decided to flee the Tor Leonne in the service of Ona Teresa. She never would; the bounty of the generosity of his choice was like a small miracle and she did not wish to shatter the delicacy of that illusion.

  But she was fully clothed, fully prepared, when the knock at the door came. It was dull, that knock; heavy and thunderous, a plodding sound. Bells, gongs, things that were musical, had called her attention in the High Courts. Still, she straightened at the sound of the door, arranging herself with care upon the thick mats laid out before the room’s single table.

  The hinges creaked as the door swung wide. It was not a pleasant sound.

  She bowed her head, listening; a single set of steps approached her, and it was mercifully free from the sound of metal.

  “Serra, I would be honored by your company, if you would grant me that privilege.”

  She looked up then, lowering the fan to expose her eyes.

  The Tor’agar stood just in front of the open door. He did not seek to close it, and beyond the thick frame, she could see the shadows of Toran reflected in the gleam of wooden floor.

  She understood, then, that he granted her as much respect as he could, given that she had no cerdan, and no brother or father who might otherwise protect her. And she bowed her head, acknowledging both her helplessness and her debt.

  “Accept my apologies for the roughness of your surroundings. I cannot offer you rooms in my harem; you travel without kin, and without cerdan of your own, and it would bring no honor upon you.”

  She said nothing.

  “Speak,” he said quietly, “if it pleases you. And speak freely; I will take no offense, and hope to offer none.”

  “Among my companions, the Radann Marakas par el’Sol has offered his protection in the stead of my clan, and I have accepted it.”

  “The men of the Lord are not often given to the protection of Serras,” he replied gravely. “Such matters, to men who have no wives, no mothers, no sisters, are often beneath notice.”

  “The oath of a Radann is never beneath notice, be that oath given to one as humble as I.”

  He raised a brow. “Perhaps.”

  He knelt on the opposite side of the table, and clapped his hands.

  Serafs entered the room at once; they carried wine, water, and food. The food itself was spare; fruits from the trees of the North, soft bread.

  “I must ask you, Serra Diora, how you came to travel to Mancorvo.”

  Very delicately, and with great care, she poured wine for the Tor’agar; when he lifted his goblet, she poured for herself, but she poured little and she drank less.

  “I am not captive,” she said softly. “I do not know how quickly word travels, but at the Festival of the Moon, the Tor Leonne was . . . besieged . . . by strangeness, and many, many people were ordered to flee.”

  “And you?”

  “I was offered the safety of flight,” she said, her voice gentle, musical, her words paced and imbued with a lightness and grace that had been absent from them for long enough they felt strange. “And I accepted what was offered; I did not know what woul
d come of the night, and it seemed the Lady guided my steps.”

  “A prudent answer. I expect no less. But I am not unaware that it lacks . . . content.”

  She bowed her head at once, assuming the submissive posture. But she did not touch ground with her forehead.

  “You travel with strange companions,” he said, accepting the apology. “The Matriarch of Havalla. A Northern bard. A woman who is of import in the Empire. The Radann par el’Sol. Not even in stories and the idle whim of poor poets does such a fellowship often gather.”

  She was already weary of the interview, of the games inherent in the words. Margret, she thought, with a pang, you have caused me some injury. It is not so easy to sing in a cage as it once was.

  But necessary. Very necessary.

  “Where do you travel, Serra?”

  “I think the Radann par el’Sol might better to be able to answer your question.”

  “He serves a kai whose loyalties seem well known,” the Tor’agar replied. His voice had cooled, but he was not yet angered; she had said nothing that was improper. “Yet he is here, not at the side of Peder kai el’Sol, and more significantly, you are here.” He lifted the goblet and drank slowly, his eyes never leaving her face. “And it is not my guess that the Tyr’agar would willingly surrender you to any other man. You are of import in this war, and he is no fool; he is well aware of it.”

  “I am not a warrior,” she said quietly, as if it were not self-evident. “And of war, I cannot speak.”

  “Indeed, it is not of War that I have asked you to speak; I merely seek to better discern your intention.”

  “I would travel,” she said quietly, “to my father’s kai.”

  It was not the truth, but she lent it the force of her gift, honeying the stark words with the patina of honesty.

  “Ser Sendari has sent you to Adano?”

  “He is aware that I travel North,” she replied.