“I don’t need your pity, Varina, and I don’t want or need your help,” he spat back at her. The words sliced into her. “What do I need to do to make that clear to you?”
“You just have,” she told him. “You’ve made it very clear indeed.” With that, she gestured at the open, sunny expanse of Oldtown Center. “Go on,” she said. “I won’t follow you anymore.”
With that, not daring to look back, she started walking away southward, back toward the Numetodo House. She didn’t look back. She told herself that she didn’t want to see whether he was watching her or not.
Allesandra ca’Vorl
Besteigung. the inaugural for the new Hirzg.
The day dawned brilliant and cooperative, with a sky of lush azure in which misty ships of pale white clouds scudded westward and away. The heat had broken, driven away by a cleansing rain the night before. Cenzi had blessed the day, and the teni beamed as if it had been their prayers that had caused the day to be so beautiful.
Perhaps it had.
Allesandra prayed to Cenzi as well. She prayed that the day might turn out as she hoped it would, that she had not misread the signs. And though she prayed, she also made certain that a dagger was sheathed to her forearm under the frilled and lacy sleeve of her tashta. She had learned long ago from her vatarh to never be without a weapon.
The day would be a long one for Fynn-and for those, like Allesandra, who were required to attend to him. First came the ceremony in Brezno Temple at First Call, where the Archigos gave the new Hirzg the Blessing of Cenzi. Then there were the required state visits: to the Tomb of Hirzg Kelwin, first Hirzg of Firenzcia; to the temple near the Hirzg’s Palais that held a vial of blood from Misco, the founder of Firenzcia; to the great cracked boulder near Brezno’s main square, where it was said that the Moitidi-at Cenzi’s request-sent a furious lightning bolt down to earth to smite the army of Il Trebbio when it invaded Firenzcia in 183 during the midst of the Three Generation War. At each location, there were the obligatory speeches and ceremonies, and the ca’-and-cu’ listened attentively, grateful that there was no driving rain or bitter cold or humid heat to endure beyond the stultifying, expected phrases.
Then there came the final procession to the new statue of Falwin I, erected by Allesandra’s vatarh Jan after he declared Firenzcia’s secession from the Holdings-it was Falwin who had led the tragically unsuccessful revolt against Kraljiki Henri VI in 418, and it was there that Fynn had erected the dais where, at last, the Crown and Ring of Firenzcia would be officially declared his to bear.
As Archigos ca’Cellibrecca passed Allesandra in his teni-driven carriage on his way to his place in the line of dignitaries, he leaned from the window and ordered the driver to halt. The e’teni stopped her chanting and the wheels slowed. The Archigos beckoned to Allesandra over the broken-globe symbol of Cenzi painted in gold and lapis. “Excuse me a moment,” she told Jan and Pauli. Jan shrugged at his matarh; Pauli, deep in a conversation with a pretty young woman of the ca’Belgradin family, gave no acknowledgment at all. Allesandra went to the Archigos’ carriage and gave the sign of Cenzi to Semini. Francesca was sitting next to the Archigos, in shadow. “A beautiful day for the ceremony,” she said to him, to Francesca. “Cenzi has smiled on Fynn.”
“Indeed,” Semini answered. His voice dropped, low enough that Francesca could not have heard him, barely audible over the tumult of the musicians beginning the processional march. “However, A’Hirzg, I would not stand too close to the new Hirzg on the dais.”
“Archigos?”
He glanced to the rear of the line, where Fynn’s carriage-drawn by four white horses, one of them riderless- waited. “It’s a beautiful day indeed,” he said, more loudly now. “A good one for all of Firenzcia, I think,” he said. “Driver-they’re waiting for us.”
The e’teni began chanting again; the wheels creaked as they began to turn once more. Allesandra stepped back from the carriage as Semini nodded to her and sat back again on his cushioned seat next to Francesca, who gave Allesandra a sour look as they passed. She watched them move into line just before the Hirzg’s carriage.
She had been on edge all day, wondering if ca’Cellibrecca truly intended to carry out what he had hinted at-he would do nothing himself, of course, but work through layers of intermediaries; if something were to happen, the Archigos would also want it to occur in public, where he could be seen not to be involved, and where it would have the most impact. It was exactly what she would have done herself.
“I would not stand too close to the new Hirzg…”
A thrill of fear overlaid with excitement went through her. She wanted to run back to the Archigos, to whisper three words to him: “The White Stone?” If he nodded yes to that, then what she had planned would be a dangerous ploy indeed, given the legends of the assassin. The White Stone, it was said, would kill anyone who tried to interfere with his completion of a contract The White Stone, those same rumors declared, was a master in the use of every weapon; there was no one who could safely cross blades with him. But the White Stone always struck his victims in isolation, not in the midst of crowds. It couldn’t be him… at least Allesandra hoped not.
Whatever the case, it would happen soon, then. Soon. And any way this might play out, she would be the one who profited the most-if she was careful. In time. All in time. She returned to her family. “What’d the Archigos want, Matarh?” Jan asked her. Pauli continued to chat with the ca’Belgradi woman.
“To talk about the weather and-according to Francesca-take credit for it,” Allesandra told him; Jan laughed at that. “Yes, I know, the woman is nothing if not predictable. Let’s get to our coach, darling. The procession is about to move. Pauli, I hate to interrupt your attempts to impress the young Vajica, but we have our duty…”
With a grimace of irritation, Pauli broke off his conversation and strolled over as Allesandra was following Jan to the open carriage just ahead of the Archigos. She could see Semini and Francesca watching them, and she nodded to him. “You needn’t be so strident, my dear,” Pauli said.
“And you needn’t be so obvious,” Allesandra answered. “But this isn’t a conversation we should be having in public, Pauli.”
“It’s not a conversation we need to have at all, as far as I’m concerned.” Pauli pulled himself into the coach. He shifted uncomfortably on the plush leather of the seat, tapping at the cushions with his fingers. The sound was as bright and loud as if he were rapping on wood and the cushion barely dimpled. “Firenzcia has a knack for making something appear enticing when it is actually extraordinarily uncomfortable,” he commented. “But I realize you’re already intimately familiar with that quality, my dear.”
“Vatarh!” Jan said sharply, and-strangely-Pauli turned to stare out from the carriage’s window. Allesandra felt her cheeks grow hot, but she said nothing. They would be at the dais before a quarter turn, and the day would become what it would become. Either way, Pauli would eventually be no more irritating to her than a summer fly, and she would dispose of him as easily when the right time came. With relief.
The carriage lurched into motion then, and for the next half a turn they rode along the main avenue of Brezno, lined thickly with the inhabitants of Brezno and surrounding towns, all of them cheering and shouting, pushing and jostling against the utilino and gardai stationed there in their efforts to see the elite of Firenzcia, the grand visitors from other countries of the Firenzcian Coalition, and their new Hirzg.
The square around Falwin’s statue was packed shoulder to shoulder, the royal carriages moving along an open path kept cleared by the gardai. At the side of the dais, they were escorted up the wide temporary staircase to their places in the shadow of Falwin’s statue. The ancient Hirzg lifted his bronze arms over them, his massive sword held aloft. Allesandra could feel the sound of the crowd, their shouts and applause cresting as Fynn appeared on the platform, hands widespread as if embracing them all. He basked in their adulation, spotlighted in bright sun. She felt a brief pang of envy, watching him.
Allesandra was just to Fynn’s left with Jan next to her, then Pauli (already turning backward to speak with the ca’Belgradi girl again); Semini stood to Fynn’s right in his brilliant gold-and-emerald ceremonial robes, the crown of the Archigos on his head. Allesandra glanced at ca’Cellibrecca, standing next to the dour Francesca, who seemed to be the only one entirely unimpressed with the proceedings. Semini nodded, faintly.
When? Who? How?
Fynn had begun to speak, his voice amplified through the efforts of two softly chanting o’teni to either side of him. His voice boomed over the masses, the stentorian voice of a demigod shouting from the heavens. “Firenzcia, I
