that.”
“I have no idea how that happened,” Nico said. “That was Cenzi, not me.”
“Then maybe Cenzi-if it’s truly Him-would make arresting you both difficult and costly, and it’s entirely possible I might not survive the attempt. But there are enough gardai and utilinos waiting for my command that I’m fairly sure we’d eventually succeed, Cenzi aside.”
“That’s blasphemy,” Nico snapped.
“It might be if I actually thought Cenzi were responsible. Still. ..”
“Why are you here then, if not to arrest me?”
“I’m here because Varina is my friend, and she asked me to do this. Personally, I think that she’s too forgiving of you, but she seems to think that you’re worth saving, that you are in fact savable, and that we also need you. I’m not so certain, myself.” Sergei tapped his cane on the rug underneath his chair. “What is it that you want, Nico?”
“That’s easy,” the young man answered. “I want to continue to serve Cenzi.”
“And for right now, what is it Cenzi demands you do, in your mind? Could it be to help defend Nessantico, as you’ve told the war-teni?”
Nico understood; Sergei could see it. “If it were, if I happened to believe that, what might be gained by it?”
“There’s still much you need to answer for, Nico,” Sergei told him. “A’Teni ca’Paim’s death, the death of all the others who tried to defend the Old Temple, the destruction, the injuries. Varina might be willing to see past all that, but not the Kraljica. Not entirely. Still-perhaps the argument could be made that the death of ca’Paim was accidental and unintended, that the gardai who died did so fulfilling their duty, and that if the Morellis and their Absolute have served the Holdings well and pledged to work with the Holdings in the future, then perhaps much of what has happened might be forgiven. Not forgotten, never forgotten, of course, but it would be understood how unfortunate it all was.”
“You make a promise you have no authority to keep, Sergei, nor does Varina.”
“I have authority to offer it from someone who does,” Sergei told him. “It’s your choice as to whether or not to consider it.”
Nico hmmed low in his throat. “The Archigos is in agreement as well?”
“The Archigos has nothing to do with any of this. It’s a purely secular matter. You and the Concenzia Faith will have to come to your own separate understanding, but if you serve the state, the state will see that the Faith does nothing that would, well, compromise your abilities.” He tapped the cane again, harder this time. “Nessantico needs your help, Nico. I’ve seen what you can do. You would be the most formidable war-teni we have.” Sergei rubbed his nose again. “If that’s what Cenzi wills.”
“Don’t make this a joke, Sergei.”
“I assure you that I’m entirely serious.”
“I need to pray first. I can’t give you an answer now.”
Sergei sighed. “And I can’t wait, Nico. I’m sorry.” Sergei groaned to his feet, moving to the rear door. He raised his cane; out in the alleyway, forms moved, and he heard running footsteps downstairs, moving through the house. He turned back to the room. “I’m really am sor-” he began, but the cold of the Ilmodo hit him then, and he saw the darkness in the midst of the room, and when it dissipated a breath later, neither Nico nor Rochelle were there. A garda thrust his face into the room. “Ambassador?”
“It appears the Absolute lied to me,” he said to the man.
Varina held Sera in her arms, rocking slowly back and forth as she stood at the window. Outside, in the street beyond the front courtyard of her house, a seemingly endless line of troops in black-and-silver uniforms were marching westward. Their boots beat a solemn funereal cadence on the Avi a’Parete, as if the city itself were a drum. They’d been marching past for a turn of the glass already, since just after First Call, the noise of the cornets that had heralded their arrival waking Serafina from her sleep. Varina had taken up the child, cuddling her and soothing her fussing. She kissed the infant’s brow, feeling the downy softness of Sera’s hair on her lips.
“Don’t be frightened, Sera,” she whispered against the low thunder of boots on cobblestones. “They’re here to protect us, dear one. They’re here to keep you safe.”
There was a soft knock at the door to the bedroom, followed by the the creak of hinges. “A’Morce, I’m sorry I’m late. The streets are a mess, as you can imagine. I had to come in the back way…” The wet nurse Michelle entered the bedroom, already striding forward and unlacing her blouse. “The poor little one must be starving. Here, let me take her for a bit…”
Varina handed Sera to Michelle, watching as the infant fussed for a moment before her searching mouth found the nipple and began to suck. “Yes, famished, aren’t we?” Michelle said, smiling at Sera before looking to Varina. “It feels so…” She stopped, and Varina saw moisture gathering in Michelle’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” the young woman said. “Sometimes when I hold her, I think of my own…” She stopped again, swallowing hard.
“I can’t imagine the pain you’ve felt, losing your own baby,” Varina told her. “I’m so sorry, Michelle.”
Michelle nodded. “The whole city seems to be in an uproar,” she said. The change of subject was abrupt and, Varina was certain, entirely deliberate. Michelle lifted her shoulder and leaned her head down to blot away tears. Sera stirred and settled again in her arms. “They say that you can see the Westlanders already from the top of the Bastida’s tower. Don’t know that it’s true, but…” Michelle shivered, and Sera stopped sucking for a moment, her large blue eyes opening, then closing again as she returned to the breast. “A’Morce, my husband wants me to go to my brother’s home in Ile Verte. I thought, well, I thought, if you wanted… I could…”
Varina sighed. She stroked Sera’s head. The child’s eyes opened again, finding Varina’s gaze. Sera smiled for a moment around the nipple, a white bubble escaping her lips before she returned to feeding. “I think that would be an excellent idea, Michelle. If you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Michelle answered. “It would be my pleasure to take care of her. A’Morce, you should come as well. My brother has a large home there, and I’m sure…”
Varina shook her head. She glanced again at the army marching past: it was the rear supply train now- wagons and horses. “My place is here,” she told Michelle. “When are you leaving?”
“This evening, after Third Call.”
“Then why don’t you come and get Sera at Second Call? I’ll have her things ready for you then.”
Michelle nodded. “She’s a beauty,” she said. “It a shame about her vatarh, and her poor matarh. She’s lucky to have you, A’Morce.”
Varina attempted a smile and found that she couldn’t. She stroked Sera’s head again. “Michelle, if something should happen to me-”
“Nothing will happen,” Michelle said quickly, not letting her finish. Varina shook her head.
“We don’t know that,” Varina said. “If something should happen, something that would mean that I can’t care for Sera, would you take her? Belle speaks so highly of you, and perhaps it might ease your own loss, if only a little.”
Michelle was crying now, her head down as she watched Serafina at her breast. “A’Morce…”
“Just say yes,” she said. She stroked Sera’s head. “That’s all.”
Michelle nodded, and Varina folded both of them softly into her arms. “Good,” Varina said. “That will ease my mind.”
Jan watched the offiziers directing the troops into position. He, Starkkapitan ca’Damont, and Commandant ca’Talin had taken a position on the second-floor balcony of a farmhouse, situated on a small rise a few hundred strides from the River Infante. On the roof of the farmhouse, Jan had placed pages with message banners as well as the signalcallers with their cornets and zinkes. A hole had been torn into the ceiling of the room behind them, with a ladder extending up to the roof so that pages could move from the command post to the roof and orders could be called up. From their vantage point, they could see the companies being placed on this side of the river, as well as the sappers who were placing obstacles along the riverbank against the Westlanders’ crossing.
On the far side of the river, closer to Nessantico, workers were digging a double line of earthwork ramparts, where the army-should it need to retreat-could fall back and hold at need.
Jan hoped that those wouldn’t be used, but he suspected they would be.
The Westlander troops were discernible in the verzehen-a lensed tube, designed by the Numetodo, that allowed one to see at a great distance. Through the warped and somewhat blurred, circular vision granted by the verzehen, Jan watched the offiziers of the Tehuantin, their High Warriors, giving their own orders. He saw the
