Tigana

by Guy Gavriel Kay

A song for Erlein di Senzio, cloaked in bitterness and the shadows of night by the riverbank alone. I will not say I am sorry, Alessan had told the wizard as the sun had set. But I can tell you that I grieve. And that night, listening to the music the Prince of Tigana made upon his pipes, Devin learned the difference between the two. He watched Alessan, and then he watched the others as they looked at the Prince, and it was when he was gazing at Baerd that the need to weep did grow too strong. His own griefs rose to the call of the mountain pipes. Grief for Alessan and overmastered Erlein. For Baerd and his haunted night walking. For Sandre and his ten fingers and his dead son. For Catriana and himself, all their generation, rootless and cut off from what they were in a world without a home. For all the myriad accumulations of loss and what men and women had to do in order to seek redress.