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Werists call me ‘the Little Fist’!” Even more than dagger-wearing, his chumminess with the garrison had been a source of family friction. Practicing his Vigaelian, he’d called it. She’d thought they were just loose company. So now she knew better. If the ice devils saw him as the bloodlord’s son they might even start taking his orders, and then Chies would be dangerous .
    “It’s the council that matters.”
    “Piero never denied me!” Chies shouted and stopped walking. “They won’t!”
    She turned to face him, feeling as if she were drowning. Why had she never guessed he would aspire to the coronet? Was that why he had been on his best behavior lately?
    “The last time Stralg …” She began again. “ Your father carried me away by force and kept me for seven sixdays as his prisoner and plaything. He raped me, abused me, even stole the babe from my breast. The day he released me he told me that the seers said I was carrying his child and it was a boy. He said he still had my four children as hostage and I was to carry you to term and Piero was to raise you as his own, or else he’d send orders and all four would die.”
    Stralg’s son shrugged. “So he hadn’t any choice.”
    Why should the boy be grateful?
    “Piero? Yes, Piero had a choice, because I never told him what Stralg said. He knew you weren’t his, but you were mine, and you were innocent of the crime, so he let you live. He reared you and loved you. When you were lovable.”
    At once she wished she hadn’t said that last thing, but it was too late to take it back. If anything, Chies had been too lovable. With the others gone, he’d been all they had, and they had spoiled him horribly. Now their weakness was about to bear terrible fruit.
    A stray gust puffed out the flame on her lamp.
    “But you just admitted,” Stralg’s voice resonated in the darkness, “that the Fist made me because he wanted me. Obviously he wanted me so I can be doge and rule Celebre for him.”
    No. Stralg had just wanted to show his contempt for Piero by sending her home bearing his bastard, but she could never tell Chies that.
    He said, “The council knows what’s good for it. They’ll do what my real father tells it to do, just like that milksop husband of yours always did.” The hated voice suddenly turned squeaky. “My real father will tell them to elect me! And if you really try hard and behave yourself in future , I may let you take men to your room!”
    While she was still floundering to find a suitable retort, any retort, she remembered that she was on her way to meet with Marno Cavotti. If Chies Stralgson caught the merest hint of a suspicion of a rumor that the Mutineer was in the palace, he would be across the road to the Vigaelian barracks to claim the notorious reward, faster than a thunderbolt.
    Without another word, he turned and ran. She caught a brief glimpse of his gangling form against a glow at the end of the concourse as he ran around the corner into the Hall of Pillars.
    The storm was moving on. One of the great shutters in the colonnade had been unlatched and moved aside to admit glimmers of gray light and wafts of steamy air. The rain on the terrace outside had dwindled to a drizzle. Forcing herself to move no faster than usual, Oliva swept across to join the three men standing there.
    Silvery robe, silver hair—the one holding the lamp was Master Dicerno, and beside him stood Chies in loincloth and glints of silver. He was as tall as the preceptor, but he looked like a child alongside the third man. Werists were chosen for their size in adolescence and kept on growing—a little larger every time they battleformed, it was said.
    As she arrived at the group, she was shocked to realize that the third man wore a Nulist robe. The cowl covered his head and shoulders leaving only his face exposed, so it was one of the very few garments that would hide a brass collar, but it seemed especial blasphemy for a Hero to pose as a Mercy. All