Chapter 10 PART THREE - EMBER TO EMBER chapter 9

IT WAS COLD IN THE GULLY BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. THERE was a thin, sheltering line of birch trees between them and the gates of the Nievolene estate, but even so the wind was a knife whenever it picked up. There had been snow last night, a rare thing this far north, even in midwinter. It had made for a white, chilled second night of riding from Ferraut town where they had started, but Alessan had refused to slow their pace. Increasingly little as the night wore on, and Baerd said little at the best of times. Devin had swallowed his questions and concentrated on keeping up. They had crossed the Astibar border in darkness and arrived at the Nievolene lands just after dawn.

The horses were tethered in a grove about a half mile to the southwest, and the three men had made their way to this gully on foot. Devin dozed off at intervals through the morning. The snow made the landscape strange and crisp and lovely when the sun was out, but around mid-afternoon the gray clouds had gathered heavily overhead and it was only cold now, not beautiful at all. It had snowed again, briefly, about an hour before. When Devin heard the jingle of horses approaching through the greyness, he realized that the Triad, for once, were holding open palms toward them. Or that, alternatively, the goddesses and the god had decided to give them a chance to do something fatally rash He pressed himself as flat as he could to the wet ground of the gully. He thought of Catriana and the Duke, warm and sheltered with Taccio in Ferraut.

A company of about a dozen Barbadian mercenaries materialized out of the gray landscape. They were laughing and singing in boisterous exuberance. Their horses breath and their own made white puffs of smoke in the cold. Flat in the gully Devin watched them go by. heard Baerds soft breathing beside him. The Barbadians stopped at the gates of what had once been Nievolene lands. They were not anymore, of course; not since the confusions of the fall. The company leader dismounted and strode to the locked gates. that drew cheers and laughter from his men he unlocked the iron gates with two keys on an ornate chain.

"First Company," Alessan murmured under his breath. His first words in hours. "He chose Karalius. Sandre said he would.” They watched the gates swing open and saw the horses canter through. The last man locked the iron gates behind him. Baerd and Alessan waited another few moments then rose to their feet. Devin stood up as well, winning at how stiff he felt. "Well need to find the tavern in the village," Baerd said, his voice so unusually grim that Devin glanced sharply at him in the growing gloom. The other mans features were unreadable. "Not to go inside, though," Alessan said. "What we do here, we do unknown."

Baerd nodded. He pulled a much-creased paper from an inner pocket of his sheepskin vest. "Shall we start with Rovigos man?" Rovigos man turned out to be a retired mariner who lived in the village a mile to the east. He told them where the tavern was. He also, for a fairly significant sum of money, gave them a name: that of a known informer for Grancial and his Second Company of Barbadians. The old sailor counted his money, spat once, meaningfully, then told them where the man lived, and something of his habits. Baerd killed the informer, strangling him two hours later as he walked along a country lane from his small farm towards the village tavern. It was full-dark by then. Devin helped him carry the body back towards the Nievolene gates and hide it in the gully.

Baerd didnt speak, and Devin could think of nothing to say. The informer was a paunchy, balding man of middle years. He didnt look especially evil. He looked like a man surprised on the way to his favorite tavern. Devin wondered if hed had a wife and children. They hadnt asked Rovigos man about that; They rejoined Alessan at the edge of the village. He was keeping watch on the tavern from there. Without speaking he pointed to a large dun-colored horse among those tethered outside the inn. A soldiers horse. The three of them doubled back west half a mile and lay down to wait again, prone and watchful by the side of the road.

Devin realized he wasn't cold anymore, or tired; he hadn't had time to think about such things. Later that night under the cold white gaze of Vidomni in the clearing winter sky Alessan killed the man theyd been waiting for. By the time Devin heard the soft jingle of the soldiers horse, the Prince was no longer by his side and it had been mostly accomplished. Devin heard a soft sound, more like a cough than a cry. The horse snorted in alarm, and Devin belatedly rose up to try to deal with the animal. By then, though, he realized that Baerd wasn't beside him either. clambered out of the ditch to the road, the soldier—wearing the insignia of the Second Company—was dead and Baerd had the horse under control. The man, obviously off duty, from the casual look of his uniform, had evidently been on his way back to the border fort. The Barbadian was a big man, they all were, but this ones face seemed very young under the moonlight.

They threw the body across his horse and made their way back to the Nievolene gates. They could hear the men of the First Company singing loudly from the manor-house along the curving drive. The sound carried a long way in the stillness of the wintry air. There were stars out now beside the moon; the clouds were breaking up. Baerd pulled the Barbadian off the horse and leaned him against one of the gate pillars. Alessan and Devin claimed the other dead man from where they had left him in the gully; Baerd tethered the Barbadians horse some distance off the road. Some distance, but not too far. This one was meant to be found later.

Alessan touched Devin briefly on the shoulder. Using the skills Marra had taught him—it seemed several lifetimes ago—Devin picked the two elaborate locks. He was glad to be able to make a contribution. The locks were showy but not difficult. Nievolene had not had much fear of trespassers. Alessan and Baerd each shouldered a body and carried them through. Devin swung the gates silently shut and they entered the grounds. Not toward the manor though. They let the pale moonlight lead them over the snow to the barns. There they found trouble. The largest barn was locked from the inside, and Baerd pointed silently, with a grimace, to a spill of torchlight that showed from under the double doors. He mimicked the presence of a guard.

The three of them looked up. There was, clearly illuminated by Vidomnis glow, a single small window open, high up on the eastern side. Devin looked from Alessan to Baerd and then back to the Prince. He looked at the bodies of the two men already dead. He pointed to the window and then to himself. After a long moment Alessan nodded his head. In silence, listening to the ragged singing from over in the manor-house, Devin climbed the outer wall of the Nievolene barn. By moonlight and by feel he deciphered hand and footholds in the cold. When he reached the window he looked over his shoulder and saw Ilarion, just rising in the east.

He slipped through and into the upper loft. Below, a horse whipped softly and Devin caught his breath. His heart thudding, he froze where he was, listening. There was no other response. cautiously forward and looked down. The guard was comprehensively asleep. His uniform was unbuttoned and the lantern on the floor by his side illuminated an empty flask of wine. He must have lost a dice roll, Devin thought, to have been posted so boringly on guard against nothing here among the horses and the straw. He went down the ladder without a sound. And in the flickering light of that barn, amid the smell of hay and animals and spilled red wine Devin killed his first man, plunging his dagger into the Barbadians throat as the man slept. It was not the way his dreams of valiant deeds had ever had him doing this. It took him a moment to fight back the churning nausea that followed. Its the smell of the wine, he tried to tell himself. There was also more blood than hed thought there would be. He wiped his blade clean before he opened the door for the other two. "Well done," Baerd said, taking in the scene. He briefly laid a hand on Devins shoulder. Alessan said nothing, but by the wavering light Devin read a disquieting compassion in his eyes. Baerd had already set about doing what they had to do. They left the guard where he was to be burned. The informer and the soldier from the Second Company they dragged towards one of the outbuildings. Baerd studied the situation carefully for a few moments, refusing to be rushed, then he placed the two bodies in a particular way, and wedged the door in front of them convincingly shut with what Devin assumed would later appear to be a dislodged beam. The singing from the manor had gradually been fading away. Now it had come down to a single voice drunkenly caroling a melancholy refrain about love lost long ago. Finally that voice, too, fell silent. Which was Alessans cue. At his signal they simultaneously set fire to the dry straw and wood in the guarded barn and two of the adjacent outbuildings, including the one where the dead men were trapped. Then they fled. By the time they were off the property the Nievolene barns were an inferno of flame. Horses were screaming. There was no pursuit. They hadnt expected any. Alessan and Sandre had worked it out very carefully back in Ferraut. The charred bodies of the informer and the Second Company soldier would be found by Karaliuss men. obvious conclusion. They reclaimed their horses and headed west. They spent the night outside again in the cold taking turns on watch. It had gone very well. It seemed to have gone exactly as planned. Devin wished theyd been able to free the horses, though. screaming ran through his fitful dreams in the snow. In the morning Alessan bought a cart from a farmer near the border of Ferraut and Baerd bargained with a woodcutter for a load of fresh-cut logs. They paid the new transit duty and sold the wood at the first fort across the border. They also bought some winter wool to carry to Ferraut town where they were to rejoin the others. There was no point, Alessan said, in missing a chance at a profit. They did have responsibilities to their partners. In fact, a disconcerting number of untoward events had ruffled the Eastern Palm in the autumn and winter that followed the unmasking of the Sandreni conspiracy. In themselves, none of them amounted to very much; collectively they unsettled and irritated Alberico of Barbadior to the point where his aides and messengers began finding their employment physically hazardous, in so far as their duties brought them into proximity with the Tyrant. For a man noted for his composure and equanimity—even back in Barbadior when hed been only the leader of a middle-ranking family of nobility—Albericos temper was shockingly close to the surface all winter long. It had begun, his aides agreed among each other, after the San-dreni traitor, Tomasso, had been found dead in the dungeons when they came to bring him to the professionals. Alberico, waiting in the room of the implements, had been terrifyingly Enraged. Each of the guards—from Sifervals Third Company—had been summarily executed. Including the new Captain of the Guard; the previous one had killed himself the night before. Siferval himself was summoned back to Astibar from Certando for a private session with his employer that left him limp and shaking for hours afterwards. Albericos fury had seemed to border on the irrational. He had clearly, his aides decided, been radically unsettled by whatever had happened in the forest. Certainly he didn't look well; there was something odd about one of his eyes, and his walk was peculiar Then, in the days and weeks that followed, it became manifest, as the local informers for each of the three companies began to bring in their reports, that Astibar town simply did not believe—or chose not to believe—that anything had happened In the forest, that there had been any Sandreni conspiracy at all. Certainly not with the Lords Scalvaia and Nievole, and most certainly not led by Tomasso bar Sandre. People were commenting cynically all over the city, the word came. Too many of them knew of the bone-deep hatreds that divided those three families. many knew the stories about Sandres middle son, the alleged leader of this alleged plot. He might kidnap a boy from a temple of Morian, Astibar was saying, but plot against a Tyrant? With Nievole and Scalvaia? No, the city was simply too sophisticated to fall for that. Anyone with the slightest sense of geography or economics could see what was really going on. How, by trumping up this "threat" from three of the five largest landowners in the distrada, Alberico was merely creating a sleek cover for an otherwise naked land grab. It was only sheerest coincidence, of course, that the Sandreni estates were central, the Nievolene farms lay to the southwest along the Ferraut border, and Scalvaias vineyards were in the richest belt in the north where the best grapes for the blue wine were grown. An enormously convenient conspiracy, all the taverns and khav rooms agreed. And every single conspirator was dead overnight, as well. Such swift justice! Such an accumulation of evidence against them! There had been an informer among the Sandreni, it was proclaimed. , they were told. He too, most unfortunately, was dead. Led by Astibar itself all four provinces of the Eastern Palm reacted with bitter, sardonic disbelief. They may have been conquered, ground under the heavy Barbadian heel, but they had not been deprived of their intelligence or rendered blind. They knew a Tyrants planning when they saw it. Tomasso bar Sandre as a skilled, deadly plotter? Astibar, reeling under the economic impact of the confusions, and the horror of the executions, still found itself able to mock. And then there arrived the first of the viciously funny verses from the west— from Chiara itself— written by Brandin himself some said, though rather more likely commissioned from one of the poets who hovered about that court. Verses lampooning Alberico as seeing plots hatching in every barnyard and using them as an excuse to size fowls and vegetable gardens over the Eastern Palm. There were also a few, not very subtle sexual innu- endos thrown in for good measure. The poems, posted on walls all over the city—and then in Tregea and Certando and Ferraut—were torn down by the Barbadians almost as fast as they went up. Unfortunately they were memorable rhymes, and people didn't need to read or hear them more than once . . . Alberico would later acknowledge to himself that hed lost control a little. He would also admit inwardly that a great deal of his rage stemmed from a fierce indignation and the aftermath of fear. There had been a conspiracy led by that mincing Sandreni. They had very nearly killed him in that cursed cabin in the woods. This once, he was telling the absolute truth. There was no pretense or deception. He had every claim of justice on his side. What he didnt have was a confession, or a witness, or any evidence at all. Hed wanted Tomasso alive. His dreams that first night had been shot through with vivid images of Sandres son, bound and stripped and curved invitingly backwards on one of the machines. In the aftermath of the perverts inexplicable death, and the unanimous word from all four provinces That no one believed a word of what had happened, Alberico had abandoned his original, carefully measured response to the plot. The lands were seized of course, but in addition all the living members of all three families were searched out and death-wheeled in Astibar. He hadn't expected there to be quite so many, actually, when he gave that order. The stench had been Deplorable and some of the children lived an unconscionably long time on the wheels. It made it difficult to concentrate on business in the state offices above the Grand Square. He raised taxes in Astibar and introduced, for the first time, transit duties for merchants crossing from one of his provinces to another, along the lines of the existing tariff levied for crossing from the Eastern to the Western Palm. Let them pay—literally— if they chose not to believe what had happened to him in that cabin. He did more. Half the massive Nievolene grain harvest was promptly shipped home to Barbadior. For an action conceived in anger he considered that one to be inspired. It had pushed the price of grain down back home in the Empire, which hurt his family two most ancient rivals while making him exceptionally popular with the people. In so far as the people mattered in Barbadior. At the same time, here in the Palm, Astibar was forced to bring in more grain than ever from Certando and Ferraut, and with the new duties Alberico was going to rake a healthy cut of that inflated price as well. He could almost have slaked his anger, almost have made himself happy, watching the effects of all this ripple through, if it wasn't that small things kept happening. For one, his soldiers began to grow restless. With an increase in hardship came an increase in tension; more incidents of confrontation occurred. Especially in Tregea where there were always more incidents of confrontation. Under greater stress the mercenaries demanded—predictably—higher Which, if he gave it to them, was going to soak up virtually everything he might gain from the confusions and the new duties. He sent a letter home to the Emperor. His first request in over two years. Along with a case of Astibar blue wine—from what were now his own estates in the north—he conveyed an urgent reiteration of his plea to be brought under the Imperial aegis. Which would have meant a subsidy for his mercenaries from the Treasury in Barbadior, or even Imperial troops under his command. As always, he stressed the role he alone played in blocking Ygrathen expansion in this dangerous halfway belly peninsula. He might have his career here as an independent adventurer, he conceded, with what he saw as a nice turn of phrase, but as an older, wiser man he wished to bind himself more tightly and more usefully to his Emperor than ever before. As for wanting to be Emperor, and wanting the cloak of Imperial sanction thrown over him—however belatedly—well, such things surely did not have to be put into a letter? He received, by way of reply, an elegant wall-hanging from the Emperors Palace, recommendations on his loyal sentiments, and polite regret that circumstances at home precluded the granting of his request for financing. As usual. He was cordially invited to sail home to all suitable honors and leave the tiresome problems of that far land overseas to a colonial expert appointed by the Emperor. That, too, was as usual. Turn your new territory over to the Empire. Surrender your army. Come home to a parade or two, then spend your days hunting and your money on bribes and hunting gear. Wait for the Emperor to die without naming a successor. Then knife and be knifed in the brawl to succeed him. Alberico sent back sincerest thanks, deep regrets, and another case of wine. Shortly thereafter, at the end of the fall, a number of men in the disgruntled, out-of-favor Third Company withdrew from service and took late-season ship for home. The commanders of the First and Second used that same week to formally present—purely coincidence of course—their new wage demands and to casually remind him of past promises of land for the mercenaries. Starting, it was suggested delicately, with their commanders. Hed wanted to order the two of them throttled. Hed wanted to fry their greedy, wine-sodden brains with a blast of his own magic. But he couldnt afford to do it; real strain so soon after the encounter in the woods that had nearly killed him. The encounter that no one in this peninsula even believed had taken place. What he had done was smile at the two commanders and confide that he had already marked off in his mind a significant portion of the newly claimed Nievolene lands for one of them. Siferval, he said, more in sorrow than in anger, had been put out of the running by the conduct of his own men, but these two . . . well, it would be a hard choice. He would be watching them closely over the next while and would announce his decision in due course. How long a while, exactly, had pursued Karalius of the First. Truly, he could have killed the man even as he stood there, helmet under his arm, eyes hypocritically lowered in a show of deference. Oh, spring, perhaps, hed said airily, as if such matters should not be of great moment to men of good will. Sooner would be better, had said Grancial of the Second, softly. Alberico had chosen to let his eyes show just a little of what he felt. There were limits. Sooner would let whichever of us you choose have time to see to the proper handling of the land before spring planting, Grancial explained hastily. A little ruffled, as he should be. Perhaps it is so, Alberico had said, noncommittally. I will give thought to this. "By the way," he added, as they reached the door. "Karalius, would you be good enough to send me that very competent young captain of yours? The one with the forked black beard. I have a special, confidential task that needs a man of his evident qualities." Karalius had blinked, and nodded. It was important, very important, not to let them grow too confident, he reflected after they had gone and hed managed to calm himself. At the same time, only a genuine fool antagonized his troops. The more so, if he had ultimate plans to lead them home. By invitation of the Emperor, preferably, but not necessarily. Not, to be sure, necessarily. On further reflection, triggered by that line of thought, he did raise taxes in Tregea, Certando, and Ferraut to match the new levels in Astibar. He also sent a courier to Siferval of the Third in the Certandan highlands, praising his recent work in keeping that province quiet. You lashed them, then enticed them. You made them fear you, and know that their fortunes could be made if you liked them enough. It was all a matter of balance. Unfortunately, small things continued to go wrong with the balancing of the Eastern Palm as autumn turned into winter in the unusually cold weeks that followed. Some cursed poem in Astibar chose that dank and rainy season to begin posting a series of elegies to the dead Duke of Astibar. The Duke had died in exile, the head of a scheming family, most of whom had been executed by then. him were manifestly treasonous. It was difficult though. Every single writer brought in during the first sweep of the khav rooms denied authorization, and then—with time to prepare—every writer in the second sweep claimed to have written the verses. Some advisors suggested peremptory wheels for the lot of them, but Alberico had been giving thought to a larger issue. To the marked difference between his court and the Ygrathens. On Chiara, the poets vied for access to Brandin, quivering like puppies at the slightest word of praise from him. They wrote paeans of exaltation to the Tyrant and obscene, scathing attacks on Alberico at request. Here, every writer in the Eastern Palm seemed to be a potential rabble-rouser. An enemy of the state. Alberico swallowed his anger, lauded the technical skill of the verses, and let both sets of poets go free. Not before suggesting, however, as benignly as he could manage, that he would enjoy reading verses as well-crafted on one of the many possible themes of rich satiric possibility having to do with Brandin of Ygrath. He had managed a smile. He would be very pleased to read such verses, hed said, wondering if one of these cursed writers with their lofty airs could take a hint. None did. Instead, a new poem appeared on walls all over the city two mornings later. It was about Tomasso bar Sandre. A lament about his death, and claiming—unbelievably—that his perverse sexuality had been a deliberately chosen path, a living. The metaphor for his conquered, subjugated land, for the perverse situation of Astibar under tyranny. Hed had no choice after that, once hed understood what the poet was saying. Not bothering with inquiries again, hed had a dozen writers pulled at random out of the khav rooms that same afternoon, and then broken, wristed, and sky-wheeled among the still-crowded bodies of the families of the conspirators before sundown. He closed all khav rooms for a month. No more verses appeared. In Astibar. But the same evening his new taxes were proclaimed in the Market Square in Tregea, a black-haired woman elected to leap to her death from one of the seven bridges in protest against the measures. She made a speech before she jumped, and she left behind— the gods alone knew how shed come into possession of them—a complete sheaf of the "Sandreni Elegies" from Astibar. No one knew who she was. They dragged the icy river for her body but it was never found. Rivers ran swiftly in Tregea, out of the mountains to the eastern sea. The verses were all over that province within a fortnight, and had crossed to Certando and southern Ferraut before the first heavy snows of the winter began to fall. Brandin of Ygrath sent an elegantly fur-clad courier to Astibar with an elegantly phrased note lauding the Elegies as the first decent creative work hed seen emanating from Barbadian territory. He offered Alberico his sincerest congratulations. Alberico sent a polite acknowledgment of the sentiments and offered to commission one of his newly competent verse-makers to do a work on the glorious life and deeds in battle of Prince Valentin di Tigana. Because of the Ygrathens spell, he knew, only Brandin himself would be able to read that last word, but only Brandin mattered. He thought hed won that one, but for some reason the womans suicide in Tregea left him feeling too edgy to be pleased. It was too intense an action, harking back to the violence of the first year after hed landed here. Things had been quiet for so long, and this level of intensity—of very public intensity— never boded well. Briefly he even considered rolling back the new taxes, but that would look too much like a giving in rather than a gesture of benevolence. Besides, he still needed the money for the army. Back home the word was that the Emperor was sinking more rapidly now, that he was seen in public less and less often. Alberico knew he had to keep his mercenaries happy. In the dead of winter he made the decision to reward Karalius with fully half of the former Nievolene lands. The night after the announcement was made public—among the troops first, then cried in the Grand Square of Astibar—the horse barn and several of the outbuildings of the Nievolene family estate were burned to the ground. He ordered an immediate investigation by Karalius, then wished, a day later, that he hadnt. It seemed that they had found two bodies in the smoldering ruins, trapped by a fallen beam that had barred a door. One was that of an informer linked to Grancial and the Second Company. The other was a Barbadian soldier: from the Second Company. Karalius promptly challenged Grancial to a duel at any time and place of the latters choosing. Grancial immediately named a date and place. Alberico quickly made it clear that the survivor of any such combat would be death-wheeled. He succeeded in halting the fight, but the two commanders stopped speaking to each other from that point on. number of small skirmishes among men of the two companies, and one, in Tregea, that was not so small, leaving fifteen soldiers slain and twice as many wounded. Three local informers were found dead in Ferrauts distrada, stretched on farmers wagon-wheels in a savage parody of the Tyrants justice. They couldn't even retaliate—that would involve an admission that the men had been informers. In Certando, two of SifervaFs Third Company went absent from duty, disappearing into the snow- white countryside, the first time that had ever happened. Siferval reported that local women did not appear to be involved. The men had been extremely close friends. Third Company commander offered the obvious, disagreeable hypothesis. Late in the winter Brandin of Ygrath sent another suave envoy with another letter. In it he profusely thanked Alberico for his offer of verses, and said hed be delighted to read them. He also formally requested six Certandan women, as young and comely as the one Alberico had so kindly allowed him to take from the Eastern Palm some years ago, to be added to his saishan. Unfortunately the letter somehow became public information. Laughter was deadly. To quell it, Alberico had six old women seized by Siferval in southwestern Certando. He ordered them blinded and hamstrung and set down under a couriers flag on the snow-clad border of Lower Corte between the forts at Sinave and Forese. He had Siferval attach a letter to one of them asking Brandin to acknowledge receipt of his new mistresses. Let them hate him. So long as they feared. On the way back east from the border, Siferval said in his report, he had followed an informers tip and found the two runaway soldiers living together at an abandoned farm. They had been executed on the site, with one of them—the appropriate one , Siferval had reported— castrated first, so that he could die as hed lived. Alberico sent his commendations. It was an unsettling winter though. Things seemed to be happening to him instead of moving to a measure he dictated. Late at night, and then at other times as well, more and more as the Palm gradually turned towards a distant rumor of spring, Alberico found himself thinking about the ninth province that no one yet controlled, the one just across the bay. Senzio. The grey-eyed merchant was making a great deal of sense. Even as he found himself reluctantly agreeing with the man, Ettocio wished the fellow had chosen someone elses roadside tavern for his midday repast. The talk in the room was veering in dangerous directions and , Triad knew, enough Barbadian mercenaries used the main highway between Astibar and Ferraut towns. If one of them stopped in here now, he would be unlikely in the extreme to indulge the current tenor of the conversation as merely an excess of springtime Ettocios energy. license would probably be gone for a month. He kept glancing nervously towards the door. "Double taxation now!" the lean man was saying bitterly as he pushed a hand through his hair. "After the kind of winter weve just had? After what he did to the price of grain? So we pay at the border, and now we pay at the gates of a town, and where in the name of Morian is profit?” There were truculent murmurs of agreement all around the room. In a tavern full of merchants on the road, agreement was predictable. It was also dangerous. Ettocio, pouring drinks, was not the only man keeping an eye on the door. The young fellow leaning on the bar looked up from his crusty roll and wedge of country cheese to give him an unexpectedly sympathetic look. "Profit?" a wool-merchant from northern Ferraut said sarcastically. "Why should Barbadior care if we make a profit?” "Exactly!" The grey eyes flashed in vigorous agreement. "The way I hear it, all he wants to do is soak the Palm for everything he can, in preparation for a grab at the Emperors Tiara back in Barbadior!” "Shush!" Ettocio muttered under his breath, unable to stop himself. He took a quick, rare pull at a mug of his own beer and moved along the bar to close the window. It was a shame, because the spring day was glorious outside, but this was getting out of hand. "Next thing you know," the lean trader was saying now, "hell just go right ahead and seize the rest of our land like hes already started to do in Astibar. Any wagers were servants or slaves within five years?” One mans contemptuous laughter rode over the snarling chorus of response triggered by that. The room fell abruptly silent as everyone turned to confront the person who appeared to find this observation diverting. Expressions were grim. Ettocio nervously wiped down the already clean bartop in front of him. The warrior from Khardhun continued laughing for a long time, seemingly oblivious to the stares he was receiving. His sculpted, black features registered genuine amusement. "What," said the grey-eyed one coldly, "is so very funny, old man?” "You are," said the old Khardhu cheerfully. He grinned like a deaths head. "All of you. Never seen so many blind men in one room before.” "You care to explain exactly what that means?" the Ferraut wool-merchant rasped. "You need it explained?" the Khardhu murmured, his eyes wide in mock surprise. "Well, now. Why in the name of your gods or mine or his should Alberico bother trying to enslave you?" He jabbed a bony finger towards the trader whod started all this. "If he tried that my guess is theres still enough manhood in the Eastern Palm—barely —that you might take offense. Might even . . . rise up!" He said that last in an exaggerated parody of a secretive whisper. He leaned back, laughing again at his own wit. No one else did. Ettocio looked nervously at the door. "On the other side of the coin," the Khardhu went on, still chuckling, "if he just slowly squeezes you dry with taxes and duties and confiscations he can get to exactly the same place without making anyone mad enough to do anything about it. I tell you, gentlemen," he took a long pull at his beer, "Alberico of Barbadiors a smart man.” "And you," said the grey-eyed man leaning across his own table, bristling with anger, "are an arrogant, insolent foreigner!” The Khardhus smile faded. His eyes locked on those of the other man and Ettocio was suddenly very glad the warriors curved sword was checked with all the other weapons behind the bar. "Ive been here some thirty years," the black man said softly. "About as long as youve been alive, Id wager. I was guarding merchant trains on this road when you were wetting your bed at night. And if lam a foreigner, well . . . last time I inquired, Khardhun was a free country. We beat back our invader, which is more than anyone here in the Palm can say!” "You had magic!" the young fellow at the bar suddenly burst out, over the outraged din that ensued. "We didnt! Thats the only reason! The only reason!” The Khardhu turned to face the boy, his lip curling in contempt. "You want to rock yourself to sleep at night thinking thats the only reason, you go right ahead, little man. Maybe itll make you feel better about paying your taxes this spring, or about going hungry because theres no grain here in the fall. But if you want to know the truth Ill give it to you free of charge.” The noise level had abated as he spoke, but a number of men were on their feet, glaring at the Khardhu. Looking around the room, as if dismissing the boy at the bar as unworthy of his attention, he said very clearly, "We beat back Brandin of Ygrath when he invaded us because Khardhun fought as a country. As a whole. You people got whipped by Alberico and Brandin both because you were too busy worrying about your border spats with each other, or which Duke or Prince would lead your army, or which priest or priestess would bless it, or who would fight on the center and who on the right, and where the battlefield would be, and who the gods loved best. Your nine provinces ended up going at the sorcerers one by one, finger by finger. And they got snapped to pieces like chicken-bones. I always used to think," he drawled into what had become a quiet room, "that a hand fought best when it made a fist.” He lazily signaled Ettocio for another drink. "Damn your insolent Khardhu hide," the grey-eyed man said in a strangled voice. Ettocio turned from the bar to look at him. "Damn you forever to Morians darkness for being right!” Ettocio hadnt expected that, and neither had the others in the room. The mood grew grimly introspective. And, Ettocio realized, more dangerous as well, entirely at odds with the brightness of the spring outside, the cheerful warmth of the returned sun. "But what can we do?" the young fellow at the bar said plaintively, to no one in particular. "Curse and drink and pay our taxes," said the wool-merchant bitterly. "I must say, I do sympathize with the rest of you," said the lone trader from Senzio smugly. It was an ill-advised remark. Even Ettocio, notoriously slow to rouse, was irritated. The young man at the bar was positively enraged. "Why you, you ... I dont believe it! What right do you have—" He hammered the bar in incoherent fury. The plump Senzian smiled in the superior manner all of them seemed to have. "What right indeed!" The grey eyes were icy as they returned to the fray. "Last time I looked, Senzio traders all had their hands jammed so deep in their pockets paying tribute money east and west that they couldnt even get their equipment out to please their wives!” A raucous, bawdy shout of laughter greeted that. Even the old Khardhu smiled thinly. "Last / looked," said the Senzian, red-faced, "the Governor of Senzio was one of our own, not someone shipped in from Ygrath or Barbadior!” "What happened to the Duke?" the Ferraut merchant snapped. "Senzio was so cowardly your Duke demoted himself to Governor so as not to upset the Tyrants. Are you proud of that?” "Proud?" the lean merchant mocked. "Hes got no time to be proud of anything. Hes too busy looking both ways to see which emissary from which Tyrant he should offer his wife to!” Again, coarse, bitter laughter. "Youve a mean tongue for a conquered man," the Senzian said coldly. The laughter stopped. "Where are you from that youre so quick to cut at other mens courage.” "Tregea," said the other quietly. "Occupied Tregea," the Senzian corrected viciously. "Conquered Tregea. With its Barbadian Governor.” "We were the last to fall," the Tregean said a little too defiantly. "Borifort held out longer than anywhere else.” "But it fell," the Senzian said bluntly, sure of his advantage now. "I wouldnt be so quick to talk about other mens wives. Not after the stories we all heard about what the Barbadians did there. And I also heard that most of your women werent that unwilling to be—” "Shut your filthy mouth!" the Tregean snarled, leaping to his feet. "Shut it, or Ill close it for you permanently, you lying Senzian scum!” A babble of noise erupted, louder than any before. Furiously clanging the bell over the bar, Ettocio fought to restore order. "Enough!" he roared. "Enough of this, or youre all out of here right now!" A dire threat, and it quelled them. Enough for the Khardhu warriors sardonic laughter to be audible again. The man was on his feet. He dropped coins on the table to pay his account, and surveyed the room, still chuckling, from his great height. "See what I mean?" he murmured. "All these stick-like little fingers jabbing and poking away at each other. Youve always done that, havent you? Guess you always will. Until theres nothing left here but Barbadior and Ygrath.” He swaggered to the bar to claim his sword. "You," said the grey-eyed Tregean suddenly, as Ettocio handed over the curved, sheathed blade. The Khardhu turned slowly. "You know how to use that thing as well as you use your mouth?" the Tregean asked. The Khardhus lips parted in a mirthless smile. "Its been reddened once or twice.” "Are you working for anyone right now?” Insolently, appraisingly, the Khardhu looked down on the other man. "Where are you going?” "Ive just changed my plans," the other replied. "Theres no money to be made up in Ferraut town. Not with double duties to be paid. I reckon Ill have to go farther afield. Ill give you going rates to guard me south to the Certandan highlands.” "Rough country there," the Khardhu murmured reflectively. The Tregeans face twitched with amusement. "Why do you think I want you?" he asked. After a moment the smile was returned. "When do we go?" the warrior said. "Were gone," the Tregean replied, rising and paying his own account. He claimed his own short sword and the two of them walked out together. When the door opened there was a brief, dazzling flash of sunlight. Ettocio had hoped the talk would settle down after that. It didnt. The youngster at the bar mumbled something about uniting in a common front—a remark that would have been merely insane if it wasnt so dangerous. Unfortunately—from Ettocios point of view, at any rate—the comment was overheard by the Ferraut wool-trader, and the mood of the room was so aroused by then that the subject wouldnt die. It went on all afternoon, even after the boy left as well. And that night, with an entirely different crowd, Ettocio shocked himself by speaking up during an argument about ancestral primacy between an Astibarian wine-dealer and another Senzian. He made the same point the tall Khardhu had made—about nine spindly fingers that had been broken one by one because they never formed a fist. The argument made sense to him; it sounded intelligent in his own mouth. He noticed men nodding slowly even as he spoke. It was an unusual, flattering response—men had seldom paid any attention to Ettocio except when he called time in the tavern. He rather liked the new sensation. In the days that followed he found himself raising the point whenever the opportunity arose. For the first time in his life Ettocio began to get a reputation as a thoughtful man. Unfortunately, one evening in summer he was overheard by a Barbadian mercenary standing outside the open window. They didnt take away his license. There was a very high level of tension across the whole of the Palm by then. They arrested Ettocio and executed him on a wheel outside his own tavern, with his severed hands stuffed in his mouth. A great many men had heard the argument by then, though. A great many had nodded, hearing it. Devin joined the other four about a mile south of the crossroads inn on the dusty road leading to Certando. They were waiting for him. Catriana was alone in the first cart but Devin climbed up beside Baerd in the second. "Bubbling like a pot of khav," he said cheerfully in response to a quizzical eyebrow, Alessan rode up on one side. Hed buckled on his sword, Devin saw. Baerds bow was on the cart, just behind the seat and within very quick reach. Devin had had occasion, several times in six months, to see just how quick Baerds reach could be. Alessan smiled over at him, riding bareheaded in the bright afternoon. "I take it you stirred the pot a little after we left?” Devin grinned. "Didnt need much stirring. The two of you have that routine down like professional players by now.” "So do you," said the Duke, cantering up on the other side of the cart. "I particularly admired your spluttering anger this time. I thought you were about to throw something at me.” Devin smiled up at him. Sandres teeth flashed white through the improbable black of his skin. Dont expect to recognize us, Baerd had said when theyd parted in the Sandreni woods half a year ago. So Devin had been prepared. Somewhat, but not enough. Baerds own transformation had been disconcerting but relatively mild: hed grown a short beard and removed the padding from the shoulders of his doublet. He wasnt as big a man as Devin had first thought. Hed also somehow changed his hair from bright yellow to what he said was his natural dark brown. His eyes were brown now as well, not the bright blue of before. What he had done to Sandre dAstibar was something else entirely. Even Alessan, whod evidently had years to get used to this sort of thing, gave a low whistle when he first saw the Duke. Sandre had become—amazingly—an aging black fighting man from Khardhun across the northern sea. One of a type that Devin knew had been common on the roads of the Palm twenty or thirty years ago in the days when merchants went nowhere except in company with each other, and Khardhu warriors with their wickedly curved blades were much in demand as insurance against outlaws. Somehow, and this was the uncanny thing, with his own beard shaven and his white hair tinted a dark grey, Sandres gaunt, black face and deep-set, fierce eyes were exactly those of a Khardhu mercenary. Which, Baerd had explained, had been almost the first thing hed noticed about the Duke when hed seen him in daylight. It was what had suggested the rather comprehensive disguise. "But how?" Devin remembered gasping. "Lotions and potions," Alessan had laughed. It turned out, as Baerd explained later, that he and the Prince had spent a number of years in Quileia after Tiganas fall. Disguises of this sort—colorings for skin and hair, even tints for eyes—were a perfected, important art south of the mountains. They assumed a central role in the Mysteries of the Mother Goddess, and in the less secret rites of the formal theater, and they had played pivotal, complex parts in the tumultuous religion-torn history of Quileia. Baerd did not say what he and Alessan had been doing there, or how he had come to learn this secret craft or possess the implements of it. Catriana didnt know either, which made Devin feel somewhat better. Theyd asked Alessan one afternoon, and had received, for the first time, an answer that was to become routine through the fall and winter. In the spring, Alessan told them. In the spring a great deal would be made clearer, one way or another. They were moving towards something of importance, but they would have to wait until then. He was not going to discuss it now. Before the Ember Days of spring they would leave their current Astibar—Tregea—Ferraut loop and head south across the wide grainlands of Certando. And at that point, Ales-san had said, a great many things might change. One way or another, hed repeated. He hadnt smiled, saying any of this, though he was a man with an easy smile. Devin remembered how Catriana had tossed her hair then, with a knowing, almost an angry look in her blue eyes. "Its Alienor, isnt it?" she demanded, virtually an accusation. "Its that woman at Castle Borso.” Alessans mouth had twisted in surprise and then amusement. "Not so, my dear," hed said. "Well stop at Borso, but this has nothing to do with her at all. If I didnt know better, if I didnt know your heart belonged only to Devin, Id say you sounded jealous, my darling.” The gibe had entirely the desired effect. Catriana had stormed off, and Devin, almost as embarrassed himself, had quickly changed the subject. Alessan had a way of doing that to you. Behind the deep, effortless courtesy and the genuine camaraderie, there existed a line they learned not to try to cross. If he was seldom harsh, his jests— always the first measure of control—could sting memorably. Even the Duke had discovered that it was best not to press Alessan on certain subjects. Including this one, it emerged: when asked, Sandre said he knew as little as they did about what would happen come spring. Thinking about it, as fall gave way to winter and the rains and then the snows came, Devin was deeply aware that Alessan was the Prince of a land that was dying a little more with each passing day. Under the circumstances, he decided, the wonder wasnt that there were places they could not trespass upon but, rather, how far they could actually go before reaching the guarded regions that lay within. One of the things Devin began to learn during that long winter was patience. He taught himself to hold his questions for the right time, or to restrain them entirely and try to work the answers for himself. If fuller knowledge had to wait for spring, then he would wait. In the meantime he threw himself, with an unleashed, even an unsuspected passion, into what they were doing. A blade had been planted in his own soul that starry autumn night in the Sandreni Woods. Hed had no idea what to expect when theyd set out five days later with Rovigos horse-drawn cart and three other horses, bound for Ferraut town with a bed and a number of wooden carvings of the Triad. Taccio had written Rovigo that he could sell Astibarian religious carvings at a serious profit to merchants from the Western Palm. Especially because, as Devin learned, duty was not levied on Triad-related artifacts: part of a successful attempt by both sorcerers to keep the clergy placated and neutralized. Devin learned a great deal about trade that fall and winter, and about certain other things as well. With his new, hard-won patience he would listen in silence as Alessan and the Duke tossed ideas back and forth on the long roads, turning the rough coals of a concept into the diamonds of polished plans. And even though his own dreams at night were of raising a surging army to liberate Tigana and storm the fabled harbor walls of Chiara, he quickly came to understand—on the cold paths of day—that theirs would have to be a wholly different approach. Which was, in fact, why they were still in the east, not the west, and doing all they could—with the small glittering diamonds of Alessan and Sandres plans—to unsettle things in Albericos realm. Once Catriana confided to him—on one of the days when, for whatever reason, she deemed him worth speaking to—that Alessan was, in fact, moving much more aggressively than he had the year before when shed first joined them. Devin suggested it might be Sandres influence. Catriana had shaken her head. She thought that was a part of it, but that there was something else, a new urgency from a source she didnt understand. Well find out in the spring, Devin had shrugged. Shed glared at him, as if personally affronted by his equanimity. It had been Catriana though whod suggested the most aggressive thing of all as winter began: the faked suicide in Tregea. Along with the idea of leaving behind her a sheaf of the poems that that young poet had written about the Sandreni. Adreano was his name, Alessan had informed them, unwontedly subdued: the name was on the list of the twelve poets Rovigo had reported as being randomly death- wheeled during Albericos retaliation for the verses. Alessan had been unexpectedly disturbed by that news. There was other information in the letter from Rovigo, aside from the usual covering business details. It had been held for them in a tavern in north Tregea that served as a mail drop for many of the merchants in the northeast. They had been heading south, spreading what rumors they could about unrest among the soldiers. Rovigos latest report suggested, for the second time, that an increase in taxes might be imminent, to cover the mercenaries newest pay demands. Sandre, who seemed to know the Tyrants mind astonishingly well, agreed. After dinner, when they were alone around the fire, Catriana had made her proposal. Devin had been incredulous: hed seen the height of the bridges of Tregea and the speed of the river waters below. And it was winter by then, growing colder every day. Alessan, still upset by the news from Astibar, and evidently of the same mind as Devin, vetoed the idea bluntly. Catriana pointed out two things. One was that she had been brought up by the sea: she was a better swimmer than any of them, and better than any of them knew. The second thing was that—as Alessan knew perfectly well, she said—a leap such as this, a suicide, especially in Tregea, would fit seamlessly into everything they were trying to achieve in the Eastern Palm. "That," Devin remembered Sandre saying after a silence, "is true, Im sorry to say.” Alessan had reluctantly agreed to go to Tregea itself for a closer look at the river and the bridges. Four evenings later Devin and Baerd had found themselves crouched amid twilight shadows along the riverbank in Tregea town, at a point that seemed to Devin terribly far away from the bridge Catriana had chosen. Especially in the windy cold of winter, in the swiftly gathering dark, beside the even more swiftly racing waters that were rushing past them, deep and black and cold. While they waited, he had tried, unsuccessfully, to sort out his complex mixture of feelings about Catriana. He was too anxious though, and too cold. He only knew that his heart had leaped, moved by some odd, tripled conjunction of relief and admiration and envy when she swam up to the bank, exactly where they were. She even had the wig in one hand, so it would not be tangled up somewhere, and found. Devin stuffed it into the satchel he carried while Baerd was vigorously chafing Catrianas shivering body and bundling her into the layers of clothing theyd carried. As Devin looked at her—shaking uncontrollably, almost blue with the cold, her teeth chattering—he had felt his envy slipping away. What replaced it was pride. She was from Tigana, and so was he. The world might not know it yet, but they were working together—however elliptically—to bring it back. The following morning their two carts had slowly rattled out of town, going north and west to Ferraut again with a full load of mountain khav. A light snow had been falling. Behind them the city was in a state of massive ferment and turmoil because of the unknown dark-haired girl from the distrada who had killed herself. After that incident Devin had found it increasingly hard to be sharp or petty with Catriana. Most of the time. She did continue to indulge herself in the custom of deciding that he was invisible every once in a while. It had become difficult for him to convince himself that they had actually made love together; that he had really felt her mouth soft on his, or her hands in his hair as she gathered him into her. They never spoke of it, of course. He didnt avoid her, but he didnt seek her out: her moods swung too unpredictably, he never knew what response hed get. A newly patient man, he let her come to ride a cart or sit before a tavern fire with him when she wanted to. She did, sometimes. In Ferraut town that winter for the third time, after the leap in Tregea, they had all been wonderfully fed by Ingonida—still in raptures over the bed theyd brought her. Taccios wife continued to display a particularly solicitous affection for the Duke in his dark disguise—a detail which Alessan took some pleasure in teasing Sandre about when they were alone. In the meantime, the rotund, red-faced Taccio copiously wined them all. There had been another mail packet waiting from Rovigo in As-tibar. Which, when opened, proved to contain two letters this time, one of which gave off—even after its time in transit—an extraordinary effusion of scent. Alessan, his eyebrows elaborately arched, presented this pale-blue emanation to Devin with infinite suggestiveness. Ingonida crowed and clasped her hands together in a gesture doubtless meant to signify romantic rapture. Taccio, beaming, poured Devin another drink. The perfume, unmistakably, was Selvenas. Devins expression, as he took cautious possession of the envelope, must have been revealing because he heard Catriana giggle suddenly. He was careful not to look at her. Selvenas missive was a single headlong sentence—much like the girl herself. She did, however, make one vivid suggestion that induced him to decline when the others asked innocently if they might peruse his communication. In fact, though, Devin was forced to admit that his interest was rather more caught by the five neat lines Alais had attached to her fathers letter. In a small, businesslike hand she simply reported that shed found and copied another variant of the "Lament for Adaon" at one of the gods temples in Astibar and that she looked forward to sharing it with all of them when they next came east. She signed it with her initial only. In the body of the letter Rovigo reported that Astibar was very quiet since the twelve poets had been executed among the families of the conspirators in the Grand Square. That the price of grain was still going up, that he could usefully receive as much green Senzian wine as they could obtain at current prices, that Alberico was widely expected to announce, very soon, a beneficiary among his commanders for the greater part of the confiscated Nievolene lands, and that his best information was that Senzian linens were still underpriced in Astibar but might be due to rise. It was the news about the Nievolene lands that triggered the next stage of spark-to-spark discussion between Alessan and the Duke. And those sparks had led to the blaze. The five of them did a fast run along the well-maintained highway north to Senzio with more of the religious artifacts. They bought green wine with their profit on the statuettes, bargained successfully for a quantity of linens—Baerd, somewhat surprisingly had emerged as their best negotiator in such matters— and doubled quickly back to Taccio, paying the huge new duties at both the provincial border forts and the city-walls. There had been another letter waiting. Among the various masking pieces of business news, Rovigo reported that an announcement on the Nievolene lands was expected by the end of the week. His source was reliable, he added. The letter had been written five days before. That night Alessan, Baerd, and Devin had borrowed a third horse from Taccio—who was deeply happy to be told nothing on theif intentions—and had set out on the long ride to the Astibar border and then across to a gully by the road that led to the Nievolene gates. They were back seven days later with a new cart and a load of unspun country wool for Taccio to sell. Word of the fire had preceded them. Word of the fire was everywhere, Sandre reported. There had already been a number of tavern brawls in Ferraut town between men of the First and Second Companies. They left the new cart with Taccio and departed, heading slowly back towards Tregea. They didnt need three carts. They were partners in a modest commercial venture. They made what slight profit they could, given the taxes and duties that trammeled them. They talked about those taxes and duties a great deal, often in public. Sometimes more frankly than their listeners were accustomed to hearing. Alessan quarreled with the sardonic Khardhu warrior in a dozen different inns and taverns on the road, and hired him a dozen different times. Sometimes Devin played a role, sometimes Baerd did. They were careful not to repeat the performance anywhere. Catriana kept a precise log of where they had been and what they had said and done there. Devin had assured her they could rely on his memory, but she kept her notes nonetheless. In public the Duke now called himself "Tomaz." "Sandre" was an uncommon-enough name in the Palm, and for a mercenary from Khardhun it would be sufficiently odd to be a risk. Devin remembered growing thoughtful when the Duke had told them his new name back in the fall. Hed wondered what it was like to have had to kill his son. Even to outlive his sons. To know that the bodies of everyone even distantly related to himself were being spreadeagled alive on the death-wheels of Barbadior. He tried to imagine how all of that would feel. Life, the processes of living and what it did to you, seemed to Devin to grow more painfully complex all through that fall and winter. Often he thought of Marra, arbitrarily cut off on the way to her maturity, to whatever she had been about to become. He missed her with a dull ache that