The sword was awkwardly worn, and the leg bandaged in gauze that had just been dressed and changed. He would scar, of course— but with luck, he would not limp or lose the use of the leg; the bone had been chipped—or so the physicians said—but not broken.
The Kings had offered them the use of a healer, and Carlo had refused it. Because he knew too much of what they had planned for the kai Leonne, and he could not allow that information to pass into enemy hands.
Thus did he prove himself.
"Had it not been for his interference, we would not have failed! Do you even understand the cost of his action?"
Ser Anton stared at the profile of one of his two most promising students, aware—well aware—that in the South, healers were not trained to the same use as they were in this, this huge ancient city; that they, in fact, would not have the skill to repair this injury if too much time passed.
Was he aware of the cost of the action?
Oh, yes.
This man would never be his best, or his best student, again.
And they both knew it.
"Ser Anton—"
"Pedro," he said. "I know the cost." He would have said more, but the silence that fell made him realize how exposed the words they exchanged were; there was an unnatural silence, in a coliseum of this size.
And it had been called for by the kai Leonne.
No fists of victory, no Northern gesture. He called for silence, and he received it.
But what he did with it robbed Ser Anton of words. Of more.
"The test of the sea is the test of Averalaan," Valedan said, pitching his voice so that it might carry to the heights as well as the depths. "And men have proved themselves through it since this great city was founded.
"The first men to lend themselves to the sea's mercy were warriors; men who had fought and survived the Baronial Wars. They fought on land and they fought in mountain passes; they fought in great vessels upon the ocean's face.
"Today, I took the test of the ocean, and before you all, before my chosen witness," and he smiled at Aidan, "I was judged first among challengers. And for that, for that I am grateful."
He let them in, then, and they came, filling the space between words with his name.
"But if the spirit of the warrior is a part of the test of the sea, then I will tell you now that if I won the race, I cannot—will not—stand alone."
He took a breath, thinking now. balancing his desire to behave honorably with his desire not to insult the men and the women who had judged, and would judge, the challenge; to offer gratitude, to expose to light the excellence of, yes, an enemy—without exposing to ridicule the heart of the championship itself.
"For while I swam above the blood, the blood itself was spilled.
"Honor Tallosan, the mage whose life was shattered alongside his small vessel." He bowed his head. "Honor Kallandras, the master bard of Senniel College, whose skill with song and word is unchallenged, unchallengeable; whose dance in the depths rid the depths of danger.
"And honor, last and most, a man who had nothing to gain and everything to lose; who came to the Challenge from the South, the far South, and will return that way without facing the rest of the Challenge in which he hoped to prove himself.
"This is a warrior's test, and the man who proved himself worthy of it is the man who dared the waters with a sword and no hope of reward, although the responsibility to protect the challengers was in no way his."
He turned, then, seeking the face in the crowd and finding it, slack-jawed, almost stunned.
"Honor Carlo di'Jevre!" He stepped down from the podium then, and held out his hand, not in command, but not in supplication either.
And then Carlo di'Jevre straightened out, gaining inches and something else; pride. He did not look back at Ser Anton, although he cast one glance at one of his comrades. He stepped into the coliseum from the side, and the people answered his step, and Vale-dan's request.
He heard the name of his enemy, and he smiled; he began to chant it himself. To offer honor where honor had been offered; to offer it where it was due.
The Southerner drew even with Valedan, although it was a slow process, the movement hobbled by injury and stiff pride.
He did not speak to Valedan, and perhaps that stung, but when Valedan mounted the podium again. Carlo di'Jevre allowed him to do what he allowed no other: offer him a hand.
Clasped, their hands were a knot of dark and light, sun-stain and pale nobility. They were of a height, and their hair and eyes of a color, they might have been brothers, separated at birth, and returned to the fold shaped by two different hands—whose in-tent, in the end, could not eliminate the similarities that were there.
The crowd came to life as if it had been a slumbering, single creature, and the roar it raised went on and on, deafening, frightening, and comforting by turns.
The officiants returned from the Kings' box, and as they returned, they carried not one cushion but two, and on it, two crowns. Two wreaths.
Baredan di' Navarre offered no name, and no adulation, as the words of the crowd washed around him. Neither did the Tyr'agnate, who stood beside him in the box. But the Tyr's men, even the much admired and much respected Fillipo di'Callesta, had been carried away by the tide and the moment—and in that moment, Baredan could see that Fillipo was the younger of the two men. It had not been obvious to him until now.
They waited, the General and the Tyr, until the applause and the approbation came to an end; they waited a long time. But as the Kings finally rose to speak, for they spoke after each event— both to congratulate the winners and, in Baredan's practiced eye, to remind the spectators of whom their rulers were—the crowd gave up its voice, and there was room in which two men might speak.
The Tyr'agnate said, "He is not the boy we were led to believe he was."
Baredan replied, "He is not the boy he was led to believe he was. But he is not yet what he must be to lead armies."
"No?" The Tyr shrugged. "Not armies, perhaps. But twice now, twice, General, he has proved that he can lead men. And few indeed are the boys who lead men." His frown, subtle, was still evident. "They will see it," he said softly.
It was not the turn in conversation that Baredan had been expecting, but he followed it. "His enemies?"
"And his friends, but yes, his enemies. They have failed a second time. There is only one other event at which they might have success."
"The marathon."
"The marathon, yes. And it must be clear to them—as clear as it is to either of us, now—that they must succeed. He is more capable than any of us thought, perhaps even the kai Leonne himself.
"He has fire," the Tyr'agnate added, "but not wisdom."
"The Lord values fire."
"True enough," the Tyr replied quietly. "But death is the domain of the Lady, and she values wisdom." The evening was upon them.
21st of Lattan, 427 AA
Averalaan Aramarelas
Jewel Markess ATerafin sat in the open halls of the Queens' healerie; the sunlight, from the height of cut glass, was broken by lead crossbars as it came to rest upon the floor by her feet; short as they were, those feet cast shadows. It was early, and she had slept most of the previous day, but fitfully, as befits the ill.
Avandar was by her side, and Daine; both men wore the night poorly, for she had been offered a bed, and they had made their way through the night cramped by the backs of chairs or a hard length of floor. Torvan waited just outside of the healerie, no doubt to escort her back to Terafin.
Unfortunately, without the permission of Dantallon, that escort would have to wait.
A meal had been brought, but it had been brought for Jewel; Avandar and Daine were, of course, free to come and go as they pleased, and their keep was not the responsibility of the harried palace staff. At any other time of the year, they would have been better treated and tended—but at any other time of the year, Jewel would not be in the Queens' healerie.
She tried not to fe
el too guilty, and succeeded—in Avandar's case. He could take care of himself. She did offer Daine part of the food she'd been brought, but it didn't particularly surprise her when he refused with just a hint of offended pride; he was not starving, just hungry.
The door swung open. She sat up quickly enough to knock cutlery and dishes off the uneasy perch her lap made. Luckily, they were empty.
Unluckily, the visitor wasn't Dantallon.
It was Devon.
He bowed. "ATerafin," he said, softly and formally.
She nodded in return; etiquette didn't demand a bow, and even had it, she didn't particularly feel like giving one. But she stopped short of open hostility; she was curious. There were questions that she wanted answered, and she knew he had the information.
"You've heard," he asked, "about the outcome of the sea's test?"
"Valedan won."
He nodded to himself.
"And chose to share the podium with one of the men sent from the Dominion. I don't think anyone—even a man who hid in the most deserted place in Averalaan with his fingers in his ears— could avoid knowing that much."
That provoked a smile from the ATerafin, albeit a thin one. "I do not know what was said or done, but Kallandras of Senniel College, with the information that Meralonne APhaniel somehow provided," and at this, he raised a dark brow, asking and not asking the question, "with the aid of the Southerner that Valedan chose to honor, found your Kialli threat and ended it."
"Is Kallandras—"
"Both he and the Southern man were injured, and in the same fashion."
"I'd heard—"
"Yes. The Southerner will withdraw. He was offered—and has refused—the aid of the healers here. As did Kallandras, but he is legendary for that."
"He's… a private man," Jewel said softly, her glance drawn to Daine's stiff profile. Would 1 do that again? She thought. Would I risk that with anyone else?
She already knew the answer. Yes, and never. Some part of the healer was a part of her, and only because she was older and somewhat more experienced could she easily pull strand from strand and know whose was whose.
"Yes. The fear of a healer is a great fear—even though it is well known that a healing less than the call from death is not nearly so invasive. Men are superstitious by nature."
"And with cause," she said softly.
As did Daine.
There was an awkward pause. He blushed; she didn't.
Devon granted them their silence as if it were a natural part of the conversation. He looked away, and when he looked back, it was gone. "I must ask you a favor," he said reluctantly, as if it pained him. It probably did.
"What?"
"I want you to stay here until the end of the Challenge."
"In the healerie?" she asked, half a smile tugging at her lips.
His smile met hers halfway. "No. Dantallon wants that."
"You?"
"If there's going to be a fight, I want to stand beside a woman who understands what the cost of both fighting—or refusing to fight—will be." •
She waited then. "You realize you've got no right, no damned right at all, to ask that of me?"
He said nothing.
She looked away from him, the wall suddenly fascinating in its flat lack of anything interesting. The silence stretched out for minutes on end.
It was her domicis who broke it. "I will inform the Terafin," he said.
She cursed him, but in silence. Nodded.
He watched her profile, waiting. Knowing that he had to wait, and liking it about as much as anyone would. He knew why he had to wait. Teller's near-death stood between them, between the woman who—and he admitted this bitter fact without bitterness because it was just that, fact, no more—had, at heart, begun to learn the price of rulership. It was a lesson that too few rulers ever truly appreciated, and a lesson that The Terafin had always understood. He would not have chosen to take her name otherwise, and he knew that the House Name was hers.
But he also knew, when the answer came, what it would be. Because they had stood in a darkness that was timeless, beneath the streets of a city ignorant of the danger it faced. And she had seen what that danger was, when he could not—it irked him, even now, although this, too was simple fact.
Betrayed by him or no, she could not unsee it.
Duvari had already informed The Terafin, of course. Devon had counseled against; it was the surest way of pushing Jewel ATerafin away from the duty that she would otherwise embrace. Duvari's compromise: Give Devon leave to tell the young ATerafin of her duty in any fashion he chose. That it was a compromise for Duvari spoke volumes about the Lord of the Compact, but the Compact had its own rules, and the Astari were there to follow them.
The Astari were Duvari's as much as Terafin was The Terafin's. He served both, as he could.
And if she rules the House? He thought, watching Jewel's stiff anger as he waited. What then, Devon ?
It was the domicis who spoke. Avandar Gallais. a man that Devon had never particularly liked. That, if he were honest, no one particularly liked, not even Jewel herself.
"I will inform The Terafin," he said. His eyes crossed Devon's, and it was clear to Devon that the domicis, at least, understood the situation. But if he conveyed the message to the House itself, he could also inform Jewel's den. Her den.
Her own little coterie of Chosen. He wondered if she ever thought of them that way; knew that she didn't. Wondered what she would be like when one of them finally died.
Because no one of power took the service of men and women without expecting to lose them. Not during a struggle for succession.
Not during a war with kin.
He waited; she gave him nothing except, through the rough nod of assent, her commitment to fight their common foes. It was enough that he gave her this: his continuing presence, a means of allowing her to vent an anger that he both regretted and refused to change.
"Angel is pissed."
"Not… not upset?"
"How'm'I supposed to tell the difference?" He shrugged.
"Good point." She remembered the look in Alowan's eyes, and wondered how much of it was reflected in her den-kin. She'd never know; that much, about Angel, was fact. If he suffered he kept it to himself, and there wasn't any way, short of knife point, to pry it out of him.
Carver shoved the hair out of his eyes. All these years, and he hadn't gone sensible on her; neither had Angel. Teller, Arann, Jester—even Finch—they'd adopted the practical look of the ATerafin, but Carver and Angel, long hair cropped in odd places as if it were sculpture, were determined to hang on to their roots.
Or their youth.
She appreciated it. Her own hair was still a mass of loose curls that tightened whenever the humidity was high. She kept it short when she had the time to sit still and be sheared, but otherwise, she kept it twisted up in a roll, with a wooden pin as anchor. She didn't keep bangs, but strands of hair always managed to be just long enough to get in her eyes.
She mirrored his gesture. Grinned. "I bet."
"He'll be allowed up in four days. You haven't heard that much swearing in a healerie in your life!" He was laughing. Good damned thing Angel couldn't hear him.
"Teller?"
"Mending. Better, although I think it'll be a week before he's up and about."
•'The House?"
"It's only been two days. Jay."
"The House?"
He laughed. "Still standing. No one else has made any political moves. I don't think we'll see action again until after the Challenge, for what it's worth."
"Good."
"You?"
"One true dream," she said softly. "No, two. I'm exhausted, and I've been in a foul mood."
"She has," Daine said, quietly and helpfully.
"So what else is new?" But he stood. "When are you up and about?"
"As soon as Devon can find the damned healer," she replied gracelessly. "The Lord of the Compact wishes my services. The Lord of the heal
erie wants the Lord of the Compact to drop dead. Obviously, he can't quite say as much in as many words, so he's absented himself. If I weren't the one being inconvenienced or used to make a point, I'd think it was really funny."
"Well, keep yourself well, then. I'm going to get food."
"Good. While you're scrounging, take Daine."
"But—" the healer began.
She'd already lifted a hand. "Don't argue with me. Eat."
"But—"
"You heard the lady," Carver said, laughing. "She's just done two things. First, she's generously told us both she's in a foul mood. Second, she's given you an order. When the first is true, the second had better be followed." He caught Daine by the upper arm. "No one's going to hurt her here," he said. "Avandar'll be back any time now."
Daine allowed himself to be led away because he knew her well enough to know Carver was right. She was in a foul mood. The only answer to an order when she was in a foul mood was "yes."
Her third visitor was Kiriel.
The day had worn on: the sun was past its height. Dantallon had still managed not to be found. Jewel contented herself with imagining the expression on Duvari's already rather dour face, but it was a meager contentment. She was not ill enough that she found bed rest restful, not well enough that she didn't find the irritation wearing.
But both of these things fell away when the youngest member of her den stepped fully into the room and closed the door behind her. She rested against that door a moment with her back, her hands obviously clasped behind it.
"Kiriel," Jewel said. She spoke tentatively. She always did, around wary wild creatures.
"I'm off duty," she said, as if she needed an excuse to be here.
She probably did. "'Anything interesting happen when you were on duty?"
The younger woman looked vaguely surprised, and then shook her head. "No."
"Good."
Her forehead creased a moment, as if the weight of thought took effort. "Why?"
"Why is that good?"
"Yes."
Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King Page 56
