Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

to be indiscreet. I have a contact, too—the steward at the Nievolene farms by the Ferraut border.’

‘Not from Nievole,’ Alessan said quickly.

Another silence. Rovigo nodded his head slowly. ‘I see,’ he said, startling Devin again with his quickness. ‘You think we can expect some confiscations after the Festival?’

‘You can,’ Alessan said. ‘Among all the other even less pleasant things. Have you another source for buying up grain?’

‘I might.’ Rovigo looked from Alessan to Devin and back again. ‘Four partners, then,’ he said crisply. ‘The three of you and Baerd. Is that right?’

Alessan nodded. ‘Almost right, but make it five partners. There is one other person who should be brought in to divide our share, if that is all right with you?’

‘Why should it not be?’ Rovigo shrugged. ‘That doesn’t touch my share at all. Will I meet this person?’

‘I hope so, sooner or later,’ said Alessan. ‘I expect you will be happy with each other.’

‘Fine,’ Rovigo said crisply. ‘The usual terms for a contraina association are two-thirds to the one investing the funds, and one-third to the ones who do the travelling and put in the time. Based on what you have just told me I will accept that you are likely to be able to offer information which will be of real value to our venture. I propose a half interest each way on all affairs we jointly conduct. Is that acceptable?’

He was looking at Devin. With as much composure as he could manage, Devin replied, ‘It is quite acceptable.’

‘It is more than fair,’ Alessan agreed. His expression was troubled again; he looked as if he would go on.

‘It is done, then,’ said Rovigo quickly. ‘No more to be said, Alessan. We will go into town tomorrow to have the contraina formally drawn up and sealed. Which way do you plan to go after the Festival?’

‘Ferraut, I think,’ said Alessan slowly. ‘We can discuss what comes after, but I have something to do there, and an idea for some trade with Senzio we might want to consider.’

‘Ferraut?’ said Rovigo, ignoring the latter remarks. A smile slowly widened across his face. ‘Ferraut! That is splendid. Absolutely splendid! You can save us some money already. I’ll give you a cart and all of you can take Ingonida her new bed!’

On the way upstairs Alais couldn’t remember when she had last been so happy. Not that she was prone to moodiness like Selvena, but life at home tended to be very quiet, especially when her father was away.

And now so many things seemed to be happening at once.

Rovigo was home after a longer trip than usual down the coast. AIix and Alais were never at ease when he ventured south of the mountains into Quileia, no matter how many times he reassured them of his caution. And on top of that, this trip had come unsettlingly late in the season of autumn winds. But he was home now, and palm to palm with his return had come the Festival of Vines. It was her second one, and Alais had loved every moment of the day and night, absorbing with her wide, alert eyes all she saw. Drinking it in.

In the crowded square in front of the Sandreni Palace that morning she had stood extremely still, listening to a clear voice soar from the inner courtyard out among the unnatural silence of the people gathered. A voice that lamented Adaon’s death among the cedars of Tregea so bitterly, so sweetly, that Alais had been afraid she would cry. She had closed her eyes.

It had been a source of astonished pride for her when Rovigo had casually mentioned to her and her mother having had a drink the day before with one of the singers who were doing the Duke’s mourning rites. He had even invited the young man, he said, to come meet his four ungainly offspring. The teasing bothered Alais not at all. She would have felt that something was wrong by now had Rovigo spoken about them in any other way. Neither she nor her sisters nursed any anxieties about their father’s affection. They had only to look at his eyes.

On the road home late at night, already badly unsettled by the thundering clatter of the Barbadian soldiers they had made way for at the city walls, she had been truly frightened when a voice called out to them from the darkness near their gate.

Then, when her father had replied, and she came gradually to understand who this was, Alais had thought her heart would stop from sheer excitement. She could feel the tell-tale colour rising in her cheeks.

When it became clear that the musicians were coming inside, it had taken a supreme act of self-control for her to regain the mien and composure proper to her parents’ oldest, most trusted child.

In the house it became easier because the instant the two male guests stepped through the doorway Selvena had gone into her predictable mating frenzy. A course of behaviour so embarrassingly transparent to her older sister that it drove Alais straight back into her own habitual, detached watchfulness. Selvena had been crying herself to sleep for much of the year because it looked more and more as if she would still be unmarried when her eighteenth naming day came in the spring.

Devin, the singer, was smaller and younger-looking than she’d expected. But he was neat and lithe, with an easy smile and quick, intelligent eyes under sandy-brown hair that curled halfway over his ears. She’d expected him to be arrogant or pretentious, despite what her father had said, but she saw nothing of that at all.

The other man, Alessan, looked about fifteen years older, perhaps more. His black, tangled hair was prematurely greying—silvering, actually—at the temples. He had a lean, expressive face with very clear grey eyes and a wide mouth. He intimidated her a little, even though he was joking easily with her father right from the start, in exactly the manner she knew Rovigo most enjoyed.

Perhaps that