Instead she said, “Welcome, Master Dicerno,” and that was permission for him to rise and walk closer-bowing several times, naturally. They were alone and no one could eavesdrop in a hall so huge. “Well? What has my infamous son been up to this time?”
Chies was already taller than her by a fair amount and absolutely impossible. Master Preceptor Dicerno had the reputation of being able to turn the most obdurate adolescent animals into model citizens, but she would not be surprised in the slightest if he had come tonight to announce that he had met his match at last and must wash his hands of an intractable lout. Then all the tongues of Celebre would wag harder than ever. Blood, as they said, will out.
The preceptor looked blank. “To my knowledge nothing, my lady! I believe he is really trying now. Lord Chies is truly remorseful when he offends you, you know, even if he cannot say so; men of his age have trouble admitting to errors of judgment. If I may presume… a few words of praise from you now would be most helpful. I am very happy with his progress and his efforts.”
Oliva breathed a silent prayer to some god or goddess. No, to all of Them. “I shall certainly congratulate him. That is very good news! But if you have not come about my son, why do you venture here in such weather?”
She was surprised to see the haughty old man glance around at the shadows. Paradoxically, he seemed both nervous and even more pleased with himself than usual.
“I come as envoy from an important visitor, my lady. He wished an audience with his lordship, and I explained how that would not be possible. So he begs that you will receive him tonight. Here. He specifically asked that the audience be here in the Hall of Pillars.”
She hid an unexpected shiver of fear behind bluster. “Outrageous! To dictate where I will receive him? I doubt if even the Fist himself would presume so. Who is this arrogant knave?” Whoever he was, she was much afraid that she could guess who had sent him. For the last year, the war had been relentlessly moving in this direction.
Dicerno came a pace closer. His voice was soft as gossamer, almost inaudible under the rattling of the shutters. “A man who may now be greater than the Fist.”
If all her blood were drained away and replaced by ice, she might feel like this… “In person?” she whispered. “Here in Celebre?” Ice, ice! “Are you sure?”
“He was a pupil of mine, my lady. A little older than lord Dantio. I believe he can be trusted. He… he has a warrior’s rough manner at times, my lady, but he is not the bloodlord.”
No. No one else was Stralg. Utter evil could not appear twice in human guise. “What does he want?”
“He will not say.”
“Tomorrow, when my advisers-”
Dicerno shook his head. “He swears he will be gone by dawn. My lady, I wager my soul that he can be trusted this far! He… he is a Celebrian noble, remember. My lady, you must receive him!”
Piero would not tolerate that word, and Dicerno would never use a word by accident.
Marno Cavotti himself? She could not imagine what Stralg would do if he found out, and few knew his cruelty better than she did. But what might the Mutineer do if she refused him? She was between millstones. His mother was a councillor, but no friend of Oliva’s-and perhaps not of her own son, either.
Shivering, she nodded. “Bring him. I will receive him here, if that is what he wants.”
On this she must seek Piero’s advice and instructions. As she hurried through the drafty halls, she prayed to holy Sinura that he would be well enough to give them. She went alone, bearing a single oil lamp on the palm of one hand and sheltering its tiny flame with the other. Two years ago she would have moved within an entourage of ladies-in-waiting and flunkies carrying lights, but as Piero’s health had failed, their state had dwindled. That was mostly her doing. She feared all courtiers now, imagining their sneering amusement that Assichie-Celebre thought she could run the city, their hints that the council must appoint a regent in her place, or the blood-lord would soon impose a new doge of his own choosing. Convinced that the people were better off not knowing how near to death their lord was when all rightful heirs were still far away in Vigaelia, she had steadily shed attendants, as if the court itself was dying. At times she felt like the last inhabitant of the palace, or even of the city.
The official ducal sleeping chamber was spectacular, a treasure hall where doges were supposedly born, fathered heirs, and died, but Piero had never used it. It made him feel like an exhibit in a museum, he said. He and Oliva had slept in what were officially guest quarters, and quite opulent enough. One of the larger rooms had now been turned into a sanctuary of Nula and stank of the godswood being burned before holy images. Although at first glance it seemed almost deserted, it contained four Nulists, two nurses, and a trio of palace flunkies, several of whom were stretched out on the great sleeping platform, dozing. Obviously they had not expected the dogaressa to return tonight. The senior Mercy-a large, matronly woman distinguished by a white cowl-knelt in prayer before an altar of holy Nula. The rest were watching a tegale game; players and audience scrambled to their feet as Oliva entered. Without comment, she swept on through, into the short corridor that led to more intimate chambers, one of which had been converted into Piero’s sickroom. He had always hated dying in public, he said.
Hearing her husband’s voice, she stopped in the doorway, sudden anger flaring-she had repeatedly stressed that they were to summon her at once if he rallied. The chamber was small and simple, but all the banked flowers along the far wall could not hide a sour scent of death. The dying man lay on rugs on a portable cot, his face ochre in the spectral lamplight. Never a large man, Piero now seemed wizened and discolored like last year’s apples.
Another Mercy, dark-robed and cowled, sat on a stool beside him, holding his hand, listening to his raspy whisper winding on and on. Oliva moved softly closer, straining to hear what state secrets he might be revealing. The words were not in Florengian. Nor, she realized, were they anything like the fragments of Vigaelian she had learned during her captivity.
“What?”
The Nulist jumped and looked around. Oliva was accustomed to Mercies being elderly people, but that might be because they usually sent only their most senior members to solace a doge. The face inside the cowl this time was that of a boy, startled by her silent approach. He looked barely older than Chies.
“What is he talking about?”
The youth smiled the typical sad smile of a Nulist. He had mastered that at least, even if he was only a second-string beginner given a try at night duty when the dogaressa wasn’t around to notice. “Nothing, my lady. It is only babbling.”
He murmured something to the patient and patted his hand. Piero fell silent.
Oliva did not know-probably no extrinsic knew-how much of the Nulists’ comfort came directly from the goddess and how much the cultists themselves controlled. “Were you making him do that? How dare you!”
“Not making him, my lady. Letting him, perhaps. It seems to help him.”
“Leave us. I will speak to your superior later.”
The boy carefully laid the patient’s hand on the bedding and rose. The light fell on his face for the first time and she saw that it was wet with tears, his eyes raw with weeping. Shaken by that, she took the stool he had vacated and put her lamp on the table. He bowed and withdrew.
“Where have they gone?”
Piero’s quiet whisper startled her, it was so clear. His eyes were open, but still unfocused.
“Bring them back!” He frowned at her-puzzled, dazed.
“Bring who, dear?”
The Mutineer was in the city, but Piero could not advise her now. At first one brief Nulist treatment a day had sufficed to hold the pain at bay, but now he could only snatch a few lucid moments before it returned. She should not have come here to trouble him. Yet if she had not come, she would not have stumbled upon that boy engaged in whatever foul experimentation he had been up to.