CHAPTER FOUR.

"Serra?"

The bard's hand was on her arm, his arm around her shoulder. She looked up, searching his nonface, seeing only the red nose that was so ugly in the darkness. Had she stumbled? Had she fallen? The air was chill.

"Serra Teresa."

She pulled herself free as the cry faded. Tears coursed down her cheeks. They were not her own.

"Serra, I am sorry-but I fear that you must make haste. The enclave of the Mancorvan cerdan is across the Tor, and I do not think we have much time."

"What-what-"

He caught first one arm and then the other, pulling her to face him so that their masks touched. "Serra Teresa. Teresa. That cry-I have only heard that voice once before, but I would recognize it anywhere."

She knew, then, that she knew it, too. Diora. The name set her free; she pulled away from the weakness that gripped her and stood.

"Who is Lissa?"

She shook her head, curt now, controlled. The evening was behind her. And ahead-ahead lay the Lady's will. "Lissa en'Marano is the youngest of Ser Sendari's wives."

"I will leave you," the bard said softly, "for I have far to travel this eve, and much, I think, to accomplish. Lady. Serra. I wish you well."

But she was beyond the pleasantry of a simple wish. The fount, chosen because it was empty and distant, now seemed to mock her with its dead. Lissa. Diora had screamed Lissa's name, and she had, across the Tor, heard it. "Wait!" she said, casting the voice as Robart had taught her so many, many years ago.

"Yes?" The bard did not stop, but his voice did; she knew that he alone could hear her words, and she alone his.

"You heard Diora."

"Oh, yes," he said quietly. "I do not think any of the bard-born in the Tor Leonne did not hear that cry this eve." His words paused as his body disappeared entirely from view. "But I will say this: If there are other bards in the Tor, they will not know who it was that they heard. You know, Serra, and I." Again a lengthy pause. Then, as if he were a disembodied spirit, some sending of the Lady's will, "Someone, I fear, is dying."

She ran. She who had not run to make her first appointment with death this eve, did everything that she could to make certain that she arrived in time for this second, and unplanned, meeting.

She could hear Diora weeping as she shoved the gates open and ran through the courtyard, the sky-open halls, and the hangings that were meant to convey a sense of privacy in lives that had so very little of it.

Serafs scattered before her; she rode an ill wind, and they did not wish to be scoured by what she carried in her wake. It was well known among Sendari's serafs that the youngest member of his harem was also the Serra's favorite. Well known, as well, that this Lissa would not be the first wife to die beneath the open winds of a moon-filled sky.

"Ramdan."

The oldest of the serafs that personally served Serra Teresa bowed quietly at the outermost edge of the chambers. He held out a hand, and she placed her cloak and hat in it, pulling her mask from her face and throwing it to one side as if its touch burned. He was not an old man, not yet, but he had the dignity that a gulf of years granted, and he wore it well. She knew, as he rose from his bow, the items she had given him in his hands, that he had waited here in perfect silence for her return. He had an uncanny sense of her movements.

"What has happened?"

"Lissa en'Marano has taken ill."

"111?".

"Alana en'Marano believes that the child she carries has died. The young woman bleeds, and the bleeding does not lessen."

"Thank you."

"Serra, if I may be so bold?"

She allowed very few of her serafs to interrupt her- and never during the course of a normal evening. But the Festival Moon raged above; she did not even feel the icy regard that such evidence of poor training usually invoked. "Yes, but be quick."

"The healers have been called."

Her face almost broke then, in the bitter parody of a mocking smile. "And do you think they will come? Lissa is not the Serra, and they did not come for her." Ramdan's seraf face was utterly impa.s.sive in the face of her naked grief. He knew that she spoke of the woman whose name had been forbidden the clan.

"They came, Teresa."

Serra Teresa turned to see the haggard lines of her brother's face. Of Sendari's face. He held up a hand, palm out-a gesture of denial. "Don't," he said softly. Coldly. "There are things that even the Festival Moon cannot forgive." He turned away. "She is... not conscious, I think. Go to her, if you must. Say your farewells." She saw him struggle with his own advice. "It would," he said, failing it, "be fitting, after all. It was you she wanted in the end."

And he, too, spoke of a woman who was not Lissa.

But it was Lissa who was dying. Lissa who, chosen by Teresa, was not loved by Sendari. Sendari had only loved one of his wives; he chose to indulge the rest with a distant affection.

We all protect ourselves as we can, she thought, drawing herself up, hiding herself once again behind the mask of her face. The heart is a treacherous country. "Where is Diora?"

"With Lissa. She will not be moved."

"With your permission, Ser Sendari, I will tend to Lissa."

"And with yours, Serra Teresa, I will tell the serafs that we are to have late visitors. If," he added, his control less than hers, "they can even be found."

The silks and the cushions were covered in blood. Lissa was white, whiter than the ivory and the pale, perfect lilies that adorned the lake of the Tor Leonne. Her hair, dark, seemed a shadow that clung to her face, her forehead; her eyes were closed. Beside the youngest of the wives, the oldest sat, holding limp hands in two strong ones, and praying for the Lady's mercy.

Diora-Serra Diora-looked up from her weeping; the act was a physical thing, not a simple matter of fallen tears. Not the act of a fine Serra; not the display one expected of a woman of the clans.

Moon-night.

Serra Teresa walked to where Lissa lay, and touched Alana's bent shoulders. The older woman looked up, her eyes reddened with weeping as well.

"Ona Teresa?"

"Na'dio," Teresa said. "Must you stay?"

Mutely, Diora nodded. And then, swallowing as if something large and painful was caught in her throat, she whispered, "she wants me to sing."

"She did, love," Alana said, "but she won't hear it now."

"She will," was the child's grim reply. "I told her I would sing. I promised. I'll make her hear me."

Alana turned a weary face to Serra Teresa. "It's been like this," she said, nodding grimly and sadly at the young child. "She won't leave. I've told her to sing, and be done-but she won't sing. She insisted on waiting for you."

Mutely, Serra Teresa met the mutinous, the hungry, gaze of her niece. Thinking, then, that she was so very much Alora's child. Knowing that the geas that she had been bound by-the promise not to sing during the Festival-was about to be snapped by something older and stronger: Love, and the pain of its imminent loss. Worse still, knowing that Diora could have snapped that compulsion but had chosen to wait. To wait for her.

What did it matter now?

"Forgive me, Na'dio," she said, "for I have wronged you and Lissa both. Sing. Sing, and with your permission, I will sing with you."

Tears started anew in the young girl's eyes, and Teresa thought she could see her reflection, shining palely, in them. Had she ever been so young, to forgive so transparently and so easily such a wrong?

What, she wondered, was worse-to love and be hurt, or to love and have to hurt? For she had done both, and would again. Sing, she thought, and it was almost a prayer.

Diora knew two songs well.

In her little girl voice, a voice that had far more strength than it should have, she began. "The sun has gone down, has gone down, my love..."

The moonlight was strong in the harem of Ser Sendari di'Marano.

As she found her voice, Teresa gently pulled Alana away, and taking a seat, not beside, but behind the p.r.o.ne Lissa, she very gently cradled that young woman's head in her lap, stroking damp cheeks with the palms of her cool hands.

For the heart-oh, the heart-is a dangerous place.

She had sat just so, with Alora, just so; she had sat in the dark of a night, waiting for the healers to come. Waiting, wild with fear. Singing.

Alora had asked her to sing. Her voice broke, and broke again, as if it were a stream meeting rocks almost large enough to dam it-almost, but not quite. Because Alora had asked it of her, a last favor.

She never loved Lissa in that way, but the past met the present, making of each a harsh and terrible place.

Diora finished the last stanza alone.

The cerdan walked in, swords drawn, four abreast. The oldest man, bearded and grim-although whether it was with the nearness of death or the interruption of the evening's festivity, was not clear-bowed to her. These chambers were, after all, in the absence of a proper wife, her demesne.

"Ser Laonis di'Caveras has come at the request of Ser Sendari to view Lissa en'Marano. With your permission, Serra."

"Granted."

The cerdan bowed, quickly, putting up his sword- although, very properly, not sheathing it- before he moved to the side to take up his post along the walls. She noticed, of course. Even at times like this, she noticed the small details that spoke of good training, of grace under pressure.

Especially at times like this. For, looking at the cerdan, she could keep the pretense of hope alive for a few seconds longer. If, after all, hope of such a painful nature was a boon, a thing to be craved, to be clung to.

The healer waited.

And she, as the presiding Serra in these hidden chambers, had no choice but to look at him; to meet the dark gaze that rested beneath heavy brows, a lined forehead. "Ser Laonis," she began, but he lifted his hand curtly, forestalling her. She dropped her head at once in acquiescence, and he crossed the room, his pale robes a cold, bright halo."If you would, Serra?""Of course." Gently, carefully-and quickly-she lifted Lissa's sweaty head from her lap and slid across the cushions, pulling herself free from her chosen burden.

The healer's serafs came up behind her, and at his direction, began to unwrap Lissa's blood-

soaked sari. He intended to examine her, but Serra Teresa could hear the hardening in his voice, and she knew that he expected a death this night.

Knew that he had no intention of stopping it.

"Na'dio," she said, catching her niece by the shoulders and pulling her away from Lissa and the

healer. "You have sung your song. It is time, now, for you to retire."

"No."

"Diora di'Marano. You are in the company of clansmen."

Diora said nothing, her silence defiant and determined. Teresa knew that she could send the girl

on her way with a single word. But she had already wounded with words once this Festival, and she could not bring herself to do so again. Not while the moon reigned, Lord forgive her.

The healer rose, grim-faced, his eyes shuttered. "Serra," he said, bowing low.

"Ser Laonis," she replied, waiting.

"Lissa en'Marano has suffered a miscarriage. She is hemorrhaging."

"Will she recover?" She laced the words with a bright hope that she did not feel, with a trust that she could not feel, and with a fear that kept her knees locked, her chin high.

His face softened. "Even if the bleeding is stopped, she has lost too much blood. She will sleep in

the Lady's arms before the night is ended."

That was the answer. That had to be the answer. Teresa knew that her voice could not compel this man to the act that would save Lissa's life; no bard's voice could force that much, for that long, from anyone. Swallowing, she nodded.

But Diora spoke into the silence of his words. "Can't you heal her?""Na'dio-""He's a healer, Ona Teresa. Can't he heal her?""She is too close to death," the Serra said quietly. "But she's not dead yet!""No. Na'dio-""But everyone knows that the healers can bring someone back if they're not dead. Everyone knows it!"

"Na'dio."

The young girl turned to face the older man. "Why won't you heal her?"

"I am a clansman," the healer replied icily. "Little one. Understand this: To bring this-this half-