Children of Earth and Sky Read online

  ALSO BY GUY GAVRIEL KAY

  The Fionavar Tapestry

  The Summer Tree

  The Wandering Fire

  The Darkest Road

  Tigana

  A Song for Arbonne

  The Lions of Al-Rassan

  The Sarantine Mosaic

  Sailing to Sarantium

  Lord of Emperors

  The Last Light of the Sun

  Beyond This Dark House

  (poetry)

  Ysabel

  Under Heaven

  River of Stars

  NEW AMERICAN LIBRARY

  Published by New American Library,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  This book is a publication of New American Library. Simultaneously published in Canada by Viking.

  Copyright © Guy Gavriel Kay, 2016

  Readers Guide copyright © Penguin Random House LLC, 2016

  Map copyright © Martin Springett, 2016

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  New American Library and the New American Library colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information about Penguin Random House, visit penguin.com.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA:

  Names: Kay, Guy Gavriel, author.

  Title: Children of earth and sky/Guy Gavriel Kay.

  Description: New York City: New American Library, [2016]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015047832 (print) | LCCN 2016001089 (ebook) | ISBN 9780451472960 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698183278 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Voyages and travels—Fiction. | Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION/Fantasy/General. | FICTION/ Fantasy/Historical. | FICTION/Historical. | GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR9199.3.K39 C48 2016 (print) | LCC PR9199.3.K39 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015047832

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  for

  GEORGE JONAS

  and

  EDWARD L. GREENSPAN

  who belong together here

  dear friends, lost

  Contents

  Also by Guy Gavriel Kay

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Map

  Principal Characters

  PART ONE CHAPTER I

  CHAPTER II

  CHAPTER III

  CHAPTER IV

  CHAPTER V

  CHAPTER VI

  PART TWO CHAPTER VII

  CHAPTER VIII

  CHAPTER IX

  CHAPTER X

  CHAPTER XI

  CHAPTER XII

  PART THREE CHAPTER XIII

  CHAPTER XIV

  CHAPTER XV

  CHAPTER XVI

  CHAPTER XVII

  PART FOUR CHAPTER XVIII

  CHAPTER XIX

  CHAPTER XX

  CHAPTER XXI

  CHAPTER XXII

  CHAPTER XXIII

  CHAPTER XXIV

  CHAPTER XXV

  CHAPTER XXVI

  Acknowledgements

  Readers Guide

  About the Author

  we were still at that first stage, still

  preparing to begin a journey, but we were changed nevertheless;

  we could see this in one another; we had changed although

  we never moved, and one said, ah, behold how we have aged, traveling

  from day to night only, neither forward nor sideward, and this seemed

  in a strange way miraculous . . .

  —LOUISE GLÜCK

  And all sway forward on the dangerous flood

  Of history, that never sleeps or dies,

  And, held one moment, burns the hand.

  —W.H. AUDEN

  PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

  (A Partial List)

  In Republic of Seressa and elsewhere in Batiara

  Duke Ricci, head of Seressa’s Council of Twelve

  Members of the Council of Twelve

  Lorenzo Arnesti

  Amadeo Frani

  Pero Villani, an artist, son of the late Viero Villani, also an artist

  Tomo Agosta, his servant

  Mara Citrani, subject of a portrait by Pero

  Jacopo Miucci, physician

  Leonora Valeri, a young woman passing as his wife

  Count Erigio Valeri of Mylasia, Leonora’s father

  Paulo Canavli, her lover in Mylasia

  Merchants from Seressa

  Nelo Grilli

  Guibaldo Ferri

  Marco Bosini

  The High Patriarch of Jad, in Rhodias

  In Obravic

  Rodolfo, Jad’s Holy Emperor

  Savko, imperial chancellor

  Hanns, principal secretary to the chancellor

  Vitruvius of Karch, in the chancellor’s service

  Orso Faleri, Ambassador of Seressa to Obravic

  Gaurio, his servant

  Veith, a courtesan

  In Senjan

  Danica Gradek, a young woman

  Neven Rusan, her maternal grandfather

  Hrant Bunic, a Senjani raid leader

  Senjani raiders

  Tijan Lubic

  Kukar Miho

  Goran Miho

  In the Republic of Dubrava

  Marin Djivo, younger son of a merchant family

  Andrij, his father

  Zarko, his brother

  Drago Ostaja, one of their ship captains

  Vlatko Orsat, another merchant

  Elena and Iulia, his daughters

  Vudrag, his son

  Radic Matko, another merchant

  Kata Matko, his daughter

  Jevic, a guard at the Rector’s Palace

  Giorgio Frani of Seressa (son of Amadeo), serving Seressa in Dubrava

  Filipa di Lucaro, Eldest Daughter of Jad in the holy retreat on Sinan Isle

  Juraj, a servant on the isle

  Empress Eudoxia of Sarantium

  In Asharias

  Grand Khalif Gurçu (“the Destroyer”)

  Prince Cemal, his older son

  Prince Beyet, his younger son

  Yosef ben Hananon, the grand vizier

  In Mulkar

  Damaz, a trainee in the ranks of the djannis, the khalif’s infantry

  Koçi, another trainee

  Hafiz, commander of the djannis in Mulkar

  Kasim, an instructor in Mulkar

  In Sauradia

  Ban Rasca Tri
pon (“Skandir”), a rebel against the Asharites

  Jelena, a village healer

  Zorzi, a farmer in northern Sauradia

  Rastic, Mavro, and Milena, his children

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER I

  It was with a sinking heart that the newly arrived ambassador from Seressa grasped that the Emperor Rodolfo, famously eccentric, was serious about an experiment in court protocol.

  The emperor liked experiments, everyone knew that.

  It seemed the ambassador was to perform a triple obeisance—two separate times!—when finally invited to approach the imperial throne. This was, the very tall official escorting him explained, to be done in the manner of those presented to Grand Khalif Gurçu in Asharias.

  It was also, the courtier added thoughtfully, how the great eastern emperors had been approached in long-ago days. Rodolfo was apparently now interested in the effect of such formal deference, observed and noted. And since Rodolfo was heir to those august figures of the past, it did make sense, didn’t it?

  It did not, at all, was the ambassador’s unvoiced opinion.

  He had no idea what this alleged effect was supposed to be.

  He smiled politely. He nodded. He adjusted his velvet robe. In the antechamber where they waited he watched as a second court official—young, yellow-haired—enthusiastically demonstrated the salutations. His knees hurt with anticipatory pain. His back hurt. He was aware that, carrying evidence of prosperity about his midriff, he was likely to look foolish each time he prostrated himself, or rose to his feet.

  Rodolfo, Jad’s Holy Emperor, had sat the throne here for thirty years. You wouldn’t ever want to call him foolish—he had many of the world’s foremost artists, philosophers, alchemists at his court (performing experiments)—but you needed to consider the man unpredictable and possibly irresponsible.

  This made him dangerous, of course. Orso Faleri, Ambassador of the Republic of Seressa, had had this made clear to him by the Council of Twelve before he’d left to come here.

  He regarded the posting as a terrible hardship.

  It was formally an honour, of course. One of the three most distinguished foreign posts a Seressini could be granted by the Twelve. It meant he might reasonably expect to become a member on his return, if someone withdrew, or died. But Orso Faleri loved his city of canals and bridges and palaces (especially his own!) with a passion. In addition, there were extremely limited opportunities for acquiring more wealth at Obravic in this role.

  He was an emissary—and an observer. It was understood that all other considerations in a man’s life were suspended for the year or possibly two that he was here.

  Two years was a distressing thought.

  He hadn’t been allowed to bring his mistress.

  His wife had declined to join him, of course. Faleri could have insisted she do so, but he wasn’t nearly so self-abusive. No, he would have to discover, as best one might, what diversions there were in this windy northern city, far from Seressa’s canals, where songs of love drifted in the torchlit night and men and women, cloaked against evening’s damp, and sometimes masked, went about hidden from inquisitive eyes.

  Orso Faleri was willing to simulate an interest in discussing the nature of the soul with the emperor’s philosophers, or listen as some alchemist, stroking his singed beard, explained his search for arcane secrets of transmuting metal—but only to a point, surely.

  If he performed his tasks, both public and secret, badly it would be noted back home, with consequences. If he did well he might be left here for two years! It was an appalling circumstance for a civilized man with skills in commerce and a magnificent woman left behind.

  And now, the Osmanli triple obeisance. To be done twice. Good men, thought Faleri, suffered for the follies of royalty.

  At the same time, this post was vitally important, and he knew it. In the world they inhabited, good relations with the emperor in Obravic were critical. Disagreements were acceptable, but open conflict could be ruinous for trade, and trade was what Seressa was about.

  For the Seressinis, the idea of peace, with open, unthreatened commerce, was the most important thing in the god’s created world. It mattered more (though this would never actually be said) than diligent attention to the doctrines of Jad as voiced by the sun god’s clerics. Seressa traded, extensively, with the unbelieving Osmanlis in the east—and did so whatever High Patriarchs might say or demand.

  Patriarchs came and went in Rhodias, thundering wrath in their echoing palace or cajoling like courtesans for a holy war and the need to regain lost Sarantium from the Osmanlis and their Asharite faith. That was a Patriarch’s task. No one begrudged it. But for Seressa those god-denying Osmanlis offered some of the richest markets on earth.

  Faleri knew it well. He was a merchant, son and grandson of merchants. His family’s palace on the Great Canal had been built and expanded and sumptuously furnished with the profits of trading east. Grain at the beginning, then jewels, spices, silk, alum, lapis lazuli. Whatever was needed in the west, or desired. The caressing silks his wife and daughters wore (and his mistress, more appealingly) arrived at the lagoon on galleys and roundships voyaging to and from the ports of the Asharites.

  The grand khalif liked trade, too. He had his palaces and gardens to attend to, and an expensive army. He might make war on the emperor’s lands and fortresses where the shifting borders lay, and Rodolfo might be forced to spend sums he didn’t have in bolstering defences there, but Seressa and its merchant fleet didn’t want any part of that conflict: they needed peace more than anything.

  Which meant that Signore Orso Faleri was here with missions to accomplish and assessments to make and send home in coded messages, even while filled with longings and memories that had little to do with politics or gaunt philosophers in a northern city.

  His first priority, precisely set forth by the Council of Twelve, had to do with the savage, loathed, humiliating pirates in their walled town of Senjan. It happened to be a matter dear to Faleri’s own merchant heart.

  It was also desperately delicate. The Senjani were subjects, extremely loyal subjects, of Emperor Rodolfo. They were—the emperor’s phrase had been widely quoted—his brave heroes of the borderland. They raided Asharite villages and farms inland and opposed counter-raids, defending Jaddites where they could. They were, in essence, fierce (unpaid) soldiers of the emperor.

  And Seressa wanted them destroyed like poisonous snakes, scorpions, spiders, whatever you chose to call them.

  They wanted them wiped out, their walls destroyed, boats burned, the raiders hanged, chopped to pieces, killed one by one or in a battle, burned on a great pyre seen for miles, or left out for the animals. Seressa didn’t care. Dead was enough, chained as galley slaves would do. Would maybe even be better—you never had enough slaves for the fleet.

  It was a vexed issue.

  No matter how aggressively Seressa patrolled, how many war galleys they sent out, how carefully they escorted merchant ships, the Senjani raiders found ways to board some of them in the long, narrow Seressini Sea. It was impossible to completely defend against them. They raided in all seasons, all weather. Some said they could control the weather, that their women did so with enchantments.

  One small town, perhaps two or three hundred fighting men inside its walls at any given time—and oh, the havoc they wreaked in their boats!

  Complaints came to Obravic and to Seressa, endlessly, from the khalif and his grand vizier. How, the Asharites asked in graceful phrases, could they continue to trade with Seressa if their people and goods were subject to savage piracy? What was the worth of Seressini assurances of safety in the sea they proudly named for themselves?

  Indeed, some of the letters queried, perhaps Seressa was secretly pleased when Osmanli merchants, pious followers of the teachings of Ashar, were seized by the Senjani for ransom, or worse?

  I
t was, the Council of Twelve had impressed upon Faleri, his foremost task this autumn and winter. He was to induce a distractible, erratic emperor to surrender a town of raiders to Seressa’s fury.

  Rodolfo needed to understand that Senjan didn’t only raid over the mountains against godless infidels or seize their goods on ships. No! They rowed or sailed south along their jagged coastline to Seressini-governed towns. They went even farther south, to that upstart marine republic of Dubrava (the Seressinis had issues with them, too).

  Those towns and cities were Jaddite, the emperor knew it! In them dwelled devout worshippers of the god. These people and their goods were not to be targets! The Senjani were pirates, not heroes. They boarded honest merchant ships making their way to sell and buy in Seressa, queen of all Jad’s cities, bringing it wealth. So much wealth.

  The vile, dissembling raiders claimed that they only took goods belonging to Asharites, but that was—everyone knew it!—a pose, a pretense, a bad, black joke. Their piety was a mask.

  The Seressinis knew all about masks.

  Faleri himself had lost three cargoes (silk, pepper, alum) in two years to the Senjani. He wasn’t any worshipper of the Asharite stars or the two Kindath moons! He was as good a Jaddite as the emperor. (Maybe a better one, if one considered Rodolfo’s alchemy.)

  His personal losses might even be, he suddenly thought, as the young, smooth courtier straightened from his sixth obeisance (six!), the reason he’d been appointed here. Duke Ricci, head of the Council of Twelve, was easily that subtle. Faleri would be able to speak with passion about the evil the Senjani represented.

  “The emperor has received the gifts you brought,” the tall official murmured, smiling. “He is much taken with the clock.”

  Of course he was taken with the clock, Faleri thought. That’s why they had chosen it.

  The clock had been half a year in the making. It was of ivory and mahogany, inlaid with precious stones. It showed the blue and white moons in their proper phases. It predicted eclipses of the sun. A Jaddite warrior came forth on the hour to smite a bearded Osmanli on the head with a mace.