She saw Sergei and gestured for him to join her. He bowed-awkwardly, his arthritic body no longer as supple and flexible as it had been when she’d first known him-and he came over to her, leaning heavily on his cane. He smiled at her, the reflective silver paint on his face cracking slightly as he did so. Sergei’s silver nose-the false one he always wore to replace the one of flesh he’d lost in his youth-seemed almost to be part of him tonight. A patchwork of small mirrors covered the bashta he wore. Crazed, broken reflections of herself and the dancers and crowd behind her moved madly around him. The lights of the hall flared and shimmered in the tiny mirrors, dancing from the nearest walls.
“That was quite an entrance,” Sergei said. Allesandra slowed her pace to his as they moved through the crowds.
“Thank you for suggesting the method, though you had poor Talbot terrified that something would go wrong. I must say, however, that I’ll need to retire for a bit soon to have my attendants get rid of the harness; it’s rubbing my poor skin raw.”
He smiled. “The Kraljiki’s entrance should always be dramatic,” he said, smiling. “A little discomfort is fair payment for a stunning appearance. You should know that.”
“That’s easy for you to say, Sergei, when you don’t have to endure it.”
“I’ve always loved the Gschnas,” Sergei told her. “I’m glad you’ve brought back the tradition, Kraljica. Nessantico needs her traditions, especially after the last few years.”
Especially after the last few years. The comment tightened her lips and narrowed her eyes. “You needn’t bring that up now, Ambassador,” she told him. The history was never far from anyone’s mind in Nessantico: the horrible cost of recovery after the Westlanders nearly destroyed the city, the continued separation of the Holdings and the Coalition nations, and most recently, the political and military disaster in West Magyaria.
“Then I won’t,” he answered. “Though I do need to talk with you about the Firenzcian spy that Talbot believes he’s discovered…” As Sergei talked, she looked away from the images of herself on his clothing to the crowd that pressed in around them. She saw a man staring at her. He was handsome, his skin somewhat darker than most of those in the hall, his head entirely shaved, though his beard was full and midnight-black. His clothing was loose and wildly-colored, and feathers sprouted from the shoulders as if he were some exotic bird. His eyes- behind a beaked demi-mask-were strangely blue and light, his gaze piercing and keen. He saw her attention and he nodded slightly toward her.
Sergei was still talking. “… already has the traitorous servant in the Bastida, so he’ll be no more trouble. But there are still the Morellis-” He stopped as she raised her hand.
“Who is that man?” she whispered to Sergei, glancing again at him. “He looks Magyarian.”
Sergei followed her gaze. “Indeed, Kraljica. That is Erik ca’Vikej. He’s just come to Nessantico yesterday. There’s undoubtedly a note on your desk from him requesting an audience. I haven’t had the chance to speak to him myself yet.”
“Stor ca’Vikej’s son?” The man had truly wonderful eyes. He continued to regard her, though he made no move to approach.
“The same.”
“I will see him,” she told Sergei. “In the south alcove, a mark of the glass from now. Tell him.”
Sergei might have frowned, but he bowed his head. “As you wish, Kraljica,” he said. His cane tapped on the marble floor as he left her side, his costume sending motes of light fluttering. Allesandra turned away, nodding and conversing with others as she moved slowly around the hall. Talbot came to her side, having paid and dismissed the teni who had helped with her descent, and she told him to clear the south alcove. She continued on her procession around the room. A’Teni ca’Paim, the head of the Faith in Nessantico, dressed tonight as one of the Red Moitidi, was approaching. “Ah, A’Teni ca’Paim, so good of you to attend, and your teni have done a wonderful job this evening. ..”
A mark of the glass later, Allesandra had made a circuit of the hall and moved past the line of servants Talbot had set around the alcove to keep away the crowd. She took a seat there, listening to the music. A few moments later, Sergei approached, with ca’Vikej just behind him. “Kraljica, may I present Erik ca’Vikej…”
The man stepped forward and performed a deep, elaborate bow. She remembered that bow: a Magyarian form of courtesy. The ca’-and-cu’ of West Magyaria had bowed the same way for her late husband Pauli, who had become Gyula of West Magyaria after their rancorous separation, only to be assassinated by his own people eight years later. Two years ago, Eric’s vatarh, Stor, had tried to step into the vacuum left by Pauli’s death.
Allesandra had made the decision to back him. That choice had turned out to be a poor one, the full extent of which was still be determined. She’d made the choice to send only a small part of the Holdings army to support Stor ca’Vijek’s own troops. That had doomed them, and the effort had ended in a military defeat for the Holdings at the hands of Allesandra’s son, Hirzg Jan.
“Especially after the last few years…” Sergei’s comment still rankled.
“Kraljica Allesandra, it is my pleasure to meet you at last.” The man’s voice was as stunning as his eyes: low and mellifluous, yet he didn’t seem to notice its power. He kept his head down. “I wanted to thank you for your support of my vatarh. He was always grateful to you for your championing of our cause, and he always spoke well of you.”
Allesandra searched his voice for a hint of sarcasm or irony; there was none. He seemed entirely sincere. Sergei was looking carefully to one side, hiding whatever he was thinking. Close, she could see the gray flecks in ca’Vikej’s beard and the lines around his eyes and mouth: he was not much younger than she was herself-not surprisingly, since Stor ca’Vikej had been elderly when he’d tried to take the Gyula’s throne. “I wish events had gone differently,” she told him. “But it wasn’t Cenzi’s Will.”
The man made the sign of Cenzi at that statement-he was of the Faith, then. “Perhaps less Cenzi than circumstances, Kraljica,” he answered. “My vatarh was… impatient. I’d counseled him to wait for a time when the Kraljica and the Holdings could have supported us more openly. I told him then that the two battalions you sent were the most he could expect unless he waited, but…” He shrugged; the motion was as graceful as his manner. “I warned him that Hirzg Jan would come down with the full fury of the Firenzcian army.”
Yes, and Sergei told me the same thing, and I didn’t believe him. She nodded, but she didn’t say that. Handsome, modest, polite, but there was ambition in Erik ca’Vikej as well. Allesandra could see it. And there was anger toward the Coalition for his vatarh’s death. “You are more patient than your vatarh, perhaps, Vajiki ca’Vikej, but yet you want the same thing. And you’re going to tell me that there are still many Magyarians who support you in this.”
He smiled at that: graceful, yes. “Evidently my head is entirely transparent to the Kraljica.” He swept a hand over his bald skull. He managed to look almost comically bemused. “Next time, I should perhaps wear a hat.”
She laughed softly at that; she saw Sergei glance at her oddly. “Supporting your vatarh as much as I did nearly brought me to war with my own son,” she told him.
“Family relationships too often resemble those between countries,” he answered, still smiling. “There are some borders that must not be crossed.” He cocked his head slightly as the musicians started a new song out in the hall. He held his hand out toward Allesandra. “Would the Kraljica be willing to dance with me-for the sake of what she meant to my vatarh?”
Allesandra could see the slight shake of Sergei’s head. She knew what he was thinking as well: You don’t want reports to get back to Brezno that you are entertaining Stor ca’Vikej’s son… But there was something about him, something that drew her. “I thought you were a patient man.”
“My vatarh also taught me that an opportunity missed is one forever lost.” His eyes laughed, held in fine, dark lines.
Allesandra rose from her chair. She took his hand.
“Then, for the sake of your vatarh, we should dance,” she said, and led him from the alcove.
Varina ca’Pallo
It was difficult to be stoic, even though she knew that was what Karl would have wanted of her.
Karl had been failing for the last month. Looking at him now, Varina sometimes found it hard to find in the drawn, haggard face the lines of the man she had loved, to whom she’d been married for nearly fourteen years now,
