"And there you have it, Blaise," the duke was saying. "Dust and forgotten. And more proof for you—if ever you needed it—of how terrible our women are, especially after they've been held upside-down. What would happen to this one back in Gorhaut? Do tell us."
For a long time the bearded coran was silent, looking down at Lisseut. His eyes were a curious hazel colour, nearly green in the lamplight. Almost reluctantly, but quite clearly, he said, "For speaking so to an anointed coran of the god in a public place she would be stripped to the waist and whipped on her belly and back by officers of the king. After, if she survived, the man so insulted would be entitled to do whatever he wanted with her. Her husband, if she had one, would be free to divorce her with no consequences at law or in the eyes of the clergy of Corannos."
The silence that followed was frigid. There was something deathly in it, like ice in the far north, infinitely removed from the mood of Carnival. Until the sun dies and the moons fall…
Lisseut suddenly felt faint, her knees trembled, but she forced her eyes to hold those of the northerner. "What, then, are you doing here?" she said hardily, using the voice control she'd so arduously mastered in her apprenticeship with her uncle. "Why don't you go back where you can do that sort of thing to women who speak their mind or defend their friends? Where you could do whatever you wanted with me and no one would gainsay you?"
"Yes, Blaise," Bertran de Talair added, still inexplicably cheerful. "Why don't you go back?"
A moment later, the big man surprised Lisseut. His mouth quirked sideways in a wry smile. He shook his head. "I was asked by the man who pays my wages what would be done to you in Gorhaut," he answered mildly enough, looking straight at Lisseut, not at the duke. "I think En Bertran was amusing himself: he has travelled enough to know exactly what the laws on such matters are in Gorhaut, and in Valensa and Gotzland, for that matter—for they are much the same. Did I say, incidentally, that I agreed with those laws?"
"Do you agree with them?" Lisseut pursued, aware that this room, among all her friends, was probably the only place on earth where she would have been quite so aggressive.
The man called Blaise pursed his lips reflectively before answering; Lisseut was belatedly realizing that this was no thick-witted northern lout.
"The duke of Talair just now humiliated a troubadour you say will be famous long after I am forgotten. He as much as called him an uneducated, drunken schoolboy. At a guess, that will have hurt rather more than the scratch from my blade. Will you agree that there are times when authority must be asserted? Or, if not, are you brave enough to turn that fire of yours against the duke right now? I'm the easy target, an outsider in a room full of people you know. Would that be a part of why you are pushing me like this? Would it be a fair thing to be doing?"
He was unexpectedly clever, but he hadn't answered her question.
"You haven't answered her question," said Bertran de Talair.
Blaise of Gorhaut smiled again, the same wry, sideways expression as before; Lisseut had a sense that he'd almost been expecting that from the duke. She wondered how long they'd known each other. "I'm here, aren't I?" he said quietly. "If I agreed with those laws I'd be home right now, wouldn't I, very likely wed to a properly disciplined woman, and very likely plotting an invasion of Arbonne with the king and all the corans of Gorhaut." He raised his voice at the end, quite deliberately. Lisseut, out of the corner of her eye, saw the Portezzans at their booth by the near wall exchange quick glances with each other.
"All right, Blaise," Bertran said sharply, "you have made your point. That is rather enough, I think."
Blaise turned to him. Lisseut realized that his eyes had not left hers from the time she'd approached, though his last point, whatever it actually was, had clearly been meant for the duke. "I think so too," the big coran said softly. "I think it is more than enough."
"Enough of what?" came an assured voice from the doorway. "Is something over too soon? Have I missed an entertainment?»
When Bertran de Talair grew pale, Blaise knew, the scar on his cheek became extremely prominent. He had seen it happen before, but not like this. The duke had gone rigid with anger or shock but he did not turn around. Valery did, very swiftly, moving so that his body was between Bertran's and the door.
"What are you doing here?" said de Talair, his back to the person addressed. His voice was cold as winter moonlight. Blaise registered that fact and moved, belatedly, to stand beside Valery. Even as he did, the crowd of men and women between them and the door was shifting awkwardly out of the way to reveal, as a parting curtain before a stage, the man standing in the entrance to the tavern.
He was huge, Blaise saw, robed in extravagantly expensive dark green satin trimmed with white fur, even in summer. Easily sixty years old, his grey hair cropped close like a soldier's, he stood lightly balanced, for all his size, and his posture was straight-backed and arrogant.
"What am I doing here?" he echoed mockingly. The voice was memorable, deep and resonant. "Isn't this where the singers are? Is this not Carnival? Cannot a man seek the solace and pleasure of music at such a time?"
"You hate musicians," Bertran de Talair said harshly, biting off his words. He still had not turned. "You kill singers, remember?"
"Only the impertinent ones," the other man said indifferently. "Only those who forget where they are and sing what they should not. And that was a long time ago, after all. Men can change, surely, as we move towards our waiting graves. Age can mellow us." There was nothing mellow about that tone, though. What Blaise heard was mockery, savage, acid-dipped.
And suddenly he knew who this had to be.
His eyes flicked to either side of the speaker, taking the measure of the three green-garbed corans flanking him. All wore swords, regardless of whatever laws Tavernel might have, and all three looked as if they knew how to use them.
He had a flashing memory of a path by Lake Dierne, six dead men in the spring grass. The crowd had fallen well back, leaving a cleared space around the two parties by the door. Blaise was aware that the slim, brown-haired woman, the one who had accosted him, was still standing just behind him.
"I will not banter with you," Bertran said quietly. His back was still to the door, to the huge man standing there with malice in his flint-grey eyes. "One more time, why are you here, my lord of Miraval?"
Urté de Miraval, framed massively in the doorway of The Liensenne, did not reply. Instead his heavy gaze, eyes deep-hooded in his face, swung over to look at Blaise. Ignoring Bertran's question as if it had been asked by an importuning farm labourer, he fixed Blaise with an appraising scrutiny. He smiled then, but there was no lessening of the malice in his expression.
"Unless I am greatly wrong," he said, "and I do not think I am, this will be the northerner who is so free with his bow to shed the blood of other men." The corans beside him shifted slightly. The motion, Blaise noted, freed space for their swords to be drawn.
"Your corans shot my pony and my horse," Blaise said quietly. "I had reason to believe they were minded to kill me."
"They would have been," Urté de Miraval agreed, almost pleasantly. "Should I forgive you six deaths for that reason? I don't think I shall, and even if I were minded to, there is another aggrieved party in the case. A man who will be exceedingly happy to learn that you are here tonight. He might even join us later, which will be interesting. So many accidents happen amid the crowds of Carnival; it is one of the regrettable aspects of the celebration, wouldn't you agree?"