A Magic of Nightfall nc-2

by S L Farrell

  Karl nodded. “I understand. But first I’ll need your help and your knowledge of this place.”

  Nico Morel

  Nico left the little house behind the inn of Ville Paisli a few turns of the glass before dawn, having tied up his clothes into a roll he carried on his back and snatching a loaf of bread from the kitchen. He stroked the dogs, who were wondering why someone was up so early, calming them so they wouldn’t bark when he slipped the latch on the rear door and slipped out. He hurried along the road from the village in the dim light of false dawn, jumping into the shadows along the roadside at any noise. By the time the sun had eased itself over the horizon to touch the clouds in the east with fire, he was well away from the village.

  He hoped his matarh would understand and not cry too much. But if he could find Talis and tell him what things were like in Ville Paisli, then Talis would come back with him and everything would be fine. All he had to do was find Talis, who loved his matarh-he’d be as angry as Nico was at what they were saying and with his magic, well, he could make them stop.

  Talis had told him that Ville Paisli was only about a league and a half from Nessantico. Nico half-trotted along the rutted dirt lane that was the Avi a’Nostrosei; if he could get to the village of Certendi, then he could lose anyone pursuing him. They’d expect him to follow the Avi a’Nostrosei into Nessantico, but he’d take the Avi a’Certendi instead, which jogged off southeast to enter Nessantico nearer the banks of the A’Sele. It was a longer road, but maybe they wouldn’t be looking for him there.

  Nico watched carefully over his shoulder as he fled for anyone riding fast from behind. He could see the thatch-and-slate roofs of Certendi ahead of him when he noticed a smear of dust rising from behind a stand of cypress trees beyond a slow bend in the Avi. He scurried off the road and into a field of long-beans, crouching down in the thick leaves. It was good he’d done so, since the horse and rider soon appeared: it was Onczio Bayard, looking awkward and uncomfortable atop a draft horse, his eyes focused on the road in front of him. He let his onczio plod along the avenue until he vanished around the next turn.

  Let Onczio Bayard look all he wanted in Certendi, then. Nico would cut around to the south through the farm fields and find the Avi a’Certendi where it emerged from the village.

  He walked on, moving between the fields. Perhaps a turn of the glass later, maybe more, he found what he assumed was the Avi a’Certendi-a well-rutted dirt road, mostly clear of grass and weeds. He trudged on, munching on the bread and stopping to get a drink occasionally from one of the numerous creeks that were flowing toward the A’Sele.

  By late afternoon, his feet were aching and sore, with blisters erupting wherever his skin touched his boots. The bottoms of his feet were bruised from the stones he’d stepped on. He shuffled more than walked, more tired than he’d ever been in his life and wishing he had another loaf of bread. But he was finally walking among the clustered houses around Nessantico’s River Market. He was home and now he could find Talis. Clutching the roll of clothes tightly, he scanned the market for Uly, the seller who knew Talis. But the space where Uly’s stall had been set up a few weeks ago was vacant, the cloth awning gone and a few half-broken tables the only remnant. Nico limped over to the old woman selling peppers and corn next to the space, grimacing and wanting nothing more than to sit down and rest. “Do you know where Uly is?” he asked wearily, and the woman shrugged. She waved her hand at a fly that landed on her nose.

  “Can’t say. Man’s been gone for a hand of days now. Good riddance, too-just laughed when the Calls came and people said their prayers. And those horrible scars.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “Do I look like his matarh?” She glared at him. “Go away. You’re keeping away my customers.”

  Nico looked up and down the market; there were only a few people there and none were near the stall. “I really need to know,” he told her.

  She sniffed and ignored him, arranging the peppers in their boxes and shooing away flies. “Please,” Nico said. “I have to talk to him.”

  Silence. She moved a pepper from the top of the box to the bottom.

  Nico could feel himself getting angry and frustrated. It felt chilly inside, like the evening breeze. “Hey!” Nico hollered at her.

  She scowled at him. “Go away or I’ll call for the utilino, you little pest, and tell him you were trying to steal my produce. Go on! Away with you!” She waved at him as if he were one of the flies.

  The irritation rose higher in him, and his throat felt like it did when he had one of the spicy-hot dishes Talis sometimes made. There were words that wanted to come out, and his hands made motions on their own. The old woman stared at him as if he were having some kind of fit, her eyes widening as if fascinated. The words came boiling out and Nico made a grasping motion with his hands. The woman suddenly clutched at her throat with a choking cry. She seemed to be trying to draw in a breath, her face turning redder, as Nico tightened his fists. “Stop!” He could barely make out the word, but Nico let his fist relax and the woman nearly fell, taking a deep, loud breath.

  “Tell me!” Nico said, and she stared at him with fear in her eyes, her hands up as if to ward off a fist.

  “I hear he might be over at Oldtown Market now-” the old woman said, all in a rush. “That’s what I heard, anyway, and…”

  But Nico was already moving away, no longer listening.

  He was trembling, and he felt far more tired now than he had a moment ago. He was scared as well. Talis would be mad, and so would Matarh. You could have hurt her. He wouldn’t do that again, he told himself. He wouldn’t let that happen. He didn’t dare. The cold anger frightened him too much.

  He felt like sleeping, but he couldn’t. It took him until Third Call to find the Avia’Parete, half-lost in the cluster of small, twisting lanes around the market and moving slowly on his aching feet. He stopped there, leaning against a building, to bow his head and say the evening prayer to Cenzi with the crowds near the Pontica Kralji. He sat down…

  … and lifted his head with a start, realizing that he’d fallen asleep. Across the bridge, he could see the light-teni just beginning to light the famous city lamps in front of the Grande Palais-a scene that would be happening simultaneously all along the great length of the Avi. With a sigh, Nico pushed himself up and plunged back into the crowds, heading northward into the depths of Oldtown, looking for a familiar side street, one that might lead him home.

  He didn’t know how he would find Talis in the huge city, but right now all Nico wanted was to rest his aching, exhausted feet somewhere familiar, to fall asleep somewhere safe. He could go to Oldtown Market tomorrow and see if Uly was there. He limped toward home-their old house. It was the only place he could think of to go.

  The trip seemed to take forever. He had to sit and rest three times, almost crying from the pain in his feet, forcing himself to keep his eyes open so he didn’t fall asleep again, and each time it was harder to force himself to stand up again. He wanted to rip the boots from his feet, but he was afraid of what he might see if he did that. But at last he walked down the lane where Talis had been attacked by the Numetodo man, and turned the corner that led toward his house. He began to see buildings and faces that were familiar. He was nearly there.

  “Nico!”

  He heard the voice calling his name and he turned. A woman waved at him and hurried over toward him, but she was no one he recognized. Her face was lined and tired-looking, as if she were as exhausted as he was, and she seemed older than the fall of hair around her shoulders.

  “Who are you?”

  “My name’s Varina,” she told him. “I’ve been looking for you.”

  “Did Talis…?” he began, then stopped, biting his lower lip. Talis wouldn’t want him talking to someone he didn’t know.

  “Talis?” the woman said. Her chin lifted. “Ah, yes. Talis.” She crouched down in front of him. He thought she had kind eyes, eyes that again seemed younger than the lined fa
ce. Her fingers lightly stroked his cheek-the way Matarh sometimes did. The gesture made him want to cry. “You were limping badly just now. You look terribly tired, Nico, and look, you’re covered with dust.” Concern creased the lines of her forehead as she tilted her head to the side. “Are you hungry?”

  He nodded. “Yes,” he said simply.

  She hugged him tightly, and he relaxed into her arms. “Come with me, Nico,” she said, rising to her feet again. “I’ll get us a carriage, and we’ll get you some food and let you rest. Then we’ll see if we can find Talis for you, eh?” She held out her hand to him.

  He took the offered hand, and she closed her fingers around his. Together, they walked back toward the Avi a’Parete.

  Allesandra ca’Vorl

  Elissa ca’Karina…

  Allesandra kept hearing the name, every time she spoke to her son in recent days. “Elissa said the most intriguing thing yesterday.. .” or “I was out riding with Elissa…”

  Today it was: “I want you to contact Elissa’s parents, Matarh.”

  Allesandra looked at Pauli, who was reading reports from the palais in Malacki near the fire in their apartments; the servants had yet to bring in their breakfast. He seemed unsurprised by the announcement-she wondered whether Jan had spoken to him first. “You’ve known the woman for a little more than a week,” Allesandra said, “and she’s significantly older than you. I have to wonder why her family hadn’t made arrangements for a marriage for her years ago. We don’t know enough about her, Jan. Certainly not enough to be opening negotiations with her family.”

  Jan had begun shaking his head at her first objection; Pauli appeared to be stifling a laugh. “What does any of that matter, Matarh? I enjoy her company, and I’m not asking to marry her tomorrow. I want you to make the necessary inquiries, that’s all. That way, if everything appears as it should and I still feel the same way in, oh, a month or two…” He shrugged. “I talked to Fynn; he said that the ca’Karina name is well-regarded, and that he would have no objection. He likes Elissa, too.”

  Allesandra doubted it-at least not in the way Jan liked the woman. Fynn considered the women of the court nothing more than necessary adornment, like a display of flowers and just as disposable. He himself had no interest in them, and if he ever married (and he would not, if the White Stone earned his money-with that thought, she felt again a stab of doubt and guilt) it would be purely for the political advantage that he gained from it.

  Fynn would not marry a woman for love, and decidedly not for lust.

  But Jan… She already knew, from palais gossip, that Elissa had spent several nights with her son in his rooms. She also knew that she had no support here: not from Jan, not from Pauli, and certainly not from Fynn, who probably found the affair amusing, especially since it so obviously annoyed Allesandra. Nor, given what she’d begun with Semini, could she say much without hypocrisy. He wants no more than you want, after all. She fixed an indulgent smile on her face, mostly because she knew it would annoy Paul.

  “Fine,” she told her son. “I will make inquiries. We will see what her family has to say and proceed from there. Does that satisfy you?”

  Jan grinned and flung his arms around Allesandra, as if he were a boy again. “Thank you, Matarh,” he said. “Yes, that satisfies me. Write them today. This morning.”

  “Jan, just… be careful and slow with this. Will you?”

  He laughed. “Always reminding me to think with my head instead of my heart. I will, Matarh. Of course.”

  With that, he was gone. Pauli laughed. “Lost in a glorious infatuation,” he said. “I remember being that way…”

  “But not with me,” Allesandra told him.

  His smile never wavered; that hurt more than the words. “No,” he said. “Not with you, my dear. With you, I was lost in a glorious transaction.”

  He went back to reading the reports.

  Allesandra was walking with Semini that afternoon after Second Call, when she saw Elissa’s form flitting through the hallways of the palais, strangely unaccompanied. “Vajica ca’Karina,” she called out. “A moment…”

  The young woman looked surprised. She hesitated for a moment, like a rabbit searching for a line of escape from a hound, then came over to them. She bowed to Allesandra and gave the sign of Cenzi to Semini. “A’Hirzg, Archigos,” she said. “It’s so good to see the two of you.” Her face failed to reflect her words.

  “I’m sure,” Allesandra told her. “I should tell you that my son came to me this morning regarding you.”

  Her eyebrows lifted over her strange, light eyes. “Ah?”

  “He asked that I contact your family.”

  The eyebrows climbed yet higher, and her hand touched the collar of her tashta as a faint hint of rose colored her neck. “A’Hirzg, I swear I didn’t ask him to speak to you.”

  “If I thought you had, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Allesandra told her. “But since he’s made the request, I’ve done as he asked and written a letter to your family; I gave it to my courier not a turn of the glass ago. I thought you should know, so you might contact them as well and tell them that I await their return letter.”

  Her response seemed strange to Allesandra. She would have expected a flattering response, or perhaps a blushing smile of pleasure. But Elissa blinked, and she turned her face away for a breath, as if her thoughts were elsewhere. “Why… thank you, A’Hirzg. I’m flattered beyond words, of course. And your son is a most wonderful man. I am truly honored by his attention and his interest.”

  Allesandra glanced at Semini. His gaze was puzzled. “But?” Semini asked, his voice a low rumble.

  A quick duck of the head, so that Elissa was staring at Allesandra’s feet, not at them. “I have deep feelings for your son, A’Hirzg. I truly do. But contacting my family…” Her tongue flickered over her lips, as if they were suddenly dry. “This is too fast.”

  Semini cleared his throat. “Is there something in your past, Vajica, something the A’Hirzg should know?”

  “No!” The word came out as an explosion of breath, and the young woman’s head came up again. “There’s… nothing.”

  “You sleep with him,” Allesandra said, and the frank comment widened Elissa’s eyes and caused Semini to inhale loudly through his nostrils. “If you don’t intend marriage, Vajica, then how are you different from one of the grandes horizontales?”

  The other young women of the court would have recoiled. They would have stammered. This one just stared flatly at Allesandra, her chin lifting slightly, her pale gaze hardening. “I might ask the A’Hirzg-with the Archigos’ pardon-how someone in a loveless marriage is so different from a grande horizontale? One is paid for her name, the other for her…” A brief flicker of a smile. “… attentions. The grande horizontale, at least, has no illusions about her arrangements. Either way, the bedchamber is merely a place of commerce.”

  Allesandra laughed, suddenly and loudly. She applauded Elissa, three quick, loud strikes of cupped palm against palm. The exchange reminded her of her time in Nessantico with Archigos Ana, who also had a facile mind and would challenge Allesandra in their discussions in unexpected ways and with bald speech. Semini was gaping, but Allesandra nodded to the young woman. “There aren’t many who would answer me that directly, Vajica,” she told the woman. “You’re lucky I’m someone who appreciates that. But…” She stopped, and the laughter under her voice vanished as quickly as glacier ice in the summer heat. “I love my son fiercely, Vajica, and I will protect him from making a mistake if I see a need to do so. Right now, you are merely a diversion for him, and it remains to be seen whether that interest will last the season. Whatever might eventually happen between the two of you, it will not be your decision to make. Is that clear enough?”

  “As the spring rain, A’Hirzg,” Elissa answered. She gave a curt bow of her head. “If the A’Hirzg will excuse me…?”

  Allesandra waved a hand, and Elissa bowed again, clasping hands to forehead toward
Semini. She hurried off, her tashta swirling around her legs.

  “She’s brazen,” Semini muttered as they listened to her footsteps on the tiles of the palais floor. “I begin to wonder about young Jan’s choice.”

  Allesandra linked her arm in Semini’s as they began to walk again. A few of the palais staff saw them; Allesandra didn’t care; she enjoyed Semini’s solid warmth at her side. “That was odd,” Semini continued. “It was almost as if the woman was upset that Jan had asked you to speak to her family. Doesn’t she realize what’s being offered?”

  “I think she knows exactly what’s offered,” Allesandra answered. She hugged Semini’s arm tightly. She glanced back over her shoulder in the direction Elissa had gone. “That’s what bothers me. I begin to wonder if becoming involved with her was Jan’s choice at all.”

  The White Stone

  The bitch gave her no time… no time…

  Anger almost overcame caution. She had wanted to wait another week, because if the truth were told, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do this-not because of the death that would result, but because it meant that “Elissa” would necessarily have to vanish. She was no longer certain she wanted that to happen; she’d thought maybe, if she had the time, she could arrange to circumvent that. But now…

  She had a few days, no more: the time it would take the A’Hirzg’s letter to go from Brezno to Jablunkov and back. Before the response came, she would need to be far from here-for two reasons.

  The confrontation with the A’Hirzg and the Archigos had shaken her. She’d gone immediately to Jan, and he’d proudly told her that Allesandra had sent the letter by fast courier. She’d had to pretend to be delighted with the news; it had been far more difficult than she’d expected. Two days, then, for the letter to arrive at the palais in Jablunkov, where an attendant would no doubt open it immediately, read it, and realize something was terribly amiss. There would be quick discussion, a hastily-scrawled response, and a new rider would be hurrying back to Brezno with orders to make all haste. For all she knew, the letter had already reached Jablunkov.