The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (92 page)

The hands beneath hers were warm, the dawn, cool. Ramdan cast a shadow above their bent backs, and when she dared look away from his face, she watched that shadow lengthen. While she watched, she spoke.

Silent, lips moving, power leaving her in a trickle.
Ona Teresa. Ona Teresa. Ona Teresa
.

The Radann’s hands moved, and she moved with them, shield and guardian. But he did not speak, and the Serra Teresa did not answer.

Silence swallowed time; the colors of the rock grew grayer and brighter around the edges of the shadow Ramdan cast.

And then she felt Marakas par el’Sol’s hands clench, his fingers curling protectively up into his palms. His lids opened slowly, as if they were blossoming—a black flower, a dark one.

Color returned to them slowly, the band of iris growing around the shrinking pupil. But he shook his head, retrieving his hands.

She swallowed. “You can’t—”

“No.”

“But—”

“The injury she has . . . done herself . . . I cannot heal.”

“Will she recover?”

Silence. Not the answer she desired, nor the one she hoped for. And, of course, she had had hope; had she none, she would never have called him.

“No, Serra,” he said softly.

“And you can do nothing.”

“No.”

Diora heard what the Serra Teresa would never hear again. Truth. She bowed her head.

Lifted it as he spoke again. “It is beyond me,” he told her quietly. “I . . . have been gifted . . . by the Lady. I have labored under the burden of this gift for the whole of my adult life. I have called the dead back.” He looked away from her, turning clenched fists around as if inspecting them. As if, she thought, he might better understand the failure if he could attach it to something physical.

“Understand, Serra, that we live in the Lord’s Dominion. What we know—what I know—is not what the Lord knows. Had the Serra broken arm, or leg, had she suffered injury in defense of the domis, I could be of aid. Had she,” he added softly, “you would never have called me. You know much. Of me. Of my gift. But the injury she has taken is not one that I can touch. I do not understand it, but . . .”

He shook his head. “The Widan do not suffer themselves to be healed often.”

“She is not Widan.”

His brows, absent from his face, would have added much to his brief expression. “No more am I,” he said quietly. “But I understand this much: she suffers from Widan fever. If she survives it—and I am not certain that she will—the injuries and scars it leaves will be upon those things that cannot be touched.” He bowed. Rose.

“I should not say more,” he continued, and she knew from his tone, from the texture of his voice, that he would, “but I think you might have a different answer if you spoke with the Northerners.”

“They are not healers.”

“No. But in the North, it is said that all arts, no matter how vile, are understood. Tell them that I do not have the power to touch what must be touched. But tell them also, that I believe that if I were more blessed, I would.”

She shook her head. “Radann par el’Sol,” she whispered.

“Serra?”

“How long will this fever continue?”

“Three days,” he replied. “Perhaps four. If the fever breaks, it will break by then; if it does not, it will consume her.”

She bowed; she bowed as low as she could, listening for the sound of his retreating steps. Only when they had passed, in safety, beyond her did she rise again.

Ramdan stood by her side. She felt the fall of pale silk before she saw it touch her shoulders; he had brought her veil. Of course.

She lifted hands, exposing the pale scar left there by storm and ship.

As a young woman, as the wife of the kai Leonne, she could never demean herself as she did now; she took the veil from him and began to wind it about her head and shoulders. Labor of her own hands.

She had learned this, in the Tor Leonne, in the months of her isolation. Had learned it, in a different way, upon the road that led to the Tor Arkosa. This, this third time, was a blessing, for it was a choice. Her own.

“Ramdan,” she said quietly. “Tend the Serra Teresa.”

He bowed.

“I will have the services of the Clemente serafs. Your services will not be required until we leave Clemente.”

She did not look at him. Could not. And perhaps he understood why; he was silent in his acquiescence. He had always been silent; she had assumed this to be some part of the natural grace the best of serafs showed.

But she wondered. She listened to the rustle of fabric as he bent; watched the play of shadow across stone and earth. How much did he know? How much had he always known, that he could offer the exquisite mercy of silence to one who could hear beneath the facade of perfect words?

Kallandras
.

The master bard of Senniel College looked up. The physicians retained by Clemente were a sedate and quiet group compared to those retained by either Senniel or the Kings of Essalieyan; they chose words with care, and used them with a caution lost upon Northerners used to the caprice—some would say the idiocy—of Northern patients.

Of all the things that reminded him of the home that Senniel had become, none were as strong as this. He smiled a moment, and lifted a hand as the physician peeled away strips of bloodied fabric. The wound beneath them was ugly, but it was not deep, and it had not yet become infected.

“I am capable of cleaning and dressing simple wounds,” he said quietly, desiring privacy, “and the same cannot be said for the Clemente cerdan.”

“The Tor’agar gave his orders, Ser Kallandras.”

Kallandras nodded, smoothing all evidence of amusement from his face. “I heard them,” he said softly, weighting his words with a hint of compulsion. “But I, too, have my duties. Will you not tend to your fallen?”

The man hesitated, running fingers just washed through the length of his beard. He desired it; that much was clear. The Clemente forces were not so large that the physicians could be assured of finding no friends among the fallen—and some of those might yet be saved.

“I will speak with the Tor’agar,” he continued, admiring the man’s tenacity. Few fought such an unrecognized compulsion for as long as he had. “And in truth, I, too, have orders. When you have finished, I ask that you inspect my work.” He lifted the wet cloth in his hands.

The doctor hesitated again, and then he made his decision. He offered a grim bow, shaded it with just a hint of gratitude and impatience, and was gone.

Serra Diora. Forgive me my silence; I heard you upon the field, but I was occupied in a dance that could not be interrupted. What has happened
?

Ona Teresa
. Two words. But he heard what lay beneath them. He rose as the doctor grew distant.

A moment, Serra Diora. Where are you
?

I am in the harem
.

And will I be granted access to the wives of the Tor
?

She did not reply. By her silence, he knew she meant him to grant himself that access, were it to be denied him. Frowning, he began to walk.

Celleriant stood in his way. “Kallandras,” he said quietly.

“Lord Celleriant.”

“Ah. Formality, then.”

“The battle is over,” he replied gravely. “And we are in the South. Here, formality rules all.”

“Here,” Lord Celleriant replied, not moving, “the word of the Tor—or the Tyr—rules all.”

“We acknowledge our rulers,” Kallandras said quietly. “But we find elasticity in the rules themselves. I am called,” he added, grave now.

“I know. I would accompany you.”

He hesitated.

The Arianni lord marked that hesitation. But he did not turn; did not leave.

Kallandras smiled; Lord Celleriant returned the brief play of lips. Neither expression was genuine, and both knew it.

“This is not a battlefield,” the Arianni lord said quietly.

“No. And away from the field, I have old ties, and old responsibilities.” He could have pushed his way past Celleriant, and knew it.

“So, too, do I. But were I in the Summer Court—and perhaps even the Winter, I do not know—I would be honored by your presence.”

“Until the Queen spoke.”

“If she were present. I have been among your kind for a short time, but I have begun to learn that this elasticity of which you speak has its . . . charm.”

“Yes,” he said quietly. And then again, “Yes.”

Lord Celleriant stepped aside, and when Kallandras began to walk, he fell in beside him; their strides were of a length, and the fall of their steps, to an untrained ear, might have been that of a single man.

The Tyr’agnate and the Tor’agar stood to one side of the screen that led to the garden; the early gray of dawn had given way to the muted colors—the green and the gray—of the stones; the pale clarity of water, its surface glimmering faintly; the black of hair not yet caught in combs; the pale white of harem faces.

Kallandras bowed, first to the Tyr, and then to the Tor.

Ser Alessandro kai di’Clemente shook his head. “Not here, Kallandras of Senniel.”

Kallandras rose.

But the kai Clemente felt the need to add words to what was obvious. “Were it not for the aid of the Old Forest, were it not for the presence of Jewel ATerafin and those that serve her, Clemente would now be ruled by an untested Tor in a time of war. You owe me no loyalty,” he continued, his voice perfect, his posture at odds with the dressing his wounds had been given, “and owing nothing, you have risked all.

“This is the heart of Clemente,” he continued, raising an arm. “And I give you leave to traverse it. Walk with care, but walk freely.”

Ah. Kallandras glanced at Ser Mareo kai di’Lamberto; his face was cast in stone, gray and cold as the edges of the rocks half hidden by tree and flower.

In the South, no man hated the North so openly.

“Were it not for the arrival of the Tyr’agnate, all that you feared might still have come to pass.”

The Tyr’agnate did not condescend to speak. His hand rested upon the hilt of his sword, and his lips were set in a narrow line. But he did not gainsay what the kai Clemente openly offered.

“The Matriarch?” Kallandras said quietly.

“She is well, I believe. She speaks to no one.”

The Tyr’agnate was silent.

Would be, Kallandras thought, for some time. He bowed again, the North giving way to the South in the grace of the gesture.

“My companion?” he asked.

“He is welcome,” Ser Alessandro replied. But Kallandras heard the doubt the surface of words did not offer. He wondered what truths the legends of Clemente contained. He stepped away from the man who ruled and the man he served, and passed through the garden, following one of the narrow paths hidden among the fronds of plants not native to the Mancorvan plains.

The women fell silent in ones and twos.

He did not meet their eyes; did not look at their faces; did not otherwise acknowledge their presence—he understood what freedom within the harem entailed, and he took care, in the sight of the Tor, not to abuse the privilege.

But he had other reasons.

And one of them waited, knees pressed into unrolled mat, head bowed against the growing light of sun, the press of day. He approached her with care, and when he stood some ten feet from her, he spoke her name.

She looked up.

“Kallandras,” she whispered.

He could clearly see the exhaustion that lay against the fine features of her face; could see the circles beneath eyes that were almost always perfect. Her hair was bound, and her posture flawless, but those were the only things she maintained.

“Serra Diora. I came in haste.”

Her smile was perfect. Vacant.

“Ona Teresa is . . . indisposed.”

He drew closer, his steps light and deliberate. By his side, white shadow, came Lord Celleriant.

Her expression shifted as she saw him; it was a subtle shift. Nothing as unpleasant as surprise marred her manner.

“I trust him,” he told her quietly, exposing much of himself in the act. He did not hide what his voice contained, although he was not certain what she would hear of himself in the words.

She exposed nothing of herself in reply; she nodded, the nod itself so regal it placed a distance between them.

He accepted it.

Because beyond her, he could see Ramdan, and beside Ramdan, he could at last see the Serra Teresa. It surprised him, and it should not have; for no other reason would the Serra Diora have summoned him.

The desert had scoured her clean, he thought, as he surveyed the contours of her expressionless face. She had emerged from the Tor Arkosa a different woman; wiser in some ways. But much more vulnerable. He did not know if she was aware of the change; the young often saw clearly only when their vision was turned outward.

But if she was aware of it, he wondered if she thought it worth the cost; with life came pain, and she had chosen to live.