over, you will join her."The man paled. "But I thought-""You will summon me, Radann."He bowed, dropping his victim. "Kai el'Sol.""Go."The Radann went, and only when they had disappeared from sight did the kai el'Sol turn to the Lord's Consort. "I am sorry, Serra Diora," he said, and she heard the heaviness of the truth in

each word.

"As am I," was the Serra Diora's reply. "But come, Radann kai el'Sol, this is the Festival of the Lord, and the judgment of the Lord has been heard." And she touched the samisen. Let the chords become single notes, let the notes carry across the waters.

Marakas par el'Sol stared at the sun-touched waters for a long time, and when at last he looked

away, he did not speak at all.

They ate, and they drank, and they presided over the beginning of the Lord's Challenge. The Serra Diora, carried by Radann upon a palanquin that was fine enough for a Tyr, was called upon to view those who vied for the Lord's favor. They presented their weapons to her, and they each craned to get a glimpse of the Flower of the Dominion.

Hair as black as the Lady's night, with a mystery and a beauty that only night would ever truly reveal, she was all that they desired to see, and when she blushed, pleasingly, and looked away, she was delicacy, she was grace.

The Tyr'agnate Eduardo di'Garrardi joined these men. He rode into the open field on the plateau, and the clansmen parted to let him through-not because they recognized his banner, although it was impossible not to know that he was the ruler of the Terrean of Oerta, but because he rode Sword's Blood. The roan stallion's eyes were dark, and the lift of his head carried it well above the lesser horses that surrounded him. As he approached, Diora could see the scars along his coat where he had entered into combat. It was said that Eduardo di'Garrardi did very little to control Sword's Blood when Sword's Blood felt it necessary to make a challenge. It was also said that the stallion had not yet lost a fight.

"Serra Diora," the Tyr'agnate said, as he dismounted and led Sword's Blood, by bridle, to the raised palanquin.

"Tyr'agnate," she said, grateful for the Radann who stepped, weapons drawn in gentle warning, between them.

"Kai el'Sol," the Tyr said, properly addressing the guardian and not the guarded. "It is obvious that the Lord values this Consort highly to demand that you personally attend her."

The Radann shrugged. "The Lord is not the only one to prize his Consort highly-but he is the only one who has that right." The frown was evident in his voice, if not his expression. "But you, Tyr'agnate-it is unlike you to interrupt the ceremony of the Lord's Challenge."

"Interrupt? You mistake me, kai el'Sol," he said, looking past Fredero to the woman who sat upon the shoulders of the Radann. "I intend to win it."

He drew his sword, and in the light of the clear sky, the blade flashed white.

"Alesso."

The General turned, and when he saw who called him, his expression cooled. "Sendari."

They stood a moment, watching each other like wary beasts of prey. It was the General who at last broke the silence. "We have not spoken for the past few days.'"

"We have both been busy." Sendari bowed. "But 1 have come with word."

"Ah. You play the messenger." Before the Widan could respond, he added, "And as usual, it suits you ill. Come, old friend. Take the water with me." Serafs came at once, dressed in the white, gold, and blue that were the Lord's colors. They set a silver pitcher upon the flat, low table, and then bowed their heads to the ground. They were dismissed, leaving the General and the Widan to sit in quiet isolation, measuring each other.

"We do not make good enemies," Alesso said at last.

"No," the Widan replied. He lifted the pitcher and poured, knowing that if he waited for Alesso, he would wait long. It was not that the task was beneath his dignity-the waters were, after all, from the lake of the Tor itself-it was merely a detail, in an afternoon that was full of too many details, each requiring his attention. They would be parched with speech-or the effort of stilted silence-before he thought to lift gla.s.s.

Sendari understood the failing well; had he not, many times, left food untouched while he embarked upon the study of the Sword?

He was silent as he sat in the presence of his oldest friend-a man who, by his recent actions, had become more of a stranger than the sister he almost hated. "Alesso, Diora has been promised to Garrardi." It was said.

A man did not like to discuss the disposition of his daughter with his friend; there was a wrongness to it, a feeling of things forbidden by men who followed the ways of the Lord. And neither he nor Alesso were such men, except as it suited them. But still.

"Yes," Alesso said, the single word curt.

Sendari felt the chill of anger settle about his shoulders; he lifted his chin and met Alesso's brittle stare. And then, of all things, the General Alesso di'Marente laughed. It was a bark of a laugh, sharp and harsh, and the bitterness in it reminded Sendari of youthful anger.

But all anger was youthful, in its way.

"I cannot lie to you, Sendari, except by omission."

"You endanger us, Alesso."

"Yes." He laughed again. "And if I were so enamored of safety, I would have remained the faithful va.s.sal to the end of my days, toiling for a fat and mediocre Tyr." He raised a hand. "I could tell you that I am insulted that you think 1 would endanger our alliances and our plans for the sake of a woman-any woman. I could accuse you of valuing your daughter so highly that you think any man couldn't help but do the same. I could fence with words, Sendari, and it would solve nothing. Let us leave them behind. Between us, there should be truth."

"There is the matter of Diora."

"Yes," Alesso said. "And it would have been cleanest had she died with her husband." The accusation was in the words, but it was not a harsh one.

"She almost did."

"I know. You have helped me in all things, Sendari. And you know what I desire. You know also

that we need Eduardo kai di'Garrardi, and you might as well know that we've already clashed

once over the girl."

"I might as well," the older man said, and his smile was forced out of him by the General's will, not his own.

"Help me, then. She was made the Lady of the Lord for the Festival, and it did not displease me."

"You did not seek to consult me."

"No more than I would have consulted the Tyr about the timing of his a.s.sa.s.sination. You would

have refused." That was Alesso. Against his will, Sendari felt himself relax. "You have already killed two wives," he said coldly.

"Childbirth killed one," was Alesso's soft reply. About the other, he did not speak.

Sendari had never asked. He was silent a long time, thinking about Teresa's words, and Cortano's threat. "Alesso," he said at last, "she will not make a good wife."

"She was good enough for the kai Leonne."

"Yes. But there is something about her that has become disquieting. If you would take my advice -".

"I won't."

"-you would search elsewhere. Did you hear what she sang at dawn?"

Alesso frowned. "It is always sung at the Festival," he said at last, with a feigned nonchalance.

"Yes. And at every other Festival, the Sun Sword is drawn. They remember it now."

"They would have remembered it anyway. You saved her life," the General Alesso di'Marente told his oldest friend. "Did you save her for a man who is willing to offer her dishonor before she has been lawfully given?"

Sendari was silent for a long moment; his face was carefully expressionless.

And Alesso di'Marente laughed. "She didn't tell you," he said softly.

"I have not spoke with Diora since-"

"Not Diora, old man. Teresa. She came to the rescue at the side of the Radann kai el'Sol."

"Very well. Enough, Alesso! We do not make good enemies. Let us cease this bickering." He paused, and then added, "And how exactly did you come to be aware of such an infraction against my family's honor, when I was not? I doubt very much that either the kai el'Sol or the Serra Teresa would come, with such news, to you."

"I wish, by the Lord's grace, that I could for once succeed in an attempt to omit the slightest of facts in a discussion with you. I was aware, of course, because I was there." The laughter left his face. "I would never dishonor you."

"I know." He drained his cup, and smiled. "And now that we've put this difference aside, there is another. What," he said sweetly, "of the last a.s.sa.s.sination attempt against the boy?" "Sendari!"

Light and heat. Light and heat.

The sway of the fans her attendants held did little to quench the summer's hand; it was midday.

The Serra Diora di'Marano, Consort to the Lord of Day, sat beneath a canopy that was both fine and simple. Much of its workmanship was on the exterior: the dyes in the cloth that formed the tented dome, the engraving on the wooden beams that held it, the inlay of gold and pale wood and silver upon the steps that led to where she sat.

"They will rest," the kai el'Sol told her softly, as he stood stoically beyond the reach of the heavy fans.

She gazed at the ranks of the men who had pa.s.sed the first of the tests-a series of interlaced armed combats that had quickly separated the wheat from the chaff. Those that were injured were tended by personal physicians or serafs; those that were too injured were carried from the field by cerdan. She recognized the banners of many of the men here, and knew that they were vying for the t.i.tle of the Lord's Champion. And the favor of the Lord's Consort. The Lord's Champion and the Lord's Consort were the highest ranks given to one who was not Tyr or Radann kai el'Sol at the Festival of the Sun.

This afternoon, after the proper respect had been paid to the sun's most dangerous hour, there would be the basic tests of horsemanship, both handling and racing. Racing was always interesting, because the fastest horses were often the lightest, and they did not take well to mounted combat. The final stretch of the Lord's Challenge always began between mounted men. So the clansmen had to choose their horses carefully, by their paces, but also by their abilities in the arts of war. The Widan Sendari di'Marano was one of few men who had had little love of, or little interest in, horses; his daughter had been properly trained to show little interest in them as well, although by the grace of her aunt, she knew more than her father professed to-and less than he actually did, which was the case for many things.

She thought that Sword's Blood would be too heavy a horse for the races, and she was proved wrong, although in the proving of it, two clansmen withdrew their animals from the field because they had dared come too close to the mount that had made Eduardo di'Garrardi famous among the clans. It would cost Garrardi.

Although this seat was the favored seat in which to view the games, she was not the only woman who sat so; nor the only n.o.ble who watched. To either side, at the edge of the plateau, the clansmen and their wives-carefully protected from exposure to either the Lord's face or the clansmen's gaze-took their places, watching those who bore their name. Exchanging money, although it was frowned upon.

She had watched these games with Ser Illara kai di'Leonne. Attended by his wives-her wives, the women of her choosing; he had no children who were old enough to be trusted to view the full ordeal in its entirety with the appropriate demeanor, but in a few years, they would have joined them.

"Serra Diora?"

She shook her head and smiled gently at the Radann kai el'Sol, wondering if he would mistake her distance for delicacy and heat-fatigue. Hoping.

In the silence, the wind carried a scream up the slope.

The only a.s.sa.s.sins she could trust were never summoned during the Festival of the Lord. They served the Lady, and during this threeday, the Lady's dominion was at its weakest. Out of respect for the Lord and the customs of the Lord, the a.s.sa.s.sins did not choose to accept a name-or so the popular wisdom went.

The Serra Diora di'Marano had been taught only a little about summoning the servants of the Lady; she had been tutored in other skills of a more personal nature: the arts of poison, the ability to administer cures to those poisons that were swiftly diagnosed, the deft handling of a small blade in close quarters. To summon the Lady's servants took a different type of knowledge-one that she had little of.

And the Serra Teresa had refused to aid her.

"We do not summon the Lady's servants during the Festival of the Lord," she said. Diora knew finality of tone when she heard it, no matter how gracefully it was given.

As if she read in the silence all that remained unspoken, the Serra Teresa said, "We do not have the resources it would require at our disposal this Festival." She had taken care to use the voice to hide the words, offering the words as if they could somehow cushion the blow.

As if she knew what a blow they would be.

Moonlight was at its height. It was not a bright light, not a full one, but it was more than enough to see by. The Serra Diora di'Marano listened for the movement of Radann at her doors; listened for the quiet huff of seraf's breath. Both came to her, neither as real as the piteous cries that memory would not let fade.

Squaring her shoulders, she closed her eyes. She did not rise; the serafs had been trained from birth to hear the slightest of her movements and attend them at once, and as their lives often depended upon such hearing and such instinctive reaction, they were more difficult to escape than guards. Than men. She focused her thoughts and opened her lips, hardening them with the strength of her determination so that they would not tremble.

"Sleep. Hear nothing. Wake in the morn."

You cannot order a man to do a thing that is against his nature-not for long. You can hold him with the force of your voice if you intend to kill him, but if you intend to avoid notice, if you desire secrecy or privacy without threat of discovery, find a thing in that man's nature and exploit it. Work with his intent and his desires, not against.

She listened for a moment longer and then nodded. Turning her face, she rose quickly.

The seraf, Alaya, was younger than she, but in size they were almost identical. For this reason, Diora had chosen her, and for no other; she was Fiona's girl, after all, and if she was foolish and sweet, it was to Fiona that she would report when her tenure here was done.

Without another word, she donned the seraf's simple robes, and with the paints of the day, she drew upon her wrist the brand by which Alaya was known. Her hands shook; this was not her skill, but it was night, and in the darkness, it would serve.

She did not wish to kill the Radann, but to order them to ignore her was difficult and not certain to succeed. Success, of course, meant safety-but failure meant that a member of the Radann would know that she had the voice, and that she was willing to use it against the servants of the Lord.

Against one man, she would have tried. The Radann kai el'Sol had left no less than four. She was happy with the four, however; they were well-behaved, and not one of them would have considered it appropriate to their station to hara.s.s a young seraf in the dead of a quiet night, even though her Serra would never discover the misdeed in time to attempt to protect her.

Gathering the folds of her robes, she walked to the corner of the room and picked up a delicate, porcelain pitcher-a gift from a Northern n.o.ble, dead this past month. Then she drew the hood above her face, and made her way to the doors, pausing only long enough to retrieve a small object from beneath the hard mats.

She knelt, as she had seen Alaya kneel a hundred times, slid the screen doors open a crack, bowed to the Radann, and rose. Their lamps made her shadow seem long as she crossed the threshold, holding the pitcher in perfectly steady hands because she knew, of course, that the Serra Diora valued it. She knelt on the other side of the doors, bowed again, and slid them shut.