Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown (111 page)

It was, of course, the Radann Fredero el'Sol. "This must be
important. I've known you all my life, and you've never once called me
by my adult name."

"I will never ask you for anything else again."

"Don't say that."

But he hadn't. Asked for anything, and certainly not anything
as important.

He made his dress, scrimping and saving where he could without
injuring the whole—this perfect, singular garment, this creation for
the Lord's glory. And just under one year later, fingers near bleeding
and eyes reddened by sleep's lack, he presented the garment to the
Radann Fredero el'Sol, who in turn presented it to the Lord's Consort.

And the Lord's Consort wore the dress in marvel, in wonder,
and in perfect glory, when she was presented to the clansmen. And to
the first among clansmen: the Tyr'agar Markaso kai di'Leonne.

The Radann had never seen such an expression cross the
Tyr'agar's face. But the Serra who had been chosen Consort was his
eldest daughter, and she looked—she looked a thing beyond man, the very
Consort made flesh for the Lord's Festival. He had—he, a
clansman—reached out to touch the fabric of her skirt, where no other
man would have dared, to sully it by giving it the
feel
of reality. But the wonder remained, and the smile that crept up the
left corner of his mouth—for that was where his smile always
started—was both reward for Jevri, and reward for his master.

Jevri made every dress for every Festival from that day on.
And with each Festival, he outdid himself in the name of, and service
of, the Radann Fredero el'Sol. The Radann Fredero par el'Sol. And the
Radann Fredero
kai
el'Sol.

"Jevri?"

But he had never, before this day, given more than a cursory
nod to the garments of the Radann.

"Jevri?"

He swore softly, swore to the seraf's god, swore at the
seraf's god. His fingers
were
bleeding in the
uneven light.

"Jevri, get help."

"No."

"Why? You've had help before." Fredero craned his neck to the
side and down, attempting to catch a glimpse of his shadowed servant.
"It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be finished."

Jevri started to argue and then looked at the flickering lamp;
the oil was low. Had he truly been so long at so little? He stared down
at his hands, shadows welled in the curves time had worn there
revealing more than they concealed: He was not a young man, nor even
one in the midst of life.

Age settled around his shoulders with a grip that could not be
shaken. Nor would be.

"Yes," he told the kai el'Sol, urging his hands on but
watching the progress of bent fingers as if they belonged to someone
else.

"Good. I'll—"

"It has to be finished. By me."

"Jevri—"

Jevri had never been good with words, although he knew how to
listen to nuance. He knew that among the women and the wives there were
things that could be asked, and things that must never be questioned.
As a seraf in service to the Serra Carlatta, he had had less chance to
observe the way the men spoke, but he knew, nonetheless, that there
were things that could never be said, fears that had no natural
expression.

Not to a man of the clans.

Not to Fredero par di'Lamberto.

"Fredero. Please."

Silence, always this pause, this uneasiness. Anger would have
been a welcome visitor, but between them there was none; not this eve.
Nor was there fear, although fear sheltered in different places behind
each man's words. There was resignation, a search for, and abandoning
of, a dozen different phrases.

"What will you do?" The kai el'Sol said awkwardly.

"I? I will not serve the Radann par el'Sol, no matter what
mantle he wears."

"Jevri—"

"I am not a seraf," the older man replied serenely. "And the
choice will, this time, be fully my own."

"I see." Silence. "But have you—"

"Kai el'Sol, I will not speak of it. I will not think of it
until it is time. You can worry if you like," he added tartly.

"Why thank you."

There was much that was familiar in the passage of time; the
slow change in the tinge of the sky's hue; the lowering of the oil that
somehow held the Lord's fire in the darkness of night, although it was
liquid; the lengthening of shadows and the flickering of vision that
accompanied sleep's lack.

But although he had often labored well into the Lady's hours,
Jevri el'Sol, born kep'Lamberto, found no comfort in the task, for it
was the first, and it was the last, and he knew that when the rays of
Sun touched the farthest walls, the robes would not be all that he had
hoped for.

He prayed to the Lady for strength and time.

But it was the Lord who answered, pushing the curtain of night
away as was his right on this, the longest day of the year.

Eduardo kai di'Garrardi stood on the plateau. His cerdan had
left and the man who would meet him in combat had not yet entered the
field; he stood alone. The sun was high; the shadow he cast was shorter
and squatter than he.

Sword's Blood had been retired from the field, and not
unharmed, but the gashes across flank and foreleg were not deep, and in
the gaining of those scars he had more than proved his worth to the
clansmen who watched the penultimate battle. Let them talk in their
scornful way about the small village that had been the stallion's
price; he knew, from this day on, that they would remember the
stallion's name when the village was scattered by raiders or worse.

And they would remember his rider.

What Tyr had entered the field of the Lord's Chosen while they
held their title? What Tyr had dared to take the political risk,
choosing instead to send their par—or, if brave, their kai—to the fight
by which a true clansman made himself known?

He had been cautioned against it, but quietly, although he was
not a man known for accepting the caution of the timid. But there was
more to be won than a combat or two. More than the regard of the
nameless clans who gathered in the heat of the high sun on this one day
that combat, no matter how terrible the Lord's heat, could not be
halted.

He turned his face into the breeze and saw the Flower of the
Dominion as she blossomed beneath the blue of the open sky, and he
offered her a bow and a wordless promise.

Fredero kai el'Sol was nowhere in sight; she would have seen
him, no matter where he stood, for the Serra Diora di'Marano knew how
to look. If a fan's folds could
protect her from the Lord's gaze, might it not protect her from the
gaze of the merely mortal?

She wore gold as if gold were light, as if light were a thing
of weight and solidity. Gold hung in strands that were old when her
clan was founded, crossing and touching and twining in a heavy spill
down pale silk. Gold bound her wrists, catching light and making of it
a liquid thing, a warmth that was unmarred by Northern stones; gold
sent the light scattering at every movement of every finger.

And upon her finger, like a binding, nestled among the
heirlooms in the keeping of the Lord's Radann, three rings, three plain
and unadorned rings, as new in their manufacture as the borrowed rings
of the Lord's Consort were ancient.

The kai el'Sol had paused a moment when he offered her the
rings of the High Festival, for her hands were already adorned. But he
had no arguments to offer, and she no defense; it was as if the evening
past had robbed them of the ability to speak in any way that was both
meaningful and elegant. All that remained was the awkward hesitation of
a man and a woman who do not know each other well enough to speak
freely, but who know each other too well to be served by the musical
syllables of social veneer.

She wondered, idly, if the Serra Teresa had noticed. Wondered,
less idly, why it was that the Radann who stood guard were Samadar par
el'Sol and Peder par el'Sol. Marakas was, like his kai, nowhere in
evidence.

Perhaps, just perhaps, the strangest of the Radann intended to
somehow save the life of the kai el'Sol. He was a healer born; it was
his gift and curse. Just as the voice was hers. Perhaps, hidden, he
thought to wait out the wrath of the General and catch the former
Lambertan clansman by the thread of his life.

It was, she thought, very like Marakas.

He did not tend to the fallen on the Lord's field.

Upon that field, no healers were allowed.

The clansmen wanted a death.

Their desire was contained by the muted silence of their
breaths and the slight rise of their shoulders, but it found voice in
hands that strayed to—and remained upon—the hilts of sheathed swords.
Shoulder to shoulder, men sat in their clans' groupings, their banners
a wall or a circle around the plateau. If wine or song or the charms of
the serafs the clansmen made available had kept the men away for the
first two days of the Challenge, none missed the third—for on the third
day matters of honor called them, or matters of money, or both. On this
day, the title was decided.

The birds in the sky above, circling with black wings spread
the height of a man from wingtip to wingtip, caught the wind and made
of it a stable platform; they floated, leisurely in their observance of
the men below.

And perhaps, just perhaps, one could see such birds and find
them beautiful; one could see their flight and their fall without
expecting a death must presage it. Perhaps one could see the clansmen
watching and find them handsome and honor-bound; could see in the
slight flare of nostrils, in the narrowing of eyes and the intensity of
attention, no hint of blood-scent, no desire for the spoils of the kill.

Diora could not remember a day when she did not know what
vultures did, and the knowledge robbed their flight of beauty in her
eyes, although if she studied them carefully, and took care to ignore
the revulsion that carrion eaters brought by their very nature, she
could see both power and grace in their lazy flight.

In the men, she saw death, but although she could remember no
innocence when it came to the flight of vultures, she could remember a
time—one so removed it came back to her unexpectedly and awkwardly,
very much the reminder of all the things she was not—when she had seen
things bright and shiny and expected that there was mercy beneath the
patina of power that wielded sword and armor.

That wielded fire and the knowledge of fire.

She turned slightly, scanning the crowd that had gathered
across the ring of the plateau, looking for the Radann kai el'Sol.

She saw instead a Widan and his General, and her eyes stayed a
moment, surrounded as she was by the tension of a coming kill. In all
her hours of prayer, knees bent, eyes upon the face of the moon in the
rippling waters of the Tor Leonne, no answer came to her for the one
question she asked, time and again—the one thing that she could not
explain: Why had she been allowed to live? She was not a selfless
woman, but had she a choice of lives to preserve, there was one—one
single life—that she would have placed above her own. No choice was
offered, and she, ringbound, oathbound, sheltering grief and rage
behind her perfectly schooled face, was left without choice. But the
why
haunted her almost as strongly as the ghosts.