the whole of the Palm."
Bearded Nievole raised his glass. "You flatter well, bar Sandre. And I must say I do prefer your voice as it is now, without all the dips and flutters and wristy things that normally go with it."
Scalvaia looked amused. Taeri laughed aloud. Herado was carefully watchful. Tomasso liked him very much: though not, as he'd had to assure his father in one diverting conversation, in his own particular fashion.
"I prefer this voice as well," he said to the two lords. "You will both have been deducing in the last few minutes, being who and what you are, why I have conducted certain aspects of my life in certain well-known ways. There are advantages to being seen as aimlessly degenerate."
"There are," Scalvaia agreed blandly, "if you have a purpose that is served by such a misconception. You named a name a moment ago, and intimated we might all be rendered happier in our hearts were the bearer of that name dead or gone. We will leave aside for the moment what possibilities might follow such a dramatic eventuality."
His gaze was quite unreadable; Tomasso had been warned it would be. He said nothing. Taeri shifted uneasily but blessedly kept quiet, as instructed. He walked over and took one of the other chairs on the far side of the bier.
Scalvaia went on, "We cannot be unaware that by saying what you have said you have put yourselves completely in our hands, or so it might initially appear. At the same time, I do surmise that were we, in fact, to rise and begin to ride back towards Astibar carrying word of treachery we would join your father among the dead before we left these woods."
It was casually stated, a minor fact to be confirmed before moving on to more important issues.
Tomasso shook his head. "Hardly," he lied. "You do us honor by your presence and are entirely free to leave. Indeed, we will escort you if you wish, for the path is deceptive in darkness. My father did suggest that I might wish to point out that although you could readily have us wristed and death-wheeled after torture, it is exceedingly likely, approaching a certainty, that Alberico would then see compelling cause to do the same to both of you, for having been considered likely accomplices of ours. You will remember what happened to the Canziano after that unfortunate incident in Ferraut some years ago?"
There was a smoothly graceful silence acknowledging all of this.
It was broken by Nievole. "That was Sandre's doing, wasn't it?" he growled from by his fire. "Not the Canziano at all!"
"It was our doing," Tomasso agreed calmly. "We learned a great deal, I must say."
"So," Scalvaia murmured drily, "did the Canziano. Your father always hated Fabro bar Canzian."
"They could not have been said to be on the best of terms," Tomasso said blandly. "Though I must say that if you focus on that aspect of things I fear you might miss the point."
"The point you prefer us to take," Nievole amended pointedly.∫本∫作∫品∫由∫∫網∫友∫整∫理∫上∫傳∫
Unexpectedly, Scalvaia came to Tomasso's aid. "Not fair, my lord," he said to Nievole. "If we can accept anything as true in this room and these times it is that Sandre's hatred and his desire had moved beyond old wars and rivalries. His target was Alberico."
His icy blue eyes held Neivole's for a long moment, and finally the bigger man nodded. Scalvaia shifted in his chair wincing at a pain in his afflicted leg.
"Very well," he said to Tomasso. "You have now told us why we are here and have made clear your father's purpose and your own. For my own part I will make a confession. I will confess, in the spirit of truth that a death vigil should inspire, that being ruled by a coarse, vicious, overbearing minor lord from Barbadior brings little joy to my aged heart. I am with you. If you have a plan I would like to hear it. On my oath and honor I will keep faith with the Sandreni in this."
Tomasso shivered at the invocation of the ancient words. "Your oath and honor are sureties beyond measure," he said, and meant it.
"They are inde