EVEN BEFORE THE ING OF CAUTIOUS ALBERICO FROM OVERseas in Barbadior to rule in Astibar, the city that liked to call itself "The Thumb that Rules the Palm" had been known for a certain degree of asceticism. In Astibar the m rites were never done in the presence of the dead as was the practi the ht provinces: such a procedure was regarded as excessive, too fevered an appeal to emotion.
They were to perform in the tral courtyard of the Sandreni Palace, watched from chairs and benches placed around the courtyard, and from the loggias above, leading off the interior rooms owo upper floors. In one of those rooms, marked by the appropriate hangings—grey-blue and black—lay the body of Sandre dAstibar, s over his eyes to pay the nameless doorman at the last portal of Morian, food in his hands and shoes on his feet, for no one living could know how long that final jouro the goddess was.
He would be brought down to the courtyard later, so that all those citizens of his city and its distrada who wished to do so—and who were willing to brave the rec eyes of the Barbadian meraries posted outside—could file past his bier and drop blue-silver leaves of the olive tree in the single crystal vase that stood on a plinth in the courtyard even now.
The ordinary citizens—weavers, artisans, shopkeepers, farmers, sailors, servants, lesser merts— would ehe palace later. They could be heard outside now: gathered to hear the music of the old Dukes m rites. The people drifting into the courtyard in the meantime were the most extraordinary colle of petty and high nobility, and of accumulated mertile wealth that Devin had ever seen in one place.
Because of the Festival of Vines, all the lords of the Astibar distrada had e into town from their try estates. And being in town they could hardly not be present to see Sandre mourned—for all that many or most of them had bitterly hated him while he ruled, and the fathers randfathers of some had paid for poison or hired blades thirty years ago and more in the hope that these same rites might have taken place long since.
The two priests and Adaons priestess were already in their scats, seeming, in the manner of clergy everywhere, to be privy to a mystery that they collectively shielded from lesser mortals with the gravity of their repose.
Menicos pany waited in a small room off the courtyard that Tomasso had ordered set aside for their use. All the usual amenities were there, and some that were far from usual: Devin couldnt remember seeing blue wine offered to performers before. Aravagaure, that. He wased though; it was too early and he was too mu edge. To calm himself he walked over to Eghano who was lazily drumming, as he always seemed to be, on a tabletop.
Eghano glanced up at him and smiled. "Its just a performance," he said in his soft sibilant voice. "We do what we always do. We make music. We move on.」
Devin nodded, and forced a smile iurn. His throat was dry though. He went to the side-tables, and one of the two h servants hasteo pour him water in a gold and crystal goblet worth more thahing Devin owned in the world. A moment later Menico signaled and they went out into the courtyard.
The dancers began it, backed by hidden strings and pipes. No voices. Not yet.
If Aldine and Nieri had burned love dles late last night it didnt show—or if it did, only in the tration and iy of their twinned movements that m.
Sometimes seeming to pull the music forward,