A Song for Arbonne (53 page)

His son had not replied. He had watched the thin rain falling on the moor. There was nothing to say. Nothing, that is, that would not be treason, or a lie.

This morning, though, on a challenge ground in Arbonne under a clear sky he had heard the younger son of Garsenc name Ademar a traitor and claim the throne of Gorhaut before lords and ladies of all six countries. And the simple truth was, he realized finally, sitting his horse on that ridge above a burning hamlet, he agreed with Blaise de Garsenc. His father would have felt the same way, he knew with certainty, though he would never have put such a thought into words. They were people of Gorhaut, their lives and lands charged to the protection of the king—and their safety and history and trust had been given away by him with a signed piece of paper. It was said that Galbert the High Elder had been behind the whole thing. That he wanted to destroy Arbonne because of the goddess they had down here. He didn't know much about that or very much care, but he had seen his father destroyed by living on another man's farm far from the northern lands he had known all his life.

His father had died at the end of that same summer, taking to his bed one morning, the scribe's letter had said, and passing to the god four days after without any last word spoken. He had not appeared to be in great pain, the scribe wrote. His mother had made her mark at the end, after the part wishing him all best fortune. He still carried it, that letter.

He looked down a last time on the burning of Aubry. He drew a long breath, finally clear in his mind, though not any the less afraid for that. When he began to ride again it was south, the way he had come, carrying a different message, grim with fire and death and with more of each to come, certain as mortal man was born to die.

He had actually made his choice, he realized, on the evening of that last walk with his father in the rain. He had had no way to put that decision into action. Now he did.

He put spurs to his horse, leaving the fires of Aubry behind him. His eyes were on the empty road before him, seeing how bright and strange it had become in the mingling of the moons.

Blaise hadn't been happy about it, but the priestess and the physician, agreeing with each other, had insisted that he drink an herbal concoction that led him to sleep for most of the day.

When he awoke, in a room in Barbentain, the western sky outside his window was soft with the hues of sunset, dark rose and purple, with the blue-black of twilight soon to come. He couldn't see the river from his bed, but through the open window he could hear it rushing past; in the middle distance lights were beginning to come on in the houses of Lussan. He watched for a while, feeling curiously at peace though conscious of pain in his legs and aware of bandages about his left ear. He brought one hand up and felt them.

Tentatively he turned his head back the other way and so realized, for the first time, that he was not alone.

"It could have been worse," Ariane said quietly. She was sitting in a chair halfway to the door. "You lost part of the earlobe, but they say it will be no more than that. Much the same as Bertran, actually."

"How long have you been here?"

"Not long. They said you would sleep until sundown. I asked if I could speak with you alone when you woke."

She had changed to sober clothing from the bright regalia of the morning; her gown was a dark blue in colour, with her customary crimson only in the trim of the sleeves. She looked very beautiful to him. She smiled. "Bertran has been going about the castle all day claiming that the two of you are now clearly revealed as long-separated brothers. The current version is that you were stolen by brigands from your cradle in Talair Castle and sold for three goats in a village in Gorhaut."

"Three goats? I'm outraged," Blaise said with a sigh. "Five at least. Tell him I refuse to be undervalued, even in a story."

Ariane's smiled faded. "You are unlikely to be undervalued, Blaise, here or anywhere else. Not after this morning. Your problems are almost certainly going to be of the opposite kind."

He nodded slowly. It seemed that he could do that much without pain. With an effort, he pushed himself up until he was sitting. There was a flask on a table by the bed.

"What is this?" he asked.

"More of what you had before. They said you might want it."

He shook his head. "Is there anything else?"

There was wine, in a decanter by the far wall. There was food as well, cold meats and cheeses and fresh-baked bread from the castle kitchen. He was, he discovered, ravenous. Ariane watered the wine and brought him a tray. Blaise ate swiftly for a few moments, then looked up again. She was smiling, scrutinizing him carefully from her chair.

"They said the herbs might make you hungry when you woke."

He grunted. "What else did they say, since they seem to know me so well?"

"That I wasn't to agitate or excite you." Her expression was demure.

Blaise felt oddly happy suddenly. A feeling of well-being suffused him, looking at the woman, feeling the calm and silence of the twilight. When he did leave this room the burdens of the world were waiting to be taken up. For the moment though, however brief the moment might be, all of that seemed agreeably remote. He was aware of her scent again, subtle as ever, but very much her own.

He said, "You aren't very good at not doing that, you know."

Surprisingly, she flushed. Blaise grinned. He shifted position and moved the lacquered tray to the chest beside his bed. She remained seated where she was.

"Has anything happened that I need to know about?" he asked. He really did feel remarkably well. More than well, actually. He wondered if the two physicians had predicted this, too. "Anything that requires me, or you, for the next little while?"

Ariane, her dark eyes wide, shook her head.

"Is there a lock on that door?"

The hint of a smile returned to her face. "Of course there is. And there are also four guards of the countess outside who would hear any key turning. Everyone knows I am here, Blaise."

She was right, of course. Deflated, he leaned back against the pillows.

Ariane rose then, tall and slender, her black hair down as it always was. "On the other hand," she murmured, walking to the door, "the corans of Barbentain are legendary for their discretion." She turned the key in the lock with a click. "And since the whole castle knows I'm here, we couldn't possibly be doing anything but discussing what happens next, could we?"

She walked slowly back towards him and stood by the edge of the bed. Blaise looked up at her, drinking in, as a draught of cool, reviving wine, the dark-eyed, flawless beauty of her.

"I had been wondering about that," he said after a moment. Her hand was playing idly with the coverlet, pulling it back a little from his chest and then tugging it up again. He was naked beneath. "What happens next, I mean."

Ariane laughed then, and drew the coverlet fully back from him. "We'll have to discuss it," she said, and, sitting on the bed, lowered her mouth to his. The kiss was brief, delicate, elusive. He remembered this about her. Then her lips moved down, found the hollow of his throat, and then down again, across his chest, and down again.

"Ariane," he said.

"Hush," she murmured. "I did promise not to make you agitate yourself. Don't make a liar out of me."

His turn to laugh, helplessly, and then, not long after, to stop laughing as other sensations took control of him. It had grown dark in the room by then, night deepening outside. They had lit no candles. In the shadows he saw her lift her head from his body and then rise to stand by the bed, another shadow, and slip free of her clothing. Then she moved again, in a swirl of scent and a rustle of sound, to rise up over him where he lay.

"Now remember, you aren't to get excited," Ariane de Carenzu said gravely as, with a smooth, liquescent motion, she lowered herself upon his sex.

Lights were shining now in the town across the water, someone's footsteps came down the hall, a voice answered a quiet challenge from the guards and then the footsteps went on. The river ran softly below, aiming for the distant sea. Blaise felt Ariane's movements above him like the rhythm of a tide. He lifted his hands to her breasts, and then began to trace the outline of her face in the darkness like a blind man. He slid his fingers over and over through the long glory of her hair. Once again, aware of how unfair such a thing was, he could not help but contrast her to Lucianna. It was the difference, he suddenly thought, between love-making as a process of sharing and as an act of art. There were dangers in both, Blaise thought, for the unwary. It occurred to him that he might very easily have given the morning's red rose to this woman, had he not wanted to send a private and a public message beneath the canopy of the Portezzan pavilion.

He must have slept, afterwards, he didn't know for how long. Ariane had dressed herself, and there were candles burning throughout the room. She had not left him, though, she was watching from the chair again, as if this were his first awakening. There was something deeply reassuring about waking to find her watching him; he wondered if she knew that was so. He felt differently this time, drowsier. He looked from her calm face to the window again. The feel of the night had changed while he slept; a moment later he realized why: the blue moon, which would be full tonight, was riding above the castle and the world.

Blaise turned back to Ariane. And with the movement, remembrance of the morning came flooding back over him, the clear, sunlit image of that banner of the kings flying in his name. He lifted one hand, in an instinctive gesture. And still half-asleep said, in a whisper near to dream: "But I don't
want
to be king of Gorhaut."

"I know," Ariane said, without moving. "I know you don't." With her night-black hair and her pale, almost translucent skin she looked like a ghost, a racoux, in the candlelight. She smiled ironically. "I wouldn't worry about it, Blaise. We are unlikely to live so long."

She left a little while after that. Bertran came in and visited briefly, sharing his new jest about their fraternity, deliberately avoiding anything of more weight or substance. Rudel and Valery came by. Blaise ate again while they were with him, a proper meal this time, brought by Hirnan; he was still hungry. The doctor and the priestess arrived afterwards and urged him to drink more of their herbal infusion. He declined. He felt all right, actually. Some pain in the ear, rather more at the moment across his shins and the back of his calf where the Arimondan's sword had caught him, but, on the whole, he was better off than he'd any right to be. He didn't want to be drugged again.

They left him alone for a time, going downstairs to the banquet and the singers. Blaise dozed a while, then got out of bed and sat by the window looking out. Faintly he could hear the music from below. He was thinking of Rosala, as it happened, when there came a knocking at his door again, and the countess herself came in, with Ariane and Bertran. Rudel was just behind them, and the chancellor, Roban. Their faces were grim. Ariane, Blaise saw immediately, had been crying. Before anyone could speak he made himself take a slow, deep breath as if pulling himself back to the world.

"There is a man who has come," said Bertran as the countess, very pale, kept silent. Her face was a mask, a carving in marble. There was a look in her eyes though, a depth of anger he had never seen before. "A man from Gorhaut. He has given us some extremely bad news and asked leave to be brought to you."

Valery and Hirnan ushered the man in. Blaise knew him, if only slightly. A coran of Garsenc, one of the better ones, he remembered Ranald saying once. The man, without a word spoken, sank to his knees before Blaise. His hands were uplifted and pressed together in position for the oath.

Slowly, aware that this too was a beginning of something irrevocable, Blaise rose from the window seat and cupped his own hands around those of the coran. He heard the ancient oath of Corannos spoken to him then in that high room in Barbentain Castle as if he had never heard the words before. Exactly as with the banner, he thought: it was different when it was meant for you. For a moment he looked over at Ariane. She was weeping again. He turned back to the coran, concentrating on the words.

"I swear to you in the name of the high god Corannos of fire and light, and on the blood of my father and his father, that I will keep faith with you. I offer my service to the gates of death. I acknowledge you in the eyes of men and the most holy god as my liege lord."

The man paused. Blaise, just then, remembered his name: Thaune. He was from the northlands, the accent had given that away in any case. Thaune looked up and met his eyes for the first time. "And I acknowledge you also," he said, his voice surprisingly strong now as he spoke words that went beyond the ancient oath, "as my true king. I will not lie easy at night nor unclasp my sword belt until you are upon the throne in Cortil in the stead of the traitor now sitting there. In the name of Corannos, all this I swear."

Blaise cleared his throat. There was a feeling of dread in him; Ariane's tears, the silence of those around him. He said, "I accept your homage. I take you as my man, Thaune of Gorhaut. I offer you shelter and succour and my own sworn oath of fidelity before the god as your liege. I bid you rise." He shifted his hands and helped the coran stand. "And now," he said, "you had better tell me what has happened."

Thaune did so. In the midst of the telling, Blaise discovered with some real urgency, that he wasn't as fully recovered as he had thought he was. It was Hirnan, watching closely, who moved the chair by the window quickly over for him. Blaise sank down into it.

It seemed that his father and King Ademar had not begun with messengers and elegantly phrased demands for Rosala's return with her child. They had begun with fire.

Cadar was having an odd night, waking often to feed and then falling asleep again almost as soon as the wet-nurse put him to the breast. The priestess was indulgent, unworried. It took a week or two, she said, for some of the little ones to learn that the dark hours were for sleeping more and eating less. Rosala, aware that under normal circumstances at home she would be far removed from her baby at this stage, with Cadar and his nurse living in another wing of the castle, or indeed, elsewhere entirely, had still not been able to stop herself from walking down the corridor to look in on him when he cried.