Guy Kay - Tigana

Erlein nodded slowly. "It means war, then. In my province."

His head was still throbbing, but less than before. It was quieter up here, though the noise from below still penetrated, a dull, steady background of celebration.

"In Senzio, yes," he said.

He felt a terrible sadness. So many years of planning, and now that they were here, where were they? His mother was dead. She had cursed him before she died, but had let him take her hand as the ending came. What did that mean? Could it be made to mean what he needed it to?

He was on the Island. Had seen Brandin of Ygrath. What would he tell Baerd? The slender dagger at his side felt heavy as a sword. The woman had been so much more beautiful than he'd expected her to be. Devin had had to give him the blue wine; he couldn't believe that. He'd hurt a hapless, innocent man so brutally just now, had shattered the bones of his face. I must look truly terrible, he thought, for even Erlein to be so gentle with me now. They were going to war in Senzio. This is what I wanted, he repeated to himself.

"Erlein, I'm sorry," he said, risking it, trying to struggle upwards from this sorrow.

He braced for a stinging reply, he almost wanted one, but Erlein said nothing at all at first. And when he spoke it was mildly. "I think it is time," was what he said. "Shall we go down and play? Would that help?"

Would that help? Since when did his people, Erlein, even, need to minister to him so much?

They went back down the stairs. Devin was waiting for them on the makeshift stage at the back of the Trialla. Alessan took up his Tregean pipes. His right hand was hurting and swollen, but it was not going to keep him from making music. He needed music now, very badly. He closed his eyes and began to play. They fell silent for him in the densely crowded room. Erlein waited, his hands motionless on the harp, and Devin did, leaving him a space in which to reach upwards alone, yearning towards that high note where confusion and pain and love and death and longing could all be left behind him for a very little while.

NORMALLY WHEN SHE WENT UP ON THE RAMPARTS OF HER castle at sunset it was to look south, watching the play of light and the changing colors of the sky above the mountains. Of late though, as springtime turned towards the summer they had all been waiting for, Alienor found herself climbing to the northern ramparts instead, to pace the guard's walk behind the crenellations or lean upon the cool rough stone, gazing into the distance, wrapped in her shawl against the chill that still came when the sun went down.

As if she could actually see as far as Senzio.

The shawl was a new one, brought by the messengers from Quileia that Baerd had told them would come. The ones who carried the messages that could, if all went right, turn the whole world upside down. Not just the Palm: Barbadior too, where the Emperor was said to be dying, and Ygrath, and Quileia itself where, precisely because of what he was doing for them, Marius might not survive.

The Quileian messengers had stopped on their way to Fort Ortiz, as was appropriate, to pay their respects to the Lady of Castle Borso and to bring her a gift from the new King of Quileia: an indigo-colored shawl, a color almost impossible to find here in the Palm, and one which was, she knew, a mark of nobility in Quileia, It was evident that Alessan had told this Marius a fair bit about her involvement with him over the years. Which was fine. Marius of Quileia, it seemed, was one of them; in fact, as Baerd had explained it the afternoon after Alessan had ridden into the Braccio Pass and then away west, Marius was the key to everything.

Two days after the Quileians passed through, Alienor began a habit of springtime rides that took her, casually, far enough afield to necessitate one or two overnight stays at neighboring castles. At which time she relayed a quite specific message to half a dozen equally specific people.

Senzio. Before Midsummer

Not long afterwards, a silk-merchant and then a singer she rather liked came down to Castle Borso with word of tremendous troop movements among the Barbadians. The roads were absolutely clogged with mercenaries marching north, they said. She had raised her eyebrows in quizzical mystification, but had allowed herself more wine than was customary each of those two nights, and had rewarded both men later, after her own fashion.

Up on the ramparts at sunset now, she heard a footstep on the stair behind her. She had been waiting for it.

Without turning, she said, "You are almost too late. The sun is nearly gone." Which was true; the color of the sky and the thin, underlit clouds in the west had darkened from pink through crimson and purple most of the way down to the indigo she wore about her shoulders.

Elena stepped out on the parapet.

"I'm sorry," she said, inappropriately. She was always apologizing, still uneasy in the castle. She moved to the guard's walk beside Alienor and looked out over the gathering darkness of the late-spring fields. Her long yellow hair fanned over her shoulders, the ends lifting in the breeze.

Ostensibly she was here to serve as a new lady-in-waiting to Alienor. She had brought her two young children and her few belongings into Borso two mornings after the Ember Days had ended. It was considered a good idea that she be established here well before the time that might matter. It appeared, incredibly enough, that there could actually come a time when her being here might matter.

Tomaz, the gaunt, aged Khardhu warrior had said that it would be necessary for one of them to stay here. Tomaz, who was very clearly not from Khardhun, and just as clearly unwilling to say who he really was. Alienor didn't care about that. What mattered was that Baerd and Alessan trusted him, and in this matter Baerd was deferring to the dark, hollow-cheeked man absolutely,

"One of whom, exactly?" Alienor had asked. The four of them had been alone: herself, Baerd and Tomaz, and the red-headed young girl who didn't like her, Catriana.

Baerd hesitated a long time. "One of the Night Walkers," he said finally.

She had raised her eyebrows at that, the small outward gesture serving to show all she was prepared to reveal of her inward astonishment.

"Really? Here? They are still about?"

Baerd nodded.

"And that is where you were last night when you went out?"

After a second Baerd nodded again.

The girl Catriana blinked in manifest surprise. She was clever and quite beautiful, Alienor thought, but she still had rather a great deal to learn.

"Doing what?" Alienor asked Baerd.

But this time he shook his head. She had expected that. There were limits with Baerd; she enjoyed trying to push towards them. One night, ten years ago, she had found exactly where his boundaries of privacy lay, in one dimension at least. Surprisingly perhaps, their friendship had deepened from that time on.

Now, unexpectedly, he grinned. "You could have them all stay here, of course, not just one."

She had grimaced with a distaste only partly feigned. "One will be sufficient, thank you. Assuming it is enough for your purposes, whatever those are?" She said that last to the old man disguised as a Khardhu warrior. His skin coloring was really very good but she knew all about Baerd's techniques of disguise. Over the years he and Ales-san had shown up here in an effective diversity of appearances.

"I'm not absolutely sure what our purposes are," Tomaz had replied frankly. "But insofar as we need an anchor for what Baerd wants us to at least be able to try, one of them in this castle should be enough."

"Enough for what?" she'd probed again, not really expecting anything.

"Enough for my magic to reach out and find this place," Tomaz had said bluntly.