In his first year of organizing the fair he had also picked a captain from among the Barbentain corans and empowered him to select and oversee one hundred serjans to police the fairgrounds from sunrise to sunset. At night there was little point in policing anything. The count's guarantee—now the countess's—of safety in Lussan and on the roads approaching the fair was only good until sundown. No ruler in any of the six countries was really able to enforce security after dark, though Roban had had the idea years ago of spending the money to light the three main streets of Lussan for the duration of the fair.
Small touches like that were what had made Lussan's fair by far the most celebrated and best attended in the six countries. For all his frustrations and his chronic sense of being overburdened, Roban was proud of that; he'd always felt that it was worth doing a task properly if it was worth doing at all. That was part of his problem, of course; that was why he ended up with so much to do. It was also the source of his own particular pride: he knew—and he was certain the count, and more recently, the countess, knew—that there was simply no one else in Barbentain, in all of Arbonne, who could handle details such as these as well as he.
The tax officers of the fair were under his direct authority—the tariffs levied on all goods leaving Lussan went straight to the countess's coffers—but the burghers of the town were responsible for appointing and paying the inspectors, notaries, scribes, clerks and couriers. They sent out their own heralds, too, into hamlets throughout the countryside in the harvest season, to remind the farmers and villagers of Arbonne—as if anyone was likely to need reminding—that the Autumn Fair was coming, with its puppet shows and performing animals, its dancers and singers, men who swallowed burning coals and others who made pigeons disappear, and pedlars who sold trinkets and toys and pottery and cures for everything from infertility to indigestion. And there were also, of course, the women who gathered in Lussan for that month from all parts of the known world, and who could be bought in a tavern room for an hour or a night.
Roban was happy to leave the supervision of such things to the burghers; his own concern was for those coming with more tangible goods to trade, over the mountains or by water to Tavernel and then up the high road along the river. The merchants came from everywhere, in fact, travelling with silk and wool and wood, with medicines and perfumes and staggeringly costly spices from the east, with daggers from Arimonda, swords and armour from the forges of Aulensburg, longbows from Valensa, carved icons of Corannos from Gorhaut, gold and silver jewellery from Portezza, Valensan cloth and cheese, wine and olives and olive oil from the south of Arbonne itself. You could buy virtually anything at the Lussan Fair, see people from almost anywhere in the known world and, for the price of a beaker of ale bought in a tavern, hear tales told by sea captains of the fabled countries to the south, far beyond the boundaries of the known.
You could also find, in private houses that sheltered the princes and great merchants from too-close scrutiny, discussions going forward, in rooms shuttered against the sun or candlelit at night, that would shape the flow of events in the six countries for the year to come.
The Lussan Fair was always the last of each year before winter closed the roads and passes. It was the final opportunity for face-to-face discussions for months. Roban knew from long experience that it was what happened behind those forbidding, ornate doors that became the most important legacy of any fair.
That was especially true this year, perhaps more than any other in memory, for the Treaty of Iersen Bridge between Gorhaut and Valensa had completely altered the long balance of power among the six countries, and Arbonne in particular had reason to weigh and fear the consequences of that.
It was therefore not surprising that when the hard-pressed and chronically anxious chancellor of Arbonne learned that Duke Bertran's cousin Valery sought urgent audience with the countess and himself, he concluded, with the glum certainty of the innately pessimistic, that he was not about to receive tidings apt to soothe his jangling nerves.
This, of course, turned out to be the case. Aghast, Roban stood beside the countess's chair in her small private room behind the audience chamber and heard Valery of Talair calmly recount a murder attempt on the problematic Gorhaut coran, the killing of two Portezzans from Andoria in response and then the summary execution of the third—a cousin to Borsiard himself, and, it appeared, very possibly a favourite. Valery was careful to spare them no details. The tensions that would ensue in the wake of all this, Roban calculated swiftly, were likely to ruin the fair before it began. They would also probably drive him to his bed for a day and a night with one of his blinding headaches.
It sometimes seemed to him that he'd spent his entire adult life here at Barbentain, with the count and now the countess, attempting to smooth over crises caused by the actions of the fractious, capricious noblemen of Arbonne. Roban was Arbonnais himself, of course, born to minor rank in Vaux Castle, but he'd been consecrated to Corannos early, in the way of younger sons of younger sons, then plucked from a chapel of the god by Guibor IV while still beardless, though with his abilities in numbers and letters already manifest.
He'd come to Barbentain and risen swiftly through the ranks of Guibor's court to the chancellorship. At the time of his appointment there had been much made of his youthful links with the clergy of the god—an act of careful political balancing by the count. That had been so long ago Roban doubted anyone even remembered any more. Few had objected to his precipitate ascent, even in an ambitious court. Even when he was young there had been something reassuringly earnest about Roban's manner. He was trusted. He deserved to be trusted, he often thought; if only he were listened to more often in this country of hot-blooded men and women with more passion for music than for orderly government.
Music was fine, Roban thought. He enjoyed the troubadours and joglars when he had the chance to hear them. He'd even written some verses himself long ago when formally courting the woman the count had suggested he marry. He couldn't remember the tunes or the lyrics very well—probably a good thing. There were limits to where music could take you, Roban had always thought, or, more properly, there were dimensions in affairs of state where it was necessary to leave aside the romantic troubadour strains and be ruthlessly practical. Roban was a pragmatic man, by his own estimation. He knew what implications flowed from what actions. He was aware that Bertran de Talair would know these things too, perhaps even better than he, but that much of the time the duke would simply not care. That was the way of things here in Arbonne, the chancellor thought gloomily. Witness what had happened two days ago on the high road beside the river.
There was no question that punishment had been called for, that something would have had to be done. What would have put the Andorians in a fury—and a contingent of them were reported to have also arrived today, coated in dust, horses lathered—was the summary action of the duke of Talair by the roadside. Noblemen were simply not executed in the manner of common thieves. Bertran had even had the man branded; Roban winced when Valery mentioned that, and turned away in a vain attempt to conceal his reaction. He tried to turn the motion into a coughing spasm, but suspected that the countess knew this was a subterfuge.
He was seldom able to conceal much from the countess. He had fallen in love the first time he'd ever seen her, forty years ago. He loved her yet, more than his life. He was almost certain that this, at least, she did not know—but it was one of the things that defined Roban of Vaux in his own eyes. He was a man who had loved one woman only and had done so for virtually all his days, notwithstanding his own marriage and children, notwithstanding their enormous difference in rank. He would die having loved the countess of Arbonne with the sustained, lifelong passion of his soul. He didn't even think about it any more, though there had been sleepless, sighing nights in a narrow bed long ago. By now, four decades later, it was simply a given, a fact upon which all else in his life had been founded.
In the room behind the audience chamber he smoothed his face, ran
a hand down the front of his doublet in an habitual gesture and turned back to Bertran's cousin. Valery was pointing out, in a tone of calmly reasonable argument, that noblemen could not be allowed to violate a truce by attempting murder on the roads in the blithe expectation that a ransom of some sort would smooth things over for them. Bertran's extremely competent cousin—a man Roban approved of, actually—also noted that by acting summarily Bertran had decisively protected the countess's authority, while leaving her the option of chastising him and appeasing the Andoria, if she wished.
Roban, seeing a faint flicker of hope here, his mind quickly running through possibilities, tried to intercede at this point. He did not succeed. Bertran's own recommendation, Valery added smoothly without pausing for breath, was that no such appeasement should be contemplated. Roban closed his eyes. He was aware, just about then, that one of his headaches was indeed beginning to come on.
The countess's credibility as a woman ruling Arbonne, Valery of Talair said gravely, virtually demanded that she be seen to be as decisive as, say, Jorg of Gotzland would have been in the same situation. Borsiard d'Andoria should be barred from the fair, that was Bertran's suggestion. Naturally it was, Roban thought bitterly: it was amazing to the chancellor that such things could be thought and said, could be casually proposed, by otherwise intelligent men.
"Gotzland is not facing the real possibility of invasion next year," he said bluntly to Valery, finally seizing the chance to speak. "The countess has matters to consider that go beyond the protocols of trade fairs. It is a bad time—a very bad time—to be offending men as important as Borsiard d'Andoria."
"You would have let him buy his man's life? Let him swan about with a new bride in Lussan at the fair and in this castle having attempted murder on our roads? What if the Gorhaut coran had died? What then?"
"His death might have simplified things," Roban answered, too quickly. This was a sore spot for him. "You know what I think of this insanity En Bertran has proposed.»
"It was my daughter who proposed it," the countess said, speaking for the first time. It was a bad sign that her first words were to correct him. "Bertran agreed with Beatritz's suggestion. I also agreed. You objected, made your arguments, and were presented with my decision. Do not be tiresome, Roban. I know your concerns here, but I do not see how we can do other than back what Bertran has already done. I am going to ban Borsiard d'Andoria from the fair." The count, her husband, had been like that too, amazingly like that: hugely important decisions were made with a speed that stunned Roban.
"We will pay for it," he said, feeling his face attaining the unfortunate pink hue that came with agitation. "D'Andoria will be funding Gorhaut next year, I'll wager on it."
Valery of Talair shrugged indifferently. "They don't need funding, my lord chancellor. With the money they received from Valensa by the terms of Iersen Bridge they have more than enough. Look what they paid to assassinate Bertran. Did that appear to be the action of someone short of gold?"
"There is always a shortage of gold in wartime," Roban said darkly. He'd actually had some privy information about the exact sums paid and still owing from Valensa to Gorhaut by the terms of the treaty. The numbers terrified him.
"That reminds me," the countess said in a different tone, one Roban recognized apprehensively. "Daufridi of Valensa must be desperately short of money these days if he paid so much to Gorhaut for the lands they ceded him."
"I daresay he may have some problems," Roban said cautiously. He had learned it was always wise to be cautious when he heard that tone—it usually meant some plan or other was about to be proposed. Usually those plans made him extremely nervous. His headache was growing worse. He saw Valery grin just before the man brought a hand up quickly to cover his mouth. The men of Talair were so clever, it was almost unfair.
"We'll have to talk about that then," the countess murmured. "I do have an idea."
Roban had no notion what she was referring to; it rankled him that Valery appeared to know. His was the endlessly vexing position of being the man left behind to attend to details and minutiae; he was surrounded by quicksilver people whose minds leapt effortlessly down channels he found perilously dark.
The countess was gazing pointedly at Valery; she had seen his smile as well. "That is, if Bertran hasn't already had the same thought long before me." Her tone was not nearly as stern as Roban felt it ought to have been. It was her weakness, he thought, not for the first time: she loved her gallant, irresponsible noblemen far too much to rein them in properly. And Bertran de Talair, among all of them, was a special case.
"I am sure," Valery said gracefully, "that any thoughts En Bertran might have on the subject of Valensa will be conveyed to you as soon as he arrives. I believe we can expect him by the end of the day."
"I rather think," Signe de Barbentain said drily, "he will instead consent to inform me of measures he has already set in motion. Exactly as he did with those verses that nearly had him killed this summer. By the way," she turned to Roban, "this is important: I want Barbentain guards visible wherever the duke of Talair goes during the fair this month. No slight to Bertran's own corans, but anyone with designs upon him must be made aware that we are watching for them."
Roban nodded. This made sense; he liked it when she gave him commands that made sense.
"Rudel Correze is travelling with the Delonghi," Valery said casually, almost as an afterthought. "They were all in a party with the Andoria."
"Wonderful," the countess said tartly. It pleased Roban to see her angry with someone else, even though Bertran's cousin was hardly the appropriate target. "Do I ban him, too? Do we spend this week antagonizing every important family in Portezza?" Signe de Barbentain seldom lost her temper, but Roban sensed it might be happening now. It gratified him that she understood and shared his concerns. He smoothed his doublet again.
Valery was shaking his head. "Blaise de Garsenc says that the man will do nothing here. That the Correze are too prudent to risk the economic hazards of violating a truce. He thinks Rudel has probably withdrawn from his contract in any case."
"Why would he think that?" Roban asked testily. "No one in that family turns their back on two hundred and fifty thousand in gold."
Valery looked apologetic. "I thought the same thing, my lord chancellor. Blaise tells me he knows Rudel Correze extremely well, though. He sees no danger from him now."
"We are relying on that coran from Gorhaut rather a great deal, aren't we?"
"Enough, Roban!" He realized his mistake the moment she spoke—the anger building in her had abruptly turned on him. It always seemed to happen that way, as if he was the safe target, the one she knew she could snap at without risk. Which was true, he thought ruefully. It had been true for decades. Once, he'd wondered if his wife knew how he felt about the countess, and if she cared. He hadn't thought about such things for a long time.
"We will not go down that road again," Signe was saying sternly. "The man is not simply a coran from Gorhaut. He is the son of Galbert de Garsenc, and if we have any hope of dividing Gorhaut on this issue he is that hope. It he betrays us, I will admit you were right before we all die. Is that enough, Roban? Will that content you?"
The chancellor swallowed hard, feeling the way he always felt when she lashed out at him. When he was younger he had actually wept sometimes behind the closed doors of his own quarters after she'd spoken to him in this way. He didn't do that anymore, but he sometimes felt like it. A terrible admission, the chancellor thought, for a man of his age and position. He wondered if she ever knew when his headaches were coming on, if she would have been more sympathetic, a little gentler perhaps, had he informed her.
Signe really didn't remember Roban ever being this obstinately tiresome when Guibor was alive. But then she hadn't had as much to do with him then; he was simply the efficient administrator in the background, and Guibor was not a man with whom advisers pushed their disagreements too hard. It looked as if she wasn't like that herself. Perhaps she depen
ded on Roban too much, perhaps he felt she was weak and needed him to be stronger now. She didn't really know; it wasn't something she'd thought about very much. He was there, he had always been there, and she knew he could be trusted, that something assigned to him would be competently done if it was at all possible. He looked a little flushed today and there were circles under his eyes. It crossed her mind to wonder, as she watched him make his habitual little smoothing gesture down the front of his immaculate doublet, if Roban was overburdened—the usual fate of competent men.
She didn't, in fact, feel especially strong herself at the moment, but that wasn't for anyone to see or guess, even Roban, even Valery. "Send for Borsiard d'Andoria in Lussan," she told the chancellor. "I will give him an audience here. I will not ban him by fiat or decree. He will hear it from me in this castle."
Which is what had happened later that same afternoon. Borsiard had stormed into her audience chamber, raging in the most unpleasant manner, demanding Bertran de Talair's censure and death in redress for the slaughter of three noblemen of Andoria. He had actually had a belief that she might agree, Signe saw. He was seeing her as a woman, a woman who could be frightened by his rage, moved to do what he wanted her to do.
That realization was what had given her access to the cold anger she needed to quell the Portezzan. And he had been quelled. She had dealt with better men than he in the past. As soon as she'd begun to speak, slowly, letting her measured words fall like stones into the stillness of the room, Borsiard's bravado had seemed to leech away from him.
"Take your people and your goods and go," she had said, speaking from the ancient throne of the counts of Arbonne. "You will not be allowed trade or profit at a fair whose laws you have so vilely broken. The men who were killed were properly executed by the duke of Talair, who is our agent in this, as are all the nobility of Arbonne. Whatever your quarrel with Blaise de Garsenc of Gorhaut—a quarrel in which we have no interest whatever—the roads leading to the Lussan Fair were not the place to pursue it. In that, we have a great interest indeed. You will not be troubled as you leave Arbonne. Indeed, we will assign a company of our men to escort you safely to the Portezzan border… unless there is somewhere else you might wish to go?"