by Dave Duncan
“I’ve done my share of havocking. It was their turn, that’s all. And Vespaniaso made sure they paid for it.”
“You are a most extraordinary man! Hurry up. I’m waiting.”
“You know that’s impossible now,” he said. “I mean, I am very grateful for the offer, but no, we mustn’t and I won’t. There’s nothing more to discuss.”
Her wrap fell around her feet. “I know that you still have everything necessary under that chlamys. Come on, lover. You can’t deceive me.”
He sat down and began to fight with his boots. She knelt at his feet and used human fingers to untie the laces. “You can’t deceive a Witness, you know. You’re extremely horny. So am I.”
“Why don’t you go and find someone human?” he said desperately. “Butcher, or Nuzio. Or one of the bodyguards. You can’t want to have carnal relations with a beast!”
“Oh, don’t I?” She hauled off his right boot. Each foot ended in two small hooves instead of toes, but of course she would have known that before he even entered the cottage. “Butcher’s too quick, too eager to hump you and dump you. Nuzio keeps wanting to try odd things.” She leaned over Cavotti’s knees to unpin his chlamys. “I would try a bodyguard or two if you weren’t here, but you are and I am, and I am going to lay you. Lie back and enjoy it.”
He tried to push her away. She had stretch marks from childbearing. The fullness of her breasts showed that they had suckled. He knew nothing of her history or private life at all.
“Stop torturing me!” he said. “Stop torturing yourself. You know what would happen if I got you with child. You’d produce a monster. It would grow and grow until it burst you. You would die, Giunietta.”
She smiled sadly. “Poor Marno. Yes, that’s true. You can never have an heir now. But you forget I am a seer.”
Despite himself, he could not keep his enormous hands off her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that there are only certain times in a thirty that a woman can make a child. If I lie with every man in Nelina tonight I cannot conceive. Tonight is safe for me and I want you desperately.”
“Then do it,” he muttered. He clasped her to him and rolled back until he lay flat on the boards with her on top of him, like a child. She was not the most beautiful woman he had ever embraced, but she was a woman and willing; and probably the only woman who would accept him ever again.
CHIES CELEBRE
was left cooling his heels in the corridor. He was very angry about that. Furious, in fact. He would see that the guards regretted this insult, if not right away then as soon as he became doge. Whether the council of relics elected him on their own or the Fist ordered them to wouldn’t matter; it would happen. He was also very drunk, not sure which would come first, falling asleep or chucking up. The captain came out and said her ladyship would see him now. Chies snarled at him and marched into the ducal withdrawing room, staggering slightly as he rounded the door.
He had not been in there for years. It was a mausoleum of old junk. It seemed a lot smaller than he remembered, but all the paintings and figurines and pottery looked exactly as they had done then. Most of it should be melted down. The lyre! He wondered if she still played it sometimes. Old Oliva Ancient-Celebre herself was seated on her favorite chair, holding her sewing. She had hordes of women to embroider for her if she wanted. She was also giving him a very sour look, but this was long past her usual bedtime.
He bowed very carefully, neither falling down nor chucking up. “You sent for me, Mama?”
“I have been sending for you for days. You are not of age yet and even if you were, I am still effective ruler of this city.” Old bat in bad mood.
“Been busy.”
“So I’ve heard. You’d better sit down before you fall down. I was going to offer you wine, but I see that would be unwise. Can you still understand me?”
“Course. But you listen to me first! Those thugs of yours turned my friend away at the door. Sent her out in the streets alone in the middle of the night! You better send them to—”
“Yes, I heard. Babila Scarlatti has been rolling around those streets since before you were born, Chies, and I choose that verb for exactitude. A Nymph of Eriander is in no danger.”
“She is not a Nymph!”
“Of course she is. And when I gave you the key to the private door, I never meant you to bring in women like her. I have many times told you not to wander the city without your guards, especially wearing a sword. Tonight I warned them that they will be punished if you get away from them again. Now, about the succession …”
If Babila was a Nymph, that would explain a lot … “What about the secession? Mean succession.”
“You did very well the other morning. You impressed the councillors, I’m sure. You certainly impressed Speaker Quarina, because she told me so later. You even impressed me.”
He let the words dog-paddle around in his brain for a while. Then he muttered, “Good.”
“You don’t impress me now.”
“Nag, nag, nag. Why do you always nag?”
“You give me so much to nag about.”
“Treat me like a man and I’ll behave like one.”
“I do and you don’t. I wish you were still a child or already a man.”
“’Snot my fault I’m not.”
She sighed. “Of course not. Let’s try again. Your year comes of age next sixday. Normally your father would have a great celebration, involving the whole city. But we can’t have a formal feast when he is about to return to the Old One. Are you following me?”
He grunted a positive.
“But I could invite the elders to an informal reception.”
He thought about it. So what? “You asking my permission?”
She sighed in that martyred way she had. “I’m asking if you would like a chance to meet them, all of them. And for them to meet you.”
That took longer. “You mean you want them to make me doge?”
She laid the sewing on a table beside her and met his eyes for the first time. “I’m not sure. They have to choose someone, and the only other male in the family is old Arnutho, a third cousin or something. He’s senile and has no children. Chies, do you understand that you would be in great danger if they did elect you? Very great danger. It’s no secret that the Fist is your true father. A lot of people might want to kill you as soon as they hear the news. Stralg is almost certainly going to lose the war, and then who wants his bastard ruling the greatest city of Florengia?”
“You want me killed?” he asked bitterly.
She shook her head. “No. You have more faults than the palace kennels have fleas, but you are still my son and I still love you. I swear that is the truth. You are all I have left. But if you understand the danger, and if you are brave enough to try, then I will support you.”
Needing time to find the trick in this, he said, “How?”
“I will present you to the council. If you can impress them as a sensible, well-intentioned young man—a sober young man, in other words—then they will at least listen to what you have to say. And you can make a case that you are the logical candidate.”
He blinked at her while this sank in, but she was still very fuzzy around the edges. “Why?”
She looked as if she were about to sigh, but didn’t. “Piero always accepted you as his son. I would help you prepare a speech. Who coached you the first time? Who chose that chlamys you wore?”
“Babila.”
“Maybe we should ask her advice, too.” The old crow bent her wrinkles into a smile. “Go and sleep it off. We’ll talk again in the morning. Or maybe afternoon would be better.”
“Much better.” He lobbed a smile back, maximum cute. It worked sometimes. This was one of the times. Her eyes glistened.
“Oh, Chies, Chies! It wasn’t your fault, but what happens from now on will be.” She stood up. “I couldn’t talk you out of trying, could I?”
How small she was! He could bend his head, looking down at he
r. “No.”
“Then I’ll give you all the help I can, because you’re my son and I love you. I certainly don’t want a kiss, but at least give me a hug.”
A page lit the way to his rooms for him. The outer chamber was a mess. He’d been trying on clothes earlier and had left them all over the floor. He thought about having the boy pick them up and fold them for him, but his dresser would do that in the morning. He told the boy to leave the lamp and go.
Just as well Babila wasn’t there. He had drunk a lot more than he realized. Feeling an urgent need for a chamber pot, he pushed through the bead curtain into his sleeping chamber.
“About time,” a man said.
“Past time,” said another.
Chies dropped the lamp and tried to draw his sword. The men stamped out the wick before the spilled oil caught. They stuffed a rag in his mouth before he got the blade free of the scabbard, then tied his arms behind his back. He protested, “Uuuungh!” If he vomited behind this gag he would choke.
“Don’t mumble,” one of them said as they hustled him out on the terrace. “Bad manners.”
They were Heroes—he saw starlight reflected on their collars. But they were Florengian Heroes. And they were big. Huge. They tied a rope around his waist, then one lifted him over the balustrade and the other lowered him to ground level. It occurred to him as he went down, spinning around and around, that he was being kidnapped.
INGELD NARSDOR
was confident of a safe homecoming and a warm welcome. She had been watching the mound that was Kosord draw steadily closer for several days, and now she could make out the palace itself. Even Oliva seemed to be kicking harder, as if anxious to be let out to survey her future domain. The crew promised that the aptly named Joy of Return would dock by noon. Every night Ingeld viewed auguries in the campfires, and lately they had shown her back at work, relighting the sacred fire on the apex of the pyramid, which was her most solemn public duty.
Deserters from the city had been joining her procession for days, for while Horold’s original host had been outsiders, its younger Heroes were Kosord-born and news of the satrap’s death had caused many of them to revert to their ancestral loyalty to the dynast. They reported that Daughter Sansya had done a superb job of substituting for Ingeld in her absence, and had recently taken to proclaiming the dynast’s imminent return. Sansya must be seeing the same visions she was. Holy Veslih had things well in hand, then, and no doubt the star Nartiash would appear at tomorrow’s dawn to proclaim the turning of the year, right when it would show to maximum effect.
So Ingeld herself would be safe, but the flames had shown her nothing of Benard. The gods gave no guarantees for his safety anymore, nor for old Guthlag’s. If there was going to be fighting, those two were the most vulnerable and the usurper’s horde must still outnumber her tiny force by a sixty to one. She might survive, but without Benard her happiness would not.
Those doubts she tried to keep to herself. She sat close to Benard in Joy’s bow and watched the winter birds swoop low above the water. The day was cold, but sunny and not too windy. The half flank of Werists serving as today’s guard of honor were all formerly Orlad’s men—Jungr, Snerfrik, Hrothgat, Narg, Prok, and Namberson—and she was sure Hordeleader Guthlag had good reasons for that assignment. The other six boats that now made up her flotilla were following in close formation. Although river traffic was light at midwinter, once in a while some hardy crew would go past, struggling upriver against wind and current. Usually now they knew whose fleet this was, and cheered her.
Witness Tranquility was no doubt busily recording, but nothing of her was visible under her veils.
A head surfaced and disappeared again.
Snerfrik sang out, “Here comes another one!”
Something splashed alongside the boat. A whitish flipper slapped at the gunwale and became a hand. Snerfrik and Prok reached over and grabbed, hauling the man up until he could cling to the side, half in and half out of the boat, blinking water from his eyes. He wore a brass collar, naturally.
“Next boat behind!” Prok said. “Hordeleader Guthlag is aboard and will take your oath. There’s a Speaker there to help you get out of the present one.”
This happened all the time now, and usually that was the end of it as far as Joy was concerned, for she was a small boat and already crowded. But this time the newcomer stopped puffing long enough to say, “Got a message for the dynast from Daughter Sansya.”
“He speaks the truth,” Tranquility said cheerfully.
“I’m sure he does,” Ingeld declared. “Bring Packleader Yabro aboard.”
They had a procedure for that. She decorously studied water birds and shipping on one side of the boat, while Prok and Snerfrik helped the recruit over the other, Namberson handed him a pall to act as both towel and covering, and Narg went to the meat crock they kept for just this purpose. The clink of the lid going back on the jar was a sign that the newcomer was respectable and it was safe for Ingeld to look. Safe, except that Oliva did not appreciate her landlady watching men tear at raw meat.
She looked to Benard instead. “Packleader Yabro Yorgalson and I are cousins,” she explained. Fourth or fifth cousins. Her foremothers had been dynasts for so many generations that hardly a family in Kosord was not related to her in some contorted fashion.
Benard nodded. “He has your ears. I thought he was only a flankleader?”
Yabro was a youngish man, not large by Werist standards, with hair and beard closer to red than gold; his good looks were not limited to the shape of his ears. His mother was a Nulist, and had been Palace Mercy for many years, so he had been a playmate for both Benard and Cutrath. Ah, where was Cutrath? Sansya had chosen a credible messenger.
He gulped down the last bloody lump, wiped his stubble with a brawny, furry forearm, licked his fingers, and said, “Flankleader, yes, my lady.” He glanced longingly at the meat crock.
“Speak up, then.”
“The Daughter says that Huntleader Jarkard, who now calls himself hordeleader, intends to force you to marry him, my lady. He’s stationing men all along the waterfront and in all the boats he could commandeer. Everyone with you, all the Heroes, are to be put to death.” He glanced apologetically at Benard. “Especially you, Hand. Congratulations, by the way.”
“Kind of you,” Benard said dryly.
“Did she say she foresaw this?” Ingeld had not.
“No, my lady. She learned it from men who don’t like the orders they’re getting. She say she sees you as dynast again, but she has not been shown your return.” Yabro’s plaintive interest in the meat crock paid off when Narg pulled out a leg of mouflon and passed it to him.
Ingeld was not at all surprised by Sanysa’s news, for it only confirmed what they had been hearing for days. “He really is a nastiness,” she said, more to herself than anyone else. News of the satrap’s death had provoked the predictable power struggle in the city, and the winner so far was Jarkard Karson, leader of Vulture Hunt. The fall of the House of Hrag had left Kosord with far too many Werists, and the same would probably be true of all Vigaelia for years to come.
“Very well. I know I am in no danger, so I will go on alone. Flankleader, tell Master Mog to signal a parley, please.”
Snerfrik pouted rebelliously, but scrambled aft to tell the eavesdropping riverfolk what they had just overheard anyway.
“Alone except for me,” Benard said.
They had worn this argument to death over the last three days. Trouble was, she wanted his support. She hated to admit that she needed it.
“If you insist on that, my love, you will make it much harder for Guthlag and his men to stay out.”
“Then they can kill me themselves right away and save Jarkard doing it. Otherwise, I will be at your side when you step ashore.” He set his face in his most moronically stubborn expression.
The crew were turning the boat. It tilted, the sail flapped unhappily.
“Put away that snack for a moment,” In
geld told Yabro. “I need to think. Thank you. About three score Heroes have come to join us already. Not nearly enough for a pitched battle, of course. You say the rest don’t like their orders. If the usurper tries to use force, will he be obeyed?”
The messenger squirmed. “Against you, my lady, no. Some might obey, but the rest would swat them. But …”
“But her mudface gigolo will be fair game,” Benard completed helpfully.
Pink under his stubble, Yabro nodded. “He has a special flank picked out, hard cases who don’t like, er, Florengians. Volunteers, all of them. They’ll be right there on the waterfront, my lady, drooling blood.”
Benard nodded. “My blood. But if you want to keep me as your husband, love, then I must come with you.”
Ingeld wondered how many of Cutrath’s childhood friends would be in that death squad. Felicitous Memory was coming alongside, bearing Hordeleader Guthlag, Speaker Ardial, and more than a dozen Heroes. Ardial had seemed quite happy—insofar as any Speaker could ever seem happy—to accept the post of justiciar and return to Kosord. He would be no help in a fight, though, unless he could bore the enemy to death with texts.
More than the horde would be waiting to welcome her. Most of the extrinsic population would turn out, too, wanting to cheer. She dreaded the possibility of them getting involved. But surely Veslih would have warned her if a bloodbath was likely? And if she put up no resistance at all, then Benard would be forever banished from the city, and she would be back to being the wife of a Werist. Oliva needed better than a Werist stepfather. Benard was right. For someone who normally seemed to drift along slightly above the ground, he was wrong surprisingly rarely.
The boats came together with hardly a bump and the crew held them there with boat hooks.
“Hordeleader,” she told Guthlag, “Flankleader Yabro reports that Jarkard is certainly planning violence. You are too badly outnumbered to do more than throw your lives away. Speaker Ardial, I wish you to accompany me. Apart from the Speaker and my husband, I will go in unescorted.”
