The Riven Shield

by Michelle West

Her eyes skirted the distant figure of Jevri. “I think,” she said softly, “that he will know. He was never a fool.”

  “He could not be, and rule in the South.”

  She nodded. Gathered her silks about her slender shoulders, arranged the fall of her veil, hands calm and still with familiar motion.

  The harem fell away; for a moment she saw walls, stone walls, smooth and bare of window or door. In such a room, she had bided her time, reinforcing the oldest and most important of learned skills: the gift of waiting.

  But the time for waiting was done.

  Mareo kai di’Lamberto was not a young man. Nor was he a man who sheltered beneath fan or bough; his face was lined and creased by exposure to sun, to wind; the plains boasted no desert, but she saw sand in his eyes as he turned toward her, his arms across the breadth of his chest.

  She stopped ten feet from his shadow and knelt before him. Her knees were already dark with earth and dew; she would not trouble Ramdan to bring her those things that Serras of import were accustomed to.

  His brow, streaked with the silver of age, rose slightly.

  “Serra Diora.”

  She nodded. Her hands held no fan; she offered no resistance to the appraisal of his gaze. He did not bid her rise; did not offer her the freedom of speech. He was the Lord’s man.

  “Serra Diora . . . di’Marano?”

  She let the silence serve as emphasis before she broke it with her delicate voice. “Serra Diora en’Leonne,” she replied. A challenge, a soft one.

  “The kai Leonne—both of them—lie dead and buried upon the plateau. Will you lay claim to a marriage of the dead?”

  “Not of the dead, Tor’agnate.”

  “And does your father’s clan have no claim upon your name, no claim upon your person?”

  “As is our custom, my father’s clan,” she replied, even now, dagger steel dancing between the delicate syllables, “ceded me in marriage to Ser Illara kai di’Leonne.”

  “And your father had some hand in his destruction.”

  She said nothing. He expected no reply.

  Or perhaps he did; something about his expression was wrong, some thinning of lip, some narrowing of eye. She straightened her back, lowered her chin, placed her hands, palms down, upon the fold of lap. She was a Serra of the High Courts; he was a Tyr. She had been raised to sit in the presence of men such as he. Raised to understand their moods, to read them as clearly as if words were painted in ink across the lines and hollows of their faces.

  She would anger him, she thought, but that anger must be one of her choosing, and the timing of its invocation, under her control.

  But she did not know him now. It had been many years since she had been a child in the lee of Amar.

  “You have nothing to say of his treachery?”

  “I am a Serra, Tyr’agnate. You ask me to speak of the games of men, and I have little experience from which to speak wisely.”

  “Indeed.” But he was not moved; not cajoled. “Jevri.”

  Jevri el’Sol came to stand by his side. By it, and not within his shadow.

  “Tell me what you know of the Serra Diora.”

  The old man hesitated, although the hesitation was marked only by the Serra. She was practiced in the same art; could gather strength and thought in the same subtle way.

  She listened now. Wondering as she did what Ona Teresa would hear, if she could sit thus.

  “I made her two dresses,” Jevri el’Sol said quietly.

  It was not what she expected to hear; it was not, she saw, from the lift of thick brow, what Mareo kai di’Lamberto expected either. But he did not turn to glance at Jevri, and because he did not, she could not.

  “A dress,” the Tyr’agnate said, meeting her eyes, his own a brown so dark they might have been all of black, “is something that any woman might wear. It tells me little.”

  “A dress, yes,” Jevri replied, and his words carried stung but measured pride. “But upon any other woman, such a dress would fit poorly.”

  “They made poor use of a Radann.”

  “They made the use that I desired, Tyr’agnate.” Mild rebuke. It surprised her. “She wore the first dress upon the day of her wedding to the kai Leonne. You saw it; all of the clansmen of the High Court, and many of the lower, saw it. They did not see her face; they did not see her eyes, could not hear her voice. But they marked her by what she wore.”

  “They marked her by the husband.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And the other dress?”

  Ah. She understood now.

  “The Lord’s Consort,” Jevri replied.

  “And when did she wear it?”

  “At the Festival of the Sun.”

  “And was it noted?”

  “It was noted. It was a finer dress than her wedding dress; it was a significant dress.”

  “A risk, Jevri.”

  “There was no longer a Leonne to offend,” the servitor replied mildly. “And it can be argued that the Lord’s Consort serves the Lord, and not a Lord, be he the Lord of the Dominion.”

  “It can. What occurred there?”

  “She sang the lay of the Sun Sword, Tyr’agnate.”

  “Bold girl. It is said that the man who claims the Tor Leonne cannot draw the Sun Sword. It lies in its haven, sheathed and waiting.”

  “It is said that not all rumor is as capricious as wind. In this case, it is true: the General Marente could not pull the sword from its sheath.”

  “And as proof of this?”

  “The kai el’Sol drew the blade in front of the assembly of the clansmen; he stood in the waters of the Tor Leonne, and he made his challenge for all to see.”

  “And then?”

  “It consumed him utterly.”

  Dry, dry words. His eyes would be dry, she thought, if she could see them. But beneath the thin flutter of those empty words she heard what he did not say.

  “And then?” The anger in the two words.

  “The Serra Diora entered the waters. The Serra Diora retrieved the fallen blade.”

  “And?”

  “And she asked that the clansmen hear the plea of a weak, of a foolish woman; that they choose for her no course that would dishonor the memory of her much loved dead.”

  “Surely no woman is allowed such a demand.”

  “Kai Lamberto.”

  “And yet . . . the clansmen acceded.”

  “Kai Lamberto.”

  Now his gaze was upon her face with all the ferocity his words could not be allowed to contain. “You are, as you have said, a Serra, and ill-trained in the arts of war. Let me tell you then, Serra Diora, what you will not hear as Serra.”

  She nodded quietly, attentively. Every gesture that she offered this man was perfect, for in perfection lay her only protection.

  “The servants of the Lord of Night lay in wait within the village of Damar. They numbered ten. Ten. And within Sarel, it is said that two fell.”

  She nodded again. Her throat was dry, and her eyes, dry as well; she could not blink. But she had suffered far, far worse in time of peace.

  “Twelve, Serra Diora. Twelve of the Enemy’s servants. Not even in the oldest of our histories did nine walk abroad so openly. Nor do they walk openly now; it is not to serve the Lord of Night that the Terreans will take up sword and drum, banner and horn.

  “I am curious. My wife, Serra Donna en’Lamberto, is a woman of some instinct and intuition, and over the years, I have learned to value that gift.”

  Perfection was her only protection. But it was not enough.

  “Tell me why you think the Lord of Night would send twelve of his servants into my Terrean. Tell me why they chose to hide within Clemente at the exact moment of your arrival.”
/>   Jevri cleared his throat. It was graceless; it was beneath him.

  She almost loved him for it.

  “Jevri?”

  “It is clear to me, from my brief conversations in the infirmary, that the Manelan forces could not have been aware of the Serra’s presence before they marched.”

  “Ah. I see.” He smiled. It was a dangerous smile. “So they were not aware of her presence, and yet they were here, as is she. Serra Diora?”

  “Tyr’agnate.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “This is where the Havallan Matriarch chose to lead us,” she replied. Careful now, embroidering her words with the patina of felt truth.

  Ah, but he was a canny man. A powerful man. Such a difficult combination.

  “And if you were free to travel, Serra Diora, where would you now go?” She took a breath, squaring shoulders, bracing herself, as she could, against the garden floor.

  “To the North,” she said softly. “And the East.”

  “To Averda.”

  She nodded, regal now, the compliance of her earlier posturing discarded.

  “And what waits you, in Averda?”

  “Duty,” she said softly.

  “Duty. Surely, your duty is to Marano?”

  “I am en’Leonne,” she replied evenly.

  “So.”

  He did not speak again.

  Nor did she.

  But another man did.

  “Serra Diora,” Ser Alessandro kai di’Clemente said softly. He bowed.

  She looked up at him; saw the shadow of beard across his jaw, the shadow of night beneath his eyes. He bled through the bandages that physicians had laid across his sword arm, but the wound served to strengthen his presence.

  “I am in your debt.” He spoke as if he had heard none of the conversation that preceded his words.

  “A man is not in a Serra’s debt,” Ser Mareo kai di’Lamberto said, neutral now, his face hooded.

  “But even a man can stand in the Lady’s. I am beholden to the Lady for her intervention.” He paused and then turned to the kai Lamberto, the man who owned his oath. “And I swore to the Lady that if we had victory upon the field, I would see the Serra to her destination.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  SERRA Teresa slept, surrounded by the quiet elegance of a room that the Northerners would call empty.

  Ramdan rearranged her sleeping silks with care. He patted her forehead dry, and when she stirred, he raised her head to his lap and dripped water between the cracked surface of her lips. All this he did in silence; the silence was oppressive.

  But to break it required strength.

  Serra Diora sat with a samisen in her lap. It wobbled when she moved; her hands stilled the strings. She had no heart, no voice, for song, and were it not for the presence of Yollana, she might have slept.

  But Yollana did not sleep. She sat upon jade mats, her expression composed of the intricate lines of age and injury. She watched Ramdan.

  Diora watched her.

  The domis was not silent; beyond the screens that paid lip service to privacy, serafs toiled with lumber beams, with toothed saw, with oils and perfumes. She could see their shadows against the lattice of paper and wood that formed the interior face of a sliding screen. A roof had already been erected above the harem; it was the first roof to be so raised.

  Thus did Ser Alessandro honor his wives.

  “Well, Diora.”

  She set aside the samisen and rose, clutching the Matriarch’s pouch in her slender hands. As Serra Teresa had done, Diora now did: she tended the Matriarch. Yollana might have demurred; she was not a woman who willingly exposed weakness, even when weakness defined her. But she understood why Diora saw to her needs, and she accepted the gesture.

  “Will you tell them?”

  Diora pulled the pipe from the cracked folds of worn leather. The bowl was dull with sweat and dust, but Yollana would take no other.

  “Diora?”

  A Serra would have understood the answer. Yollana was Matriarch; bold and blunt as a lowborn clansman.

  “I will tell them nothing,” she said softly, “that they do not already know.”

  “But the appearance of ignorance is a matter of life and death among the clans. You are no Celina; had you been raised Voyani, you would almost be my equal. What do you intend?”

  “What I have always intended, Matriarch. I will go to the North, and the East. I will carry the Sun Sword to the only man who can wield it.”

  Shaking hands cupped pipe; dried leaves caught flame that existed only in the pause between unintelligible words. “He is not happy.”

  She did not pretend to misunderstand. “No.”

  “Will he aid you?”

  “I . . . do not know.”

  Rings of smoke rose above them, gray halos.

  Ser Mareo kai di’Lamberto was given rooms in the domis that were—slightly—beneath his status as the reigning Tyr. The need for this was plain, and he was generous enough to offer an acceptance of the circumstances that was deeper than the scant words he spoke.

  His Tyran were given rooms that bordered his; his men were encamped on the eastern side of Sarel. Both awaited his word in silence, for they had seen the archers upon the walls of Sarel, and they understood what the presence of Northerners within the surviving Clemente forces meant.

  He gave them nothing.

  Instead, he retired to his quarters. He took food and drink from the serafs who had been handpicked to attend him, and he paid no heed to the subtle inferiority of their service; it was beneath a man of his rank.

  But he did notice.

  He noticed much.

  They were off-balance, Ser Alessandro, Marakas par el’Sol. They were grateful for his intervention, and concerned enough with staunching their own losses that neither had come forth to ask him the only question he himself would have considered of relevance in their position.

  Why did you travel to Sarel with an army?

  Ah, but the old woman knew. He allowed himself a smile in the privacy of his chambers, protected from the gaze of the Lord. One eye covered in a dark patch, legs useless, hand cupped around an obscenely masculine pipe, she had met his gaze, held it, demanding the answers that men had not yet demanded.

  She was the heart of his problem; of all the people he expected to see within the confines of the Clemente harem—and he was canny—Yollana of the Havalla Voyani was not among them. He would have been only marginally more surprised to find Alesso di’Marente there, although his welcome in that case would have been less measured.

  That would have been too simple. Marente, by the nature of his occupation of Damar, he could afford to offend; it would cost him nothing. But Yollana of the Havalla Voyani?

  No.

  He was almost certain that this was why the Voyani had always chosen women as leaders—they knew how badly it discomfited the more powerful clansmen.

  He reached into the folds of his robe and touched the crushed and folded scroll that he had carried this distance with him. It was a letter given him by his wife.

  His wife was a Serra of the High Court, but she was also a woman; she was not so canny or harsh as the Serra Amara di’Callesta, nor was she as shrewd as the Serra Teresa di’Marano, the woman who—rank or no—ruled the Serras of Amar. Even in her absence.

  Perhaps especially in her absence.

  Where is the Serra Teresa di’Marano, Mareo? Surely they would not keep her from her kai.

  It was not that his wife was a lamb. It was not that she was, as the Serra Celina, given to the foolishly feminine. But when she joined him in his war room, she felt no need to deny the grace and the softness that defined her sex. She did not trouble herself to hide her horror or her anger; d
id not consider it demeaning to plead or beg for compassion or pity if she deemed it just.

  He had said as much, before he had left her to travel to the South.

  And she? She had offered him a momentary frown, a longer silence. Mareo, she said at last, surely you must understand the reason for this?

  With Donna, there was always reason. Before there was anything, there was reason, and it was sweetly and gently offered.

  “No,” he told her, taking her hands in his and kissing her palms. There were no serafs present, no other wives, none of his sons or daughters. He often found that the example she must set before the people she loved and fretted over introduced a distance between them, and he desired no distance.

  She smiled, but the smile was tinged with sadness. It moved him; it always had.

  And he had no doubt that she knew it; had no doubt that she hoarded some of that sadness against future need; afraid in the hidden part of her heart that to use it freely would be to destroy its power.

  He had never asked.

  “I trust you,” she replied, freeing one hand and running it along the side of his face.

  “And the others?”

  “The Serra Teresa has no husband.”

  “She has father and brothers.”

  “A father—or a brother—must in the end choose one of two courses: to keep his daughter or sister, or to offer her in marriage to another clansman. But a husband? If he is not a man to kill wives, never.” She retreated a moment into silence, and then said, “She would have been different, had she been allowed to marry.”

  “Ah.” He shrugged. It had long been a source of discontent for his wife, but she was wise enough to hold her peace in the presence of the kai Marano, past and present. None of the jealousies that plagued lesser Serras had ever troubled his Donna.

  “The Serra Alina likewise had no husband.”

  That chilled him; annoyed him enough that he withdrew. Mention of his sister was guaranteed to have this effect, and he knew that she was aware of it. But she spoke; he listened.

  “So this harshness is something that men are wise enough to avoid.” He shrugged.

  “The Serra Amara has a husband,” she continued quietly. “And perhaps, in the privacy of their harem, she offers him what I offer you.”