Tigana Part 51

Devin knew how fast he could run, had prided himself on his speed all his life. But moving as if possessed, scarcely touching the ground, Alessan was with him when they reached the Governor's Castle. They careened around a corner side by side and came to the garden wall and there they stopped, looking upwards past the branches of a huge, spreading sejoia tree. They could hear Rovigo come up behind them, and someone else further back. They did not turn to see. They were both looking at the same thing.

There was a figure silhouetted against torchlight in one of the highest windows. A figure they knew. Wearing a long dark gown.

Devin dropped to his knees in the moonlit lane. He thought about climbing the wall, about screaming her name aloud. The sweet scent of tainflowers surrounded him. He looked at Alessan's face, and then quickly away from what he saw there.

How did she like to play?

Mostly, she didn't, and especially not like this. She had not been the playing kind. She had liked swimming, and walks along the beach in the mornings, mostly alone. Other walks inland into the woods, picking mushrooms or mahgoti leaves for tea. She had liked music always, and the more since meeting Alessan. And yes, some six or seven years ago she had begun to have her own intermittent dreams of finding love and pa.s.sion somewhere in the world. Not often though, and the man seldom had a face in those dreams.

There was a man's face with her now though, and this was not a dream. Nor was it play. It was death. Entrances and endings. A candle shaping fire before it went out.

She was lying on his bed, naked to his sight and touch save for the jewellery s.h.i.+ning at wrist and throat and ears and in her hair. Light blazed from all corners of the room. It seemed that Anghiar liked to watch his women respond to what he did. Come on top of me, Come on top of me, he'd murmured in her ear. he'd murmured in her ear. Later, Later, she had replied. He had laughed, a husky sound deep in his throat, and had moved to be above her, naked as well, save for his ruffled white s.h.i.+rt which hung open showing the delicate blond hairs on his chest. she had replied. He had laughed, a husky sound deep in his throat, and had moved to be above her, naked as well, save for his ruffled white s.h.i.+rt which hung open showing the delicate blond hairs on his chest.

He was a skilful lover, a deeply experienced one. It was what let her kill him, in the end.

He lowered his head to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s before entering her. He took one nipple in his mouth, surprisingly gently, and began to run his tongue in circles over it.

Catriana closed her eyes for a moment. She made a sound, one she thought was right. She stretched her hands catlike above her head, moving her body sinuously under the pressure of his mouth and hands. She touched the black comb in her hair. Red vixen Red vixen. She moaned again. His hands were on her thighs, moving upward and between, his mouth was still at her breast. She slid the comb free, pressed the catch so the blade sprang open. And then, moving without haste, as if she had all the time in the world, as if this single moment were the gathered sum of all the moments of her life, she brought her weapon down and plunged it into his throat.

Which meant that his life was over.

You could buy anything you wanted in Senzio's weapon market. Anything at all. Including a woman's ornament with a hidden blade. And poison on the blade. An ornament for the hair, in black, with s.h.i.+ning jewels, one of which released the spring that freed the blade. An exquisite, deadly thing.

Crafted in Ygrath, of course. For that was central to her plan tonight.

Anghiar's head snapped back in shock. His mouth twisted in an involuntary snarl as his eyes bulged wide in staring agony. There was blood pumping from his throat, soaking into the sheets and the pillows, covering her.

He screamed, a terrible sound. He rolled off her, off the bed, onto the carpeted floor, clutching desperately at his throat. He screamed again. There was so much blood pulsing from him. He tried to stop it, pressing his hands to the wound. It didn't matter. It wasn't the wound that would kill him. She watched him, heard the screaming stop, followed by a wet, bubbling sound. Anghiar of Barbadior toppled slowly over on one side, mouth still open, blood leaking from his throat onto the carpet. And then his blue eyes clouded and closed.

Catriana looked down at her hands. They were steady as stone. And so was the beat of her heart. In a moment that was all the moments in her life. Entrances and endings.

There was a furious pounding on the locked door. Frantic shouting, a panic-stricken volley of curses.

She was not yet done. They could not be allowed to take her. She knew what sorcery could do to the mind. If they had her alive they had all of her friends. They would know everything. She was under no illusions, had known there was a final step from the time she formed this plan.

They were battering against the door now. It was large and heavy, would hold a moment or two. She rose up and put on the gown again. She did not want to be naked now, she couldn't have really said why. Bending over the bed she took the Ygrathen weapon, that glittering agency of death, and, careful of the treated blade, laid it beside Anghiar to be quickly found. It was necessary that it be found.

There was a sharp splintering sound from the door, more shouting, a tumult of noise in the corridor. She thought about setting fire to the room-candle to blaze, it appealed to her-but no, they had to find Anghiar's body and exactly what had killed him. She opened the cas.e.m.e.nt window and stepped up on the ledge. The window was elegantly designed, easily tall enough for her to stand upright before it. She looked outwards and down for a moment. The room was over the garden, far above it. More than high enough. The scent of the sejoia trees came drifting up, and the heavy sweetness of tainflowers, and there were other night flowers whose names she did not know. Both moons had risen now, Vidomni and Ilarion watching her. She looked at them for a moment but it was to Morian she prayed, for it was towards Morian she was crossing, through the last portal of all.

She thought of her mother. Of Alessan. Of his dream that had become hers, and for which she was now to die in a land not her own. Briefly she thought of her father, knowing how much this all had to do with making redress, with the way each generation seemed to put its mark upon the next, one way or another. Let it be enough, Let it be enough, she prayed then, aiming the thought like an arrow of the mind towards Morian in her Halls. she prayed then, aiming the thought like an arrow of the mind towards Morian in her Halls.

The door burst inward with a grinding crash. Half a dozen men stumbled into the room. It was time. Catriana turned back from the stars and the two moons and the garden. She looked down at the men from the window-ledge. There was a singing in her heart, a crescendo of hope and pride.

'Death to Barbadior's servants!' she screamed at the top of her voice. she screamed at the top of her voice. 'Freedom for Senzio!' 'Freedom for Senzio!' she cried, and then: she cried, and then: 'Long live King Brandin of the Palm!' 'Long live King Brandin of the Palm!'

One man, quicker than the others, reacted, springing across the room. He was not quite quick enough, not as fast as she. She had already turned, the acid of those last, necessary words eating in her brain. She saw the moons again, Eanna's stars, the wide, waiting darkness between them and beyond.

She leaped. Felt the night wind in her face and in her hair, saw the dark ground of the garden begin to hurtle up towards her, heard voices for an instant, and then none at all, only the loud, rus.h.i.+ng wind. She was alone, falling. She had always been alone it seemed. Endings. A candle. Memories. A dream, a prayer of flames, that they might come. Then a last doorway, an unexpectedly gentle darkness seemed to open wide before her in the air. She closed her eyes just before she went through.

CHAPTER1 9.

Warm night, the fragrance of flowers. Moonlight on the trees, on the pale stones of the garden wall, on the woman standing in the high window.

Devin hears a sound to his left and quickly turns. Rovigo running up, to stop, rigid with shock as his gaze follows Alessan's upward. Behind him now comes Sandre with Alais.

'Help me!' the Duke orders harshly, dropping to the cobblestones beside Devin. His expression is wild, distraught, he has a knife in his hand. the Duke orders harshly, dropping to the cobblestones beside Devin. His expression is wild, distraught, he has a knife in his hand.

'What?' Devin gasps, uncomprehending. 'What do you ...?'

'My fingers! Now! Cut them! I need the power!' And Sandre d'Astibar slaps the hilt of the knife hard into Devin's palm and curls his own left hand around a loose slab of stone in the street. Only his third and fourth fingers are extended. The wizard's fingers, of binding to the Palm.

'Sandre ...' Devin begins, stammering.

'No words! Cut me, Devin! Cut me, Devin!'

Devin does as he is told. Wincing, gritting his teeth against pain, against grief, he poises the sharp slim blade and brings it down on Sandre's exposed fingers, cleaving through. He hears someone cry out. Alais, not the Duke.

But in the moment the knife cuts clean through flesh to grind against stone there is a swift and dazzling flash. Sandre's darkened face is illuminated by a corona of white light that flares like a star about his head and dies away, leaving them blinded for a moment in the after-image of its glow.

Alais is on the Duke's other side, kneeling to quickly wrap a square of cloth about his bleeding hand. Sandre lifts that hand, with an effort, silent in the face of pain. Without a word spoken, Alais helps him, her fingers supporting his arm.

From high above they hear a sharp, distant crash, the sound of men shouting. Silhouetted in the tall window, Catriana becomes suddenly taut. She screams something. They are too far away to make out the words. Too terribly far. They see her turn though, to the darkness, to the night.

'Oh, my dear, no! Not this!' Alessan's voice is a ragged whisper scoured up from his heart. Alessan's voice is a ragged whisper scoured up from his heart.

Too late. Far, far too late.

On his knees in the dusty road, Devin sees her fall.

Not wheeling or tumbling to death, but graceful as she has always been, a diver cleaving the night downwards. Sandre thrusts forward his maimed wizard's hand, straining upwards. He speaks rapid words Devin cannot understand. There is a sudden weirdly distorting blur in the night, a s.h.i.+mmer as of unnatural heat in the air. Sandre's hand is aimed straight at the falling woman. Devin's heart stops for a moment, seizing at this wild, impossible hope.

Then it starts beating again, heavy as age, as death. Whatever Sandre has tried, it is not enough. He is too far, it is too hard a spell, he is too new to this power. Any of these, all, none. Catriana falls. Unstayed, unchecked, beautiful as a moonlit fantasy of a woman who can fly. Down to a broken, crumpled ending behind the garden wall.

Alais bursts into desperate sobs. Sandre covers his eyes with his good hand, his body rocking back and forth. Devin can hardly see for the tears in his eyes. High above them, in the window where she had stood, the blurred forms of men appear, looking downward into the darkness of the garden.

'We have to move away!' Rovigo croaks, the words scarcely intelligible. 'They will be searching.'

It is true. Devin knows it is. And if there is any gift, anything at all they can offer back to Catriana now, to where she might be watching with Morian, it is that her dying should not have been meaningless or in vain.

Devin forces himself up from his knees, he helps Sandre to rise. Then he turns to Alessan. Who has not moved, nor taken his eyes from the high window where there are still men standing and gesturing. Devin remembers the Prince the afternoon his mother died. This is the same. This is worse. He wipes at his eyes with the backs of his hands. Turns to Rovigo: 'We are too many to stay together. You and Sandre take Alais. Be very careful. They may recognize her-she was with Catriana when the Governor saw them. We'll go another way and meet you in our rooms.'

Then he takes Alessan by the arm, and turns him-the Prince does not resist, follows his lead. The two of them start south, stumbling down a lane that will take them away from the castle, from the garden where she lies. He realizes he is still holding Sandre's bloodied dagger. He jams it into his belt.

He thinks about the Duke, about what Sandre has just done to himself. He remembers-his mind playing its familiar tricks with time and memory-a night in the Sandreni lodge last fall. His own first night that has led him here. When Sandre told them he could not take Toma.s.so out of the dungeon alive because he lacked the power. Because he'd never sacrificed his fingers in the wizard's binding.

And now he has. For Catriana, not his son, and to no good at all. There is something that hurts so much in all of this. Toma.s.so is nine months dead, and now she lies in a garden in Senzio, dead as any of the men of Tigana who fell in war by the Deisa years ago.

Which was the whole point for her, Devin knows. She had told him as much in Alienor's castle. He begins to cry again, unable to stop himself. A moment later he feels Alessan's hand upon his shoulder.

'Hold hard, for a little longer yet,' the Prince says. His first words since her fall. 'You lead me and I'll lead you, and afterwards we will mourn together, you and I.' He leaves the hand on Devin's shoulder. They make their way through the dark lanes and the torchlit ones.

There is already an uproar in the streets of Senzio as they go, a careening, breathless thread of rumour about some happening at the castle. The Governor is dead, The Governor is dead, someone shouts feverishly, sprinting wildly past them. someone shouts feverishly, sprinting wildly past them. The Barbadians have crossed the border, The Barbadians have crossed the border, a woman screams, leaning out from a window above a tavern. She has red hair, Devin sees, and he looks away. There are no guards in the streets yet; they walk quickly and are not stopped by anyone. a woman screams, leaning out from a window above a tavern. She has red hair, Devin sees, and he looks away. There are no guards in the streets yet; they walk quickly and are not stopped by anyone.

Thinking back upon that walk, later, Devin realizes that never, not for a single moment, did he doubt that Catriana had killed the Barbadian before she jumped.

Back at Solinghi's Devin wanted nothing more than to go upstairs to his room and close his eyes and be away from people, from all the invading tumult of the world. But as they came through the door, he and the Prince, a loud, impatient cheer suddenly rose in the packed front room, running swiftly towards the back as well. They were well overdue for the first of the evening's performances, and Solinghi's was jammed with people who'd come to hear them play, regardless of the increasing noises from outside.

Devin and Alessan exchanged a glance. Music.

There was no sign of Erlein, but the two of them slowly made their way through the crowd to the raised platform in the middle s.p.a.ce between the two rooms. Alessan took up his pipes and Devin stood beside him, waiting. The Prince blew a handful of testing, tuning notes and then, without a word spoken, began the song Devin had known he would begin.

As the first high, mournful notes of the 'Lament for Adaon' spun out into the densely crowded rooms there was a brief, disconcerted murmur, and then silence fell. Into which stillness Devin followed Alessan's pipes, lifting his voice in lament. But not for the G.o.d this time, though the words were not changed. Not for Adaon falling from his high place, but for Catriana di Tigana fallen from hers.

Men said after that there had never been such a stillness, such rapt attention among the tables in Solinghi's. Even the servants waiting on patrons and the cooks in the kitchens behind the bar stopped what they had been doing and stood listening. No one moved, no one made a sound. There were pipes playing, and a solitary voice singing the oldest song of mourning in the Palm.

In a room upstairs Alais lifted her head from her tear-soaked pillow and slowly sat up. Rinaldo, tending to Sandre's maimed hand, turned his blind face towards the door and both men were still. And Baerd, who had come back here with Ducas to tidings that smashed his heart in a way he had not thought could ever happen to him again, listened to Alessan and Devin below and he felt as if his soul was leaving him, as it had on the Ember Night, to fly through darkness searching for peace and a home, for a dreamt-of world in which young women did not die in this way.

Out in the street where the sound of the pipes and that pure lamenting voice carried, people stopped in their loud pursuit of rumour or the restless chasing of night's pleasures and they stood outside the doors of Solinghi's, listening to the notes of grief, the sound of love-held fast in the spell of a music shaped by loss.

For a long time after it was remembered in Senzio, that haunting, heartbreaking, utterly unexpected offering of the 'Lament' on the mild, moonlit night that marked the beginning of war.

They played only the one song and then ended. There was nothing left in either of them. Devin claimed two open bottles of wine from Solinghi behind the bar and followed Alessan upstairs. One bedroom door was partly open: Alais's, that had been Catriana's too. Baerd was waiting in the doorway; he made a small choking sound and stepped forward into the hallway and Alessan embraced him.

For a long time they stood locked together, swaying a little. When they drew back both of their faces looked blurred, unfocused. Devin followed them into the room. Alais was there and Rovigo. Sandre. Rinaldo, Ducas and Naddo. Sertino the wizard. All of them crowded into this one room; as if being in the room from which she'd gone would somehow hold her spirit nearer to them.

'Did anyone think to bring wine?' Rinaldo asked in a faint voice.

'I did,' Devin said, going over to the Healer. Rinaldo looked pale and exhausted. Devin glanced at Sandre's left hand and saw that the bleeding had been stopped. He guided Rinaldo's hand to one of the wine bottles and the Healer drank, not bothering to ask for a gla.s.s. Devin gave the other bottle to Ducas, who did the same.

Sertino was gazing at Sandre's hand. 'You're going to have to get in the habit of masking those fingers,' he said. He held up his own left hand, and Devin saw the now-familiar illusion of completeness.

'I know,' Sandre said. 'I feel very weak right now though.'

'Doesn't matter,' Sertino replied. 'Two missing fingers seen will mean death for you. However weary we are, the masking must be constant. Do it. Now.'

Sandre looked up at him angrily, but the Certandan wizard's round pink face showed nothing but concern. The Duke closed his eyes briefly, grimaced, and then slowly held up his own left hand. Devin saw five fingers there, or the illusion of such. He couldn't seem to stop thinking about Toma.s.so, dead in a dungeon in Astibar.

Ducas was offering him the bottle. He took it and drank. Pa.s.sed it over to Naddo, and went to sit beside Alais on the bed. She took his hand, which had never happened before. Her eyes were red with weeping, her skin looked bruised. Alessan had slumped on the floor by the door, leaning against the wall. His eyes were closed. In the light of the candles his face looked hollowed out, the cheekbones showing in angular relief.

Ducas cleared his throat. 'We had best do some planning,' he said awkwardly. 'If she killed this Barbadian there will be a search through the city tonight, and Triad knows what tomorrow.'

'Sandre used magic, as well,' Alessan said, not opening his eyes. 'If there's a Tracker in Senzio he's in danger.'

'That we can deal with,' Naddo said fiercely, looking from Ducas to Sertino. 'We did it once already, remember. And there were more than twenty men with that Tracker.'

'You aren't in the highlands of Certando now,' Rovigo said mildly.

'Doesn't matter,' Ducas said. 'Naddo's right. If enough of us are down in the street and Sertino's with us to point out the Tracker then I'd be ashamed of my men if we couldn't contrive a brawl that killed him.'

'There's a risk,' Baerd said.

Ducas suddenly smiled like a wolf, cold and hard, without a trace of mirth. 'I'd be grateful for a risk to take tonight,' he said. Devin understood exactly what he meant.

Alessan opened his eyes and looked up from his place against the wall. 'Do it, then,' he said. 'Devin can run any messages back here to us. We'll move Sandre out, back to the s.h.i.+p if we have to. If you send word that-'

He stopped, and then uncoiled in one lithe movement to his feet. Baerd had already seized his sword from where it was leaning against the wall. Devin stood up, releasing Alais's hand.

There came another rattle of sound from the stairway outside the window. Then the window opened as a hand pulled the gla.s.s outwards and Erlein di Senzio stepped carefully over the ledge and into the room with Catriana in his arms.

In the stony silence he looked at them all for a moment, taking in the scene. Then he turned to Alessan. 'If you are worried about magic,' he said in a paper-thin voice, 'then you had best be very worried. I used a great deal of power just now. If there's a Tracker in Senzio then anyone near me is extremely likely to be captured and killed.' He stopped, then smiled very faintly. 'But I caught her in time. She is alive.'

The world spun and rocked for Devin. He heard himself cry out with an inarticulate joy. Sandre literally leaped to his feet and rushed to claim Catriana's unconscious body from Erlein's arms. He hastened to the bed and laid her down. He was crying again, Devin saw. So, unexpectedly, was Rovigo.

Devin wheeled back to where Erlein stood. In time to see Alessan cross the room in two swift strides and wrap the exhausted wizard in a bear hug that lifted Erlein, feebly protesting, clean off the ground. Alessan released him and stepped back, the grey eyes s.h.i.+ning, his face lit by a grin he couldn't seem to control. Erlein tried, without success, to preserve his own customary cynical expression. Then Baerd came up and, without warning, seized the wizard by the shoulders and kissed him on both cheeks.

Again the troubadour struggled to look fierce and displeased. Again he failed. With an entirely unconvincing attempt at his usual scowl, he said, 'Careful, you. Devin flattened me to the ground when you all ran out the door. I'm still bruised.' He threw a glare at Devin, who smiled happily back at him.

Sertino handed Erlein a bottle. He drank, a long, thirsty pull. He wiped at his mouth. 'It wasn't hard to guess from the way you were running that something was seriously wrong. I started to follow, but I don't run very fast any more so I decided to use magic. I got to the far end of the garden wall just as Alessan and Devin reached the near side.'

'Why?' Alessan asked sharply, wonder in his voice. 'You never never use your magic. Why now?' use your magic. Why now?'

Erlein shrugged elaborately. 'I'd never seen all of you run anywhere like that before.' He grimaced. 'I suppose I was carried away.'

Alessan was smiling again; he couldn't seem to hold it in for very long. Every few seconds he glanced quickly over at the bed, as if to rea.s.sure himself of who was lying there. 'Then what?' he asked.

'Then I saw her in the window, and figured out what was happening. So I ... I used my magic to get over the wall and I was waiting in the garden beneath the window.' He turned to Sandre. 'You sent an astonis.h.i.+ng spell from so far, but you didn't have a chance. You couldn't know, never having tried, but you can't stop someone falling that way. You have to be beneath them. And they usually have to be unconscious. That kind of magic works on our own bodies almost exclusively; if we want to apply it to someone else their will has to be suspended or everything gets muddled when they see what is happening and their mind begins to fight it.'

Sandre was shaking his head. 'I thought it was my weakness. That I just wasn't strong enough, even with the binding.'

Erlein's expression was odd. For a second he seemed about to respond to that, but instead he resumed his tale. 'I used a spell to make her lose consciousness partway down, and a stronger one to catch her before she hit. Then a last to get us over the wall again. By then I was completely spent, and terrified they would trace us immediately if there was a Tracker anywhere in the castle. But they didn't, there was too much chaos. I think something else is happening back there. We hid behind the main temple of Eanna for a time, and then I carried her here.'

'Carried her through the streets?' Alais asked. 'No one noticed that?'

Erlein grinned at her, not unkindly. 'It isn't that unusual in Senzio, my dear.'

Alais flushed crimson, but Devin could see that she didn't really mind. It was all right. Everything was suddenly all right.

'We had better get down into the street then,' Baerd said to Ducas. 'We'll have to get Arkin and some of the others. Regardless of whether there are Trackers, this changes things. When they don't find her body in the garden there's going to be an unbelievable search of the town tonight. I think there will have to be some fighting.'

Ducas smiled again, more like a wolf than ever. 'I hope so,' was all he said.