He handed her the bread, with a single thin dab of precious butter on it. The smell alone made her ravenous, and she took one of the slices and tore into it hungrily. “Mahri?” she manage to ask between bites.
“He brought us here, then vanished. Haven’t seen him since around daybreak. The man must not sleep like normal people.” She could feel his gaze on her as she reached for another slice and took a sip from the mug of steaming tea. “That was some impressive display of the Ilmodo,” he said to her. “It almost made me want to believe in Cenzi. I think it impressed Mahri, too. He was mumbling to himself the whole time we were carrying you.”
“The fire would have taken so many houses. All those people. .”
“I know. I know why you didn’t listen to me. I just don’t understand how you did all that.”
“I don’t understand how you do what you do, either,” she told him.
“For a time, that made me doubt everything. Especially myself.”
He smiled again. “Evidently you found yourself again.” His hand stroked her cheek; the feel of it on her skin made her shiver.
“No,” she told him, and he pulled his hand away.
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s her name?” Ana asked him. “The woman in Paeti. Your fiancee.”
She wasn’t certain why she said it; the words slipped out, as they had lurked there in her head, waiting. There was a long silence. Karl stared at her. “How did you know?”
“Does that make a difference?” she asked him. It bothered her that he seemed more irritated than ashamed. “What matters more to me is that you never told me about her. What’s her name?”
She watched him take a breath, then another. “Kaitlin,” he said at last. “Ana, I’ve been gone two years now. I don’t know when I’ll return, or if. Kaitlin and I. . we said we’d be faithful. But I think we both knew that I might find someone else, or that she might. .”
“Has it happened?”
He ducked his head. Nodded. “For me, it has,” he said. “I think you know that.”
“And for her?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should know, Karl.”
He said nothing. The tea steamed in the mug in her hands. “Has it happened for you?” he asked finally. “With me?”
“Perhaps,” she answered. “I don’t know. Too much has happened and I’m not sure of anything now. But I don’t know that I’m ready for what you want.”
“Because of Kaitlin.”
Ana couldn’t decide whether that was a statement or a question.
She nodded. “Yes. And. . other things. Karl, I may never be ready.”
Had he left then, had he simply nodded and accepted that, she knew that it would all be over between them. She knew that it would have killed whatever it was that had brought them together. It would have changed things between them forever.
He did not. He knelt in front of her and his hands went around hers as she held the mug.
“Then I can wait,” he told her.
Justi ca’Mazzak
The morning fog had lifted several turns of the glass ago, and the sky was crowded with gray clouds drifting lethargically above them. Justi gestured, and the great portcullis of Passe a’Fiume groaned and protested as it was hauled up and the thick oaken gates of the town swung open. Justi’s entourage was smalclass="underline" no more than twenty of the ca’- and-cu’ chevarittai attending him, Commandant ca’Rudka accompanied by two double-hands of the Garde Civile, Archigos ca’Cellibrecca with U’Teni cu’Bachiga of Passe a’Fiume and a half-dozen war-teni from the Archigos’ Temple.
Justi had watched from the walls of the town as Hirzg ca’Vorl’s retinue entered the field conspicuously just beyond bowshot range of the walls (though not unreachable by war-teni.) The archers remained arrayed on the walls as Justi’s small force advanced out from the gate and onto the Clario bridge. A page in the livery of the Kraljiki waited at the far side of the bridge, a scabbarded sword cradled in his arms. He bowed low as Justi rode slowly up to him.
“My Kraljiki, the Hirzg Jan ca’Vorl has accepted your sword from me and asked me to give you this in return,” the page said. The young man’s voice trembled slightly as he presented the sword hilt-first. Justi leaned down to take the sword as the page, still bowing, backed away.
The sword was plain but obviously well-used: the sword of someone who used the weapon as a tool of war, not in tedious ceremonies. The leather wrapping of the hilt was stained, and the feel was solid. The Hirzg’s initials were engraved in the pommel, the deep-cut, ornate lines filled with glittering lapis, the only touch of ostentation on the weapon.
Justi drew the weapon; it was beautifully balanced in his hand, and the twin edges were polished and keen, with the slight curve that was the hallmark of the Firenzcian saber. The steel was satin and almost dark, and it sang a shimmering high note as it left the scabbard.
The sword was a message, he knew. The presentation sword Justi had given to ca’Vorl had been one of the ceremonial swords his matarh had commissioned as gifts for ambassadors and representatives: more showpiece than weapon, more jewelry than edge.
“Firenzcian steel,” Commandant ca’Rudka commented, coming up alongside Justi. His silver nose gleamed in the sunlight; Justi could see his own distorted reflection in one nostril. “Beautiful, if you like deadly things.” From ca’Rudka’s raised eyebrows, Justi knew that the man understood the significance of the gift. Justi sheathed the weapon and hooked the loop of the scabbard to his belt, and gently nudged his horse forward again as the page stepped aside. The retinue began to move, hooves loud on the wooden planks of the bridge. Justi glanced up toward the tents farther down the Avi, their sides up to allow breezes to enter-and to allow Justi to see that there was no deception. He could see the Hirzg’s retinue in the shadows under the linen cloth.
“We’ll know soon enough whether steel will be necessary,” Justi told ca’Rudka.
“Do you think that’s a possibility, Kraljiki?” Ca’Rudka was looking past the tents to the mountains and the army waiting there.
Justi was wondering the same, but he didn’t answer and ca’Rudka didn’t pursue the question. Justi gestured to the others, and they continued on toward the tents. Pages hurried forward as they reached the greensward: taking the reins of the horses; bringing steps to help Justi and the others alight from their mounts. Servants led the horses away to graze, and others came forward to offer drinks to the retinue. Justi waved them aside, not wanting to put anything in the burning pit that was his stomach. “This way, Kraljiki. The Hirzg is waiting for you.”
A long table had been set up in the middle of the tent, with two ornate chairs at either end. Less comfortable and ornate seating was arranged around the focus of the two ends so that the Kraljiki and the Hirzg could each consult with their advisers at need. Two scribes stood by folding desks with parchment, quills, and fully-charged inkwells, prepared to document the proceedings. Pages and servants stood by along either side, ready to provide refreshment or to ferry documents from one end to the other, or simply to shoo away annoying insects.
As Justi strode into the cool twilight of the tent, Hirzg ca’Vorl rose slowly and almost grudgingly from his chair at the end of the table, though his retinue was already standing. Justi recognized a few of them from his ceremonial trips to Brezno: the stick-figure of Markell, the Hirzg’s secretary and adviser; U’Teni cu’Kohnle, the head of Firenzcian war-teni. But the person wearing the starkkapitan’s eagle wasn’t Ahren ca’Staunton, but some younger offizier whose face was unknown to Justi.
All but ca’Vorl had bowed their heads reflexively as he approached the table with the Archigos and ca’Rudka to either side of him, but Justi could feel them staring as if they were trying to see inside him-all but ca’Vorl himself. The Hirzg simply watched, as if slightly bored by the proceedings. Justi stood behind the chair and stared back, and finally ca’Vorl gave the barest motion of his head to Justi, the shadow of a nod.