Tigana

by Guy Gavriel Kay

What can a flame remember? If it remembers a little less than is necessary, it goes out; if it remembers a little more than is necessary, it goes out. If only it could teach us, while it burns, to remember correctly. George Seferis, “Stratis the Sailor Describes a Man”

In the end, whether because of the Triad or in spite of them—as his father used to say—his best was enough.

Alessan, whatever his mood might be, was almost always ready to join in a song and, sure enough, Devin had the Tregean pipes with him by the second verse. He looked over and caught a wink from the Prince riding beside them. Catriana glanced back at them reprovingly. Devin grinned at her and shrugged, and Alessan’s pipes suddenly spun into a wilder dance of invitation. Catriana tried and failed to suppress a smile. She joined them on the third verse and then led them into the next song. Later, in the summer, Devin would revive that image of the five of them in the first hour of the long ride south and the memory would make him feel very old.

There are no wrong turnings. Only paths we had not known we were meant to walk.

“Did it . . . did it end like that with your mother? Was that how she died?” “She never unsaid the words, but she let me take her hand before the end. I don’t think I’ll ever know if that meant . . .” “Of course it did!” she said quickly. “Of course it did, Alessan. We all do that. We do with our hands, our eyes, what we are afraid to say.” She surprised herself; she hadn’t known she knew any such thing. He smiled then, and looked down to where his fingers still covered hers. She felt herself coloring. He said, “There is a truth there. I am doing that now, Catriana. Perhaps I am a coward, after all.”

The debate between Alessan and Erlein is intended as a real one, not a plot device. The assertion made by the bound wizard that the roads of the eastern Palm are safer under Alberico than they were under Sandre d’Astibar is meant to raise a question about the legitimacy of pursuing one’s quarrels—even one’s quest for a people’s obliterated identity and past—by using others as unwilling instruments. This is also true of the rage Alessan’s mother feels, seeing her son coolly attempting to shape a subtle, balanced political resolution for the entire peninsula, where she sees only a matter of hatred and blood and Tigana’s lost name.