Gabriel ATerafin had the seat to the Terafin’s right; the seat to her left was occupied by Elonne ATerafin.
Elonne, coiffed and elegant, had chosen a deceptively simple gown, one that fell off her left shoulder in an uninterrupted drape of fine silk. Her hair was pulled back and up; it lent a severity to her features that suggested the power and wisdom of experience without actually condescending to notice age. A pale brow rose and fell over the slight widening of blue eyes; if she was surprised, and Finch thought she was, she did not otherwise show it.
Instead she smiled and nodded, much as The Terafin had done.
Marrick’s smile was much less guarded. He rose. “Well,” he said, his voice jolly, his face creased in lines of welcome, “I’m happy to see that youth has finally been allowed to grace these tables. Welcome, welcome, youngsters, to the nefarious halls of the Terafin Council, where plots great and small are hatched.” He laughed; there was nothing forced about the sound of his voice.
Finch’s first impulse was to like him. It had been her first impulse when she had accepted his invitation to lunch a month past. He had none of the perfection of appearance that defined the other three; he was slightly overweight, and his beard was shot through with white. His hair looked like iron, his eyes were dark; he seemed like a favored uncle, a harmless man who might take children upon the flat of his lap and tell them outrageous stories.
But she had seen him in other guises; had seen the smile fall away from his face in those moments when he thought no one observed him.
Haerrad took no such pains; he was as grim and dour as ever; his face was frozen in lines of disapproval. Of the four, he was the easiest to dislike.
And she did. In fact, of the four, he was the only one that she hated. Because of Haerrad, Teller had been confined to the healerie for weeks, a display of power, a threat offered to Jay in the hope that threat alone would buy her loyalty. As if.
Her eyes skirted his face. She wondered what Teller felt.
Rymark was last to react, but he was also the most flamboyant; he rose, leaving the confines of the chair that was his by right. Bowing deeply, he said, “Welcome, ATerafin, ATerafin, to the Council of the House.”
He lifted his head and looked up, his eyes catching Finch’s as she studied him. She felt her cheeks warm; she didn’t like the way his gaze swept across hers. Predator. She had met men very like him in the holdings; too pretty, too powerful. She nodded in silence.
There were two chairs, side by side, that were empty; they were between Elonne and Marrick.
She walked toward the first. Ellerson was at her elbow in an instant, pulling the chair out for her. It was a good thing, too; she could tell, by the way it dragged against the carpet, that it was heavy, that it would be an unseemly struggle for her just to move it.
He waited until she was seated, and then aided Teller in a similar fashion. But he did not speak. He was a man who knew his place, and worse, knew theirs.
She didn’t want to disappoint him.
When they were both seated, The Terafin looked up.
“May I introduce the newest members of the House Council,” she said quietly. “Finch ATerafin and Teller ATerafin.” She turned to Morretz, who waited behind her chair, just as Ellerson was waiting behind theirs. He bowed and left her side, and Finch could sense his reluctance from where she was seated.
He came to stand between them, and took from his robes two things. These he placed before them on the perfect sheen of the wooden table. Gold caught the light, reflecting it, held in the shape of two rings.
“What exactly,” Haerrad said bluntly, “will the duties of the new members be?”
Finch picked up the ring in a shaking hand as he spoke, hesitated for just a moment, and then slid it upon her finger. It fit perfectly, no surprise there. But it was heavy and cold.
The Terafin’s pause was significant; she held it as she gazed around the table. Haerrad did not withdraw his words, but he did not make the mistake of adding to them.
“They will,” The Terafin said at length, “oversee the merchant lines in the Menorans and to the South.”
“The merchant lines in the South have been severely lessened, of late.”
“Indeed.”
“If I am not mistaken,” Rymark said smoothly, “those lines are currently overseen by Jewel ATerafin.”
“The services of Jewel ATerafin have been seconded by the Kings,” The Terafin replied serenely. “When she returns, an evaluation of her progress will be in order.”
“Given the current state of affairs, Terafin, was it wise to accede to the wishes of the Kings in this regard?”
“No motion was put forward in Council about such a placement,” Haerrad added.
“No motion was put forward; her disposition is not a matter for the Council to decide. She was offered a choice, and she made her decision; she waited upon my leave before she accepted her assignment. Or is more now required, Haerrad? Shall we decide that the private activities of each member of the Council bear public scrutiny—and equally public accountability?”
“The gifts she has acknowledged in her tenure in the House must surely be considered one of the House advantages, and as all advantages that accrue to the House, one not to be squandered.”
Finch was almost shocked.
But The Terafin did no more than raise a brow. “I consider the talents of all Terafin to be of such value,” she replied. “Jewel is not the only talent-born member to preside on the House Council. Would you fetter Rymark ATerafin in such a fashion?”
Rymark’s smile was grudgingly offered. “House Member Haerrad means no disrespect, Terafin, when he points out that a mage—of any talent—is far less a rarity than one who is seer-born.”
“Perhaps. But such a talent cannot be owned; it can be valued; it can be cultivated. In some cases, it can be directed.” She lifted her hand. “The meeting is now in session. I have reports in hand about the progress of the armies in the South; they are sketchy, but they will do.”
She passed the papers to Morretz.
“For the duration of the war, Meralonne APhaniel has also been seconded by the Kings; we have therefore sought the services of another member of the magi.”
There was some whispering among the members of the House Council and the shadows who served as their advisers. The Terafin rose.
“I am certain that that member requires little introduction, but for the sake of formality, such an introduction will take place.” She walked to the doors, and Finch failed to recognize the significance of this action until the doors themselves were opened.
Standing, framed by their open width, was a diminutive woman who carried age as if it were wisdom’s mantle.
“I am honored to present Sigurne Mellifas to the Terafin House Council.”
CHAPTER TEN
9th of Corvil, 427
AA Callesta, Terrean of Averda
“I DON’T like it.”
Valedan raised a brow. The Captain of his guards—the man he had, with effort, ceased to identify as an Osprey—had forsaken the customary stiffness of the South in the enclosure of the large tent, and with it, the cautious use of words, the tone that clearly—and properly—conveyed disapproval. Ser Andaro di’Corsarro did not find this as amusing as the lord he had pledged his life to did, but he was determined to bring dignity to the proceedings in spite of the unsuitable behavior of his companions; he said nothing. Loudly.
Ser Anton di’Guivera, whose roots were among the insignificant clans, although his fame far exceeded those of nobler birth, was under no such compulsion. “I must agree with the Captain.”
He did not turn his head to the side, and his gaze did not condescend to travel the distance between himself and the newest member of the Northern retinue.
“Your objections are noted. Serra Alina?”
She wore the leather armor that the smaller women favored, and over it, a surcoat with a distinctly bland emblem across its heart center; at a distance, it wo
uld pass for the crest of the Kalakar House Guards. Valedan was aware that he would meet The Kalakar again, and soon; he had no desire to presume upon her authority, and she had not given leave to Duarte to recruit South of the border. The Serra’s hands were gloved; her feet, heavy in the leather boots the Northerners wore. Of all the things that she suffered, it was the boots that seemed most cumbersome, for they changed the fall of her step as she walked. Her hair was bound in a nondescript braid, shorn of ornamentation; her face would be exposed to the sun’s light.
She stepped forward, toward the table across which maps lay like dead butterflies. It was clear that she was not comfortable in this room; she hesitated before the table’s height and gazed at it with a critical eye.
Valedan thought, if she had been allowed, it would now bear some decorations; not flowers, for they would by their presence indicate a delicacy and a poetry that had no place in a war room, but perhaps by stone or wooden carving, or better, the two-tiered sword stand, evocative in its emptiness. A leader’s symbol.
“I am not . . . familiar . . . with the language of cartographers.”
Valedan shrugged. “It is not for your ability to read what is written here that I desire your presence.”
Ser Anton’s jaw tightened.
“Ser Valedan,” Duarte said, “none of the members of the—of your guard—are decorative. They serve a function. If another assassination is attempted—”
He lifted a hand. “I am willing to see her here in the saris more suited to her station.”
What Ser Anton had been about to say was lost.
“The choice of attire is not mine,” he continued. “It is entirely her own. If you take issue with it, you must speak with the Serra Alina. And let me remind you, Captain, that long before the Ospreys were assigned to me, the Serra Alina saved my life with the use of a single dagger.”
The Serra Alina’s brows rose a fraction; her eyes widened and then resumed their normal shape. A warning. A warning he understood. In the South, she was a Serra; he a ruling lord. In the South, should she choose to serve him, or he to suffer her service, he must not imply that her will had precedence over his.
He felt a touch of Ser Anton’s frustration, although he was aware that it was for entirely different reasons. He placed both palms on the edge of the table and let them support his weight as he pretended to read the lines of a map that he had almost memorized, he saw it so often.
“Belay that,” he said at last. “She serves in the capacity of a Northern adviser. There is no place in the South for the role she has been forced—at my command—to assume. Understand, Captain, that she graces your unit with her presence; that she serves a purpose that is only marginally less imperative than yours. There are many forms of conflict. Upon the field, or before it, there are no finer men than the men who now serve under me.
“But I have been raised in the North; I have been deprived of the harem that is mine by right. The Tyr’agnati of Callesta and Lamberto are not likewise encumbered; they speak through their wives, their sisters, their serafs.
“I will speak in such a fashion through the Serra Alina.”
“They do not bring their wives to the battlefield,” Ser Anton said curtly.
Valedan’s smile was brief. “They have no need; they have their years of history as a guide, as guidance, in matters in which a wife—or a Serra—might be consulted.”
“You take a risk,” Ser Anton replied, cool now, his antagonism securing Ser Andaro’s grudging support.
“Always.”
The swordmaster nodded. “She must not be present when you are introduced to the kai Lamberto.”
Valedan said nothing at all.
He waited; after a moment, the tent’s flap lifted and the General Baredan di’Navarre entered. He paused a moment at the table, lifted his head, and stared at the Serra Alina di’Lamberto. Then he shifted his gaze, took in the expressions of the men who now stood around her, and chose to remain silent.
Ramiro di’Callesta followed. He bowed as he entered into the presence of the Tyr’agar, and when he rose, he smiled. “I have had word,” he said. “The flight has arrived in Callesta.”
He did not spare a glance for the Serra, and by this lack of reaction, Valedan knew that he was well-informed.
“Your presence is requested, Tyr’agar.”
Valedan nodded.
The care with which the Northern Commanders were treated was not lost on them. From the moment they arrived at the city gates, they were escorted by no less a man than the captain of the Tyran: Ser Fillipo par di’Callesta. The men who accompanied him likewise wore the miniature crest of the sun rising, its rays a declaration of the oath they had collectively and individually sworn.
He met them on horseback, and did them the honor of dismounting; did them the further grace of offering them a bow that would have been reserved for the Tyr’agnate himself had he been present.
The Tyran were a heartbeat behind their leader, but when they dismounted, they offered bows that were no less perfect. As dress guards, they were exceptional.
As warriors, there were none finer.
Commander Allen, however, noted that they wore the blue of a dark midnight, the white of mourning, in a sash across their chests; their horses were likewise adorned. Someone had died; someone of import. He closed his eyes a moment. Opened them, reaching for a memory that was over a decade old.
“The Tyr’agnate of Averda waits you in the citadel,” Ser Fillipo said quietly in flawless Weston.
Commander Allen nodded. As they had done, he dismounted; it was as much a signal to the Northern guards as Ser Fillipo’s gesture had been to the Southern; they followed his lead in a taut silence, their movements far less graceful than their allies’.
“A moment,” Commander Allen said.
Ser Fillipo nodded, holding the reins of his pale horse.
The man who had won the war for the Empire years ago now walked to his saddlebags; he drew from them a sash that was like, and unlike, the sash the Callestans wore. Devran and Ellora watched him without comment as he draped the sash across his left shoulder and hooked it once around his waist; it bore the crest of the crowns across a white background; the sword and the rod on either side emblazoned in gold. The sash was edged in a thick, weighted black.
Ser Fillipo raised a brow; the two Commanders who were legend for their rivalry gazed a moment at each other and then found similar sashes in their saddlebags; they donned these.
“Your pardon, Ser Fillipo,” Commander Allen said gravely.
Ser Fillipo bowed. “No pardon is necessary,” he said softly. “I have spent time in the North, and I recognize the colors of Imperial mourning; you honor our fallen.”
The Tyran whispered among themselves until they felt their captain’s gaze; they fell silent at once.
Thus accoutred, the three Commanders entered the city of Callesta. The streets were not empty; they were lined with the men and the women whose lives were defined by their service within the walls. There was curiosity upon the faces of these witnesses to the procession, but it was not their curiosity that drew the attention; it was the colors they wore: Blue and white. Not so fine as the colors that graced the Tyran, they were nonetheless a clear indication that the city itself was in mourning.
Not an auspicious beginning, but a fitting one.
He bowed his head a moment; by war’s end, there would be three colors on the field, and off it: black, white and blue.
He had ridden through Imperial villages similar to this at the start of the border war thirteen years past, and although the deep and somber shades of blue had been absent, black was there in abundance; black of fabric, black of hanging, black of bowed head, of bruised face, of eyes made hollow by food’s lack, sleep’s lack, and worse, the loss of the things which defined a full life.
He had chosen to parade the best of his troops—hand-picked among the divisions—through those towns for two reasons; the first to offer comfort to the bereaved,
to offer the promise, in silence, of the Kings’ Justice, and second, to make certain, to make absolutely certain, that his men understood the human face of a war that would leave many more villages in smoldering ruins before an end was called to the hostilities which defined the shape of two nations.
But more, he had done so to remind himself.
“These people,” he had said, “had no choice in the battle; they cannot make decisions that affect the fate of nations, but they suffer the cost of the decisions undertaken—by us, by our Kings, by our enemies. You want justice. Good. Justice has defined the Empire of Essalieyan since the founding of Averalaan.
“But Wisdom has tempered that Justice; call upon that Wisdom when we cross the border. Call upon it when we take the villages of the Averdan valleys; call upon it when you see the old and the weak, the women, the children, and the young men who, like ours, have lost all but their desire for vengeance. You are the Kings’ representatives here. You bear the burden of their name, and their honor, upon the field. The standards that you see are ours, but they embody more than the men at your side, than the fight for survival.
“Very few of the men and the women who people the villages of the Dominion are free. Very few have a choice in how they live or how they die. Remember this for as long as you can. Hold on to it.
“Understand why you are here.”
He drew breath, and that breath drew him back across the decade, confronting him with his own words, his own resolve.
We are killers, he thought, his right hand upon the pommel of his sword, his left upon the reins of his mount. But we are not monsters; we are not murderers. The name we make for ourselves will be defined by our actions here. Let us carry that name with pride.
Devran stood to his left, gazing upon the whole of the city of Callesta, inscrutable and silent.
Ellora walked to his right, her hand upon the reins of her mount; she did not seek the solace of a weapon. Not for her the prettified speeches; not for her the tame instruction. She paused, shortening the grip on her horse.
A second later, a child appeared between the ranks of the gathered Callestans, his eyes too large for his face, his cheeks widened by a smile that had clearly been indulged. He slipped past the hands that reached for his chubby arms, his fat, round shoulders, and ran toward the legs and limbs of the passing soldiery.
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