Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

‘My lord,’ he said softly to the old man sitting there with him, ‘do you know that I have come to love you in the time we have been together?’

‘By the Triad!’ Sandre said, a little too quickly. ‘And I haven’t even given you the potion!’

Baerd smiled, said nothing, able to guess at the bindings the old Duke must have within himself. A moment later though, he heard Sandre murmur, in a very different voice:

‘And I you, my friend. All of you. You have given me a second life and a reason for living it. Even a hope that a future worth knowing might lie ahead of us. For that you have my love until I die.’

Gravely, he held out a palm and the two of them touched fingers in the darkness. They were sitting thus, motionless, when they heard the sound of an oar splash gently in the water. Both men rose silently, reaching for their swords. Then they heard an owl hoot from the river.

Baerd called softly back, and a moment later a small boat bumped gently against the sloping bank and Catriana, stepping lightly, came ashore.

At the sight of her Baerd drew a breath of pure relief; he had been more afraid for her than he could ever have said. There was a man behind her in the boat holding the oars but the moons had not yet risen and Baerd couldn’t see who it was.

Catriana said, ‘That was quite a blow. Should I be flattered?’

Sandre, behind him, chuckled. Baerd felt as though his heart would overflow with pride in this woman, in the calm, matter-of-factness of her courage. Matching her tone with an effort he said only, ‘You shouldn’t have shrieked. Half of Tregea thought you were being ravished.’

‘Yes, well,’ she said drily. ‘Do forgive me. I wasn’t sure myself.’

‘What happened to your hair?’ Sandre asked suddenly from behind, and Baerd, moving sideways, saw that it had indeed been cropped away, in a ragged line above her shoulders.

She shrugged, with exaggerated indifference. ‘It was in the way. We decided to cut it off.’

‘Who is we?’ Baerd asked. Something within him was grieving for her, for the assumed casualness of her manner. ‘Who is in the boat? I assume a friend, given where we are.’

‘A fair assumption,’ the man in the boat answered for himself. ‘Though I must say I could have picked a better place for our contraina to have a business meeting.’

‘Rovigo!’ Baerd murmured, with astonishment and a swift surge of delight. ‘Well met! It has been too long.’

‘Rovigo d’Astibar?’ Sandre said suddenly, coming forward. ‘Is that who this is?’

‘I thought I knew that voice,’ Rovigo said, shipping his oars and standing up abruptly. Baerd moved quickly down to the bank to steady the boat. Rovigo took two precise strides and leaped past him to the shore. ‘I do know it, but I cannot believe I am hearing it. In the name of Morian of Portals, have you come back from the dead, my lord?’

Even as he spoke he knelt in the tall grass before Sandre, Duke of Astibar. East of them, beyond where the river found the sea, Ilarion rose, sending her blue light along the water and over the waving grasses of the bank.

‘In a manner of speaking I have,’ Sandre said. ‘With my skin somewhat altered by Baerd’s craft.’ He reached down and pulled Rovigo to his feet. The two men looked at each other.

‘Alessan wouldn’t tell me last fall, but he said I would be pleased when I learned who my other partner was,’ Rovigo whispered, visibly moved. ‘He spoke more truly than he could have known. How is this possible, my lord?’

‘I never died,’ Sandre said simply. ‘It was a deception. Part of a poor, foolish old man’s scheme. If Alessan and Baerd had not returned to the lodge that night I would have killed myself after the Barbadians came and went.’ He paused. ‘Which means, I suppose, that I have you to thank for my present state, neighbour Rovigo. For various nights through the years outside my windows. Listening to the spinning of our feeble plots.’

Under the slanting blue moonlight, there was a certain glint in his eye. Rovigo stepped back a little, but his head was high and he did not avert his gaze. ‘It was in a cause that you now know, my lord.’ he said. ‘A cause you have joined. I would have cut out my tongue before betraying you to Barbadior. I think you must know that.’

‘I do know that,’ Sandre said after a moment. ‘Which is a great deal more than I can say for my own kin.’

‘Only one of them,’ Rovigo said quickly, ‘and he is dead.’

‘He is dead,’ Sandre repeated. ‘They are all dead. I am the last of the Sandreni. And what shall we do about it, Rovigo? What shall we do with Alberico of Barbadior?’

Rovigo said nothing. It was Baerd who answered, from the water’s edge.

‘Destroy him,’ he said. ‘Destroy them both.’

Part Five

The Memory of A Flame

Chapter XVII

Scelto woke her very early on the morning of the ritual. She had spent the night alone, as was proper, and had made offerings the evening before at the temples of Adaon and Morian both. Brandin was careful now to be seen observing all rites and proprieties of the Palm. In the temples the priests and the priestesses had been almost fawning in their solicitude. In what she was doing there was power for them and they knew it.

She’d had a short and restless sleep and when Scelto touched her awake, gently, and with a mug of khav already to hand, she felt her last dream of the night slipping away from her. Closing her eyes, only half conscious, she tried to chase it, sensing the dream receding as if down corridors of her mind. She pursued,