Sun Sword - The Riven Shield Part 103

"But the lesser arts, the mortal arts, are not ours."

"And you know of them?"

"What is left us, in eternity, but study? Yes. Yes, we know of them."

She did not ask him how. Nor did Kallandras. They waited, audience, and captive.

"Why?" she asked at last, daring much.

"It is part of our oldest histories," he replied. "You are aware-perhaps?-that mortals have souls. You are not aware of what those souls are. They are some part of the divinity of the G.o.ds, captured fragments made flesh. In some mortals, those fragments have power. In the North, they know the names of these powers: bard-born," he said first, gazing at the Serra and then to Kallandras. "Healer-born. Mage-born. Seer-born. Maker-born." He paused, and then said quietly, "There were others. Perhaps there still are; the powers granted mortals were often subtle, and they eluded the naming. At the height of the Cities of Man, such power existed in mortals that might challenge the mastery of G.o.ds.

"And among the mortals, in the time of the Cities of Man, there were those who might heal the injury she has sustained."

"A healer has come-"

"A human healer?"

She nodded.

"And he could not aid you."

Nodded again.

"Understand that, as with all gifts, some are greater and some lesser. I did not say that all healers were capable of this task; only that some existed-in a world that the ghosts of the Cities remember-who might." He brought his hands back to his sides. "But the fevers burn," he said softly.

"She will survive the fevers."

He raised a delicate brow. "You are not a seer," he told her gravely.

"No. But I will not let her go; not that way."

His smile was slender. Cold. Nothing about his face suggested kindness. "You are without mercy," he said softly. "There are those who, blinded, lose all desire for life-and in her fas.h.i.+on, she has become one such. But . . . If you can carry her, and if the fever does not devour her, there may be one who can answer her need. He is not here," he added softly, "but you have seen him; when you see him again-if ever-you will know."

"Who?"

But the Arianni lord fell silent, and as the silence lengthened, it became clear that he would not speak again.

Kallandras wondered if she would attempt to force an answer from him; she was weak, spent-and desperate.

The bard lifted hand and voice both. You carried the Sun Sword, Serra Diora. You carried the Heart of Arkosa. Believe you will carry the Serra Teresa for as long as she must be carried.

He bowed.

It was easier, to carry the Sword.

Yes. This is the price you pay, when you walk among the living and think of things other than death.

She waited while Kallandras gained his feet; the Arianni lord joined him, moving with so little effort he might have been a seraf. In another world, another Court. She heard the ice in his voice; he did not trouble himself to hide it. He was cruel; there was nothing about his presence that suggested kindness.

But there was little about Kallandras that did either. She bowed to them both as Ramdan once again knelt by the Serra Teresa's side.

"The kai Lamberto is waiting," Kallandras said softly.

"I know." She rose, taking the hand he offered. "Has he spoken with you?"

"Not a word."

"Ah. You are . . . from the North."

"Yes. And I see the truth of his disposition without the need of words; he will not be a willing ally, Serra Diora."

"No. Nor will he ally himself with the Servants of the Lord of Night."

Kallandras' smile was slender. "Nor that."

"Has he come for the Sword?"

"I do not know if he knows that you have it in your keeping."

Her eyes skirted the distant figure of Jevri. "I think," she said softly, "that he will know. He was never a fool."

"He could not be, and rule in the South."

She nodded. Gathered her silks about her slender shoulders, arranged the fall of her veil, hands calm and still with familiar motion.

The harem fell away; for a moment she saw walls, stone walls, smooth and bare of window or door. In such a room, she had bided her time, reinforcing the oldest and most important of learned skills: the gift of waiting.

But the time for waiting was done.

Mareo kai di'Lamberto was not a young man. Nor was he a man who sheltered beneath fan or bough; his face was lined and creased by exposure to sun, to wind; the plains boasted no desert, but she saw sand in his eyes as he turned toward her, his arms across the breadth of his chest.

She stopped ten feet from his shadow and knelt before him. Her knees were already dark with earth and dew; she would not trouble Ramdan to bring her those things that Serras of import were accustomed to.

His brow, streaked with the silver of age, rose slightly.

"Serra Diora."

She nodded. Her hands held no fan; she offered no resistance to the appraisal of his gaze. He did not bid her rise; did not offer her the freedom of speech. He was the Lord's man.

"Serra Diora . . . di'Marano?"

She let the silence serve as emphasis before she broke it with her delicate voice. "Serra Diora en'Leonne," she replied. A challenge, a soft one.

"The kai Leonne-both of them-lie dead and buried upon the plateau. Will you lay claim to a marriage of the dead?"

"Not of the dead, Tor'agnate."

"And does your father's clan have no claim upon your name, no claim upon your person?"

"As is our custom, my father's clan," she replied, even now, dagger steel dancing between the delicate syllables, "ceded me in marriage to Ser Illara kai di'Leonne."

"And your father had some hand in his destruction."

She said nothing. He expected no reply.

Or perhaps he did; something about his expression was wrong, some thinning of lip, some narrowing of eye. She straightened her back, lowered her chin, placed her hands, palms down, upon the fold of lap. She was a Serra of the High Courts; he was a Tyr. She had been raised to sit in the presence of men such as he. Raised to understand their moods, to read them as clearly as if words were painted in ink across the lines and hollows of their faces.

She would anger him, she thought, but that anger must be one of her choosing, and the timing of its invocation, under her control.

But she did not know him now. It had been many years since she had been a child in the lee of Amar.

"You have nothing to say of his treachery?"

"I am a Serra, Tyr'agnate. You ask me to speak of the games of men, and I have little experience from which to speak wisely."

"Indeed." But he was not moved; not cajoled. "Jevri."

Jevri el'Sol came to stand by his side. By it, and not within his shadow.

"Tell me what you know of the Serra Diora."

The old man hesitated, although the hesitation was marked only by the Serra. She was practiced in the same art; could gather strength and thought in the same subtle way.

She listened now. Wondering as she did what Ona Teresa would hear, if she could sit thus.

"I made her two dresses," Jevri el'Sol said quietly.

It was not what she expected to hear; it was not, she saw, from the lift of thick brow, what Mareo kai di'Lamberto expected either. But he did not turn to glance at Jevri, and because he did not, she could not.

"A dress," the Tyr'agnate said, meeting her eyes, his own a brown so dark they might have been all of black, "is something that any woman might wear. It tells me little."

"A dress, yes," Jevri replied, and his words carried stung but measured pride. "But upon any other woman, such a dress would fit poorly."

"They made poor use of a Radann."

"They made the use that I desired, Tyr'agnate." Mild rebuke. It surprised her. "She wore the first dress upon the day of her wedding to the kai Leonne. You saw it; all of the clansmen of the High Court, and many of the lower, saw it. They did not see her face; they did not see her eyes, could not hear her voice. But they marked her by what she wore."

"They marked her by the husband."

"Indeed."

"And the other dress?"

Ah. She understood now.

"The Lord's Consort," Jevri replied.

"And when did she wear it?"

"At the Festival of the Sun."

"And was it noted?"

"It was noted. It was a finer dress than her wedding dress; it was a significant dress."

"A risk, Jevri."

"There was no longer a Leonne to offend," the servitor replied mildly. "And it can be argued that the Lord's Consort serves the Lord, and not a Lord, be he the Lord of the Dominion."

"It can. What occurred there?"

"She sang the lay of the Sun Sword, Tyr'agnate."

"Bold girl. It is said that the man who claims the Tor Leonne cannot draw the Sun Sword. It lies in its haven, sheathed and waiting."

"It is said that not all rumor is as capricious as wind. In this case, it is true: the General Marente could not pull the sword from its sheath."

"And as proof of this?"

"The kai el'Sol drew the blade in front of the a.s.sembly of the clansmen; he stood in the waters of the Tor Leonne, and he made his challenge for all to see."

"And then?"

"It consumed him utterly."

Dry, dry words. His eyes would be dry, she thought, if she could see them. But beneath the thin flutter of those empty words she heard what he did not say.

"And then?" The anger in the two words.

"The Serra Diora entered the waters. The Serra Diora retrieved the fallen blade."

"And?"

"And she asked that the clansmen hear the plea of a weak, of a foolish woman; that they choose for her no course that would dishonor the memory of her much loved dead."

"Surely no woman is allowed such a demand."

"Kai Lamberto."

"And yet . . . the clansmen acceded."

"Kai Lamberto."

Now his gaze was upon her face with all the ferocity his words could not be allowed to contain. "You are, as you have said, a Serra, and ill-trained in the arts of war. Let me tell you then, Serra Diora, what you will not hear as Serra."

She nodded quietly, attentively. Every gesture that she offered this man was perfect, for in perfection lay her only protection.

"The servants of the Lord of Night lay in wait within the village of Damar. They numbered ten. Ten. And within Sarel, it is said that two fell."