She patted his shoulder with a ruined claw of a hand. “No, Nephew. I’m not Controlling you. I’m forcing him, I admit. He knows I’m doing it and he can’t help responding. But you’re helping your poor old auntie because you want to, aren’t you?”
“Yes, Aunt.” He thought he was just too frightened to argue.
“You want to punish the people who did these terrible things to me, don’t you? You want to help your father defeat the Mutineer, don’t you? You want to be doge, don’t you?”
Had he heard right? “Is that possible, Aunt?”
“Bah! If I can send a flank of Heroes to Xaran, you think a ragtag herd of elders will stop me making you doge?”
Chies said, “No, Aunt!” Holy Twelve! That made a difference.
“You get me near this Marno Cavotti and there won’t be any rebellion.”
“Yes, Aunt. I mean ‘No,’ Aunt.” Hello, Papa. Aunt Saltaja and I have tamed the Mutineer for you. I have his head in this bag. And the elders elected me doge…
“We children of Hrag stick together and help one another!”
“Of course I will do whatever you say, Aunt!”
“How will you get us into the city itself?”
Chies turned back to Sesto, whose twitch seemed to be growing even worse. Giving orders to a rebel flankleader was a heady sensation. “How do we get into Celebre?”
“I can’t go in. The ice devils watch all the gates. They’ll kill me.”
“I can. How about her?”
Sesto blinked, chewed his lip, flicked eyebrows as if his face had gone crazy. “They’ll question a Vigaelian woman. Don’t see them around often.”
Chies turned it into Vigaelian for her.
She was undoubtedly madder than a burning cat, but she was not stupid. “The Celebre boy is a Werist too. And had another Werist with him, you said. How will they get in?”
Translation…
Sesto whimpered, as if in pain. “The Mutineer was going to take the Celebres to Flankleader Eligio. He runs a ranch north of Cypress Gate. He has friends. He gets people in and out.”
“You know this place?” Chies asked.
“Never been there, but it will be easy to find. Just south of Montegola.”
The news made the Chosen cackle again. “Then we will go there and speak with Flankleader Eligio. We’d best be on our way. Chies, you will dress me. Now you see why I told you to collect the men’s robes before Sesto got blood all over them?”
As Chies was helping her out of the pool, he said, “If you want to meet up with Stralg, Aunt, I don’t think we should go to Celebre. He won’t be there.”
She turned and smiled at him. Her mouth was a foul-smelling pit of bloody gums and a few blackened teeth. “Good, good! Starting to be helpful. Your father can wait, boy. What matters first is your sister.”
“Um, Fabia?” He kept forgetting he had a sister.
“Yes, that one. Frena, she used to call herself. But I don’t care what she calls herself. I do care, very much, how she dies. Understand?”
“Er, yes, Aunt.”
“Very horribly, very slowly. Because of what she’s done to me.”
“Of course, Aunt.” Chies finished drying her scrawny carcass with one chlamys and reached for another to drape her. “And her brothers, too?” He didn’t want a contested election.
Not far off dawn, they stole a boat. Two dogs started to bark, then had second thoughts and ran away into the darkness, whining in terror. Their owners were either asleep or had enough sense not to interfere. The hag made Sesto release the exhausted llamoids and push the two chariots off the scruffy little jetty into the river. They floated away upside down, wheels plaintively turning. How soon until the Veritano warbeasts arrived?
Chies gave Sesto his orders, then collapsed in the bottom of the boat and went to sleep.
Before noon they left the river and commandeered a wagon.
That night, Chies found himself eating a hearty meal in a farmer’s hut. Several hearty meals, in fact, one after the other. The farmer was a heavyset man, almost big enough to be a Werist, but he was Controlled as tightly as Sesto, wearing the same mindless expression, answering questions in the same singsong. He had a fat wife, a hulking adolescent son, and a remarkably pretty daughter. They were all Controlled, too. Sesto was a walking corpse, barely able to speak, but he had probably not slept since leaving Veritano. Chies repeatedly had to order him to keep eating.
Aunt Saltaja was starting to look better already. Her mouth bled less and she was steadier on her feet. Yet her mind seemed even more twisted than before. She rarely spoke of anything except the atrocities she was going to inflict on Fabia Celebre. Also the brothers, but mostly the woman. Fabia was another Chosen, apparently. Chies was sorry to hear that, because he had quite liked her. She had kissed him and gotten his accursed chains taken off.
He finished eating at last, picking a few last treats out of his teeth. He yawned. A comfortable rug and a blanket were in order now. The lamp was flickering, its oil almost gone, and the fire had shrunk to embers. The hut was built of bamboo, wicker and palm-leaf thatch, so all the rooms were tiny, but there were several of them. He assumed Aunt Saltaja would take the best sleeping platform, and hoped he could steal a place by the fire. Or just steal away? He had very good night-sight. If the stars were out, he might manage to escape.
“You want her?” his Aunt said suddenly, leering her black stumps at him.
“What?”
“You’ve done well. You deserve a reward. You want her for the night?”
He gulped. He realized he had been staring at the girl. She was certainly pretty. He was very tired, but a man had to look out for his reputation.
“I would enjoy that, Aunt.”
She beckoned the girl over to her, pulled her head down close, and stared very hard into her eyes. She mumbled something.
“I don’t think she understands Vigaelian,” Chies said uneasily.
Saltaja released the girl. “Doesn’t matter. I spoke to the Mother, not her. Take her. She’ll do whatever you want.”
The girl was staring at Chies. He nodded. She blushed furiously and beckoned for him to follow.
The room was tiny and the sleeping platform was a narrow frame full of sand. He closed the door, wishing it had a bolt, which it did not. Ignoring the girl, he examined the window, but it was fitted with stout bars of bamboo, which he could not budge. The night was cloudy, anyway, and the farmer had dogs out there. So no escape tonight.
The girl slid her arms around him. She was not merely willing, she was eager. She had no clothes on. But…
But Saltaja was going to get caught sooner or later, probably sooner.
He could not help doing what she told him when she was there, fixing him with the evil eye. She had made a flankleader murder his own men, so a boy like Chies could not be expected to refuse her orders when she was there. But if he refused this girl, that would show he wasn’t really cooperating with the Chosen the rest of the time, wouldn’t it? If it came to a trial, that would save him, wouldn’t it?
The girl had a hand at his crotch already, so he had better decide this quickly.
She whispered “Love me!” in his ear and tried to kiss him.
Fortunately, she had very bad breath, which made the decision easier.
He said, “No!” He squirmed loose. “Don’t touch me. You sleep on the floor. Lie down!”
She obeyed. He couldn’t see her face in the dark. He heard her snivel. “But I want…”
“Be quiet! Don’t speak. And don’t come near me.”
He stretched out on the sand, wriggled a hollow for his hip, and turned his back on her. It wasn’t as hard as he expected. In fact, the thought of what they did to rapists was quite enough to dissuade him. Big softie! he thought. Little softie, in fact. He went to sleep.
He had worried that his aunt might not leave any witnesses behind when they departed in the morning. She didn’t, but not the way he had feared. She hexed the farmer and his family to forget that they had entertained visitors-also to forget that they had owned a chariot and two guanacos. The car was very cramped with three on board, but they soon met a man driving another one. They left him sitting by the wayside in a daze. Sesto handled the second team.