The Sun Sword - The Broken Crown Part 34

General Alesso par di'Marente looked. "The night is clear," he said as the lamps along the lakefront began their bright glow.

Widan Sendari par de'Marano touched his long, fine beard. It was a habit of his, a gesture of contemplation and concentration. Or of nervousness. His face, placid and still as the lake's waters, showed no hint of which as he gazed at the profile of the most powerful man in the Dominion of Annagar. "Alesso," he said quietly.

"There is no turning back," the General replied. His eyes, like the night, were darkening, and if his hair showed the slow march of time, that time did not touch the angular lines of his face. "Baredan and Cormano are dead."

"You have proof?" The third man, silent until now, also turned his gaze upon Alesso di'Marano. Tyran Calevro kai di'Horaro clasped his hands loosely behind his back as he met the eyes of his ally. They were cold.

"What proof is needed?"

"They're Generals, not common cerdan. You cannot a.s.sume that they will trust any trap you've devised."

"They received an urgent summons-carried not by any common cerdan, but by the Tyran. They answered it." He paused and then turned once again to gaze across the lake. "Why would they not? The Tyran are the most honorable men in the Dominion. They know no treachery."

Tyran Calevro kai di'Horaro flushed an unflattering purple. "Alesso, I warn you-"

"Calevro." The Widan spoke. "General di'Marente has not been in error once since we ventured down this path. You do him a disservice to question him." His voice was the voice of the most respected of the Tyr'agar's Widan counselors, at once calm and commanding. "Come. We gather tonight to witness the beginning of a dynasty."

But the Second Captain of the oathguards was not so easily turned aside; his was the greatest crime, of all crimes committed here. He would not have it committed for no reason. "The army?" "The armies are in place," Alesso replied, without turning back. "The city will be ours, and the Terrean." Another light, caught in the shape of an eagle, flared to life above the pavilion upon which the Tyr'agar sat with his wife and his oldest son. "And after the Festival of the Sun, we will own the Dominion."

"If all goes according to plan. We do not own all five of theTyr'agnati."

Alesso was angered a moment. "They will come. What choice will they have? If they hear rumors of the Tyr'agar's death, so be it. More than that, they will not have. They will be on the road, with their courts and their finery."

"But the-"

"But what? It is the Festival of the Lord-they will come."

"And if they do not?"

"Calevro, you try my patience. This moment is ours. Savor it. The game is about to be won."

The Tyran fell silent, and when next a man spoke, it was Widan Sendari. "Alesso?"

"Ah, look. He gathers his daughters to him. How fitting." The General's smile was soft; in

another light, it might have seemed tender. "What concerns you, Widan?"

"My daughter."

"Serra Diora will be quite safe," the General replied. "As long as she does nothing at all to

interfere."

"That was not our plan-"

"It is necessity's plan," the General replied. "She is canny, the young Serra. And wise beyond the ways of women, as her father taught her to be." He turned away from the Tyr'agar's family, to face his allies for the last time that night. "But if she shows her loyalty to be to her husband's clan, she will die with the rest of them.

"She must, old friend," he added softly, reaching out unexpectedly to grip Widan Sendari's slightly bent shoulders.

Her father was silent. Serra Diora was known across the five Terreans as the Flower of the Dominion. And she was wise, but also cunning in the ways of women. Was she not as she was raised to be? She was the daughter of the most cunning man in the Dominion. Exquisite-even in a father's eyes-and dangerous. Ah, dangerous. "She is your daughter, Sendari. Trust her." He murmured her name so softly the samisen's strings carried it away from the ears of his allies. A mercy. From across the lake, the screaming began.

She was the most beautiful woman in the Dominion of Annagar. The poets all said so.

Her hair was the color of a night so dark and soft that a man could only dream of experiencing it. She was tiny and yet, once seen, she filled the whole of man's vision with her perfect grace and her lithe, supple movements. Her voice was the bell's voice, her hands were ivory made flesh; her nose and her lips and her chin were the subjects of countless poems. Even the bards of the North carried her name-and her fame-to the ears of undeserving, unhorsed barbarians.

She sat, her legs folded perfectly beneath her, her head slightly bent so that the tip of her chin might hover delicately above the folds of her blue silk sari. Gold adorned the line of her jaw, trailing like a liquid spill from her ears.

She was so perfectly composed one could almost miss the spray of blood that darkened her lap and speckled her bare upper arms. One might miss the slow, deliberate breaths, the clenched hands.

Eight men, wearing the uniform of the Tyran, held their swords a moment, staring openly upon a face that very few had seen. They were tense; the kill had not yet settled and they glanced from corner to corner, waiting for their companions to join them.

They made no move toward her, and she, no move to rise.

No move at all, save breath, and breathing, by their orders, she was allowed. It was difficult; to kill her, one risked the wrath of the Widan Sendari, but to disobey the General was likewise unthinkable. A poor choice for simple oathguards.

The harem of Ser Illara Valens kai di'Leonne was a wing unto itself, with rooms and fountains and courtyards to better display the women that the heir to the Dominion had chosen for his own use. There were places to hide here, places behind which a mother desperate to protect the life of her young child might find a moment's respite.

There were guards in the harem-but not any lowly cerdan, with eyes too round, or a mouth too apt to spill the secrets of the beauty of the women therein. No; the Tyr'agar had decreed-and who would have thought to argue-that the harem, with its women and its valuable children, was far too important to be trusted to common men. The guards he had offered his oldest son-the guards that had been accepted-had been oathguards. They held the t.i.tle of Tyran: the only men whom the Tyr trusted. Their life's work had been the safety of the women and children of Ser Illara.

Their night's work was almost done.

How long could the slaughter of unarmed women take? Screams and cries echoed throughout the rounded, acoustically exquisite harem. Sobbing, pleading. The Tyran did not take their time-but it was clear that they did not hesitate to indulge their baser urges before they continued with their work; who would be left to speak of it? And against whom was it an outrage? Ser Illara kai di'Leonne was dead. The Tyr'agar was dead. These women belonged only to the little families that they had been gathered from, year after year; families who had no voice and no power.

Serra Diora had been wife to Ser Illara; a woman of power. She folded her hands in her lap as she listened. Her face was grave and lovely and demure.

A child's scream, cut short almost as quickly as it began. Not hers. She had borne the heir no children in their short marriage.

Had she, she would be dead.

Heavy steps upon marble, upon silk. Cushions thrown and scattered. Cries of discovery, both victim's and victor's. Feet away from her straight back.

"Diora!"

Serra Diora looked the very statue of the Dominion's most beautiful woman. The child had been found. She closed her eyes as she heard the terrified fury of his mother's voice; the slight sc.r.a.pe of small dagger against sheath. The cry of denial.

Then, silence. The child himself made no cry.

"Tyran di'Barento." The man closest to the harem's wide, beautiful doors stood forward at the formal request of his man. He was young, tall, proud; his face was unscarred, and his hair a gleaming turn of Annagarian black.

Tyran di'Barento.

"Bring him."

The Tyran obeyed his commander; the body of the child was carried, like so much baggage, across the shining floor. Tyran di'Barento lifted the head that rested at such an odd angle, gazed at it. Nodded. "The last."

"The women?"

Di'Barento shrugged. "What is done, is done." But his eyes narrowed as his gaze came to rest upon the Flower of the Dominion. Dropping the corpse of the babe to one side, he bowed; the bow was low-and respectful.

"Serra Diora di'Marano, if you will allow it, we will provide you escort to your father's side."

Serra Diora di'Marano sat on the flat silk mats in her father's waiting chambers. From before her bent knees, oil scent carried on the breeze; the lamp had been placed there by the Tyran, that she not be left in the darkness. She knew Widan Sendari would be awake, but wondered, briefly, if Serra Fiona en'Marano had slept through the slaughter.

Diora had taken the time to change, donning a simple white sari and taking none of the jewelry that had been gifted her by Ser Illara. But there were rings on her fingers: three, each simple, none worthy of her station. No one sought to part her from them, nor would they have been easily surrendered-but even these she would give up with silent, perfect grace should the need arise. She knew how to wait. How to wait, when waiting was all she had. In time, the Widan came. He was girded not for war, but rather for the business by which he had become known throughout the Terreans. His shirt was fine, although night's hand bled it of the full richness of its color, its l.u.s.ter. He wore a cloak, caught in two places by the worked gold of the Sword of Knowledge; rubies glimmered along one edge, a warning to the foolish. On the third finger of his right hand, the sun in splendor; on the third finger of his left, the crescent moon. Symbols of his office, of his value to the Tyr. Only his footwear was unusual; boots made his tread heavy and unpleasing. As his toes crossed the circle of the lamp's reach, she saw the russet stains that had seeped into pale leather. These boots, he would not keep.

"Serra Diora," Widan Sendari said, bowing his head and shoulders in quiet respect. "1 am pleased to find you well."

"And I, you, Widan." Like a fan, her hands folded delicately as they lay, palms down, in her lap.

He stared down at her, from the vantage of height and the power of rank, the lantern's soft glow the bridge between them. His fingers crossed the width of his beard, stroking it absently. She seemed a spirit, an otherworld vision, pure white against the muddied shadows. And she spoke not a word.

Ah, she was Diora, and she was still his daughter. He walked past her kneeling form. "Come, Na'dio," he said, the words quite soft. He slid the wooden screen open abruptly; it stuck on the rails, adding a reality that the moment did not demand.

She rose as he lifted the door, feeling its weight. She did him the grace of not offering her aid. Why should she? Her training was perfect; she could not be separated from it. And no true woman made a man feel weak and awkward in his own dwelling. Ah, there. He had it. He would speak with the serafs on the morrow, and if the door troubled him again, he would have them killed. Beneath the curve of his waiting arm, Diora stood. Night opened before them, and beneath its watchful eyes, fire across the lake. Fire on the lake. The waters were burning.

When she was young-and Na'dio was the only name that she answered to-they had come to the Tor Leonne upon the eye of the Festival of the Moon, father and daughter. On Moon-night, masked in the veils and facades of the Festival's height, a man in his prime and a four-year-old child wandered the streets of Tor Leonne, caught up in the scents of spice and rich sweetmeats, of masked women's perfumes. She had asked him, then, why they had to pretend to be other people.

He could still feel the brush of the eagle's feather against his cheek as he bent down to catch her in his arms and raise her to the heights of his shoulders. They don't pretend to be other people, he told her gravely, as a shameless, reckless young woman ran a hand across his chest, touching the darkened skin beneath the simple silk shirt before the flow of the crowd carried her away. She wore a tiger's face, but her voice was a kit's.

Na'dio had chosen the night-hunter's mask, with its round, feathered visage and its wide eyes. He had fastened it with care, and this, too, he remembered, for the feel of the ties was not unlike the touch of his beard between his fingers.

But they're all wearing masks.

Yes. And because they wear masks, they can be who they are, who they would like to be. As the Lady decrees, he added softly.

As the Lady decrees, she replied gravely. Even then, she had been so grave.

And the Lady decrees that you be my Na'dio this eve, and not Serra Teresa's perfect lady. Come.

He did not put her down-had no desire to put her down-although on any other evening, it would have shamed him to show so open an attachment to a daughter. Together, they mounted the slope of Tor Leonne. The Festival of the Moon was at its peak. Caught in the pa.s.sions of youth, or the memories of it, men and women made the shadows noisy with their hope and their merriment and their brief, brief loves.

Only when Sendari reached the railings of the Pavilion of the Moon did he lift his child from his shoulders, and then it was only to hold her, while his arms could take her weight. And that, on Moon-night, might be forever.

See, he said softly. There is light in the darkness. And because it is dark, the light will be more beautiful than any light you have ever seen.

She listened, rapt in her interest, complete in her trust of his promise. It was Moon-night. Ah.

Fireflower bloomed in a brilliant spray of blue petals hundreds of yards above their suddenly upturned faces. Muted whispers, awe, a sudden hush. Blue gave way to crimson, and that to green, and before any of the three colors had faded, a ball of golden seed scattered in the night wind, brighter than the face of the moon itself.

He held her close; he heard her intake of breath, her cry of sweet glee. And he wished, that one year, that he might wear this mask-and she her own-forever.

But Widan Sendari was a wise and cunning man, and the dream of the Festival Moon was little better than a sleeper's delirium; the time had come and gone, and during its pa.s.sage great powers had been made-and greater power broken. He looked down at her upturned face, seeing the woman his daughter had become in her silence and stillness.

Na 'dio, he thought, but he did not say the name aloud again. When was the last time you called me Father? It was a full two quarters and more before the Festival of the Moon, but if she resided within Tor Leonne, he thought he might even find the freedom in which to ask her. The fires were bright enough to give a glow to her eyes.

During the height of the following day, the serafs toiled to clean the blood from the Tyrian platform, supervised by General Alesso di'Marente. He was grim and silent, a man preparing for war now that the first battle had been won.

Or so he seemed to Radann Fredero kai el'Sol.

The day was cold. The evening's work had been done quickly-too quickly-and efficiently. The dead lay in neat rows, their heads set close to the bodies they had fallen from, if they had submitted to the Tyran.

"This was foul work," the General said, his expression smooth and diffident and utterly chilling. "Would you not agree, kai el'Sol?"

He could not speak. He gazed upon the Leonne dead as if sight alone might wake them.

"But I am certain that our investigations will lead us to the... a.s.sa.s.sins. Obviously, in our endeavors to apprehend the killers of the clan Leonne, I have been forced to close the Tor until further notice. No one-be it seraf maid or Radann el'Sol-is to leave these grounds without my permission. The cerdan have been given orders to shoot to kill, and the mages are keeping the periphery patrolled."

"Sound precautions," Fredero heard his voice as if it were a stranger's-and at that, a stranger that he took an instant dislike to, but could not, for shock, dismiss.

"Thus ends a proud line. It doesn't appear that the Tyr'agar offered resistance at all. But Leonne was beloved of the Lord, and it is right that the Lord's rites be offered to the clan. I trust you to see to this, as the kai el'Sol."

Fredero nodded; refusing to allow the stranger to speak with his voice again.

"Oh, and, kai el'Sol? There will, of course, be a new Tyr'agar crowned by the Radann at the Festival of the Sun." He offered a boon, this General, this killer: He turned and walked away, sparing Fredero the effort, the terrible, treacherous effort, of having to speak his compliance.

And then he was alone with serafs who still scrubbed and oiled and cleaned. Alone with the spirit-emptied bodies of the dead. The light in the open eyes had been guttered by the wind.

But something reflected the sunlight unevenly, and as he approached it, searching for some sign, some meaning by which to decide a course, he saw it clearly.

Kneeling, gently rolling the headless body of Markaso di'Leonne to one side, Fredero kai el'Sol reached out to lift the Sword's crown from its place beneath the large man.

The crown has fallen. He rose, carrying the burden of the truth in the object itself. The dead were dead. But this? They had pa.s.sed it to him to decide.

And this day, this first of days, no decision came to him; he had not pulled his sword and attacked the General openly, warrior to warrior, the wrath of G.o.d against the desires of a traitor.

I am only a man, he thought. But the Lord is impartial. Power is the law in the Lord's land. The crown was heavy in his hands as he walked, slowly and proudly, to the temple.

But the serafs at his back began to speak, and he knew what they said, for he had seen it himself in the silvered gla.s.s: His hair had gone gray between dusk and dawn; age had fallen upon him like the decisive blow of a sword. Like the judgment of an angry Lord.

There will be a new Tyr'agar crowned by the Radann at the Festival of the Sun.

Serra Fiona en'Marano sat with her forehead to the sleeping mats in the bedchambers of Widan Sendari. Her hair was a spill of dark brown, artfully interspersed with strands of pearls and a touch of magenta silk that incidentally matched the throws and cushions beside which she waited. She was many years her husband's junior, and as such was considered to be a fine prize; Serra Alora en'Marano had died in childbirth many years before.

Serra Fiona only wished that her cursed daughter had died with her.

The Widan had few concubines, and most of these were gifts; he treated them well, as befit a man of his import and station, and in return, he expected them to serve his interests when visitors came, and to follow the dictates of his wife. In the harem, Serra Fiona ruled both wives-and their children-with a quiet that was usually reserved for the grave.

Unfortunately, with the return of Serra Diora, her position within the harem had been subtly changed, and she did not like it one bit. Her son, Artano, was kai-but Sendari had not seen fit to bring him on the road from Mancorvo; he remained with his father's brother, Tor'agar Adano kai di'Marano. And had he been present, Fiona knew, Artano would have been ignored in all the real ways in favor of Serra Diora-a daughter returned to her clan. A daughter. Her son was a fine youth; almost eleven, and already riding like a clansman. And Sendari showed pride in Artano- when Diora was elsewhere.

"Serra Fiona," the Widan's voice, rising on her name, was her signal; she rose with grace, sitting back on her knees while she continued to wait, her face schooled enough to keep what she felt from tainting its lines. He knew it, of course; he knew far too much about her for her moods, whether masked or no, to be truly hidden. But he was proud of her ability to keep her face smooth and free from the sullen moods that many another less-well-trained wife was p.r.o.ne to.

He sat in repose, the trays of the morning meal half-empty around him. His beard was a peppered spill across a chest that had softened only slightly with age. Lifting his arm, he signaled to the waiting seraf; the man bowed quickly and silently-such a quiet surety of motion was what the Widan most prized in his servants-before leaving his Ser's presence. He bowed once at the screen door, stepped across its threshold, knelt, and then slid it quietly shut.