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As it turned out, after the meal was over he and Catriana sang for better than an hour to Alessan’s pipes. Part of the way through, as they began one of the rousing old Certandan highland ballads, Rovigo left briefly and returned with a linked pair of Senzian drums. Shyly at first, very softly, he joined in on the refrain, proving as competent at that as at everything else Devin had seen him do. Catriana favoured him with a particularly dazzling smile. Rovigo needed no further encouragement to stay with them on the next song, and the next.
No man, Devin found himself thinking, should need more encouragement to do anything in the world than that look from those blue eyes. Not that Catriana had ever favoured him with anything remotely resembling such a glance. He found himself feeling somewhat confused all of a sudden.
Someone—Alais evidently—had filled his glass a third time. He drank a little more quickly than was good for him, given the legendary potency of blue wine, and then he led the other three into the next number: the last one for the two younger girls, Alix ruled, over protests.
He couldn’t sing of Tigana, and he was certainly not about to sing of passion or love, so he began the very old song of Eanna’s making the stars and committing the name of every single one of them to her memory, so that nothing might ever be lost or forgotten in the deeps of space or time.
It was the closest he could come to what the night had meant to him, to why, in the end, he had made the choice he had.
As he began it, he received a look from Alessan, thoughtful and knowing, and a quick, enigmatic glance from Catriana as they joined with him. Rovigo’s drums fell silent this time as the merchant listened. Devin saw Alais, her black hair backlit by the fire, watching him with grave concentration. He sang one whole verse directly to her, then, in fidelity to the song, he sent his vision inward to where his purest music was always found, and he looked at no one at all as he sang to Eanna herself, a hymn to names and the naming of things.
Somewhere, part of the way through, he had a bright image in his mind of a blue-white star named Micaela aloft in a black night, and he let the keenness of that carry him, high and soaring, up towards Catriana’s harmony and then back down softly to an end.
IN THE QUIET of the mood so shaped, Selvena and the two younger girls went to bed with surprising tranquillity. A few moments later AIix rose as well, and so, to Devin’s disappointment, did Alais.
In the doorway she turned and looked at Catriana. ‘You must be very tired,’ Rovigo’s daughter said. ‘If you like I can show you your room now. I hope you don’t mind sharing with me. Selvena usually does, but she’s in with the girls tonight.’
Devin expected Catriana to demur, or worse, at this fairly transparent separation of the women and the men. She surprised him again though, hesitating only a second before rising. ‘I am tired, and I don’t mind sharing at all,’ she said. ‘It will remind me of home.’
Devin, who had been smiling at the irony of the situation, suddenly found the expression less appropriate than he’d thought. Catriana had seen him grinning though; he wished, abruptly, that she hadn’t. She was sure to misunderstand. It occurred to him, with a genuine sense of unreality, that they had made love together that morning.
For some time after the women had gone the three men sat in silence, each lost in his own thoughts. Rovigo rose at length and refilled their glasses with the last of the wine. He put another log on the fire and watched until it caught. With a sigh he sank back into his chair. Toying with his glass he looked from one to the other of his guests.
It was Alessan who broke the silence though. ‘Devin’s a friend,’ he said quietly. ‘We can talk, Rovigo. Though I fear he’s about to be extremely angry with both of us.’
Devin sat up abruptly and put aside his glass. Rovigo, a wry expression playing about his lips, glanced briefly over at him, and then returned Alessan’s gaze tranquilly.
‘I wondered,’ he said. ‘Though I suspected he might be with us now, given the circumstances.’ Alessan was smiling too. They both turned to Devin.
Who felt himself going red. His brain raced frantically back over the events of the day before. He glared at Rovigo. ‘You didn’t find me in The Bird by accident. Alessan sent you. You had him follow me, didn’t you?’ he accused, turning to the Prince.
The two men exchanged another glance before Alessan replied.
‘I did,’ he admitted. ‘I had a certain suspicion that there would be funeral rites for Sandre d’Astibar coming up and that we might be asked to audition. I couldn’t afford to lose track of you, Devin.’
‘I’m afraid I was behind you most of the way down the Street of the Temples yesterday,’ Rovigo added. He had the grace to look embarrassed, Devin noted.
He was still furious though, and very confused. ‘You lied about The Bird then, all that talk about going there whenever you came back from a journey.’
‘No, that part was true,’ Rovigo said. ‘Everything I said was true, Devin. Once you were forced down to the waterfront you happened to end up in a place I know very well.’
‘And Catriana?’ Devin pursued angrily. ‘What about her? How did she—’
‘I paid a boy to run a message back to your inn when I saw that old Goro was letting you stay inside The Bird. Devin, don’t be angry. There was a purpose to all of this.’
‘There was,’ Alessan echoed. ‘You should understand some of it by now. The whole reason Catriana and I were in Astibar with Menico’s troupe was because of what I expected to see happen with Sandre’s death.’
‘Wait a minute!’ Devin exclaimed. ‘Expected? How did you know he was going to die?’
‘Rovigo told me,’ Alessan said simply. He let a small silence register. ‘He has been my contact in Astibar for nine years now. I formed the same impression of him back then that you did yesterday, and about as quickly.’
Devin, his mind reeling, looked over at the merchant, the casual friend he’d made the day before. Who turned out to be not so casual at all. Rovigo put down his glass.
‘I feel the same way about Tyrants that you do,’ he said quietly. ‘Alberico here or Brandin of Ygrath ruling in Chiara and Corte and Asoli, and in that province Alessan comes from whose name I cannot hear or remember, hard as I might try.’
Devin swallowed. ‘And Duke Sandre?’ he asked. ‘How did you know—?’
‘I spied on them,’ Rovigo said calmly. ‘It wasn’t hard. I used to monitor Tomasso’s comings and goings. They were wholly focused on Alberico; I was their neighbour here in the distrada, it was easy enough to slip onto their land. I learned of Tomasso’s deception years ago, and— though I won’t say it is a thing I am proud of—last year I was outside their windows at the estate and at the lodge on many different nights while they shaped the details of Sandre’s death.’
Devin looked quickly over at Alessan. He opened his mouth to say something, then, without speaking, he closed it.
Alessan nodded. ‘Thank you,’ he said. He turned to Rovigo. ‘There are one or two things here, as there have been before, that you are better off not knowing, for your own safety and your family’s. I think you know by now it isn’t a matter of trust, or any such thing.’
‘After nine years I think I do know that,’ Rovigo murmured. ‘What should I know about what happened tonight?’
‘Alberico arrived just after I joined Tomasso and the vigil-keepers in the lodge. Baerd and Catriana warned us and I had time to hide—with Devin, who had made his way to the cabin on his own.’
‘On his own? How?’ Rovigo asked sharply.
Devin lifted his head. ‘I have my own resources,’ he said with dignity. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alessan grin, and he suddenly felt ridiculous. Sheepishly he added, ‘I overheard the Sandreni talking upstairs between the two sessions of the mourning rites.’
Rovigo looked as if he had another question or three, but, with a glance at Alessan, he held them in. Devin was grateful.
Alessan said, ‘When we went back to the cabin afterwards we found the vigil-keepers dead. Tomasso was taken. Baerd has remained behind to take care of a number of things by the cabin tonight. He will burn it later.’
‘We passed the Barbadians as we left the city,’ Rovigo said quietly, absorbing this. ‘I saw Tomasso bar Sandre with them. I feared for you, Alessan.’
‘With some cause,’ Alessan said drily. ‘There was an informer there. The boy, Herado, Gianno’s son, was in the service of Alberico.’
Rovigo’s face registered shock. ‘Family? Morian damn him to darkness for that!’ he rasped harshly. ‘How could he do such a thing?’
Alessan gave his small characteristic shrug. ‘A great deal has broken down since the Tyrants came, would you not say?’
There was a silence as Rovigo fought to master his shock and rage. Devin coughed nervously and broke it: ‘Your own family,’ he asked. ‘Do they—’
‘They know nothing of this,’ the merchant said, regaining his calm. ‘Neither Alix nor any of the girls had ever seen Alessan or Catriana before tonight. I met Alessan and Baerd in Tregea town nine years ago and we discovered in the course of a long night that we had certain dreams and certain enemies in common. They told me something of what their purposes were, and I told them I was willing to assist in those pursuits as best I could without unduly endangering my wife or daughters. I have tried to do that. I will continue to try. It is my hope to live long enough to be able to hear the oath Alessan offers when he drinks blue wine.’
He spoke the last words quietly but with obvious passion. Devin looked at the Prince, remembering the inaudible words he had murmured under his breath before he drank.
Alessan gazed steadily at Rovigo. ‘There is one other thing you should know: Devin is one of us in more than the obvious way. I learned that by accident yesterday afternoon. He too was born in my own province before it fell. Which is why he is here.’
Rovigo said nothing.
‘What is the oath?’ Devin asked. And then, more diffidently, ‘Is it something that I should know?’
‘Not as anything that matters in the scheme of things. I only spoke a prayer of my own.’ Alessan’s voice was careful and very clear. ‘I always do. I said: Tigana, let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul.’
Devin closed his eyes. The words and the voice. No one spoke. Devin opened his eyes and looked at Rovigo.
Whose brow was knotted in fierce, angry consternation. ‘My friend, Devin should understand this,’ Alessan said to him gently. ‘It is a part of the legacy he has taken on. What did you hear me say?’
Rovigo gestured with helpless frustration. ‘The same thing I heard the first time this happened. That night nine years ago, when we switched to blue wine. I heard you ask that the memory of something be a blade in you. In your soul. But I didn’t hear . . . I’ve lost the beginning again. The something.’
‘Tigana,’ Alessan said again. Tenderly, clear as chiming crystal.
But Devin saw Rovigo’s expression grow even more baffled and dismayed. The merchant reached for his glass and drained it. ‘Will you . . . one more time?’
‘Tigana,’ Devin said before Alessan could speak. To make this legacy, this grief at the heart of things, more truly his own, as properly it was his own. For the land was his or it had been, and its name was part of his own, and they were both lost. Taken away.
‘Let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul,’ he said, his voice faltering at the end though he tried hard to keep it as steady as Alessan’s had been.
Wondering, disoriented, visibly distressed, Rovigo shook his head.
‘And Brandin’s magic is behind this?’ he asked.
‘It is,’ Alessan said flatly.
After a moment Rovigo sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘I am sorry,’ he said softly. ‘Forgive me, both of you. I should not have asked. I have opened a wound.’
‘I was the one who asked,’ Devin said quickly.
‘The wound is always open,’ said Alessan, a moment later.
There was an extraordinary compassion in Rovigo’s face. It was difficult to realize that this was the same man who had been jesting about Senzian rustics as husbands for his daughters. The merchant rose abruptly and became busy tending to the fire again, though the blaze was doing perfectly well. While he did so Devin looked at Alessan. The other man met his gaze. They said nothing though. Alessan’s eyebrows lifted a little, and he gave the small shrug Devin had come to know.
‘What do we do now, then?’ asked Rovigo d’Astibar, returning to stand beside his chair. His colour was high, perhaps from the fire. ‘I am as disturbed by this as I was when we first met. I do not like magic. Especially this kind of magic. It remains a matter of some . . . significance to me to be able to hear one day what I was just debarred from hearing.’
Devin felt a rush of excitement run through him again: the other element to his feelings this evening. His pique at having been deceived in The Bird was entirely gone. These two, and Baerd and the Duke, were men to be reckoned with, in every possible way, and they were shaping plans that might change the map of the Palm, of the whole world. And he was here with them, he was one of them, chasing a dream of freedom. He took a long drink of his blue wine.
Alessan’s expression was troubled though. He looked, suddenly, as if he were burdened with a new and difficult weight. He leaned slowly back in his chair, his hand going through the tangle of his hair as he looked at Rovigo in silence for a long time.
Turning from one man to the other, Devin felt abruptly lost again, his excitement fading almost as quickly as it had come.
‘Rovigo, have we not involved you enough already?’ Alessan asked at length. ‘I must admit this has become harder for me now that I have met your wife and daughters. This coming year may see a change in things, and I cannot even begin to tell you how much more danger. Four men died in that cabin tonight, and I think you know as well as I do how many will be death-wheeled in Astibar in the weeks to come. It has been one thing for you to keep an ear open here and on your travels, to quietly monitor Alberico’s doings and Sandre’s, for you and Baerd and I to meet every so often and touch palms and talk, friend to friend. But the shape of the tale is changing now, and I greatly fear to put you in danger.’
Rovigo nodded. ‘I thought you might say something like that. I am grateful for your concern. But, Alessan, I made up my mind on this a long time ago. I . . . would not expect that freedom could be found or won without a price paid. You said three days ago that the coming spring might mark a turning-point for all of us. If there are ways that I can help in the days to come you must tell me.’ He hesitated, then: ‘One of the reasons I love my wife is that Alix would echo this were she with us and did she know.’
Alessan’s expression was still troubled. ‘But she isn’t with us and she doesn’t know,’ he said. ‘There have been reasons for that, and there will be more of them after tonight. And your girls? How can I ask you to endanger them?’
‘How can you decide for me, or them?’ Rovigo replied softly, but without hesitation. ‘Where is our choice, our freedom, if you do that? I would obviously prefer not to do anything that will put them into actual danger, and I cannot afford to suspend my business entirely. But within these confines, is there no aid I can offer that will make a difference?’
Finally understanding the source of Alessan’s doubts, Devin kept grimly silent. This was something to which he had attached no weight at all, while Alessan had been wrestling with it all along. He felt chastened and sobered, and afraid now though not for himself.
There will be people put at risk by everything we do, the Prince had said in the forest, speaking of Menico. And now Devin was beginning to understand, painfully, the reality of that.
He didn’t want these people hurt. In any way at all. His excitement quite gone, Devin had driven home for him, for the first time, this one among the many ancillary sorrows that lay on the road he seemed to have found. He was brought face to face with the distance that road imposed between them and, it now seemed, almost everyone they might meet. Even friends. Even people who might share a part or all of their dream. He thought of Catriana in the palace again, and he understood her even more now than he had an hour ago.
Watching, letting the growth of wisdom guide him into silence, Devin focused on Alessan’s momentarily unguarded face and he saw him come hard to his decision. He watched as the Prince took a deep, slow breath and so shouldered another burden that was the price of his blood.
Alessan smiled, an odd, rueful smile. ‘Actually, there is,’ he said to Rovigo. ‘There is something you can do now that will help.’ He hesitated, then, unexpectedly, the smile deepened and it reached his eyes. ‘Had you ever given any thought,’ he said in an elaborately casual voice, ‘to taking on some business partners?’
For just a moment Rovigo seemed nonplussed, then a quick, answering smile of understanding broadened across his face. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘You need access to some places.’
Alessan nodded. ‘That, and there are more of us now, as well. Devin is with us, and there may be others before spring. Things will be different from the years when it was only Baerd and I. I have been giving thought to this since Catriana joined us.’
His voice quickened, grew crisper. Devin remembered this tone from the cabin. This was the man he’d first seen there. Alessan said, ‘In business together you and I will have a more legitimate means of exchanging information and I’m going to need information regularly this winter. As partners we have reason to be writing each other about any affairs that touch on trade. And of course all affairs touch on trade.’
‘Indeed they do,’ said Rovigo, his eyes intent on Alessan’s face.
‘We can communicate directly if you have resources for that, or through Taccio in Ferraut.’ He glanced over at Devin. ‘I know Taccio, by the way, that wasn’t a coincidence either. I assume you’d figured that out?’ Devin hadn’t even thought about it actually, but before he could speak Alessan had turned back to Rovigo. ‘I assume you have a courier service you can trust?’ Rovigo nodded.
Alessan said, ‘You see, the newest problem is that although we could still travel as musicians, after this morning’s performance we’d be notorious wherever we went. Had I thought about it in time I’d have botched the music a little, or told Devin to be a little less impressive.’
‘No you wouldn’t have,’ Devin said quietly. ‘Whatever other things you would have done, ruining the music isn’t one of them.’
Alessan’s mouth quirked as he acknowledged the hit. Rovigo smiled.
‘Perhaps so,’ the Prince murmured. ‘It was special, wasn’t it?’ There was a brief silence. Rovigo got up and put one more log on the fire.
Alessan said, ‘It all makes sense. There are certain places and certain activities that would be awkward for us as performers. Especially well-known performers. As merchants, we would have a new access to such places.’
‘Certain islands, perhaps?’ Rovigo asked quietly, from by the fire.
‘Perhaps,’ Alessan agreed. ‘If it comes to that. Though there it may be a matter of five of one hand, five of the other: artists are welcome at Brandin’s court on Chiara. This gives us another option, though, and I like having options to work with. It has been necessary once or twice for a character I’ve assumed to disappear, or die.’ His voice was quiet, matter-of-fact. He took a sip of his wine.
After a moment he turned back to Rovigo. Who was now stroking his chin in a fine imitation of a shrewdly avaricious businessman.
‘Well,’ the merchant said in a greedy, wheedling voice, ‘you appear to have made a most . . . intriguing proposal, gentlemen. I do have to ask one or two preliminary questions. I’ve known Alessan for some time, but this particular issue has never come up before, you understand.’ His eyes narrowed with exaggerated cunning. ‘What, if anything, do you know about business?’
Alessan gave a sudden burst of laughter, then quickly grew serious again. ‘Have you any money to hand?’ he asked.
‘I’ve my ship just in,’ Rovigo replied. ‘Cash from two days’ transactions and easy credit based on profits over the next few weeks. Why?’
‘I would suggest buying a reasonable but not indiscreet amount of grain in the next forty-eight hours. Twenty-four hours, actually, if you can.’
Rovigo looked thoughtful. ‘I could do that,’ he said. ‘And my means are sufficiently limited that no purchase I made would be large enough to be indiscreet. I have a contact, too—the steward at the Nievolene farms by the Ferraut border.’
‘Not from Nievole,’ Alessan said quickly.
Another silence. Rovigo nodded his head slowly. ‘I see,’ he said, startling Devin again with his quickness. ‘You think we can expect some confiscations after the Festival?’
‘You can,’ Alessan said. ‘Among all the other even less pleasant things. Have you another source for buying up grain?’
‘I might.’ Rovigo looked from Alessan to Devin and back again. ‘Four partners, then,’ he said crisply. ‘The three of you and Baerd. Is that right?’
Alessan nodded. ‘Almost right, but make it five partners. There is one other person who should be brought in to divide our share, if that is all right with you?’
‘Why should it not be?’ Rovigo shrugged. ‘That doesn’t touch my share at all. Will I meet this person?’
