everyone who passed by on the Avi could look up and see him: an object lesson of what happens to those who overstep their place. If you look, I think you can still see the brackets for the chains there on the stones.”
Karl glanced at the rusted loops of metal set at the ledge’s end just before the long fall to the courtyard below where the dragon’s head glared at the Bastida’s gates, and he shivered. He swallowed with difficulty around the tongue gag. “More recently, the Kraljica had her cousin Marcus ca’Gerodi put here for treason, early in her reign,” ca’Rudka said, “but he was neither as long-lived or stubborn as ca’Niomi, nor as artistic. We never had any poetry from poor ca’Gerodi.”
Ca’Rudka sighed, standing. “One-sided conversations are boring, I’m afraid. For both of us. I believe you to be a man of honor, Envoy ci’Vliomani. I would accept your pledge not to use any of your Numetodo tricks and remove your silencer. Your hands, I’m afraid, will have to remain bound, but we could at least talk. Do I have your word?”
Karl nodded as he stepped back into the dank room, unable to keep the gratitude from his eyes. “If you would turn around, Envoy. .” As Karl complied, he heard the jangle of keys, and a
The man managed to say it with a smile, as if they were sharing a joke. Again, the gardai in the corridor chuckled softly. Karl struggled to keep the shock from his face, but the broadening smile on ca’Rudka’s face made him suspect he’d not been successful.
“It’s a preferable alternative, Commandant,” Karl told him. His jaw ached with the movement, and his words were slurred. “I’ll grant you that. Though we Numetodo aren’t the threat to Nessantico that you believe us to be.”
“Ah. You think I’m a monster.”
Karl shook his head. “A monster would have already done those things to me. A monster wouldn’t have. .” He glanced at the gardai in the corridor and lowered his voice to a whisper. “. . tried to warn me to leave the city.”
Another smile. “Ah, yes. A man of discretion, even in these circumstances. You see, I do like you, Envoy. I liked you from the time we talked in the Kraljica’s gardens. It’s rare to find people who are honest about what they believe, and rarer still when they persist in the face of persecution.”
“I didn’t kill the Kraljica, Commandant. I had nothing to do with it.”
“I believe that completely,” ca’Rudka said. “I truly do.”
“Then let me go.”
“What I believe has little impact on what I’m required to do, Envoy,”
the man answered. “Tell me, did you know that painter ci’Recroix?”
“I saw him once or twice, walking in the city,” Karl answered. “I knew he was painting the Kraljica’s portrait, but so did everyone else.”
“Was he a Numetodo?”
Karl shook his head vigorously. “I would have known that, Commandant. The man was very recognizable, and someone of his reputation. .
Well, I would have heard of him even before I came to Nessantico were he one of us. I didn’t. Why do you ask about the painter? If you think that he had something to do with the Kraljica’s death, then why am I here?”
“The A’Kralj ordered your arrest, as well as that of all the Numetodo in the city.”
Karl found his breath caught in his throat. “All. .”
The commandant nodded. “Those we suspect, in any case. They’re here in the Bastida, though not. .” He let his gaze wander around the tiny, dour room. “. . in such palatial conditions as you. All silenced and bound, though- until the Kraljiki tells me what I’m to do.”
Karl grimaced. In the manacles, his fists clenched. “Given that the Kraljiki has already made it clear that he favors ca’Cellibrecca over the Archigos, then we’ll see Brezno repeated, and worse. Will you enjoy that, Commandant? It will be your duty to direct the maimings and executions, after all.”
Ca’Rudka made no answer at first. His eyebrows lifted slightly. “If it comes to that, Envoy ci’Vliomani,” he said finally, “I promise you that your end will be quick.”
Karl could not keep the bitterness from his voice. “That gives me great solace.”
If ca’Rudka heard the sarcasm in Karl’s voice, he didn’t respond to it. “You Numetodo don’t understand what it is to obey,” he answered.
Ca’Rudka said it without heat, without any apparent passion at all.
“You believe what you each please. You’re like wild horses. Despite any power you might have, you’re useless because you don’t understand the bridle and the bit.” The commandant moved to the window of the cell, looking out toward the city. “It’s obedience to a higher authority that created everything you see out there, Envoy. All of it. All of Nessantico, all of the greater Holdings. Without obedience-to Cenzi, to the Divolonte, to the laws of the Kralji, to the rules of society-there’s nothing but chaos.”
“Were you born here, Commandant? In the city, I mean?”
The man glanced back over his shoulder at Karl. “I was,” he said.
“You’ve never been elsewhere?”
“I served in the Garde Civile when I was young. I saw war along the frontier of East Magyaria, when the Cabasan of Daritria crossed the Gereshki with his army in violation of the Treaty of Otavi.” He touched his silver nose. “I lost my real one there, in a stupid quarrel with one of our own men. Afterward, I came back here a chevaritt, with a recommendation from my superiors, and joined the Garde Kralji.”
“You’ve never been to the western borders? Never crossed the Strettosei to Hellin or the Isle of Paeti?” Ca’Rudka shook his head. “If you had,” Karl continued, “you might understand. Ah, the Isle. . There’s not a greener, more lush and more varied country in the world. And there, Commandant, where a dozen cultures have come and gone, we
understand that ‘different’ isn’t a synonym for ‘wrong.’ There are many ways to learning the truth of how the world works, Commandant. The Concenzia Faith is just one. It’s just not
Ca’Rudka had turned back into the room, leaning against the wall by the balcony. “If I wanted to flay you, Vajiki, I would have already done it, and for less provocation. Tell me.”
Karl licked his lips. “My parents lived on the eastern coast of the Isle. They were of the Faith, and they brought me up to believe in Cenzi. They read the Toustour to me; they followed the precepts of the Divolonte. When I became a young man, though, I had the wanderlust and I traveled with a company of traders beyond the Isle to what you call the Westlands, past the green mountains on the borders of Hellin. That trip opened my eyes and my mind. There, out in a flat plain of grasses that stretched like a waving ocean from horizon to horizon, I saw a city that could have easily held three Nessanticos, grand and glorious, with enormous buildings like stepped mountains on top of which their priests held their ceremonies, with buildings of cut stone that gleamed in the sun, while canals glittered with sweet water alongside avenues wider than the Avi. The people there wore clothing of a fabric I’d never seen before, bright and smooth to the touch, a cloth that let the breezes flow through to keep you cool in the heat. And at night-Commandant, the city glowed with mage-fire brighter than the Avi. They used your Ilmodo, too, though they didn’t call it either ‘Ilmodo’
Second World as well as any of the teni. That, Commandant, is when my own faith began to waver.”
“Perhaps it was a test,” ca’Rudka answered without emotion. “One that you failed.”
“That’s what the teni on the Isle told me later.” Karl shrugged.
“The traders I traveled with said that there were even greater cities, farther west and south, all the way to the shore of the Western Sea two hundred days’ or more march from where we were. They said
that they were part of an empire larger, richer, and more powerful than the Holdings. I don’t necessarily believe those stories-I know as well as you that travelers’ tales grow with each telling, and that it’s our nature to
