Michelle West - The Sun Sword 02 - The Uncrowned King (77 page)

But he was Valedan. "Primus," he said, in as formal a voice as he ever used, "if you cannot teach your men to speak respectfully of a woman who is the ACormaris' equal in every way, I will kill them."

Silence, there. Decarus Alexis whistled softly under her breath, but her smile was sharp with approval—or with what came as close to approval as she ever offered Valedan.

"Tyr'agar," the Primus said at last.

"Dismissed." Valedan turned to Alina and said, more shortly than he had intended, "Rise."

She rose. Lifted the veils that separated her skin from the Lord's view. "Valedan," she said quietly. "You won."

He made no reply; she glanced at Mirialyn.

At last she said, "You joined this contest to win; to take the title. This is your first victory."

"If
this
is victory," he replied, his voice a low snarl, "I wish I had never entered the Challenge to begin with."

Mirialyn and Alina exchanged glances again; the glance told Valedan that Mirialyn had summoned the Serra.

"How so?"

"To
win
." he said, "I kept swimming. A man was fighting for his life against a creature that wanted
mine
… and I kept swimming. I offered no aid. no resistance, no battle.

"To
win
." He spit.

She frowned, a ripple of lines around mouth, eyes, forehead.

"And worse—worst of all—one of the men I believe was sent here to kill me
did
intervene. On my behalf. He struck the creature, and probably saved not only my life but Kallandras' life as well."

"Had Kallandras not been, present." the princess said, speaking for the first time, "that man would have perished. As it was, he was injured badly enough we believe he will now no longer be a contestant in any of the remaining tests." She was silent a moment. "He was favored." she said al last, the words oddly hesitant, "to win the test of the horse."

He knew what she was telling him, and hated it.

"Valedan." Alina said quietly, "you must come to the podium: they will call for you shortly. And when you go. you must honor the spirit of this competition."

"Is that why you came?" He turned away from her then.

"Yes," she said, unflinchingly. "You made your choice. You must now live with it, with grace. That is the mark of a man."

"You have come here to tell me that?"

"I had hoped," she said coolly, "to offer merely my congratulations." Reproof.

He was angry with her; angry with them both. But he valued her enough—barely, this one afternoon—to hear the truth when it was spoken, no matter how little he liked it.

The crowds that opened up before him shook with applause as the challengers entered the arena. The voice of the ocean itself seemed to run through the benches in waves, rippling and breaking against unseen shoals. Fitting, here.

Witnesses.

They had seen the blood, they had seen the shattered wreckage of both a mage's craft and a mage's life—and they had seen that the challengers themselves continued on boldly and without apparent fear of the dangers beneath them.
This
was the stuff of champions and legends, the place where the one met the other and stayed wed.

And the man at the lead of the third heat—the heat which marked the turning point in the challenge, that made of it a blood sport—was Valedan kai di'Leonne. He was called last, and his name was lost to the crowd, taken by it, and carried on its tremendous voice. That such a thing could be formed out of disparate splinters—old voices and young, soft and harsh, male and female—seemed to the young kai Leonne a thing of wonder. He stood a moment, as if the voice of a god had been turned upon him.

And then he remembered why he had earned it, and the wonder left him completely: if a god's attention was upon him, the judgment rendered could not be favorable.

He walked the narrow path made of honor guards and witnesses. At the head of that path, Aidan, a young boy. Had he dreamed of heroes at Aidan's age?

Of course he had. He turned away from the boy's regard. Took his place upon the podium. Lifted his hands in twin fists.

The "merchant," Pedro, was beside himself with rage. It was a quaint phrase, that—a Northern phrase. It was also accurate; he seemed to have somehow stepped outside of himself and left only the anger behind. In the Dominion, the cost of such a display was not easily measured—or rather, it was measured by the power of the men in front of whom you chose to expose such a lack of control. And power was something that ebbed and flowed, a thing whose future could not be predicted.

Or so it had been in Ser Anton's experience.

Who, after all, could have foreseen the death of the Tyr'agar, and the fall of the clan Leonne?

"Why didn't you stop him?"

Foolish, to ask that question here. The crowd's roar was broken a moment as the kai Leonne took the podium; as the officiants in their brightly colored yet somehow somber robes began their crossing from podium to Kings.

The man Pedro referred to with such ire stood stiffly, his left arm slung over something the Northerners called a crutch. He had been offered something far less dignified—a chair, with wheels, as if he were merchant offal and it a tiny wagon—and had in the end chosen the rounded curves of hardwood. He could support himself, and he did; not even Andaro was allowed to publicly offer him aid.

The sword was awkwardly worn, and the leg bandaged in gauze that had just been dressed and changed. He would scar, of course— but with luck, he would not limp or lose the use of the leg; the bone had been chipped—or so the physicians said—but not broken.

The Kings had offered them the use of a healer, and Carlo had refused it. Because he knew too much of what they had planned for the kai Leonne, and he could not allow that information to pass into enemy hands.

Thus did he prove himself.

"Had it not been for his interference, we would not have
failed
! Do you even understand the cost of his action?"

Ser Anton stared at the profile of one of his two most promising students, aware—
well
aware—that in the South, healers were not trained to the same use as they were in this, this huge ancient city; that they, in fact, would not have the skill to repair this injury if too much time passed.

Was he aware of the cost of the action?

Oh, yes.

This man would never be his best, or his best student, again.

And they both knew it.

"Ser Anton—"

"Pedro," he said. "I know the cost." He would have said more, but the silence that fell made him realize how exposed the words they exchanged were; there was an unnatural silence, in a coliseum of this size.

And it had been called for by the kai Leonne.

No fists of victory, no Northern gesture. He called for silence, and he received it.

But what he did with it robbed Ser Anton of words. Of more.

"The test of the sea is the test of Averalaan," Valedan said, pitching his voice so that it might carry to the heights as well as the depths. "And men have proved themselves through it since this great city was founded.

"The first men to lend themselves to the sea's mercy were warriors; men who had fought and survived the Baronial Wars. They fought on land and they fought in mountain passes; they fought in great vessels upon the ocean's face.

"Today, I took the test of the ocean, and before you all, before my chosen witness," and he smiled at Aidan, "I was judged first among challengers. And for that, for that I am grateful."

He let them in, then, and they came, filling the space between words with his name.

"But if the spirit of the warrior is a part of the test of the sea, then I will tell you now that if I won the race, I cannot—will not—stand alone."

He took a breath, thinking now. balancing his desire to behave honorably with his desire not to insult the men and the women who had judged, and would judge, the challenge; to offer gratitude, to expose to light the excellence of, yes, an enemy—without exposing to ridicule the heart of the championship itself.

"For while I swam above the blood, the blood itself was spilled.

"Honor Tallosan, the mage whose life was shattered alongside his small vessel." He bowed his head. "Honor Kallandras, the master bard of Senniel College, whose skill with song and word is unchallenged, unchallengeable; whose dance in the depths rid the depths of danger.

"And honor, last and most, a man who had nothing to gain and everything to lose; who came to the Challenge from the South, the far South, and will return that way without facing the rest of the Challenge in which he hoped to prove himself.

"This is a warrior's test, and the man who proved himself worthy of it is the man who dared the waters with a sword and no hope of reward, although the responsibility to protect the challengers was in no way his."

He turned, then, seeking the face in the crowd and finding it, slack-jawed, almost stunned.

"Honor Carlo di'Jevre!" He stepped down from the podium then, and held out his hand, not in command, but not in supplication either.

And then Carlo di'Jevre straightened out, gaining inches and something else; pride. He did not look back at Ser Anton, although he cast one glance at one of his comrades. He stepped into the coliseum from the side, and the people answered his step, and Vale-dan's request.

He heard the name of his enemy, and he smiled; he began to chant it himself. To offer honor where honor had been offered; to offer it where it was due.

The Southerner drew even with Valedan, although it was a slow process, the movement hobbled by injury and stiff pride.

He did not speak to Valedan, and perhaps that stung, but when Valedan mounted the podium again. Carlo di'Jevre allowed him to do what he allowed no other: offer him a hand.

Clasped, their hands were a knot of dark and light, sun-stain and pale nobility. They were of a height, and their hair and eyes of a color, they might have been brothers, separated at birth, and returned to the fold shaped by two different hands—whose in-tent, in the end, could not eliminate the similarities that were there.

The crowd came to life as if it had been a slumbering, single creature, and the roar it raised went on and on, deafening, frightening, and comforting by turns.

The officiants returned from the Kings' box, and as they returned, they carried not one cushion but two, and on it, two crowns. Two wreaths.

Baredan di' Navarre offered no name, and no adulation, as the words of the crowd washed around him. Neither did the Tyr'agnate, who stood beside him in the box. But the Tyr's men, even the much admired and much respected Fillipo di'Callesta, had been carried away by the tide and the moment—and in that moment, Baredan could see that Fillipo was the younger of the two men. It had not been obvious to him until now.

They waited, the General and the Tyr, until the applause and the approbation came to an end; they waited a long time. But as the Kings finally rose to speak, for they spoke after each event— both to congratulate the winners and, in Baredan's practiced eye, to remind the spectators of whom their rulers were—the crowd gave up its voice, and there was room in which two men might speak.

The Tyr'agnate said, "He is not the boy we were led to believe he was."

Baredan replied, "He is not the boy
he
was led to believe he was. But he is not yet what he must be to lead armies."

"No?" The Tyr shrugged. "Not armies, perhaps. But twice now, twice, General, he has proved that he can lead men. And few indeed are the boys who lead men." His frown, subtle, was still evident. "They will see it," he said softly.

It was not the turn in conversation that Baredan had been expecting, but he followed it. "His enemies?"

"And his friends, but yes, his enemies. They have failed a second time. There is only one other event at which they might have success."

"The marathon."

"The marathon, yes. And it must be clear to them—as clear as it is to either of us, now—that they
must
succeed. He is more capable than any of us thought, perhaps even the kai Leonne himself.

"He has fire," the Tyr'agnate added, "but not wisdom."

"The Lord values fire."

"True enough," the Tyr replied quietly. "But death is the domain of the Lady, and she values wisdom." The evening was upon them.

21st of Lattan, 427 AA

Averalaan Aramarelas

Jewel Markess ATerafin sat in the open halls of the Queens' healerie; the sunlight, from the height of cut glass, was broken by lead crossbars as it came to rest upon the floor by her feet; short as they were, those feet cast shadows. It was early, and she had slept most of the previous day, but fitfully, as befits the ill.

Avandar was by her side, and Daine; both men wore the night poorly, for she had been offered a bed, and they had made their way through the night cramped by the backs of chairs or a hard length of floor. Torvan waited just outside of the healerie, no doubt to escort her back to Terafin.

Unfortunately, without the permission of Dantallon, that escort would have to wait.

A meal had been brought, but it had been brought for Jewel; Avandar and Daine were, of course, free to come and go as they pleased, and their keep was not the responsibility of the harried palace staff. At any other time of the year, they would have been better treated and tended—but at any other time of the year, Jewel would not be in the Queens' healerie.

She tried not to feel too guilty, and succeeded—in Avandar's case. He could take care of himself. She did offer Daine part of the food she'd been brought, but it didn't particularly surprise her when he refused with just a hint of offended pride; he was not starving, just hungry.

The door swung open. She sat up quickly enough to knock cutlery and dishes off the uneasy perch her lap made. Luckily, they were empty.

Unluckily, the visitor wasn't Dantallon.

It was Devon.

He bowed. "ATerafin," he said, softly and formally.

She nodded in return; etiquette didn't demand a bow, and even had it, she didn't particularly feel like giving one. But she stopped short of open hostility; she was curious. There were questions that she wanted answered, and she
knew
he had the information.