“You know me too well, Regent.”
He might know Sigourney, but she didn’t know him. No one really knew him; he had never let anyone come that close to his unguarded core, and he was too old to begin now. She would be appalled if she knew what he’d done this morning, in the bowels of the Bastida. “I’ve had practice at reading people,” he told her, with a nod of his head to the dragon on the Bastida’s rampart. “It’s in the eyes, and the tiny muscles of your face that one can’t really control.” He tapped his false nose, deliberately. “The flare of your nostrils, for instance. You’re troubled by something.”
“We’ve all read the latest report from my brother in the Hellins,” she told him. “That’s what troubles me-the situation there.”
Sergei put a foot on the step of the carriage, leaning in toward her. The springs of the carriage’s suspension groaned and sagged under his weight. “It troubles me as well, Councillor.”
“What would you do about it?”
“When one is bleeding badly,” he told her, “one is advised to bind the wound. I say that with no criticism of your brother. Commandant ca’Sibelli is doing the best he can with the resources we can spare him, but fighting a determined enemy in their home territory is difficult in the best of circumstances, and well nigh impossible at this distance.”
“Are you suggesting we bind the wound, Regent, as you so fancifully put it, or to flee in disgrace from what is causing the damage?” Her eyebrows lifted with the question, and Sergei hesitated. He knew that Audric had met with Sigourney, Odil, and Aleron-that kind of gossip couldn’t be kept quiet in the palais-and he remembered all too well the arguments on the subject he’d had with Audric. Sergei hadn’t yet had a chance to broach the subject with any of the Council of Ca’; now it appeared that Audric had done it for him, and he doubted that Audric’s view had painted him in complimentary hues.
“Whether there is disgrace in retreat depends,” he answered carefully, “on whether you believe that the next wound might be a mortal one.”
“ Is that what you believe, Regent?” she persisted. “You believe the war in the Hellins is lost?”
Once, he might have hedged, not certain what was the safest opinion to reveal. As he’d grown older, as he’d gained power, he’d become less inclined to be subtle. “I believe there is a danger of that, yes,” he told her. “I’ve told the young Kraljiki my opinion, and such will be my statement to the Council of Ca’ in my next report. So you have a preview of it.” He smiled; it took effort. “From the way you speak, Councillor, I suspect the Council is already aware of my feelings. Your prescience is impressive.” There was no returning smile; Sigourney’s face was impassive in the shadows of the coach. “Let me give you the rest of it. The worst danger, as I’ve also said to the Kraljiki, is that in looking west, we are ignoring the East and the Coalition. I take it Audric didn’t mention that to you.”
She stayed in shadow, her response masked. “You don’t advise sending more troops to the Hellins? Do you advise abandoning what we’ve gained there?”
Sergei glanced back at the dragon; it seemed to be leering toothily at him. “Why is it that I believe you already know my answers to those questions, Councillor?”
“I would still like to hear them. From your lips.”
“Then: no, and yes,” he told her flatly. “If we send more troops, we are sending more of our gardai to die across the Strettosei when I am convinced we will need them here, and perhaps sooner than we might like. As for the Hellins: my experience tells me that another commandant will fare no better than your esteemed brother has. Commandant ca’Helfier, his predecessor, is ultimately responsible for the terrible situation there; it was his bungling and poor judgment that caused the Tehuantin army to become involved in the conflict, and that tipped the balance.” Sergei was pleased to see her draw back at that and look away from him, as if the sight of the Pontica ahead of the carriage was suddenly far more interesting. “Our difficulties are the distance, and communication, and a vast enemy who is fighting on their home ground.” He tapped the open window of the carriage with his hand. “And an enemy who is now stronger than most of us want to believe. When we took the Hellins, the Tehuantin stayed in their own lands beyond the mountains, but ca’Helfier’s actions caused the natives of the Hellins to call on their cousins for help. We can call the Westlanders savages and infidels who worship only the Moitidi and set them up as false gods, but that doesn’t alter the truth that their war-teni-through whatever deities they call upon-are at least as effective as our own. Perhaps even more so.”
“Some might say you skirt dangerously close to heresy yourself with that statement, Regent,” ca’Ludovici told him, making the sign of Cenzi.
“I see my duty as Regent to look the truth in the face, no matter what that truth is, and to speak it,” he told her. That was a lie, of course, but it sounded good; as he saw it, his duty as Regent was to see that the Nessantico he handed to the next Kralji was in a stronger position than he’d originally found it: no matter what that entailed him doing or saying, legal or illegal. “That has always been my function within Nessantico. I serve Nessantico herself, not anyone within it. That’s why Kraljica Marguerite named me Commandant of the Garde Kralji, and why your cousin Kraljiki Justi placed me first as Commandant of the Garde Civile and then named me Regent, even when we often disagreed.” His mouth twitched at the memories of the arguments he’d had with the great fool Justi. May the soul shredders tear at him for eternity for what he did to the Holdings.
“I, too, serve Nessantico first,” Sigourney said. “In that, we’re alike, Regent. I want only what is best for her, and for the Holdings. Beyond that…” She shrugged in shadow.
“Then we agree, Councillor,” Sergei answered. “Nessantico needs truth and open eyes, not blind arrogance. The Council of Ca’ certainly recognizes that, doesn’t it?”
“Truth is more malleable than you seem to think, Regent. What is the saying? ‘A ca’s vinegar may be the ce’s wine.’ Too much of what is termed ‘truth’ is actually only opinion.”
“That may be the case, indeed, Councillor, but it’s also what people say when they wish to ignore a truth that makes them uncomfortable,” Sergei answered, and was rewarded with a moue of irritation, a glistening of moistened lips in the dimly-lit face. “But we can speak of that later, with all of the Council present, if you wish. There should be a new report coming from the Hellins soon, and perhaps that will tell us what is true and what is only opinion.”
He heard her sniff more than he saw it, and a white hand lifted in the shadowed interior, rapping on the roof of the carriage. “We shall talk further on this, Regent,” she told Sergei in a cold, distant voice, then called to the driver in his seat: “Move on.”
He watched her drive away, the iron-rimmed wheels of the carriage rumbling against the cobblestones of the Avi. The sound was as cold and harsh as Sigourney’s attitude had been. Sergei turned again to the Bastida and looked up at the dragon’s skull above the gates. The ferocious mouth grinned.
“Yes,” he told the skull. “The truth is that one day we’ll all look just like you. But not yet for me. Not yet. I don’t care what Audric has said to the Council. Not yet.”
Jan ca’Vorl
Jan found his Matarh standing on the balcony of their apartments in Brezno Palais. She was staring down at the activity on the main square. The Archigos’ Temple loomed against the skyline directly opposite them, nearly half a mile away, and nearly every foot of that distance was covered with people. The square was illuminated with teni-lights in yellow and green and gold, dancing in the globes of the lampposts, and the markets and shops around the vast open area were thronged with shoppers. Music drifted thin and fragile toward them from street performers, wafting above the hum of a thousand conversations.