Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (37 page)

Those stories were still told. They knew, the four year olds, as Valedan did, how Ser Anton received the scars across his face and arms; they knew how it was that he had first been granted the sword which he'd made famous; they knew that he had been chosen and favored above all men by the will of the Lord of the Sun. But better than that, they knew that Ser Anton di'Guivera had, not once but twice, come to the kingdom of the Northern demon-ruled Imperials, and bested their best.

He could see it, if he but closed his eyes. He could hear Serra Antonia, telling him from the grave—from the vortex of the winds, a gentle breeze—all these things.

But more than that, he could hear her gentle admonition to be, as Anton had been, in all things an honorable man.

How long, he wondered, as he sat beside the fountain that had been his comfort since he'd first set foot in these wide, open halls.
How long have you known
? For he was certain that the Serra Alina
had
known the truth of it.

The boy's graven face—most of it hidden—did not move to give him reply; he stared as the water fell from young, stone hands, like weak Northern blood. The sky's tint was crimson and pale. The Lord—if he existed at all, and according to the Princess he did not, except in the hearts of the men who chose to fashion a god in their likeness—was closing his eyes.

Shadows fell.

And they were wrong, even for the closing of the day. Valedan kai di'Leonne rose at once, hand on the hilt of a sword that he did not remove when he walked any halls but the rooms that had been granted him in recognition of his title and his claim.

There stood only one man, hand likewise on the hilt of a sword which was sheathed. Sheathed or no, it had the power to cut, to wound.

"Ser Anton," Valedan said gravely. He did not bow; he could not; his back was stiff.

The swordmaster did not reply.

He longed to be political, did Valedan; he longed to be wise. But he was alone, and the Lord's light was fading. He could see the lines of the old man's face, and he realized for perhaps the first time that Anton di'Guivera was old, was older than his father had been at his death; was older than Alina or Ramiro or Baredan.

"I wondered if you would dare," he said, "to pay your respects to the clan."

The silence he heard was the silence of contempt. Certain that words would follow, he weathered it. His anger—unlooked for, unexpected—prevented it from stinging, from wounding. "If you take this chance meeting to be a gesture of respect," was the cool reply, "then, yes, I dare."

"I have heard," Valedan continued, because he wanted to speak and there were none but himself to advise against it, "that it was your hand that killed my father."

"You have good ears."

"Was it easier, to kill a student whose skill you put together, year by year, than to kill a man who never trusted you?"

Anton di'Guivera froze.

Valedan kai di'Leonne turned his back upon him, giving him no chance to counterstrike or to parry—no chance but the obvious, blade to blade. He walked toward the fountain. "This," he said, to the silent danger behind him, "was built by an Annagarian seraf who made his way North to build a life in this land. I come here, often; if you wish to avoid me, it is best that you understand this to be
my
territory." He was silent; Anton was silent.

"Justice," Anton di'Guivera said.

Valedan turned, surprised, aware that the surprise was a weakness that he must master, that he must bleed from expression if not gesture. "Yes," he said, although the older man's eyes were upon him. "The statue, the boy, is called Justice. The Lord's justice. The Dominion's justice."

"I have heard much of you," Anton said, his voice completely neutral.

"I have heard much of you," was Valedan's bitter reply. "I may only hope that what you have heard is not so lacking in truth."

This time, this lime Anton di'Guivera expected the blow; he was not moved by the words of an angry young man. "Perhaps; I will see for myself what the truth of those words is."

"Why?" Valedan replied coolly.

"Because it is always best, as you would have known had you been raised in the Dominion, to know one's enemy's strengths— and weaknesses. The North breeds for weakness."

Valedan shrugged. "The North won," was his calm reply.

"A point, indeed, in their favor, inexplicable though it is." He met Valedan's eyes, across a distance that was not great enough. They were brown eyes, brown eyes, and anger enough between them, old and young, to start wars.

Valedan did not look away.

"I have come here," Anton said, "to finish what was started, and to have peace."

"You've come to kill me."

"Yes."

"My sword and my skill were not fashioned by your hand; I will not be so easy to kill as my father. But at least my death will not be a betrayal."

At that, at that Anton di'Guivera did look away a moment. "What do you know of betrayal?" he replied at last, his voice low. "Nothing."

"No. Perhaps not. I look forward to the fight, Ser Anton. You were once the most honorable of the Lord's warriors; the best of his line." He bowed, although he had not intended to show this man that respect.

Ser Anton did not return the gesture.

16th of Lattan, 427 AA

Hundred Holdings

They were sweating with the heat, damp with it; their clothing was darkened to shades that were unfashionable, and in Jewel's case, unbecoming, not that she much cared. She'd worn worse, far worse, in her time—at least these fit. Last time she'd stood this long in the twenty-sixth, she'd worn a shirt that had rubbed through at the elbows.

And she'd been smart enough then not to mill around in the city during the Festival Challenge. She could see Angel's spire of hair—a holdover from his younger days; follow it, and she could see Carver standing beside him. But the others were out of sight, hidden by a moving wall of people that only occasionally let a window open up where it was useful. In her next life, Mandaros willing, she was going to be
tall
.

The streets were packed. Petty hawkers, farmers, bakers, and their families moved and stopped in large clusters, carrying their arguments and their glee with them as they went. Five days of work—this particular five days—would see them through the off-months if they were frugal; and if they had the best position, the right stall, the loudest voice. It was the height of the season; the Challenge festival. Comers had camped in the streets against all magisterial dictate: the competition for space was fierce in those areas where the people who had the right to levy fees didn't think it worth the bother.

Jewel had never understood how such money could be too much of a bother until she'd joined Terafin. There, she'd discovered how much it could cost to collect money owed for such ephemeral enterprises as these; hiring guards, getting the correct permissions sealed and signed so you could actually use said guards, locating the people who owed the money in the first place as more than half of them wouldn't be standing around with moneybags outheld, hiring more guards when you found out that the guards that you'd hired at such a bargain turned out to have the worst tempers this side of the Dominion and were now cooling their heels in the magisterial jails while the Magisterium paid a personal call to Terafin—and even then, it was a pain that she'd've endured had she been the hapless subservient put in charge of collection.

Terafin holdings didn't demand that of her, and she thanked Kalliaris for the oversight every time she was reminded of it.

Gods, there were so many
people
.

So many people, and no more demons.

"One day," she said grimly.

"Longer," her companion replied. "The marathon itself isn't run until the third day."

"I know when the marathon is run, thank you," she snapped. It was churlish; she knew it almost before she said it, but she'd so hoped that Avandar would stay home. Teller was there, and Finch, and Avandar was capable—although she hated to say it—of defending them. Better than Jewel herself, gods curse him. She'd tried to order him there, but he wouldn't stay, and she knew that his service wasn't that of a guard or a servant; he was there to protect her.

It would help me, she'd told him, id I weren't so damned afraid of someone killing
them.

Then let it go
, he'd replied.
They serve you. Jewel. Do them the grace of accepting their choice for what it is: clear-eyed. Adult. Do you think they would run away if they knew what they faced? They've faced worse than a House War
. He'd smiled then, which was rare.
I shouldn't say this, but Finch has already spoken to me about the possibility of my remaining with them
.

Oh?

Yes. She said that she'd kill me if I abandoned you.

And that had been that.

Devon ATerafin rounded a wide bend in the road, inasmuch as a man could come round a corner into a crowd packed cheek by jowl. He was tall enough that he was easily seen.

Avandar was tall enough that he was easily seen.

Jewel, sadly, was not. As Devon drew closer, she lost him to the heads and shoulders of men and women trying desperately to stake their little claims. He'd get through by and by; if it had been an emergency—and she wanted one, because at least it would come on time, before the marathon—he'd have made his way through the crowd more efficiently than a pain-maddened horse.

Tucked away in less obvious places than the old holdings were the other, less earthy, merchants. Moneyed people traveled this time of year to take part in the Festival that surrounded the Challenge itself, and if they were here, they often chose to conduct business in the Festival environs. Jewel wouldn't have, but she understood the attraction, even if it was—at this moment—the last in the world she would have felt.

First, even merchants enjoyed the spectacle and the gathering that was the prelude and aftermath to the Challenge; there were bards from every college to witness the events, and to call them— not journeymen, but master bards, men and women whose voices, once heard, were woven into a life story as one of the few perfect memories; there were criers, lesser bards, acrobats, there were actors and plays. In all, a gaudy, perfect display of humanity.

Second, it was harder to police the city. Those divisions of the army that were disciplined enough—Berriliya's, for the most part—earned double their wages by swallowing their pride and donning the uniforms of the Magisterium—but they didn't know what to look for, crime-wise, and they weren't used to the give and take that the magisterial guards ran their holdings by. Despised it, in fact, which meant that cooperation was largely a theory during the Festival season if the holders didn't know your face. There were a lot of faces out there that Jewel and her den wouldn't have recognized.

She stained her sleeve with one swipe of forehead and glowered at a young boy with nimble fingers who had the cheek to grin before he vanished between two stalls. Merchants weren't the only people who made a few months' living wages in the open streets of the festival—as she well knew. She'd done it herself.