A Magic Of Nightfall Part 3

His sullen frown melted for a moment, and he looked so apologetic that all her irritation melted, and she stroked his arm. It was that way with him too much of late: scowls one moment and warm smiles the next. However, the scowls were coming more frequently as the loving child in him retreated ever deeper into his new adolescent sh.e.l.l. "It's fine, Jan," she told him. "Just . . . well, you must be very careful while we're here. Always." And especially with Fynn. She tucked the thought away. She would tell him later. Privately. She stood, and the servants fell away like autumn leaves. She hugged Jan; he allowed the gesture but nothing more, his own arms barely moving. "All right, we'll go down now. Remember that you are the son of the A'Gyula of West Magyaria, and also the son of the current A'Hirzg of Firenzcia."

Fynn had given her the t.i.tle yesterday, after their vatarh had died: the t.i.tle that should have been hers all along, that would have made her Hirzgin. She knew that even that gift was temporary, that Fynn would name someone else A'Hirzg in time: his own child, perhaps, if he ever married and produced an heir, or some court favorite. Allesandra would be Fynn's heir only until he found one he liked better.

"Matarh," Jan interrupted. He gave a too-loud huff of air, and the frown returned. "I know the lecture. 'The eyes and ears of the ca'-and-cu' will be on you.' I know. You don't have to tell me. Again."

Allesandra wished she believed that. "All right," she breathed. "Let us go down, then, and be with the new Hirzg as we lay your great-vatarh to his rest."

With the death of Hirzg Jan, the required month of mourning had been proclaimed, and a dozen necessary ceremonies scheduled. The new Hirzg Fynn would preside over several rituals in the next few weeks: some only for the ca'-and-cu', some for the edification of the public. The formal Besteigung, the final ritual, would take place at the end of the month in Brezno Temple with Archigos Semini presiding-timed so that the leaders of the other countries of the Firenzcian Coalition could make their way to Brezno and pay homage to the new Hirzg. Allesandra had already been told that A'Gyula Pauli would be arriving for the Besteigung, at least-she was already dreading her husband's arrival.

And tonight . . . tonight was the Internment.

The Kralji burned their dead; the Hirzgai entombed theirs. Hirzg Jan's body was to be buried in the vault of the ca'Belgradins where several generations of their ancestors lay, a hand or more of them having shared with Jan the golden band that now circled Fynn's forehead. Fynn was waiting for them in his own chambers; from there they would go down to the vaults below the ground floor of Brezno Palais. The Chevarittai of the Red Lancers and others of the n.o.bility of Firenzcia were already waiting for them there.

The halls of the palais were hushed, the servants they saw stopping in their tasks and bowing silently with lowered eyes as they pa.s.sed. Two gardai stood outside Fynn's chambers; they opened the doors for them as they approached. Allesandra could hear voices from inside as they entered.

". . . just received the news from Gairdi. This will complicate things. We don't know exactly how much yet-" Archigos Semini ca'Cellibrecca stopped in mid-phrase as Allesandra and Jan entered the room. The man had always put Allesandra in mind of a bear, all the way back to when she'd been a child and he a rising young war-teni: even as a young man, Semini had been ma.s.sive and furred and dangerous. His black beard was now salted with white, and the ma.s.s of curly hair was receding from his forehead like a slow tide, but he was still burly and muscled. He gave them the sign of Cenzi, clasping his hands to his forehead as his wife Francesca did the same behind him. Allesandra had been told that Francesca had once been a beauty-in fact, there were rumors that she'd once been the lover of Justi the One-Legged-but Allesandra hadn't known her at that time. Now, she was a humpbacked matron with several of her teeth missing, her body ravaged by the rigors of a dozen pregnancies over the years. Her personality was as sour as her face.

Fynn rose from his chair.

"Sister," he said, taking her hands as he stood in front of her. He was smiling-he seemed almost gleeful. "Semini has just brought some interesting news from Nessantico. Archigos Ana has been a.s.sa.s.sinated."

Allesandra gasped, unable to hide her reaction. Her hands went to the cracked globe pendant around her neck, then she forced herself to lower them. She felt as if she couldn't catch her breath. "a.s.sa.s.sinated? By whom . . . ?" She stopped, glancing at Semini-who was also smiling; almost smugly, Allesandra thought-then at her brother. "Did we do this?" she asked. Her voice was as edged as a dagger. She felt Jan put his hand on her shoulder from behind, sensing her distress.

Fynn snorted. "Would it matter?" he asked.

"Yes," Allesandra told him. "Only a fool would think otherwise." The words came out before she could stop them. And after I just cautioned Jan . . .

Fynn glowered at the implied insult. Jan's hand tightened on Allesandra's shoulder. Semini cleared his throat loudly before Fynn could speak.

"This wasn't the Hirzg's doing, Allesandra," Semini answered quickly, shaking his head and waving his hand in dismissal. "Firenzcia may be at odds with the Faith in Nessantico, but the Hirzg doesn't engage in a.s.sa.s.sination. Nor does the Faith."

She looked from Semini to Francesca. The woman looked away quickly but made no attempt to hide the satisfaction in her face. Her pleasure at the news was obvious. The woman had all the warmth of a Boail winter. Allesandra wondered whether Semini had ever felt any affection for her, or whether their marriage was as loveless and calculated as her own despite their several children. Allesandra couldn't imagine submitting to Pauli's pleasure so often. "We're certain this report is true?" she asked Semini.

"It's come to me from three different sources, one I trust implicitly-the trader Gairdi-and they all agree on the basic details," Semini told her. "Archigos Ana was performing the Day of Return service when there was an explosion. 'Like a war-teni's spell,' they all said-which means it was someone using the Ilmodo. That much is certain."

"Which also means they may look eastward to us," Fynn said. He seemed eager at the thought, as if anxious to call the army of Firenzcia into battle. That would be like him; Allesandra would be terrifically surprised if Fynn's reign were to be a peaceful one.

"Or they will look to the west," Allesandra argued, and Fynn glanced at her as he might an annoying, persistent insect. "Nessantico has enemies there as well, and they can use the Ilmodo also, even if-like the Numetodo-they have their own name for it."

"The Westlanders? Like the Numetodo, they're heretics deserving of death," Semini spat. "They abuse Cenzi's gift, which is intended only for the teni, and we will one day make them pay for their insult, if Nessantico fails to do so."

Fynn grunted his agreement with the sentiment, and Allesandra saw her son Jan nodding as well-that was also his d.a.m.ned vatarh's influence, or at least that of the Magyarian teni Pauli had insisted educate their son despite Allesandra's misgivings. She pressed her lips together.

Ana is dead. She placed her fingers on the necklace of the cracked globe, feeling its smooth, jeweled surface. The touch brought up again the memory of Ana's face, of the lopsided smile that would touch the woman's lips when something amused her, of the grim lines that set themselves around her eyes when she was angry. Allesandra had spent a decade with the woman; captor, friend, and surrogate matarh all at once for her during the long years that she'd spent as a hostage of Nessantico. Allesandra's feelings toward Ana were as complex and contradictory as their relations.h.i.+p had been. They were nearly as conflicted as her feelings toward her vatarh, who had left her languis.h.i.+ng in Nessantico while Fynn became the A'Hirzg and favorite.

She wanted to cry at the news, in sadness for someone who had treated her well and fairly when there had been no compulsion for her to do so. But she could not. Not here. Not in front of people who hated the woman. Here, she had to pretend.

Later. Later I can mourn her properly. . . .

"I expected somewhat more reaction from you, Sister," Fynn said. "After all, that abomination of a woman and the one-legged pretender kept you captive. Vatarh cursed whenever anyone spoke her name; said she was no better than a witch."

Fynn was watching her, and they both knew what he was leaving out of his comment: that Hirzg Jan could have ransomed her at any time during those years, that had he done so it was likely that the golden band would be on her head, not Fynn's. "You won't be here half a year," Ana had told Allesandra in those first months. "Kraljiki Justi has set a fair ransom, and your vatarh will pay it. Soon . . ."

But, for whatever reasons, Hirzg Jan had not.

Allesandra made her face a mask. You won't cry. You won't let them see the grief. It wasn't difficult; it was what she did often enough, and it served her well most of the time. She knew what the ca'-and-cu' called her behind her back: the Stone b.i.t.c.h. "Ana ca'Seranta's death is important. I appreciate Archigos Semini bringing us the news, and we should-we must-decide what it means for Firenzcia," she said, "but we won't know the full implications for weeks yet. And right now Vatarh is waiting for us. I suggest we see to him first."

The Tombs of the Hirzgai were catacombs below Brezno Palais, not the lower levels of the newer private estate outside the city known as Stag Fall, built in Hirzg Karin's time. A long, wide stairway led down to the Tombs, a crust of niter coating the sweating walls and growing like white pustules on the faces in the murals painted there two centuries before and restored a dozen times since: the damp always won over pigments. A chill, nearly fetid air rose from below, as if warning them that the realm of the dead was approaching. The torches alight in their sconces held back the darkness but rendered the shadows of the occasional side pa.s.sage blacker and more mysterious in contrast. A dozen generations of the Hirzgai awaited them below, with their various spouses and many of their direct offspring. Allesandra's older brother Toma had been interred here when Allesandra was but a baby, and her matarh Greta had lain alongside him for nineteen years now. In time, Allesandra herself might join her family, though an eternity spent next to Matarh Greta was not a pleasant thought.

The procession moved in stately silence down the staircase: in front the e'teni with lanterns lit by green teni-fire, then Hirzg Fynn accompanied by Archigos Semini and Francesca, and Allesandra and Jan a few steps behind them, followed by a final group of servants and e'teni. As they approached the intricately-carved entranceway to the tombs, decorated with bas-reliefs of the historical accomplishments of the Hirzgai, Allesandra could hear whisperings and the rustling of cloth and an occasional cough or sneeze: the ca'-and-cu' who had been invited to witness the ceremony. These were the elite of Firenzcia, most of them relatives of Fynn and Allesandra: families who were intertwined and intermarried with their own, or those who had served for decades with Hirzg Jan.

Torchlight and teni light together slid over the coiled bodies of fantastic creatures carved on the walls, the stern features of carved Hirzgai and the broken bodies of enemies at their feet. The Chevarittai of the Red Lancers came to attention, their lances (the blades masked in scarlet cloth) clas.h.i.+ng against polished dress armor. The other ca'-and-cu' bowed low and the whispers faded to silence as the new Hirzg entered the large chamber. Allesandra could see their glances slide from Fynn to her, and to Jan as well. Jan noticed the attention; she felt him stiffen at her side with an intake of breath. She nodded to them-the slightest movement of her head, the faintest hint of a smile.

Look at her, as cold as this chamber . . . It was what they would be thinking, some of them. She's no doubt pleased to see old Jan dead after he left her with the Kraljiki and the false Archigos for so long. She probably wishes Fynn were there with him so she could be the Hirzgin.

None of them knew her. None of them knew what her true thoughts were. For that matter, she wasn't entirely certain she knew them herself. She was still reeling from the news about Ana, and if she showed signs of grief, it was for her, not her vatarh.

The casket containing the remains of Hirzg Jan sat near the entrance to his interment chamber, next to the huge round stone that would seal off the niche. The coffin was draped in a tapestry cloth that depicted his victory over the T'Sha at Lake Cresci. There was nothing celebrating Pa.s.se a'Fiume or Jan's bold, foolish attack on Nessantico a decade before: those days when Allesandra had ridden with him, when she'd watched her vatarh adoringly, when he'd promised to give her the city of Nessantico.

Instead, Nessantico had s.n.a.t.c.hed her from him and given Fynn the place at her vatarh's right hand.

Fynn saluted the lancers, who relaxed their stances. "I would like to thank everyone for being here," he said. "I know Vatarh is looking down from the arms of Cenzi, appreciating this tribute to him. And I also know that he would forgive us for not lingering here when warm fires and food await us above." Fynn received quiet laughter at that, and he smiled. "Archigos, if you would . . ."

Semini moved quickly forward with the teni and gave his blessing over the casket. He motioned Allesandra and Jan forward as the teni began to chant the benediction. They went to the casket, bowed, then placed their hands on the tapestry. "I wish you'd had more chance to know him," she whispered to Jan as the teni chanted, putting her hand atop his. "He wasn't always as angry and brusque as he was in his later years."

"You've told me that," he said. "Several times. But it's still not the memory of him I'll take with me, is it?" She glanced at her son; he was frowning down at the casket.

"We'll talk about it later," she told him.

"I've no doubt about it, Matarh."

Allesandra suppressed the retort she might have made; she would say nothing here. People were already glancing at them curiously, wondering what secrets they might be whispering and at the sharp edge in her son's voice. She lifted her hand and stepped back, allowing Fynn to approach.

She wondered what her brother thought as he stood there, his hand on the casket and his head bowed.

After a few minutes, Fynn also stepped away. He nodded to the lancers; four of them came forward to take the casket. Their faces were somber as they lifted the coffin and slid it forward into the niche that awaited it. Stone grated on wood, the sound echoing. The four stepped back, and another quartet put their shoulders to the sealing stone, which groaned and resisted as it turned slowly. The ma.s.sive wheel of rock advanced along a groove carved in the floor toward the deep cut into which it would settle and rest. The stone was carved with the glyphs of Old Firenzcian, a language spoken only by scholars now, as thick as a man's arm, and standing half again a man's height. As the great wheel reached the end of the groove and dropped into the cut where it was supposed to rest, there came a tremendous cracking sound. A fissure shot through its carved face and the top third of the stone toppled. Allesandra knew she must have screamed a warning, but it was over before any of them could move or react. The ma.s.s of the stone crushed one of the lancers entirely underneath it and smashed the legs of another as it fell to the ground.

The pinned lancer's screams were piercing and shrill as thick blood ran from underneath the stone.

This is a sign . . . She couldn't stop the thought-as the remainder of the lancers rushed forward, as ca'-and-cu', teni, and servants hurried to help or stared frozen in horror at the rear of the chamber. Jan was among those trying desperately to lift the burial stone, and Fynn was shouting useless orders into the chaos.

Vatarh did this. Somehow he did this. He does not rest easily. . . .

Eneas cu'Kinnear.

HE WAS GOING to die here in the h.e.l.lins.

That feeling of an awful destiny washed over Eneas as he stood with the Holdings forces on the crest of a hill not far outside Munereo, as they watched the strangely-shaped banners of the Westlanders approaching from the direction of Lake Malik, as he heard the war-teni begin chanting in preparation for battle. A'Offizier Meric ca'Matin was with him, as well as the other offiziers of the battalion and several pages ready to run messages between the companies. The cornets and flags were set to relay orders. A hundred strides down the slope, the ranks of the Holdings army were arrayed, restless and nervous.

Eneas had been in a half dozen battles and countless skirmishes and confrontations in the last several years. This sense of impending doom was something he'd never felt before. He could feel sweat rolling down his face under the thick iron helmet, and it was not just the sun that caused the perspiration. He wanted to shout denial to the sky, but he could not. Not here. Not in front of his troops. Instead, he bowed his head and he prayed.

Oh, Great Cenzi, why do You send this premonition to me? What are You saying to me?

Eneas was an o'offizier with the Garde Civile of the Holdings. His commander in the field, A'Offizier ca'Matin, had told him only yesterday that he had put in the recommendation that Eneas be made Chevaritt, that the doc.u.ment was already on its way across the Strettosei to Nessantico. His vatarh would be proud-twenty-five years ago, Eneas' vatarh had served with the Regent ca'Rudka at Pa.s.se a'Fiume and been badly burned, losing both an arm and an eye during that horrible siege. The Garde Civile had given him the citation and the pension he was due, and though their family had been raised from ce'Kinnear to ci'Kinnear as a result, his vatarh had always talked about how he could have become one of the chevarittai if he hadn't been injured, how those aspirations had been taken from him by the Firenzcian teni-fire that had disfigured him and ended his career.

Eneas had never wanted to be either chevaritt or offizier. He would have preferred that his career path was that of a teni in the Concenzia Faith rather than the one he'd found in the Garde Civile. He'd felt the calling of Cenzi ever since he'd been a young boy; indeed, he'd pet.i.tioned his parents to send him to the temple as an acolyte. But his vatarh had insisted on the martial road. "We're just ci', my son, and barely that," he'd said. "Our family doesn't have the solas to send you to the teni. That's for the ca'-and-cu' who can afford it. You'll join the Garde, as I did. You'll do as I did. . . ."

Eneas had done better than his vatarh. "Falsoteni," his men dubbed him for his piousness, for his strict attention to the rules of the Divolonte, for his insistence that the men under his command attend the rites at the Munereo Temple on the proper Days of Observance. But they also claimed that Cenzi Himself protected Eneas-and through Eneas, themselves. In the Battle of the Mounds near Lake Malik, as an e'offizier in his second real battle, he'd been the only surviving offizier of his company as they were ripped apart by a far superior Westlander force. He'd managed to surprise the Westlanders by feigning retreat, then marching the remnants of his troops through marshland to attack the enemy from a flank unprotected by their nahualli-the terrifying spellcasters of the Westlanders, the ones who called the Ilmodo the X'in Ka.

Heretics, they were. False teni wors.h.i.+ping false G.o.ds. The thought of the nahualli enraged Eneas.

Eneas had managed to inflict severe losses on the Westlander flank and to hold the ground until reinforcements arrived. As a reward for his actions, he'd been promoted to o'offizier; a few months later, after the Campaign of the Deep Fens, A'Offizer ca'Matin had told him the Gardes a'Liste had raised their family to cu'.

When his tour was over a year from now, after his return to Nessantico, Eneas had promised Cenzi that he would resign from the Garde Civile and offer himself for training as teni, even though he would be much older than the usual acolytes. He was certain that this was what Cenzi wanted of him.

The h.e.l.lins War had been good for Eneas, though not for the Holdings.

At least, it had been so until this shadow came. This chill in his spine.

It's not a premonition. It's just fear. . . .

He'd felt fear before. Every soldier felt fear unless he were an utter fool, but it had never touched him like this. Fear rattled the bones in your flesh; fear made the blood sing in your ears. Fear turned your bowels to foul brown water. Fear set your weapon to shaking in your hand. But Eneas didn't tremble, his stomach was settled, and the tip of his sword didn't waver in his grasp.

This wasn't fear-or not any kind he'd experienced before. That worried him most of all.

What is that you send me, Cenzi? Tell me, so that I may serve You as you wish. . . .

"O'Offizier cu'Kinnear!" A'Offizier ca'Matin barked, and Eneas shook his head to dispel the thoughts. He saluted his superior offizier, who was already astride his destrier. "I need you to drive your men into their right flank; push them into the valley for the war-teni to handle. We shouldn't have their nahualli to worry about; the outriders have said they're still back near the Tecuhtli at Lake Malik. Understood?"

Eneas nodded.

"Good," ca'Matin said. "Then let's get this started. Page, tell the horns to call the advance." The boy he'd addressed ran toward the knoll where the horns and signal flags were cl.u.s.tered as ca'Matin saluted Eneas: the sign of Cenzi, that Eneas returned solemnly and devoutly. "Cenzi's fortune to you, Eneas," he said.

"And with all of us," Eneas returned fervently. Ca'Matin yanked on the reins. He cantered away, the powerful warhorse moving carefully through the tall gra.s.s toward the center of the lines where the banners of the Holdings rippled in the afternoon breeze.

The cornets sounded then, harsh and bright. The call floated before them in challenge to the Westlanders, and the sound of weapons clas.h.i.+ng against armor rushed after it. Eneas took the reins of his own destrier from a waiting page and mounted. His e'offiziers looked at him expectantly. "Make your peace with Cenzi," he told them. "It's time."

He raised his hand, signaling them toward the right flank and the steep hills there.

A roar answered him, a thousand throats calling out. They began to move, slowly at first, then more rapidly, until they were rus.h.i.+ng headlong down toward the spears of the enemy. As they charged, the war-fire of the teni behind them shrieked over their heads, smas.h.i.+ng into the front ranks of the Westlander forces and gouging holes in their ragged lines. There didn't seem to be an answer from the nahualli; Eneas thought that the sour fear would leave him with that, but it didn't.

Eneas and his men surged into the fuming gaps. The clash of steel on steel echoed from the flanks of the lush hills, as did the screams of the wounded who went down under the hooves of the destriers they rode. Eneas struck at a short spear that thrust toward him, hacking away the barbed tip and chopping down with his saber at the hand that held it. Blood spurted and the savage face below him fell away. His horse pushed forward, and he cut at the Westlanders on either side of him, armored in chest plates of bamboo and heavy cloth sewn with small bra.s.s rings, their helmets adorned with the plumes of brightly-colored birds, their ruddy skin painted with orange-and-yellow streaks that made their faces look like skulls or tattooed with black-and-red lines. They were fierce opponents, the Westlanders, and no soldier of the Holdings who had faced them dared to belittle their skill or their bravery. Yet-oddly-they gave way now, retreating back toward the main ma.s.s of their army. Eneas saw a darkness under their sandaled feet: the soil directly in front of him was like a circle of sand, but that sand was as black as the charcoal of a burned log.

The unease that had afflicted Eneas before the battle deepened, settling like a deathly chill in his lungs so that he labored to breathe and his sword felt like a leaden weight in his hands. He urged his horse forward onto the sand and as he did so, he shouted: a wordless cry to banish the feeling with noise and rage.

He was answered by a sound he'd never heard before.

The sound . . . it was as if one of the Earth Moitidi-those unworthy children of Cenzi-had screamed an unearthly and deep roar, and the sound pulled Eneas' head around to the left toward its source. Orange fire and foul, black smoke erupted from the ground. Dirt clods fell around Eneas like a solid rain, spattering him, and with it . . . with it were parts of bodies. A hand, still clutching a broken sword, rebounded from the neck of Enean's destrier and fell to the ground. He stared at the gory object. He heard the screams then, belatedly.

"It's the nahualli! Sorcery!" Eneas screamed in warning to his troops, to the awful hand that had fallen from the sky.

He was answered with a roar that was even louder than the first, a blast that blinded him with its light as the force of it lifted him bodily, tearing him from saddle and horse. A demiG.o.d had plucked him up-Eneas seemed to hover for a breath or more: this . . . this is Cenzi's premonition and warning . . .-and flung him back down to earth as if in disgust.

The earth rose up to meet him.

He remembered nothing else after that.

Karl ca'Vliomani.

KARL CLUTCHED A NECKLACE in his hand: a sh.e.l.l of polished gray stone that he had given to Ana, long ago. The necklace had been around her neck when she died; Sergei had given it to him. Flecks of Ana's blood were caught in the deep ridges. He tightened his fingers hard around the sh.e.l.l, feeling the hard edges press into his palm. The pain didn't matter; it meant that he could still feel something other than the emptiness that filled him now.

Who did this? Why would they kill Ana?

Karl had lost too many of the people he most cared about over the years. He'd wrapped himself in grief and sorrow and sometimes anger at their pa.s.sing, he'd awakened at night certain he'd heard their voices or thinking that "Oh, today I should call on him or her . . ." only to remember that the person in his mind was forever, irrevocably, gone.

This . . . this was worse than any of those deaths. This was a knife-blow to his heart, and he could feel himself bleeding inside.

Can I survive this? I've lost my best friend, the woman I love. . . .

Karl was seated at the front of the temple, with Regent Sergei and Kraljiki Audric to his left and the newly-installed Archigos Kenne and the a'teni of the Faith to his right. Kenne had been Ana's friend and ally from the beginning, when they had both been part of Archigos Dhosti's staff. Now, looking two decades older than his actual years, his hair white and hands shaking with an eternal palsy, Kenne appeared severely uncomfortable with the responsibility thrust upon him. The Archigos leaned over to Karl and patted his hand. He said something that Karl didn't hear against the choir's singing: "Long Lament," by the composer ce'Miella. Kenne's actual words didn't matter: Karl nodded, because he knew it was expected.

In the pew directly behind them, in the midst of the ca'-and-cu', was Varina and Mika ci'Gilan; like Varina, Mika was also a longtime friend of Karl and Ana. Mika was the local head of the Numetodo faction in Nessantico, directing the research of the sect here. Varina's hand touched Karl's shoulder; without looking back, he covered it with his own before letting his hand, like a dead thing, slide into his lap. Her fingers tightened on his shoulder; her hand remained there.

The embrace was meant to be comfort, he knew, but it was simply an empty weight.

Who did this? Karl had heard a dozen rumors. Predictably, some blamed the Numetodo. Some Firenzcia. Some the Brezno branch of the Faith. The wildest story said that the a.s.sa.s.sin called the White Stone had been responsible, that there'd been a pale pebble on Ana's left eye when she was found, the White Stone's signature.

That last rumor was certainly not true. But the others . . . Karl didn't know. But he vowed he would find out.

Karl had envied, sometimes, the comfort of faith that Ana had. He and Ana had even spoken of that, the night that he'd learned Kaitlin was dead: the woman he'd married and who had borne him his two sons on the Isle a'Paeti. Kaitlin had steadfastly refused to come with him to Nessantico. Kaitlin had known of the deep friends.h.i.+p between Karl and Ana; Karl was just as certain that Kaitlin knew that-despite Karl's rea.s.surances and promises-for Karl, at least, there was more than friends.h.i.+p there.

He had never been able to lie easily to her. He told himself he loved Kaitlin, but he was never really able to lie to himself either.

The night he'd received the horrible letter from Paeti that Kaitlin had fallen ill and died, he'd been devastated. He never quite knew how Ana learned of it, but she came to him that evening. She fed him, she held him, she let him cry and wail and shout and grieve. Most tellingly, she never tried to give him the comfort of faith as she would have with any of her followers. She never mentioned Cenzi, not until he spoke, wiping away the tears with the sleeve of his bashta. . . .

"I envy you," he said.