S. Farrell - A Magic of Twilight

“Commandant, the attack on the Archigos yesterday was not part of some Numetodo plot. It was the act of a single madman, who unfortunately does seem to have had Numetodo connections but whom I’ve never personally met. My credentials from the government of the Isle of Paeti. .”

Ca’Rudka waved him silent. “Your credentials are in order. I know; I checked them myself, months ago. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t be talking; well, at least not in this manner.” He rose from his chair and Karl stood with him. “Come, Envoy, let’s walk while we discuss this.”

He led Karl from the patio into the gardens. As they strolled the graveled walkways, the commandant pointed out some of the blooms

and arrangements. The commandant seemed to have a wide knowledge of horticulture, certainly more than Karl, who could name only the most common of the flowers here in Nessantico. The conversation, to Karl’s frustration, never seemed to come back to the Numetodo and the attempted assassination of the Archigos, but he forced himself to patience. Ca’Rudka, Karl had learned in his few months here, was-like the Kraljica herself-a person who did things in his own time. Like a handsome but dangerous beast of prey, he had to be watched carefully. They’d been walking for some time when ca’Rudka stopped. He crouched down near the path’s manicured edge. He pointed to a small plant there, its saw-toothed and purplish leaves just overhanging the edge of the walkway. “Weed or flower?” he asked Karl.

“I don’t know, Commandant.”

“It’s difficult to tell, isn’t it? Right now there’s no sign of a bloom, yet it could burst into triumphant color a week from now, or spread out to infest the entire area.” The commandant plunged his fingers into the soft earth around the plant, pulling it out of the ground with its roots intact. “You, my man!” he called to the nearest of the garden workers, who came running over at the summons. “Take this and put it in a small pot for me.” The man took the plant in cupped hands and hurried off.

“Dhaspi ce’Coeni has been executed,” ca’Rudka said without preamble as he wiped dirt from his hands. His dark eyes seemed to probe Karl’s face.

He forced himself to show nothing. “That’s as I expected, Commandant. Nessantico is well known throughout the Holdings for its. .”

He allowed himself the slightest of hesitations. “. . quick justice,” he finished.

Muscles pulled at the corners of ca’Rudka’s mouth. “It was justice, Envoy,” he answered. “And more. For attacking the Archigos, ce’Coeni’s life was forfeit, even if he’d tried to use a sword or arrow. But worse, his weapon was the Ilmodo, which is Cenzi’s Gift alone and which is forbidden by both Holdings law and the Concenzia Divolonte to anyone but the teni.”

“It wasn’t the Ilmodo, Commandant,” Karl said. “It was what we call the Scath Cumhacht .”

“Call it whatever you like,” ca’Rudka answered. “That’s only semantics.” Ca’Rudka continued to stare, unblinking even in the bright sun.

Karl found the man’s gaze disconcerting, but he couldn’t look away. “I should tell you that ce’Coeni signed a full confession before he died.”

“And that was of his own free will, no doubt.”

“I understand your skepticism, Envoy, but it happens often enough.

Some criminals wish to ease their souls by admitting their guilt before they go to meet Cenzi’s soul-weigher. I find it difficult to believe that ce’Coe was acting entirely alone, Envoy. I suspect there were other Numetodo involved.”

“Am I to be arrested, then, Commandant? Did his confession name

me as an accomplice? If so, I appreciate that you brought me here before taking me to the Bastida so I could sign my own confession for you.”

The gardener approached, and the commandant turned away for a moment to take the small clay pot from him. “Here,” ca’Rudka said to Karl, handing him the pot. Karl accepted the plant, and ca’Rudka reached toward him to stroke the leaves with a forefinger. “A garden can accept many plants: if they prove their own beauty, if they provide the right accents for the gardener’s taste, and if they can safely coex-ist with all the other plants. So-weed or flower, Envoy? Which is it, I wonder? Take care of that plant, water it and give it sun, and you’ll learn.”

“But you already know which it is, do you not, Commandant?”

Ca’Rudka’s eyes glittered. He smiled again, with a flash of teeth. “I do indeed, Envoy. But you don’t, and that’s what you need to decide, isn’t it?”

Ana cu’Seranta

When they were ushered into the Kraljica’s presence by Renard, the Kraljica was seated on the Sun Throne. There were perhaps three or four dozen other people in the long Hall of the Throne, gathered near the doors: chevarittai, cousins, diplomats, supplicants, courtiers; all waiting for their tightly scheduled moments with the Kraljica, to be seen in her company, to ask for favors or promote their pet causes. Their various conversations-Ana overheard a circle of young women talking about what they would wear to the Gschnas, the False World Ball that would take place in the coming week-died momentarily as she followed the Archigos into the hall and they all turned to look. The Kraljica herself was separated from the ca’-and-cu’

by several strides, with a painter daubing his brush on a canvas before her, though none of the courtiers were close enough to see the painting well. There was an odd black box on a table next to the painter.

“That will be all for now, Vajiki ci’Recroix,” the Kraljica said, her voice sounding sleepy and tired as Renard closed the doors behind Ana and the Archigos. Everyone stared at the newcomers. Ana felt herself being examined, weighed and measured in their gazes. “If you would leave us. .” the Kraljica said to the room, and the courtiers bowed and murmured and left the room in a fluttering of bright finery. “Archigos Dhosti,” they said, nodding politely to the dwarf as they passed.

“Good evening, O’Teni. So pleased to meet you, O’Teni,” they said to Ana, and they also smiled to her. She could see annoyance behind some of the expressions despite the careful social masks-irritation at the schedule and routine being disrupted, at their own appointments being set back or perhaps lost entirely. But Ana smiled back, as was expected, and her smile meant as much as theirs.

The painter had spread a linen sheet over the canvas so that the work was hidden. Then he, too, turned, and his gaze went to the Archigos and then to Ana. He held Ana too long in his regard for her comfort, as if she were a scene he was considering sketching, before he began bustling about cleaning up his pigments and brushes. As he did so, the Kraljica pushed herself up from the chair and gestured to them as she walked to the balcony of the room. She moved like an ancient, Ana noticed, with her back bowed much like the Archigos’. She took small, careful, shuffling steps.

“You’re not feeling well, Kraljica?” the Archigos asked with obvious concern in his voice as they went out into the sunshine. Below them, in the courtyard, the gardens were bright with colors set in orderly squares and rows.

“My joints are all a bother today, Dhosti; I suspect it will be raining tomorrow, the way they’re aching. And I’ve been sitting too long and talking to too many sycophants.” She grimaced, taking a cushioned seat on the balcony. Inside, they could hear the painter gathering up his case and leaving, the sound of his boot soles loud on the tile. “Please, Dhosti, I know your aches and pains are easily as bad as mine. Please sit.”

She gestured to another chair, and the Archigos sat. The Kraljica made no such offer to Ana. She remained standing, trying to appear composed and calm as the Kraljica gazed openly at her, with lips pressed together into an appraising moue. Ana kept her eyes properly lowered but glanced at the Kraljica’s face through her lashes, a face she’d glimpsed only from a great distance on those occasions when the Kraljica appeared in public. She wore a gown of dark blue silk liber-ally embroidered with pearls, an emerald set at the center of the high bodice; her hands, arthritic in appearance and pale, lay unmoving in her lap. Her throat was covered by lace, but underneath the thin fabric Ana could see loose skin hanging under the chin. Her pure white hair was trapped in a comb inlaid with abalone and more pearls. Her mouth, puckered in reflection, was set in a spiderweb of wrinkles, but the eyes-a thin, watery, and delicate blue-were gentler than Ana had expected, lending mute credence to the Kraljica’s popular title as “Genera a’Pace.” For the last three decades the delicate fabric of alliances she’d spun had kept the various provinces and factions within the Holdings from erupting into open hostilities. There’d been the inevitable skirmishes and attacks, but open warfare had been avoided.