me,’ the Duke replied, very low. ‘Under all the circumstances.’
‘Shall we part company now then?’
For a long moment something lay balanced in the air between them, a process of weighing and resolution, complicated immeasurably by death and grief and rage and the stiff, reflexive pride of both men. Devin, responding with his nerve-endings to the tension, found that he was holding his breath.
‘I would prefer not,’ said Sandre d’Astibar finally. ‘Not like this,’ he added, as Devin drew breath again. ‘Will you accept an apology from one who is sunken as low as he has ever been?’
‘I will,’ said Alessan simply. ‘And I would seek your counsel before we must, indeed, part ways for a time. Your middle son was taken alive. He will name me and Devin both tomorrow morning if not tonight.’
‘Not tonight,’ the Duke said, almost absently. ‘Alberico apprehends no danger any more. He will also be quite seriously debilitated by what happened here. He will leave Tomasso until a time when he can enjoy what happens. When he is in a mood to . . . play.’
‘Tonight, tomorrow,’ said Baerd, his blunt voice jarring the mood. ‘It makes little difference. He will talk. We must be away before he does.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not,’ Sandre murmured in the same strangely detached voice. He looked at the four dead men on the floor. ‘I wish I knew exactly what happened,’ he said. ‘Inside the coffin I could see nothing, but I can tell you that Alberico used a magic here tonight so strong it is still pulsating. And he used it to save his own life. Scalvaia did something, I don’t know what, but he came very near.’ He looked at Alessan. ‘Near to giving Brandin of Ygrath dominion over the whole peninsula.’
‘You heard that?’ Alessan said. ‘You agree with me?’
‘I think I always knew it to be true, and I know I succeeded in denying it within myself. I was so focused on my own enemy here in Astibar. I needed to hear it said, but once will be enough. Yes, I agree with you. They must be taken down together.’
Alessan nodded, and some of his own rigidly controlled tension seemed to ease away. He said, ‘There are those who still think otherwise. I value your agreement.’
He glanced over at Baerd, smiling a little wryly, then back to the Duke. ‘You mentioned Alberico’s use of magic as if it should have a meaning now for us. What meaning then? We are ignorant in these matters.’
‘No shame. If you aren’t a wizard you are meant to be ignorant.’ Sandre smiled thinly. ‘The meaning is straightforward though: there is such an overflow of magic spilling out from this room tonight that any paltry power of my own that I invoke will be completely screened. I think I can ensure that your names are not given to the torturers tomorrow.’
‘I see,’ said Alessan, nodding slowly. Devin did not see anything; he felt as if he were churning along in the turbulent wake of information. ‘You can take yourself through space? You can go in there and bring him out?’ Alessan’s eyes were bright.
Sandre was shaking his head though. He held up his left hand, all five fingers spread wide. ‘I never chopped two fingers in the wizard’s final binding to the Palm. My magic is profoundly limited. I can’t say I regret it—I would never have been Duke of Astibar had I done so, given the prejudices and the laws governing wizards here—but it constrains what I am able to do. I can go in there myself, yes, but I am not strong enough to bring someone else out. I can take him something though.’
‘I see,’ said Alessan again, but in a different voice. There was a silence. He pushed a hand through his disordered hair. ‘I am sorry,’ he said at length, softly.
The Duke’s face was expressionless. Above the white beard and the gaunt cheeks his eyes gave nothing away at all. Behind him the fire crackled, sparks snapping outward into the room.
‘I have a condition,’ Sandre said.
‘Which is?’
‘That you allow me to come with you. I am now a dead man. Given to Morian. Here in Astibar I can speak to no one, achieve nothing. If I am to preserve any purpose now to the botched deception of my dying I must go with you. Prince of Tigana, will you accept a feeble wizard in your entourage? A wizard come freely, not bound by some legend?’
For a long time Alessan was silent, looking at the other man, his hands quiet at his sides. Then, unexpectedly, he grinned. It was like a flash of light, a gleam of warmth cracking the ice in the room.
‘How attached are you,’ he asked, in a quite unexpected tone of voice, ‘to your beard and your white hair?’
A second later Devin heard a strange sound. It took him a moment to recognize that what he was hearing was the high, wheezing, genuine amusement of the Duke of Astibar.
‘Do with me what you will,’ Sandre said as his mirth subsided. ‘What will you do—tinge my locks red as the maid’s?’
Alessan shook his head. ‘I hope not. One of those manes is more than sufficient for a single company. I leave these matters to Baerd though. I leave a great many things to Baerd.’
‘Then I shall place myself in his hands,’ Sandre said. He bowed gravely to the yellow-haired man. Baerd, Devin saw, did not look entirely happy. Sandre saw it too.
‘I will not swear an oath,’ the Duke said to him. ‘I swore one vow when Alberico came, and it is the last vow I shall ever swear. I will say though that it shall be my endeavour for the rest of my days to ensure that you do not regret this. Will that content you?’
Slowly Baerd nodded. ‘It will.’
Listening, Devin had an intuitive sense that this, too, was an exchange that mattered, that neither man had spoken lightly, or less than the truth of his heart. He glanced over just then at Catriana and discovered that she had been watching him. She turned quickly away though, and did not look back.
Sandre said, ‘I think I had best set about doing what I have said I would. Because of the screening of Alberico’s magic I must go and return from this room, but I dare say you need not spend a night among the dead, however illustrious they are. Have you a camp in the woods? Shall I find you there?’
The idea of magic was unsettling to Devin still, but Sandre’s words had just given him an idea, his first really clear thought since they’d entered the lodge.
‘Are you sure you’ll be able to stop your son from talking?’ he asked diffidently.
‘Quite sure,’ Sandre replied briefly.
Devin’s brow knit. ‘Well then, it seems to me none of us is in immediate danger. Except for you, my lord. You must not be seen.’
‘Until Baerd’s done with him,’ Alessan interposed. ‘But go on.’
Devin turned to him. ‘I’d like to say farewell to Menico and try to think of a reason to give for leaving. I owe him a great deal. I don’t want him to hate me.’
Alessan looked thoughtful. ‘He will hate you a little, Devin, even though he isn’t that kind of man. What happened this morning is what a lifelong trouper like Menico dreams about. And no explanation you come up with is going to alter the fact that he needs you to make that dream a real thing now.’
Devin swallowed. He hated what he was hearing, but he couldn’t deny the truth of it. A season or two of the fees Menico had said he could now charge would have let the old campaigner buy the inn in Ferraut he’d talked about for so many years. The place where he’d always said he’d like to settle when the road grew too stern for his bones. Where he could serve ale and wine and offer a bed and a meal to old friends and new ones passing through on the long trails. Where he could hear and retell the gossip of the day and swap the old stories he loved. And where, on the cold winter nights, he could stake out a place by the fire and lead whoever happened to be there into and out of all the songs he knew.
Devin shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his breeches.