Jan ca’Ostheim
WHEN JAN READ SERGEI THE CONTENTS of the missive from
his matarh, the Silvernose didn’t seem startled at all, which told
Jan that Sergei already suspected what it said.
“Morel thinks that he
has divine guidance,” Sergei said, rubbing—as he too often did—at
the metallic nose glued to his ravaged, wrinkled face. “When one
truly believes that Cénzi has set you on a course, you have no
limitations. It’s a lesson many of the Kralji have had to learn.
Now it’s Allesandra’s turn.”
They were gathered at
the table in the dining “room” of the palais tents. Hïrzgin Brie
was there, as was Starkkapitän ca’Damont and Archigos Karrol, who
had come down from Brezno. Jan had invited Ambassador ca’Rudka to
join them, not only because of the communique from Nessantico, but
also because he enjoyed watching Sergei annoy both the starkkapitän
and the Archigos.
“You speak like a
Numetodo,” Archigos Karrol said to the man, but Sergei shook his
head slowly, his jowls wobbling with the motion.
“I believe in Cénzi,
Archigos, as firmly as do you,” the Ambassador said, and Jan
thought he heard a strange sadness in the man’s voice, almost a
regret. “I know that I will go to Him when I die, and the soul
shredders will weigh me before Him. I believe.” Then he seemed to
shiver, and his gaze wandered away from the Archigos and found
Jan’s. “It’s not faith that’s the
problem, Hïrzg Jan, only blind fanaticism. Morel insists that there
is only one true path, and that’s his.
Therefore, all the rest of us are wrong. The greater problem is
that you have too many téni within the Faith who agree with Morel
rather than you.”
Archigos Karrol
spluttered at that. He lifted his bent head against the resistance
of his curved spine. His long, white beard waggled; his
brown-spotted fist banged at the table, rattling crockery.
“I am the authority within the Faith,
not this damned Morel. He’s already doomed himself by using the
Ilmodo against my direct orders. His hands and tongue are forfeit
for that, and his life is mine for the death of poor A’Téni
ca’Paim.”
Jan heard Sergei
sniff, saw his eyes, now enveloped in tired folds of skin, widen
slightly. “Yes, we in Nessantico saw how well the war-téni obeyed
A’Téni ca’Paim, whose authority derives from yours, Archigos. I
wonder, if you order the war-téni of Firenczia to move against
Morel, will you get the same obedience?”
The Archigos’ bald
skull was pale against the angry flush of his face. He scowled,
turning his head sidewise to glare at Sergei. “My war-téni will do
as I tell them to do,” he said. Spittle flew with the comment; he
didn’t seem to notice. He looked over to Jan. “Hïrzg, Hïrzgin, I
find that my appetite has left me, and I need to speak with the
téni here to give them the news about A’Téni ca’Paim and arrange
for services in her memory. If you’ll forgive me . .
.”
Without waiting for
an answer, he gave the sign of Cénzi and pushed away from the
table. Two o’téni in attendance rushed to help him. They handed him
his staff and he shuffled away, his head facing the carpeted ground
as he padded from the tent.
“I apologize, Hïrzg,
Hïrzgin,” Sergei said after the servant had closed the tent
flaps—painted in trompe-l’oeil fashion as a massive, carved wooden
double set of doors—behind the Archigos. “I only told him the
truth.”
“The truth is often
unappetizing,” Brie answered. She glanced at Jan with that, a
quick, sharp look. “I’m surprised any of us can eat at the moment.”
Jan set down the knife he was using to cut the slice of roast on
his plate. Brie smiled at him blandly. “I’d have the servants take
that away,” she said, “but there are so few of our private staff
left here. I wonder what keeps driving them away?”
Jan returned the same
meaningless smile to his wife.
Sergei didn’t seem to
have noticed the exchange. He stirred in his seat. “Archigos Karrol
is deceiving himself if he doesn’t think that there are téni who
are sympathetic to the Morellis—especially among the
war-téni.”
“Our war-téni are
here,” Starkkapitän ca’Damont
interjected. “They’re actively working with me.”
“They’re here
now,” Sergei answered. “But will they
be tomorrow, or the day after? The news from Nessantico is just now
arriving, and if it was Morel who asked
the war-téni to stand down, as he claims, then perhaps that request
is only just reaching them.”
“Sometimes,
Ambassador,” ca’Damont retorted, “I believe you’re like an old
black crow, with nothing but bad news and gloom to relate. You
stink of the prisons you like so much.”
Jan looked over
sharply at ca’Damont with the crude remark, but Sergei lifted a
hand, shaking his gray head slightly. “You’ll be happy to know,
Starkkapitän, that you’re hardly alone in that opinion,” Sergei
told him. “But then, I’m a crow who over the years has dined on the
remains of many victims who failed to listen to me or who said I
was mistaken. I never take much satisfaction in that sort of meal,
but it’s one I suspect I’ll continue to enjoy. Perhaps
soon.”
The man’s fork
scraped along his plate. Brie snickered nasally. Jan hurried into
the conversational gap. “Villembouchure has already fallen,
Ambassador. Nessantico will fall, too—again—if Firenzcia doesn’t
come to her aid. Do you agree with that?”
Sergei nodded. “I do.
Emphatically. Commandant ca’Talin is an excellent leader and I have
nothing but respect for his martial skills, but he doesn’t have the
resources he needs.”
“Why should I provide
them?” Jan asked. “Why shouldn’t I let the Tehuantin flail against
Matarh’s Garde Civile? Even if they do
take the city, they’ll be so wounded in the process that I could
take them with half the army I have here, and take the Sun Throne
for myself—without waiting, without this treaty she’s sent. The
Tehuantin will likely even take care of the Morelli problem. That’s
what Starkkapitän ca’Damont and Archigos Karrol are advising me to
do.” From down the table, ca’Damont grunted assent. “Why shouldn’t
I follow their advice, Ambassador?”
Sergei sat silent for
a moment. Then he leaned back in his chair. He rubbed his nose.
“Because you’re a better man than I am, Hïrzg,” he said. “If it
were Brezno facing invasion, and Kraljica Allesandra were
considering whether to come to your aid, I might give her the same
advice the Starkkapitän and Archigos are giving you now. Remain
aloof; let the invaders wear themselves out first, then go in and
take everything for yourself afterward. But I know her as well as I
know you. She wouldn’t take that advice from me, any more than you
will. She would come to your aid, if circumstances were that
dire.”
“You’re awfully
confident in your assessment.”
“I’m the Crow. I’m
Old Silvernose,” Sergei answered with a wry, gap-toothed smile.
“And I know that you, Hïrzg, even if you were willing to abandon your matarh entirely, you
don’t care to inherit a broken empire and a broken city, so ruined
that repairing it will make Firenzcia herself a pauper nation.
Nessantico holds your heritage, as it does the heritage of everyone
in the Holdings or in the Coalition. It
is too precious a jewel to simply cast away.”
The man was warped
and twisted. His predilections were odious. But Jan knew of no one
alive who knew the intrigues of the nations so well—and the man had
once saved his life, as well as his matarh’s. And, in this, he was
right.
Jan nodded. With
Sergei’s words, the decision had come to him, falling into place
and erasing all the doubts. “That is why I will sign the treaty,”
he told them. “I will take Matarh’s offer, and we will ride to
Nessantico—if only to preserve the empire that will one day be
mine.”