The setting sun was red among thin clouds behind...
The setting sun was red among thin clouds behind the temple-domes and the towers, bathing Astibar in an eerily beautiful glowA breeze had come up and there was a bite to itTomasso thought about putting on his gloves and decided against it: he would have had to remove some of his rings and he quite liked the look of his gems in this elusive, transitory lightAutumn was very definitely upon them, with the Ember Days approaching fastIt would not be long, a matter of days, before the first frost touched those last few precious grapes that had been left on chosen vines to become, if all fell rightly, the icy clear blue wine that was the pride of Astibar
Behind him the eight servants plodded stolidly along the road, bearing the bier and the simple coffin, bare wood save for the Ducal crest above, of Tomasso's fatherOn either side of them the two vigil-keepers rode in grim silenceWhich was not surprising, given the nature of their errand and the complex, many-generationed hatreds that twisted between those two men
Those three men, Tomasso corrected himselfIt was three, if one chose to count the dead man who had so carefully planned all of this, down to the detail of who should ride on which side of his bier, who before and who behindNot to mention the rather more surprising detail of exactly which two lords of the province of Astibar should be asked to be his escorts to the men's gold gucci watches hunting lodge for the night-long vigil and from there to the Sandreni Crypt at dawnOr, to put the matter rather more to the point, the real point: which two lords could and should be entrusted with what they were to learn during the vigil in the forest that night
At that thought Tomasso felt a nudge of apprehension within his rib cageHe quelled it, as he had taught himself to do over the years, unbelievable how many years, of discussing such matters with his father
But now Sandre was dead and he was acting alone, and the night they had labored towards was almost upon them with this crimson waning of lightTomasso, two years past his fortieth naming day knew that were he not careful he could easily feel like a child again
The twelve-year-old child he had been, for example, when Sandre, Duke of Astibar, had found him naked in the straw of the stables with the sixteen-year-old son of the chief groom
His lover had been executed of course, though discreetly, to keep the matter quietTomasso had been whipped by his father for three days running, the lash meticulously rediscovering the closing wounds each morningHis mother had been forbidden to come to himNo one had come to him
One of his father's very few mistakes, Tomasso reflected, thinking back thirty years in autumn twilightFrom those three days he knew he could date his own particular taste for the whip in love-makingIt fake gucci tote bag was one of what he liked to call his felicities
Though Sandre had never punished him that way againNor in any other direct mannerWhen it became clear, past the point of nursing any hope of discretion that Tomasso's preferences were, to put it mildly, not going to be changed or subdued, the Duke simply ceased to acknowledge the existence of his middle son
For more than ten years they went on that way, Sandre patiently trying to train Gianno to succeed him, and spending scarcely less time with young Taeri, making it clear to everyone that his youngest son was next in line to his eldestFor over a decade Tomasso simply did not exist within the walls of the Sandreni Palace
Though he most certainly did elsewhere in Astibar and in a number of the other provinces as wellFor reasons that were achingly clear to him now, Tomasso had set out through the course of those years to eclipse the memories of all the dissolute nobility that Astibar still told shocked tales about, even though some of them had been dead four hundred years
He supposed that he had, to a certain degree, succeeded
Certainly the "raid" on the temple of Morian that Ember Night in spring so long ago was likely to linger a while yet as the nadir or the paradigm (all came down, or up, to perspective, as he'd been fond of saying then) of sacrilegious debauchery
The raid hadn't had any impact on his relationship with d&g knockoffs the DukeThere was no relationship to impact upon ever since that morning in the straw when Sandre had returned from his ride a destined hour too soonHe and his father simply contrived not to speak to or even acknowledge each other, whether at family dinners or formal state functionsIf Tomasso learned something he thought Sandre should know, which was often enough, given the circles in which he moved and the chronic danger of their times, he told his mother at one of their weekly breakfasts together and she made sure his father heardTomasso also knew she made equally sure Sandre was aware of the source of the tidingsNot that it mattered, really
She had died, drinking poisoned wine meant for her husband, in the final year of the Duke's reign, still working, to the last morning of her life, towards a reconciliation between Sandre and their middle child
Greater romantics than were either the father or the son might have allowed themselves to think that, as the Sandreni family pulled tightly together in the bloody, retaliatory aftermath of that poisoning, she had achieved her wistful hope by dying
Both men knew it was not so
In fact, it was only the coming of Alberico from the Empire of Barbadior, with his will-sapping sorcery and the brutal efficiency of his conquering mercenaries, that brought Tomasso and Sandre to a certain very late-night talk during the Duke's second fake rolex year of exileIt was Alberico's invasion and one further thing: the monumental, irredeemable, inescapable stupidity of Gianno d'Astibar bar Sandre, titular heir to the shattered fortunes of their family
And to these two things there had slowly been added a third bitter truth for the proud, exiled DukeIt had gradually become more and more obvious, past all denial, that whatever of his own character and gifts had been manifested in the next generation, whatever of his subtlety and perception, his ability to cloak his thoughts and discern the minds of others, whatever of such skills he had passed on to his sons, had gone, all of it, to the middle child
Who liked boys, and would leave no heir himself, nor ever a name to be spoken, let alone with pride, in Astibar or anywhere else in the Palm
In the deepest inward place where he performed the complex act of dealing with his feelings for his father, Tomasso had always acknowledged, even back then, and very certainly now on this last evening road Sandre would travel, that one of the truest measures of the Duke's stature as a ruler of men had emerged on that winter night so long agoThe night he broke a decade's stony silence and spoke to his middle son and made him his confidant
His sole confidant in the painfully cautious eighteen-year quest to drive Alberico and his sorcery and his mercenaries from Astibar and the Eastern rolex watches for ladies Pa