Sun Sword - The Riven Shield Part 101

His hair was a pale sheen of white over something that had once been black; she could see the sun-darkened skin of exposed neck as it fell to either side. She knew him, then. Although he had never bowed this way to her before, although he had never offered obeisance in such a way to any woman in her memory, she knew him.

"Jevri," she whispered.

He lifted his face.

Jevri el'Sol. Jevri kep'Lamberto.

It was the latter name that owned him, although he wore Radann's robes. No slave could serve the Radann. No slave could serve the Lord.

And no man, she thought, could be free of a lifetime of service to the kai el'Sol that Jevri had served.

"Serra Diora di'Marano," he said, bowing his head again.

Gently, she said, "Radann do not bow to a simple Serra." It was not her place to speak so, but although he wore the robes, they did not, at the moment, fit.

He rose in silence, and offered her not a smile, but something akin to it. Some quiet crinkling of skin around eye, some lessening of the grim silence that held his face so smoothly in its grip. "It is not the Lord's time," he said softly. "Nor, by the light, the Lady's. And in man's time, Serra Diora, men must do what they must."

She was not careful, this eve. Or rather, she was, but all of her care was turned toward the Serra Teresa; she had little left for herself.

"Do you travel with the kai Lamberto?"

A gray brow rose; he bowed head again, a quick and graceful dip of chin, so unlike the movements of the lesser Radann, the men culled from poor clans.

"Is he here?"

"He is in the garden," Jevri said quietly. He turned a moment, but she could not see where he looked; the breadth of his shoulder was wall, not window. "The Serra Celina speaks with him now."

"The Tor'agar?"

"Has returned. He is injured, but the injury is minor; he fails to acknowledge it, even now, to the rue of his young kai." His smile was brief. "The physicians will suffer greatly if they fail in their charge; I have never seen a boy take such desperate command in an infirmary."

"And Marakas par el'Sol?"

"He, too, has returned."

She hesitated. He marked it. They were still a moment, resting in the safety of the web of deceit the powerless often spun. But she was not without power; nor was he. And she knew, as perhaps few others did, just how much knowledge a seraf could have, and hold in silence. "Send him to me," she said at last.

Jevri bowed head to ground and rose. And he was perfect, she thought, as she watched him walk away; the perfect seraf; the Lady's man.

When she saw the Radann Marakas par el'Sol, she recognized him.

She had seen him thus once before, at the side of the Radann Peder par el'Sol, come new from battle, and reborn in flame. The Lord's man.

It was not the Lord's man she wanted now.

She bowed to him, shedding the unnatural stiffness that she had donned for the Serra Teresa's sake. He knelt before her, skin smooth and glossy with sweat, with lack of hair, new and pale like the face of the moon. She said nothing, and after a moment, he rose, aware of other eyes in the courtyard, be they at his back and distant.

She listened for words, and heard none.

"Serra Diora," he said. He did not rise, but the position lost the mien of subservience.

She had played many games in her scant years at court. So, too, had he. But the time for such games had pa.s.sed. She allowed him to observe the Serra; it was Ramdan who at last chose to curtain Teresa by interposing his back between them.

"What happened?" Marakas par el'Sol asked quietly.

So many years of caution. So many years of silence. She had commanded his presence, and he had come, abasing himself before her, all nicety of form and t.i.tle set aside. But she could not bring herself to speak the truth. Her own secret, she might choose to offer, but this was not-quite-hers.

Yet an answer was expected. Words slid past; she grasped at them, but coherence fled with them. This was to be an evening of awkward silences, awkward pauses; she had no strength to fill them.

Failing in the one duty, she waited.

And then, after the pause had grown almost exquisitely painful, she reached out and caught his ungloved hands in her own. His eyes widened; she thought he would pull back as she felt the muscles of those hands tense in hers.

But they tensed to hold, and she remembered the only other time he had touched her. He had healed wounded palms; wounds made by the sharp edges of the Heart of Arkosa. And he had tried, in that brief contact, to better glean an understanding of her thoughts, her intentions. He had angered her then; she had retrieved her hands, and she had never raised them where he might touch them.

As if he remembered that single contact, and the reasons for it-all of them-he waited until she met his eyes. She was mute, still mute; all that she offered him was the contact of two palms. But in hands, much could be read: hers were pale and soft; uncallused, unmarked in any obvious way, although the scar that she'd taken in the desert was there if one stood close enough to look.

His hands were rough; darkened by sun, cracked by wind; they were older than his face. Laborer's hands. They surprised her.

"A demon," she said quietly, surprising herself. "She faced a demon."

"It injured her?"

She shook her head. Lifted the hands she held with care, turning at last toward Ramdan's unbowed back.

Perfect seraf, he stepped aside. The Radann par el'Sol s.h.i.+fted his weight, easing his scabbard to one side. It lay against the flat earth, the smooth stone, becoming darker as the sun rose. There was so little time.

She surrendered his touch to the Serra Teresa, placing his palms against the older woman's face. "Help her."

"If it is within my power, Serra Diora."

And if it was not, then whose? She placed shaking hands in the fold of her lap, and waited, her knees catching sun and light.

He touched the Serra's face.

He was gentle; could afford to be gentle; her eyes were closed, and her body shuddered at fever's whim. What she saw, what she noted, he could not say, but he knew that the fever itself was strange: her skin should have been dry and hot to the touch. It was not.

She had taken no wound.

None. But she had defeated the creature of the Lord of Night; that much was evident by the Serra Diora's closed, cautious expression.

How?

Ah, he thought, as his own hands took some of the warmth from her face. So much was hidden in silence. So much, hidden beneath the perfect seeming of a Serra of the High Court. She was not, could not be, Widan.

Was not healer, for if she were, she would not lie here.

What power might see the death of a Servant of the Lord of Night? She carried no obvious weapon; no great sword, no blessing of the Lord of Day. She was small and delicate, even clothed as she was in the rough wear of the Voyani.

Serra Teresa.

She moved, as if to avoid the touch of his hands. He hesitated.

And then the Serra Diora joined him, her hands touching his, pressing against joints, knuckles, the rounded veins of dark skin. She did not speak. And he, now caught in the healing trance, could not.

She watched his face.

His lashes were gone; his eyelids, white, blue, and green, flickered as if at the behest of dream. The line of his jaw, shorn of beard, grew p.r.o.nounced, although his face was long of line, and not given to width.

The hands beneath hers were warm, the dawn, cool. Ramdan cast a shadow above their bent backs, and when she dared look away from his face, she watched that shadow lengthen. While she watched, she spoke.

Silent, lips moving, power leaving her in a trickle. Ona Teresa. Ona Teresa. Ona Teresa.

The Radann's hands moved, and she moved with them, s.h.i.+eld and guardian. But he did not speak, and the Serra Teresa did not answer.

Silence swallowed time; the colors of the rock grew grayer and brighter around the edges of the shadow Ramdan cast.

And then she felt Marakas par el'Sol's hands clench, his fingers curling protectively up into his palms. His lids opened slowly, as if they were blossoming-a black flower, a dark one.

Color returned to them slowly, the band of iris growing around the shrinking pupil. But he shook his head, retrieving his hands.

She swallowed. "You can't-"

"No."

"But-"

"The injury she has . . . done herself . . . I cannot heal."

"Will she recover?"

Silence. Not the answer she desired, nor the one she hoped for. And, of course, she had had hope; had she none, she would never have called him.

"No, Serra," he said softly.

"And you can do nothing."

"No."

Diora heard what the Serra Teresa would never hear again. Truth. She bowed her head.

Lifted it as he spoke again. "It is beyond me," he told her quietly. "I . . . have been gifted . . . by the Lady. I have labored under the burden of this gift for the whole of my adult life. I have called the dead back." He looked away from her, turning clenched fists around as if inspecting them. As if, she thought, he might better understand the failure if he could attach it to something physical.

"Understand, Serra, that we live in the Lord's Dominion. What we know-what I know-is not what the Lord knows. Had the Serra broken arm, or leg, had she suffered injury in defense of the domis, I could be of aid. Had she," he added softly, "you would never have called me. You know much. Of me. Of my gift. But the injury she has taken is not one that I can touch. I do not understand it, but . . ."

He shook his head. "The Widan do not suffer themselves to be healed often."

"She is not Widan."

His brows, absent from his face, would have added much to his brief expression. "No more am I," he said quietly. "But I understand this much: she suffers from Widan fever. If she survives it-and I am not certain that she will-the injuries and scars it leaves will be upon those things that cannot be touched." He bowed. Rose.

"I should not say more," he continued, and she knew from his tone, from the texture of his voice, that he would, "but I think you might have a different answer if you spoke with the Northerners."

"They are not healers."

"No. But in the North, it is said that all arts, no matter how vile, are understood. Tell them that I do not have the power to touch what must be touched. But tell them also, that I believe that if I were more blessed, I would."

She shook her head. "Radann par el'Sol," she whispered.

"Serra?"

"How long will this fever continue?"

"Three days," he replied. "Perhaps four. If the fever breaks, it will break by then; if it does not, it will consume her."

She bowed; she bowed as low as she could, listening for the sound of his retreating steps. Only when they had pa.s.sed, in safety, beyond her did she rise again.

Ramdan stood by her side. She felt the fall of pale silk before she saw it touch her shoulders; he had brought her veil. Of course.

She lifted hands, exposing the pale scar left there by storm and s.h.i.+p.

As a young woman, as the wife of the kai Leonne, she could never demean herself as she did now; she took the veil from him and began to wind it about her head and shoulders. Labor of her own hands.

She had learned this, in the Tor Leonne, in the months of her isolation. Had learned it, in a different way, upon the road that led to the Tor Arkosa. This, this third time, was a blessing, for it was a choice. Her own.

"Ramdan," she said quietly. "Tend the Serra Teresa."

He bowed.

"I will have the services of the Clemente serafs. Your services will not be required until we leave Clemente."

She did not look at him. Could not. And perhaps he understood why; he was silent in his acquiescence. He had always been silent; she had a.s.sumed this to be some part of the natural grace the best of serafs showed.

But she wondered. She listened to the rustle of fabric as he bent; watched the play of shadow across stone and earth. How much did he know? How much had he always known, that he could offer the exquisite mercy of silence to one who could hear beneath the facade of perfect words?

Kallandras.

The master bard of Senniel College looked up. The physicians retained by Clemente were a sedate and quiet group compared to those retained by either Senniel or the Kings of Essalieyan; they chose words with care, and used them with a caution lost upon Northerners used to the caprice-some would say the idiocy-of Northern patients.

Of all the things that reminded him of the home that Senniel had become, none were as strong as this. He smiled a moment, and lifted a hand as the physician peeled away strips of bloodied fabric. The wound beneath them was ugly, but it was not deep, and it had not yet become infected.

"I am capable of cleaning and dressing simple wounds," he said quietly, desiring privacy, "and the same cannot be said for the Clemente cerdan."

"The Tor'agar gave his orders, Ser Kallandras."

Kallandras nodded, smoothing all evidence of amus.e.m.e.nt from his face. "I heard them," he said softly, weighting his words with a hint of compulsion. "But I, too, have my duties. Will you not tend to your fallen?"

The man hesitated, running fingers just washed through the length of his beard. He desired it; that much was clear. The Clemente forces were not so large that the physicians could be a.s.sured of finding no friends among the fallen-and some of those might yet be saved.