Stralg’s son shrugged. “So he hadn’t any choice.”
Why should the boy be grateful?
“Piero? Yes, Piero had a choice, because I never told him what Stralg said. He knew you weren’t his, but you were mine, and you were innocent of the crime, so he let you live. He reared you and loved you. When you were lovable.”
At once she wished she hadn’t said that last thing, but it was too late to take it back. If anything, Chies had been too lovable. With the others gone, he’d been all they had, and they had spoiled him horribly. Now their weakness was about to bear terrible fruit.
A stray gust puffed out the flame on her lamp.
“But you just admitted,” Stralg’s voice resonated in the darkness, “that the Fist made me because he wanted me. Obviously he wanted me so I can be doge and rule Celebre for him.”
No. Stralg had just wanted to show his contempt for Piero by sending her home bearing his bastard, but she could never tell Chies that.
He said, “The council knows what’s good for it. They’ll do what my real father tells it to do, just like that milksop husband of yours always did.” The hated voice suddenly turned squeaky. “My real father will tell them to elect me! And if you really try hard and behave yourself in future, I may let you take men to your room!”
While she was still floundering to find a suitable retort, any retort, she remembered that she was on her way to meet with Marno Cavotti. If Chies Stralgson caught the merest hint of a suspicion of a rumor that the Mutineer was in the palace, he would be across the road to the Vigaelian barracks to claim the notorious reward, faster than a thunderbolt.
Without another word, he turned and ran. She caught a brief glimpse of his gangling form against a glow at the end of the concourse as he ran around the corner into the Hall of Pillars.
The storm was moving on. One of the great shutters in the colonnade had been unlatched and moved aside to admit glimmers of gray light and wafts of steamy air. The rain on the terrace outside had dwindled to a drizzle. Forcing herself to move no faster than usual, Oliva swept across to join the three men standing there.
Silvery robe, silver hair-the one holding the lamp was Master Dicerno, and beside him stood Chies in loincloth and glints of silver. He was as tall as the preceptor, but he looked like a child alongside the third man. Werists were chosen for their size in adolescence and kept on growing-a little larger every time they battleformed, it was said.
As she arrived at the group, she was shocked to realize that the third man wore a Nulist robe. The cowl covered his head and shoulders leaving only his face exposed, so it was one of the very few garments that would hide a brass collar, but it seemed especial blasphemy for a Hero to pose as a Mercy. All three knelt to her, Chies just a fraction of a second behind the others. Correct protocol would have been for him to bow only, then present the newcomer.
Dicerno waited an instant for him before saying, “My lady… if I may have the honor… Brother Marno. Brother Marno is a renowned and skillful devotee of holy Nula.”
Marno was a common name, but Oliva wished they had chosen another. One glance at Chies warned her that his mood had changed yet again. He was twitching, excited, unable to keep his eyes off the disguised Werist. He knew! She had no idea how he knew, but she was quite certain he did.
Life had become a nightmare inside a nightmare.
“Rise, please, all of you. You are very welcome to our house, Brother Marno.”
“My lady, I thank the gods for giving me the opportunity and honor of attending lord Piero.” The big man spoke in a harsh growl, very unlike Stralg’s sonorous carillons, but his face was completely unlike her expectations of what a notorious rebel should look like-handsome, sensitive, aristocratic, with a strong resemblance to Duilio Cavotti, his long-dead father.
“You will be able to assuage my husband’s distress?”
“Not I, my lady. The goddess.”
“Of course.”
He should have said my goddess.
“You are new to our fair city, brother?” Chies making small talk had to mark the dawn of an epoch.
Cavotti must be aware of his Celebrian accent, because he evaded the trap. “I was born here, but I have been away for some years.”
“Since before I was born, yes?”
The fake Nulist waited a beat before saying, “ Much longer than that, lord Chies.”
Oliva chuckled, which was perhaps a mistake, but probably nothing would have stopped Chies now.
“Did you move that shutter, brother? It takes four men to put them up.”
“Master Dicerno did it. As he will have told you, the gods give strength to the pure in heart.”
Chies let out a surprised snigger.
“I have certainly told him that diffidence is a sign of good breeding,” Dicerno countered.
The boy’s eyes narrowed. “I saw my father just now and he’s in such terrible pain that I feel very upset. Will you give me some comfort, Nulist? Just a touch?” He extended a skinny arm.
Cavotti closed a huge hand around it. “Better, lad, I will show you how to work off your own worries.” He moved over to the doorway and out onto the terrace.
Chies perforce went with him, struggling, kicking, squealing. “Stop! You’re hurting! Let me go!”
“You don’t need holy Nula,” the giant growled. “See there? An agile youngster like you can easily scramble over that balustrade and jump down to the river wall. Run twice around the city as fast as you can, and you will find that all your cares have given way to a glow of healthy well-being.”
Released, Chies sprang away, rubbing the white marks on his arm and spitting anger like a cat. “I’ll find better shoes.” Without even a bow to his mother, he sprinted across the chamber and disappeared the way he had come.
The Werist came back in, chuckling. “Sorry, my lady, but I enjoyed that. I am a disgrace to Master Dicerno’s training.” He bowed again. “Marno Cavotti, at your service.”
“You dare manhandle my son?”
His eyes blazed. “You are lucky I didn’t break his neck, lady. At his age I was a prisoner at Boluzzi in compulsory Werist training. The only way to fail the course there was to die there. If you ran away you were run down-you know warbeasts can track like hounds? Ripped to pieces. Boys of thirteen, fourteen. They’d bring the scraps back to show us. No, my complaint against Stralg is even heavier than yours, my lady, and your precious bastard is lucky he’s still got his balls on right now.”
The preceptor moaned and was ignored.
“Boor!” Oliva had found a target for the fury she had been building all night. “It is you who may be lacking body parts very shortly. Chies has undoubtedly gone to ask the senior Mercy if she knows anything of a Brother Marno.”
“And after that how long for him to reach the Vigaelians?”
“A few minutes only.”
“My lady!” Dicerno squealed. “Cannot you send the palace guard to stop him? This is terrible!”
“We have time to attend to our business,” the Mutineer said calmly. “But the less you know the better, old man. Leave us. I suggest you quit the city the moment the gates are opened in the morning.”
“Do as he says, master.” Oliva dismissed the preceptor by turning her back on him. “Be quick, Cavotti. I don’t want you all over my clean floor.”
The big man laughed and tucked his hands inside his sleeves as if he had worn Nulist garb for years. “We can start by agreeing that we share no love for Stralg Hragson. There were about four sixty of us to start with in the school, half of us from Celebre. In the five years we were there, earning our collars, we were joined by six or seven times that many-boys kidnapped from all over the Face.”
“I know the history,” she said, imagining Chies bursting into the sanctuary, yelling out his questions, then taking off along the corridor like a mad guanaco. “What do you want of me?”