Orlad switched to Florengian. “Welcome. The more family is the best. Better, I mean.” But he stayed at the table.
Chies said, “Thank you.” Surrounded by unexpected relatives willing to be allies, he lifted his chin and shot a look of triumph at Cavotti. He did not lack courage.
“Tell us, my lord,” Fabia said, “how our brother came to be here to meet us?”
“First you tell me how you recognized him.” Cavotti would not have survived so long had he been a trusting man.
Fabia was not about to confess to receiving visions from Xaran. “I know Stralg abducted my mother. Now I know why. Also, I knew his uncles, and his aunt, and my brother Benard used Stralg’s likeness in a mosaic. Please can he be unchained? You know he can’t escape.”
The Mutineer said, “Loose the pup, Huntleader. Your father is dying, my lady. The council will have to choose a new doge, and this trash started mincing around like a prince of the blood. I didn’t think the elders would be insane enough to elect him by themselves, but the Fist might force them. We removed the temptation.”
“He wants to use me to trap my father!” Chies snapped. The boy’s loyalties were a bit confused, perhaps. Understandably.
Cavotti said, “He has grandiose ideas of his own worth. He imagines his sire would bother to cross a street to rescue him.”
“If you saw him as a political token, then the Fist may as well,” Fabia said, aware that she was now the one poking sticks at bears.
Dantio intervened with the question that had to be asked. “Has our father named a successor, my lord?”
Cavotti chuckled. “Apparently he did. He was asked, not long ago. To everyone’s surprise he rallied enough to cast the dead man’s vote.”
“And?”
“He said, ‘The Winner!’” Thanks to his beetling brows, the big man’s smile was more fearsome than most glowers Fabia had ever met. “Perhaps he meant Stralg. I doubt that he meant lord Chies.”
“Then the elders will decide,” she said. “Since we offer them a wider choice now, may our half-brother accompany us to Celebre?”
“Si’ down, all of you,” Cavotti growled. And, as Chies’s chains clattered to the floor, “You, too, boy. Eat if you’re hungry. My lady, Celebre is in the middle of Stralg country. You are escaped hostages. You realize the danger you will be in if you surface here?” He looked to Orlad. “You, especially. No Florengian enters Celebre now with a brass collar on. Understand?”
Orlad nodded. “I will risk this.”
“We all will,” Dantio said.
“Your necks are your business,” Cavotti said, shrugging. “Your loyalty I cannot doubt, but the bastard I will not trust. He stays here. You can leave with me. I will turn you over to people who will try to get you into Celebre. No guarantees. If you do get in there, though, for gods’ sake keep your heads down.”
Chies, who was eating with both hands, found room in his mouth to say, “He wants to use you to lure my… to lure the Fist into Celebre so he can burn it down, like he did with Miona.”
Fabia had wondered that earlier, but remarked, “I think your father is too clever to fall into the same trap twice, Chies.” However, she suspected the Mutineer might be cleverer still.
CHIES CELEBRE
watched with mixed feelings as his new relatives drove away. In their place, he would have chopped his head off, but they seemed willing to accept him. Things were looking up. The accursed chains had been struck off. If Stralg lost, Chies Celebre was the doge’s brother. If Stralg won, Chies Stralgson was the Fist’s son. He would have felt happier being taken home, though. He had been allowed to overhear the Mutineer ordering Huntleader Melchitte to treat the prisoner well as long as he behaved himself and kill him otherwise, or if the Fist tried to retake Veritano. It was not fair to make him hostage for what his father might choose to do.
He went back to the dining hall and celebrated by eating up all the food left on the table-everything except the greenfish, which he disliked-and emptying the wine flasks. The world suffused with rosy well-being.
Melchitte peered in. “There you are.” He surveyed the table. “Pig!”
“‘Waste not, want not,’ my mommy always says.”
Pigface sneered. “And a sweet, dutiful little lad you are, too. Well, bastard, I was told you are to be treated well. Mind your manners and we’ll agree on what that means. Otherwise, I win the argument. Don’t try to escape. You know warbeasts can follow a scent? And outrun a chariot? And you know what usually happens when a pack runs down its quarry?”
Chies tried cute. “Please, my lord! I’ve just eaten! Besides, why should I want to escape? The food here’s better than the palace’s. I’ll need a girl in a day or two, but it’s not urgent yet… unless you have a spare one lying around?”
Melchitte laughed and went away. Rebel Werists were much the same sort of louts as the Vigaelian ones Chies had cultivated for years. Talk dirty and they would eat out of your hand.
He decided to go and lie down. Thanks to the chains, he had not had a decent sleep in days, nor nights either, and he was very full. And drunk. But when he reached his room he was still sober enough to take the key out of the door and hide it under a loose floor tile.
The next day, after his stomach settled, he mooched around the complex, had a swim, inspected the llamoid pens, and took a very brief look at the pile of corpses that the Heroes called the bird feeder. Bored, he began chatting up Werists. Among four sixty men some would be susceptible to the smiles of a winsome lad, and he soon located Sesto Panotti, leader of rear flank, blue pack. Sesto was not much older than he was and almost as good-looking-not that Chies had any intention of letting their friendship get serious. Girls were his preferred prey, but he would tolerate a grope or two for a good cause.
Sesto had lost a man in the battle, which meant eleven men for six chariots. There would be no harm in taking a passenger along on patrol, would there? I could ride with you, Sesto. Interested, Sesto asked his pack-leader, who shrugged and agreed. Staying on the lookout for Stralg forces approaching from seaward was serious work, but rear flank had drawn the evening patrol Iceward and that was a meaningless exercise. Nothing more was going to come over the pass at this time of year. Sesto told his new friend to find himself a chlamys and be ready one pot-boiling after noon.
The chariots were racing models, very light, made of bentwood and wicker, their four-spoked wheels rimmed with bronze. Sesto’s had a quiver for hunting, although it held a long-handled ax instead of arrows. They were rigged with teams of four for the long climb up to the Altiplano. Even so, the guanacos went at a slow walk.
“Never drove a team of four,” Chies said hopefully.
“Now’s a good time to start.” Sesto gave him the reins.
A chariot was cramped with two men in it, and a chlamys was a very loose garment, open down the sides. Being right-handed, Sesto had put himself on the left. Soon he said, “You’re doing great, lad!” and gave Chies an encouraging pat on the butt. Oh well. Chies had known what the price would be and driving a rig like this was fun. He just wished the rest of the flank was not following so close, able to watch what their leader was doing.
After a while he said, “How far do we go?”
“How far would you like me to go?”
“Don’t mean that. Not as far as you’ve gone already, please. I’d rather you waited until tonight so we can both play.”
“Promise?”
“Oh, you bet! I need some lessons, and you’re a wonderful hunk.” Chies’s door could be locked from the inside. “I meant, how close to the Ice?”
“Second shelter. We have to destroy the equipment there and burn it. That’s what the axes are for. They burned the first shelter yesterday.” Sesto chuckled. “Death to the ice devils! No escape.”
Thinking of that disgusting pile of corpses at the bird feeder, Chies did not comment. He was half ice devil himself.
The jaunt turned interesting again when they emerged on the Altiplano. After the guanacos had gotten their wind back, Sesto told him to give them their heads, and they took off like a sea storm. Whee! The wind whirled Chies’s hair around and the wheels hardly seemed to touch the ground. Best of all, Sesto needed both hands to hang on. It was a shame that the road was so straight, and that a bank of cloud hid the Ice itself. But this was living! One day Chies would have his own racing stable.
In no time they went hurtling past the charred remains of the first shelter.
“Whoa!” Sesto said. “Slow down there, Killer. Looks like we have company. Two of them?”
It was three. Chies had excellent eyes, even if they were watering madly in the wind, but he knew not to contradict Werists.
In a few moments it became clear that there were indeed three men, and they were staggering-literally staggering-along the road toward them. They were muffled in furs, but obviously Werists. Sesto took back the reins and brought his flank to a halt about sixty paces away. By then the visitors had fallen to their knees.
“Mercy? They want mercy!” Sesto pulled out the ax and surveyed his men. “They should have thought about mercy sixteen years ago. Orders are to kill on sight. Volunteers?” Ten hands went up. “Raul, you missed out last time. Don’t battleform unless you have to.”
Raul jumped down from his chariot and trotted forward, grinning. He took the ax and Chies looked away. Even three against one would be no fight, for the Vigaelians were totally spent. Whatever Raul did was quick and undoubtedly fatal because the other Florengians cheered, but the victims did not sound dead when the patrol drove away.
Sesto jeered. “Squeamish, sonny?”
“We could have questioned them.”
“You understand that gobble-gobble of theirs?”
“Some,” Chies admitted. He was fluent.
“Then show me what you can find out from this next one.”
Sure enough, there was another approaching along the road. He seemed very tall, but soon resolved into a large man carrying another on his back.
By the time the chariots arrived, the big man had knelt down to release his burden, and then collapsed altogether. The other just stood over him, hands out, as if to hold off the execution squad racing toward them. His white hair blew loose in the wind, his rags flapped, his nose had turned black with frostbite, and he had lost two or three fingers. Sesto pulled up close, so Chies could ask questions
But Werists never wore their hair long like that. It wasn’t a Werist. Nor a man, neither. But whoever it was, she did have extraordinary eyes. Crazy eyes. Mad, mad eyes, staring up at him as if she knew him.