Karl, is this what I should do? Is this what you’d have done as A’Morce? The grief washed over her again at the thoughts and she had to turn away from Pierre for a moment. Everyone had warned her it would be this way: that the mourning would ebb away only slowly, that for a long time she’d suddenly remember Karl and the sorrow would take her again.
Pierre must have thought she’d caught a speck of dust in her eye. “Morel said there’d be a sign from Cenzi.” he continued. “Something about fire and destruction and death, from what I hear.” He sniffed. “If that’s all prophecy is, well, then any of us could make a living as a prophet. There’s enough fire and death and destruction in any given year for a double handful of vague prophecies like that. You’d think that if Cenzi were really as powerful as Morel seems to think, then he’d make such signs unmistakable and his prophecies more specific-why, if he told me the sun would rise in the west tomorrow and it did, that might just convince me to turn to the Faith.” He grinned at his own joke.
Varina smiled politely. She wiped at her eyes quickly.
Pierre seemed to take the smile as encouragement. “What bothers me,” he said, “is that there were evidently quite a lot of people listening to them, and some of them were teni, too, if you can believe it. I tell you, the troubles for the Numetodo may be ready to start again.”
“Nico can be quite charming and convincing,” Varina said. “He has quite a presence.” And if I’d had any doubt of those reports, then meeting him again confirmed them.
Pierre shrugged. “From what I heard, the crowd actually resisted the Garde Kralji when they showed up and allowed the bastardo to escape. There’s going to be blood between the Morellis and us Numetodos, A’Morce. Mark my words on that-and call me a prophet, too.” He grinned again, then shrugged. “But forgive me, A’Morce, for rattling on. I take it you had a chance to try the device I made for you. Did it work? Did it survive the experiment?”
“It did,” she told him; he nodded, and she saw a fierce satisfaction slip over his face. “I was very pleased with it,” she continued. “That’s why I’m here. I want more of them. Several hands of them, in fact.”
Now his eyebrows climbed his thin face. He absently brushed sawdust from the front of his bashta. His gaze skittered about the workroom. “Several hands of them,” he muttered, almost inaudibly. “A’Morce, all the work I have here to do… The requests from the other Numetodo for instruments and devices for their studies… I don’t know how I could possibly…” He lifted his hands; she could see the scars and calluses on them.
“Hire yourself some competent apprentices,” she told him. “I will pay their wages myself, whatever you feel is fair. Buy the material you need and bill it to me. The devices needn’t be as…” She stopped and smiled at him. “… beautifully crafted as the one you made for me. Good solid workmanship would suffice. Have them work under your supervision; you can even have them help you with your other work at need. I don’t care. But I want the devices soon-within a month, and as many as you can make.” She took a breath that shuddered. “Pierre, this is necessary for the protection of all Numetodo.”
“A’Morce, I haven’t heard-”
“That’s because I’ve said nothing to anyone else. And you shouldn’t either. I can count on your discretion, I trust?”
The eyebrows climbed higher. “Of course, A’Morce. Of course. Only
…”
“Yes?”
Pierre shook his head. “Nothing, A’Morce.” He brushed at his thighs, raising a cloud of dust that billowed into the nearest light shaft. “I will do as you ask, and I hope you’ll be pleased with the results.”
“Good,” she said. “Thank you, Pierre. I’ll stop by next Draiordi and see what progress you’ve made.” She rose from her seat, shrugging her overcloak over her tashta. “I hope that I’m wrong and that none of this is necessary,” she told him. “That’s actually what would please me the most. But I doubt that I will have that pleasure.”
Allesandra ca’Vorl
Commandant Telo Cu’Ingres of the Garde Kralji and Commandant Eleric ca’Talin of the Garde Civile both stood at uneasy attention before the Sun Throne. The courtiers and the public had been sent from the room, and the usual monthly Council meeting had been cut short. The Council of Ca’ sat to the throne’s right, but other than the servants against the walls waiting to jump to any request, there was no one else there to witness Allesandra’s displeasure at their reports.
No one aside from Erik ca’Vikej, who was seated behind the Council. Allesandra saw them struggling to ignore the man’s presence; their discomfiture was almost pleasant. Of the councillors, only Varina seemed to take little notice of him. Varina seemed to Allesandra to be lost in her own thoughts; she’d said nothing at all during the meeting.
“Nico Morel is able to make a public speech-one that attacked both the Faith and the Sun Throne-and yet we were unable to capture him.” Allesandra sniffed. The bright yellow glow of the Sun Throne enveloped her; she could see it radiating around her fingers as she clenched the crystalline arms of the throne. She could see the cracks in the carved, translucent stone where the throne, damaged in the assassination of Kraljiki Audric, fifteen years ago, had been repaired. The cracks did not glow but remained stubbornly opaque despite the best efforts of the light-teni. “This is not what I wished to hear.” She heard Erik snort in cold amusement at her remark.
“Nor is it what we wished to report, Kraljica,” Commandant cu’Ingres said. “I was in charge of the operation, not Commandant ca’Talin, who had agreed to support the Garde Kralji, and thus he should be blameless in this. I have no adequate excuse, and will make none.”
“Then it’s good that I had other reports from the scene, Commandant,” Allesandra told him. “I know that your gardai were attacked by the crowd, and that they used admirable restraint in not responding in kind against citizens of the Holdings.” Cu’Ingres inclined his head toward her in acknowledgment. “But I think that the time for restraint against the Morellis may have passed,” she continued. “In the future, both of you have my permission to use whatever force you feel is necessary.” Allesandra looked at Varina with that statement. She made no sign, staring at the hands folded in her lap. Allesandra wondered if she’d even heard what had been said.
“Nico Morel is to be found and brought to justice for the murder of citizens of Nessantico, and for the damage he has done here,” she said to the Commandants, to the councillors. The Commandants bowed their heads, receiving their orders as any good soldier should, but the five members of the Council of Ca’ were less in agreement. Varina was lost in her own thoughts. Allesandra’s cousin Henri ca’Sibelli was nodding, the wattles of his neck swaying with the motion. But the other three… Simon ca’Dakwi’s hand prowled his white beard, his mouth twisted as if he’d tasted something sour; Anais ca’Gerodi leaned over to Edouard ca’Matin and whispered something in his hair-tufted ear, to which the man scowled vigorously, his head shaking with the palsy that afflicted him.
Have I misjudged Nico Morel’s support here? Allesandra found herself wishing that Sergei were still in the city; she needed his unvarnished honesty. But she looked instead to Erik.
He was scowling as well, but his irritation was directed at the Counciclass="underline" she saw that he’d noticed their reaction. “Are we in agreement?” she asked the councillors.
“We are, Kraljica,” ca’Sibelli answered, but his was the only voice. The others said nothing; if they felt otherwise, they weren’t going to say it here, then, in front of her.
“Good,” Allesandra snapped-if they were too unsure to voice their discontent, then let them be discontented. She rose from the Sun Throne, and the glow from within the crystal died. The room seemed suddenly dim. “We’re done here. Commandants, Councillors, thank you for your time.” The Commandants bowed themselves quickly out, their boot heels clacking loudly on the tiles of the Sun Throne’s hall; the councillors glanced at each other, uncertain, then finally rose from their chairs with various groans and mutterings. They bowed to Allesandra, then-hesitating-bowed also to Erik before, more slowly than the two soldiers, beginning to make their way from the room. “Varina,” Allesandra called out, “a moment, if you would…”