Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

great danger by this. Because I have wronged him by his lights, and by my own. And because I have need of him.’

Marius shook his large head. ‘It is bad to have need of a man.’

‘I know, Bear.’

‘He may come back to you, even years later, and ask you for something very large. Something your heart will not let you refuse.’

‘I know, Bear,’ said Alessan. The two men looked at each other, sitting motionless on the golden carpet.

Devin turned away, feeling like an intruder on that exchange of glances. In the stillness of that pass below the heights of the Braccio Range birdsong rang out with piercing sweetness and, looking up to the south, Devin saw that the last of the high white clouds had drifted apart, revealing the dazzle of sunlit snow on the peaks. The world seemed to be a place of more beauty and more pain than he could ever have imagined it to be.

WHEN THEY RODE BACK down from the pass Baerd was waiting for them a few miles south of the castle, alone on his horse among the green of the foothills.

His eyes widened when he saw Devin and Erlein, and a rare amusement was visible even behind his beard, as Alessan pulled to a halt in front of him.

‘You,’ said Baerd, ‘are even worse at these things than I am, despite everything you say.’

‘Not worse. As bad, perhaps,’ Alessan said, ruefully ducking his head. ‘After all, your only reason for refusing to come was so that he wouldn’t feel any extra pressure to—’

‘And after lashing me verbally for that, you go and take two complete strangers to reduce the pressure even more. I stand my ground: you are worse than I am.’

‘Lash me verbally,’ Alessan said.

Baerd shook his head. ‘How is he?’’

‘Well enough. Under strain. Devin stopped an assassination attempt up there.’

‘What?’ Baerd glanced quickly at Devin, noting the torn shirt and hose and the scrapes and cuts.

‘You are going to have to teach me how to use a bow,’ Devin said. ‘There’s less wear and tear.’

Baerd smiled. ‘I will. First chance we have.’ Then something seemed to occur to him. ‘An assassination?’ he said to Alessan. ‘In the mountains? Surely not!’

Alessan’s expression was grim. ‘I’m afraid so. She carried a moon bow with a lock of his hair. The mountain taboo has obviously been lifted—at least for the purposes of murder.’

Baerd’s features creased with concern. He sat on his horse quietly a moment, then: ‘So he had no option really. He needs to act immediately. He said no?’

‘He said yes. We have six months and he will send the letters.’ Alessan hesitated. ‘He asked us to build a bonfire to his memory if he dies.’

Baerd suddenly turned his horse away. He sat staring fixedly off to the west. The late-afternoon sun was shedding an amber glow over the heather and bracken of the hills.

‘I love that man,’ Baerd said, still gazing into the distance.

‘I know,’ said Alessan. Slowly, Baerd turned back to him. They exchanged a look in silence.

‘Senzio?’ said Baerd.

Alessan nodded. ‘You will have to explain to Alienor how to set up the interception. These two will come west with me. You and Catriana and the Duke go north and then into Tregea. We start reaping what we’ve sown, Baerd. You know the timing as well as I do, and you’ll know what to do until we meet again, who we’ll want from the east. I’m not sure about Rovigo—I’ll leave that to you.’

‘I’m not happy about separate roads,’ Baerd murmured.

‘Neither am I, if you must know. If you have an alternative I’d be grateful to hear it.’

Baerd shook his head. ‘What will you do?’

‘Speak to some people on the way. See my mother. After that it depends on what I find. My own reaping in the west before summer comes.’

Baerd glanced briefly at Devin and Erlein. ‘Try not to let yourself be hurt,’ he said.

Alessan gave his shrug. ‘She’s dying, Baerd. And I’ve hurt her enough in eighteen years.’

‘You have not!’ the other replied with sudden anger. ‘You only wound yourself if you think that way.’

Alessan sighed. ‘She is dying unknown and alone in a Sanctuary of Eanna in a province called Lower Corte. She is not in the Palace by the Sea in Tigana. Do not say she has not been hurt.’

‘But not by you!’ Baerd protested. ‘Why do you do this to yourself?’

Again the shrug. ‘I have made certain choices in a dozen years since we came back from Quileia. I am willing to accept that others may disagree with those choices.’ His eyes flicked to Erlein. ‘Leave it, Baerd. I promise not to let this unbalance me, even without you there. Devin will help if I need help.’

Baerd grimaced behind his beard and looked as if he would pursue the matter further, but when he spoke again it was in a different voice. ‘You think this is it, then? You think it truly might happen now?’

‘I think it has to happen this summer or it never will. Unless, I suppose, someone does kill Marius in Quileia and we go back to stasis here, with nothing at all to work with. Which would mean that my mother and a great many other people were right. In which case you and I will simply have to sail into Chiara harbour and storm the palace walls alone and kill Brandin of Ygrath and watch the Palm become an outpost of Barbadior’s Empire. And what price Tigana then?’

He checked himself. Then continued in a lower voice: ‘Marius is the one wild card we have ever had, the one thing I’ve been waiting for and working for all these years. And he’s just agreed to let us play him as we need. We have a chance. It may not hurt to do some praying, all of us, in the days to come. This has been long enough in arriving.’

Baerd was very still. ‘Long enough,’ he echoed finally, and something in his voice