A Song for Arbonne (26 page)

She said, without preamble, the dark brown eyes steady on his, "There are a number of matters we might wish to consider, you and I, before this night is over, but do you want to begin by telling me what happened after you left the river?"

He was tired, and his mind and heart had been dealt double blows tonight, but he was not so far unmanned as that.

He even found himself smiling, though he could not have said why. Perhaps the pure challenge of it, the directness of what she seemed to be trying to do. "I might," he murmured. "I might possibly want to tell you, but until I know who else is listening at the door behind you I would prefer to keep my own counsel, my lady. You will forgive me."

He had expected many things, but not delight. Her laughter chimed with her two hands clapping happily together, the long fingers momentarily obscuring the rubies about her throat.

"Of course I will forgive you!" Ariane de Carenzu cried, "You have just won me a wager of twenty-five silver barbens. You really shouldn't work in the service of men who undervalue you so much."

"I object to that," said Bertran de Talair, entering the room from the door behind her. "I did not underestimate Blaise. I might
possibly
have judged your charms to be rather more distracting then they seem to be of late."

"I know your lute," Blaise said briefly. "I may not think much of your music, but I know the instrument." He was making an effort to keep his composure. He wasn't really looking at Bertran, either, because another woman, very tall, had walked in behind the duke. This one had grey in her dark hair and she was blind and there was a white owl on her shoulder. The last time he'd seen her was on an island in the sea when she'd told him the secrets of his own heart in the night dark of a forest.

"You might at least have
tried,"
Bertran went on plaintively, addressing Ariane. "I'm minded to renege on our wager. You were about as seductive as a wet goat in a cave."

"Spare us a recitation of your preferences," Ariane replied sweetly.

It was the High Priestess of Rian, her blank eye sockets turned unerringly to where Blaise had risen from his chair, who told him the thing he most needed to know, as de Talair threw back his head in laughter.

"The wounded coran will live. He should be completely recovered after the shoulder injury heals."

"That cannot be," Blaise said, his mind clamping shut in denial. "There was syvaren on that arrow."

"And he owes you his life for telling them as much by the river," the priestess went on gravely. She was robed in a gown grey as the streaks in her hair. Her skin was darkened and roughened by sun and wind and the salt of the sea, a complete contrast to Ariane's alabaster smoothness. "They brought him to me in the temple here, and because I knew what this was and because it happened tonight, I was able to deal with it."

"You can't, though. You
can't
cure a man poisoned by syvaren. No surgeon in the world can do that."

She permitted herself the small, superior smile he remembered. "That last is true, at any rate. Nor could I have done so if too much time has passed and if I had not been in a consecrated place. It is also Midsummer Eve. You should have cause to remember, Northerner, that the goddess's servants can do things you might not expect when we are centred in her mysteries."

"We burn women in Gorhaut when they traffic in the magic of darkness." He wasn't sure why he'd said that, but he did indeed recall the apprehension he'd felt on the island, the pulsing of the forest floor beneath his feet, and something of that was coming back now. He was also remembering, as through a tunnel of smoke and years, the first witch-burning he'd ever seen. His father had pronounced the excoriation and had had both his young sons stand by him and watch.

The High Priestess of Rian was no longer smiling. "Fear makes men label women's power an act of darkness. Only fear. Consider the price of that: no woman would have dared try to save Valery of Talair if that arrow had been loosed in Gorhaut." She paused, as if waiting for a response, as a tutor with her charge. Blaise said nothing, keeping his face as impassive as he could. The owl flapped its wings suddenly but settled again on the priestess's shoulder. In a different tone she said, "I bring greetings for you from Luth of Baude, who now serves Rian with dignity on her Island."

Blaise grimaced at the recollection. "Luth couldn't serve a flask of ale with dignity," he said, anger and confusion overcoming him.

"You do not mean that, you are only unsettled. You might also be surprised at what any man may do when he, too, feels centred in his own being." The reproach was mild enough, but Blaise felt, as he had before with this woman, that there were meanings beneath the surface of her words, that she was speaking to a part of him that no one should have been able to address.

The very old woman who had burned on the Garsenc lands all those years ago had been pitiful more than anything else. A village neighbour had accused her at the year end godmoot of witching a cow so its milk would dry. Galbert had decided to make an example of the case. Every year, sometimes more often, such a course was needful, he had said to his sons.

The cow's milk had been unchanged even after the witch had died with her white hair blazing. Blaise had made a point of going back to the village, after, and asking about that. Something had sickened in him then, and did so again whenever the memory came back. He recalled, a memory thick and oppressive, his father's heavy hand on his shoulder at the burning, as Galbert made sure his recalcitrant younger child would not shame him by turning away. There had been no darkness, no secret, dangerous power in the terrified woman screaming until she choked among black smoke and the tongues of flame and the smell of burning flesh. Somehow Blaise had known it even then.

But there
was
magic in the High Priestess of Rian. He had felt it on that island. She had known about Rosala. That, in itself, was an almost impossible thing to deal with, or forget. And as for the poison tonight: Bertran was here laughing, had been gleefully wagering with Ariane de Car-enzu. Valery
could
not be dead. Even with syvaren on the arrow.

Something clenched and hurtful in Blaise, that had been present since he'd seen the white-and-black shaft fly, began to loosen its grip inside him. Rudel Correze, he thought abruptly, was going to be a profoundly disconcerted man one day not far from now. A part of him wanted to smile at that, but instead Blaise found himself sinking back down into his chair and reaching for his wine. He cradled the silver goblet in both hands without drinking. He was going to have to be careful now, he thought, looking at the two women and the man. Extremely careful.

"How much power do you have?" he asked, keeping his voice even, looking at the blind woman. She was still standing behind the divan.

And unexpectedly—she was always unsettling him, it seemed—the priestess laughed. "What? Would you have a dissertation now on the Natural, Celestial and Ceremonial powers, with a subsidiary digression on the three Principal Harmonies? You think I am a lecturer at the university, perhaps? You haven't even offered me a fee, Northerner!"

Blaise flushed at the mockery. But even as the High Priestess ended, laughing still, Ariane de Carenzu's cool voice interceded, precise and sharp as a stiletto between the ribs. "However captivating the issue raised might be, I am afraid the furthering of your education will have to be delayed a short while. You might recall that I have a question proposed first. You declined to answer until you knew who was behind the door. That was fair enough. Now you know. I would be grateful for a reply."

What happened after you left the river?
she had asked. The offered question and the heart of danger in this room tonight. Bertran de Talair stopped his restless pacing. He had picked up a crystal from one of the tables and held it now in one hand, turning it this way and that, accepting and diffusing candlelight, but his blue eyes were steady on Blaise's as he waited.

Blaise turned—as he seemed always to be turning—back to the High Priestess in her rough grey robe. Quietly, he said, "If you know my mind, as you seemed to when last we met, you can answer all such questions for them, can't you." He said it flatly; it was not a question.

Her expression, oddly, grew gentler, as if he'd sounded an unexpected chord. She shook her head. "I also told you that night that our powers are less than our desires would have them be, and they grow weaker when we are farther from the hearthstones of Rian. On the goddess's Island I could read some things in your heart and in your history, largely to do with love and hate, you will remember. I said I could tell your future. That was a lie. Nor can I read your mind right now. If you have things to tell us you will have to tell them yourself."

"Not all things," Blaise said calmly. "You could tell them who I am, for example."

There was a short silence, then:

"We all
know
who you are, Blaise de Garsenc." Bertran laid down the crystal as he spoke. His voice actually held a faint irritation. "Did you honestly think you were travelling in such secrecy? That you entered my service without my knowing whom it was I was hiring?" The candlelight on the clever, cynical face exposed his old white scar.

Blaise swallowed. Events were moving very fast. Abruptly, he recalled something. "But you asked me. You wanted to know who I was when first we met. If you knew, why ask?"

Bertran shrugged. "I learn more sometimes from questions I know the answers to. Really, Blaise, whatever you—or I, for that matter—may think of your father, he is one of the powers of our world today, and his younger son has been, for a number of years, a coran of some reputation of his own. It was no secret—among certain circles, at any rate—that Galbert de Garsenc's son left Gorhaut immediately after the Treaty of Iersen Bridge was signed. And when a distinctively tall, reddish-bearded Gorhaut coran of considerable skills was reported to be in Castle Baude some time after… it wasn't difficult to make an obvious guess. At which point I went to investigate matters for myself. Incidentally, I've never seen another man match arrows with my cousin at that distance before."

Feeling bludgeoned by the increasing pace of revelations, Blaise shook his head. "I didn't match him. And as it happens, the man who shot Valery tonight may well be better than either of us." He wasn't sure he'd actually meant to say that.

"Ah, well now," murmured Ariane de Carenzu, the words like a slow caress in the stillness of the room. "This brings us somewhere, finally." Blaise looked at her. Her lips were parted slightly, her eyes bright with anticipation.

"I had intended to tell the duke in the morning," he said carefully. "I undertook to wait until then."

"Was such an undertaking yours to give?" The caressing note was gone as swiftly as it had come. She had spoken this way in the tavern, to Talair and Miraval. Blaise hadn't liked it then, and he didn't now. He let his eyes grow wide, holding and challenging her. It was curious, and something he would have to think about afterwards, but with his identity out in the open he felt rather more equal to these people now. He had a suspicion that when he considered the matter he wouldn't be happy about it, since any feeling would be derived, ultimately, from being his father's son, but it was there, it was undeniably there.

"You will remember," he said quietly to the duchess of Carenzu, "that I was under the impression that En Bertran would be mourning the death of his cousin this evening."

"How solicitous of you." It was Bertran. "And was that the reason for your undertaking?"

"In part," Blaise said, turning back to him. "There were others."

"Which were?"

Blaise hesitated. There was danger here. "The desire to avoid an extremely delicate political problem for us all, and another reason which is private to me."

"I am not certain we can value that privacy, tonight, and I rather think the people in this room can shape their own judgments and responses to any political problems, however delicate, that might emerge from what you say. I think you had best tell me who this person is." The duke's posture and voice were as lazy as ever, but Blaise had been with him long enough now not to be fooled by that.

"
Don't be obtuse, Bertran. We know exactly who this person is.
" A fifth voice in the room, from one of the two chairs before the fire, assured, quite uncompromising. Blaise wheeled swiftly around but saw no one at all, until the speaker rose, with caution, and he finally understood. The others, he noted grimly, had not been surprised.

He had looked over at those chairs when he first entered the room, of course; they were wide, richly upholstered and straight-backed, facing the fireplace, but not so large as to conceal a man.

But this was Arbonne, and a woman was another matter. Particularly a small, fine-boned, white-haired woman whom he knew to be—for he had seen her before, bestowing honours at tournaments—Signe be Barbentain, countess of Arbonne.

She was looking at the duke. "If you have been listening at all carefully, Bertran, then this should be one of those questions you already know the answer to. If so, you should not shame a coran who tells you he has given an undertaking not to speak. We do not behave that way here, whatever may happen elsewhere in this decaying world."

She was clad in blue and a pale cream colour with pearl buttons, close set, running up the front of her gown. Her hair was held back with a golden diadem. She wore no other ornaments save for two rings on her fingers. She had been celebrated, Blaise knew, as the most beautiful woman in the world in her time. He could see it, even now. Her eyes were astonishing, so dark they were almost black.

He bowed, a straight leg forward, one hand brushing the carpet. His coran's training would have had him do so, even if his instincts had not.

She said, "Mine cannot be the only source of information that reported last year that the younger son of Galbert de Garsenc spent a season in Mignano and Faenna at the palaces of the Delonghi. Nor can I be the only one to have heard certain rumours—which we need not now pursue—concerning the unfortunate death of Engarro di Faenna. But the name to be linked with all of this—a name that indeed would give rise to complexities in affairs of state, as well as eliciting a personal response from our friend here—is surely that of Rudel Correze. Who is, I am reliably informed, much sought-out as an assassin, in good part for his skill with a bow. You need not," she added calmly, looking directly at Blaise for the first time, "reproach yourself for an undertaking breached. You did not tell me this."