It was an old argument among the Widan, and comfortable enough; certainly more comfortable than the sight of a daughter made to kneel, as if she were a mere seraf, for hours on end.

"Indeed. And note that I have been delving, and you have been standing, half-cloaked, on the edge of a lake, watching a woman's bent back." The Sword's Edge frowned, running his hands through the length of his beard. "Leonne is arrogant."

"The prerogative of one who rules."

"Indeed."

Moonlight, welcome moonlight. The Serra Diora, boxed in on all sides by the confines of a garden far finer than any the Marano clan had ever owned, breathed freely for the first time that day. The stone beneath her legs was cool, as was the breeze; there was no Tyr above her, no humbling etiquette to follow by which the whole of her father's clan would be judged.

Alana and Illia had ma.s.saged her back and bathed her with scented water while the moon rose in the darkening sky; they had offered her food and water, although she declined both, and in the end, sang her cradle songs while she lay, close-eyed, upon the mats in the harem, this unfamiliar place which was to be the unwelcome subst.i.tute for home for these coming two days.

Teresa did not come to her, and for this she was grateful; Teresa was not like Alana or Illia, in the end; there was very little about her that was soft, that understood how to be gentle.

Because this gentleness that you value is illusion. Forget it, Diora, forget about it. You will be the wife of a Tyr-and this softness is not what a Tyr's wife must have if she is to survive.

Yes, Ona Teresa, she thought, as the moon's face illuminated her own. Yes.

But she thought: I will choose my own wives and my own harem, and we will make a lie of what you've told me, and it will be our secret. Knowing, as she thought it, that it was a girl's thought, not a woman's thought, and that it was foolish, willful, childish.

But her arms ached, her back hurt, and the songs that she had heard tonight were songs that, in two short days, she would never hear again; she told herself stories, as she had often done, to comfort the fear of the responsibility she faced. Did it matter if the stories were true or not?

No; it was only their comfort that she required, and she was not stupid enough, not even for a moment, to actually believe in them.

"It is not a good sign," Teresa said softly to Alana. The sun was at its height, but clouds had come in from the east, rare enough in their beauty that they could not be disliked, for all that they were a dangerous portent in the matter of a Leonne wedding.

"No," Alana replied. Neither woman spoke of the obvious clouds. Their eyes, from the height of a gently sloped hill, were held by the standard of the clan Garrardi. Just arrived, less than two days before the wedding was to occur. The Garrardi clan ruled the Terrean of Oerta, and if they were not the richest of the ruling clans, their lord, Eduardo kai di'Garrardi, was still Tyr'agnate. To come, so late in the season, for a wedding of this nature was unfortunate.

The more so because, as both Teresa and Alana knew, his offer had been one of the six that Ser Sendari had, with so much difficulty, refused. They were both glad of it, for in the matter of husbands in the Southern lands, the choice of a good one and a bad one was literally the choice between life and death-unless one were, perhaps, the Tyr'agar, marrying a daughter out of the clan. Such a man, one could not afford to offend with a death. Ser Sendari was not the Tyr'agar. And Eduardo di'Garrardi was not a man famed for his even temper or his good use of the concubines that he did have. He had no wife; he had never deemed any woman suitable or worthy, until he had first seen the young Serra Diora. There was only one man he could lose her to in safety.

It had not been an insignificant part of Serra Teresa's decision to... encourage the interest of Ser Illara and his clan in her niece. The other, of course, had been the fact that Sendari could not refuse the Tyr'agar. As her father, had he been so approached, could not have refused him.

"My eyes aren't what they used to be," Alana said softly, "but I'd say he looks displeased."

"I would have to agree. It is unfortunate."

"Ser Jarrani came early," Alana offered, her voice weaker than was her wont.

At that, the Serra Teresa smiled warmly. "Yes. The Tyr'agnate Jarrani kai di'Lorenza did indeed come early. As did the Tyr'agnate Ramiro kai di'Callesta." The richest of the four Tyr'agnati, and the one least liked by the clansmen for his trade and barter with the Northern Empire.

"Lamberto?"

"Tyr'agnate Lamberto, Alana. We are not in the harem." It was a reminder that the Serra should not have had to make.

Alana shrugged. "That we're not," she said, unrepentant.

Worry and fear are no excuse for graceless discourse, Teresa thought, but she did not say it; Alana was coming of an age where such brusqueness was considered almost acceptable. Almost.

But not in the Tor Leonne. Acknowledging this without apology, Alana continued. "The Tyr'agnate Mareo kai di'Lamberto came two days past. Late as well."

"Yes. But his delay can easily be blamed," could in truth be blamed, "upon his great hatred of the Tyr'agnate Ramiro kai di'Callesta. The fighting between the Averdan and Mancorvan cerdan has grown increasingly costly, and I believe that both of the Tyrs have privately pet.i.tioned the Tyr'agar for intervention."

Neither would receive it, and Teresa believed that Ramiro di'Callesta knew it; she was certain he observed the request for form's sake. If Ramiro had been forced to deliver his lands to his Northern enemies, he had also inflicted the greatest damage upon their armies; the Tyr'agar would prefer to see him politically disadvantaged, strategically occupied.

The loss of the war was still a bitter blow to the Dominion; the loss of the lands in Averda and Mancorvo, a painful one. Although it was not spoken of directly, that loss was laid at the feet of the Tyr'agar and the clan Leonne. Annagar was not, like Essalieyan, a land of overabundance; to lose those fertile fields had been costly indeed.

And it was not, of course, just lands that were demanded; not just lands that were given. As a sign of future intent, the Tyr'agnati, and the Tyr'agar, had been forced to surrender one member of their family into the keeping of the Imperial Court.

The demon Kings called it a "hostage exchange," and indeed, there were hostages in the Tor Leonne-men and women whose very presence was a slap in the face of the Dominion. But of these, at least, Teresa was secretly glad for it meant, on rare occasions, a glimpse of a man that she might, in another life, have called fnend. Kallandras of Senniel College.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

nd ofEmperal, 426 A A The Tor Leonne.

"She is a pretty young thing," Marrana ATamalyn said quietly. "Not, if I had to guess, her most notable trait, although it's certainly likely to be the most commented on." She lifted her head and brushed strands of hair from sun-lined cheeks. "It's good to see you," she told her companion as she lifted the decanter in which water had been left. "We do not see visitors nearly often enough."

Her guest very politely lifted his goblet to his lips; in truth, he was thirsty, and the offer was welcome. Brushing golden curls from his eyes, he smiled and the smile removed years from his face. "I a.s.sure you, ATamalyn, the honor is mine."

"Well, if you insist." She paused, lifted her own goblet, and narrowed her eyes. "But I must say, Kallandras, that you don't often show this oblique an interest in this sort of affair."

He smiled again. "I've met the young woman in question a handful of times. Each and every time she seemed a child. To come for an Imperial wedding and to discover that the bardic college did indeed translate the name and the t.i.tle correctly-well, it makes me feel my age."

"And that?"

He laughed. "Now, Marrana, is that delicate? Is that becoming?"

Her arched brow was the politest answer she tendered, although it wasn't the only one. Marrana ATamalyn had served two full years as hostage in the Tor Leonne; in another year, her tenure here would be ended, and another chosen to take her place. Neither she, nor her companion, envied the person who would become a hostage in this court; they both knew the Dominion well enough to understand that they were foreigners in a land that viewed all but blood ties with suspicion.

Essalieyanese, in a land where the Imperial Kings were called demons because of the heritage of the blood that bound them so tightly to just and wise rule. "Are you here to play?"

"I believe," Kallandras said, "that honor has been granted me."

"Or requested of you?"

"No," he said, the blue of his eyes trapping the light beneath a somber expression, "I made the offer. It is my gift, on a day of such glory." He paused, hovering around an explanation that he did not owe her. In the end, he chose to give it anyway. "I wished to come. To see the Serra Diora and her aunt. Marrana, I know it's hard for you to be here. To me, this is desert land; I expect it to kill almost anyone who pa.s.ses through it, in one way or another."

"I wish," she told him softly, her voice momentarily aged, "that I, too, could see it that way. Maybe, if I were only here for a month. But these lands-I think that this is what Essalieyan would have been without the Kings.

"I'm not a particularly upstanding woman, Kallandras; I have my own past, and it's certainly colorful."

He smiled; it was true, and more to the point, still worthy of song in Senniel College.

"But I pray now. I pray that these-not the Tyrs, of course, but almost all of the rest-find, in their time, Kings of their own who will rule with wisdom and justice.

"Do you know what they do to the G.o.d-born here? What they do to the women who bear them? The children they burn alive, and the mothers as well-if they're lucky." She ran a hand over her eyes, lifted her fan and brought it up, as a shield, from the momentary ferocity of her expression. "My apologies, Kallandras. Of course you know. We all know it."

"It's oft been observed that knowledge without experience is like a body without a heart; it doesn't live. I understand, Marrana." He reached out then, and lightly touched her hand. His gaze grew distant. "It's hard. Even 1 have been tempted to interfere."

"Not half as tempted as I," was the quiet, bitter reply. "And probably ten times as successful."

"Marrana, what do you gain by judging yourself this harshly?"

She was silent.

"In the Empire, you are a woman of power. You will return to the Empire with a clear understanding of what that power means, for good and ill."

"I feel as if I'm a girl again, Kallandras," the older woman said. "You're from Senniel. You might remember the life that I led as a girl."

"I remember the song, ATamalyn." It had not been a pleasant life. It had barely been a free one.

Although the hostages had some leeway in discussing economic ventures, they had little power; if they had freedom, they were not held in regard. They did not speak about the gifts of the talent-born in the Dominion. They did not speak of magery, or of G.o.ds, or of politics. And they did not -could not-interfere in the matter of slaves, of slavery.

This, Kallandras knew, was the silence that was breaking the back of Marrana ATamalyn.

What he didn't understand was why it concerned him. Age, he thought; perhaps it was just age. Age or no, it discomfited him. While the sun shone in the thin-walled building that housed most of the Imperial hostages, he drew out his lute and began to play.

He was rewarded by the bark of Marrana ATamalyn's laughter-a harsh, unfeminine sound. A welcome one.

In the heat of the early day, Kallandras of Senniel College very quietly and very precisely sang all fifty-five of the verses of "Marrana's March." And every chorus in between.

When he left the quarters of the Imperial hostages, he had spoken at least a few words to all of the ten, and stopped to play with the families of men who had chosen to bring wives and children with them. He had imparted news to those hungry for home; the news was mundane enough, in its fashion, but the very ba.n.a.lity of it seemed to wake these men and women to a certain hope. He noted with satisfaction that in the quarters of The Ten there were no serafs.

But he departed as the sun reached its height, promising the youngest that they would hear him sing upon the day of the wedding between the kai Leonne and the mysterious Flower of the Dominion, a woman said to be so beautiful that the kai Leonne had been struck, as if by storm's lightning, upon first glimpse of her.

The men rolled their eyes, and the older women; the younger women were rapt in their attention.

"Bards," Marrana said, snorting. "A bunch of sweet-voiced liars."

Kallandras smiled and bowed, retreating into the exposure of Southern sky, and then retreating farther into the shade of leafy bower. The path that wound its way to this building was not so finely tended as all other paths within the Tor Leonne, but it was still pleasant and easily traveled. Easily rested upon.

Salla was in his lap almost before his back touched bark and his thighs cool ground; her strings were humming faintly as his fingers danced harmonics in the stillness and solitude of the Tor.

Or perhaps, he thought, as the winds shifted, just stillness.

"That was well sung," he heard a woman say. "If I'd known," he replied, pitching his voice so that it would carry only to her ears, "that you were listening, I most certainly would not have chosen to play each and every verse."

He could hear her smile, although he knew that he wouldn't see it; not today. There was about the vibrancy of her voice a special glow-something that spoke from the heart to the heart, yet at a great remove.

"Contrary though it might be, I must disagree. But I was willing to listen to each verse, and each chorus, as you call them in your Northern style. Gently done, Kallandras."

"Gently done? I've been accused of many things in my life, but seldom that."

"Perhaps. But very few would think a man who calls the winds themselves would be gentle."

"Very few know that I call the winds, Serra Teresa." The light caught the diamond that bound his finger. He had tried to remove it once-and only once. For nothing less than the Lady's absolution would he ever try again. Power, it seemed, had its cost.

"Ah."

Their oldest mutual memory. The most dangerous one, when each stood on the edge of a different abyss, everything laid bare, every emotion so clear that it could not be mistaken, could not be dismissed. No matter that those emotions had been stripped of history, of context- they existed, primal, a force which events drove one to, as if all emotions waited for such a collision, such a communion.

And such communion was almost always painful, yet it held a bitter joy, a dark one. For a moment, a messy, vulnerable moment, one wasn't alone.

Kallandras of Senniel, Kallandras of a brotherhood that was older than even the famed bardic college, understood isolation too well.

He changed the subject. "Were you watching?" He had known that she might hear his song and even be amused by it, for those who could sing with the voice could almost always hear it when it was unguarded, but he also knew that her talent would not grant her the benefit of Marrana ATamalyn's words. He had the irrational urge to protect the ATamalyn's words from the ears of the clansmen; to protect her weakness, her vulnerability. As if such craving-for justice, for wisdom-was weak. No matter. Without those words, his song had no context by which it might be judged compa.s.sionate; indeed, without context, it might have been mockery, albeit gentle.

"I? No, Kallandras of Senniel." Her voice carried a genuine regret.

"Then one of your serafs?"

"No," she said again.

He smiled, although he guessed she wouldn't see it. "Am I never to walk the Tor Leonne without the watchful eyes of one clan's spy or another's?"

"Never," she replied. "You are known here, and feared, in your fashion."

"You are too serious, fair Serra."

"It is a serious occasion, a wedding of this stature. There will be no Festival Moon for us."

"But at least there will likewise be no Festival Sun."

She laughed, and her laughter was the musical, light grace that he a.s.sociated only with Annagar.

Only with the Serra Teresa and her perfect niece. "You know us too well to be a stranger, Kaliandras. You know death too well to be a Northerner. And yet you understand Marrana ATa- malyn too well to be a clansman."

"You flatter me."

"Do I?" He heard the trace of lovely bitterness in the two syllables. "Is it flattery to be told, however gracefully, that you seem to have no place?"

"Ah, but I belong to all places, surely."

"Is there a difference?"

Silence. The play of wind through golden ringlets, and in the distance, through silks of a very fine