Children of Earth and Sky

The Fionavar Tapestry

The Summer Tree

The Wandering Fire

The Darkest Road

Tigana

A Song for Arbonne

The Lions of Al-Rassan

The Sarantine Mosaic

Sailing to Sarantium

Lord of Emperors

The Last Light of the Sun

Beyond This Dark House

(poetry)

Ysabel

Under Heaven

River of
Stars

NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

Published by New American Library,

an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

This book is a publication of New American Library. Simultaneously published in Canada by Viking.

Copyright © Guy Gavriel Kay, 2016

Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Random House LLC, 2016

Map copyright © Martin Springett, 2016

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-
PUBLICATION DATA:

Names: Kay, Guy Gavriel, author.

Title: Children of earth and sky/Guy Gavriel Kay.

Description: New York City: New American Library, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2015047832 (print) | LCCN 2016001089 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451472960 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698183278 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Voyages and travels—Fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION/Fantasy/General. | FICTION/ Fantasy/Historical. | FICTION/Historical. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

Classification: LCC PR9199.3.K39 C48 2016 (print) | LCC PR9199.3.K39 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047832

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

for

GEORGE JONAS

and

EDWARD L. GREENSPAN

who belong together here

 

dear friends,
lost

we were still at that first stage, still

preparing to begin a journey, but we were changed nevertheless;

we could see this in one another; we had changed although

we never moved, and one said, ah, behold how we have aged, traveling

from day to night only, neither forward nor sideward, and this seemed

in a strange way miraculous . . .

—LOUISE GLÜCK

And all sway forward on the dangerous flood

Of history, that never sleeps or dies,

And, held one moment, burns the hand.

—W.H. AUDEN

(A Partial List)

Duke Ricci, head of Seressa's Council of Twelve

Members of the Council of Twelve

Lorenzo Arnesti

Amadeo Frani

Pero Villani, an artist, son of the late Viero Villani, also an artist

Tomo Agosta, his servant

Mara Citrani, subject of a portrait by Pero

Jacopo Miucci, physician

Leonora Valeri, a young woman passing as his wife

Count Erigio Valeri of Mylasia, Leonora's father

Paulo Canavli, her lover in Mylasia

Merchants from Seressa

Nelo Grilli

Guibaldo Ferri

Marco Bosini

The High Patriarch of Jad, in Rhodias

Rodolfo, Jad's Holy Emperor

Savko, imperial chancellor

Hanns, principal secretary to the chancellor

Vitruvius of Karch, in the chancellor's service

Orso Faleri, Ambassador of Seressa to Obravic

Gaurio, his servant

Veith, a courtesan

Danica Gradek, a young woman

Neven Rusan, her maternal grandfather

Hrant Bunic, a Senjani raid leader

Senjani raiders

Tijan Lubic

Kukar Miho

Goran Miho

Marin Djivo, younger son of a merchant family

Andrij, his father

Zarko, his brother

Drago Ostaja, one of their ship captains

Vlatko Orsat, another merchant

Elena and Iulia, his daughters

Vudrag, his son

Radic Matko, another merchant

Kata Matko, his daughter

Jevic, a guard at the Rector's Palace

Giorgio Frani of Seressa (son of Amadeo), serving Seressa in Dubrava

Filipa di Lucaro, Eldest Daughter of Jad in the holy retreat on Sinan Isle

Juraj, a servant on the isle

Empress Eudoxia of Sarantium

Grand Khalif Gurçu (“the Destroyer”)

Prince Cemal, his older son

Prince Beyet, his younger son

Yosef ben Hananon, the grand vizier

Damaz, a trainee in the ranks of the djannis, the khalif's infantry

Koçi, another trainee

Hafiz, commander of the djannis in Mulkar

Kasim, an instructor in Mulkar

Ban Rasca Tripon (“Skandir”), a rebel against the Asharites

Jelena, a village healer

Zorzi, a farmer in northern Sauradia

Rastic, Mavro, and Milena, his
children

I
t was with a sinking heart that the newly arrived ambassador from Seressa grasped that the Emperor Rodolfo, famously eccentric, was serious about an experiment in court protocol.

The emperor liked experiments, everyone knew that.

It seemed the ambassador was to perform a triple obeisance—two separate times!—when finally invited to approach the imperial throne. This was, the very tall official escorting him explained, to be done in the manner of those presented to Grand Khalif Gurçu in Asharias.

It was also, the courtier added thoughtfully, how the great eastern emperors had been approached in long-ago days. Rodolfo was apparently now interested in the effect of such formal deference, observed and noted. And since Rodolfo was heir to those august figures of the past, it did make sense, didn't it?

It did not, at all, was the ambassador's unvoiced opinion.

He had no idea what this alleged
effect
was supposed to be.

He smiled politely. He nodded. He adjusted his velvet robe. In the antechamber where they waited he watched as a second court
official—young, yellow-haired—enthusiastically demonstrated the salutations. His knees hurt with anticipatory pain. His back hurt. He was aware that, carrying evidence of prosperity about his midriff, he was likely to look foolish each time he prostrated himself, or rose to his feet.

Rodolfo, Jad's Holy Emperor, had sat the throne here for thirty years. You wouldn't ever want to call him foolish—he had many of the world's foremost artists, philosophers, alchemists at his court (performing
experiments
)—but you needed to consider the man unpredictable and possibly irresponsible.

This made him dangerous, of course. Orso Faleri, Ambassador of the Republic of Seressa, had had this made clear to him by the Council of Twelve before he'd left to come here.

He regarded the posting as a terrible hardship.

It was formally an honour, of course. One of the three most distinguished foreign posts a Seressini could be granted by the Twelve. It meant he might reasonably expect to become a member on his return, if someone withdrew, or died. But Orso Faleri loved his city of canals and bridges and palaces (especially his own!) with a passion. In addition, there were extremely limited opportunities for acquiring more wealth at Obravic in this role.

He was an emissary—and an observer. It was understood that all other considerations in a man's life were suspended for the year or possibly two that he was here.

Two years was a distressing thought.

He hadn't been allowed to bring his mistress.

His wife had declined to join him, of course. Faleri could have insisted she do so, but he wasn't nearly so self-abusive. No, he would have to discover, as best one might, what diversions there were in this windy northern city, far from Seressa's canals, where songs of love drifted in the torchlit night and men and women, cloaked against evening's damp, and sometimes masked, went about hidden from inquisitive eyes.

Orso Faleri was willing to simulate an interest in discussing the nature of the soul with the emperor's philosophers, or listen as some alchemist, stroking his singed beard, explained his search for arcane secrets of transmuting metal—but only to a point, surely.

If he performed his tasks, both public and secret, badly it would be noted back home, with consequences. If he did well he might be left here for two years! It was an appalling circumstance for a civilized man with skills in commerce and a magnificent woman left behind.

And now, the Osmanli triple obeisance. To be done twice. Good men, thought Faleri, suffered for the follies of royalty.

At the same time, this post was vitally important, and he knew it. In the world they inhabited, good relations with the emperor in Obravic were critical. Disagreements were acceptable, but open conflict could be ruinous for trade, and trade was what Seressa was about.

For the Seressinis, the idea of peace, with open, unthreatened commerce, was the most important thing in the god's created world. It mattered more (though this would never actually be
said
) than diligent attention to the doctrines of Jad as voiced by the sun god's clerics. Seressa traded, extensively, with the unbelieving Osmanlis in the east—and did so whatever High Patriarchs might say or demand.

Patriarchs came and went in Rhodias, thundering wrath in their echoing palace or cajoling like courtesans for a holy war and the need to regain lost Sarantium from the Osmanlis and their Asharite faith. That was a Patriarch's task. No one begrudged it. But for Seressa those god-denying Osmanlis offered some of the richest markets on earth.

Faleri knew it well. He was a merchant, son and grandson of merchants. His family's palace on the Great Canal had been built and expanded and sumptuously furnished with the profits of trading east. Grain at the beginning, then jewels, spices, silk, alum,
lapis lazuli. Whatever was needed in the west, or desired. The caressing silks his wife and daughters wore (and his mistress, more appealingly) arrived at the lagoon on galleys and roundships voyaging to and from the ports of the Asharites.

The grand khalif liked trade, too. He had his palaces and gardens to attend to, and an expensive army. He might make war on the emperor's lands and fortresses where the shifting borders lay, and Rodolfo might be forced to spend sums he didn't have in bolstering defences there, but Seressa and its merchant fleet didn't want any part of that conflict: they needed peace more than anything.

Which meant that Signore Orso Faleri was here with missions to accomplish and assessments to make and send home in coded messages, even while filled with longings and memories that had little to do with politics or gaunt philosophers in a northern city.

His first priority, precisely set forth by the Council of Twelve, had to do with the savage, loathed,
humiliating
pirates in their walled town of Senjan. It happened to be a matter dear to Faleri's own merchant heart.

It was also desperately delicate. The Senjani were subjects, extremely loyal subjects, of Emperor Rodolfo. They were—the emperor's phrase had been widely quoted—his
brave heroes of the borderland
. They raided Asharite villages and farms inland and opposed counter-raids, defending Jaddites where they could. They were, in essence, fierce (unpaid) soldiers of the emperor.

And Seressa wanted them destroyed like poisonous snakes, scorpions, spiders, whatever you chose to call them.

They wanted them wiped out, their walls destroyed, boats burned, the raiders hanged, chopped to pieces, killed one by one or in a battle, burned on a great pyre seen for miles, or left out for the animals. Seressa didn't care. Dead was enough, chained as galley slaves would do. Would maybe even be better—you never had enough slaves for the fleet.

It was a vexed issue.

No matter how aggressively Seressa patrolled, how many war galleys they sent out, how carefully they escorted merchant ships, the Senjani raiders found ways to board some of them in the long, narrow Seressini Sea. It was impossible to completely defend against them. They raided in all seasons, all weather. Some said they could
control
the weather, that their women did so with enchantments.

One small town, perhaps two or three hundred fighting men inside its walls at any given time—and oh, the havoc they wreaked in their boats!

Complaints came to Obravic
and
to Seressa, endlessly, from the khalif and his grand vizier.
How
, the Asharites asked in graceful phrases, could they continue to trade with Seressa if their people and goods were subject to savage piracy? What was the worth of Seressini assurances of safety in the sea they proudly named for themselves?

Indeed, some of the letters queried, perhaps Seressa was secretly
pleased
when Osmanli merchants, pious followers of the teachings of Ashar, were seized by the Senjani for ransom, or worse?

It was, the Council of Twelve had impressed upon Faleri, his foremost task this autumn and winter. He was to induce a distractible, erratic emperor to surrender a town of raiders to Seressa's fury.

Rodolfo needed to understand that Senjan didn't
only
raid over the mountains against godless infidels or seize their goods on ships. No! They rowed or sailed south along their jagged coastline to Seressini-governed towns. They went even farther south, to that upstart marine republic of Dubrava (the Seressinis had issues with them, too).

Those towns and cities were Jaddite, the emperor knew it! In them dwelled devout worshippers of the god. These people and their goods were not to be targets! The Senjani were
pirates
, not heroes. They boarded honest merchant ships making their way to sell and buy in Seressa, queen of all Jad's cities, bringing it wealth. So much wealth.

The vile, dissembling raiders claimed that they only took goods belonging to Asharites, but that was—everyone knew it!—a pose, a pretense, a bad, black joke. Their piety was a mask.

The Seressinis knew all about masks.

Faleri himself had lost three cargoes (silk, pepper, alum) in two years to the Senjani. He wasn't any worshipper of the Asharite stars or the two Kindath moons! He was as good a Jaddite as the emperor. (Maybe a better one, if one considered Rodolfo's alchemy.)

His personal losses might even be, he suddenly thought, as the young, smooth courtier straightened from his sixth obeisance (six!), the reason he'd been appointed here. Duke Ricci, head of the Council of Twelve, was easily that subtle. Faleri would be able to speak with passion about the evil the Senjani represented.

“The emperor has received the gifts you brought,” the tall official murmured, smiling. “He is much taken with the clock.”

Of course he was taken with the clock, Faleri thought. That's why they had chosen it.

The clock had been half a year in the making. It was of ivory and mahogany, inlaid with precious stones. It showed the blue and white moons in their proper phases. It predicted eclipses of the sun. A Jaddite warrior came forth on the hour to smite a bearded Osmanli on the head with a mace.

The device made a steady ticking sound when properly adjusted. Faleri had brought a man with him who knew how to achieve that. He believed this man was also tasked with spying on him. There was always someone spying. There wasn't much you could do about it. Information was the iron key to unlock the world.

Orso Faleri felt as if the moments of his life were passing swiftly, to that ticking sound. His mistress was beautiful, young, imaginative, not celebrated for her patience. There were many back home who openly desired her, including two council members. At least two.

His unhappiness was extreme—and would need to be concealed.

The two great doors swung open. Servants in white and gold appeared, more tall men, standing extremely straight. The court official (he needed to begin remembering names) smiled at Faleri again. Another man appeared at the doors and greeted him. This, he knew, was the chancellor. A name they'd discussed back home. Chancellor Savko nodded his head. Ambassador Faleri nodded his.

They entered a large, long room together. There was a throne on a carpet most of the way towards the far end. There were fires lit, but it was still cold.

The clock had been placed on a table beside the throne. It was ticking. Faleri heard it when he rose heavily after the second set of obeisances. He managed to stand without help, which was gratifying, but he was perspiring under his heavy clothing, even in a chilly autumn room. It would not be seemly to mop his forehead at this point. His silk shirt under his doublet clung damply to his body. He worked to control his breathing.

If he had to do this every time he was presented for a year—or two!—it would kill him, he thought. He might as well die now.

Rodolfo was looking at the clock. He lifted a vague hand, in what might be construed as a greeting to the newest ambassador to his court. Or it could be a cautionary gesture to keep quiet. No one spoke. Faleri had not been introduced by anyone. He
couldn't
speak. He didn't exist here yet. A good thing, in a way. He needed to regain composure, and his breath.

The clock ticked loudly in a silent room.

Rodolfo, Jad's Holy Emperor, King of Karch, of Esperaña in the west, of the northern reaches of Sauradia, laying (disputed) claim to parts of Ferrieres, some of Trakesia, and diverse other territories and islands, Sword of the High Patriarch in Rhodias, scion of an illustrious (inbred) family, said thoughtfully, “We like this device. It divides eternity.”

No one replied, though there were forty or fifty men in the room.
No women, Faleri realized. In Seressa there were always women at times such as this, adornments of life, often sublimely clever. He shifted his legs. His head was still swimming; the room wobbled and swayed like a child's top. He felt hot, dry-mouthed. They
would
kill him with these obeisances. He would die kneeling in Obravic!

The emperor was taller than expected. Rodolfo had the beaked nose and receding chin of the Kohlberg dynasty. He was pale-skinned, fair-haired. His hands were large, his eyes narrow above that nose, which made it hard to read their expression.

The chancellor finally broke the ticking stillness. “Excellency, I have the honour to present the distinguished emissary from the Republic of Seressa, arrived to take up his position among us. This is Signore Orso Faleri, who carries ambassador's papers attested by the seal of that republic, and who wishes the privilege of saluting you.”

He had
already
saluted, Faleri thought grimly. Six times, head to marble floor. Was he now to crawl forward and kiss a slippered imperial foot? They did that in Asharias, didn't they? That great, triple-walled city wasn't called Sarantium any more, it had been conquered. It was where the khalif ruled. They had renamed the City of Cities since the fall, the terrible disaster of the age.

Twenty-five years ago. It was still difficult to grasp that it had happened. They lived in a sad, harsh world, Orso Faleri often thought. There was still money to be made, mind you.