Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

Baerd. He wondered if he would ever see any of them again. Earlier this evening, pursued into the pass, he had thought he was about to die. And now, two hours later, they had killed twenty-five Barbadians with those same outlaws who had pursued them, and three of the outlaws were here with them in this unknown barn listening to Alessan play a cradle song.

He didn’t think he would understand the strangeness of life if he lived to be a hundred years old.

There was a sound outside and the door swung open. Devin stiffened involuntarily. So did Ducas di Tregea, a hand reaching for his sword. Alessan looked at the door, but his fingers never faltered on the pipes and the music continued.

An old man, slightly stooped, but with a leonine combed-back mane of white hair, stood for a moment, backlit by the sudden moonlight, before he stepped inside and pushed the door closed behind him with a stick he carried. After that it was dark again in the barn and hard to see for a few moments.

No one spoke. Alessan did not even look up again. Tenderly, with feeling, he finished the tune. Devin looked at him as he played and wondered if he was the only man here who understood what music meant to the Prince. He thought about what Alessan had been through in this past day alone, about what it was he was riding towards, and something complicated and awkward stirred in his heart as he listened to the wistful ending of the song. He saw the Prince set his pipes aside with a motion of regret. Laying down his release, taking up the burdens again. All the burdens that seemed to be his legacy, the price of his blood.

‘Thank you for coming, old friend,’ he said now, quietly, to the man in the doorway.

‘You owe me, Alessan,’ the old man said in a clear strong voice. ‘You have condemned me to sour milk and spoiled meat for a month.’

‘I was afraid of that,’ Alessan said in the darkness. Devin could hear affection and an unexpected amusement in his voice. ‘Menna has not changed, then?’

The other man snorted. ‘Menna and change do not coexist,’ he said. ‘You are with new people, and a friend is missing. What has happened? Is he all right?’

‘He is fine. A half-day’s ride east. There is much to tell. I came with some reason, Rinaldo.’

‘So much is clear to me. One man with a leg that is torn inside. Another with an arrow wound. The two wizards are not happy but I can do nothing about their missing fingers and neither is ill. The sixth man is now afraid of me, but he need not be.’

Devin gasped with astonishment. Beside him Ducas swore aloud.

‘Explain this!’ he growled furiously. ‘Explain everything!’

Alessan was laughing. So, more softly, was the man he had called Rinaldo. ‘You are a spoiled and petty old man,’ the Prince said, still chuckling, ‘and you enjoy shocking people simply for the sake of doing it. You should be ashamed of yourself.’

‘There are so few pleasures left to me in my age,’ the other retorted. ‘Would you deny me this one too? There is much to tell, you say? Tell me.’

Alessan’s voice grew sober. ‘I had a meeting in the mountains this morning.’

‘Ah, I was wondering about that! And what follows?’

‘Everything, Rinaldo. Everything follows. This summer. He said yes. We will have the letters. One to Alberico, one to Brandin, and one to the Governor of Senzio.’

‘Ah,’ said Rinaldo again. ‘The Governor of Senzio.’ He said it softly, but could not quite disguise the excitement in his voice. He took a step forward into the room. ‘I never dreamt I would live to see this day. Alessan, we are going to act?’

‘We have already begun. Ducas and his men joined with us tonight in battle. We killed a number of Barbadians and a Tracker pursuing a wizard with us.’

‘Ducas? That is who this is?’ The old man gave a low whistle, a curiously incongruous sound. ‘Now I know why he is afraid. You have your share of enemies in this village, my friend.’

‘I am aware of that,’ said Ducas drily.

‘Rinaldo,’ Alessan said, ‘do you remember the siege of Borifort when Alberico first came? The stories about a red-bearded captain, one of the leaders of the Tregeans there? The one who was never found?’

‘Ducas di Tregea? This is he?’ Again the whistle. ‘Well-met then, Captain, though not, as a matter of fact, for the first time. If I remember rightly, you were in the company of the Duke of Tregea when I paid a formal visit there some twenty years ago.’

‘A visit from where?’ Ducas asked, visibly struggling to get his bearings. Devin sympathized: he was doing the same thing, and he knew rather more than the red-bearded man did. ‘From . . . from Alessan’s province?’ Ducas hazarded.

‘Tigana? But of course,’ Erlein di Senzio interjected harshly. ‘Of course he is. This is just another petty injured lordling from the west. Is that why you brought me here, Alessan? To show how brave an old man can be? You will forgive me if I choose to pass on this lesson.’

‘I didn’t hear the beginning of that.’ It was Rinaldo, speaking softly to the wizard. ‘What did you say?’

Erlein fell silent, turning from Alessan to the man by the door. Even in darkness Devin could see his sudden confusion.

‘He named my province,’ Alessan said. ‘They both think you are from my home.’

‘An outrageous slander,’ Rinaldo said calmly. He swung his large, handsome head towards Ducas and Erlein. ‘I am vain enough to have thought you might know me by now. My name is Rinaldo di Senzio.’

‘What! Senzio?’ Erlein exclaimed, shocked out of his own composure. ‘You can’t be!’

There was a silence.

‘Who, exactly, is this presumptuous man?’ Rinaldo asked, of no one in particular.

‘My wizard, I’m afraid,’ Alessan replied. ‘I have bound him to me with Adaon’s gift to the line of our