Tigana (54 page)

‘Solved,’ the Prince said promptly. He seemed unnaturally bright, brittle as kindling. ‘Erlein’s going to have to come with
me. We’ve established that I can’t let him get too far away or my summons won’t work. And if that’s the case, well he simply has to go where I go. All the way west. We really do seem to be tied together, don’t we?’ He flashed his teeth in a smile at the wizard. Erlein didn’t bother to respond; he continued to sip his drink, gazing expressionlessly into the fire.

‘Why were you up so early?’ Devin asked him, after a moment.

Erlein made a sour face. ‘Slavery doesn’t agree with my rest,’ he mumbled into his khav.

Devin elected to ignore that. There were times when he really did feel sorry for the wizard, but not when Erlein trotted out his reflexive self-pity.

A thought struck Devin. He turned to Alessan. ‘Is he going to your meeting this morning, too?’

‘I suppose,’ Alessan said with apparent carelessness. ‘A small reward for his loyalty and the long ride he’ll have afterwards. I expect to travel without stopping very much.’ His tone was genuinely odd; too deliberately casual, as if denying the very possibility of strain.

‘I see,’ Devin said, as neutrally as he could manage. He turned his gaze to the fire and kept it there.

There was a silence. When it stretched, Devin looked back and saw Alessan looking at him.

‘Do you want to come?’ the Prince asked.

Did he want to come?
For half a year, from the moment Devin and Sandre had joined the other three, Alessan had been telling them that everything they wanted to achieve would point towards and wait upon a meeting in these southern highlands on the first of the Ember Days.

Did he want to come?

Devin coughed, spilling some khav on the stone floor. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘not if I’m in the way, naturally. Only if you think I could be useful and if maybe I could …’

He trailed off because Alessan was laughing at him.

Even Erlein had been roused from his sulk to a faint, reluctant snort of amusement. The two older men exchanged a glance.

‘You are a terrible liar,’ the wizard said to Devin.

‘He’s right,’ Alessan said, still chuckling. ‘But never mind. I don’t actually think you can be useful—it isn’t in the nature of what I have to do. But I’m certain you won’t do any harm and you and Erlein can keep each other entertained. It’ll be a very long ride.’

‘What? To the meeting?’ Devin asked, startled.

Alessan shook his head. ‘Only two or three hours there, depending on the state of the pass this morning. No, Devin, I’m inviting you west with me.’ His voice altered. ‘Home.’

‘Pigeon!’
the balding, burly-chested man cried, though they were still some distance away. He sat in a massive oak chair set squarely down in the middle of the Braccio Pass. There had been early spring flowers blooming on the lower slopes but not very many this far up. On either side of the path piled rock and stone yielded to forest. Further up, to the south, there was only rock and snow.

Carrying-poles were attached to the oak chair and six men stood behind it in burgundy livery. Devin thought they were servants, but when he came nearer he saw from their weapons that he was wrong: these were soldiers, and guards.

‘Pigeon,’ the man in the chair repeated loudly. ‘You have risen in the world! You bring companions this time!’

It was with a genuine sense of disorientation that Devin realized that the childish name and the raucous, carrying words were addressed to Alessan.

Who had the oddest look to his face all of a sudden. He said nothing by way of reply though, as they rode up to the
seven men in the pass. Alessan dismounted; behind him Devin and Erlein did the same. The man in the chair did not rise to greet them, but his bright, small eyes followed every move that Alessan made. His enormous hands were motionless on the carved arms of the chair. He wore at least six rings; they sparkled in the light of the morning sun. He had a hooked much-broken nose in a leathery, weather-beaten face that showed two livid scars. One was an old wound, slanting down his right cheek in a white line. The other, much more recent, raked redly across his forehead to the greying, receding hairline above his left ear.

‘Company for the ride,’ Alessan said mildly. ‘I wasn’t sure if you’d come. They both sing. Could have consoled me on the way back. The young one is Devin, the other is Erlein. You’ve grown monstrous fat in a year.’

‘And why should I not grow fat?’ the other roared in delight. ‘And how
dare
you doubt that I would come! Have I ever not kept faith with you?’ The tone was boisterous in the extreme, but Devin saw that the small eyes were alert and very watchful.

‘Not ever,’ Alessan agreed calmly. His own febrile manner had gone, to be replaced by an almost preternatural calm. ‘But things have changed since two years ago. You don’t need me any more. Not since last summer.’

‘Not need you!’ the big man cried. ‘Pigeon,
of course
I need you. You are my youth, my memory of what I was.
And
my talisman of fortune in battle.’

‘No more battles though,’ said Alessan quietly. ‘Will you allow me to offer my humblest congratulations?’

‘No!’ the other growled. ‘No I will not allow you. No such mewling courtly claptrap from you. What I want is for you to come here and hug me and stop this imbecilic maundering! Who are we to be chittering like this? The two of us!’

And with the last words he propelled himself upright
with a ferocious push of his two muscled arms. The huge oak chair rocked backwards. Three of the liveried guards sprang to balance it.

The big man took two awkward, crippled, hopping steps forward as Alessan strode to meet him. And in that moment Devin abruptly realized—a bucket of ice down the length of his spine—who this scarred, maimed man had to be.

‘Bear!’ said Alessan, laughter catching in his throat. He threw his arms fiercely about the other man. ‘Oh, Marius, I truly didn’t know if you would come.’

Marius.

Stupefied by more than altitude and a sleepless night, Devin saw the self-crowned King of Quileia—the crippled man who’d killed seven armed challengers bare-handed in the sacred Grove—lift the Prince of Tigana clean off his feet and kiss him loudly on both cheeks. He lowered a red-faced Alessan to the path and held him at arms’ length for a close scrutiny.

‘It is true,’ he said at length as Alessan’s grin faded. ‘I can see it. You really did doubt me. I should be outraged, Pigeon. I should be wounded and hurt. What did Pigeon Two say?’

‘Baerd was sure you would be here,’ Alessan admitted ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I owe him money.’

‘At least one of you has grown up enough to have some sense,’ Marius growled. Then something seemed to register with him. ‘What? You two young scamps were
wagering
on me? How dare you!’ He was laughing, but the blow he suddenly clapped on Alessan’s shoulder made the other man stagger.

Marius hobbled back to his chair and sat down. Again Devin was struck by the all-embracing nature of the glance he turned on them. Only for an instant did it flit over Devin himself, but he had the uncanny sense that Marius had, in that one second, sized him up quite comprehensively, that he
would be recognized and remembered should they meet by chance even a decade hence.

He experienced a weird, fleeting moment of pity for the seven warriors who had had to battle this man, bringing merely swords or spears, and armour and two good legs to meet him in a night grove.

Those arms like tree-trunks and the message in those eyes told Devin all he needed to know about which way the balance would have tilted in those battles despite the ritual maiming—the severed ankle tendons—of the consort who was supposed to die in the Grove, to the greater glory of the Mother Goddess and her High Priestess.

Marius had not died. For anyone’s greater glory. Seven times he had not died. And now, since that seventh time, there was a true King in Quileia again and the last High Priestess was dead. It had been Rovigo, Devin remembered suddenly, who had first given him that news. In a rancid tavern called The Bird, either half a year or half a lifetime ago.

‘You must have been slipping or lazy or already fat last summer in the Grove,’ Alessan was saying. He gestured towards the scar on Marius’s forehead. ‘Tonalius should never have been able to get that close to you with a blade.’

The smile on the face of the King of Quileia was not, in truth, a pleasant thing to see. ‘He didn’t,’ Marius said grimly. ‘I used our kick-drop from the twenty-seven tree and he was dead before we both hit the ground. The scar is a farewell token from my late wife in our last encounter. May the sacred Mother of us all guard her ever-blessed spirit. Will you take wine and a midday meal?’

Alessan’s grey eyes blinked. ‘We would be pleased to,’ he said.

‘Good,’ said Marius. He gestured to his guards. ‘In that case, while my men attend to laying things out for us you can tell me, Pigeon, and I hope you
will
tell me, why
you hesitated just now before accepting that invitation.’

It was Devin’s turn to blink; he hadn’t even registered the pause. Alessan was smiling though. ‘I wish,’ he said, with a wry twist of his mouth, ‘that you would miss something once in a while.’

Marius smiled thinly, but did not speak.

‘I have a long ride ahead of me. At least three days, flat out. Someone I must get to, as soon as I can.’

‘More important than me, Pigeon? I am desolated.’

Alessan shook his head. ‘Not more important, or I wouldn’t be here now. More compelling perhaps. There was a message from Danoleon waiting for me at Borso last night. My mother is dying.’

Marius’s expression changed swiftly. ‘I am deeply sorry,’ he said. ‘Alessan, truly I am.’ He paused. ‘It could not have been easy for you to come here first, knowing that.’

Alessan gave his small characteristic shrug. His eyes moved away from Marius, gazing past him up the pass towards the high peaks beyond. The soldiers had finished spreading a quite extravagant golden cloth over the level ground in front of the chair. Now they began laying out multicoloured cushions upon it and putting down baskets and dishes of food.

‘We will break bread together,’ Marius said crisply, ‘and discuss what we are here to discuss—then you must go. You trust this message? Is there danger for you in returning?’

Devin hadn’t even thought about that.

‘I suppose there is,’ Alessan said indifferently. ‘But yes, I trust Danoleon. Of course I do. He took me to you in the first place.’

‘I am aware of that,’ Marius said mildly. ‘I remember him. I also know that unless things have greatly changed he is not the only priest in that Sanctuary of Eanna, and your clergy in the Palm have not been noted for their reliability.’

Alessan gave his shrug again. ‘What can I do? My mother is dying. I’ve not seen her in almost two decades, Bear.’ His mouth crooked. ‘I don’t think I am likely to be recognized by many people, even without Baerd’s disguises. Would you not say I have changed somewhat since I was fourteen?’ There was a slight challenge in the words.

‘Somewhat,’ Marius said quietly. ‘Not so much as one might think. You were a grown man even then, in many ways. So was Baerd when he came to join you.’

Again Alessan’s eyes seemed to drift away up the line of the pass, as if chasing a memory or a far-off image to the south. Devin had an acute sense that there was much more being said here than he was hearing.

‘Come,’ Marius said, levering his hands on the chair arms. ‘Will you join me on our carpet in the meadow?’

‘Stay in the chair!’ Alessan rapped sharply. His expression remained incongruously benign and untroubled. ‘How many men came here with you, Bear?’

Marius had not moved. ‘A company to the foothills. These six through the pass. Why?’

Moving easily, smiling carelessly, Alessan sat down on the cloth at the King’s feet. ‘Hardly wise, to bring so few up here.’

‘There is little enough danger. My enemies are too superstitious to venture into the mountains. You know that, Pigeon. The passes were named as taboo long ago when they shut down trade with the Palm.’

‘In that case,’ Alessan said, still smiling, ‘I am at a loss to explain the bowman I just saw behind a rock up the trail.’

‘You are certain?’ Marius’s voice was as casual as Alessan’s, but there was suddenly ice in his eyes.

‘Twice now.’

‘I am deeply distressed,’ said the King of Quileia. ‘Such a person is unlikely to be here for any reason other than to kill
me. And if they are breaking the mountain taboo I am going to be forced to rethink a number of assumptions. Will you take some wine?’ He gestured, and one of the men in burgundy poured with a hand that trembled slightly.

‘Thank you,’ Alessan murmured. ‘Erlein, can you do anything here without it being known?’

The wizard’s face went pale, but he too kept his voice level. ‘Not any sort of attack. It would take too much power, and there is nothing here to screen it from any Tracker in the highlands.’

‘A shield for the King?’

Erlein hesitated.

‘My friend,’ Alessan said gravely, ‘I need you and I am going to continue to need you. I know there is danger in using your magic—for all of us. I must have honest answers though, to make intelligent decisions. Pour him some wine,’ he said to the Quileian soldier.

Erlein accepted a glass and drank. ‘I can do a low-level screen behind him against arrows.’ He stopped. ‘Do you want it? There is some risk.’

‘I think I do,’ Alessan said. ‘Put up the shield as unobtrusively as you can.’

Erlein’s mouth tightened but he said nothing. His left hand moved very slightly from side to side. Devin could see the two missing fingers now, but nothing else happened, so far as he could tell.

‘It is done,’ Erlein said grimly. ‘The risk will increase the longer I hold it up.’ He drank again from his wine.

Alessan nodded, accepting a wedge of bread and a plateful of meat and cheese from one of the Quileians. ‘Devin?’

Devin had been waiting. ‘I see the rock,’ he said quietly. ‘Up the path. On the right side. Arrow range. Send me home.’