With the death of Hirzg Jan, the required month of mourning had been proclaimed, and a dozen necessary ceremonies scheduled. The new Hirzg Fynn would preside over several rituals in the next few weeks: some only for the ca’-and-cu’, some for the edification of the public. The formal Besteigung, the final ritual, would take place at the end of the month in Brezno Temple with Archigos Semini presiding-timed so that the leaders of the other countries of the Firenzcian Coalition could make their way to Brezno and pay homage to the new Hirzg. Allesandra had already been told that A’Gyula Pauli would be arriving for the Besteigung, at least-she was already dreading her husband’s arrival.
And tonight… tonight was the Internment.
The Kralji burned their dead; the Hirzgai entombed theirs. Hirzg Jan’s body was to be buried in the vault of the ca’Belgradins where several generations of their ancestors lay, a hand or more of them having shared with Jan the golden band that now circled Fynn’s forehead. Fynn was waiting for them in his own chambers; from there they would go down to the vaults below the ground floor of Brezno Palais. The Chevarittai of the Red Lancers and others of the nobility of Firenzcia were already waiting for them there.
The halls of the palais were hushed, the servants they saw stopping in their tasks and bowing silently with lowered eyes as they passed. Two gardai stood outside Fynn’s chambers; they opened the doors for them as they approached. Allesandra could hear voices from inside as they entered.
“… just received the news from Gairdi. This will complicate things. We don’t know exactly how much yet-” Archigos Semini ca’Cellibrecca stopped in mid-phrase as Allesandra and Jan entered the room. The man had always put Allesandra in mind of a bear, all the way back to when she’d been a child and he a rising young war-teni: even as a young man, Semini had been massive and furred and dangerous. His black beard was now salted with white, and the mass of curly hair was receding from his forehead like a slow tide, but he was still burly and muscled. He gave them the sign of Cenzi, clasping his hands to his forehead as his wife Francesca did the same behind him. Allesandra had been told that Francesca had once been a beauty-in fact, there were rumors that she’d once been the lover of Justi the One-Legged-but Allesandra hadn’t known her at that time. Now, she was a humpbacked matron with several of her teeth missing, her body ravaged by the rigors of a dozen pregnancies over the years. Her personality was as sour as her face.
Fynn rose from his chair.
“Sister,” he said, taking her hands as he stood in front of her. He was smiling-he seemed almost gleeful. “Semini has just brought some interesting news from Nessantico. Archigos Ana has been assassinated.”
Allesandra gasped, unable to hide her reaction. Her hands went to the cracked globe pendant around her neck, then she forced herself to lower them. She felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath. “Assassinated? By whom…?” She stopped, glancing at Semini-who was also smiling; almost smugly, Allesandra thought-then at her brother. “Did we do this?” she asked. Her voice was as edged as a dagger. She felt Jan put his hand on her shoulder from behind, sensing her distress.
Fynn snorted. “Would it matter?” he asked.
“Yes,” Allesandra told him. “Only a fool would think otherwise.” The words came out before she could stop them. And after I just cautioned Jan…
Fynn glowered at the implied insult. Jan’s hand tightened on Allesandra’s shoulder. Semini cleared his throat loudly before Fynn could speak.
“This wasn’t the Hirzg’s doing, Allesandra,” Semini answered quickly, shaking his head and waving his hand in dismissal. “Firenzcia may be at odds with the Faith in Nessantico, but the Hirzg doesn’t engage in assassination. Nor does the Faith.”
She looked from Semini to Francesca. The woman looked away quickly but made no attempt to hide the satisfaction in her face. Her pleasure at the news was obvious. The woman had all the warmth of a Boail winter. Allesandra wondered whether Semini had ever felt any affection for her, or whether their marriage was as loveless and calculated as her own despite their several children. Allesandra couldn’t imagine submitting to Pauli’s pleasure so often. “We’re certain this report is true?” she asked Semini.
“It’s come to me from three different sources, one I trust implicitly-the trader Gairdi-and they all agree on the basic details,” Semini told her. “Archigos Ana was performing the Day of Return service when there was an explosion. ‘Like a war-teni’s spell,’ they all said-which means it was someone using the Ilmodo. That much is certain.”
“Which also means they may look eastward to us,” Fynn said. He seemed eager at the thought, as if anxious to call the army of Firenzcia into battle. That would be like him; Allesandra would be terrifically surprised if Fynn’s reign were to be a peaceful one.
“Or they will look to the west,” Allesandra argued, and Fynn glanced at her as he might an annoying, persistent insect. “Nessantico has enemies there as well, and they can use the Ilmodo also, even if-like the Numetodo-they have their own name for it.”
“The Westlanders? Like the Numetodo, they’re heretics deserving of death,” Semini spat. “They abuse Cenzi’s gift, which is intended only for the teni, and we will one day make them pay for their insult, if Nessantico fails to do so.”
Fynn grunted his agreement with the sentiment, and Allesandra saw her son Jan nodding as well-that was also his damned vatarh’s influence, or at least that of the Magyarian teni Pauli had insisted educate their son despite Allesandra’s misgivings. She pressed her lips together.
Ana is dead. She placed her fingers on the necklace of the cracked globe, feeling its smooth, jeweled surface. The touch brought up again the memory of Ana’s face, of the lopsided smile that would touch the woman’s lips when something amused her, of the grim lines that set themselves around her eyes when she was angry. Allesandra had spent a decade with the woman; captor, friend, and surrogate matarh all at once for her during the long years that she’d spent as a hostage of Nessantico. Allesandra’s feelings toward Ana were as complex and contradictory as their relationship had been. They were nearly as conflicted as her feelings toward her vatarh, who had left her languishing in Nessantico while Fynn became the A’Hirzg and favorite.
She wanted to cry at the news, in sadness for someone who had treated her well and fairly when there had been no compulsion for her to do so. But she could not. Not here. Not in front of people who hated the woman. Here, she had to pretend.
Later. Later I can mourn her properly…
“I expected somewhat more reaction from you, Sister,” Fynn said. “After all, that abomination of a woman and the one-legged pretender kept you captive. Vatarh cursed whenever anyone spoke her name; said she was no better than a witch.”
Fynn was watching her, and they both knew what he was leaving out of his comment: that Hirzg Jan could have ransomed her at any time during those years, that had he done so it was likely that the golden band would be on her head, not Fynn’s. “You won’t be here half a year,” Ana had told Allesandra in those first months. “Kraljiki Justi has set a fair ransom, and your vatarh will pay it. Soon…”
But, for whatever reasons, Hirzg Jan had not.
Allesandra made her face a mask. You won’t cry. You won’t let them see the grief. It wasn’t difficult; it was what she did often enough, and it served her well most of the time. She knew what the ca’-and-cu’ called her behind her back: the Stone Bitch. “Ana ca’Seranta’s death is important. I appreciate Archigos Semini bringing us the news, and we should-we must-decide what it means for Firenzcia,” she said, “but we won’t know the full implications for weeks yet. And right now Vatarh is waiting for us. I suggest we see to him first.”
The Tombs of the Hirzgai were catacombs below Brezno Palais, not the lower levels of the newer private estate outside the city known as Stag Fall, built in Hirzg Karin’s time. A long, wide stairway led down to the Tombs, a crust of niter coating the sweating walls and growing like white pustules on the faces in the murals painted there two centuries before and restored a dozen times since: the damp always won over pigments. A chill, nearly fetid air rose from below, as if warning them that the realm of the dead was approaching. The torches alight in their sconces held back the darkness but rendered the shadows of the occasional side passage blacker and more mysterious in contrast. A dozen generations of the Hirzgai awaited them below, with their various spouses and many of their direct offspring. Allesandra’s older brother Toma had been interred here when Allesandra was but a baby, and her matarh Greta had lain alongside him for nineteen years now. In time, Allesandra herself might join her family, though an eternity spent next to Matarh Greta was not a pleasant thought.
The procession moved in stately silence down the staircase: in front the e’teni with lanterns lit by green teni-
