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Because of the Festival of Vines, all the lords...

Because of the Festival of Vines, all the lords of the Astibar distrada had come into town from their country estatesAnd being in town they could hardly not be present to see Sandre mourned, for all that many or most of them had bitterly hated him while he ruled, and the fathers or grandfathers of some had paid for poison or hired blades thirty years ago and more in the hope that these same rites might have taken place long since The two priests and Adaon's priestess were already in their scats, seeming, in the manner of clergy everywhere, to be privy to a mystery that they collectively shielded from lesser mortals with the gravity of their repose Menico's company waited in a small room off the courtyard that Tomasso had ordered set aside for their useAll the usual amenities were there, and some that were far from usual: Devin couldn't remember seeing blue wine offered to performers beforeAn extravagant gesture, thatHe wasn't tempted though; it was too early and he was too much on edgeTo calm himself he walked over to Eghano who was lazily drumming, as he always seemed to be, on a tabletop Eghano glanced up at him and smiled"It's just a performance," he said in tiffany and co earrings uk his soft sibilant voice"We do what we always do Devin nodded, and forced a smile in returnHis throat was dry thoughHe went to the side-tables, and one of the two hovering servants hastened to pour him water in a gold and crystal goblet worth more than everything Devin owned in the worldA moment later Menico signaled and they went out into the courtyard The dancers began it, backed by hidden strings and pipes If Aldine and Nieri had burned love candles late last night it didn't show, or if it did, only in the concentration and intensity of their twinned movements that morning Sometimes seeming to pull the music forward, sometimes following it, they looked, with their thin, whitened faces, their blue-grey tunics and the jet-black gloves that hid their palms, truly otherworldlyWhich was as Menico had trained his dancers to beNot inviting or alluring as some other troupes approached this dance of the rites, nor a merely graceful prelude to the real performance, as certain other companies conceived itMenico's dancers were guides, cold and compelling, towards the place of the dead and of mourning for the deadGradually, inexorably, the slow grave movements, the louis vuitton women's handbags expressionless, almost inhuman faces imposed the silence that was proper on that restive, preening audience And in that silence the three singers and four musicians came forward and began the "Invocation" to Eanna of the Lights who had made the world, the sun, the two moons and the scattered stars that were the diamonds of her diadem Rapt and attentive to what they were doing, using all the contrivances of professional skill to shape an apparent artlessness, the company of Menico di Ferraut carried the lords and ladies and the merchant princes of Astibar with them on a ruthlessly disciplined cresting of sorrowIn mourning Sandre, Duke of Astibar, they mourned, as was proper, the dying of all the Triad's mortal children, brought through Morian's portals to move on Adaon's earth under Eanna's lights for so short a timeSo sweet and bitter and short a season of days Devin heard Catriana's voice reaching upwards towards the high place where Alessan's pipes seemed to be calling her, cold and precise and austereHe felt, even more than he heard, Menico and Eghano grounding them all with their deep lineHe saw the two dancers, now statues in a frieze, now whirling as captives in the dolce

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