by S L Farrell
Sergei lifted a hand from the cane, let it drop again. “No, but I believe that if Kraljica Allesandra were responsible, she would have told me her plans, and she has said nothing.” That, at least, was the truth. He was fairly certain that Allesandra would have told him. At least, he hoped so.
Jan sniffed derisively, as if he’d read Sergei’s mind. “Oh, believe me, Matarh is quite skilled at keeping her intrigues to herself. I know that one from my own history. I know it very well.” He tapped the treaty again. “I don’t know that I’ll be signing this, Sergei. I might be signing my own death notice.”
“Hirzg, I assure you-”
Jan scowled and stiffened in his chair. “With all due respect, Ambassador, your assurances mean very little at the moment. I will look at the document with the Hirzgin, and we will talk.”
Sergei nodded. “Then I will meet with you tomorrow, Hirzg. It’s been a long ride here…”
But Jan was shaking his head. “Not tomorrow. I’ll give you my answer in my own time, when I’ve had a chance to investigate other matters, or when…” He stopped. Frowned. “You may return to Stag Fall or Brezno if you wish, Ambassador, or wait here. I don’t care which. I can have Paulus give you field accommodations, if you feel you can trust him that far.”
Stag Fall would be far more comfortable, and Brezno would be more pleasing in other ways, but Sergei shook his head. He had no choice here; over the decades, Sergei had become well-versed in the reading of faces and the lies and half-truths concealed in words. There was something Jan wasn’t telling him, something else that was driving his conviction that Allesandra had hired the White Stone. Sergei couldn’t entirely deny the possibility, but found it unlikely. He’d never mentioned Rance in such ominous terms that Allesandra would have felt compelled to take action. No, if the murder had been the White Stone’s work and not that of some impostor, then there was another explanation.
And if there was something else driving Jan’s anger and irritation. Sergei couldn’t uncover that in Brezno or Stag Fall. “I’ll remain, Hirzg,” he said. “I would like to talk with you further on this-the choice we make here is crucial for both the Holdings and the Coalition, and is time critical. The Tehuantin attack is an issue that can’t wait.”
“That’s an issue critical for the Holdings, yes,” Jan agreed. He tapped the scroll again, staring at it as a miner might inspect a chuck of rock for the presence of gold. “But for the Coalition?” He shrugged. “I assure you, Ambassador, the Coalition will survive that problem, whether the Holdings does or not. Good day, Sergei,” he said, and pointedly began to examine a map laid out on his desk.
Sergei watched him for a breath, then bowed to him. His cane pressed deeply into the carpet-hidden grass as he left.
Varina ca’Pallo
“I need your help, Varina.”
It was not a statement that a person expected to hear from the Kraljica. In the years that Varina had known Allesandra, she’d come to consider the woman a friend, yet there was always a necessary distance and deference to that friendship due to her title. Allesandra wasn’t someone who asked for help; rather, she generally expected help to be offered without the necessity of a request, or she would instead issue an order for the aid. Yet here was Allesandra, sitting in Varina’s sunroom as if on a social visit, and asking.
The room was warm with the sunlight pouring through the glass, and full of the scent of blooming flowers. Varina had watered them little since sending the servants away, and the stress and neglect seemed ironically to have startled them into bloom. She had never seen the room so vibrant and alive.
It was almost a mockery. The plants flaunted their color and brilliance against the gray, wrinkled bag of her own flesh and against the gray plain of her continuing grief.
“I need your help.” Varina was afraid that she knew exactly what Allesandra wanted, and she wasn’t certain it was something she could do. “If this has to do with Nico and the attack on the Old Temple.. .”
“It does,” Allesandra replied flatly. She stroked the yellow petals of a sunrise flower on a stand alongside her chair. “Very pretty,” she said. “The ones in the palais garden are just beginning to bud.” She laid her hand back in her lap, her gaze on Varina again. Varina could see the steel of the ca’Ludovici line in her face: the sharp nose, the jutting chin. “Nico Morel doesn’t only threaten the Faith and me,” Allesandra said. “He also threatens you and the Numetodo, and he does so directly. If he has his way, the persecution of the Numetodo by the Faith would begin once again. He wants to see your tortured bodies hanging in cages from the Ponticas, as they did when Orlandi held the Archigos’ throne.”
“You wouldn’t allow that, Kraljica,” Varina answered. “I know you that well.”
Allesandra gave an audible sniff, as if searching for the perfume of the flowers in the room. “I wouldn’t, no. But if Morel has his way, then my refusal would be mean that there would be someone else on the Sun Throne, a lackey who would bow first to the Archigos’ throne rather than to the people of the Holdings, who would place religious issues before political ones. If that happens…”
“How can it?” Varina said. “Nico can be charming and persuasive; I know that well. But this tiny group of followers taking over the Faith?” She shook her head. “Surely that’s not a serious threat.”
“You underestimate both Nico, and the Morelli influence among the teni and the populace. They aren’t a ‘tiny group,’ Varina. When A’Teni ca’Paim called for the war-teni of the Holdings to join the Garde Civile to defend Villembouchure, few of them answered. Most of those who ignored her are now in the Old Temple with the Morellis. My people are telling me that the Garde Kralji doesn’t have the capacity to deal with the raw power Morel has gathered there. I suspect they also don’t have the will to do so-I know that some of the offiziers within the Garde are actually sympathetic to the Morellis and their stance.”
The bright colors of the sunroom plants filled the air behind Allesandra, discordant. Varina’s hand had gone to her throat. She felt a sour burning there, deep inside: a remembered fear that she’d thought long extinguished and forgotten. She remembered Sergei’s advice to her; she wondered whether she should have listened, if once again he’d been right when everyone else had been wrong. “It’s that serious? How did we miss this?”
“When things don’t go well, people look for scapegoats to blame. They never blame themselves, they never blame Cenzi, they never blame circumstance, they never blame chance. They blame others.”
“And the Numetodo have always been convenient scapegoats. Is that what you’re saying?”
A nod. “The way to ensure that the Numetodo survive is to make certain that the Nico Morel and his people receive the justice they deserve. Strength is the other quality that people respect. If you show that the Numetodo are stronger than the Morellis, then you’ll see the blame shifting the other way; all the talk will be about how it’s the Morellis who have caused the problems and who are endangering the Holdings. Not you. Not the Numetodo. The affection of the people is fickle. We can change it.”
“You’ve become a skeptic, Kraljica. Or a pragmatist.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t changed at all. In this, I’ve always been a realist. And I’m right. That’s why you need to help me.”
“How?”
She turned slightly and stroked the soft petals of the sunrise flower once again. Varina watched the bloom bend and spring up again under the Kraljica’s hand. “It’s simple enough. I can’t fight war-teni without magic of my own; you’re the A’Morce Numetodo. If I no longer have the Faith as my ally, if I can’t trust the teni there, then my only hope is to turn to the only rival to them-the Numetodo: your magic, your knowledge, your black sand. And whatever else you have that would change the equation.”
Varina glanced at her desk, on which a weeping violet drooped small, purple flowers like bloody tears. Below the plant, in the drawer of the desk, was her sparkwheel. “Kraljica, we’ve been fr
iends for a long time now…”
“We have,” Allesandra answered. “Which is the other reason I’ve come to you. I ask for friendship’s sake, too. You know what Morel asks-no, demands -of us?”
Varina shook his head. Allesandra took a scroll from her pocket, and what she read to Varina stunned her to the core. Her hand trembled at her throat and she wished, at least momentarily, that the shock would sweep over her and take her, that she could join Karl in the sweet oblivion of death. She glanced again at the desk, at the weeping violet and the drawer. It seemed that she could smell the weapon there, the scent of burnt black sand.
The odor of violence and death.
“He can’t be serious,” she said. “He can’t really expect you to accept those terms. That’s madness.”
“Nico Morel is mad,” Allesandra answered. “And he believes that Cenzi will make this happen.” She rose from her seat, and she moved into the sunlight streaming through the window, Varina could see the age in her face: the wrinkles, the sagging of her chin, the gray that was beginning to show in the hair. For a moment, Varina saw Allesandra as she might look in another decade. Then the sun slid over her face and left her in shadow again, and the moment was gone. Varina started to rise with her, but Allesandra waved to her to keep her seat.
“No, don’t get up. Varina, I can’t wait, as some in the Garde Civile have advised me. I have to take care of this quickly, because I fear that Commandant ca’Talin won’t be able to hold back the Tehuantin, and I can’t have this distraction while trying to fight a greater enemy. I tell you again-I need your help. Nessantico needs our help. I need the Numetodo, and I promise you that if you give me the aid I ask for, then the Numetodo will never have to fear persecution within the Holdings ever again. Will you help?”
She knew how Karl would have answered. She could almost hear his voice. I know you love Nico, but he’s not the child that we knew. He’s changed, and he’s been terribly damaged, and he’s dangerous. He’s brought this upon himself. “Yes,” she told Allesandra. “I’ll have to talk to the others, but I’m certain they’ll agree. I’ll arrange with Talbot to coordinate things.”
Allesandra nodded. Her face seemed to relax. “Thank you,” she said. “You won’t regret this, Varina. I promise.”
Varina pushed herself up from her seat, and Allesandra embraced her gently. “Thank you,” she heard the Kraljica whisper again. Allesandra’s lips brushed Varina’s cheeks momentarily, and the Kraljica turned to leave.
The wake of her passage smelled of flowers and damp earth.
Jan ca’Ostheim
When Jan read Sergei the contents of the missive from his matarh, the Silvernose didn’t seem startled at all, which told Jan that Sergei already suspected what it said.
“Morel thinks that he has divine guidance,” Sergei said, rubbing-as he too often did-at the metallic nose glued to his ravaged, wrinkled face. “When one truly believes that Cenzi has set you on a course, you have no limitations. It’s a lesson many of the Kralji have had to learn. Now it’s Allesandra’s turn.”
They were gathered at the table in the dining “room” of the palais tents. Hirzgin Brie was there, as was Starkkapitan ca’Damont and Archigos Karrol, who had come down from Brezno. Jan had invited Ambassador ca’Rudka to join them, not only because of the communique from Nessantico, but also because he enjoyed watching Sergei annoy both the starkkapitan and the Archigos.
“You speak like a Numetodo,” Archigos Karrol said to the man, but Sergei shook his head slowly, his jowls wobbling with the motion.
“I believe in Cenzi, Archigos, as firmly as do you,” the Ambassador said, and Jan thought he heard a strange sadness in the man’s voice, almost a regret. “I know that I will go to Him when I die, and the soul shredders will weigh me before Him. I believe.” Then he seemed to shiver, and his gaze wandered away from the Archigos and found Jan’s. “It’s not faith that’s the problem, Hirzg Jan, only blind fanaticism. Morel insists that there is only one true path, and that’s his. Therefore, all the rest of us are wrong. The greater problem is that you have too many teni within the Faith who agree with Morel rather than you.”
Archigos Karrol spluttered at that. He lifted his bent head against the resistance of his curved spine. His long, white beard waggled; his brown-spotted fist banged at the table, rattling crockery. “ I am the authority within the Faith, not this damned Morel. He’s already doomed himself by using the Ilmodo against my direct orders. His hands and tongue are forfeit for that, and his life is mine for the death of poor A’Teni ca’Paim.”
Jan heard Sergei sniff, saw his eyes, now enveloped in tired folds of skin, widen slightly. “Yes, we in Nessantico saw how well the war-teni obeyed A’Teni ca’Paim, whose authority derives from yours, Archigos. I wonder, if you order the war-teni of Firenczia to move against Morel, will you get the same obedience?”
The Archigos’ bald skull was pale against the angry flush of his face. He scowled, turning his head sidewise to glare at Sergei. “My war-teni will do as I tell them to do,” he said. Spittle flew with the comment; he didn’t seem to notice. He looked over to Jan. “Hirzg, Hirzgin, I find that my appetite has left me, and I need to speak with the teni here to give them the news about A’Teni ca’Paim and arrange for services in her memory. If you’ll forgive me…”
Without waiting for an answer, he gave the sign of Cenzi and pushed away from the table. Two o’teni in attendance rushed to help him. They handed him his staff and he shuffled away, his head facing the carpeted ground as he padded from the tent.
“I apologize, Hirzg, Hirzgin,” Sergei said after the servant had closed the tent flaps-painted in trompe-l’oeil fashion as a massive, carved wooden double set of doors-behind the Archigos. “I only told him the truth.”
“The truth is often unappetizing,” Brie answered. She glanced at Jan with that, a quick, sharp look. “I’m surprised any of us can eat at the moment.” Jan set down the knife he was using to cut the slice of roast on his plate. Brie smiled at him blandly. “I’d have the servants take that away,” she said, “but there are so few of our private staff left here. I wonder what keeps driving them away?”
Jan returned the same meaningless smile to his wife.
Sergei didn’t seem to have noticed the exchange. He stirred in his seat. “Archigos Karrol is deceiving himself if he doesn’t think that there are teni who are sympathetic to the Morellis-especially among the war-teni.”
“Our war-teni are here, ” Starkkapitan ca’Damont interjected. “They’re actively working with me.”
“They’re here now,” Sergei answered. “But will they be tomorrow, or the day after? The news from Nessantico is just now arriving, and if it was Morel who asked the war-teni to stand down, as he claims, then perhaps that request is only just reaching them.”
“Sometimes, Ambassador,” ca’Damont retorted, “I believe you’re like an old black crow, with nothing but bad news and gloom to relate. You stink of the prisons you like so much.”
Jan looked over sharply at ca’Damont with the crude remark, but Sergei lifted a hand, shaking his gray head slightly. “You’ll be happy to know, Starkkapitan, that you’re hardly alone in that opinion,” Sergei told him. “But then, I’m a crow who over the years has dined on the remains of many victims who failed to listen to me or who said I was mistaken. I never take much satisfaction in that sort of meal, but it’s one I suspect I’ll continue to enjoy. Perhaps soon.”
The man’s fork scraped along his plate. Brie snickered nasally. Jan hurried into the conversational gap. “Villembouchure has already fallen, Ambassador. Nessantico will fall, too-again-if Firenzcia doesn’t come to her aid. Do you agree with that?”
Sergei nodded. “I do. Emphatically. Commandant ca’Talin is an excellent leader and I have nothing but respect for his martial skills, but he doesn’t have the resources he needs.”
“Why should I provide them?” Jan asked. “Why shouldn’t I let the Tehuantin flail against Matarh’s Garde Civile? Even i
f they do take the city, they’ll be so wounded in the process that I could take them with half the army I have here, and take the Sun Throne for myself-without waiting, without this treaty she’s sent. The Tehuantin will likely even take care of the Morelli problem. That’s what Starkkapitan ca’Damont and Archigos Karrol are advising me to do.” From down the table, ca’Damont grunted assent. “Why shouldn’t I follow their advice, Ambassador?”
Sergei sat silent for a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his nose. “Because you’re a better man than I am, Hirzg,” he said. “If it were Brezno facing invasion, and Kraljica Allesandra were considering whether to come to your aid, I might give her the same advice the Starkkapitan and Archigos are giving you now. Remain aloof; let the invaders wear themselves out first, then go in and take everything for yourself afterward. But I know her as well as I know you. She wouldn’t take that advice from me, any more than you will. She would come to your aid, if circumstances were that dire.”
“You’re awfully confident in your assessment.”
“I’m the Crow. I’m Old Silvernose,” Sergei answered with a wry, gap-toothed smile. “And I know that you, Hirzg, even if you were willing to abandon your matarh entirely, you don’t care to inherit a broken empire and a broken city, so ruined that repairing it will make Firenzcia herself a pauper nation. Nessantico holds your heritage, as it does the heritage of everyone in the Holdings or in the Coalition. It is too precious a jewel to simply cast away.”
The man was warped and twisted. His predilections were odious. But Jan knew of no one alive who knew the intrigues of the nations so well-and the man had once saved his life, as well as his matarh’s. And, in this, he was right.
Jan nodded. With Sergei’s words, the decision had come to him, falling into place and erasing all the doubts. “That is why I will sign the treaty,” he told them. “I will take Matarh’s offer, and we will ride to Nessantico-if only to preserve the empire that will one day be mine.”