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 Cénzi’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
Hïrzg, 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
Cénzi 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 Cénzi 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’Téni 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 téni
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 téni along with A’Téni 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’Téni 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 Hïrzg 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 Cénzi 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.”
