Tigana. Guy Gavriel Kay

scenarios in his mind, but he would never know. It was a night-time truth that became a queer, private sorrow for him amid all that came after. A symbol, a displacement of regret. A reminder of what it was to be mortal and so doomed to tread one road only and that one only once, until Morian called the soul away and Eanna’s lights were lost. We can never truly know the path we have not walked.

      The paths that each of the men in that lodge were to walk, through their own private portals to endings near or far, were laid down by the owl that cried a second time, very clearly, just as Nievole began to speak.

      Alessan flung up his hand. ‘Trouble!’ he said sharply. Then: ‘Baerd?’

      The doorway banged open. Devin saw a large man, his very long, pale-yellow hair held back by a leather band across his brow. There was another leather thong about his throat. He wore a vest and leggings cut in the fashion of the southern highlands. His eyes, even by firelight, gleamed a dazzling blue. He carried a drawn sword.

      Which was punishable by death this close to Astibar.

      ‘Let’s go!’ the man said urgently. ‘You and the boy. The others belong here—the youngest son and the grandson have easy explanations. Get rid of the extra glasses.’

      ‘What is it?’ Tomasso d’Astibar asked quickly, his eyes wide.

      ‘Twenty horsemen on the forest path. Continue your vigil and be as calm as you can—we won’t be far away. We’ll return after. Alessan, come on!’

      The tone of his voice pulled Devin halfway to the door. Alessan was lingering though, his eyes for some reason locked on those of Tomasso, and that look, what was exchanged in it, became another one of the things that Devin never forgot, or fully understood.

      For a long moment—a very long moment, it seemed to Devin, with twenty horsemen riding through the forest and a drawn sword in the room—no one spoke. Then:

      ‘It seems we will have to continue this extremely interesting discussion at a later hour,’ Tomasso bar Sandre murmured, with genuinely impressive composure. ‘Will you take a last glass before you go, in my father’s name?’

      Alessan smiled then, a full, open smile. He shook his head though. ‘I hope to have a chance to do so later,’ he said. ‘I will drink to your father gladly, but I have a habit I don’t think even you can satisfy in the time we have.’

      Tomasso’s mouth quirked wryly. ‘I’ve satisfied a number of habits in my day. Do tell me yours.’

      The reply was quiet; Devin had to strain to hear.

      ‘My third glass of a night is blue,’ Alessan said. ‘The third glass I drink is always of blue wine. In memory of something lost. Lest on any single night I forget what it is I am alive to do.’

      ‘Not forever lost, I hope,’ said Tomasso, equally softly.

      ‘Not forever, I have sworn, upon my soul and my father’s soul wherever it has gone.’

      ‘Then there will be blue wine when next we drink after tonight,’ said Tomasso, ‘if it is at all in my power to provide it. And I will drink it with you to our fathers’ souls.’

      ‘Alessan!’ snapped the yellow-haired man named Baerd. ‘In Adaon’s name, I said twenty horsemen! Will you come?’

      ‘I will,’ said Alessan. He hurled his wineglass and Devin’s through the nearest window into the darkness. ‘Triad guard you all,’ he said to the five in the room. Then he and Devin followed Baerd into the moonlit shadows of the clearing.

      With Devin in the middle they ran swiftly around to the side of the cabin farthest from the path that led to the main road. They didn’t go far. His pulse pounding furiously, Devin dropped to the ground when the other two men did so. Peering cautiously out from under a cluster of dark-green serrano bushes they could see the lodge. Firelight showed through the open windows.

      A moment later Devin’s heart lurched like a ship caught by a wave across its bows, as a twig cracked just behind him.

      ‘Twenty-two riders,’ a voice said. The speaker dropped neatly to the ground on Baerd’s other side. ‘The one in the middle of them is hooded.’

      Devin looked over. And by the mingled light of the two moons saw Catriana d’Astibar.

      ‘Hooded?’ Alessan repeated, on a sharply taken breath. ‘You are certain?’

      ‘Of course I am,’ said Catriana. ‘Why? What does it mean?’

      ‘Eanna be gracious to us all,’ Alessan murmured, not answering.

      ‘I wouldn’t be counting on it now,’ the man named Baerd said grimly. ‘I think we should leave this place. They will search.’

      For a moment Alessan looked as if he would demur, but just then they heard a jingling of many riders from the path on the other side of the lodge.

      Without another word spoken the four of them rose and silently moved away.

      ‘This evening,’ murmured Scalvaia, ‘grows more eventful by the moment.’

      Tomasso was grateful for the elegant lord’s equanimity. It helped steady his own nerves. He looked over at his brother; Taeri seemed all right. Herado was white-faced, however. Tomasso winked at the boy. ‘Have another drink, nephew. You look infinitely prettier with colour in your cheeks. There is nothing to fear. We are here doing exactly what we have permission to be doing.’

      They heard the horses. Herado went over to the sideboard, filled a glass and drained it at a gulp. Just as he put the goblet down the door crashed loudly open, banging into the wall beside it, and four enormous, fully armed Barbadian soldiers strode in, making the lodge seem suddenly small.

      ‘Gentlemen!’ Tomasso fluted expertly, wringing his hands. ‘What is it? What brings you here, to interrupt a vigil?’ He was careful to sound petulant, not angry.

      The mercenaries didn’t even deign to look at him, let alone reply. Two of them quickly went to check the bedrooms and a third seized the ladder and ran up it to examine the half-loft where the young singer had been hiding. Other soldiers, Tomasso registered apprehensively, were taking up positions outside each of the windows. There was a great deal of noise outside among the horses, and a confusion of torches.

      Tomasso abruptly stamped his foot in frustration. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he shrilled as the soldiers continued to ignore him. ‘Tell me! I shall protest directly to your lord. We have Alberico’s express permission to conduct this vigil and the burial tomorrow. I have it in writing under his seal!’ He addressed the Barbadian captain standing by the door.

      Again it was as if he hadn’t even spoken so completely did they disregard him. Four more soldiers came in and spread out to the edges of the room, their expressions blank and dangerous.

      ‘This is intolerable!’ Tomasso whined, staying in character, his hands writhing about each other. ‘I shall ride immediately to Alberico! I shall demand that you all be shipped straight back to your wretched hovels in Barbadior!’

      ‘That will not be necessary,’ said a burly, hooded figure in the doorway.

      He stepped forward and threw back the hood. ‘You may make your childish demand of me right here,’ said Alberico of Barbadior, Tyrant of Astibar, Tregea, Ferraut and Certando.

      Tomasso’s hands flew to his throat even as he dropped to his knees. The others, too, knelt immediately, even old Scalvaia with his game leg. A black mind-cloak of numbing fear threatened to descend over Tomasso, trammelling all speech and thought.

      ‘My lord,’ he stammered, ‘I did not . . . I could . . . we could not know!’

      Alberico was silent, gazing blankly down upon him. Tomasso fought to master his terror and bewilderment. ‘You are most welcome here,’ he bleated, rising carefully, ‘most welcome, most honoured lord. You do us too much honour with your presence at my father’s rites.’