Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

There was no sign of Erlein, but the two of them slowly made their way through the crowd to the raised platform in the middle space between the two rooms. Alessan took up his pipes and Devin stood beside him, waiting. The Prince blew a handful of testing, tuning notes and then, without a word spoken, began the song Devin had known he would begin.

As the first high, mournful notes of the ‘Lament for Adaon’ spun out into the densely crowded rooms there was a brief, disconcerted murmur, and then silence fell. Into which stillness Devin followed Alessan’s pipes, lifting his voice in lament. But not for the god this time, though the words were not changed. Not for Adaon falling from his high place, but for Catriana di Tigana fallen from hers.

Men said after that there had never been such a stillness, such rapt attention among the tables in Solinghi’s. Even the servants waiting on patrons and the cooks in the kitchens behind the bar stopped what they had been doing and stood listening. No one moved, no one made a sound. There were pipes playing, and a solitary voice singing the oldest song of mourning in the Palm.

In a room upstairs Alais lifted her head from her tear-soaked pillow and slowly sat up. Rinaldo, tending to Sandre’s maimed hand, turned his blind face towards the door and both men were still. And Baerd, who had come back here with Ducas to tidings that smashed his heart in a way he had not thought could ever happen to him again, listened to Alessan and Devin below and he felt as if his soul was leaving him, as it had on the Ember Night, to fly through darkness searching for peace and a home, for a dreamt-of world in which young women did not die in this way.

Out in the street where the sound of the pipes and that pure lamenting voice carried, people stopped in their loud pursuit of rumour or the restless chasing of night’s pleasures and they stood outside the doors of Solinghi’s, listening to the notes of grief, the sound of love—held fast in the spell of a music shaped by loss.

For a long time after it was remembered in Senzio, that haunting, heartbreaking, utterly unexpected offering of the ‘Lament’ on the mild, moonlit night that marked the beginning of war.

They played only the one song and then ended. There was nothing left in either of them. Devin claimed two open bottles of wine from Solinghi behind the bar and followed Alessan upstairs. One bedroom door was partly open: Alais’s, that had been Catriana’s too. Baerd was waiting in the doorway; he made a small choking sound and stepped forward into the hallway and Alessan embraced him.

For a long time they stood locked together, swaying a little. When they drew back both of their faces looked blurred, unfocused. Devin followed them into the room. Alais was there and Rovigo. Sandre. Rinaldo, Ducas and Naddo. Sertino the wizard. All of them crowded into this one room; as if being in the room from which she’d gone would somehow hold her spirit nearer to them.

‘Did anyone think to bring wine?’ Rinaldo asked in a faint voice.

‘I did,’ Devin said, going over to the Healer. Rinaldo looked pale and exhausted. Devin glanced at Sandre’s left hand and saw that the bleeding had been stopped. He guided Rinaldo’s hand to one of the wine bottles and the Healer drank, not bothering to ask for a glass. Devin gave the other bottle to Ducas, who did the same.

Sertino was gazing at Sandre’s hand. ‘You’re going to have to get in the habit of masking those fingers,’ he said. He held up his own left hand, and Devin saw the now-familiar illusion of completeness.

‘I know,’ Sandre said. ‘I feel very weak right now though.’

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Sertino replied. ‘Two missing fingers seen will mean death for you. However weary we are, the masking must be constant. Do it. Now.’

Sandre looked up at him angrily, but the Certandan wizard’s round pink face showed nothing but concern. The Duke closed his eyes briefly, grimaced, and then slowly held up his own left hand. Devin saw five fingers there, or the illusion of such. He couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Tomasso, dead in a dungeon in Astibar.

Ducas was offering him the bottle. He took it and drank. Passed it over to Naddo, and went to sit beside Alais on the bed. She took his hand, which had never happened before. Her eyes were red with weeping, her skin looked bruised. Alessan had slumped on the floor by the door, leaning against the wall. His eyes were closed. In the light of the candles his face looked hollowed out, the cheekbones showing in angular relief.

Ducas cleared his throat. ‘We had best do some planning,’ he said awkwardly. ‘If she killed this Barbadian there will be a search through the city tonight, and Triad knows what tomorrow.’

‘Sandre used magic, as well,’ Alessan said, not opening his eyes. ‘If there’s a Tracker in Senzio he’s in danger.’

‘That we can deal with,’ Naddo said fiercely, looking from Ducas to Sertino. ‘We did it once already, remember. And there were more than twenty men with that Tracker.’

‘You aren’t in the highlands of Certando now,’ Rovigo said mildly.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ Ducas said. ‘Naddo’s right. If enough of us are down in the street and Sertino’s with us to point out the Tracker then I’d be ashamed of my men if we couldn’t contrive a brawl that killed him.’

‘There’s a risk,’ Baerd said.

Ducas suddenly smiled like a wolf, cold and hard, without a trace of mirth. ‘I’d be grateful for a risk to take tonight,’ he said. Devin understood exactly what he meant.

Alessan opened his eyes and looked up from his place against the wall. ‘Do it, then,’ he said. ‘Devin can run any messages back here to us. We’ll move Sandre out, back to the ship