Michelle West - Sun Sword 04 - Sea of Sorrows (48 page)

So the Ospreys walked to either side of Valedan.

He had intended to wear the sun ascendant into the ancestral city of the Callestan Tyrs. From the hands of the wives of the Imperial hostages, all of whom remained in the City of Averalaan except for Fillipo par di'Callesta, had come the surcoat; the banner had been a gift of the Princess of the blood. The ring, the signet, had also been a gift of the Princess.

But he treasured the long Northern bow more.

It was only the bow he wore now.

The death of the Callestan kai had destroyed the need for pomp and circumstance. A grand entrance would be almost obscenely inappropriate.

It was therefore as a subdued companion, an ally, not a liege lord, that Valedan kai di'Leonne entered the inner walls of the city of Callesta.

And the first view of Callesta struck him like a perfectly aimed blow, and it was the second thing about Averda that scarred him; the second thing that he would never forget.

Among the trees that grew in the streets of the city, across the windbreaks for the farms within the walls, across the walls themselves, and upon carts and the strawmen that were supposed to scare off birds, there were swaths of white cloth, ribbed on either side with bright, sky blue and dark, midnight blue. Upon the scarecrows, the cloth was a shroud; upon the shoulders of the men who labored, living, in the fields, it was a mantle.

And as they progressed, as they passed fields and reached gated houses, they saw those same colors, pinned to fences like a wide, wide canvas, or a tapestry that told the same story. Where there was money, silver speckled midnight-blue and gold-embroidered sky. And where there was rank, a familiar crest broke the white of the background.

The streets were not empty. The silence that reigned as they passed was the more unnatural for the people who came to stand or kneel or prostrate themselves as the Tyr rode on. The horses made more noise than anything else that moved; no one spoke. Even the Ospreys were somber, although how much of that was due to the mood of the city, and how much due to wariness of the Annagarians he could not say.

The city was in mourning.

At the gates of the palace, Ramiro stopped. He gestured, and Baredan di'Navarre rode back. "Tyr'agar," he said quietly, "the Tyr'agnate of Averda apologizes for the poor welcome you have received in his city. It is an oversight that will not be repeated." The words were slow. Quiet.

"We traveled in speed, and without ceremony, as men travel to war," Valedan replied, his voice strong enough to carry, but not strained enough to sound vulgar. "He has offered me the service of his sword, and I have accepted. There is no better welcome."

The breeze carried the murmur of words shorn of edges. Baredan nodded, the movement a very brief dip of chin. Approval.

Valedan said nothing, because nothing else was expected. What could he add to what had been said, wordless, with white and blue, silver and gold? But when Baredan di'Navarre returned to the side of the Tyr'agnate, Valedan kai di'Leonne rode with him. The captain of his personal guard said nothing; Ser Anton remained behind with the Ospreys and Aidan. Ser Andaro di'Corsarro rode with Valedan, as was his right. They rode in a grim silence. Warriors might mourn, but when they rode to war, they did not carry the colors of mourning with them. Only by silence and attention could they offer respect for the fallen—and the men of the Dominion had mastered both.

Ramiro di'Callesta watched in silence from the back of his horse.
Bloodhame
hung at his side, sheathed and unnoticed. The sword that rested in one hand, across the saddle and either of his upper thighs, was his son's.

The Tyran who flanked him on either side dismounted and ran to help with the gates. Fillipo par di'Callesta rode up until their horses were within inches of each other. He spoke; Ramiro nodded. The words did not filter back. The gates opened. The path was lined with two things: flowers that sat in the shadows of tall, cultivated trees, and men.

Of the flowers, Valedan could name few, but Alina had begun to teach him what she could in the vain hope that he would not embarrass himself in the High Court with his very Northern ignorance. It seemed odd that men who dedicated their lives to combat and killing could also dedicate so much time to the nicety of garden, of quiet music, of verse. Perhaps there was a commonality in all of these things that escaped him.

He hoped that it did not escape him for long; the flowers themselves were beautiful; they hinted at wilderness without giving way to it. He dismounted; cerdan approached his horse and led it away.

The Tyr'agnate of Averda dismounted as well, as if Valedan's action was a signal. When Ramiro's feet touched ground, Ser Baredan di'Navarre joined him, followed closely by Fillipo par di'Callesta.

When they dismounted, they turned almost as one to look to Valedan. The Tyr'agnate knelt first and bowed his head. His movements were stiff and heavy. But if grief robbed him of fluidity and grace, it did not rob him of dignity; his expression as he raised his face was remote. Serene.

"Welcome, Tyr'agar, to this unworthy city."

"Any city, Tyr'agnate, that is home to the Dominion's most feared clansmen could not be unworthy of any visitor allowed entrance through its gates, be he the Tyr'agar, the Radann kai el'Sol, or the Lord himself."

The Tyr'agnate said, "You honor us. The gardens are in disarray and no preparations have been made for the visit of such an exalted guest. Your father, I fear, would not have been so gracious a visitor."

"I am not my father," the young Tyr'agar replied firmly. "I do not visit in time of peace."

"No," Ramiro di'Callesta said gravely, rising. "But neither did your father."

"My father was a man who appreciated finery, but he was not my equal with the sword."

"No, Tyr'agar, he was not. I must attend to my wife. I do not believe that they have interred my son's remains."

Valedan nodded quietly. "Tyr'agnate."

Ramiro waited.

"I did not know your kai. But if you will it, I will honor him in my fashion."

The man who ruled the breadth of Averda nodded quietly. He turned and began to walk slowly toward the heart of the palace grounds, waiting until Valedan had drawn abreast. Then, in a much quieter voice, he said, "The dead seem to care little for the honors the living bestow upon them. But the living are moved in their fashion. The Serra Amara en'Callesta was exceedingly fond of the kai Callesta. I believe she will find comfort in your presence. Let me speak a moment with her, in the privacy of the harem."

Valedan bowed and fell back, aware of the honor that had been granted him. Few were the men who spoke openly of their wives; fewer who spoke of them to men of rank.

The palanquin, curtains drawn against the intrusion of vision, waited in near-isolation between the Ospreys and the Callestan Tyran. Valedan moved slowly, but he moved toward it.

Baredan di'Navarre stopped him quietly. "Tyr'agar," he said.

"General."

"It is best to wait. Serafs will come for her when the Tyr'agnate informs his wife that she is present."

"Does she know?" he asked the general.

"That the kai Callesta is dead? Almost certainly. How? No more than you or I."

"Does she know that Lambertan colors were found?"

"More than colors," the General said softly. "Two of the Lambertan Tyran were also there. They were not alive; the kai Callesta and his guards did not die easily."

"I am wondering what welcome there will be for her in the harem of the kai Callesta's mother."

"She will know what to do," the General replied quietly. "It is beneath your station to express open concern for a woman who is not your wife or your sister, Tyr'agar."

"And it is above your station, General, to criticize me in my chosen concerns."

Baredan di'Navarre bowed low.

"The General is right," the Serra said softly, from behind closed curtains—a reminder, and perhaps a necessary one, that all words spoken beneath an open sky were witnessed.

"Perhaps. But I have my own reasons, Serra, for what I do. Nothing is trivial now. The war starts here. With your permission?" He reached out with both hands; curved his fingers and palms around the rough, raw silk that was sturdy enough to survive a long journey, but expensive enough to suggest the wealth of the occupant's father or husband.

"Of course, Tyr'agar." Her words were very distant, very stiff.

The curtains parted. "Serra Alina di'Lamberto," he said, speaking as stiffly as she had. "Ser Carelo kai di'Callesta was ambushed within the city of Callesta. He rode with four of his father's Tyran. The exact numbers of the ambushers are not known, but two men who have been identified as Lambertan Tyran were present where the kai Callesta's body was found.

"With the permission of the Tyr'agnate—and assuming that the bodies are still present—I would like you to identify them."

Baredan di'Navarre's intake of breath was unnaturally sharp.

The Serra Alina's frown was more so, but briefer. Both passed before anyone but Valedan noticed that they existed at all. "They are said to be Tyran?"

"Indeed." Valedan knew full well that it had been a decade since she had last seen the Tyran of Lamberto—but a handful of years measured against the strength of her memory meant nothing.

"If Ramiro di'Callesta grants permission, I will do as you ask. But, Tyr'agar," she added, lowering her voice, "I will not lie."

"Not even if it serves my purpose?"

"Not even then. In something of this import… I am hampered by my heritage."

"Your heritage?"

Baredan di'Navarre's laugh was a rough, harsh bark— but it was genuine. "She speaks," he said, "of Lambertan blood." He stared openly at the woman in the palanquin as if seeing her for the first time.

And she, being Serra and in the South, failed to notice his sudden lack of manners.

The shadows across the grass were sharp and harsh as the Callestan Tyr crossed the grounds that he had, at the side of his wife, spent years designing. They moved as he moved, although they were unhindered by the simple boundaries of the elements that had suddenly become unfamiliar: the short, twisting branches of the cherry trees past their season, the deep, deep red of the dwarf maples, the tall, wide trunks of the Northern trees that his wife so loved, their long switches trailing groundward at the foot of the large pond. Lilies also floated there, but the falling leaves of the weeping willows destroyed the simple perfection of their white faces.

He saw all this as a stranger. It had become, for this solitary journey, a landscape that he had never walked before. And he walked it alone. Not even his brother had been given permission to attend him as he made this final trek across the lands that were inextricably linked with Callesta.

But his brother had been wise enough not to ask.

His Tyran were less cautious; the loss of the kai Callesta had made them foolish. It had been a long time since Ramiro di'Callesta had been forced to publicly—and curtly— correct them. If he had ever done so before.

They acknowledged the circumstance, however, with grace; they merely obeyed the harsh, sharp sting of his command as if it had been spoken in the careful, modulated tones a man of power was accustomed to—expected to— use.

He did not raise his face to sunlight; he was a man and he was wary; he chose not to expose his expression to the Lord's full scrutiny. He walked alone for a reason.

Bloodhame
was sheathed, but he carried a naked blade in his sword hand. The sword, curved and clean-edged, was heavier than any he had attempted to carry since the day he had first taken
Bloodhame
as his own.

In the South it was acknowledged that light blades were good for sport, but heavy blades were good for duty.

The sword in Ramiro di'Callesta's hand would never be drawn again by Carelo kai di'Callesta. The Tyr'agnate felt a curious detachment as the weight of steel brought his arm to its full length. Ser Carelo kai di'Callesta had been a difficult son. Rebellious. Wild. Only barely intelligent enough not to race headlong into the crudest of political traps.

Loved by his mother, he was her secret worry; the boy who might not become man enough to live up to the legacy of her husband.

His par, the second son, had been as different from the open day of Carelo as a boy might be who might one day be a man. Alfredo was dark-haired, fair-skinned—his mother's son in looks—but where Carelo was aggressive and impetuous, Alfredo was cautious, observant. He made few mistakes; but when challenged by his father, said—coolly— that he did not need to repeat his brother's errors to analyze them.

Carelo snorted. His father could hear the sound as clearly as if it had just been uttered, as if months had not come between the memory and the event.

You can analyze them to death, Alfredo
—
but you'll never
learn
anything from them
.

Oh? And if experience is the only teacher, why are there so many dead would-be swordsmen? Why does our father spend so much money on arms masters?

It's not arms masters or even experience that I speak of
, Carelo had said, leaning across the low table in a way that made his mother comment on the amount of time he spent with his cerdan.
If you want to lead men, you have to
lead.
You have to swallow the Lord's fire and let it singe you every now and then because without fire, there's no light
.

There are some fires that burn without illuminating
, Alfredo replied.
But it doesn't matter either way. I don't have

that fire. I don't want it. I don't
need
it. You will lead, Callesta will follow, and I
—
who pay attention
—
will stand behind you and guard your back against the openings you leave for your enemies
.

Serra Amara's face had creased in the way he best loved; with genuine pleasure at the cleverness of her son. The corners of her eyes were cracked by sun and wind, and the fullness of lips bracketed in the same way, but when she smiled, when her smile was for a single moment both unguarded and radiant, a window opened between the woman she was now and the girl she had once been before age had transformed them both.