Authors: Dan Chernenko
He didn't presume to mention his ambition to Estrilda. He knew what she would say. He knew she would be right, too.
All he did say was, "I want to be as good a king as I can."
"Well, all right," Estrilda said reasonably. "When things are going on, you should deal with them. And you do - you landed on Pandion like a falling tree last year. But why should you run around and wave your arms and get all excited when nothing's happening that you need to worry about?"
"Because something may be going on behind the scenes," Grus replied. "If I deal with little troubles now, they won't turn into big ones later."
"If you get all upset over nothing, you may make what was a little problem get bigger in a hurry," his wife pointed out, which was also more reasonable than Grus wished it were. "Besides, you said it yourself - there aren't any problems right now."
"There aren't any I can see," Grus said. "That doesn't mean there aren't any at all."
"How do you know it doesn't?" Estrilda asked. "Everything
I
know about seems fine, anyhow." By the way she said it, that proved her point.
Sometimes - far more often than not - a man who grumbled about the way things were was stuck with them, because they wouldn't change. And when they did, he often found himself wishing they hadn't. Knowing when to be content with what you had was something Grus had never mastered.
Only a couple of weeks after he complained to Estrilda about how quiet everything was, a messenger came up from the south - from the Stura River, the border between Avornis and the lands of the Menteshe. "Something strange is afoot, Your Majesty," he said.
"Something strange is always afoot along the border," Grus answered. "I ought to know - I put in enough time down there in my younger days. What is it now?"
"Your Majesty, I'll tell you exactly what's afoot," the messenger answered. "The nomads' thralls are afoot, that's what. They're coming over the Stura into our lands down there by the hundreds, more of'em every day."
"What?" Grus scratched his head. "But that's crazy. Thralls don't do things like that." Being content with their lot - or perhaps just unable to imagine anything different - was a big part of what made the thralls of the Menteshe so terrifying to ordinary men, to whole men. Grus went on, "When one thrall wakes up and gets away, that's unusual." It was so very unusual, it often meant the "awakened" thrall was in fact not awakened at all, but a spy for the Menteshe and the Banished One. "Hundreds?" Grus said. "That hardly seems possible."
"It's true, though," the messenger said. "What are we going to do with them if they keep coming? How are we going to feed them?"
Grus had a more basic worry. "Why are they doing it?" he asked.
"No one knows, Your Majesty," the man from the south replied. "Some of them are thralls still, even on our side of the river. The rest have no memory of who they were or why they came over the border."
"Isn't that interesting?" Grus whistled tunelessly. He asked the messenger a few more questions, then sent him away to a barracks from which he could be summoned in a hurry at need.
The first thing he did after that was give Lanius the news. "How very peculiar," his son-in-law said when he'd finished.
"Then you've never heard of anything like this?" Grus knew he sounded disappointed; he expected Lanius to know about such things.
But the younger king shook his head. "No, never," he answered in a low, troubled voice. "We'd better try to find out about it, don't you think?"
"Yes, I think that would be a good idea," Grus said. "It's sorcery from the Banished One that makes thralls, and also sorcery from him that lets some of them seem to break free and come into Avornis to spy on us."
"This doesn't sound like either of those things," Lanius observed.
"It has to be sorcery of some sort, don't you think?" Grus said. "What else could make thralls change their ways? They don't do that by accident."
"They never have, anyhow," Lanius said.
"I'll summon Alca the witch," Grus said. "She's seen the Banished One face-to-face in dreams, the same as we have. If anybody can get to the bottom of it, she's the one." Lanius raised an eyebrow. Grus looked back at him, waiting to see if he would say anything. He didn't. Grus added, "I think I'd better go down to the south myself, to see with my own eyes what's going on. This is far enough out of the ordinary that I don't want to rely on secondhand reports."
Lanius raised both eyebrows this time. He said, "It's ... unusual for the King of Avornis to leave the capital when not on campaign."
"Maybe it shouldn't be." Grus eyed his son-in-law. Could Lanius organize a coup while he was out of the city? That would be reason enough to keep him from going. He shook his head. Lanius might not - surely did not - like him. But his son-in-law didn't have nearly enough backing among the soldiers to overthrow him. Grus made it his business to know such things. He glanced over to Lanius again. He was quite sure the other king knew it, too.
By the way Lanius looked back at him, the younger man was making the same calculation and, to his own dismay, coming to the same conclusions. "Perhaps you're right," Lanius said at last. "Some things do indeed need to be seen at first hand. And you'll be a grandfather again by the time you get back."
"Yes." Grus nodded. "I don't want my grandchildren to have to worry about being made into thralls themselves. That's why I'm going." He waited for Lanius to tell him he was being foolish or was exaggerating the problem. Lanius said nothing of the sort. That made Grus wonder whether, instead of exaggerating, he was underestimating whatever was going on in the south.
Well
, he thought,
I'll find out
.
King Lanius watched King Grus and Alca sail south on a river galley. Grus' retinue of guards and secretaries and servants crowded not only that galley but the one that sailed with it. A king couldn't go anywhere without an appropriate retinue. Lanius took that for granted. It sometimes seemed to chafe Grus.
As his river galley sailed away, Grus stood at the stern by the steersman - the position of command. Anyone looking at him would have guessed he'd been a river-galley skipper before taking the throne. Alca stood at the bow, with one hand on the sternpost, looking ahead to the mystery of the south. Though the galley was crowded, no one seemed to think it wise to come near the witch. She had a little space all her own.
Beside Lanius, Sosia said, "I do wonder what's going on down there. I hope it isn't a trap to lure Father into danger."
"With all the men he's taking, he could smash just about any trap," Lanius said.
"Yes, that's so." Sosia looked relieved.
Lanius knew there was something he hadn't said. He thought Grus and the soldiers with him could defeat a Menteshe ambush. Whether Grus and Alca could defeat a sorcerous onslaught from the Banished One, though, might be a different question. The king and the witch had paid each other next to no notice as they went aboard the river galley and took their separate places. Lanius scratched his head. He knew he wasn't understanding something. He wasn't sure what he was missing, which only made him the more curious.
But then Sosia said, "I want to go back to the palace." She set both hands on her swollen belly.
"All right." Lanius was getting tired of seeing Grus off, but preferred staying home himself.
As they returned, they found Anser and Ortalis arguing in a hallway just inside the entrance. Grus' bastard was shaking his head and saying, "No, we can't do that. That isn't hunting, by the gods!"
"What would you call it, then?" Ortalis seemed genuinely amazed his half brother didn't care for what he thought of as fine sport.
"Murder is the word that springs to mind," the young Arch-Hallow of Avornis answered.
That was enough - more than enough - to draw Lanius' attention. Hunting interested him not at all. Something that might be murder was a different story. "What's going on here?" he asked, as casually as he could.
"Nothing," Ortalis said quickly. "Nothing at all."
"It didn't sound like nothing to me," Lanius said.
"It didn't sound like nothing to me, either," Anser added.
Sosia nodded. "Come on, Ortalis - out with it," she said.
Prince Ortalis gave his sister a harried look. "Oh, all right," he muttered. "Regular hunting's all very well, but after a while it gets ... boring, you know what I mean? I was looking for a way to spice it up. That's all I was doing. Olor's beard, everyone makes such a fuss about every little thing I say."
"What exactly
did
you say?" Lanius asked.
Ortalis pinched his lips together and didn't reply. "If you don't tell him, I will," Anser said.
That drew another glare from King Grus' legitimate son. "Oh, all right," he said again. "I got tired of chasing boar and deer and rabbits, that's all. I was wondering what it would be like to hunt some worthless man."
"And
kill
him?" Lanius said in rising horror. Hunting might have sated Ortalis' bloodlust for a while. Clearly, it hadn't gotten rid of that taste for cruelty altogether.
"Well, if he deserved it," Ortalis answered. "If he was a condemned criminal, say. He'd have it coming to him then."
"I don't think anybody deserves being hunted to death," Lanius said.
"I don't, either," Sosia said. "And I'm sure Father wouldn't. You know that, too, don't you?"
By Ortalis' fierce scowl, he knew it all too well. "Nobody wants me to have any fun!" he shouted.
"That isn't the only kind of
fun
you were talking about," Anser said.
"I was joking!" Ortalis said. "Can't anybody tell when I'm joking?"
"Hunting men was one thing, you said," Anser went on, "but hunting women - "
"I was joking!"
Ortalis screamed. Servants stared at him. All through the palace, far out of sight, heads must have whipped around at that cry. Lanius was as sure of it as of his own name. He'd heard some things about Ortalis and serving girls. He didn't know whether he believed them, but he'd heard them. He didn't
want
to believe them - he did know that.
Sosia said, "If Father ever finds out about this, Ortalis - "
"He won't, if you can keep your big fat mouth shut," her brother whispered furiously. "And you'd better, because I
was
just joking."
"We'll make a bargain with you," Lanius said. Beside him, Sosia stirred, but she kept silent. Anser just nodded, waiting to hear what Lanius would propose. He went on, "Here - this is it. We won't tell Grus anything about this, as long as you promise never even to talk about hunting people again, men or women, joking or not. Is that a deal?"
Ortalis looked as though he'd bitten into something nasty. "Everybody gets so excited about every stupid little thing," he muttered.
"Is it a deal?" Lanius asked again.
"Oh, all right." His brother-in-law still looked and sounded disgusted at the world.
"Promise, then," Lanius said.
"Promise in the holy names of King Olor and Queen Quelea and all the other gods in the heavens," Anser added. To Lanius' surprise, King Grus' bastard son could sound like a proper, holy Arch-Hallow of Avornis after all.
Ortalis blinked. Evidently, he hadn't thought Anser could sound like a proper, holy arch-hallow, either. He coughed a couple of times, but finally nodded. "By Olor and Quelea and the other gods, I promise," he choked out.
"The gods hold your words," Anser said. "If you break your promise, they will make you pay. It may not be soon, it may not be the way you expect, but they will make you pay." He nodded to Ortalis, then to Lanius and Sosia, and walked out of the palace, his crimson robes flapping around him.
"I don't know why he started having kittens. I was only joking," Ortalis said. Neither his sister nor his brother-in-law answered. He said something else, something pungent, under his breath and went off in a hurry, his shoulders hunched, his face pinched with the fury he had to hold in for once and couldn't loose on the world around him.
Quietly, Sosia said, "You did well there."
"Did I?" Lanius shrugged. "I don't know. He can't hunt people. I do know that. The rest?" He shrugged again. "Maybe we should tell your father. But maybe Ortalis really was joking. Who can say?"
His wife sighed. "He wasn't joking. You know it as well as I do. He'll do whatever he thinks he can get away with. If he decides he can't get away with hunting people for sport, he won't do it. I hope to the heavens he won't do it, anyhow."
"He won't do it with Anser, that's certain," Lanius said. "More to him than I thought there was. I'm glad to see it." He'd been scandalized when Grus named his illegitimate son Arch-Hallow of Avornis. But if Anser could sound like a proper arch-hallow, maybe he could do everything else a proper arch-hallow needed to do, too. Lanius dared hope.
By the way Sosia sounded, so did she. "I thought I'd despise Anser - after all, I don't like to think about Father running around on Mother, any more than I'd care to think of you running around on me. But I don't. The more I see him, the better I like him."
"Yes, the same with me," Lanius answered. He didn't say anything about running around on Sosia. He hadn't, not yet. But he had noticed a serving woman or two casting glances his way. He could do something about that if he ever decided he wanted to. Even if the palace held a new royal bastard afterward, Grus would hardly be in a position to criticize him.
Lanius laughed, though it wasn't really funny. If Grus wanted to criticize him - or to do worse than that to him - he would. That was what being King of Avornis - being the King of Avornis with the real power in the land - meant. Grus wouldn't need reason or right on his side, only strength. And strength, without a doubt, he had. If anyone in the kingdom was in the position to appreciate the difference between rank and strength, Lanius knew all too well he was the man.
"I don't much care for this country," Alca said as the river galley drew up to a pier in Cumanus. "It's warmer than it ought to be at this season of the year. The soil's the wrong color. People have funny accents, too. And they go around looking nervous all the time."