Allesandra searched his voice for a hint of sarcasm or irony; there was none. He seemed entirely sincere. Sergei was looking carefully to one side, hiding whatever he was thinking. Close, she could see the gray flecks in ca’Vikej’s beard and the lines around his eyes and mouth: he was not much younger than she was herself-not surprisingly, since Stor ca’Vikej had been elderly when he’d tried to take the Gyula’s throne. “I wish events had gone differently,” she told him. “But it wasn’t Cenzi’s Will.”

The man made the sign of Cenzi at that statement-he was of the Faith, then. “Perhaps less Cenzi than circumstances, Kraljica,” he answered. “My vatarh was… impatient. I’d counseled him to wait for a time when the Kraljica and the Holdings could have supported us more openly. I told him then that the two battalions you sent were the most he could expect unless he waited, but…” He shrugged; the motion was as graceful as his manner. “I warned him that Hirzg Jan would come down with the full fury of the Firenzcian army.”

Yes, and Sergei told me the same thing, and I didn’t believe him. She nodded, but she didn’t say that. Handsome, modest, polite, but there was ambition in Erik ca’Vikej as well. Allesandra could see it. And there was anger toward the Coalition for his vatarh’s death. “You are more patient than your vatarh, perhaps, Vajiki ca’Vikej, but yet you want the same thing. And you’re going to tell me that there are still many Magyarians who support you in this.”

He smiled at that: graceful, yes. “Evidently my head is entirely transparent to the Kraljica.” He swept a hand over his bald skull. He managed to look almost comically bemused. “Next time, I should perhaps wear a hat.”

She laughed softly at that; she saw Sergei glance at her oddly. “Supporting your vatarh as much as I did nearly brought me to war with my own son,” she told him.

“Family relationships too often resemble those between countries,” he answered, still smiling. “There are some borders that must not be crossed.” He cocked his head slightly as the musicians started a new song out in the hall. He held his hand out toward Allesandra. “Would the Kraljica be willing to dance with me-for the sake of what she meant to my vatarh?”