Free A Magic of Dawn by S. L. Farrell Page B

known. He should have seized the Sun Throne himself, should have brought the Holdings forcibly into the Coalition with his army still in the city. He could have done all that. But he’d been young and inexperienced and blinded by the chance to humble his matarh.
    It wasn’t an opportunity he would pass up again. And if Silvernose ca’Rudka was right, he might have that opportunity. Soon.
    There was a discreet, soft knock on the door—that would be Rance ci’Lawli, his chief secretary and aide, letting him know that the Council of Ca’ was in their chamber waiting for him. And there was a question he wanted to ask Rance, in any case: he had not seen Mavel cu’Kella for two days now . . .
    Jan smiled, grimly, at Karrol. “Leave my matarh to me,” he told the Archigos, “and concern yourself with the work of Cénzi, Archigos. Now, I have other duties . . .”
    Karrol, with little good grace, rose from his chair. Bent over, he gave Jan the sign of Cénzi. “The works of Cénzi extend even to matters of state, my Hïrzg,” he said.
    “So you always tell me, Archigos,” Jan retorted. “Interminably.”

     

Varina ca’Pallo
     
    T HE DAY OF THE FUNERAL was appropriately gloomy. Heavy, slumbering clouds sagged low in a leaden sky, flailing at Nessantico with occasional spatters of chilling rain. The ceremony in the Old Temple had been interminable, with various dignitaries spouting eulogies praising Karl. Even the Kraljica had stood up and delivered a speech. Varina had heard little of it, honestly. All their lovely, ornate phrases had run together into meaningless noise.
    She sat in the first pew with Sergei and the Kraljica surrounding her, and she stared at the bier on which Karl’s body lay. She felt dead herself, inside. All the oiled and polished words of admiration might as well have been spoken in some foreign language. They did not touch her. She stared at Karl’s body. He looked wrong, as if the corpse was some poor waxen sculpture laying there. Perhaps Karl was standing elsewhere in the temple, laughing at what was being said about him. Sergei leaned over toward her at one point and whispered something into her ear. She didn’t hear him; she just nodded and he eventually leaned away again.
    There was a mourning mask on her lap: a white, expressionless face of thin porcelain, the closed lips too red, the open eyeholes shimmed with wisps of black fabric, a black lace veil glued to the top and draped over the front. The mask was mounted on a long stick so she could fold her hands on her lap and still have the mask cover her face if she felt the need to be private. The mask seemed too much effort to lift, and it seemed wholly inadequate to cover her grief.
    The murals of the newly-rebuilt Great Dome of cu’Brunelli had been draped with silken curtains: all the images of Cénzi and the Moitidi hidden because a Numetodo—a heretic, a horrible unbeliever—lay beneath them. She realized that without really seeing it. The sacred vessels and embroidered cloths had been removed from the altar on the quire, even the bas-reliefs carved on the thick buttresses had been veiled.
    She should have been amused, noting that. Karl would have been, certainly. She was amused, somewhere distantly. She felt as if “Varina” were somewhere outside, observing this dull, wooden simulacrum of herself.
    Varina realized that the people were standing around her, that several of the Numetodo had moved to their positions alongside the bier. The plan was for the bier to move in procession through the streets around the Old Temple to the outer courtyard of the Kraljica’s Palais, where the pyre awaited the body. It was a relatively short distance of about two and a half blocks in the Isle a’Kralji—far, far shorter than the grand processions for Kraljica Marguerite or Kraljiki Justi, which had followed nearly the entire circle of Avi a’Parete around the city.
    Nessantico was still careful about celebrating the Numetodo too