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

CHAPTER 17

The identical message by a different messenger came to the lake isle that same morning. Lisseut, who, wisely or otherwise, had not gone home for the winter to her mother after all, heard the tidings when she came across the green towards the dining hall for breakfast.

It was not a great surprise. They had known that the army of Gorhaut was likely to be coming to them. This isle was the holiest sanctuary of Rian in the north of Arbonne and by now everyone knew that the warriors of Gorhaut were on a crusade in the name of the god. It didn't matter that Corannos was worshipped here as well. Had such things mattered, Lisseut thought bitterly, then priestesses and children and those who had tried to defend them would not now be lying charred and dead.

She moved a little distance away from the knot of anxiously talking priests and priestesses. It was not easy to find privacy within the narrow confines of the isle and, perhaps surprisingly for someone who had come to adulthood within the intensely social world of the troubadours, she seemed to be drawn to solitude of late. More precisely, since the night she'd sung Blaise de Garsenc to sleep with lullabies of childhood and then left his room to walk back with Alain to their inn. There was no fierce turmoil in her any more, however, no sharp pain. That seemed to be behind her now that winter had come. A stone makes a splash when it strikes the water, Lisseut had thought, standing by this same shore on the day she'd arrived near the end of autumn, but no sound at all as it sinks down to the lake's deep bed. That was how she felt, she had decided—or how she had been feeling, until war came with the harrowing reports of deaths and burnings and thoughts of such private matters were trivialized and driven far away.

She looked out across the choppy waters of Lake Dierne, past the honey-coloured stones of Talair on the northern shore and up beyond the grass of the valley to the winter vineyards and the forest rising in the distance. Somewhere out there an army was coming, axes and swords and brands, severed heads dancing on pikes above them. The survivors, fleeing south before the fury of Gorhaut, had brought tales of such horrors with them.

Lisseut plunged her hands into the folds of the vest she'd been given by Ariane in Carenzu. It was a cold morning, diamond-bright, the stiff wind pushing the three plumes of smoke almost due south. The air was fresh and clean and she could see a long way. To the west, when she turned, the massive stones of the Arch of the Ancients showed clearly at the end of the row of marching elms. Lisseut hated that arch. She had from the moment she'd first seen it years ago: there was too much oppressive power stamped upon it, the sculptor's undeniable art wholly given over to the brutally explicit message. The arch reminded her now, every day, of what was coming.

She would have been safer at home, she knew. Vezét couldn't be reached by an invading army for a long time yet and, if it came to that, a well-known joglar could take ship from the coast and find a ready welcome in Portezza or Arimonda.

That last thought hadn't even lingered long enough to be seriously considered. Even when it had become clear that the flattering invitation she and Alain had accepted—to winter on Rian's Isle—had brought them squarely into the path of death, Lisseut knew she would not leave.

There was a reason she could have offered if anyone had asked, but no one did ask. It had been Ramir's song though, in Lussan at the Autumn Fair that, more than any other single thing, had shaped her feelings now. If there was a role, any role at all for her to play in this appalling time it would not lie in hiding away south by the sea or fleeing across the water. The imagined presence of that stone inside her, sinking silently down as through dark, still lake waters, might have had something to do with it, too. She would have admitted that; she was usually honest with herself, and the worst part of that pain seemed to be gone now. It had been months since the Lussan Fair; she didn't even know where Blaise was. She called him by his name in her mind now. Surely that much could be allowed?

Alain had stayed on the isle as well. She had thought he would. Her affection for the little troubadour had grown with each passing day. He had even begun practising with a sword, rowing across to join the corans of Talair every afternoon. He was not very good. Lisseut had gone to watch him one day, and foreboding had lain within her like a different kind of weight.

That grim sense of premonition was with her again now as she gazed out across the whitecaps at the stones of the arch beyond the western shore, trying to deal with the tidings that had come with the messenger from the High Priestess.

"Will they build their own arch, do you think, if they destroy us all?"

She hadn't heard Rinette approaching. Not entirely happy, for she still hadn't worked out her feelings about the coolly arrogant young priestess, she turned and regarded the other woman.

As always, it was the owl that gave her pause. Only the High Priestess at each temple, or those named and being trained as their successors, carried the birds. Rinette, no older than Lisseut herself, was very young to be marked as heir to the High Priestess of Rian's Isle. Once she'd ascended to that rank she would be second only to Beatritz de Barbentain herself among the hierarchy of the goddess in Arbonne. Lisseut had even heard talk among the priests and priestesses of the isle that Rinette intended to follow Beatritz down the paths of blindness when that day came.

Lisseut of Vezét, child of this world, finding her pleasures and griefs among men and women, had found herself unsettled by the very thought. If Rinette had been older, a dour, pious zealot, it might have been easier to deal with, but the brown-haired priestess was beautiful and drily clever, and she seemed to know and enjoy the troubadours' repertoire of songs almost as well as Lisseut and Alain did themselves. Once she had even corrected Alain on a line-reading during his recitation of one of the old speak-pieces of Count Folquet. Lisseut, genuinely shocked by the interjection, had quickly searched her own recollection and realized that the priestess was right. Not that this made her any happier to have heard an audience member interrupt a troubadour.

What, she remembered thinking, was the world coming to?

A remarkably inconsequential issue that seemed since the winter invasion and now this morning's news. She was made aware, looking at the tall, slender woman beside her, that Rinette's fate if Gorhaut conquered was even more brutally clear than her own, and the priestess, by her sworn oat to the goddess, lacked even the options of flight south or overseas. Given that, given the darkness of the time, it suddenly seemed profoundly ungracious to be carrying a grievance against the woman for correcting the misreading of a verse.

The world had greatly changed since Ademar of Gorhaut had led an army through the mountains into the green hills and valleys of Arbonne.

"A second arch?" she said quietly, addressing the question asked. "I wonder. Do they build anything, these northerners?»

"Of course they do. They are not inhuman, they are not really so different from us," Rinette replied calmly. "You know that. They are badly taught, that is all."

"There seems a great deal of difference to me," Lisseut said sharply, "if they burn women alive and cut the heads and sexual parts off dead men."

"Badly taught," Rinette repeated. "Think of how much of the mystery and the power of life they have lost by denying Rian."

"You'll forgive me, but I can't spare a great deal of time just now for pitying them that. I'm surprised you can."

Rinette gave a small, graceful shrug, looking out at the western shore and the arch beyond. "We are trained to think that way. The times are evil," she said. "Mortal men and women are what they have always been. Five hundred years from now we will all be dust and forgotten, and our fates, but Rian and Corannos will still steer the course of the world."

It was rather too much for Lisseut, this holy posturing. "I wonder," she said harshly, good intentions forgotten, "if you will take such a long view when we see the army of Gorhaut coming across the lake with torches in their hands."

And regretted the words the moment they were spoken.

Rinette turned to her, and Lisseut saw then in the clear light of morning that the other woman's eyes were not nearly so tranquil as her voice and words might have suggested. She recognized, belatedly, that what she had been hearing was an attempt to master fear.

"I do not welcome the prospect of being burned alive, if that is what you mean," Rinette of the Isle said. "If that isn't what you mean, perhaps you'll tell me what you are trying to say."

And after that of course there was nothing for Lisseut to do but apologize as best she could, and then carry on through the day, and the next two, wrapped in her vest against the wind and the coldness of her own deep fears. Alain rowed across the whitecaps of the lake to Talair each day, carrying a borrowed sword. He came back the second afternoon with a vivid red contusion on his forehead. He made a small joke about deceiving people with a show of clumsiness, but Lisseut had seen that his hands were trembling.

On the fourth day the armies came.

It was, in fact, a near thing. High on the ramparts of Talair at midday after the brutal, forced march from Barbentain and Lussan, Blaise looked down at their exhausted men in the open space below, and then north in the clear light for the first sign of those they were to fight. He was uneasily aware that besides the eerie precognition of the High Priestess, the only thing that had given them even a chance to reach Lake Dierne with an army in time had been the disciplined, prudent caution of Thierry de Carenzu.

The stupefying surprise of a winter invasion through the mountains would have caught Arbonne hopelessly unprepared—no one risked the passes in large numbers in winter—had the duke of Carenzu not issued orders at the end of the Lussan Fair in the countess's name for a gradual assembling of the armies of Arbonne under the barons and dukes. The idea was to have them armed and trained in the castles over the winter months, in preparation for the spring assault they all expected.

Blaise had never been comfortable with men who preferred their own sex in bed, and his nights with Ariane had rather complicated this particular issue, but he had to acknowledge a rapidly growing respect for the duke of Carenzu. Thierry was sober and pragmatic and conspicuously reliable. In a country where the two other most important noblemen were the dukes of Talair and Miraval these were not, Blaise concluded, inconsiderable virtues.

Because of these preparations, when word had come that Gorhaut was actually through the pass and coming down from the mountains, the men of Arbonne had been far more prepared than they otherwise would have been. They were able to move with order and some speed—though the southern roads were muddy with the winter rains—north towards Barbentain, and from there, when Beatritz's message came, here to Talair and the lake.

Bertran's own corans had been waiting for them and Blaise knew the soldiers of Miraval were not far away, but these were lost to their army now, if not worse.

For the hundredth time since that meeting in Barbentain four days ago Blaise found himself wrestling with the wisdom of the countess's decision to name Bertran to lead the armies. She had to have known that Urté would react as he had. Even Blaise, an oblivious stranger to that bitter tale only a year ago, could have guessed how Urté would bridle at submitting to Bertran's authority. Granting that de Talair was the obvious man to lead Arbonne, was that worth fifteen hundred men? Would Thierry de Carenzu have been so terrible a choice?

Or was it possible that Signe had expected Urté to rise above what lay between Talair and Miraval, with so much at stake now? With everything, really, in the balance. If so, she had been wrong, and Blaise was well-enough versed in the histories of war to know that Arbonne would not be the first country to fall to an invader because it could not set aside its own internal wars.

On Bertran's castle ramparts in the brilliant sunlight he shook his head but kept grimly silent, as he had in the council chamber and ever since. In some ways it might all be purely a matter for historians and dry philosophers to come: the men who picked over the bones of dead years like the scavengers who came out at night after a battle to despoil the slain and dying.

The stark reality today was that even with the corans of Miraval they would have needed an enormous number of mercenaries to have had any real chance of defending themselves, and the winter invasion had eliminated that possibility. They were brutally outnumbered by the army Ademar of Gorhaut had brought safely through the mountains. Ademar, and Galbert: Blaise knew, as surely as he knew anything in the world, that this winter war was his father's stratagem—cunning and long planning mingled with a sublime, unwavering certainty that the god would see him through the pass. And the frightening thing, of course, was that Corannos had. The army of Gorhaut, which was the army of the god, was in Arbonne, and Blaise, looking north from the ramparts with Bertran and Fulk de Savaric and others, felt fear like a hard object lodge against his heart.

Only fools and madmen do not know fear before a battle. His first captain had told him that, and Blaise had offered the same reassurance over the years to young men under his command. He was positive, though, that his father had no fear just now, riding here in pursuit of his life's long dream. What that meant, he really didn't know.

"We'll array ourselves at the south-east end of the valley," he heard Bertran explaining to the three men who had just joined them. Barons from the south. One of them was Mallin de Baude. He and Blaise had had time for no more than a quick greeting and an exchange of glances. There might never be time for more. "The castle and the lake," Bertran went on, "will be behind us so they can't flank around. There is a slight slope downward—if you look closely you can see it—in the valley to the west that will help. It'll give the archers a little more distance if nothing else." Bertran, Blaise thought, knew this land like a melody from his childhood. He surprised himself with the image. Perhaps, he thought, he should start being less surprised: he was among the army of Arbonne, after all.

"What about Rian's Isle?" one of the new barons asked. "Can they reach it from the western shore of the lake if we're leaving them access to that side?"

"No boats. We've brought them all to our wharf or across to the isle itself. I don't think they'll be thinking about that in any case until they're done with us." Bertran's voice was calm. Blaise was impressed, though not especially surprised: he'd had some time now to take the measure of this man. He trusted him and he liked him, and only a year ago he wouldn't have expected either to ever be true.

Bertran was bareheaded as always, and without armour, clad in his usual outdoor garb of unassuming brown hues. When Blaise had first seen him riding up to Baude Castle last spring those rough-spun clothes had seemed a perverse affectation on the part of a lord of such immense power and wealth; now, in a curious fashion, Bertran's appearance seemed entirely apt to a war-leader on the eve of a battle. It was as if, in some inexplicable manner, de Talair had always been readying himself for this. Blaise wondered if that might actually be true: he remembered—another image crowding in—the biting, sardonic verses the duke had sung in Baude Castle about Ademar and Galbert and Daufridi of Valensa. The man who had written those words might well have anticipated a response to them. The first response had been an arrow dipped in syvaren, Blaise recalled, glancing at Rudel a little further along the wall walk. The second response seemed to be war.

He looked away west. The massive Arch of the Ancients shone in the sunlight at the end of its elms. A little nearer he saw the strand beside the roadway where six corans of Miraval had killed his horse and pack pony and then died by his arrows. He remembered the young priestess from the isle coming to bear him to Talair. We have been waiting for you, she had said, assured and arrogant as they all seemed to be. He had never properly understood what they had meant. It was part of the same unsettling web of mystery that had brought them here now in response to Beatritz's warning.

Who knows what the women do when they go out in the woods at night? His father's words once, before burning another presumed witch on Garsenc lands. He preferred not to remember such things. There would be fires here, though, an almost unimaginable inferno if Galbert conquered. With some effort Blaise forced himself to push that thought away, to think back, instead, to the music that had been playing as he'd entered this castle for the first time beside Valery that day in spring. It seemed a long time ago.

Fulk de Savaric moved closer, resting his elbows on the stone in front of them. Without taking his eyes from the northern end of the valley, he murmured wryly, "Do you have anything extremely clever in mind?"

Blaise's mouth twitched. "Of course I do," he said, matching Fulk's tone. "I intend to challenge Ademar to single combat. When he foolishly accepts I'll kill him, take command of his grateful army and we'll all ride home to Gorhaut in time for spring planting."

Fulk gave a snort of amusement. "Sounds good to me," he said. "Do I get to deal with your father?"

Blaise didn't smile this time. "There are a few people who might want to do that," he said.

"Including you?" Fulk turned to look at him.

"I suppose so." He didn't meet the other man's gaze, and after a moment Fulk de Savaric turned away.

In the distance to the south-west, clearly visible from this height in the windswept winter air, Blaise could see the towers of Miraval. Even now, with all he had learned, and with the image of Duke Urté, on his knees before Signe de Barbentain, then striding from the council chamber, there was a part of him that could not quite believe that fifteen hundred fighting men would stay within those walls if battle came.

Whether that was cause for a sliver of hope or a deeper, colder dread he did not know.

What he did know was that he had spent most of his own life pursuing a dream or a vision of Gorhaut, what it should be, what it once had been, and that vision had had Corannos at the very heart of it. And now, having rashly claimed a crown for himself, he was about to go to battle amongst the men of woman-ruled Arbonne in a goddess's name against his own country and king—and father if it came to that—and against an army marching beneath the banner of the god he had vowed to serve with honour all his days.

How, Blaise thought, did one trace back the line of a life to see where the fork appeared that had led to these ramparts? He couldn't answer that. Perhaps a poet could, or a priestess, but he was a soldier and, yes, a would-be king, and the time—

"There they are," said Rudel quietly, his archer's eyes catching the first far glint of sunlight finding metal among the trees.

— and the time for such thoughts was gone now, like a leaf on the wind, a wave on the stony shore, like all the mornings of the vanished past. The army of Gorhaut had come to Lake Dierne.

Blaise saw them then, moving down the road that wound out of the woods, and their banners were the banners of his home, their voices—they could just hear them now—were lifted in a song he knew, and he could recognize, even from so far because of the clear light that was Arbonne's, the king he had named a traitor, and the father… the father whose long dream this army was. He saw Ranald ride around the curve of the road and, without real surprise, recognized the pennon of Andoria as Borsiard appeared at the head of his company of men. That is a man I will be happy to kill, he thought.

And then, as if mocking such a thought, there came into sight waving, jiggling pikes carried by foot-soldiers, and riding on the top of some of those pikes, spitted like meat for broiling were the severed heads of men.

Bertran de Talair made a sudden harsh gesture and a sound of denial that might have been a name, and a moment later Blaise registered a memorable mane of blond hair and realized that he, too, recognized the foremost of those severed heads. A sickness passed over him, forcing him to grip hard on the stones of the wall for support. A moment later it grew even worse. In the midst of the singing, gesticulating army of Gorhaut a rolling platform came into view, and on it they saw a man bound naked to a pole set in the centre of the platform. His genitals were gone; there was a blackened clotting of blood at his groin. Dead birds—owls, Blaise saw—were slung in mockery from ropes around his bowed, averted neck.

He thought this man, too, was dead, until the head was somehow lifted—in agonized response to what inner message, Blaise never knew—and even from the ramparts they could see the holes where his eyes had been gouged out.

Of course, Blaise thought with loathing, fighting sickness. It was part of the mockery: the blindness, and the birds of Rian. And then, with deepening horror, Blaise realized that he knew this maimed, dark-haired man as well. He looked over again to the head on the highest of the bobbing pikes and then turned, speechless, to Bertran de Talair. He saw that the duke had lowered his head so as not to have to see.

The landscape and the men on the ramparts grew oddly unfocused, and Blaise became aware that he was near to weeping, he who had killed so many men in war, or beside the shore of this same lake, or in the close darkness of a Portezzan night, and had seen others slain in terrible ways, and had regarded all of it as no more than the coinage of his profession. But he had never burned a helpless old woman naming her a witch, or dragged a priestess screaming from her bed, and he had never maimed or broken men in the way that these had been. This was warfare of a different kind.

He was remembering, almost against his will, Midsummer Night in Tavernel. Remy had been the fair-haired one, with more spirit and art than mature wisdom in him perhaps, and Aurelian was the darker, quieter man. They were musicians, not soldiers, both of them, and both were young. It was these two who had carried Beatritz's tidings to Barbentain from the island; they must have gone north together, Blaise realized, after delivering the High Priestess's message. He didn't know why; they might never know why.

"Look there," he heard someone say. Rudel, his voice strained in the sound of the wind.

Blaise passed a hand across his eyes and looked down again. Following where Rudel was pointing, he saw, among the army of Arbonne spread out below the walls, a dozen archers, crimson-clad, moving neatly forward from the ranks. He did not know who had given this order; perhaps no one had. Perhaps this was simply the instinctive response of some of the best-trained men in the country, those sworn to guard, and to uphold the honour of the queen of the Court of Love—to whom all the troubadours of Arbonne had sworn their life's service and devotion.

Blaise saw the Carenzu archers set themselves in a line, draw back bowstrings together and then let their arrows fly, high into the face of the wind. Among the ranks of Gorhaut a sudden volley of shouts brought the singing to a ragged halt; men flung up shields and hastily lowered their helms.

They need not have done so. The arrows were not an attack. They had been sent out like arching prayers, in grief and passion and rage, in an anguished attempt to put the ruined man on the platform out of pain. Most fell short. Three did not, and one of those arrows pierced him through the heart. The dark-haired man's head was flung sharply back so the holes of his eyes stared blankly up at the bright, lost sun. They saw his mouth open then but no sound came forth. No sound at all as Aurelian died, no last note like a swan, though all his days he had been celebrated for the pure, transcendent beauty of his voice.

"Oh, Lady," whispered Bertran de Talair. "Oh, goddess, heal and shelter them now within the infinite mercy of your arms." Blaise realized that his own hands were shaking. He gripped them together on the stone in front of him.

"You will excuse me," Thierry de Carenzu said, visibly working to maintain his composure. "I think I must go down and tell Ariane. She ought not to learn this from anyone else."

Blaise said nothing. He could think of nothing to say. There was someone else, he thought suddenly, who ought properly to hear of these two deaths from someone who cared for her, but he didn't know where Lisseut was, and he didn't think it was his place, given who had done this thing. He watched his father remove his war helm in the valley below and then his tall, handsome, anointed king did the same. Blaise's eyes were dry and his hands grew steady then as he looked down at the two of them.

In this windy green valley by Lake Dierne, Ademar of Gorhaut is a happy man. The presence of the Arbonnais army here before them is a surprise of sorts, but not an unpleasant one. The High Elder has been telling him from the beginning that this lake will see the battle that ends Arbonne. They had expected things to follow a slightly different sequence, anticipating that it would be their sacking and burning of the Isle of Rian that would bring the goddess-afflicted soldiers of this land out from their walls to battle.

They did not anticipate an army waiting for them, but Ademar turns away from the now-dead singer on the platform—one of the two fools they caught spying on their line of march—and sees his High Elder smiling as well.

"It is well," Galbert says, the deep voice rich with satisfaction. "They are ignorant as well as cowardly. Had they known about our shortage of food they would not be here. As it is, this will be over tomorrow, my liege, and the granaries of Arbonne will lie open to us with everything else. See their numbers? See our own? Look up at the god's sun over us."

"It is well," Ademar says briefly. At times he tires of Galbert's intoned pieties, and even his jaded appetites are nearly sated by now of the High Elder's passion for fire and maiming. Ademar has come to conquer a rich land and to scotch the whiff of rebellion shaped by the younger Garsenc son and Fulk de Savaric. Galbert is here for something else. The god will have his due and more, the king has promised as much. He only hopes it does not last too long, and leaves him some fields to sow and harvest and a country to rule when the last of the burning is done. The numbers are indeed very good though, Galbert speaks truth there, and there are surprises in reserve.

"If we are to fight tomorrow," says Borsiard d'Andoria, moving his splendid horse nearer, "then may I ask that the High Elder's disinherited son, the pretender, be left for me to deal with? I have reasons of my own, you understand."

Ademar doesn't like this vain, choleric man, but he has been made to accept the importance that a Portezzan company in their ranks will have for the days after the war. At times it seems to him that he accepts rather too much from the High Elder, but the king of Gorhaut is willing to be tolerant yet. A great deal had been promised him and those promises are about to bear fruit.

Another horse approaches and he hears its rider laugh sardonically. "My brother," says Duke Ranald de Garsenc to the elegantly garbed Portezzan, as the three men turn to look at him, "could slice you into pieces while attending to other business at the same time. Be not so hasty, my lord, to single him out unless you want your dear wife widowed again and free for another marriage." The words are a little slurred. Ranald does not look well. It is a fair assumption that he has already been drinking during the morning's ride. His father scowls, but Ademar is genuinely amused, not at all unhappy to observe the de Garsenc at odds again, or the Portezzan's flushed discomfiture.

"Well, if we are speaking of dear wives—" Borsiard d'Andoria begins waspishly.

"We are not speaking of them," Ademar says quickly, asserting his control. He does not want this discussed, not now, and not ever in public. He wonders if Rosala de Garsenc is in Talair Castle now or still in Barbentain. Shrewdly he guesses she has come with the army, that the countess of Arbonne, too, is within those walls by the lake. If so, it will all truly be over tomorrow, Galbert will have been right. He remembers, amused again, that it was Ranald who suggested once that he marry Signe be Barbentain in order to gain control of Arbonne. That is not going to be necessary, it seems.

"There are formalities," his High Elder is now saying, as he turns his back on his elder son. "Shall I send the herald to speak your demands, my liege?" This, too, diverts the king, the so-careful observance of protocols and rituals despite what they have been doing to unarmed men and women and to children all the way south. That, Ademar thinks sagely, is what happens when one marries a religious crusade with a war of conquest.

"Send him," he says lazily, "but let us ride with him ourselves to see who they have sent against us. Who knows, my lord High Elder, we might even have a chance to speak with your ambitious younger son. I do still wonder how he came by that dangerous trait."

"No son of mine!" Galbert says, a little too quickly, scenting danger. "I disowned him formally in the sanctuary of Corannos in the mountains. You were with me, my liege."

Ademar laughs aloud this time. He enjoys the ease with which he can set his counsellors on edge, even Galbert, who bears close watching. The king discovers just then, somewhat to his surprise, that he feels the need for a woman. Perhaps it is not so surprising after all. He has been watching his soldiers take their pleasure of the priestess since they came down from the pass. He has held himself aloof, with some self-congratulation, to preserve the dignity of the crown on this holy crusade. He looks briefly over his shoulder at Ranald de Garsenc and then back up at the ramparts of Talair. He is, in fact, quite certain that she is within those walls.

Tomorrow, he thinks, and smiles. He is not actually a man accustomed to waiting to slake his needs, but sometimes there is, in fact, a certain heightening of satisfaction if one delays a little time. Not too long, mind you, but a little. He regards this as a truth about the world he has discovered for himself. He looks back at the husband and then away again.

Lisseut saw what had been done to two of the men she had loved when she rode out with the countess of Arbonne and a number of their people to parley with the king of Gorhaut. Had they not been warned by Thierry beforehand, the sickness that passed over her when the bodies came into sight might have undone all her resolutions. It was the hardest thing she had ever had to do in her life, to ride past what was left of Remy and Aurelian and not give way to the clawing grief that rose up within her. She kept her eyes fixed on the straight-backed figure of the countess in front of her and gripped her horse's reins in hands that would not stop shaking. She kept wanting to scream. She could not let herself scream.

She had been with Ariane and the countess and Rosala de Garsenc in the music gallery of Talair when the duke of Carenzu had come down from the tower to tell them that Gorhaut had come, and that something terrible had been done to men they all knew.

She would have expected to burst into desperate tears, to faint, to feel her mind slamming shut like a door. Perhaps it was the shock, or an inward refusal to believe, but she had done none of these things, nor had any of the other women there. Ariane, to whom her husband had formally told the news about Remy and Aurelian, had risen stiffly from where she sat and walked away, to stand with her back to the room, staring into the fire. After an interval of time, though, she had turned and come back. She had been very pale, but her flawless features were carefully composed. She had sat beside the countess and reached for one of Signe's hands, holding it between both of her own.

Of all the people in that room, Alain of Rousset had been the only one who wept openly, and Lisseut had gone over to him. The little troubadour had been wearing his sword. He was still awkward with it, but he was here to join the soldiers in Talair, had rowed across the water to fight with them.

It seemed that Remy and Aurelian had been thinking in the same way, spying on the army of Gorhaut as it moved south. Lisseut would have thought the two of them might even have been good at that, but she didn't know much about warfare.

Neither had they.

She had found herself meeting the clear blue gaze of the woman named Rosala. There was pain there, and something else as hurtful, if harder to understand, but Lisseut had taken resolution and a certain comfort from that exchange of glances, and tried, as best she could, to give back the same two things.

"There should be a song for them," the countess had said, rising from her chair and turning to where Lisseut was standing beside Alain. The little troubadour had lifted his head, wiping his eyes. "I will not ask for it now, though," Signe de Barbentain went on. "This is not a time for music."

It was then that they had heard footsteps in the corridor again, and Bertran had come into the room with a number of other men. One of whom was Blaise. There was something bleak and forbidding about him, as if a part of the winter had passed into him on the ramparts. He had looked at Rosala first—his brother's wife—and nodded his head in greeting. But then he had turned to Lisseut and, after a moment, had made a small, helpless gesture with his hands. She did feel like crying then. She could remember him wounding Remy with his sword. She had come forward to challenge him for that. Midsummer, it had been. Midsummer Carnival in Tavernel. Hard to believe that there once had been a time of celebration in Arbonne.

"They have blown the horns and are coming to parley," Bertran had said to the countess. "Ademar is riding with his herald."

"Then I should be with ours," Signe had said calmly. "If you think it right."

"We are your servants, your grace. But yes, I think it right. I think you should come, and Ariane. This is a war being waged against our women, as much as anything, and I think the army, both armies, should see you here."

"And I," said Rosala de Garsenc then, rising. "I am their excuse for war." Bertran had looked quickly over at her, an odd expression in his face. He had looked as if he wanted to demur, but did not.

When Lisseut expressed the same intention to be present no one gainsaid her. She hadn't expected them to. She didn't even see herself as being presumptuous. Not with this. It seemed to her that there might even be a shared feeling now that one of the musicians should be there.

She had actually forgotten, for the moment, that Bertran de Talair was a troubadour too.

The king of Gorhaut, it soon appeared, had not. The two groups met within sight of the armies but at a careful distance removed. There were archers of skill in both ranks. The place chosen by the heralds was to the west, along the northern shore of Lake Dierne, beside a rocky strand of beach. They could see the great stone arch not far away, and in the distance, to the south-west, the towers of Miraval ended up like an illusion over the forest between.

Amid that company, beside the whitecapped lake, the voice of Signe de Barbentain rang out, colder than the waters or the wind. "I thought Gorhaut had fallen somewhat since your father's death," she said, looking straight at the broad-shouldered figure of Ademar. I had not realized until very lately how great that fall was. The man on that platform was honoured in all the countries of the world. Are you not ashamed before Corannos to have done this foul thing?"

"The god's name is profanity in your mouth," said Galbert de Garsenc quickly, before Ademar could reply. The king gave him a sharp glance.

"Cannot your king at least speak some answers for himself?" Signe asked with deceptive mildness. Lisseut saw Ademar flush. She saw him look at Rosala de Garsenc before replying.

"He was captured as a spy." The voice was unexpectedly light, but controlled. "He would have been dealt with and executed as such, and the yellow-haired one as well, but he made a mistake." Ademar turned to Bertran de Talair. "He elected, unwisely, to sing some verses of a song you wrote, my lord. The wrong verses, the wrong song. And the other man chose to laugh. You might say you are responsible for what happened to them."

For the first time he smiled. Lisseut shivered, seeing that. She saw Rosala de Garsenc turn away. But then, despite her own fear, or perhaps because of it, and because it was not clear what had happened, she dared speak, even in that company, for the sake of the two dead men she had loved. She said, to the king of Gorhaut:

"He sang for you? You didn't remotely deserve such an honour. Were these the lines by any chance?

What manner of man, with his father new-fallen,

Would destroy with a pen-stroke a long dream of glory?"

She felt an anger such as she had never known in her life. Almost snarling the words she added, "Or did he ask the other, obvious question in the same song: Where went the manhood of Gorhaut…? Where indeed. They are asking that question all through the world, about a nation that burns helpless women." She spoke the words with all the passion of her heart.

And she was met, brutally, by laughter. "I would have thought the question of lost manhood would apply to the one on the platform, actually." King Ademar's amusement faded, the small pale eyes held hers. "But since you have chosen to raise the issue, I will make a point of remembering your unremarkable face, and personally dealing with that question when we are finished doing what we have come to do tomorrow."

"Your father," said Bertran de Talair quietly, speaking for the first time, "never blustered. I remember that about him."

"Ah," said Ademar, turning quickly to him. "It comes back to fathers, does it?" He looked pointedly towards the distant towers of Miraval. "I was told it had as much to do with a bastard son and a lusting woman, legs wide for any man but her own husband. What a shame the cuckolded duke of Miraval is not here to offer you his wise counsel. And what a great shame as well," he added, turning from Bertran, whose face had gone white, "that you have had to find such frail vessels from the north to fill out your sorry ranks."

Lisseut had wondered when they would get to Blaise. In the moments that followed, she was made to realize that she had not moved past longing into acceptance after all. The image of that stone sinking silently down through dark water left her then, and never returned.

Blaise, despite Ademar's hard gaze, utterly ignored him, as if the king of Gorhaut were some minor functionary, unworthy of attention. His own eyes were locked on his father's face, and Lisseut saw the forbidding figure of Galbert de Garsenc in his blue cleric's robe looking at his younger son with an expression that actually terrified her. She had thought, naively, that her travels had led her to understand something of the world. She realized now, seeing that exchange of glances, that she knew nothing. She also understood in that moment that, in a real sense, all of this came down to the two of them.

"In the Books of Othair," said Blaise softly, "which are the holiest writings of Corannos, it is told that the land of Gorhaut carries the god's burden of bringing justice into the world. It teaches that Corannos has bestowed upon us the holy task of guarding the helpless and the persecuted in all lands we pass through, in return for his great favour and the promise of his eternal shelter when we die." He was silent, and in the silence was an indictment.

"You dare speak to me of the teachings of the god?" Galbert said, his rich voice rising, genuinely incredulous. Behind him Lisseut saw a man who, from his appearance, had to be the other son. He was sitting astride a handsome horse among the small number of men who had come with the High Elder and the king. His expression was strained, oddly suspended between bitter amusement and pain. Impulsively, she glanced over at Rosala. She was gazing steadily at her husband, her face unreadable. There were, Lisseut thought, layers and layers of grief here.

Blaise seemed to ignore his father's interjection. He went on, as if no one had spoken. "You are, in the light of these teachings, as much a betrayer of Corannos as this falsely anointed king is a traitor to his people. Because you are my father and the god teaches us to respect our parents in their dotage you will not be executed, but you will be stripped of your office when we return to Gorhaut."

"You are mad," said King Ademar flatly, dismissively.

Only then did Blaise turn to him. "I am enraged," he said, a ferocity in his voice for the first time, a first blaze of heat. "I am revolted. I loathe how you have allowed yourself and your country to be used. What king permits a counselor's vile obsession to lead him so far down paths of unholiness and betrayal?"

"A false king," said Fulk de Savaric, his sudden voice clear as a bell. "One unworthy of his crown."

"Or his life," said Bertran de Talair quietly.

"Or of any remembrance at all in the world after the death that Rian is even now making ready for him," added the countess of Arbonne, and of all those there it was her voice that was grimmest of all, as if she were truly speaking for some power beyond the world.

For the first time the king of Gorhaut, turning from one of them to the other, looked shaken. And so smoothly, predictably, his adviser moved to fill the silence that followed.

"These," Galbert said in the deep, commanding voice, "are the last strident posturings of the doomed. Shall we quail before this mumbling? Rather, you should all be on your knees even now, begging the mercy of a gentle death."

"You would like that, wouldn't you?" said Ariane de Carenzu, moving her horse forward a little. She was smiling, but not with her eyes. "You would like the women of Arbonne kneeling before you, I see. I do see it now, actually. No wonder your son's wife fled from you. What does Corannos say about such desires, Galbert de Garsenc?"

"They are abominations," said Blaise quietly. "For which atonement must be made." He himself was pale now.

"This," said the king of Gorhaut, regaining his composure, "has grown tedious. I am here only because the protocols of war compel this meeting of heralds. Hear me then: we have come south because the countess of Arbonne has given shelter and succour to a woman of Gorhaut and has refused to return her to us. All else, as the High Elder says, is posturing. I have patience for no more of it. Prepare yourselves to die on the morrow."

"What if I do return?" said Rosala suddenly. "If I come back north, will you take your army home?"

Galbert de Garsenc laughed thickly. He opened his mouth to reply but was forestalled by the king's lifted hand. "This comes," said Ademar softly, "very much too late. There is a lesson now to be taught to those who have denied our most proper demands. I am pleased to see you eager to return, but it makes no matter at this point. There is no power here, or anywhere in the world, Rosala, that can stop me now from bringing you back to Cortil."

"With the child," said Galbert quickly.

He was ignored.

"To Cortil, my lord?" Rosala asked, lifting her voice. "Are you so open about this now? Do you not mean: back to Garsenc and my lord husband?"

In the stillness that followed this, Lisseut realized that the king of Gorhaut had just made, in some fashion she did not entirely understand, a mistake.

A long way south, on the Island of Rian in the sea, where the wind was not blowing on this day and the waters lay calm and blue under the pale winter sun, Beatritz de Barbentain, High Priestess of Rian, rose suddenly from before a fire into which she had been gazing sightlessly for most of the day.

"Something has just happened," she said aloud, though there was no one in her room with her save the white owl on her shoulder. "Something that might matter. Oh, sweet Rian remember us, have mercy upon your children."

She was silent then, waiting, reaching out in her darkness for the elusive, un-coercible vision of the goddess that might let her know at least a part of what was now happening so far away in the place of the wind.

And in that precise moment, by the lake, among that gathering of enemies, a voice was heard for the first time.

"I am afraid," said Ranald, duke of Garsenc, moving his horse into the open space between the two companies, "that this is rather too openly said for my taste and for the honour of my family." He was staring at the king of Gorhaut. He had not used a title.

No one responded. No one else moved. It seemed to Lisseut, afterwards, that the duke's words had virtually frozen them all with astonishment. Ranald de Garsenc, the only moving figure in a still world, turned to his wife. He looked remarkably at ease now, as if this action or decision, this movement, had somehow granted him release from something. He said, "Forgive me, my lady, but I must ask this, and I will accept the truth of what you say: has the king of Gorhaut been your lover?"

Lisseut realized she was holding her breath. Out of the side of her vision she saw that Blaise had gone bone-white. Sitting her horse easily, Rosala de Garsenc seemed almost as composed as her husband though. She said, as clearly as before, "He has not, my lord, though he has sought to be that for some time now. He was only delaying while I was with child. Your father, I am sorry to say, has been urging the thought upon him for purposes of his own. I will swear to you though, upon the life of my child, that I have not lain with Ademar, and that I will die before I willingly do so."

"This is why you left?" A different note in Ranald's voice, almost too exposed; it made Lisseut wish, suddenly, that she was not here. None of us has a right to be listening to this, she thought.

But Rosala said, her handsome, strong head held high, "It is indeed why I left, my lord. I feared you could not, or would not, guard us against your father and your king, for the one had claimed the child I was carrying, as you know, and the other wanted me."

Ranald was nodding slowly, as if the words were striking echoes within himself.

"Ranald, in the god's name, do not shame me," Galbert de Garsenc began, the beautiful voice becoming harsh, "by allowing this depraved, contemptible woman to give voice to such—"

"You be silent," said the duke of Garsenc bluntly. "I will consider how to deal with you after." The tone was so curt it was shocking.

"After what?" asked Ademar of Gorhaut. His own head was lifted, his carriage in the saddle magnificent. There was a glitter to his gaze. He knows, Lisseut thought. He knows the answer to that.

"After I have publicly dealt with you for the dishonour you have willed upon my house. No king of Gorhaut has ever been free to wreak what havoc he will among the high lords of our land. I am not about to let you be the first. The wife of the duke of Garsenc is not a trinket to be played for, however blind the duke might be." He paused for a moment, then: "This is a formal challenge, Ademar. Will you fight me yourself, or name a champion to shelter behind?"

"Are you mad?" Galbert de Garsenc cried out.

"That," said Ranald gravely, "is the second time that question has been asked of one of your sons. In fact, I think it is true of neither of us." He turned to Rosala. "Other accusations may fairly be made against me. I will hope to have a chance to address them after."

She met his glance but said nothing, stern and proud, Lisseut thought, as some yellow-haired goddess of the north. But that, she realized immediately after, was idle fantasy: they didn't allow goddesses in the north.

Ranald turned back to Ademar. They all turned back to Ademar. The king of Gorhaut, past the first surprise of this, was smiling; only with his lips though, his eyes were hard as stone.

"We are in a foreign county and at war," he said. "You are a commander of my army. You are now proposing that we fight each other because your wife, whose flight from your home is the cause of our being here, alleges that I expressed a desire for her. Is this what I understand from you, my lord of Garsenc?"

It sounded absurd, mad indeed, when put that way, but Ranald de Garsenc did not quail. He, too, was smiling now, a smaller man than the king but as easy in the saddle. "You might not remember it," he said, "but I was in that room in Cortil with my father last autumn when you came in and demanded that Rosala be brought back. Back to you, you said." They saw the king's expression change. His eyes flicked away from Ranald's, and then returned.

The duke went on. "I should have made this challenge then, Ademar. You have been using Rosala's flight from me as your excuse for war—my father's idea, of course. You aren't nearly clever enough. She didn't fly from me, Ademar, I think I dare say that. She left her husband and put our child at terrible risk because of you and my father. I think I am seeing things clearly for the first time in a great many years. If you have any honour or courage left in you, draw your sword."

"I will have you arrested and then gelded before burning," Galbert de Garsenc snarled, pointing a gauntleted finger at his older son.

Ranald actually laughed. "More burning? Do what you will," he said. "The king might well be grateful for that protection. I will not, however," he added, still with that unnatural calm, "speak further to procurers." He had not even bothered to look away from Ademar. To the king he said: "There have been allegations of treason thrown about freely here. At my brother, by my brother at my father, at you. I find it all a game of words. I prefer to name you what you are, Ademar: a dupe, and a coward hiding behind his counsellor, unwilling to use his own sword in a matter of honour."

"Ranald," said Ademar, almost gently, "Ranald, Ranald, you know I can kill you. You have done nothing but drink for ten years—that is why your wife fled south. I doubt you have given her a night's satisfaction in years. Do not deceive yourself before you go to the god."

"This means, I take it, that you will fight."

"He will do no such thing!" Galbert snapped.

"Yes, I will fight," said Ademar in the same moment. "The sons of my High Elder have finally grown too tiresome to endure. I would be done with them."

And the king of Gorhaut drew his sword. There came a sound from among the armies north of them, for the light was brilliantly clear and all men there could see that blade drawn. Then the sound changed, grew high-pitched with surprise, as Ranald de Garsenc drew his own blade in reply, and moved his horse apart from the others by the lake. Ademar followed him. As he lowered the visor of his helmet, they saw that the king was smiling. To the west, not far away, the stones of the Arch of the Ancients gleamed, honey-coloured in the light.

"Well?" Lisseut heard Bertran murmur under his breath.

"Ten years ago," said Fulk de Savaric softly, "it might have been a match. Not now, I am sorry to say."

Blaise said nothing, though he had to have heard that. He was watching his brother with something hurtful in his eyes. Rosala was watching too, but there was nothing to be read in her expression at all. Ranald, Lisseut noted, had not bothered to lower his helm.

"It will make no difference, you know that," said Galbert de Garsenc heavily, speaking to the Arbonne party. "Even if Ademar dies we will destroy you tomorrow. And he will not die. Ranald has been drinking all day. He would never have done this otherwise. Look at his face. He is about to meet the judgment of the god, sodden and disgraced."

"Redeemed, I should have said." Blaise's voice was hollow. He did not take his eyes from the two men circling each other now on the roadway by the strand.

And what they saw then, as the long, bright swords touched for the first time, delicately, and then again with a sharp, wrist-grinding clash, was indeed redemption of a kind. There is a grace here, thought Lisseut suddenly, resisting the thought. She had never seen Ranald de Garsenc before and so she had never seen him fight. He had been King's Champion of Gorhaut once, for Ademar's father, someone had told her. That had been a long time ago.

For a moment it seemed not to have been, as he pivoted his war horse using knees and hips and rang a hard, quick downward blow against Ademar's side. The curved armour caught the blade and deflected it, but the king of Gorhaut swayed in his saddle, and there came a rumble again from the armies. Lisseut looked over at Blaise, she couldn't help herself, but then she turned away from what she saw in his face, back to the two men fighting in the road.

Blaise didn't even see Ranald's first blow land. He had actually closed his eyes when the combat began. He heard the clang of sword on armour, though, and looked up in time to see Ademar rock in his saddle before righting himself to deliver a slashing backhand of his own. Ranald blunted that with a twist of his sword-arm and sidled his horse away from Ademar's attempt at a cut back the other way.

It was that horseman's movement, the instinctive, almost unconscious product of a lifetime in the saddle with blade in hand, that took Blaise back, in a blur and rush of time, to his childhood and those first clandestine lessons his brother had given him, at a time when Galbert had forbidden Blaise to touch a sword. Both boys had been whipped when the deception was uncovered, though Blaise hadn't actually known about Ranald's punishment until long after, and then only because one of the corans had spoken of it. Ranald had never said a word. There had been no more lessons though. Galbert had had his way. He almost always did.

Blaise looked over at his father then, at the smooth-cheeked, commanding features. The furrow of concern on Galbert's brow had gone; he was actually smiling now, a smug, thin-mouthed expression Blaise knew well. And why should he not smile? Ranald was ten years past his fighting days, and Ademar was very possibly the strongest warrior in Gorhaut. The result of this had been assured from the moment the challenge was made, and Galbert, Blaise understood in that moment, cared nothing at all for the life of his son. Ranald's death would even simplify matters. He had become almost irrelevant to the High Elder, except, as here, when he became a nuisance and a distraction, or even a threat to Galbert's power over the king.

In fact, if Rosala's story was true—and of course it would be true—the honour or dignity of Garsenc had ceased to be important to Galbert in any way that signified. All that seemed to matter to the High Elder was his control of Ademar and this great burning in Arbonne that was allowing him. Ripened fruit of his long dream. That was what mattered, and one thing more: Cadar. His grandson was also a part of Galbert's cold stalking of power in Gorhaut and Arbonne's obliteration.

He must not have him, Blaise thought.

He wondered—the terrible thought intruding like a spear—if Rosala had given orders to have the baby killed if they lost the battle here. It was probable, he realized, in fact it was almost certain.

Grief, from all directions it seemed, closed in upon him as he turned from his father to look at his brother again, seeing Ranald strangely now, as if from a distance, as if he were fading already into the past, into mist, on a day in Arbonne brilliant with light.

Ranald de Garsenc is also thinking of the past as he lets his body respond intuitively to the demands of combat. For the moment, as the overwhelming familiar first steps of the dance begin, he is all right, he is even, in some unexpected fashion, nearly happy. He knows, absorbing a sequence of blows on shield and sword, slashing in response, that this cannot be sustained. He is not that much older than the king but he is far past his best years, while Ademar, strong as a tree, is as close to his peak as he will ever be.

As if to make explicit what both of them know, the sheer strength of the king drives his blade through a tardy attempt at warding and the sword hammers into the light armour Ranald wears. He has always preferred to be lighter in the saddle, relying on quickness. Now, wincing at a hard lance of pain in his ribs, pulling his horse back out of range, he realizes that most of that quickness is gone.

Ten years ago, Ranald thinks, though without bitterness, I would have had him on the ground by now. There is no false pride in the thought either: ten years ago he had been named by King Duergar as his court champion, and for two full years, fighting in the king's name, he did not lose a single combat in any tournament from Gotzland to southern Portezza to the Arimondan court. Then, on a night in the dead of winter, Ereibert de Garsenc had died and Ranald became duke after the obligatory candlelit vigil in the chapel of Corannos. The tournaments and banquets and the celebrations of his prowess among women and men gave way to estate administration at Garsenc and an inexorable, trammelling immersion into his father's designs. Not as a confidant of course: Galbert trusted in Ranald no more than his son shared thoughts with him. Ranald, as duke of Garsenc, became a tool for Galbert's schemes, no more, and at times rather less. It was all a long time ago. Those were the days when ale and wine first became his comforts, avenues to oblivion.

But his thoughts do not linger among those memories. Even as he parries another barrage of blows, feeling the weight of the king's assault jarring his arm and shoulder almost numb, he finds his mind going even further back, much further actually.

Unlike Blaise, who never saw her, Ranald has a memory of his mother.

Two or three images, in fact, though when he first spoke of them as a child he was sternly told by his tutor that these were false recollections, unworthy fantasies for a warrior-to-be. Ranald was two years old when his mother died. Boys that age could not remember things, the tutor decreed. When Ranald tried, not long after, to ask his father about the recurring image he had of a red-haired woman singing to him by candlelight, Galbert flatly forbade him, on pain of a whipping, to mention it again. Ranald was six years old. It was the last time he'd attempted to confide something of importance to his father. Or, he realizes abruptly now, to anyone else.

The memory of the red-haired woman has stayed with him all these years, though he has never again spoken of it. It occurs to him, for the first time, that he might have mentioned it to Rosala. It might have been something to share with her. He guides his horse with a quick pressure of his left knee and, ducking with a grunt under a wide side-sweeping blow, delivers a backhand slash of his own, ringing it hard off Ademar's armour. The king is prone to such flat, sidelong blows he notes, a part of his mind still registering such things, as if there is anything he is going to be able to do about it. I should have told her, he is thinking. Rosala might have wanted to hear of such a memory; in the beginning, at any rate. In the later part of their time together he was less certain of her interest but that, truly, was his own fault.

Just as it is his own fault that he is short of breath already. He is feeling the effects of this morning's ale as a thick heaviness in his limbs, in the extra pulse of time between his awareness of a threat or an opportunity and his body's slow response. It is going to get worse, he knows. Ademar is not even breathing hard but Ranald is grimly aware that his own shield and armour are dented already by the king's blows. He is afraid he may have broken ribs on his left side; it has become difficult to do much more than parry.

Ademar seems to be aware of this. Through his lowered black visor the king of Gorhaut speaks, contemptuously giving Ranald a respite. Softly, so that none of the others will hear, he says, "I could almost pity you, were you not such a fool. She will be mine tomorrow, I want you to think of that. I hope you are thinking of it in the moment I kill you. Tomorrow night, when her hair is down and she wraps her mouth around my sex in the way that I shall teach her do you think she will mourn the poor, sad, drunken man she once had to lie beside?"

Ranald would reply, but he lacks the breath to spare for taunting, and there is nothing, actually, he can think of to say. His ribs are extraordinarily painful now; each breath drawn seems to slide a knife into his side. He suspects the king is wrong, though; he believes Rosala told no less than truth when she said she would die before lying with Ademar. This thought makes him abruptly aware of something: if the king kills him he is almost certainly killing Rosala as well. And—a second new thought like a lash of the cold wind—even more surely killing the child. The son he has never seen.

I am everything he says of me, Ranald de Garsenc thinks, and now there is bitterness. I have wasted my life.

He remembers—and with this memory as well there is sorrow now—his brother Blaise on the fogbound drawbridge of Garsenc only a little time ago: You don't have to follow him, Ranald. You have the first free choice you've had in a long time. He answered harshly, he remembers, almost choking in confused fury. Corannos knew, there had been so much anger in him that night. Wrongly directed though; he seems to have turned in wrong directions all his life.

There was a time when I would have followed you to the end of the earth, Blaise also said that night. I never knew that, Ranald thinks, his eyes warily on the king of Gorhaut. Blaise is here too, watching him, has claimed a crown, defied their father—even named Corannos to witness his doing so. He is walking a path of honour, one that might make a man proud, even a brother.

Ademar lifts his sword and points it forward like an executioner. He is playing to the armies now, Ranald knows. He can hear them to the north, a constant murmur of sound broken by sharp sudden cries. It is about to begin again. And end, Ranald de Garsenc thinks. He looks up for a moment at the bright sun shining above the fields and the forests of this land of Arbonne.

He is genuinely not afraid, only sorrowful and full of regrets, but it really is too late, he thinks. There would never have been enough time to make amends for so many errors and weaknesses. He thinks of the red-haired woman singing him a lullaby. He wonders if she is waiting for him, if the god might allow a grace like that to such a man as he has been. He thinks of his brother again, and then, lastly, of his wife and the child he has let slip away. Cadar. A strong name, one of honour in the world. Far better than the memory of his own name will be, he thinks, and it is this, at the end, that hurts most of all. And spurs him to a last gesture, an attempt at redress.

Ignoring the pain in his side Ranald thrusts his own sword above his head, theatrical and arresting. Ademar hesitates.

Ranald sucks precious air and cries out then, as loudly as he can through the open visor of his helm, hoping the armies can hear: "Before our most holy god I name you a false king, Ademar, and I set my sword against you in the name of Gorhaut." He hears a new sound rising to the north and knows his words have carried. He stops, sucks air, speaks again, to a coran in their party now, one of his own, a rasped command: "Bergen, ride back to the army. These are my orders, you are charged with them: the corans of Garsenc are not to fight for this man." He pauses, then says it: "Follow my brother now."

It is done, spoken, and not actually so hard as he would have expected it to be. He takes his eyes from the king long enough to meet those of the leader of his corans. He sees Bergen hesitate, then nod, a movement jerky with surprise and fear. He sees him twitch his horse's reins to obey. He turns back then, because he must, to deal with the onrush of the suddenly enraged king.

Ranald de Garsenc offers his soul then, in genuine diffidence, to Corannos, and decides, on impulse, to do one last thing, more for the bittersweet irony of it than anything else. Something from childhood to leave them with. He wonders if anyone will actually realize or recognize what it is he is doing. Blaise might, he thinks wistfully, and then stops thinking for there is no time, Ademar's sword is swinging and the dance is nearly done.

For those watching, events happened very quickly then.

Blaise had turned from the fight when Ranald, sword flamboyantly raised, shouted to the armies and then spoke his astonishing instructions to Bergen, the long-time captain of the Garsenc corans. His heart jumped as he realized what his brother was doing, and he saw Bergen, dead loyal all his life, acknowledge and move to obey.

Bergen of Garsenc was felled by a swordstroke from behind before he had even fully turned his horse. Borsiard d'Andoria, elegant, unsmiling, slid his long blade carelessly free of the coran's body and they saw Bergen fall to the ground. The Portezzan looked deliberately over at Blaise, and then he did smile.

There came a shout of anger and unease from among the army of Gorhaut. They had heard Ranald's cry and had now seen the Portezzan slay one of their own. Some men from each army began moving closer, which was dangerous.

Blaise had no time to deal with that, or with Borsiard just then, for even as he was registering these things in a stray, random memory was being jogged from far back in childhood, from the days when he used to watch his brother train with the corans in the courtyard. There had been something about that elaborately showy, sword-upraised gesture of Ranald's, a deliberate echo of something, a game, a frivolity.

And then memory sprang clear, and with a sound that he only realized afterwards had been his brother's name, Blaise wheeled back to watch what was going to be the ending, one way or the other.

He had only ever seen this done as a jest among friends, and that had been twenty years ago. The uplifted sword was the invitation, almost too transparent, luring one's opponent to venture a backhanded side-stroke at the exposed right side. What used to follow, when this was tried in the tiltyard at Garsenc, was a silly, undignified manoeuvre that had usually left both combatants rolling in the dust, swearing and laughing.

There was no laughter by the shore of Lake Dierne. Blaise watched the king of Gorhaut succumb completely to the ruse, driven by his fury at Ranald's orders to his men. Ademar launched a wild stroke of such force it would have half-severed Ranald's torso through the links of his armour had it landed.

It didn't land. Ranald de Garsenc flattened himself on his horse's neck and let fall his sword as Ademar's blade whistled over his head biting nothing but air. The king's motion carried him lurching sideways in his saddle and partly turned his horse. By the time he began, cursing, to straighten, Ranald, lightly armoured as always, had hurled himself from his horse towards the back of the king's saddle. Very much like a boy, Blaise was thinking, like the boy for whom all of this had been discovery and exhilaration, with pain and sorrow and ageing quite inconceivable concepts.

Ranald actually made it. Landed, almost neatly, behind Ademar, swinging a leg across the horse's rump. He was already grappling at his waist for the knife that would kill the king when the crossbow dart caught him above the collarbone and buried itself in his throat.

The half-drawn dagger fell from splayed ringers and a moment later Ranald de Garsenc slid slowly to the ground to lie beside it in the winter grass. Blood was pulsing from his neck, bright red in the sunlight.

Above him, controlling his horse with an effort, Ademar of Gorhaut looked down upon him, and then at the man who had fired that small, hidden crossbow.

"You interfered in a challenge," said the king of Gorhaut. His voice was thin, disbelieving. He was visibly shaken.

"Would you prefer to be dead right now?" asked Galbert de Garsenc, High Elder of Gorhaut. He didn't even look at the body of his son. Ademar made no reply. There was no growing tumult now to the north of them.

"Watch him," Blaise said to no one in particular, and slid from his horse. Ignoring Ademar completely, he knelt beside his brother. He heard footsteps behind him but did not turn. Ranald's eyes were closed; he was still alive, but only just. With all the care in the world Blaise shifted him a little, so he could lay his brother's head in his lap. Blood from the wound had already soaked the ground; now it began to seep into his clothing.

From above and behind he heard his father say to the king of Gorhaut, "I have not come this close to be balked by a drunkard's folly or your own carelessness."

Ranald opened his eyes then, and Blaise saw that his brother was aware of him. A faint, genuine smile, crossed Ranald's face.

"It would have worked," he whispered. "I only tried it as a jest."

"Spare your strength," Blaise murmured.

Ranald shook his head slightly. "No point," he managed to say. "I can feel poison. There is syvaren on the dart."

Of course. Of course there was. This time it was Blaise who closed his eyes, feeling grief and a terrible, ancient rage threatening to overwhelm him. He fought desperately for control, and when he opened his eyes again saw that Ranald's gaze had moved away now, to someone beyond Blaise.

"I have no right to ask for anything," he heard his brother whisper. Blaise looked over his shoulder then and saw Rosala standing there, tall and grave.

"I know you do not," she agreed quietly, adhering, even at the last, to her own inner laws. "But I have the right to grant what I wish." She hesitated, and Blaise thought she would kneel but she did not. She said, very calmly, "It was bravely done at the end, Ranald."

There was a silence. Far off, Blaise heard noises that sounded like men fighting. He ought to turn, he knew, this mattered so much, but he could not.

Ranald said, "Guard him if you can. Cadar, I mean." And then, so softly it was difficult to hear, "It is a fine name." It was in that moment that Blaise thought he felt his heart beginning to break, hearing the unspoken thing, the lost lifetime of sorrow beneath those words.

And Rosala seemed to hear it too, for she did kneel then, neatly, in the blood-soaked grass beside her husband. She did not reach out to touch him, but Blaise heard her say, in that same grave, calm voice, "Cadar Ranald de Garsenc now. You have earned as much. If it pleases you, my lord."

Through a blurring of tears Blaise saw his older brother smile then for the last time and heard him say, no more than a breath now, "It pleases me, my lady."

He seemed to be gripping both of Ranald's hands—he couldn't actually remember taking them—and he was almost certain he felt a pressure then, the strong fingers squeezing his for a moment, before they went slack.

Blaise looked down at his dead brother, feeling the cold wind passing over the two of them. He slipped one hand free after a time and closed Ranald's eyes. He had seen a great many dead men. Sometimes their faces seemed to become calm and peaceful when life passed out of them and they began their second journey to the god. Ranald looked as he always had, though; perhaps when it was someone you knew well the comforting illusions of grace were harder to find.

He hadn't actually said farewell, he realized. He hadn't said anything. Spare your strength, had been his only words. Fatuous, really, to a man with a dart in his neck and syvaren running cold through him. Perhaps the touching, their hands holding each other, perhaps that would have been enough. It would have to be; there was never going to be more.

He made himself look up. Ademar, still visibly shaken by what had happened, was on his horse above them. Blaise said nothing to him at all. He looked over his shoulder and saw that his father was still holding the tiny, lethal crossbow he had brought hidden to this place. The ancient rules of such things, the rituals and laws of parleys or challenges, would mean nothing to Galbert. Blaise had always known that. Ademar hadn't, it seemed.

The king of Gorhaut would be wondering how he was going to hold up his head among the nations now—even before his own people—after being so shamefully rescued in the midst of a formal challenge. It would probably make sense to taunt him, to unsettle him further, but Blaise had no heart for that at all. In fact, at another time, another place in the world, he might even have been able to feel sorry for Ademar, who would only now perhaps be discovering the degree to which even he was simply another instrument of Galbert de Garsenc's designs.

He seemed to be looking down at his brother again, as if trying to memorize Ranald's features, so like and yet unlike his own. "You had best get up," he heard Rosala say, as if from a distance. She herself had risen again. He looked up at her. She had never appeared to him to so much resemble one of the spear-maidens of Corannos, straight-backed and proud, a figure from a chapel frieze, her face seeming as if sculptured in stone. Her level gaze met his. "He died as a man with mourning," said Rosala de Savaric de Garsenc, "but it seems that this battle has begun."

It seemed that it had.

He slipped his hands under Ranald's head and lifted it so he could slide himself free, then he laid his brother down again on the grass. Rising, he looked at Ademar and said formally, over the growing clamour to the north, "As his brother I lay claim to this body. Do you challenge me for it?"

Ademar shook his head. "Believe me, I do not want it."

Blaise nodded. "Very well." He felt very calm now, almost eerily so. A kind of numbness was setting in. "I will look for you at sunset if we are both alive."

Ademar's eyes flicked over to where Ranald lay but then came back to meet Blaise's. He had never been a coward, whatever else might be said of him. "I shall not be hard to find," he said, and wheeled his horse north towards the battlefield.

Only then did Blaise turn to his father.

Galbert, watching the others leave, seemed to have been waiting for him. The large, smooth features were a little flushed perhaps, but otherwise unruffled. Blaise said, choosing his words with care, "I will not be the man that kills you, for I would not want a father-slaying marked against my soul, but there is a journey to the god that awaits you, whether it comes today or soon or late and Corannos will know how to judge you for this deed." He paused. "And so will Rian, for a parley and a challenge breached, for a son's murder here."

Galbert gave a bark of laughter and opened his mouth to reply.

"Be gone from this place," said Bertran de Talair before the High Elder could speak. "I have never slain a man in the presence of heralds in my life, but I could do so now."

"What?" said Galbert mockingly. "And face the same judgment as me?" And saying so he turned his horse and began riding away. The nearest companies of the armies were now engaging each other, banners whipped by the wind, in that valley north of Talair.

Blaise looked over his dead brother on the ground, and then back to his father riding north, a huge, bulky man, yet easy and even graceful in the saddle. There was something deeply unreal about the two images for him, as if his mind were somehow refusing to accept this conjunction. But there were men battling now and he reached out towards that single hard truth, the urgency of it, as a pathway out of the numbness that seemed to be trying to claim him.

He heard a grating sound behind him and turned to see two boats being pulled up on the stony strand. The women began boarding them. In one of the boats he recognized, without surprise, the tall, slender young priestess he had met beside this lake when he first came here. There had been dead men on the ground then, too, he remembered. She looked at him, but only briefly and without expression, then she reached out a hand to the countess and helped her into the boat.

The other women were quickly on board and the boats were pushed back out into the choppy water. Sails were run up that the north wind might take them away. As he watched, hesitating beside that stony strand, Blaise saw Ariane turn back to look for him, her dark hair blown out behind her by the wind. Their glances held for a beat of time before she turned away. A moment later, in the other boat, Blaise saw that Lisseut of Vezét who had also lost men she loved this day, had turned to look back as well. She began, awkwardly, to lift one hand, but then let it fall to her side. He could see that she was crying.

Rosala did not turn around at all, and so he did not see her face at the end. He only saw her from behind, sitting straight-backed beside the small, delicate figure of the countess of Arbonne as the two boats swept back across Lake Dierne towards the isle, leaving behind the grassy space by the stones of the northern shore where her husband's body lay.

Blaise drew a slow breath, and then another. He turned away from the women in the boats. Bertran de Talair came up to him.

"Are you all right?" the duke asked quietly. Blaise saw Fulk de Savaric behind Bertran, the same question in his eyes.

There was a third boat being pulled up even now on the strand, grating on the stones. They had come for Ranald, he realized. He would have to let them deal with him, and trust the clergy of Rian to do his brother honour. He had no choice in this, no time. Time was what had been taken away. His task was elsewhere now, among the living, and those he meant to kill.

"It doesn't matter how I am," he said to the duke of Talair, a little frightened by the sound of his own voice. "It really doesn't matter. Let's go."