by S L Farrell
Ci’Recroix was visibly startled by the request. He dropped the brushes he was holding on the small table next to the easel and quickly draped a white sheet over the canvas. “You cannot, Kraljica.”
“I cannot?” Her head tilted slightly to one side with the word, and an eyebrow lifted.
“Well. . I would strongly prefer that you do not, Kraljica,” ci’Recroix quickly amended, with another pressing of hands to forehead. He picked up the brushes again and began to place them in a case. “I’ve only just made my sketch and began to place the undertones on the canvas. You would be more pleased if you could wait until I have something substantial to show you. It’s the way I work with my subjects; I want to surprise them with an image of themselves, as if they were looking into a mirror, but this. .” He waved his hand at the hidden canvas. “This would only disappoint you at the moment, I’m afraid. So if it would please the Kraljica, I beg you not to look. In fact, perhaps it would be best if I took it with me. . ”
His face seemed so comically distressed that she nearly laughed.
“I’ll manage to contain my curiosity for the time being, Vajiki,” she told him, then did laugh at the relief that softened the hard lines of his thin face. “Leave your canvas here; no one will disturb it.”
A knock came on the doors at the far end of the room. “Enter,” arguerite said; the door opened and Commandant ca’Rudka strode
into the room, walking quickly toward them, his bootsteps loud on the tiled floor. His sharp eyes flickered over to ci’Recroix even as he quickly touched hands to forehead yet again; the painter stared openly at the man’s silver nose.
“Kraljica,” the commandant said. “You’d do well to open your windows. The stench of the oils. .” He strode to the windows nearest the dais and pushed them open. Fresh, cold air wafted in and the Kraljica shivered, but the breeze did seem to clear her head.
“Thank you, Sergei,” she said. “Vajiki ci’Recroix, if you have everything. .”
The man nearly jumped, still watching ca’Rudka. He grabbed the case of brushes under his left arm and took up the valise that held the jars of mixed paints in the same hand, then picked up the miroire a’scene by a handle; it seemed rather heavy, judging by the way ci’Recroix leaned to one side while holding it. “Forgive me, Kraljica. I’ll see. . uh. .”
He hesitated.
“Renard cu’Bellona. My aide,” she reminded him.
“Renard cu’Bellona. Yes. That was the name. Remember, Kraljica, ou shouldn’t look. Umm. . tomorrow, then.” He started to bring hands to forehead, remembered that he was holding something in each hand, and set them down again to salute her. Then he picked up case, valise, and miroire a’scene and lurched toward the doors, grunting with the effort. He knocked on one of the doors with a foot; the hall garda opened them and he went out. The garda saluted the Kraljica and closed them again.
“That is a very strange man,” ca’Rudka said. He was staring after the painter.
“But a talented one, from what I’ve seen.” She glanced at the draped painting on its easel. “You’ve questioned the assassin, Sergei?”
Ca’Rudka nodded. He looked at his hands as if making certain that they were clean. “Yes.” He told her, briefly, what had happened during the interrogation at the Bastida-leaving out, Marguerite suspected, some of the more brutal details. She did not press him for them.
“So this ce’Coeni was a rogue,” she said when he’d finished. “Nothing more. He may have been in the Numetodo faction, but you’re satisfied he was acting on his own, not on their orders?”
“That’s my conclusion, Kraljica. Yes.”
“I assume you have a signed confession.”
He smiled at that. “Indeed. One that you may. .” He paused. “. .use as you wish.”
“Did he name Envoy ci’Vliomani as the instigator?”
Sergei shrugged. “Only if you wish it to be so.”
Marguerite sniffed. Her fingers trailed along the hem of the cloth over her painting. “At this point, I don’t know what would be to our best advantage,” Marguerite answered. “The confession can remain blank for now, until we know better. Envoy ci’Vliomani has sent over an urgent request to meet with me, along with an official statement denying any connection with the attempt on the Archigos’ life.”
“That’s not surprising. He’s no doubt shaking in his Paetian boots at this, knowing that it’s only going to inflame the anti-Numetodo sentiments in the city. You’ve refused, just to make him worry some more?”
A smile: Sergei knew her well. Sometimes too well. “Yes. I thought perhaps you should talk with him first. Then, if you think I should, I can meet with the man. He’s been very patient thus far.”
“Indeed he has. I’ll make the arrangements. You heard how the Achigos was saved?”
Yes. An acolyte’s spell: a girl from the cu’Seranta family. I also understand that the Archigos will giving her a Marque in gratitude.”
“He already has,” Sergei told her. “The Archigos made the girl an o’teni and placed her on his private staff.” Marguerite glanced again at the windows and the darkness beyond, seeing the bright lights shimmering along the Avi a’Parete. How long had she been sitting there, half-asleep? That was unlike her. “Kraljica, my contacts among the teni tell me that she reacted more like an experienced teni than a raw acolyte; in fact, some of them think what she did may have been against the Divolonte. There are some. . rumors among the teni also-that the girl’s mother was suffering from Southern Fever and that after years in a weak dream-state, she’s suddenly recovered completely. The talk is that a healing might have been performed.”
Marguerite’s eyebrows sought her forehead with that. “Then I’ll need to meet her and the Archigos, won’t I? But that can wait until tomorrow, surely.”
“As the Kraljica wishes. Do you want me to brief the A’Kralj?”
Marguerite shrugged. “If you can find him at this time of night. My son is often. . out.” She didn’t need to say more; it had, after all, been Sergei who alerted her to Justi’s nocturnal wanderings and what they implied. For the moment, her son’s dalliances could be tolerated, but Marguerite knew that she would have to do something to disengage him, and soon.
She had done it several times before, after all.
“If that’s the case, then I will see the A’Kralj in the morning. If the Kraljica will excuse me. .?”
Marguerite gestured dismissal, and Sergei saluted and strode quickly to the door. She watched him leave, standing next to the easel. She waited, her breathing slow, taking in the scent of oiled pigments and dust, looking down at the little table set next to the painting, speckled with a thousand colors. The breeze from the window touched the cloth masking the portrait and rippled the candle flames, and the swaying of cloth and light seemed to mock her.
She lifted the covering.
Justi ca’Mazzak
The a’Kralj moved through the Oldtown night unnoticed.
Or at least he hoped so.
It was difficult to conceal his identity. The fine and expensive clothing he normally wore could be exchanged-and had been-for a plain,rough bashta that a tradesman might wear. He’d scrubbed away the scent of perfumes and ointments and let the smoke from the choked flue of a tavern hearth coil around him until he smelled of soot and ashes.
He’d mussed his hair; he’d been careful not to use the cultured accents of the ca’-and-cu’, but instead the broad intonation of the lower classes.
Still, his voice was distinctly high-pitched, which he knew was a cause of occasional jest when people talked of him. There was no disguising the squared jaw under the band of well-trimmed beard: the jaw his vatarh and great-vatarh had possessed also, and which was prominent in portraits of them. He could stoop, but it was still difficult to disguise the way he towered over most people, or to hide the trim muscularity of his body. He kept a cowl pulled over his head, he leaned heavily on a short walking stick, and he spoke as little as possible.
; He enjoyed nights like this. He enjoyed the anonymity; he enjoyed the escape from the constricting duties of the Kraljica’s court; he enjoyed being simply “Justi” and not “the A’Kralj.” As A’Kralj, he was bound to his matarh’s whims and her rules.
When he was Kraljiki, all that would change. Then Nessantico would dance to his call. The empire would awaken from its long decades of slumbering under his matarh and the current Archigos and his predecessors and realize its true potential.
Soon enough. .
ldtown, despite the intimation of the name, wasn’t the oldest settling within Nessantico. That honor went to the Isle A’Kralji, where the Kraljica’s Grande Palais, the Old Temple, and A’Kralj’s own estate all were situated. But the original dwellings on the Isle had long ago been razed to make room for those far more magnificent buildings and the lavish, manicured grounds on which they stood. Oldtown and the narrow, twisting streets on the north bank of the A’Sele had been the shores onto which the growing city on the Isle had spilled four centuries ago, and Oldtown had changed little in the last few hundred years. Many of the buildings dated back that far. Oldtown clasped its dark past to its bosom and refused to let it go. Mysteries lurked down claustrophobic alleyways, murder and intrigue in the shadows. Its shops contained anything the human heart might desire, if you knew where to find it and could afford it; its taverns were loud and boisterous with the alcohol-buoyed glee of the common folk; its streets swarmed with life in all its glory and all its disgust.
If you can’t find what you desire in Oldtown, it doesn’t exist. It was an old maxim in Nessantico.
Justi had found love in Oldtown, and it was toward love that he hurried, every night that he could find the time to steal away from those around him.
“Pardon, Vajiki. Might you have a d’folia to spare for someone to buy a loaf of bread?” The voice came from the black mouth of an alley, accompanied by the scent of rotting teeth. Here in the bowels of the city near Oldtown Center, well away from the teni-lights of the Avi a’Parete, what illumination there was came mostly from the open windows of taverns and brothels, fitful and dim. Wedges of darkness shifted and Justi saw the man there. He knew him, also: the beggar known as Mad Mahri. Where foul things happen, you’ll see Mad Mahri. It was another saying within the city. The man seemed to be ubiquitous, wandering everywhere through the city, and present often enough at critical events in the city that Commandant ca’Rudka himself had questioned the man. It was rumored that Mahri had acquired at least some of the scars on his body then.
Justi rummaged in the pocket of his cloak; his fingers plucked a small coin from among the others there. He brought his hand out.
“Here,” he said to the beggar. He kept his voice deliberately low, growling the words and disguising his natural high tenor. “Buy yourself bread or a tankard. I don’t care which.”
A hand flashed out and caught the coin as Justi flipped it toward the man. “Thank you, Vajiki,” he said. “And in return, let me give you something.”
“I want nothing from you, Mahri.” Justi took a step away from the man, his right hand straying to the knife he had hidden under his cloak.
Mahri seemed to chuckle. “Ah, Mahri’s no threat to you, Vajiki.
Not tonight. But you do want something from me. You simply don’t realize it. Isn’t that the way it happens too often? We don’t know what it is we need until it’s taken from us, or until we receive it.” His voice changed: it became a breath, a hoarse, urgent whisper. “I know who you are. I know what you want. I know what you’re searching for, and what you’ve found.”
Justi exhaled mockingly, a half-laugh. “I’m supposed to listen to the wisdom of a half-wit who doesn’t even have a d’folia to buy bread?”
A hiss sounded in the darkness. “You wait for your matarh to die.
You yearn for it, and you fear it at the same time. And you lie in the bed of a woman who belongs to another man, and who is her vatarh’s pawn.”
Justi sucked in his breath. His eyes narrowed. He forgot to lower the pitch of his voice, and his reply was shrill. “Why are you accosting me?
What is it you want? All I need to do is call for the utilino. .”
“What I want you’ll eventually give me,” Mahri answered. “I came to tell you this: I know the painted face is also a funeral mask. It will soon be your time, as it should be.”
The words sent a chill through Justi. “What does that mean? Do you offer nothing but riddles?” Justi demanded. Mahri was sinking back into the mouth of the alley, back into darkness. “Wait.” He took a step toward the beggar, but faint candlelight glinted on something arcing toward him, and Justi stepped back, ducking reflexively. He felt something strike his chest, then fall to the cobbled street with a faint clink.
He glanced down. The d’folia he’d given Mahri lay there, his own face in profile on the coin. “Mahri!”
Mahri’s voice called back to him, already distant. “The Concenzia believe that everything was put into the world for Cenzi’s purpose, A’Kralj. Discovering what that purpose might be is the real task of life.
If you abandon the path your eyes show you, you’ll never know truth.”
“Mahri!” Justi called again.
No answer came from the night. The man was gone. Justi glanced down at the coin.
“A problem, Vajiki? Is there something I can do for you?” Sudden light made the bronze d’folia shimmer on the paving stones. Justi jerked his head back up. Where the street intersected another lane, a man in the brocaded uniform of an utilino stood holding up a spell-lit lamp with the reflector aimed toward Justi, who shielded his face from the glare. The utilino were e-teni placed in service of the Garde Kralji: their job was to patrol the streets and put down any trouble they might find, or aid any citizen who needed their help. The utilino’s night-staff was still looped to his belt, but the man placed his lamp on the cobbles and held his copper whistle close to his lips. Justi thought he saw the man’s free hand already moving in the shape of a spell.
“No,” Justi answered. He cleared his throat, tried to bring his voice down. “No problem at all, Utilino. I’ve just dropped something while on my way. I’ve found it now.”
The man nodded. He let the whistle drop on its chain to his chest and picked up his lamp again. “Very good.” The reflector clicked and the light focused on Justi went soft and diffuse, but the utilino paused there, still watching. Justi wondered whether the teni had recognized him. He shrugged his cloak around his shoulders and pulled the cowl up so that his face was in shadow to the utilino. He stepped on the d’folia as he walked past the man, feeling the utilino’s appraising stare on his back.
Justi hurried now, turning left, then right, then left again, moving past the knots of people outside tavern doors or walking down the street, keeping the cowl close to his face as he passed the glowing lantern of another utilino on her rounds, then striding quickly down a deserted lane where the houses seemed to lean toward each other from either side of the street as if weary. He went to a door painted a light blue that seemed pale gray in the night. He pushed it open; inside, a young woman turned from stirring the fire in a shabby but clean room.
“Ah, Vajiki,” the woman said, though Justi knew that she knew well who he was and his true title. “We wondered. . My lady’s upstairs, waiting for you. .”
She took the cloak he handed her silently and placed it on a hook next to another. He went up the stairs and knocked on the door at the landing before pushing the door open. Candles glowed about the room, touching with gold the tapestries on the wall. Naked nymphs and rampant satyrs cavorted there in woven fields, entwined in dozens of inventive embraces. The only furniture in the room was a canopied bed with two night stands.
A room such as one of the grandes horizontales he’d known kept-blatantly sexual, blatantly inviting. The similarity secretly amused him.
Francesca would be appalled if he mentioned the comparison to her.
The draperies of the bed were moved asid
e by a delicate hand as Justi entered. He could glimpse the woman laying there, her hair unbound and spread over the pillow. “I’m sorry to be late, Francesca. I. .”
The memory of Mahri’s strange admonitions made him shiver. “I had an encounter on the way here.”
She frowned, her face at once concerned. She tossed aside the blankets; through the gauze of her gown he saw the hint of darkness at the joining of her legs and the shadows of her breasts. “Dearest, you look as if you just walked through a ghost.” Her eyes were large with pupils the color of newly-turned, rich soil.
Justi forced himself to smile. “It’s nothing,” he told her. “Nothing.
Not when I’m here with you again.”
He closed the door as she came to him in a miasma of perfume. He embraced her, she pulled his head down to her, pressing soft and gentle lips to his, and he would forget everything else for a few hours…
Ana cu’Seranta
The sun was dancing on her eyelids.
Ana blinked and raised her hand to shade herself from the glare.
She glimpsed lacy cuffs and felt the warmth of a thick blanket over her.
She raised her head: she was in a room she’d never seen before, large and richly decorated with a single door. On the wall opposite the foot of her bed was an ornate fireplace within whose hearth Ana could have easily stood upright, and to her left white curtains billowed inward with a breeze from a balcony. The night robe she wore was not one of hers.
The door opened and a head peered in: a young woman, the white, loose cap of a house servant futilely attempting to contain her red curls.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re awake, O’Teni.”
The door closed, only to open again before Ana could move from the bed. Two more servants entered: a middle-aged, stout woman and a younger woman who from their shared features must have been the
older woman’s daughter. The daughter bore a tray with a silver teapot and plates of fruit and bread; the matarh hurried over to the bed. “Stay there, O’Teni. Here, let me put this tray up over you. Now, a few pillows behind your head. .” A moment later, the tray was placed before Ana as she sat up against the headboard. A sumptuous breakfast steamed in front of her, fragrant, and she realized that she was famished.
