Evayne shook her head and her hood fell away from her face, as if that minor gesture was a command.
"I did not see the events that would rob Kiriel of her essential birthright at this juncture. I see," and here she pulled her heart— for so Jewel thought of the crystal orb—from her sleeve, "Kialli, and death. I see the most dangerous of Valedan's enemies in Averalaan finally making his stand."
"But—"
"I cannot cross that threshold today; the coliseum is forbidden me."
"What?"
"There are rules, Jewel ATerafin, and vows; I have followed the former in every way I can, and I have made the latter. The vows of the god-bom are… particular. There is a power at work— about which I cannot speak—that interferes with my ability to walk the path of the otherwhen. I can give no aid when aid is needed.
"And Kiriel is blind."
There was a knock at the door.
"Not now!"
"But there's someone here for you—and I think you probably shouldn't piss him off by making him wait!"
"I have asked Kallandras to come," Evayne continued, as if the interruption offered by Carver and the door were beneath her notice—or beyond it. "But I fear we may already be too late."
And she did fear it. That much was obvious to the eyes of a seer-born. "I'll go," Jewel said.
Evayne smiled, the expression thin and half-bitter. "I know."
He prayed for a worthy enemy.
It was a true warrior's only prayer: to be given an enemy of worth against which to pit the skills of a lifetime. A true warrior did not pray to win; he prayed to be allowed to prove his skill, beneath the eyes of the Lord.
But he wavered on the definition of worthy.
Certainly Valedan kai di'Leonne had proved himself to be a completely different man than the one that Andaro had been led from the South expecting: He was quiet, yes, but he did not have that placidity, that weakness, that implied he was another's puppet. He stood beside General Baredan di'Navarre, called traitor by some, and the Callestan Tyr, called traitor by everyone, and it was clear from the Tyr's watchfulness that he did not consider Valedan to be his. He did not flatter; he rarely spoke.
And at least once, to Andaro's knowledge, the boy had done something that had shaken both of his chosen supporters. Real anger, there. He had faced the servants of the Lord of Night. No question. He was Leonne, after all; the scion of the only bloodline considered worthy enough by the Lord that the Lord had come down from the heavens to anoint it in blood.
Valedan kai di'Leonne's father had been a weak man. They had said—all of Anton's students had said it—that the bloodline had been lost in that father, and in the son; that the line was at an end.
And here, in the heart of the much despised North, they had come to make truth of that certainty, that youthful contempt. This was the day, this the hour: The Test of the Sword. The Lord's Test. The man's test.
Andaro di'Corsarro was a warrior. He prayed for a worthy enemy.
* * *
The healers were on the field.
Their twin palms, gold and platinum in what was almost certainly maker-made reliefs, hung round the neck, exposed for all to see. This was the test in which men were lost, and lives taken by overzealousness, by accident, by stroke gone awry or out of control.
No man was required to die for the test, but the use of a healer disqualified the contestant; he could—should he somehow find himself empowered to do so—merely stand, brush off the proffered aid, and continue in his quest for glory. But the healers were that quest's end.
No one was certain where such a custom had come from, although it was widely believed to be a dictate of the first Kings, who felt that the expense of a healer would separate the monied and titled patriciate from their less fortunate competitors. Dantallon, Queens' healer and lord of the healerie in Avantari, thought differently. For the sake of a game, for the sake of men's ego and men's vainglory, this contest had been created. And it had served its purpose—but no healer-born would fix a wound and return a man to battle over and over for such a poor cause.
For any cause.
There were two healers present; himself and one other that he was certain of. He had suspicion that the Astari had planted another, a man they might make use of in as advantageous a way as possible without answering for later. As the aim of the healer was to preserve life, he frowned at the politics, but was not openly critical.
His aides from the healerie were with him; his supplies were in the bundles they, and their chosen servants, carried. Things were complicated by the fact that those entering the grounds were required to bear the rings that the magi had given as a mark of security. He was understaffed because of that requirement, and none too pleased by it, although he did claim to understand it.
His own talent he had been privately "requested" to use only in the case of mortal danger.
The sole exception to that: the young man upon whom the entire Southern war rested. Valedan kai di'Leonne, raised as a hostage in the Arannan Halls of Avantari.
What will we see, boy? What will try to kill you, and who will die because of it?
He did not ask the question aloud because he knew, without knowing how, that he would already get more of an answer than he liked. Although the sun was high and bright, there was a storm in the air, a crackling of energy that had yet to be released.
Of the hundred, there were at best a handful of swordsmen who Ser Anton could—and did—dismiss as mediocre. Not hopelessly so, of course; it was clear that they had some experience or they would not have been allowed entrance into the Challenge. But their strengths had been split among the ten tasks, and only a very, very few of them had the time and the fortitude to hone those strengths, sharpen them, make of them a weapon.
Eneric of Darbanne was one such contestant. His style was purely Northern; it was a thing of speed but little grace, of accuracy that seemed—almost—to be luck and afterthought more than the result of deliberate action. And yet.
And yet.
He was unbeaten in this hazy day, unblemished by anything but water.
So, too, was Andaro di'Corsarro. But the two men were cut from different cloth—were cut, Ser Anton thought with a momentary wryness—from rock and silk, from sackcloth and ironwood, from things so different the only thing that forced a comparison at all was the fact that they did cut; that they wielded the blade well.
He felt a pride at his student's achievement that he had not thought to feel. It vanished slowly as Andaro left the field. Another Southerner—Nicco—took his place; another Northerner faced him. There would be, if he were judge of it, blood shed in this fight.
It was significant that so far neither Eneric nor Andaro had drawn or shed blood. He himself had taken this last test without leaving a mark on an enemy, and without being marked by one. Skill.
Blessing.
He turned away, closing his eyes as contestant's steel began to clamor for attention.
He was not a contestant now. He was not on a mission to prove himself, either to the South or the North—but the one link remained between that man, that long-dead man, and himself: He had much to prove to the dead; he wished to offer them a victory and have peace.
He raised his head. Straightened his shoulders. We pay a higher
price than we envision for peace, he thought. But that was a truth he had discovered years past, and he had never flinched from the search. He opened his eyes.
Met the eyes of a young boy, white-haired, skin patchy with flakes of skin that suggested sun's burning.
Had the clouds obscured the sun's face, the Lord's vision? He felt a hint of the night breeze, the night's hand, as the boy lifted a hand in greeting and then froze there, caught by the sudden indecision of a child who has only just remembered he is supposed to be addressing an enemy, and not the Uncle he had played with quite happily for most of his life.
This was how it started, Anton thought, feeling no such indecision in the touch of the Lady's proffered circumstance. He cro
ssed the distance that separated them. It was not great.
"Aidan," he said, offering the boy the iron smile that he had offered him the second day they met.
"Ser Anton." The boy hesitated a moment longer and then thrust his hand forward. Ser Anton wore light armor—which, in this heat felt anything but—without gloves; the gloves were at his belt. He clasped the smaller, smoother hand and shook firmly.
"I should have thought to find you here. This is where the swords are singing."
Aidan's smile was instant, unaffected; it had a depth to it that only a boy's smile could. Unalloyed. Bright. A thing of wonder that he had not quite learned to conceal. Wonder and vulnerability were so closely twined they might almost have been the same thing.
And yet it was safe, in the presence of the dour swordmaster, to share such a thing. He stared at the boy dispassionately, thinking only that, at twelve years of age, he was probably too old to truly master the sword—but that, had he been born in the South, Ser Anton might have tried to teach him anyway; the instincts were there and an instinct and passion like Aidan's couldn't be taught, no matter who the teacher might be; one was born with it, or one did not have it at all. He had met very few born with it.
"Your Challenger?"
"Five fights," Aidan said. And he answered so enthusiastically, so proudly, that Ser Anton realized it had not occurred to him that Ser Anton himself was paying at least as much attention as Aidan had. "Five fights, and not a scratch on him. But it's almost impossible to get near him in between the fights; the Ospreys are thick as bees 'round honey."
"His sixth fight?"
"Soon. After these two. No, after the two after these two."
"Do you know who his opponent will be?"
At this question, perhaps a little too obviously disingenuous, Aidan fell silent a moment. His face hardened into the expression that children the world over wore when they lived too close to the streets and death. "You already know," he said curtly.
Ser Anton, unfazed, nodded. "Andaro. My own. I should have liked to see him face Eneric first, I think. That man is better than I would like to admit."
Silence. Then, "See who faces Eneric first? My Champion or yours?"
Anton laughed; the sound was short and sharp, rare enough to draw attention to them both. He waited until that unwelcome interference had passed before replying. "Your Champion, of course. My own, whose strengths and weaknesses you have seen today, I would save for that ultimate test.
"He is here, after all, to prove to the men who watch—the men from the South, the merchants and the cerdan who guard them, the Tyr, the Tyr's Tyran, the General—that those born and bred to the South are superior in every way to those whose blood is dilute at best and who have lived a pampered and soft life in the Courts of the feminine North."
"I thought," Aidan said, with perfect dignity, "that he was here to kill him."
Anton's turn to offer silence in the place of words. At last, rather gruffly, he said, "Ser Andaro is my best student; he was rivaled by Carlo, and he has always claimed that their skill is equal; it is not true. He is my best in every way.
"He has taken the field, Aidan, and he understands well what is at stake—but in the end, I do not believe that he will turn this from the test it is into the killing that it might otherwise be. I have had him for too many years, and in those early years, I was a different man."
No question of it; in those years, he would never have explained himself to a mere boy, and at that, a boy one step away from serafdom—if that. He knew he should leave. "A question, Aidan."
Aidan shrugged.
"Who do you think will win when Andaro and Valedan finally face each other?"
Another boy would have answered with boastful pride. Aidan grew thoughtful, and this distance in his expression gave way to the compulsion that had, in the end, drawn him to Ser Anton's camp.
"I think," he said carefully, "Andaro has the best chance of beating him. Andaro's skill is always the same, no matter who he's fighting. Valedan—Valedan seems to get weaker with weak opponents and stronger with strong ones."
"As if the fight itself were a conversation, some sort of give and take, rather than an absolute skill set?"
Aidan frowned.
Anton suppressed a smile. "Never mind, Aidan. I understand what you said. It is a habit of the old; they make everything as difficult as possible when they choose to discuss it—and if something is stated simply, they cannot help but adorn it with more words.
"Do you think Andaro will win?"
Silence. Then, "No."
Ser Anton nodded quietly. "We shall see," he said. "But I would concur with your evaluation. Valedan kai di'Leonne has an instinctive response and a fluidity of style that I have only rarely had the privilege of seeing in action. He is not what I expected, Aidan.
"And you are not what I expected. I had forgotten how surprising the North could be. Come; I believe it is two Northerners who are to compete next, and I would be very interested to hear you speak of the difference in style between my own students and Master Owen's."
He shouldn't have been speaking to the old man. He knew that the old man was an enemy.
But did it really matter now? There were so many guards and mages all over the damn place a fly couldn't get through to Valedan—and there wasn't ever much harm done by watching.
He remembered being angry with Ser Anton. If he worked hard at it, he could be angry now—because Ser Anton had, dammit, been a hero, not just another Southerner. But if he watched the swordplay, he didn't have room for anger, and the moment the anger left him, he was standing beside the only man in the audience who probably felt the same way that he did.
So he said nothing.
When Ser Anton moved closer to the field itself, he followed, standing closer to the old man than the man's shadow, which at this sun height was pretty damn close. The guards were perfunctory; they examined Aidan's medallion and looked carefully at both Ser Anton's and Aidan's rings. But they knew both Aidan and Anton by now—who wouldn't know Ser Anton once the fight had started?—and they were willing to allow him to be as close to the fight itself as the judges.
After all, the contestant was his student.
The only uncomfortable moment for Aidan was in the chance meeting with Commander Sivari. Also King's Champion, although once to Anton's twice, he had come as Valedan's trainer. He raised a brow when Aidan's glance skittered guiltily across his face before he bowed very respectfully. Bows were good for that—they hid your face if you did 'em properly.
"Ser Anton."
"Commander Sivari."
They bowed as formally as the contestants themselves would have; Aidan could almost imagine that these two, and not their students, were the combatants. They took each other's measure while he watched in awkward silence.
"I was going to send for young Aidan here, but I see that you've saved me the trouble. Will you join me, or will you join your own camp? They've lined up as close to the circle as the judges will let them; two, in fact, have been disciplined."
"Crossing the line?"
"In the opinion of the guards; the adjudicatory body was not called."
"My thanks, then." Ser Anton nodded. "I will, of course, take my place with the rest of my students." He turned to Aidan. "You are welcome to join me; I would welcome your observations. But I would welcome those observations at Challenge's end just as happily if you chose to remain here."
He wanted to go.
He wanted to watch the two men meet at the side of the only other man who he was certain heard the same song that he did when the swords finally met. The desire made him miserable.
But Commander Sivari laughed. "You have a student in this one, Ser Anton."
"He is old for a student," Ser Anton replied, but there was a glimmer in his eyes, a softening of the line of his lips, "but if circumstances were different, I believe I would take him and make a swordsman out of him that even your student today would have trouble besting."
He almost reached for the old man's hand, just as if that old man were the father of his younger years, or the grandfather he'd lost to death. Did—and then froze, and then forced his hand to his side. He hoped that Ser Anton hadn't noticed it, but he knew that Ser Anton noticed everything.
But the old man shook his head, said nothing.
The distance to the coliseum wasn't far.
She'd taken Angel and Carver with her. Kallandras waited patiently throughout. If he heard The Terafin's private words—and it was said that some bards could hear the spoken word more than a mile away—his face betrayed nothing. Face like that never would. It was beautiful, in its way, but it was impenetrable; better armor than the Terafin Chosen were given when they were selected for their duty.
She found Kallandras of Senniel intimidating, although he had rarely been anything other than charming and polite. Of all the master bards she had met—and she was willing to allow that, even as a member of the Terafin House Council, she'd not met all that many—he was the most dangerous.
To a seer, danger had its own feel, and the men and women who wore it, wore it like a translucent mask. A warning. A statement. A fact.
She felt particularly uncomfortable with him today, and put it down to the harried way she'd stepped from bedroom to meeting room with a pause—at Avandar's absolute insistence—to add the finishing touches to clothing that might, just might, be seen by royalty who would judge the House by it. But she noticed that this day of all days, Kallandras the bard was shorn of his famous lute. He carried daggers and a slender sword so naturally she had failed to understand their significance at first sight.
As if understanding the thought and the direction, he nodded, offering no smile, no easy camaraderie.
Kalliaris, but she hated battle.
They were given a carriage; both Avandar and Kallandras could live on a horse if need be—Hells, Avandar looked like he'd been born to it—but although Jewel's den had learned to mount and ride, they'd never taken well to it, and the horses—damn then all—knew when they carried nervous riders. Jewel was the best of the lot—she could manage just fine as long as there weren't many people underfoot. She thought of the typical streets at Challenge time. Snorted.
Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King Page 71
