Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (14 page)

For a moment the memories of the younger woman overlapped and overwhelmed his memories of the older one; he was not certain whether time's changes had ever taken root, grown deep. The older woman, he loved. The younger woman he had loved as well, but he'd been forced into an intimate understanding of the price of any weakness she could sense.

"He's no younger than you were when you killed your first man."

She was rigid for a minute. Duarte took a half step toward her.

"Alexis—"

She lifted a hand, turning away from him. Duarte could see the side of her face, and for a moment, that was all he wanted to see; she was like stone, and would remain so, unless he caught sight of her eyes. She shrugged. "Yeah. That's me. Born killer. No, don't bother," she snapped, as he took another step. "You're right. Why should I give a shit? No one watched out for
me
."

She turned and walked away, her heels tapping out a precise retreat.

Duarte watched her leave. She had set the rules of the encounter; always a mistake, to allow her that much freedom. To allow himself that much. Because every loss, with Alexis, was costly. And every victory as well. He knew that when he was a younger man, he might
just
have been stupid enough to mistake her agreement for some kind of victory, and for a moment, he missed the naivete of that younger self.

* * *

The boy was allowed to watch.

There was a risk in it, and that risk, enumerated for both his benefit and the benefit of the students who—under the heat of the sun and the salty humidity of the sea-laden air—attempted to gain, if not the skills Ser Anton possessed, than at least some sign of his approval, had been accepted for what it was: truth.

But the boy, in Ser Anton's opinion, had proved himself worthy of being allowed to make his own choice—although he knew that the choice was really no choice at all, merely permission—by saving the life of the Tyr'agar.

And so, Aidan, born the son of a wheelwright, watched the play of light and steel he best loved: swords beneath an open sky. It was just such a sound that had drawn him, like the siren call of sea creatures in a sailor's dark stories, to the side of the older man; it was just such a desire to bear witness that had almost cost him his life.

So much for learning by experience.

The Ospreys had become used to him; he had grown used to them. In many ways, he and they had more in common than the men they now watched, and the man they now served. Aidan was more careful with his words than they were, but it was almost entirely due to size; he'd learned the hard way that being too bold with words ended—if he was very lucky—in bruises.

As always, Ser Anton di'Guivera remained a quiet man. It was as if he went out of his way to avoid any word that might flatter, any gesture beyond the occasional nod that might give a student a dangerous confidence.

The first time that Aidan had seen him, he had had twelve students; he now had two. He had excused himself from the duties he held to the men who had traveled North for the Kings' Challenge. Aidan wondered, briefly, how the Southern students must have felt. He knew he would have been crushed.

And yet… having seen the two students that remained, he wasn't certain that some part of him wouldn't have been relieved as well.

Because Valedan kai di'Leonne and Andaro di'Corsarro were
so
much better than any of the rest of them. Only Carlo had been close, and Aidan learned quickly that you didn't mention Carlo di'Jevre's name anywhere where Andaro or Ser Anton could hear it. Andaro would go cold as deep seawater, and Ser Anton would stiffen; they would stand there,
not
looking at each other, until Valedan stepped in, leading them either back to the drill, or away from it entirely.

Valedan was always present when Andaro and Ser Anton were together. He often stood between them, if they were forced to stand together, although no harsh word was ever exchanged between the men as far as Aidan could tell.

He wasn't used to silence as a container for anger; certainly his father's silences were reserved for other emotions: loss, joy, terror. Anger was quickly and easily wrapped in words and thrown at the nearest person—although the anger was greatly lessened as his father found work that demanded care and sobriety.

But although he had come late to silence, he had grown to understand some of its textures; Ser Anton was patient in all things, and if he chose to explain little, he was willing to allow Aidan to absorb knowledge, whole, from experience. Many young boys of Aidan's acquaintance would have cheerfully killed to be where he was.

But that
, Ser Anton said, the words now engraved as if' by a jeweler's pick in the gold, false and real, of memory,
is not the question. The question is: How many would die just as easily for the same privilege
?

All of them, Aidan had said.

Ser Anton's smile was quiet, a quiet that meant thought, memory, and the disturbing collision between them.
Perhaps
, he said at last.
And perhaps that was a foolish question, given how very many of them might die anyway
. He had risen to join Andaro and Valedan.

And Aidan, the quiet student, understood that he had seen one of Ser Anton's very few retreats.

"What will you do, Tyr'agar?"

Valedan stiffened slightly. To come from the breadth of a circle in which Ser Anton was undisputed master, and he student, and oft-bruised student at that, to this courtyard in the Arannan Halls, in which a fountain stood in solemn expectation, was often a difficult transition.

He wanted advice. He wanted, in truth, the same near wordless but effective counsel that Ser Anton granted him when he held a naked sword beneath the Lord's gaze. Things were clean, there; stark and easily realized.

Outside of the circle, he was, again, the uncrowned Tyr; the man who had claimed a throne and a sword that he had seen only a handful of times in his life—all of them before he had reached his eighth year; a sword he had never held. A man who intended to lead a Northern army into lands in which the North was hated and despised, and to somehow shed little blood and come out, as the Ospreys said, on top.

He had no idea how to achieve this.

And to be asked was… awkward.

The water trickled in the wordless pause between question and answer. Valedan, as Tyr, was not obligated
to
answer, but here Ser Anton's position held sway. Ser Anton had fallen into a dangerous shadow, and having survived it, having learned from it all that he needed to know about his basest of impulses, had stepped into the light again a changed man; a man Valedan had accepted, without question, as swordmaster.

To the swordmaster to the man who wielded—or would—the Sun Sword by right of birth was an honor, an honorable position.

Made so, in fact if not by custom, by Ser Anton di'Guivera.

"I don't know," Valedan said at last, when the silence dwarfed the words.

"What have I taught you, Tyr'agar?"

The young Tyr's hand fell to the hilt of his sword and rested there, as if he derived strength and comfort from the connection with his weapon. He didn't, not now, but it was an important posture.

"That it is better to make the wrong choice and deal with the consequences than to make no choice."

Ser Anton's nod was almost genial.

"Every action, every decision, every movement that takes me closer to the South, involves
wrong
choices. I was hoping that, with the passage of time and the… education… that I've received from both yourself and indirectly, the ACormaris, a right choice would present itself."

Ser Anton said nothing, but he was still. The water spoke for both of them until Valedan at last turned to fully face this man, his master and his most famous vassal.

"There are no right choices."

Ser Anton's smile was slight, but it was present. "You are learning, Valedan. And you are correct." He bowed, slightly, toward the kai Leonne. But beyond the man who had undertaken the rule of the Dominion, the statue that bore such a difficult name also received the meager depth of his bow: Southern Justice. That statue, of a young seraf, blindfolded and in chains, was accusation and truth, neither of which was easily accessible to men born and bred in the North.

"There is no right choice. Make one of the wrong choices instead, and make it decisively. Against Alesso di'Marente, in the end, you must be decisive."

"I will have the Commanders."

"Yes."

"They have bested the General in battle before."

"Ah." Ser Anton slid his hands behind his back; a bad sign. Then he turned to face Valedan, his dark eyes somehow darker, although the alcove contained little shadow at the height of day unless one deliberately sought the shade. "Let me make this perfectly clear: They bested the General in battle because he was hampered by the dictates of a weak and foolish Tyr. Commander Allen was only slightly compromised by the orders of his Kings; the field was his to lose, and he is not a man who is accustomed to giving away
any
advantage. He will not have the luxury of a weak Tyr when he meets Alesso di'Marente again: Alesso takes his orders from no man save himself."

"But—but—"

"Yes?"

"Is he not beholden to the allies he has made?" Neither man spoke of the
Kialli
by name; it was unnecessary, even if their silence seemed a tacit acceptance of the suspicion that names, once acknowledged, give power.

Ser Anton's smile was brief, fierce; it was the smile of a man who appreciates a work for its superb artistry even when the subject matter might otherwise weaken him. "Trust me in this, if in nothing else. Understand what I say now, kai Leonne, and you will understand the man far better than the allies that we shun mention of.
This
, this is the test of a man; this is the test that Alesso di'Marente was born to pass or to fail. When the General takes to the field of battle, he will be beholden to no one."

"You think—you think he might win this?"

"You ask me what I think? Let me answer, but let me also remind you that you must never ask me this question where anyone other than Ser Andaro can hear it. I think that we must allow for that possibility, yes—but if it happens, it will not matter. The Lord will judge our corpses."

19th of Scaral, 427 AA

Avantari, Hall of Wise Counsel

"No."

The word, said as it was in a unison that was almost unheard of, echoed in the curves of stone architecture that had stood for longer than the men and the woman beneath it had lived. Cumulatively.

The Berriliya did not flinch, or waver, or in fact deign to notice the odd harmony the single word produced. His profile, hawkish, did not change at all; he might have been chiseled from the same stone that had trapped the single word. Or from ice, although ice rarely formed this far from the North.

The Kalakar's pale brow rose, however, and she turned, her gaze glancing off the face of the man who was both Commander and House ruler like an ineffectual blow. She was, in every possible way, his equal—and certain proof that equality and uniformity were two very different concepts. The Berriliya chose to encase his disapproval in Northern chill, The Kalakar, in the motion of fingers against the perfect sheen of well-kept tabletop.

"The boy cannot travel to Annagar with the army."

Commander Bruce Allen had wondered, briefly, if she would rescind her refusal in the wake of The Berriliya's, but it was idle curiosity of a type that is born—and dies— in the awkward silence between a single inconvenient word and any reaction to it. In truth, the man known to the vast majority of the Kings' armies as the Eagle felt a great deal of sympathy for the position The Berriliya and The Kalakar had chosen to take.

He rose, however, forsaking the comfort of chair and gaining the authority of height and motion. Neither the Hawk nor the Kestrel chose to join him in flight; they watched him, as they always had, for some sign of weakness.

"It can't have escaped your notice," he said dryly, speaking to them both but looking toward Devran, whose glacial stare was the more aggressively displayed hostility, "that the boy is the only legitimate reason we have to take the armies South."

Devran didn't shrug; Ellora did, her lips twisting a moment in a wry grimace. "Tell the Kings' spies to find a different reason, then; that's what they're paid for."

If possible, Devran's expression grew distinctly more chilly.

"But one way or the other, Bruce, we won't expose the army to the risk of taking the boy."

"The boy—"

"If
we
succeed, the boy will rule in the South. There is an advantage to having, as the Dominion's ruler, a man who has lived in a land where power, strictly speaking, is not the only law."

"Careful," Bruce said quietly. "We each have old habits, born of earlier wars, that it would be unwise to indulge. Yes. Of course there is an advantage to having Valedan kai di'Leonne as ruler."

"But the advantage," The Berriliya said coldly, "is merely a weapon, like any other; what we can use from a distance with difficulty, our enemies can use, at his side, with ease."

"They don't understand the North well enough to make use of him," Ellora snapped, more comfortable in disagreement with Devran than in agreement. They wore their rivalry with the same intimacy that most wore friendship that had been tested—successfully—in every possible circumstance.

"It is not in the North that he will rule," Devran snapped back. "But in the South, and
because
of that, he will need the advice of men who have managed to retain their hold on power."

They turned to the Eagle, because once again they had reached the heart of the argument. "Callesta," The Kalakar said, as if the word were profanity. "And Navarre."

Commander Allen nodded, the movement an almost imperceptible tilt of chin. "Understand," he said at last, "that our role here is advisory." His smile was grim and brief, but it was genuine. "And that the Kings themselves are locked at the moment in dispute over the question we address now."