Allesandra ca’Vörl
BESTEIGUNG. THE INAUGURAL for the new
Hïrzg.
The day dawned
brilliant and cooperative, with a sky of lush azure in which misty
ships of pale white clouds scudded westward and away. The heat had
broken, driven away by a cleansing rain the night before. Cénzi had
blessed the day, and the téni beamed as if it had been their
prayers that had caused the day to be so beautiful.
Perhaps it
had.
Allesandra prayed to
Cénzi as well. She prayed that the day might turn out as she hoped
it would, that she had not misread the signs. And though she
prayed, she also made certain that a dagger was sheathed to her
forearm under the frilled and lacy sleeve of her tashta. She had
learned long ago from her vatarh to never be without a
weapon.
The day would be a
long one for Fynn—and for those, like Allesandra, who were required
to attend to him. First came the ceremony in Brezno Temple at First
Call, where the Archigos gave the new Hïrzg the Blessing of Cénzi.
Then there were the required state visits: to the Tomb of Hïrzg
Kelwin, first Hïrzg of Firenzcia; to the temple near the Hïrzg’s
Palais that held a vial of blood from Misco, the founder of
Firenzcia; to the great cracked boulder near Brezno’s main square,
where it was said that the Moitidi—at Cénzi’s request—sent a
furious lightning bolt down to earth to smite the army of Il
Trebbio when it invaded Firenzcia in 183 during the midst of the
Three Generation War. At each location, there were the obligatory
speeches and ceremonies, and the ca’-and-cu’ listened attentively,
grateful that there was no driving rain or bitter cold or humid
heat to endure beyond the stultifying, expected
phrases.
Then there came the
final procession to the new statue of Falwin I, erected by
Allesandra’s vatarh Jan after he declared Firenzcia’s secession
from the Holdings—it was Falwin who had led the tragically
unsuccessful revolt against Kraljiki Henri VI in 418, and it was
there that Fynn had erected the dais where, at last, the Crown and
Ring of Firenzcia would be officially declared his to
bear.
As Archigos
ca’Cellibrecca passed Allesandra in his téni-driven carriage on his
way to his place in the line of dignitaries, he leaned from the
window and ordered the driver to halt. The e’téni stopped her
chanting and the wheels slowed. The Archigos beckoned to Allesandra
over the broken-globe symbol of Cénzi painted in gold and lapis.
“Excuse me a moment,” she told Jan and Pauli. Jan shrugged at his
matarh; Pauli, deep in a conversation with a pretty young woman of
the ca’Belgradin family, gave no acknowledgment at all. Allesandra
went to the Archigos’ carriage and gave the sign of Cénzi to
Semini. Francesca was sitting next to the Archigos, in shadow. “A
beautiful day for the ceremony,” she said to him, to Francesca.
“Cénzi has smiled on Fynn.”
“Indeed,” Semini
answered. His voice dropped, low enough that Francesca could not
have heard him, barely audible over the tumult of the musicians
beginning the processional march. “However, A’Hïrzg, I would not
stand too close to the new Hïrzg on the dais.”
“Archigos?”
He glanced to the
rear of the line, where Fynn’s carriage—drawn by four white horses,
one of them riderless—waited. “It’s a beautiful day indeed,” he
said, more loudly now. “A good one for all of Firenzcia, I think,”
he said. “Driver—they’re waiting for us.”
The e’téni began
chanting again; the wheels creaked as they began to turn once more.
Allesandra stepped back from the carriage as Semini nodded to her
and sat back again on his cushioned seat next to Francesca, who
gave Allesandra a sour look as they passed. She watched them move
into line just before the Hïrzg’s carriage.
She had been on edge
all day, wondering if ca’Cellibrecca truly intended to carry out
what he had hinted at—he would do nothing himself, of course, but
work through layers of intermediaries; if something were to happen,
the Archigos would also want it to occur in public, where he could
be seen not to be involved, and where it would have the most
impact. It was exactly what she would have done
herself.
“I would not stand too close to the new Hïrzg . .
.”
A thrill of fear
overlaid with excitement went through her. She wanted to run back
to the Archigos, to whisper three words to him: “The White Stone?” If he nodded yes to that, then
what she had planned would be a dangerous ploy indeed, given the
legends of the assassin. The White Stone, it was said, would kill
anyone who tried to interfere with his completion of a contract The
White Stone, those same rumors declared, was a master in the use of
every weapon; there was no one who could safely cross blades with
him. But the White Stone always struck his victims in isolation,
not in the midst of crowds. It couldn’t be him . . . at least
Allesandra hoped not.
Whatever the case, it
would happen soon, then. Soon. And any way this might play out, she
would be the one who profited the most—if she was careful. In time.
All in time. She returned to her family. “What’d the Archigos want,
Matarh?” Jan asked her. Pauli continued to chat with the
ca’Belgradi woman.
“To talk about the
weather and—according to Francesca—take credit for it,” Allesandra
told him; Jan laughed at that. “Yes, I know, the woman is nothing
if not predictable. Let’s get to our coach, darling. The procession
is about to move. Pauli, I hate to interrupt your attempts to
impress the young Vajica, but we have our duty . . .”
With a grimace of
irritation, Pauli broke off his conversation and strolled over as
Allesandra was following Jan to the open carriage just ahead of the
Archigos. She could see Semini and Francesca watching them, and she
nodded to him. “You needn’t be so strident, my dear,” Pauli said.
“And you needn’t be
so obvious,” Allesandra answered. “But this isn’t a conversation we
should be having in public, Pauli.”
“It’s not a
conversation we need to have at all, as far as I’m concerned.”
Pauli pulled himself into the coach. He shifted uncomfortably on
the plush leather of the seat, tapping at the cushions with his
fingers. The sound was as bright and loud as if he were rapping on
wood and the cushion barely dimpled. “Firenzcia has a knack for
making something appear enticing when it is actually
extraordinarily uncomfortable,” he commented. “But I realize you’re
already intimately familiar with that quality, my
dear.”
“Vatarh!” Jan said
sharply, and—strangely—Pauli turned to stare out from the
carriage’s window. Allesandra felt her cheeks grow hot, but she
said nothing. They would be at the dais before a quarter turn, and
the day would become what it would become. Either way, Pauli would
eventually be no more irritating to her than a summer fly, and she
would dispose of him as easily when the right time came. With
relief.
The carriage lurched
into motion then, and for the next half a turn they rode along the
main avenue of Brezno, lined thickly with the inhabitants of Brezno
and surrounding towns, all of them cheering and shouting, pushing
and jostling against the utilino and gardai stationed there in
their efforts to see the elite of Firenzcia, the grand visitors
from other countries of the Firenzcian Coalition, and their new
Hïrzg.
The square around
Falwin’s statue was packed shoulder to shoulder, the royal
carriages moving along an open path kept cleared by the gardai. At
the side of the dais, they were escorted up the wide temporary
staircase to their places in the shadow of Falwin’s statue. The
ancient Hïrzg lifted his bronze arms over them, his massive sword
held aloft. Allesandra could feel the
sound of the crowd, their shouts and applause cresting as Fynn
appeared on the platform, hands widespread as if embracing them
all. He basked in their adulation, spotlighted in bright sun. She
felt a brief pang of envy, watching him.
Allesandra was just
to Fynn’s left with Jan next to her, then Pauli (already turning
backward to speak with the ca’Belgradi girl again); Semini stood to
Fynn’s right in his brilliant gold-and-emerald ceremonial robes,
the crown of the Archigos on his head. Allesandra glanced at
ca’Cellibrecca, standing next to the dour Francesca, who seemed to
be the only one entirely unimpressed with the proceedings. Semini
nodded, faintly.
When? Who? How?
Fynn had begun to
speak, his voice amplified through the efforts of two softly
chanting o’téni to either side of him. His voice boomed over the
masses, the stentorian voice of a demigod shouting from the
heavens. “Firenzcia, I stand before you as your servant, and I
humbly thank you for the gift of your confidence.”
A roar answered him,
and he lifted his arms again. But Allesandra’s attention drifted
away. She scanned the front of the crowd, scanned those standing
with her on the platform. There were gardai at the rail of the dais
to either side of Fynn, staring outward and down—surely they would
see anything troubling there before it was visible to
her.
“I would not stand too close to the new Hïrzg . .
.” A magical attack, then? A fireball like that of the
war-téni? Semini had been a war-téni, after all. But the Archigos
certainly wouldn’t use the Ilmodo himself, or dare to have someone
else do so when it would draw suspicion toward the téni and thus to
him.
“As your Hïrzg, I
promise you that I will continue my vatarh’s desire to make
Firenzcia first among all nations. . . .”
Allesandra glanced
over her shoulder. The ca’-and’cu and the visiting dignitaries were
arrayed behind her, and at the rear, the servants waited. There was
nothing unusual there. She started to turn back when motion caught
her eye.
“. . . a dream that
would see Brezno as the center of the world . . .”
One of the servants
was moving forward, bearing a tray with a pitcher of water. He
moved slowly through the ranks, murmuring apologies as he pushed
carefully through the rows. Moving toward Fynn. The servant’s
attention never seemed to leave her brother and something in the
intensity of that gaze alarmed her. Semini, in the most telling
action of all, muttered something to Francesca and was sidling away
from Fynn, toward the far edge of the platform.
There are those who use magic and are enemies of
Firenzcia, who would gladly kill the new Hïrzg and would cast no
suspicion on the Archigos at all. Allesandra felt a chill of
fear; she was no longer so certain of this plan of hers. She had
expected the attack to be physical: a knife, a sword, an arrow.
Vatarh wouldn’t have hesitated, not if he
thought there was still a chance of success. And you are his
daughter, the one who is most like him . . .
“Jan,” she said,
leaning over to her son. “That man—the servant, behind us, moving
forward with the tray—no, don’t look at him directly, but do you
see him?”
Jan’s head moved
quickly left, then back. “Yes.”
“He’s a Numetodo. An
assassin.”
Jan blinked.
“What?”
“Believe me,” she
whispered furiously. At the dais, Fynn was still declaiming:
“A new day for Firenzcia, a new dawn . .
.” “When he puts the tray down, all he’ll need to do is
speak a word and make a motion with his hands—we can’t let that
happen. I’ll confront him to slow him down; you come from the side.
Go!” She pushed at him. With a glance, Jan turned and muttered
apologies as he slipped backward through the ranks of the
ca’-and-cu’. Pauli glanced over at them, curious, then returned his
attention to the young ca’Belgradi woman. Allesandra stepped
carefully behind Fynn, and turned to face the servant.
There were only a few
people between them. The servant with the tray stopped, seeing her
swivel to face him, and his face tightened. She thought for a
moment that she was mistaken, that the man was nothing more than
what he pretended to be. But the next few breaths would be ones
that Allesandra would never forget.
. . . the servant
tossed the tray aside (the ca’-and-’cu’ next to him reacting
belatedly as tray, pitcher, mug, and water cascaded over them). He
lifted his hands as if he were about to pray . . .
. . . as Allesandra
flung herself toward him, only to be impeded by those between them,
pushing back against her advance . . .
. . . fire bloomed
between the assassin’s hand as he roared a single word that sounded
like the téni language. Allesandra expected to die then, consumed
by the téni-fire that would also take her brother . .
.
. . . but Jan slammed
into the man at the moment the Numetodo opened his hands, bearing
him down. (Around them, mouths gaped in mid-shout, most of them not
yet realizing what was happening and wondering why this rude young
man had shoved them aside, or why this clumsy servant had despoiled
their fine clothing. Behind her back, Allesandra heard Fynn falter
and go silent. She could imagine him turning, slowly, to see the
commotion behind him.) The mage-fire arced sideways and up rather
than toward Fynn and Allesandra. Ca’-and-cu’ screamed as the fire
touched them, tearing through them and blossoming into a fireball
that exploded at eye level to the statue of Falwin. Red light
pulsed and died, brighter than the sun, and now the crowds screamed
also.
“Jan!” Allesandra
called in panic, and she pushed forward to get to him. He seemed
unhurt, struggling with the Numetodo though the man seemed
curiously lethargic in Jan’s hands, as if stunned by the turn of
events. Around them, there was chaos. She heard Fynn
shouting.
Allesandra slid her
own dagger from its sheath on her sleeve. Kneeling quickly, she
plunged it under the jaw of the Numetodo and yanked it viciously
sideways. Blood spurted and fountained, sticky and hot as it
streamed over her hand and arm. “Matarh!” Jan said, and she heard
the horror in his voice as the blood splashed over him as well.
Hands were grabbing at them; the gardai had arrived, their swords
drawn, shoving ca’-and-cu’ aside. Fynn bellowed
orders.
“Who did this!” she
heard him shout at her back. She turned to him, the front of her
clothing ruined with gore.
“My son saved your
life and mine, my Hïrzg, my brother,” she told him. “And I’ve made
certain that this assassin will never strike at you
again.”
The cold shadow of
Falwin’s statue touched her. She could see Archigos ca’Cellibrecca
behind Fynn, and confusion and disbelief fought with horror on
Semini’s bearded features. Allesandra thought there was
near-disappointment in the way Fynn stared down at the body. Pauli
pushed forward and came to a stunned halt alongside Fynn as
Allesandra let her dagger drop from her fingers. It clattered
loudly on the planks of the dais.
“I need to clean
myself of this filth,” she told them calmly. “Fynn—talk to your
people. Calm them. Reassure them. That’s what the Hïrzg needs to
do.”
He scowled at her: as
he always scowled when someone deigned to order him about. But he
turned to the horrified, worried crowd, and he began to
speak.