Filiberno shrugged. “Stralg will try to take it back. Then we hit him in the rear.”
And sacrifice the men left in Veritano? “How do you get those numbers there so fast?” Cavotti asked. “If we stick around, how do we avoid being pinned against the Ice?”
He was playing for time to think. To move a host into the Altiplano might be suicidal folly. The rains were already starting to wash out roads. The Fist would counter with his cold weather advantage-in fact this Veritano bait might be a trap like Cavotti’s tholos message to the dogaressa. But if Veritano was lightly manned, they could certainly raze it in a lightning strike and make sure both the Fist and the Face heard about it. Stralg would have lost another battle and another five sixty men. The ice devils’ morale would plummet even lower. But do not linger. Hit it, burn it, and run-safe but effective. And do not stay!
He explained. It took a while, but he brought them around without having to overrule anybody. “And if Caravan Six appears it can eat ashes,” he finished. “So there go four sixty more at no cost to us.”
They all grinned, excited at the prospect of another massacre. He did not point out that they would be stripping men away from the main theater, a force that might not get back easily if the weather changed, and would be badly missed if Stralg tried something. Nor did he tell them his hunch that Stralg would react by occupying Celebre and trying to use it as a bargaining chip to buy his way home to Vigaelia.
Always Celebre looked like the final prize in the war. It was the last big city left standing. If the Face was ever to be rebuilt, surely they must preserve it as a model of what civilization should be? Celebre was Cavotti’s hometown and he secretly yearned to save it, somehow. He did not know how. He had not saved any of the others, every one of which must have been somebody’s hometown.
“I want to do this one myself,” he said. “I need some action.”
“You can’t battleform any more!” Butcher growled.
Cavotti gave him a glare. His glares were much more deadly than they used to be. In fact he could battleform again, but only once. It would kill him.
“You don’t need to prove anything, Mutineer,” Vespaniaso said.
“I know that!” Cavotti roared, although he didn’t. “I also know that some of you find it a lot harder to give up ground than take it. I want to be certain there’s no sudden change of plans. Fili, you go and take over at Celebre for me. Nuzio, it may be a trap; we must keep close watch that Stralg doesn’t follow us up there. Can you get orders on their way by first light?”
Nuzio laughed. “Sound the trumpets!” He sprang up and departed, taking his pack. Quickly the others followed him, muttering about checking on their men. By the time Cavotti saw what they were doing, they had all gone, even Butcher, and when the door slammed he was left with what was probably the only really warm room in the town.
And Giunietta.
“You don’t mind if I sleep here too?” he asked the fireplace.
“Of course not.” Her voice in the shadows was low.
Not looking at her, he knelt and opened his pack to find the salt he used to clean his teeth… correction: his fangs. A thirty ago his arms had been smooth brown skin, like Nuzio’s. Now they were matted with black hair. Just about all of him was. His fingernails were black claws. His face…
“They warned you, I hope?” he said.
“I knew.” Her voice was closer. “It doesn’t matter.”
He looked up sharply. She was spreading a blanket in front of the hearth.
“I don’t mean I’m not sorry for you,” she said. “Of course I am. I am also enormously happy that you were rescued before they killed you. I’m relieved that I don’t smell madness on you, after what you went through.” She turned and stared at him. “In fact I don’t even detect any bitterness.”
“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!”
