the Garde Kralji and Commandant cu’Ulcai with the Garde Civile. Yet, somehow, not only couldn’t they prevent the assassination of our beloved Archigos Ana, they both claim that they didn’t even know of any plot against her.”
“What do you mean, Kraljiki?” Aleron asked. “Are you saying that Regent ca’Rudka…?” He stopped. A pudgy forefinger stroked his bearded chin.
“You all know the rumors regarding Archigos Ana-that she sometimes used the Ilmodo to heal, even though the Divolonte speaks against such practices,” Audric told them. “I know those practices to be true, because the Archigos helped me, many times, in just that way. Yes, Councillor ca’Ludovici, I see you nod. I know everyone suspected this. With Archigos Ana dead, why, someone might have believed that I, too, would soon die as well-and that the Council of Ca’, in gratitude for long service and given that the direct line of Kraljica Marguerite currently had no issue, might just name the current Regent as Kraljiki in title as well as fact. If ca’Rudka waited to act much longer, why, there’s the danger that I might marry and have children who could claim the title.”
He could see them thinking about his accusations, especially his cousin Sigourney ca’Ludovici. Trying to still the coughing, he hurried into the rest. Yes, you have their attention now, he heard his great-matarh say, her voice pleased.
“This has further come to a head because of the continued bad news from the Hellins,” Audric hurried to continue. “Councillor ca’Ludovici, your brother is struggling mightily with the puny resources we’ve given him. Commandant ca’Sibelli is a fine warrior, unmatched, but still we are being humiliated by the Westlanders: we, Nessantico, the Holdings, the greatest power in the world. These people are little more than savages, yet they are stealing from us the land that the blood of our soldiers sanctified. I have told the Regent that I will not tolerate this. I have told the Regent that I wish to have additional troops and war-teni sent to the Hellins to help your brother put down this rebellion. Let me ask each of you, has Regent ca’Rudka spoken to any of you of this?” He saw their heads shake silently. “I thought not. He is content to let the Hellins fall-he has told me as much. He is content to have the great sacrifice of our gardai be wasted. Were I Kraljiki now, I would order the immediate arrest of ca’Rudka. I would put him in the Bastida and have him give us his confession, as he’s made others confess over the decades. But if you won’t do that, then I suggest you simply ask him. Not about the death of the Archigos or his intentions for me, but about the Hellins-ask the Regent about our situation there and what he feels our best course might be. Ask him how it is that he knew nothing of the plot against Archigos Ana. Listen carefully to his answers. And when you realize that I tell you the truth about this, you should understand that I’m telling you the truth of the rest as well.”
He stood. He could feel his body trembling from the effort, the exhaustion threatening to take him. He seemed to see the three as if through some smoke-stained glass, and he wanted nothing more than to fall into his bed under the watchful eyes of Marguerite. He had to end this. Quickly. “For now, we’re done here,” he said. “Talk to ca’Rudka. And after you do, think of what I’ve said to you.”
He bowed to them, then-with as slow and dignified a pace as he could muster-he walked across the room to the door of his bedroom. Marlon opened the door for him.
He managed to wait until it closed behind him to fall into the arms of Seaton.
Sergei ca’Rudka
“ Regent ca’Rudka! A moment!”
Sergei turned from the entrance of the Bastida a’Drago. Above him, mortared into the stones of the dreary ramparts, the skull of a dragon’s head gaped down with its massive jaws open and needled teeth gleaming. The dragon’s head, discovered during the building of what had been intended as a defensive bulwark, had given the Bastida its name: Fortress of the Dragon. Now it leered at prisoners entering the dungeon, seeming to laugh as the Bastida devoured them.
Or perhaps it was laughing at all of them: the Numetodo claimed it wasn’t a dragon’s skull at all, but the skull of an ancient, extinct beast, buried and turned to stone. To Sergei, that was too convoluted a theory to be believable, but then the Numetodo also claimed that the stone seashells found high on the hills around Nessantico were there because in some unimaginably distant past, the mountains were the bottom of a seabed.
The past didn’t matter to Sergei. Only the present, and what he could touch and feel and understand.
A carriage had stopped in the Avi a’Parete. Sigourney ca’Ludovici gestured toward Sergei from the window of the vehicle. He bowed to her courteously and walked over to the carriage. “Good morning, Councillor,” he said. “You’re out early-First Call was barely a turn of the glass ago.”
Her eyes were a startling light gray against the dyed blackness of her hair. He could see the fine lines under the powdered face. “The Council of Ca’ met with the Ambassador cu’Gorin of the Coalition this morning, Regent-as your office was informed.”
“Ah, yes.” Sergei lifted his chin. “I saw the statement Councillor ca’Mazzak put together. He did a fine job of walking the ground between congratulating the new Hirzg and threatening him, and I gave the statement my approval. I’m thinking that Councillor ca’Mazzak would make a fine Ambassador to Brezno, if he were willing. And I think Ambassador cu’Gorin will be suitably irritated by the appointment.”
At another time, Sigourney would have laughed at that, but she seemed distracted. Her lips were partially open as if she were waiting to say something else, and her gaze kept moving away from his face to the Bastida’s facade. It wasn’t his metal nose-Sergei was used to that with strangers, with their gazes either being snared by the silver replica glued to his face, or so aware of it that their gazes slid from his face like skaters on winter ice. But Sigourney had known him for decades. They had never been friends, but neither had they been enemies; in the politics of Nessantico, that was enough. Something’s wrong. She’s uncomfortable. “What did you really want to ask me, Councillor?” Sergei’s question brought her face back to him.
“You know me too well, Regent.”
He might know Sigourney, but she didn’t know him. No one really knew him; he had never let anyone come that close to his unguarded core, and he was too old to begin now. She would be appalled if she knew what he’d done this morning, in the bowels of the Bastida. “I’ve had practice at reading people,” he told her, with a nod of his head to the dragon on the Bastida’s rampart. “It’s in the eyes, and the tiny muscles of your face that one can’t really control.” He tapped his false nose, deliberately. “The flare of your nostrils, for instance. You’re troubled by something.”
“We’ve all read the latest report from my brother in the Hellins,” she told him. “That’s what troubles me-the situation there.”
Sergei put a foot on the step of the carriage, leaning in toward her. The springs of the carriage’s suspension groaned and sagged under his weight. “It troubles me as well, Councillor.”
“What would you do about it?”
“When one is bleeding badly,” he told her, “one is advised to bind the wound. I say that with no criticism of your brother. Commandant ca’Sibelli is doing the best he can with the resources we can spare him, but fighting a determined enemy in their home territory is difficult in the best of circumstances, and well nigh impossible at this distance.”
“Are you suggesting we bind the wound, Regent, as you so fancifully put it, or to flee in disgrace from what is causing the damage?” Her eyebrows lifted with the question, and Sergei hesitated. He knew that Audric had met with Sigourney, Odil, and Aleron-that kind of gossip couldn’t be kept quiet in the palais-and he remembered all too well the arguments on the subject he’d had with Audric. Sergei hadn’t yet had a chance to broach the subject with any of the Council of Ca’; now it appeared that Audric had done it for him, and he doubted that Audric’s view had painted him in complimentary hues.
“Whether there is disgrace in retreat depends,” he answered carefully, “on whether you believe that the next wound might be a mortal one.”
“ Is that what you believe, Regent?” she persisted. “You believe the war in the Hellins is lost?”
Once, he might have hedged, not certain what was the safest opinion to reveal. As he’d grown older, as he’d gained power, he’d become less inclined to be subtle. “I believe there is a danger of that, yes,” he told her. “I’ve told the young Kraljiki my opinion, and such will be my statement to the Council of Ca’ in my next report. So you have a preview of it.” He smiled; it took effort. “From the way you speak, Councillor, I suspect the Council is already aware of my feelings. Your prescience is impressive.” There was no returning smile; Sigourney’s face was impassive
