Allesandra ca’Vörl
ERIK ROLLED AWAY FROM HER, leaving her body
momentarily chilled. Allesandra reached down and pulled the blanket
up over herself. She glanced over at Erik, panting next to her.
“Satisfied?” she asked. His body, in the candlelight, was heavy and
dark, the light glimmering from the polished flesh of his skull and
glinting from the white hairs snagged in his midnight
beard.
From above the
fireplace at the foot of the bed, Kraljica Marguerite stared down
at the lovers from her painting, her expression
severe.
Erik groaned and
nodded. “By Cénzi, woman, you’re a tigress. A danger to all men.
You’ve destroyed me entirely.” His voice was a purr, a low growl,
and his eyes regarded her possessively.
She smiled at that.
But he didn’t ask her the same question she’d asked him; he never
did. She wondered if that would begin to do more than annoy her one
day. She wondered if he looked at her, saw her age and the way her
breasts sagged and her stomach rounded, and whether he wished he
were with someone younger, someone who could give him children. She
would never give him that, even if she wanted it; her monthly flow
had ended a few years ago. The seed that filled her belly now could
do nothing.
But she could offer
him things that no younger woman could, that no other woman in the
world could. She wondered again if she would make that offer to
him.
“Perhaps.”
“Hmm?”
Allesandra laughed,
not realizing she’d said the word aloud. “Perhaps you would like
some refreshment, my love? I could ring for the servants . .
.”
“No, not unless you
want something for yourself.” There was silence for a moment; she
wondered whether he was falling asleep. “Allesandra?”
“Yes,
love?”
“This offer to the
Hïrzg. If he accepts it. What then happens with me?”
He was staring at
her; she could feel his gaze. She held it in the darkness. “I’ve
already told you that when the Holdings are one again, I will make
certain that a true Gyula sits on West Magyaria’s throne. You
shouldn’t worry yourself.”
“Yet I do. When the
Holdings are one again, the Kraljica might not want to cause yet
more dissent.”
“You talk of this
Kraljica as if she were some other woman.”
His hand stroked her
side. “My family has been involved in the politics of the Holdings
all my life, by necessity. Forgive me for saying this, but one
thing my vatarh always told me was that the promise of a Kralji
could not buy a beer in the tavern: even a barkeep knows that the
Kralji might decide that the folia is better spent somewhere else,
and leave you with the tab.”
“You believe I’m that
cold?” she asked, and she knew he could hear the warning in her
voice. “You think you mean that little to me?” His hand stroked her
arm and found her hand, but she didn’t return the pressure of his
fingers. He hurried to answer.
“No, of course not.”
A breath. A sigh. “I would be lost without you. Truly. Being with
you, well, I’ve never felt this way with anyone, not even the
matarh of my children. I just hate to think . . .”
“Then don’t think,” she told him. Her voice snapped more
sharply than she intended, and she softened her tone. “Just feel
what I tell you, and accept it.”
He laughed then, and
his hands roamed the slope of her side, falling into the hollow of
her hips. His hands tightened there, and he pulled her toward him.
His mouth sought hers, his beard brushing her skin. His hands
cupped her as he brought her on top of him. She looked down at him,
and he seemed vulnerable and almost boyish.
She smiled at that
thought. She brought her head down and kissed him deeply, her mouth
opening, her hands on either side of his face. When she finally
pulled away, gasping, she leaned on her elbows, a cloud hovering
above his landscape. Firelight rippled across his face and she saw
the eager expression there. “No more thinking, and no more
worrying,” she told him. “At least not for a bit . .
.”
Sergei sat in his
chair like a wizened toad, one hand clutching the end of his staff,
his silver nose reflecting the morning light from the window
overlooking the palais gardens. Erik was seated near him, and his
face was dark and red with a flush. Allesandra had left her own
chair behind her desk, pacing near the balcony
entrance.
“I wonder, sometimes,
if you aren’t conspiring with my son, Ambassador,” she said. “I
thought that you believed you could convince him to accept the
offer we tendered.”
“I told you,
Kraljica, that I thought he would listen to it sympathetically. And
he did exactly that.”
“Yet he requires that
I abdicate the throne in seven years in favor of him.”
Sergei gave a nod
that sent motes of light scattering along the wall like bright
cockroaches. “Yes,” he answered simply. “If you agree to that and
state so publicly, the Hïrzg will dissolve the Coalition, freeing
the member countries to make whatever choice they wish: to rejoin
the Holdings or remain independent.” Sergei smiled slightly. “Like
you, Kraljica, he doesn’t expect any of them to choose the latter
course. And he will bring the army of Firenzcia here to help defend
Nessantico against the Tehuantin.”
“What of West
Magyaria and the false Gyula he set on its throne?” Erik
interjected before Allesandra could respond. “What does the Hïrzg
say of that?”
Sergei glanced over
at Erik. He seemed to look the man up and down with a smirk of
disdain. “Of that he said nothing at all,” he said. “He didn’t seem
to consider the throne of the Gyula important enough for comment or
negotiation.”
“Then he’s a fool,”
Erik spat. “With West Magyaria at the Kraljica’s side, the Holdings
wouldn’t need Firenzcia at all.”
“The Hïrzg, I
believe, would disagree with you, Vajiki ca’Vikej. For that matter,
so would I. And I note that the Kraljica didn’t send an Ambassador
to West Magyaria asking for their help.”
Erik sucked in a
breath through clenched teeth, and Allesandra whirled to face them.
“Be quiet, both of you,” she snapped. “Your bickering makes my head
ache so that I can’t think.” She kneaded her forehead with a hand.
She felt confined, trapped, as if the palais walls were
constricting around her. You have no choice in
this. The thought hammered at her skull in time with her
pulse. You really have no choice. The Holdings
can’t stand alone against the Westlanders, and the Holdings can’t
survive another long recovery.
She stared out the
window, to the walls where she could still see the marks of the
repairs that had been done after the Tehuantin bombardment. She
remembered how the city had looked in the days and weeks and months
after the Firenzcian army had finally smashed the Westlander forces
and sent them reeling back across the Strettosei. She remembered
the misery and the pain of those times. She remembered how desolate
she had been herself then, abandoned by her own son.
“We’re stronger now,”
she said to both of them. “We no longer have half of our army
fighting a war across the sea.” She tried to say it with
confidence, but even she could hear the uncertain quaver in her
voice.
“And the Tehuantin,
from all reports, are also stronger—they’ve brought easily three
times the ships they had before,” Sergei answered. “Between Karnmor
and Fossano, they’ve already destroyed most of our navy. Kraljica,
if I thought that Commandant ca’Talin could defeat the Tehuantin
alone, I would counsel you to ignore the Hïrzg’s counteroffer. But
I can’t do that, not in good conscience. Not as a loyal subject of
the Sun Throne, who wishes nothing more than the Holdings’ success.
I wish I were wrong in this, but I fear that I’m not.” She wasn’t
looking at him. She didn’t wish to see his face. “And I think that
you know it as well,” he finished.
She continued to
stare out at the palais grounds. She could feel her fists clenched
at her waist, as if she’d eaten bad shellfish and was trying to
quell a rebellious stomach. The damnable man was right; the Garde
Civile would fight courageously and well, but in the end, they
would fall. And Jan, as he had before, was in position to sweep in
and clean up the mess. If he wanted the Sun Throne, he could have
it in mere months; all he need do was wait and do nothing until
Nessantico was taken and Allesandra herself dead or
fled.
“Don’t listen to
him,” Erik was saying. “You should be Kraljica for the rest of your
life. This offer; it is an insult.”
“Insult or not,” she
told the air, “I have no choice.” She turned to the two men.
“Sergei, you will have Talbot draft the agreement; I will sign it
this afternoon. A’Téni ca’Paim will read the proclamation at
service tomorrow. We’ll also send it by fast-rider to Brezno; you
will follow as soon as you can, and you will remain with the Hïrzg
as my representative until he arrives here in Nessantico with his
army.”
She watched Erik’s
face as she spoke. She saw the anger he tried to hide. She
suspected it was not rage at the decision, but a fear that he might
not have what he wanted. Which one of us is
using the other? She told herself that she had no answer to
that question, but a voice deeper inside laughed at that evasion.
You don’t just want to admit the truth . .
.
“Why are you both
still sitting there?” she barked at the two men. “We’re done
here.”
With that, she waved
her hand and turned back to the landscape outside once again. She
listened as they bowed and hurried away, Sergei’s cane tapping at
the marble flags. She stared at the isle and at the buildings of
Nessantico, and they no longer seemed hers alone.
