A Magic of Dawn

Sergei ca’Rudka

“ Have you had a chance to speak with Varina yet? The poor woman-she’s taking her loss so hard.”

Sergei nodded to Allesandra. “I took supper with her yesterday, Kraljica. She’s not sleeping well at all, judging from the circles under her eyes. I sent my healer over to her with a potion.”

“You’re such a kind man, Sergei.”

She was facing away from him, and her comment was carefully modulated. He couldn’t tell if her words had been laced with irony or not. He suspected that they were. “I pray that when Cenzi’s attendants weigh my soul-soon enough now-that it will float in His arms, however slightly, Kraljica. But I’m afraid it will be a rather delicate balancing act.”

They were sitting on the balcony of Allesandra’s outer apartments in the Grande Palais, overlooking the gardens. The wind-horns had sounded First Call a turn and a half ago. Below them, the grounds staff prowled in the morning sun, watering plants and pulling the weeds that dared to raise their green heads in the manicured beds. To their left, workers swarmed the scaffolding where the facade of the north wing was still under construction. The uneven percussion of hammers and chisels kept the birds from roosting easily in the trees.

Allesandra lifted her cup of tea and sipped. She appeared to be watching the workers shaping the granite blocks. Sergei drank his own tea. He had little doubt that Allesandra knew his vices; as he’d aged they’d become, if anything, stronger and more compulsive. When he was in Nessantico, he visited the Bastida a’Drago nearly every day-many of the offiziers within the the Bastida staff were men who had come up through the ranks while he had been Commandant of the Garde Kralji and then the Garde Civile; Capitaine ce’Denise was a recruit he had hired nearly forty years ago. They allowed him to prowl the lower levels, to “visit” the occasional prisoner there, and if they heard the howls of pain, they ignored them (or, often enough, were there with him). In Brezno, in his capacity as Special Ambassador to the Hirzg, there were certain grandes horizontales Sergei would hire who could serve his particular needs in consideration of the considerably higher fees he paid for their pain and their silence.

Sergei prayed to Cenzi frequently to take these impulses away from him, but He had never answered. He had tried to stop, a thousand times, and each time had lost that battle.

He could command an army to victory but it appeared that he could not command himself.

To the public, “Old Silvernose” was generous. He was kindly in person, he was known for his charitable contributions, and praised for his long service and dedication to the Holdings. To his friends, he was loyal and he would give of himself all that he could. That part of him, too, he had strived to enhance over the years, as a balance to the other.

He wondered which side of him would be remembered, once he was gone. He wondered which side Cenzi would weigh the most. He would find out, soon enough, he suspected. There wasn’t a joint in his body that didn’t have issues of one sort or another. He shuffled rather than walked. It took him several breaths to rise from a chair, and his back sometimes refused to straighten. The prosthetic metal nose glued to his face stood out more than ever in the wrinkled bag of flesh in which it sat. Sergei had outlived nearly all his contemporaries. He existed in a world where everyone seemed to be younger than him. For them, the events he had witnessed and participated in were history rather than memory.

“I understand you’ve convinced A’Teni ca’Paim to allow the Old Temple to be used for the funeral, despite the confrontation yesterday.”

Allesandra nodded. She set down her cup and turned to him. “I did-in fact, the confrontation may have helped; she felt guilty that one of her teni was involved in such an assault. Still, I’m glad that Vajiki ca’Vikej was there.”

Sergei sniffed at that. He knew that ca’Vikej had stayed for several turns of the glass at the palais, and he hoped that wasn’t for the reason he suspected-but that was a question he couldn’t ask. “I interviewed the teni along with A’Teni ca’Paim. He’s a follower of Nico Morel, but claims he was acting on his own. I believe him.”

“I’m sure you coaxed the truth from the man,” she said with a strange inflection in her voice, but she hurried past the comment before Sergei could remark on it. “A’Teni ca’Paim seems to think Archigos Karrol will still be suitably outraged at the use of the temple to honor a Numetodo.”

Sergei lifted an aching shoulder. “Oh, he’ll pretend to be so. He has to. But he also realizes that without Karl and Varina’s help, the Tehuantin might still be feasting in the ruins of Nessantico or conceivably walking the streets of Brezno. Karrol doesn’t like the Numetodo beliefs-I don’t either-but he understands that they’ve made themselves useful occasionally.”

“Hmm.” Allesandra put her hand atop his. Once, years ago, Sergei had thought that Allesandra might have even been attracted to him despite the differences in their age. That would have been a horrible and awkward situation, and he’d been pleased that she had never moved to take their relationship beyond friendship. Now he wondered whether she’d found another infatuation with ca’Vikej. “I do worry about the Morellis, Sergei,” Allesandra said. “We’re taking precautions, but.. . All the reports indicate that Nico Morel is somewhere here in the city, and his attitude toward the Numetodo is quite clear.”

“Clear and entirely unreasonable,” Sergei spat. “Karl and Varina were nothing except kind to him as a boy, and now he’s turned on them because what they believe isn’t what he believes. I assume you’ve alerted Commandant cu’Ingres.”

“I have, and I’ve suggested to the Commandant that he should step up the attempts to find Morel and hold the young man in the Bastida until after the funeral.”

The Bastida. That brought images of dark stone and… other things. Sergei stirred uneasily in his seat. “That’s sensible. We don’t want a repeat of what happened last Day of Atonement. Allesandra, despite Varina’s objections, I think you’re going to need to move against our self-proclaimed prophet and his Morellis soon. Varina may feel that he’s redeemable, but Nico Morel is too charismatic and dangerous, and too many people are beginning to listen to him. The problem is that Archigos Karrol is half in sympathy with the boy-the Faith won’t do more than slap him on the wrist. If Archigos Karrol or Hirzg Jan can see a way to use the Morellis against you, they will. At best, he’s an unnecessary distraction at the moment; you don’t want him to become more.”

Allesandra nodded but said nothing. Her hand had gone back to her own lap. “Ambassador ca’Schisler of Brezno will attend the funeral,” Sergei said. “I spoke with him before I came here. I was a little worried that the Coalition wouldn’t be represented, and that would have been a terrible insult to Karl’s memory.”

Another nod. She was staring out toward the garden again.

“What are you thinking, Kraljica?” he asked. “Your mind is a thousand miles away.”

That garnered him the hint of a smile. “We’ve done awful things in our time, Sergei-things that at the time we felt we had to do, but awful. I once even…” She stopped. A muscle twitched along her jawline as she closed her mouth. The years were beginning to take their toll on Allesandra as well, Sergei thought, especially in the last few years. There were deep wrinkles there, and around her eyes, and her hair was liberally salted with gray. “I suppose we can hardly blame others for being willing to commit violence for their own cause.”

“Blame them, no,” Sergei answered. “But stop them if they threaten Nessantico? Imprison them or execute them if necessary to deal with them? Yes. And without any regrets.”

“You say that so easily.”

“I believe it.”

“I envy you your convictions, then.” She seemed to shiver in the morning chill, pulling the thin cloak she wore over her tashta tighter around her shoulders. “I wanted this so much, Sergei. I wanted to be Kraljica. I imagined myself as the new Marguerite, and the Sun Throne ablaze with its former glory and more.”

Sergei stirred-for the last few years, since the debacle with Stor ca’Vikej and West Magyaria, he had been pushing Allesandra to reconcile with her son. She had always pushed such hints aside angrily. But now… “You still have three decades and more to match her,” Sergei said. “Ask the historians how troubled her first several years were if you don’t already know. You can still be her, if that’s what you want. There’s plenty of time.”

“I appreciate the sentiment.”

“And you don’t believe me.”

“I know what you’re going to say next, Sergei. You needn’t bother. We shouldn’t try to delude ourselves at this stage, not about anything.” She patted his hand again. “What’s my legacy to be? I’m Kraljica Allesandra, who betrayed her own child to take the Sun Throne-isn’t that what they’ll say of me? Kraljica Allesandra, who-if I were to make the Holdings whole again-would have to destroy her own offspring to do it. Kraljica Allesandra, who made a mistake backing Stor ca’Vikej and nearly plunged us into full war with the Coalition.”

“Make sure that you don’t make another mistake with Stor’s son.” He went too far with that; the glance she shot him was as keen as the knife on his belt. He hurried to speak again. “It’s too early in the morning to be this maudlin, and neither one of us is drunk enough.”

He was relieved to hear her laugh once through her nose, her mouth closed. “Karl’s dead. I don’t know what it is about his death that’s hit me more than all the others, but it has. I’m feeling suddenly mortal. Sergei, I haven’t seen my own son in five years; he only talks to me through you, my friend. He sits on an opposing throne. He calls me his enemy. Meanwhile, I’ve done little with the Sun Throne except to try to repair the damage the Westlanders caused.”

“Maudlin,” Sergei repeated. “Let’s have the servants bring us some wine, so at least we have an excuse.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“Oh, but it is, Allesandra. It’s just not funny to us. But Cenzi no doubt finds it tremendously amusing. As for mortality-look at me.” He spread his hands wide. “I’ve been feeling it for a long time. In fact, it’s a wonder that I’m still moving at all. Compared to me, you’ve no room for complaint. You still have all your teeth. And your nose.” He tapped his own false nose with a fingernail so that it rang metallically. He saw her fighting a smile, which made him grin himself. “As for your son,” he continued, “I’ll talk to him when I’m next in Brezno. I’ve suggested this before, as you know: maybe it’s time the two of you sat down together, to see if you can come to an understanding. He does love and respect you, Allesandra, even if he won’t say it.”

“He has a strange way of demonstrating it. How many border skirmishes have there been, and more numerous now than ever since the debacle in West Magyaria? He thought that he’d give me the Sun Throne and watch the Holdings continue to fall apart. That’s what he wanted.”

“And instead you’ve kept the Holdings together,” Sergei answered, “which is what I’ve been trying to point out to you. The Holdings have survived, despite the fact that without your guiding presence the various countries would have broken away or let the Coalition absorb them. You very nearly brought West Magyaria back to the Holdings.”

“And that angers my son.”

“Perhaps,” Sergei admitted. “But it also makes Jan respect you, however grudgingly.”

“You think so?”

“I know so,” he told her. It was a lie, but he was used to lying and he did it convincingly.

He could use this. He could twist it to his advantage.

Later. For now, he patted Allesandra’s hand, and he smiled again at her. “Let me talk with Jan,” he repeated. “And we’ll see.”