Tigana by Guy Kay (novel24 txt) 📕

cynically manipulative in almost exactly the same proportion as the terrible man has grown fat.’

‘So much?’ Dianora protested. ‘My lord, he is very fat!’

Both men chuckled. Rhamanus patted his belly affectionately.

‘This,’ he said, ‘is what happens when you feed a man cold salt meat for twenty years at sea and then expose him to the delights of the King’s city.’

‘Well then,’ said Brandin, ‘we may have to send you away somewhere until you are sleek as a seal again.’

‘My lord,’ said Rhamanus instantly, ‘I am yours to command in all things.’ His expression was sober and intense.

Brandin registered that and his tone changed as well. ‘I know that,’ he murmured. ‘I would that I had more of you at court. At both of my courts. Portly or sleek, Rhamanus, I am not unmindful of you, whatever our Dianora may think.’

Very high praise, a promise of sorts, and a dismissal for the moment. Bright-eyed, Rhamanus bowed formally and withdrew. Brandin walked a couple of paces away, Rhun shuffling along beside him. Dianora followed, as she was expected to. Once out of earshot of anyone but the Fool, Brandin turned to her. He was, she was sorry to see, suppressing a smile.

‘What did you do? Offer him north Asoli?’

Dianora heaved a heartfelt sigh of frustration. This happened all the time. ‘Now that,’ she protested, ‘is unfair. You are using magic.’

He let the smile come. She knew that people were watching them. She knew what they would say amongst themselves.

‘Hardly,’ Brandin murmured. ‘I wouldn’t waste it or drain myself on something so transparent.’

‘Transparent!’ she bridled.

‘Not you, my cynical manipulator. But Rhamanus was too serious too quickly when I jested about posting him away. And the only position of significance currently available is north Asoli and so . . .’

He let the sentence trail off. Laughter lingered in his eyes.

‘Would he be such a bad choice?’ Dianora asked defiantly. It was genuinely disconcerting how easily Brandin could sound the depths of things. If she allowed herself to dwell on that she could become frightened again.

‘What do you think?’ he asked by way of reply.

‘I? Think?’ She lifted her plucked eyebrows in exaggerated arches. ‘How should a mere object of the King’s occasional pleasure venture to have an opinion on such matters?’

‘Now that,’ said Brandin, nodding briskly, ‘is an intelligent observation. I shall have to consult Solores, instead.’

‘If you get an intelligent observation out of her,’ Dianora said tartly, ‘I shall hurl myself from the saishan balcony into the sea.’

‘All the way across the harbour square? A long leap,’ said Brandin mildly.

‘So,’ she replied, ‘is an intelligent observation for Solores.’

And at that he laughed aloud. The court was listening. Everyone heard. Everyone would draw their own conclusions, but they would all be the same conclusion in the end. Scelto, she reflected, was likely to receive discreet contributions from sources other than Neso of Ygrath before the day was out.

‘I saw something interesting on the mountain this morning,’ Brandin said, his amusement subsiding. ‘Something quite unusual.’

This, she realized, was why he’d wanted to speak to her alone.

He’d been up on Sangarios that morning; she was one of the few who knew about it. Brandin kept this venture quiet, in case he should fail. She’d been prepared to tease him about it.

At the beginning of spring, just as the winds began to change, before the last snows melted in Certando and Tregea and the southern reaches of what had been Tigana, came the three Ember Days that marked the turning of the year.

No fires not already burning were lit anywhere in the Palm. The devout fasted for at least the first of the three days. The bells of the Triad temples were silent. Men stayed within their doors at night, especially after darkfall on the first day which was the Day of the Dead.

There were Ember Days in autumn as well, halfway through the year, when the time of mourning came for Adaon slain on his mountain in Tregea, when the sun began to fade as Eanna mourned and Morian folded in upon herself in her Halls underground. But the spring days inspired a colder dread, especially in the countryside, because so much depended upon what would follow them. Winter’s passing, the season of sowing, and the hope of grain, of life, in the summer’s fullness to come.

In Chiara there was an added ritual, different from anything elsewhere in the Palm.

On the Island the tale was told that Adaon and Eanna had first come together in love for three full days and nights on the summit of Sangarios. That in the surging climax of her desire on the third night Eanna of the Lights had created the stars of heaven and strewn them like shining lace through the dark. And the tale was told that nine months later—which is three times three—the Triad was completed when Morian was born in the depths of winter in a cave on that same mountain.

And with Morian had come both life and death into the world, and with life and death came mortal man to walk under the newly named stars, the two moons of the night’s warding, and the sun of day.

And for this reason had Chiara always asserted its preeminence among the nine provinces of the Palm, and for this reason as well did the Island name Morian as guardian of its destiny.

Morian of Portals, who had sway over all thresholds. For everyone knew that all islands were worlds unto themselves, that to come to an island was to come to another world. A truth known under the stars and moons, if not always remembered by the light of day.

Every three years then, at the beginning of each Year of Morian, on the first of the springtime Ember Days, the young men of Chiara would vie with each other in a dawn race up to the summit of Sangarios, there to pluck a blood-dark sprig of sonrai, the intoxicating berries of the mountain, under the watchful eye of the