Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

leaning upon his stick, a tall, grey, thin figure against the bare trees. The sky above him had turned overcast again. Of course it has, Dianora thought spitefully.

Then she remembered the pool and her mood changed. What did these court manoeuvres matter, in the end? D’Eymon was only doing what he had to do, and so now, would she. She had seen her path. She found herself able to smile, letting that inner quiet descend upon her again, though with a stone of sorrow at its centre still. She sank low in a very formal curtsey. D’Eymon, taken aback, sketched an awkward bow.

Dianora turned and went through the doors that Scelto was holding for her. She went back down the corridor and up the stairs, along a north–south hallway and past two heavy doors. She stopped in front of the third pair of doors. Out of reflex and habit more than anything else she checked her reflection in the bronze shield that hung on the wall. She adjusted her robe and pushed both hands through her hopelessly windblown hair.

Then she knocked on the library doors and entered, holding hard to her calm and the vision of the pool, a round stone of knowledge and sorrow in her heart that she hoped would anchor it in her breast and keep it from flying away.

Brandin was standing with his back to the door looking at a very old map of the then known world that hung above the larger of the fires. He did not turn. She looked up at the map. On it, the Peninsula of the Palm and even the larger land mass of Quileia beyond the mountains running all the way south to the Ice, were dwarfed by the size of Barbadior and its Empire to the east and by Ygrath to the west overseas.

The velvet window curtains of the library were drawn against the morning light and a fire was blazing, which bothered her. She found it difficult to deal with flames on an Ember Day. Brandin held a fire-iron in one hand. He was dressed as carelessly as she, in black riding clothes and boots. His boots were muddy; he must have been out riding very early.

She put the encounter with d’Eymon behind her, but not the riselka in the garden. This man was the centre of her life; whatever else had changed that had not, but the riselka’s vision had offered her a path, and Brandin had let her lie alone and awake all last night.

She said, ‘Forgive me, my lord. I was with the Chancellor this morning and he chose to only just now tell me you were waiting here.’

‘Why were you meeting with him?’ The nuanced, familiar voice was only mildly interested. He seemed engrossed in the map.

She did not lie to the King. ‘The Taxing Master question in Asoli. I wanted to know why he favoured Neso.’

There was a faint hint of amusement in his voice. ‘I’m sure d’Eymon told you something plausible.’ He turned finally, and gazed at her for the first time. He looked exactly the same as he always did, and she knew what always happened when their glances first met.

But she had seen a riselka an hour ago and something seemed to have changed. Her calm did not leave her; her heart stayed home. She closed her eyes for an instant, but more to acknowledge the meaning of that change and the passing of a long truth than anything else. She felt that she would weep, for many reasons, if she were not extremely careful now.

Brandin sank into a chair by the fire. He looked tired, as much as anything. It showed only in small ways, but she had known him a long time. ‘I will have to give it to Neso now,’ he said. ‘I think you know that. I’m sorry.’

Some things, it seemed, had not changed: always that grave, unexpected courtesy when he spoke to her of such things. What need had the King of Ygrath to apologize to her for choosing one of his courtiers over another? She moved into the room, clinging to her resolution, and at his gesture she took the chair opposite his. Brandin’s eyes rested on her with an odd, almost a detached scrutiny. She wondered what he would see.

She heard a sound from the far end of the room and, glancing over, saw Rhun sitting by the second fire, aimlessly leafing through a picture-book. His presence reminded her of something, and she felt her anger suddenly come back.

‘Of course you have to offer it to Neso,’ she said. ‘Asoli is his prize for gallantry in the service of his King.’ He scarcely responded. Briefly his mouth quirked, his expression mildly ironic; he still seemed preoccupied though, only half attending to what she said.

‘Gallantry, courage. They’ll call it something of that sort,’ he said absently. ‘Not getting out of the way in time, it really was. D’Eymon was already arranging last night to have word spread that it was Neso who saved my life.’

She would not rise to that. She refused. She didn’t even understand why he was saying this to her.

She said, instead, looking across the room at Rhun, not at the King: ‘That makes sense, and you must surely know that I don’t care. What I do not understand is why you are putting out lies about Camena’s fate.’ She took a breath, and then plunged ahead. ‘I know the truth. It is such an ugly, vicious thing to do. If you must prepare a Fool to follow Rhun, why mar a whole man and a healthy one? Why do such a thing?’

He did not answer for a long time and she was afraid to look at him. Rhun, too far away to hear, had none the less stopped leafing through his book and was looking over at them.

‘As it happens, there are precedents,’ was what Brandin said at length, his tone still mild. But then, a moment later, he