kely as swiftly, of the way of things in the days before he sailed here to conquer, and before Brandin took Chiara and the western provinces, then is it not possible", his voice was low, for Adreano's ears alone in the riot of the room, "that he has been outplayed at this game after all? Outplayed by a dead man?"
Around them men were rising and settling their accounts in loud haste to be outside, where events of magnitude seemed to be unfolding so swiftly. The eastern gate was where everyone was going, to see the Sandreni bring their dead lord home after eighteen years. A quarter of an hour earlier, Adreano would have been on his feet with the others, sweeping on his triple cloak, racing to reach the gate in time for a good viewing post. Not now. His brain leapt to follow the Tregean's voice down this new pathway, and understanding flashed in him like a rushlight in darkness.
“You see, don’t you?" his new acquaintance said flatly. They were alone at the booth. Nerone had lingered to precipitously drain whatever khav had been left unfinished in the rush for the doors and had then followed the others out into the autumn sunshine and the breeze.
“I think I do,” Adreano said, working it out. “Sandre wins by losing.
“By losing a battle he never really cared about,” the other amended, a keenness in his grey eyes. “I doubt the clergy ever mattered to him at all. They weren’t his enemy. However subtle Alberico may be, the fact is that he won this province and Tregea and Ferraut and Certando because of his army and his sorcery, and he holds the Eastern Palm only through those things. Sandre d’Astibar ruled this city and its province for twenty-five years through half a dozen rebellions and assassination attempts that I’ve heard of. He did it with only a handful of sometimes loyal troops, with his family, and with a guile that was legendary even then. What would you say to the suggestion that he refused to let the priests and priestesses into his death-room last night simply to induce Alberico to seize that as a face-saving condition today?
Adreano didn’t know what he would say. What he did know was that he was feeling a zest, an excitement, that left him left him unsure whether what he wanted just then was a sword in his hand or a quill and ink to write down the words that were starting to tumble about inside him.
"What do you think will happen," he asked, with a deference that would have astonished his friends.
"I'm not sure," the other said frankly. "But I have a growing suspicion that the Festival of Vines this year may see the beginning of something none of us could have expected."
He looked for a moment as if he would say more than that, but did not.
Instead he rose, clinking a jumble of coins onto the table to pay for his khav. "I must go. Rehearsal-time: I'm with a company I've never played with before. Last year's plague caused havoc among the traveling musicians, that's how I got my reprieve from the goats."
He grinned, then glanced up at the wager board on the wall. "Tell your friends I'll be here before sunset three days from now to settle the matter of Chiara's poetic condolences. Farewell for now."
"Farewell," Adreano said automatically, and watched as the other walked from the almost empty room.
The owner and his wife were moving about collecting mugs and glasses and wiping down the tables and benches. Adreano signaled for a last drink. A moment later, sip?ping his khav, unlaced this time to clear his head, he realized that he'd forgotten to ask the musician his name.
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Chapter 2

DEVIN WAS HAVING A BAD DAY.
At nineteen he had almost completely reconciled himself to his lack of size and to the fair-skinned boyish face the Triad had given him to go with that. It had been a long time since he'd been in the habit of hanging by his feet from trees in the woods near the farm back home in Asoli, striving to stretch a little more height out of his frame.
The keenness of his memory had always been a source of pri