Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows Page 10

  And cried out in surprise when his hands passed through her bent form, the full force of his weight behind them. It had not been a gentle nudge.

  She watched from the open door as panic cost him the only chance he had at halting his descent. Then, as he began to strike stair after stair on his long way down, she reached out with her signature skill and took from him the information she required: that somewhere within the Order someone had expended the power necessary to watch her death through his servant's eyes. She hoped he now had an intimate acquaintance with the flat stone steps. Whoever he was. The signature of his power was not familiar enough that she recognized it. She knew the ATerafin's signature well; it was too much to hope that the hand behind the assassin could be implicated so easily.

  She turned back to the windows in her rooms, wondering why it was that the old were assumed to have left wit behind with youth.

  The tower grew silent.

  She made her way to the windows again, caught in the tangle of old arguments, old politics. Numbers brushed by: three. Three men had died in the last year attempting to take her life. Possibly four if this one didn't survive his fall down the stairs. No names now came to the faces that had made themselves remarkable solely by their attempts.

  But Meralonne had felled two almost as casually as he lit his pipe. She smiled grimly; his dignity was such an odd thing. He could walk into a crowd of dignitaries half naked; could begin to eat when the Kings themselves had deigned to join the magi at their feast—before either of the Crowns had blessed the meal. He could lose himself in research or study; could, in the middle of a meeting of the greater governing body, spend four hours staring at a plant. But the moment he was required to fight he became all edge, all steel.

  As cold in his way as Sigurne herself had become because of her youth, but much, much more obvious in his ice.

  Meralonne APhaniel was by nature the most aggressive of her mages; the least trusting. She had long suspected that if not for a minimal respect for the laws that governed the country, he would have trapped his door in such a way that an unwelcome visitor never troubled him—or anyone else—again.

  Although she would never admit it, and further, knew it would never even be suspected, she had the same urge herself.

  Four.

  Four men, and she knew it had only begun.

  Perhaps here was a reason that these finely appointed rooms boasted banks of windows, but no doors into the outer world, no balcony—such as Meralonne possessed— upon which one might experience sea breeze and the momentary illusion of freedom beneath the open sky.

  CHAPTER TWO

  17th of Scaral, 427 AA

  Avantari, Arannan Halls

  "He's just a stupid kid." Alexis' glare was about as cold as anything could get at midday in Averalaan; it glanced off the side of Duarte's face as if it were the flat of a dagger that had sheltered in the shadows of a cellar. Captain Duarte AKalakar, her superior officer.

  Whatever that meant to an Osprey.

  The heat of the midday sun often provided an excuse— and in dealing with Ser Anton and his young Tyr, excuses were in short supply—for rest and momentary relaxation. If the word "alert" and the word "relax" could be somehow forged into a single thing and still have some meaning.

  There was, about these recesses—as about all else with Ser Anton di'Guivera—a sense of ritual. The old man would signal a recess. Swords would stop, almost in midmotion if the two students had actually closed; be lowered warily if they had not and their feet were contained by the circle, and he would allow the Tyr to withdraw to secure quarters. There, a smaller number of personal guards was required, and the rest could… be less nervous.

  The Arannan Halls, with their courtyards and fountains, their multiple rooms and the serafs—ah, servants—handpicked by the Lambertan hostages, had become, at the largesse of the Kings, the property of the young Tyr'agar. Duarte's hand had delivered the decree; paper, headed by the symbols of the Twin Kings, and sealed by wax the color of blood, so ubiquitous in the North and so absent in the South.

  "What does it say?" General Baredan di'Navarre had demanded, once the seals were broken and the wax had fallen, in thick shards, against the surface of perfectly smooth wood. That desk, old and dark, was as fine as any The Kalakar owned. Or rather, Duarte thought with a grimace, any The Kalakar owned that the Ospreys had ever seen. They were not among her closest advisers.

  "It is… an extension of their offer of hospitality, General."

  The General's frown was nonexistent, but it was there if you knew him well enough. His shoulders rose a fraction of an inch; his chin came up slightly.

  "Satisfy the curiosity of a loyal liege," Ramiro di'Callesta had said dryly. "Tell me what hospitality has been extended."

  Although he could have handed either the General or the Tyr the parchment and let them read it themselves, he adhered to proper form. "The Kings have gifted me," the boy who was not a man, the man who had not been tested, said quietly, "with the Arannan Halls. They are to be in all ways my personal quarters. My laws reign here."

  "A generous offer." All three men understood that the offer changed very little about the daily life of Valedan kai di'Leonne; they also understood that in spite of this, the lack of change was significant.

  "And one which I will, of course, accept," Valedan had replied, equally dry. "I… need time to compose a reply."

  They understood a dismissal when they heard it. They bowed, Southern style. That room, its large windows designed to give light and cast shadow, had quieted as their steps echoed into stillness.

  Only after the stillness was complete did Valedan choose to break it; he rose. At his shoulder, Ser Anton stood, as impassive as the walls, as merciless, in his fashion, as the sun through the open window. "Well?" he said softly.

  Ser Andaro di'Corsarro frowned. "The words—you closed the scroll too quickly. I couldn't read them, Tyr'agar."

  "Here." He offered the scroll to the only man he had taken as Tyran. Ser Andaro di'Corsarro had sworn his life, his life's blood, and his honor in Valedan's service, and the vow, simple and crude though it had been, was a vow that death would end. Nothing else.

  It surprised Duarte slightly to know that Valedan took that vow as seriously as Ser Andaro had; that he took what was offered in pain and anger, in respect and in emptiness, and extended it, strengthened it, made it in truth what it had been in promise. For it was only to Andaro that he handed the missive of Kings.

  He read slowly, his eyes struggling over the loops and curves of an unfamiliar script. His spoken Weston was exotic but flawless, his written Weston little better than Aidan's. At last, his brows rose, changing the lines of his intent, even handsome, face. "But—but why did you not tell the General of this offer?"

  It was Ser Anton who replied. "Because he does not choose to accept it."

  Ser Andaro's expression chilled. There was, between the old man and the young, a very bitter death. Duarte wondered if the corpse would ever be buried, or if it would stand there as wall and accusation for the duration of Ser Anton's life.

  "Tyr'agar?"

  "As usual," Valedan said, carefully failing to notice the moment's chill, "Ser Anton is correct."

  "May I ask why?"

  "You are Tyran, Andaro. Not cerdan, not simply guard. You may ask me anything, and if it is in my power to answer it, I will answer it. Your fate and mine are not separate. Come," he said. "Stand here." He called for pen, and for paper; something far too fine to be demeaned by such a term was delivered into his hands. He dipped quill into ink, touched it to blotter.

  These halls, he wrote, have been my home. It was in these halls, for no reason that any man of power in the Dominion would understand, that the ACormaris chose to school me in the art of the Sword and in the art of the Bow. It was in these halls, so starkly and simply designed by a nameless Maker, that I have been confronted, in every moment of peace, by the truth of our concept of Justice.

  That Maker who carved the
statue in the courtyard understood the South; perhaps he understood the North as well; I cannot say. But I have grown to understand all that I have been offered.

  Names have power. I pray—to Cormaris in the North, to the Lady in the South—that the experience of these halls

  never deserts me; that I continue to draw strength and wisdom from a past that has been defined by Your hospitality.

  In future, I hope to achieve something which will merit the honor of your regard. If I am successful, I hope you will consider what I have—perhaps unwisely—said. Leave these halls as they have been, in my memory.

  For when I take, at last, to the field, I wish to know that some small part of the world remains as it was, and when I speak of home, I wish the name Arannan to invoke in perpetuity what it invokes in me now.

  He labored, did Ser Andaro, with each word. But at last, he nodded. "I am not sure," he said softly, "that the Leonne Halls would not be the more appropriate name."

  Ser Anton stiffened.

  "I know," Valedan said, carefully rolling the words he had written into something that resembled a tube. He stood, walked to the window, and stared out of it at the open courtyard a story below. There, in the waters that were life in the South, and decoration in the North, the boy stood waiting in a smooth basin, his blindfold a thing of stone and artistry, inseparable from his perfect, delicate features.

  Valedan had stood observing that boy until Alexis— Alexis of all people—had deftly separated him from his message with a quiet promise to have it delivered.

  Which was how Duarte knew its contents, of course. Ospreys were Ospreys, and the Tyr had no official Northern seal; none was needed; in the South all words were carried by slaves, and all vows were made by the named blade.

  Duarte's gaze scanned the perimeter of that courtyard now. It was open to observation from the heights of the grandest buildings in all of the Empire, old or new—the towers and the balconies of Avantari, the palace of Kings. He had become used to spectators, although spectators were not something that the worst dress unit in all of Kalakar derived any pleasure from. He had even come, in the course of this unexpected, this unpredictable duty, to recognize the spectators although the distance that separated them was, of necessity, great. In particular, two women would stand in the breezes that graced the heights: The Serra Alina di'Lamberto—a woman as dangerous, in her cold, graceful beauty as Alexis was in her fire—and Mirialyn ACormaris.

  Neither woman was present for this brief pause; he was glad of it. There were things one tried not to do in front of witnesses.

  Like, perhaps, have an argument with the woman that you are trying to remember you love. Alexis had an unusual idea of "recreational activity."

  "Alexis, the Tyr—" he began, seeing in that steady, dark gaze something that was familiar enough that he wanted to walk away from it. He glanced to the wall and back; the well worn spot that had become shelter from midday sun was conspicuously empty. Which was a good thing. The "stupid kid" that Alexis AKalakar felt she was defending was old enough to take umbrage at the words she had chosen as a means of that defense; Aidan was not quite a child but certainly not an adult. A difficult age.

  "He almost died at the Challenge, the little fool. You'd think he might have learned something. It's a mistake to have him there." She jerked her head, hard, to the left; her hair came free in strands and wavered a moment in the still air like a dark, moving frame.

  Cliche, Duarte thought, was what it was for a reason: it embodied a truth so common it was, in the minds of those not intimately involved with its resonance, boring. But… she had always been beautiful when she was angry. And dangerous. And infuriating.

  "Alexis, the Tyr—"

  "He doesn't know any better," she continued, as if she hadn't heard him. Unlikely. She was probably ignoring him, as she often did when she was, in fact, beautiful in just this fashion. "He's under the mistaken impression that we're real House Guards."

  "He's not here for us." Duarte's voice was soft. The softness—forced, implacable—was wasted on Alexis; she heard the edge in it as if that was all there was. And there was more.

  "No, of course not. He's here for the old man and the Tyr."

  Take care, Duarte. Care. "I'm pleased," the Captain of the Black Ospreys said, in a tone that was unfortunately anything but, "we agree."

  She shrugged. "It doesn't mean it's any safer for him. We've taken what—two? Three?—would-be assassins in the last three weeks. He was there."

  "And you've suddenly become the guardian of naive young men?"

  "He's not a man. He's a boy." Her hands found the way to her slender hips and perched there, an inch away from the hilt of a simple dagger. He wondered if it was meant as a threat; Alexis was usually straightforward when it came to matters of life and death.

  But she wasn't above slitting your throat if your back was turned and you'd crossed a line that only she understood clearly. Or at least she hadn't been.

  For a moment the memories of the younger woman overlapped and overwhelmed his memories of the older one; he was not certain whether time's changes had ever taken root, grown deep. The older woman, he loved. The younger woman he had loved as well, but he'd been forced into an intimate understanding of the price of any weakness she could sense.

  "He's no younger than you were when you killed your first man."

  She was rigid for a minute. Duarte took a half step toward her.

  "Alexis—"

  She lifted a hand, turning away from him. Duarte could see the side of her face, and for a moment, that was all he wanted to see; she was like stone, and would remain so, unless he caught sight of her eyes. She shrugged. "Yeah. That's me. Born killer. No, don't bother," she snapped, as he took another step. "You're right. Why should I give a shit? No one watched out for me."

  She turned and walked away, her heels tapping out a precise retreat.

  Duarte watched her leave. She had set the rules of the encounter; always a mistake, to allow her that much freedom. To allow himself that much. Because every loss, with Alexis, was costly. And every victory as well. He knew that when he was a younger man, he might just have been stupid enough to mistake her agreement for some kind of victory, and for a moment, he missed the naivete of that younger self.

  * * *

  The boy was allowed to watch.

  There was a risk in it, and that risk, enumerated for both his benefit and the benefit of the students who—under the heat of the sun and the salty humidity of the sea-laden air—attempted to gain, if not the skills Ser Anton possessed, than at least some sign of his approval, had been accepted for what it was: truth.

  But the boy, in Ser Anton's opinion, had proved himself worthy of being allowed to make his own choice—although he knew that the choice was really no choice at all, merely permission—by saving the life of the Tyr'agar.

  And so, Aidan, born the son of a wheelwright, watched the play of light and steel he best loved: swords beneath an open sky. It was just such a sound that had drawn him, like the siren call of sea creatures in a sailor's dark stories, to the side of the older man; it was just such a desire to bear witness that had almost cost him his life.

  So much for learning by experience.

  The Ospreys had become used to him; he had grown used to them. In many ways, he and they had more in common than the men they now watched, and the man they now served. Aidan was more careful with his words than they were, but it was almost entirely due to size; he'd learned the hard way that being too bold with words ended—if he was very lucky—in bruises.

  As always, Ser Anton di'Guivera remained a quiet man. It was as if he went out of his way to avoid any word that might flatter, any gesture beyond the occasional nod that might give a student a dangerous confidence.

  The first time that Aidan had seen him, he had had twelve students; he now had two. He had excused himself from the duties he held to the men who had traveled North for the Kings' Challenge. Aidan wondered, briefly, how the Southern students mu
st have felt. He knew he would have been crushed.

  And yet… having seen the two students that remained, he wasn't certain that some part of him wouldn't have been relieved as well.

  Because Valedan kai di'Leonne and Andaro di'Corsarro were so much better than any of the rest of them. Only Carlo had been close, and Aidan learned quickly that you didn't mention Carlo di'Jevre's name anywhere where Andaro or Ser Anton could hear it. Andaro would go cold as deep seawater, and Ser Anton would stiffen; they would stand there, not looking at each other, until Valedan stepped in, leading them either back to the drill, or away from it entirely.

  Valedan was always present when Andaro and Ser Anton were together. He often stood between them, if they were forced to stand together, although no harsh word was ever exchanged between the men as far as Aidan could tell.

  He wasn't used to silence as a container for anger; certainly his father's silences were reserved for other emotions: loss, joy, terror. Anger was quickly and easily wrapped in words and thrown at the nearest person—although the anger was greatly lessened as his father found work that demanded care and sobriety.

  But although he had come late to silence, he had grown to understand some of its textures; Ser Anton was patient in all things, and if he chose to explain little, he was willing to allow Aidan to absorb knowledge, whole, from experience. Many young boys of Aidan's acquaintance would have cheerfully killed to be where he was.

  But that, Ser Anton said, the words now engraved as if' by a jeweler's pick in the gold, false and real, of memory, is not the question. The question is: How many would die just as easily for the same privilege?

  All of them, Aidan had said.

  Ser Anton's smile was quiet, a quiet that meant thought, memory, and the disturbing collision between them. Perhaps, he said at last. And perhaps that was a foolish question, given how very many of them might die anyway. He had risen to join Andaro and Valedan.

  And Aidan, the quiet student, understood that he had seen one of Ser Anton's very few retreats.