Mother of Lies Read Online Free PDF

Oliva’s—and perhaps not of her own son, either.
    Shivering, she nodded. “Bring him. I will receive him here, if that is what he wants.”
    On this she must seek Piero’s advice and instructions. As she hurried through the drafty halls, she prayed to holy Sinura that he would be well enough to give them. She went alone, bearing a single oil lamp on the palm of one hand and sheltering its tiny flame with the other. Two years ago she would have moved within an entourage of ladies-in-waiting and flunkies carrying lights, but as Piero’s health had failed, their state had dwindled. That was mostly her doing. She feared all courtiers now, imagining their sneering amusement that Assichie-Celebre thought she could run the city, their hints that the council must appoint a regent in her place, or the blood-lord would soon impose a new doge of his own choosing. Convinced that the people were better off not knowing how near to death their lord was when all rightful heirs were still far away in Vigaelia, she had steadily shed attendants, as if the court itself was dying. At times she felt like the last inhabitant of the palace, or even of the city.
    The official ducal sleeping chamber was spectacular, a treasure hall where doges were supposedly born, fathered heirs, and died, but Piero had never used it. It made him feel like an exhibit in a museum, he said. He and Oliva had slept in what were officially guest quarters, and quite opulent enough. One of the larger rooms had now been turned into a sanctuary of Nula and stank of the godswood being burned before holy images. Although at first glance it seemed almost deserted, it contained four Nulists, two nurses, and a trio of palace flunkies, several of whom were stretched out on the great sleeping platform, dozing. Obviously they had not expected the dogaressa to return tonight. The senior Mercy—a large, matronly woman distinguished by a white cowl—knelt in prayer before an altar of holy Nula. The rest were watching a tégale game; players and audience scrambled to their feet as Oliva entered. Without comment, she swept on through, into the short corridor that led to more intimate chambers, one of which had been converted into Piero’s sickroom. He had always hated dying in public, he said.
    Hearing her husband’s voice, she stopped in the doorway, sudden anger flaring—she had repeatedly stressed that they were to summon her at once if he rallied. The chamber was small and simple, but all the banked flowers along the far wall could not hide a sour scent of death. The dying man lay on rugs on a portable cot, his face ochre in the spectral lamplight. Never a large man, Piero now seemed wizened and discolored like last year’s apples.
    Another Mercy, dark-robed and cowled, sat on a stool beside him, holding his hand, listening to his raspy whisper winding on and on. Oliva moved softly closer, straining to hear what state secrets he might be revealing. The words were not in Florengian. Nor, she realized, were they anything like the fragments of Vigaelian she had learned during her captivity.
    “What?”
    The Nulist jumped and looked around. Oliva was accustomed to Mercies being elderly people, but that might be because they usually sent only their most senior members to solace a doge. The face inside the cowl this time was that of a boy, startled by her silent approach. He looked barely older than Chies.
    “What is he talking about?”
    The youth smiled the typical sad smile of a Nulist. He had mastered that at least, even if he was only a second-string beginner given a try at night duty when the dogaressa wasn’t around to notice. “Nothing, my lady. It is only babbling.”
    He murmured something to the patient and patted his hand. Piero fell silent.
    Oliva did not know—probably no extrinsic knew—how much of the Nulists’ comfort came directly from the goddess and how much the cultists themselves controlled. “Were you making him do that? How dare you!”
    “Not