Tigana (30 page)

Dianora di Certando, her name was.

Dianora, who had intended to come to the Island from the very first, from the earliest glimmerings of her plan when she had sat alone before a dead fire one summer night in her father’s silent house. Who had hardened herself—as men in battle were said to have to do—to the thought of being captured and brought here and locked for life inside the saishan of the Tyrant. She had worked it out that far five years ago, a girl with death in her heart, with a father dead and a brother gone and a mother gone even farther away: images of all three of them rising in her dreams from the ashes of the burning in her land.

And death was still there, still with her on that ship. She still had those dreams, but with them now, as fabled Chiara drew nearer under the brightness of the sky, was something else: a bemused, an almost numbed incredulity at how the line of her life had run. How things had fallen out so completely wrong, and yet so precisely as she had planned from the first.

She had tried to see that as an omen, closing her left hand three times over her thumb to make her wish come true, as she entered that new world.

C H A P T E R   8

I
t was strange, Dianora thought, still moving through the crowded Audience Chamber as spring sunlight filtered down on Brandin’s court from the stained-glass windows above, how the so-clear portents of youth were alchemized by time into the many-layered ambiguities of adult life.

Sipping from her jewelled cup she considered the alternative. That she had simply
allowed
things to become nuanced and difficult. That the real truths were exactly the same as they had been on the day she arrived. That all she was doing was hiding: from what she had become, and what she had not yet done.

It was the central question of her life and once more she pushed it away to the edges of her awareness. Not today. Not in any daytime. Those thoughts belonged to nights alone in the saishan when only Scelto by her door might know how sleepless she was, or find the tracks of tears along her cheeks when he came to wake her in the morning.

Night thoughts, and this was bright day, in a very public place.

So she walked over towards the man she’d recognized and let her smile reach her eyes. Balancing her chalice gracefully she sketched a full Ygrathen salute to the portly, soberly dressed personage with three heavy gold chains about his neck.

‘Greetings,’ she murmured, straightening and moving nearer. ‘This is a surprise. It is rare indeed that the so-busy
Warden of the Three Harbours deigns to spare a moment from his so-demanding affairs to visit old friends.’

Unfortunately Rhamanus was as hard to ruffle or disconcert as he had ever been. Dianora had been trying to get a rise out of him ever since the night he’d had her bundled like a brown heifer out of the street in front of The Queen and on to the river galley.

Now he simply grinned, heavier with the years gone by and, latterly, his shore-bound duties, but unmistakably the man who’d brought her here.

One of the few men from Ygrath she genuinely liked.

‘Not so much flavour from you, girl,’ he mock-growled. ‘It is not for idle women who do nothing all day but put their hair up and down and up again for exercise to criticize those of us who have stern and arduous tasks that shorten our nights and put grey in our hair.’

Dianora laughed. Rhamanus’s thick black curls—the envy of half the saishan—showed not a trace of grey. She let her gaze linger expressively on his dark locks.

‘I’m a liar,’ Rhamanus conceded with untroubled equanimity, leaning forward so only she could hear. ‘It’s been a dead-quiet winter. Not much to do at all. I could have come to visit but you know how much I hate these goings-on at court. My buttons pop when I bow.’

Dianora laughed again and gave his arm a quick squeeze. Rhamanus had been kind to her on the ship, and courteous and friendly ever since, even when she’d been merely another new body—if a slightly notorious one—in the saishan of the King. She knew he liked her and she also knew, from d’Eymon himself, that the former Tribute Ship captain was an efficient and a fair administrator.

She had helped him get the posting four years ago. It was a high honour for a seaman, supervising harbour rules and regulations at the three main ports of Chiara itself. It
was also, to judge from Rhamanus’s slightly threadbare clothing, a little too near the seat of power for any real gains to be extracted.

Thinking, she clicked her tongue against her upper teeth, a habit Brandin teased her about. He claimed it always signalled a request or a suggestion. He knew her very well, which frightened her at least as much as it did anything else.

‘This is the merest thought,’ she said now to Rhamanus quietly, ‘but would you have any interest at all in living in north Asoli for a few years? Not that I want to get rid of you. It’s a dreadful place, everyone knows that, but there
are
opportunities and I’d as soon a decent man reaped them as some of the greedy clutch that are hovering about here.’

‘The taxing office?’ he asked, very softly.

She nodded. His eyes widened slightly but, schooled to discretion, he gave no other sign of interest or surprise.

What he did do, an instant later, was glance quickly beyond her shoulder towards the throne. Dianora was already turning by then, an inexplicable sense, almost an antenna, having alerted her.

So she was facing the Island Throne and the doorway behind it by the time the herald’s staff rapped the floor twice, not loudly, and Brandin came into the room. He was followed by the two priests, and the priestess of Adaon. Rhun shambled quickly over to stand near by, dressed identically to the King except for his cap.

The truer measure of power, Brandin had once said to her, wouldn’t be found in having twenty heralds deafen a room by proclaiming one’s arrival. Any fool in funds for a day could rivet attention that way. The more testing course, the truer measure, was to enter unobtrusively and observe what happened.

What happened was what always happened. The Audience Chamber had been collectively poised as if on the
edge of a cliff for the past ten minutes, waiting. Now, just as collectively, the court plummeted into obeisance. Not one person in the whole crowded room was still speaking by the time the herald’s muted staff of office proclaimed the King. In the silence the two discreet raps on the marbled floor sounded like echoing thunder.

Brandin was in high good humour. Dianora could have told that from halfway across the room, even if she hadn’t had a hint from Rhun already. Her heart was beating very fast. It always did whenever Brandin entered a room where she was. Even after twelve years. Even still, and despite everything. So many lines of her life led to or from this man or came together, hopelessly intertwined, in him.

He looked to d’Eymon first, as always, and received the other’s expressionless bow, sketched low in the Ygrathen fashion. Then, as always, he turned and smiled at Solores.

Then at Dianora. Braced as she was, as she always tried to be, she still could not quite master what happened to her when the grey eyes found and held her own. His glance was like a touch, a gliding presence, fiery and glacial both—as Brandin was.

And all this from a look across a very crowded room.

Once, in bed, years before, she had dared to ask him a question that had long troubled her.

‘Is there sorcery involved when you love me here, or when we first meet in a public place?’

She hadn’t known what answer she wanted, or what to expect by way of reaction. She’d thought he might be flattered by the implication, or at least amused. You could never be sure with Brandin though, his mind ran through too many different channels and with too much subtlety. Which is why questions, especially revealing ones, were dangerous. This had been important to her though: if he said yes she was going to try to use that to kindle her killing anger again.
The anger she seemed to have lost here in the strange world that was the Island.

Her expression must have been very grave; he turned on his pillow, head propped on one hand to regard her from beneath level brows. He shook his head.

‘Not in any way you are thinking. Nothing that I control or shape with my magic, other than the matter of children. I will not have any more heirs, you know that.’ She did know that; all his women did. He said, after a pause, carefully, ‘Why do you ask? What happens to you?’

For a second she thought she’d heard uncertainty in his voice, but one could never be sure of such things with Brandin.

‘Too much,’ she’d answered. ‘Too much happens.’

And she’d been speaking, for that one time, the unshielded truth of a no longer innocent heart. There was an acute understanding in his clear eyes. Which frightened her. She moved herself—moved by all the layers of her need—to slide over against his body again and then above and upon it that it might begin once more, the whole process. All of it: betrayal and memory mixed with yearning, as in the amber-coloured wine the Triad were said to drink—too potent for mortals to taste.

‘Are you truly serious about that posting in Asoli?’

Rhamanus’s voice was soft. Brandin had not gone to the throne but was making a relaxed circuit of the room—more evidence of his benign mood. Rhun, with his lopsided smile, shambled in his wake.

‘I confess I had never even given it a thought,’ the former Tribute captain added.

With an effort Dianora forced her thoughts back to him. For a second she had forgotten her own query. Brandin did that to her. It was not a good thing, she thought. For many reasons it was not a good thing.

She turned again to Rhamanus. ‘I’m quite serious,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure if you would want the position—even if it were possible. You have more status where you are, and this is Chiara, after all. Asoli can offer you some chance at wealth, but I think you have an idea what would be involved. What matters to you, Rhamanus?’

It was more bluntly put than courtesy would have deemed appropriate, especially with a friend.

He blinked, and fingered one of his chains of office.

‘Is that what it comes down to?’ he asked hesitantly. ‘Is that how you see it? Can a man not perhaps be moved by the prospect of a new challenge, or even—at the risk of sounding foolish—by the desire to serve his King?’

Her turn to blink.

‘You shame me,’ she said simply, after a moment. ‘Rhamanus, I swear you do.’ She stilled his quick protests with a hand on his sleeve. ‘Sometimes I wonder what is happening to me. All the intriguing that goes on here.’

She heard footsteps approaching and what she said next was spoken as much to the man behind as to the one in front of her. ‘Sometimes I wonder what this court is doing to me.’

‘Should I be wondering as well?’ asked Brandin of Ygrath.

Smiling, he joined them. He did not touch her. He very seldom touched the saishan women in public, and this was an Ygrathen reception. They knew his rules. Their lives were shaped by his rules.

‘My lord,’ she said, turning and sketching her salutation. She kept her voice airily provocative. ‘Do you find me more cynical than I was when this terrible man brought me here?’

Brandin’s amused glance went from her to Rhamanus. It was not as if he’d needed the reminder of which Tribute captain had brought him Dianora. She knew that, and he knew she did. It was all part of their verbal dance. His intelligence stretched her to her limits, and then changed what
those limits were. She noticed, perhaps because the subject had come up with Rhamanus, that there was as much grey in his beard now as black.

He nodded judiciously, simulating a deep concern over the question. ‘I would have to say so, yes. You have grown cynically manipulative in almost exactly the same proportion as the terrible man has grown fat.’

‘So much?’ Dianora protested. ‘My lord, he is
very
fat!’

Both men chuckled. Rhamanus patted his belly affectionately.

‘This,’ he said, ‘is what happens when you feed a man cold salt meat for twenty years at sea and then expose him to the delights of the King’s city.’

‘Well then,’ said Brandin, ‘we may have to send you away somewhere until you are sleek as a seal again.’

‘My lord,’ said Rhamanus instantly, ‘I am yours to command in all things.’ His expression was sober and intense.

Brandin registered that and his tone changed as well. ‘I know that,’ he murmured. ‘I would that I had more of you at court. At both of my courts. Portly or sleek, Rhamanus, I am not unmindful of you, whatever our Dianora may think.’

Very high praise, a promise of sorts, and a dismissal for the moment. Bright-eyed, Rhamanus bowed formally and withdrew. Brandin walked a couple of paces away, Rhun shuffling along beside him. Dianora followed, as she was expected to. Once out of earshot of anyone but the Fool, Brandin turned to her. He was, she was sorry to see, suppressing a smile.

‘What did you do? Offer him north Asoli?’

Dianora heaved a heartfelt sigh of frustration. This happened all the time. ‘Now that,’ she protested, ‘is unfair. You
are
using magic.’

He let the smile come. She knew that people were watching them. She knew what they would say amongst themselves.

‘Hardly,’ Brandin murmured. ‘I wouldn’t waste it or drain myself on something so transparent.’

‘Transparent!’ she bridled.

‘Not you, my cynical manipulator. But Rhamanus was too serious too quickly when I jested about posting him away. And the only position of significance currently available is north Asoli and so …’

He let the sentence trail off. Laughter lingered in his eyes.

‘Would he be such a bad choice?’ Dianora asked defiantly. It was genuinely disconcerting how easily Brandin could sound the depths of things. If she allowed herself to dwell on that she could become frightened again.

‘What do you think?’ he asked by way of reply.

‘I? Think?’ She lifted her plucked eyebrows in exaggerated arches. ‘How should a mere object of the King’s occasional pleasure venture to have an opinion on such matters?’