"A Song for Arbonne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)

PART III—Autumn

CHAPTER 9

On the bright, mild morning in autumn when her life changes forever, Rosala de Garsenc is returning carefully from her favourite walk along the sloping, tree-lined path from the water mill back to the castle when she sees her father-in-law waiting for her astride his horse in the open space in front of the drawbridge.

Her breath quickening with the first stirrings of apprehension, she places her hands protectively in front of her rounded belly but resolutely does not alter her pace. Her husband is away at the court, and Galbert will know that.

"Good morrow, my lord," she says as she comes slowly up to the courtyard. The drawbridge of the castle is down; inside the forecourt a handful of corans are noisily practising with quarterstaves, beyond them serfs are unloading sacks of harvested grain watched carefully by the reeve. It is a bustling tithe day at Garsenc Castle. No one is close enough though to overhear anything the two of them might say to each other.

Galbert de Garsenc, massive and imposing in his riding clothes, makes no immediate reply to her greeting, looking stonily down upon her from his horse. He ought to have dismounted, of course, simple courtesy to his son's wife demands that; his failure to do so is a first signal, an attempt to intimidate. Rosala knows by now that almost everything this man does is meant as a means of control.

"Will you come in?" she says, as if there is nothing untoward in his manner at all. "You must know that Ranald is away, but I will gladly do what I may to make you comfortable." She smiles, but only briefly; she will not abase herself before this man, she has sworn it to herself.

He jerks his reins to make the horse dance a little, quite close to her. She stands motionless; she certainly isn't afraid of horses, and she is quite sure, for the obvious reason, that her father-in-law will not risk doing her any physical harm just now.

Galbert clears his throat. "Get in," he says, the celebrated voice icy cold. "Get into the castle immediately before you shame us further. I heard tell that you were walking abroad but refused to credit it. I came to see for myself, certain that the rumours must be idle and false. Instead I find you brazening about obscenely, parading in your condition before the serfs, exactly as I was told. Are you utterly corrupt that you do such things?"

She had actually thought it might be this. It is almost a relief to have been right, to know from what direction the latest attack is coming.

"You wrong me and cheapen yourself," she says as calmly as she can manage. "I am doing what the Savaric women have done for generations. You know it, my lord, do not feign otherwise. The women of my family have never kept to their rooms while carrying, they have always taken daily walks on the family estates."

He jerks the reins again; the horse dances uneasily. "You are a Garsenc now, not a Savaric."

"False. I will always be a Savaric. my lord. Do not deceive yourself. What I was born to may not be taken from me." She hesitates. "It may only be added to." That last is meant as conciliation; with Ranald away she really does not want a confrontation with his father. "My husband and lord knows I am not lingering abed; I told him of my family tradition when we first learned I was carrying. He raised no objection."

"Of course he didn't. Ranald is beneath contempt. A fool beyond words. He shames our ancestors."

Rosala smiles sweetly. "He did ask me to tell him if ever you spoke disparagingly of him to me. Would these words fit such a description?"

Be careful, she tells herself then. This is a man who will not be crossed. But it is hard to yield spinelessly to him; so very hard, remembering her own father and her home, to cringe before the High Elder, flush with his new ascendancy.

She sees Galbert check a too-swift reply. Ranald has a temper, and Blaise too, to a lesser degree. The father is as ice compared to both of them—his anger and his hate kept channelled, ruthlessly controlled.

"You are deliberately insolent," he says. "Shall I whip you for it?" His voice is incongruously mild speaking the words, as if he were merely offering to walk her about the grounds or summon a servant to her aid.

"Indeed," Rosala says hardily. "A worthy thought. You come here out of alleged concern for the child I carry, and then offer me a beating. A prudent course, my lord."

His turn to smile. His smile frightens her more than anything else. She tries not to let that show.

"I can wait," says Galbert de Garsenc softly. "You are not a child. Discipline can be delayed and you will still know the cause. I am a patient man. Get into the castle now, though, or I will be forced to handle you in front of the corans and the servants. You carry the first of the new generation of the Garsenc line and you will not be permitted to jeopardize that with this folly."

Rosala does not move. He is not going to hurt her. She knows that. A kind of reckless giddiness rises in her, a surge of hatred she cannot quite master. "Forgive me my ignorance, and that of my family," she says. "You are clearly to be deferred to in these matters, my lord. You know so much about helping women survive childbirth." A dangerous cut, one she might truly be made to pay for later. Galbert's first wife died, hours after giving birth to Blaise, and two subsequent wives did not survive their first confinements in this castle, with the children stillborn.

She has meant to wound, wisely or no, but nothing in his face shows that she has done so. "As I said," he murmurs, still smiling, "a whipping may be given at any time."

"Of course," she replies. "I live entirely at the mercy of your kindness, my lord. Though indeed, if you wound and scar me too greatly it might spoil the king's pleasure when he chooses to send for me, might it not?"

She hadn't planned to say anything like that; it has slipped out. She isn't sorry though, now that the words are spoken. The thought, and the fear behind it, are never far from her.

She sees the High Elder react for the first time. She wasn't even thought to have been aware of this aspect of things, she realizes. It is almost amusing: women are imagined to troop like so many sheep through the court, eyes down, dull minds shuttered, oblivious to whatever nuances might be passing about them. She could laugh, were her fears not so tangible.

Galbert de Garsenc's smile deepens now, the smooth-shaven, fleshy face creasing into something truly unpleasant. "You are hungry for that moment, I see. You are already in lust. You would prefer to kill the child that you might come panting and hot to Ademar's bed the sooner, would you not? You have all the vile corruption of women in you, especially those of your lineage. I knew it when first I ever saw you."

Rosala stiffens. She feels dizzy suddenly. The walk uphill, the bright sunlight overhead, and now this foul, streaming torrent of abuse. She actually wishes Ranald were home; his presence might have served to temper or at least deflect onto himself some of Galbert's viciousness. She has brought this upon herself, she thinks shakily. Better to have swallowed pride, to have meekly gone within. How can she, alone and at his mercy, possibly fight this man?

She looks up at him, a sickness within her. Her family is as good as this one, she tells herself fiercely, or so very nearly as to make no difference. She knows what has to be said now. Fighting for self-control, she speaks.

"Hear me. I will kill myself before I let him touch me. Do not ever doubt that this is so. And do not try to deny that you have encouraged the king's shameful thoughts, contemptuous of your son or any true sense of family honour, seeking only to bind a weak man more tightly to your use with whatever tools you may find. My lord, I am not a tool that will ever fit your hand. I will die before Ademar ever lies with me."

She watches his face narrowly, and adds, "Or you, my lord High Elder of Corannos. I will end my life before I suffer you to lay a hand or a lash upon this white flesh you dream about in the dark of the god's house at night." A shaft loosed wildly that one, but she sees it hit, squarely. Galbert's ruddy face goes suddenly white, his eyes creasing to slits and flicking away from hers for the first time. Rosala feels no triumph, only a renewed wave of nausea.

She turns abruptly away and begins to walk across the drawbridge into the forecourt. The corans have stopped their duelling, their attention caught by something in the manner of the two of them here outside the walls. She holds her head high and walks with what composure she can achieve.

"My lady Rosala." Galbert says from behind her, his voice raised slightly. She had known he would call her. He would need to have the final word. His nature will not permit otherwise. She thinks of not turning, of continuing on, but the corans have heard him call her. What she might do at some risk privately she dares not do in public: she might defy him to a certain point, but open shame he will not allow. A woman can be killed for that in Gorhaut.

She stops on the drawbridge and turns slowly back to look at him. After, she will remember that moment, the sun high, a breeze stirring the red and golden leaves of the chestnut trees along the avenue, birdsong in the branches, the stream beyond, glinting blue. A glorious autumn day.

"I wonder," says Galbert de Garsenc, lowering his voice, moving the horse nearer, "has your dear husband told you of our latest agreement? He has probably neglected to, in that forgetful way of his. We have decided that if you should bear a son it is mine. Ah! You seem surprised, Lady Rosala! It is just as I thought, the careless lad has not informed you. A boy is promised to Corannos, a daughter you may keep; a daughter is no use to me immediately, though I am sure I will devise a purpose for her later."

Rosala is actually afraid she is going to faint. The sun swings in an erratic arc in the blue sky. She takes a stumbling, sidelong step to keep her balance. Her heart is a thudding hammer in her breast. She tastes blood; she has bitten through her lip.

"You… you would deprive your family of an heir?" she stammers, her brain stunned, refusing to believe what she has just heard.

"No, no, no, not necessarily." He chuckles now, all benign good humour for the watching eyes of those inside the forecourt. "Though we need another Elder in our family at least as much as we need an heir in this castle. Ranald's brother" — he never speaks Blaise's name—"was to have followed me to the god. A great deal of our future depended upon that. His refusal has marred my planning, put me in a difficult position, but if you present me with a boy matters may yet be remedied. I will, of course, delay final consecration for a time, to judge how best to make use of the child—here at Garsenc or in the god's house. There will be many matters to be considered, but I daresay you will help me by having other children, dear daughter-in-law. And if you do not—seeing as it did take some time to conceive this one—why then I imagine Ranald could find a second wife who will. I am not greatly concerned on that score. And I must confess, I am looking forward to attending to a grandson's education and upbringing personally. I pray you, do not disappoint me, lady Rosala. Bear a strong boy child for me to take back to Corannos."

She can say nothing at all. She seems to have lost the power of speech. She can scarcely stand. She feels suddenly exposed, naked in this place to the indifferent or mildly curious scrutiny of her household corans and the serfs of the estate.

"You really ought to go in now," says Galbert kindly. "You do not look well at all. You ought to be in your bed, my child. I would escort you there myself but I am afraid I have no time to linger for such domestic intimacies. The press of affairs demands my attention back at court. I do trust you have taken my meaning, though, and I will not have to come again?"

He turns, not waiting for any reply, lifting one hand to her that the corans might note his salute; it is the hand that holds his whip, though. That will not be an accident; nothing with this man is an accident. She sees that he is smiling as he rides away.

Inside the castle a short time later, alone in her suite of rooms, white-knuckled hands gripping each other, Rosala de Garsenc realizes, without knowing the actual moment of making her decision, that she is going to leave.

Galbert made a mistake, she thinks. He never meant to tell her about these plans, he must have known how she would feel about them; she had angered him though, revealed an awareness of his thoughts, and he replied rashly, to frighten and wound her, to have the final word.

She doesn't know how she is going to do it, she only knows she will not stay and surrender her child to that man. I am at war now, she thinks, realizing that her only possible advantage is that she knows it and Galbert might not. Inside her, as if in response, the baby kicks hard against her ribs for the first time that morning.

"Hush," she whispers. "Hush, my love. It will not happen. Fear no harm, for none shall find you. Wherever in the world your father is, whether he ever comes to shelter you or no, I will guard you, little one. I swear it upon my life, and yours."

Blaise was thinking of the child as the men of Talair rode north through the cool breezes of autumn in Arbonne: of Aelis de Miraval's son, and Bertran's. Since Ariane had told him the tale that Midsummer night three months ago, he had thought about it more often than he would have expected to, unable not to gaze curiously at such times at the man his own father had paid a quarter of a million in gold to have killed.

A tragedy had unfolded here some twenty-three years ago, and the effects of it were still rippling through Arbonne today. He remembered Ariane's quiet, measured voice telling him the tale as dawn broke over the littered streets and alleys of Tavernel.

"As I told you just now," she had said, "discretion is everything in love. My cousin Aelis had none, though she was very young, and that might be considered an excuse. There was something uncontrolled in her, something too fierce. Hatred and love drove her hard, and she was not a woman to accept her fate, or work within walls built to house her."

"Neither are you," Blaise remembered saying. "What was the difference?"

She had smiled at that, a little sadly, and had not answered for a time.

"The difference, I suppose, is that I saw what she did, and what followed upon it. Aelis is the difference in my own life. She told her husband, you see. She hoarded the truth for a last, bitter swordstroke—with its own slow, killing poison, if you will. When the priestess who had come to her said she was not going to live they brought Urté to her confinement bed. He was sorrowful, I think. I have always thought he was genuinely in sorrow, though perhaps more for the loss of the power she offered him than anything else. Aelis had no softness in her though, she was all pride and recklessness, even on her deathbed. She pushed herself up in the bed and she told Urté the child was Bertran de Talair's."

"How do you know this?"

"I was there," Ariane had said. "As I say, that moment altered my own life, shaped what I think I have become. Those words she spoke to Urté changed our world, you know. We would live in a differently ordered country had Aelis not taken her vengeance."

"Vengeance for what?" Blaise had asked, though he was beginning, slowly, to understand.

"For not being loved," Ariane had said simply. "For being valued at too much less than she was. For being exiled to the dank, grim fastness of Miraval from the lights and laughter of her father's court."

He had thought it might be that. Once he would have scorned such a thing as beneath contempt, another woman's vanity marring the unfolding of the world. It had surprised him a little that he didn't still see it that way; at least that night in Tavernel, with Ariane de Carenzu in his arms he didn't. It had occurred to him then, with a shock he had tried to mask, that this new pattern of thought might be his own deepest rebellion against his father.

"I can guess what you are thinking," Ariane had said.

"No, I don't think you can," he had replied without elaborating. "What did Urté do?" he'd asked, pushing his own family affairs towards the back of his mind. There had been a sadness in Blaise that night, hearing the old tale. The question was a formality. He was sure he knew what En Urté de Miraval had done.

Ariane's answer had surprised him, though. "No one knows for certain. And that is the heart of Bertran's tragedy, Blaise. There was a son born before Aelis died. I watched the priestess bring him into the world. I heard him cry. Then Urté, who had been waiting, took him away, and not Aelis nor the priestess, and certainly not I at thirteen years of age, had the power to stop him within his own walls. I remember how his face changed when she told him who the father was; that I will never forget. And I remember him bending down over her, as she lay there, torn and dying, and whispering something into her ear that I could not hear. Then he left the room with Bertran's child crying in his arms."

"And killed it."

She shook her head. "As I say, no one knows. It is likely, probable, knowing Urté, knowing how such a child would have been heir to so much… to Barbentain, and so to Arbonne itself, as Aelis's child. It is likely, but we do not know. Bertran doesn't know. Not with certainty. If the child lived, if it lives now, only Urté de Miraval knows where it is."

Blaise had seen it clearly then, the harsh, ugly shape of Bertran's pain. "And so Urté could not be killed all these years—cannot be killed now—because any possibility of finding the truth or the child will die with him."

Ariane had looked up at him in the muted grey light of the room and nodded her head in silence. Blaise had tried to imagine what it would have been like to be thirteen years old and to have lived through such a night, to have it lying, like a weight of stones, in your own past.

"I would have killed him regardless," he had said after a long time. And she had answered only, "You and Bertran de Talair are very different men."

Riding north beside the river with Duke Bertran and the corans of Talair to the Autumn Fair in Lussan, Blaise thought again about that remark. It was very nearly the last thing she'd said to him that night before they'd dressed and she'd gone from his room alone, cloaked and hooded, with only a mild, chaste kiss of farewell in first grey light of day.

What made men so different from each other? Accidents of birth, of upbringing, of good fortune or tragedy? What sort of man would Blaise himself have become had he been the older son, the heir to Garsenc, and not the younger one for whom an unwanted destiny among the clergy of the god had been ordained by his father? What if his mother had lived, the question Signe de Barbentain had asked? Would she have made any difference? What if Galbert de Garsenc had somehow been a different, gentler, less power-obsessed man?

Though that last speculation was impossible, really; it was simply not possible to imagine his father as anything other than what he was. Galbert seemed absolute to Blaise, like a force of nature or some gigantic monument of the Ancients, one that spoke to nothing but power and had been in the world almost forever.

Bertran de Talair, too, was a younger son. Only the early death of his brother had brought him to the dukedom and set two great houses so harshly against each other. Before that he had followed the usual course: a sword for hire in battle and tournament, seeking fortune and a place in the world. The same path Blaise de Garsenc was to take, starting from Gorhaut, years after. The same path, that is, if one left out the music.

But the music could not be left out. It defined Bertran, just as it defined Arbonne, Blaise found himself thinking. He shook his head, almost amused at himself. Half a year now he had been here, and already his mind seemed to have this tendency to slide down channels it had never known before. Resolutely he pulled his wandering thoughts back to the present, to the high road of Arbonne built by the Ancients between the river and the grainfields to the east.

Looking ahead, squinting through the dust, Blaise was drawn from reverie. He was riding near the rear of the column, behind the long baggage-train of goods they were escorting to the fair—mostly barrels of Talair wine. He saw Bertran and Valery riding back towards him. Their pace was measured, but just quick enough to make him aware that something was happening at the front of the long column. Beyond the two of them he could make out banners in the distance. They seemed to be about to overtake someone. There was nothing in that, all the roads were crowded on the way to a fair, and the high road most of all. He raised his eyebrows as the two men came up and neatly turned their horses to fall into stride on either side of Blaise.

"Diversions, diversions," said Bertran airily. He had a smile on his face that Blaise recognized by now; it made him uneasy. "Unexpected pleasures of so many kinds await us. What," the duke went on, "can you tell me about someone named Rudel Correze?"

After a number of months with Bertran, Blaise was getting used to this sort of thing. It sometimes seemed to him that the Arbonnais preferred to be known as clever and witty more than anything else.

"He shoots fairly well," he said drily, trying to match Bertran's tone. "Ask Valery."

The big coran, now fully recovered, grunted wryly.

"We have been," said Bertran crisply, his tone changing without warning, "collectively avoiding a decision all summer. I think it is time to make it."

"Correze banners up ahead?" Blaise asked.

"Indeed there are. Among others. I think I recognized Andoria and Delonghi as well."

It was odd how the ambushes of life came upon one so utterly unawares. Or perhaps it wasn't all that odd, Blaise corrected himself: they wouldn't be ambushes otherwise, would they? It stood to reason, didn't it? He felt suddenly cold, though. He wondered if the other two men could read a response in him, and then he wondered why it had never even occurred to him that Lucianna might be coming to the Lussan Fair.

There was more than enough of importance happening in the world, as autumn came, to make an appearance by the Delonghi an obvious thing to have expected at this annual gathering. They would come to trade, to watch and wager or fight in the tournament, to celebrate the harvests and share news of the six countries before winter's snow and rain made the roads impassable. And where the men of the Delonghi were likely to be present, the celebrated, notorious jewel of the family would almost certainly be found. Lucianna was not prone to be left behind, anywhere.

The immediate question had been about Rudel, though, and Bertran had raised another issue as well.

Blaise addressed the question, making his tone as precise as he could. "You'll have to make a point of acknowledging Rudel himself, and his father if he's here. He might be. Once acknowledged, and under the truce of the fair Rudel will do nothing at all. In fact, it will probably amuse him to be seen in your company."

"It will amuse me as well," Bertran murmured, "to no end. I think I will enjoy meeting this man."

Most of the world knew now about the failed assassination and the money spent. A few people were aware of who it was who had fired that poisoned arrow and hit the wrong man. Rudel, so far as Blaise could judge, would have been seriously embarrassed—especially after heading straight to Gotzland to claim the promised fee. Bertran's sources at the court of King Jorg—who were remarkably well informed—had sent word later about how Rudel had been forced to repay the sum. He had already spent part of it, it was reported, and so his father had been compelled to intervene and square the account. Blaise could quite easily imagine how his old friend had felt about that.

In his own way, he was looking forward to seeing Rudel again. In the complex sparring match of their relationship he had won a victory in that garden in Tavernel, and both of them would know it. He didn't win so cleanly very often; it would be something to savour.

Or it might have been, except that Lucianna was here, and Blaise knew from experience that Rudel would use whatever weapons he needed to to even a score if he felt himself on the losing side of the slate. Blaise shook his head. He would have to try to deal with that if and when it happened. There was something else still to be addressed here, and Bertran and Valery were both watching him in silence as they rode. There was a growing commotion up at the front of their column and they seemed to be slowing down. He could see the overtaken banners clearly now: Correze, Delonghi, Andoria, one or two others he didn't recognize.

He turned to Bertran. The duke was bareheaded as usual, in the nondescript riding clothes he favoured on the road. It had saved his life once, Valery had told Blaise, when another would-be assassin had been unable to tell which man in their party was de Talair himself.

"There's no decision to make, really. Not now." Blaise kept his voice calm. Three men could now be seen riding back towards them, dust rising about their horses' hooves. "If we're to ride with the Portezzans there are a number of them who know me. There's no point in my trying to remain unrecognized."

"I thought as much," Bertran said. "Very well. From this time on may I assume it is Blaise de Garsenc who honours me by joining my corans for a time, despite his father's evident desire to have me killed?"

It was a watershed of sorts, a moment when many things could change. "As you like," said Blaise quietly.

The three riders had come nearer. He didn't recognize them. They were extravagantly garbed, even on the dusty road. Portezzans were like that.

"And on the other matter?" Bertran asked, the faintest hint of tension in his voice now. "The one we have been delaying upon?"

Blaise knew what the duke meant, of course he knew: What would you have me do, declare myself the true king of Gorhaut? His own words.

He shook his head. Something in his chest grew tight and heavy whenever he thought about that. It was a step across a chasm so wide he had never thought to see such a thing, even in his mind's eye. "No," he said. "Leave that. It is autumn now, and the truce of the fair. Gorhaut will do nothing here, if any of them even come, and then Ademar will have to wait until spring opens the mountains again. Let us wait and see what happens."

Valery said in his measured voice, "We might be doing things ourselves in winter, instead of waiting to see what others do."

Blaise turned to him. "I'm sorry," he said sharply, "if my reluctance to be used as a figurehead will spoil your winter."

Bertran, on his other side, laughed aloud. "Fair enough," he said, "though you are hardly a figurehead, if you are honest with yourself. If Ademar is seen as having betrayed his country with the Treaty of Iersen Bridge, is there a man in Gorhaut with a better claim to succeed him than you? Your brother, perhaps?"

"Perhaps," Blaise said. "He won't do anything, though. My father rules him." He hesitated. "Leave it, Bertran. Leave it for now."

There was a silence. In it, the three riders came up, trailed by young Serlo. They were clad in a magnificent black and crimson livery Blaise knew. He realized abruptly whose these men must be. His heart began beating quickly again. It seemed that whatever he did, wherever he went, events drew him back into his past. The first of the riders pulled up his horse and bowed unctuously low in his saddle.

"Very well, we will leave it for now," Bertran said quietly to Blaise. And then launched himself, almost before he'd finished speaking, in a hard, fluid, uncoiled movement from his horse.

He slammed into Blaise with his shoulder, knocking the wind from him, driving him from his own mount. The two of them landed hard in the dust of the road as the knife thrown by the second man in black and red whipped over the bowed head of the first and through the empty space where Blaise had been a moment before. Portezzans were legendary for their skill with knives.

But the corans of Bertran de Talair were the best trained in Arbonne. Valery killed the knife-thrower with a short, precise sword thrust, and Serlo, with an oath, dispatched the third man from behind without ceremony. Only the leader was left then, as Bertran and Blaise disentangled themselves and stood up. Bertran winced and flexed a knee.

Serlo and Valery had their blades levelled at the Portezzan from before and behind. It had all happened so quickly, so silently, that no one up ahead had even realized anything had taken place. There were two dead men on the ground, though. The Portezzan looked down at them and then at Bertran. He had a lean, tanned face and a carefully curled moustache. There were several rings on his fingers, over his riding gloves.

"I am perfectly content to surrender myself to your mercy," he said calmly, in flawless, aristocratic Arbonnais. "I will be ransomed by my cousin at a fair price, I can assure you of that."

"Your cousin has just violated a truce formally guaranteed by the countess of Arbonne," Bertran said icily. "He will answer to her for that even more than you."

"I am certain he will answer adequately," the man said blandly.

Bertran's face grew pale; Blaise recognized the signs of real rage building. He was still too much in shock to frame his own response.

"I am rather less certain than you," the duke said softly to the Portezzan. "But in the interim, you will now make reply to me: why would you seek to kill one of my companions?»

For the first time the man's expression grew hesitant. He looked sidelong at Blaise as if to verify something. His face cleared, and as it did, even before he spoke, Blaise understood what had just happened. Something in him, in his heart actually, seemed to make a sound like a bowstring plucked or the string of a lute.

"My lord and cousin Borsiard d'Andoria has a mortal grievance against this man," the Portezzan said. "It has nothing to do with you, En Bertran. He has nothing but respect and affection for you, my lord, and for the countess of Arbonne." The words were honeyed, mellifluous.

"An assault against a man in my company has a great deal to do with me, I'm afraid. And words of respect are meaningless when an assault takes place during the truce of a fair. Your lord and cousin has made a mistake."

"And I have never met Borsiard d'Andoria in my life," Blaise added. "I would be interested to know what his mortal grievance is." He knew, though, or thought he could guess.

"It is not a matter for proclaiming in public," the Portezzan said haughtily. "Nor do the Andoria explain themselves."

"Another mistake," said Bertran, in a blunt tone of finality. "I see no reason to delay this. As a duke of Arbonne sworn to uphold the countess's peace, I have an obvious duty here." He turned to Serlo. "Take three corans and string this man from a tree. You will strip and brand him first. The whole world knows the punishment decreed for those who violate a truce."

The Portezzan was a brave man, for all his posturing. "I am a man of rank and cousin to Borsiard d'Andoria," he said. "I am entitled to the treatment appropriate to my status."

Bertran de Talair shook his head. Blaise registered Valery's look of growing concern. He felt the same anxiety himself. The duke ignored them. He said, "Your status is that of an attempted murderer, violator of a truce all six countries have sworn to keep. No one will speak for you today." He turned back to Serlo. "Hang him."

Serlo had already summoned three other men. They pulled the Portezzan roughly from his horse. One man had a rope looped through his saddle. There was an oak tree at the edge of a field east of the road; they took him there.

"You cannot do this!" the Portezzan shouted, craning his neck to look back at Bertran, the first edge of fear entering his voice. He had truly never thought he might be in danger, Blaise realized. The immunity of his rank and kinship had led him to believe he could kill freely and be ransomed, that money and status could be an answer to anything.

"Are you sure of this?" Valery said quietly to his cousin. "We may need the Andoria later."

There was something nearly cruel in the blue eyes as Bertran de Talair watched his corans over by the tree. They were stripping the Portezzan; the man had begun to shout now. Bertran's voice was bleak as he answered Valery without turning, "We need no one so much that we lose our honour in pursuing them. Wherever the fairs are, the ruler of that country is bound to uphold the truce that allows us all to trade. You know it. Everyone knows it. What just happened was an insult to the countess and to Arbonne so arrogant I will not countenance it. Let Borsiard d'Andoria do what he will, those three men have to die. When we reach Lussan and Barbentain, my advice to the countess will be to ban the Andoria from entry to the fair. I expect she will do so."

He walked over and remounted his horse; Blaise, after a moment, did the same.

From up ahead, beyond the front of their column, a new commotion could now be heard. Beside the road, Bertran's corans had rigged a hanging rope around a branch of the tree. The condemned man had been stripped to his undergarments. Now Serlo resolutely pulled a knife from his belt, and while the others held the thrashing Portezzan, he set about carving into his forehead the brand of an oathbreaker. Blaise had seen this before. He resisted an impulse to turn away. They heard the man scream suddenly, high and desperate. Five riders had now peeled away from the party in front of them and were galloping furiously back through the grass at the side of the road.

"Take as many men as you need," said Bertran calmly to Valery. "Surround the tree. If those people attempt to stop the hanging you are to kill them. Blaise, wait here with me."

Without a word Valery moved to obey. The remaining corans of Talair had already begun moving swiftly into position, anticipating this. Swords out, arrows to bows, they formed a wide ring around the hanging tree. At the rear of the column beside Bertran, with two dead men on the ground beside them, Blaise watched the third Portezzan bundled onto the back of a horse, his hands tied before him, the knotted rope around his neck. There was blood dripping down his face from Serlo's branding. The five men racing back were shouting now, gesticulating wildly. Serlo looked back to Bertran, for the confirmation. The duke nodded once. Serlo stabbed the horse in the haunch with his blade. The animal bolted forward. The Portezzan seemed to actually spring backwards off the horse into the air. Then he dangled, swinging, an oddly disconnected figure. They had heard the cracking sound. He was already dead.

The five shouting Portezzans reined up hard at the very edge of Valery's ring of men. They were hopelessly outnumbered, of course. The leader screamed something at Valery, lashing his handsome horse in impotent rage. Bertran turned to Blaise, as if bored by what was now happening.

"We have another small thing to sort out between us," he said, for all the world as if they were alone in the pleasant autumn countryside. "I have only just realized it myself. You may not be ready to assert any sort of claim in Gorhaut, but if we are riding to Lussan now with you clearly acknowledged as who you are—and with what has just now happened that decision has been made for us—then I cannot treat you as simply another of my corans. You may not like this—for reasons I can appreciate—but it would ill behoove us both for me to be seen giving you commands now. Will you accept a discharge from my service? Will you accept the hospitality and companionship of Talair as my friend and guest?"

It was, of course, the only action proper under the circumstances. And yes, Blaise was bothered by the change; it marked a transition, yet another, in a year when his life seemed to be careening with unsettling speed towards some destination as yet hidden in the distance.

He managed a smile, "I was wondering when my wages would begin to grate upon you. I confess I had not thought you were so careful with your money, my lord, it does go against the image all the world has of you."

Bertran, genuinely startled, laughed aloud. There was, just then, a silence in the gesticulating knot of men by the tree. Then sudden laughter carried. The five Portezzans turned to look at them. Their leader, a short, dark man on that splendid horse, stared across the distance for a long moment, ignoring the corans around him. Then he turned his horse without another word and rode back north. The other Portezzans followed.

"That," said Bertran, "was slightly unfortunate."

"Who was that man?"

The duke turned to him with surprise. "You were telling the truth, weren't you? You have really never met him. That was Borsiard d'Andoria, Blaise. You must at least have heard the name. He was recently married, in fact, to—"

"To Lucianna Delonghi. I know," Blaise interrupted. And then added, "That's why he wants to kill me."

Even amid the churning of all the emotions of this morning there was, deep within Blaise, a curious flicker of pride. Even now, after everything, Lucianna would have been speaking of him; that had to be it, of course. Borsiard d'Andoria was seeking to kill his new wife's former lover from Gorhaut.

Bertran de Talair was very quick. "Ah," he said softly. "Engarro di Faenna? It was true then, the rumour?"

"That I killed him for the Delonghi? Yes." Blaise surprised himself with how easy it was to say this now to the duke. He hesitated over the next thing, but then went on: "With Rudel Correze."

He saw Bertran absorbing this. "And so she wants you dead now?" He looked dubious.

Blaise shook his head. "I doubt it. She wouldn't care enough to bother covering that trail. Borsiard does, though. He probably had a part in the assassination of Engarro, though I didn't know it then. He's uneasy about me. Afraid of what I might say or do. Rudel they'll trust; he's a Delonghi cousin. I'm an unknown quantity." He stopped.

"And that would be his "mortal grievance" against you?"

Blaise looked at the duke. Bertran's blue eyes were searching, skeptical, and there was a glint in them now of something else.

"That would be a part of it," Blaise said carefully.

Bertran nodded his head slowly. "I thought so," he said after a moment. "The jewel of the Delonghi, the exquisite Lucianna. He's a jealous man then, our friend Borsiard. That is worth knowing." He nodded again. "It begins to make sense. One day you must tell me more about her. Are all the stories true? I've spoken to her of course, but in a crowded room, nothing more, and that was years ago when she was very young. Should I be grateful for that limited exposure? Is she as deadly as word has it?"

Blaise shrugged. "I have survived. So far."

"Damaged?"

"Scars. I'm dealing with them."

Bertran's mouth crooked. "That is the most that can be said of any of us in such affairs."

"You were in love," said Blaise, surprising himself again. "That goes deeper."

"So does death." After a moment Bertran shrugged, and then shook his head as if to break free of such thoughts. "Are we friends? Are you visiting Talair and sparing me the cost of a trained coran?"

Blaise nodded. "I suppose I am. This has become a strange path, though. Where do you think it will bring us out?"

Bertran looked amused. "That, at least, is easy enough: Barbentain Castle and Lussan town below it. Hadn't you heard? There's a fair about to start." He turned his horse and they began to ride.

Endlessly witty, Blaise thought, and at the price of almost everything else it sometimes seemed. He realized that he hadn't said anything to Bertran about saving his life.

On impulse he wheeled his horse and rode back a short way. Dismounting again, he found the dagger. The hilt was richly studded with gems in typically Portezzan fashion. He swung up into his saddle again and cantered to catch up with Bertran. The duke looked over, eyebrows raised, as he came up.

Blaise extended the blade, hilt foremost. "A shame to leave it," he said. "Thank you. That was quick moving, for a man past his best."

Bertran grinned. "My knee certainly is, at any rate." He took the dagger, examined it. "Pretty work," he said, "if a trifle gaudy." He put it in his belt.

Nothing more was said; nothing more would be said, Blaise knew. Men familiar with war had their codes in matters such as this. He had once thought that the Arbonnais corans would fall short in this, that they would be prone to commissioning rapturous troubadour verses to celebrate each minor deed of theirs in battle or tournament. It didn't happen that way, he had discovered. He seemed to have discovered a number of things in half a year, without really trying to do so.

The Portezzans ahead of them had begun to move, more quickly now. Borsiard d'Andoria would want to reach Barbentain ahead of Bertran. First complaint sometimes mattered in affairs such as this. They were two days' ride from the fair, though.

Valery, as if reading Blaise's mind, cantered up to them. Bertran looked at his cousin. "I'm not going to try to pass them myself. We'll take our time. Pick five men and go ahead," the duke said. "Find the countess or Roban the chancellor, either one, both together if you can. It is my counsel that all the Portezzans may freely be allowed to enter Lussan or the castle save the Andoria. Tell them why." The big, greying coran turned to go. "Valery," said Bertran. His cousin reined his horse and looked back over his shoulder. "Blaise de Garsenc is no longer in my service. He honours us at Talair with his company and his friendship. Perhaps he will even fight with our men in the tournament melee. Tell the countess."

Valery nodded, looked briefly at Blaise and galloped away in a swirl of dust up the line of their column.

And so the decision was made. Given what had happened, it might have even seemed forced, obvious. With the speed of recent events, they had forgotten something though, all three of them. Under the circumstances that was, perhaps, not altogether surprising. Which did not make it less of an oversight.

On their right, as Bertran and Blaise went by, the dead man, almost naked, swayed from the oak tree, blood still dripping from his forehead where the oathbreaker's brand had been carved.