Allesandra ca’Vörl
“MATARH?”
Allesandra heard the
call, followed by a tentative knock. Her son Jan was standing at
the open door. At fifteen, almost sixteen, he was stick-thin and
gawky. In just the past several months, his body had started to
morph into that of a young man, with a fine down of hair on his
chin and under his arms. He was still several fingers shorter than
the girls of the same age, most of whom had reached their menarche
the year before. Named for her vatarh, she could glimpse some of
his features in her son, but there was a strong strain of the
ca’Xielt family in him as well—Pauli’s family. Jan had the duskier
skin coloring of the Magyarians, and his vatarh’s dark eyes and
curly, nearly black hair. She doubted that he would ever have the
heavier ca’Belgradin musculature of his uncle Fynn, which
Allesandra’s great-vatarh Karin and vatarh Jan had also
possessed.
She sometimes had
difficulty imagining him galloping madly into battle—though he
could ride as well as any, and had keen sight that an archer would
envy. Still, he often seemed more comfortable with scrolls and
books than swords. And despite his parentage, despite the act
(purely of duty) that had produced him, despite the surliness and
barely-hidden anger that seemed to consume him lately, she loved
him more than she had thought it possible to love
anyone.
And she worried, in
the last year especially, that she was losing him, that he might be
falling under Pauli’s influence. Pauli had been absent through most
of Jan’s life, but maybe that was Pauli’s advantage: it was easier
to dislike the parent who was always correcting you, and to admire
the one who let you do whatever you wanted. There’d been that
incident with the staff girl, and Allesandra had needed to send her
away—that was too much like
Pauli.
“Come in, darling,”
she said, beckoning to him.
Jan nodded without
smiling, went to the dressing table where she sat, and touched his
lips to the top of her head—the barest shadow of a kiss—as the
women helping her dress drifted away silently. “Onczio Fynn sent me
to fetch you,” he said. “Evidently it’s time.” A pause. “And
evidently I’m little better than a servant to him. Just Magyarian
chattel to be sent on errands.”
“Jan!” she said
sharply. She gestured with her eyes to her maidservants. They were
all West Magyarians, part of the entourage that had come with Jan
from Malacki.
He shrugged,
uncaring. “Are you coming, Matarh, or are you going to send me back
to Fynn with your own response like a good little messenger
boy?”
You can’t respond here the way you want to. Not where
everything we say could become court gossip tonight. “I’m
nearly ready, Jan,” she said, gesturing. “We’ll go down together,
since you’re here.” The servants returned, one brushing her hair,
another placing a pearl necklace that had once been her matarh
Greta’s around her neck, and yet another adjusting the folds of her
tashta. She handed another necklace to her dressing girl: a cracked
globe on a fine chain, the continents gold, the seas purest lapiz
lazuli, the rent in the globe filled with rubies in its
depths—Cénzi’s globe. Archigos Ana had given her the necklace when
she’d reached her own menarche, in Nessantico.
“It belonged to Archigos Dhosti once,” Ana had told
her. “He gave it to me; now I give it to
you.” Allesandra touched the globe as the servant fastened
it around her neck and remembered Ana: the sound of her voice, the
smell of her.
“Everyone keeps
telling me how Onczio Fynn will make a fine Hïrzg,” Jan said,
interrupting the memory.
“I know,” Allesandra
began. And why would you expect anything
else? she wanted to add. Jan knew the etiquette of court
well enough to understand that.
He evidently saw the
unspoken remark in her face. “I wasn’t finished. I was going to say
that you would make a better one. You should be the one wearing the
golden band and the ring, Matarh.”
“Hush,” she told him
again, though more gently this time. The maidservants were her own,
true, but one never knew. Secrets could be bought, or coaxed out
through love, or forced through pain. “We’re not at home, Jan. You
must remember that. Especially here . . .”
His sullen frown
melted for a moment, and he looked so apologetic that all her
irritation melted, and she stroked his arm. It was that way with
him too much of late: scowls one moment and warm smiles the next.
However, the scowls were coming more frequently as the loving child
in him retreated ever deeper into his new adolescent shell. “It’s
fine, Jan,” she told him. “Just . . . well, you must be very
careful while we’re here. Always.” And
especially with Fynn. She tucked the thought away. She would
tell him later. Privately. She stood, and the servants fell away
like autumn leaves. She hugged Jan; he allowed the gesture but
nothing more, his own arms barely moving. “All right, we’ll go down
now. Remember that you are the son of the A’Gyula of West Magyaria,
and also the son of the current A’Hïrzg of Firenzcia.”
Fynn had given her
the title yesterday, after their vatarh had died: the title that
should have been hers all along, that would have made her Hïrzgin.
She knew that even that gift was temporary, that Fynn would name
someone else A’Hïrzg in time: his own child, perhaps, if he ever
married and produced an heir, or some court favorite. Allesandra
would be Fynn’s heir only until he found one he liked
better.
“Matarh,” Jan
interrupted. He gave a too-loud huff of air, and the frown
returned. “I know the lecture. ‘The eyes and ears of the
ca’-and-cu’ will be on you.’ I know. You don’t have to tell me.
Again.”
Allesandra wished she
believed that. “All right,” she breathed. “Let us go down, then,
and be with the new Hïrzg as we lay your great-vatarh to his
rest.”
With the death of
Hïrzg Jan, the required month of mourning had been proclaimed, and
a dozen necessary ceremonies scheduled. The new Hïrzg Fynn would
preside over several rituals in the next few weeks: some only for
the ca’-and-cu’, some for the edification of the public. The formal
Besteigung, the final ritual, would take place at the end of the
month in Brezno Temple with Archigos Semini presiding—timed so that
the leaders of the other countries of the Firenzcian Coalition
could make their way to Brezno and pay homage to the new Hïrzg.
Allesandra had already been told that A’Gyula Pauli would be
arriving for the Besteigung, at least—she was already dreading her
husband’s arrival.
And tonight . . .
tonight was the Internment.
The Kralji burned
their dead; the Hïrzgai entombed theirs. Hïrzg Jan’s body was to be
buried in the vault of the ca’Belgradins where several generations
of their ancestors lay, a hand or more of them having shared with
Jan the golden band that now circled Fynn’s forehead. Fynn was
waiting for them in his own chambers; from there they would go down
to the vaults below the ground floor of Brezno Palais. The
Chevarittai of the Red Lancers and others of the nobility of
Firenzcia were already waiting for them there.
The halls of the
palais were hushed, the servants they saw stopping in their tasks
and bowing silently with lowered eyes as they passed. Two gardai
stood outside Fynn’s chambers; they opened the doors for them as
they approached. Allesandra could hear voices from inside as they
entered.
“. . . just received
the news from Gairdi. This will complicate things. We don’t know
exactly how much yet—” Archigos Semini ca’Cellibrecca stopped in
mid-phrase as Allesandra and Jan entered the room. The man had
always put Allesandra in mind of a bear, all the way back to when
she’d been a child and he a rising young war-téni: even as a young
man, Semini had been massive and furred and dangerous. His black
beard was now salted with white, and the mass of curly hair was
receding from his forehead like a slow tide, but he was still burly
and muscled. He gave them the sign of Cénzi, clasping his hands to
his forehead as his wife Francesca did the same behind him.
Allesandra had been told that Francesca had once been a beauty—in
fact, there were rumors that she’d once been the lover of Justi the
One-Legged—but Allesandra hadn’t known her at that time. Now, she
was a humpbacked matron with several of her teeth missing, her body
ravaged by the rigors of a dozen pregnancies over the years. Her
personality was as sour as her face.
Fynn rose from his
chair.
“Sister,” he said,
taking her hands as he stood in front of her. He was smiling—he
seemed almost gleeful. “Semini has just brought some interesting
news from Nessantico. Archigos Ana has been
assassinated.”
Allesandra gasped,
unable to hide her reaction. Her hands went to the cracked globe
pendant around her neck, then she forced herself to lower them. She
felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath. “Assassinated? By whom .
. . ?” She stopped, glancing at Semini—who was also smiling; almost
smugly, Allesandra thought—then at her brother. “Did we do this?” she asked. Her voice was as edged as a
dagger. She felt Jan put his hand on her shoulder from behind,
sensing her distress.
Fynn snorted. “Would
it matter?” he asked.
“Yes,” Allesandra
told him. “Only a fool would think otherwise.” The words came out
before she could stop them. And after I just
cautioned Jan . . .
Fynn glowered at the
implied insult. Jan’s hand tightened on Allesandra’s shoulder.
Semini cleared his throat loudly before Fynn could
speak.
“This wasn’t the
Hïrzg’s doing, Allesandra,” Semini answered quickly, shaking his
head and waving his hand in dismissal. “Firenzcia may be at odds
with the Faith in Nessantico, but the Hïrzg doesn’t engage in
assassination. Nor does the Faith.”
She looked from
Semini to Francesca. The woman looked away quickly but made no
attempt to hide the satisfaction in her face. Her pleasure at the
news was obvious. The woman had all the warmth of a Boail winter.
Allesandra wondered whether Semini had ever felt any affection for
her, or whether their marriage was as loveless and calculated as
her own despite their several children. Allesandra couldn’t imagine
submitting to Pauli’s pleasure so often. “We’re certain this report
is true?” she asked Semini.
“It’s come to me from
three different sources, one I trust implicitly—the trader
Gairdi—and they all agree on the basic details,” Semini told her.
“Archigos Ana was performing the Day of Return service when there
was an explosion. ‘Like a war-téni’s spell,’ they all said—which
means it was someone using the Ilmodo. That much is
certain.”
“Which also means
they may look eastward to us,” Fynn said. He seemed eager at the
thought, as if anxious to call the army of Firenzcia into battle.
That would be like him; Allesandra would be terrifically surprised
if Fynn’s reign were to be a peaceful one.
“Or they will look to
the west,” Allesandra argued, and Fynn glanced at her as he might
an annoying, persistent insect. “Nessantico has enemies there as
well, and they can use the Ilmodo also, even if—like the
Numetodo—they have their own name for it.”
“The Westlanders?
Like the Numetodo, they’re heretics deserving of death,” Semini
spat. “They abuse Cénzi’s gift, which is intended only for the
téni, and we will one day make them pay for their insult, if
Nessantico fails to do so.”
Fynn grunted his
agreement with the sentiment, and Allesandra saw her son Jan
nodding as well—that was also his damned vatarh’s influence, or at
least that of the Magyarian téni Pauli had insisted educate their
son despite Allesandra’s misgivings. She pressed her lips
together.
Ana is dead. She placed her fingers on the necklace
of the cracked globe, feeling its smooth, jeweled surface. The
touch brought up again the memory of Ana’s face, of the lopsided
smile that would touch the woman’s lips when something amused her,
of the grim lines that set themselves around her eyes when she was
angry. Allesandra had spent a decade with the woman; captor,
friend, and surrogate matarh all at once for her during the long
years that she’d spent as a hostage of Nessantico. Allesandra’s
feelings toward Ana were as complex and contradictory as their
relationship had been. They were nearly as conflicted as her
feelings toward her vatarh, who had left her languishing in
Nessantico while Fynn became the A’Hïrzg and favorite.
She wanted to cry at
the news, in sadness for someone who had treated her well and
fairly when there had been no compulsion for her to do so. But she
could not. Not here. Not in front of people who hated the woman.
Here, she had to pretend.
Later. Later I can mourn her properly. . .
.
“I expected somewhat
more reaction from you, Sister,” Fynn said. “After all, that
abomination of a woman and the one-legged pretender kept you
captive. Vatarh cursed whenever anyone spoke her name; said she was
no better than a witch.”
Fynn was watching
her, and they both knew what he was leaving out of his comment:
that Hïrzg Jan could have ransomed her at any time during those
years, that had he done so it was likely that the golden band would
be on her head, not Fynn’s. “You won’t be here
half a year,” Ana had told Allesandra in those first months.
“Kraljiki Justi has set a fair ransom, and your vatarh will pay it.
Soon . . .”
But, for whatever
reasons, Hïrzg Jan had not.
Allesandra made her
face a mask. You won’t cry. You won’t let them
see the grief. It wasn’t difficult; it was what she did
often enough, and it served her well most of the time. She knew
what the ca’-and-cu’ called her behind her back: the Stone Bitch. “Ana ca’Seranta’s death is
important. I appreciate Archigos Semini bringing us the news, and
we should—we must—decide what it means for Firenzcia,” she said,
“but we won’t know the full implications for weeks yet. And right
now Vatarh is waiting for us. I suggest we see to him
first.”
The Tombs of the
Hïrzgai were catacombs below Brezno Palais, not the lower levels of
the newer private estate outside the city known as Stag Fall, built
in Hïrzg Karin’s time. A long, wide stairway led down to the Tombs,
a crust of niter coating the sweating walls and growing like white
pustules on the faces in the murals painted there two centuries
before and restored a dozen times since: the damp always won over
pigments. A chill, nearly fetid air rose from below, as if warning
them that the realm of the dead was approaching. The torches alight
in their sconces held back the darkness but rendered the shadows of
the occasional side passage blacker and more mysterious in
contrast. A dozen generations of the Hïrzgai awaited them below,
with their various spouses and many of their direct offspring.
Allesandra’s older brother Toma had been interred here when
Allesandra was but a baby, and her matarh Greta had lain alongside
him for nineteen years now. In time, Allesandra herself might join
her family, though an eternity spent next to Matarh Greta was not a
pleasant thought.
The procession moved
in stately silence down the staircase: in front the e’téni with
lanterns lit by green téni-fire, then Hïrzg Fynn accompanied by
Archigos Semini and Francesca, and Allesandra and Jan a few steps
behind them, followed by a final group of servants and e’téni. As
they approached the intricately-carved entranceway to the tombs,
decorated with bas-reliefs of the historical accomplishments of the
Hïrzgai, Allesandra could hear whisperings and the rustling of
cloth and an occasional cough or sneeze: the ca’-and-cu’ who had
been invited to witness the ceremony. These were the elite of
Firenzcia, most of them relatives of Fynn and Allesandra: families
who were intertwined and intermarried with their own, or those who
had served for decades with Hïrzg Jan.
Torchlight and téni
light together slid over the coiled bodies of fantastic creatures
carved on the walls, the stern features of carved Hïrzgai and the
broken bodies of enemies at their feet. The Chevarittai of the Red
Lancers came to attention, their lances (the blades masked in
scarlet cloth) clashing against polished dress armor. The other
ca’-and-cu’ bowed low and the whispers faded to silence as the new
Hïrzg entered the large chamber. Allesandra could see their glances
slide from Fynn to her, and to Jan as well. Jan noticed the
attention; she felt him stiffen at her side with an intake of
breath. She nodded to them—the slightest movement of her head, the
faintest hint of a smile.
Look at her, as cold as this chamber . . . It was
what they would be thinking, some of them. She’s no doubt pleased to see old Jan dead after he left
her with the Kraljiki and the false Archigos for so long. She
probably wishes Fynn were there with him so she could be the
Hïrzgin.
None of them knew
her. None of them knew what her true thoughts were. For that
matter, she wasn’t entirely certain she knew them herself. She was
still reeling from the news about Ana, and if she showed signs of
grief, it was for her, not her vatarh.
The casket containing
the remains of Hïrzg Jan sat near the entrance to his interment
chamber, next to the huge round stone that would seal off the
niche. The coffin was draped in a tapestry cloth that depicted his
victory over the T’Sha at Lake Cresci. There was nothing
celebrating Passe a’Fiume or Jan’s bold, foolish attack on
Nessantico a decade before: those days when Allesandra had ridden
with him, when she’d watched her vatarh adoringly, when he’d
promised to give her the city of Nessantico.
Instead, Nessantico
had snatched her from him and given Fynn the place at her vatarh’s
right hand.
Fynn saluted the
lancers, who relaxed their stances. “I would like to thank everyone
for being here,” he said. “I know Vatarh is looking down from the
arms of Cénzi, appreciating this tribute to him. And I also know
that he would forgive us for not lingering here when warm fires and
food await us above.” Fynn received quiet laughter at that, and he
smiled. “Archigos, if you would . . .”
Semini moved quickly
forward with the téni and gave his blessing over the casket. He
motioned Allesandra and Jan forward as the téni began to chant the
benediction. They went to the casket, bowed, then placed their
hands on the tapestry. “I wish you’d had more chance to know him,”
she whispered to Jan as the téni chanted, putting her hand atop
his. “He wasn’t always as angry and brusque as he was in his later
years.”
“You’ve told me
that,” he said. “Several times. But it’s still not the memory of
him I’ll take with me, is it?” She glanced at her son; he was
frowning down at the casket.
“We’ll talk about it
later,” she told him.
“I’ve no doubt about
it, Matarh.”
Allesandra suppressed
the retort she might have made; she would say nothing here. People
were already glancing at them curiously, wondering what secrets
they might be whispering and at the sharp edge in her son’s voice.
She lifted her hand and stepped back, allowing Fynn to
approach.
She wondered what her
brother thought as he stood there, his hand on the casket and his
head bowed.
After a few minutes,
Fynn also stepped away. He nodded to the lancers; four of them came
forward to take the casket. Their faces were somber as they lifted
the coffin and slid it forward into the niche that awaited it.
Stone grated on wood, the sound echoing. The four stepped back, and
another quartet put their shoulders to the sealing stone, which
groaned and resisted as it turned slowly. The massive wheel of rock
advanced along a groove carved in the floor toward the deep cut
into which it would settle and rest. The stone was carved with the
glyphs of Old Firenzcian, a language spoken only by scholars now,
as thick as a man’s arm, and standing half again a man’s height. As
the great wheel reached the end of the groove and dropped into the
cut where it was supposed to rest, there came a tremendous cracking
sound. A fissure shot through its carved face and the top third of
the stone toppled. Allesandra knew she must have screamed a
warning, but it was over before any of them could move or react.
The mass of the stone crushed one of the lancers entirely
underneath it and smashed the legs of another as it fell to the
ground.
The pinned lancer’s
screams were piercing and shrill as thick blood ran from underneath
the stone.
This is a sign . . . She couldn’t stop the
thought—as the remainder of the lancers rushed forward, as
ca’-and-cu’, téni, and servants hurried to help or stared frozen in
horror at the rear of the chamber. Jan was among those trying
desperately to lift the burial stone, and Fynn was shouting useless
orders into the chaos.
Vatarh did this. Somehow he did this. He does not rest
easily. . . .