Mother of Lies (36 page)

Berlice was a hard-faced woman of around sixty, leader of the pro-Stralg faction, the do-whatever-the-Fist-says-fast faction. She was also the mother of Marno Cavotti, the Mutineer. Piero had appointed her to the council to replace her husband, who had encouraged his son to rebel and for that had been publicly flayed while his wife and children were forced to watch. Berlice’s face had a right to be hard. That incident had also lost the Cavotti family its standing among the very rich, so her sons and daughters had been forced to marry a few rungs down the social ladder. Whether her loyalty to Stralg was genuine or opportunist, only the blood-lord and his Witnesses knew, but she certainly had no love for Oliva Assichie-Celebre.

Giordano, on the other hand, was head of one of the greatest houses—old, bulky, silver-haired, and gloriously robed. His face, pouchy and florid, bedecked with bushy white eyebrows, wore an amiability that hid the ethics of a snake. He was a stout Piero supporter, leader of the traditionalists, rather stupid. Whatever his private opinion of Oliva, he would defend her against Berlice supporters because Piero would want him to.

“My lord Giordano,” Oliva greeted him as he bowed. “How nice to see you. Councillor Berlice, you look well.”
Considering your age.

Then she shut up. This little get-together was their idea. Let them talk.

Berlice said, “Lady Oliva, we are all aware that the lord doge is most grievously sick and unlikely to recover. Is this not so?”

Oliva nodded. She had kept the elders away from Piero’s sickroom for half a year, but to deny the truth any longer would be absurd.

“The council is concerned about the succession,” Giordano rumbled. “We asked the Speaker to advise us on the law. She said—”

Quarina objected. “Not ‘the law’! Holy Demern requires us to be obedient to our rulers and adjures them to rule justly. Never does He stipulate who is to rule. In Celebre the doge’s successor is chosen according to custom. My guidance on custom I give as a judge, not as a Speaker.”

Oliva awarded her a sliver of smile and said nothing. Holy writ could not be changed. Custom could.

“The doge is chosen by the council of elders,” Berlice said.

“The day after his predecessor’s funeral,” Oliva added.

Berlice’s smiles could be even thinner than hers. “At which meeting, the dead man casts the first vote. It is the most important vote, because few councils have ever overruled a doge’s posthumous choice.”

The justiciar said, “Five.”

“And how many doges have there been?” Oliva asked.

“Thirty-two chosen by council. Customs were different earlier.”

Pause.

Giordano coughed heavily. “The council has sent us to inquire of the lord Piero who has his dying voice.”

Mostly they wanted to know just how ill he was. They would be shocked. Piero had not spoken or even known his wife in that last two thirties. Any breath could be his last. As soon as the elders had established that, they would appoint a more suitable regent than Oliva Assichie-Celebre, daughter of a very minor house.

Berlice said, “Custom decrees that the nearest adult male relative shall succeed, but there is no such man available in this instance—yet.” Then she drove in the knife. “Because lord Chies is not yet of age.”

Meaning,
Because lord Chies is not of the House of Celebre
. Anyone could tell just by looking at him that Chies was Stralg’s. At the turn-of-the-year sacrifice, he would come of age—only yesterday Oliva had helped him choose the insignia for his seal, which was now being carved. He would be the youngest new man in the temple, for he had been born only hours before the end of his actual birth year, but such was the custom in Celebre. The council might not give a sixteen-year-old doge free rein, but he would be eligible to wear the coronet if the elders so wanted.

Had the honorable elders really come to ask if Oliva was ready to declare her youngest child a bastard and disinherit him? Chies would appeal to Stralg. The councillors must know that they were irrelevant as long as the Fist had a vote.

“The lord doge has given me no instructions,” Oliva said.

“Has the bloodlord?” Berlice asked in a voice like an envenomed stiletto.

“No. A year ago we asked him to return the children he took as hostages, and he promised to bring back at least one, probably lord Dantio, our eldest.”

Eyes turned to look at the drizzle and the sodden gardens.

“They cannot arrive before dry season now,” Berlice said.

Oliva sighed. “No. And the doge cannot help you. Put the question to him if you wish. It will be only a formality. He will not hear you.”

“Indeed? How long has he been in this condition?” Berlice meant,
When did you usurp the throne?

“It happened gradually,” Oliva spoke as civilly as she could manage. “The doge gave his seal to me and my authority stands until he revokes it or returns to the womb. Is that not correct, Speaker?”

Quarina nodded. “That is the custom of the city.”

“You have done a fine job, my lady,” Giordano said, jowls wiggling. “In very trying times, too. We are all in your debt.”

Berlice made no sound, but her expression was expressive.

Oliva said, “My lord is kind. If you will come with me? I should prefer that we go unattended.”

She led them across the great hall, out into windy, shadowed corridors … servants falling to their knees and bowing heads until the nobility passed … the sad stillness of a house in mourning …

“My husband directed that the state bedchamber not be used as a sickroom,” she explained, in case the delegation assumed that this was her idea. In fact the state bedchamber was where the most valuable pieces of the ducal art collection were kept. It had been kept shut up for years and apparently Stralg had never learned of it. In accepting the surrender of the city, he had guaranteed no looting, but had he ever seen the treasures in there he would certainly have smashed the treaty tablets and helped himself.

Piero’s sickroom was so small that there was little space to move around the tiny cot on which the dying man lay like a discarded rag doll—a skull face on a pillow, and a barely perceptible shape below the sheet. The air was hot and heavy with the reek of godswood braziers, plus a sour scent of death. On a stool at one side of the bed sat a brown-robed, hooded Mercy, holding the patient’s hand, although for the last two thirties he had been unresponsive even to the Nulists. He was beyond pain. The woman looked up and nodded respectfully, but did not rise.

On the other side of the bed, arms on thighs and head bowed in sorrow, sat a large young man. He sprang to his feet as if startled, then hastily bowed to Oliva and each visitor in turn. He even got the order of precedence right.

Chies
never
came here!
How
had he known the elders were coming today? The reason his own mother had failed to recognize him for a moment was that he was draped in an adult chlamys, to which he was not yet entitled. A simple ivory pin fastened it at his right shoulder and the sheet itself was of unbleached linen, quite unlike the rich brocade he favored for his usual loincloths. The dagger at his side was plain bronze, without as much as an alabaster pommel to decorate it, and hung on a simple cord, not even a leather belt. When had she ever seen him wearing no jewelry at all, not even a ring?

She was staggered. Was this the rebellious adolescent pest she fought with every day? The hellion who threw up in corridors, who consorted with street girls and ice devil Werists? He was still slim, of course, but the drapery of the chlamys masked his skinniness, and he was much taller than lord Giordano, who was no mouse. The great hooked Stralg nose no longer seemed so absurd, now that he was gaining the chin and shoulders to justify it.

Her initial anger switched suddenly to pity, and even admiration. Stralg had never acknowledged that Chies existed, far less was his son, and yet who else could the boy use as a model? He had absolutely no right to the ducal coronet. He knew that and so did everyone else, but his real father was never one to worry about legality. Oliva could not blame him for trying. He was entitled to try. If he could get himself elected doge, even the Fist would be impressed.

Berlice Spirno-Cavotti was watching Chies with a completely unreadable expression. Had she put him up to this? Her faction might have concluded that Chies as a figurehead doge would be the best way to keep Stralg off their necks. Giordano Giali and his traditionalist faction might even have agreed with them, on the understanding that Chies would accompany his father to the Dark One’s embrace when that happy hour arrived. Or Stralg himself might be behind this, having bypassed Oliva as irrelevant.

“A sad time for you,” Giordano said, “—my lord.”

Delight at the honorific flashed in the boy’s eyes and was suppressed. He bowed. “I am young to lose a father, lord Giordano. I wish I could have been given time to be a good son to him.”

Oh, really! Oliva made a note to find out who had coached him. She must congratulate him on his performance, provided he did not overdo it now. “The councillors are here on business, Chies. You may withdraw.”

He bowed. “I do think, Mama, that this is one of his better days. You know how some nights I can’t sleep, so I come and sit with him here. Just before dawn this morning I thought he knew me for a moment or two.”

“Oh?” Oliva had given
strict
orders that she was to be informed if there was any change in Piero’s condition. She hurled a ferocious glare across at the Nulist.

“He did stir a little about that time, my lady. It was nothing.” The Mercy did not state who else had been present. Had Chies bribed her?

Chies recognized that his time was up and made a flowery departure. He had done very well, although Oliva doubted he had deceived this audience.

“Can you rouse him at all, Mercy? This is important.”

The woman sighed. “I will try, my lady.” She clasped the dying man’s hand in both of hers and closed her eyes. After a few moments, she opened them again and said, “Be quick!”

Oliva said, “Piero? Piero, can you hear me? It’s Oliva.”

Did his breathing change a little? She looked to the councillors and shrugged.

Giordano said, “My lord Doge, this is Giordano Giali. The council sent us. Can you hear us?”

Nothing happened for several heartbeats. Berlice leaned forward as if to speak … and Piero’s lids flickered. His eyes opened slightly. They stared up at the ceiling, motionless, but they were open.

“My lord,” Giordano said, “the council sent us to ask you a question: Who is your choice to be your successor?”

The eyes did not move.

Berlice tried. “My lord, the council wants to know who is to be doge after you? Your children are not here. We need a doge. Who?”

The sheet over his chest lifted slightly … sank … rose … Doge Piero whispered something and closed his eyes again. They repeated the question several times, but he had gone, returned to whatever anteroom the Foul One used to store the near-dead. The delegates exchanged baffled glances.

“What I thought he said,” Oliva said, “was ‘The Winner.’”

Quarina agreed. Berlice nodded, thin-lipped. So, when asked, did the Mercy.

Giordano would not admit that he was deaf. “Winner?” he barked. “What winner? Winner of what?”

MARNO CAVOTTI

handed the reins to one of his guards and lurched down awkwardly from the chariot. More guards opened the cottage door, releasing a blaze of firelight into the darkness; they peered inside to make sure it was safe for the precious Mutineer to enter. Cavotti detested bodyguards because they made him feel like a child, but ever since his near-death and last-minute rescue by Vespaniaso at Tupami, the Liberators’ governing council insisted he go nowhere without them. He limped up the steps and pushed in past them. The door closed behind him.

Half a dozen men sat in a semicircle before the fireplace. Cavotti dropped his pack and hobbled over to them—his left ankle had not mended properly at Tupami and never would. He passed through the line without a word and knelt to warm his hands. Even in his alpaca cloak he was frozen, having driven for half a day over the wind-scoured, treeless moors of the Altiplano.

No one spoke. He could imagine the glances. The smoke was making his eyes water and he would not let this audience see his tears. Butcher’s hand came into view holding a smoke-stained pottery beaker with an enticing odor. Cavotti took it and drank. He scalded his throat and shivered deliciously.

When he had drained the cup, he could delay the inevitable no longer. He stood up, shed his heavy cloak, and finally turned to warm his back and survey the company—Filiberno, Nuzio, Vespaniaso, Fangs, and of course Butcher. Big, black-bearded Werists all, as hard and ruthless a collection of killers as you would find on all Dodec, veterans of their lifelong struggle to rid Florengia of the ice devils. All were oversized from too much battle-forming. Fangs and Filiberno were so brutalized that they barely looked human, while Nuzio was just a larger version of the fresh-faced boy who had ripped out his first Vigaelian throat eight years ago. They were permanently filthy and most of the time lousy. Even these days they often went hungry, but the very fact that they were daring to assemble like this showed that the bloody tide had turned in their favor. Including Cavotti himself, this was six-eighths of the Liberators’ governing council.