Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

do surmise that were we, in fact, to rise and begin to ride back towards Astibar carrying word of treachery we would join your father among the dead before we left these woods.’

It was casually stated—a minor fact to be confirmed before moving on to more important issues.

Tomasso shook his head. ‘Hardly,’ he lied. ‘You do us honour by your presence and are entirely free to leave. Indeed, we will escort you if you wish, for the path is deceptive in darkness. My father did suggest that I might wish to point out that although you could readily have us wristed and death-wheeled after torture, it is exceedingly likely, approaching a certainty, that Alberico would then see compelling cause to do the same to both of you, for having been considered likely accomplices of ours. You will remember what happened to the Canziano after that misfortunate incident in Ferraut some years ago?’

There was a smoothly graceful silence acknowledging all of this.

It was broken by Nievole. ‘That was Sandre’s doing, wasn’t it?’ he growled from by his fire. ‘Not the Canziano at all!’

‘It was our doing,’ Tomasso agreed calmly. ‘We learned a great deal, I must say.’

‘So,’ Scalvaia murmured drily, ‘did the Canziano. Your father always hated Fabro bar Canzian.’

‘They could not have been said to be on the best of terms,’ Tomasso said blandly. ‘Though I must say that if you focus on that aspect of things I fear you might miss the point.’

‘The point you prefer us to take,’ Nievole amended pointedly.

Unexpectedly, Scalvaia came to Tomasso’s aid. ‘Not fair, my lord,’ he said to Nievole. ‘If we can accept anything as true in this room and these times it is that Sandre’s hatred and his desire had moved beyond old wars and rivalries. His target was Alberico.’

His icy blue eyes held Nievole’s for a long moment, and finally the bigger man nodded. Scalvaia shifted in his chair, wincing at a pain in his afflicted leg.

‘Very well,’ he said to Tomasso. ‘You have now told us why we are here and have made clear your father’s purpose and your own. For my own part I will make a confession. I will confess, in the spirit of truth that a death vigil should inspire, that being ruled by a coarse, vicious, overbearing minor lord from Barbadior brings little joy to my aged heart. I am with you. If you have a plan I would like to hear it. On my oath and honour I will keep faith with the Sandreni in this.’

Tomasso shivered at the invocation of the ancient words. ‘Your oath and honour are sureties beyond measure,’ he said, and meant it.

‘They are indeed, bar Sandre,’ said Nievole, taking a heavy step forward from the fire. ‘And I will dare to say that the word of the Nievolene has never been valued at lesser coin. The dearest wish of my heart is for the Barbadian to lie dead and cut to pieces—Triad willing, by my own blade. I too am with you—by my oath and honour.’

‘Such terribly splendid words!’ said an amused voice from the window opposite the door.

Five faces, four white with shock and the bearded one flushing red, whipped around. The speaker stood outside the open window, elbows resting on the ledge, chin in his hands. He eyed them with a mild scrutiny, his face shadowed by the wood of the window-frame.

‘I have never yet,’ he said, ‘known gallant phrases from however august a lineage to succeed in ousting a tyrant. In the Palm or anywhere else.’ With an economical motion he hoisted himself upwards, swung his feet into the room and sat comfortably perched on the ledge. ‘On the other hand,’ he added, ‘agreeing on a cause does make a starting-point, I will concede that much.’

‘You are the sixth of whom my father spoke?’ Tomasso asked warily.

The man did look familiar now that he was in the light. He was dressed for the forest not the city, in two shades of grey with a black sheepskin vest over his shirt, and breeches tucked into worn black riding boots. There was a knife at his belt, without ornament.

‘I heard you mention that,’ the fellow said. ‘I actually hope I’m not, because if I am the implications are unsettling, to say the least. The fact is, I never spoke to your father in my life. If he knew of my activities and somehow expected me to find out about this meeting and be here . . . well, I would be somewhat flattered by his confidence but rather more disturbed that he would have known so much about me. On the other hand,’ he said for a second time, ‘it is Sandre d’Astibar we’re talking about, and I do seem to make six here, don’t I?’ He bowed, without any visible irony, towards the bier on its trestles.

‘You are, then, also in league against Alberico?’ Nievole’s eyes were watchful.

‘I am not,’ said the man in the window quite bluntly. ‘Alberico means nothing to me. Except as a tool. A wedge to open a door of my own.’

‘And what is it lies behind that door?’ Scalvaia asked from deep in his armchair.

But in that moment Tomasso remembered.

‘I know you!’ he said abruptly. ‘I saw you this morning. You are the Tregean shepherd who played the pipes in the mourning rites!’ Taeri snapped his fingers as the recognition came home to him as well.

‘I played the pipes, yes,’ the man on the window-ledge said, quite unruffled. ‘But I am not a shepherd nor from Tregea. It has suited my purposes to play a role, many different roles, in fact, for a great many years. Tomasso bar Sandre ought to appreciate that.’ He grinned.

Tomasso did not return the smile. ‘Perhaps then, under the circumstances, you might favour us by saying who you really are.’ He said it as politely as the situation seemed to warrant. ‘My father might have known but we do not.’

‘Nor, I’m afraid, shall you learn just yet,’ the