Tigana

He gave them what they demanded of him, he obeyed the command, but not sullenly or diffidently, and not in shame. Rooted in the land of his fathers, standing before the home of his family he looked towards the sun and let a name burst forth from his soul.

"Tigana!"he cried that all should hear. All of them, everyone in the square. And again, louder yet: "Tigana!"And then a third, a last time, at the very summit of his voice, with pride, with love, with a lasting, unredeemed defiance of the heart.

"TIGANA!"

Through the square that cry rang, along the streets, up to the windows where people watched, over the roofs of houses running westward to the sea or eastward to the temples, and far beyond all of these a sound, a name, a hurled sorrow in the brightness of the air.

FromTigana by Guy Gavriel Kay1990. Published by Penguin Random House Canada.