Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

it was to look south, watching the play of light and the changing colours of the sky above the mountains. Of late though, as springtime turned towards the summer they had all been waiting for, Alienor found herself climbing to the northern ramparts instead, to pace the guard’s walk behind the crenellations or lean upon the cool rough stone, gazing into the distance, wrapped in her shawl against the chill that still came when the sun went down.

As if she could actually see as far as Senzio.

The shawl was a new one, brought by the messengers from Quileia that Baerd had told them would come. The ones who carried the messages that could, if all went right, turn the whole world upside down. Not just the Palm: Barbadior too, where the Emperor was said to be dying, and Ygrath, and Quileia itself where, precisely because of what he was doing for them, Marius might not survive.

The Quileian messengers had stopped on their way to Fort Ortiz, as was appropriate, to pay their respects to the Lady of Castle Borso and to bring her a gift from the new King of Quileia: an indigo-coloured shawl, a colour almost impossible to find here in the Palm, and one which was, she knew, a mark of nobility in Quileia. It was evident that Alessan had told this Marius a fair bit about her involvement with him over the years. Which was fine. Marius of Quileia, it seemed, was one of them; in fact, as Baerd had explained it the afternoon after Alessan had ridden into the Braccio Pass and then away west, Marius was the key to everything.

Two days after the Quileians passed through, Alienor began a habit of springtime rides that took her, casually, far enough afield to necessitate one or two overnight stays at neighbouring castles. At which time she relayed a quite specific message to a half a dozen equally specific people.

Senzio. Before Midsummer.

Not long afterwards, a silk-merchant and then a singer she rather liked came down to Castle Borso with word of tremendous troop movements among the Barbadians. The roads were absolutely clogged with mercenaries marching north, they said. She had raised her eyebrows in quizzical mystification, but had allowed herself more wine than was customary each of those two nights, and had rewarded both men later, after her own fashion.

Up on the ramparts at sunset now, she heard a footstep on the stair behind her. She had been waiting for it.

Without turning, she said, ‘You are almost too late. The sun is nearly gone.’ Which was true; the colour of the sky and the thin, underlit clouds in the west had darkened from pink through crimson and purple most of the way down to the indigo she wore about her shoulders.

Elena stepped out on the parapet.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, inappropriately. She was always apologizing, still uneasy in the castle. She moved to the guard’s walk beside Alienor and looked out over the gathering darkness of the late-spring fields. Her long yellow hair fanned over her shoulders, the ends lifting in the breeze.

Ostensibly she was here to serve as a new lady-in-waiting to Alienor. She had brought her two young children and her few belongings into Borso two mornings after the Ember Days had ended. It was considered a good idea that she be established here well before the time that might matter. It appeared, incredibly enough, that there could actually come a time when her being here might matter.

Tomaz, the gaunt, aged Khardhu warrior, had said that it would be necessary for one of them to stay here. Tomaz, who was very clearly not from Khardhun, and just as clearly unwilling to say who he really was. Alienor didn’t care about that. What mattered was that Baerd and Alessan trusted him, and in this matter Baerd was deferring to the dark, hollow-cheeked man absolutely.

‘One of whom, exactly?’ Alienor had asked. The four of them had been alone: herself, Baerd and Tomaz, and the red-headed young girl who didn’t like her, Catriana.

Baerd hesitated a long time. ‘One of the Night Walkers,’ he said finally.

She had raised her eyebrows at that, the small outward gesture serving to show all she was prepared to reveal of her inward astonishment.

‘Really? Here? They are still about?’

Baerd nodded.

‘And that is where you were last night when you went out?’

After a second Baerd nodded again.

The girl Catriana blinked in manifest surprise. She was clever and quite beautiful, Alienor thought, but she still had rather a great deal to learn.

‘Doing what?’ Alienor asked Baerd.

But this time he shook his head. She had expected that. There were limits with Baerd; she enjoyed trying to push towards them. One night, ten years ago, she had found exactly where his boundaries of privacy lay, in one dimension at least. Surprisingly perhaps, their friendship had deepened from that time on.

Now, unexpectedly, he grinned. ‘You could have them all stay here, of course, not just one.’

She had grimaced with a distaste only partly feigned. ‘One will be sufficient, thank you. Assuming it is enough for your purposes, whatever those are?’ She said that last to the old man disguised as a Khardhu warrior. His skin colouring was really very good but she knew all about Baerd’s techniques of disguise. Over the years he and Alessan had shown up here in an effective diversity of appearances.

‘I’m not absolutely sure what our purposes are,’ Tomaz had replied frankly. ‘But insofar as we need an anchor for what Baerd wants us to at least be able to try, one of them in this castle should be enough.’

‘Enough for what?’ she’d probed again, not really expecting anything.

‘Enough for my magic to reach out and find this place,’ Tomaz had said bluntly.

This time it was she who blinked and Catriana who looked unruffled and superior. Which was unfair, Alienor decided afterwards; the girl must have known the old man was a wizard. That was why she hadn’t reacted. Alienor had enough of a sense of humour