Saltaja Hragsdor.
“My lord Cavotti,” she said, since no one else was speaking and she disliked his sneer. “Obviously you have captured a Stralg by-blow, or a nephew, perhaps. But he is only a child. Must he be chained like that?”
The Mutineer turned his scowl on her. “He needed a lesson in manners.”
“They’re scared of me!” the boy jeered.
Fabia said, “If he talks back to you in his position, then I admire his courage, if not his wits. Are you frightened that he will escape? Cannot your warbeasts track down a fugitive?”
Cavotti smirked. She turned back to the boy and now he was the one showing shock. He was staring at her in disbelief. She had guessed who he was-and he knew her also? Just as Benard had known her the first time they met. That explained Cavotti’s little game. Suddenly furious, she jumped up and went over to the boy.
“I am Fabia Celebre. What’s your name?”
Even stooped, he was taller than she was. He hesitated. “Chies Celebre.”
No-Chies Stralgson! She had seen a vision of Stralg dragging her mother away. “Then you are my half- brother.”
He nodded as if he expected to be struck. “You are so like Mama!”
“I am flattered to hear it! You look much like your father. I am happy to meet you, brother Chies!” She kissed his cheek. “Here is your oldest brother, Dantio.”
Dantio had recovered his poise and was apparently willing to follow her lead. He walked forward and gave the youth a hug. “Well met, brother Chies. We did not know you existed, but we shall not hold it against you that you do. How is Mama?”
Young Chies looked as if the sky had just fallen on him. “All right,” he mumbled. “Or she was before I was… kidnapped. Kidnapped by these-”
“Don’t poke sticks at the bears, Chies,” Fabia said quickly. “Not when you’re the one in the cage. And there-” She hoped this was going to work. “-is your youngest brother, Orlad. He used to be Orlando, but it’s safer to call him Orlad.”
For a moment Orlad glowered at the beanpole and the beanpole stared at the Werist in horror. Then Orlad said, “Why don’t I just tear his head off?”
“Don’t be snarly,” Fabia said. Curiously, Chies seemed to have understood that remark. Had his father taught him Vigaelian, just as Paola had taught her Florengian?
Orlad switched to Florengian. “Welcome. The more family is the best. Better, I mean.” But he stayed at the table.
Chies said, “Thank you.” Surrounded by unexpected relatives willing to be allies, he lifted his chin and shot a look of triumph at Cavotti. He did not lack courage.
“Tell us, my lord,” Fabia said, “how our brother came to be here to meet us?”
“First you tell me how you recognized him.” Cavotti would not have survived so long had he been a trusting man.
Fabia was not about to confess to receiving visions from Xaran. “I know Stralg abducted my mother. Now I know why. Also, I knew his uncles, and his aunt, and my brother Benard used Stralg’s likeness in a mosaic. Please can he be unchained? You know he can’t escape.”
The Mutineer said, “Loose the pup, Huntleader. Your father is dying, my lady. The council will have to choose a new doge, and this trash started mincing around like a prince of the blood. I didn’t think the elders would be insane enough to elect him by themselves, but the Fist might force them. We removed the temptation.”
“He wants to use me to trap my father!” Chies snapped. The boy’s loyalties were a bit confused, perhaps. Understandably.
Cavotti said, “He has grandiose ideas of his own worth. He imagines his sire would bother to cross a street to rescue him.”
“If you saw him as a political token, then the Fist may as well,” Fabia said, aware that she was now the one poking sticks at bears.
Dantio intervened with the question that had to be asked. “Has our father named a successor, my lord?”
Cavotti chuckled. “Apparently he did. He was asked, not long ago. To everyone’s surprise he rallied enough to cast the dead man’s vote.”
“And?”
“He said, ‘The Winner!’” Thanks to his beetling brows, the big man’s smile was more fearsome than most glowers Fabia had ever met. “Perhaps he meant Stralg. I doubt that he meant lord Chies.”
“Then the elders will decide,” she said. “Since we offer them a wider choice now, may our half-brother accompany us to Celebre?”
“Si’ down, all of you,” Cavotti growled. And, as Chies’s chains clattered to the floor, “You, too, boy. Eat if you’re hungry. My lady, Celebre is in the middle of Stralg country. You are escaped hostages. You realize the danger you will be in if you surface here?” He looked to Orlad. “You, especially. No Florengian enters Celebre now with a brass collar on. Understand?”
Orlad nodded. “I will risk this.”
“We all will,” Dantio said.
“Your necks are your business,” Cavotti said, shrugging. “Your loyalty I cannot doubt, but the bastard I will not trust. He stays here. You can leave with me. I will turn you over to people who will try to get you into Celebre. No guarantees. If you do get in there, though, for gods’ sake keep your heads down.”
Chies, who was eating with both hands, found room in his mouth to say, “He wants to use you to lure my… to lure the Fist into Celebre so he can burn it down, like he did with Miona.”
Fabia had wondered that earlier, but remarked, “I think your father is too clever to fall into the same trap twice, Chies.” However, she suspected the Mutineer might be cleverer still.
CHIES CELEBRE
watched with mixed feelings as his new relatives drove away. In their place, he would have chopped his head off, but they seemed willing to accept him. Things were looking up. The accursed chains had been struck off. If Stralg lost, Chies Celebre was the doge’s brother. If Stralg won, Chies Stralgson was the Fist’s son. He would have felt happier being taken home, though. He had been allowed to overhear the Mutineer ordering Huntleader Melchitte to treat the prisoner well as long as he behaved himself and kill him otherwise, or if the Fist tried to retake Veritano. It was not fair to make him hostage for what his father might choose to do.
He went back to the dining hall and celebrated by eating up all the food left on the table-everything except the greenfish, which he disliked-and emptying the wine flasks. The world suffused with rosy well-being.
Melchitte peered in. “There you are.” He surveyed the table. “Pig!”
“‘Waste not, want not,’ my mommy always says.”
Pigface sneered. “And a sweet, dutiful little lad you are, too. Well, bastard, I was told you are to be treated well. Mind your manners and we’ll agree on what that means. Otherwise, I win the argument. Don’t try to escape. You know warbeasts can follow a scent? And outrun a chariot? And you know what usually happens when a pack runs down its quarry?”
Chies tried cute. “Please, my lord! I’ve just eaten! Besides, why should I want to escape? The food here’s better than the palace’s. I’ll need a girl in a day or two, but it’s not urgent yet… unless you have a spare one lying around?”
Melchitte laughed and went away. Rebel Werists were much the same sort of louts as the Vigaelian ones Chies had cultivated for years. Talk dirty and they would eat out of your hand.
He decided to go and lie down. Thanks to the chains, he had not had a decent sleep in days, nor nights either, and he was very full. And drunk. But when he reached his room he was still sober enough to take the key out of the door and hide it under a loose floor tile.
The next day, after his stomach settled, he mooched around the complex, had a swim, inspected the llamoid pens, and took a very brief look at the pile of corpses that the Heroes called the bird feeder. Bored, he began chatting up Werists. Among four sixty men some would be susceptible to the smiles of a winsome lad, and he soon
