Mother of Lies (51 page)

“Mama?” Fabia said, but she was addressing the council. “Papa was in a coma for a long time. How much did he know about the war, I mean the last time he could understand the news?”

Oliva tore her gaze away from the nightmare Mutineer. “What? Oh … I see what you mean. Yes, he knew Stralg was losing. I remember how he smiled when he heard about the victory at Reggoni Bridge.”

“So he knew that Cavotti was going to be the winner? He must have known he was a native Celebrian. He knew nothing of his own children, let alone how Stralg would die here tonight.” Without a glance to see how Orlad was reacting, Fabia walked over to meet Marno. He was obviously exhausted, eyes sunk even deeper into their caverns, face and chlamys smeared with ash and blood. It was only a day since she had said goodbye to him at Montegola, and yet she had already forgotten just how huge he was. And, of course, the smell, a sort of heavy musk. It was not obnoxious. She had grown used to it in the chariot, and it was certainly male. She could live with it.

His great paws closed around her shoulders and he bent to touch his lips to hers—she had not had a proper kiss from him yet. He folded one fist around her hand, but instead of going back to face the elders, he limped on past them, toward the catafalque. She felt like a child beside him.

“What’s been happening?” he asked quietly.

“I just announced our engagement. Two speeches later and they would have elected Orlad.”

“I have been busy.” He halted within the ring of candelabra and bent his head in respect to the dead doge. “Who’s that?” he whispered. Obviously he did not mean Piero.

“Waels. Stralg killed him, but he was distracted enough by it that Orlad could take the advantage. Waels and Orlad were very close.”

“So Giunietta told me.” The bizarre, lopsided eyes stared hard at her. “You really want to go ahead with this?”

“I do, certainly. You can have the coronet without me, if you prefer,” she admitted. “They shouted down your mother as a traitor, but they will give it to you if you demand it, rules or not.”

“All I need do is whistle over a dozen warbeasts?” He sighed. There were unexpected depths to Marno Cavotti—as both Dantio and Giunietta had told her, and as she had discovered for herself on that hectic chariot journey. “Forget the coronet. Leave it out of the discussion. You would take a monster like me as your husband?”

“Happily. But my dowry depends on the coronet.”

His big mouth twisted in a rare smile. “So I don’t have to choose between you and it? You know the problems, my lady. It cannot be more than a political match.”

“We can settle the details later.” Would all authority rest in the doge consort, or would he share it with the dogaressa of the blood?

Marno was a clever man—he detected her duplicity and eyed her carefully, but time was running out. “I can’t believe you will willingly share an ogre’s bed, even to share his throne. Won’t you have nightmares?”

“I’m tougher than I look.”

He considered that reply for a moment, then shrugged. “Then let’s go and do it.”

Still hand in hand, they went back to face the horseshoe of elders, who were sitting just as she had left them, as if petrified. Perhaps it had not occurred to them until now that Florengia had another bloodlord, one who might impose his will on them just as easily as Stralg would have done. Probably none of them except Berlice had ever seen the Mutineer before, and it had been ten years for her. This hulking grotesque was not the boy she had known, the son she had reared.

He was ten years older than Orlad, a native of Celebre, a victorious general. He spoke the language and knew the city. His men controlled it as completely as his presence dominated the hall.

He bowed first to Oliva, who glared at him. “My deepest sympathy on your loss, my lady. Celebre owes more to Piero than she has ever owed to any doge in her history. And it owes much to you, for piloting it this last year. I wish he could have lived to see our victory.” He held out a hand to Orlad. “Your foes are my foes.”

Orlad, ignoring the hand: “That much we already agreed on.”

“So we did.” The Mutineer turned and bowed to the elders.

With admirable calm, Speaker Quarina said, “Will you report to the council on the condition of the city, lord Cavotti?”

Marno uttered a deep bark of a laugh, the sound of a large and hungry carnivore. “Celebre will survive. Extrinsic casualties will probably not exceed two sixty. I have sent runners to neighboring towns appealing for more Healers. Our Hero losses were heavy, but not as bad as I feared. The ice devils are dead or fled, all but a few stragglers we are still rooting out. My men have secured the gates and are organizing teams to fight the fires—thank Weru for this rain! We have started digging mass graves for the enemy.” He glanced around at Oliva. “Your rose garden may need replanting, lady, but it will be well fertilized.”

“You know why this council is gathered,” the Speaker said. “You are engaged to marry lady Fabia?”

“I have that honor and pleasure.”

She pursed thin lips. “The custom is that husbands are eligible, but there is no precedent for electing a fiancé.”

Berlice began, “A quick wedding would—”

“I object!” lord Nucci screamed. “An elder should not vote to elect her own son!” Rumbles of agreement and disagreement …

“Elders!”
Cavotti did not battleform his throat and lungs as Orlad had done, but his sepulchral roar was impressive enough. “It is true that my mother supported the Vigaelians. She had seen her husband skinned for encouraging me and she had other family members to defend. She knew that the Fist’s seers were watching her. It is also true, as only I and a very few others know, that for years she has worked tirelessly and fearlessly behind the scenes for the cause of liberty. If there are to be recriminations, then I can bring charges of collaboration against many of you. It will be my policy, if you elect me doge, to let bygones be bygones. No reprisals, no settling of scores. You have my word on that. Speaker, in the last two sixdays I have fought two battles, driven about forty menzils, and had very little sleep. I ask that you bring this to a speedy vote.”

Quarina looked over the council. “Are the honorable elders ready to vote?”

“No!” Orlad jumped to his feet. “I am not … I will …”

“‘I withdraw,’” Dantio murmured without opening his eyes.

“I withdraw.” Orlad sat down and went back to staring at the floor. He had accepted the inevitable.

Fabia reached over to him and squeezed his shoulder in thanks. He pushed her away.

“At the moment, then,” Quarina said wryly, “we seem to have no eligible candidate at all. Lord Marno Cavotti, are you and your betrothed willing to declare yourselves man and wife before the gods and this company?”

Cavotti looked down—a long way down—at his bride-to-be. Or bride.

Fabia murmured, “Fortune favors the swift.”

“We are,” he told the Speaker.

“And who gives this woman in marriage?”

Dantio said, “Orlad, say ‘I do.’”

Orlad said, “I do.”

“Turn to face holy Veslih,” the Speaker said. “That one, up there. Marno Cavotti, repeat after me …” She ran through an extremely brief ceremony of marriage. “I declare you husband and wife. Honored elders, if you accept lord Marno as doge, pray stand. Unanimous. Doge Marno, you are elected according to the customs of the city. You may also kiss your bride.”

MARNO CAVOTTI

had learned how to make speeches, as he had learned so many other skills. First, he assured his new in-laws that they would remain honored members of the ducal family.

“This palace is your home,” he said, “and always will be, as much as you want it to be. My lady, my lords, you will be granted estates to support you in a style befitting your rank. I count on all of you to help my wife and myself bear our great burdens. The war is won, but the troubles will continue for years. From now on Celebre must stand guardian on the passes, forbidding invasions in either direction.” And so on. Oliva and Orlad nodded. Dantio smiled politely.

Marno thanked the elders and dismissed them. He ordered the palace officials to go away and plan a service of thanksgiving for the city’s deliverance, a state funeral for the doge, a state wedding, and a coronation. He gently assured Orlad that Werist Waels would rank as the first of the heroes of the liberation, but that his corpse must now be removed from Doge Piero’s lying in state.

Then he excused himself to go and sleep.

In all the years of struggle he had never felt wearier than he did now, balanced precariously on the brink of victory. He had the city under control and could trust Butcher and Nuzio to pursue the war until morning. Stralg’s corpse was to be delivered to the ice devils as proof of his death. Runners were on the way to Melchitte with orders to burn Veritano and abandon it. No doubt the headless Vigaelian horde would shatter and spread like a plague all over the Face, but many would head for the Edge and might be pinned in the Altiplano to starve. The rest would have to be hunted down and slaughtered, every last brute of them, but that would not be a job for him. Hordes of Florengian Heroes were going to need employment for the rest of their lives.

From guerrilla to hordeleader to ruler—the ducal sleeping chamber was a jarring surprise, an unwelcome warning of the new state he had just accepted. It was larger than most temples, with two rows of columns supporting the ceiling. He could have bivouacked a host in there. The sleeping platform in the center would have held thirty men. Why did he need a score of tree-sized candelabra with two dozen candles apiece when he just wanted to sleep? Why five flunkies to escort him to his quarters? This was not where the late doge had died, they assured him, and certainly he could detect no odors of death or sickness. A bit musty, was all. They had not expected a new doge so soon. He was too tired to bother asking for a smaller room.

“It will suffice,” he said. “Leave me.”

Did my lord want the candles snuffed?

How ever long would that take? “No, no!” he said. “And no. I wish to study the ceiling frescoes. Go. Go away! Go now.”

They closed the door—one of the doors. There were three doors and sixteen high windows, draped in silk brocade. If he were in his right mind he would have had Butcher or some other trusty search this entire wing for lurking ice devils, but he was too tired to care.

He sat on the edge of the platform to remove his boots—and stopped with one off and one on, distracted by what he was seeing. This was a treasure house. He had known from childhood visits that the ducal palace was luxurious, but he had never been in this hall. There was enough lapis lazuli and gold leaf in the wall frescoes alone to finance a major war. The candelabra were studded with jewels. At first glance the chamber had seemed vast and empty, but he started to count the chairs, tables, and chests, and gave up after a score. No doubt every one was a masterpiece. The floor was covered with rugs of the finest alpaca wool, woven in brilliant colors, and the platform was heaped with them. Then there were the ceramics and statuary and tapestries. How had Stralg been kept from looting this hoard? Marno’s brothers would be coming around with wagons to collect compensation for the hardship his revolution had caused them.

Brothers? He had not seen them in sixteen years. They were just one of sixty-sixty headaches that would afflict him in the near future. He sighed, knowing that he was not going to sleep. Too many problems were building nests in his brain. He had met this condition before, when exhaustion passed beyond sleep, and knew of only one cure for it, short of waiting for physical collapse. What he needed, ironically, was a woman. Giunietta, especially, would know exactly what he needed and wanted.

“Holy Ucr!”

He jumped and twisted around. His wife was there, closing a door he had overlooked. Problem Number One, she stared around with disbelief, then mockingly raised a hand to shade her eyes, as if peering across a landscape.

“Is that you over there, husband?”

He forced himself to seem pleased. “It is. Shall I send a chariot for you?”

She headed in his direction. “Orlad accused me of being a slut. For selling my body for the crown, I suppose. I had no idea I had made such a good bargain.”

“You should see the silver pots in the servants’ latrines.”

She wore a white wrap, filmy and clinging. Her hair hung loose in black ringlets that fell to a handbreadth below the nipples that so clearly raised the fine cloth. He watched her stroll across the rugs toward him, fascinated in spite of his exhaustion. He had wanted a woman and yet he must not accept what the gods sent.

Her grin seemed both childlike and genuine. “I am informed that a wife is expected to sleep in the same room as her husband. This is big enough for both of us, is it not?”

“I am afraid my snores will echo and waken me,” he said, “but it will do until we find a better. But, Fabia, we agreed that ours would be only a political match.”

She sat on the edge of the platform, not close, but within reach if he changed his mind. “A pretend marriage, you mean?”

“You know what I mean. We discussed it. If I get a woman with child I am as good as murdering her. I sought out a Healer I know and trust, and she confirmed that it is a Werist problem, so holy Sinura will not help. To the world I am your husband, and I expect you to keep up the pretense. In practice, you will have to find a discreet young man to father Piero’s grandchildren. I won’t care or ask who he is.” He smiled as well as he could without uncovering his fangs. “Preferably one man at a time, but even that is your business as long as you create no scandal.”