Part 36 (2/2)

”Ah, cautious, are we, Vajiki Andus? That's good. That's good. And who is it you're wanting dead?”

”That's my business, not yours.”

”I hardly think so,” Uly said, ”since the Garde Kralji would come after me as well as you, and I've no interest in lodgings at the Bastida. I require a name from you, or we have no business at all.”

”It's the Archigos,” Karl told the man. ”I understand you already have some experience with that.”

He watched the man carefully, a spell ready to be released with a word and gesture. The man hesitated just slightly, a bare break in his step, but otherwise there was no response at all. He continued to walk on, and Karl had to hurry to catch up with him. The man's expression hadn't changed, nor had his demeanor. Karl waited for him to say something, his hand dropped to his side. They pa.s.sed a side alleyway . . .

. . . and Uly pushed hard at Karl, his thick hand trapping Karl's own even as he tried to bring it up, and Uly's other hand pressed over Karl's mouth, slamming his head hard against the stone foundation of a building. The impact took the breath from Karl and sent sparks flying through his head. Uly's knee rammed into his stomach. He retched, aware that he was falling. Something-a knee, a fist, he couldn't tell what, impacted the side of his head. He couldn't see, could barely breathe. He could feel the cold cobblestones under him, the filthy water pooled there.

”You're a fool, Amba.s.sador ca'Vliomani,” Uly hissed. ”Did you think I wouldn't recognize you?”

You're going to die. Now. It was a somber realization.

He could hear boots on the cobbles-a single set of footsteps, he realized-and he waited for the final blow to come. He heard a grunt, and a yelp of pain, and something heavy fell to the ground next to him. He felt a hand raise his head and fasten a hood over it so he couldn't see. The cloth smelled of old sweat. ”Stay still and you won't be hurt,” a voice said-not Uly's. Someone with the only the trace of some unidentifiable accent, neither deep nor high, so it was difficult to even determine the gender. ”Take off the hood and you'll die.” Something sharp pressed against his neck, and Karl hissed in antic.i.p.ation of the cutting stroke. ”Nod if you understand.”

Karl nodded, and the knife blade vanished. He heard more noise-like a slap, and a grunt that could only be Uly. ”Answer me if you want to live,” the voice said, though it wasn't addressing Karl. ”You killed Archigos Ana, didn't you? You made the black sand.”

”No,” Uly began, then his voice cut off with a groan of pain. ”All right, all right. Yes, I helped kill her. With the black sand. But it wasn't my idea. I just gave the man the stuff and told him how to use it. I didn't know what he intended to do with it. Ouch! d.a.m.n it, that's the truth!” So much for Uly's preference to die rather than talk, Karl thought. Perhaps Talis didn't know his warriors that well after all.

”Who?”

”I don't know-Ow! By Axat! Stop! He told me his name was Gairdi ci'Tomisi, but I don't know if that's his real name or not. Paid me well-that's all I knew or cared about.”

There were more soft sounds, then a long wail that had to have come from Uly. The man was panting now, sobbing in pain, his breath fast and desperate. ”Please. Please stop.”

”Then tell me more about this man,” the other voice said. ”Quickly.”

”Sounded like ca'-and-cu', the way he talked. Firenzcian, maybe, by the accent. Said he had 'orders' from Brezno, in any case. That's all I know. I made the stuff, gave it to him, and he left. I was as surprised as anyone when the Archigos was killed.”

Karl desperately wanted to tear the hood from his face, to see what was happening, but he didn't dare. There were more sounds: a wet scuffling, a soft t-chunk, then a rustling. Someone pulled at his bashta, rummaging in his pocket. He thought he heard soft footsteps but with the pounding and ringing in his head they were faint enough that he couldn't be sure.

Then, for several breaths, there was nothing at all, only the distant sounds of the city. ”h.e.l.lo?” Karl whispered. There was no answer. Carefully, Karl lifted his hands to the cloth wrapped around his head and pulled it away from his face. What he saw made him recoil backward.

Karl stared at Uly's body on the cobblestones, his throat slashed and blood sprayed over his clothes. His right eye was open to the sky, but covering the left was the stone the woman had given him in the tavern.

Allesandra ca'Vorl.

SEMINI TRIED TO CONTACT HER for several days afterward. Allesandra rebuffed his advances. She let his messages sit on her desk. When he sent his o'teni over to talk to her directly, he was told firmly by her well-instructed aides that she was in meetings and could not be disturbed. When Semini himself left the temple to see her, she made certain she was out of town with Jan, watching the muster of the troops.

When Semini-under the guise of working with the war-teni who were also mustering-came to the fields south of Brezno, there was, finally, no way to avoid him.

Semini was a green-clad, dark blot against the sun-washed whiteness of the tent canvas. Outside, the military encampment stirred in the morning: the clash of metal as the smithies worked on weapons, armor, and livery; the call of men; the shouted orders of offiziers; the general buzz of movement; the sound of feet marching in unison as squads drilled. Smells drifted in as Semini let the tent flap close behind him: the cook and campfires, the odor of mud churned by thousands of feet, and the faint stench of the ditches that served as latrines.

She was talking to Sergei ca'Rudka as she sat behind the field desk that had once been her vatarh's, the front panels painted with images of Hirzg Jan ca'Silanta's famous battles in East Magyaria. ”. . . told the Hirzg and Starkkapitan to expect resistance as soon as we cross the border,” Sergei was saying, and he stopped and turned as her gaze drifted over his shoulder toward Semini. ”Ah, Archigos. Perhaps I should go.”

”Come back after Second Call and we'll continue our discussion, Regent,” she told him. Sergei bowed to her, rubbed at the reflective flank of his nose, and left the tent with a nod and the sign of Cenzi to the Archigos.

Semini seemed uncomfortable, as if he'd expected her to rise and embrace him as soon as the tent flap closed behind ca'Rudka. After a moment, he finally gave her the sign of Cenzi, s.h.i.+fting his weight as he stood in front of the desk like a summoned offizier. ”Allesandra,” he began, and she scowled.

”Anyone could be listening through the tent fabric. We are in public, Archigos Semini, and I expect you to address me properly.”

She saw irritation quickly narrow his eyes at the rebuke. His lips pressed together under the roof of his mustache. ”A'Hirzg ca'Vorl,” he said, with deliberate slowness. ”I apologize.” Then, he dropped his voice to a low, rumbling near-whisper. ”I hope that we might still talk openly. Francesca, she . . .”

Allesandra shook her head slightly; with the motion, Semini stopped. ”I spoke with your wife,” she said, with heavy emphasis. ”The other night. We had a lovely chat. She seems to believe that you had something to do with Archigos Ana's death.”

She hadn't really expected him to react; he didn't. He stared blandly at her. ”I know you had some affection for the false Archigos,” he said. ”Given what happened to you, I can understand that. But Ana ca'Seranta was my enemy. I didn't mourn her pa.s.sing. Not in the slightest, and if my pleasure in her death offends you, A'Hirzg, then I have to accept that. I prayed-often-that Cenzi would take her soul, because the woman was wrong in her beliefs and she was largely responsible for the severing of the Faith and the break of the Holdings.”

”She is also the reason I am who I am. Without her . . .” Allesandra shrugged. ”I might not be here. Jan may never have been born.”

”And for that, if nothing else, I gave her my prayers when she died.” Semini took a step to the side of the field desk, then stopped. ”Allesandra, what's happened between us? It's obvious you've been avoiding me. Why?”

”When were you going to tell me that it was you who ordered Ana killed? Or weren't you ever going to tell me?”

”Allesandra-”

”If you didn't do it, then deny it, Semini. Tell me now that it wasn't you.”

She wasn't certain how she wanted him to answer. In the intervening days, she had-through the staff in the palais, through Commandant cu'Gottering of the Garde Brezno-performed her own investigation. The name of Gairdi ci'Tomisi had emerged, and she'd had Commandant cu'Gottering take the merchant, who happened to be in Brezno, to the Bastida for interrogation. Ci'Tomisi, under the Bastida's less-than-gentle persuasion, had poured out the entire story: how he served Firenzcia and Archigos ca'Cellibrecca as a dual agent, how he knew a Westlander in Nessantico who sold potions, how the man had told him about some powerful Westlander concoction, how the Westlander had demonstrated this ”black sand” to him and how ci'Tomisi told his contacts in Brezno Temple about its power, and how word had come back (from 'the Archigos himself') that-if he were able to do so-a demonstration against the Nessantican Faith would be ”interesting and much rewarded”; how he'd used his contacts in the Archigos' Temple in Nessantico to gain access at night; how he'd placed the black sand in the High Lectern and set a clock-candle burning within, the flame set to touch the black sand at the same time that Archigos Ana would be giving her Admonition.

Ci'Tomisi confessed in order to save his own life, blubbering and weeping. He'd succeeded, but Allesandra wondered if, in his filthy and dark cell in the bowels of the Bastida, he might be wis.h.i.+ng he hadn't.

Allesandra was also aware that Semini would have realized that ci'Tomisi had been imprisoned and had probably talked. So she watched Semini, wondering what he would say, whether he would give her the lie and deny any knowledge of it, and how she should react if he did.

But he didn't deny it. ”I am Archigos,” he said. ”I need to do what seems best for the Faith, and in my opinion, the Faith would stay as broken as Cenzi's world until that woman was gone.”

With that, Allesandra's hand went to the cracked-globe pendant she wore, that Ana had given her. She saw Semini watching the gesture. ”Cenzi would have taken her,” Allesandra said. ”In His own time. And if He did not, why should you act for Him?”

He had the grace and humility to look down at the carpeted gra.s.s that was the tent's floor. ”Cenzi often requires that we act for Him,” he answered finally. ”There was . . . a sudden opportunity, one that presented itself all unexpected and would not point back to Firenzcia, but to either the Numetodo or the Westlanders. Is that any more wrong than someone in the Holdings sending the White Stone to kill Fynn?” He stared at her.

Allesandra felt a quick stab of guilt. She pressed her lips tightly; Semini seemed to interpret the gesture as annoyance.

”I had to act immediately or not at all,” Semini continued. ”I prayed to Cenzi for guidance, and I felt I was answered. And at the time, A'Hirzg, you and I were not . . .” He let the next word hang there, silent. He continued, but his voice was now a husk, barely audible. ”Had we been, Allesandra, I would have sought your advice and taken it. Instead, I asked your vatarh, who was very ill already, and your brother.”

”You're telling me Vatarh knew? And Fynn? They also approved of this?”

”Yes. I'm sorry, Allesandra.” The regret in his voice seemed genuine. His hands were lifted, as if asking for absolution, and there was a moistness in his eyes that caught the sun filtering through the canvas. ”I'm sorry,” he said again. ”Had I realized how much the act would hurt you, if I'd known what it would do to us, I would have stopped it. I would have. You must believe that.”

”No,” she told him, shaking her head. Semini. Fynn. And Vatarh. All of them, approving of the death of the woman who kept me alive and sane. ”I don't have to believe that at all. You would say that whether it's the truth or not.”

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