Tigana Part 13

CHAPTER7.

Dianora could remember the day she came to the Island.

The air that autumn morning had been much like it was today at the beginning of spring-white clouds scudding in a high blue sky as the wind had swept the Tribute Ship through the whitecaps into the harbour of Chiara. Beyond harbour and town the slopes mounting to the hills had been wild with fall colours. The leaves were turning: red and gold and some that clung yet to green, she remembered.

The sails of the Tribute Ship so long ago had been red and gold as well: colours of celebration in Ygrath. She knew that now, she hadn't known it then. She had stood on the forward deck of the ship to gaze for the first time at the splendour of Chiara's harbour, at the long pier where the Grand Dukes used to stand to throw a ring into the sea, and from where Letizia had leaped in the first of the Ring Dives to reclaim the ring from the waters and marry her Duke: turning the Dives into the luck and symbol of Chiara's pride until beautiful Onestra had changed the ending of the story hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and the Ring Dives had ceased. Even so, every child in the Palm knew that legend of the Island. Young girls in each province would play at diving into water for a ring and rising in triumph, with their hair shining wet, to wed a Duke of power and glory.

From near the prow of the Tribute Ship, Dianora had looked up beyond the harbour and palace to gaze at the majesty of snow-crowned Sangarios rising behind them. The Ygrathen sailors had not disturbed her silence. They had allowed her to come forward to watch the Island approach. Once she'd been safely aboard ship and the ship away to sea they'd been kind to her. Women thought to have a real chance at being chosen for the saishan were always treated well on the Tribute Ships. It could make a captain's fortune in Brandin's court if he brought home a hostage who became a favourite of the Tyrant.

Sitting now on the southern balcony of the saishan wing, looking out from behind the ornately crafted screen that hid the women from gawkers in the square below, Dianora watched the banners of Chiara and Ygrath flap in the freshening spring breeze, and she remembered how the wind had blown her hair about her face more than twelve years ago. She remembered looking from the bright sails to the slopes of the tree-clad hills running up to Sangarios, from the blue and white of the sea to the clouds in the blue sky. From the tumult and chaos of life in the harbour to the serene grandeur of the palace just beyond. Birds had been wheeling, crying loudly about the three high masts of the Tribute Ship. The rising sun had been a dazzle of light striking along the sea from the east. So much vibrancy in the world, so rich and fair and shining a morning to be alive.

Twelve years ago, and more. She had been twenty-one years old, and nursing her hatred and her secret like two of Morian's three snakes twining about her heart.

She had been chosen for the saishan.

The circ.u.mstances of her taking had made it very likely, and Brandin's celebrated grey eyes had widened appraisingly when she was led before him two days later. She'd been wearing a silken, pale-coloured gown, she remembered, chosen to set off her dark hair and the dark brown of her eyes.

She had been certain she would be chosen. She'd felt neither triumph nor fear, even though she'd been pointing her life towards that moment for five full years, even though, in that instant of Brandin's choosing, walls and screens and corridors closed around her that would define the rest of her days. She'd had her hatred and her secret, and guarding the two of them left no room for anything else.

Or so she'd thought at twenty-one.

For all she'd seen and lived through, even by then, Dianora reflected twelve years later on her balcony, she'd known very little-dangerously little-about a great many things that mattered far too much.

Even out of the wind it was cool here on the balcony. The Ember Days were upon them but the flowers were just beginning in the valleys inland and on the hill slopes, and the true onset of spring was some time off even this far north. It had been different at home, Dianora remembered; sometimes there would still be snow in the southern highlands, when the springtime Ember Days had come and pa.s.sed.

Without looking backwards, Dianora raised a hand. In a moment the castrate had brought her a steaming mug of Tregean khav. Trade restrictions and tariffs, Brandin was fond of saying in private, had to be handled selectively or life could be too acutely marred. Khav was one of the selected things. Only in the palace of course. Outside the walls they drank the inferior products of Corte or neutral Senzio. Once a group of Senzian khav merchants had come as part of a trade emba.s.sy to try to persuade him of improvements in the crop they grew and the cup it brewed. Neutral, indeed, Neutral, indeed, Brandin had said judiciously, tasting. Brandin had said judiciously, tasting. So neutral, it hardly seems to be there So neutral, it hardly seems to be there.

The merchants had withdrawn, consternated and pale, desperately seeking to divine the hidden meaning in the Ygrathen Tyrant's words. Senzians spent much of their time doing that, Dianora had observed drily to Brandin afterwards. He'd laughed. She'd always been able to amuse him, even in the days when she was too young and inexperienced to do it deliberately.

Which thought reminded her of the young castrate attending her this morning. Scelto was in town collecting her gown for the reception that afternoon; her attendant was one of the newest castrates, sent out from Ygrath to serve the growing saishan in the colony.

He was well trained already. Vencel's methods might be harsh, but there was no denying that they worked. She decided not to tell the boy that the khav wasn't strong enough; he would very probably fall to pieces, which would be inconvenient. She'd mention it to Scelto and let him handle the matter. There was no need for Vencel to know: it was useful to have some of the castrates grateful to her as well as afraid. The fear came automatically: a function of who she was here in the saishan. Grat.i.tude or affection she had to work at.

Twelve years and more this spring, she thought again, leaning forward to look down through the screen at the bustling preparations in the square for the arrival of lsolla of Ygrath later that day. At twenty-one she'd been at the peak, she supposed, of whatever beauty she'd been granted. She'd had nothing of such grace at fifteen and sixteen, she remembered-they hadn't even bothered to hide her from the Ygrathen soldiers at home.

At nineteen she'd begun to be something else entirely, though by then she wasn't at home and Ygrath was no danger to the residents of Barbadian-ruled Certando. Or not normally, she amended, reminding herself-though this was not, by any means, a thing that really needed a reminder-that she was Dianora di Certando here in the saishan. And across in the west wing as well, in Brandin's bed.

She was thirty-three years old, and somehow with the years that had slipped away so absurdly fast she was one of the powers of this palace. Which, of course, meant of the Palm. In the saishan only Solores di Corte could be said to vie with her for access to Brandin, and Solores was six years older than she was-one of the first year's harvest of the Tribute Ships.

Sometimes, even now, it was all a little too much, a little hard to believe. The younger castrates trembled if she even glanced slantwise at them; courtiers-whether from overseas in Ygrath or here in the four western provinces of the Palm-sought her counsel and support in their pet.i.tions to Brandin; musicians wrote songs for her; poets declaimed and dedicated verses that spun into hyperbolic raptures about her beauty and her wisdom. The Ygrathens would liken her to the sisters of their G.o.d, the Chiarans to the fabled beauty of Onestra before she did the last Ring Dive for Grand Duke Cazal-though the poets always stopped that a.n.a.logy well before the Dive itself and the tragedies that followed.

After one such adjective-bestrewn effort of Doarde's she'd suggested to Brandin over a late, private supper that one of the measures of difference between men and women was that power made men attractive, but when a woman had power that merely made it attractive to praise her beauty.

He'd thought about it, leaning back and stroking his neat beard. She'd been aware of having taken a certain risk, but she'd also known him very well by then.

'Two questions,' Brandin, Tyrant of the Western Palm, had said, reaching for the hand she'd left on the table. 'Do you think you have power, my Dianora?'

She'd expected that. 'Only through you, and for the little time remaining before I grow old and you cease to grant me access to you.' A small slash at Solores there, but discreet enough, she judged. 'But so long as you command me to come to you I will be seen to have power in your court, and poets will say I am more lovely now than I ever was. More lovely than the diadem of stars that crowns the crescent of the girdled world ... or whatever the line was.'

'The curving diadem, I think he wrote.' He smiled. She'd expected a compliment then, for he was generous with those. His grey eyes had remained sober though, and direct. He said, 'My second question: Would I be attractive to you without the power that I wield?' I think he wrote.' He smiled. She'd expected a compliment then, for he was generous with those. His grey eyes had remained sober though, and direct. He said, 'My second question: Would I be attractive to you without the power that I wield?'

And that, she remembered, had almost caught her out. It was too unexpected a question, and far too near to the place where her twin snakes yet lived, however dormant they might be.

She'd lowered her eyelashes to where their hands were twined. Like the snakes, Like the snakes, she thought. She backed away quickly from that thought. Looking up, with the sly, sidelong glance she knew he loved, Dianora had said, feigning surprise: 'Do you wield power here? I hadn't noticed.' she thought. She backed away quickly from that thought. Looking up, with the sly, sidelong glance she knew he loved, Dianora had said, feigning surprise: 'Do you wield power here? I hadn't noticed.'

A second later his rich, life-giving laughter had burst forth. The guards outside would hear it, she knew. And they would talk. Everyone in Chiara talked; the Island fed itself on gossip and rumour. There would be another tale after tonight. Nothing new, only a reaffirmation in that shouted laughter of how much pleasure Brandin of Ygrath took in his dark Dianora.

He'd carried her to the bed then, still amused, making her smile and then laugh herself at his mood. He'd taken his pleasure, slowly and in the myriad of ways he'd taught her through the years, for in Ygrath they were versed in such things and he was-then and now-the King of Ygrath, over and above everything else he was.

And she? On her balcony now in the springtime morning sunlight Dianora closed her eyes on the memory of how that night, and before that night-for years and years before that night-and after, after even until now, her own rebel body and heart and mind, traitors together to her soul, had slaked so desperate and deep a need in him.

In Brandin of Ygrath. Whom she had come here to kill twelve years ago, twin snakes around the wreckage of her heart, for having done what he had done to Tigana which was her home.

Or had been her home until he had battered and levelled and burned it and killed a generation and taken away the very sound of its name. Of her own true name.

She was Dianora di Tigana bren Saevar and her father had died at Second Deisa, with an awkwardly handled sword and not a sculptor's chisel in his hand. Her mother's spirit had snapped like a water reed in the brutality of the occupation that followed, and her brother, whose eyes and hair were exactly like her own, whom she had loved more than her life, had been driven into exile in the wideness of the world. He'd been fifteen years old.

She had no idea where he was all these years after. If he was alive, or dead, or far from this peninsula where tyrants ruled over broken provinces that had once been so proud. Where the name of the proudest of them all was gone from the memory of men.

Because of Brandin. In whose arms she had lain so many nights through the years with such an ache of need, such an arching of desire, every time he summoned her to him. Whose voice was knowledge and wit and grace to her, water in the dryness of her days. Whose laughter when he set it free, when she could draw it forth from him, was like the healing sun slicing out of clouds. Whose grey eyes were the troubling, unreadable colour of the sea under the first cold slanting light of morning in spring or fall.

In the oldest of all the stories told in Tigana it was from the grey sea at dawn that Adaon the G.o.d had risen and come to Micaela and lain with her on the long, dark, destined curving of the sand. Dianora knew that story as well as she knew her name. Her true name.

She also knew two other things at least as well: that her brother or her father would kill her with their hands if either were alive to see what she had become. And that she would accept that ending and know it was deserved.

Her father was dead. Her heart would scald her at the very thought of her brother so, even if death might spare him a grief so final as seeing where she had come, but each and every morning she prayed to the Triad, especially to Adaon of the Waves, that he was overseas and so far away from where tidings might ever reach him of a Dianora with dark eyes like his own in the saishan of the Tyrant.

Unless, said the quiet voice of her heart, unless the morning might yet come when she could find a way to do a thing here on the Island that would still, despite all that had happened-despite the intertwining of limbs at night and the sound of her own voice crying aloud in need a.s.suaged-bring back another sound into the world. Into the voices of men and women and children all over the Palm, and south over the mountains in Quileia, and north and west and east beyond all the seas. said the quiet voice of her heart, unless the morning might yet come when she could find a way to do a thing here on the Island that would still, despite all that had happened-despite the intertwining of limbs at night and the sound of her own voice crying aloud in need a.s.suaged-bring back another sound into the world. Into the voices of men and women and children all over the Palm, and south over the mountains in Quileia, and north and west and east beyond all the seas.

The sound of the name of Tigana, gone. Gone, but not, if the G.o.ddesses and the G.o.d were kind-if there was any love left in them, or pity-not forever forgotten or forever lost.

And perhaps-and this was Dianora's dream on the nights she slept alone, after Scelto had ma.s.saged and oiled her skin and had gone away with his candle to sleep outside her door-perhaps it would come to pa.s.s if she could indeed find a way to do this thing, that her brother, far from home, would miraculously hear the name of Tigana spoken by a stranger in a world of strangers, in some distant royal court or bazaar, and somehow he would know, in a rush of wonder and joy, in the deep core of the heart she knew so well, that it was through her doing that the name was in the world again.

She would be dead by then. She had no doubts as to that. Brandin's hate in this one thing-in the matter of his vengeance for Stevan-was fixed and unalterable. It was the one set star in the firmament of all the lands he ruled.

She would be dead, but it would be all right, for Tigana's name would be restored, and her brother would be alive and would know it had been her, and Brandin ... Brandin would understand that she had found a way to do this thing while sparing his life on all the nights, the numberless nights, when she could have slain him while he slept by her side after love.

This was Dianora's dream. She used to be driven awake, tears cold on her cheeks, by the intensity of the feelings it engendered. No one ever saw those tears but Scelto though, and Scelto she trusted more than anyone alive.

She heard his quick light footsteps at the doorway and then briskly crossing the floor towards her balcony. No one else in the saishan moved like Scelto. The castrates were notoriously p.r.o.ne to la.s.situde and to eating too much-the obvious subst.i.tutions for pleasure. Not Scelto, though. Slim as he'd been when she met him, he still sought out those errands the other castrates strove to avoid: trips up into the steep streets of the old town, or even farther north into the hills or partway up Sangarios itself in search of healing herbs or leaves or simply meadow flowers for her room.

He seemed ageless, but he hadn't been young when Vencel a.s.signed him to Dianora and she guessed that he must be sixty now. If Vencel ever died-a hard thing to imagine, in fact-Scelto was certainly next in line to succeed him as head of the saishan.

They had never spoken about it, but Dianora knew, as surely as she knew anything, that he would refuse the position if it were offered to him, in order to remain bound to her. She also knew-and this was the thing that touched her-that this would be true even if Brandin stopped sending for her entirely and she became merely another ageing ignored item of history in the saishan wing.

And this was the second thing she'd never expected to find when hate had carried her through autumn seas to Chiara on the Tribute Ship: kindness and caring and a friend behind the high walls and ornate screens of the place where women waited among men who had lost their manhood.

Scelto's tread, rapid even after the long climb up the Great Staircase and then another flight up to the saishan, clicked across the mosaics of the balcony floor behind her. She heard him murmur kindly to the boy and dismiss him.

He took another step forward and coughed once, to announce himself.

'Is it terribly hideous?' she asked without turning around.

'It will do,' Scelto said, coming to stand beside her. She looked over, smiling to see his close-cropped grey hair, the thin, precise mouth, and the terribly broken hook of his nose. Ages ago, he'd said when she'd asked. A fight over a woman back in Ygrath. He'd killed the other man, who happened to be a n.o.ble. Which unfortunate fact had cost Scelto his s.e.x and his liberty and brought him here. Dianora had been more disturbed by the story than he seemed to be. On the other hand, she remembered thinking, it had been new to her, while for him it was only the familiar coinage of his life, from a long time past.

He held up the dark red gown they'd had made in the old town. From his smile which matched her own Dianora knew it had been worth cajoling Vencel for the funds to have this done. The head of the saishan would want a favour later, he always did, but through such exchanges was the saishan run, and Dianora, looking at the gown, had no regrets.

'What is Solores wearing?' she asked.

'Hala wouldn't tell me,' Scelto murmured regretfully.

Dianora laughed aloud at the straight face he managed to maintain. 'I'm quite sure he wouldn't,' she said. 'What is she wearing?'

'Green,' he said promptly. 'High waisted, high neck. Two shades in pleats below the waist. Gold sandals. A great deal of gold everywhere else. Her hair will be up, of course. She has new ear rings.'

Dianora laughed again. Scelto allowed himself a tiny smile of satisfaction. 'I took the liberty,' he added, 'of purchasing something else while I was in town.'

He reached into a fold of his tunic and handed her a small box. She opened it and wordlessly held up the gem inside. In the bright morning light of the balcony it dazzled and shone like a third red moon to join Vidomni and blue Ilarion.

Scelto said, 'I thought it would be better with the gown than anything Vencel would offer you from the saishan jewels.'

She shook her head wonderingly. 'It is beautiful, Scelto. Can we afford this? Will I have to go without chocolate for all of the spring and summer?'

'Not a bad idea,' he said, ignoring her first question. 'You ate two pieces this morning while I was gone.'

'Scelto!' she exclaimed. 'Stop that! Go spy on Solores and see what she's spending her chiaros on. I have my habits and my pleasures, and none of them, so far as I can see, are particularly evil. Do I look fat to you?'

Almost reluctantly he shook his head. 'I have no idea why not,' he murmured ruefully.

'Well you keep thinking about it till you figure it out,' she said with a toss of her head. 'In the meantime, that reminds me-the boy this morning was fine, except that the khav was very weak. Will you speak to him about how I like it?'

'I did. I told him to make it a little weak.'

'You what? what? Scelto, I absolutely-' Scelto, I absolutely-'

'You always begin drinking more khav at the end of winter, when the weather begins to turn, and every spring you always have trouble sleeping at night. You know this is true, my lady. Either fewer cups or weaker khav. It is my duty to try to keep you rested and tranquil.'

Dianora was speechless for a second. 'Tranquil!' she finally managed to exclaim. 'I might have frightened that poor child to the tips of his fingernails. I would have felt terrible! terrible!'

'I had told him what to say,' Scelto said placidly. 'He would have blamed it on me.'

'Oh, really. And what if I'd reported it directly to Vencel, instead?' Dianora retorted. 'Scelto, he would have had that boy starved and lashed.'

Scelto's dignified little sniff conveyed quite clearly what he thought about the likelihood of her having done any such thing.

His expression was so wryly knowing that, against her will, Dianora found herself laughing again. 'Very well,' she said, surrendering. 'Then let it be fewer cups, because I do like it strong, Scelto. It isn't worth the drinking otherwise. Besides, I don't think that's why I can't sleep at night. This season simply makes me restless.'

'You were taken as Tribute in the spring,' he murmured. 'Everyone in the saishan is restless in the season they were taken.' He hesitated. 'I can't do anything about that, my lady. But I thought perhaps the khav might be making it worse.' There was concern and affection in his brown eyes, almost as dark as her own.

'You worry too much about me,' she said after a moment.

He smiled. 'Who else should I worry about?'

There was a little silence; Dianora could hear the noises from far below in the square.

'Speaking of worrying,' said Scelto in a transparent effort to change the mood, 'we may be concentrating too much on what Solores is doing. We may want to start keeping an eye on the young one with the green eyes.'

'la.s.sica?' Dianora said, surprised. 'Whatever for? Brandin hasn't even called her to him and she's been here a month already.'

'Exactly,' said Scelto. He paused, somewhat awkwardly, which piqued her curiosity.

'What are you saying, Scelto?'

'I, um, have been told by Tesios who has been looking after her that he has never seen or heard of a woman in the saishan with such ... control of her body or such ... capacity for the climax of love.'

He was blushing furiously, which made Dianora abruptly self-conscious too. It was a standard practice-with some quite unstandard variations-for the women of the saishan to use their castrates to give them physical release if too much time went by between summonses to the other wing.

Dianora had never asked Scelto for such a service. Something about the very idea disturbed her: it seemed an abuse, in a way she couldn't articulate. He had been a man, she reminded herself frequently, who had killed someone for love of a woman. Their relationship, close as it was, had never entered that dimension. It was strange, she thought, even amusing, how shy they could both become at the very mention of the subject-and Triad knew it came up often enough in the hothouse atmosphere of the saishan.

She turned back to the railing, looking down through the screen, to give him time to regain his composure. Thinking about what he'd said though, she found herself feeling a certain amus.e.m.e.nt after all. She was already working out how and when to tell Brandin about this.

'My friend,' she said, 'you may know me well, but in exactly the same way and for many of the same reasons I know Brandin very well.'

She glanced back at her castrate. 'He is older than you, Scelto-he is almost sixty-five-and for reasons I don't entirely understand he has said he must live here in the Palm another sixty years or so. All the sorcery in the world would surely not avail him to prolong his life that long if Ia.s.sica is as ... exceptional as Tesios suggests. She would wear him out, however pleasantly, in a year or two.'

Scelto blushed again, and glanced quickly back over his shoulder. They were quite alone though. Dianora laughed, partly out of genuine amus.e.m.e.nt, but more specifically to mask the recurring sorrow she felt whenever this one lie had to be told: the thing she still kept from Scelto. The one secret that mattered.

Of course course she knew why Brandin needed to stay here in the Palm, why he needed to use his sorcery to prolong his life here in what was surely a place of exile for him in a land of grief. she knew why Brandin needed to stay here in the Palm, why he needed to use his sorcery to prolong his life here in what was surely a place of exile for him in a land of grief.

He had to wait for everyone born in Tigana to die.

Only then could he leave the peninsula where his son had been slain. Only then would the full measure of the vengeance he had decreed be poured out on the bloodied ground. For no one would be left alive in the world who had any true memory of Tigana before the fall, of Avalle of the Towers, the songs and the stories and the legends, all the long, bright history.

It would truly be gone then. Wiped out. Seventy or eighty years wreaking as comprehensive an obliteration as millennia had on the ancient civilizations no one could now recall. Whole cultures that were now only an awkwardly p.r.o.nounced name of a place, or a deciphered, pompous t.i.tle-Emperor of All the Earth-on a broken pottery shard.

Brandin could go home after sixty years. He could do whatever he chose. By then she would be long dead and so too would be those from Tigana even younger than her, those born up to the very year of the conquest-the last inheritors.

The last children who could hear and read the name of the land that had been their own. Eighty years, Brandin was giving himself. More than enough, given lifespans in the Palm.

Eighty years to oblivion. To the broken, meaningless pottery shard. The books were gone already, and the paintings, tapestries, sculptures, music: torn or smashed or burned in the terrible year after Valentin's fall when Brandin had come down upon them in the agony of a father's loss, bringing them the reciprocal agony of a conqueror's hate.