Mother of Lies Read Online Free PDF Page B

making him, my lady. Letting him, perhaps. It seems to help him.”
    “Leave us. I will speak to your superior later.”
    The boy carefully laid the patient’s hand on the bedding and rose. The light fell on his face for the first time and she saw that it was wet with tears, his eyes raw with weeping. Shaken by that, she took the stool he had vacated and put her lamp on the table. He bowed and withdrew.
    “Where have they gone?”
    Piero’s quiet whisper startled her, it was so clear. His eyes were open, but still unfocused.
    “Bring them back!” He frowned at her—puzzled, dazed.
    “Bring who, dear?”
    The Mutineer was in the city, but Piero could not advise her now. At first one brief Nulist treatment a day had sufficed to hold the pain at bay, but now he could only snatch a few lucid moments before it returned. She should not have come here to trouble him. Yet if she had not come, she would not have stumbled upon that boy engaged in whatever foul experimentation he had been up to.
    “The children!” Piero closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he was conscious, smiling at her. “Dreaming. I was dreaming the children were coming home.”
    Unlike the Nulist, she had no tears left to shed. “I’m sure they won’t be long now, dearest. It must be a year since Stralg promised to send for them.” Only an incorrigibly bewildered imbecile would trust a word that monster said.
    “They are all grownup now, you know.”
    She nodded. Twelve have mercy! Fifteen years gone. Fifteen years lost. Even if they still lived, what would they care for Celebre? Or Florengia? Or her. “Fabia must be a young woman?”
    “A beautiful one.” He sighed.
    “What did she look like—in your dream?”
    “In my dream … very like you, my dear, at her age. Your fierce eyes. I always liked your eyes.”
    “That wasn’t what you told me you liked.”
    “In public I said eyes.” He smiled. “You should see Benard! So strong-looking.” He smiled. “Just a dream, but vivid! They were coming in a boat, can you imagine? Over the Edge in a boat! Benard was always the artistic one. He’s a sculptor now, got his shoulders chipping marble, he said. In my dream he did, I mean. Remember we used to say Orlando was the fighter?”
    No, she just remembered the terrible day when they had been stolen—Stralg holding out his hands to the toddler and Orlando, too young to understand evil, going to him. Dantio had been staring in horror, Benard hiding his face in her skirts, Fabia fretting, wanting to suck. She could not imagine Fabia as an adolescent, nor even Dantio as a grown man.
    “Brass collar,” Piero muttered, frowning. “And Dantio … great sorrow there, my dear. Great wisdom. I always said he’d make a fine tégale player, remember? They were speaking with me. Asking …” He winced. His face was so shrunken and skeletal that it seemed to be all teeth and gaping eye sockets. He drew a deep breath. “Asking who was going to …” Gasp! “… succeed me.”
    “And who did you tell them?”
    The dead man’s vote, they called it. A doge’s designation of his heir counted as one vote in the council, no more, no less, but only very rarely in the history of Celebre had the elders overruled the dead man’s wishes. Piero had made no testament because he did not know which, if any, of his children still lived. He shook his head, unable to speak. His skull face shone with sweat. The pain was back already, tearing at him.
    She rose and went from the room, almost running into the young Mercy in the corridor, waiting for the call. He hurried over to the bed, clasping the patient’s hand even before he sat down. In a few moments Piero was sleeping peacefully again.
    In a few more moments the Nulist was able to glance around at Oliva, who stood by the door.
    “I am sorry I spoke harshly,” she said. “Your name?”
    “Luigo, my lady.”
    “Thank you, Brother Luigo. Whatever you were doing made him very happy. Please