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Alessan seemed quite unruffled. ‘I’m sorry I kept you waiting then,’ he said. ‘It took me too long to riddle this through. Will you allow me to express my sorrow for what has happened?’ He paused. ‘And my respect for you, my lord Sandre.’
Devin’s jaw dropped open as if unhinged. He snapped it shut so hard he hurt his teeth; he hoped no one had seen. Events were moving far too fast for him.
‘I will accept the first,’ said the gaunt figure in front of them. ‘I do not deserve your respect though, nor that of anyone else. Once perhaps; not any more. You are speaking to an old vain fool—exactly as the Barbadian named me. A man who spent too many years alone, tangled in his own spun webs. You were right in everything you said before about carelessness. It has cost me three sons tonight. Within a month, less probably, the Sandreni will be no more.’
The voice was dry and dispassionate, objectively damning, devoid of self-pity. The tone of a judge in some dark hall of final adjudication.
‘What happened?’ Alessan asked quietly.
‘The boy was a traitor.’ Flat, uninflected, final.
‘Oh, my lord,’ Baerd exclaimed. ‘Family?’
‘My grandson. Gianno’s boy.’
‘Then his soul is cursed,’ Baerd said, quiet and fierce. ‘He is in Morian’s custody now, and she will know how to deal with him. May he be trammelled in darkness until the end of time.’
The old man seemed not to have even heard. ‘Taeri killed him,’ he murmured, wonderingly. ‘I had not thought he was brave enough, or so quick. Then he stabbed himself, to deny them the pleasure or whatever they might have learned of him. I had not thought he was so brave,’ he repeated absently.
Through the thick shadows Devin looked at the two bodies by the smaller fire. Uncle and nephew lay so close to each other they seemed almost intertwined on the far side of the coffin. The empty coffin.
‘You said you waited for us,’ Alessan murmured. ‘Will you tell me why?’
‘For the same reason you came back.’ Sandre moved for the first time, stiffly making his way to the larger fire. He seized a small log and threw it on the guttering flame. A shower of sparks flew up. He nursed it, poking with the iron until a tongue of flame licked free of the ash bed.
The Duke turned and now Devin could see his white hair and beard, and the bony hollows of his cheeks. His eyes were set deep in their sockets, but they gleamed with a cold defiance.
‘I am here,’ Sandre said, ‘and you are here because it goes on. It goes on whatever happens, whoever dies. While there is breath to be drawn and a heart with which to hate. My quest and your own. Until we die they go on.’
‘You were listening, then,’ said Alessan. ‘From in the coffin. You heard what I said?’
‘The drug had worn off by sundown. I was awake before we reached the lodge. I heard everything you said and a great deal of what you chose not to say,’ the Duke replied, straightening, a chilly hauteur in his voice. ‘I heard what you named yourself, and what you chose not to tell them. But I know who you are.’
He took a step towards Alessan. He raised a gnarled hand and pointed it straight at him.
‘I know exactly who you are, Alessan bar Valentin, Prince of Tigana!’
It was too much. Devin’s brain simply gave up trying to understand. Too many pieces of information were coming at him from too many different directions, contradicting each other ferociously. He felt dizzy, overwhelmed. He was in a room where only a little while ago he had stood among a number of men. Now four of them were dead, with a more brutal violence than he had ever thought to come upon. At the same time, the one man he’d known to be dead—the man whose mourning rites he had sung that very morning—was the only man of Astibar left alive in this lodge.
If he was of Astibar!
For if he was, how could he have just spoken the name of Tigana, given what Devin had just learned in the wood? How could he have known that Alessan was—and this, too, Devin fought to assimilate—a Prince? The son of that Valentin who had slain Stevan of Ygrath and so brought Brandin’s vengeance down upon them all.
Devin simply stopped trying to put it all together. He set himself to listen and look—to absorb as much as he could into the memory that had never failed him yet— and to let understanding come after, when he had time to think.
So resolved, he heard Alessan say, after a blank silence more than long enough to reveal the degree of his own surprise and wonder: ‘Now I understand. Finally I understand. My lord, I thought you always a giant among men. From the first time I saw you at my first Triad Games twenty-three years ago. You are even more than I took you for. How did you stay alive? How have you hidden it from the two of them all these years?’
‘Hidden what?’ It was Catriana, her voice so angry and bewildered it immediately made Devin feel better: he wasn’t the only one desperately treading water here.
‘He is a wizard,’ Baerd said flatly.
There was another silence. Then, ‘The wizards of the Palm are immune to spells not directed specifically at them,’ Alessan added. ‘This is true of all magic-users, wherever they come from, however they find access to their power. For this reason, among others, Brandin and Alberico have been hunting down and killing wizards since they came to this peninsula.’
‘And they have been succeeding because being a wizard has—alas!—nothing to do with wisdom or even simple common sense,’ Sandre d’Astibar said in a corrosive voice. He turned and jabbed viciously at the fire with the iron poker. The blaze caught fully this time and roared into red light.
‘I survived,’ said the Duke, ‘simply because no one knew. It involved nothing more complex than that. I used my power perhaps five times in all the years of my reign— and always cloaked under someone else’s magic. And I have done nothing with magic, not a flicker, since the sorcerers arrived. I didn’t even use it to feign my death. Their power is stronger than ours. Far stronger. It was clear from the time each of them came. Magic was never as much a part of the Palm as it was elsewhere. We knew this. All the wizards knew this. You would have thought they would apply their brains to that knowledge, would you not? What good is a finding spell, or a fledgling mental arrow if it leads one straight to a Barbadian death-wheel in the sun?’ There was an acid, mocking bitterness in the old Duke’s voice.
‘Or one of Brandin’s,’ Alessan murmured.
‘Or Brandin’s,’ Sandre echoed. ‘It is the one thing those two carrion birds have agreed upon—other than the dividing line running down the Palm—that theirs shall be the only magic in this land.’
‘And it is,’ said Alessan, ‘or so nearly so as to be the same thing. I have been searching for a wizard for a dozen years or more.’
‘Alessan!’ Baerd said quickly.
‘Why?’ the Duke asked in the same moment.
‘Alessan!’ Baerd repeated, more urgently.
The man Devin had just learned to be the Prince of Tigana looked over at his friend and shook his head. ‘Not this one, Baerd,’ he said cryptically. ‘Not Sandre d’Astibar.’
He turned back to the Duke and hesitated, choosing his words. Then, with an unmistakable pride, he said, ‘You will have heard the legend. It happens to be true. The line of the Princes of Tigana, all those in direct descent, can bind a wizard to them unto death.’
For the first time a gleam of curiosity, of an actual interest in something appeared in Sandre’s hooded eyes. ‘I do know that story. The only wizard who ever guessed what I was after I came into my own magic warned me once to be wary of the Princes of Tigana. He was an old man, and doddering by then. I remember laughing. You actually claim that what he said was true?’
‘It was. I am certain it still is. I have had no chance to test it though. It is our primal story: Tigana is the chosen province of Adaon of the Waves. The first of our Princes, Rahal, being born of the god by that Micaela whom we name as mortal mother of us all. And the line of the Princes has never been broken.’
Devin felt a complex stir of emotions working within himself. He didn’t even try to enumerate how many things were tangling themselves in his heart. Micaela. He listened and watched, and set himself to remember.
And he heard Sandre d’Astibar laugh.
‘I know that story too,’ the Duke said derisively. ‘That hoary, enfeebled excuse for Tiganese arrogance. Princes of Tigana! Not Dukes, oh no. Princes! Descended of the god!’ He thrust the poker towards Alessan. ‘You will stand here tonight, now, among the stinking reality of the Tyrants and of these dead men and the world of the Palm today and spew that old lie at me? You will do that?’
‘It is truth,’ said Alessan quietly, not moving. ‘It is why we are what we are. It would have been a slight to the god for his descendants to claim a lesser title. The gift of Adaon to his mortal son could not be immortality— that, Eanna and Morian forbade. But the god granted a binding power over the Palm’s own magic to his son, and to the sons and daughters of his son while a Prince or a Princess of Tigana lived in that direct line. If you doubt me and would put it to the test I will do as Baerd would have had me do and bind you with my hand upon your brow, my lord Duke. The old tale is not to be lightly dismissed, Sandre d’Astibar. If we are proud it is because we have reason to be.’
‘Not any more,’ the Duke said mockingly. ‘Not since Brandin came!’
Alessan’s face twisted. He opened his mouth and closed it.
‘How dare you!’ Catriana snapped. Bravely, Devin thought.
Prince and Duke ignored her, rigidly intent on each other. Sandre’s sardonic amusement gradually receded into the deep lines etched in his face. The bitterness remained, in eyes and stance and the pinched line of his mouth.
Alessan said, ‘I had not expected that from you. Under all the circumstances.’
‘You are in no position to have any idea what to expect from me,’ the Duke replied, very low. ‘Under all the circumstances.’
‘Shall we part company now then?’
For a long moment something lay balanced in the air between them, a process of weighing and resolution, complicated immeasurably by death and grief and rage and the stiff, reflexive pride of both men. Devin, responding with his nerve-endings to the tension, found that he was holding his breath.
‘I would prefer not,’ said Sandre d’Astibar finally. ‘Not like this,’ he added, as Devin drew breath again. ‘Will you accept an apology from one who is sunken as low as he has ever been?’
‘I will,’ said Alessan simply. ‘And I would seek your counsel before we must, indeed, part ways for a time. Your middle son was taken alive. He will name me and Devin both tomorrow morning if not tonight.’
‘Not tonight,’ the Duke said, almost absently. ‘Alberico apprehends no danger any more. He will also be quite seriously debilitated by what happened here. He will leave Tomasso until a time when he can enjoy what happens. When he is in a mood to . . . play.’
‘Tonight, tomorrow,’ said Baerd, his blunt voice jarring the mood. ‘It makes little difference. He will talk. We must be away before he does.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ Sandre murmured in the same strangely detached voice. He looked at the four dead men on the floor. ‘I wish I knew exactly what happened,’ he said. ‘Inside the coffin I could see nothing, but I can tell you that Alberico used a magic here tonight so strong it is still pulsating. And he used it to save his own life. Scalvaia did something, I don’t know what, but he came very near.’ He looked at Alessan. ‘Near to giving Brandin of Ygrath dominion over the whole peninsula.’
‘You heard that?’ Alessan said. ‘You agree with me?’
‘I think I always knew it to be true, and I know I succeeded in denying it within myself. I was so focused on my own enemy here in Astibar. I needed to hear it said, but once will be enough. Yes, I agree with you. They must be taken down together.’
Alessan nodded, and some of his own rigidly controlled tension seemed to ease away. He said, ‘There are those who still think otherwise. I value your agreement.’
He glanced over at Baerd, smiling a little wryly, then back to the Duke. ‘You mentioned Alberico’s use of magic as if it should have a meaning now for us. What meaning then? We are ignorant in these matters.’
‘No shame. If you aren’t a wizard you are meant to be ignorant.’ Sandre smiled thinly. ‘The meaning is straightforward though: there is such an overflow of magic spilling out from this room tonight that any paltry power of my own that I invoke will be completely screened. I think I can ensure that your names are not given to the torturers tomorrow.’
‘I see,’ said Alessan, nodding slowly. Devin did not see anything; he felt as if he were churning along in the turbulent wake of information. ‘You can take yourself through space? You can go in there and bring him out?’ Alessan’s eyes were bright.
Sandre was shaking his head though. He held up his left hand, all five fingers spread wide. ‘I never chopped two fingers in the wizard’s final binding to the Palm. My magic is profoundly limited. I can’t say I regret it—I would never have been Duke of Astibar had I done so, given the prejudices and the laws governing wizards here—but it constrains what I am able to do. I can go in there myself, yes, but I am not strong enough to bring someone else out. I can take him something though.’
‘I see,’ said Alessan again, but in a different voice. There was a silence. He pushed a hand through his disordered hair. ‘I am sorry,’ he said at length, softly.
The Duke’s face was expressionless. Above the white beard and the gaunt cheeks his eyes gave nothing away at all. Behind him the fire crackled, sparks snapping outward into the room.
‘I have a condition,’ Sandre said.
‘Which is?’
‘That you allow me to come with you. I am now a dead man. Given to Morian. Here in Astibar I can speak to no one, achieve nothing. If I am to preserve any purpose now to the botched deception of my dying I must go with you. Prince of Tigana, will you accept a feeble wizard in your entourage? A wizard come freely, not bound by some legend?’
For a long time Alessan was silent, looking at the other man, his hands quiet at his sides. Then, unexpectedly, he grinned. It was like a flash of light, a gleam of warmth cracking the ice in the room.
‘How attached are you,’ he asked, in a quite unexpected tone of voice, ‘to your beard and your white hair?’
A second later Devin heard a strange sound. It took him a moment to recognize that what he was hearing was the high, wheezing, genuine amusement of the Duke of Astibar.
‘Do with me what you will,’ Sandre said as his mirth subsided. ‘What will you do—tinge my locks red as the maid’s?’
Alessan shook his head. ‘I hope not. One of those manes is more than sufficient for a single company. I leave these matters to Baerd though. I leave a great many things to Baerd.’
‘Then I shall place myself in his hands,’ Sandre said. He bowed gravely to the yellow-haired man. Baerd, Devin saw, did not look entirely happy. Sandre saw it too.
‘I will not swear an oath,’ the Duke said to him. ‘I swore one vow when Alberico came, and it is the last vow I shall ever swear. I will say though that it shall be my endeavour for the rest of my days to ensure that you do not regret this. Will that content you?’
Slowly Baerd nodded. ‘It will.’
Listening, Devin had an intuitive sense that this, too, was an exchange that mattered, that neither man had spoken lightly, or less than the truth of his heart. He glanced over just then at Catriana and discovered that she had been watching him. She turned quickly away though, and did not look back.
Sandre said, ‘I think I had best set about doing what I have said I would. Because of the screening of Alberico’s magic I must go and return from this room, but I dare say you need not spend a night among the dead, however illustrious they are. Have you a camp in the woods? Shall I find you there?’
The idea of magic was unsettling to Devin still, but Sandre’s words had just given him an idea, his first really clear thought since they’d entered the lodge.
‘Are you sure you’ll be able to stop your son from talking?’ he asked diffidently.
‘Quite sure,’ Sandre replied briefly.
Devin’s brow knit. ‘Well then, it seems to me none of us is in immediate danger. Except for you, my lord. You must not be seen.’
‘Until Baerd’s done with him,’ Alessan interposed. ‘But go on.’
Devin turned to him. ‘I’d like to say farewell to Menico and try to think of a reason to give for leaving. I owe him a great deal. I don’t want him to hate me.’
Alessan looked thoughtful. ‘He will hate you a little, Devin, even though he isn’t that kind of man. What happened this morning is what a lifelong trouper like Menico dreams about. And no explanation you come up with is going to alter the fact that he needs you to make that dream a real thing now.’
Devin swallowed. He hated what he was hearing, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it. A season or two of the fees Menico had said he could now charge would have let the old campaigner buy the inn in Ferraut he’d talked about for so many years. The place where he’d always said he’d like to settle when the road grew too stern for his bones. Where he could serve ale and wine and offer a bed and a meal to old friends and new ones passing through on the long trails. Where he could hear and retell the gossip of the day and swap the old stories he loved. And where, on the cold winter nights, he could stake out a place by the fire and lead whoever happened to be there into and out of all the songs he knew.
Devin shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his breeches. He felt awkward and sad. ‘I just don’t like disappearing on him. All three of us at once. We’ve got concerts tomorrow, too.’
Alessan’s mouth quirked. ‘I do seem to recall that,’ he said. ‘Two of them.’
‘Three,’ said Catriana unexpectedly.
‘Three,’ Alessan agreed cheerfully. ‘And one the next day at the Woolguild Hall. I also have—it has just occurred to me—a substantial wager in The Paelion that I expect to win.’
Which drew an already predictable growl from Baerd. ‘Do you seriously think the Festival of Vines is going to blithely proceed after what has occurred tonight? You want to go make music in Astibar as if nothing has happened? Music? I’ve been down this road with you before, Alessan. I don’t like it.’
‘Actually, I’m quite certain the Festival will go on.’ It was Sandre. ‘Alberico is cautious almost before he is anything else. I think tonight will redouble that in him. He will allow the people their celebrations, let those from the distrada scatter and go home, then slam down hard immediately after. But only on the three families that were here, I suspect. It is, frankly, what I would do myself.’
‘Taxes?’ Alessan asked.
‘Perhaps. He raised them after the Canziano poisoning, but that was different. An actual assassination attempt in a public place. He didn’t have much choice. I think he’ll narrow it this time—there will be enough bodies for his wheels among the three families here.’
Devin found it unsettling how casually the Duke spoke of such things. This was his kin they were discussing. His oldest son, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins—all to be fodder for Barbadian killing-wheels. Devin wondered if he would ever grow as cynical as this. If what had begun tonight would harden him to that degree. He tried to think of his brothers on a death-wheel in Asoli and found his mind flinching away from the very image. Unobtrusively he made the warding sign against evil.
The truth was, he was upset just thinking about Menico, and that was merely a matter of costing the man money, nothing more. People moved from troupe to troupe all the time. Or left to start their own companies. Or retired from the road into a business that offered them more security. There would be performers who would be expecting him to go on his own after his success this morning. That should have been a helpful thought, but it wasn’t. Somehow Devin hated to make it appear as if they were right.
Something else occurred to him. ‘Won’t it look a bit odd, too, if we disappear right after the mourning rites? Right after Alberico’s unmasked a plot that was connected with them? We’re sort of linked to the Sandreni now in a way. Should we draw attention to ourselves like that? It isn’t as if our disappearance won’t be noticed.’
He said it, for some reason, to Baerd. And was rewarded a moment later with a brief, sober nod of acknowledgement.
‘Now that cloth I will buy,’ Baerd said. ‘That does make sense, though I’m sorry to say it.’
‘A good deal of sense,’ Sandre agreed. Devin fidgeted a little as he came under the scrutiny of those dark, sunken eyes. ‘The two of you’—the Duke gestured at Devin and Catriana—‘may yet redeem your generation for me.’
