"Serra," he said simply. She bent her head, and he placed the crown upon it. Symbolic; she would have to remove it to have the serafs tend her hair and every contour of her face.

Next, the kai el'Sol pulled from the chest a ring; the ring, like the crown, was a work of solid gold, with highlights of the Lord's gold. Pearls were set in each of the four quarters, and they were of perfect l.u.s.ter: water's gift. This, Marakas par el'Sol brought.

The third thing, the final thing, was the necklace. It was pure gold, and it shone in the darkness with a light of its own. The chain seemed to be made of one piece; like a snake's body, it flexed and bent with no obvious joint. From it, in full circle, hung slender triangles-the stylized rays of the sun's light. The kai el'Sol brought this himself and lowered it gently over the crown.

The fourth Radann in the room spoke then. Serra Diora almost forgot to breathe.

"We, too, have a gift for the Lord's Consort," she said, and she pulled the hood away from her face. "A gift, and a request." She was not lovely; indeed, she was quite plain. Her hair was brown, but it had seen too much sun, too much wind. Her skin was etched with the pa.s.sage of time, the howling of sand-laden wind. Her eyes were dark, and they did not blink as they met Diora's.

Serra Diora could not think of a single thing to say in reply.

The Radann had brought a woman into her rooms. A woman dressed as Radann. The punishment for such a crime had not been invented. Had not had to be invented.

As if she could read the thoughts that paralyzed the Flower of the Dominion, the woman smiled. And the smile, laden with regret, very real fear, and an abiding sorrow, was more frightening in its way than the woman's presence.

"What gift?" the Serra Diora asked, in a perfectly modulated voice.

The woman drew a knife from the sleeves of her robes. "Just this."

The Serra held out a hand; the woman laid the sheathed weapon across her palm. As she did, Diora glimpsed the faint lines of scarring across the woman's wrist. "May I draw it?"

"It is yours, Serra Diora; you may draw it or not as you wish." She smiled. "But you've asked a wise question. Let me answer it. Draw this weapon when you have no other weapon that you can wield; draw it when you understand, in full, what Leonne faced. Take strength from it if you can; it is a woman's weapon, but wielded by the right hand, it is more than a match for a-" and she hesitated a moment, and then, squaring her shoulders, completed the sentence, "a man's sword."

The chill that greeted her words was to be expected. The Serra Diora ignored it. "And the request?"

"Understand," the woman said softly, "that it is a request; there is no barter between us. The gift that we have chosen to give is given. It is yours; you may do as you please with it, although I would advise you to keep it."

"I see. The request?"

The woman touched her throat a moment, and then, her fingers shaking slightly, she pulled a pendant from its hiding place beneath the folds of dark fabric. The light of the crystal that hung heavily on a chain that wasn't even gold was so bright and clear it was hard to look upon. Serra Diora did not squint because squinting was an unpleasant trait that had been trained out of her many, many years ago. But she flinched as the light touched her face.

"Take this, Serra Diora. Take it, and when you meet my family, give it to my oldest daughter."

"How am I to know who your oldest daughter is?"

"You will know." She took a deep breath. "I do not think you will like her, or she you. But her name is Margret. This is a favor," she said again, as if it were necessary.

"1 do not think that I will be given leave to search for your family," the younger woman said softly.

"You won't," was the tired reply. "I only ask that you carry this and return it to my family if you do meet them. It is older than the Tor Leonne," she said, as she stared unblinking into its heart, "and it would cripple us to lose it."

"You cannot carry it back to your daughter."

"No. I will never leave this place."

The Radann kai el'Sol coughed slightly, and they both turned at once, aware suddenly that to

ignore three such men, even in circ.u.mstances as unusual as these, was a display of poor judgment, if not poor manners.

But Diora studied the woman's face for a moment and then, hesitantly, she nodded.

"Wear it," the woman said.

"But I can't with-"

"You can."

For the third time that night, Diora bowed her head. She let the pendant fall into the folds of her gown and nestle between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Because she heard the truth in the woman's words, and more: She heard the knowledge of a coming death, and the struggle to accept it with grace.

What could drive such a woman to this place, to those robes, to this room? For Diora heard the desire for life in the words that were heavy with death.

The Voyani did not interfere in the politics of the clans. But she was here. She was Voyani. And she was right. The pendant, so large and so bright, seemed to dim and fade; she could feel its weight, but she could no longer see it. For a moment she hesitated, for she had seen magery before, and she feared it with reason. But then she drew breath, lifted her chin; was she not of the clans? She had made her decision the moment she had bowed her head before this stranger, and she would accept it.

The Radann were growing less patient by the minute. "Kai el'Sol," the Serra said quietly. "Forgive me. The dawn draws near; I feel that the honor that you have granted me is almost too great to bear, and it unnerves me a little." She drew a pretty breath. "But I will not dishonor your choice, or the Lord's." She rose. "Par el'Sol," she said, bowing to Samadar.

He reached out as if to touch her chin, to draw her face up, and drag her eyes with it. She met his eyes squarely, and his hand fell away. "I almost think, little Serra, that you know more than a Serra should."

She did not answer.

"What do you know of the Widan?"

Diora flushed. "What does any woman know of the Widan?"

"Do you know," he said softly, "if any of the Widan here practice the forbidden arts?"

Her expression did not shift at all, but she froze as understanding of the words seemed to permeate. And then she said, as her eyes flickered to the impa.s.sive face of the Voyani woman, "I think it not impossible."

"The Widan Sendari?"

"I am di'Marano," she said, her voice cool and stilted.

"Understand the seriousness of the accusation," Samadar replied. "We intend no insult to you, Serra Diora, by the asking."

"Intent or not, you have offered it. If my father, the Widan Sendari di'Marano, were indeed guilty of such an offense, then I, and all of his kin, would be destroyed by the Lord's light when it finally fell." Her hands rested in her lap, stiff as ivory. "But it is said that the Lord's light falls less gently again on those who betray their fathers."

"Serra Diora," the kai el'Sol said, "we are the Radann; we speak for the Lord."

She met his eyes for an unseemly length of time, and in the end, her lids closed and her dark lashes rested against her cheeks. "No," she said, her voice almost inaudible. "My father was not a pract.i.tioner of the forbidden arts."

"And the other Widan?"

"I do not know what the other Widan do," she said, her voice sweet, her eyes dark. "The Widan are not a brotherhood."

The Radann kai el'Sol nodded, as if her words only confirmed what he feared. "The dagger that you have been given is as old as the Leonne war," he told her solemnly.

"It is far older than that," the woman said serenely. Diora was mildly surprised; the Radann Samadar par el'Sol, obviously irritated. Not even the clansmen interrupted the Radann kai el'Sol to draw attention to his mistakes.

But the kai el'Sol seemed somehow inured to her. "It was given to the Voyani by the-by the Lady. The Voyani fought their own battles against the Lord of Night. If you-if you are approached by a servant of the Lord of the Night, the knife will let you know."

"How?"

"I am sorry, Serra, but we-none of us-are privy to exactly what the blade does."

She turned her dark eyes upon the Voyani woman. The woman's smile was very sad. "I cannot help you," she said, "any more than the Radann. But it will succor you, Serra Diora. When we have left, give it only a taste of your blood, no more, and it will remain with you while you live."

"You do not wish its return?"

"I wish it," she said gravely, "to go to the person who needs it most. It has a name, among the Voyani. Lumina arden. The light that burns. You will feel its fire, Serra Diora." She bowed to the Radann, and lifted her hood, obscuring the feminine lines of her face. "Radann kai el'Sol, my power is at an ebb. Soon I will no longer be able to guard this conversation from prying ears."

The kai el'Sol nodded.

Diora looked up at his face, took a deep breath, and said, "The Widan Cortano di'Alexes. If any man knows the forbidden arts, it is he."

Samadar par el'Sol and Fredero kai el'Sol exchanged a bleak glance. The Widan Cortano di'Alexes was considered, by the court of the Tor Leonne, to be the edge of the Sword of Knowledge.

Ramdan and Alaya attended her, as did Sendari's wives. Alana stood at a distance giving orders; they worked in harsh lamplight because they were forced, this one day, to work while the Lady reigned. And while the Lady reigned, they were perhaps freer with their words than they would otherwise have been. The next three days would demand rigid formality from each of them; they were forgiven by the Serra Teresa for their lapses in perfect grace.

Her almost-daughter suffered no such lapse; indeed, she seemed steeped in unnatural silence, as if silence itself were strength.

The gown the Radann had left her was exceedingly fine; Serra Teresa was pleased with it, and very little impressed her. The silk seemed flawless-if that were possible-and the beadwork and embroidery masterful. She had seen many, many Festivals, and had never seen a dress so fine, so perfectly suited to its wearer, as this one.

The crown was set upon the veil that hid her face; no clansman was to have sight of it before the first rays of sun danced across the waters of the Tor Leonne. The ring had been sized for her slender fingers, and the necklace shone in the uneven light.

"Na'dio," Teresa said softly.

Diora carefully turned her head. The combs that held the veil were gold and pearl, but the warmth of them framed a face that seemed cool and remote by comparison. The older Serra shook her head. "You are the Consort of the Lord of the Sun, Na'dio. Such a face will only chill him."

Her niece answered with the voice, taking the risk almost recklessly. "I do not owe the Lord my joy, only my obedience."

"Na'dio," she said sharply, answering in the private voice.

"Ona Teresa," she replied, answering normally.

"Can you not smile, Na'dio?"

"When I have left the harem," she told her aunt softly. At times like this, Serra Teresa could see the four-year-old girl in the face of the young woman that she'd become. "Summon the Radann. I am ready."

The Radann were ready as well.

As the Serra Diora left her chambers, she noted two things. The first: That the man who led the guards who would have responsibility of her was no less a man than the Radann Marakas par el'Sol. And the second, that her father had not come to escort her, although it was his right.

The clansmen gathered at the Lord's Pavilion; the stretch of wood and cloth and banner that surrounded the east side of the waters themselves. The Serra Diora, protected from their coa.r.s.e view by the veil and the imposing formal dress of the armed Radann, did not speak; speech was not expected. The men made way for her as she pa.s.sed, and if they craned to get a glimpse, she did not notice in her contemplation of her duty to the Lord.

The Radann kai el'Sol was waiting for her; he stood alone upon the platform that was raised to the Lord's worship. Beside him was a curved chair, one that did not suffer from the high backs of the Northern pretenders. There were cushions to either side, and sweet water on a table that appeared to made of solid silver.

No less a man than the Radann kai el'Sol himself offered the Serra Diora a hand as she mounted the dais.

"Strength, Serra," he said in a voice that he hoped would not carry.

She smiled, or he thought she did; the veil obscured her face and in the predawn light he could not see her expression. And then she took the seat that was meant for her, waiting in the silence until the serafs she had chosen to attend her had artfully arranged the train of her dress. It was the second dress that she had worn that had had such a train-an open sign that she was to be appreciated for the beauty of stillness and not the grace of movement.

The Radann kai el'Sol offered her water, and when she accepted, poured it himself.

But it was Ramdan who brought her her strength, the only succor that she was allowed to publicly accept for the duration of the Festival. In perfect silence, he placed her samisen in her lap.

She looked up, her eyes wide, and the Radann Fredero kai el'Sol smiled sadly and nodded.

Hands shaking, the Serra Diora gently adjusted both dress and lap. Then, as the darkness in the skies above began to fade and the last of the straggling clansmen gathered, she began to play.

She did not sing a woman's song, but rather began the lay of the Sun Sword. And her voice was so beautiful, so achingly pure, that it was impossible not to feel, for just a moment, that the hand that wielded that Sword was the only just hand in a land of weakness and cowardice.

Only after the last of the strains of this first song had died completely did anyone stop to remember that the hand that had wielded that Sword was Leonne.

The Serra Teresa had not been chosen by the Serra Diora to serve as Consort's attendant. They had agreed upon it, and Teresa bitterly regretted the agreement the moment she heard the first strains of the lay. She stood beside her brother, the Widan Sendari, and even in the poor light, she could see his face quite clearly. Many of their meetings and their arguments had occurred at dusk or dawn, the time when the will of man reigns for a moment or two.

Men of power should never love, she thought, as she stole a glance at his rigid profile. He had almost chosen not to become a man of power, for the sake of love. By the time he had chosen to forsake the memory of the dead, the living had already sunk roots in his heart. She knew her brother as well as she knew any living person, and she could not say what the cost of tearing those roots out and destroying them utterly would be.

But she saw, in his face, the certain knowledge that he would have to try. She saw bleakness, an emptiness that not even Alora's death had left there.

Or perhaps she had never been privy to what Alora's death had left Sendari.

And what was this? Pity for the man who had not, in the end, been able to save her; who had hesitated out of anger, out of jealousy, to use the power that was his, Widan's t.i.tle or no?

You will kill my almost-daughter, she thought, as the lines of his face hardened and then smoothed into empty neutrality. And you are beginning to know it.

Poorly played, Diora; you have taken too bold a risk.

But she was awed in spite of herself, for the power that Diora di'Marano put into that song was a power that surpa.s.sed any the Serra Teresa had ever known. If she had started her song for political reasons, or even personal ones, by the end of the last sustained note, there was the momentary transcendence that comes with, and from, a music that reaches beyond the known and into the hidden heart.

And as that last note faded, the first rays of sun glimmered and danced across the moving waters.

The Lord had come.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE.