“New ambassador?” he says.
Shara adjusts her glasses. “Oh, dear.”
* * *
Sigrud stares into the fire, massaging the palm of his gloved hand with one thumb. He recalls a saying from his homeland: Envy the fire, for it is either going or not. Fires do not feel happy, sad, angry. They burn, or they do not burn.
It took Sigrud several years to understand this saying, but it took many more for him to learn to be like the fire: merely alive, and no more.
He watches Shara and the man with the cane circle one another in the crowd. See how they stand, faces almost averted, but never quite completely: always they can watch one another, peering over someone’s shoulder or glancing to the side to catch the other’s feigned ignorance.
They watch without watching. It is, he thinks, a clumsy dance.
The man with the cane keeps checking his watch: perhaps, Sigrud thinks, to avoid appearing too eager. After he’s made a good show of pumping the crowd, he grabs a footman and whispers into his ear. The footman orbits the crowd a handful of times before closing in on Shara, to whom he delivers a small white card. Shara, smiling, tucks it away, and after severing herself from the talkative young girl in the furs, slinks upstairs.
Sigrud turns back to the fire. Lovers, certainly. Their movements sing of past caresses. He is amused: though small and quiet, Shara Komayd is as much a weapon as he is. But he realizes this surprise is silly. All creatures in this world have a little love in their lives, however short.
He remembers the whaling ship Svordyaaling. The deck slick with blood and fat as the crew peeled away the skin of a dead whale as one peels an apple. The reeking, bleeding thing clutched to the side of the ship, trailed by churning clouds of gulls. On the days after a kill, after the chase, after the foreman hacked at the beast’s lungs with a halberd until its blowhole sprayed blood, after they dragged it back to the ship across the ocean … On those days down belowdecks Sigrud would pull a locket from his jacket, and he would hold it in his hands, and open it and peer at it by candlelight.…
Sigrud looks at his gloved, aching hand. He cannot recall what the locket looks like, nor can he recall the portrait inside. He thinks he remembers at least the feel of the locket in his hand. But perhaps he is imagining things.
“You seem occupied,” says a voice. A middle-aged woman, obviously wealthy and established, sits next to him by the fire. “Perhaps a drink?” She holds out a goblet of wine.
Sigrud shrugs, takes it, downs it in one gulp. The gold bracelet on his left wrist tinkles as it falls against the buttons on his sleeve. She watches, excited, curious.
“What a remarkable guest you are,” says the woman. “I doubt if Votrov has ever had someone like you under his roof.”
Sigrud puffs at his pipe and watches the fire.
“So what would you be here for?” she asks.
He takes another long puff of his pipe. He considers it. “Trouble,” he says.
Someone has made a ribald joke: a cross section of the crowd bursts into laughter, and some of the more delicate members turn away, offended.
* * *
The clink of glassware, the mutter of laughter. Cheers ring out in some distant cavity of this warped house. How hollow and horrible the wild noise of a party sounds, thinks Shara, when filtering through yards of stone.
The spiral staircase keeps going up. She wonders if she will find him waiting at the top; if he is, she feels it would be wise to tip backward, and tumble down these steps, rather than try to speak to him.
She gets control of herself and climbs the stairs to what is ostensibly the library, but it is far too large to be one room. One wall boasts a massive family portrait. Not once in their two-year relationship did Vohannes ever mention his parents—which now strikes her as odd—yet they look much like she imagined: proud, regal, stern. Father Votrov is dressed in an almost militaristic uniform, with lots of medals and ribbons; Mama Votrov wears a plush, pink ballroom gown. The sort of people who intermittently review their children, she thinks, rather than raise them. But what surprises her more is that standing next to what looks like an eleven-year-old Vohannes is a second boy, slightly older, with darker eyes and paler skin. The two look so alike they could only be brothers, but Vohannes never mentioned him.
The wind rises; the candle flames dance. She licks her fingers, tests the air, and finds the source of the draft in a nearby window. She walks to it.
The lights of Bulikov stretch out below her like a sea of blue-white stars. The moon is weak tonight, but she can see strange, alien forms out among the rooftops: a half-collapsed temple, the ruined skeleton of an estate, the curlicue twist of tottering stairs.
She looks down. Three tin-hatted guards patrol the walls of the house of Votrov, with bolt-shots in their hands. This is interesting: she didn’t see any guards when they arrived out front.
The click of a door handle. She turns and watches as someone fumbles the two side doors open, and the tip of a white cane pokes through.
Now is your last chance to run! says a voice in her mind. She is ashamed that she doesn’t wholly dismiss it outright.
He enters, limping. His white coat is honey-golden in the light of the lamps. He half looks at her—he avoids eye contact—and walks to a drink trolley and pours himself something. Then he begins to hobble over.
“This room,” he says, “is far too large. Do you not agree?”
“That would depend on what it’s used for.” She is not sure what to do with her hands, her body: how many dignitaries she has met before, how many nobles, yet now such awkwardness comes plummeting down on her? “I’m sorry to take you away from your party.”
“Oh, that. I’ve seen it before. Know how it ends.” He grins at her. It is still a blinding smile. “I am not, as they say, on tenterhooks about the whole thing. Enjoying the view?”
“It’s quite … splendid.”
“That’s one word for it.” He joins her at the window. “My father would talk endlessly about the view around here. About what used to be there, I mean. He’d point and say, ‘There, at that corner, that was where we had the Talon of Kivrey! And there, across the park, that was Ahanas’s Well, and the line of people would stretch down the street!’ I was impressed, enamored, until I figured out the timeline and realized dear Papa had not been alive to see any of this. That was all long before his time. He hadn’t really known. He’d just been guessing. And now, I don’t really care to know what he meant, or what all those old things were.”
Shara nods stiffly.
Vohannes glances sidelong at her. “Well, go on.”
“Go on with what?”
“Go on and tell me. I know you’re bursting at the seams to.”
“Well …” She coughs. “If you really want to know … The Talon of Kivrey was a tall metal monument with a small door in the front: visitors would walk in through the door and find something waiting for them, something that would change their lives. Sometimes it would change their lives for the good—a bundle of medicine to bring home to a sick relative—or sometimes it would change their lives for the worse: a bag of coins, and the address of a prostitute who would later bring them to ruin.”
“Interesting.”
“It was probably a testament to the Divinity Jukov’s strange sense of humor: a long, ongoing joke on everyone, in other words.”
“I see. And the well?”
“Oh, just healing waters. The Divinity Ahanas had them all over the Continent.”
He shakes his head, smiling. “Still an insufferable know-it-all.”
She gives him a taut, bitter grin. “And you’re still so smugly, blithely ignorant.”
“Is it ignorance if you don’t care to know it?”
“Yes. That is almost the definition of ignorance, actually.”
He looks her up and down. “You know, you don’t look anything like I expected you to.”
Shara is too affronted for words.
“I thought you’d be all
in jackboots and military gray, Shara,” he says. “Like Mulaghesh down there, but louder.”
“Was I such a terror?”
“You were a bright, blessed little fascist,” says Vo. “Or at least a savage little patriot, as many children of Saypur are. And I’d expect you to come in here the conquering hero, rather than slip in through the backdoor, like a little mouse.”
“Oh, shut up, Vo.”
He laughs. “How remarkable it is that we so quickly fall into our old patterns after so many years apart! Tell me—should I arrest you for violating the WR? I noticed you mentioned a few forbidden names.…”
“I think there’s a clause in there,” says Shara, “specifying that any ground the ambassador walks on is considered Saypuri soil. Do you know, your asinine little speech was probably the longest I’ve ever heard you talk about your family?”
“Is it?”
“You never talked about them at all while we were at school.” Shara nods toward the painting on the wall. “You definitely never told me you’ve got a brother. He looks almost exactly like you.”
Vohannes’s grin grows fixed. “Had a brother,” he says. “And I probably didn’t tell you because he wasn’t a very good one. He taught me Tovos Va—so I suppose we should thank him for having brought us together.” Shara tries to scan his comment for irony, and comes up inconclusive. “He died before I ever went to school. He didn’t die with my parents, not during the Plague Years, but … after.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Really? I wasn’t, not much. Like I said, he was not a very good brother.”
“Your family did leave you a magnificent home. You never talked about that, either.”
“That’s because it didn’t exist yet.” He raps the stone floor with his cane. “I tore the old Votrov manor down the second I came back from school, and had this one built. All my various legal guardians—the old trolls followed me around like ducklings after mama, honestly—all of them were horrified, just horrified. But it wasn’t even the real Votrov manor! Not the centuries-old one everyone talked about, at least. No one knows where the hells that is anymore, just like the rest of Bulikov. We all just pretended that house had always been the house, and nothing ever happened—no Blink, no Great War, nothing. I regret including all these stairs, though.” He winces and touches his hip.
“That’s how you injured yourself?”
He allows a pained nod.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Is it bad?”
“When it’s wet out, yes. But be honest with me.” He spreads his arms and turns his head so light catches the side of his face. “Beyond that, how cruel has time’s blade been to me? Am I still the beauty you fell head over heels for at first sight? I am, admit it.”
Shara resists the urge to push him out the window. “You are a horrific ass, Vo. That hasn’t changed.”
“I’ll take that as a yes. I won’t let you pull your polite little mouse role with me, Shara. The edges on the girl I knew could never be sanded down.”
“Perhaps you didn’t know me as well as you thought,” says Shara. “Do you wonder if your parents would approve of the house, as well as your little party?”
He grins broadly at her. “I expect they’d approve of them just as much as they’d approve of me having a discussion with a Saypuri intelligence officer.”
Someone downstairs crows laughter. There is the tinkle of broken glass, and a sympathetic Awww from the crowd.
Shara thinks, And so we come to it.
“I am happy to see you’re not surprised,” says Vohannes. “You didn’t seem to be hiding it, anyway. There is no way that Ashara Komayd, top of her class at Fadhuri, niece of the minister of foreign affairs, great-granddaughter of the damnable Kaj, could rise only to the lowly position of cultural ambassador.”
She smiles mirthlessly at his flattery.
“And though ‘Ashara’ is a name as common as water,” he says, “ ‘Komayd,’ well … You’d have to get rid of that right quick. Hence the ‘Thivani.’ ”
“I could have married,” says Shara, “and taken my husband’s name.”
“You are not married,” says Vohannes dismissively. He tosses the rest of his drink out the window. “I know married women. There are signals and signs, none of which you possess. Aren’t you worried someone will recognize you?”
“Who?” says Shara. “No one from Fadhuri is on the Continent besides you and me. All the politicos my family ran with are back in Ghaladesh. There’s just Continentals and the military over here, and none of them know my face.”
“And if someone went hunting for Ashara Komayd?”
“Then they’d discover records indicating she retired from the public eye to teach at a small school in Tohmay, in the south of Saypur—a school that I think closed down about four years ago.”
“Clever. So. The only possible reason someone of your level, whatever it is, would come to be in Bulikov now … Well, it’d have to be Pangyui, wouldn’t it? But I’ve no idea why you’ve come to me. I avoided the man like the plague. Too many political consequences.”
Shara says, “The Restorationists.”
Vohannes nods slowly. “Ah. I see … How very political of you. Who better to tell you about them than one of the people they hate most in the world?” Vohannes considers it. “Let us discuss this somewhere else,” he says. “Somewhere with less of an echo.”
* * *
Morotka, the Votrov valet, stamps his feet in the cold. It is remarkably stupid that he’s out here. The party started, what, one hour ago? Less? Yet as house valet, it’s Morotka’s duty to hold the door for all guests, call the cars up, and get them settled. And so many of these foolish people enjoy dropping in, being seen, making an appearance, whatever you’d like to call it, so they leave quite quickly. Mr. Votrov is canny enough to know that these people, regretfully, are usually more important than most, and require unusual glad-handing. But could they not make their appearance just long enough to allow Morotka a swig of plum wine, a pinch of snuff, and a few seconds with his feet by the fire? No, no, of course not, so he stamps his feet in the cold and wonders if kitchen duty would better serve him. He doesn’t mind carrots and potatoes. He could live with that.
There is a clunking to the west, like a can rolling along the street. Curious, he peers out. He sees one guard on the west manor wall—but shouldn’t there be two? Mr. Votrov prefers that his guests do not see the ugly necessities his rather radical positions require, but usually once the reception begins, it’s security as normal.
Morotka grunts. Perhaps the fool is wise enough, he thinks, to shirk outdoors duty when he can. Yet then he squints. Is there something on the wall? Something moving very slowly toward the remaining guard?
Headlights flare at the end of the drive. A car coughs to life and trundles toward the house.
“Oh, no,” says Morotka. He steps out and waves his arm. “No, no, no. What are you doing?”
The car continues toward him. As it wheels around the drive, Morotka shouts, “You come when you’re called, all right? I haven’t flagged you yet. I don’t care what your master says, you come when you’re called.”
As the car pulls up before him, Morotka sees movement on the manor wall out of the corner of his eye: a dark figure peeps up, points something at the remaining guard. There is a click, and the guard goes stiff and tumbles backward, his tin hat bouncing off the wall to clatter and clunk to the street below.
There is the glimmer of a bolt-point in the window of the car. A voice says, “But we have been called.”
Then a harsh click, and the car seems to fall away.
* * *
Sigrud stares into the fire, lost in his memories.
The blood in the water, the halberd in his hands. The monstrous shadow in the sea, thrashing, moaning, spouting gore. How he thought those days hellish, but he’d not known hell yet.
The leather of his gloved hand squeaks as he clenches his fist.
“Are you all right?�
�� asks his companion. The woman examines him. “Would you need another glass of wine?” She gestures to a footman.
Yet then Sigrud hears it, terribly faintly, but there: a very soft click, out at the front of the house. And he knows that sound very well.
At last. A distraction.
“Here,” says the woman. She turns back around with another goblet. “Here you g—”
But she can only stare at the empty seat beside her.
* * *
“The enemy of old Bulikov,” says Vohannes, “is not Saypur, and it is not me, or the New Bulikov movement. It’s time.” They sit on a bed in one of the guest rooms. It is, like most of this floor, decorated in deep, warm reds and gold gilt. The estate grounds end just outside the window, and the walls gently curve around the house below. “There’s a tremendous age gap in Bulikov, you see: after the Great War and the Blink, it took so long for life to return to normal. So there’s a dying portion of the population that still remembers the old ways, and devoutly clings to them, and there’s a growing new portion of the population that never knew anything about them, and doesn’t care. They just know they’re poor, and they don’t have to be.”
“The New Bulikov movement,” says Shara.
Vohannes waves a hand at her. “That’s just a name. What we’re seeing is much bigger than politics. It’s a generational shift, and I am definitely not its creator: I’m just riding the wave.”
“And the Restorationists hate you for it.”
“Like I said, they’re fighting history. And everyone loses that fight.”
“Have they threatened you in any way, Vo?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Then why the guards out front?”
He pulls a face. “Hmph. I prefer to be discreet about that.… But trust you to see. They have never threatened me directly, no. But there’s lots of political talk that teeters toward the violent side. The biggest offender being Ernst Wiclov, who is, more or less, the biggest player in the Restoration game. Another City Father. Rather dogmatic fellow. Throws a lot of money around. I suppose you could say he’s my political opponent. I never engage him—I don’t really need to—but he depicts me less as a political opponent, and more like a demon shat straight out of hell.”
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