“And the Numetodo have always been convenient scapegoats. Is that what you’re saying?”
A nod. “The way to ensure that the Numetodo survive is to make certain that the Nico Morel and his people receive the justice they deserve. Strength is the other quality that people respect. If you show that the Numetodo are stronger than the Morellis, then you’ll see the blame shifting the other way; all the talk will be about how it’s the Morellis who have caused the problems and who are endangering the Holdings. Not you. Not the Numetodo. The affection of the people is fickle. We can change it.”
“You’ve become a skeptic, Kraljica. Or a pragmatist.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t changed at all. In this, I’ve always been a realist. And I’m right. That’s why you need to help me.”
“How?”
She turned slightly and stroked the soft petals of the sunrise flower once again. Varina watched the bloom bend and spring up again under the Kraljica’s hand. “It’s simple enough. I can’t fight war-teni without magic of my own; you’re the A’Morce Numetodo. If I no longer have the Faith as my ally, if I can’t trust the teni there, then my only hope is to turn to the only rival to them-the Numetodo: your magic, your knowledge, your black sand. And whatever else you have that would change the equation.”
Varina glanced at her desk, on which a weeping violet drooped small, purple flowers like bloody tears. Below the plant, in the drawer of the desk, was her sparkwheel. “Kraljica, we’ve been friends for a long time now…”
“We have,” Allesandra answered. “Which is the other reason I’ve come to you. I ask for friendship’s sake, too. You know what Morel asks-no, demands -of us?”
Varina shook his head. Allesandra took a scroll from her pocket, and what she read to Varina stunned her to the core. Her hand trembled at her throat and she wished, at least momentarily, that the shock would sweep over her and take her, that she could join Karl in the sweet oblivion of death. She glanced again at the desk, at the weeping violet and the drawer. It seemed that she could smell the weapon there, the scent of burnt black sand.
The odor of violence and death.
“He can’t be serious,” she said. “He can’t really expect you to accept those terms. That’s madness.”
“Nico Morel is mad,” Allesandra answered. “And he believes that Cenzi will make this happen.” She rose from her seat, and she moved into the sunlight streaming through the window, Varina could see the age in her face: the wrinkles, the sagging of her chin, the gray that was beginning to show in the hair. For a moment, Varina saw Allesandra as she might look in another decade. Then the sun slid over her face and left her in shadow again, and the moment was gone. Varina started to rise with her, but Allesandra waved to her to keep her seat.
“No, don’t get up. Varina, I can’t wait, as some in the Garde Civile have advised me. I have to take care of this quickly, because I fear that Commandant ca’Talin won’t be able to hold back the Tehuantin, and I can’t have this distraction while trying to fight a greater enemy. I tell you again-I need your help. Nessantico needs our help. I need the Numetodo, and I promise you that if you give me the aid I ask for, then the Numetodo will never have to fear persecution within the Holdings ever again. Will you help?”
She knew how Karl would have answered. She could almost hear his voice. I know you love Nico, but he’s not the child that we knew. He’s changed, and he’s been terribly damaged, and he’s dangerous. He’s brought this upon himself. “Yes,” she told Allesandra. “I’ll have to talk to the others, but I’m certain they’ll agree. I’ll arrange with Talbot to coordinate things.”
Allesandra nodded. Her face seemed to relax. “Thank you,” she said. “You won’t regret this, Varina. I promise.”
Varina pushed herself up from her seat, and Allesandra embraced her gently. “Thank you,” she heard the Kraljica whisper again. Allesandra’s lips brushed Varina’s cheeks momentarily, and the Kraljica turned to leave.
The wake of her passage smelled of flowers and damp earth.
Jan ca’Ostheim
When Jan read Sergei the contents of the missive from his matarh, the Silvernose didn’t seem startled at all, which told Jan that Sergei already suspected what it said.
“Morel thinks that he has divine guidance,” Sergei said, rubbing-as he too often did-at the metallic nose glued to his ravaged, wrinkled face. “When one truly believes that Cenzi has set you on a course, you have no limitations. It’s a lesson many of the Kralji have had to learn. Now it’s Allesandra’s turn.”
They were gathered at the table in the dining “room” of the palais tents. Hirzgin Brie was there, as was Starkkapitan ca’Damont and Archigos Karrol, who had come down from Brezno. Jan had invited Ambassador ca’Rudka to join them, not only because of the communique from Nessantico, but also because he enjoyed watching Sergei annoy both the starkkapitan and the Archigos.
“You speak like a Numetodo,” Archigos Karrol said to the man, but Sergei shook his head slowly, his jowls wobbling with the motion.
“I believe in Cenzi, Archigos, as firmly as do you,” the Ambassador said, and Jan thought he heard a strange sadness in the man’s voice, almost a regret. “I know that I will go to Him when I die, and the soul shredders will weigh me before Him. I believe.” Then he seemed to shiver, and his gaze wandered away from the Archigos and found Jan’s. “It’s not faith that’s the problem, Hirzg Jan, only blind fanaticism. Morel insists that there is only one true path, and that’s his. Therefore, all the rest of us are wrong. The greater problem is that you have too many teni within the Faith who agree with Morel rather than you.”
Archigos Karrol spluttered at that. He lifted his bent head against the resistance of his curved spine. His long, white beard waggled; his brown-spotted fist banged at the table, rattling crockery. “ I am the authority within the Faith, not this damned Morel. He’s already doomed himself by using the Ilmodo against my direct orders. His hands and tongue are forfeit for that, and his life is mine for the death of poor A’Teni ca’Paim.”
Jan heard Sergei sniff, saw his eyes, now enveloped in tired folds of skin, widen slightly. “Yes, we in Nessantico saw how well the war-teni obeyed A’Teni ca’Paim, whose authority derives from yours, Archigos. I wonder, if you order the war-teni of Firenczia to move against Morel, will you get the same obedience?”
The Archigos’ bald skull was pale against the angry flush of his face. He scowled, turning his head sidewise to glare at Sergei. “My war-teni will do as I tell them to do,” he said. Spittle flew with the comment; he didn’t seem to notice. He looked over to Jan. “Hirzg, Hirzgin, I find that my appetite has left me, and I need to speak with the teni here to give them the news about A’Teni ca’Paim and arrange for services in her memory. If you’ll forgive me…”
Without waiting for an answer, he gave the sign of Cenzi and pushed away from the table. Two o’teni in attendance rushed to help him. They handed him his staff and he shuffled away, his head facing the carpeted ground as he padded from the tent.
“I apologize, Hirzg, Hirzgin,” Sergei said after the servant had closed the tent flaps-painted in trompe-l’oeil fashion as a massive, carved wooden double set of doors-behind the Archigos. “I only told him the truth.”
“The truth is often unappetizing,” Brie answered. She glanced at Jan with that, a quick, sharp look. “I’m surprised any of us can eat at the moment.” Jan set down the knife he was using to cut the slice of roast on his plate. Brie smiled at him blandly. “I’d have the servants take that away,” she said, “but there are so few of our private staff left here. I wonder what keeps driving them away?”
Jan returned the same meaningless smile to his wife.
Sergei didn’t seem to have noticed the exchange. He stirred in his seat. “Archigos Karrol is deceiving himself if he doesn’t think that there are teni who are sympathetic to the Morellis-especially among the war-teni.”
“Our war-teni are here, ” Starkkapitan ca’Damont interjected. “They’re actively working with me.”
“They’re here now,” Sergei answered. “But will they be tomorrow, or the day after? The news from Nessantico is just now arriving, and if it was Morel who asked the war-teni to stand down, as he claims, then perhaps that request is only just reaching them.”
“Sometimes, Ambassador,” ca’Damont retorted, “I believe you’re like an old black crow, with nothing but bad news and gloom to relate. You stink of the prisons you like so much.”
Jan looked over sharply at ca’Damont with the crude remark, but Sergei lifted a hand, shaking his gray head slightly. “You’ll be happy to know, Starkkapitan, that you’re hardly alone in that opinion,” Sergei told him. “But then,
