All his days Duke Sandre had occasioned talk and speculation through the whole of the peninsula men called the Palm—and there was nothing to alter that fact at the time of his dying, for all that Alberico of Barbadior had come with an army from that Empire overseas and exiled Sandre into the distrada eighteen years before. When power is gone the memory of power lingers.
Perhaps because of this, and certainly because he tended to be cautious and circumspect in all his ways, Alberico, who held four of the nine provinces in an iron grip and was vying with Brandin of Ygrath for the ninth, acted with a precise regard for protocol.
By noon of the day the Duke died, a messenger from Alberico was seen to have ridden out by the eastern gate of the city. A messenger bearing the blue-silver banner of mourning and carrying, no one doubted, carefully chosen words of condolence to Sandre’s children and grandchildren now gathered at their broad estate seven miles beyond the walls.
In The Paelion, the khav room where the wittier sort were gathering that season, it was cynically observed that the Tyrant would have been more likely to send a company of his own Barbadian mercenaries—not just a single message-bearer—were the living Sandreni not such a feckless lot. Before the appreciative, eye-to-who-might-be-listening ripple of amusement at that had quite died away, one itinerant musician—there were scores of them in Astibar that week—had offered to wager all he might earn in the three days to come, that from the island of Chiara would arrive condolences in verse before the Festival was over.
‘Too rich an opportunity,’ the rash newcomer explained, cradling a steaming mug of khav laced with one of the dozen or so liqueurs that lined the shelves behind the bar of The Paelion. ‘Brandin will be incapable of letting slip a chance like this to remind Alberico—and the rest of us—that though the two of them have divided our peninsula the share of art and learning is quite tilted west towards Chiara. Mark my words—and wager who will—we’ll have a knottily rhymed verse from stout Doarde or some silly acrostic thing of Camena’s to puzzle out, with “Sandre” spelled six ways and backwards, before the music stops in Astibar three days from now.’
There was laughter, though again it was guarded, even on the eve of the Festival, when a long tradition that Alberico of Barbadior had circumspectly indulged allowed more licence than elsewhere in the year. A few men with heads for figures did some rapid calculations of sailing-time and the chances of the autumn seas north of Senzio province and down through the Archipelago, and the musician found his wager quickly covered and recorded on the slate on the wall of The Paelion that existed for just such a purpose in a city prone to gambling.
But shortly after that all wagers and mocking chatter were forgotten. Someone in a steep cap with a curled feather flung open the doors of the khav room, shouted for attention, and when he had it, reported that the Tyrant’s messenger had just been seen returning through the same eastern gate from which he had so lately sallied forth. That the messenger was riding at an appreciably greater speed than hitherto, and that, not three miles to his rear was the funerary procession of Duke Sandre d’Astibar being brought by his last request to lie a night and a day in state in the city he once had ruled.
In The Paelion the reaction was immediate and predictable: men began shouting fiercely to be heard over the din they themselves were causing. Noise and politics and the anticipated pleasures of the Festival made for a thirsty afternoon. So brisk was his trade that the excitable proprietor of The Paelion began inadvertently serving full measures of liqueur in the laced khavs being ordered in profusion. His wife, of more phlegmatic disposition, continued to short-measure all her patrons with benevolent lack of favouritism.
‘They’ll be turned back!’ young Adreano the poet cried, decisively banging down his mug and sloshing hot khav over the dark oak table of The Paelion’s largest booth. ‘Alberico will never allow it!’ There were growls of assent from his friends and the hangers-on who always clustered about this particular table.
Adreano stole a glance at the travelling musician who’d made the brash wager on Brandin of Ygrath and his court poets on Chiara. The fellow, looking highly amused, his eyebrows quizzically arched, leaned back comfortably in the chair he had brazenly pulled up to the booth some time ago. Adreano felt seriously offended by the man, and didn’t know whether his umbrage had been more aroused by the musician’s so-casual assertion of Chiara’s pre-eminence in culture, or by his flippant dismissal of the great Camena di Chiara whom Adreano had been assiduously imitating for the past half-year: both in the fashion of his verses and the wearing of a three-layered cloak by day and night.
Adreano was intelligent enough to be aware that there might be a contradiction inherent in these twinned sources of ire, but he was also young enough and had drunk a more than sufficient quantity of khav laced with Senzian brandy, for that awareness to remain well below the level of his conscious thoughts.
Which remained focused on this presumptuous rustic. The man had evidently journeyed into the city to saw or pluck for three days at some country instrument or other in exchange for a handful of astins to squander at the Festival. How did such a fellow dare sail into the most fashionable khav room in the Eastern Palm and thump his rural behind down onto a chair at the most coveted table in that room? Adreano still carried painfully vivid memories of the long month it had taken him—even after his first verses had appeared in print—to circle warily closer, flinching inwardly at apprehended rebuffs, before he became a member of the select and well-known circle that had a claim upon this booth.
He found himself actually hoping that the musician would presume to contradict his opinion: he had a choice couplet already prepared, about rabble of the road spewing views on their betters in the company of their betters.
As if on cue to that thought, the fellow slumped even more comfortably back in his chair, stroked a prematurely silvered temple with a long finger and said, directly to Adreano, ‘This seems to be my afternoon for wagers. I’ll risk everything I’m about to win on the other matter that Alberico is too cautious to ruffle the mood of the Festival over this. There are too many people in Astibar right now and spirits are running too high—even with the half-measured drinks they serve in here to people who should know better.’
He grinned, to take some of the sting from the last words. ‘Far better for the Tyrant to be gracious,’ he went on. ‘To lay his old enemy ceremoniously to rest once and for all, and then offer thanks to whatever gods his Emperor overseas is ordering the Barbadians to worship these days. Thanks and offerings, for he can be certain that the geldings Sandre’s left behind will be pleasingly swift to abandon the unfashionable pursuit of freedom that Sandre stood for in ungelded Astibar.’
By the end of his speech he was not smiling, nor did the wide-set grey eyes look away from Adreano’s own.
And here, for the first time, were truly dangerous words. Softly spoken, but they had been heard by everyone in the booth, and suddenly their corner of The Paelion became an unnaturally quiet space amid the unchecked din everywhere else in the room. Adreano’s derisive couplet, so swiftly composed, now seemed trivial and inappropriate in his own ears. He said nothing, his heart beating curiously fast. With some effort he kept his gaze on the musician.
Who added, the crooked smile returning, ‘Do we have a wager, friend?’
Parrying for time while he rapidly began calculating how many astins he could lay palms on by cornering certain friends, Adreano said, ‘Would you care to enlighten us as to why a farmer from the distrada is so free with his money to come and with his views on matters such as this?’
The other’s smile widened, showing even white teeth. ‘I’m no farmer,’ he protested genially, ‘nor from your distrada either. I’m a shepherd from up in the south Tregea mountains and I’ll tell you a thing.’ The grey eyes swung round, amused, to include the entire booth. ‘A flock of sheep will teach you more about men than some of us would like to think, and goats … well, goats will do better than the priests of Morian to
make you a philosopher, especially if you’re out on a mountain in rain chasing after them with thunder and night coming on together.’
There was genuine laughter around the booth, abetted somewhat by the release of tension. Adreano tried unsuccessfully to keep his own expression sternly repressive.
‘Have we a wager?’ the shepherd asked one more time, his manner friendly and relaxed.
Adreano was saved the need to reply, and several of his friends were spared an amount of grief and lost astins by the arrival, even more precipitous than that of the feather-hatted tale-bearer, of Nerone the painter.
‘Alberico’s given permission!’ he trumpeted over the roar in The Paelion. ‘He’s just decreed that Sandre’s exile ended when he died. The Duke’s to lie in state tomorrow morning at the old Sandreni Palace and have a full-honours funeral with all nine of the rites! Provided’—he paused dramatically—‘provided the clergy of the Triad are allowed in to do their part of it.’
The implications of all this were simply too large for Adreano to brood much upon his own loss of face—young, overly impetuous poets had that happen to them every second hour or so. But these—these were great events! His gaze, for some reason, returned to the shepherd. The man’s expression was mild and interested, but certainly not triumphant.
‘Ah well,’ the fellow said with a rueful shake of his head, ‘I suppose being right will have to compensate me for being poor—the story of my life, I fear.’
Adreano laughed. He clapped the portly, breathless Nerone on the back and shifted over to make room for the painter. ‘Eanna bless us both,’ he said to him. ‘You just saved yourself more astins than you have. I would have touched you to make a wager I would have just lost with your tidings.’
By way of reply Nerone picked up Adreano’s half-full khav mug and drained it at a pull. He looked around optimistically, but the others in the booth were guarding their drinks, knowing the painter’s habits very well. With a chuckle the dark-haired shepherd from Tregea proffered his own mug. Self-taught never to query largesse, Nerone quaffed it down. He did murmur a thank-you when the khav was drained.
Adreano noted the exchange, but his mind was racing down unfamiliar channels to an unexpected conclusion.
‘You have also,’ he said abruptly, addressing Nerone but speaking to the booth at large, ‘just reaffirmed how shrewd the Barbadian sorcerer ruling us is. Alberico has now succeeded, with one decree, in tightening his bonds with the clergy of the Triad. He’s placed a perfect condition upon the granting of the Duke’s last wish. Sandre’s heirs will have to agree—not that they’d ever not agree to something—and I can’t even begin to guess how many astins it’s going to cost them to assuage the priests and priestesses enough to get them into the Sandreni Palace tomorrow morning. Alberico will now be known as the man who brought the renegade Duke of Astibar back to the grace of the Triad at his death.’
He looked around the booth, excited by the force of his own reasoning. ‘By the blood of Adaon, it reminds me of the intrigues of the old days when everything was done with this much subtlety! Wheels within the wheels that guided the fate line of the whole peninsula.’
‘Well, now,’ said the Tregean, his expression turning grave, ‘that may be the cleverest insight we’ve had this noisy day. But tell me,’ he went on, as Adreano flushed with pleasure, ‘if what Alberico’s done has just reminded you—and others, I’ve no doubt, though not likely as swiftly—of the way of things in the days before he sailed here to conquer, and before Brandin took Chiara and the western provinces, then is it not possible’—his voice was low, for Adreano’s ears alone in the riot of the room—‘that he has been outplayed at this game after all? Outplayed by a dead man?’
Around them men were rising and settling their accounts in loud haste to be outside, where events of magnitude seemed to be unfolding so swiftly. The eastern gate was where everyone was going, to see the Sandreni bring their dead lord home after eighteen years. A quarter of an hour earlier, Adreano would have been on his feet with the others, sweeping on his triple cloak, racing to reach the gate in time for a good viewing post. Not now. His brain leapt to follow the Tregean’s voice down this new pathway, and understanding flashed in him like a rushlight in darkness.
‘You see it, don’t you?’ his new acquaintance said flatly. They were alone at the booth. Nerone had lingered to precipitously drain whatever khav had been left unfinished in the rush for the doors and had then followed the others out into the autumn sunshine and the breeze.
‘I think I do,’ Adreano said, working it out. ‘Sandre wins by losing.’
‘By losing a battle he never really cared about,’ the other amended, a keenness in his grey eyes. ‘I doubt the clergy ever mattered to him at all. They weren’t his enemy. However subtle Alberico may be, the fact is that he won this province and Tregea and Ferraut and Certando because of his army and his sorcery, and he holds the Eastern Palm only through those things. Sandre d’Astibar ruled this city and its province for twenty-five years through half a dozen rebellions and assassination attempts that I’ve heard of. He did it with only a handful of sometimes loyal troops, with his family, and with a guile that was legendary even then. What would you say to the suggestion that he refused to let the priests and priestesses into his death-room last night simply to induce Alberico to seize that as a face-saving condition today?’
Adreano didn’t know what he would say. What he did know was that he was feeling a zest, an excitement, that left him unsure whether what he wanted just then was a sword in his hand or a quill and ink to write down the words that were starting to tumble about inside him.
‘What do you think will happen?’ he asked, with a deference that would have astonished his friends.
‘I’m not sure,’ the other said frankly. ‘But I have a growing suspicion that the Festival of Vines this year may see the beginning of something none of us could have expected.’
He looked for a moment as if he would say more than that, but did not.
Instead he rose, clinking a jumble of coins onto the table to pay for his khav. ‘I must go. Rehearsal-time: I’m with a company I’ve never played with before. Last year’s plague caused havoc among the travelling musicians—that’s how I got my reprieve from the goats.’
He grinned, then glanced up at the wager board on the wall. ‘Tell your friends I’ll be here before sunset three days from now to settle the matter of Chiara’s poetic condolences. Farewell for now.’
‘Farewell,’ Adreano said reflexively, and watched as the other walked from the almost empty room.
The owner and his wife were moving about collecting mugs and glasses and wiping down the tables and benches. Adreano signalled for a last drink. A moment later, sipping his khav—unlaced this time, to clear his head—he realized that he’d forgotten to ask the musician his name.
C H A P T E R 2
Devin was having a bad day.
At nineteen he had almost completely reconciled himself to his lack of size and to the fair-skinned boyish face the Triad had given him to go with that. It had been a long time since he’d been in the habit of hanging by his feet from trees in the woods near the farm back home in Asoli, striving to stretch a little more height out of his frame.
The keenness of his memory had always been a source of pride and pleasure to him, but a number of the memories that came with it were not. He would have been quite happy to be able to forget the afternoon when the twins, returning home from hunting with a brace of grele, had caught him suspended from a tree upside down. Six years later it still rankled that his brothers, normally so reliably obtuse, had immediately grasped what he was trying to do.
‘We’ll help you, little one!’ Povar had cried joyfully, and before Devin could right himself and scramble away, Nico had his arms, Povar his feet, and his burly twin brothers were stretching him between them, cackling with great good humour all the while. Enjoying, among other things, the ambit of Devin’s precociously profane vocabulary.
/> Well, that had been the last time he actually tried to make himself taller. Very late that same night he’d sneaked into the snoring twins’ bedroom and carefully dumped a bucket of pig slop over each of them. Sprinting like Adaon on his mountain he’d been through the yard and over the farm gate almost before their roaring started.
He’d stayed away two nights, then returned to his father’s whipping. He’d expected to have to wash the sheets himself, but Povar had done that and both twins, stolidly good-natured, had already forgotten the incident.
Devin, cursed or blessed with a memory like Eanna of the Names, never did forget. The twins might be hard people to hold a grudge against—almost impossible, in fact—but that did nothing to lessen his loneliness on that farm in the lowlands. It was not long after that incident that Devin had left home, apprenticed as a singer to Menico di Ferraut whose company toured northern Asoli every second or third spring.
Devin hadn’t been back since, taking a week’s leave during the company’s northern swing three years ago, and again this past spring. It wasn’t that he’d been badly treated on the farm, it was just that he didn’t fit in, and all four of them knew it. Farming in Asoli was serious, sometimes grim work, battling to hold land and sanity against the constant encroachments of the sea and the hot, hazy, grey monotony of the days.
If his mother had lived it might have been different, but the farm in Asoli where Garin of Lower Corte had taken his three sons had been a dour, womanless place—acceptable perhaps for the twins, who had each other, and for the kind of man Garth had slowly become amid the almost featureless spaces of the flatlands, but no source of nurture or warm memories for a small, quick, imaginative youngest child, whose own gifts, whatever they might turn out to be, were not those of the land.