especially after Karl’s funeral. Cenzi knows what they’re capable of doing. Dealing with him yourself would be risky. From what Archigos ca’Paim has told me, his skills with the Ilmodo are positively frightening, if he would choose to use them. Promise me you’ll be cautious. Promise me that you won’t make any effort to contact him. This particular mad dog threatens everyone in the city; let the city deal with him.”
Another smile, this one far fainter than the last. “You sound like Karl now. I’ve always believed that caution was overrated,” she said, and the smile broadened suddenly. “And you, Sergei-you’ll be careful yourself?”
“Hirzg Jan, though it probably shows his lack of judgment, seems to like me despite the frigid relationship between him and his matarh,” Sergei told her. “And in any case, I’m only the messenger for Kraljica Allesandra.” And sometimes the messenger is blamed when the message isn’t the one they want to hear… Sergei smiled even as the doubt crept into his mind. Jan wouldn’t like Allesandra’s message, that was certain. He suspected that Allesandra was going to dislike Jan’s reply just as much.
You’re getting too old for this… That thought kept rising to the surface, more and more. He was tired, and the thought of several days in a carriage on the road and the pounding his body would take from that, and the discomfort of the inns and strange beds along the way…
Too old…
“Take care of yourself, Varina,” he said. “Be careful, and please remember what I said about Nico.” Grimacing, Sergei pushed his chair back and rose. He took up his cane, leaning against the table. Varina rose with him, going to him and hugging him. One-handed, he returned the gesture.
“And you take care of yourself,” she told him. “And watch yourself with the court ladies, Ambassador. I hear that in Brezno, they aren’t as… discreet as we are here.”
It won’t be ladies of the court with whom I consort… “I’m afraid that when they look on me, the court ladies wish to do nothing more than flee the room,” he told her, touching his nose. He pressed her tightly once more, then released her. “I’ll call on you again as soon as I return. I promise.”
Brie ca’Ostheim
Kriege shouldn’t have been in their dressing room at all, but he had a habit of slipping away from the nursemaids who watched him. Brie would have to talk to them later.
Brie was awakened when she heard the servants’ door to the dressing room creak open. She heard Kriege’s feet padding over the carpet. She slid from her bed and into the dressing room both she and Jan shared. Kriege was standing in front of Jan’s dresser, his hands busy with something that his body masked. Brie smiled indulgently, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Kriege,” she said, “what are you doing?”
Krige spun around, startled, and she saw the dagger in his hand, the blade out of the scabbard, the edges of the dark Firenzcian steel glinting. His mouth opened in an “O” of surprise, and his face colored as he realized that he was still holding the weapon.
“Kriege,” she said. “Put that down. Carefully now. Your vatarh would be terribly angry if he saw you with that.”
The nine year old’s eyes widened. She saw his lower lip start to tremble. “I’m not angry with you, Kriege. Just put it down.”
He did so, a little too hastily, so that the blade clattered against the wood and rattled the boxes there. She slid forward quickly and grabbed the dagger, sliding it back into its well-used scabbard. Kriege watched her movements: he watched everything that had to do with things martial-in that, he was unlike his vatarh and more like her own vatarh, who had an obsession for edged weapons and possessed a collection of swords and knives that was the envy of even the museums. Kriege’s true name was Jan-for his vatarh as well as his great-great-vatarh; he’d quickly acquired the nickname “Kriege”-warrior-for his stubborn and colicky personality as an infant. The name had stuck; he was “Kriege” to everyone in the palais. Now it seemed he might be intending to live up to the nickname.
Brie herself had inherited her vatarh’s fascination for weaponry; in fact, she’d first come to her husband’s attention when she’d demonstrated her skill with swordsmanship at a palais affair she’d attended with her vatarh, dueling and defeating a chevaritt who had made a disparaging remark when she’d commented on his weapon. She generally carried a knife somewhere on her person, still.
But this wasn’t her weapon; it was Jan’s. She put the dagger back in the rosewood box where Jan kept it when it wasn’t on his belt, then crouched down in front of Kriege. The boy’s brown, curly locks tumbled over his forehead as he lowered his head, and she lifted his chin with a hand, smiling at him. “You know you aren’t supposed to be in here, don’t you?”
He nodded, once, silently. “And you know you shouldn’t be going through your vatarh’s things, don’t you?”
Another nod. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“What are you sorry for?” The voice came from behind them; Brie looked over her shoulder to see Jan standing in the door of his own bedroom, still in his nightshirt, his hair bed-tousled. He yawned sleepily, rubbing his bearded face.
Brie hesitated, but Kriege was already slipping past her, grabbing his vatarh’s legs. “Vatarh, it was your dagger. I wanted to see it.. .”
Jan glanced at Brie, still crouching in front of the dresser. She shrugged at him, shaking her head. “My dagger, eh? Well, come here.. .” He took Kriege by the hand and walked to the dresser. He opened the rosewood box and took out the weapon and its soiled, stained sheath. The pommel end of the hilt was decorated with semiprecious stones-Brie suspected that was what had attracted Kriege in the first place-the hilt itself carved from hard blackwood. The blade was double-edged, tapering to a precise and deadly point. An exquisite weapon. With an exquisite history.
Jan held the knife, sheathed, in his hand. “This is what you were after?”
Kriege nodded his head energetically.
“What do you know about this knife?”
“I know you always wear it, Vatarh. I see it on your belt nearly every day. And I know it’s old.”
Jan smiled at Brie over Kriege’s head. “It’s very old,” Brie told him. “It was made for your great-great-great- vatarh Karin when he became Hirzg, almost seventy years ago, and he gave it to your great-great-vatarh Jan when he was young man, and Jan gave it to.. .” She stopped, glancing at Jan, who shrugged. “… your great-matarh Allesandra.” She didn’t mention that Allesandra had used the dagger to kill the Westlander magician Mahri. Reputedly, both Karin and the first Jan had also killed someone with the same dagger. Her Jan, too, had found a reason to feed the steel with an enemy’s blood-when his sword had broken in the midst of a battle against the army of Tennshah. “And Allesandra gave it to your vatarh.”
Kreige’s eyes had gone wider and wider as Brie had given the history of the weapon. “Will you give it to me one day, Vatarh?” he asked Jan, and then his face clouded and he scowled. “Or will stupid Elissa get it ’cause she’s the oldest?”
Brie stifled a laugh as Jan opened his mouth, then clamped it shut again. “No one is going to get it until they’re much older,” he said finally. “It’s not a toy or a plaything.”
“I want a knife of my own,” Kriege persisted. “I’m old enough. I won’t cut myself. I’d be very careful.”
“I’m sure you would,” Jan told him. He took a breath, glancing again at Brie, who shook her head slightly. No, she mouthed.
“I’ll tell you what,” Jan said to Kriege. “I’ll tell Rance to have a talk with the weapons master for the Garde, and see if he can give you lessons on the proper handling of a knife. If he tells me you understand and have learned all of his lessons, then perhaps for your next birthday we might talk about something you could wear on state occasions.”
“Oh, thank you, Vatarh!’ Kirege burst out, hugging Jan again. He broke away, then. “I’m going to go tell Elissa and Caelor. They’re going to be so jealous!” He ran from the room, calling for his siblings.
“Don’t,” Jan said, raising a hand as Brie started to speak. “I know what you’re going to say. I know. Elissa will be in here in a few minutes, demanding to know why she can’t have a knife, too, and Caelor will be right after her.”
