by Dave Duncan
“You are sworn to the Evil One!” he persisted.
“She chose me. I do not know why. Do the gods ever justify their decisions to mortals? I thought a lot about this while we were crossing the Edge. Mother Xaran is goddess of blood and birth, death and the cold earth. Death is not always evil. It can be a release, or a judgment. Birth is also Hers, because without birth there could be no death; without death we could not have birth, else we should fill the world, shoulder to shoulder.”
On the Edge, Fabia had been very close to death. The Mother had taught her much, speaking clearly.
“She grants enormous powers to us, Her Chosen, but She also lets us choose how we use those powers. Saltaja treated other people like weeds, to be trampled. I truly believe that Paola used hers for good. So far as I know, the only violence she ever committed was in self defense. Power is not innately evil!”
She wondered how Chies was taking this lecture, but she kept her eyes on her husband, who continued to stare straight at her. “The uses of power may be,” he growled.
“They often are, but that is the fault of whoever wields that power. All power can be used for good. All power can be abused. Absolute power can be abused absolutely.”
Cavotti yawned and stretched, flexing his great muscles. “It cannot be far from dawn, and we have much to do these next few days. Where do you normally sleep, Chies?”
“Directly above here, my lord.”
“Then you will not meet any guards on your way there. Go and sleep, and in the morning you can thrill your mother with a dramatic story of your escape from Veritano. Do not mention Saltaja to anyone!”
“Oh, I won’t, my lord! I mean, they might think I had helped her and then they would want to bury me, too!” Grinning, he jumped up.
So did Fabia. “Wait! Chies, you have wonderful night vision.”
He looked puzzled. “My lady?”
“I watched you when we went outside. You dodged branches that lord Marno did not see. You avoided rocks and holes. You must learn to be more careful, Chies!”
He smiled cheekily. “Careful about what, sister? I’ve always had wonderful night-sight. Ask Mama. She’s always nagging me to carry a lamp, but I never need one.”
Fabia stepped close and kissed his cheek, just as she had when they first met at Veritano. “I mean, ‘Do not serve evil.’ It is a terrible temptation, I know. If you are found out, you know what will happen, and we will not try to save you. But welcome back. Mama has been out of her mind with worry about you. You are one of the family and I hope you always will be. Thank you again for … distracting Saltaja.”
“Sorry I broke the pretty goblet.” He bowed. “Good night, my lord, my lady.”
The door closed. If that young lout ever starts asking for a bedroom on ground level I will personally—
“Will we regret this one day?” Marno murmured behind her. “Is he?”
“I think so, I don’t know. Never trust anything he says.”
She turned and looked up at her bridegroom’s face with the shadowy ceiling above it. Could he ever trust her was more to the point. “I did mean to warn you before we were married. I thought we would have much more time after Papa died.”
“Tonight, did you turn Chies on Saltaja? Were you the reason he suddenly changed sides?”
She hesitated. “I don’t think so. Just holding off Saltaja was taking everything I had. Let him have the credit. And, Marno, I swear I did not use any power on you earlier! In the chariot, I mean. When we talked about what was going to happen after Papa died and who would be doge, I did not put the idea in your head!”
He clasped her shoulders in his enormous hands. “Of course you didn’t. I had been thinking for a long time that Florengia would be in turmoil for years and Celebre would need a strong doge, one who could employ a Werist horde for defense without being deposed by it. My mother is an elder. I saw no need to suggest my name to her. I knew she would think of it all by herself. And then, when Hero Dimo came streaking down off the Altiplano in a lather to say that the doge’s children were back … No, you did not put the marriage idea in my head.”
“And you did not just arrange for the doge’s children to disappear at Veritano. You could have done.”
A Cavotti shrug was an impressive sight. “Never thought of it. But Chies is not the only one who must learn to be more careful.”
“What do you mean?”
“I did not notice your night-sight, but I did wonder at your courage.” His smile did not reach his deadly eyes. “You told me you were a virgin—which Giunietta had already Witnessed, by the way. I am a killer, a Werist, and three times your size. I could inflict serious injury on you in a moment’s carelessness. Just being playful I could crush you. Yet you showed no fear of me. Tonight you came frolicking to my sleeping platform as if you had no cares in the world. You repeatedly hinted that you wanted to consummate our marriage. You are either incredibly ignorant of what men and women do together, or you trust in some special defense.”
She could feel herself blush. “If you tried to hurt me, I … Yes, I would stop you.”
“Just tell me. It will never be deliberate.”
So here it came. “I trust you. Can you trust me?”
“I will. How can I prove it? Like this?” He scooped her up bodily, as if she were a child, and kissed her. It was an extraordinary experience, lips and tongue. Her eyes snapped shut to let her concentrate on it. She had never realized that a lovers’ kiss was not like any other. It went on and on, somehow growing in intensity, sending tremors of excitement tingling in her breasts and deep down inside her. Her one free hand pawed at Cavotti’s massive arm, hard as a tree trunk. Her heartbeat soared incredibly. When he took his mouth away and set her feet on the floor again, her knees buckled.
He clasped her tight against him. His chlamys was still wet, and her ear was level with his heart, which was thumping almost as fast as hers. His distinctive musky scent was overpowering, intoxicating.
“I will trust you, Fabia.”
She gasped until she got her breath back. “You said you had consulted a Healer of Sinura since we first spoke. I asked my goddess directly.”
“Blood and birth, you said?” His voice echoed deep inside his chest.
“Yes,” she admitted. “Ingeld … Horold Hragson’s wife told me how he impregnated a woman to see what would happen. She died giving birth to his child. It was human, but as big as a two-year-old. I will not be trapped like that. The Mother has authority over birth. I will be able to insist that your sons vacate the premises at the end of a normal lease.” She had asked for confirmation of this the first night after she met Cavotti, and Xaran had reassured her.
“You bribe me. I thought I had lost the chance of children.”
“I want children also.”
The big man sighed in wonder. “You are prepared to trust the Mother of Lies?”
“If she plays me false I will die, but we all die, Marno.” She twisted her neck to stare up at him. Yes, he was incredibly ugly. But he was a lot of husband. “Why else would I have come here tonight? Are you willing to be married to a self-confessed Chosen?”
One of his precious smiles brightened the room. “In your case, yes. And you want me to prove it now? Be warned, all your chthonic powers will not be enough to stop me once I get going!”
“You talk too much,” she said. “Let me see some action.”
LORD DANTIO
spent most of the next five days exhuming his childhood. He attended his father’s funeral and the service for the fallen, but mostly he just walked the halls of the palace and streets of the city, wallowing in nostalgia. He avoided Fabia and Orlad, being heartily sick of the timbre of their emotions after spending so long in their company. They did not remember Celebre, and even he found it much less familiar than he had expected. He encountered few people he knew and escaped their vicinity before they noticed him, but he could not avoid the mind-numbing emotional tumult. Night and day the city reverbe
rated with joy and sorrow in unholy counterpoint until his head ached. On the fifth morning, when the Healers had begun to recover from their treatment of the wounded, he went to a sanctuary and let them mend his shoulder. They refused any gift in return, because the new doge had already promised a huge donation to reward treatment of injuries sustained on the night of the liberation.
The new doge was extremely popular. Dogaressa Oliva had done her best, no doubt, but it was good to have a doge in charge again. And Marno Cavotti himself! The Mutineer ranked just below the Bright Ones in his birthplace now. “Poor man, how he has suffered for us … but he killed Stralg in the end.” Despite the generous tribute Cavotti had paid to both Orlad and Waels during the service for the fallen, neither was being given credit by the Celebrians. The local lad had done it all, won the war single-handed.
That afternoon, while inspecting the fire damage to the temple of Weru, Dantio saw his half-brother Chies skulking amid the slums near the abattoir. Why in the world would he go there? No Witness could resist a mystery, and this one was only a few blocks away. Dantio arrived just in time to see Chies emerge from a doorway, accompanied by a grubby old man who looked seedy to human sight and duplicitous to the Goddess’s. The man locked the door and handed the key to Chies. They nodded to each other and parted. Chies went only as far as the next corner, then doubled back, unlocked the door, and dived inside. He did not see Dantio inspecting cups in a nearby potter’s shop.
Most curious!
Chies had given the man no money that Dantio had noticed, but it very much looked as if Chies had bought or rented whatever lay behind that ugly, warped little door. Or could he be going to meet someone there? Dantio left the store and strolled past the door, but all he could sense inside it was a squalid little room, mostly below grade, with a tiny barred window and plentiful roaches. Its only furnishing was a sleeping platform. Chies was in there, but Dantio’s sight could not determine what he was doing, which was ominous.
What could a boy who lived in the palace want with such a pesthole? Not to take girls to, surely? The temple of Eriander was still in business and male adolescents worshiped there fervently. If it were a shrine to the Old One, Dantio would not be able to see inside it at all, but it certainly looked like the sort of obscure crypt She favored. No doubt a Chosen could consecrate it to Her, although the Witnesses were almost certain that the ritual required human sacrifice. Chies? Was he? Could he be? Did the ducal family now include two Chosen?
He had not been a Chosen in Veritano, or Marno’s men could not have kidnapped him so easily. So what had happened since then? The story of his escape and the wild ride down the Puisa on a stolen boat, all the way to the city—was that credible? Dantio had heard it from people who believed it, not from any who knew the truth of it. It might be worth dropping a hint to Fabia.
Toward dusk on that day, Dantio was tracked down by a Witness as he studied the ducks in the river park. He sensed her approach and went to meet her. She was a bony, aging woman, unveiled in Florengian style.
“Brother Mist, I am Sister Edviga from the palace.” She smiled as she read his annoyance. “The doge has called a meeting and requests that you attend.”
“What sort of meeting?” He fell into step beside her.
“Your family,” she said. “He received his own family this morning, his mother and brothers.” (amusement)
“And?”
“And I am astonished you did not feel it, brother. He practically threw his brothers out bodily.”
In fact Dantio had picked up a trace of that rage and ignored it. “Greed? They want their cut?”
“They are all Ucrists.”
He laughed aloud. How long had it been since he did that?
The Council Chamber was a pentagonal room on the second floor, with three great windows overlooking the grounds and a huge fireplace, which was making the room unpleasantly warm. It was furnished with a single low wheatwood table in the center, also pentagonal, surrounded by cushions. Dantio surveyed the scene with nostalgia, recalling how his father had brought him there once, treating him as an adult when he broke the news that he would have to go as hostage to the ice devils.
His mother stood there alone, staring out a window. Hearing him clear his throat, she spun around, then came rushing to him, arms open. She almost drowned him in a torrent of emotions so turbulent that he could barely distinguish them. He hid his revulsion as best he could.
“Where have you been? I was so worried. Why didn’t you come and see me ….” And so on.
“I needed time to recover and I knew you had the others. We have years ahead of us, Mama!” In fact, he had decided he must leave the city very shortly. He had not been struck down, so either the Eldest in Vigaelia had decided to overlook his sins or her anathema carried no weight on the Florengian Face. Next sixday he would set off to visit the Florengian mother lodge and offer to add to its Wisdom, revealing what he alone knew about the war and Saltaja’s death in the Edgelands.
Oliva was shaking her head. “I don’t have Fabia, Marno has. Maybe in a thirty or two she will find some time for the rest of the world. Orlando is lost forever. So cold, so hard! Oh, what did they do to him, Dantio?”
“They made a monster out of him, that’s what. They dehumanized him. But he’s much better than he was, Mama. Give him time. Give him love, but not too obviously. He is trying, I promise you. He will recover. Mothers all over Florengia have the same problem, or soon will have.”
She bit her lip and made an effort to smile. “Marno praised him so generously yesterday! And he is going to give you all rich estates to support yourselves and raise fam … live in proper royal style.”
Chies was approaching. He paused outside the door, flashed some hypocrisy at the guard, who responded with a flicker of distrust—Dantio could not hear the words, only feel the emotion. Chies lifted the latch and entered silently, barefoot. (fear, anger) That reaction must be to Dantio himself, for the undercurrent of uncertainty and resentment was the easily recognized response of an adolescent male to his mother. Why fear? And what was behind the anger? It was not just from the demotion in status he had taken when his half-siblings returned; that was chronic, this was acute. He wore a youth’s loincloth, although that morning in the town he had been sporting an adult chlamys.
Dantio greeted him and was rewarded with a bow, sweet words, and a blast of manly contempt for a gelding.
Next came Orlad with brass collar and a red chlamys pinned under his right arm. Only the seer could sense the abysmal despair hidden behind his cheerful greeting. He was taking Waels’s death very hard. At the memorial service yesterday he had been close to tears, which was unthinkable for a Werist. He addressed his mother in quite passable Florengian. Even if he had memorized the words beforehand, his accent was improving.
Oliva embraced him. He registered disgust at his own hypocrisy. Chies bowed to him. (detestation) Orlad nodded back. (contempt) Then Fabia arrived. In the resulting social gavotte, Dantio managed to draw his brother aside. He was careful to exaggerate his smile, for Orlad was slow to pick up signals.
“Congratulations on your promotion, packleader!”
“I killed Stralg for him. He couldn’t make me anything less.”
“He didn’t have to take you into his horde at all.”
Orlad scowled. “On probation! I have three thirties to learn the language and show that men will follow me.”
“You’re doing well on the language, and I bet they’re all eager to kiss the Stralg-killer’s, um, ankle already.”
The Werist shrugged (satisfaction), then smiled. It was a good smile, not deliberate. “You’re not so far off at that. But a season isn’t long for a language.”
“You have ten years to wait, I’d say,” Dantio said softly, provoking the avalanche of suspicion that was Orlad’s inevitable reaction to any remark he did not understand. “Even Therek wasn’t as battle hardened as Cavotti. He won’t live to anything like old age.”
Orlad
nodded, and now the smile was genuine (ambition). “True.”
“So no matter how many sons Fabia gives him, the next conclave of elders will have only one candidate to consider.”
(pain) Orlad turned away. He had no interest in sons. It took very little to remind him of his lost lover.
A Hero opened the door wide and peered in. Then Marno lurched through, leaving it to be closed by his guards, who remained outside. He wore a chlamys of royal purple, pinned on his shoulder in civilian style, and belted with a silver cord. It did little to hide his ghastly scars and twisted bones, and his half boots could not possibly contain human feet. He glanced around the company from under brows like eaves. How was he ever going to manage to get the coronet over that horn?
As the giant limped over to the table, the other men bowed and the women curtseyed. Ruling families were more formal than most, and this one had stronger emotions than most, too, so many that Dantio could not analyze them all. That was why he must leave Celebre—seers went crazy if they let themselves become entangled in family ties.
Fabia’s disposition interested him most. Five nights ago in the Hall of Pillars, her attitude to Cavotti had been one of calculation and resignation, mixed with some Ucrist-type greed, undoubtedly—how could she not think that way after being raised by Horth Wigson?—but also a surprising amount of sexual interest in the monstrous hulk, tempered with a virginal dread very reasonable in the circumstances. Fortunately Fabia had seen long ago that Orlad could not possibly wear the coronet. Even if the elders gave it to him, the city and Freedom Fighters would rise and impose a change of dynasty. Cavotti was Piero’s only possible successor, and it was up to her to make it happen in a way that would preserve the family line. Privilege brings responsibility. Responsibility needs sacrifice.
And now? Much had changed in five days; much more in the intervening five nights, likely. Cavotti took her hand to steady her as she sank down on a cushion. Then he dropped nimbly at her side and they exchanged the knowing smiles of lovers: First my relatives, now yours.
