chapter 12

THE COLD AND A CRAMPED STIFFNESS WOKE DEVIN ABOUT AN hour before sunrise. It took him a moment to remember where he was. It was still dark in the room. He massaged his neck and listened to Catrianas quiet breathing from under her blankets in the bed. A rueful expression crossed his face.

It was strange, he reflected, twisting his head from side to side to try to ease the soreness, how only a few hours in a soft armchair could leave one feeling more knotted and uncomfortable than a whole night out on cold ground He felt surprisingly awake though, given the night hed just had and the fact that he couldnt have been asleep for more than three hours or so. He considered going back to his own bed but realized that he wasnt going to be able to sleep any more that night. He decided to go down to the kitchens and see if any of the household staff could be induced to make him a pot of khav.

He left the room, concentrating on closing the door silently behind him. So much so that when he saw Alessan standing in the hallway watching him from in front of his own door he jumped involuntarily.

The Prince walked over, eyebrows arched.

Devin shook his head firmly. "We just talked. I slept in the chair. Got a kink in my neck to show for it.”

"Im sure," Alessan murmured.

"No, really," Devin insisted.

"Im sure," Alessan repeated. He smiled. "I believe you. If you had essayed more I would have heard screaming—yours with an unpleasant injury, most likely.”

"Very likely," Devin agreed. They walked away from Catrianas door.

"How was Alienor though?”

Devin felt himself going red. "How . . . ?" he began, then gradually became aware of the condition of his clothing and the amused scrutiny Alessan was giving him, "Interesting," he offered.

Alessan smiled again. "Come downstairs with me and help solve a problem. I need some khav for the road anyhow.”

"I was on the way to the kitchens myself. Give me two minutes to change my clothes.”

"Not a bad idea," Alessan murmured, eyeing the torn shirt. "Ill meet you down there.”

Devin ducked into his own chamber and quickly changed. For good measure he pulled on the vest Alais had sent him. Thinking of her, of her sheltered, quiet innocence, took him back—by polarity—to what had happened last night. He stood stock-still in the middle of his room for a moment and tried to properly grasp what he had done, and had done to him.

Interesting, he had just called it. Language. The process of sharing with words seemed such a futile exercise sometimes. A remnant of the sadness hed felt, leaving Alienor, washed back over him and it picked up Catrianas sorrows too. He felt as if hed been washed up by the sea on some grey beach at a bleak hour.

"Khav," Devin said aloud. "Or Ill never get out of this mood.”

On the way downstairs he realized, belatedly, what Alessan had meant by "for the road." His meeting, wherever it was, was today— the encounter theyd been pointing toward for half a year.

And after that he would be riding west. To Tigana. Where his mother lay dying in a Sanctuary of Eanna.

Wide awake, his mind snapping from night reflections into the sharper agitations of the day, Devin followed a glow of light to the huge kitchens of Castle Borso and he paused in the arched doorway, looking within.

Sitting by the roaring fire, Alessan was carefully sipping steaming khav from an oversized mug. In a chair beside him Erlein di Senzio was doing the same. The two men were both gazing into the flames while all around them there was already a purposeful stir and bustle in the kitchen.

Devin stood in the doorway a moment, unnoticed, and found himself looking closely at the two men.

In their silent gravity they seemed to him to be a part of a frieze, a tableau, emblematic in some complex way of all such pre-dawn hours for those on the long roads.

Neither man was a stranger to this hour, Devin knew, to sitting thus before a castle kitchen fire among the servants in the last dark hour before dawn, easing into wakefulness and a fugitive warmth, preparing for the road again and whatever turnings it might offer in the day that had not yet begun.

It seemed to Devin that Alessan and Erlein, sitting together as they were, were bonded in some way that went beyond the harsh thing that had happened by that twilit stream in Ferraut. It was a linkage that had nothing to do with Prince and wizard, it was shaped of the things they each had done. The same things done. Memories they would each have and could share, if these two men could truly share anything after what had happened between them.

For years they had each been traveling. There had to be so many images that overlapped and could evoke the same mood, emotions, the same sounds and smells. Like this one: darkness outside, the edge of grey dawn and the castle stir the sun would bring, chill of the corridors and knowledge of wind outside the walls, cut by the crackle and roar of the kitchen fire; the reassuring steam and smell rising from their cradled mugs; sleep and dream receding, the mind slowly turning forward to the day that lay ahead swathed in ground mist. Looking at their stillness amid the bustle of the kitchen Devin felt another return of the sadness that seemed to be his legacy from this long strange night in the highlands.

Sadness, and a distinct stir of longing. Devin realized that he wanted that shared history for himself, wanted to be a part of that self-contained, accomplished fraternity of men who knew this scene so well.

He was young enough to savor the romance of it, but old enough —especially after this past winter and his time with Menico—to guess at the price demanded for those memories and the contained, solitary, competent look of the two men in front of him.

He stepped through the doorway. A pretty servant noticed him and smiled shyly. Without a word she brought him a scalding mug of khav. Alessan glanced over at him and hooked a third chair with his long leg, pulling it into a position near him by the fire. Devin walked over and sank gratefully down near the warmth. His stiffened neck was still bothering him.

"I didnt even have to be charming," Alessan reported cheerfully. "Erlein was already here and had started in on a fresh pot of khav. There were people in the kitchen all night to keep the fires going.

Couldnt have lit new ones on an Ember Day.”

Devin nodded, sipping carefully and with intense gratitude from his steaming mug. "And the other question you mentioned?" he asked guardedly, with a glance at Erlein.

"Solved," the Prince said promptly. He seemed unnaturally bright, brittle as kindling. "Erleins going to have to come with me. Weve established that I cant let him get too far away or my summons wont work. And if thats the case, well he simply has to go where I go. All the way west. We really do seem to be tied together, dont we?" He flashed his teeth in a smile at the wizard. Erlein didnt bother to respond; he continued to sip his drink, gazing expressionlessly into the fire.

"Why were you up so early?" Devin asked him, after a moment.

Erlein made a sour face. "Slavery doesnt agree with my rest," he mumbled into his khav.

Devin elected to ignore that. There were times when he really did feel sorry for the wizard, but not when Erlein trotted out his reflexive self-pity.

A thought struck Devin. He turned to Alessan. "Is he going to your meeting this morning, too?”

"I suppose," Alessan said with apparent carelessness. "A small reward for his loyalty and the long ride hell have afterward. I expect to travel without stopping very much." His tone was genuinely odd; too deliberately casual, as if denying the very possibility of strain.

"I see," Devin said, as neutrally as he could manage. He turned his gaze to the fire and kept it there.

There was a silence. When it stretched, Devin looked back and saw Alessan looking at him.

"Do you want to come?" the Prince asked.

Did he want to come? For half a year, from the moment Devin and Sandre had joined the other three, Alessan had been telling them that everything they wanted to achieve would point toward and wait upon a meeting in these southern highlands on the first of the Ember Days.

Did he want to come?

Devin coughed, spilling some khav on the stone floor. "Well," he said, "not if Im in the way, naturally. Only if you think I could be useful and if maybe I could . . .”

He trailed off because Alessan was laughing at him.

Even Erlein had been roused from his sulk to a faint, reluctant snort of amusement. The two older men exchanged a glance.

"You are a terrible liar," the wizard said to Devin.

"Hes right," Alessan said, still chuckling. "But never mind. I dont actually think you can be useful— it isnt in the nature of what I have to do. But Im certain you wont do any harm and you and Erlein can keep each other entertained. Itll be a very long ride.”

"What? To the meeting?" Devin asked, startled.

Alessan shook his head. "Only two or three hours there, depending on the state of the pass this morning. No, Devin, Im inviting you west with me." His voice altered. "Home.”

"Pigeon!" the balding, burly-chested man cried, though they were still some distance away. He sat in a massive oak chair set squarely down in the middle of the Braccio Pass. There had been early spring flowers blooming on the lower slopes but not very many this far up. On either side of the path piled rock and stone yielded to forest. Further up, to the south, there was only rock and snow.

Carrying-poles were attached to the oak chair and six men stood behind it in burgundy livery. Devin thought they were servants, but when he came nearer he saw from their weapons that he was wrong: these were soldiers, and guards.

"Pigeon," the man in the chair repeated loudly. "You have risen in the world! You bring companions this time!”

It was with a genuine sense of disorientation that Devin realized that the childish name and the raucous, carrying words were addressed to Alessan.

Who had the oddest look to his face all of a sudden. He said nothing by way of reply though as they rode up to the seven men in the pass. Alessan dismounted; behind him Devin and Erlein did the same. The man in the chair did not rise to greet them, but his bright, small eyes followed every move that Alessan made. His enormous hands were motionless on the carved arms of the chair. He wore at least six rings; they sparkled in the light of the morning sun. He had a hooked much-broken nose in a leathery, weather- beaten face that showed two livid scars. One was an old wound, slanting down his right cheek in a white line. The other, much more recent, raked redly across his forehead to the greying, receding hairline above his left ear.

"Company for the ride," Alessan said mildly. "I wasnt sure if youd come. They both sing. Could have consoled me on the way back. The young one is Devin, the other is Erlein. Youve grown monstrous fat in a year.”

"And why should I not grow fat?" the other roared in delight. "And how dare you doubt that I would come! Have I ever not kept faith with you?" The tone was boisterous in the extreme, but Devin saw that the small eyes were alert and very watchful.

"Not ever," Alessan agreed calmly. His own febrile manner had gone, to be replaced by an almost preternatural calm. "But things have changed since two years ago. You dont need me anymore. Not since last summer.”

"Not need you!" the big man cried. "Pigeon, of course I need you. You are my youth, my memory of what I was. And my talisman of fortune in battle.”

"No more battles though," said Alessan quietly. "Will you allow me to offer my humblest congratulations?”

"No!" the other growled. "No, I will not allow you. No such mewling courtly claptrap from you.

What I want is for you to come here and hug me and stop this imbecilic maundering! Who are we to be cluttering like this? The two of us!”

And with the last words he propelled himself upright with a ferocious push of his two muscled arms.

The huge oak chair rocked backwards. Three of the liveried guards sprang to balance it.

The big man took two awkward, crippled, hopping steps forward as Alessan strode to meet him. And in that moment Devin abruptly realized—a bucket of ice down the length of his spine—who this scarred, maimed man had to be.

"Bear!" said Alessan, laughter catching in his throat. He threw his arms fiercely about the other man.

"Oh, Marius, I truly didnt know if you would come.”

Marius.

Stupefied by more than altitude and a sleepless night, Devin saw the self-crowned King of Quileia— the crippled man whod killed seven armed challengers bare-handed hi the sacred grove—lift the Prince of Tigana clean off his feet and kiss him loudly on both cheeks. He lowered a red-faced Alessan to the path and held him at arms length for a close scrutiny.

"It is true," he said at length as Alessans grin faded. "I can see it. You really did doubt me. I should be outraged, Pigeon. I should be wounded and hurt. What did Pigeon Two say?”

"Baerd was sure you would be here," Alessan admitted ruefully. "Im afraid I owe him money.”

"At least one of you has grown up enough to have some sense,”

Marius growled. Then something seemed to register with him. "What? You two young scamps were wagering on me? How dare you!" He was laughing, but the blow he suddenly clapped on Alessans shoulder made the other man stagger.

Marius hobbled back to his chair and sat down. Again Devin was struck by the all-embracing nature of the glance he turned on them. Only for an instant did it flit over Devin himself, but he had the uncanny sense that Marius had, in that one second, sized him up quite comprehensively, that he would be recognized and remembered should they meet by chance even a decade hence.

He experienced a weird, fleeting moment of pity for the seven warriors who had had to battle this man, bringing merely swords or spears, and armor and two good legs to meet him in a night grove.

Those arms like tree-trunks and the message in those eyes told Devin all he needed to know about which way the balance would have tilted in those battles despite the ritual maiming—the severed ankle tendons—of the consort who was supposed to die in the grove, to the greater glory of the Mother Goddess and her High Priestess.

Marius had not died. For anyones greater glory. Seven times he had not died. And now, since that seventh time, there was a true King in Quileia again and the last High Priestess was dead. It had been Rovigo, Devin remembered suddenly, who had first given him that news. In a rancid tavern called The Bird, either half a year or half a lifetime ago.

"You must have been slipping or lazy or already fat last summer in the Grove," Alessan was saying.

He gestured toward the scar on Mariuss forehead. "Tonalius should never have been able to get that close to you with a blade.”

The smile on the face of the King of Quileia was not, in truth, a pleasant thing to see. "He didnt,”

Marius said grimly. "I used our kick-drop from the twenty-seven tree and he was dead before we both hit the ground. The scar is a farewell token from my late wife in our last encounter. May the sacred Mother of us all guard her ever-blessed spirit. Will you take wine and a midday meal?”

Alessans grey eyes blinked. "We would be pleased to," he said.

"Good," said Marius. He gestured to his guards. "In that case, while my men attend to laying things out for us you can tell me, Pigeon, and I hope you will tell me, why you hesitated just now before accepting that invitation.”

It was Devins turn to blink; he hadnt even registered the pause.

Alessan was smiling though. "I wish," he said, with a wry twist of his mouth, "that you would miss something once in a while." Marius smiled thinly, but did not speak. "I have a long ride ahead of me. At least three days, flat out. Someone I must get to, as soon as I can.”

"More important than me, Pigeon? I am desolated.”

Alessan shook his head. "Not more important, or I wouldnt be here now. More compelling perhaps.

There was a message from Da-noleon waiting for me at Borso last night. My mother is dying.”

Mariuss expression changed swiftly. "I am deeply sorry," he said. "Alessan, truly I am." He paused.

"It could not have been easy for you to come here first, knowing that.”

Alessan gave his small characteristic shrug. His eyes moved away from Marius, gazing past him up the pass toward the high peaks beyond. The soldiers had finished spreading a quite extravagant golden cloth over the level ground in front of the chair. Now they began laying out multi-colored cushions upon it and putting down baskets and dishes of food.

"We will break bread together," Marius said crisply, "and discuss what we are here to discuss—then you must go. You trust this message? Is there danger for you in returning?”

Devin hadnt even thought about that.

"I suppose there is," Alessan said indifferently. "But yes, I trust Danoleon. Of course I do. He took me to you in the first place.”

"I am aware of that," Marius said mildly. "I remember him. I also know that unless things have greatly changed he is not the only priest in that Sanctuary of Eanna, and your clergy in the Palm have not been noted for their reliability.”

Alessan gave his shrug again. "What can I do? My mother is dying. Ive not seen her in almost two decades, Bear." His mouth crooked. "I dont think I am likely to be recognized by many people, even without Baerds disguises. Would you not say I have changed somewhat since I was fourteen?" There was a slight challenge in the words.

"Somewhat," Marius said quietly. "Not so much as one might think. You were a grown man even then, in many ways. So was Baerd when he came to join you.”

Again Alessans eyes seemed to drift away up the line of the pass, as if chasing a memory or a far-off image to the south. Devin had an acute sense that there was much more being said here than he was hearing.

"Come," Marius said, levering his hands on the chair arms. "Will you join me on our carpet in the meadow?”

"Stay in the chair!" Alessan rapped sharply. His expression remained incongruously benign and untroubled. "How many men came here with you, Bear?”

Marius had not moved. "A company to the foothills. These six through the pass. Why?”

Moving easily, smiling carelessly, Alessan sat down on the cloth at the Kings feet. "Hardly wise, to bring so few up here.”

"There is little enough danger. My enemies are too superstitious to venture into the mountains. You know that, Pigeon. The passes were named as taboo long ago when they shut down trade with the Palm.”

"In that case," Alessan said, still smiling, "I am at a loss to explain the bowman I just saw behind a rock up the trail.”

"You are certain?" Mariuss voice was as casual as Alessans, but there was suddenly ice in his eyes.

"Twice now.”

"I am deeply distressed," said the King of Quileia. "Such a person is unlikely to be here for any reason other than to kill me. And if they are breaking the mountain taboo I am going to be forced to rethink a number of assumptions. Will you take some wine?" He gestured, and one of the men in burgundy poured with a hand that trembled slightly.

"Thank you," Alessan murmured. "Erlein, can you do anything here without it being known?”

The wizards face went pale, but he too kept his voice level. "Not any sort of attack. It would take too much power, and there is nothing here to screen it from any Tracker in the highlands.”

"A shield for the King?”

Erlein hesitated.

"My friend," Alessan said gravely, "I need you and I am going to continue to need you. I know there is danger in using your magic—for all of us. I must have honest answers though, to make intelligent decisions. Pour him some wine," he said to the Quileian soldier.

Erlein accepted a glass and drank. "I can do a low-level screen behind him against arrows." He stopped. "Do you want it? There is some risk.”

"I think I do," Alessan said. "Put up the shield as unobtrusively as you can.”

Erleins mouth tightened but he said nothing. His left hand moved very slightly from side to side.

Devin could see the two missing fingers now, but nothing else happened, so far as he could tell.

"It is done," Erlein said grimly. "The risk will increase the longer I hold it up." He drank again from his wine.

Alessan nodded, accepting a wedge of bread and a plateful of meat and cheese from one of the Quileians. "Devin?”

Devin had been waiting. "I see the rock," he said quietly. "Up the path. On the right side. Arrow range. Send me home.”

"Take my horse. Theres a bow in the saddle.”

Devin shook his head. "He may notice—and Im not good enough with the bow anyhow. Ill do what I can. Can you arrange to be noisy in about twenty minutes?”

"We can be very noisy," said Marius of Quileia. "The climb back up and around will be easier to your left as you go down, just past the point where this path bends. Id very much like this person alive, by the way.”

Devin smiled. Marius suddenly roared with laughter and Alessan followed suit. Erlein was silent as Alessan swept an imperious hand out toward Devin.

"If you forgot it then you can fetch it, thimble-brain! Well be here, enjoying our meal. We may leave something for you.”

"It wasnt my fault!" Devin protested loudly, letting his smile fade to petulance. He turned back to where the horses were tethered. Shaking his head, visibly disconsolate, he mounted his grey and rode down the path along which they had come.

As far as the bend in the trail.

He dismounted and tethered the horse. After a moments thought he left his sword where it was, hanging from the saddle. He was aware that it was a decision that might cost him his life. Hed seen the wooded slopes beside the pass though; a sword would be awkward and noisy when he began to climb.

Cutting to the west he soon found himself among the trees. He doubled back south and up, as far off the line of the pass as the terrain allowed. It was hard, sweaty going, and he had to hurry, but Devin was fit and hed always been quick and agile—compensations for a lack of size. He scrambled up the steep slopes, weaving among mountain trees and dark serrano bushes, grasping roots wedged deep into the slanting soil.

Part of the way up, the trees briefly gave out before a short, steep cliff to the south and west. He could go up or he could go around, angling back toward the pass. Devin tried to guess his bearings but it was difficult—no sounds reached him this far off the trail. He couldnt be sure if he was already above the place where the Quileian cloth was spread for lunch. Twenty minutes, hed told them. He gritted his teeth, offered a quick prayer to Adaon, and began to climb the rock. It occurred to him that there was something profoundly incongruous about an Asolini farmers son from the northern marshes struggling up a cliff- face in the Braccio Range.

He wasnt an Asolini farmers son though. He was from Tigana and his father was, and his Prince had asked him to do this thing.

Devin skittered sideways along the rock-face trying not to dislodge any pebbles. He reached an outcrop of stone, changed grip, hung free for a second, and then boosted himself straight up and onto it.

He scrambled quickly across some level ground, dropped flat on his stomach and, breathing hard, looked up to the south.

And then straight down. He caught his breath, realizing how lucky hed been. There was a single figure hiding behind a boulder almost directly below him. Devin had quite certainly been visible on the last part of his climb where the cliff-face broke clear of the trees. His silence had served him well though, for the figure below was oblivious to him, avidly intent on the group feasting on the path. Devin couldnt see them, but their voices carried to him now. The sun moved behind a cloud and Devin instinctively flattened himself, just as the assassin glanced up to gauge the change in the light.

For an archer it would matter, Devin knew. It was a long shot, downhill and partly screened by the guards. There would also be time, most likely, for only one arrow. He wondered if the tips were poisoned.

Probably, he decided.

Very carefully he started crawling uphill, trying to work his way further around behind the assassin.

His brain was racing as he slipped into a higher stand of trees. How was he going to get close enough to deal with an archer?

Just then he heard the sound of Alessans pipes followed, a measure later, by Erleins harp. A moment after that a number of voices started in on one of the oldest, most rollicking highland ballads of all. About a legendary band of mountain outlaws who had ruled these hills and crags with arrogant impunity until they were surprised and defeated by Quileia and Certando together.

Thirty brave men rode apace from the north And forty Quileians met them side by side. There in the mountains each pledged to the other And Gan Burdash high in his roost defied!

The booming voice of Marius led the others into the refrain. By then Devin had remembered something and he knew what he was going to try to do. He was aware that there was more than an element of lunacy in his planning, but he also knew he didnt have much time, or many options.

His heart was pounding. He wiped his hands dry on his breeches and began moving more quickly through the trees along the line of the ridge hed climbed. Behind him was the singing; beneath him now, perhaps fifteen feet east of this higher ridge and twenty feet below was an assassin with a bow. The sun came out from behind the clouds.

Devin was above and behind the Quileian now. Had he been carrying a bow and been at all accomplished with one he would have had the other at his mercy.

Instead, what he had was a knife, and a certain pride and trust in his own coordination, and a tall giant of a mountain pine tree rising all the way up to his ridge from just behind the boulder that sheltered the archer. He could see the other clearly now, clad in a masking green for the mountain trail, with a strung bow and half a dozen arrows to hand.

Devin knew what he had to do. He also knew—because there had been woods at home, if not mountain passes—that he could not climb down that tree with any hope of silence. Not even with the loud, seriously off-key voices screening his sounds from below.

Which left, so far as he could judge, only the one option. Others might have planned it better, but others werent on this ridge. Devin wiped his damp palms very carefully dry again and began concentrating on a large branch that stretched out and away from the others. The only one that might do him any good. He tried to calculate angle and distance as best he could, given an almost total lack of experience at this particular maneuver. What he was about to try was not a thing one did for practice, anywhere.

He checked the hang of the dagger in his belt, wiped his hands one last time, and stood up. Absurdly, the flash of memory that came to him then was of the day his brothers had surprised him hanging upside down from a tree, trying to stretch his height.

Devin smiled tightly and stepped to the edge of the cliff. The branch looked absurdly far away, and it was only half of the way down to the level of the pass. He swore an inward oath that if he survived this Baerd was going to teach him how to use a bow properly.

From the path below he heard the ragged voices swirling erratically towards the climax of the ballad: Gan Burdash ruled in the mountain heights And with his band he ranged from crag to glen, But seventy brave men tracked him to his lair And when the moons had set the peaks were free again!

Devin jumped. Air whistled past his face. The branch flew up to meet him, blurred, very fast. He stretched his hands, clutched it, swung. Only a little. Only enough to change his angle of descent, cut his momentum. Bring him directly down upon the killer behind the rock.

The branch held, but the leaves crackled loudly as he pivoted. Hed known they would. The Quileian flung a startled glance skyward and grappled for the bow.

Not nearly fast enough. Screaming at the top of his lungs, Devin plummeted like some hunting bird of these high places. By the time his target began to move Devin was already there.

Our kick-drop from the twenty-seven tree, he thought.

Falling, he tilted his torso so that it angled sideways across the upper body of the Quileian and he kicked out hard with both feet as he did. The impact was sickening. He felt his legs make jarring contact, even as he crashed into the other, driving all the air from his own lungs.

They smashed into the ground together, tumbling and rolling away from the base of the boulder.

Devin gasped agonizingly for breath, he felt the world sway and rock wildly in his sight. He gritted his teeth and groped for his dagger.

Then he realized it was not necessary.

Dead before we both hit the ground, Marius had said. With a shuddering heave Devin forced air into his tortured lungs. There was an odd, knifing pain running up his right leg. He forced himself to ignore it.

He rolled free of the unconscious Quileian and struggled, gasping and wheezing, for another breath of precious air. And then he looked.

The assassin was a woman. Under all the circumstances, not a great surprise. She was not dead. Her forehead appeared to have glanced off the rock under the impact of his sprawling descent. She was lying on her side, bleeding heavily from a scalp wound. He had probably broken a number of her ribs with his kick. She had a profusion of cuts and scrapes from their tumble down the slope.

So, Devin noted, did he. His shirt was torn and he was badly scratched again, for the second time in half a day. There was a joke, something that ought to be amusing in that, but he couldnt reach to it. Not yet.

He seemed to have survived though. And to have done what hed been asked to do. He managed to draw one full, steadying breath just as Alessan and one of the Quileian soldiers came sprinting up the path. Erlein was just behind them, Devin saw with surprise.

He started to stand, but the world spun erratically and he had to be braced by Alessan. The Quileian guard flipped the assassin over on her back. He stood staring down upon her and then spat, very deliberately, into her bleeding face.

Devin looked away.

His eyes met Alessans. "We saw you jump from down there. Youre really supposed to have wings before trying that sort of thing," the Prince said. "Didnt anyone ever tell you?”

The expression in the grey eyes belied the lightness of his tone. "I feared for you," he added softly.

"I couldnt think of anything else to do," Devin said apologetically. He was aware of a deep pride beginning to well up within him. He shrugged. "The singing was driving me mad. I had to do something to stop it.”

Alessans smile widened. He reached an arm around and squeezed Devins shoulder. Baerd had done that too, in the Nievolene barn.

It was Erlein who laughed at the joke. "Come back down," the wizard said. "Ill have to clean out those cuts for you.”

They helped him descend the slope. The Quileian carried the woman and her bow. Devin saw that it was made of a very dark wood, almost black, and was carved into a semblance of a crescent moon.

From one end of it there hung a gathered and twisted lock of greying hair. He shivered. He had a fair idea of whose it would be.

Marius was on his feet, one hand on the back of his chair, as he watched them come down. His eyes barely flicked over the four men and the carried assassin. They locked, cold and grim, on the black curve of the moon bow. He looked frightening.

And the more so, Devin thought, because not at all afraid.

"I think we are past the need to dance in words around each other," Alessan said. "I would like to tell you what I need and you will tell me if you can do it and that will be all we need say.”

Marius held up a hand to stop him.

He had now joined the three of them among the cushions on the golden cloth. The dishes and baskets had been cleared away. Two of the Quileians had taken the woman back up over the pass to where the rest of their company waited. The other four were posted some distance away. The sun was high, as high as it would get at noon this far south, this early in the spring. It had turned into a mild, generous day.

"This Bear is a very bad word-dancer, Pigeon," the King of Quileia said soberly. "You know that.

You probably know something else: how much it will grieve me to deny you any request at all. I would like to do this differently. I would like to tell you what I cannot do, so you will not ask it and force me to refuse.”

Alessan nodded. He remained silent, watching the King.

"I cannot give you an army," Marius said flatly. "Not yet, and perhaps never. I am too green in

power, too far from the stability I need at home to lead or even order troops over these mountains. There are several hundreds of years of tradition I have to set about changing in very little time. I am not a young man anymore, Pigeon.”

Devin felt a leap of excitement within himself and struggled to master it. This was too serious an occasion for childlike feelings. He could hardly believe he was here, though, so close to—at the very heart of—something of this magnitude. He stole a sidelong glance at Erlein and then looked more closely: the same quick spark of interest was in the others face. For all his years and his long travels, Devin seriously doubted if the troubadour-wizard had ever been so near to great events.

Alessan was shaking his head. "Bear," he said, "I would never ask you for that. For our sake as much as for your own. I will not have my name remembered as the man who first invited the newly awakened might of Quileia north into the Palm. If an army ever ventures from Quileia through these passes—and I hope we are both long dead before such a day—the wish of my heart will be for it to be slaughtered and driven back with losses so bloody that no King in the south ever tries again.”

"If there is a King in the south and not another four hundred years of the Mother and her priestesses.

Very well," Marius said, "then tell me what it is you do need.”

Alessans legs were neatly crossed, his long fingers laced in his lap. He looked for all the world as if he was discussing nothing of greater moment than, perhaps, the sequence of songs for an evenings performance.

Except that his fingers, Devin saw, were so tightly squeezed together they were white.

"A question first," Alessan said, controlling his voice. "Have you received letters offering to open trade?”

Marius nodded. "From both of your Tyrants. Gifts, messages of felicitation, and generous offers to reopen the old trade routes by sea and land.”

"And each urged you to scorn the other as being untrustworthy and unstable in his power.”

Marius was smiling faintly now. "Are you intercepting my mail, Pigeon? Each did exactly that.”

"And what," Alessan asked, direct as an arrow, "have you replied?" For the first time, unmistakably, there was a taut cord of tension in his voice.

Marius heard it too. "Nothing yet," he said, his smile fading. "I want a few more messages from each of them before I move.”

Alessan looked down and seemed to notice his clenched fingers for the first time. He unlaced them and ran a hand, predictably, through his hair.

"You will have to move, though," he said with some difficulty. "You will obviously need trade. In your position you have to begin showing Quileia some of the benefits you can offer. Traffic north will be the quickest way, wont it?" There was an awkward kind of challenge in his tone.

"Of course," Marius said simply. "I have to do it. Why else am I King? It is only a question of timing—and with what happened this morning I think my timing has just been moved up.”

Alessan nodded, as if hed known all this already.

"What will you do, then?" he asked.

"Open the passes for both of them. No preferences, no tariffs for either. I will let Alberico and Brandin send me all the gifts and goods and envoys they want. Ill let their trade make me truly a King—a King who brings new prosperity to his people. And I need to start doing it soon. Immediately, I now suspect. I have to put Quileia so firmly on a new path that the old one recedes as fast as I can make it.

Otherwise Ill die having done nothing but live somewhat longer than most Year Kings, and the priestesses will be in power again before my bones are picked clean underground.”

Alessan closed his eyes. Devin became aware of the rustling of leaves all around them and the sporadic calling of birds. Then Alessan looked up at Marius again, the grey eyes wide and calm, and he

said, bluntly: "My request: that you give me six months before deciding on trade. And something else, in that interval.”

"The time alone is a great deal," Marius said very softly. "But tell me the rest, Pigeon. The something else.”

"Three letters, Bear. I need three letters sent north. First letter: you say yes to Brandin, conditionally.

You ask for time to consolidate your own position before exposing Quileia to outside influences. You make it clear that your inclination toward him is based on his appearing stronger than Alberico, more likely to endure. Second letter: you reject, sorrowfully, all overtures from Astibar. You write Alberico that you are intimidated by Brandins threats. That you would dearly love to trade with the Empire of Barbadior, need to trade with them, but the Ygrathen seems too strong in the Palm for you to risk offending him. You wish Alberico all good fortune. You ask him to keep in contact with you, discreetly.

You say you will be watching events in the north with close interest. You have not yet given Brandin a final decision, and will delay as long as you can. You send your warmest regards to the Emperor.”

Devin was lost. He reverted to his trick of the winter: listen, remember, think about it later. Mariuss eyes were bright though, and the cold, unsettling smile was back.

"And my third letter?" he asked.

"Is to the Governor of the Province of Senzio. Offering immediate trade, no tariffs, first choice of prime goods, secure anchorage in your harbors for their ships. Expressing deep admiration for Senzios brave independence and enterprise in the face of adversity." Alessan paused. "And this third letter, naturally—”

"Will be intercepted by Alberico of Barbadior. Pigeon, do you know what you would be setting in motion? How incredibly dangerous a game this is?”

"Wait a minute!" Erlein di Senzio suddenly interjected, starting to rise.

"You be silent!" Alessan literally snarled the command in a voice Devin had never heard him use.

Erleins mouth snapped shut. He subsided, breathing harshly, his eyes coals of anger and burgeoning understanding. Alessan didnt even look at him. Neither did Marius. The two of them sat on a golden carpet high in the mountains, seemingly oblivious to the existence of anything in the world but each other.

"You do know, dont you?" Marius said finally. "You know exactly." There was a certain wonder in his voice.

Alessan nodded. "Ive had enough time to think about it, Triad knows. Once the trade routes open I think my province and its name are lost. With what you can offer him, Brandin will be a hero in the west, not a Tyrant. He will be so secure that there will be nothing I can do, Bear. Your Kingship may be my undoing. And my homes.”

"Are you sorry you helped me to it?”

Devin watched Alessan wrestle with that. There were currents of emotion running here, far beneath the surface of what he could see and understand. He listened, and remembered.

"I should be sorry," Alessan murmured at length. "In a way it is a kind of treachery that I am not. But no, how can I possibly regret what we worked so hard to achieve?" His smile was wistful.

Marius said, "You know I love you, Pigeon. Both of you.”

"I know. We both know.”

"You know what I am facing back home.”

"I do. I have reason to remember.”

In the silence that followed Devin felt a sadness come over him, an echo of his mood at the end of the night. A sense of the terrible spaces that always seemed to lie between people. The gulfs that had to be

crossed for even a simple touching.

And how much wider those gulfs must be for men such as these two, with their long dreams and the burdens of being who they were, and what. How hard it seemed, how brutally hard, for hands to reach out across so much history and such a weight of responsibility and loss.

"Oh, Pigeon," said Marius of Quileia, his voice little more than a whisper, "you may have been an arrow shot from the white moon into my heart eighteen years ago. I love you as my son, Alessan bar Valen-tin. I will give you six months and your three letters. Build a bonfire to my memory if you hear that I have died.”

Even with what little he understood, on the uttermost edges of this, Devin felt a lump gather in his throat, making it difficult to swallow. He looked at the two of them and he couldnt have said which man he admired more in that moment. The one who had asked, knowing what he asked, or the one who had given, knowing what he gave. He had an awareness though, humbling, inescapable, of how far yet he had to travel—a distance he might never traverse—before he could name himself a man after the fashion of these two.

"Does either of you have any idea," Erlein di Senzio broke into the stillness, his voice grim as death, "how many innocent men and women may be butchered because of what you are about to do?”

Marius said nothing. Alessan wheeled on the wizard though.

"Have you any idea," he said, his eyes like chips of grey ice, "how close I am to killing you for saying that?" Erlein paled but did not draw back. Nor did his own eyes flinch away.

"I did not ask to be born into this time, charged by my birth with trying to set it right," Alessan said, his voice held tightly again as if under a leash. "I was the youngest child. This should have been my brothers burden, either or both of them. They died by the Deisa. Among the lucky ones." Bitterness cracked through for a moment.

And was beaten back. "I am trying to act for the whole of the Palm. Not just for Tigana and her lost name. I have been reviled as a traitor and a fool for doing so. My mother has cursed me because of this. I will accept that from her. To her I will hold myself accountable for blood and death and the destruction of what Tigana was if I fail. I will not hold myself subject to your judgment, Erlein di Senzio! I do not need you to tell me who or what is at risk in this. I need you to do what I tell you, nothing more! If you are going to die a slave you might as well be mine as anyone elses. You are going to fight with me, Senzian.

Whether through your will or against it you are going to fight with me for freedom!”

He fell silent. Devin felt himself trembling, as if a titanic thunderstorm had shaken the sky above the mountains and gone.

"Why do you let him live?" Marius of Quileia asked.

Alessan fought to collect himself. He seemed to consider the matter. "Because he is a brave man in his own way," he answered at length. "Because it is true that his people will be placed in great danger by this. Because I have wronged him by his lights, and by my own. And because I have need of him.”

Marius shook his large head. "It is bad to have need of a man.”

"I know, Bear.”

"He may come back to you, even years later, and ask you for something very large. Something your heart will not let you refuse.”

"I know, Bear," said Alessan. The two men looked at each other, sitting motionless on the golden carpet.

Devin turned away, feeling like an intruder on that exchange of glances. In the stillness of that pass below the heights of the Braccio Range birdsong rang out with piercing sweetness and, looking up to the south, Devin saw that the last of the high white clouds had drifted apart, revealing the dazzle of sunlit snow on the peaks. The world seemed to be a place of more beauty and more pain than he could ever have

imagined it to be.

When they rode back down from the pass Baerd was waiting for them a few miles south of the castle, alone on his horse among the green of the foothills.

His eyes widened when he saw Devin and Erlein, and a rare amusement was visible even behind his beard, as Alessan pulled to a halt in front of him.

"You," said Baerd, "are even worse at these things than I am, despite everything you say.”

"Not worse. As bad, perhaps," Alessan said, ruefully ducking his head. "After all, your only reason for refusing to come was so that he wouldnt feel any extra pressure to—”

"And after lashing me verbally for that, you go and take two complete strangers to reduce the pressure even more. I stand my ground: you are worse than I am.”

"Lash me verbally," Alessan said.

Baerd shook his head. "How is he?”

"Well enough. Under strain. Devin stopped an assassination attempt up there.”

"What?" Baerd glanced quickly at Devin, noting the torn shirt and hose and the scrapes and cuts.

"You are going to have to teach me how to use a bow," Devin said. "Theres less wear and tear.”

Baerd smiled. "I will. First chance we have." Then something seemed to occur to him. "An assassination?" he said to Alessan. "In the mountains? Surely not!”

Alessans expression was grim. "Im afraid so. She carried a moon bow with a lock of his hair. The mountain taboo has obviously been lifted—at least for the purposes of murder.”

Baerds features creased with concern. He sat on his horse quietly a moment, then: "So he had no option really. He needs to act immediately. He said no?”

"He said yes. We have six months and he will send the letters." Alessan hesitated. "He asked us to build a bonfire to his memory if he dies.”

Baerd suddenly turned his horse away. He sat staring fixedly off to the west. The late-afternoon sun was shedding an amber glow over the heather and bracken of the hills.

"I love that man," Baerd said, still gazing into the distance.

"I know," said Alessan. Slowly, Baerd turned back to him. They exchanged a look in silence.

"Senzio?" said Baerd.

Alessan nodded. "You will have to explain to Alienor how to set up in the interception. These two will come west with me. You and Catriana and the Duke go north and then into Tregea. We start reaping what weve sown, Baerd. You know the timing as well as I do, and youll know what to do until we meet again, who well want from the east. Im not sure about Rovigo—Ill leave that to you.”

"Im not happy about separate roads," Baerd murmured.

"Neither am I, if you must know. If you have an alternative Id be grateful to hear it.”

Baerd shook his head. "What will you do?”

"Speak to some people on the way. See my mother. After that it depends on what I find. My own reaping in the west before summer comes.”

Baerd glanced briefly at Devin and Erlein. "Try not to let yourself be hurt," he said.

Alessan gave his shrug. "Shes dying, Baerd. And Ive hurt her enough in eighteen years.”

"You have not!" the other replied with sudden anger. "You only wound yourself if you think that way.”

Alessan sighed. "She is dying unknown and alone in a Sanctuary of Eanna in a province called Lower Corte. She is not in the Palace by the Sea in Tigana. Do not say she has not been hurt.”

"But not by you!" Baerd protested. "Why do you do this to yourself?”

Again the shrug. "I have made certain choices in a dozen years since we came back from Quileia. I am willing to accept that others may disagree with those choices." His eyes flicked to Erlein. "Leave it, Baerd. I promise not to let this unbalance me, even without you there. Devin will help if I need help.”

Baerd grimaced behind his beard and looked as if he would pursue the matter further, but when he spoke again it was in a different voice. "You think this is it, then? You think it truly might happen now?”

"I think it has to happen this summer or it never will. Unless, I suppose, someone does kill Marius in Quileia and we go back to stasis here, with nothing at all to work with. Which would mean that my mother and a great many other people were right. In which case you and I will simply have to sail into Chiara harbor and storm the palace walls alone and kill Brandin of Ygrath and watch the Palm become an outpost of Barbadiors Empire. And what price Tigana then?”

He checked himself. Then continued in a lower voice: "Marius is the one wild card we have ever had, the one thing Ive been waiting for and working for all these years. And hes just agreed to let us play him as we need. We have a chance. It may not hurt to do some praying, all of us, in the days to come. This has been long enough in arriving.”

Baerd was very still. "Long enough," he echoed finally, and something in his voice sent a chill into Devin. "Eanna light your path through the Ember Days and beyond." He paused, glanced at Erlein. "All three of you.”

Alessans expression spoke a world of things. "And yours, the three of you," was all he said though, before he turned his horse and started away to the west.

Following him, Devin glanced back once and saw that Baerd had not moved. He sat astride his horse watching them, and the sunlight fell on his hair and beard burnishing them back toward the golden color Devin remembered from their first meeting. He was too far away for his expression to be discerned.

Devin raised a hand in farewell, palm spread wide and then, surprised and gladdened, saw Erlein abruptly do the same.

Baerd lifted one arm high in salute to them, then twitched his horses reins and turned north to ride away.

Alessan, setting a steady pace into the setting sun, did not look back at all.