PART FOUR - THE PRICE OF BLOOD chapter 13

TIME BEFORE DAWN—SHE WASNT SURE WHAT HOUR IT was—Dianora rose from bed and walked to the windows overlooking her balcony. In the end, she had not slept all night. Neither, as it happened, had her brother, a very long way to the south, fighting in the Ember war and then sharing the beginning of spring on a hilltop won from the Darkness.

She herself had shared nothing with anyone that night, lying alone in her bed, visited by ghosts and memories. Now she looked out upon a cold darkness that had little in it of springtime or the promise of growth to come. The late stars still shone though the moon had long since set. A wind blew in from off the sea. She could just make out the banners flapping from the masts of the ships in the harbor beyond the Ring Dive pier.

One of those ships was newly in from Ygrath. It had carried Isolla the singer here. It would not carry her back.

"Khav, my lady?" Scelto said quietly from behind her.

She nodded without turning. "Please. And then come sit with me, we have something to talk about.”

If she moved quickly enough, she thought, if she set it all in motion without giving herself time for hesitation or fear, she might possibly do this thing. Otherwise she was lost.

She could hear Scelto bustling efficiently in the small kitchen that was a part of her suite of rooms.

The fire had been kept going all night. Ygrath might not observe the same spring and autumn rituals as the Palm, but Brandin had seldom interfered with local customs or religion, and Dianora never lit a new flame on any of the Ember Days. Neither did most of the women in the saishan, if it came to that. The eastern wing of the palace would be a dark place after sunset for two more nights.

She thought about stepping out on the balcony, but it looked much too cold. There were no signs of life yet down below. She thought about Camena di Chiara. At sunrise they would probably bring him out, his bones broken, to die on a wheel in the sight of the people. She turned her mind away from that image too.

"Here is the khav," Scelto said. "I made it very strong," he added awkwardly.

She did turn at that, and her heart ached a little to see the helpless worry in his eyes. She knew how he would have grieved for her last night. The marks of sleeplessness were in his face; she supposed they were in her own as well. She could guess how she must look this morning. She forced a smile and accepted the mug he offered. It was warm to her hand and comforting, even before she drank.

She sat in one of the chairs by the window and motioned him to the other. He hesitated a moment and then sat down. She was silent, weighing her words. She realized, abruptly, that she had no idea how to do this subtly. So much, she thought wryly, for the cynical manipulator of the court.

Taking a deep breath, she said, "Scelto, I need to be out on the mountain this morning alone. I know all of the difficulties, but I have my reasons and they are important. How can we arrange it?”

His smooth brow furrowed. He said nothing though, and she realized that he was thinking about an answer to her question, not trying to judge or understand it. She had feared a different sort of reaction, but realized, belatedly, that she should not have. Never with him.

He said, "It will depend on whether they do the mountain run today.”

Her heart swelled with love for him. He hadnt even asked her reasons. "Why would they not run it?”

she asked stupidly, and realized the answer even as he replied.

"Camena," he said. "I dont know if the King will allow the spring run on the same day as an execution. If they are doing the race then you will be invited to come watch the ending from the Kings pavilion in the meadow as you always are.”

"I have to be alone," she repeated. "And up the mountain.”

"Alone with me," he modified. It was almost a plea.

She sipped her khav. This was the difficult part. "Some of the way, Scelto," she said. "There is a thing I must do there by myself. I will have to leave you partway up.”

She watched him wrestle with that. Before he could speak she added, "I would not say this if it were not necessary. There is no one I would rather have by my side.”

She did not say what it was necessary for and she saw him fighting to hold back the question. He did hold it back though, and she knew what it would have cost him.

He rose. "Ill have to find out what is happening then. Ill be back soon. If they are running we will at least have an excuse to be outside. If they arent, well have to think further on this.”

She nodded gratefully and watched him go, neat and trim, infinitely reassuring in his competence.

She finished her khav, looking out the window. It was still dark outside. She walked into the other room to wash and dress herself, doing so with some care, knowing it might matter today. She chose a simple brown woolen robe, and belted it at the waist. This was an Ember Day, not a time for splendor of apparel.

There was a hood to hide her hair; that too might matter.

By the time she was done Scelto had returned. He had a queer expression on his face.

"They are running," he said. "And Camena is not going to be executed on the wheel.”

"What happened to him?" she asked, feeling an instinctive dread.

Scelto hesitated. "The word is being put about that he has been granted a merciful death already.

Because the actual conspiracy was from Ygrath and Camena was merely a victim, a tool.”

She nodded. "And what has really happened.”

Sceltos face was troubled. "This may be a thing you were better not to know, my lady.”

It probably was, she thought. But she had come too far in the night, and had too far yet to go. This was no morning for sheltering, or trying to seek shelter. "Perhaps," was all she said. "But I would prefer you to tell me, Scelto.”

He said, after a moment: "I have been told that he is going to be . . . altered. Rhun is growing old and the King must have a Fool. It is necessary to have one in readiness, and it can take a long time, depending on the circumstances.”

The circumstances, Dianora thought, sickened. Such as whether the Fool-in-waiting had been a healthy, gifted, normal young man with a love of his home.

Even understanding what the Fools of Ygrath were to their Kings, even grasping that Camena had forfeited his life by what he had done yesterday, she still could not stop her stomach from turning at the implications of Sceltos words. She remembered Rhun hacking at Isollas body yesterday. She remembered Brandins face. She forced her mind away from that. She couldnt afford to think about Brandin this morning. In fact, she was better off not thinking about anything at all.

"Have I been summoned yet?" she asked tersely.

"Not yet. You will be." She could hear tension in his voice; the news about Camena had evidently disturbed him as well.

"I know I will," she said. "I dont think we can wait though. If I go out with the others it will be impossible to slip away. What do you think would happen if we two tried to walk down together now?”

Her tone was steady and calm; Sceltos face grew thoughtful. "We can try," he said after a moment.

"Then come.”

Her fear was very simple: if she waited too long, or considered this too much she would be paralyzed by doubt. The thing was to move, and to keep on moving, until she reached a certain place.

What would happen then, if anything, she would leave to the Triads grace.

Her heart beating rapidly, she followed Scelto out of her rooms and into the main saishan corridor.

The first thin streaks of light were showing now through the windows at the eastern end. The two of them went the other way, passing two young castrates who were moving toward Vencels rooms. Dianora looked straight at them. She was pleased—for the first time—to see fear spark in the eyes of both of the boys. Today fear was a weapon, a tool, and she would need all the tools she could find.

Scelto led her, not hurrying, down the wide stairway towards the double doors that led to the outside world. She caught up to him just as he rapped. When the guard outside opened she stepped through without waiting for his challenge or Sceltos announcement. She fixed him with a cool glance as she went by, and saw his eyes widen as he recognized her. She began walking down the long hallway. As she went past the other guard she saw that he was the young one shed smiled at yesterday. Today she did not smile.

Behind her she heard Scelto speak one quick, cryptic sentence, and then another in answer to a question. Then she heard his footsteps coming down the corridor. A moment later the door swung shut behind them. Scelto caught up to her.

"I think it will take a brave man to stop you today," he said quietly. "They all know what happened yesterday. It is a good morning to be trying this.”

It was the only morning she would ever be trying this, Dianora thought.

"What did you tell them?" she asked, continuing to walk.

"The only thing I could think of. You are going to a meeting with dEymon about what happened yesterday.”

She slowed a little, considering that, and as she did, the glimmerings of a proper plan came to her, like the first faint illumination of the sun rising in the east above the mountains.

"Good," she said, nodding her head. "Very good, Scelto. That is exactly what Im doing." Two other guards walked past them, taking no notice at all. "Scelto," she said, when they were alone again, "I need you to find dEymon. Say I want to speak with him alone before we all go out this afternoon for the end of the race. Tell him Ill be waiting in the Kings Garden two hours from now.”

Two hours might or might not be enough; she didnt know. But somewhere in the vast expanse of the Kings Garden on the north side of the palace she knew there was a gate that led out to the meadows, and then the slopes of Sangarios beyond.

Scelto stopped, forcing her to do the same.

"You are going to go without me, arent you?" he said.

She would not lie to him. "I am," she said. "I expect to be back in time for that meeting. After you give him the message go back to the saishan. He doesnt know were out already, so hell have to send for me. Make sure the message goes directly to you, I dont care how.”

"They usually do," he said quietly, clearly unhappy.

"I know that. When he does send well have our excuse for being out. Two hours from now come back down yourself. I should be in the garden with him. Look for us there.”

"And if you arent?”

She shrugged. "Stall. Hope. I have to do this, Scelto, I told you.”

He looked at her a moment longer, and then nodded his head once. They went on. Just before reaching the sweep of the Grand Staircase on their left Scelto turned right and they went down a smaller stairwell to the ground level. It brought them out into another east-west corridor. There was no one there.

The palace was only just beginning to stir.

She looked over at Scelto. Their eyes met. For a fleeting moment she was sorely tempted to confide in him, to make an ally of a friend.

What could she say, though? How explain in the middle of a dawn corridor the dark night and the train of years that had led her here?

She put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. "Go now," she said. "Ill be all right.”

Without looking back she walked alone a little way down the hallway, pushed open two glass doors leading to the labyrinth of the Kings Garden, and went out into the grey, cold beginning of dawn.

It hadnt always been known as the Kings Garden, nor had it always been as wild as it was now. The Grand Dukes of Chiara had shaped this pleasure ground for themselves over successive generations, and it had changed over the years as tastes and styles in the Island court had changed.

When Brandin of Ygrath had first arrived it had been a glittering exercise in topiary: hedges artfully trimmed in the shapes of birds and animals, trees precisely spaced and arranged throughout the enormous walled expanse of the garden, wide walks with sculpted benches at easy intervals, each one under a sejoia planted for fragrance and shade. There had been one tidy box-hedged maze with a lovers seat at the center, and rows and rows of flowers carefully arrayed in complementary colors.

Tame and boring, the King of Ygrath had labeled it the first time he walked through.

Within two years the garden had changed again. A great deal this time. The walkways were less wide now, dappled and overhung with leaves in summer and fall. They twisted seemingly at random through the densely planted groves of trees—brought down with some labor from the mountain slopes and the forests on the north side of the Island. Some of the sculpted benches remained, and the thick and fragrant flower beds, but the bird hedges and the animal bushes had been the first things to go, and the neat, symmetrically pruned shrubs and serrano bushes had been allowed to grow out, higher and darker, like the trees. The maze was gone: the whole of the garden was a maze now.

An underground stream had been tapped and diverted and now the sound of running water was everywhere. There were leafy pools one might stumble upon, with overhanging trees for shade in the summers heat. The Kings Garden was a strange place now, not overgrown and most certainly not neglected, but deliberately shaped to give a sense of stillness and isolation and even, at times, of danger.

Times such as this, with the dawn wind still cold and the scarcely risen sun just beginning to warm the air. Only the earliest buds were on the branches of the trees, and only the first flowers of the season— anemones and wild caiana roses—adding flashes of color to the wan morning. The winter trees stood tall and dark against the grey sky.

Dianora shivered and closed the glass doors behind her. She took a deep breath of the sharp air and looked up at the clouds piled high above the mountain, hiding the peak of Sangarios. Over to the east the clouds were beginning to break up; it would be a mild day later. Not yet though. She stood at the edge of the wildness of an end-of-winter garden and tried to guide herself towards steadiness and calm.

She knew there was a gate in the northern wall, but she wasnt sure she remembered where. Brandin had showed it to her one summers night years ago when they had walked for miles aimlessly amid fireflies and the drone of crickets and the sound of unseen water splashing in the darkness beyond the torchlit paths. He had brought her to a gate hed stumbled upon one day, half-hidden by climbing vines and a rose bush. He had shown it to her in the darkness, with torches behind them and blue Ilarion overhead.

He had held her hand that night as they walked, she remembered, and talked to her about herbs and the properties of flowers. He had told her an Ygrathen fairy tale of a forest princess born in some far distant otherworld, on an enchanted bed of snow-white flowers that bloomed only in the dark.

Dianora shook her head, pushing the memory away, and set off briskly down one of the smaller, pebbly paths leading northeast through the trees. After twenty strides she could no longer see the palace when she looked back. Overhead the birds were beginning to sing. It was still cold. She put up her hood, feeling, as she did so, like the brown-robed priestess of some unknown sylvan god.

And thinking so, she prayed to the god she did know and to Morian and Eanna, that the Triad might send her wisdom and the clear heart she had come out this Ember morning to find. She was intensely aware of what day this was.

At almost exactly the same moment, Alessan, Prince of Tigana was riding out from Castle Borso in the Certandan highland towards a meeting in the Braccio Pass that he thought might change the world.

Dianora walked past a bed of anemones, much too small and delicate yet to pick. They were white, which made them Eannas. The red ones were Morians, except in Tregea where they were said to be stained by the blood of Adaon on his mountain. She stopped and looked down at the flowers, their fragile petals shaken by the breeze; but her thoughts were back with Brandins fairy tale of the far away princess born under summer stars, cradled on such flowers.

She closed her eyes then, knowing that this would not do.

And slowly, deliberately, searching out pain as a spur, a goad, she built up a mental image of her father riding away, and then of her mother, and then of Baerd among the soldiers in the square. When she opened her eyes to go on there were no fairy tales in her heart.

The paths twisted hopelessly, but the main cloud mass was to the north over the mountain and she kept that in front of her as best she could. It was strange to be wandering like this, almost lost among the trees, and Dianora realized, with a start, that it had been a great many years since shed last been so alone.

She had only two hours and a long way to go. She quickened her pace. A little later the sun came up on her right and the next time she looked up part of the sky was blue above her and gulls were wheeling against that blue. She pushed back her hood and shook her long hair free, and just then she saw the thick, high grey stone of the northern wall through a screen of ohve trees.

Vines and clumps of laren moss were growing along the wall, purple and dark green. The path ended at the olives, forking east and west. She stood a moment, irresolute, trying to orient herself within a memory of summer and torches at night. Then she shrugged and went west, because her heart always did that.

Ten minutes later, winding past a pool and a ruffled reflection of white clouds within it, Dianora came to the gate.

She stopped, suddenly cold again, though the morning was warmer now with the sun. She looked at the arched shape and the rusted iron hinges. The gate was very old; there seemed to have been something carved on it once, but whatever image or symbol had been there was almost entirely worn away. The gate was overgrown with ivy and vines. The rose bush she remembered was bare yet on this first day of spring, but the thorns were long and sharp. She saw the heavy bolt, as rusted as the hinges. There was no lock, but she was suddenly uncertain whether she would even be able to move the corroded bolt. She wondered who had last gone through this gate into the meadows beyond. Who and when and why. She thought about climbing, and looked up. The wall was ten feet high, but she thought there might be hand and toeholds there. She was about to move forward when she heard a sound behind her.

Thinking about it afterwards she tried to understand why she hadnt been more frightened than she was. Somewhere in her mind, she decided, she must have thought that this might happen. The grey rock on the mountainside had been only a starting point. There was no reason i n the world to expect that she might find that rock, or find what she needed there.

She turned in the Kings Garden, alone among the trees and the earliest flowers, and saw the riselka combing her long green hair beside a pool.

They are only found when they want to be, she remembered. And then she had another thought and she looked quickly around to see if anyone else was there.

They were quite alone in the garden though, or in this part of the garden. The riselka smiled, as if reading Dianoras mind. She was naked, small and very slender, but her hair was so long it almost served her as a robe. Her skin was as translucent as Brandin had said it had been and the eyes were enormous, almost frighteningly so, pale as milk in the pale white face.

She looks like you, Brandin had said. Or, no. She reminded me of you, was what hed said. And in an eerie, chilling fashion Dianora had a sense of what he meant. She had a memory of herself in the year

Tigana fell, too thin and pale, her eyes almost as huge as these in the hollows of her face.

Brandin had never seen or known her then.

shivered. The riselkas smile deepened. There was nothing of Warmth in her, or comfort. Dianora didnt know if she had expected either of those. She didnt really know what she had expected to find. She had come for the clear path of the old foretelling verse, and it seemed that if she was to find it, it would be here among the intricately winding ways of the Kings Garden.

The riselka was beautiful, heartbreakingly so, in a fashion that had little to do with mortal beauty.

Dianoras mouth was dry. She didnt even try to speak. She stood very still in her plain brown robe, her owrx dark hair unbound and falling down her back, and she watched the riselka lay a bone-white comb down on the stone bench by the pool and motion to her.

Slowly, her hands beginning to tremble, Dianora walked off the path and under an arch of trees to stand before that pale, elusive creature of legend. She was so near she could see the green hair shine in the soft morning light. The pale eyes had shadings to them, and depth. The riselka lifted one hand, its fingers longer and more slender than any mortals could be, and she brought it up to Dianoras face and touched her.

The touch was cool, but not so cold as she might have feared. Gently, the riselka stroked her cheek and throat. And then, the hieratic, alien smile deepening again, she slipped her hand further down, undid a button of Dianoras robe, and reached within to touch her breasts. One, and then the other, not hurrying, smiling that entirely secret smile all the while.

Dianora was trembling; she could not make herself stop. Incredulous and afraid, she felt her body respond involuntarily to the exploration of that touch. She could see the riselkas childlike breasts half- hidden beneath the curtain of hair. Her knees were weak suddenly. The riselkas smile showed small, sharp, very white teeth. Dianora swallowed, feeling a hurt inside her she could not even begin to understand. She shook her head mutely, unable to speak. She felt herself beginning to weep.

The riselkas smile faded. She withdrew her hand and, almost apologetically it seemed, did up the robe again. She reached, as gently as before, and touched one of the tears on Dianoras cheek. Then she brought her finger to her lips and tasted it.

She is a child, Dianora thought suddenly, a thought cast up on the beach of her mind as if by a tide.

And even as it came to her, she knew that this was true, however many years this creature might have lived. She wondered if this was the same slender, numinous figure Baerd had met under moonlight by the sea the night he went away.

The riselka touched and then tasted another tear. Her eyes were so large Dianora had a sense that she could fall into them and never come out again. It was a deeply seductive imagining, a pathway to oblivion. She looked for another moment and then slowly, with an effort, shook her head again.

"Please?" she said then, whispered it, needing, and afraid of her need. Afraid that words or need or longing—anything—could drive a riselka away.

The green-haired creature turned, and Dianoras hands clenched at her sides. But the riselka looked back over her shoulder, grave now, unsmiling, and Dianora understood that she was to follow.

They came to the edge of the pool. The riselka was looking down into the water and so Dianora did the same. She saw a reflection of blue sky overhead, of a single white gull slicing across the space above the pool, dark green cypresses like sentinels and the branches of other trees not yet in leaf. And even as she looked, she realized, with a chill like winter come back too soon, what was wrong. The wind was blowing above them and all around, she could hear it among the trees and feel it on her face and in her hair, but the water of the pool was like the glass of her mirror, absolutely calm, unruffled by so much as a tendril of the breeze or any movement in its own depths.

Dianora drew back from the edge and turned to the riselka. The creature was looking at her, the green hair lifted by the breeze and blown back from her small white face. The eyes were darker now, cloudy,

and she no longer looked like a child. She looked like a power of the natural world, or an emissary of such a power, and not one with any warmth for mortal man or woman. No kindness or shelter there. But Dianora, fighting a rising fear, reminded herself that she had not come here for shelter, but for a signing of her road, and she saw then that the riselka held a small white stone in her hand, and she saw her throw that stone into the pool.

No ripples. No movement at all. The stone sank without a trace of its passage. But the surface of the water changed soon after, and darkened, and then the reflections were gone. No cypresses. No morning circle of sky overhead. No bare trees framing the slant of gulls. The water had grown too dark, it cast nothing back. But Dianora felt the riselka take her hand and draw her gently but inexorably back to the edge of the pool, and she looked down, having come out from the saishan to find this truth, this signing.

And in the dark waters she saw a reflection.

Not herself or the riselka, nor anything at all of the Kings Garden on this first of the Ember Days.

Instead, an image of another season, late spring or summer, another place, bright with color, a great many people gathered, and, somehow, she could even hear the sound of them in the image, and beneath that sound, constantly, was the surge and sigh of waves.

And in the depths of the pool Dianora saw an image of herself, clad in a robe green as the riselkas hair, moving alone between those gathered people. And then she saw, in the pool, where her steps were leading her.

Fear touched her in that moment with an icy hand for one second and then was gone. She felt her racing heartbeat slow, and then grow slower yet. A deep calm came over her. And a moment later, not without its burden of sorrow, came acceptance. For years her nights had known dreams of such an ending.

This morning she had come out of the saishan looking for this certainty. And now, above this pool, her path came clear to her at last and Dianora saw that it led to the sea.

The sounds of gathered people faded away, and then all the images, the bright sun of summer. The pool was dark again giving nothing back at all.

Some time later, it might have been moments or hours, Dianora looked up again. The riselka was still beside her. Dianora looked into the pale eyes, so much lighter than the enchanted waters but seemingly as deep, and she saw herself as a child again, so many years ago. Yet not so many, a blink of an eye or the moment it took an autumn leaf to fall, as this creature would measure time.

"Thank you," she whispered. And: "I understand.”

And she stood very still, not flinching at all, as the riselka rose up on tiptoe and kissed her, soft as the wing of a butterfly, upon the lips. There was no hint of desire this time, in the giving or receiving. This was the aftermath, the consummation had come and gone. The riselkas mouth tasted of salt. The salt, Dianora knew, of her own tears. She no longer felt any fear at all; only a quiet sadness like a smooth stone in the heart.

She heard a ripple of sound and turned back to the pool. The cypresses were reflected again, their images ruffled and broken now by the movement of the water in the wind.

When she looked away again, pushing her hair back from her face, she saw that she was alone.

When she came back out to the open space before the palace doors dEymon was waiting for her, dressed formally in grey, his Seal of Office about his neck. He was sitting on one of the stone benches, his staff resting beside him. Scelto hovered by the doors, and Dianora saw the flash of relief he could not hide when she came out from among the trees.

She stopped and looked at the Chancellor allowing a slight smile to show on her face. It was artifice of course, but an act she could do unconsciously by now. In dEymons normally inscrutable expression she read edginess and anger, and other signs of what had happened yesterday. He would probably be spoiling for a fight, she guessed. It was difficult, amazingly difficult, to switch back to the manners and affairs of state. It was also something that had to be done.

"You were late," she said mildly, walking towards him. He had risen, with perfect courtesy, as she approached. "I went walking in the garden. There are anemones beginning already.”

"I was precisely on time," dEymon said.

She might once have been intimidated, but not now. He would be wearing the Seal as an attempt to reinforce his authority, but she knew how badly yesterday would have unsettled him. She was fairly certain he would have offered to kill himself last night; he was a man for whom the old traditions mattered. In any case, she was armored against him: she had seen a riselka this morning.

"Then I must have been early," she said carelessly. "Forgive me. It is good to see you looking so well after yesterdays . . . confusions. Have you been waiting long?”

"Long enough. You wanted to talk about yesterday, I gather. What is it?" Dianora didnt think she had ever heard an inconsequential remark from dEymon, let alone a pleasantry.

Refusing to be rushed she sat down on the bench he had just vacated and brushed her brown robe smooth over her knees. She clasped her fingers in her lap and looked up, letting her expression grow suddenly as cold as his own.

"He almost died yesterday," she said flatly, deciding only in that moment what her tack would be.

"He would have died. Do you know why, Chancellor?" She didnt wait for his answer. "The King almost died because your people were too complacent or too slovenly to bother searching a party of Ygrathens.

What did you think? That danger could only come from the Palm? I expect yesterdays guards to be dealt with, dEymon. And soon.”

The use of his name and not his title was deliberate. He opened his mouth and closed it, visibly biting back a swift retort. She was pushing things, Triad knew how hard she was pushing with this, but if ever there was going to be a chance for her to do so, this would be it. DEymons face was white with anger and shock. He took a deep breath to control himself.

"They have been dealt with already," he said. "They are dead.”

She hadnt expected that. She managed, with an effort, to keep her discomfiture out of her eyes.

"There is more," she went on pressing her advantage. "I want to know why Camena di Chiara was not watched when he went to Ygrath last year.”

"He was watched. What would you have had us do? You know who was behind yesterdays attack.

You heard.”

"We all heard. Why did you not know about Isolla and the Queen?" This time the bite she put into the words was real, not merely tactical.

For the first time she saw a flicker of hesitation in his eyes. He fingered his Seal, then seemed to become aware that he was doing so and dropped his hand to his side. There was a brief silence.

"I did know," he said finally. His eyes met her own, a question in them like an angry challenge.

"I see," said Dianora a moment later, and looked away. The sun was higher now, slanting across most of the clearing. If she moved a little along the bench its warmth would fall upon her. The harsh, unspoken question in dEymons eyes hung in the air: Would you have told the King, knowing these things about his Queen?

Dianora was silent, tracking implications to their endings. With this admission, she realized, dEymon was hers, if he hadnt already been so after his failure yesterday and what she had done to save the King.

She was also, she thought, in fairly immediate danger as a consequence. The Chancellor was not a man to be treated lightly, ever. Most of the saishan had their suspicions as to how Chloese di Chiara had died ten years ago, and why.

She looked up, and let her rising anger keep the anxiety from showing. "Wonderful," she said acidly.

"Such efficient security. And now, of course, because of what I was forced to do your pet courtier Neso simply has to receive the posting in Asoli, doesnt he. With a wound of honor earned saving the life of the

King. How marvelously clever of you, dEymon!”

She had miscalculated. For the first time he smiled, a narrow, mirthless expression. "Is that what this is about?" he asked softly.

She bit back a swift denial. It was not inconvenient for him to think so, she realized.

"Among other things," she admitted, as if grudgingly. "I want to know why you have been favoring him for the Asoli posting. I had been meaning to talk to you about this.”

"I thought as much," he said, a measure of his usual complacency returning. "I have also been keeping track of some—not all, I have no doubt—of the gifts Scelto has been receiving in your name these past weeks. That was a splendid necklace yesterday, by the way. Did Nesos money pay for it? In an attempt to have you win me over to his side?”

He was immensely well-informed, and he was shrewd. She had always known these things. It was never wise to underestimate the Chancellor.

"It helped pay for it," she said briefly. "You havent answered my question. Why do you favor him?

You must know what sort of man he is.”

"Of course I know," dEymon replied impatiently. "Why do you think I want him out of here? I want him posted to Asoli because I dont trust him at court. I want him away from the King and in a place where he can be killed without undue inconvenience. I trust that answers your question?”

She swallowed. Never, ever underestimate him, she told herself again. "It does," she said. "Killed by whom?”

"That should be obvious. It will be put about that the Asolini did it themselves. I expect it will not take Neso long to give them cause.”

"Of course. And then?”

"And then the King will investigate and find that Neso was guilty of gross corruption, which we need not doubt he will be. We execute some man or other for the murder but the King declares his firm renunciation of Nesos methods and greed. He appoints a new Taxing Master and promises fairer measures in the future. I think that should quiet affairs in north Asoli for a time.”

"Good," said Dianora, trying to ignore the casual indifference of that some man or other. "And very tidy. I have only one thing to add: the new officer will be Rhamanus." She was taking another risk, she knew. When it came down to bedrock, she was a captive and a concubine, and he was the Chancellor of Ygrath and of the Western Palm. On the other hand, there were other ways to measure the balance here, and she fought to focus on those.

DEymon looked coolly down at her. She kept her gaze on his, her eyes wide and disingenuous.

"It has long amused me," he said at length, "that you so favored the man who captured you. One would think you hadnt minded, that you wanted to come.”

Perilously, uncannily near to the mark, but she could see he was baiting her, not serious in his thrust.

She forced herself to relax, and smiled. "How could I mind being here? Id never have had a chance at pleasant meetings such as this. And in any case," she let her tone change, "I do favor him, yes. On behalf of the people of this peninsula I do. And you know that that will always be my concern, Chancellor. He is a decent man. There are not many such Ygrathens, Im afraid.”

He was silent a moment. Then: "There are more than you think." But before she could manage to interpret either his words or the surprising voice in which they were spoken, he added, "I seriously thought of having you poisoned last night. Either that, or suggesting you be freed and made a citizen of Ygrath.”

"What extremes, my dear!" She could feel herself growing cold though. "Didnt you teach us all that balance is everything?”

"I did," he said soberly, not rising to her bait. He never did. "Have you any idea what youve done to

the equilibrium at this court?”

"What," she said with real asperity, "would you have preferred me to do yesterday?”

"That is not at all the point. Obviously." There was a rare spot of color in his cheeks. When he resumed, though, it was in his usual tones. "I was thinking of Rhamanus for Asoli myself. It shall be as you suggest. In the meantime, I very nearly forgot to mention that the King has sent for you. I intercepted the message before it reached the saishan. He will be waiting in the library.”

She shot to her feet, as agitated as he must have known she would be. "How long ago?" she asked quickly.

"Not very. Why? You dont seem to mind being late. There are anemones in the garden, you could tell him that.”

"I could tell him some other things as well, dEymon." Anger almost choked her. She fought for control.

"And so could I. And so, I suppose, could Solores. We seldom do, do we? The balance, as you have just pointed out, is everything. That is why I should still be very careful, Dianora, despite what happened yesterday. The balance is all. Do not forget it.”

She tried to think of a response, a last word, but failed. Her mind was whirling. He had spoken of killing her, of freeing her, had agreed with her choice for Asoli, and then threatened her again. All in a span of minutes! And all the while the King had been waiting for her, and dEymon had known.

She turned, abruptly and dismally conscious of her nondescript robe and the fact that she had no time to go back up to the saishan and change. She could feel herself flushing with anger and anxiety.

Scelto had evidently overheard the Chancellors last remarks. His eyes above the broken nose were vividly concerned and apologetic, though with dEymon intercepting the message there was nothing he could have done.

She stopped by the palace doors and looked back. The Chancellor stood alone in the garden leaning upon his stick, a tall, gray, thin figure against the bare trees. The sky above him had turned overcast again.

Of course it has, Dianora thought spitefully.

Then she remembered the pool and her mood changed. What did these court maneuvers matter, in the end? DEymon was only doing what he had to do, and so now, would she. She had seen her path. She found herself able to smile, letting that inner quiet descend upon her again, though with a stone of sorrow at its center still. She sank low in a very formal curtsey. DEymon, taken aback, sketched an awkward bow.

Dianora turned and went through the doors that Scelto was holding for her. She went back down the corridor and up the stairs, along a north-south hallway and past two heavy doors. She stopped in front of the third pair of doors. Out of reflex and habit more than anything else she checked her reflection in the bronze shield that hung on the wall. She adjusted her robe and pushed both hands through her hopelessly wind-blown hair.

Then she knocked on the library doors and entered, holding hard to her calm and the vision of the pool, a round stone of knowledge and sorrow in her heart that she hoped would anchor it in her breast and keep it from flying away.

Brandin was standing with his back to the door looking at a very old map of the then known world that hung above the larger of the fires. He did not turn. She looked up at the map. On it, the Peninsula of the Palm and even the larger land mass of Quileia beyond the mountains running all the way south to the Ice, were dwarfed by the size of Barbadior and its Empire to the east and by Ygrath to the west overseas.

The velvet window curtains of the library were drawn against the morning light and a fire was blazing, which bothered her. She found it difficult to deal with flames on an Ember Day. Brandin held a fire-iron in one hand. He was dressed as carelessly as she, in black riding clothes and boots. His boots

were muddy; he must have been out riding very early.

She put the encounter with dEymon behind her, but not the riselka in the garden. This man was the center of her life; whatever else had changed that had not, but the riselkas vision had offered her a path, and Brandin had let her lie alone and awake all last night.

She said, "Forgive me, my lord. I was with the Chancellor this morning and he chose to only just now tell me you were waiting here." "Why were you meeting with him?" The nuanced, familiar voice was only mildly interested. He seemed engrossed in the map.

She did not lie to the King. "The Taxing Master question in Asoli. I wanted to know why he favored Neso.”

There was a faint hint of amusement in his voice. "Im sure dEymon told you something plausible.”

He turned finally, and gazed at her for the first time. He looked exactly the same as he always did, and she knew what always happened when their glances first met.

But she had seen a riselka an hour ago and something seemed to have changed. Her calm did not leave her; her heart stayed home. She closed her eyes for an instant, but more to acknowledge the meaning of that change and the passing of a long truth than anything else. She felt that she would weep, for many reasons, if she were not extremely careful now.

Brandin sank into a chair by the fire. He looked tired, as much as anything. It showed only in small ways, but she had known him a long time. "I will have to give it to Neso now," he said. "I think you know that. Im sorry.”

Some things, it seemed, had not changed: always that grave, unexpected courtesy when he spoke to her of such things. What need had the King of Ygrath to apologize to her for choosing one of his courtiers over another? She moved into the room, clinging to her resolution, and at his gesture she took the chair opposite his. Brandins eyes rested on her with an odd, almost a detached scrutiny. She wondered what he would see.

She heard a sound from the far end of the room and, glancing over, saw Rhun sitting by the second fire, aimlessly leafing through a picture-book. His presence reminded her of something, and she felt her anger suddenly come back.

"Of course you have to offer it to Neso," she said. "Asoli is his prize for gallantry in the service of his King." He scarcely responded. Briefly his mouth quirked, his expression mildly ironic; he still seemed preoccupied though, only half attending to what she said.

"Gallantry, courage. Theyll call it something of that sort," he said absently. "Not getting out of the way in time, it really was. DEymon was already arranging last night to have word spread that it was Neso who saved my life.”

She would not rise to that. She refused. She didnt even understand why he was saying this to her.

She said, instead, looking across the room at Rhun, not at the King: "That makes sense, and you must surely know that I dont care. What I do not understand is why you are putting out lies about Camenas fate." She took a breath, and then plunged ahead. "I know the truth. It is such an ugly, vicious thing to do.

If you must prepare a Fool to follow Rhun, why mar a whole man and a healthy one? Why do such a thing?”

He did not answer for a long time and she was afraid to look at him. Rhun, too far away to hear, and nonetheless stopped leafing through his book and was looking over at them.

"As it happens, there are precedents," was what Brandin said at length, his tone still mild. But then, a moment later, he added, "I should probably have taken Scelto away from you a long time ago. You both learn too much, too quickly.”

She opened her mouth, but no words came out. What could she say? She had asked for this. For exactly this.

But then, glancing out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Brandin was smiling. An odd smile, and there was something strange about his eyes as he looked at her. He said, "As it also happens, Scelto would have been right this morning, but his tidings are wrong by now.”

"What do you mean?" She felt the stirrings of a genuine uneasiness. There was a strangeness to his manner this morning that she could not lay a finger on. It was more than tiredness though, she knew that much.

"I rescinded yesterdays orders after my ride," Brandin said quietly. "Camena is probably dead by now. An easy death. Exactly as word has been put about.”

She discovered that her hands were clutching each other in her lap. She said fatuously, without thinking, "Is this true?”

He only raised his eyebrows, but she felt herself flush deep red. "I have no need to deceive you, Dianora. I told them to arrange for witnesses among the Chiarans, so there would be no doubt. What would confirm it for you: shall I have his head sent to your rooms?”

She looked down again, thinking of Isollas head bursting like a smashed fruit. She swallowed; he had done that with a gesture of his hand. She looked back at the King. Mutely she shook her head. What happened on that ride? What was happening here?

Then, abruptly, she remembered what else had occurred to him yesterday. On the mountainside, at a place where a grey rock stood beside the runners track. One man sees a riselka: his path forks there.

Brandin turned back towards the fire, one leg crossed over the other. He laid the point of the iron down on the hearthstone, leaning it against his chair.

"You havent asked me why I changed the orders. Thats unlike you, Dianora.”

"Im afraid to," she said, truthfully.

He glanced over at that, his dark brows level now, the gray eyes intimidating with their intelligence.

"Thats unlike you as well.”

"You arent very . . . like yourself either this morning.”

"Fair enough," he said quietly. He looked at her for a moment in silence, then seemed to consider something else. "Tell me, did dEymon make things difficult for you just now? Did he ... warn you, or threaten?”

It wasn t sorcery, she told herself fiercely. Not mind-reading. It was only Brandin being what he was, aware of all the nuances that affected those in their orbits around him.

"Not directly," she said awkwardly. Once she might have seen this as an opportunity, but the mood this morning was so strange. "He was . . . upset about yesterday. Afraid, I think, of balances shifting here at the court. Once word is safely out that it was Neso who saved your life I think the Chancellor will be easier. It wont be a difficult story for him to spread; things happened very fast. I doubt anyone saw it clearly.”

This time, Brandins smile as he listened was one she knew and cherished: equal to equal, their minds sharing the track of a complex thought. But when she finished, his expression changed.

"I did," he said. "I saw it clearly.”

She looked away and down again, at her hands in her lap. Your path is clear now, she told herself as sternly as she could. Remember that. She had been offered a vision of herself in green beside the sea. And her heart was her own now after last night. There was a stone holding it there, safe within her breast.

Brandin said, "It would be easy to tell the Neso story, I agree. But I did a great deal of thinking last night and then on my ride this morning. Ill be talking to dEymon later today, after we watch the runners come home. The tale that goes around will be the true one, Dianora.”

She wasnt sure she had heard him rightly, and then she was sure, and something seemed to reach a brim and then spill over a little, like an overflowing wineglass inside her.

"You should go riding more often," she mumbled. He heard. He laughed softly but she didnt look up.

She had a very strong sense that she couldnt afford to look up.

"Why?" she asked, intent on her interlocked fingers. "Why to both things, then: Camenas fate, and now this?”

He was silent so long that eventually she did glance up, cautiously. He had turned back to the fire though, and was prodding it with the iron. On the far side of the room Rhun had closed his book and was now standing beside his table looking over at the two of them. He was dressed in black, of course. Exactly like the King.

"Did I ever tell you," said Brandin of Ygrath, very softly, "the legend my nurse used to tell me as a child about Finavir?”

Her mouth was dry again. Something in his tone, the way he was sitting, the discontinuity of his reply.

"No," she said. She tried to think of something witty to add, but failed.

"Finavir, or Finvair," he went on, not really waiting for her response, not looking over at her. "When I grew older and looked in the books of such tales it was written either way, and hi one or two other fashions sometimes. That often happens with the stories that come from before the days when we wrote things down.”

He leaned the iron against the chair arm again and sat back, still gazing into the flames. Rhun had walked a little nearer to them, as if drawn by the story. He was leaning against one of the heavy window draperies now, kneading a bunched fold of it in both hands.

Brandin said, "In Ygrath the tale is sometimes told and sometimes believed that this world of ours, both here in the southern lands and north beyond the deserts and the rain forests—whatever lies there —is but one of many worlds the gods sent into Time. The others are said to be far off, scattered among the stars, invisible to us.”

"There has been such a belief here as well," Dianora said quietly when he paused. "In Certando. In the highlands they once had a teaching that was much the same, though the priests of the Triad burned people for saying as much." It was true; there had been mass burnings for the Carlozzini heresy in the plague years, long ago.

Brandin said, "We never burned or wheeled people for that thought. They were laughed at sometimes, but that is another thing.

What my nurse used to tell me was what her mother told her, and her mothers mother before, I have no doubt: that some of us are born over and again into various of these worlds until, at the last, if we have earned it by the manner of our lives, we are born a final time into Finavir or Finvair which is the nearest of all the worlds to where the true gods dwell.”

"And after that?" she asked. His quiet words seemed to have become a part of the unfolding spell of this day.

"After, no one knew, or would tell me. Nor did any of the parchments and books I read when I grew older." He shifted in his seat, his beautiful hands resting on the carved arms of the chair. "I never liked my nurses legend of Finavir. There are other kinds of stories, some of them quite different and many of them I loved, but for some reason that one stayed with me. It bothered me. It seemed to make our lives here merely a prelude, inconsequential in themselves, of importance only for where they would lead us next. I have always needed to feel that what I am doing matters, here and now.”

"I think I would agree with you," she said. Her own hands were gentle in her lap now; he had shaped a different mood. "But why are you telling me this, if you have never liked the story?”

The simplest of questions.

And Brandin said, "Because during the nights this past year and more I have had recurring dreams of

being reborn far away from all of this, in Finavir." He looked straight at her then for the first time since beginning the tale, and his grey eyes were calm and his voice was steady as he said: "And in all of those dreams you have been at my side and nothing has held us apart, and no one has come between.”

She had had no warning. None at all, though perhaps the clues had been there all along and she too blind to see. And suddenly she was blind now, helpless tears of shock and wonder overflowing in her eyes and a desperate, urgent hammering that she knew to be her heart.

Brandin said, "Dianora, I needed you so much last night I frightened myself. I did not send for you only because I had to somehow try to come to terms with what happened to me when you blocked Camenas arrow. Solores was a court deception, no more than that: so they might not think me unmanned by danger. I spent the whole night pacing or at my desk, trying to riddle out where my life has now come.

What it means that my wife and only living son should try to kill me, and fail only because of you. And thinking about that, consumed by it, I only realized near dawn that I had left you alone all night. My dear, will you ever forgive me for that?”

I want time to stop, she was thinking, wiping vainly at her tears, trying to see him clearly. I want never to leave this room, I want to hear these words spoken over and over, endlessly, until I die.

"I made a decision on my ride," he said. "I was thinking about what Isolla had said and I was finally able to accept that she was right. Since I will not, since I cannot possibly change what I am committed to doing here, I must be prepared to pay all of the price myself, not through others in Ygrath.”

She was shaking, quite unable to stop her tears. He had not touched her, or even moved towards her.

Behind him Rhuns face was a twisted mask of pain and need, and something else. The thing she sometimes saw there, and could not face. She closed her eyes.

"What will you do?" she whispered. It was hard to speak.

And then he told her. All of it. Named for her the fork in the road he had chosen. She listened, her tears falling more slowly now, welling up from an over-full heart, and at length she came to understand that the wheel was coming full circle.

Listening to Brandins grave voice over the crackle of flames on an Ember Day, Dianora saw only images of water in her mind. The dark waters of the pool in the garden, and the vision of the sea shed been given there. And though she had no gift of foreknowing she could see where his words were taking them, taking them all, and now she understood the showing of the pool.

She searched her heart and knew, with an enormous grief, that it was his, it had not come back to her after all. Yet even so, and most terribly of all, she knew what was about to come, what she was going to do.

She had dreamt on other nights alone through her years in the saishan of finding a path like the one that was opening for her now with the words he spoke. At one point, listening to him, thinking thus, she could bear the physical distance between them no longer. She moved from her chair to the carpet at his feet and laid her head in his lap. He touched her hair and began stroking it, down and down, ceaselessly, as he spoke of what had come to him in the night and on his ride; spoke of being willing, finally, to accept the price of what he was doing here in the Palm; and spoke to her about the one thing she could never have made herself ready for. About love.

She wept quietly, she could not stop weeping as his words continued to flow, as the fire slowly died on the hearth. She wept for love of him, and for her family and her home, for the innocence she had lost to the years and for all that he had lost, and she wept most bitterly of all for the betrayals yet to come. All the betrayals that lay waiting outside this room where time, which would not stop, was going to carry them.