Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

He stopped, and then uncoiled in one lithe movement to his feet. Baerd had already seized his sword from where it was leaning against the wall. Devin stood up, releasing Alais’s hand.

There came another rattle of sound from the stairway outside the window. Then the window opened as a hand pulled the glass outwards and Erlein di Senzio stepped carefully over the ledge and into the room with Catriana in his arms.

In the stony silence he looked at them all for a moment, taking in the scene. Then he turned to Alessan. ‘If you are worried about magic,’ he said in a paper-thin voice, ‘then you had best be very worried. I used a great deal of power just now. If there’s a Tracker in Senzio then anyone near me is extremely likely to be captured and killed.’ He stopped, then smiled very faintly. ‘But I caught her in time. She is alive.’

The world spun and rocked for Devin. He heard himself cry out with an inarticulate joy. Sandre literally leaped to his feet and rushed to claim Catriana’s unconscious body from Erlein’s arms. He hastened to the bed and laid her down. He was crying again, Devin saw. So, unexpectedly, was Rovigo.

Devin wheeled back to where Erlein stood. In time to see Alessan cross the room in two swift strides and wrap the exhausted wizard in a bear hug that lifted Erlein, feebly protesting, clean off the ground. Alessan released him and stepped back, the grey eyes shining, his face lit by a grin he couldn’t seem to control. Erlein tried, without success, to preserve his own customary cynical expression. Then Baerd came up and, without warning, seized the wizard by the shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.

Again the troubadour struggled to look fierce and displeased. Again he failed. With an entirely unconvincing attempt at his usual scowl, he said, ‘Careful, you. Devin flattened me to the ground when you all ran out the door. I’m still bruised.’ He threw a glare at Devin, who smiled happily back at him.

Sertino handed Erlein a bottle. He drank, a long, thirsty pull. He wiped at his mouth. ‘It wasn’t hard to guess from the way you were running that something was seriously wrong. I started to follow, but I don’t run very fast any more so I decided to use magic. I got to the far end of the garden wall just as Alessan and Devin reached the near side.’

‘Why?’ Alessan asked sharply, wonder in his voice. ‘You never use your magic. Why now?’

Erlein shrugged elaborately. ‘I’d never seen all of you run anywhere like that before.’ He grimaced. ‘I suppose I was carried away.’

Alessan was smiling again; he couldn’t seem to hold it in for very long. Every few seconds he glanced quickly over at the bed, as if to reassure himself of who was lying there. ‘Then what?’ he asked.

‘Then I saw her in the window, and figured out what was happening. So I . . . I used my magic to get over the wall and I was waiting in the garden beneath the window.’ He turned to Sandre. ‘You sent an astonishing spell from so far, but you didn’t have a chance. You couldn’t know, never having tried, but you can’t stop someone falling that way. You have to be beneath them. And they usually have to be unconscious. That kind of magic works on our own bodies almost exclusively; if we want to apply it to someone else their will has to be suspended or everything gets muddled when they see what is happening and their mind begins to fight it.’

Sandre was shaking his head. ‘I thought it was my weakness. That I just wasn’t strong enough, even with the binding.’

Erlein’s expression was odd. For a second he seemed about to respond to that, but instead he resumed his tale. ‘I used a spell to make her lose consciousness partway down, and a stronger one to catch her before she hit. Then a last to get us over the wall again. By then I was completely spent, and terrified they would trace us immediately if there was a Tracker anywhere in the castle. But they didn’t, there was too much chaos. I think something else is happening back there. We hid behind the main temple of Eanna for a time, and then I carried her here.’

‘Carried her through the streets?’ Alais asked. ‘No one noticed that?’

Erlein grinned at her, not unkindly. ‘It isn’t that unusual in Senzio, my dear.’

Alais flushed crimson, but Devin could see that she didn’t really mind. It was all right. Everything was suddenly all right.

‘We had better get down into the street then,’ Baerd said to Ducas. ‘We’ll have to get Arkin and some of the others. Regardless of whether there are Trackers, this changes things. When they don’t find her body in the garden there’s going to be an unbelievable search of the town tonight. I think there will have to be some fighting.’

Ducas smiled again, more like a wolf than ever. ‘I hope so,’ was all he said.

‘One moment,’ said Alessan quietly. ‘I want you all to witness something.’ He turned back to Erlein and hesitated, choosing his words. ‘We both know that you did this tonight without any coercion from me, and against your own best interests, in every way.’

Erlein glanced over at the bed, two sudden spots of red forming on each of his sallow cheeks. ‘Don’t make too much of it,’ he warned gruffly. ‘Every man has his moments of folly. I like red-headed women, that’s all. That’s how you trapped me in the first place, remember?’

Alessan shook his head. ‘That may be true, but it is not all, Erlein di Senzio. I bound you to this cause against your will, but I think you have just joined it freely.’

Erlein swore feelingly. ‘Don’t be a fool, Alessan! I just told you, I . .