| He remembered Sandre the night they had met, when all the plans of his old age had been undone, when a final, savage end had come for the whole Sandreni familyA night that had not come to an end until the Duke had used his magic to go into Alberico's dungeons and kill his own sonAny woman or boy I desired
Baerd felt humbled by the strength of the old man with himNot once in half a year and more of hard traveling, through the bitter cold and rutted tracks of winter, had Sandre breathed so much as a request for a halt or an easier paceNot once had he balked at a task, shown weariness, been slow to rise in the predawn dampness of the roadNot once given any sign of the rage or the grief that must have choked him whenever word reached them of more bodies death-wheeled in AstibarHe had given them a gift of all he had, his knowledge of the Palm, the world, and especially of Alberico; a lifetime's worth of subtlety and leadership, offered without arrogance and without black chanel bag with white logo on the side reserve, nothing held back
It was men such as this, Baerd thought, who had been the glory and the grief of the Palm in the days before it fellGlory in the grandeur of their power, and grief in their hatreds and their wars that had let the Tyrants come and take the provinces one by one in their solitary pride
And sitting there by the river in darkness Baerd felt again, with certainty, in the deep core of his heart, that what Alessan was doing, what he and Alessan were doing, was rightThat theirs was a goal worth the striving for, this reaching out for wholeness in the Palm, with the Tyrants driven away and the provinces bound together in a sharing of the years that would comeA goal worth all the days and nights of a man's life, whether or not it was ever reached, could ever be made realA goal that lay beside and was bound together with the other vast and bitter thing, which was Tigana and her name
Certain things were hard for Baerd bar Saevar, almost impossible in fact, and pink louis vuitton bag had been since his youth had been torn away from him in the year Tigana fellBut he had lain with a woman on an Ember Night just past, in a place of deepest magic, and had felt in that green darkness as if the stern bindings that wrapped and held his heart were looseningAnd this was a dark place too, a quiet one with the river flowing, and things had begun to take shape in the Palm that he had feared would never happen while he lived
"My lord," he said softly to the old man sitting there with him, "do you know that I have come to love you in the time we have been together?"
"By the Triad!" Sandre said, a little too quickly"And I haven't even given you the potion!"
Baerd smiled, said nothing, able to guess at the bindings the old Duke must have within himselfA moment later though, he heard Sandre murmur, in a very different voice:
"And I you, my friendYou have given me a second life and a reason for living itEven a hope that a future worth knowing might lie ahead of chanel bags collection usFor that you have my love until I die
Gravely, he held out a palm and the two of them touched fingers in the darknessThey were sitting thus, motionless, when they heard the sound of an oar splash gently in the waterBoth men rose silently, reaching for their swordsThen they heard an owl hoot from the river
Baerd called softly back, and a moment later a small boat bumped gently against the sloping bank and Catriana, stepping lightly, came ashore
At the sight of her Baerd drew a breath of pure relief; he had been more afraid for her than he could ever have said-There was a man behind her in the boat holding the oars but the moons had not yet risen and Baerd couldn't see who it was
Catriana said, "That was quite a blowShould I be flattered?"
Sandre, behind him, chuckledBaerd felt as though his heart would overflow with pride in this woman, in the calm, matter-of-factness of her courageMatching her tone with an effort he said only, "You shouldn't have shriekedHalf sale gucci handbags of Tregea thought you were being ravished
"Yes, well," she said drilyI wasn't sure myself
"What happened to your hair?" Sandre asked suddenly from behind, and Baerd, moving sideways, saw that it had indeed been cropped away, in a ragged line above her shoulders
She shrugged, with exaggerated indifferenceWe decided to cut it off
"Who is we?" Baerd askedSomething within him was grieving for her, for the assumed casualness of her manner"Who is in the boat? I assume a friend, given where we are
"A fair assumption," the man in the boat answered for himself"Though I must say I could have picked a better place for our contraina to have a business meeting
"Rovigo!" Baerd murmured, with astonishment and a swift surge of delight"Well met! It has been too long
"Rovigo d'Astibar?" Sandre said suddenly, coming forward"Is that who this is?"
"I thought I knew that voice," Rovigo said, shipping his oars and standing up abruptlyBaerd moved quickly down to the bank to steady the cartier watches women |