The Riven Shield

by Michelle West

  And then her smile changed, subtle now, her eyes narrowing slightly. “We all need reminders of why it is that we do what we do, par Callesta. We all require something for which to fight; tell your man—Decasto?—that although the women of the North wear armor and wield swords, we understand, better than any, where the future of a nation lies. Tell him,” she added, easing the command out of words that were not quite request, “that he has given me such a reminder this day.”

  She turned to the old man, and Commander Allen winced as he braced himself for more of her clumsy Annagarian. “We fight,” she said—and those two words came easily—“and die,” these two as well, “for our young.”

  The old man hesitated.

  Commander Allen thought he knew where the boy had acquired his boldness, for the woman was white as the buildings that lined the road. “You have children, S–Serra?”

  “Of my own?” She let a shadow cross her face; there was theater in the expression, although the regret itself was genuine. Thus did Ellora use vulnerability as bridge. “No. I was never so blessed.

  “But for that reason, I understand that children are a blessing, and I swear to you that, as we can, we will spare your son—all of your sons, and all of your daughters—from the swords and the fires of any who would challenge the right of Callestan rule in Averda.”

  She reached out and touched the boy’s cheeks.

  “Horse?” he said, reaching for her. His grandfather caught hands that seemed to have multiplied in their frenzied grab, stilling them.

  “When you are older,” she told him. She turned to Commander Allen and bowed briskly. “Commander. My apologies for detaining the men.”

  Commander Allen raised a brow, “Your Torra is greatly improved.”

  “Thank you, Bruce.”

  “Greatly improved in the course of five minutes.”

  She laughed. Caught the reins of her steady beast, her right hand swinging freely by her side as she began to walk, once again, toward the building upon the height of the gentle slope.

  Behind her, behind the body of the Northern guards, the Northern soldiery, the denizens of the city of Callesta were already moving from a whisper to an excited blur of language so intense that Commander Allen quickly lost the single words to the stream.

  Devran of the House Berriliya rolled his eyes. He did not argue with her; not here, and not in the open, with so many Southerners as witness; the Imperial Flight had always presented a unified front. But the spark of an argument, old as the current Imperial border, had kindled in earnest.

  Ser Fillipo par di’Callesta had spent more than a decade as a “guest” in the Arannan Halls in Avantari, the palace of Kings. But he had seldom come in contact with The Kalakar. He regretted it now.

  For he could clearly hear the words that passed beyond them in a widening circle, and he knew that within two days, the entire city would be speaking of the pale-haired, scarred, Northern woman, a woman considered by the South to be an abomination in every possible way; knew that the word abomination, the word monster, was already softening and changing as it passed from mouth to ear, mouth to ear.

  How monstrous could a woman be, who could show such affection to the child of strangers? How abominable could she be, when she had sworn to use her sword, her army, in defense of their children?

  Even he was not immune to the effect of an interruption that would have been unthinkable, inconceivable, had the procession been composed solely of men.

  He had wondered why Ramiro had seen fit to deprive himself of all but a handful of the Tyran in order to form such an escort; had wondered—albeit briefly—if he considered the flight so much of a threat. He saw clearly now. A man was defined by his ability upon the field of battle, but in the High Courts, such a field could exist in any place that two men of power stood.

  They had met, here, for the first time, and without raising a sword, the woman known as the Kestrel had made her mark.

  Had she traveled with lesser men, had she been given to the escort of simple cerdan, she would by that action have become the authority; by placing the Captain of the Tyran in the position of authority over their guests, no matter how subtle that authority was, Ramiro made her gesture subordinate to Callesta.

  Women were canny. Ser Fillipo had learned this early in life, and he had never forgotten it, but he had somehow expected less of this woman who had chosen sword over harem’s heart; the life of a soldier over the life of a wife. Clearly, Ramiro had labored under no such misconception.

  He thought, with some regret, of his own wife; she had remained in Avantari, in the halls of the hostages, with the children. She had not asked to accompany him, and he had deemed it wise to leave them there in safety. He missed her.

  But of the Callestan wives, she was the dove. He had chosen her because she least reminded him of his mother; she was unlike his brother’s wife, for she had none of the Serra Amara’s cutting grace, her ready wit, her piercing gaze; she had none of the wisdom, the understanding of the ways of the powerful. She was his oasis; she was the place that he retreated to when he required peace.

  And there was to be no peace here.

  In truth, Ser Fillipo had not been unhappy in the court of the Twin Kings. He had not, from the moment he was first ushered into their presence, feared them as demons; he had not feared for his safety at any time in Averalaan save the last one, when the hostages faced a certain death.

  When a boy he had never considered a man had made a choice, taken a stand, and saved them all.

  He wondered if Ramiro understood the depth of the debt owed to the kai Leonne by the Captain of the Callestan Tyran; he could not imagine that his brother, who saw clearly in all else, did not see clearly in this.

  Was I tainted by my time in the North, brother? Was I softened by it? He reached down to touch the hilt of his sword.

  How soft could the North be, when it could produce women of the caliber of The Kalakar? He smiled again, let his hand fall from his side. He had no fear of the Northerners; he could hear his mother’s honeyed edge as she berated him for his foolishness, his naïveté. Yes, he missed his wife.

  But this, this was Callesta, his home.

  And this stranger had made herself at home here, with the careful choice of a few strategically broken words.

  The Serra Amara en’Callesta had been busy.

  Her serafs, the finest in Averda, worked with the diligence and the faithfulness of an army, transforming the whole of the Callestan citadel into a thing of sparse beauty. In the gardens, they tended the flowers and trees that best showed the beauty of the season; the season itself cooperated. She had chosen the colors; the blues and the whites of the flower beds a conscious gift to the memory of her son, the first of the fallen.

  But into the blues and the whites crept gold and red, and the leaves of the trees themselves were emerald, jade, and ivory; life defied death, even here. Grass, the most deceptive of all plant life, had been shorn to its essential soft roots, and the serafs watered it and cut it as if it were the mane of the Tyr’agnate’s finest stallion.

  They were content to do so; it was the first thing that the Serra Amara had demanded of them since she had come to gaze upon the body of the kai Callesta. If her orders were at times contradictory, they were nonetheless recognizably the words of a woman who had once again chosen to enter the world.

  The city came to life, waking slowly into this new and unimagined world: The Northern Commanders had come to pay their respects to the Tyr’agnate of Callesta, in the heart of the lands Callestans had held for over two centuries. And even if they were barbarians, even if the grace and the subtlety of her artistry were to be lost upon them, it would be there; the lack would come from them, and not from the family of the Tyr’agnate.

  The serafs knew when the Commanders first entered the city. They knew when they were
within a mile of the palace gates. Word was sent from one seraf to the other, traveling by wing, by wind, by foot, and it passed at last into the keeping of the Serra Amara en’Callesta, in the harem’s heart.

  Her wives tended her hair, helped to place in it combs of gold and jade; they tended her face, her hands, her feet, and also helped drape the finest of silks across her body. They did not speak to reassure her; they knew her well. But they offered her reassurance nonetheless, and perhaps some envy.

  She had long desired a chance to meet with these men, this woman; it had been a fond and foolish desire, one that she had never thought to realize.

  These men, this woman, had bested the Tyr’agar. They had won a war which, had they desired it, could have continued for decades, destroying the Terreans of Averda and Mancorvo. But instead, for the price of land across the Northern passes, they had chosen to withdraw their armies, content with the simple cessation of hostility.

  She had sat, with her husband, examining the costs of the war to both sides, and it was her husband’s guess that the Empire could afford to continue their battle with an ease that would have eluded the Terrean in less than two years.

  If the Lambertans were too foolish to realize this, that was their concern; she was Callestan. She understood.

  And she was a child of the Dominion; to the victors respect accrued, and it was a respect she felt without rancor or fear. The Lord had watched. The Lord had judged.

  “Serra Amara,” Navello kep’Callesta said, from behind the opaque screen doors that hid the harem from the outer world. “They will be upon the plateau in the quarter hour.”

  She rose at once, and her wives fell away in a quiet circle.

  Maria smiled. “You look perfect, Na’amara.”

  Eliana en’Callesta, the youngest and the most beautiful of her wives, merely smiled at Maria. “She is perfect.”

  “Enough, enough from all of you,” Amara said, with mock severity. “I am needed now. But I promise that I will remember each word and each Northern gesture, and I will return to the harem this eve to share what I have learned.”

  Maria’s laughter was high and soft, musical in her joy. She did not clap her hands; she was of an age where such affectation would seem strange. But the gesture was present in her stillness, in the accentuated lines at the corner of eyes that had once been the envy of every woman present. “Will she be there, Na’amara?”

  “The Northern General?”

  Eliana nodded.

  “Yes. She is upon the road as we speak.”

  “Will she look like a man?”

  “In any way that is significant, she is a man. Think of her that way, and she will not be so hard to understand.”

  Eliana nodded. She hesitated for only a moment, and then threw her arms carefully around the Serra’s shoulders.

  Amara returned the embrace, and stood a moment, her forehead touching the forehead of a woman who was closer to her than her own daughters had ever been. “I will be safe,” she said quietly.

  “It is not for your safety that I fear,” Eliana replied, her voice a whisper. She caught Amara’s hands tightly in her own.

  Maria lifted the veil. “Will you wear it?”

  Amara’s smile dimmed. She gazed at it, white gauze edged in the darkest of blue, and glittering with crystal, with pearl, with bead.

  They watched her in silence. As so often was the case, the difficult questions were left to Maria.

  Would she? She wore blue now, blue and white in all its variations. She had worn nothing but these colors since she had gazed upon the face of death, of her first real loss.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  The sparkle left the eyes of her oldest wife; left the step of her youngest.

  “I have been unkind,” she said softly, as she reached for the length of the veil. “To you, of all people, who deserve so much more.”

  “You have been no such thing,” Maria said, valiant now, her smile once again creasing the lines of her face.

  “No?”

  “Na’mari,” Eliana said quietly, “let her speak the truth. She has been unkind.”

  Maria looked scandalized.

  Sara looked away; she had been silent the whole of the afternoon.

  “Na’sara?”

  “Eliana is right,” Sara said, gazing at the floor. “You have been so distant, Amara. You have gone so far away we have been worried that you might never return.” She lifted her face. Slender, aquiline, that face was striking in its composition; she was not classically beautiful, had never been that. But the beauty that she did possess would never age or weather. “He was your son, but he was our son as well, all save Eliana, who might have been his sister if you had ever left them alone for more than a minute.”

  Eliana blushed.

  “He has suffered enough,” she continued.

  “Who?”

  “Our husband.”

  “Na’sara,” Maria snapped. “Enough.”

  “No, not enough. It needs to be said.”

  “It does not need to be said at this moment.”

  “But it does.” Sara turned to Amara, who stood rigid in the center of the room.

  Amara said, cool now, her hands trembling beneath the veil, “I have not forbidden you our husband.”

  “No. You have not. But who among us has ever been able to offer him comfort? We offer him pleasure, or amusement; we offer him indulgence. He has never needed anything else, and for your sake, for love of you, we have been honored to give what little he will accept.

  “But he needs you. You are his Serra. And Amara?”

  “Na’sara?”

  “You need him.”

  “Sara,” Maria said, an edge in her voice. “Enough.”

  “And Alfredo needs both of you. Do not make him choose; he is angry enough, and he is at an age where his anger is a danger to him. All of our sons are with him,” she added softly. “All of our sons have faced the loss of their brother. Amara, please.”

  Amara looked at the veil in her hands.

  Sara, at last, fell silent.

  “Na’sara.”

  She raised her head, and the defiance in her features crumbled completely.

  “Take this,” Amara said gently. She held out the veil.

  The Serra Amara had chosen the venue at which dinner was to be served. She had opened the wall through which the moon’s light could be clearly seen among the rushes and the lilies in the large pond at the garden’s heart. The sun shed light and color as it fell; she had chosen the hour as well, and the serafs had busied themselves with the glass globes in which light lay trapped.

  It was fire’s light; although the garden itself was home to the magical artifice of a light that did not fade, dim, or flicker, it was not to her liking; such a light was costly in its fashion, a symbol of the power of unnatural men. As a child, she had loved it; as a woman, she abjured it. Everything had a beginning and an ending.

  Ser Ramiro di’Callesta saw this clearly as he approached the gardens at the side of the kai Leonne. Valedan’s return to the city had taken longer than either man had intended, and they carried the reason for that tardiness behind the silence of closed lips.

  Word had come.

  He would deliver it when the Commanders joined them.

  Baredan di’Navarre had excused himself from the reception with obvious reluctance. “Offer my regrets,” he said, bowing deeply, “to your lovely Serra.”

  “I fear that any regret I offer will be met with less welcome than you hope,” the Tyr’agnate replied, with an open grimace, a gesture of the confidence he felt in the third of the dead Tyr’s Generals.

  It had come as a surprise to the General, who raised a brow in askance.

  Ramiro’s smile was thin. “She has l
ost her son,” he said quietly.

  Baredan’s grimace was reward enough. “Aye,” he said. “She is a woman who feels strongly all that she chooses to feel. But I envy you, kai Callesta. She will survive this; she will grow stronger.”

  “Tell her that,” Ramiro replied, “and she will either love you as kin or revile you for your lack of feeling. Or both.”

  The General laughed openly. “I have met at least one of your wives,” he said, as the laughter receded, “and if the Serra chose that wife, she cannot be harsh. Is she not called the Gentle?”

  “Indeed, she is.”

  “Then you are blessed, kai Callesta.”

  “Blessed?”

  “A real man has, from his wife, all facets, all truth; the best, and the worst, that she has to offer beneath the open sky. Had you been less of a man, she would be less of a woman; her grief would remain trapped behind the walls of her face, her anger hidden in the artifice of grace and seeming.”

  Ramiro’s smile was genuine; he was pleased. “See to your men,” he said softly. “Take word; we will join you as soon as we may safely take our leave.”

  “And the Northern armies?”

  “I fear they will join you as well.” He gazed at the gardens, his shoulders lifting. In a scant few days, his wife had accomplished much. He turned to the General and offered him a deep bow.

  Valedan nodded, his expression intense. He was young; the word of war had disturbed him, and he did not trouble himself to hide his concern. The gardens would be lost upon him; a pity.

  Baredan left them.

  Ser Miko met them as they approached the gates.

  “The Commanders?”

  “They arrived safely.” His bow was deep and perfect. “Ser Anton and Ser Andaro have been summoned.”

  “Captain Duarte?”

  “He waits within,” the Tyran replied. “With the Serra Amara.” He paused. “And the Serra Alina di’Lamberto.”