Fynn snorted. “Would it matter?” he asked.
“Yes,” Allesandra told him. “Only a fool would think otherwise.” The words came out before she could stop them. And after I just cautioned Jan…
Fynn glowered at the implied insult. Jan’s hand tightened on Allesandra’s shoulder. Semini cleared his throat loudly before Fynn could speak.
“This wasn’t the Hirzg’s doing, Allesandra,” Semini answered quickly, shaking his head and waving his hand in dismissal. “Firenzcia may be at odds with the Faith in Nessantico, but the Hirzg doesn’t engage in assassination. Nor does the Faith.”
She looked from Semini to Francesca. The woman looked away quickly but made no attempt to hide the satisfaction in her face. Her pleasure at the news was obvious. The woman had all the warmth of a Boail winter. Allesandra wondered whether Semini had ever felt any affection for her, or whether their marriage was as loveless and calculated as her own despite their several children. Allesandra couldn’t imagine submitting to Pauli’s pleasure so often. “We’re certain this report is true?” she asked Semini.
“It’s come to me from three different sources, one I trust implicitly-the trader Gairdi-and they all agree on the basic details,” Semini told her. “Archigos Ana was performing the Day of Return service when there was an explosion. ‘Like a war-teni’s spell,’ they all said-which means it was someone using the Ilmodo. That much is certain.”
“Which also means they may look eastward to us,” Fynn said. He seemed eager at the thought, as if anxious to call the army of Firenzcia into battle. That would be like him; Allesandra would be terrifically surprised if Fynn’s reign were to be a peaceful one.
“Or they will look to the west,” Allesandra argued, and Fynn glanced at her as he might an annoying, persistent insect. “Nessantico has enemies there as well, and they can use the Ilmodo also, even if-like the Numetodo-they have their own name for it.”
“The Westlanders? Like the Numetodo, they’re heretics deserving of death,” Semini spat. “They abuse Cenzi’s gift, which is intended only for the teni, and we will one day make them pay for their insult, if Nessantico fails to do so.”
Fynn grunted his agreement with the sentiment, and Allesandra saw her son Jan nodding as well-that was also his damned vatarh’s influence, or at least that of the Magyarian teni Pauli had insisted educate their son despite Allesandra’s misgivings. She pressed her lips together.
Ana is dead. She placed her fingers on the necklace of the cracked globe, feeling its smooth, jeweled surface. The touch brought up again the memory of Ana’s face, of the lopsided smile that would touch the woman’s lips when something amused her, of the grim lines that set themselves around her eyes when she was angry. Allesandra had spent a decade with the woman; captor, friend, and surrogate matarh all at once for her during the long years that she’d spent as a hostage of Nessantico. Allesandra’s feelings toward Ana were as complex and contradictory as their relationship had been. They were nearly as conflicted as her feelings toward her vatarh, who had left her languishing in Nessantico while Fynn became the A’Hirzg and favorite.
She wanted to cry at the news, in sadness for someone who had treated her well and fairly when there had been no compulsion for her to do so. But she could not. Not here. Not in front of people who hated the woman. Here, she had to pretend.
Later. Later I can mourn her properly…
“I expected somewhat more reaction from you, Sister,” Fynn said. “After all, that abomination of a woman and the one-legged pretender kept you captive. Vatarh cursed whenever anyone spoke her name; said she was no better than a witch.”
Fynn was watching her, and they both knew what he was leaving out of his comment: that Hirzg Jan could have ransomed her at any time during those years, that had he done so it was likely that the golden band would be on her head, not Fynn’s. “You won’t be here half a year,” Ana had told Allesandra in those first months. “Kraljiki Justi has set a fair ransom, and your vatarh will pay it. Soon…”
But, for whatever reasons, Hirzg Jan had not.
Allesandra made her face a mask. You won’t cry. You won’t let them see the grief. It wasn’t difficult; it was what she did often enough, and it served her well most of the time. She knew what the ca’-and-cu’ called her behind her back: the Stone Bitch. “Ana ca’Seranta’s death is important. I appreciate Archigos Semini bringing us the news, and we should-we must-decide what it means for Firenzcia,” she said, “but we won’t know the full implications for weeks yet. And right now Vatarh is waiting for us. I suggest we see to him first.”
The Tombs of the Hirzgai were catacombs below Brezno Palais, not the lower levels of the newer private estate outside the city known as Stag Fall, built in Hirzg Karin’s time. A long, wide stairway led down to the Tombs, a crust of niter coating the sweating walls and growing like white pustules on the faces in the murals painted there two centuries before and restored a dozen times since: the damp always won over pigments. A chill, nearly fetid air rose from below, as if warning them that the realm of the dead was approaching. The torches alight in their sconces held back the darkness but rendered the shadows of the occasional side passage blacker and more mysterious in contrast. A dozen generations of the Hirzgai awaited them below, with their various spouses and many of their direct offspring. Allesandra’s older brother Toma had been interred here when Allesandra was but a baby, and her matarh Greta had lain alongside him for nineteen years now. In time, Allesandra herself might join her family, though an eternity spent next to Matarh Greta was not a pleasant thought.
The procession moved in stately silence down the staircase: in front the e’teni with lanterns lit by green teni-fire, then Hirzg Fynn accompanied by Archigos Semini and Francesca, and Allesandra and Jan a few steps behind them, followed by a final group of servants and e’teni. As they approached the intricately-carved entranceway to the tombs, decorated with bas-reliefs of the historical accomplishments of the Hirzgai, Allesandra could hear whisperings and the rustling of cloth and an occasional cough or sneeze: the ca’-and-cu’ who had been invited to witness the ceremony. These were the elite of Firenzcia, most of them relatives of Fynn and Allesandra: families who were intertwined and intermarried with their own, or those who had served for decades with Hirzg Jan.
Torchlight and teni light together slid over the coiled bodies of fantastic creatures carved on the walls, the stern features of carved Hirzgai and the broken bodies of enemies at their feet. The Chevarittai of the Red Lancers came to attention, their lances (the blades masked in scarlet cloth) clashing against polished dress armor. The other ca’-and-cu’ bowed low and the whispers faded to silence as the new Hirzg entered the large chamber. Allesandra could see their glances slide from Fynn to her, and to Jan as well. Jan noticed the attention; she felt him stiffen at her side with an intake of breath. She nodded to them-the slightest movement of her head, the faintest hint of a smile.
Look at her, as cold as this chamber… It was what they would be thinking, some of them. She’s no doubt pleased to see old Jan dead after he left her with the Kraljiki and the false Archigos for so long. She probably wishes Fynn were there with him so she could be the Hirzgin.
None of them knew her. None of them knew what her true thoughts were. For that matter, she wasn’t entirely certain she knew them herself. She was still reeling from the news about Ana, and if she showed signs of grief, it was for her, not her vatarh.
The casket containing the remains of Hirzg Jan sat near the entrance to his interment chamber, next to the huge round stone that would seal off the niche. The coffin was draped in a tapestry cloth that depicted his victory over the T’Sha at Lake Cresci. There was nothing celebrating Passe a’Fiume or Jan’s bold, foolish attack on Nessantico a decade before: those days when Allesandra had ridden with him, when she’d watched her vatarh adoringly, when he’d promised to give her the city of Nessantico.