The Riven Shield

by Michelle West

“On one or two occasions.”

  “And of him?”

  “He is a man bound by convention.”

  “Indeed. Bound by Lambertan sensibility. It is possible—barely, and only just—that he might have considered the death of your kai the balance by which he would be willing to serve at your side in this war.”

  “They were his men.”

  “Yes.”

  “His Tyran.”

  “Yes.”

  “You believed that his hand was behind this act.”

  Alina’s gaze was upon the columns that bound the Lady’s shrine. “I did. Who else could give commands to the Tyran?”

  She nodded. “It is so with my husband’s men.”

  “Your husband’s Tyran are also his blood. He is the only man in the Dominion who has made, of his par, an oath-guard. I have often admired the courage of that decision.”

  “And the wisdom?”

  “Ah. The wisdom was only evident when they met in the Imperial Court. Ser Fillipo is cunning, and not without ambition.”

  They were silent a moment, and then the Serra Amara said softly, “and now?”

  “Now?”

  “Now you believe that this assassination was not done at the behest of your brother?”

  “I believe that it is a possibility. And yes, Serra, I have the desire to believe it that makes the belief itself suspect. You have no such desire. How do you see it?”

  The Serra Amara’s brow lifted. “You are bold, Serra Alina.”

  “It was always considered one of my failings.”

  “Ah.”

  “I did not lie to you. I did not come to persuade you of the possibility of my brother’s innocence. He will do that, or fail in that, when next you meet, if you afford him the opportunity. But I will tell you now that he will not stoop to lie. His is a game of politics that very few men are given the chance to play. He uses honesty and honor as weapons, and because they are his weapons, he is forced to display cunning in their use.

  “If he was responsible, you will know.”

  “You are saying that he will not lie?”

  “He will not lie.”

  “Ah.” The Serra bowed. “I . . . thank you, Serra Alina. And now I admit my own curiosity. Why did you choose to seek audience with me this eve? If not for your brother’s sake, if not for the sake of the man you have chosen to accompany?”

  “It is for Valedan kai di’Leonne’s sake that I chose to come, but I do not speak for him. We have had no speech, formal or informal, no strategies by which he wished me to approach this meeting. He is not aware that I am here, and I am uncertain that he would understand my presence if it were to be revealed to him.”

  “Is he, then, so very Northern?”

  Ah. Now, she must tread with care.

  But care and timidity were only synonyms for those without bold hearts.

  “He speaks to both the South and the North,” Alina said quietly. “Had you asked me that question at any other place, I would have said he was very Southern.”

  The Serra Amara’s smile was both slight and genuine as she acknowledged the Serra’s oblique compliment.

  “But he chooses which part of his heritage to honor and which to reject, and although he asks my advice, he will not always take it.”

  “Will he take some of it?”

  “Indeed, and value that which he takes.”

  “He will be a good husband.”

  Alina hesitated a moment, although the hesitation was not visible. And then she, too, smiled. “He proposed to me,” she said softly.

  The Serra’s brows rose at least an inch. “To you?”

  Serra Alina nodded.

  “You refused.”

  “How could I do otherwise? If he wins this war, the wife he requires will be . . . a different wife. A younger wife.” She bowed her head a moment.

  “You are Lambertan,” the Serra Amara said, speaking the clan’s name for the first time in weeks without rancor. “And you are, of course, correct.” She gazed at the columns which formed the confines of the Lady’s shrine; at the darkening sky. “Did you love your nephew, Serra Alina?”

  “How could I do otherwise? He was raised in the harem that was my home.” She closed her eyes. “I have no sons, and I am no fool; I will have none. None but Mareo’s. I would have given anything of value I had to save him. But what does a woman have of value in a war?”

  The words were bitter.

  But they were Serra Amara’s words, her thoughts, on this eve. They sat, the divide between genders greater, for this moment, than the divide between bloodlines.

  “What would you have of me, Serra Alina? You have answered all my questions; I have none left.”

  “I would have you answer mine, Serra.”

  “Then ask.”

  “The kai Leonne is no longer content to come to the harem, to my chambers within the confines of the harem, when he seeks advice.”

  “Ah.”

  “No, it is not what you think. He . . . he has ordered me to be available.”

  “You are.”

  “Upon the field.”

  The words robbed the Serra Amara of hers; she was silent. At last, she said, “Does he truly not understand what this means?”

  “He understands that Ramiro di’Callesta values your advice. He understands that the kai Lamberto values his wife.”

  “In their proper context.”

  “Yes. But he values the appearance of context less than he values the advice. Understand, Serra Amara, that this was not a request. Any request of this nature that he has made, however obliquely, I have refused. He believes that he understands the cost he will incur, and feels that the cost of such an appearance is less of a difficulty than my absence.”

  “He does not understand the South.”

  “Indeed.”

  The Serra Amara was again silent. Even in the privacy of this garden she was not alone; the hour of the night excused her frankness, but only to a point. She could not openly criticize the man to whom her husband owed allegiance, although that man clearly deserved such a criticism. Alina knew this, and waited.

  “Will he avenge my son’s death?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if what you believe is true is not, in fact, true?”

  “He will kill my brother.”

  “You are certain of this.”

  “I am certain that he will try.”

  “He is young.”

  “Indeed. And the young make our greatest heroes with cause, with reason.”

  “Then I will aid you.”

  Serra Alina waited.

  “Bring your clothing and your personal items to my quarters. Bring them publicly. Make your display of obeisance, if you are determined to serve this man in the fashion he desires.”

  “And?”

  “I will take you into my harem. I will . . . open my doors, and its heart, to your use.”

  “I am Lambertan.”

  “You are merely a woman,” the Serra said, with another of her slim smiles. “As am I.”

  “And I?”

  “You will do what you intend; you will take up Northern dress, Northern clothing, Northern armor. You will braid your hair in the fashion of the North, expose your skin, stand with arms by your sides in the company of other such Northerners. You will be an object of scorn and derision and curiosity, as they are—but you will be a part of their foreign life.

  “You will not be the Serra Alina di’Lamberto to any who does not already know of your existence and your value to the young kai Leonne.”

  The Serra Alina bowed low, her forehead touched the soft moss on the stones at the foot of the shrine. Resting there, absorbing their cool in the stillness of t
his perfect evening.

  Then she lifted her head.

  “My brother,” she said softly, “the Tyr’agnate of Mancorvo, did not choose the war he fought thirteen years ago. He did not choose the battle in which his kai died, untested, and alone. He did not choose the moment of retreat and the moment of surrender.

  “But there was choice in the venue and the turn of the battle.”

  “And my husband chose this battle?”

  “To his credit, and his honor, yes. Knowing perhaps less than we knew, or perhaps more. He chose to preserve the life of Baredan di’Navarre.”

  The Serra Amara said, softly, “You are a dangerous person.”

  “Our fates are bound; Lambertan, Callestan, Leonne. And I believe that more is at stake in this war than the simple disposition of a few miles of land; more will be gained—or lost—than a title, a Dominion.”

  “Women have never had a place in war.”

  “And they have always had it.” Alina bowed again. “This war will mark us, and remake us. Those,” she added softly, “whom it does not kill.” She rose.

  “Alina.”

  “Serra Amara?”

  “In the morning, I will see the world once more in the light of the Lord’s gaze.”

  “And I. But seeing it in the darkness of the Lady’s will grant me the insight and the courage I require to continue in the face of the Lord.”

  The Serra Amara rose as well.

  “I will return in the morning with my possessions, my cerdan, my attendants.”

  “You have no serafs here?”

  “I came from the North. No, I have no serafs.”

  “Take two of mine.”

  “I would not take them onto the field.”

  “Take them. They will—as you must suspect—be my eyes and my ears. But they will also be a gift to the kai Leonne from the sorrowing wife of the Callestan Tyr, and they will attend his needs with the unquestioned perfection of grace and movement expected by the High Courts.”

  “There are few upon the field who could appreciate that perfection; I, among them, but I will be encumbered by the guise I am forced to adopt.”

  “Baredan di’Navarre will be present. My husband. His Tyran. There will be others. If, in the end, the kai Leonne is to be victorious, there will be others, and they will be far less inclined to overlook his flaws than we.”

  Alina knew what Valedan would say; knew it, and knew as well that she would accept what the Serra Amara offered.

  He hated slavery.

  He wished to own no one.

  Perhaps, she thought, as she nodded in genuine gratitude, you might change this world, Valedan. Perhaps you might bring some of the North into the heart of the South. But all things take time, and if you are not to wage war forever against the men whose support and respect you must have, you will bow, in this. You will learn to bend.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  8th of Corvil, 427 AA

  Terrean of Raverra

  JEWEL had missed the Arkosan children when the caravan had left them at the desert’s edge. They were a source of noise and life, a little well of chaos, a sturdy innocence that spoke of the future, the future’s promise.

  But the child she had taken from the river’s edge, at the coldest hour of desert night, was unlike those children: she spoke, instead, of the loss and the suffering that war engendered. It was not a reminder that Jewel desired.

  “Ariel.”

  The girl looked up, mute, her injured hand hidden in the folds of a shirt that was, oh, four sizes too big. The child reminded her of Finch, of Finch on the day she had been found in the twenty-fifth holding. Silent, small, injured, it had taken her time to find her voice.

  How much time, Jewel thought, do we have? She smiled, but the girl was cautious. As Finch had been cautious.

  Ariel slept only in the presence of Jewel ATerafin, and then, only when Jewel herself was awake. She spoke very, very little, and again, she would speak only when Jewel was alone; if Jewel had any hope of hearing what the girl had to say, she was forced to dismiss Avandar and Celleriant. The bard’s voice was soothing enough to lull the child’s natural suspicion, but it took two days of quiet riding before she did not view the stag with fear’s eyes.

  What have you seen, child? she wanted to ask, and Avandar almost demanded that she do so, but he knew her well enough to know that this would merely be grounds for fruitless argument, and he did not press her.

  The child liked Stavos—and who wouldn’t?—when she saw him. She did not sleep in his presence, but she did allow him to accompany her on those occasions when Jewel was deep in conversation with her companions.

  As now. The colorful baritone of his voice carried a great distance, suggesting the rumbling amusement of the earth itself—if earth as dry and barren as this could ever uphold such an analogy. Enough, Jewel. Pay attention.

  “The dream itself was an accurate guide,” Avandar was saying in a curt, brusque voice.

  The Radann par el’Sol—a title of note in the Dominion, as the Serra Diora had quietly and firmly pointed out—nodded. But the nod was a gesture of punctuation; it granted nothing but the certainty that you had his attention.

  “ATerafin?” the Radann said, when she failed to fill the silence.

  Jewel raised a brow. “You’re asking me?”

  “It was your vision, was it not?”

  She shrugged. “It was. But Avandar is my domicis.”

  “What is this domicis?”

  “It’s a . . . a servant. Sort of. More than that. But not a House Guard, or anything like. It means . . .” She struggled to find a word that had nothing at all in common with seraf. Shrugged and gave up. “I trust him.”

  Marakas raised a dark brow. It was a thin brow; Jewel thought he must usually go completely clean-shaven, for his hair and his face were graced by what could only generously be called shadow. “Do you?”

  “With my life.”

  “A fair answer.”

  She waited for him to point out that the value of life in the South and the value of life in the North were different entities, and she waited with less patience and grace than she usually did—which is to say, none at all. But in the week that they had traveled together, he had gleaned enough of her personality to understand the futility of such an observation; he remained silent.

  “I am not always . . . cogent . . . when I wake,” she said quietly.

  It was an effort to speak slowly to the Radann, but her Torra was not of a class that was good enough for him, and she did not wish to reveal her inferiority; she therefore chose to speak Weston, which he understood, albeit with some difficulty.

  Understand, Avandar said, that this is a compliment. He is unusual for any man who holds power in the South; he is not oblique in his curiosity or in the way he pays his respects to you.

  And this is a compliment because?

  Women have, in theory, no power.

  Jewel gazed at the hidden face of the Serra, and she shook her head. So much for theory.

  Dismiss it, Avandar said, as coldly when you see the practice behind that theory.

  The Radann’s Weston was stilted; it was clearly learned for use in the environment of a Court that had some exposure to foreigners, but not a lot. It was left to the Serra Diora to translate.

  “It is upon waking that these dreams are usually transcribed, and it is the waking witness—my domicis in this case—who is considered the first, and therefore the most reliable, source of information. What he tells you of my dreams—especially when I am present—is truth. All of the truth,” she added, with a trace of bitterness, “that the dreams themselves can be said to contain.

  “If you wish proof of their truth, simply continue as you have been traveling.”

  The Rada
nn turned the slightest of gazes upon the waiting Serra, who sat with such demure and perfect grace it was hard to believe that she would offer the sole opinion he valued. Hard until one saw the minute nod she offered, the tipping of her fan beneath a jaw barely exposed to something as trivial as the sun’s light.

  “Then we cannot journey as we intended.”

  Hard to bite her tongue. Hard to contain her sarcasm. But Jewel had learned, with real effort, to do both in her sojourn as a reluctant member of the Terafin House Council; she kept her peace.

  “There is another danger,” Kallandras said quietly, into the stillness of this simple gesture.

  He had their attention immediately, this strange man with his pale golden roots lengthening beneath a dye that had given him the appearance of a Southern native. “In your vision, only two of the armies had gathered; the third had yet to arrive.”

  Jewel nodded.

  “Sorgassa was not yet present.”

  “Not according to Avandar. I confess that I studied the banners and the regalia of the South for a short period of time; I did not recognize which were missing.”

  She felt, rather than heard, Avandar’s derisive snort.

  Don’t start, she snapped.

  I would not dream of belittling you in front of those whose respect you require, he replied, sardonically. And truthfully.

  “If the army has not yet arrived beneath the banner of Lorenza, there is a chance we may meet them on the road.”

  A subtle shift in the lines of the Radann’s shoulders caught Jewel’s attention.

  “Serra,” he said softly. Urgently. She shook her head.

  “The armies that you saw gathered—where were they?”

  Jewel looked to Avandar.

  Avandar did not roll his eyes; did not frown; did not otherwise make his annoyance at her ignorance obvious. But it was clear to Jewel’s many years of experience that he expected her to recognize the geography of the terrain she had passed through at his behest in the dreaming.

  “They are gathered upon the Northern border of Raverra.”

  Marakas nodded. “As expected.”

  “They are gathered equidistant between the Terreans of Mancorvo and Averda; to an inobservant eye, it would not be clear which road they intend to take when they at last choose to move.”