Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

aware of the intensity of the silence, broken only by the occasional crackle of the fire, the river’s soft murmur, and Erlein di Senzio’s choked, ragged breathing.

Without speaking Catriana straightened and released her grip on Devin’s arm. He glanced at her but she didn’t meet his eye. He turned back to the wizard.

Erlein was still on his knees before Alessan in the new spring grass by the riverbank. His body still shook, but with weeping now. When he lifted his head Devin could see the tracks of tears and sweat and the staining mud from his hands. Slowly Erlein raised his left hand and stared at it as if it was something alien that didn’t even belong to him. They all saw what had happened, or the illusion of what had happened.

Five fingers. He had cast the spell.

An owl suddenly called, short and clear from north along the river, nearer to the trees. Devin became aware of a change in the sky. He looked up. Blue Ilarion, waning back to a crescent, had risen in the east. Ghostlight, Devin thought, and wished he hadn’t.

‘Honour!’ Erlein di Senzio said, scarcely audible.

Alessan had not moved since giving his command. He looked down on the wizard he had bound and said, quietly, ‘I did not enjoy that, but I suppose we needed to go through it. Once will be enough, I hope. Shall we eat?’

He walked past Devin and the Duke and Catriana to where Baerd was waiting by the fire. The meat was already cooking. Caught in a vortex of emotion, Devin saw the searching look Baerd gave Alessan. He turned back in time to see Sandre reaching out a hand to help Erlein rise.

For a long moment Erlein ignored him, then, with a sigh, he grasped the Duke’s forearm and pulled himself erect.

Devin followed Catriana back towards the fire. He heard the two wizards coming after them.

DINNER PASSED IN NEAR silence. Erlein took his plate and glass and went to sit alone on the rock by the stream at the very farthest extent of the fire’s glow. Looking over at his dark outline, Sandre murmured that a younger man would very likely have refused to eat. ‘He’s a survivor that one,’ the Duke added. ‘Any wizard who’s lasted this long has to be.’

‘Will he be all right then,’ Catriana asked softly, ‘with us?’

‘I think so,’ Sandre answered, sipping his wine. He turned to Alessan. ‘He’ll try to run away tonight though.’

‘I know,’ the Prince said.

‘Do we stop him?’ It was Baerd.

Alessan shook his head. ‘Not you. I will. He cannot leave me unless I let him. If I call he must return. I have him . . . tethered to my mind. It is a queer feeling.’

Queer indeed, Devin thought. He looked from the Prince to the dark figure by the river. He couldn’t even imagine what this must feel like. Or rather, he could almost imagine it, and the sensation disturbed him.

He became aware that Catriana was looking at him and he turned to her. This time she didn’t look away. Her expression, too, was strange; Devin realized she must be feeling the same edginess and sense of unreality that he was. He suddenly remembered, vividly, the feel of her head against his shoulder an hour ago. At the time he’d hardly registered the fact, so intent had he been on Erlein. He tried to smile reassuringly, but he didn’t think he managed it.

‘Troubadour, you promised us harp music!’ Sandre called out abruptly. The wizard in the darkness didn’t respond. Devin had forgotten about that. He didn’t feel much like singing and he didn’t think Catriana did either.

So, in the event, what happened was that Alessan expressionlessly claimed his Tregean pipes and began to make music alone beside the fire.

He played beautifully, with a pared-down economy of sound—melodies so sweetly offered that Devin, in his current mood, could almost imagine Eanna’s stars and the blue crescent of the one moon pausing in their movements overhead so as not to have to wheel inexorably away from the grace of that music.

Then a short while later Devin realized what Alessan was doing and he felt, abruptly, as if he was going to cry. He held himself very still, to keep control, and he looked at the Prince across the red and orange of the flames.

Alessan’s eyes were closed as he played, his lean face seemed almost hollowed out, the cheekbones showing clearly. And into the sounds he made he seemed to pour, as from a votive temple bowl, both the yearning that drove him, and the decency and care that Devin knew lay at the root of him. But that wasn’t it, that wasn’t what was making Devin want to cry:

Every song that Alessan was playing, every single tune, achingly high and sweet, heartbreakingly clear, one after another, was a song from Senzio.

A song for Erlein di Senzio, cloaked in bitterness and the shadows of night by the riverbank alone.

I will not say I am sorry, Alessan had told the wizard as the sun had set. But I can tell you that I grieve.

And that night, listening to the music the Prince of Tigana made upon his pipes, Devin learned the difference between the two. He watched Alessan, and then he watched the others as they looked at the Prince, and it was when he was gazing at Baerd that the need to weep did grow too strong. His own griefs rose to the call of the mountain pipes. Grief for Alessan and overmastered Erlein. For Baerd and his haunted night walking. For Sandre and his ten fingers and his dead son. For Catriana and himself, all their generation, rootless and cut off from what they were in a world without a home. For all the myriad accumulations of loss and what men and women had to do in order to seek redress.

Catriana went to the baggage and she opened and poured another bottle of wine. The third glass. And as