He would not endure what he had forced others to endure.
But it was Aris cu’Falla, the Commandant of the Bastida, who had entered the room, and Sergei relaxed, letting his fingers slide from the hilt. Aris saluted the garda who had opened the door. “You may go,” he told the man. “There’s lunch for you on the lower landing. Come back here in half a turn of the glass.”
“Thank you, Commandant,” the garda said. He saluted and left. Aris left the door open. Sergei glanced at the yawning door from the bed on which he sat. Aris saw the glance.
“You wouldn’t get past me, Sergei. You know that. I have two hands of years on you, after all, and it’s my duty-not to mention my life-to stop you.”
“Did you leave the door open just to mock me, then?”
A smile came and vanished like spring frost. “Would you rather I shut and locked it?”
Sergei laughed grimly, and the laugh morphed into a cough heavy with phlegm. Aris touched his shoulder with concern as Sergei hunched over. “Would you like me to send for a healer, my friend?”
“Why, so I’m as healthy as possible when the Council orders me killed?” Sergei shook his head. “It’s just the dampness; my lungs don’t like it. So tell me, Aris, what news do you have?”
Aris pulled the single chair in the room over to him, the legs scraping loudly against the flags. “I’ve a garda I trust implicitly assigned to the Council-for my own safety in this troubled time, frankly. So much of what I know comes from him.”
“I don’t need the preamble, Aris-it’s not going to change your answer, and I suspect I already know it. Just tell me.”
Aris sighed. He turned the chair backward and sat, his arms folded over the back, his chin on his arms. “Sigourney ca’Ludovici is pushing the Council hard to give the Kraljiki the power he asks for. There’s to be a final meeting in a few days, and a vote is to be taken then.”
“They’ll actually give Audric what he wants?”
A nod wrinkled the bearded chin on his hands. “Yes. I think so.”
Sergei closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the stone wall. He could feel the chill of the rock through his thinning hair. “They’ll destroy Nessantico for the sake of power. They’re all-and Sigourney especially-thinking that Audric won’t last a year, which will leave the Sun Throne open for one of them-assuming I’m gone.”
“Sergei,” he heard Aris say in the darkness of his thoughts, “I’ll give you warning. I promise you that. I’ll give you time to-” He stopped.
“Thank you, Aris.”
“I would do more, if I could, but I have my family to think about. If the Council of Ca’ or the new Kralji found out I helped you to escape, well…”
“I know. I wouldn’t ask that of you.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” Sergei opened his eyes again, leaning forward. He cupped a hand on Aris’ face, the manacles jangling with the motion. “I’ve had a good life, Aris, and I’ve served three Kralji as well as I could. Cenzi will forgive me what I must do.”
“There’s still hope, and no need to do anything yet,” Aris said. “The Council may come to their senses and see that the Kraljiki’s sick in his mind as well as his body. They may yet release you; they will, if the effort of Archigos Kenne and the others loyal to you have any effect at all-Archigos Kenne has already pleaded your case to them, and his words still have some influence, after all. Don’t give up hope, Sergei. We both know all too well the history of the Bastida. Why, the Bastida held Harcourt ca’Denai for three years before he became Kraljiki.”
Sergei laughed, forcing down the cough that wanted to come with it. “We’re practical men, both of us, Aris. Realists. We don’t delude ourselves with false hope.”
“True enough,” Aris said. He stood. “I’ll have the garda bring your food up to you. And a healer to look at you, whether you want him or not.” He patted Sergei on the shoulder and started for the cell door, stopping with his hand on the handle. “If it comes to it, Sergei, I’ll send word to you before anyone comes to take you down to the donjons below.” He paused, looking significantly at Sergei. “So you can prepare yourself. You’ve my word on that.”
Sergei nodded. Aris saluted him and closed the door with a metallic clash. Sergei heard the grating of the key in the lock. He put his head back again, listening to the sound of cu’Falla’s bootsteps on the winding stairs of the tower.
He remembered the clean sound of screams echoing on stone, and the shrill, high pleading of those sent for questioning. He remembered their faces, taut with pain. There was an honesty in their agony, a purity of expression that could not be faked. He sometimes thought he glimpsed Cenzi in them: Cenzi as He had been when His own children, the Moitidi, had turned against Him and savaged His mortal body. Now, like Cenzi, Sergei might face the wrath of his own creation.
But he would not. He promised himself that. One way or the other, he would not.
Allesandra ca’Vorl
“ The Councillors are here and seated, A’Hirzg,” the aide told them. “They’ve asked me to bring you to chambers.”
Allesandra stood in the corridor outside the council chamber with Pauli and Jan on either side of her. Her hand touched her tashta, low on the throat where-under the cloth-a common white stone hung surrounded by golden filigree, next to Archigos Ana’s globe. Even Pauli, who had been chattering contentedly about how West Magyaria and Firenzcia, when he was Gyula and Allesandra was Hirzg, would together solidify the Coalition, went silent as the aide nodded to the hall servants to open the double doors and they peered into the shadowed dimness beyond, where the Council of Ca’ was seated at the great table.
Jan, for his part, was solemn and quiet, as he had been since Fynn’s death and Elissa’s departure. Allesandra put her arm around her son before they entered. She leaned over to him and whispered: “When I leave here, you must go to your rooms and wait. Do you understand?”
He looked at her strangely but finally gave her a small, puzzled nod.
The chamber of the Council of Ca’ in Brezno was dark, with stained oak paneling on the walls and a rug the color of dried blood: an interior room of Brezno Palais with no windows, illuminated only by candled chandeliers above the long, varnished table (not even teni-lights), and cold with only a small hearth at one end. The room was dreary and cheerless. It was not a room that invited a long stay and slow, leisurely conversations-and that was deliberate. Hirzg Karin, Allesandra’s great-vatarh, had intentionally assigned the room to the Council. He found the Council of Ca’ sessions tedious and boring; the lack of comfort in the room ensured that they would at least be short.
“Please, come in, A’Hirzg,” Sinclair ca’Egan said from the head of the table. Ca’Egan was bald and ancient, a quaver-voiced chevaritt who had ridden with Allesandra’s vatarh before Hirzg Karin had even named Allesandra’s vatarh as A’Hirzg. He’d been on the Council of Ca’ for as long as Allesandra had known him; as Eldest, he was also titular head of the Council. Four women (one of them Francesca), five men; they rose as one and bowed to her as A’Hirzg, a nicety even the Council of Ca’ could not ignore, then sat once more. Six of the nine, especially, nodded and smiled to her. Allesandra, Pauli, and Jan stood-as etiquette demanded-at the open end of the table. Ca’Egan rattled the parchments set in front of him and cleared his throat. “Thank you for coming. We certainly needn’t be long. A mere formality, actually. Hirzg Fynn had already named Allesandra ca’Vorl as A’Hirzg, so we only need to have your signature, A’Hirzg, and those of the councillors here…”
“Vajiki ca’Egan,” Allesandra said, and ca’Egan’s head came up wonderingly at the interruption. At her right side, Pauli grunted at the obvious breach in etiquette. “I have a statement to make before the Council puts its stamp on that document and sends it to the Archigos for his acknowledgment. I have thought about this ever since my dear brother was killed, and I have prayed to Cenzi for His guidance, and everything has become clear to me.” She paused. This is your last chance to change your mind… Semini had argued with her for a long turn or two, as they lay in bed together, but she was convinced that this was the right strategy. She took a deep breath. She could feel Pauli staring at her quizzically and impatiently. “I do not wish to be Hirzgin,” she declaimed, “and I hereby revoke my claim on the title.”