The Riven Shield: The Sun Sword #5 (44 page)

Amara was intimately acquainted with such posture, such grace; it was almost the one that she had chosen. But she could not keep her gaze upon the table, upon her hands; she wanted to see the faces of the men who would decide much of the course of the war.

Wanted to know, in the end, if the boy who claimed the Tor Leonne—and all that that implied—was merely a puppet in their eyes. Or if he was more.

Because the clan Callesta would suffer for the presence of Northern troops in the Terrean. It was already said, in any Terrean but this one, that Ramiro had sold all sense of Southern honor for the simple expedient of Northern coin.

It stung, of course; such accusations, baseless and empty, still did their damage.

And how much greater would that damage be if they were true?

Kai Leonne
, she thought, studying his face with unseemly intensity.

Perhaps because of this, she failed to notice the sudden silence that descended upon the men—and the woman—who spoke so freely in their foreign tongue.

Duarte AKalakar had lifted a single hand, and dropped it gracelessly upon the flat of the table.

The kai Leonne turned, in silence, toward him; Amara lost sight of his face for a moment.

“Someone is standing outside of the doors.”

“Standing?” Valedan asked.

“Yes.”

She did not ask how he knew this. Instead, she turned toward the doors he indicated. The screens were opaque, but they were not so solid that they denied the passage of light. Caught in the large, wide squares made by crossing beams of wood, she saw a shadow against them.

Fillipo rose swiftly. He did not draw blade; did not move in haste or in obvious alarm.

The Northerners did not rise with him. They had not chosen to bring weapons into the hall itself. She wondered if they now regretted this choice.

Fillipo was no seraf. The doors beneath his hands were not noiseless as they slid in the tracks that moored them; nor did he open them fully.

Amara could not see who waited beyond them, but she saw the back of her husband’s most trusted Tyran relax. Relax and then stiffen. He spoke; she heard the cadence of words shorn of content.

He slid the doors shut and turned back to the table.

“Tyr’agnate,” he said, executing a formal bow.

Ramiro frowned.

“Apologies, Tyr’agnate. I gave explicit orders that you were not to be disturbed.”

“Ah.”

Fillipo’s severity eased a moment; a smile passed between brothers. “But you are served by the finest of the Tyran in the Dominion. A matter that requires your personal attention has arisen.”

He rose.

Amara almost rose with him, but there was, about Fillipo, nothing that spoke of immediate danger. She clapped her hands, and noise must have once again passed through the doors and the thin, opaque walls, for her serafs returned their life and grace to the hall.

Ramiro and Fillipo conversed very briefly; she saw her husband’s nod.

“Commander Allen, Commander Berriliya, Commander Kalakar. I offer my apologies, and request your indulgence.”

“Of course,” Commander Allen said quietly.

“Tyr’agar?”

Valedan looked up.

“I believe that this matter is one that would be of interest to you. If it pleases you, I would be honored by your attendance.”

Ser Fillipo par di’Callesta led the way to the stables; the horses—four—were already saddled, their bridles in the hands of cerdan.

Valedan looked at Ramiro, and the Callestan Tyr smiled. “My par,” he said, with grave affection, “might have been in the North these twelve years, but he knows me better than any man in Callesta.”

Ser Andaro di’Corsarro stepped forward, between Valedan and the cerdan; he took the reins of his horse, and the horse that Valedan had been given by Baredan in the Northern capital.

“We travel in haste,” Ramiro said quietly.

It took Valedan a moment to understand why. But he was enough Alina’s student that he did. Valedan, with little time to prepare, had only Ser Andaro in attendance. Ser Andaro, his first Tyran, and the only member of his retinue to swear the binding oath.

“Your Tyran?”

“I require one, and one only,” Ramiro replied. But his gaze, as it slid deftly across Valedan’s, was appraising.

He mounted.

Ser Andaro said quietly, “He honors you. Ser Fillipo clearly guessed that the Tyr’agnate would ask you to attend this meeting—whatever it presages—and he had four horses prepared. The Callestan Tyran are ready for any contingency; he would be well within his rights to take eight, or more, with him.

“But you could not summon an equal number of men on scant notice. You will be his liege lord when the war is won; he takes care not to emphasize his power in the face of our lack.”

He mounted.

“Ser Anton often said that of the four Tyr’agnati, Ramiro di’Callesta was the most dangerous.”

“You concur?”

Ser Andaro nodded. “Now, yes. He is a subtle man.”

Valedan said nothing. But he noticed that this was the first time since the Kings’ Challenge that Ser Andaro had chosen to speak Ser Anton’s name unencumbered by anger or loss.

They rode through the streets of Callesta.

Valedan was familiar with the chosen route, although it took him a few miles to realize this; he had traveled it only by daylight. Moonlight changed the face of the City.

In the North, night was held at bay by magelights. Not so, Callesta; the heights held power, but the streets were home to serafs and the poorest of clansmen. Sleep, when the planting season was at its height, was a necessity. There were, no doubt, the Southern equivalent of taverns nestled within the city’s heart, but they had remained purely theoretical; not even the Ospreys ventured into the streets of the city to relax in the fashion for which they were famed.

In the absence of manmade light, the moon reigned.

There were no people upon the roads; the hooves of shod horses seemed the night’s only language, its only expression.

They reached the gates quickly.

The guardhouse was lit from within, and as horses approached, bobbing lights came out to meet them.

Ser Fillipo reined his horse in, dismounting.

Ser Andaro dismounted easily.

Valedan waited.

The cerdan approached the Callestan Tyr, set the lamp upon the ground, and bowed. “Tyr’agnate,” he said.

“Ser Callas.”

“We have two visitors outside of the gates.”

“So I have been informed.”

“They wished to speak to you, and only to you.”

“That is . . . unusual.”

The cerdan rose. “It is the Lady’s time,” he replied.

“Ah. I have been informed that they claim to represent the Arkosan Voyani.”

The man nodded.

“Have you been able to verify the truth of their claim?”

“No, Tyr’agnate. But we have taken the liberty of sending for one who can.”

“Good. She has not arrived?”

“Not yet.”

“Then,” he replied, turning to Valedan, “with your permission, Tyr’agar, we will wait.”

“It seems prudent,” Valedan replied.

The man at the gates was not so finely mannered as the Tyran who served Ramiro; his brows rose as Valedan’s title took root; his eyes widened, reflecting the lamplight at his feet.

It grew closer as he fell at once to his knees, bowing in the open street.

No one spoke.

Valedan waited for a moment, and then realized that no one would. “Ser Callas,” he said quietly, “please, rise. It is, as you said, the Lady’s time, and her light is both pleasant and scant. In the Lord’s time, I am certain that the crest I bear would be visible.”

The man did not move.

Valedan glanced at Ramiro; the Callestan Tyr merely waited.

This was a test.

With Alina by his side, Valedan might not have been aware of this fact; he felt her absence keenly. He turned to look at Ser Andaro, for the movement of his Tyran’s horse caught his attention; it wasn’t hard.

“Ser Callas,” Valedan said, “rise.” It was easy to put strength into the three words.

The cerdan obeyed the command as if it had come from the Tyr’agnate; he rose. But again, his lack of training in the High Courts showed; his eyes were too wide.

The title Valedan desired, the title for which this war would be fought—was being fought, even now—was heavier this eve than it had been since he had first chosen to take it in the Halls of the Northern Kings.

For it came to him, as he stared at the Callestan cerdan, that Ser Callas had indeed committed a crime. He had failed to pay the required respect to a man whose power and title were so far above his own in importance, Valedan might as well have been a god.

And it was not as a god that he had come.

Not as a god that he desired power.

Why, then?

He had taken the title, had laid claim to the bloodline, for only one reason: to save the lives of the hostages in
Avantari
, the palace of Kings. There, surrounded by the Northerners who had marked his life in every possible way, he had done his thinking, his planning, had made his choice. Had felt the weight of it keenly.

But in the North, such a lapse as Ser Callas had committed was not worthy of notice. It was certainly not worthy of death.

Ramiro’s silence granted Valedan power; the power to choose, and to judge. He almost threw it away, because he desired no such power.

But he had come this far with the guidance of Serra Alina di’Lamberto, and she had been the most adept of teachers, the harshest of masters. He understood, as he sat astride his great horse, that he did, in fact, desire such power. He called himself the Tyr’agar.

And in the South, the power that he abhorred and the power that he was willing to die for were so intertwined he could not easily dismiss the one without damaging the other.

“Ser Callas.”

“Tyr’agar.” The man would have fallen to the ground again, but Valedan—the Tyr’agar—had bid him rise.

“I am not Markaso kai di’Leonne. I bear the Leonne blood, and I serve the Leonne clan—but I serve it in a fashion of my own choosing, as every Tyr has done before me.” He took a breath now, committed. “Markaso kai di’Leonne once bid the Terrean of Averda to fight a war that was ill-considered and costly.

“I am aware of the cost; I am aware that it was borne upon the shoulders, and by the bloodlines, of clans such as yours. You bow. It is a social grace, a gesture of respect. I accept it. That you offered your obeisance to the Tyr’agnate before me, I also acknowledge.

“But it is the gestures that I will never personally see which will define you. You carry a sword by your side. Had the visitors at the gate meant harm to Callesta, had they drawn sword or offered threat, you would have used that sword in defense of the city in which I am honored to reside.

“I might never have witnessed such an act, but it is
that
act, that willingness to serve and to sacrifice, that I value. I am aware that it will be granted me, time and again, by all of the men who are bound to serve the Tyr’agnate Ramiro kai di’Callesta.

“And I will not squander it lightly.”

“Ser Callas,” Ramiro di’Callesta said, his voice cool.

With no relief at all, the cerdan now turned to the Tyr of Averda.

“You have been honored by the Tyr’agar, and by receiving such honor, you honor Callesta.”

The lines of the man’s shoulders shifted slightly. In the North, they would have sagged with open relief.

“However,” the Tyr’agnate said, “I do not wish to . . . expose . . . the kai Leonne to such blatant disrespect from the rest of the men who serve you. Inform them that we have arrived.”

“Tyr’ agnate,” Ser Callas said. He lifted the lamp and walked quickly to the guardhouse.

Only when he had passed beyond their hearing did Ramiro di’Callesta turn.

“Well said, kai Leonne.”

Valedan returned that gaze quietly. “Tyr’ agnate, a question.”

“Ask.”

“Had I chosen to take offense at the order in which our titles were acknowledged, what would you have done?”

“I would have allowed Ser Fillipo to take the man’s head and offer it to you for his crime.”

Valedan did not doubt him. He chose his next words with care, skirting the sudden anger that weighted them. “You could not expect him to recognize me.”

“No.”

“What would his death have accomplished?”

“The cerdan at the gates would never again make such an obvious mistake. In the South, they learn quickly from the errors of others; if Ser Callas could not serve in one way, he would serve in another.”

Valedan was speechless.

Carefully, deliberately, speechless.

But Ser Andaro, who now stood by his side, his reins in hand, his horse as still as any horse of his size and temperament could be, spoke.