Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

they were servants, but when he came nearer he saw from their weapons that he was wrong: these were soldiers, and guards.

‘Pigeon,’ the man in the chair repeated loudly. ‘You have risen in the world! You bring companions this time!’

It was with a genuine sense of disorientation that Devin realized that the childish name and the raucous, carrying words were addressed to Alessan.

Who had the oddest look to his face all of a sudden. He said nothing by way of reply though, as they rode up to the seven men in the pass. Alessan dismounted; behind him Devin and Erlein did the same. The man in the chair did not rise to greet them, but his bright, small eyes followed every move that Alessan made. His enormous hands were motionless on the carved arms of the chair. He wore at least six rings; they sparkled in the light of the morning sun. He had a hooked much-broken nose in a leathery, weather-beaten face that showed two livid scars. One was an old wound, slanting down his right cheek in a white line. The other, much more recent, raked redly across his forehead to the greying, receding hairline above his left ear.

‘Company for the ride,’ Alessan said mildly. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d come. They both sing. Could have consoled me on the way back. The young one is Devin, the other is Erlein. You’ve grown monstrous fat in a year.’

‘And why should I not grow fat?’ the other roared in delight. ‘And how dare you doubt that I would come! Have I ever not kept faith with you?’ The tone was boisterous in the extreme, but Devin saw that the small eyes were alert and very watchful.

‘Not ever,’ Alessan agreed calmly. His own febrile manner had gone, to be replaced by an almost preternatural calm. ‘But things have changed since two years ago. You don’t need me any more. Not since last summer.’

‘Not need you!’ the big man cried. ‘Pigeon, of course I need you. You are my youth, my memory of what I was. And my talisman of fortune in battle.’

‘No more battles though,’ said Alessan quietly. ‘Will you allow me to offer my humblest congratulations?’

‘No!’ the other growled. ‘No I will not allow you. No such mewling courtly claptrap from you. What I want is for you to come here and hug me and stop this imbecilic maundering! Who are we to be chittering like this? The two of us!’

And with the last words he propelled himself upright with a ferocious push of his two muscled arms. The huge oak chair rocked backwards. Three of the liveried guards sprang to balance it.

The big man took two awkward, crippled, hopping steps forward as Alessan strode to meet him. And in that moment Devin abruptly realized—a bucket of ice down the length of his spine—who this scarred, maimed man had to be.

‘Bear!’ said Alessan, laughter catching in his throat. He threw his arms fiercely about the other man. ‘Oh, Marius, I truly didn’t know if you would come.’

Marius.

Stupefied by more than altitude and a sleepless night, Devin saw the self-crowned King of Quileia—the crippled man who’d killed seven armed challengers bare-handed in the sacred Grove—lift the Prince of Tigana clean off his feet and kiss him loudly on both cheeks. He lowered a red-faced Alessan to the path and held him at arms’ length for a close scrutiny.

‘It is true,’ he said at length as Alessan’s grin faded. ‘I can see it. You really did doubt me. I should be outraged, Pigeon. I should be wounded and hurt. What did Pigeon Two say?’

‘Baerd was sure you would be here,’ Alessan admitted ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I owe him money.’

‘At least one of you has grown up enough to have some sense,’ Marius growled. Then something seemed to register with him. ‘What? You two young scamps were wagering on me? How dare you!’ He was laughing, but the blow he suddenly clapped on Alessan’s shoulder made the other man stagger.

Marius hobbled back to his chair and sat down. Again Devin was struck by the all-embracing nature of the glance he turned on them. Only for an instant did it flit over Devin himself, but he had the uncanny sense that Marius had, in that one second, sized him up quite comprehensively, that he would be recognized and remembered should they meet by chance even a decade hence.

He experienced a weird, fleeting moment of pity for the seven warriors who had had to battle this man, bringing merely swords or spears, and armour and two good legs to meet him in a night grove.

Those arms like tree-trunks and the message in those eyes told Devin all he needed to know about which way the balance would have tilted in those battles despite the ritual maiming—the severed ankle tendons—of the consort who was supposed to die in the Grove, to the greater glory of the Mother Goddess and her High Priestess.

Marius had not died. For anyone’s greater glory. Seven times he had not died. And now, since that seventh time, there was a true King in Quileia again and the last High Priestess was dead. It had been Rovigo, Devin remembered suddenly, who had first given him that news. In a rancid tavern called The Bird, either half a year or half a lifetime ago.

‘You must have been slipping or lazy or already fat last summer in the Grove,’ Alessan was saying. He gestured towards the scar on Marius’s forehead. ‘Tonalius should never have been able to get that close to you with a blade.’

The smile on the face of the King of Quileia was not, in truth, a pleasant thing to see. ‘He didn’t,’ Marius said grimly. ‘I used our kick-drop from the twenty-seven tree and he was dead before we both hit the ground. The scar is a farewell token from my late wife in our last encounter. May the sacred Mother of us all guard her ever-blessed spirit. Will you take