Allesandra ca’Vörl
COMMANDANT TELO CU’INGRES of the Garde Kralji and
Commandant Eleric ca’Talin of the Garde Civile both stood at uneasy
attention before the Sun Throne. The courtiers and the public had
been sent from the room, and the usual monthly Council meeting had
been cut short. The Council of Ca’ sat to the throne’s right, but
other than the servants against the walls waiting to jump to any
request, there was no one else there to witness Allesandra’s
displeasure at their reports.
No one aside from
Erik ca’Vikej, who was seated behind the Council. Allesandra saw
them struggling to ignore the man’s presence; their discomfiture
was almost pleasant. Of the councillors, only Varina seemed to take
little notice of him. Varina seemed to Allesandra to be lost in her
own thoughts; she’d said nothing at all during the
meeting.
“Nico Morel is able
to make a public speech—one that attacked both the Faith and the
Sun Throne—and yet we were unable to capture him.” Allesandra
sniffed. The bright yellow glow of the Sun Throne enveloped her;
she could see it radiating around her fingers as she clenched the
crystalline arms of the throne. She could see the cracks in the
carved, translucent stone where the throne, damaged in the
assassination of Kraljiki Audric, fifteen years ago, had been
repaired. The cracks did not glow but remained stubbornly opaque
despite the best efforts of the light-téni. “This is not what I
wished to hear.” She heard Erik snort in cold amusement at her
remark.
“Nor is it what we
wished to report, Kraljica,” Commandant cu’Ingres said. “I was in
charge of the operation, not Commandant ca’Talin, who had agreed to
support the Garde Kralji, and thus he should be blameless in this.
I have no adequate excuse, and will make none.”
“Then it’s good that
I had other reports from the scene, Commandant,” Allesandra told
him. “I know that your gardai were attacked by the crowd, and that
they used admirable restraint in not responding in kind against
citizens of the Holdings.” Cu’Ingres inclined his head toward her
in acknowledgment. “But I think that the time for restraint against
the Morellis may have passed,” she continued. “In the future, both
of you have my permission to use whatever force you feel is
necessary.” Allesandra looked at Varina with that statement. She
made no sign, staring at the hands folded in her lap. Allesandra
wondered if she’d even heard what had been said.
“Nico Morel is to be
found and brought to justice for the murder of citizens of
Nessantico, and for the damage he has done here,” she said to the
Commandants, to the councillors. The Commandants bowed their heads,
receiving their orders as any good soldier should, but the five
members of the Council of Ca’ were less in agreement. Varina was
lost in her own thoughts. Allesandra’s cousin Henri ca’Sibelli was
nodding, the wattles of his neck swaying with the motion. But the
other three . . . Simon ca’Dakwi’s hand prowled his white beard,
his mouth twisted as if he’d tasted something sour; Anaïs ca’Gerodi
leaned over to Edouard ca’Matin and whispered something in his
hair-tufted ear, to which the man scowled vigorously, his head
shaking with the palsy that afflicted him.
Have I misjudged Nico Morel’s support here?
Allesandra found herself wishing that Sergei were still in the
city; she needed his unvarnished honesty. But she looked instead to
Erik.
He was scowling as
well, but his irritation was directed at the Council: she saw that
he’d noticed their reaction. “Are we in agreement?” she asked the
councillors.
“We are, Kraljica,”
ca’Sibelli answered, but his was the only voice. The others said
nothing; if they felt otherwise, they weren’t going to say it here,
then, in front of her.
“Good,” Allesandra
snapped—if they were too unsure to voice their discontent, then let
them be discontented. She rose from the Sun Throne, and the glow
from within the crystal died. The room seemed suddenly dim. “We’re
done here. Commandants, Councillors, thank you for your time.” The
Commandants bowed themselves quickly out, their boot heels clacking
loudly on the tiles of the Sun Throne’s hall; the councillors
glanced at each other, uncertain, then finally rose from their
chairs with various groans and mutterings. They bowed to
Allesandra, then—hesitating—bowed also to Erik before, more slowly
than the two soldiers, beginning to make their way from the room.
“Varina,” Allesandra called out, “a moment, if you would . .
.”
When the last of the
councillors had made their way from the hall and the hall servants
had closed the doors behind them, Allesandra went to Varina. She
took the woman’s hands. “How are you?” she asked. “I worry about
you. You said nothing today at all.”
“I’m sorry,
Kraljica.”
“You’re recovered
from your injuries?”
“My injuries?” she
asked, as if uncertain what Allesandra meant. Then: “Oh, my
injuries. Yes, entirely. Thank you for your concern.”
Her voice was dull,
and she appeared more tired and worn even than usual. The left side
of her face seemed to sag slightly, and the eye on that side was
clouded. Allesandra was reminded of other longtime couples she’d
known, and how after one spouse died, the other often followed into
Cénzi’s arms soon after. She wondered if that would be the case
here. “I’m going to send my healer over to you this evening,” she
said to Varina, and waved off the beginning of the woman’s protest.
“No, I won’t hear any excuses from you, my dear. I insist. I know
you have the Numetodo to look after you, but Talbot tells me that
you’re burying yourself in work, keeping yourself locked up in your
laboratory. That’s not healthy, Varina. You should be out in the
air, enjoying yourself and your friends.”
“I’m afraid that I’m
feeling my mortality, Kraljica. I don’t have much time left, and
there’s so much to do, so much to understand.”
“You will be here for
years and decades yet,” Allesandra told the woman. It was a polite
lie, and they both knew it. “You missed the Gschnas tending to poor
Karl, and that’s a shame. I will have another party soon; you’ll be
invited, and I will insist you come. I won’t hear of any
excuse.”
“The Kraljica is too
kind,” Allesandra said. “Of course I’ll come. But I do need to
return to the Numetodo House. An experiment I’m conducting . . .”
She gave Allesandra the ghost of a curtsy and began to turn, then
stopped. “Kraljica?”
“Yes?”
“I always told Karl
that Nico could be reclaimed, that if we only had the chance to
talk to him . . .” She licked dry, cracked lips webbed with
wrinkles. “I was wrong.”
“You’ve actually
spoken to him?” Allesandra asked. Varina nodded. “Nico is convinced
that he is right and the rest of us are wrong. And he’s more
dangerous than any of us thought.”
With that, she gave
her abbreviated curtsy again and shuffled away toward the doors,
moving like a woman two decades older than she was.
“She’s right, you
know.”
The voice startled
her; she’d forgotten that Erik was still there with her. She felt
his hand on her shoulder and she trapped it with her
cheek.
“I know,” she told
him. “And that frightens me.”
