ess bitter or vicious for that.
To Devin, touring with Menico di Ferraut, it had sometimes seemed that every second ballad they sang was of some lord or younger son pursued by enemies among these crags; or of ill-fated southland lovers divided by the hatred of their fathers; or of the bloody deeds of those fathers, untamed as hawks in their stern high castles among these foothills of the Braccio.
And of those ballads, whether wild with battle and blood and villages set afire, or lamenting parted lovers drowning themselves in silent pools hidden in the misty hills, of all those songs, half again, it seemed to Devin, were of the Borso clan and set in and around the massive, piled, grim splendor of Castle Borso hard under Braccio Pass.
There hadn't been any new ballads for a long time, very few in fact since the Quileian caravans had stopped. But of fresh stories and rumors there had been many in the past two decades. A great many. In her own particular way, and in her own lifetime, Alienor of Castle Borso had already become a legend among the men and women of the road.
And if these newer stories were about love, as so many of the older songs had been, they had little to do with anguished youth bewailing fate on windswept crags, and rather more to tell about certain changes within Castle Borso itself. About deep woven carpets and tapestries, about imported silk and lace and velvet, and profoundly disconcerting works of art in rooms that had once seen hard men plan midnight raids at trestle-tables, while unruly hunting dogs had fought for flung bones among the rushes of the floor.
Riding beside Erlein in the second cart, Devin dragged his gaze away from the last shining of light on the peaks and looked at the castle they were nearing. Tucked into a fold of hills, with a moat around it and a small village just beyond, Borso was already in shadow. Even as he watched, Devin saw lights being lit in the windows. The last lights until the end of the Ember Days.
"Alienor is a friend," was all that Alessan had volunteered. "An old friend."
That much, at least, was evident from the greeting she gave him when her seneschal, tall and stooped, with a magnificent white beard, ushered them gravely into the firelit warmth of the Great Hall.
Alessan's color was unusually high when the lady of the castle unlaced her long fingers from his hair and withdrew her lips from his own. She hadn't hurried the encounter. Neither, even more interestingly, had he. Alienor stepped back, smiling a little, to survey his companions.
She favored Erlein with a nod of recognition. "Welcome back, troubadour. Two years, is it?"
"Even so, my lady. I am honored that you remember." Erlein's bow harkened back to an earlier age, to the manner they'd seen before Alessan had bound him.
"You were alone then, I remember. I am pleased to see you now in such splendid company."
Erlein opened his mouth and then closed it without replying. Alienor glanced at Alessan, a fleeting inquiry in her very dark eyes.
Receiving no response she turned to the Duke and the curiosity in her face sharpened. Thoughtfully she laid a finger against her cheek and tilted her head slightly to one side. The disguised Sandre endured her scrutiny impassively.◢◢網◢
"Very well done," said Alienor of Borso, softly so the servants and the seneschal by the doors could not hear. "I imagine that Baerd has the whole Palm taking you for a Khardhu. I wonder who you really are, under all of that." Her smile was quite ravishing.
Devin didn't know whether to be impressed or unsettled. An instant later that particular dilemma was rendered irrelevant.
"You don't know?" said Erlein di Senzio loudly. "A terrible oversight. Allow me the introduction. My lady, may I present to you the...”
He got no further.
Devin was the first to react, which surprised him, thinking about it afterwards. He'd always been quick though, and he was closest to the wizard. What he did, the only thing he could think of to do, was pivo