Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown (109 page)

Her smile was soft and bitter, but he did not see it; he had
already returned to his Tyran.

She was quiet as she watched his retreat. Thinking that he was
a dangerous man, because he spoke the truth when he spoke, and because
his affections and his loyalties were a part of that truth. And they
were rare enough that it was easy—even for a woman of her experience—to
forget that they were only a part.

Eduardo di'Garrardi killed two men before the sun's height
brought the testing to a temporary end. They were not the first men he
had killed, nor the first killed in combat, but even Diora was
surprised at the ease with which they were dismissed. Here, with
clansmen as witness, there were honors to be paid, forms to observe.
The Tyr'agnate made a great show of neither; he was conspicuous in his
arrogance. The men that he faced were enemies, not rivals; when
vanquished, they lay like any enemy beneath the sun's hot face: devoid
of life or purpose.

Each time he won a combat—whether it ended in death or no—he
turned not to the Lord but to the Lord's Consort; each time he so
turned, she tilted her head farther into the folds of the fan that had
been the Serra Teresa's gift.

The Radann kai el'Sol was furious, but hid it as well as any
born Lambertan might. When he sought her gaze at all, she smiled, but
her smile was both tentative and easily missed. It was also rarely
offered.

The General Alesso di'Marente chose to grace them with his
presence just before the morning's testing was called to an end, and he
had the privilege of watching Eduardo di'Garrardi's last battle. He
said nothing as he watched the rise and fall of sword, but it was a
graceless combat, so close to sun's height.

"Kai el'Sol."

"General. We missed your presence at the opening ceremony."

If there was criticism in the tone—and there was—the General
chose to ignore it. He stood, hands clasped loosely behind his back,
and watched the battle intently, eyes narrowed against the flash of sun
off blade, the consequence of a sky bereft of cloud and storm.

The Lord renders one judgment.

"This is the last?"

"It is."

"And the result?"

"Five men, General. Five men will advance."

The General frowned. "Not six."

"The Tyr'agnate's second contest with the man who would have
otherwise held the sixth place ended in his death."

"I see. And the Tyr'agnate?"

"The judgment is not mine to make."

"Kai el'Sol," was the almost amused reply, "is he among the
six?"

"Yes."

"Impressive."

Grudging even this agreement, the kai el'Sol was silent for a
moment. The moment ended as Eduardo di'Garrardi's opponent drove his
blade point first into the sheath of the plateau itself: surrender. It
was a near thing, but this closely watched, Eduardo had no choice; he
held his hand. The man's kin came to him, quickly, as if that moment of
control were a passing cloud in a brisk wind. They gathered and they
retreated, giving the defeated combatant the opportunity to display
both dignity and strength—such as it was—by walking off the field. But
they did not sheathe the weapons they had drawn, and no witness could
think it coincidence that the honor guard they formed was heaviest at
the rear.

Alesso laughed. "I see that Garrardi has indeed distinguished
himself."

The day waned slowly; the Lord's face was harsh and complete
in its dominion of the sky. Food had been brought to the Serra, and
water, but she touched neither. Alaya's seraf hands held a fan that
caught air and used it; the hint of cool breeze wafted across
downturned cheek, an echo of the rainy season.

Brave girl, to try to mime the winds.

Fire could be contained, but air, never. Hold out your hands,
and it passed through your fingers more quickly than water. It lifted
the veil of sand, casting it into unwary eyes, and at the peak of the
storm, that sand buried those who had not managed to find shelter from
the wind's full fury.

The Tor Leonne was far enough from the desert winds that it
was not troubled by them, yet close enough that the wind's whisper
still held menace and warning.

She heard its whisper.

And contained within it, words.

"Diora."

"Ona Teresa."

"Have you spoken with the kai el'Sol?"

She raised the lashes of her perfect eyes and gazed a moment
upon the broad back of the man who had kept his word. He protected her
from the curiosity of the clansmen, and from those who might—just
might—seek a chance to gloat at the fate of the Serra who had, a year
past, been the most envied young woman in the Dominion. She thought he
might leave an honor guard during those times that Festival duties
demanded his attention, but not even Marakas par el'Sol had been
allowed to stand alone with the Radann the kai el'Sol had chosen; what
she endured, he endured, and for the same length of time.

Once, she might have thought him brave and honorable.

Then, as she grew wiser and more learned, a fool.

And now?

"No."

"The time is now, Diora. If you do not do this thing, you
will—"

"I know what I must do."

And now she would consider him a doomed man. She hoarded her
voice and her voice's strength. Because tonight she intended to speak
in private with the Radann kai el'Sol. To offer him not the soothing
tones of the Flower of the Dominion, but the command—the implacable
command—of the oathsworn wife.

Silence then. Ona Teresa's blessed and cursed voice became
wind, hot and languid in its silence. But the silence was a lull, a
trick of timing.

"You need the Sun Sword."

I 
know
.

And the man who dared to bring the Sun Sword into the open at
the height of this particular Festival was a doomed man, for the
General could not overlook the insult and the implication of the
weapon's presence.

He is dead, no matter what happens. This way, his
death serves a purpose.

She tried, as Alaya bent just a little too close and caught
the edge of her chin with the soft, thick leaves of the fan, to believe
it. And because she was born of Sendari di'Marano and his long dead
wife, because she was trained and taught by the Serra Teresa di'Marano,
she could.

But another truth came to her as she sat, waiting for sunfall,
counting the truths she did know: that men of power should never be
trusted. The obvious reasons had been
given her: that they were not trustworthy, that they valued nothing
above their survival and their supremacy, that they made, of those
Serras foolish enough to dally, pawns—or serafs.

She had found one more: that they
could
be trustworthy. That they could value honor and prize something greater
and deeper than their power over the realm they had chosen for their
dominion. And that they, not the Serra, might become the pawn that was
sacrificed in the hunt for a larger piece.

She had not thought to like the Radann kai el'Sol, but she
did, and it was a terrible thing.

Later, she would remember that the Festival of the Sun was
marked not by light, but the shadows the sun cast; those shadows fell
long, and when the season passed, they remained, scars against the
hidden heart, evidence of a wound that had only just missed its mark.
Only just failed to grant its peace.

But she thought that those shadows were night, and she thought
that night, even as brief a night as the Lord granted at his Festival,
was the Lady's dominion. So much of the world slept, and the parts of
it that woke— serafs and cerdan, crickets and night blossoms—were, as
she was, a part of the invisible world, the world in which power was
measured in little things because it could never be measured in
greatness.

She could not say that she had never wondered what it would
have been like to be born a man, a clansman's son. But at thirteen she
had lost the illusion that that would grant freedom, for she had seen
many men trapped by bonds as strong as hers, into different services,
whether they wielded sword and rode stallion or swept the open
courtyards after the clansmen and their Serras had passed.

Freedom.

She turned the word around in the silence of closed lips; it
was a Northern word. It had no roots in the Tyrian tongue, although it
had been adopted in some fashion, and used. The closest analogy that
the Tyrian tongue could offer to the Weston language was
Tyr'agar
.
First ruler.

What, in the end, was freedom?

Serra Diora took a deep breath and then, very quietly, she
touched the door of the swordhaven and pushed it. It was ajar, and it
swung toward the interior on a newly oiled hinge. Within there were
lamps, light, and a window into the nightworld by which the Sword might
be seen if the Lady chose to look.

"Radann kai el'Sol?"

"Serra Diora." The Radann kai el'Sol stood at the foot of the
stairs. To his left and his right were two men; they wore hoods, but by
their sunbursts, she knew them to be par el'Sol. "Close the door behind
you, make the offering, and join us."

She bowed in respect and accepted his command as if obedience
was reflex. It was. Incense touched her fingers, leaving a hint of
fragrance that fire would make less cloying. Then, rising, she made her
way to the steps.

The Radann kai el'Sol bowed, which surprised her. "Tomorrow,"
he said softly, "is the Festival's Height."

"Yes." She met his eyes squarely, because she knew, at that
moment, that he expected no less. She had no seraf and no cerdan; he
had no attendants but these two. There were none to witness either her
boldness or his deference. "Forgive me, Radann kai el'Sol."
Speak
truth where truth will do
. "Forgive me, but I did not choose
this site because I desired privacy."

He waited, grave, a stillness about him that was more
substantial, suddenly, than the robes or the rank that made them so
desirable.

To his right, Radann Samadar par el'Sol lowered his hood. To
his left, Radann Peder par el'Sol.

The hood fell away from the latter's face as the night lost
its aura of safety; she remembered, meeting his eyes, that safety was
illusion, that only the desire for safety was real. That lesson, she'd
learned the night the clan Leonne perished, but it was a lesson that
she forgot, time and again; a lesson that, like real pain, and not the
memory of pain, could only truly be felt when one walked its terrain
again. The desire for safety was that strong.

And the desire for love, and neither could ever be guaranteed.

The dagger was in her hand; she had taken it with the ease and
immediacy that she had once—and never would again—grasped her father's
hand.

"Serra Diora," the kai el'Sol said, his voice low and gentle.

She did not shift in either gaze or stance, and they did not
approach her, for the use of daggers was an art in which the women of
the clans often excelled. "Kai el'Sol. I am… surprised at your choice
of companion."

The Radann Peder par el'Sol grimaced. "Of course. You
are
the Widan's daughter, and the Widan serves the General."

"Of course." Her lips were set in a thin line. "This man," she
told the kai el'Sol, "intends to preside over the Radann after your
death." She looked for some sign of surprise in the kai's features;
there was none. Instead, and far worse, was the hint of a bitter
resignation, a turning of the corner of lips, a momentary drop of
shoulder and brow.

"Yes, Serra, I know. You are… observant. And I should have
expected no less; you were wife to the kai Leonne." He turned away from
her—and from his companions, neither of whom spoke, and made his way to
the steps that lay before the Sun Sword. "Join me, Serra."

She had to walk between the Radann to reach him, but she did
not hesitate. Nor did she sheathe her dagger.

The steps, wide and flat, she mounted with ease, pulling up
the hem of her sari with a twist of her left hand. He waited for her,
and as she joined him, he knelt before the weapon crafted by the Lord.
She thought he was praying, and perhaps he was, for very little else
could bring a Radann to his knees.

But he said, "Serra Diora, is this the favor that you have
come to ask?"

And she looked at the gleaming flat of the blade beneath the
torches that marked and honored it with an echo of the Lord's light.
"Yes." She hesitated for a moment longer and then sheathed the dagger
in the folds of her sari. "Kai el'Sol—the Radann—"

"Serves the interests of the General. Yes, I know."

"But you—"

"He told me, Serra."

She was silent as she absorbed this. "He spied for you?"

"No. He intended to take the Radann."

Silence. Then she raised her face, slowly, to the night sky.
"The Lord of Night."

"Yes. Peder is a man of great ambition, but he
is
Radann. To offer his support for my death and the title of kai," the
kai el'Sol shrugged. "But to offer his support for a return of the Lord
of Night?" He bowed his head. "I am not the man for this game, Serra
Diora. I am the Lord's servant, but the game that is played here is a
game for men who understand treachery better than I."

She turned then, and saw that the face of the Radann Peder par
el'Sol was turned up, toward the Sword, or the kai. Or both.

"And if I were the man for this game, I think it would matter
little," the kai continued. "But I will serve the Lord, and the Lord's
work, as I can." He rose. "The Sun Sword is always displayed at
Festival's Height. It has always been drawn and wielded by the
Tyr'agar. I would be honored to bring it, as has been my duty for my
tenure as the kai el'Sol, to the celebration of Festival's Height."

She knew what it would cost, and she had thought to use her
gift to influence a man of pride and honor to do exactly as he pledged
to do. But she had thought to use him while he remained ignorant, and
she was ashamed of the thought, and for it, for she saw clearly that he
knew what the cost of his action would be.