A Magic of Nightfall

Jan ca’Vorl

Jan motioned to the Gardai outside the door. “Let me in,” he said. The two men glanced at each other once, quickly, before one of them opened the door. As Jan stepped inside, the garda started to follow. Jan shook his head at the man. “Alone,” he said. The garda hesitated before nodding his head once in salute. The door closed behind Jan again.

“You’re a brave one, to be in a room alone with his enemy. And that one will be reporting to Commandant cu’Gottering that you’ve come to visit me. Cu’Gottering will undoubtedly inform your matarh.”

Candlelight reflected from silver as Sergei turned to regard Jan. The man had been placed in one of the interior rooms of Brezno Palais, his meal laid out before him on a damask-covered table, the hearth crackling with a fire to take off the night chill, and a comfortable bed soft with down pillows and coverlets. He was wearing a new, clean bashta and had evidently taken a bath, and his graying hair was newly oiled.

He sat in a prison woven of silk.

“I don’t care that cu’Gottering knows, nor my matarh. Are you so dangerous, Regent ca’Rudka?” Jan asked the man, standing across the table from him.

In reply, Sergei reached down to his bootheel: slowly, so that Jan could see him. He slid a slender, short-handled and flat blade from between the sole and leather and placed it on the table, sliding it across the table toward Jan. “Always, Hirzg Jan,” the man answered with a faint smile. “Your great-vatarh would have told you that. Your matarh as well. If I’d wanted you dead, you would be dead already.”

Jan stared at the blade. He’d watched the gardai search the man for weapons, had heard them declare the Regent unarmed. “I think I’ll need to have a talk with Commandant cu’Gottering about the training of his men.” He reached down to touch the hilt with a fingertip, but otherwise didn’t pick up the knife. “What else did they miss?”

Sergei only smiled. Jan put his hand on the knife and slid it back across the table to Sergei, who sheathed it again in his boot. “So, Hirzg Jan,” Sergei said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Jan wasn’t certain of that himself. The initial meeting with Sergei had left him unsettled, listening to his matarh and to Archigos ca’Cellibrecca, knowing that they’d dominated the moment. In truth, he was feeling overwhelmed by the suddenness of events: Fynn’s assassination, Elissa’s flight, the news from the Holdings, the Regent’s arrival. His vatarh had left Brezno in an angry rush; his matarh and the Archigos were suspiciously close. It was as if he were being swept along helplessly in a flood he hadn’t seen and hadn’t anticipated. He found himself feeling lost and uncertain, and he’d brooded on that for long turns of the glass, unable to lose himself in the now-forced gaiety of the party or the distractions of the young women who flirted with him or the urgent speculations that erupted all around him.

He wanted to talk to someone. He didn’t want that person to be his matarh.

Jan didn’t feel like the Hirzg. He felt like an impostor. “I want to know what I’ve gained by giving you asylum, Regent,” he said.

“Are you having second thoughts?” Sergei asked him. He pushed his chair back from the table. “Or is it that you think that someone else made that decision for you?”

He should have felt anger at that. Instead, he only brought one shoulder up and let it drop again. “Ah,” Sergei said. “I understand. So, I think, would poor Audric. Let me tell you this, Hirzg Jan: I’ve known several Kralji in my time, and despite what you might think of them, the truth is that none of them ever made an easy decision. Everything you do as Kralji-or Hirzg-affects thousands of other people, some in good ways, others adversely. Be glad that you have good advisers around you, and listen to them. It might save you from making some truly horrific decisions.” He smiled then, grimly. “And if one turns out that way despite your best intentions, well, you can always blame it on their bad advice.”

“You still haven’t answered my question.”

The smile broadened. “No, I haven’t, have I?” Sergei laid his hands palm up on the table. “All I have to offer you is me, Hirzg. My knowledge, my experience, my viewpoint. I happen to think that’s a potentially valuable resource for you, but then I’ll admit to being prejudiced on the subject.” The skin around the man’s false nose wrinkled, but the nose itself didn’t move-it struck Jan as disturbing. It made him uneasy, but he found it hard to move his gaze away from Sergei’s face.

“I have my matarh’s knowledge, experience, and viewpoint; I also have the Archigos’. I have that of the commandants and the other chevarittai of the Coalition.”

“You do,” Sergei answered. “Your matarh was a hostage in the Holdings for much of her youth. The Archigos is an avowed opponent of the Nessantican branch of the Faith. The commandants and chevarittai are also opponents of the Holdings. None of them know the Holdings, and they all have reason to hate it. Hatred can be blinding sometimes. As for me, well, the welfare of the Holdings has been my life.”

“Which is another reason to distrust you.”

“Then let that be my first piece of advice to you, Hirzg Jan. You should distrust me. A Hirzg should be skeptical of all the advice he’s given-because everyone’s advice is painted with the colors of their agenda, mine no less than anyone’s. But… I’m an old swordsman, Hirzg, and I’d tell you it’s easier to defeat an enemy whose moves you know and can anticipate than one you don’t know at all.” Sergei sat back in his chair. “I know the Holding’s moves. I know them all. You need me.”

“You sound so certain.”

“I know my enemy, Hirzg. If I didn’t, would I have given you my knife?” He reached down and tapped his boot. “Everyone takes risks, Hirzg. The trick is to be confident of the outcome.”

“What if I’d kept the knife?” Jan asked him.

Sergei gave a short chuckle. “Then I’d have pretended that that was what I’d expected. Do you still like your choice, Hirzg?”

Jan smiled, his lips pressed together. “It was what I expected, Regent,” he said. “And that will have to do, won’t it?”