PART ONE - A BLADE IN THE SOUL Chapter 1

IN THE AUTUMN SEASON OF THE WINE, WORD WENT FORTH from among the cypresses and olives and the laden vines of his country estate that Sandre, Duke of Astibar, once ruler of that city and its province, had drawn the last bitter breath of his exile and age and died.

No servants of the Triad were by his side to speak their rituals at his end. Not the white-robed priests of Eanna, nor those of dark Morian of Portals, nor the priestesses of Adaon, the god.

There was no particular surprise in Astibar town when these tidings came with the word of the Dukes passing. Exiled Sandres rage at the Triad and its clergy through the last eighteen years of his life was far from being a secret. And impiety had never been a thing from which Sandre dAstibar, even in the days of his power, had shied away.

The city was overflowing with people from the outlying distrada and far beyond on the eve of the Festival of Vines. In the crowded taverns and khav rooms truths and lies about the Duke were traded back and forth like wool and spice by folk who had never seen his face and who would have once paled with justifiable terror at a summons to the Ducal court in Astibar.

All his days Duke Sandre had occasioned talk and speculation through the whole of the peninsula men called the Palm—and there was nothing to alter that fact at the time of his dying, for all that Alberico of Barbadior had come with an army from that Empire overseas and exiled Sandre into the distrada eighteen years before. When power is gone the memory of power lingers.

Perhaps because of this, and certainly because he tended to be cautious and circumspect in all his ways, Alberico, who held four of the nine provinces in an iron grip and was vying with Brandin of Ygrath for the ninth, acted with a precise regard for protocol.

By noon of the day the Duke died, a messenger from Alberico was seen to have ridden out by the eastern gate of the city. A messenger bearing the blue-silver banner of mourning and carrying, no one doubted, carefully chosen words of condolence to Sandres children and grandchildren now gathered at their broad estate seven miles beyond the walls.

In The Paelion, the khav room where the wittier sort were gathering that season, it was cynically observed that the Tyrant would have been more likely to send a company of his own Barbadian mercenaries—not just a single message-bearer—were the living Sandreni not such a feckless lot. Before the appreciative, eye-to-who-might-be-lis-tening, ripple of amusement at that had quite died away, one itinerant musician—there were scores of them in Astibar that week—had offered to wager all he might earn in the three days to come, that from the Island of Chiara would arrive condolences in verse before the Festival was over.

"Too rich an opportunity," the rash newcomer explained, cradling a steaming mug of khav laced with one of the dozen or so liqueurs that lined the shelves behind the bar of The Paelion. "Brandin will be incapable of letting slip a chance like this to remind Alberico— and the rest of us—that though the two of them have divided our peninsula the share of art and learning is quite tilted west towards Chiara. Mark my words—and wager who will—well have a knottily rhymed verse from stout Doarde or some silly acrostic thing of Camenas to puzzle out, with Sandre spelled six ways and backwards, before the music stops in Astibar three days from now.”

There was laughter, though again it was guarded, even on the eve of the Festival, when a long tradition that Alberico of Barbadior had circumspectly indulged allowed more license than elsewhere in the year. A few men with heads for figures did some rapid calculations of sailing-time and the chances of the autumn seas north of Senzio province and down through the Archipelago, and the musician found his wager quickly covered and recorded on the slate on the wall of The Paelion that existed for just such a purpose in a city prone to gambling.

But shortly after that all wagers and mocking chatter were forgotten. Someone in a steep cap with a

curled feather flung open the doors of the khav room, shouted for attention, and when he had it reported that the Tyrants messenger had just been seen returning through the same eastern gate from which he had so lately sallied forth. That the messenger was riding at an appreciably greater speed than hitherto, and that, not three miles to his rear was the funerary procession of Duke Sandre dAstibar being brought by his last request to lie a night and a day in state in the city he once had ruled.

In The Paelion the reaction was immediate and predictable: men began shouting fiercely to be heard over the din they themselves were causing. Noise and politics and the anticipated pleasures of the Festival made for a thirsty afternoon. So brisk was his trade that the excitable proprietor of The Paelion began inadvertently serving full measures of liqueur in the laced khavs being ordered in profusion. His wife, of more phlegmatic disposition, continued to short-measure all her patrons with benevolent lack of favoritism.

"Theyll be turned back!" young Adreano the poet cried, decisively banging down his mug and sloshing hot khav over the dark oak table of The Paelions largest booth. "Alberico will never allow it!”

There were growls of assent from his friends and the hangers-on who always clustered about this particular table.

Adreano stole a glance at the traveling musician whod made the brash wager on Brandin of Ygrath and his court poets on Chiara. The fellow, looking highly amused, his eyebrows quizzically arched, leaned back comfortably in the chair he had brazenly pulled up to the booth some time ago. Adreano felt seriously offended by the man, and didnt know whether his umbrage had been more aroused by the musicians so-casual assertion of Chiaras preeminence in culture, or by his flippant dismissal of the great Camena di Chiara whom Adreano had been assiduously imitating for the past half-year: both in the fashion of his verses and the wearing of a three-layered cloak by day and night.

Adreano was intelligent enough to be aware that there might be a contradiction inherent in these twinned sources of ire, but he was also young enough and had drunk a more than sufficient quantity of khav laced with Senzian brandy, for that awareness to remain well below the level of his conscious thoughts.

Which remained focused on this presumptuous rustic. The man had evidently journeyed into the city to saw or pluck for three days at some country instrument or other in exchange for a handful of astins to squander at the Festival. How did such a fellow dare sail into the most fashionable khav room in the Eastern Palm and thump his rural behind down onto a chair at the most coveted table in that room?

Adreano still carried painfully vivid memories of the long month it had taken him—even after his first verses had appeared in print—to circle warily closer, flinching inwardly at apprehended rebuffs, before he became a member of the select and well-known circle that had a claim upon this booth.

He found himself actually hoping that the musician would presume to contradict his opinion: he had a choice couplet already prepared, about rabble of the road spewing views on their betters in the company of their betters.

As if on cue to that thought, the fellow slumped even more comfortably back in his chair, stroked a prematurely silvered temple with a long finger and said, directly to Adreano, "This seems to be my afternoon for wagers. Ill risk everything Im about to win on the other matter that Alberico is too cautious to ruffle the mood of the Festival over this. There are too many people in Astibar right now and spirits are running too high even with the half-measured drinks they serve in here to people who should know better.”

He grinned, to take some of the sting from the last words. "Far better for the Tyrant to be gracious,”

he went on. "To lay his old enemy ceremoniously to rest once and for all, and then offer thanks to whatever gods his Emperor overseas is ordering the Barbadians to worship these days. Thanks and offerings, for he can be certain that the geldings Sandres left behind will be pleasingly swift to abandon the unfashionable pursuit of freedom that Sandre stood for in un-gelded Astibar.”

By the end of his speech he was not smiling, nor did the wide-set grey eyes look away from

Adreanos own.

And here, for the first time, were truly dangerous words. Softly spoken, but they had been heard by everyone in the booth, and suddenly their corner of The Paelion became an unnaturally quiet space amid the unchecked din everywhere else in the room. Adreanos derisive couplet, so swiftly composed, now seemed trivial and inappropriate in his own ears. He said nothing, his heart beating curiously fast. With some effort he kept his gaze on the musicians.

Who added, the crooked smile returning, "Do we have a wager, friend?”

Parrying for time while he rapidly began calculating how many astins he could lay palms on by cornering certain friends, Adreano said, "Would you care to enlighten us as to why a farmer from the distrada is so free with his money to come and with his views on matters such as this?”

The others smile widened, showing even white teeth. "Im no farmer," he protested genially, "nor from your distrada either. Im a shepherd from up in the south Tregea mountains and Ill tell you a thing.”

The grey eyes swung round, amused, to include the entire booth. "A flock of sheep will teach you more about men than some of us would like to think, and goats . . . well, goats will do better than the priests of Morian to make you a philosopher, especially if youre out on a mountain in rain chasing after them with thunder and night coming on together.”

There was genuine laughter around the booth, abetted somewhat by the release of tension. Adreano tried unsuccessfully to keep his own expression sternly repressive.

"Have we a wager?" the shepherd asked one more time, his manner friendly and relaxed.

Adreano was saved the need to reply, and several of his friends were spared an amount of grief and lost astins by the arrival, even more precipitous than that of the feather-hatted tale-bearer, of Nerone the painter.

"Albericos given permission!" he trumpeted over the roar in The Paelion. "Hes just decreed that Sandres exile ended when he died. The Dukes to lie in state tomorrow morning at the old Sandreni Palace and have a full-honors funeral with all nine of the rites! Provided"—he paused dramatically— "provided the clergy of the Triad are allowed in to do their part of it.”

The implications of all this were simply too large for Adreano to brood much upon his own loss of face—young, overly impetuous poets had that happen to them every second hour or so. But these— these were great events! His gaze, for some reason, returned to the shepherd. The mans expression was mild and interested, but certainly not triumphant.

"Ah well," the fellow said with a rueful shake of his head, "I suppose being right will have to compensate me for being poor—the story of my life, I fear.”

Adreano laughed. He clapped the portly, breathless Nerone on the back and shifted over to make room for the painter. "Eanna bless us both," he said to him. "You just saved yourself more astins than you have. I would have touched you to make a wager I would have just lost with your tidings.”

By way of reply Nerone picked up Adreanos half-full khav mug and drained it at a pull. He looked around optimistically, but the others in the booth were guarding their drinks, knowing the painters habits very well. With a chuckle the dark-haired shepherd from Tre-gea proffered his own mug. Self-taught never to query largesse, Nerone quaffed it down. He did murmur a thank-you when the khav was drained.

Adreano noted the exchange, but his mind was racing down unfamiliar channels to an unexpected conclusion.

"You have also," he said abruptly, addressing Nerone but speaking to the booth at large, "just reaffirmed how shrewd the Barbadian sorcerer ruling us is. Alberico has now succeeded, with one decree, in tightening his bonds with the clergy of the Triad. Hes placed a perfect condition upon the granting of the Dukes last wish. Sandres heirs will have to agree—not that theyd ever not agree to something—and I cant even begin to guess how many astins its going to cost them to assuage the priests and priestesses enough to get them into the San-dreni Palace tomorrow morning. Alberico will now be known as the man

who brought the renegade Duke of Astibar back to the grace of the Triad at his death.”

He looked around the booth, excited by the force of his own reasoning. "By the blood of Adaon, it reminds me of the intrigues of the old days when everything was done with this much subtlety! Wheels within the wheels that guided the fate line of the whole peninsula.”

"Well, now," said the Tregean, his expression turning grave, "that may be the cleverest insight weve had this noisy day. But tell me," he went on, as Adreano flushed with pleasure, "if what Albericos done has just reminded you—and others, Ive no doubt, though not likely as swiftly—of the way of things in the days before he sailed here to conquer, and before Brandin took Chiara and the western provinces, then is it not possible"—his voice was low, for Adreanos ears alone in the riot of the room—"that he has been outplayed at this game after all? Outplayed by a dead man?”

Around them men were rising and settling their accounts in loud haste to be outside, where events of magnitude seemed to be unfolding so swiftly. The eastern gate was where everyone was going, to see the Sandreni bring their dead lord home after eighteen years. A quarter of an hour earlier, Adreano would have been on his feet with the others, sweeping on his triple cloak, racing to reach the gate in time for a good viewing post. Not now. His brain leapt to follow the Tregeans voice down this new pathway, and understanding flashed in him like a rushlight in darkness.

“You see, don’t you?" his new acquaintance said flatly. They were alone at the booth. Nerone had lingered to precipitously drain whatever khav had been left unfinished in the rush for the doors and had then followed the others out into the autumn sunshine and the breeze.

“I think I do,” Adreano said, working it out. “Sandre wins by losing.

“By losing a battle he never really cared about,” the other amended, a keenness in his grey eyes. “I doubt the clergy ever mattered to him at all. They weren’t his enemy. However subtle Alberico may be, the fact is that he won this province and Tregea and Ferraut and Certando because of his army and his sorcery, and he holds the Eastern Palm only through those things. Sandre d’Astibar ruled this city and its province for twenty-five years through half a dozen rebellions and assassination attempts that I’ve heard of. He did it with only a handful of sometimes loyal troops, with his family, and with a guile that was legendary even then. What would you say to the suggestion that he refused to let the priests and priestesses into his death-room last night simply to induce Alberico to seize that as a face-saving condition today?

Adreano didn’t know what he would say. What he did know was that he was feeling a zest, an exitement, that left him left him unsure whether what he wanted just then was a sword in his hand or a quill and ink to write down the words that were starting to tumble about inside him.

"What do you think will happen," he asked, with a deference that would have astonished his friends.

"Im not sure," the other said frankly. "But I have a growing suspicion that the Festival of Vines this year may see the beginning of something none of us could have expected.”

He looked for a moment as if he would say more than that, but did not.

Instead he rose, clinking a jumble of coins onto the table to pay for his khav. "I must go. Rehearsal-time: Im with a company Ive never played with before. Last years plague caused havoc among the traveling musicians— thats how I got my reprieve from the goats.”

He grinned, then glanced up at the wager board on the wall. "Tell your friends Ill be here before sunset three days from now to settle the matter of Chiaras poetic condolences. Farewell for now.”

"Farewell," Adreano said automatically, and watched as the other walked from the almost empty room.

The owner and his wife were moving about collecting mugs and glasses and wiping down the tables and benches. Adreano signaled for a last drink. A moment later, sipping his khav—unlaced this time to clear his head—he realized that hed forgotten to ask the musician his name.