Tigana Part 17

'Should I be wondering as well?' asked Brandin of Ygrath.

Smiling, he joined them. He did not touch her. He very seldom touched the saishan women in public, and this was an Ygrathen reception. They knew his rules. Their lives were shaped by his rules.

'My lord,' she said, turning and sketching her salutation. She kept her voice airily provocative. 'Do you find me more cynical than I was when this terrible man brought me here?'

Brandin's amused glance went from her to Rhama.n.u.s. It was not as if he'd needed the reminder of which Tribute captain had brought him Dianora. She knew that, and he knew she did. It was all part of their verbal dance. His intelligence stretched her to her limits, and then changed what those limits were. She noticed, perhaps because the subject had come up with Rhama.n.u.s, that there was as much grey in his beard now as black.

He nodded judiciously, simulating a deep concern over the question. 'I would have to say so, yes. You have grown cynically manipulative in almost exactly the same proportion as the terrible man has grown fat.'

'So much?' Dianora protested. 'My lord, he is very very fat!' fat!'

Both men chuckled. Rhama.n.u.s patted his belly affectionately.

'This,' he said, 'is what happens when you feed a man cold salt meat for twenty years at sea and then expose him to the delights of the King's city.'

'Well then,' said Brandin, 'we may have to send you away somewhere until you are sleek as a seal again.'

'My lord,' said Rhama.n.u.s instantly, 'I am yours to command in all things.' His expression was sober and intense.

Brandin registered that and his tone changed as well. 'I know that,' he murmured. 'I would that I had more of you at court. At both of my courts. Portly or sleek, Rhama.n.u.s, I am not unmindful of you, whatever our Dianora may think.'

Very high praise, a promise of sorts, and a dismissal for the moment. Bright-eyed, Rhama.n.u.s bowed formally and withdrew. Brandin walked a couple of paces away, Rhun shuffling along beside him. Dianora followed, as she was expected to. Once out of earshot of anyone but the Fool, Brandin turned to her. He was, she was sorry to see, suppressing a smile.

'What did you do? Offer him north Asoli?'

Dianora heaved a heartfelt sigh of frustration. This happened all the time. 'Now that,' she protested, 'is unfair. You are are using magic.' using magic.'

He let the smile come. She knew that people were watching them. She knew what they would say amongst themselves.

'Hardly,' Brandin murmured. 'I wouldn't waste it or drain myself on something so transparent.'

'Transparent!' she bridled.

'Not you, my cynical manipulator. But Rhama.n.u.s was too serious too quickly when I jested about posting him away. And the only position of significance currently available is north Asoli and so ...'

He let the sentence trail off. Laughter lingered in his eyes.

'Would he be such a bad choice?' Dianora asked defiantly. It was genuinely disconcerting how easily Brandin could sound the depths of things. If she allowed herself to dwell on that she could become frightened again.

'What do you think?' he asked by way of reply.

'I? Think?' She lifted her plucked eyebrows in exaggerated arches. 'How should a mere object of the King's occasional pleasure venture to have an opinion on such matters?'

'Now that,' said Brandin, nodding briskly, 'is an intelligent observation. I shall have to consult Solores, instead.'

'If you get an intelligent observation out of her,' Dianora said tartly, 'I shall hurl myself from the saishan balcony into the sea.'

'All the way across the harbour square? A long leap,' said Brandin mildly.

'So,' she replied, 'is an intelligent observation for Solores.'

And at that he laughed aloud. The court was listening. Everyone heard. Everyone would draw their own conclusions, but they would all be the same conclusion in the end. Scelto, she reflected, was likely to receive discreet contributions from sources other than Neso of Ygrath before the day was out.

'I saw something interesting on the mountain this morning,' Brandin said, his amus.e.m.e.nt subsiding. 'Something quite unusual.'

This, she realized, was why he'd wanted to speak to her alone.

He'd been up on Sangarios that morning; she was one of the few who knew about it. Brandin kept this venture quiet, in case he should fail. She'd been prepared to tease him about it.

At the beginning of spring, just as the winds began to change, before the last snows melted in Certando and Tregea and the southern reaches of what had been Tigana, came the three Ember Days that marked the turning of the year.

No fires not already burning were lit anywhere in the Palm. The devout fasted for at least the first of the three days. The bells of the Triad temples were silent. Men stayed within their doors at night, especially after darkfall on the first day which was the Day of the Dead.

There were Ember Days in autumn as well, halfway through the year, when the time of mourning came for Adaon slain on his mountain in Tregea, when the sun began to fade as Eanna mourned and Morian folded in upon herself in her Halls underground. But the spring days inspired a colder dread, especially in the countryside, because so much depended upon what would follow them. Winter's pa.s.sing, the season of sowing, and the hope of grain, of life, in the summer's fullness to come.

In Chiara there was an added ritual, different from anything elsewhere in the Palm.

On the Island the tale was told that Adaon and Eanna had first come together in love for three full days and nights on the summit of Sangarios. That in the surging climax of her desire on the third night Eanna of the Lights had created the stars of heaven and strewn them like shining lace through the dark. And the tale was told that nine months later-which is three times three-the Triad was completed when Morian was born in the depths of winter in a cave on that same mountain.

And with Morian had come both life and death into the world, and with life and death came mortal man to walk under the newly named stars, the two moons of the night's warding, and the sun of day.

And for this reason had Chiara always a.s.serted its pre-eminence among the nine provinces of the Palm, and for this reason as well did the Island name Morian as guardian of its destiny.

Morian of Portals, who had sway over all thresholds. For everyone knew that all islands were worlds unto themselves, that to come to an island was to come to another world. A truth known under the stars and moons, if not always remembered by the light of day.

Every three years then, at the beginning of each Year of Morian, on the first of the springtime Ember Days, the young men of Chiara would vie with each other in a dawn race up to the summit of Sangarios, there to pluck a blood-dark sprig of sonrai, the intoxicating berries of the mountain, under the watchful eye of the priests of Morian who had kept vigil on the peak all night long among the waking spirits of the dead. The first man down the mountain was anointed Lord of Sangarios until the next such run in three years' time.

In the old days, the very old days, the Lord of Sangarios would have been hunted down and slain on his mountain by the women six months later on the first of the Ember Days of fall.

Not any more. Not for a long time. Now the young champion was likely to find himself in fierce demand as a lover by women seeking the blessing of his seed. A different sort of hunt, Dianora had said to Brandin once.

He hadn't laughed. He didn't find the ritual amusing. In fact, six years ago the King of Ygrath had elected to run the course himself, the morning before the actual race. He had done it again three years past. No small achievement, really, for a man of his years, considering how hard and how long the runners trained for this. Dianora didn't know what to find more whimsical: the fact that Brandin would do this thing, in such secrecy, or the ebullient masculine pride he'd felt both times he'd made it up to the summit of Sangarios and down again.

In the Audience Chamber, Dianora asked the question she was clearly expected to ask: 'What did you see, then?'

She did not know, for mortals seldom do know when they approach a threshold of the G.o.ddess, that the question would mark the turning of her days.

'Something unusual,' Brandin repeated. 'I had of course outstripped the guards running with me.'

'Of course,' she murmured, giving him a sidelong glance.

He grinned. 'I was alone on the path part of the way up. The trees were still very thick on either side, mountain ash, mostly, some sejoias.'

'How interesting,' she said.

This time he quelled her with a look. Dianora bit her lip and schooled her expression dutifully.

'I looked over to my right,' Brandin said, 'and saw a large grey rock, almost like a platform at the edge of the trees. And sitting on the rock there was a creature. A woman, I would swear, and very nearly human.'

'Very nearly?'

She wasn't teasing any more. Within the actual archway of a portal of Morian we sometimes do know that a thing of importance is happening.

'That's what was unusual. She certainly wasn't entirely human. Not with green hair and such pale skin. Skin so white I swear I saw blue veins beneath, Dianora. And her eyes were unlike any I've ever seen. I thought she was a trick of light-the sun filtering through trees. But she didn't move, or change in any way, even when I stopped to look at her.'

And now Dianora knew exactly where she was.

The ancient creatures of water and wood and cave went back in time as far as the Triad did almost, and from the description she knew what he had seen. She knew other things as well and was suddenly afraid.

'What did you do?' she asked, as casually as she could.

'I wasn't sure what to do. I spoke; she didn't answer. So I took a step towards her and as soon as I did she leaped down from the rock and backed away. She stopped among the trees. I held out my open palms, but she seemed to be startled by that, or offended, and a moment later she fled.'

'Did you follow?'

'I was about to, but by then one of the guards had caught up to me.'

'Did he see her?' she asked. Too quickly.

Brandin gave her a curious look. 'I asked. He said no, though I think he would have answered that way, regardless. Why do you ask?'

She shrugged. 'It would have confirmed she was real,' she lied.

Brandin shook his head. 'She was real. This was no vision. In fact,' he added, as if the thought had just occurred to him, 'she reminded me of you.'

'With ... what was it? Green skin and blue hair?' she replied, letting her court instincts guide her now. Something large was happening here though. She laboured to hide the turmoil she felt. 'I thank you so much, my gracious lord. I suppose if I talked to Scelto and Vencel we could achieve the skip colour, and blue hair should be easy enough. If it excites you so dramatically ...'

He smiled but did not laugh. 'Green hair, not blue,' he said, almost absently. 'And she did, Dianora,' he repeated, looking at her oddly. 'She did remind me of you. I wonder why. Do you know anything about such creatures?'

'I do not,' she said. 'In Certando we have no tales of green-haired women in the mountains.' She was lying. She was lying as well as she could, wide-eyed and direct. She could scarcely believe what she had just heard, what he had seen.

Brandin's good humour was still with him.

'What mountain tales do do you have in Certando?' he queried, smiling expectantly. you have in Certando?' he queried, smiling expectantly.

'Stories of hairy things that walk on legs like tree stumps and eat goats and virgins in the night.'

His smile broadened. 'Are there any?'

'Goats, yes,' she said with a straight face. 'Fewer virgins. Hairy creatures with such specific appet.i.tes are not an incentive to chast.i.ty. Are you sending out a party to search for this creature?' A question so important she held her breath awaiting his reply.

'I think not,' Brandin said. 'I suspect such things are only seen when they want to be.'

Which, she knew for a fact, was absolutely true.

'I haven't told anyone but you,' he added unexpectedly.

There was no dissembling in the expression she felt come over her face at that. But over and above everything else there was something new inside her with these tidings. She badly needed to be alone to think. A vain hope. She wouldn't get that chance for a long time yet today; best to push his story as far back as she could, with all the other things she was always pushing to the edges of her mind.

'Thank you, my lord,' she murmured, aware that they had been talking privately for some time. Aware, as ever, of how that would be construed.

'In the meantime,' Brandin suddenly said, in a quite different tone, 'you still have not yet asked me how I did on the run. Solores, I have to tell you, made it her first question.'

Which carried them back to familiar ground.

'Very well,' she said, feigning indifference. 'Do tell me. Halfway? Three-quarters?'

A glint of royal indignation flickered in the grey eyes. 'You are are presumptuous sometimes,' he said. 'I indulge you too much. I went, if you please, all the way to the summit and came down again this morning with a cl.u.s.ter of sonrai berries. I will be extremely interested to see if any of tomorrow's runners are up and down as quickly.' presumptuous sometimes,' he said. 'I indulge you too much. I went, if you please, all the way to the summit and came down again this morning with a cl.u.s.ter of sonrai berries. I will be extremely interested to see if any of tomorrow's runners are up and down as quickly.'

'Well,' she said quickly, unwisely, 'they won't have sorcery to help them.'

'Dianora, have done!'

And that tone she recognized and knew she'd gone too far. As always at such moments she had a dizzying sense of a pit gaping at her feet.

She knew what Brandin needed from her; she knew the reason he granted her licence to be outrageous and impertinent. She had long understood why the wit and edge she brought to their exchanges were important to him. She was his counterbalance to Solores's soft, unquestioning, undemanding shelter. The two of them, in turn, balancing d'Eymon's ascetic exercise of politics and government.

And all three of them in orbit around the star that Brandin was. The voluntarily exiled sun, removed from the heavens it knew, from the lands and seas and people, bound to this alien peninsula by loss and grief and revenge decreed.

She knew all this. She knew the King very well. Her life depended on that. She did not often stray across the line that was always there, invisible but inviolate. When she did it was likely to be over something as apparently trivial as this. It was such a paradox for her how he could shrug off or laugh at or even invite her caustic commentary on court and colony-and yet bridle like a boy with affronted pride if she teased about his ability to run up and down a mountain in a morning.

At such times he had only to say her name in a certain way and endless chasms opened before her in the delicately inlaid floor of the Audience Chamber.

She was a captive here, more slave than courtesan, at the court of a Tyrant. She was also an impostor, living an ongoing lie while her country slowly died away from the memories of men. And she had sworn to kill this man, whose glance across a room was as wildfire on her skin or amber wine in her mortal blood.

Chasms, everywhere she turned.

And now this morning he had seen a riselka. He, and very possibly a second man as well. Fighting back her fear she forced herself to shrug casually, to arch her eyebrows above a face schooled to bland unconcern.

'This amuses me,' she said, reaching for self-possession, knowing precisely what his need in her was, even now. Especially now. 'You profess to be pleased, even touched, by Solores's doubtlessly agitated query about your mountain run. The first thing she asked, you say. How How she must have wondered whether or not you succeeded! And yet when I- knowing as surely as I know my own name that you were up on the summit this morning-treat it lightly, as something small, never in doubt ... why then the King grows angry. He bids me sternly to have done! But tell me, my lord, in all fairness, which of us, truly, has honoured you more?' she must have wondered whether or not you succeeded! And yet when I- knowing as surely as I know my own name that you were up on the summit this morning-treat it lightly, as something small, never in doubt ... why then the King grows angry. He bids me sternly to have done! But tell me, my lord, in all fairness, which of us, truly, has honoured you more?'

For a long time he was silent and she knew that the court would be avidly marking the expression on his face. For the moment she cared nothing for them. Or even for her past, or his encounter on the mountainside. There was one specific chasm here that began and ended in the depths of the grey eyes that were now searching her own.

When he spoke it was in a different voice again, but this tone she happened to know exceedingly well and, in spite of everything that had just been said, and in spite of where they were and who was watching them, she felt herself go weak suddenly. Her legs trembled, but not with fear now.

'I could take you,' said Brandin, King of Ygrath, thickly, his face flushed, 'on the floor of this room right now before all of my gathered court.'

Her throat was dry. She felt a nerve flutter beneath the skin of her wrist. Her own colour was high, she knew. She swallowed with some difficulty.

'Perhaps tonight would be wiser,' she murmured, trying to keep her tone light but not really managing it, unable to hide the swift response in her eyes-spark to spark like the onset of a blaze. The jewelled khav chalice trembled in her hand. He saw that, and she saw that he did and that her response, as always, served as kindling for his own desire. She sipped at her drink, holding it with both hands, clinging to self-control.

'Better tonight, surely,' she said again, overwhelmed as always by what was happening to her. She knew what he needed her to say though, now, at this moment, in this room of state thronged with his court and emissaries from home.

She said it, looking him in the eyes, articulating carefully: 'After all, my lord, at your age you should marshal your strength. You did did run partway up a hill this morning.' run partway up a hill this morning.'

An instant later, for the second time, the Chiaran court of Brandin of Ygrath saw their King throw back his handsome, bearded head and they heard him laugh aloud in delight. Not far away, Rhun the Fool cackled in simultaneous glee.