Jan
ca’Vörl
THE TEMPLE AT BREZNO was smaller than the Archigos’
Temple in Nessantico, and not as venerable and sacred a place as
the Old Temple on the Isle a’Kralji (or with as impressive a dome).
But Brezno’s dome and several of its famous frescoes had been
painted by the great Firenzcian artist cu’Goslar, and they were
stunning. Cu’Goslar’s oddly-elongated figures loomed and twisted
over the supplicants at the temple, draped in gauzy clothing or
sometimes nothing at all: Cénzi, yes, was prominent, but there were
also those of Firenzcia who had been important to the Faith. There
was Gareth ca’Lang, the first a’téni of Brezno, his sword lashed to
his handless arm as he fought his hopeless battle against the
heretics of the Karinthia Sect; there was Pewitt the Hopeless, the
Moitidi swarming around him, tearing and ripping the flesh from his
living body, mocking the man by consuming his body as he watched in
torment; there was Ursanne ca’Sankt, the great martyr who many
thought would have been Archigos had she lived, desperately trying
to fend off her Tennshah rapists, from which unwilling union would
come the great Firenzcian Starkkapitän Adalwulf, who would later
drive off the Tennshah from their settlements around Lake
Firenz.
Jan was surrounded by
history and swaddled in faith-driven fury. It seemed appropriate.
His reconciliation with the realization that his matarh intended to
vie for the Sun Throne had been a struggle as titanic as any of
those depicted here, it had seemed to him. He’d confronted her
after his long talk with Sergei ca’Rudka. But in the end, he had
told her that he understood, even if he didn’t approve. Jan wasn’t
certain if that was the truth or that after their several turns of
argument, the statement at least let him get some sleep, but she
had accepted it.
Jan had accompanied
Allesandra to the temple at Archigos Semini’s request, and he
stared upward at the dome as they waited for him. “I remember the
first time I saw these paintings,” he said, trying to fill the
awkward silence. “They scared me; I thought they were ghosts. I
could imagine them moving, and coming down from the painting to
chase me . . .” He laughed; it seemed that he had laughed far too
little since the events that had ended with him as Hïrzg. “Now I
think they’re just overdramatic, and not all that
well-painted.”
“Don’t tell Semini
that,” his matarh said to him. “He loves cu’Goslar . . . Ah, there
he is.”
Semini was striding
quickly toward them from behind the High Lectern on the quire.
Midway between Second and Third Call, the temple was mostly
deserted, and the gardai who had quietly entered before Jan and
Allesandra now stood silently several strides away, having emptied
the main chamber of all straggling visitors. They were as alone as
it seemed possible for him to be lately.
“My Hïrzg,” Semini
boomed, his voice reverberating from the dome above as he gave the
sign of Cénzi to Jan. “And A’Hïrzg.” Jan saw him smile at
her—Semini seemed almost ready to take her hand, though that would
have been a terrible breach of etiquette. But he stopped a careful
few steps from her, closer than perhaps he should be, but not so
close as to be extraordinarily obvious. Some of the irritation
returned to Jan—he could hardly blame his matarh for pursuing an
affair when his vatarh had betrayed her so many times. Yet the
knowledge bothered him. The vision of the two of them together,
their bodies entwined as his had been with Elissa . . . No—he
shivered, shaking away the vision.
“Thank you both for
coming,” Semini continued, still looking more at Allesandra than
Jan. “As I said, a message has been delivered to me, with—I’m
told—an identical message for the Hïrzg. I have it
here.”
He handed Jan a
sealed, rolled parchment, watching as Jan examined the stamp in the
blue wax—the mailed fist that was Nessantico’s sigil since Kraljiki
Justi’s time. Jan unfurled the paper and scanned the inked words
there with a rising fury. He could almost hear his Onczio Fynn’s
voice rising inside him—he knew how Fynn would have reacted to
this. Silently, his lips pressed tightly together, he handed the
parchment to Allesandra; he heard her draw in her breath almost
immediately. Wordlessly, she handed the scroll back to
Jan.
“How dare he talk to us this way?” Jan spat. He opened
his hands, letting the paper fall to the marble-tiled floor. The
word “dare” echoed in the chamber long after he’d finished. It
seemed to stir the gardai, who shifted nervously. “He talks to us
as if Nessantico still ruled Firenzcia. ‘Return the former Regent
to us in a month, or we will take decisive action to recover him.’
How dare he make such threats?” Another
echo. “Let him try—we’ll crush him.”
He glanced upward at
the dome. Ghosts . . . None of them would
tolerate this; I can’t either. This is a slap in the
face.
“Jan, I understand
your feelings; believe me, I have the same reaction,” his matarh
said.
“ ‘But . . . ?’ ” Jan
spat angrily, turning to her. “Is that what you’re about to say,
Matarh? ‘But . . .’ What possible ‘But’ could there
be?”
Strangely, she
smiled. “My dear, you sound like Fynn, or perhaps Vatarh. I’ve
heard them both roar just like that when they thought themselves
insulted.”
Her amusement served
only to increase his irritation. He glanced past Semini to the
mural behind the High Lectern, at the bloody strips of Pewitt’s
flesh clutched in the clawed hands of the Moitidi, trying to stifle
his annoyance.
“The ‘But,’ my son,
is what we’ve been considering,” she continued. “Perhaps this is
just the opportunity we needed. The excuse to act.”
“The excuse?” he began. For a moment, he felt much
younger, a child again. “Oh,” he said. That word did not echo at
all. It floated in the air between them, lost in the great expanse
of the temple. He looked down at the paper half-unrolled over the
marble tiles, the suspicion growing in him. “Strange that a message
like this would lead to exactly the situation you wanted, Matarh. A
bald provocation against us by Nessantico. What wonderful timing.”
He raised his eyebrows toward her.
She was shaking her
head in denial. “I knew nothing of this until now,” she told him.
“I had nothing to do with it. The message is genuine. Ask the
Archigos.”
Semini nodded
hurriedly. “The letters came sealed and via diplomatic routes,” he
said. “If the Hïrzg doubts that, I can have the courier brought
here.”
Jan waved a hand,
looking away from them toward the murals of the dome. “No. There’s
no need. It’s just . . .” His gaze came back to his matarh. “It
would seem that Cénzi wants what you want, Matarh.” Perhaps it was
coincidence. His matarh had appeared genuinely shocked. Perhaps
this was a sign. He was not delighted
by the prospect.
“Oh, indeed,” Semini
responded. “The Kraljiki has played directly into our hands, or
Cénzi has caused him to do so. The Kraljiki has threatened the
Coalition and our Faith directly, and we have no choice but to respond to protect our borders and
our interests. This is the moment, Hïrzg. This is the time. Much of
Nessantico’s Garde Civile has been sent westward to the Hellins; it
will take time for them to muster the chevarittai and the remaining
Garde Civile, to prepare the war-téní who remain available to them,
and to draft the necessary foot soldiers they would need to make
good this threat.” Semini smiled, nodding to Allesandra. “Your
matarh knows this. It’s time for you to show your generalship, and
take the Garde Civile and the chevarittai of Firenzcia to war. You
will restore the Holdings to the whole it once was, Hïrzg Jan, and
your name will be remembered forever for that.”
“I don’t know . .
.”
“I do,” Allesandra
told him. Her voice was firm and proud. “You’re ready for this,
Jan.”
He hesitated. He was
still bothered that she would use him for her own purposes; he was
also troubled by his own uncertainty as to whether he could be the
Hïrzg that he wanted to be. “I also think that
a good Hïrzg listens to the message even when he has difficulty
with the messenger.” Sergei’s words. They calmed him. They
decided him.
A breath later, he
nodded. “You were right the other night. I’ll need to consult with
Starkkapitän ca’Damont and the chevarittai. That’s what you wanted,
wasn’t it, Matarh?”
If she heard the
faint mockery in his voice, she didn’t react to it. “I’ll come with
you, Jan. I know the Starkkapitän, and I know the Garde Civile. I
can be your mentor in this. Go on and have Roderigo summon them.
I’ll follow in a moment.”
Jan’s eyebrows rose,
annoyed at the obvious dismissal, but he gave Semini the sign of
Cénzi and bowed slightly to his matarh. “Thank you for relaying
this information, Archigos,” he told Semini. “We will need your
strength and guidance in this. Matarh, I will talk with you
later.”
He left them, all but
a few of the gardai forming around him as he departed the temple.
“Your son will be a fine Hïrzg,” he heard Semini growl in his low
voice as he reached the doors. He assumed that it was timed so he
would overhear it and think the praise genuine.
He smiled to himself.
He would be a fine Hïrzg. He would
surprise both of them with just how effective a leader he would
be.
He suspected they
might not like the result.