Mother of Lies (38 page)

“Stop torturing me!” he said. “Stop torturing yourself. You know what would happen if I got you with child. You’d produce a monster. It would grow and grow until it burst you. You would die, Giunietta.”

She smiled sadly. “Poor Marno. Yes, that’s true. You can never have an heir now. But you forget I am a seer.”

Despite himself, he could not keep his enormous hands off her. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that there are only certain times in a thirty that a woman can make a child. If I lie with every man in Nelina tonight I cannot conceive. Tonight is safe for me and I want you desperately.”

“Then do it,” he muttered. He clasped her to him and rolled back until he lay flat on the boards with her on top of him, like a child. She was not the most beautiful woman he had ever embraced, but she was a woman and willing; and probably the only woman who would accept him ever again.

CHIES CELEBRE

was left cooling his heels in the corridor. He was very angry about that. Furious, in fact. He would see that the guards regretted this insult, if not right away then as soon as he became doge. Whether the council of relics elected him on their own or the Fist ordered them to wouldn’t matter; it would happen. He was also very drunk, not sure which would come first, falling asleep or chucking up. The captain came out and said her ladyship would see him now. Chies snarled at him and marched into the ducal withdrawing room, staggering slightly as he rounded the door.

He had not been in there for years. It was a mausoleum of old junk. It seemed a lot smaller than he remembered, but all the paintings and figurines and pottery looked exactly as they had done then. Most of it should be melted down. The lyre! He wondered if she still played it sometimes. Old Oliva Ancient-Celebre herself was seated on her favorite chair, holding her sewing. She had
hordes
of women to embroider for her if she wanted. She was also giving him a very sour look, but this was long past her usual bedtime.

He bowed very carefully, neither falling down nor chucking up. “You sent for me, Mama?”

“I have been sending for you for days. You are not of age yet and even if you were, I am still effective ruler of this city.” Old bat in bad mood.

“Been busy.”

“So I’ve heard. You’d better sit down before you fall down. I was going to offer you wine, but I see that would be unwise. Can you still understand me?”

“Course. But you listen to me first! Those thugs of yours turned my friend away at the door. Sent her out in the streets alone in the middle of the night! You better send them to—”

“Yes, I heard. Babila Scarlatti has been rolling around those streets since before you were born, Chies, and I choose that verb for exactitude. A Nymph of Eriander is in no danger.”

“She is not a Nymph!”

“Of course she is. And when I gave you the key to the private door, I never meant you to bring in women like her. I have many times told you not to wander the city without your guards, especially wearing a sword. Tonight I warned them that they will be punished if you get away from them again. Now, about the succession …”

If Babila was a Nymph, that would explain a lot … “What about the secession? Mean
succ
ession.”

“You did very well the other morning. You impressed the councillors, I’m sure. You certainly impressed Speaker Quarina, because she told me so later. You even impressed me.”

He let the words dog-paddle around in his brain for a while. Then he muttered, “Good.”

“You don’t impress me now.”

“Nag, nag, nag. Why do you always nag?”

“You give me so much to nag about.”

“Treat me like a man and I’ll behave like one.”

“I do and you don’t. I wish you were still a child or already a man.”

“’Snot my fault I’m not.”

She sighed. “Of course not. Let’s try again. Your year comes of age next sixday. Normally your father would have a great celebration, involving the whole city. But we can’t have a formal feast when he is about to return to the Old One. Are you following me?”

He grunted a positive.

“But I could invite the elders to an informal reception.”

He thought about it. So what? “You asking my permission?”

She sighed in that martyred way she had. “I’m asking if you would like a chance to meet them, all of them. And for them to meet you.”

That took longer. “You mean you
want
them to make me doge?”

She laid the sewing on a table beside her and met his eyes for the first time. “I’m not sure. They have to choose someone, and the only other male in the family is old Arnutho, a third cousin or something. He’s senile and has no children. Chies, do you understand that you would be in great danger if they did elect you?
Very
great danger. It’s no secret that the Fist is your true father. A lot of people might want to kill you as soon as they hear the news. Stralg is almost certainly going to lose the war, and then who wants his bastard ruling the greatest city of Florengia?”

“You want me killed?” he asked bitterly.

She shook her head. “No. You have more faults than the palace kennels have fleas, but you are still my son and I still love you. I swear that is the truth. You are all I have left. But
if
you understand the danger, and
if
you are brave enough to try, then I will support you.”

Needing time to find the trick in this, he said, “How?”

“I will present you to the council. If you can impress them as a sensible, well-intentioned young man—a
sober
young man, in other words—then they will at least listen to what you have to say. And you can make a case that you are the logical candidate.”

He blinked at her while this sank in, but she was still very fuzzy around the edges. “Why?”

She looked as if she were about to sigh, but didn’t. “Piero always accepted you as his son. I would help you prepare a speech. Who coached you the first time? Who chose that chlamys you wore?”

“Babila.”

“Maybe we should ask her advice, too.” The old crow bent her wrinkles into a smile. “Go and sleep it off. We’ll talk again in the morning. Or maybe afternoon would be better.”

“Much better.” He lobbed a smile back, maximum cute. It worked sometimes. This was one of the times. Her eyes glistened.

“Oh, Chies, Chies! It wasn’t your fault, but what happens from now on will be.” She stood up. “I couldn’t talk you out of trying, could I?”

How small she was! He could bend his head, looking down at her. “No.”

“Then I’ll give you all the help I can, because you’re my son and I love you. I certainly don’t want a kiss, but at least give me a hug.”

A page lit the way to his rooms for him. The outer chamber was a mess. He’d been trying on clothes earlier and had left them all over the floor. He thought about having the boy pick them up and fold them for him, but his dresser would do that in the morning. He told the boy to leave the lamp and go.

Just as well Babila wasn’t there. He had drunk a lot more than he realized. Feeling an urgent need for a chamber pot, he pushed through the bead curtain into his sleeping chamber.

“About time,” a man said.

“Past time,” said another.

Chies dropped the lamp and tried to draw his sword. The men stamped out the wick before the spilled oil caught. They stuffed a rag in his mouth before he got the blade free of the scabbard, then tied his arms behind his back. He protested, “Uuuungh!” If he vomited behind this gag he would choke.

“Don’t mumble,” one of them said as they hustled him out on the terrace. “Bad manners.”

They were Heroes—he saw starlight reflected on their collars. But they were Florengian Heroes. And they were big. Huge. They tied a rope around his waist, then one lifted him over the balustrade and the other lowered him to ground level. It occurred to him as he went down, spinning around and around, that he was being kidnapped.

INGELD NARSDOR

was confident of a safe homecoming and a warm welcome. She had been watching the mound that was Kosord draw steadily closer for several days, and now she could make out the palace itself. Even Oliva seemed to be kicking harder, as if anxious to be let out to survey her future domain. The crew promised that the aptly named
Joy of Return
would dock by noon. Every night Ingeld viewed auguries in the campfires, and lately they had shown her back at work, relighting the sacred fire on the apex of the pyramid, which was her most solemn public duty.

Deserters from the city had been joining her procession for days, for while Horold’s original host had been outsiders, its younger Heroes were Kosord-born and news of the satrap’s death had caused many of them to revert to their ancestral loyalty to the dynast. They reported that Daughter Sansya had done a superb job of substituting for Ingeld in her absence, and had recently taken to proclaiming the dynast’s imminent return. Sansya must be seeing the same visions she was. Holy Veslih had things well in hand, then, and no doubt the star Nartiash would appear at tomorrow’s dawn to proclaim the turning of the year, right when it would show to maximum effect.

So Ingeld herself would be safe, but the flames had shown her nothing of Benard. The gods gave no guarantees for his safety anymore, nor for old Guthlag’s. If there was going to be fighting, those two were the most vulnerable and the usurper’s horde must still outnumber her tiny force by a sixty to one. She might survive, but without Benard her happiness would not.

Those doubts she tried to keep to herself. She sat close to Benard in
Joy
’s bow and watched the winter birds swoop low above the water. The day was cold, but sunny and not too windy. The half flank of Werists serving as today’s guard of honor were all formerly Orlad’s men—Jungr, Snerfrik, Hrothgat, Narg, Prok, and Namberson—and she was sure Hordeleader Guthlag had good reasons for that assignment. The other six boats that now made up her flotilla were following in close formation. Although river traffic was light at midwinter, once in a while some hardy crew would go past, struggling upriver against wind and current. Usually now they knew whose fleet this was, and cheered her.

Witness Tranquility was no doubt busily recording, but nothing of her was visible under her veils.

A head surfaced and disappeared again.

Snerfrik sang out, “Here comes another one!”

Something splashed alongside the boat. A whitish flipper slapped at the gunwale and became a hand. Snerfrik and Prok reached over and grabbed, hauling the man up until he could cling to the side, half in and half out of the boat, blinking water from his eyes. He wore a brass collar, naturally.

“Next boat behind!” Prok said. “Hordeleader Guthlag is aboard and will take your oath. There’s a Speaker there to help you get out of the present one.”

This happened all the time now, and usually that was the end of it as far as
Joy
was concerned, for she was a small boat and already crowded. But this time the newcomer stopped puffing long enough to say, “Got a message for the dynast from Daughter Sansya.”

“He speaks the truth,” Tranquility said cheerfully.

“I’m sure he does,” Ingeld declared. “Bring Packleader Yabro aboard.”

They had a procedure for that. She decorously studied water birds and shipping on one side of the boat, while Prok and Snerfrik helped the recruit over the other, Namberson handed him a pall to act as both towel and covering, and Narg went to the meat crock they kept for just this purpose. The clink of the lid going back on the jar was a sign that the newcomer was respectable and it was safe for Ingeld to look. Safe, except that Oliva did not appreciate her landlady watching men tear at raw meat.

She looked to Benard instead. “Packleader Yabro Yorgalson and I are cousins,” she explained. Fourth or fifth cousins. Her foremothers had been dynasts for so many generations that hardly a family in Kosord was not related to her in some contorted fashion.

Benard nodded. “He has your ears. I thought he was only a flankleader?”

Yabro was a youngish man, not large by Werist standards, with hair and beard closer to red than gold; his good looks were not limited to the shape of his ears. His mother was a Nulist, and had been Palace Mercy for many years, so he had been a playmate for both Benard and Cutrath.
Ah, where was Cutrath?
Sansya had chosen a credible messenger.