by S L Farrell
Ana touched the drapery, letting the paint-stained folds move between her fingers, but remembering the Kraljica’s admonition, she didn’t lift it. Instead, she went to the chair Renard had placed against the wall, and realized immediately why he’d placed it there. Through the wall, she could hear the voices from the room beyond, faint and muffled, but understandable if she remained still and quiet.
“What’s all this about ca’Cellibrecca?” the Kraljica was saying. “I expect you to take care of your own house, Dhosti. I’ve enough trouble with my own concerns with the damned Hirzg. I don’t need to worry about Concenzia as well.”
“I think both issues are intertwined,” the Archigos answered. “As A’Teni of Brezno, Ca’Cellibrecca speaks to Firenzcia, and I know that he has had ongoing communications with the Hirzg. One of my contacts in the ca’Cellibrecca’s staff at Ile Verte was able to see one of those communiques and send a partial copy to me-the letter was in code. I have people working on deciphering it, but the very fact that ca’Cellibrecca would see a necessity for such subterfuge speaks volumes. Marguerite, I believe that A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca and the Hirzg have already formed an alliance. I know what ca’Cellibrecca wants-what he did in Brezno had the cooperation of the Hirzg, and he makes no apology for it. As to the Hirzg and why he would ally with ca’Cellibrecca, well, you know what the Hirzg might desire.”
Ana could almost hear the Kraljica’s frown. “I’m afraid you’re right, Dhosti. Greta. . the Hirzgin. . tells me that much of Firenzcia’s army is ‘on maneuvers’ south of Brezno near the River Clario, and the Hirzg has called down most of the divisions that were stationed on the Tennshah border. Still, the maneuvers are scheduled to end in a handful of days-the Hirzgin assures me that she is confident that despite the Hirzg’s statements, she and Hirzg Jan will be in Nessantico for the final week of the Jubilee. She says she is insisting on it. That’s why the maneuvers were set near the Clario-so they could travel down the river afterward.”
“Convenient,” the Archigos said. “For river travel, or to send the army into Nessantico.”
“You don’t really think. .?” There was silence for a few moments, then Ana heard the Kraljica’s voice again. “Perhaps you’re simply too suspicious, Dhosti. The Holdings have always depended on Firenzcia’s troops as necessary support for the Garde Civile and the chevarittai, and we expect the Hirzg to keep them in readiness. And before you start lecturing me again, I know my history. Hirzg Falwin’s Insurrection was long ago, and only the Hirzg’s own personal division took part in that; the bulk of the Firenzcian troops remained loyal to Kraljiki Henri and refused to fight for the Hirzg. It would be no different now; I don’t think the troops would fight against the Garde Civile, nor do I believe that the Hirzg’s war-teni would obey ca’Cellibrecca’s orders over yours.”
There was a long pause before the Archigos responded. “I hope you’re right. Marguerite, I’ve learned that the same go-between ca’Cellibrecca employed with Hirzg ca’Vorl has also met with your son.
And-you’ve often told me to speak frankly in private with you, and so I hope you forgive me-the A’Kralj has made no secret of his own attitude toward the Numetodo. And he’s becoming increasingly impatient to sit on the Sun Throne.”
Ana heard the Kraljica’s intake of breath, like an angry teakettle, but it was interrupted as Renard knocked on the door of the outer chamber, and he and two servants entered to place tea and and cakes and tarts on the table near the fire. “Your chair is. . comfortable?”
Renard asked Ana, with a faint smile.
“Perfectly,” Ana told him. “And well-placed.”
“I thought it might be.” The man’s rheum-glazed eyes flicked over to the draped portrait of the Kraljica as if he were checking to see if the covering had been disturbed. He evidently realized she’d seen his attention. “I worry about the Kraljica,” he said. “This painter demands too much of her time, and she’s not been well since he started his work.
Yet she indulges him. .” He stopped, brushing imaginary lint from his sleeves. “But that doesn’t concern you, and I shouldn’t have mentioned it. Have some tea, O’Teni. And the cakes are delicious.”
Renard clapped his hands, and the servants finished placing the trays and vanished. Renard gave Ana another bow and followed them.
Ana hadn’t eaten since before Second Call: her stomach rumbled at the sight of the desserts and the tea smelled delicious, and the draped painting still beckoned to her, but she didn’t move, not wanting to miss the conversation in the next room.
“. . you know,” the Kraljica was saying. “My son will do as I tell him to do.”
“While you’re alive, he will.” Ana’s eyes widened with the Archigos’ blunt statement.
“You go too far, Dhosti.” Annoyance sharpened the words.
“To the contrary, Marguerite. Look at me. Any day, Cenzi could call me to Him. That’s simply reality. Ana-she’s the future, as is A’Kralj Justi.” Ana sat up in the chair at the mention of her name, pressing her head back against the wall. “You and I. . We’re the present, ready to become the past all too soon. We both have been perhaps too comfortable in our positions for the last many years, and we both have enemies who are willing to rush Cenzi’s call.”
“Three decades, Dhosti. It’s been thirty years and more since the last time the Garde Civile had to fight more than a border skirmish or a minor uprising.”
“And that’s your legacy as the Genera a’Pace, and the sobriquet is well-deserved. People will call this time the Age of Marguerite, and future generations will always look back on it with longing. But the time is short for your age. Not even you can defy Cenzi and time.”
“Justi could continue it.” The Archigos said nothing. The silence loomed like a thunderhead. “He can,” the Kraljica said at last. “He will.”
“I hope so, Kraljica. I sincerely pray that you’re right.”
“And your new protegee?” the Kraljica said. “At least Justi was brought up to be Kraljiki. He’s been groomed for it for decades. That one’s just a pup, unproven and inexperienced. And potentially dangerous, from what I hear. You think she can continue your legacy, Dhosti?”
“I don’t know,” Ana heard the Archigos answer. She could feel her stomach burning, and the heat in her face. “I’d hoped that I’d have time to find out for certain.”
“She’ll break like an untempered sword.”
“She might. Or not.”
Ana heard footsteps in the room, and she lurched upright guiltily and stood in front of the fireplace as if she’d been there all along studying ci’Recroix’s painting. The door remained closed. The rustic mother in the painting above the mantel smiled sadly at her. Ana could see the imperfections in her face, the pockmarks on her cheeks, the lines that besieged the corners of her mouth, the smudge of soot on her forehead.
Ana forced herself to look away from the painting. She glanced at the door to the other room, which remained closed. She walked slowly toward the canvas on its easel. Again, she touched the cloth and this time let her fingers close around the folds.
She lifted it.
And nearly dropped it again.
She was staring into the Kraljica’s face and the woman was gazing back. The painting was obviously unfinished, but already it was startling. The face, in particular, seemed perfectly three-dimensional and rounded, so realistic in its portrayal that Ana felt herself reaching forward with an index finger to touch the surface of the canvas.
With the touch, she dropped the covering with a gasp.
In the instant her fingertip grazed the canvas, she thought she’d
felt warmth like that of a living face, and she would have sworn that she heard a voice, a distant call just on the edge of recognition. But all the sensations were gone as swiftly as they had come. Ana took several steps back from the painting, cradling her hand to her green robes and staring at the telltale hint of pigment on her forefinger.
The door opened, and the Archigos an
d Kraljica emerged. “. . understand each other,” the Kraljica was saying. The paint is still drying; that’s why it was warm. And I heard the Kraljica’s voice as they approached the door. . Ana smiled at them: as if she’d been waiting patiently, as if she’d overheard nothing they’d said.
“Renard’s brought some refreshments,” she said to them. “Would either of you care for tea?”
Karl ci’Vliomani
“Hsst! Here-quickly!”
Karl had come to the address on the note Mahri had given him-a street that was barely more than an alleyway in the snarled
depths of Oldtown. Only a few people were about, none of them near him. Mahri’s voice came from a shadowed archway. His hand beckoned from the slit of the door. Karl moved toward the door, and it opened wide enough to allow him entry before closing again.
He could smell the beggar as his eyes struggled to adjust to the darkness: mildew, soiled clothing, rotting teeth. Then he heard the click of the door shutting, and light flooded the room. Mahri spoke a word that Karl did not understand, and light streamed from Mahri’s hand: in his cupped palm, a glass orb gleamed with light so bright that Karl shielded his eyes. The light itself was intense, but it illuminated only a globe around them; the rest of the room was dark, and the light-impossibly-cast no shadows. In the harsh, bluish illumination Karl could see Mahri’s face, the torn, ravaged, and scarred landscape that the cowl usually masked. He took a step backward, away from Mahri and outside the globe of light, and night returned, shot through with afterimages of remembered glare. The effect was startling. He couldn’t see Mahri at all, nor the globe of light. They were. . gone.
He stepped forward again to where Mahri had been standing. . and sunlight dawned once more, caught in Mahri’s hand.
Karl shook his head, stunned. The quickness of the spell didn’t startle him; that was a Numetodo trick, after all, one that the teni couldn’t match with their slow chants. But the spell itself. . “That’s. . Well, that’s truly marvelous, Mahri. You’re a teni, then, or were once?”
Mahri laughed at that, a dry and strangled chuckling. “No. Not a teni.”
Karl frowned. “A Numetodo? If so, then-”
Mahri interrupted Karl before he could finish the statement. “Could you do this, Envoy, you or any Numetodo you know?”
“No,” Karl admitted. “My own skills are. . more limited. I’ve still much to learn before I would claim to have mastered the Scath Cumhacht. But I’ve known a few who, back in Paeti. .” He stopped. “No, I don’t think they could have done that, either.”
Mahri nodded. “I’m not Numetodo. But let us say that I have sympathy for your cause. And one doesn’t master the Ilmodo or the Scath Cumhacht or whatever you wish to call it. It always, in the end, masters you.” From outside, there was the sound of carriage wheels and hooves on cobblestones. Mahri tightened his fingers around the globe, and the light it cast dimmed appreciably. “Follow me,” Mahri told Karl. “Stay close to me or you’ll lose the light-the stairs are steep and narrow.”
Staying close to the man’s back, Karl shuffled behind Mahri to an archway, then along a short corridor. The interior of the building was shabby and rundown, with walls broken and rat-holed. He heard the slithering of the creatures in the walls as they passed. At the end of the corridor was a staircase, as steep and narrow as Mahri had advertised; they ascended, then turned into a room directly above the one he’d entered on the ground floor. A feral cat streaked along the wall and out a window as they came in. Mahri extinguished the light entirely, thrusting the globe somewhere in his tattered robes. “Come here, Envoy,” he said.
In the dim light from the quartered moon, Karl could see Mahri beckoning to him from alongside a window with the shutters half-open.
A chair was set just to one side, where someone could watch the street but not be noticed. Karl went to the window and glanced down. A covered, four-person carriage had stopped on the street below at the house next to theirs. Two lanterns mounted on the sides pooled light on the street. The driver had dismounted from his seat and gone to the carriage doors. “Vajica Francesca ca’Cellibrecca-you would know her face?” Karl nodded. “Then watch. You’ll only have a moment.”
The driver opened the carriage doors, and Karl leaned forward, squinting into the night. “That’s not her,” he said as the driver helped down a woman, plainly dressed, and thinner and decidedly shorter than Vajica ca’Cellibrecca, but the woman immediately turned back to the carriage, and he realized she was a servant. Another woman, with an ornate feathered hat and a fur draped around her shoulders, took the driver’s hand and descended from the carriage. As she reached the street and the two women began to hurry toward the door of the house next door, she lifted her face up to the buildings and the dim light of the carriage lamps slid over her features.
“Yes. That’s the Vajica,” Karl said.
“I know,” Mahri answered. “Now get comfortable and wait a bit.
The A’Kralj will come.”
Karl watched the women enter the house as the carriage that had brought them drove off again, then turned back toward the beggar.
“How soon. .” he began, then realized that he was talking to no one.
Mahri wasn’t in the room.
“Mahri?” There was no answer. Karl sighed, sat in the chair by the window and waited.
There was little to watch. The lane, off the main streets, had little traffic, locals walking from their apartments to unknown destinations or appointments, or returning with a sack of greens or a long loaf of bread. Very occasionally, a hired carriage would pass, but none stopped.
He could smell woodsmoke nearby and heard the whistle of an utilino shrilling alarm and saw a wan glow on the bottoms of the clouds from a few blocks away. He hoped the fire-teni were close by to put out the blaze-Oldtown feared fire more than anything. Some time later, the glow subsided; maybe half a turn of the glass, maybe more: the fire-teni had arrived and snuffed out the blaze. Karl was nearly ready to give up his vigil when he saw a man dressed in a dark cloak hurrying down the street. Something about the man’s gait and bearing struck him; when the man stopped across from the house, he pushed the cowl back from his head. There was no mistaking the thrusting chin nor the fine features of his face-Karl had seen them in paintings and glimpsed them a few times at public ceremonies in the city: it was the A’Kralj. Karl leaned forward to watch him go to the door of the house. He didn’t knock-the door opened as he approached and he went in.
“They meet three times a week.” Karl jumped at the sound of Mahri’s voice, turning to see the man standing a bare stride from him. “Always the same days, always the same time, always for the same length of time. The A’Kralj has his matarh’s habit of punctuality and ritual. One might suspect that the A’Kralj performs the same acts in the same way each time as well. Nessantico runs on routine, after all.”
“You might warn a person before you sneak up on them.”
“And spoil the mystery?” Karl thought a grim smile creased Mahri’s scarred, distorted mouth, but it might have been a trick of the shadows.
“If I were you, I’d be wondering what Nessantico might be like if A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca became Archigos and the A’Kralj was suddenly Kraljiki Justi III.”
“I don’t have to wonder,” Karl told him. He rose from the chair.
“You should. There are worse options.”
“Such as?”
“What if it weren’t Kraljiki Justi who ruled Nessantico, but someone who had once been Hirzg? Brezno is ca’Cellibrecca’s seat of power, after all.”
“Then why would ca’Cellibrecca’s daughter be tying herself to the A’Kralj?”
“An intelligent man makes plans for every possible scenario. Whatever you may think of A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca, don’t make the mistake of thinking him or Hirzg Jan stupid.”
“And your plans, Mahri? What might they be?” Karl glanced out of the window toward the street again, empty now except for an utilino strolling south t
oward Oldtown Center. “I’ll grant that you’re more than you seem and I won’t make the mistake of mocking you again. But I still don’t know what you have to offer me-or what I might offer you.
I’m here representing what’s at best a loose coalition of minor kinglets whose lands are smaller than some of the Kraljica’s personal estates, all huddled just outside the Holding’s current borders. I don’t control an army; I don’t even have much influence on those to whom I report. I’m a minor dignitary who hasn’t yet managed to steal even a moment of the Kraljica’s time despite persistent efforts and-I must say-some substantial bribes.”
“You’ve neglected to mention that you sit at the top of a network of Numetodo here in the city and throughout the Holdings. You control Mika ce’Gilan, who in turn is part of the top cell here in the city. I’ve been watching him for some time now. The unfortunate ce’Coeni was just a member of one of the lower cells-the one you know as Boli’s cell, wasn’t it-though I’m certain that he wasn’t acting on your orders.”
His training allowed Karl to show nothing to Mahri of what he was thinking. How does he know all this? I have to tell Mika that we have a bad leak in our organization. . “You’re constructing a conspiracy by the Numetodo where there’s nothing, Mahri,” Karl said. “I’m sure Commandant ca’Rudka would be impressed by your analysis, but I’m not. We Numetodo can’t even agree on what we believe ourselves,
much less cooperate well enough to organize. We have people who still have some lingering belief in Cenzi, however different from the Concenzia; we have those who worship some of the Moitidi in various forms; we have others who believe that there may be no gods at all, that everything in the world can be explained without the need for a god’s intervention. We’d like the freedom to search for our own truths without being persecuted by the Concenzia Faith or the Kraljica’s minions. We’re not a threat to the Holdings or Concenzia as long as they’re not a threat to us. Beyond that, I don’t care who rules the Holdings. That’s all I’m here to ask for, and I’m just what I appear to be. Nothing more.”
