S Farrell - A Magic of Nightfall

She stiffened under his kneading hands, and he chuckled. “There, you see. Jan’s not the only one who gets irritated when someone tells them what they must do.” He continued to work the muscles of her shoulders. “There’s another matter we should discuss, the two of us,” he said to her. “I am with you in this, my love, but I have ambitions, too. I would be Archigos of a unified Faith, and I would sit on Cenzi’s Throne in the Archigos’ Temple and be your Hand of Truth. And I would be more than that, Allesandra. I would be Archigos ca’Vorl.”

She turned to him, and found his face close to hers. She kissed his lips without heat. “Semini…”

“You told Jan to think of what the two of you could accomplish together as the same family on two thrones. I would ask you to consider what might be accomplished if the same family held not only the political thrones, but that of the Faith.”

“What you’re suggesting isn’t possible,” she told him. “There’s Pauli. And Francesca. Yes, I enjoy the stolen time we have together, and I wish it were otherwise, but it’s not. Semini, how would it seem if the Archigos were to dissolve his own marriage and that of the A’Hirzg, for his own convenience? What would the ca’-and-cu’ say, if only privately? What damage would that do to the Faith and to the Sun Throne?”

“I know,” he growled, stepping back. “I know. But my marriage to Francesca was political from the beginning-there was never any love between us, nor much intimacy at all after the first few years and her miscarriages. Orlandi insisted that I had to marry his daughter and he was the Archigos, and your vatarh thought it would be good as well, and you were…” He paused. “I know I’m much older than Pauli, Allesandra, but I thought…”

“The differences in our ages mean nothing,” she told him. She reached out to touch his face, his graying beard surprisingly soft under her fingers. “Semini… I do have affection for you. I love what we have, but it has to be enough. What you’re suggesting… It would be a terrible mistake.”

“Would it? I don’t believe that, Allesandra. If you knew how much I’ve wrestled with this, if you knew the prayers I’ve sent to Cenzi. ..” He shook his head under her fingers. “It would not be a mistake,” he said. “How could it be if there are true feelings between us? Can you tell me that the feelings are one-sided and our affair is simply a matter of convenience to you. Is that what it is, Allesandra? Tell me. Tell me the truth.”

She stared at him, his face cupped in her hands. “One-sided?” she whispered. “No.”

He breathed a long exhalation, nearly a word or cry. And then he was kissing her, and she was kissing him back, and she lost herself and her worries about Jan and what might come in the heat that enveloped her.

Jan let the sweat pour from him as he jabbed and parried with his sword against an invisible opponent. Sometimes it was Semini, sometimes it was his matarh, sometimes it was the ghost of Fynn or ini, sometimes it was his matarh, sometimes it was the ghost of Fynn or his great-vatarh. Jan let all his anger out into the practice. He slashed, he spun, he thrust until all the ghosts were dead and his muscles were burning.

Finally, he sheathed his sword and stood with his hands on knees, panting. He heard faint, ironic applause behind him, and he turned-beads of sweat flying from damp hair-to see Sergei ca’Rudka standing at the door of the practice room, with two gardai standing behind him. “How-?” Jan began as ca’Rudka smiled.

“I asked your aide Roderigo where you might be. I wasn’t allowed to come without my friends, though,” he added, gesturing to the grim-faced and solemn gardai flanking him. Sergei entered the long, narrow room, with its polished bronze walls and the narrow row of seats along the other side, the wooden practice swords in their holders in one corner. “You’ve had a good weapons teacher,” Sergei said. “Though that’s worth less than you might think.”

Jan took a towel from the rack near the swords and wiped at the sweat on his brow. “What do you mean, Regent?”

“You can have all the technical skills-and you do-but they mean little when you actually face an opponent who’s willing to kill you.”

The way ca’Rudka made the comment, in a lecturing, superior tone, ignited Jan’s anger again. They were all acting superior to him. They were all telling him what to do as if he were too stupid to understand anything himself. Jan sniffed. He tossed the towel in the corner. “Show me,” he said to Sergei. “Prove it.”

“Hirzg…” one of the gardai hissed warningly, but Jan glared at the man.

“Be quiet,” he said. “I know what I’m doing.” Jan nodded his head toward the rack of wooden swords. “Show me, Regent,” he said again. “Platitudes are easy.”

Sergei bowed, as if to a dance partner. Glancing once at the gardai, he strode to the rack. Jan watched him-the man had the gait of an elder, and there was a grimace when he bent over to pull out one of the practice blades and examined it. “The great swordsman cu’Musa once said that experience is often better than raw skill,” he said to Jan. “There’s a tale that in a duel, cu’Musa once killed his opponent with only a wooden blade. Just like you, his opponent was armed with steel.”

The gardai both started forward, reaching for their own weapons and putting themselves between Jan and ca’Rudka, but again Jan motioned them back. “You’re not cu’Musa,” Jan said.

“I’m not,” ca’Rudka answered. He flicked the wooden blade through the air. It was a clumsy stroke, and Jan saw how ca’Rudka held his hand on the hilt, turned slightly underneath-his old teacher back in Malacki would have immediately corrected the man, had he seen that. “With your hand like that, you have no reach,” he would have said. But Sergei had already taken a stance-blade down, his legs too close together. “When you’re ready, Hirzg Jan,” he said.

“Begin,” Jan said.

With that, ca’Rudka started to bring his blade up: slowly, almost awkwardly-an amateur’s move. Jan sniffed in disdain and slapped the man’s blade aside contemptuously with his own. But the expected resistance of blade against blade was missing: ca’Rudka had opened his hand. He heard the wooden blade clattering against the tiles of the floor, saw it skittering away to hit the bronzed wall. Jan’s strike took the weapon from ca’Rudka, yes, but without resistance his own strike swept farther to the left than it should have, and Jan saw a rush of dark clothing and felt ca’Rudka’s hands slap him lightly on either side of his neck before he could react. The man was directly in front of him, the metal nose so close that Jan’s face filled its reflective surface. Ca’Rudka’s hands gathered in the collar of Jan’s tashta and the man took a step, pressing Jan against the wall. Jan’s sword was useless in his hand: ca’Rudka was too close.

“You see, Hirzg Jan,” ca’Rudka nearly whispered, “a person who wants to kill you won’t worry about rules and politeness, only results.” His breath was warm and smelled of mint. “I could have crushed your windpipe with that first strike, or I might have had a knife in my other hand. Either way, and you’d already be gasping your last breaths.”

He stepped away, releasing Jan as the gardai grabbed him roughly from behind. One of them struck ca’Rudka in the side with a mailed fist, and the older man crumpled to a knee, gasping. “But you’re a better swordsman than me, Hirzg,” ca’Rudka finished from the floor. “I’ll admit that freely.” The garda brought his fist back for another strike, but Jan lifted his hand.

“No!” he snapped. “Leave us! Both of you!”