eye-to-who-might-be-listening ripple of amusement at that had quite died away, one itinerant musician—there were scores of them in Astibar that week—had offered to wager all he might earn in the three days to come, that from the island of Chiara would arrive condolences in verse before the Festival was over.
‘Too rich an opportunity,’ the rash newcomer explained, cradling a steaming mug of khav laced with one of the dozen or so liqueurs that lined the shelves behind the bar of The Paelion. ‘Brandin will be incapable of letting slip a chance like this to remind Alberico—and the rest of us—that though the two of them have divided our peninsula the share of art and learning is quite tilted west towards Chiara. Mark my words—and wager who will—we’ll have a knottily rhymed verse from stout Doarde or some silly acrostic thing of Camena’s to puzzle out, with “Sandre” spelled six ways and backwards, before the music stops in Astibar three days from now.’
There was laughter, though again it was guarded, even on the eve of the Festival, when a long tradition that Alberico of Barbadior had circumspectly indulged allowed more licence than elsewhere in the year. A few men with heads for figures did some rapid calculations of sailing-time and the chances of the autumn seas north of Senzio province and down through the Archipelago, and the musician found his wager quickly covered and recorded on the slate on the wall of The Paelion that existed for just such a purpose in a city prone to gambling.
But shortly after that all wagers and mocking chatter were forgotten. Someone in a steep cap with a curled feather flung open the doors of the khav room, shouted for attention, and when he had it, reported that the Tyrant’s messenger had just been seen returning through the same eastern gate from which he had so lately sallied forth. That the messenger was riding at an appreciably greater speed than hitherto, and that, not three miles to his rear was the funerary procession of Duke Sandre d’Astibar being brought by his last request to lie a night and a day in state in the city he once had ruled.
In The Paelion the reaction was immediate and predictable: men began shouting fiercely to be heard over the din they themselves were causing. Noise and politics and the anticipated pleasures of the Festival made for a thirsty afternoon. So brisk was his trade that the excitable proprietor of The Paelion began inadvertently serving full measures of liqueur in the laced khavs being ordered in profusion. His wife, of more phlegmatic disposition, continued to short-measure all her patrons with benevolent lack of favouritism.
‘They’ll be turned back!’ young Adreano the poet cried, decisively banging down his mug and sloshing hot khav over the dark oak table of The Paelion’s largest booth. ‘Alberico will never allow it!’ There were growls of assent from his friends and the hangers-on who always clustered about this particular table.
Adreano stole a glance at the travelling musician who’d made the brash wager on Brandin of Ygrath and his court poets on Chiara. The fellow, looking highly amused, his eyebrows quizzically arched, leaned back comfortably in the chair he had brazenly pulled up to the booth some time ago. Adreano felt seriously offended by the man, and didn’t know whether his umbrage had been more aroused by the musician’s so-casual assertion of Chiara’s pre-eminence in culture, or by his flippant dismissal of the great Camena di Chiara whom Adreano had been assiduously imitating for the past half-year: both in the fashion of his verses and the wearing of a three-layered cloak by day and night.
Adreano was intelligent enough to be aware that there might be a contradiction inherent in these twinned sources of ire, but he was also young enough and had drunk a more than sufficient quantity of khav laced with Senzian brandy, for that awareness to remain well below the level of his conscious thoughts.
Which remained focused on this presumptuous rustic. The man had evidently journeyed into the city to saw or pluck for three days at some country instrument or other in exchange for a handful of astins to squander at the Festival. How did such a fellow dare sail into the most fashionable khav room in the Eastern Palm and thump his rural behind down onto a chair at the most coveted table in that room? Adreano still carried painfully vivid memories of the long month it had taken him—even after his first verses had appeared in print—to circle warily closer, flinching inwardly at apprehended rebuffs, before he became a member of the select and well-known circle that had a claim upon this booth.
He found himself actually hoping that the musician would presume to contradict his opinion: he had a choice couplet already prepared, about rabble of the road spewing views on their betters in the company of their betters.
As if on cue to that thought, the fellow slumped even more comfortably back in his chair, stroked a prematurely silvered temple with a long finger and said, directly to Adreano, ‘This seems to be my afternoon for wagers. I’ll risk everything I’m about to win on the other matter that Alberico is too cautious to ruffle the mood of the Festival over this. There are too many people in Astibar right now and spirits are running too high—even with the half-measured drinks they serve in here to people who should know better.’
He grinned, to take some of the sting from the last words. ‘Far better for the Tyrant to be gracious,’ he went on. ‘To lay his old enemy ceremoniously to rest once and for all, and then offer thanks to whatever gods his Emperor overseas is ordering the Barbadians to worship these days. Thanks and offerings, for he can be certain that the geldings Sandre’s left behind will be pleasingly swift to abandon the unfashionable pursuit of freedom that Sandre stood for in ungelded Astibar.’
By the end of his speech he was not smiling, nor did the wide-set grey eyes look away from Adreano’s own.
And here, for the first time, were truly dangerous words. Softly spoken, but they had been heard by everyone in the booth, and suddenly their corner of The Paelion became an unnaturally quiet space amid the unchecked din everywhere else in the room. Adreano’s derisive couplet, so swiftly composed, now seemed trivial and inappropriate in his own ears. He said nothing, his heart beating curiously fast. With some effort he kept his gaze on the musician.
Who added, the crooked smile returning, ‘Do we have a wager, friend?’
Parrying for time while he rapidly began calculating how many astins he could lay palms on by cornering certain friends, Adreano said, ‘Would you care to enlighten us as to why a farmer from the distrada is so free with his money to come and with his views on matters such as this?’
The other’s smile widened, showing even white teeth. ‘I’m no farmer,’ he protested genially, ‘nor from your distrada either. I’m a shepherd from up in the south Tregea mountains and I’ll tell you a thing.’ The grey eyes swung round, amused, to include the entire booth. ‘A flock of sheep will teach you more about men than some of us would like to think, and goats . . . well, goats will do better than the priests of Morian to make you a philosopher, especially if you’re out on a mountain in rain chasing after them with thunder and night coming on together.’
There was genuine laughter around the booth, abetted somewhat by the release of tension. Adreano tried unsuccessfully to keep his own expression sternly repressive.
‘Have we a wager?’ the shepherd asked one more time, his manner friendly and relaxed.
Adreano was saved the need to reply, and several of his friends were spared an amount of grief and lost astins by the arrival, even more precipitous than that of the feather-hatted tale-bearer, of Nerone the painter.
‘Alberico’s given permission!’ he trumpeted over the roar in The Paelion. ‘He’s just decreed that Sandre’s exile ended when he died. The Duke’s to lie in state tomorrow morning at the old Sandreni Palace and have a full-honours funeral with all nine of the rites! Provided’—he paused dramatically—‘provided the clergy of the Triad are allowed in to do their part of it.’
The implications of all this were simply too large for Adreano to brood much upon his own loss of face— young, overly impetuous poets had that happen to them every second hour or so. But these—these were great events! His gaze, for some reason, returned to the shepherd. The man’s expression was mild and interested, but certainly not triumphant.
‘Ah well,’ the fellow said with a rueful shake of his head, ‘I suppose being right will have to compensate me for