I stood back to let him through and quietly poured us each a glass of wine. He sat down across from me, in the window seat. Giovanni stirred, then went back to sleep.
“Has Travan agreed to see me?” I asked.
“No,” Michel said. His shoulders were slumped; his head was bowed. “And he won't.”
“Why?” I asked. “Is he that angry about this?”
Michel shook his head and covered his face with his hands. “I came tonight because I thought you at least deserved to know why Travan has turned his back on you,” he said. His voice was muffled.
I waited.
Michel dropped his hands to the table, but didn't raise his face. “Travan doesn't really like Clara or Placido any more than you do,” he said. “He accepted them as allies early on because it was necessary; now, they've got far too much influence. But, he can't just throw them out of power; he needs people to turn against them.” He swallowed. “Travan is hoping that Clara will order you executed. Once you're dead, he's going to pretend it all happened without his knowledge or consent. He'll use this to disband the Servi, because clearly they can't be trusted with power. He's hoping to use this to take down both Clara and Placido.”
I shook my head, unwilling to believe. “Did he tell you this?”
Michel shook his head, then nodded. “Sort of.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded. “Very sure.”
I closed my eyes and rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands. “Michel, will you carry a note to him for me? If you don't think he'll read it now—” I broke off. If Clara meant to have me executed, it could happen as soon as the next morning. With effort, I finished: “—give it to him after I'm dead.” Michel nodded, and I moved to the table, getting out a sheet of paper, ink, and a pen.
When you hear the news of my death, Travan, you can console yourself with one thing: I truly did save Mira on the night that Cuore fell. I saved Mira because I love her. She is a friend, and when I faced her with a drawn sword between us, I knew that I could never betray a friend for political expediency. Alas, it's clear to me now that you lack my compunctions.
I saw the night we met that you have the will and the spirit to be a truly great Emperor, like the Emperors of the old days, before the Circle. But you will have to lead. You will have to stand up to Clara and Placido and those like them— and believe me, even if Clara and Placido both died in their sleep tonight, there would be more like them soon enough. You've chosen to listen to them; you can choose to stop. You can send them away from Cuore, and dismantle the Servi. You can decree that everyone in the Empire may follow their heart, and worship the god they believe in. You are the Emperor. You are the one person here who can make that choice.
I've asked Michel to give this to you after I'm dead. You wouldn't listen to me in life, but perhaps you'll listen to me now. As I saved Mira for friendship, I appeal to you now as a friend to a friend: lead, Travan. For the sake of your people. We fought and died for you —not for Clara and Placido.
When I finished, Michel was still slumped in his chair, barely able to look at me. Once the ink had dried, I folded the letter and sealed it, then gave it to Michel. Michel stood up and finally raised his head; his eyes were full of tears. “Thank you, Generale,” Michel said.
“For what?” I asked.
“For everything,” he said. He touched his fist to his chest and held it out, then left the room as quickly as he could.
Giovanni stirred in his chair, and for a moment I thought he'd been awake the whole time—but then he settled back down and started snoring. I still didn't feel at all like sleeping, but I didn't have the heart to wake Giovanni or Lucia for the company, so I curled up in the window seat to wait for morning.
∗ ∗ ∗
Darkness and agony and Felice's grinning face faded into the wasteland twilight. I felt a comforting hand clasping mine, and sat up, free of my bonds. “Mira?” I said, but I was in the valley that had once been Ravenna, beside the burnt-out remnants of the keep, a single fragment of cloth flapping like a lost banner in the night breeze.
Mario was beside me. “Don't be afraid,” he said.
There were others approaching us. Isabella and Rafi; Vitale; Severo. There were hundreds here. All of them, Lupi who had died during the war.
“You all died because of me,” I said.
“We all gave our lives,” Mario said. “And we would give them again.” Mario clasped my hand gently, and for a moment, I felt the touch of warm flesh against mine. “Don't forget that,” he said. “It was our choice. Honor our lives by living for what we believed in.”
∗ ∗ ∗
I woke early in the dawn to find Giovanni sitting at the table across from me. “You look terrible,” I said. “Maybe I should have had you sleep in the bed.”
Giovanni didn't smile. “They've found you guilty, Eliana,” he said gently.
“Oh,” I said, and had a strange impulse to go back to sleep. Maybe if I went to sleep and woke up a second time, it wouldn't be true. I reached for the tea and almost knocked it over. “What are they going to do to me?”
“Clara has sentenced you to death,” he said.
I swallowed hard. “How is she going to do it?”
“Beheading.”
My hand, on the teacup, shook suddenly, and the hot tea splashed onto my hand. I yelped in pain and blew on the scald to cool it. “Well,” I said, and was relieved to hear that my voice was perfectly steady. “At least that's always looked pretty painless. Fast. Not like hanging or burning. That's better than a lot of the ways I thought I'd die, this past year.”
“How about dying in your own bed at the age of eighty, surrounded by your grandchildren?” Giovanni asked. “Did that ever occur to you as a possibility?”
“I never would've had grandchildren, Giovanni,” I said, and gave him a wry grin. He summoned up a weak smile in return and poured me a cup of tea.
“So this is it, then,” I said. “They should be coming for me soon, I suppose.”
“You might be able to convince Clara not to kill you if you begged for mercy,” Giovanni said. “It's the sort of gesture she'd go for.”
I took a swallow of the tea. “If she were planning to burn me alive, I might be able to make myself do it,” I said. “As it is—” I sighed and closed my eyes. “Michel told me last night that Travan is hoping to use this to shove Placido and Clara out of power—as an excuse to disband the Servi. Do you think it'll work?” Giovanni started to answer, and I looked up to fix him with a glare. “Truthfully. Do you think it'll work?”
Giovanni lowered his eyes. “It will probably work,” he muttered reluctantly.
“It's worth dying if it gets Clara out of power.” I took another swallow of tea; my mouth had gone very dry. “I'm going to come back as a ghost and haunt Travan, though. Do Redentori believe in ghosts?”
Giovanni blinked at me slowly and then shrugged. “I think the question is open to debate.”
“I dreamed about Mario last night,” I said. “It was a nice dream, though. He didn't haunt me.”
“What did you dream about Mario?” Giovanni asked.
“He was there with all the Lupi who'd died, and he said that it was their choice, that I shouldn't blame myself,” I said. “Now that I'm going to join them, I guess they wanted to reassure me.”
Giovanni smiled and reached across the table to squeeze my hand. Then he pushed back his chair and stood up. “Eliana, I need to leave for a while. I promise, it won't be long.”
“What?” I stared at him. “Where are you going?”
“Privy,” he said.
I started to shake my head in disbelief. He turned toward the door, then turned back to me, slipped one hand behind my head, and kissed me on the lips. Then he broke away and strode out.
“What the hell,” I shouted after him. “Giovanni! Get back here.” He didn't turn around. “Giovanni!”
I knew within a few minutes that he hadn't gone to the privy, not unles
s he got lost or fell in. I woke Lucia and asked her to go look for him, then paced the room, touching my violin as I passed it but not picking it up to play. It was depressing, to be alone like this, and frustrating to lack an audience for the morbid jokes I was coming up with to pass the time and distract myself. Much more than an hour passed before there was a knock at the door. I opened it to see Lucia, and a guard.
“Lucia,” I said, “thank goodness. Did you find him?”
Lucia looked at the guard.
“You're free to go,” the guard said.
I stared at him. “Giovanni said I'd been found guilty.”
“You were,” the guard said. “But your sentence was overturned. New evidence has come to light.”
“What evidence?” I asked.
“Someone else confessed to freeing the mage,” the guard said.
Lady's— “Where's Giovanni?” I said.
Lucia slipped her arm around my waist, supporting my weight as if she thought I might fall suddenly. “Giovanni went to Clara, and said that you delivered Mira as a prisoner to him, but that he was so taken by her beauty that he freed her.”
Oh my God, Giovanni. “Giovanni, you're an idiot; you're an idiot,” I whispered. “Where is he? I need to see him.” Lucia shook her head. “I'm not going to let him do this,” I said.
“He knew that,” Lucia said. “Eliana, Giovanni's dead.”
∗ ∗ ∗
I'd spent the morning bracing myself to walk out of my room stoic and dignified; now that I was free to go, and safe, all I could do was sit down at my table and sob. This wasn't what I'd been ready for. How could Giovanni possibly be dead? I'd just seen him. Damn you, Giovanni.
“But they all knew I did it,” I said to Lucia.
“Giovanni started by shouting his confession from the center of the gardens,” Lucia said. “He figured that if enough people knew that he'd confessed, Clara would look pretty foolish executing you—and looking foolish is the one thing Clara can't stand. He said that you were protecting him.” Lucia sat down beside me. “He wrote you a letter,” she said, and slipped it under my hands.
Eliana, the letter read.
By the time you read this, I'll be dead. I know you'll be angry—I suppose that's part of what makes this worth it.
Typical.
I can't let them kill you. But you're right—it's worth dying to bring down the Servi. I know you would never let me take your place, so I'm going to request that sentence be carried out before they break the news to you. If they refuse, I'll attack Placido; with any luck, I'll take him with me. Save Travan the trouble of deposing him.
I looked up. “Placido?”
Lucia sighed. “Dead.”
I know you'll be angry at me for doing this, but as time passes, I hope you will remember me with fondness and not with anger. Because just as you would die to save Mira, I would die to save you. Because I love you.
I know neither one of us has ever believed — not in the Lady, not in Gèsu. Not the way Lucia does, or Michel. But if there's a power, whatever name She goes by, I hope She takes good care of you. Don't behave yourself too well, though, because I'm counting on seeing you again.
My love forever,
Giovanni
I folded the letter so that my tears wouldn't make the ink run, and laid my head on my arms.
∗ ∗ ∗
Though Giovanni's death wasn't quite what Travan had planned on, it worked well enough for his purposes. Declaring that the Servi had clearly lost their way if they had turned on Generale Giovanni, hero of the Empire, he removed Clara from her post and appointed, of all people, Lucia. Lucia had never bothered to disguise her contempt for the very idea of the Servi, and that, I concluded, was precisely what the Emperor wanted: a leader who would dismantle the organization. I found a couple of extremely trustworthy former Lupi to serve as Lucia's bodyguards; she'd need them. Giovanni, I thought, would have appreciated the irony.
There was a Council meeting the following week. I took my seat, cautiously. There were a few new faces— one of the old reformers that Giovanni probably would have known, one of the Cantatori, and Lucia, of course. Lucia sat beside me, and we rose together as Travan came into the room.
I had not seen Travan since the last Council meeting, though Michel had told me that Travan read my letter. I had to fight down my anger when I saw Travan; my hands clenched into fists. Travan's gaze swept coolly over his Council, but he didn't meet my eyes. Nor did he meet my eyes, or acknowledge me in any way, for the rest of the meeting. I found that without Clara and Placido there, I didn't have to say all that much anyway. At least, I thought, Travan didn't bar me from the meeting; I was a little surprised that he had not. It didn't matter, though. Watching his back as he strode out at the end, I knew that it would take a great crisis to inspire me to go to another Council meeting. I might be a hero of the Empire, but I was no friend of the Emperor.
I tried not to think about Giovanni, because it hurt so much. But for the first few weeks after his death, I kept thinking things like, I need to remember to tell Giovanni about this later or Giovanni will be amused by that, only to remember a moment later that he was dead. I avoided both Court and company, unwilling to risk weeping in front of others. After the first wound of loss had started to heal, a few months later, I realized that I was desperately lonely.
Lucia's new responsibilities kept her away from me most of the time. Flavia had left Court: the Cantatori were staffing the border outposts, and Flavia was either in Verdia at one of the outposts, or traveling through the Empire recruiting people to join the order, I wasn't sure. Of my friends still at court, many were avoiding me—out of shame, I thought, that they hadn't done more to foil Clara's investigation. Or maybe it was because I had avoided people so assiduously right after Giovanni's death, and they didn't want to intrude. Regardless, I didn't know how to bridge the distance between us now, so I stayed in my room, and brooded.
I have to leave, I thought one morning when I woke, stiff and cramped, in my window seat. I'm dying by inches. I can't stay here. I could go back to Verdia. To teach at the conservatory, or to visit Doratura. Or perhaps I could join the Cantatori and play my violin in the wasteland with Flavia and the others. They would welcome me, surely. It might even be helpful to the order, if it were known that Generale Eliana had joined them.
There was an appeal to the idea, I thought, taking my violin and tuning it. I might not have a whole lot of faith, but I could play while others danced, and pull their energy down into those dark hills, so that someday grass might grow there again. I could lose myself in the music; maybe someday I'd forget what I'd lost.
But if I leave Cuore, Mira won't know where to find me.
I started to play one of the folk tunes I had learned with Mira, back at the conservatory. Giovanni knew how much I loved Mira; did Mira know? If she knew, and she was alive, why hadn't she come back to me? Maybe when she stopped doing magery this final time, the sickness had killed her. Maybe she was killed trying to escape from Cuore.
Or maybe she was alive, but she didn't feel toward me as I felt toward her. Impossible, I thought, remembering the way her hands had gripped mine. But I found myself unwilling to believe that she was dead, either.
Perhaps, I thought, she's alive and she knows that I love her, but she's afraid to come back to Cuore: she might be recognized, a message might be read. She could put both of us in danger. But the Empire was vast, and the world vaster still. I couldn't very well go buy a horse and set out searching, not without some idea of where to look. It would take a miracle, I thought, to find her that way.
∗ ∗ ∗
A miracle. After breakfast, I went to the Great Cathedral. Unlike the cathedral in Manico, the cathedral in Cuore had not been burned. As Lucia had once bitterly predicted, the building was still in use, but for Redentori observances. There was a painting of Gèsu behind the Great Altar, and the pews had been removed so that people would be able to dance. There was no service in progress a
t the moment, and the cathedral was empty. I eased the door shut behind me and stepped forward into shadow.
I had come to pray, but now that I was inside the cathedral I had to admit that I wasn't quite sure who to pray to. During the war, I'd continued to say my selfish prayers to the Lord. I'd prayed to God when I'd truly feared that Lucia was dead, after Mira had destroyed the Lupi, but most of the time I felt deeply awkward asking for favors from God. In some sense, I equated the Redentore God with the Lady; the Lady was too important to bother with small things. Years ago, during the war with Vesuvia—when I was still a Della Chiesa—I had prayed to the Lady for victory in the war; I had prayed to the Lord to protect my own small family, on their farm near the border.
I had come to the cathedral half intending to pray to the Lord, but now, looking around at the ransacked interior, at the painting of Gèsu, I couldn't bring myself to do it. If the Lord was anywhere, He wasn't here.
I rather doubted that God spent much time here, either. It was dim inside, and damp, almost chilly. I felt like I should say a prayer, though, so I crossed myself and mumbled something in the Old Tongue. I fingered Bella's cross where it rested against my collarbone, and suddenly thought of someone I could ask for a favor.
Giovanni.
The Della Chiese believed in ghosts. Bella had loved to tell ghost stories: most of her ghosts returned to haunt those responsible for their death, to take revenge, or to give one final message to those they'd loved. The dead knew things that the living did not. They could deliver messages, sometimes—dire warnings, in most of Bella's stories, but still. Mario had visited me the night before my trial, I felt sure of that; he had brought me a gentler message. Perhaps Giovanni could do the same. I wasn't sure what the Redentori believed about ghosts, but I didn't care. I wanted to talk to Giovanni, and if I wasn't supposed to do it, I didn't want to know.
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