Guy Gavriel Kay – Tigana (страница 11)
She was from Astibar. She was going upstairs as was entirely
He hesitated, and he would have turned back then, had it not been for the memory that was his blessing and his curse and always had been. He had seen the hanging banners from the courtyard. The room where Sandre d’Astibar lay was to the right, not the left, at the top of these stairs.
Devin went up. He took care now, though still not knowing why, to be quiet. At the landing he bore left as Catriana had done. There was a doorway. He opened it. An empty room, long unused, dusty hangings on the walls. Scenes of a hunt, the colours badly faded. There were two exits, but the dust came to his aid now: he could see the neat print of her sandals going towards the door on the right.
Silently Devin followed that trail through the warren of abandoned rooms on the first floor of the palace. He saw sculptures and objects of glass, exquisite in their delicacy, marred by years of overlaid dust. Much of the furniture was gone, much that remained was covered over. The light was dim; most of the windows were shuttered. A great many darkened, begrimed portraits of stern lords and ladies gazed inimically down upon him as he passed.
He bore right and again right, tracing the path of Catriana’s feet, careful to keep from getting too close. She went straight on after that, through the rooms along the outer side of the palace—none that offered onto the crowded balustrades overlooking the courtyard. It was brighter in these rooms. He could hear murmuring voices off to his right and he realized that Catriana was walking around to the far side of the room where Sandre lay in state.
At length he opened a door which proved to be the last. She was alone inside a very large chamber, standing by the side of a huge fireplace. There were three bronze horses on the mantelpiece and three portraits on the walls. The ceiling was gilded in what Devin knew would be gold. Along the outer wall where a line of windows overlooked the street there were two long tables laden with food and drink. This room, unlike the others, had been recently cleaned, but the curtains were still drawn against the morning brightness and the crowd outside.
In the thin, filtered light Devin closed the door behind him, deliberately letting the latch click shut. The sound was a loud report in the stillness.
Catriana wheeled, a hand to her mouth, but even in the half-light Devin could see that what blazed in her eyes was fury and not fear.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ she whispered harshly.
He took a hesitant step forward. He reached for a witticism, a mild, deflecting remark to shatter the heavy spell that seemed to lie upon him, upon the whole of the morning. He couldn’t find one.
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I saw you leave and I followed. It . . . isn’t what you think,’ he finished lamely.
‘How would you know what I think?’ she snapped. She seemed to calm herself by an act of will. ‘I wanted to be alone for a few moments,’ Catriana said, controlling her voice. ‘The performance affected me and I needed to be by myself. I can see that you were disturbed too, but can I ask you as a courtesy to leave me to my privacy for just a little while?’
It was courteously said. He could have gone then. On any other morning he
He gestured at the food on the tables and said, gravely, a quiet observation of fact and not a challenge or accusation, ‘This is not a room for privacy, Catriana. Won’t you tell me why you are here?’
He braced for her rage to flare again, but once more she surprised him. Silent for a long moment, she said at length, ‘You have not shared enough with me to be owed an answer to that. Truly it will be better if you go. For both of us.’
He could still hear muffled voices on the other side of the wall to the right of the fireplace and the bronze horses. This strange room with its laden, sumptuously covered tables and the grim portraits on the dark walls seemed to be a chamber in some waking trance. He remembered Catriana singing that morning, her voice yearning upwards to where the pipes of Tregea called. He remembered her eyes as she paused in the doorway they’d both passed through. Truly he felt as if he were not entirely awake, not in the world he knew.
And in that mood Devin heard himself say, over a sudden constriction in his throat, ‘Could we not begin then? Is there not a sharing we could start?’
Once more she hesitated. Her eyes were wide but impossible to read in the uncertain light. She shook her head though and remained where she was, standing straight and very still on the far side of the room.
‘I think not,’ she said quietly. ‘Not on the road I’m on, Devin d’Asoli. But I thank you for asking, and I will not deny that a part of me might wish things otherwise. I have little time now though, and a thing I must do here. Please—will you leave me?’
He had scarcely expected to find or feel so much regret, over and above all the nuances the morning had already carried. He nodded his head—there was nothing else he could think of to do or say, and this time he did turn to go.
But a portal had indeed been crossed in the Sandreni Palace that morning and in exactly the moment that Devin turned they both heard voices again—but this time from
‘Oh, Triad!’ Catriana hissed, snapping the mood like a fish-bone. ‘I am cursed in all I turn my hands to!’ She spun back to the fireplace, her hands frantically feeling around the underside of the mantelpiece. ‘For the love of the goddesses be silent!’ she whispered harshly.
The urgency in her voice made Devin freeze and obey.
‘He said he knew who built this palace,’ he heard her mutter under her breath. ‘That it should be right over—’
She stopped. Devin heard a latch click. A section of the wall to the right of the fire swung slightly open to reveal a tiny cubbyhole beyond. His eyes widened.
‘Don’t stand there gawking, fool!’ Catriana whispered fiercely. ‘Quickly!’
A new voice had joined the others behind him; there were three now. Devin leaped for the concealed door, slipped inside beside Catriana, and together they pulled it shut.
A moment later they heard the door on the far side of the room click open.
‘Oh, Morian,’ Catriana groaned, from the heart. ‘Oh, Devin,
Addressed thusly, Devin found himself quite incapable of framing an adequate response. For one thing, he still couldn’t say why he’d followed her; for another, the closet where they were hiding was only marginally large enough for the two of them, and he became increasingly aware of the fact that Catriana’s perfume was filling the tiny space with a heady, unsettling scent.
If he had been half in a dream a moment ago he abruptly found himself wide awake and in dangerous proximity to a woman he had seriously desired for the past two weeks.
Catriana seemed to arrive, belatedly, at the same sort of awareness; he heard her make a small sound in a register somewhat different from before. Devin closed his eyes, even though it was pitch-black in the hidden closet. He could feel her breath tickling his forehead, and he was conscious of the fact that by moving his hands only a very little he could encircle her waist.
He held himself carefully motionless, tilting back from her as best he could, his own breathing deliberately shallow. He felt more than sufficiently a fool for having created this ridiculous situation—he wasn’t about to compound his rapidly growing catalogue of sins by making a grope for her in the darkness.
Catriana’s robe rustled gently as she shifted position. Her thigh brushed his. Devin drew a ragged breath, which caused him to inhale more of her scent than was entirely good for him, given his virtuous resolutions.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered, though she was the one who’d moved. He felt beads of perspiration on his brow. To distract himself he tried to focus on the sounds from outside. Behind him the shuffling of feet and a steady, diffused murmur made it clear that people were still filing past Sandre’s bier.
To his left, in the room they’d just fled, three voices could be distinguished. One was, curiously, almost recognizable.
‘I had the servants posted with the body across the way—it gives us a moment before the others come.’
‘Did you notice the coins on his eyes?’ a much younger voice asked, crossing to the outer wall where the laden tables were. ‘Very amusing.’
‘Of course I noticed,’ the first man replied acerbically. Where had Devin heard that tone? And recently. ‘Who do you think spent an evening scrounging up two astins from twenty years ago? Who do you think arranged for
The third voice was heard, laughing softly. ‘And a fine table of food it is,’ he said lightly.