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In public the Duke now called himself "Tomaz "Sandre" was an uncommon-enough name in the Palm, and for a mercenary from Khardhun it would be sufficiently odd to be a riskDevin remembered growing thoughtful when the Duke had told them his new name back in the fallHe'd wondered what it was like to have had to kill his sonEven to outlive his sonsTo know that the bodies of everyone even distantly related to himself were being spreadeagled alive on the death-wheels of BarbadiorHe tried to imagine how all of that would feel Life, the processes of living and what it did to you, seemed to Devin to grow more painfully complex all through that fall and winterOften he thought of Marra, arbitrarily cut off on the way to her maturity, to whatever she had been about to becomeHe missed her with a dull ache that could grow into something heavy and difficult at timesShe would have been someone to talk to about such thingsThe others had their own concerns and he didn't want to burden themHe wondered about Alais bren Rovigo, if she would have understood these chanel j12 watches things he was wrestling withHe didn't think so; she had lived too sheltered, too secluded a life for such thoughts to trouble herHe dreamt of her one night though, an unexpectedly intense series of imagesThe next morning he rode beside Catriana in the lead cart, unwontedly quiet, stirred and unsettled by the nearness of her, the crimson fall of her hair in the pale winter landscape Sometimes he thought about the soldier in the Nievolene barn, who had lost a roll of dice and carried a jug of wine to a lonely place away from the singing, and had had his throat slit there while he sleptHad that soldier been born into the world only to become a rite of passage for Devin di Tigana? That was a terrible thoughtEventually, mulling it over through the long, cold winter rides, Devin worked his way through to deciding it was untrueThe man had interacted with other people through his daysHad caused pleasure and sorrow, doubtless, and had surely known both thingsThe moment of his ending was not what denned his journey under Eanna's lights, or however that chanel classic handbag journey was named in the Empire of Barbadior It was difficult to sort out thoughHad Stevan of Ygrath lived and died so that his father's grief might work the destruction of a small province and its people and their memories? Had Prince Valentin di Tigana been born only to swing the killing blade that caused this to happen? And what about his youngest son then? And what about the youngest son of the Asolini farmer who had fled from Avalle when it became Stevanien? Truly, it was hard to puzzle through In Senzio one morning, with the first elusive hints of spring softening the northern air, Baerd had come back from the celebrated weapons market with a bright, beautifully balanced sword for DevinThere was a black jewel in the hiltHe offered no explanation, but Devin knew it had to do with what had happened in the Nievolene barnThe gift did nothing to answer any of his new questions, but it helped him nonethelessBaerd began giving him lessons during their midday breaks on the road Devin worried about Baerd, in part because he knew that Alessan dolce and gabbana bags did His first impression in the cabin had been mostly wrong: a big, blond man, intimidatingly cool and competentBut Baerd was dark-haired and not actually large at all and, though his competence ran to such an astonishing number of things that it could still be intimidating after six months, he wasn't really coolOnly guarded, carefulClosed tightly around the kernel of the hurt he had lived with for a long time In some ways, Devin realized, Alessan had it easier than BaerdThe Prince could find a temporary release in talk, in laughter, and most of all, and almost always, in musicBaerd seemed to have no release at all; he walked through a world shaped and reshaped every single moment around the knowledge that Tigana was gone It would drive him out at night sometimes, away from sleep, or from a fire they'd built up by a roadHe would rise without warning, neatly, quietly, and go out into the darkness alone Devin would watch Alessan watching Baerd as he went away "I knew a man like him once," Sandre said gravely one night after Baerd had left a warm fendi spy replica room in a tavern for a fog-shrouded winter night in the Tregean hills near Borifort"He used to have to go away by himself to fight off a need to kill "That would be a part of it," Alessan had said Thoughts of winter, mood of a winter's night But it was spring now, and as the sap of the earth rose green-gold to the warming light so did Devin feel his own mood lifting to the stir and quickening of the world through which they rode Wait for springtime, Alessan had said amid the browns and reds of autumn trees and the bare, harvested vinesAnd spring was upon them now, with the Ember Days approaching fast and at last, at long last, they were on the road for Certando and whatever answers lay thereDevin could not quell and did not want to quell the sense rising within him like sap in the green woods that whatever was going to happen was going to begin to happen soon In the second cart beside Baerd he felt gloriously, importantly aliveAhead of them the glint of afternoon sunlight in Catriana's hair was doing something strange and wonderful to his pink vuitton bag blood