“You are different. The North has sheltered you; it has protected you; it has granted you the only legitimacy you are likely to see. The rules of the combat here are not the Lord’s, and you have, by your existence here, agreed to respect them, foreign as they are.
“You owe them honor.” He opened his hand.
The unsupported end of the pole fell heavily to the ground.
Valedan said nothing at all.
“Ser Valedan kai di’Leonne,” the older man said. He bowed.
“Ser Anton di’Guivera,” Valedan replied. The pole fell then.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
18th day of Lattan, early evening
Avantari
Andaro was mutinous.
And that, in a person of his control and skill, merely meant silence; the silence of a slightly turned head, a turned back, a stiff jaw.
Ser Anton was not amused. “Andaro,” he said.
“Ser Anton.” His tone of voice robbed the three syllables of any warmth of familiarity or respect due a name; they could have been foreign babble, children’s nonsense.
“You will practice.”
“I will practice,” his best student replied, “when Carlo is ready to join me.”
They stared at each other; the distance between them was measured by anger. Sadly, in Ser Anton’s case, part of that anger was turned inward as well as out. He hated disobedience; he hated lack of respect. Yet in this case he felt it was—almost—deserved. He had bruised Carlo’s ribs, and quite possibly cracked two of them. The blow he had struck he had struck in anger, and anger had controlled the connection, not skill, not intent, not prudence. The physician had been quite clear: it was in Carlo’s best interests to withdraw from the Championship and rejoin it again the following year. Carlo himself refused, as Ser Anton would have expected.
“Andaro,” Ser Anton began again. “We both know that Carlo is not in appropriate condition to continue with this practice.”
“Or with this Challenge?”
Challenge was there in his words. Ser Anton’s hand came to rest, lightly, upon the hilt of his sword. Andaro did not blink.
You are, Ser Anton thought, too much like your master in his youth. And in his youth, he would perhaps have been equally imprudent defending those he cared for. He tried to remember this. He tried to remember the young man he had been, before his life had been buried by the sands the wind brought, blistered by the fire, scarred by the sword.
Tried and failed. “Carlo chose his course.”
“He chose,” Andaro replied coolly, “to accompany the man he most respected—”
“He respects his desire, Andaro, and my skill. Little else.”
Andaro’s silence was long and thin, a thing that seemed easily broken until a man tried.
“Is that what you think, Ser Anton?”
“Pick up the sword,” Ser Anton said softly.
Andaro measured his resolve against the resolve of the swordmaster. He was no fool; in the end, he was no fool. He picked up the sword.
But he did not stop speaking. “Do you believe that he came just for his own glory, that he came because he desired the crown?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think that your name means—meant—nothing to either of us?”
Ser Anton bent to ground; he came up bearing the practice blade.
They stood, two armed men; that was enough, in the eyes of the Lord.
“My name had nothing to do with his behavior. I’ve met harem children who were less disgraceful in private.”
“Your name,” Andaro said, “had nothing to do with his behavior. But your behavior, Ser Anton, affects us all. Carlo is not—is not from the ruling clans. Neither were you. He follows you as he can, he worships you, as he must. You are honor to him. You are the goal he seeks to attain. Do you understand what you’ve done to him? I do not expect you to be other than what you are. But you have always been more than that to Carlo.”
He did not refute the truth of the words; there was nothing to be gained. “Carlo is a fool,” he said at last. “A skilled, a skillful, a competent, fool.”
It was meant to anger; it angered. But it did not fluster. It did not distract. Because they both held swords; because they both stood on even ground in the sight of the Lord. Because Andaro was everything that Carlo was not.
“We did not come here to serve the Lord of Night, Ser Anton. We came to serve you.”
“And you feel that somehow my service and His are conjoined?”
“Tell me, on your word, swear to me by the dead that you value, that this is not true. We are not fools, Ser Anton. We could not help but note the absence of the eight. And we have heard the stories that the Northerners are even now passing among themselves. You are not the only man with the presence of mind to learn their tongue.”
Not the only man, no. But one of the few.
“Yes, he is hotheaded. Yes, he is impulsive. Yes, he lacks control, and self-control. But none of these things changes the truth: he lives for you, he lives to cast your shadow.
“To see it bent and twisted, to see it—”
Enough.
Ser Anton moved.
And Andaro proved himself to be the best of his students; he was not there to greet the blow; not there to parry it. Proved himself to be perhaps better than the swordmaster knew, because in the end, he set the terms of the contest; there was anger between them both, held in check, kept in its place, but evoked and invoked. A binding.
18th of Lattan, 427 AA
Aramarelas, Magisterial Court
“What were you thinking?” Commander Sivari kept a lid on the words that he might otherwise have spoken had he not been in the company of ladies. It was, in Valedan’s opinion, a poor conceit; neither Mirialyn ACormaris or Serra Alina di’Lamberto had any delicacy that he could easily offend. Or quite possibly offend at all. “Valedan?”
They waited in the courtyard of the magisterial docket that had been commandeered for the games. Here, crimes such as cheating—or brawling, which was far more common—were dealt with, complaints against the contestants were heard, fines were meted out, where fines were appropriate and not too politically difficult.
That I was tired of listening to Carlo-the-imbecile. He did not, however—and wisely—choose to speak the words.
The complaint against Valedan had been formally issued in front of the three men whose task it was to pass judgment. It had not been issued by Ser Anton’s student; it had been issued by the judges themselves. And they bore witness.
“Getting into a fight is bad enough—but starting it?”
There was very little he could say. So he said nothing. He knew that that wouldn’t make Sivari any happier, but was fairly certain at this point nothing would.
The sun’s shadows were getting shorter; the midday break was approaching. Valedan had been forbidden the rest of the test of the river; that hadn’t been in question. Whether or not he would be disqualified from the rest of the tournament was what they waited to hear. And Commander Sivari did not wait patiently.
“Valedan—”
“Commander,” Serra Alina said, more sharply than was her wont. “Someone approaches.”
He looked up. A man in magisterial robes nodded in their direction; they rose from the shaded stone benches upon which they’d been sitting and followed him.
“This is not an unusual offense,” a very bored looking judge said. “In fact, it’s so common it’s a small wonder there’s any Championship at all. Usually, however, the contestants have the good grace to do two things. First, they leave the grounds. Second, they get drunk so as to have some semblance of at least a pathetic excuse for their behavior.”
“Yes sir.” Valedan said, bowing his head.
“However
, they are usually far more truculent about their misdemeanors, and as an old man I know that the Championship is its own punishment. Therefore I have fined your party the standard fee—” Valedan had no idea what the fee was, but Sivari obviously did by the under-the-breath deprecation, “and because I am feeling exceedingly mellow, it being the start of the season and not the end of it, I will allow you to finish last, beneath the man with whom you were brawling, in the portion of the river-jump that you did not complete.”
Commander Sivari’s exhalation could probably be heard in the courtyard.
“If you, however, choose to continue this particular and unfortunate behavior, you will be disbarred not only from participating, but from even witnessing the events. Ever. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Dismissed. There are two men who were knife-fighting in the spectator stands who are next on the list, and I consider their practical crime to be graver, if less insulting, than your own.” He looked down the edge of his nose. “NEXT.”
“Sivari,” the Princess said, “he still has some chance of winning.”
“If he places well in the rest of events, yes.”
“The judge could have chosen to place him last in the event, period. There has been some agitation for exactly that punishment. Were it not for the request and the recommendation—” she stopped. “Never mind. As it is, Valedan,” she said, turning to the kai Leonne, “you’ve been ranked twenty-fifth of the twenty-five who were selected to compete in the river-vault. Do well in the rest of the day’s events.” She glanced to the center courtyard, where the sundial cast its shadows. “We have little time; come.”
As they made their way out of the public courtyard, Commander Sivari turned to Valedan. “If you ever do anything like that again, you won’t have to worry about being disbarred. I’ll strangle you with my bare hands.” He passed the Princess, and the Serra who had been standing quietly by Valedan’s side.
“Valedan,” she said softly. “A word of advice.”
“Serra Alina?”
“You cannot have men in your service who show such a disrespect for your rank that they would dare to speak like that in the presence of any witnesses.”
Valedan shrugged, the movement elegant and quick. “It’s Commander Sivari,” he said. “He didn’t mean it.”
“It is not whether or not he meant it that concerns me.” Her words were ice. “No man but one who courts death speaks that way to a Tyr. Not even be he par to kai. Only the powerful speak of death to the powerless in the South.”
“Alina—”
“I understand the Commander,” she said, the words cold. “I understand the North. Rule in the North, Valedan, and you may do as you please. But you will go South.”
“Alina, he has been a much valued friend here.”
“Yes,” she said, and her expression softened. “Valedan, in the North, the greater the affection a man feels, the less respect he offers.”
“Then he—”
“Lose his affection. You cannot afford it. Without respect from the Southerners, you have nothing, and if even one of the men whose support we require hears such a speech as that, you will indeed have nothing.”
And her words, so softly spoken, so elegantly, so quietly, were sharper and far more inflexible than the Commander’s had been.
Valedan kai di’Leonne would have bowed to the woman who was his Southern teacher—but men did not bow that way in the South, and she would only correct him.
“Aidan.”
He was quiet. Very quiet. Aidan hated it when grownups were quiet in that particular way. He’d seen it before. His father, first, and then Widow Harris. You were quiet like that when you had words you didn’t really want to say. Words that were going to be said anyway.
He was grateful: The Princess of the blood had actually taken the time to send word to his father the morning after. He wasn’t certain what she’d said, but he had a feeling it was something quiet. Like, Aidan is fine, and is staying as a guest at the palace because he’s been chosen as witness. Nothing about demons. Nothing about death.
He was fairly certain about it; his father could be rough—and was—but if he’d heard about the killings, he’d’ve been down at the gates of the outbuildings raising Hells’ own city.
He would. Aidan was certain of it. Almost certain of it. And that was as much as he wanted to think about his Da.
He shifted, uncomfortably hot in a room that was far too big, far too grand, for someone like him. The guesthouse had been a dream, but this was a dream that had gotten too large. It was like being at a banquet and being forced to eat when there wasn’t any room left for food.
And he thought it was going to get worse before it got better.
So he tried to ignore the voice.
“Aidan,” Valedan kai di’Leonne said again.
But he couldn’t ignore it. Couldn’t; didn’t know how. And he knew that he was going to hear what he didn’t want to hear. He looked up. “What?”
“We’re sorry about—about your friend. We’re not completely certain what happened but . . .”
“She’s dead.”
Valedan bowed his head. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
Aidan shrugged. “It’s war,” he said, because he’d heard it said so often today that it seemed the only thing he could say.
“Yes,” Valedan said. “War.”
But she wasn’t a soldier. She wasn’t a warrior. She wasn’t even a woman, yet. She was just—just Sam, the girl who remembered where the rooms were. And they both knew it, he and this foreign prince.
“What happened?”
“We think—but we’re not certain—that she was killed by the same . . . thing . . . that nearly killed the ATerafin. She—” He bowed his head again, turned away. “She killed four Imperial guards; snapped two necks. Almost escaped. And there was very, very little that was human about her when she finally died.”
“But—” He stopped. “Is that what they meant for me, too?”
“I think—and I’m told that you are not to discuss this with any but myself—that they meant exactly the same thing for you.” He turned to the low table and lifted the jug of water that seemed—’cause the dozens of servants that came in and out never touched it—to just keep filling itself. Given the money the Kings had, it wasn’t impossible. “We think that they intended to use you—what was left of you—as an assassin.”
“But if the magic—”
“Yes. We don’t understand it. And it is . . . worrisome. It can be detected, if we know exactly what to look for. The Kings’ people have begun to interview the candidates. We should know by the end of the test of the javelin, whether or not any others were affected.” He poured water into a large goblet. Handed it to Aidan.
“This is war,” he said quietly.
And it sounded, to Aidan, as if he was trying to convince himself of that.
“Do they want you to lose that badly?”
Valedan’s head rose again. “I think so, yes. Winning is important in the Dominion.”
Aidan snorted. “It’s important everywhere.” He drank the water; it wasn’t exactly cool, but it wasn’t as warm as the air. “Do me a favor?”
“If it’s within my power.”
“Win this. Beat the bastards.”
Valedan laughed. Then, as he saw the expression on Aidan’s face, he grew somber. “I will,” he said. “For your Sam, and for my own, because I’m certain by the end I will have many, many of them.” He rose. “I will require your services in the morn; break fast with me.”
19th day of Lattan, 427AA
Averalaan Aramarelas, the Test of the Javelin
The Ospreys were both pleased and furious.
Pleased because Valedan had given the “oth
er” Southerners something to think about, and furious, of course, because he was judged to have started the fight in the first place.
“Ever notice how political these unpolitical events are?” Fiara said to Alexis’ back. “Everyone knows they’re here to try and kill him. All he does is try to hit one of them with a bloody stick. Wasn’t even Valedan who laid the bastard out.”
“Everything’s political. Welcome to the Imperial Court. It might not have escaped your notice that he’s very much part of it, hostage or no. Frankly, I’m impressed they didn’t sink him.”
“They did! He went from tenth—”
“Fifteenth at best.”
“Fifteenth, then. But they dropped him to last place, behind that—” She managed to stop herself from using the word “Annie,” but it was a close thing. “Behind the other one.”
“They dropped him to twenty-fifth, Fiara.”
“That’s last.”
“They could have dropped him into the hundredth position.”
“They wouldn’t dare.”
The silence was short and a little bit too warm.
“Fiara, try to look at it slightly differently. Duarte has volunteered your services as dress guard to The Kalakar. You accept because it’s a direct order, and he’s already in a foul mood.”
“And?”
“The Kalakar is going to meet The Berriliya. They go off into a room together for a discussion. They take half of their guards as plumage, and they leave the rest behind. You’re one of the lucky ones. You get left behind.”
“Alexis—”
“One of the Hawk’s guards is a man you recognize; he’s been pissing you off for almost a decade. He starts to make smart, and you deck him.”
“Duarte would kill me.”
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