A Magic of Nightfall

Allesandra ca’Vorl

She found Sergei’s tale fascinating, though she knew the man well enough to know that there were details he was holding back. She wasn’t bothered by that; she would have done the same in his place. She had done the same, during the long years she had been held in Nessantico. She had liked Archigos Ana, who had treated her fairly and respectfully, and she had been fascinated by Sergei, first by his reputation and his silver nose, then-as she’d come to know him-by his intelligence and his intriguing, dark personality.

“Ca’Rudka is an interesting and skilled man, and I would not be where I am now if it weren’t for him,” Archigos Ana had told her once, a few years into her exile, as Allesandra was blooming into a young woman. “But you can’t entirely trust him. Oh, he’s true to his word, but he gives that word carefully and grudgingly, and will keep to the letter of it and perhaps not the spirit. His true allegiance is to Nessantico, not to any person within it. I don’t think he loves any person, don’t think he ever has. His true love is the city and the Holdings itself. And some of his tastes, what he enjoys doing…” Ana had grimaced at that. “I hope those are only vile tales, and not true.”

She remembered that conversation as she regarded Sergei, now dressed in current Firenzcian fashion and colors. He had come at her invitation to eat lunch in her rooms in Brezno Palais, and if he had been offended by the careful search of his body before he’d been allowed entry, or if he noticed the two armed gardai who watched him closely from their stations in the room, he said nothing. He smiled at her as he might have at any ca’ in Nessantico, and he uttered pleasantries about the presentation and taste of the meal as the servants passed in and out, and he leaned back in his chair with a cup of tea as if he were relaxed and at ease. He related how he’d been imprisoned in the Bastida, and how he’d escaped. She watched his face, watched his hands-none of them revealed any emotion at all; he might have been telling a tale that had happened to some distant relative once upon a time.

“So the Numetodo Ambassador helped you?” Allesandra also remembered Karl ca’Vliomani, who was so obviously smitten with Archigos Ana, although she seemed to treat him as no more than a good friend. Allesandra had not cared much for him, or for the Numetodo, who scorned and mocked her own strong beliefs, who believed in no gods at all. They believed that the world had always existed, that it was impossibly old and that natural processes could explain everything within it-the sheer illogic and arrogance of their philosophy annoyed Allesandra. “That won’t please Archigos Semini… or Archigos Kenne either, I would guess.”

“It was an act of friendship and nothing else.”

“Archigos Ana once told me that every act reflects on the faith of the person who commits it,” Allesandra told him. “Are you a Numetodo now, Sergei?”

He shook his head. “No. I believe in Cenzi as strongly as I ever did.”

She wondered if that statement was simply an artful deflection, but let it go. “Can Kraljiki Audric truly rule the Holdings? Can Archigos Kenne hold the a’teni together as Ana did?”

“Time alone will give you that answer, A’Hirzg,” he responded.

“Then indulge me with speculation.”

Sergei lifted a shoulder. “Archigos Kenne is… weak. Not just physically, but also when it comes to confrontation. He is a good, moral, and faithful man, but he’s a follower and not a leader. To his credit, that defect is one that he knows and acknowledges. The Concordance of A’Teni elected him Archigos because of it; they didn’t want another strong leader like Ana. As for Kraljiki Audric… well, he’s but a boy, and in ill health. I’m sure you have your own people giving you reports, but I suspect they haven’t told you the full story.”

He leaned forward, setting down the teacup and plate silently on the table. She could see her distorted reflection in his nose. “Audric has gone mad,” he said softly. He tapped an index finger to his forehead. “How fully, I don’t know. I saw it myself before he sent me to the Bastida, and afterward my friends in court and with the Faith sent me word. He holds conversations with the painting of his great-matarh Marguerite; he puts the painting at his right hand in court as if she were his councillor.”

“Truly?” Allesandra gestured, and one of the servants hurried forward to refill the teacups. She watched the golden liquid steam in her cup. “And no one says anything?”

“Kralji have sometimes acted strangely, and sometimes punished those who point out their strangeness. That’s happened often enough in Nessantico’s long history; we could both recite the names, I’m sure. And if it doesn’t seem to directly affect the Holdings-” he lifted a shoulder, “-then it’s best to keep such observations to yourself… and to be careful. I’m sure that’s what Sigourney ca’Ludovici is doing: she wants the throne, and she watches for the opportunity to seize it. Most of the Council of Ca’ would back her; the Sun Throne is hers if Audric dies or must be… removed. Either one of those is a very likely scenario in the next few months, I suspect.”

Allesandra nodded. She lifted the teacup and blew over the fragrant surface, sipping carefully. Neither of them said anything for several breaths. “Why did you come here, Regent?” she asked finally. “I know what you told my son and the Archigos. But I think there’s more.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the gardai and said nothing. “They’re my people,” she told him. “My own handpicked gardai who have been with me since I returned to Firenzcia. I trust them implicitly. I’m sure you had men under your command whose integrity you trusted in such a manner.”

“It’s been my experience that nearly everyone has a flaw that can be exploited. I’ve learned that the fewer ears hear something, the more chances there are that statements won’t be repeated.”

She waited, sipping her tea; he rubbed at his nose, smearing her reflection.

“As you wish,” he said at last. “Nessantico and the Holdings have been my life, A’Hirzg. That’s not a loyalty I can or will give up. My sincerest wish is to see the Holdings restored to what it was when Kraljica Marguerite was on the throne. I would like to see you in Nessantico, as Kraljica Allesandra. You could be the Kraljica that Nessantico requires now.”

Even though she’d been expecting the words, she still found herself drawing a quick inward breath. You see, Vatarh? You see? This is the legacy you wanted, and this is the promise you gave up when you abandoned me for Fynn. The emotional depth of the internal response surprised her; she could feel the warmth of it spreading upward from her chest to her face. She struggled not to show any of it to ca’Rudka. “Wishes are cheap,” she told him. “We can wish for all we want. What we can accomplish is quite another thing.”

“Yet if two people’s wishes coincide, and they coincide with those of other people, and if those people are powerful enough…” He smiled, folding his fingers together on the lace tablecloth as if he were praying. “Would that be your wish as well, A’Hirzg? Can you see a ca’Vorl on the Sun Throne? I know your vatarh had that vision.”

He knows. “Let’s put that aside for the moment, Regent. There are other issues if this is something we would pursue-and I’m not saying that it is. What of the Faith? Who would be the Archigos in this restored Holdings you envision: Semini, or Kenne?”

“Despite what I said about his faults, I like Archigos Kenne. He is my friend, his faith is true, and as I said, he’s a good man.”

“He may be all of that, but he is not a friend of Firenzcia and, like Ana, would coddle the heretics. And Semini is my friend.”

Sergei made a contemplative sound deep in his throat. “There are rumors, A’Hirzg, that he may be more.”

She flushed hotly at that. The gardai behind the Regent moved his hand from his side to the hilt of his sword, but she shook her head to him. “You speak too freely about rumors and lies, Regent. You can’t treat me like a girl or a royal hostage anymore. You’re on my land, and it’s your life at stake, not mine. If this is the way you spoke to Audric, then it’s no wonder he no longer wanted you to be Regent.”

He bowed his head, but there was no apology in his hawkish eyes. “My apologies, A’Hirzg. My stay in the Bastida has, I’m afraid, scrubbed away both my diplomacy and my patience. But those rumors and lies do concern me, if we are to work together.”

“The Archigos already has a wife. That’s all that needs to be said, and all the answer you’ll receive. As to Archigos Kenne…” Allesandra remembered Kenne ca’Fionta also: a gentle man, a quiet man, one who was always an effective second-in-command but never questioned anything asked of him or spoke up for himself. She could not imagine him as Archigos. Ana could be gentle and affectionate also, but there was hard bone and steel underneath her velvet, and you did not want to be her enemy. Allesandra wasn’t certain what lay underneath ca’Fionta’s exterior, but she suspected that Sergei’s assessment was correct.

But Semini-Semini could be as adamantine and strong as Ana. “If you want Firenzcia’s help,” she continued, “if you want the help of our war-teni, then it will be Archigos Semini, not Archigos Kenne, who reunites the Faith. Kenne needn’t be killed; if he could be convinced to renounce his title for the good of the Faith, perhaps even to become the a’teni of one of the cities. I suspect a friend could convince another friend of the sanity of that course. I hope so, for Kenne’s sake.”

Allesandra settled back in her chair. Sergei, for the first time, had a look of uncertainty in his face, and she was surprised by the strength of the enjoyment that gave her. She wondered if that was how a Kraljica or a Hirzgin often felt, if that was one of the gifts of power. A gift, or perhaps a trap for those who fell into the thrall of that feeling. “I know what I bring to you, Regent,” she said to him. “I bring you my name and my genealogy. I bring you the unmatched army of Firenzcia through my son. I bring you the fearsome war-teni of the true Concenzia Faith through Archigos Semini. I bring you Miscoli, Sesemora, and the Magyarias, who answer to Firenzcia. I bring all that to the table. What is it that you bring us, Regent?”

He didn’t answer quickly. His right forefinger stroked the lip of the teacup before him, and he seemed to be staring down at the pattern of the leaves in the bottom. “I bring you knowledge,” he said. “I know the Garde Kralji and the Garde Civile and the strengths and weaknesses of their commanders. I know Nessantico; I know all her paths and all her secrets. There are those in the Garde Civile and the Garde Kralji who will answer if I call them. There are those among the ca’-and-cu’ who will do the same. There are chevarittai who will come to me if I summon them. It may be, A’Hirzg, that I can deliver the Sun Throne to you with as few lives lost as possible.”

“Why, if you could do all that, why isn’t it that you’re the Kraljiki yourself rather than a refugee?” she asked him, but gave him no time to respond. “And if you can do all this, what is it that you want in return?”

“Nothing,” he said, and Allesandra felt surprise lift her eyebrows. “Give me whatever reward you see fit. I do this for Nessantico only, to whom I have always pledged my life. I once protected Nessantico from Firenzcia’s aggression; now, I will give her to Firenzcia freely. Kraljica Marguerite believed in marriage as a way to reconcile opposing forces, and I believe the same, because the marriage of Nessantico to Firenzcia is what she needs now to survive.”

Pretty words, she wanted to say scoffingly. She wasn’t certain she believed the man at all. But Cenzi had brought the Regent to her, all unexpected, a gift she couldn’t refuse. “You are an intelligent, talented, and attractive young woman,” Archigos Ana had told her when news had reached Nessantico that her vatarh had named the infant Fynn as the A’Hirzg and refused to pay the ransom that Kraljiki Justi had demanded for her release. It had been less than a year into her cushioned and bejeweled imprisonment, and Allesandra had wept in bewilderment and fright. Ana-the enemy-had held her and comforted her, had stroked her hair and calmed her again. “I know Cenzi has a plan for you. I can feel it, Allesandra. There is a great part for you to play yet in life…”

She would play that part. She would have what her vatarh had once promised her: the brilliant necklace of Nessantico. That was the reason that Sergei ca’Rudka had appeared now.

“We shall see, Regent ca’Rudka,” was all she told him now. “In the end, it will be as Cenzi wills…”