Jan clapped ca’Damont on the shoulder. “There, you see,” he told the children. “You have it from the Starkkapitan himself. He knows war better than any of us. I hope you’ve learned well, so when one of you is Hirzg…”
“Let’s pray to Cenzi that isn’t for many decades yet, my husband.” The voice lifted up Jan’s head, and he saw Brie standing in the doorway and smiling in at the scene. He went to her, kissing her and embracing her briefly. She smelled of jasmine and sweetwater, and her hair-once the same color as Elissa’s, but darkening now-was soft even in the tight Tennshah braids that were currently so popular. If her figure had become heavier after bearing their children, well, that was like the scars on ca’Damont’s face: a sign of the sacrifices she had made.
Rance had told him that it was Brie who had sent away Mavel cu’Kella, and why. After his initial irritation, he was pleased: it saved him the trouble of doing the same.
“What’s going on here?” Brie asked. She looked at the children, at the servant holding Eria, at the nursemaid. “Rance told me you were still in conference, and we’re to be at the temple for the Day of Return blessing in a turn of the glass.” She shook her head, though the expression on her face was indulgent and serene. “And none of our children are dressed yet.”
“I’m sorry, Hirzgin,” the nursemaid said, curtsying. “It’s my fault. I’ll get them ready. Elissa, Kriege, Caelor-come with me now. Quickly…”
Brie hugged each of them as they passed (Kriege still frowning and flushed with anger, Elissa with a tight-lipped smile of triumph, Caelor as always dour and pensive). “I should take my leave also,” ca’Damont said, bowing to Brie and Jan. “I’ll have my scribe write up the full report for you this afternoon,” he said to Jan. “And we’ll see what Ambassador ca’Rudka has to say when he arrives. I’m sure word will have come to him on his way here. Hirzg, Hirzgin…”
He bowed again and left them. As the doors to the chamber clicked shut, Brie went to Jan and hugged him again, tilting her face up for his kiss. She leaned back slightly in his arms, plucking at the collar of his shirt. “You’re wearing this to the ceremony?”
“I was considering it, yes. It’s comfortable.”
“You look so handsome in that new red one, though.”
He smiled at her. “Then I suppose I’ll have to change to the red, just to please you.”
She kissed him again. “Armen had no trouble in Il Trebbio?”
“Less than I expected, actually.”
She nodded, her head against his shoulder. “The children have never seen their great-matarh, Jan. They only think of her as that awful woman in Nessantico who sometimes sends presents. I think you should consider what Sergei wants to offer her.”
“ She’s the one responsible for the estrangement,” Jan said. “And Rance agrees with me that there should be no treaty with the Holdings. If she wanted peace, she shouldn’t have supported Stor ca’Vikej in West Magyaria, and she shouldn’t be letting his son hang around the court of the Holdings. She stuffed the mattress on which she lies; if she finds it uncomfortable, well, she’s the one responsible.”
“I know,” Brie whispered. “I know. But I still wish… Children should know their relatives, and not as enemies.”
“Then let her give up the Sun Throne entirely, rather than letting Sergei propose this nonsense of naming me as A’Kralj.”
“ You put her on the throne, my love.” The rebuke wasn’t as harsh as it could have been, and she softened it by touching her hand gently to his cheek. “I know. You did what you thought was right at the time.”
“I was young and foolish,” Jan said. He opened his arms, releasing her. “And I don’t want to talk about this. Not now.” He grasped her hand and kissed it. “Let me have my domestiques de chambre find this red shirt you like so much, and we’ll go to the temple to make our appearance…”
He heard the sigh she stifled, but she smiled up at him and stroked her hand down his chest, stopping just at his belt. “Don’t call them just yet,” she said. She raised up on her toes to kiss him again as her hand remained where it was. “There’s still time, isn’t there, my love?” she asked.
He laughed. “As much as we like. They can’t start without us, can they?”
He kissed her again, more urgently. He felt her body yield to his, and that drove away any other thoughts for a time.
Rochelle Botelli
The ceremony started late, since the royal party was tardy arriving at the temple. Rochelle, in the press of the common, unranked folk at the rear of the temple, had found respite in the lee of one of the interior half-columns on the back wall, leaning there with her eyes half-closed, her nostrils flaring at the stink of incense and her ears full of the prayer chants and the choir’s singing. She heard the seated ca’-and-cu’ rising from their seats as the wind-horns sounded their mournful call from the temple dome and the great front doors of the temple opened to admit the Hirzg and his family. Bright sunlight streamed into the half-gloom of the temple. Rochelle opened her eyes fully; she stepped up onto the base of the half-column, allowing her to see over the heads of the congregation.
The procession was headed by Archigos Karrol and several o’teni, wrapped in a fog of aromatic smoke from the censers, with four chanting light-teni bearing lanterns that burned with yellow flames brighter yet than the sun. The Archigos walked slowly, an o’teni on either side in case he stumbled-Karrol was seven decades and more of age, and though he was still as sharp-witted as ever, in the last few years his physical health had begun to decline and his attendants were always vigilant with him around steps and stairs, or when-as today-ritual demanded that he walk for a significant distance, though he was supported by the Archigos’ staff he clutched in his right hand, the bejeweled cracked globe of Cenzi at its summit. He wore green robes trimmed with golden thread, the patterns glistening in the brilliance in which he was bathed, his long white hair seeming to glow under the mitered crown. He lifted his free hand in greeting to the crowd, his mouth curving into a smile under his beard.
Starkkapitan Armen ca’Damont and his family followed next, then the members of the Council of Ca’ with their spouses and families. Rochelle rose on her toes to see better as Jan entered. Rochelle remembered her matarh-in the fewer and fewer lucid moments before the voices in her head overwhelmed her completely-talking about Jan, how handsome he had been, how he had held her, how he promised her that he would always love her.
How Jan had been her vatarh.
Rochelle’s matarh had loved Jan until her death, as she had also hated Kraljica Allesandra for having torn them apart.
Rochelle had seen paintings of him, and she had stared at the image, trying to see in it some hint of the features she glimpsed when she looked into a polished plate or still water. Perhaps that long, sharp nose? Or those high cheekbones? Her skin, duskier and more deeply and easily bronzed in the sun; did it speak of the Magyarias and the south where the Hirzg had been born? Did those features come from her vatarh, and from her great-vatarh?
She had never seen him this closely in person-less than a stone’s throw away as he entered the temple. She peered anxiously in his direction.
He was handsome: a thin, dark beard along a firm jawline, a sharp, narrow nose (yes, much like her own), skin darker enough that it stood out among the Firenzcians in the temple; dark and intense eyes; hair curled and so dark as to be nearly black, though the sun sparked bronze-and-red highlights from it.
Like her own hair. Like the face she sometimes glimpsed looking back at her.
Yes, he could truly be her vatarh. The tales that her matarh had told could be true. She felt her breath catch in her throat as he glanced around, as his gaze swept momentarily over hers. She raised her hand; he seemed to nod toward her, ever so slightly.