The Sun Sword - The Broken Crown Part 11

Alesso ignored the pointed comment. "The others, I would kill. My sisters. My younger brothers."

"Would you?"

Grim smile. "Let us not put it to the test, then. But I believe that I could, if the cause were right."

"But not Corano."

"No. And what does that leave me?"

"The rank you attain in the service of your kai-or the service of the Tyr, if you are so offered."

Alesso spit.

Had he been a different man, Sendari would have joined him.

"One weakness. Am I to be judged by history for one weakness? I think not. There are always

other options; there are always other opportunities.

"We are not beasts of burden, to be prized and sold. I am Alesso di'Marente. You are Sendari di'Marano. Take the test. There is nothing left to stop you. Take the test, make yourself known."

The older man stood suddenly, raising his face to the moon. "And I tell you, Sendari, that if we so dare, our children will not be of Marano or Marente."

Sendari was silent, swept away a moment by the breadth of the captain's vision.

"They will be di'Alesso and di'Sendari."

Diora's fingers stretched across the samisen's strings as if it were a loom and she the threads

from which whole cloth would be made.

Serra Teresa watched her at a discreet distance. Watched her mutely touching and pulling music from a samisen when she had no song of her own to offer. The Festival was not yet finished, and a child-even a child with Diora's will-could not so easily shake the compulsion that she had

placed upon her. Not easily, no. The risk was there. But although Diora frowned as if in pain, she made no song.

Serra Teresa felt a satisfaction and a profound self-loathing that mingled poorly; she made her

way back down the halls of the small residence that Ser Sendari occupied, thinking that she had seen deaths less wrong than this.

And then she set it aside. It was the day of the Festival Moon.

There was much to plan.

Kallandras received the message in the rooms that were reserved for visiting dignitaries. It was carried by a seraf who spoke so softly and so smoothly, his voice was almost without inflection. A sign, that.

As much a sign as the fact that the message was written, and tied in three places with strands of golden twine that might have been better used for silk. The Anna-garians did not trust the printed word for anything but unwieldy treaties; they rarely consigned messages to it, choosing instead those serafs, or cerdan, whom they trusted to be their mouthpieces. He stared at the scroll, wondering idly who had sent it, and why. There was a wrongness about it that was not immediately evident. And it should have been. It should have been.

Oh, it had been a mistake to come here. Annagar was not Essalieyan; it was seductive in its stark simplicity, its complex dance of death. For in the midst of this well-spring of life, in the center of the Tor Leonne, death made a man powerful-the death of his enemies. Kallandras understood death too well.

Sioban would have listened had he demanded she send another in his stead. He smiled softly, thinking of the bard-master. Perhaps she would have listened. Perhaps not.

I send you into the heart of pitched battle, and you sing your way out-there's no other way to explain just how much you can survive. There was, of course, a question in the words, but it was casual. She knew that he wouldn't answer it; he knew that she accepted the ignorance as gracefully as anyone who led could. And I don't give a d.a.m.n about explanations. I send you, you return; I send out another, and I worry at it for the months that he's gone. I'm old enough now not to need that worry if I don't absolutely have to carry it.

There's rumor that the troops are gathering along the border; there's rumor that the Tyr'agar needs a war. The Festival of the Moon is coming. Go to the Tor Leonne. Find out. Find out the truth, Kallandras, and sing it home.

At the ebb of the day-as the Annagarians reckoned it- the air was pleasantly cool; the chill of the night gave way quickly to the bite of the sun. In Essalieyan, it grew hot, but never so hot as in the southern clime; and it grew cool, but again, never so cold as in Raverra, the Terrean which held the Tor Leonne. The winds in Essalieyan-unless one were a seaman-were part of the weather, no more, no less. But in Annagar, the winds scoured a man's soul and swept the life from the land, some harbinger of either the Lord's or the Lady's displeasure. The wind blew the Lady's name across the stretch of sands and empty waste, reddening his cheeks.

Today, the air was deceptively still. The day was pleasant. There was no rain to mar it. But there was a storm on the horizon; by what was not said, what was not done, what was unsigned, Kallandras could feel it gathering in the air. War, he thought. But not now. Not for at least one more day.

The Festival of the Moon was a sacred thing to the Annagarians, a wild night, a hidden place in which one could say all that one felt without fear. And he thought the Annagarian court, with its strict rules of behavior, its silence, its manners, might destroy itself completely without that single evening of freedom. And he, bard-born, but trained by the brotherhood of the Lady, to wear any mask, and to mask any desire from all but his brothers themselves.

His brothers.

Throughout the history of the Dominion, even during the dark years in which the Lord of the Night sought to eradicate the Lady's following, the Festival of the Moon had been celebrated. Not so the Festival of the Sun-but then again, the Festival of the Sun had been forgone for the call to war, something the Lord was certain to appreciate. The Lady. The Lord.

The universe of the Annagarians was divided into these polarities, as if the G.o.ds that they worshiped were real. They weren't, of course; Kallandras, as a bard who studied legend lore, knew that the only true G.o.d to have held dominion in these lands was the Lord of Night- Allasakar.

He did not speak the name aloud. It had been seven years since he had-almost-gazed upon the face of that death, that G.o.d; he did not wish to recall it clearly, although he was not a man who turned away from the terrors the darkness held.

The priestly Radann listened to the whisper of the Lord of Day; listened hard enough that they occasionally heard things. Something. But the G.o.d-born children who became the guiding priests of the Essalieyanese Churches were butchered here at birth, for it was commonly understood that these golden-eyed children were changeling creatures of great evil.

And it was also commonly understood that the women who bore them were unclean, and fit only for that death as well.

Ah, Lady.

Kallandras' musing, followed appropriately by the directionless hum of strings, stopped abruptly.

He set Salla aside and quietly picked up the rolled scroll.

There, in a hand that he did not recognize, was a message that was short and pointed, yet for all that beautifully penned.

II you wish to discover the truth of the Tyr Leonne's intent, come alone to the Eastern Fount of Contemplation one hour past the setting of the sun.It was not signed.

CHAPTER THREE.

The night of the Festival Moon.

Lissa was pale.

She did not speak, and while the other wives supped and preened and prepared their masks and their saris for this single flight of freedom in the open streets of the Tor Leonne, she grew whiter still, until even the eager antic.i.p.ation of her cowives could not be sustained.

"What is it, Lissa, what's wrong?"

"I-I don't feel well." The girl smiled wanly at the oldest of Sendari's consorts, Alana en'Marano.

"The sickness, is it?" The matronly woman caught the young girl's hand and held it tightly. Her

face rippled in a frown of concern, and although it was smoothed away quickly, Lissa caught its import.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

"Nothing. Here." Alana poured sweet water into a goblet and held it under the young girl's lips.

"Drink this. Illia, stop flattening that pillow and be useful. Go at once and fetch the Serra. Tell her we've gone to the chambers."

"The Serra left orders that she was not to be disturbed."

"Wind take those orders, Illia, this is important." "But she-"

"Go and get the Serra. "

Illia did not demur again. Sendari, had he been here, would not have demurred-not when Alana used that tone of voice. The slender young woman vanished at once, racing down the open walkways as if she were a child.

Alana turned to Lissa again, all annoyance draining from her face. And that, of course, made things seem more frightening, for Alana was not known for the sweetness of her disposition. "Lissa, I think it best that you retire to the sleeping chamber. It is warm and crowded here."

"It's-it is hot."

"Come. Give me your arm, girl, and lean on me. You weigh nothing as it is; I can bear your weight a little while."

"Serra-Serra Teresa."

Unmasked and barely dressed, the Serra Teresa looked up, her expression completely neutral.

"Mia," she said softly. "Are you not yourself preparing for the Festival Night?" Her words were

cool, which was a bad sign; they could get colder still, which would be worse.

Illia knelt to the floor, pleasing in her fluidity and grace, and most intent in her humility. The serafs to either side of Serra Teresa backed away, bowing as well, but less deferentially than Illia did.

"Serra," she said, her tone much more even. "Forgive me for interrupting you. I did not think it wise-but Alana insisted."

"And Alana is now the Serra?"

"No, Serra."

"Good. I will speak with Alana myself. Later."

Illia knew a dismissal when she heard it, which was a very good thing. She flattened herself

against the cold floor again, and when she rose, she left without a word.

Serra Teresa's momentary anger faded at once, and she felt something akin to shame, which was distinctly unpleasant and completely uncalled for. Her orders, after all, had been quite clear. It was essential that, this eve of all Festival Nights, no one see the mask she chose, or the clothing she wore. No one, of course, save the serafs who served her alone.

Ah, the sun was down, had been down; the sticks burned low and short, taunting her with their time, their lack of time. She could apologize to Illia on the morrow, and to Alana-but she could not stay to sort out the difficulties of the harem this eve.

Not this eve. They were in place, and awaiting her, and the foreign bard would be waiting as well. She could not be late. Lifting her arms, she nodded at the seraf.

"Bind them," she said. "Bind them as tightly as you can." He was at work at once, as was his companion; they worked in the silence of her thoughts, her fear. She was not in the first blush of youth, nor would she be again; her body was full and not easily hidden beneath the trappings of the clothing that she had chosen. But she bore the pain, and the indignity, very well for a Serra.

How will you spend the Festival Night?