A Magic of Dawn

Sergei ca’Rudka

The rain hammered the roof of the carriage and dripped through every conceivable crevice in the carriage’s roof and sides. Sergei could not imagine how miserable the poor driver must be, huddled on his seat as they made their way ahead of the army on the road.

Sergei took a half-turn to eat a quick midday meal at one of the inns in Ville Colhelm, just across the border of the Holdings, and to let the current driver attempt to get the worst of the dampness out of his sodden clothing by sitting in front of the tavern’s roaring fire. The new driver he hired didn’t seem particularly thrilled at the idea of long turns of the glass out in the weather.

Sergei didn’t tarry long. He ate quickly and was back in the carriage with its new driver, jouncing and squelching along the roads made nearly impassable by the horrid weather. By afternoon, the rain had subsided into a persistent, sullen drizzle, the lightning and heaviest rain careening off east and north.

Sergei tried to sleep in the rocking, lurching coach, and failed. The roof was leaking in the corner where he tried to huddle, and the ruts on the road didn’t seem to match the carriage wheels, so that every time they dropped into them, the carriage springs threatened to throw him off his seat. He wondered whether the driver did that deliberately to make him as miserable as the driver himself undoubtedly was.

They encountered few people on the road, mostly farmers either sitting on their own heavy and slow plow horses, or with the animal in the traces of an equally heavy and slow wagon laden with goods destined for the markets of the nearest town. Sergei closed his eyes. He yearned to be back in Nessantico, back in his own lush apartments there. Why, he might even visit the Bastida again-surely by this time, Allesandra would have a brace of Morellis ensconced there in the darkness, and he could indulge in the delicious pain…

“Out of the road, girl!” he heard the driver call. “Are you blind and deaf?”

Sergei slid aside the curtains of the door in time to see the carriage passing a young woman walking the road. She was drenched, with only a small parcel in her hand and mud up to her knees with stray spatters over her tashta from the carriage wheels. He saw her give the driver’s back an obscene gesture.

Her face seemed oddly familiar. He’d let the curtain drop and the carriage lurch ahead for a few breaths before it came to him. “Driver!” he called, using the end of his cane to lift the window between them. “Stop a moment.”

“Vajiki?”

“That girl. Stop.”

Sergei thought he heard a sigh from the driver. “She hardly seems comely enough to bother about, Vajiki, and she’s drenched besides. But as you wish…”

The driver pulled on the reins. Sergei opened the curtains again and put his hand out in the rain, gesturing to the girl. “Come on,” he told her. “Get out of the weather.”

She hesitated, then walked slowly to the carriage. She stood at the door, looking up at him. “Begging your pardon, Vajiki, but how do I know I can trust you?” she said. If she was taken aback by his false nose, she didn’t seem to react. And that face… The hair is different. Lighter and shorter-and clumsily cut. But those eyes, and that presence…

“You don’t,” Sergei told her. “I could give you my word, but what would that mean? If I’m someone who meant you harm, I’d just lie about that, too. It’s your choice, lass; you can come in and ride a ways with me, or you can stay out there. If it’s the latter, at least you can’t get any wetter than you already are.”

She laughed. “Aye to that,” she said. “Ah, well…” She reached up and opened the door of the carriage, stepping onto the footrest there as the carriage sagged under her weight. She dropped into the narrow seat across from him. Water dripped from her hair and the sodden clothes.

She stared at him as Sergei pulled the door closed and rapped on the roof of the carriage with the knob of his cane. “Let’s go, driver.”

The driver flicked the reins and called to the horse, and the carriage lurched forward again. The young woman continued to stare. In the dimness of the carriage and with his old eyes, it was difficult to see her features that well, but he knew she could see the silver nose glued to his wrinkled visage. If she was who he thought she was, she said nothing, didn’t acknowledge his name. “Do you make a habit of giving rides to unranked peasants, Vajiki?” she asked.

“No,” Sergei answered. “Only to those who seem interesting.” She didn’t react to that except to brush rainplastered hair from her forehead. “If we’re going to share this uncomfortable coach, we might as well introduce ourselves,” he said finally. “You are…?”

“Remy,” she said. “Remy Bantara.” There was the slightest hesitation as she spoke the last name. She’s lying… Sergei suppressed a twitch of satisfaction. She was a better liar than most, extremely skilled at it, which told him that she was also used to doing so. The hesitation was hardly noticeable, but he’d heard too many lies and evasions in his life. She also kept her right hand under the folds of her overcloak, near the top of her boot. He suspected that she had a weapon there-a knife, most likely. That made him wonder-what else might she be hiding? “And you’re Ambassador Sergei ca’Rudka. The Silvernose,” she added.

“Ah, we’ve met before?”

She shook her head, spraying droplets of water from the spikes of hair. “No. But I’ve heard of you. Everyone has.”

And everyone who sees me for the first time does nothing but stare at my nose. Yet you don’t… Sergei smiled at her. “Where are you going, Vajica Bantara?”

“Nessantico,” she told him. “And you may call me Remy, if you prefer.”

“That’s a long walk, Remy.”

“I’m not required to keep a schedule. I will get there when I get there, Ambassador.”

“You may call me Sergei, if you like. Nessantico, eh? I’m on my way there as well,” he told her. He was certain now. The timbre of her voice, the way she stared intently when she thought she wasn’t being observed, the lack of true subservience in her tone. She’d dyed her hair lighter, and probably cut it herself. This was Rhianna-the girl who Paulus had said that the Hirzg’s people were searching for. Knowing Jan as he did, and hearing the interplay between the Hirzg and Brie, he suspected he knew why. “I’ll be stopping at Passe a’Fiume tonight to sleep and change driver and horse, then on to Nessantico in the morning.” He hesitated. “You’re welcome to accompany me. It’s a far shorter ride than a walk.”

“And what payment would you be expecting, Amba… Sergei?”

“Just the pleasure of conversation,” he told her. “As you said, it’s a long way to Nessantico, and lonely.”

“As I said a moment ago, I’ve heard of you. And some of those tales…” She let her statement trail off into silence. She continued to stare at him.

“I’m not one to believe tales and gossip, myself,” Sergei told her. “I prefer to discover the truth on my own. Someone who’s strong enough to walk to Nessantico is certainly strong enough to fend off an old man who can barely walk, should he go beyond the bounds of politeness. At the very least, you can certainly outrun me.”

She laughed again, a genuine, throaty amusement that made him smile in return. Her hand came out from under her tashta: again, a practiced, effortless movement, not that of a frightened young girl in an uncertain situation, but that of someone who was used to such conditions. He began to wonder if there were more to the story of Jan and Rhianna than he thought.

You could make her talk. You could make her tell you everything.

The thought was sweet and tempting, but he thrust it away. Instead, he continued to smile. “I can arrange a room for you at the Kraljica’s apartments in Passe a’Fiume,” he said. “I can also assure you that the locks work perfectly well. In exchange, you can tell me your story. Are we agreed?”

“Only if you tell me yours as well,” she answered. “Yours would be far more interesting, I assure you.”

“The other person’s tale is always more interesting,” he said. “Frankly, my tale is rather boring. But-we have an agreement, then. So-let’s start. Tell me, why is a young woman walking to Nessantico in the rain?”

She looked away then. He could almost hear her thinking. He wondered what she would say, but he was certain that whatever it was would not be the truth.

“It’s because of my great-vatarh,” she said. “We lived not far outside Ville Colhelm, and he had decided that I had to marry this boy from the farm next to ours-”

“That’s a lie,” Sergei interrupted. He kept his voice calm. Unperturbed. “I’m sure you’d make it a very entertaining and convincing lie, but it’s a lie nonetheless.”

Her hand drifted back under her tashta-smoothly, a movement that would have gone unnoticed by most eyes, since at the same time she shifted her position on the seat, placing both legs down as if she were readying herself to move. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You’re right. I’m not from Ville Colhelm, not from the Holdings at all. I’m from Sesemora, from a town on the Lungosei, but my family is largely from Il Trebbio, and so they were under constant suspicion. The Pjathi’s soldiers came one day, and-”

Sergei was already shaking his head and she stopped. “Why don’t you tell me your real name,” he asked. “Rhianna, perhaps? Or is that one also a lie?” He saw her gaze dart to the door of the carriage. “Don’t,” he told her. “There’s no need for you to be alarmed. As you said, you know me. I have done terrible things in my lifetime, and there’s nothing you can tell me, I suspect, that will shock me. Whatever you’ve done, whatever’s happened to you, I’ve no intention of holding you. Especially since you have your hand on a knife at the moment, and my only weapon is this cane.” He lifted it, moving deliberately slowly and grimacing as if it pained him to lift his shoulder-he also neglected to mention the blade he could draw from the sheath of the cane at need, or the fact that Varina had enchanted the cane for him: with the release word she had taught him-she claimed-he could kill an attacker instantly. He had never used the release word, since Varina had said that the spell was incredibly costly and she could not (or would not) do it again. “Use it only in dire need,” she had told him. “Only when there is no other option open for you…”

“The door is unlocked, and I will sit over here away from it,” he told the young woman. Grunting, he slid on the seat to the side opposite the door. “You can reach it long before I could stop you. There-now you can escape into this horrible weather whenever you like. But if you’re staying, I would like to hear your story. The true one.”

She stared at him, and he held her gaze placidly. He saw her relax slowly, though the hand never left her hidden weapon. “I could kill you, Sergei,” she told him. “Easily.”

“I’ve no doubt of that. And if it happens, well, I’ve lived a long life and I’ll trust you are skilled enough to make my end fast and easy.”

“I’m not joking.”

“Neither am I,” he answered. “So, is your name even Rhianna?”

The silence stretched long enough that he thought she wasn’t going to answer. There was only the creaking of the carriage and the rocking motion of the ruts of the Avi. She slid closer to the door, and he thought she would bolt out into the rain again to be gone forever. Then she let all the air out of her body in one great sigh. She looked away from him, lifting the flap of the door to stare at the rain.

“Rochelle is what my matarh named me,” she said.