Baerd and Catriana warned us and I had time to hide—with Devin, who had made his way to the cabin on his own.’
‘On his own? How?’ Rovigo asked sharply.
Devin lifted his head. ‘I have my own resources,’ he said with dignity. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alessan grin, and he suddenly felt ridiculous. Sheepishly he added, ‘I overheard the Sandreni talking upstairs between the two sessions of the mourning rites.’
Rovigo looked as if he had another question or three, but, with a glance at Alessan, he held them in. Devin was grateful.
Alessan said, ‘When we went back to the cabin afterwards we found the vigil-keepers dead. Tomasso was taken. Baerd has remained behind to take care of a number of things by the cabin tonight. He will burn it later.’
‘We passed the Barbadians as we left the city,’ Rovigo said quietly, absorbing this. ‘I saw Tomasso bar Sandre with them. I feared for you, Alessan.’
‘With some cause,’ Alessan said drily. ‘There was an informer there. The boy, Herado, Gianno’s son, was in the service of Alberico.’
Rovigo’s face registered shock. ‘Family? Morian damn him to darkness for that!’ he rasped harshly. ‘How could he do such a thing?’
Alessan gave his small characteristic shrug. ‘A great deal has broken down since the Tyrants came, would you not say?’
There was a silence as Rovigo fought to master his shock and rage. Devin coughed nervously and broke it: ‘Your own family,’ he asked. ‘Do they—’
‘They know nothing of this,’ the merchant said, regaining his calm. ‘Neither Alix nor any of the girls had ever seen Alessan or Catriana before tonight. I met Alessan and Baerd in Tregea town nine years ago and we discovered in the course of a long night that we had certain dreams and certain enemies in common. They told me something of what their purposes were, and I told them I was willing to assist in those pursuits as best I could without unduly endangering my wife or daughters. I have tried to do that. I will continue to try. It is my hope to live long enough to be able to hear the oath Alessan offers when he drinks blue wine.’
He spoke the last words quietly but with obvious passion. Devin looked at the Prince, remembering the inaudible words he had murmured under his breath before he drank.
Alessan gazed steadily at Rovigo. ‘There is one other thing you should know: Devin is one of us in more than the obvious way. I learned that by accident yesterday afternoon. He too was born in my own province before it fell. Which is why he is here.’
Rovigo said nothing.
‘What is the oath?’ Devin asked. And then, more diffidently, ‘Is it something that I should know?’
‘Not as anything that matters in the scheme of things. I only spoke a prayer of my own.’ Alessan’s voice was careful and very clear. ‘I always do. I said: Tigana, let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul.’
Devin closed his eyes. The words and the voice. No one spoke. Devin opened his eyes and looked at Rovigo.
Whose brow was knotted in fierce, angry consternation. ‘My friend, Devin should understand this,’ Alessan said to him gently. ‘It is a part of the legacy he has taken on. What did you hear me say?’
Rovigo gestured with helpless frustration. ‘The same thing I heard the first time this happened. That night nine years ago, when we switched to blue wine. I heard you ask that the memory of something be a blade in you. In your soul. But I didn’t hear . . . I’ve lost the beginning again. The something.’
‘Tigana,’ Alessan said again. Tenderly, clear as chiming crystal.
But Devin saw Rovigo’s expression grow even more baffled and dismayed. The merchant reached for his glass and drained it. ‘Will you . . . one more time?’
‘Tigana,’ Devin said before Alessan could speak. To make this legacy, this grief at the heart of things, more truly his own, as properly it was his own. For the land was his or it had been, and its name was part of his own, and they were both lost. Taken away.
‘Let my memory of you be like a blade in my soul,’ he said, his voice faltering at the end though he tried hard to keep it as steady as Alessan’s had been.
Wondering, disoriented, visibly distressed, Rovigo shook his head.
‘And Brandin’s magic is behind this?’ he asked.
‘It is,’ Alessan said flatly.
After a moment Rovigo sighed and leaned back in his chair. ‘I am sorry,’ he said softly. ‘Forgive me, both of you. I should not have asked. I have opened a wound.’
‘I was the one who asked,’ Devin said quickly.
‘The wound is always open,’ said Alessan, a moment later.
There was an extraordinary compassion in Rovigo’s face. It was difficult to realize that this was the same man who had been jesting about Senzian rustics as husbands for his daughters. The merchant rose abruptly and became busy tending to the fire again, though the blaze was doing perfectly well. While he did so Devin looked at Alessan. The other man met his gaze. They said nothing though. Alessan’s eyebrows lifted a little, and he gave the small shrug Devin had come to know.
‘What do we do now, then?’ asked Rovigo d’Astibar, returning to stand beside his chair. His colour was high, perhaps from the fire. ‘I am as disturbed by this as I was when we first met. I do not like magic. Especially this kind of magic. It remains a matter of some . . . significance to me to be able to hear one day what I was just debarred from hearing.’
Devin felt a rush of excitement run through him again: the other element to his feelings this evening. His pique at having been deceived in The Bird was entirely gone. These two, and Baerd and the Duke, were men to be reckoned with, in every possible way, and they were shaping plans that might change the map of the Palm, of the whole world. And he was here with them, he was one of them, chasing a dream of freedom. He took a long drink of his blue wine.
Alessan’s expression was troubled though. He looked, suddenly, as if he were burdened with a new and difficult weight. He leaned slowly back in his chair, his hand going through the tangle of his hair as he looked at Rovigo in silence for a long time.
Turning from one man to the other, Devin felt abruptly lost again, his excitement fading almost as quickly as it had come.
‘Rovigo, have we not involved you enough already?’ Alessan asked at length. ‘I must admit this has become harder for me now that I have met your wife and daughters. This coming year may see a change in things, and I cannot even begin to tell you how much more danger. Four men died in that cabin tonight, and I think you know as well as I do how many will be death-wheeled in Astibar in the weeks to come. It has been one thing for you to keep an ear open here and on your travels, to quietly monitor Alberico’s doings and Sandre’s, for you and Baerd and I to meet every so often and touch palms and talk, friend to friend. But the shape of the tale is changing now, and I greatly fear to put you in danger.’
Rovigo nodded. ‘I thought you might say something like that. I am grateful for your concern. But, Alessan, I made up my mind on this a long time ago. I . . . would not expect that freedom could be found or won without a price paid. You said three days ago that the coming spring might mark a turning-point for all of us. If there are ways that I can help in the days to come you must tell me.’ He hesitated, then: ‘One of the reasons I love my wife is that Alix would echo this were she with us and did she know.’
Alessan’s expression was still troubled. ‘But she isn’t with us and she doesn’t know,’ he said. ‘There have been reasons for that, and there will be more of them after tonight. And your girls? How can I ask you to endanger them?’
‘How can you decide for me, or them?’ Rovigo replied softly, but without hesitation. ‘Where is our choice, our freedom, if you do that? I would obviously prefer not to do anything that