yesterday into Firenzcia, passing through the guard station set up across the Avi at the border town of Ville Colhelm. They were three days from Nessantico, and Estraven was regretting ever having agreed to his marriage- vatarh’s request. At the least, A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca could have allowed him to bring his own staff, but the A’Teni had insisted that they remain behind at the temple on the Isle A’Kralji so they could attend to the Kraljica’s funeral ceremonies.
“When you get to Brezno, my own people will be waiting for you,” ca’Cellibrecca had said. “As I told you, Cu’Belli is a crude man in many ways, but he’s also a loyal one. He’ll make certain that you’re comfortable, if only because that’s what he’ll want himself.”
Estraven had to agree with his marriage-vatarh’s assessment of “crude.” The man was certainly that. His vision of “comfortable” seemed to consist mostly of whether the inn’s kegs were full of good ale and that the barmaids were comely and seducible. He’d drunk and whored the night away in each village they’d stayed in. Estraven had stayed in his room in disgust, forcing the e-teni to do the same, spend-ing his time writing letters to Francesca and to his o’teni aides at the Old Temple back in Nessantico.
It would all be worth it one day. One day he would be A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca himself, stationed in one of the great cities of the Holdings. He would work with his marriage-vatarh, who would be Archigos Orlandi, and together they would create a Concenzia Faith stronger than it had ever been, unassailable and more powerful even than the Kralji and the rulers of the other lands of the Holdings. They would be the founders of a new order firmly rooted in the words of the Toustour and the law of the Divolonte.
A better world than this one. Which wasn’t at the moment hard for Estraven to believe at all. Nearly any world would be better than this one. Estraven’s clothes were soaked, and he was fairly certain he’d picked up a horrible infestation of lice from one of those lonely beds.
They’d spent the previous night at one of Ville Colhelm’s many inns, with cu’Belli imperiously telling the innkeeper that “A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca of Brezno will pay for your best rooms.” In the morning, one of the chambermaids had delivered a note from cu’Belli.
Now it seemed cu’Belli’s “business” had kept him longer than expected. The sun was hidden behind scudding clouds and the fine rain misted Estraven’s woolen cloak, but it was midmorning. Had to be. Estraven glanced in annoyance at the zenith, blinking into the drops of rain. He sneezed. “Damn the man,” he said.
Estraven gave the sign of Cenzi, then began to whisper a quick chant, his hands moving in the wet air: a warming chant. He felt the surge of blessed heat wash over him as he finished the spell and he sighed gratefully- one of the quicker and more useful of the little chants that any teni was taught to do, and one most teni tried to work surreptitiously when trapped in long ceremonies on cold winter mornings in the temples, especially since the spell taxed its caster very little. At least he wouldn’t catch his death of illness out here in the cursed weather.
He thought he heard the snap of a branch from the trees beyond the standing stones, and he straightened in his saddle, turning his head.
“Cu’Belli?” he called. “Come, man. We’ve wasted half the day already.
We’re still a good two days’ ride from Brezno.”
This time an answer came in the sinister
Estraven grunted in surprise and shock as an arrow whistled past his left ear; an instant later he fell backward from his horse’s saddle as a trio of feathered shafts sprouted from his cloak: two in his chest, the other in his right shoulder, the shock of their impact sending him to the ground. Spattered with mud, blinking in the rainfall, he looked down at the arrows in surprise, confused by their impossible appearance, touching the dark feathers of their fletching even as he saw the blood beginning to spread out from the wounds. He tried to rise, managing to struggle up on his knees. Strangely, he felt little pain, only a great tightness in his chest.
This was a dream. This was a sign from Cenzi. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real.
“I’m here as promised, U’Teni,” Estraven heard cu’Belli’s voice call out, and the portly man stepped from behind one of the moss-flecked stones. His quartet of companions were with him, and they held bows with new arrows nocked to the strings. There was another man with him as well, dressed in the uniform of Firenzcia’s army.
“Treachery!” Estraven tried to call, but his voice was garbled and he spat blood. “Help!” He started to chant, tried to force his hands to move in a new spell, one that would smash cu’Belli and gain him time to get back on his horse and ride away, but cu’Belli gestured quickly and the bows came up and the bowstrings sang their note of death, and Estraven was slammed backward again into the rain and into the mud of Firenzcia and into whatever afterlife awaited him.
Ana cu’Seranta
She tried to refuse to see him. She’d feigned sickness that morning so she wouldn’t have to attend the opening of the Archigos’
Temple at First Call, and so she wouldn’t need to chant with the others and light the temple’s lamps. When the Archigos had come to her apartment, she’d sent Watha out to tell him that she could not see him now, but she’d returned with a pleased, grim smile. “The Archigos waits for you in the outer reception room, O’Teni,” she’d said. “He said that you will dress and meet him for breakfast. Beida is already serving him tea.”
She’d dressed, and gone to him. There had been no choice. Now, after the formal, empty greetings, after sitting there watching the Archigos drink his tea and eat his biscuits, the smell of them making her own stomach grumble in protest, the Archigos had pushed away the tray with his breakfast and leaned forward with his elbows on the table.
“I am going to suggest to our new Kraljiki that you would make an excellent wife for him.”
It was a statement that had shocked Ana to her core, and now he stared at her as the discomfort colored her face. She could not breathe for a moment; her hands pressed against her heart as she sat back in her chair across from him. Underneath her robes she could feel the stone shell Karl had given her. It gave her no comfort.
“That is not what I want, Archigos,” she said. “You have no right to use me that way, no matter what you paid my parents.” A sullen, liquid fire burned high in her throat and her temples pulsed with the beat of her heart. She could feel her hands trembling as she placed them on the table. “Even if the A’Kralj would agree to it, I will not.”
The Archigos nodded, as if her response was what he had expected.
“I understand your reluctance, Ana. I do. But you will learn, sooner than I did, perhaps, that the higher you ascend in life, the higher are the pay-ments expected of you. Certainly the Kraljica expected such of her nieces and nephews, and of the A’Kralj himself. She knew what a weapon the right marriage could be. She had already broached this possibility to me, the day after she first met you-when, you should know, my own niece Safina had been considered for the same position. So I don’t suggest this lightly; this alliance could be more important now that the Kraljica is gone. The A’Kralj will be the Kraljiki, and he is unduly influenced by A’Teni ca’Cellibrecca. Without some countering influence, Justi’s ascension to the Sun Throne could cause changes in Concenzia-changes that would undo all that I and Kraljica Marguerite tried to accomplish.”
He sighed, lifting a hand and letting it fall again. The tea shivered in his cup; the biscuits jumped on their plate. “There’s another matter also. The army of Firenzcia is gathering too near the border for anyone’s comfort. I think now is indeed the time for action, or it may be too late.
Justi is not who I would want as Kraljiki, but he is still a better option than Jan ca’Vorl. Would it be so bad, Ana, to be the Kraljiki’s wife? Do you have other and better prospects? Your Numetodo from the Gschnas, perhaps?
I know you went to see Envoy ci’Vliomani the other day, Ana-” he raised his hand against Ana’s burgeoning protest, “-and I want you to know that I don’t care-as long as your curiosity doesn’t get in the way of your faith or your duty.”
But she would not say that. The Archigos seemed to take her silence as consent, and continued to speak.