"A Song for Arbonne" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kay Guy Gavriel)CHAPTER 5It wasn't, of course. It wasn't the same man; the dead remained dead, even here in Arbonne, even on Midsummer Eve. But the dark-skinned, arrogant look was the same, the heft and build, the muscled, dangerous quality of the Arimondan was exactly as Blaise remembered it from that afternoon by the lake with the Arch of the Ancients just beyond. And the man was gazing at him with a look compounded equally of hatred and fierce joy. Beside Blaise, Valery said quickly out of the side of his mouth, "I did mean to tell you before. I should have. His brother, same birth. Be very careful." Blaise registered this without taking his eyes off the Arimondan by the door. The man was clad in the green livery of Miraval and he, too, wore a sword, the curved blade of his own country. Urté de Miraval rose, without haste; so too, on the other side of Ariane de Carenzu, did Bertran. The lady remained sitting, though she had turned in her chair to glance over her shoulder at the door. "Quzman," said the duke of Miraval, "I wondered where you were, and so long. See, as I promised you, there is a Gorhautian coran here you have expressed a desire to meet." "I do see that," said the Arimondan. His voice was deep, almost musical. He smiled. "I am most pleased. In my country we have a saying: murderers must be dealt with swiftly lest the green grass wither beneath their tread. Will you come outside with me, or do you only fight from a distance?" "It was not murder," said Valery sharply before Blaise could reply. "The priests and priestesses of Rian's Isle were witnesses and have told their tale." The man called Quzman seemed not to have heard. There was something uncanny about his smile, the way his entire being seemed focused upon Blaise. Once, in a Gotzland castle, Blaise had seen a man look at another in that way, and death had followed before the night was done. Now, in response to the nakedness of this challenge, Blaise felt his own anger rekindling, a memory of the encounter by the lake, the luxuriously articulated, ugly words of the Arimondan on the black horse. "You do seem distressed," he said to the man by the door, keeping his own voice relaxed, almost lazy, in the way his friend Rudel or even Bertran de Talair would say this thing. "Tell me, did I kill your brother or your lover there? Or were they one and the same?" "Careful!" Valery whispered urgently again. But Blaise had the pleasure of seeing the Arimondan's smile stiffen into something harsh and artificial, a rictus, as of death. "You have a foul murderer's tongue, Northerner." It was Urté de Miraval. "I do not see why we should suffer it to wag freely among us, and then carry back a spy's tale to Ademar of Gorhaut." So that was brought into it too, now. Predictably. "That last is the thought of a fool," said Bertran calmly. "And as for murder: this man was set upon by while riding in peace on the countess's high road. His pony was slain and his horse, and six cowards in your service sought to kill him. I would not speak so glibly of murder, my lord of Miraval. I might, instead, give a passing thought to the competence of my corans were it my own six killers who were slain by one man alone." "These are words," said Quzman of Arimonda contemptuously. "Words and posturings, the sad vices of Arbonne. This man and I can end this alone outside, no one else need be part of it. Unless he is truly afraid. As for the new law you mention…» He took two strides into the room, graceful as a hunting cat, and knelt before Urté. "My lord, matters touching upon the honour of my family compel me to ask leave to withdraw from your service for a time, that my actions need have no bearing on your own affairs. Will you grant me leave?" " They all turned to her. Ariane de Carenzu had not troubled to rise or even fully turn to face the men. She was still looking over her shoulder, casually, her black hair tumbling down the back of her chair. There was nothing casual about her words though. "In the name of the countess of Arbonne I forbid this duel. There is a land price placed on deaths between Talair and Miraval. It has been proclaimed and posted and cannot be evaded—understand me, my lords—by sham devices of this sort. I will not let the countess be mocked. Nor will I allow this night of the goddess to be marred in such a way. I hold you both strictly accountable, my lords, for the conduct of your men." "Surely so, but if he leaves my service—" Urté de Miraval began. "He requires your consent and you will not give it." The woman's voice was precise and authoritative, the flat tone of someone absolutely versed in command. Even after months in Arbonne, Blaise found it disconcerting to see the two dukes so accepting of a woman's unveiled note of power. He opened his mouth to speak, his own anger strong within him, and received a hard elbow in the ribs. " He probably had, Blaise thought—the path of his thinking would have been clear enough. Blaise was, by his own insistence, not bound to Bertran de Talair by any oaths of fealty. He was a hired mercenary and could end his contract at any time, forfeiting only whatever pay was due to him and as yet untendered and freeing himself to fight the Arimondan, without seeking a by-your-leave from anyone, including this black-haired woman who styled herself a queen, if only of the troubadours' Court of Love. He drew a slow breath, met Valery's gaze for a moment and held his peace. He looked around the room. No one else seemed to have dared to move. With mild surprise he saw that the girl with the harp, still wearing Bertran's blue cloak, was staring at him from across the room. He couldn't read her gaze from a distance, but he could guess. She had thrust herself forward to defend the honour of the troubadour he'd wounded. She would probably be quite content if he died by a curved, bejewelled Arimondan sword. His gaze swept past her and upwards. On the upper storey of the inn, men and women had crowded to the railings, first for the music and now for what had followed. Most of their faces were hidden by the cross-beams; a procession of legs lined the hallway above his head, cut off at the trunk. It was odd, in a way, an audience of feet and calves and thighs in variously coloured hose. "You came here bearing a message, I think," Ariane de Carenzu continued, in the silence that had followed her last speech. She was looking at the Arimondan, Quzman. "Is it about the boats on the river?" The man glanced over at her. He had remained kneeling before Urté de Miraval. They were both large, exceptionally handsome men; it was a pose that might have been carved in relief on the stone wall of a chapel of Corannos in Gorhaut. "Yes," the dark-skinned man said finally. "It was about the boats." "They are beginning now?" "They are." He offered no title or any courtesy at all to the woman. "Then you will duel each other so for our amusement at Carnival," said the lady of Carenzu with a swift, flashing smile that was radiant and yet infused with capricious malice. "A game?" the Arimondan said, with derision. A ripple of anticipation and relief was sweeping across the room. Blaise saw Bertran turn quickly away to hide a smile. "It is almost all a game," Ariane said softly, in a rather different voice. "We play it, all of us, through our nights and days, until the goddess takes us home. But hear me again," she added calmly, "if any man of either of your parties dies tonight I will hold it as murder and tell the countess as much." "I haven't been on the river in years," said Bertran, an apparently inconsequential remark. He seemed to be struggling, with only partial success, to keep a thread of laughter out of his voice. Urté de Miraval heard it. "And I in decades," he said, rising to the bait. "But I will give you that, and twenty years' advantage of age and still best you, my lord of Talair, in any action that a man may honourably do among men." At that, Bertran did laugh aloud. With a whiplike malice of his own that Blaise did not fully understand, he said, "Only among men? A prudent concession my lord, under the circumstances." Urté de Miraval's head snapped back, as if from an actual lashing. It was the first time he'd lost his composure, Blaise realized, and wondered why. Something he'd overheard weeks ago tugged vaguely at his memory: there was a woman somewhere at the root of what lay between these two. "Bertran," began Ariane de Carenzu sharply, "I do not think that—" "Ariane, have done! You have imposed your will here, and we are mindful of you. Do not overreach; it is a failing. I told you when you walked in and I have told you as much before." Bertran's blue eyes as he wheeled to face her were hard and carried their own measure of authority now. "We will play games tonight on the river for your amusement. No one will be killed, by your command. Be content with what you may control. The past is not in your province." "Indeed it is not," said Urté de Miraval very softly, his self-control regained. Blaise had to lean forward to hear him. "None of the dead are. Men or women. Even children. Even children, if it comes to that." Which, for some reason, drew a response from Bertran de Talair. He turned from the dark-haired woman to look full into the face of the other duke standing not far away. There was a suddenly dangerous stillness in the room again, a sense of genuine menace radiating outward from where the two men stood. "It comes to that," said Bertran finally, his own voice little more than a whisper now. "Oh, believe me, my lord, it does." As the two of them locked gazes to the manifest exclusion of everyone else in the tavern, in the world, Blaise of Gorhaut realized, rather late, that the hatred here, the palpable weight of whatever lay in the past between them, was of a depth and texture infinitely greater than he had understood. Beside him Valery muttered something under his breath that Blaise could not quite hear. "Come," Bertran added, breaking free of the frozen stare, his tone a sudden, exaggerated parody of ritual, "let us go. Let us all go forth by the light of the mingled summer moons to make sport on the river for the queen of the Court of Love." He moved towards the door without looking back. Valery followed quickly. Blaise glanced around the tavern one more time. Ariane de Carenzu's expression was odd now, vulnerable for the first time. People were beginning to stir, shaking their heads, blinking vaguely, as if freed of an enchanter's cast spell. On the upper landing the legs were moving, black and white hose, white and blue, wheat-coloured and russet, crimson and gold, pale and forest green—the brilliant colours of festival time. He watched for another moment, thinking about the words just spoken, nagged by the thread of a thought, and then moved with the crowd out the doorway and into the noisy street. On the way he passed very close to Quzman the Arimondan, closer than he needed to, in fact. He made a point of smiling as he did. Valery was waiting just outside the door. A man and a woman masked as a crow and a fox bumped into Blaise as they stumbled past, laughing uproariously. The man carried an open flask of wine, the woman's tunic was mostly unbuttoned. In the light of the lanterns above the doorway of The Liensenne, her breasts showed clearly for a moment. There was laughter ahead of them and behind and a constant, cacophonous sound of noisemakers being whirled and banged and thumped. "You don't have any of this in Gorhaut, I suppose," said Valery companionably, as if nothing of note had happened in the tavern. Blaise realized that he liked Bertran's cousin for this relaxed, unruffled quality, as much as for anything else. Just ahead of them the duke was walking amid a cluster of musicians, including the woman who had sung for them; she was still wearing Bertran's blue cloak. "Hardly," he said shortly, by way of reply, but he tried to keep the criticism out of his voice. What should he say to Valery: that he found this whole night's goddess-inspired exercise in lechery demeaning and vulgar, unworthy of any man who aspired to serve his country and his god? "I meant to tell you that there were two Arimondans," Valery said after a pause. There was riotous sound all around them; a young boy raced past, violently whirling a noise-maker shaped like the head of a bull. Two laughing women leaned precariously far out of a window overhead, trading ribald jests with those passing in the crowded street. "I'm sure," Blaise said drily. "Why didn't you?" Valery glanced briefly at him. "You didn't seem interested." He said it mildly, but Blaise heard the nuance in the words. "You haven't seemed much interested in anything. I wonder why you travel, sometimes. Most men leave home to learn about the wider world. You don't seem to want to know." A different sort of elbow in the ribs. Blaise thought of stating as much, but after a moment said only, "Some men leave home to leave home." After a moment Valery nodded. He didn't pursue the matter. Turning right, he followed Bertran and the troubadours up a darker laneway leading away from the sea. "How good are you with small boats on water?" he asked after a moment. "Passable," said Blaise cautiously. "What, exactly, are we about to do?" "A question!" said Valery of Talair, grinning suddenly. He looked younger, and very like his cousin when he smiled. "You actually asked a question!" Almost against his will Blaise laughed. He sobered quickly, concentrating, as Valery of Talair began to explain. Then, when Valery was finished and they had come to the river and Blaise saw what was there—the people, and the strung lights like glittering stars come down, the lanterns and faces in the windows of the merchant houses along the river, the ropes across the water mooring the rafts, the small boats waiting and others drifting downstream towards the invisible sea, some already capsized with men swimming beside them—he laughed aloud again, helplessly, at the childlike frivolity of it all. "Oh, Corannos," he said, to no one in particular, "what a country this is." But they had caught up with the others by then, the troubadours and joglars amid the crowd on the riverbank, and Bertran de Talair turned back to look at him. "We know that," he said levelly over the noise. "Do you?" The river and the sea and the night were sacred to Rian, and Midsummer was holy to her, but Carnival was also a time when the order of the world was turned upside-down—sometimes literally, as in a vat of water, or Cauvas gold, Lisseut thought ruefully. The goddess was celebrated that night through Arbonne in laughter and amid noise and flowing wine and otherwise forbidden linkings in the darkness of cobbled laneways or grassy mews, or beds in houses where doors were left unlocked this one night of the year. It was also celebrated in the city of Tavernel, and had been for years beyond number, with the challenge of the Boats and Rings on the river, here where the Arbonne came home to the sea after its long journey south from the mountains of Gorhaut. Grateful for the hooded cloak Duke Bertran had forgotten or neglected to reclaim, Lisseut tried with only marginal success to pick up the thread of excitement and anticipation that had carried her into The Liensenne earlier in the day. It was still Carnival, she was still among friends and had even had—though there had been no time to properly absorb this—what appeared to be a spectacular success. But the presence of hatred, both ancient and new, was too strong now for her to regain the blithe mood of before. She looked over at the grim figure of Urté de Miraval and at the sleek Arimondan beside him, and she could not suppress a shiver, even within the cloak. Laughter, jarring incongruously with her thoughts, drew her attention to the river and, in spite of herself, she was forced to smile. Jourdam, who prided himself on his athleticism even more than Remy did, had pushed his way through the crowd to the water's edge and, prudently removing his expensive boots, was evidently about to be the first of their group to try the boats. Lisseut cast a quick glance up at the sky, just as Jourdain did, and saw that the moons were both clear of clouds and would be for a few moments. That mattered, she knew. It was hard enough to grasp the rings in a whirling, bouncing toy of a boat without contending with the added problem of not being able to see them. "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to be ducked in the basin?" Alain of Rousset called out from the safety of the bank. "It's an easier way to soak yourself!" There was laughter. Jourdain said something impolite, but he was concentrating on stepping down and then settling himself in the tiny, bobbing craft that two men held close to the dock. He took the short, flat-bladed oar one of them offered him, glanced once more at the two moons—one waxing, one just past full—and nodded tersely. They let the boat go. To screams of encouragement, Jourdain shot like a cork from a bottle out into the swiftly racing river. "Ten copper pieces he doesn't make three rings," Alain cried loudly. "Done!" said Elisse, who was sleeping with Jourdain that season. "And ten more from me," Lisseut added quickly, more to wager against Elisse than for any other reason. "Are you good for it?" "More than good," Elisse replied with a toss of her golden hair. "I've been touring with It was such a patently envious, silly gibe that Lisseut burst into laughter. Alain's aggrieved expression showed that he couldn't quite see it that way. Lisseut squeezed his arm and then continued to hold it as they watched Jourdain do battle with the river. Sober or not, he steered smoothly enough across the current to the first raft and, without apparent effort, reached up and across to gracefully pluck the garland of olive leaves that had been looped on a pole hanging out over the water. The priestess on the first raft quickly raised her torch to signal success. A shout of approval went up along both sides of the river. People were massed all the way down the banks to the final strand of rope running across the stream, and there were almost as many leaning out of windows in the high houses. Paddling vigorously, leaning his body far over to one side, Jourdain angled his boat back the other way, trying to move across the river before the current took him sweeping past the second raft. He made it, barely, had an instant to steady himself and then reached upwards—the second ring was higher of course—and plucked the garland. He almost slipped, toppling back into his boat and very nearly falling out. But another torch was lifted and another shout went up. Jourdain's near-fall cost him precious time, though, and when he righted himself properly and seized the oar again Lisseut, even at a distance, saw him make a swift decision to eschew the third raft near the far bank and head straight downriver towards the fourth. It was the number of garlands that counted, not the sequence. It was also a wrong decision. Running straight downstream, Jourdain's tiny boat, seeming little more than a chip of bark in the racing Arbonne, accelerated dramatically as he approached the fourth moored raft. "Do you want to pay us now?" Alain said to Elisse. Despite the wager, Lisseut winced in anticipation as Jourdain, flying down the river, bravely rose to his feet as the moored raft hurtled towards him. He reached upwards and over for the elusive garland. He didn't even come close. With a whoop they could hear all the way upstream at the starting pier his feet went flying from under him, the boat shot out into the stream and Jourdain, seeming to defy the pull of earth, hung horizontally above the river, bathed in moonlight for a suspended moment, before plunging into the Arbonne with a splash that sent a fountain of water upwards to soak the priest on the raft and those who had gathered there to see the contest. He almost doused the torch, but he was nowhere near the garland. Two men leaped quickly off the raft to assist him in the water—people had been known to drown in this game—and Lisseut breathed more easily when she saw them pulling Jourdain towards one of the anchored boats near shore. From a distance they saw him raise an almost jaunty hand to show that he was all right. "What is the best so far," Bertran de Talair asked in a quiet tone that brought Lisseut swiftly back to the reality of why they were here. "One man has all four, my lord," said the nearest of the boatmen crouched at the end of the pier. "But he fell at the very beginning of the rope crossing, so no one has finished the course so far." "Good," said the duke of Talair, stepping towards the end of the dock. "With your agreement, my lord," he said, turning towards Urté, "I will give you a target to shoot for." Urté de Miraval made a negligent gesture that signalled assent. Not bothering to remove his boots, Bertran stood quietly as the boatmen manoeuvred the next small craft into position. Valery and the bearded coran from Gorhaut had moved down beside him, Lisseut saw. A murmur of sound, gathering and swelling as it went, began to race along the banks of the river carrying the news of what was about to happen. Lisseut looked upwards, and in that same moment most of the others on the pier did the same. A bank of clouds, moving swiftly eastward with the breeze, had cut across the face of white Vidonne and would soon obscure the blue light of Riannon as well. "Let me go first," said Valery of Talair, stepping past the duke in the shadows. "Wait for the moons. No one has challenged me so it doesn't matter if I miss." He quickly unbuckled his sword and handed it to one of the boatmen. He looked over his shoulder and Lisseut was close enough to hear him say, "Follow my line, Blaise. If you overshoot the third raft do everything you can to slow down before you reach the fourth—unless you're partial to the taste of river water." The Arimondan beside Urté laughed at that. It was not a pleasant sound, Lisseut thought, looking over quickly. The man frightened her. She turned away, back to the river, hoping the Arimondan hadn't noticed her staring at him. Valery was in the boat with the flat paddle to hand. He grinned up at Bertran. "If I get wet it's your fault." "Of course," his cousin said. "It always is." Then the boat was gone, out into the high, swift current of the river. A moment later, straining to see amid the shadows, Lisseut was made to understand something about the skills of men: Jourdain the troubadour was an athlete, and gifted, in the prime of his youth, but Valery of Talair was a professional coran, trained and hardened, and very experienced. He snapped up the first wreath effortlessly, the boat turning back the other way almost before the priestess's torch had been raised and the responding shout had gone up along the bank. The second ring, which had initiated Jourdain's precipitate descent towards a watery immersion, was negotiated almost as easily and Valery, unlike the troubadour, kept both his balance and his control of the boat, paddling strenuously back across the river with a second triumphant torch lofted behind him and screams of wild approval on each bank. "They think he's the duke," little Alain said suddenly, and Lisseut realized that it was true. The word that En Bertran was to run the river had gone racing down the banks before the clouds had come and Valery had taken his place. These screams and cries were those the people of Tavernel reserved for their favourites—and the troubadour duke of Talair had been one of those for most of his life. Meanwhile, Valery, approaching the third of the moored rafts, stood up smoothly in his bobbing craft—making a perilous feat seem easy—and stretched up and over to snatch the third of the olive laurels from its pole. He dropped back down into the boat and began paddling furiously across the water, leaning into the task as the people watching from riverbank and overhanging window and the crowded boats moored against the shore stamped and roared their most extreme approval. The angle back to the fourth and final raft was the most acute by far and Valery was working for all he was worth to avoid being carried downstream past the ring; Jourdain had jumped for the laurel here and smacked into the water. Valery of Talair pulled hard to the upstream edge of the raft, let his small craft turn with the current and then stood, smoothly again, and without evident haste or urgency lifted his paddle upward and swept it along the pole suspended high above the raft and out over the river—and he caught the olive ring thereby dislodged as his craft went hurtling beneath. That is what it looked like to Lisseut, a long way upstream with swift clouds obscuring the moons and men and women jostling and shouting around her as the priest of Rian's signifying torch was thrust triumphantly skywards far down along the Arbonne. For some reason she glanced over at the coran from Gorhaut: an unconscious grin, an almost boyish expression of pleasure, showed in his face, making him look different suddenly, less austere and formidable. "My cousin, too, is worth six men—no, a dozen!" Bertran de Talair said happily, looking at no one in particular. There was a stirring among the green-garbed corans of Miraval. Lisseut, feeling particularly sharp just then, doubted that En Bertran had spoken carelessly—there were verbal daggers in almost everything he and the duke of Miraval said in each other's presence. Ariane, her hair swept up again and hidden beneath her hood, said something to Urté that Lisseut could not hear. Ariane stepped forward beside Bertran, the better to see Valery approach the end of the course. The rope across the river was the last obstacle. An enormous round shield with a hole drilled in its centre hung exactly halfway across with the rope passing through it. Whichever side of the shield his boat passed under, the competitor's task was to leap up, seize the rope and then pull his way hand over hand under or over or around the shield—an exceptional achievement in itself—and then all the way to the opposite bank. Every one of the men who had made it this far would be formidably agile and strong. Ropes across water would not customarily faze them. This one was different. This one was virtually impossible. It had, for a start, been coated with attentive, careful malice in layers of beeswax. Just before being strung across the water it had also been oiled extravagantly with the purest olive oil from the celebrated groves and presses in the hills above Vezét. Then it was strung across the Arbonne in such a fashion that it sagged just low enough in the middle to force the hapless adventurer who had adroitly made it this far to pull his way hand over slippery hand along a cruelly upward inclination towards the dismally remote platform on the bank where triumph and glory awaited. Lisseut, in three years of watching this contest on the river at Midsummer Carnival, had never seen anyone come close; she'd never even seen anyone cross the shield. She There was a point to all this, she knew; during Carnival there was a point to everything, even the most apparently trivial or licentious activities. All the inversions and reversals of this night of the goddess, suspended outside the rhythms and the round of the year, found their purest emblem in these torchlit and moonlit images of gifted men rendered helpless and inept, forced either to laugh at their own predicament while themselves suspended on a slick rope or, if too grimly serious to share the hilarity, bear the mockery of a shrieking crowd. No one, though, was mocking Valery of Talair that night, and there was nothing even faintly hilarious about him as he guided his tiny boat straight towards the shield. Approaching the rope, he stood up again and, without hesitation, with a neat, precise, economic movement, hurled himself up towards it just to the left of the shield. Tucking his knees in tight to his chest like a tumbler performing at a banquet he let his momentum swing him around in an arc at the top of which he released his precarious grip on the slippery rope and rose gracefully into the air—to come angling back down, as if it were the easiest, most natural thing in the world on this night or any other night, on the other side of the shield barrier. For all the relished anticipation of comic failure, the people of Tavernel and those assembled in the city for its Carnival knew excellence when they saw it. They exploded with exultant approval of such stylish mastery. The shouts and applause assaulted the ears. Lisseut, back on the launching pier, heard a bark of delighted, surprised laughter beside her and turned in time to see the Gorhautian coran's bearded face completely unguarded now with pleasure. He caught her quick glance this time though; their eyes met for an instant and then his flicked away, as if he were embarrassed to have been so observed. Lisseut thought of saying something but changed her mind. She turned back to watch Valery deal with the rope. And so saw, by a trick, an angle, a flaring of torchlight far down the dark river, how the arrow—white-feathered, she would remember, white as innocence, as winter in midsummer, as death—fell from the summit of its long, high arc to take the coran in the shoulder, driving him, slack and helpless, from the rope into the river and laughter turned to screaming in the night. Blaise saw it too, out of the corner of his eye. He even marked, purely by reflex, with a professional's instinct, the two tall, dark-timbered merchant houses along the bank whence an arrow descending at that angle could have been let fly. And he, too, saw, by torchlight and the elusive gleam of the blue moon now riding free of the clouds, the white feathers Lisseut had seen. There was a difference, though. The difference was that he knew what those feathers meant, and the nagging thought from the tavern earlier in the evening grew fully formed and terrifying in his mind. By then he was running. A mistake, because the Carnival crowd was densely packed along the water's edge, and the rope from which Valery had fallen was a long way down the river. Pushing and swearing, using elbows and fists, Blaise forced his way through the shouting, roiling mass of people. Halfway down he glanced over at the river and saw Bertran de Talair paddling furiously in one of the small boats—which, of course, is what he ought to have done himself. Blaise's curses turned inward and he redoubled his efforts. One man, drunken, masked, snarled an oath and pushed back hard as Blaise elbowed his way past. Without even looking, unbalanced by fear, Blaise sent the man reeling with a forearm to the side of his head. He couldn't even be sorry, though he did wonder—a reflex again—about the possibility of a knife in the back. Such things happened in frightened crowds. By the time he reached the pier by the rope the boatmen had taken Valery of Talair from the river. He was lying on the dock. Bertran was there already, kneeling beside his cousin with a priestess and a man who looked to be a physician. The arrow was embedded in Valery's shoulder; not, in fact, a killing wound. Except that the feathers and the upper shaft of the arrow were white and the lower shaft, Blaise now saw, coming up to the pier, was of night-black ash, and he had seen black-and-white leggings above him on the second-floor landing of The Liensenne when the singer had finished her music and they were all preparing to leave. A sickness passed through him like a churning wave. Valery's eyes were open. Bertran had his cousin's head cradled in his lap now; he was murmuring steady, reassuring words. The physician, a thin, beak-nosed man with greying hair tied back with a ribbon, was conferring tersely with the priestess, eyeing the black-and-white shaft with resolution. He was flexing his fingers. "Don't pull it," Blaise said quietly, coming to stand above the four of them. The doctor looked up quickly, anger in his eyes. "I know what I'm doing," he snapped. "This is a flesh wound. The sooner we have the arrow out the sooner we can treat and bind it." Blaise felt tired suddenly. Valery had turned his head slightly and was looking up at him. His expression was calm, a little quizzical. Forcing himself to meet the coran's level gaze, Blaise said, still softly, "If you pull the shaft you'll tear more flesh and the poison will spread the faster. You may also kill yourself. Smell the arrow if you like. There will be syvaren on the head, and very likely on the lower shaft." He looked at the physician. An animal-like fear showed in the man's face. He recoiled involuntarily. In the same moment, with a small, fierce sound of denial, Bertran glanced up at Blaise. His face had gone white and there was horror in his eyes. With sorrow and a slow, hard rage gathering together within him like clouds around the heart Blaise turned back to Valery. The wounded coran's expression had not changed at all; he had probably had an intuition, Blaise thought. Syvaren acted quickly. "That was meant for me," Bertran said. His voice was like a scrape in the throat. "Of course it was," Blaise said. Knowledge was in him, a cold certainty, the taste of it like ashes on his tongue. "It was none of our doing, I will swear it by the goddess in her temple." Urté de Miraval's deep voice rang out. Blaise hadn't heard him approaching. Bertran did not even look up. "Leave us," he said. "You will be dealt with later. You are a desecration wherever you walk." "I do not use poison," de Miraval said. "Arimondans do," said Bertran. "He was on the launching pier with us the whole time." Blaise, sick with knowing, opened his mouth to speak, but the priestess was before him. "Leave off wrangling now," she said. "We must take him to a temple. Will someone find a way to carry him?" Of course, Blaise thought. This was Arbonne. Valery of Talair, even though he was a coran, would not find his end in the sanctity of the god's house. He would pass to Corannos amid the dark rites of Rian. With a distaste that was akin to a fresh grief, Blaise turned away from the priestess; she had covered her head with a wide hood now. He saw that Valery's eyes were upon him again, and Blaise thought he understood the expression this time. Ignoring the others, even Bertran, he knelt on the wet dock beside the dying man. "Be sheltered ever in the god," he said huskily, surprised by the difficulty he had in speaking. "I think I know who did this. I will deal with him for you." Valery of Talair was pale as parchment beneath the moons and the torches. He nodded his head once, and then he closed his eyes. Blaise rose. Without looking at anyone or staying for further words he strode from the dock. Someone made way for him; he realized only later that it had been Quzman, the Arimondan. Others also fell back before him but he was scarcely aware of any of them. There were those ashes in his throat and a queer blurring to his sight. Syvaren on the arrow. White feathers, white-and-black shaft. Blaise reached inward for the rage he needed, and it was there, but he could not ride it. There was too much grief, cold and clammy, coiled in tendrils as a mist in winter: half for Valery behind him and half for what he walked towards now, tall and grim as an image of the Ancients on a frieze, amid the flurrying torches and the smoke and noise and masks and, yes, in the distance, still the laughter of Carnival. |
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