It was a dismissal, in fact, a high lord speaking as if to some promising young swordsman, but Blaise, though recognizing that clearly, didn't quite know how to turn it into something else. Valery did it for him.
"There remains one unanswered question, my lord," Bertran's cousin murmured to the duke. And Urté turned to him as he had not done for Rudel. "Is it shame that keeps your back so straight just now? Shame because you have been off with an Arimondan on a dark trail of murder while the rest of us, including En Bertran, are trying to save Arbonne from a ruin we know to be coming. How far into the present will you carry the past, my lord, whether or not you killed the child?"
For an instant Urté was rendered speechless, and in that moment, feeling an easing of his own fury and a rush of satisfaction like a cool breeze, Blaise nodded politely to him and then turned his back, in the sight of all those watching. He heard his friends following as he began to walk towards the pavilion of the countess of Arbonne and the queen of the Court of Love, leaving the duke of Miraval standing alone on the grass with his bow, beside the body of his dead coran, the sunlight falling clearly upon the two of them.
Roban, the chancellor, standing discreetly but readily available towards the back of the countess's golden and white pavilion, saw the son of Galbert de Garsenc turn his back upon Urté de Miraval and begin to walk towards them. He winced. He hadn't heard a word of what had been spoken, of course, but the cool effrontery of the gesture carried its own message.
The messages were coming fast and furious this morning, all tending towards the same end. He still didn't like what was happening—it was too flamboyant, far too provocative for Roban—but he had to concede that the Gorhautian was carrying it off with real grace. Given what had just happened, he couldn't honestly claim to doubt the man any more. He might fail in this, they might all fail, but Blaise de Garsenc had abandoned any chance to betray them when he'd had the banner of the kings of Gorhaut raised above his tent this morning.
Roban made an unobtrusive gesture and one of his own people came hurrying over from the cleared space behind the pavilion. He sent the man running for the countess's physician and the priestess of healing as well.
In the middle of the field he saw En Urté make a belatedly imperious gesture, summoning the two Miraval corans to remove the body of the Arimondan. Roban had spent most of his life at court. He knew perfectly well why Urté had fired that long, splendid arrow shot from behind the tent. The duke, he was certain, had fully expected to find Blaise of Gorhaut already dead when he arrived at the Delonghi woman's rooms with the countess two nights ago. It wasn't any particular hatred of the young coran that would have driven him—de Miraval very possibly hadn't even known who Blaise really was—it would have been simply another blow, one more stupid, trivial, destructive blow in the endless war of Miraval and Talair. Bertran valued the Gorhautian and kept him close: therefore, and needing no other reason, Urté de Miraval would be pleased to see him slain. After which the Arimondan would have been abandoned to his fate, exactly as he had been in any event, and the unsettling, possibly dangerous lady from Portezza left to the countess. And to Roban, of course; the hard things were always left to Roban.
He watched as Blaise de Garsenc approached, walking with obvious difficulty. Some distance behind him the two green-garbed Miraval corans were running across the grass in response to their lord's summons. Roban was a thoughtful man, and it had long struck him as strange—and did so again now—that none of the blows between the warring dukes were ever directed at each other. It was as if—in some unspoken, unacknowledged fashion—they needed each other to keep alive the clear, bitter memories of that long-ago year, to give each other, however inexplicable it might appear, a reason to continue living.
It was ridiculous to Roban, hopelessly irrational, dark as pagan ritual, but at the same time something the countess had once said still rang true for him: it was virtually impossible ever to think of either man without immediately calling the other to mind. They were bound and grappled together, Roban thought, as in a net, by the death of Aelis de Miraval. Roban looked over and saw Bertran, relaxed and at ease in a chair under the countess's golden canopy. He was smiling broadly as he watched Urté stalk before his corans as they bore the Arimondan's body from the field.
It never stopped. It would not ever stop while the two of them lived. And who knew what people—and nations—they would draw down into the dark net with them, suspended forever in that time more than twenty years ago when a black-haired woman had died in Miraval?
The man who had just claimed the throne of Gorhaut was standing before the countess now. He looked, Roban thought, somewhat changed from before, even making allowance for the fact that he'd been bound and nearly naked on a woman's bed the last time the chancellor had seen him. The Gorhautian, for all the evident pain of his wounds—the gashed ear was dripping blood—carried himself with composure as he faced the two reigning ladies of Arbonne and the king of Valensa. He wasn't as young as Roban had first thought him to be, either. The look in his face just now included, unexpectedly, a hint of sadness. It was not the expression of a youthful man.
Behind him stood Bertran's cousin and Vitalle Correze's son, and a third coran in the livery of Castle Baude. They already looked like an entourage, the chancellor thought. Or was it only the manner of the Gorhautian himself that made that seem the case? Could the mere assertion of a claim effect so much of a change? It could, Roban decided, if the claim was as large as this one was. Men were often no more or less than what others saw in them, and no one in the world would ever look at this tall northern coran the same way ever again. That might, he thought suddenly, explain the sadness.
The countess rose, gesturing for those beside her to remain seated. Roban couldn't see her face, but he knew she would not be smiling. Not now, with so much cast into hazard this morning. She said, her light, clear voice carrying, "You have acquitted yourself on this field with honour Blaise de Garsenc, and have received the favour of Rian and Corannos. We call upon all those here to bear witness that the matter of blood between yourself and Quzman di Perano is ended and resolved forever." She glanced deliberately over to where the banner of the Gorhaut kings was snapping in the breeze above his tent. "As for other matters that have emerged this morning, we will have much to say to each other in the days to come, and we doubt not that the king of Valensa will wish to offer his wise counsel in these affairs. Such matters will be dealt with soon. For the moment, we offer you the care of our healers in Barbentain—" she glanced briefly back towards Roban, who nodded " — and we shall say nothing more at this time but an offered prayer that holy Rian will bless you with her grace."
Although that, Roban thought grimly, was a great deal to have said. The countess had made the point already when she rose to salute the Gorhautian at the first running up of his banners, but this was signalling it again, and quite unmistakably. The chancellor looked over his shoulder. The physician and the priestess had arrived; they were coming swiftly over, almost running. But there was one more thing to be done, Roban knew, before Blaise de Garsenc could be released from the public gaze into their care. This was theatre, and he was on the stage.
As the countess took her seat again it was Ariane who rose, beautiful in autumn hues of russet and pale gold. Sunrise and sunset, the chancellor thought, looking at the two women, or, since Ariane was not really young any more, perhaps noontide and twilight would better suit as images. The beauty of the lady of Carenzu was almost dazzling in the clear light. His own love, though, was for the older woman, for the grace of the ending day, and it would be until he died.