Guy Gavriel Kay - Tigana

A second later Devin heard a strange sound. It took him a moment to recognize that what he was hearing was the high, wheezing, genuine amusement of the Duke of Astibar.

‘Do with me what you will,’ Sandre said as his mirth subsided. ‘What will you do—tinge my locks red as the maid’s?’

Alessan shook his head. ‘I hope not. One of those manes is more than sufficient for a single company. I leave these matters to Baerd though. I leave a great many things to Baerd.’

‘Then I shall place myself in his hands,’ Sandre said. He bowed gravely to the yellow-haired man. Baerd, Devin saw, did not look entirely happy. Sandre saw it too.

‘I will not swear an oath,’ the Duke said to him. ‘I swore one vow when Alberico came, and it is the last vow I shall ever swear. I will say though that it shall be my endeavour for the rest of my days to ensure that you do not regret this. Will that content you?’

Slowly Baerd nodded. ‘It will.’

Listening, Devin had an intuitive sense that this, too, was an exchange that mattered, that neither man had spoken lightly, or less than the truth of his heart. He glanced over just then at Catriana and discovered that she had been watching him. She turned quickly away though, and did not look back.

Sandre said, ‘I think I had best set about doing what I have said I would. Because of the screening of Alberico’s magic I must go and return from this room, but I dare say you need not spend a night among the dead, however illustrious they are. Have you a camp in the woods? Shall I find you there?’

The idea of magic was unsettling to Devin still, but Sandre’s words had just given him an idea, his first really clear thought since they’d entered the lodge.

‘Are you sure you’ll be able to stop your son from talking?’ he asked diffidently.

‘Quite sure,’ Sandre replied briefly.

Devin’s brow knit. ‘Well then, it seems to me none of us is in immediate danger. Except for you, my lord. You must not be seen.’

‘Until Baerd’s done with him,’ Alessan interposed. ‘But go on.’

Devin turned to him. ‘I’d like to say farewell to Menico and try to think of a reason to give for leaving. I owe him a great deal. I don’t want him to hate me.’

Alessan looked thoughtful. ‘He will hate you a little, Devin, even though he isn’t that kind of man. What happened this morning is what a lifelong trouper like Menico dreams about. And no explanation you come up with is going to alter the fact that he needs you to make that dream a real thing now.’

Devin swallowed. He hated what he was hearing, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it. A season or two of the fees Menico had said he could now charge would have let the old campaigner buy the inn in Ferraut he’d talked about for so many years. The place where he’d always said he’d like to settle when the road grew too stern for his bones. Where he could serve ale and wine and offer a bed and a meal to old friends and new ones passing through on the long trails. Where he could hear and retell the gossip of the day and swap the old stories he loved. And where, on the cold winter nights, he could stake out a place by the fire and lead whoever happened to be there into and out of all the songs he knew.

Devin shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his breeches. He felt awkward and sad. ‘I just don’t like disappearing on him. All three of us at once. We’ve got concerts tomorrow, too.’

Alessan’s mouth quirked. ‘I do seem to recall that,’ he said. ‘Two of them.’

‘Three,’ said Catriana unexpectedly.

‘Three,’ Alessan agreed cheerfully. ‘And one the next day at the Woolguild Hall. I also have—it has just occurred to me—a substantial wager in The Paelion that I expect to win.’

Which drew an already predictable growl from Baerd. ‘Do you seriously think the Festival of Vines is going to blithely proceed after what has occurred tonight? You want to go make music in Astibar as if nothing has happened? Music? I’ve been down this road with you before, Alessan. I don’t like it.’

‘Actually, I’m quite certain the Festival will go on.’ It was Sandre. ‘Alberico is cautious almost before he is anything else. I think tonight will redouble that in him. He will allow the people their celebrations, let those from the distrada scatter and go home, then slam down hard immediately after. But only on the three families that were here, I suspect. It is, frankly, what I would do myself.’

‘Taxes?’ Alessan asked.

‘Perhaps. He raised them after the Canziano poisoning, but that was different. An actual assassination attempt in a public place. He didn’t have much choice. I think he’ll narrow it this time—there will be enough bodies for his wheels among the three families here.’

Devin found it unsettling how casually the Duke spoke of such things. This was his kin they were discussing. His oldest son, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, cousins—all to be fodder for Barbadian killing-wheels. Devin wondered if he would ever grow as cynical as this. If what had begun tonight would harden him to that degree. He tried to think of his brothers on a death-wheel in Asoli and found his mind flinching away from the very image. Unobtrusively he made the warding sign against evil.

The truth was, he was upset just thinking about Menico, and that was merely a matter of costing the man money, nothing more. People moved from troupe to troupe all the time. Or left to start their own companies. Or retired from the road into a business that offered them more security. There would be performers who would be expecting him to go on his own after his success this morning. That should have been a helpful thought, but it wasn’t. Somehow Devin hated to make it appear as if they were right.

Something else occurred to him. ‘Won’t it look a bit odd, too, if we disappear right after the mourning rites? Right after Alberico’s unmasked a plot that was connected with them? We’re sort of linked to the Sandreni now in a way. Should we draw attention to ourselves like that? It isn’t as if our disappearance won’t be noticed.’

He said it, for some reason, to Baerd. And was rewarded a moment later with a brief, sober nod of acknowledgement.

‘Now that cloth I will buy,’ Baerd said. ‘That does make sense, though I’m sorry to say it.’

‘A good deal of sense,’ Sandre agreed. Devin fidgeted a little as he came under the scrutiny of those dark, sunken eyes. ‘The two of you’—the Duke gestured at Devin and Catriana—‘may yet redeem your generation for me.’

This time Devin refused to look at the girl. Instead his glance went over to the corner where Sandre’s grandson lay by the second, dying fire, his throat slashed by a family blade.

Alessan broke the silence with a deliberate cough. ‘There is also,’ he said in a curious tone, ‘another argument entirely. Only those who have spent as many nights outdoors as I have can properly appreciate the depth—as it were—of my preference for a soft bed at night. In short,’ he concluded with a grin, ‘your eloquence has quite overcome me, Devin. Lead me back to Menico at the inn. Even a bed shared with two syrenya-players who snore in marginal harmony is a serious improvement over cold ground beside Baerd’s relative silence.’

Baerd favoured him with a forbidding glare. One that Alessan appeared to weather quite easily. ‘I will refrain,’ Baerd said darkly, ‘from a recitation of your own nocturnal habits. I will wait here alone for Duke Sandre to return. We’ll have to burn this lodge tonight, for obvious reasons. There’s a body that will otherwise be missing when the servants come back in the morning. We’ll meet the three of you by the cache three mornings from now, as early as you see fit to rise from your pillows. Assuming,’ he added with heavy sarcasm, ‘that soft city living doesn’t prevent you from being able to find the cache.’