Firenzcia…
The soup had been served and the silence had stretched too long. Allesandra could hear the breathing of the servants and the distant, muffled clatter of the cook and the kitchen help a floor below them. “I understand that the other lancer has died also,” Allesandra commented when it was apparent that no one else was willing to start a conversation.
Fynn glared at her down the length of the table “That was Cenzi’s Blessing,” he said. “The man would never have walked again. The healer said his spine was broken; if I were him, I’d rather die than live the rest of my life as a useless cripple.”
“I’m sure he felt the same as you, Brother.” She kept her voice carefully neutral. “And I’m sure that the Archigos did what he could to ease his passing.” Another pause. “As far as the Divolonte would allow, of course,” she added.
Francesca let her spoon clatter back to the table at that. “You may have been soiled by the beliefs of the false Archigos during your years with her, A’Hirzg,” she declaimed coldly, “but I assure you that my husband has not. He would never -”
“Francesca!” Semini’s rebuke caused Francesca to snap her mouth closed, like a carp gulping on a riverbank. He glared at her, then clasped hands to forehead as he turned to Allesandra. His gaze held hers. Allesandra had always thought that the Archigos had exquisite eyes: powerful and engaging. She had also noticed that when she was in the room, Semini often paid close attention to her. That had never bothered her; she enjoyed his attentions. She’d thought, back when her vatarh had finally ransomed her, that he might have married her to Semini, had he not already been tied to Francesca. That would have been a powerful marriage, allying both the political and religious powers within the state, and Semini might have been someone she could have come to love, as well. Even now… She closed off that thought, quickly. She had taken lovers during her marriage, yes-as she had known Pauli had also done-but always carefully. Always discreetly. An affair with the Archigos… that would be difficult to conceal.
“I apologize, A’Hirzg,” Semini said. “Sometimes my wife’s, ahh, devotion to the Faith causes her to speak too harshly. I did give the poor lancer what comfort I could, at the Hirzg’s request.” He addressed Fynn then. “My Hirzg, you shouldn’t be concerned with the gossip of the rabble. In fact, I will make it clear in my next Admonition that those who believe that there are portents in this horrible incident are mistaken, and that these wild rumors are simply lies. I’ve already had people begin to make inquiries as to who is spreading all the vile gossip-I would say that if the Garde Hirzg takes a few of them into custody, especially a few of those of lower rank, and, ahh, convinces them to recant publicly before they’re executed for treason, that would certainly act as a lesson to the others. I think we’d find that all the talk about what happened at your vatarh’s burial would vanish as quickly as snow in Daritria.”
Francesca was nodding at her husband’s words. “We should treat these people no better than we would the Numetodo,” she agreed. “Just as the Numetodo are traitors to the Faith, these rumormongers are traitors to our Hirzg. A few bodies swaying in gibbets will adequately shut the mouth of the populace.” She glanced at Allesandra. “Wouldn’t you agree, A’Hirzg?” she asked, her voice far too gentle and far too eager. The woman actually leaned forward at the table, emphasizing her humped back.
“I think it’s dangerous to equate rumormongering with heresy, Vajica ca’Cellibrecca,” she began carefully, but Jan interrupted her.
“If you punish people for gossiping, you’ll convince them instead that the rumors are true,” her son said, the first words he’d spoken since they’d sat at the table, then shrugged as the others looked at him. “Well, that’s the truth,” he insisted. “If you give them the sermon you suggest, Archigos, you’ll just be drawing more attention to what happened, which will make people believe the rumors even more. It’s better to say and do nothing at all; all this talk will fade away on its own when nothing else happens. Every time one of us repeats the gossip, even to deny or refute it, we make it seem more real and more important than it is.”
She followed Jan’s gaze from Semini to the others at the table. Semini was glowering, his eyebrows lowered like thunderclouds over those captivating eyes; Francesca’s mouth gaped open as if she were too stunned for words at the boy’s impertinence; she gave a cough of derision and waved a hand like a claw in Jan’s direction, as if warding off a beggar’s curse. Fynn was staring down at the tablecloth in front of him. “It’s better to say and do nothing,” Jan repeated into the silence, his voice thinner and more uncertain now, “or what happened will become a sign. You’ll all have turned it into one.”
Allesandra touched his arm: it was what she would have said, if less diplomatically spoken. “Well said,” she whispered to him. He might have smiled momentarily; it was difficult to tell.
“So if you were the Hirzg, you’d do nothing?” Francesca said. “Then let’s thank Cenzi that you’re not, child.”
That brought Jan’s head up again. “If I were Hirzg,” Jan answered her, “I’d be thinking that these rumors aren’t worth my time. There are more important events that I’d be considering, like the death of Archigos Ana, or the war in the Hellins that’s sapping Nessantico’s resources and their attention, and what all that means for Firenzcia and the Coalition.”
Francesca snorted again. She returned her attention to her soup, as if Jan’s comment was beneath consideration. Semini was shaking his head and glaring at Allesandra as if she were directly responsible for Jan’s impertinence.
She thought Fynn was angry beneath the scowl he wore, but her brother surprised her. “I believe the young man’s right,” Fynn said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. He gave Jan a smile twisted by the scar on his face. “I hate the thought of having to hear the whispers for even another breath, but… you’re right, Nephew. If we do nothing, the gossip will fade in a week, maybe even a few days. Perhaps I should make you my new councillor, eh?”
Jan beamed at Fynn’s praise as Francesca sat back abruptly with a frown. Semini tried to look unconcerned. “You’ve raised an intelligent young man, Sister,” Fynn told Allesandra. “He’s as bold as I’d want my own son to be. I should talk more with you, Jan, and I regret that I don’t know you as well as an onczio should. We’ll start to rectify that tomorrow-we’ll go hunting after my afternoon conferences, you and I. Would you like that?”
“Oh, yes!” Jan burst out, suddenly the child again, presented with an unexpected gift. Then he seemed to realize how young he sounded, and he nodded solemnly. “I’d enjoy that very much, Onczio Fynn,” he said, his voice pitched low. “Matarh?”
“The Hirzg is very kind,” Allesandra told him, smiling even as suspicion hammered at her. First Vatarh, now Fynn. What does the bastard think he can gain with this? Is he just trying to get to me by stealing Jan’s affection? I’m losing my son, and the tighter I try to hold him, the faster he’ll slip away… “It sounds like a wonderful idea,” she told Jan.
The White Stone
There were easy killings, and there were hard ones. This was one of the easy ones.
The target was Honori cu’Belgradi, a merchant dealing in goods from the Magyarias, and a philanderer who had made the mistake of sleeping with the wrong person’s wife: the wife of the White Stone’s client.
“I watched him tup her, ” the man had told the White Stone, his voice shaking with remembered rage. “I watched him take my wife like an animal, and I heard her call out his name in her passion. And now. .. now she’s pregnant, and I don’t know if the child is mine or.. .” He’d stopped, his head bowed. “But I’ll make certain that he’ll do this to no other husband, and I’ll make certain that the child will never be able to call him vatarh…”
Relationships and lust were responsible for fully half of the White Stone’s work. Greed and power accounted for the rest. There was never a dearth of people seeking the White Stone; if you needed to find the Stone, you found the way.
Honori cu’Belgradi was a creature of habit, and habits made for easy prey. The Stone had watched him for three days, and the man’s ritual never varied by more than a quarter turn of the glass. He would close his shop in Ville Serne, a town a half-day’s ride south of Brezno, then stroll to the tavernhouse on the corner of the next street over. He would stay there until four turns of the glass after third call, after which he would go to the rooms where the woman-the wife of the Stone’s client-waited for their nightly tryst.
