Guy Kay - Tigana

Sipping from her jeweled cup she considered the alternative. That she had simply allowed things to become nuanced and difficult. That the real truths were exactly the same as they had been on the day she arrived. That all she was doing was hiding: from what she had become, and what she had not yet done.

It was the central question of her life and once more she pushed it away to the edges of her awareness. Not today. Not in any daytime. Those thoughts belonged to nights alone in the saishan when only Scelto by her door might know how sleepless she was, or find the tracks of tears along her cheeks when he came to wake her in the morning.

Night thoughts, and this was bright day, in a very public place.

So she walked over towards the man she'd recognized and let her smile reach her eyes. Balancing her chalice gracefully she sketched a full Ygrathen salute to the portly, soberly dressed personage with three heavy gold chains about his neck.

"Greetings," she murmured, straightening and moving nearer. "This is a surprise. It is rare indeed that the so-busy Warden of the Three Harbors deigns to spare a moment from his so-demanding affairs to visit old friends."

Unfortunately Rhamanus was as hard to ruffle or disconcert as he had ever been. Dianora had been trying to get a rise out of him ever since the night he'd had her bundled like a brown heifer out of the street in front of The Queen and onto the river galley.

Now he simply grinned, heavier with the years gone by and, latterly, his shore-bound duties, but unmistakably the man who'd brought her here.

One of the few men from Ygrath she genuinely liked.

"Not so much flavor from you, girl," he mock-growled. "It is not for idle women who do nothing all day but put their hair up and down and up again for exercise to criticize those of us who have stern and arduous tasks that shorten our nights and put grey in our hair."

Dianora laughed. Rhamanus's thick black curls, the envy of half the saishan, showed not a trace of grey. She let her gaze linger expressively on his dark locks.

"I'm a liar," Rhamanus conceded with untroubled equanimity, leaning forward so only she could hear. "It's been a dead-quiet winter. Not much to do at all. I could have come to visit but you know how much I hate these goings-on at court. My buttons pop when I bow."

Dianora laughed again and gave his arm a quick squeeze. Rhamanus had been kind to her on the ship, and courteous and friendly ever since, even when she'd been merely another new body, if a slightly notorious one, in the saishan of the King. She knew he liked her and she also knew, from d'Eymon himself, that the former Tribute Ship captain was an efficient and a fair administrator.

She had helped him get the posting four years ago. It was a high honor for a seaman, supervising harbor rules and regulations at the three main ports of Chiara itself. It was also, to judge from Rhamanus's slightly threadbare clothing, a little too near the seat of power for any real gains to be extracted.

Thinking, she clicked her tongue against her upper teeth, a habit Brandin teased her about. He claimed it always signaled a request or a suggestion. He knew her very well, which frightened her at least as much as it did anything else.

"This is the merest thought," she said now to Rhamanus quietly, "but would you have any interest at all in living in north Asoli for a few years? Not that I want to get rid of you. It's a dreadful place, everyone knows that, but there are opportunities and I'd as soon a decent man reaped them as some of the greedy clutch that are hovering about here."

"The taxing office?" he asked, very softly.

She nodded. His eyes widened slightly but, schooled to discretion, he gave no other sign of interest or surprise.

What he did do, an instant later, was glance quickly beyond her shoulder towards the throne. Dianora was already turning by then, an inexplicable sense, almost an antenna, having alerted her.

So she was facing the Island Throne and the doorway behind it by the time the herald's staff rapped the floor twice, not loudly, and Brandin came into the room. He was followed by the two priests, and the priestess of Adaon. Rhun shambled quickly over to stand near by, dressed identically to the King except for his cap.

The truer measure of power, Brandin had once said to her, wouldn't be found in having twenty heralds deafen a room by proclaiming one's arrival. Any fool in funds for a day could rivet attention that way. The more testing course, the truer measure, was to enter unobtrusively and observe what happened.

What happened was what always happened. The Audience Chamber had been collectively poised as if on the edge of a cliff for the past ten minutes, waiting. Now, just as collectively, the court plummeted into obeisance. Not one person in the whole crowded room was still speaking by the time the herald's muted staff of office proclaimed the King. In the silence the two discreet raps on the marbled floor sounded like echoing thunder.

Brandin was in high good humor. Dianora could have told that from halfway across the room, even if she hadn't had a hint from Rhun already. Her heart was beating very fast. It always did whenever Brandin entered a room where she was. Even after twelve years. Even still, and despite everything. So many lines of her life led to or from this man or came together, hopelessly intertwined, in him.

He looked to d'Eymon first, as always, and received the other's expressionless bow, sketched low in the Ygrathen fashion. Then, as always, he turned and smiled at Solores.

Then at Dianora. Braced as she was, as she always tried to be, she still could not quite master what happened to her when the grey eyes found and held her own. His glance was like a touch, a gliding presence, fiery and glacial both, as Brandin was.

And all this from a look across a very crowded room.

Once, in bed, years before, she had dared to ask him a question that had long troubled her.

"Is there sorcery involved when you love me here, or when we first meet in a public place?"

She hadn't known what answer she wanted, or what to expect by way of reaction. She'd thought he might be flattered by the implication, or at least amused. You could never be sure with Brandin though, his mind ran through too many different channels and with too much subtlety. Which is why questions, especially revealing ones, were dangerous. This had been important to her though: if he said yes she was going to try to use that to kindle her killing anger again. The anger she seemed to have lost here in the strange world that was the Island.

Her expression must have been very grave; he turned on his pillow, head propped on one hand to regard her from beneath level brows. He shook his head.

"Not in any way you are thinking. Nothing that I control or shape with my magic, other than the matter of children. I will not have any more heirs, you know that." She did know that; all his women did. He said, after a pause, carefully, "Why do you ask? What happens to you?"

For a second she thought she'd heard uncertainty in his voice, but one could never be sure of such things with Brandin. "Too much," she'd answered. "Too much happens." And she'd been speaking, for that one time, the unshielded truth of a no longer innocent heart. There was an acute understanding in his clear eyes. Which frightened her. She moved herself, moved by all the layers of her need, to slide over against his body again and then above and upon it that it might begin once more, the whole process. All of it: betrayal and memory mixed with yearning, as in the amber-colored wine the Triad were said to drink, too potent for mortals to taste.

"Are you truly serious about that posting in Asoli?" Rhamanus's voice was soft. Brandin had not gone to the throne but was making a relaxed circuit of the room, more evidence of his benign mood. Rhun, with his lopsided smile, shambled in his wake.