Tigana (42 page)

His left hand never stopped playing restlessly with some pebbles he’d gathered by the stream.

‘I think,’ Devin said spitefully, ‘that you’ve just insulted our guest. That should make him feel properly welcome here.’

‘I didn’t say a word, Devin,’ she flared.

‘You didn’t have to,’ Erlein said ruefully. ‘Those magnificent eyes were somewhat less than pleased with what they saw.’

‘My sister’s eyes are almost never pleased with what they see,’ Alessan grunted. He was crouched beside one of the packs and after a moment’s rummaging pulled out scissors and a comb. ‘I am fairly obviously being ordered to duty here. There’s half an hour of light left. Who’s first victim?’

‘Me,’ said Baerd quickly. ‘You aren’t touching me in twilight, I’ll tell you that much.’

Erlein watched with interest as Alessan led Baerd over to a rock by the stream and proceeded—quite competently, in fact—to trim the other man’s hair. Catriana went back to the horses, though not before offering Erlein another quick, enigmatic glance. Sandre stacked the wood for the fire and began skinning the rabbits and the grele, humming tunelessly to himself.

‘More wood, lad,’ he said abruptly to Devin, without looking up. Which was perfect, of course.

Oh, Morian,
Devin thought, a heady blend of excitement and pride racing through him.
They are all so good
.

‘Later,’ was all he said, lounging casually on the ground. ‘We’ve got enough for now and I’m next with Alessan.’

‘No you’re not,’ Alessan called from by the river, picking up Sandre’s gambit. ‘Get the wood, Devin. There isn’t enough light to do three of you. I’ll cut yours tomorrow, and
Erlein’s now if he wants. Catriana will just have to endure you looking fearsome for one more night.’

‘As if a haircut’s going to change that!’ she called from the other side of the clearing. Erlein and Baerd laughed.

Grumbling, Devin stood up and ambled off towards the trees.

Behind him he heard Erlein’s voice.

‘I’d be grateful to you,’ the troubadour was saying to Alessan. ‘I’d hate to have another woman look at me the way your sister just did.’

‘Ignore her,’ Devin heard Baerd laugh as he strode back towards the fire.

‘She is impossible to ignore,’ Erlein said in a voice pitched to carry to where the horses were tethered. He stood up and walked over to the riverbank. He sat down on the rock in front of Alessan. The sun was a red disk, westering beyond the stream.

Carrying an armful of wood, Devin looped quietly around in the growing shadows to where Catriana stood among the horses. She heard him come up but continued brushing the brown mare. Her eyes never left the two men by the river.

Neither did Devin’s. Squinting into the setting sun it seemed to him as if Alessan and the troubadour had become figures in some timeless landscape. Their voices carried with an unnatural clarity in the quiet of the gathering twilight.

‘When was this last done for you?’ he heard Alessan ask casually, his scissors busy in the long grey tangles of Erlein’s hair.

‘I don’t even remember,’ the troubadour confessed.

‘Well,’ Alessan laughed, bending to wet his comb in the stream, ‘on the road we don’t exactly have to keep up with court fashions. Tilt a little this way. Yes, good. Do you brush it across in front or straight back?’

‘Back, by preference.’

‘Fine.’ Alessan’s hands moved up to the crown of Erlein’s head, the scissors flashing as they caught the last of the sun. ‘That’s an old-fashioned look, but troubadours are supposed to look old-fashioned, aren’t they? Part of the charm.
You are bound by Adaon’s name and my own. I am Alessan, Prince of Tigana, and wizard you are mine!
’

Devin took an involuntary step forward. He saw Erlein try, reflexively, to jerk away. But the hand of binding held his head, and the scissors, so busy a moment before, were now sharp against his throat. They froze him for an instant and an instant was enough.

‘Rot your flesh!’ Erlein screamed as Alessan released him and stepped back. The wizard sprang from the stone as if scalded, and wheeled to face the Prince. His face was contorted with rage.

Fearing for Alessan, Devin began moving towards the river, reaching for his blade. Then he saw that Baerd had an arrow already notched to his bow, and trained on Erlein’s heart. Devin slowed his rush and then stopped. Sandre was right beside him, the curved sword drawn. He caught a glimpse of the Duke’s dark face and in it—though he couldn’t be absolutely sure in the uncertain light—he thought he read fear.

He turned back to the two men by the river. Alessan had laid down the scissors and comb neatly on the rock. He stood still, hands at his sides, but his breath was coming quickly.

Erlein was literally shaking with fury. Devin looked at him and it was as if a curtain had been drawn back. In the wizard’s eyes hatred and terror vied for domination. His mouth worked spasmodically. He raised his left hand and pointed it at Alessan in a gesture of violent negation.

And Devin saw, quite clearly now, that his third and fourth fingers had indeed been chopped off. The ancient mark of a wizard’s binding to his magic and the Palm.

‘Alessan?’ Baerd said.

‘It is all right. He cannot do anything with his power now against my will.’ Alessan’s voice was quiet, almost detached, as if this was all happening to someone else entirely. Only then did Devin realize that the wizard’s gesture had been an attempt to cast a spell. Magic. He had never thought to be so near it in his life. The skin prickled at the back of his neck, and not because of the twilight breeze.

Slowly Erlein lowered his hand and slowly his trembling stopped. ‘Triad curse you,’ he said, low and cold. ‘And curse the bones of your ancestors and blight the lives of your children and your children’s children for what you have done to me.’ It was the voice of someone wronged, brutally, grievously.

Alessan did not flinch or turn away. ‘I was cursed almost nineteen years ago, and my ancestors were, and whatever children I or any of my people might have. It is a curse I have set my life to undo while time yet allows. For no other reason have I bound you to me.’

There was something terrible in Erlein’s face. ‘Every true Prince of Tigana,’ the wizard said with bitter intensity, ‘has known since the beginning how awful a gift the god gave them. How savage a power over a free, a living soul. Do you even know—’ He was forced to stop, white-faced, his hands clenched, to regain control of himself. ‘Do you even know how seldom this gift has been used.’

‘Twice,’ Alessan said calmly. ‘Twice, to my knowledge. The old books recorded it so, though I fear all the books have been burned now.’

‘Twice!’ Erlein echoed, his voice skirling upwards. ‘Twice in how many generations stretching back to the dawn of records in this peninsula? And you, a puling princeling without even a land to rule, have just casually—viciously—set your hands upon my life!’

‘Not casually. And only
because
I have no home. Because Tigana is dying and will be lost if I do not do something.’

‘And what part of that little speech gives you rights over my life and death?’

‘I have a duty,’ Alessan replied gravely. ‘I must use what tools come to hand.’

‘I am not a tool!’
Erlein cried from the heart. ‘I am a free and living soul with my own destiny!’

Watching Alessan’s face Devin saw how that cry shafted into him. For a long moment there was silence by the river. Devin saw the Prince draw air into his lungs carefully, as if steadying himself under yet another burden, a new weight joined to those he already carried. Another part added to the price of his blood.

‘I will not lie and say that I am sorry,’ Alessan said finally, choosing his words with care. ‘I have dreamt of finding a wizard for too many years. I will say—and this is true—that I understand what you have said and why you will hate me, and I can tell you that I grieve for what necessity demands.’

‘It demands nothing!’ Erlein replied, shrill and unrelenting in his righteousness. ‘We are free men. There is always a choice.’

‘Some choices are closed to some of us.’ It was, surprisingly, Sandre.

He moved forward to stand a little in front of Devin. ‘And some men must make choices for those who cannot, whether through lack of will or lack of power.’ He walked nearer to the other two, by the dark, quiet rushing of the stream. ‘Just as we
may
choose not to slay the man who is trying to kill our child, so Alessan may have chosen not to bind a wizard who might be needed by his people. His children. Neither refusal, Erlein di Senzio, is a true alternative for anyone with honour.’

‘Honour!’ Erlein spat the word. ‘And how does honour bind a man of Senzio to Tigana’s fate? What Prince
compels
a free man to a sure death at his side and then speaks of honour?’ He shook his head. ‘Call it naked power and have done.’

‘I will not,’ the Duke replied in his deep voice. It was quite dark now; Devin could no longer see his hooded eyes. From behind them all he heard the sounds of Baerd beginning to light the fire. Overhead the first stars were emerging in the blue-black cloak of the sky. Away west, across the stream, there was a last hint of crimson along the line of the horizon.

‘I will not,’ Sandre said again. ‘The honour of a ruler, and his duty, lies in his care for his land and his people. That is the only true measure. And the price, part of the price of that, comes when he must go against his own soul’s needs and do such things that will grieve him to the very bones of his hands. Such things,’ he added softly, ‘as the Prince of Tigana has just done to you.’

But Erlein’s voice shot back, unpersuaded, contemptuous. ‘And how,’ he snarled, ‘does a bought sword from Khardhun presume to use the word
honour
or to speak about the burdens of a prince?’ He wanted the words to hurt, Devin could see, but what came through in the inflections of his voice was the sound of someone lost and afraid.

There was a silence. Behind them the fire caught with a rush, and the orange glow spun outward, illuminating Erlein’s taut rage and Sandre’s gaunt, dark face, the bones showing in high relief. Beyond them both, Devin saw, Alessan had not moved at all.

Sandre said, ‘The Khardhu warriors I have known were deeply versed in honour. But I will claim no credit for that. Be not deceived: I am no Khardhu. My name is Sandre d’Astibar, once Duke of that province. I know a little about power.’

Erlein’s mouth fell open.

‘I am also a wizard,’ Sandre added matter-of-factly. ‘Which is how you were known: by the thin spell you use to mask your hand.’

Erlein closed his mouth. He stared fixedly at the Duke as if seeking to penetrate his disguise or find confirmation in the deep-hooded eyes. Then he glanced downwards, almost against his will.

Sandre already had the fingers of his left hand spread wide. All five fingers.

‘I never made the final binding,’ he said. ‘I was twelve years old when my magic found me. I was also the son and heir of Tellani, Duke of Astibar. I made my choice: I turned my back on magic and embraced the rule of men. I used my very small power perhaps five times in my life. Or six,’ he amended. ‘Once, very recently.’

‘Then there
was
a conspiracy against the Barbadian,’ Erlein murmured, his rage temporarily set aside as he wrestled with this. ‘And then … yes, of course. What did you do? Kill your son in the dungeon?’

‘I did.’ The voice was level, giving nothing away at all.

‘You could have cut two fingers and brought him out.’

‘Perhaps.’

Devin looked over sharply at that, startled. ‘I don’t know. I made my choice long ago, Erlein di Senzio.’ And with those quiet words another shape of pain seemed to enter the clearing, almost visible at the edges of the firelight.

Erlein forced a corrosive laugh. ‘And a fine choice it was!’ he mocked. ‘Now your Dukedom is gone and your family as well, and you’ve been bound as a slave wizard to an arrogant Tiganese. How happy you must be!’

‘Not so,’ said Alessan quickly from by the river.

‘I am here by my own choice,’ Sandre said softly. ‘Because Tigana’s cause is Astibar’s and Senzio’s and Chiara’s—it is
the same choice for all of us. Do we die as willing victims or while trying to be free? Do we skulk as you have done all these years, hiding from the sorcerers? Or can we not join palm to palm—for
once
in this folly-ridden peninsula of warring provinces locked into their pride—and drive the two of them away?’

Devin was deeply stirred. The Duke’s words rang in the firelit dark like a challenge to the night. But when he ended, the sound they heard was Erlein di Senzio clapping sardonically.

‘Wonderful,’ he said contemptuously. ‘You really must remember that for when you find an army of simpletons to rally. You will forgive me if I remain unmoved by speeches about freedom tonight. Before the sun went down I was a free man on an open road. I am now a slave.’

‘You were not free,’ Devin burst out.

‘And I say I was!’ Erlein snapped, rounding fiercely on him. ‘There may have been laws that constrained me, and one government ruling where I might have wished for another. But the roads are safer now than they ever were when
this
man ruled in Astibar or
that
one’s father in Tigana—and I carried my life where I wanted to go. You will all have to forgive my insensitivity if I say that Brandin of Ygrath’s spell on the name of Tigana was not the first and last thought of my days!’

‘We will,’ Alessan said then in an unnaturally flat voice. ‘We
will
all forgive you for that. Nor will we seek to persuade you to change your views now. I will tell you this, though: the freedom you speak of will be yours again when Tigana’s name is heard in the world once more. It is my hope—vain, perhaps—that you will work with us willingly in time, but until then I can say that the compulsion of Adaon’s gift will suffice me. My father died, and my brothers died by the Deisa, and the flower of a generation with them, fighting for freedom. I have not lived so bitterly or
striven so long to hear a coward belittle the shattering of a people and their heritage.’