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. "Plat.i.tudes 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!"

The gardai looked at him startled. They began to protest, but Jan gestured again toward the door. As they bowed and left, Jan went to ca'Rudka and helped the man back to his feet. "Are you really that poor a swordsman, Regent?"

Ca'Rudka managed to smile as he held his side, leaning forward and trying to catch his breath. "No," he answered. "But I made you think I was." He took a long breath in through his mouth and groaned. "By Cenzi, that hurt. I trust that my point's obvious enough?"

"That people might lie and deceive me in order to get what they want?" Jan laughed bitterly. "You're not the only one trying to teach me that lesson."

"Ah." Ca'Rudka seemed to be considering that. He said nothing, waiting.

"My matarh and the Archigos seem to think that now is the time to attack Nessantico."

Ca'Rudka shrugged, then grimaced again. "Do you want to be admitting that to a potential spy in your midst, Hirzg? Why, I might send a note back to the Kraljiki."

"You won't."

Nothing moved on ca'Rudka's face at that. He blinked over his silver nose. "Have you considered that your matarh and the Archigos might be right?"

"You'd agree with them?"

"Honestly, I'd rather that there be no war at all, that we settle our differences another way. But if I were your matarh . . ." He shrugged. "Perhaps I'd be thinking the same."

"So you think I should listen to them?"

"I think that you're the Hirzg, and therefore you should make up your own mind. But I also think that a good Hirzg listens to the message even when he has difficulty with the messenger."

Jan looked away from the man. He could see himself in the bronze mirrors of the hall, his image slightly distorted in the waves of thin metal. He was still holding his sword. He went to the wall where ca'Rudka's wooden sword had come to a rest. He leaned down and picked up the practice weapon, tossing it to the man.

"Show me something else," he said. "Show me how experience beats raw skill."

Ca'Rudka smiled. He took the sword, and this time his movements were fluid and graceful. "All right," he said. "Take your stance . . ."

Nico Morel.

AFTER SPENDING SEVERAL DAYS with the woman, Nico decided she was very strange, but also fascinating. She was good to Nico. She fed him well, she talked to him-long talks in which he found himself telling her everything about his matarh and Talis and how he and his matarh had left Nessantico, and how he hated his onczio and his cousins and left the village, and how the Regent and Varina had helped him. . . .

The woman walked with him during the day around his old neighborhood, with Nico hoping he would see Talis or his matarh.

But he hadn't. "Your vatarh's name is Talis Posti?" she had asked him the first night, after he'd told her his story. "You're sure of that? And he's here in the city?" He nodded, and she'd said nothing more.

She told Nico her name was Elle, but sometimes when Nico called out that name, she didn't seem to notice. She would sometimes, in the middle of conversation, respond to some unheard comment or address the air as if talking to it. In public, she seemed to make herself shrivel and look old and frail, but in the privacy of the rooms she kept, she was another person altogether: much younger; strong, athletic, and vital. She kept weapons in the room: a sword leaning in the corner near the door and another at the side of the bed, and there were several knives with wickedly-sharp edges-she nearly always had two or more of those on her person. Nico would watch her when she honed her weapons at night with a whetstone. He'd watch her face, and the loving concentration as she sharpened the razored edges made him shiver.

She had a small leather pouch around her neck that she never took off. It was always there under her clothing, and at night she would clasp her hand around it as she were afraid someone might steal it. He wondered if when she took her daily bath in the copper tub in the common room of the house, she kept it on also. The bathing in itself was strange, since Nico had never seen anyone bathe themselves more than once a week, and more likely once a month. His matarh had always said that if you bathed too much, it caused you to get sick. Maybe, Nico thought, that was what was wrong with Elle.

At odd times, she would tell him to stay in the rooms they rented, and she would go out alone-usually at night. She would be gone for several turns of the gla.s.s, and usually Nico would fall asleep waiting for her to return. Whatever she did those nights, she never told him.

Tonight had been one of those nights. "Nico . . ." He felt her hand shaking him, and he blinked up at her face, candle-lit against the darkness of the room. "Get up," she told him.

"Why, Elle?"he grumbled sleepily. It was comfortable and warm under the covers. She didn't answer him-she had already moved to the door of their room.

"I want you to come with me," she said. Grudgingly, Nico slid the covers aside and lifted himself from the straw-filled mattress. "Shoes," Elle said as he started to pad toward her barefoot. He slipped on his worn boots as she opened the door. "Stay with me," she told him, taking his hand. They went out into the night.

Nico knew that Nessantico never slept-not entirely. No matter what time of day or night, there would be people abroad in the Oldtown streets. But the night denizens were more dangerous than those of the day, his matarh had told him. "You'll understand better when you grow up," she'd said, more than once. "Night is a mask that the city puts on when it wants to do things it shouldn't. The business people do at night . . . well, sometimes they need the darkness to hide it." He'd glimpsed some of that recently, alone in Oldtown before Elle had found him. He'd witnessed the slurred speech and uncertain walk of the tavern denizens; seen the grunting encounters in dark alleys; glimpsed the quick, brutal a.s.saults; witnessed the furtive exchange of jingling coins for wrapped packages. He stayed close to Elle now as they moved through the streets, alive with those wearing the mask of night.

She walked rapidly, so much so that he had to half-run to keep up with her. They cut across a corner of Oldtown Center and into the tangle of lanes running south and west toward the river, the buildings on either side growing rapidly older, smaller, and closer together, as if they wanted to huddle together in the night for warmth. Nico was quickly lost. There were no teni-lights here, only the occasional lamps set in the windows of taverns or brothels. Twice they pa.s.sed an utilino, and Elle would draw down onto herself, making herself look smaller and older, and she would husk out a greeting with a grating voice that didn't sound at all like her own.

Finally, Elle tugged him into the darkness of an alleyway and crouched down next to him. "Listen to me, Nico. I need you to be very, very quiet now. You need to be careful when you move so that no one hears your footsteps, and you can't talk. No matter what you see or what happens. Do you understand?" In the faint light of the moon, he could see the white of her eyes, and her gaze was serious and solemn.

He nodded. She took his hand, squeezing it once gently. "All right," she said. "Come on."

They moved farther down the alley to a tiny door half-off its rusty hinges. Elle reached under her cloak; her fingertips, when her hand emerged again, had a dollop of some dark substance which she smeared on the hinges. She pushed at the door, it swung open reluctantly but silently, and Elle ducked inside, gesturing to Nico to follow.

The smell inside made Nico want to gag: there was something dead and rotting close by, and he was glad for once that it was far too dark to see well, though he was afraid he was going to trip over whatever was dead down here. Elle's hand took his again and he followed her closely toward a dimly glimpsed stair, and up to a door. He saw Elle stoop alongside the door and fiddle for a few moments with a few pieces of wire inside the keyhole. There was a faint click, and Elle pushed the door open slowly. Nico found himself hurrying behind Elle down a narrow, dark hallway to stop in front of a door. "When I open this door," she whispered huskily to him, "I need you to stay here in the hall. Don't move, no matter what. Say nothing. Just listen. Listen. Do you understand?"

He nodded silently. Again Elle crouched by the door with her wires; again, there was a click. Elle opened the door and slipped inside, leaving the door open. Nico couldn't see anything inside, though he squinted hard. Someone in the room was breathing hard, as if asleep. His own breathing seemed terribly loud, and if Elle made any sound at all as she moved through the room, Nico couldn't hear it. He clutched at the doorframe, frightened and wanting to disobey Elle and call out to her, but the fear choked his throat.

There was a soft snick, a startled grunt, and then Elle's voice. "That's right," he heard someone say softly-it sounded somewhat like Elle, but her voice was pitched deep and low. It might have been a man speaking. "That's a knife blade against your neck, and if you cry out or so much as move your hands, you're a dead man. Do as I say, and you might live. If you understand, nod your head." There was a pause, then: "Good. I know who you are and what you are. I've been watching you. Now, I want to know something else. Do you know a boy named Nico Morel? Answer me: yes or no. And softly."

Nico's own breath hissed in at the mention of his name. He heard the person half-whisper an answer: "Yes."

With that single word, he knew the voice: Talis. Almost, he leaped into the room, but he remembered Elle's warning and he remained crouched at the door. "Good. You get to live yet," Elle whispered to Talis. "Ah! No moving now; remember what I told you. I'd hate for you to slice yourself open accidentally. You've shared the bed of the boy's matarh?"

"Yes."

"Do you love her? Answer true now."

There was a hesitation in which Nico took a quick breath. Then: "I do."

"And the boy? Do you care about him?"

The answer was quicker and more emphatic. "Yes. The boy is . . ." His voice trailed off into a long silence.

"The boy is what?"

"My son. And yes. I care about the boy. That why I sent away both him and Serafina-so they'd be safe."

"But he came back here, to this city. You discovered that after the Numetodo had him. You knew the Amba.s.sador ca'Vliomani wanted to talk to you, but you didn't answer him. You abandoned the boy, to save your own skin." Nico realized that she was talking mostly for his own benefit, so that he would hear Talis' reply.

Nico heard the rustling of cloth and straw as, despite Elle's warning, Talis moved. "Ow! No. That's not true. Ow! Easy! You're right, I knew Nico was here and didn't answer the Amba.s.sador, but not for the reasons you say. Because . . ."

"Because?"

"I saw the consequences of trying to do that. I saw that if I'd gone to the Numetodo, worse things would have happened: for Nico, for me, for all of us. If I could have gotten Nico back safely, I would have. I knew the Amba.s.sador would treat him kindly. I knew Nico wouldn't be hurt if I stayed hidden. But if I'd come for him, if I'd tried to rescue him, I didn't know what would happen. He might be hurt, or worse. There could have been terrible consequences."

"You know this because of magic. Westlander magic." Nico could almost see Talis' nod. It was hard to stand silent and listen. He wanted to go to Talis, to Elle, but he also wanted to hear what Talis would say. "And did you see this moment in your spells? Did you see me?" Elle asked in her strange, husky voice.

"No," he said. "I kept seeing Nico in the scrying bowl, as if he were close, but there was something around him, something protecting him."

"Then you did see me. I protect him. And I will continue to do so."

"Where is he?" Talis asked. "Take me to him!"

"Why? Why should I do that?"

"Because . . ." Nico heard Talis swallow hard. ". . . Because he should be with people he knows. I can take him back to his matarh."

"You'd do that?"

"Yes."

"Then I hope for your sake you keep promises."

Following Elle's answer, no one said anything, though Nico thought he could hear furtive, swift movements. He peered into the darkness until blobs of color swam in front of his eyes, trying to see. He could hear Talis stirring, heard him speak a word in another language, and Nico shivered, as if some invisble, cold breeze had touched him. Suddenly there was bright light, light that seemed to come from Talis himself. He was sitting up in bed, his blankets pooled around his waist and two small trickles of blood running down his chest from his neck, and the light was coming from a cold glow that sat in his upturned palm. Elle was no longer in the room, though curtains swayed in front of an open window near the bed. Talis saw Nico in the hallway, and his mouth dropped open. "Nico!"

Nico ran to him, crying.

Audric ca'Dakwi.

THE PAPER RUSTLED in his hand as he held it at an angle so that Great-Matarh Marguerite could read it also. He could hear her intake of breath, harsh and annoyed. "We've confirmed that the seal on this is genuinely from Francesca ca'Cellibrecca," Sigourney was saying as he read the missive. "And we've had independent confirmation that former Regent ca'Rudka . . . pardon me, Rudka . . . is indeed in Brezno and that he's met with the Hirzg, the A'Hirzg, and the Archigos. As to the affair she talks about between the Archigos and A'Hirzg Allesandra . . . well, that we can only speculate about."

The paper trembled in Audric's hand. His great-matarh was staring at him, her eyes furious. "You believe this?" He was asking his great-matarh, but it was Sigourney who answered.

"We have no reason not to believe it."

"Well, I have a reason-Maister ci'Blaylock pounded that history into me too well. Francesca ca'Cellibrecca's vatarh betrayed my vatarh and all the Holdings at Pa.s.se a'Fiume." His finger tapped the parchment. "Now she wants to ally with us? She wants a reward?"

"If she's right, Kraljiki, then we should be grateful for her warning. She can help us, as close as she is to the Brezno inner circles."

"You genuinely think there's going to be war?" Audric said, and hated the way he sounded: like a worried child. "You're not a child. Not anymore. Now you must be Kraljiki," Marguerite told him, and he nodded to her. He made his voice as deep and stern as he could. "The new Hirzg is foolish if he thinks he can do that. We will crush him. We will send him bleeding and broken back to Firenzcia."

"Those are brave words, Kraljiki Audric," Sigourney said, nodding, though her face looked rather unconvinced to Audric. "I'm certain that you're right. But we can also hope it won't come to that." She inclined her head toward the painting on its stand next to him. "With Vajica ca'Cellibrecca's help, perhaps we can force diplomacy on Firenzcia. Your great-matarh understood that; she didn't use force unless it was necessary."

"Don't tell me what she would do," Audric snapped at Sigourney. He coughed with the ferocity of the words, and had to press his kerchief to his lips until the spasm pa.s.sed. When it was over, he continued, with less volume, his throat sore from the attack. "I know her best. It's me who understands my great-matarh. It's me she talks to. Not you."

Sigourney raised her hands, her eyes wide from his outburst. "I didn't mean to suggest otherwise, Kraljiki. It's just . . ." She lowered her voice, leaning toward him as if afraid someone might overhear, though there were only the three of them in the room. "We need to be careful here. It's possible this may be nothing, or it may be the suspicions of a wife who feels she has lost the trust of her husband, especially if the rumors regarding Archigos ca'Cellibrecca and Allesandra are true. We have to consider Vajica ca'Cellibrecca's motives."

"Sergei Rudka is in Brezno," Audric spat. "I want him here. I want him in the Bastida again, and this time I'll make sure he experiences all the pleasures of the deepest cells."

"Yes, yes," Sigourney was saying but he was barely listening to her, prattling on at him as if she were trying to soothe a child on the verge of a tantrum. She was still talking, but Audric heard none of it. Sigourney was beginning to remind him of Sergei, acting as if she were the one on the Sun Throne and not him. Maybe he might have to throw her in the Bastida, too. Now that he was acknowledged as the Kraljiki, maybe he'd throw all of the Council of Ca' there. Let them meet and plot in the stones of the main tower and see how they liked that. Sergei had proved that he was a traitor and he would pay for that; Audric vowed that he would witness the man's torment himself, maybe even help the torturer. He would watch the man writhing in torment on the table, and later enjoy the crows plucking the flesh from Sergei's bones as his body swayed in its cage on the Pontica Kralji. "Yes, you will have all that," Marguerite told him. Her mouth twisted into a momentary smile. "You are the Kraljiki now, and they can deny you nothing. You will plant the banner of the Holdings on the Hirzg's very grave. Your sword will run red with the blood of those who try to stand in your way."

"Yes," he told her. "It will. I promise."

"What?" Sigourney said. She looked startled, interrupted in mid-speech. "What do you promise, Kraljiki?"

He wanted to cough. He could feel the urge in his throat and his lungs, and he forced it down. "I promise that those who stand in my way will be destroyed," he told her. "That's what I promise." He was staring directly into her eyes. He expected, he wanted to see fright there, but that wasn't what he saw in her face. There was only a quiet appraisal there, and perhaps pity. That made him angry, and the emotion sent him into spasms of coughing again. The coughing made it difficult to breathe; he could feel the edges of his vision darkening and he thought he might faint entirely.

As he hacked into his kerchief, nearly doubled over, he suddenly felt Sigourney's hand on his head, stroking his hair.

"I know how this illness must hurt, Kraljiki. Audric. I know." She pulled him to her, and he resisted for a moment-"You must be strong. You can't let them see your weakness or they will exploit it."-but he found that he wanted this-this matarhly touch-and he let her cradle him to her, as she might have one of her own sons. Her warmth was a comfort, and he heard a sob that he realized with a start had come from him. She had heard it, too, evidently. "Shh . . . it's all right. It's just the two of us. Just us. If you need to cry, I understand. I do . . . I will call the Archigos, have him bring that woman teni back here."

Her fingers swept back the hair from his face. "Be strong . . ." But it was hard to be strong all the time, and he'd never known his matarh's affection and his vatarh had always been surrounded by the chevarittai and the ca'-and-cu' and servants. As Sigourney held him, he opened his eyes and saw Marguerite's portrait. She stared at him, hard and cold and disapproving. Her head moved slowly from side to side. "My true heir would not do this. This is weakness. My true heir would know how he must act." Her disappointment burned inside him.

He pushed himself away from Sigourney, so hard the woman stumbled backward and nearly fell.

"No!" he shrieked at her. "No. We will do as I wish in this. We will send a demand to the Hirzg-he must send Sergei back to us, or I will go and take him. Do you hear me? I will go there myself with the Garde Civile at my back and s.n.a.t.c.h Rudka from them." Marguerite's strength filled him and he stood, not coughing at all. "Send the commandant to me, so he can begin mustering the troops. I want you to write the demands-we will send it by fast-rider today. We will give them a month to return him. No more."

"Kraljiki, you're moving too fast. We must study this more, wait-"

"Wait?" The word came both from him and his great-matarh at the same time. "I will not wait, Vajica. And those who oppose me or refuse to go with me, I will consider no more than traitors themselves. I expect to see a draft of the demand by Third Call. Do I make myself clear?"