The Chernagor Pirates (6 page)

From out of the mist ahead came a shout. “Who goes there?” Grus needed a moment to realize the call was in Avornan, which meant it had to have come from the throat of one of his own scouts. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. He hated fighting from horseback. Whether he hated it or not, though, it was enormously preferable to getting killed out of hand.

An answering shout came back. Grus did some muttering and mumbling of his own. The fog played tricks with sound as well as with sight. Not only did he fail to make out any words in that answer, he couldn't even tell in what language it had been. Logically, those had to be Chernagors out there … didn't they?
What do you expect?
he asked himself.
Menteshe to spring out of nowhere, here, hundreds of miles from their land?

He wished he hadn't just thought that the Banished One might work miracles.

But it wasn't the Banished One. A couple of minutes later, the scout came back to the main body of the Avornan army. “Your Majesty! Your Majesty! We've met Prince Vsevolod and his men!”

For a moment, Grus took that for good news. Then, realizing what it was likely to mean, he cursed furiously. “Why isn't Vsevolod in Nishevatz, by the gods?” he demanded.

The answer was what he'd feared. The scout said, “Because Prince Vasilko's cast him out.” Grus cursed again. He'd come too late. The man the Banished One backed had seized the city.

CHAPTER THREE

The more Lanius thought about it, the more he wondered why on earth he'd ever wanted to rule Avornis. Too much was happening too fast, and not enough of it was good. Prince Ulash's ambassador now waited in a hostel only a couple of blocks from the royal palace. Lanius didn't want to have anything to do with the fellow, whose name was Farrukh-Zad. The king had sent quiet orders to delay the envoy's arrival as much as possible. He'd hoped Grus would get back and deal with the fellow. But Grus had troubles of his own in the north.

His father-in-law couldn't do much about the Menteshe while he was campaigning up in the Chernagor country. And the news Grus sent back from the north wasn't good. About half the Chernagors seemed to welcome Avornan soldiers with open arms. The other half seemed just as ready to fight them to the death. Maybe that showed the hand of the Banished One. Maybe it just showed that the Chernagors didn't welcome invaders of any sort.

And
the palace still buzzed with whatever had happened or might have happened or someone imagined had happened between Prince Ortalis and a serving girl (or two or three serving girls, depending on who was telling the story and sometimes on who was listening). Lanius hadn't yet sent Grus that delightful news. His father-in-law was already worrying about enough other things.

Sighing because things had fallen into
his
lap, Lanius decked himself in his most splendid robes. The sunlight pouring through an open window gleamed and sparkled off pearls and jewels and gold thread running through the scarlet silk. Admiring him, Sosia said, “You look magnificent.”

“I don't feel any too magnificent.” Lanius picked up the heavy crown and set it on his head. “And I'll have a stiff neck tomorrow, on account of this miserable thing.”

“Would you rather you didn't wear it?” his wife asked sharply.

“No,” he admitted. His laugh was rueful. Up until now, he'd chafed at being king in name without being king in fact. Now, with Grus away, what he said did matter, and he felt that weight of responsibility much more than he'd expected to. He went on, “And I have to keep the Menteshe from noticing anything is bothering me. That should be … interesting all by itself.”

But sitting on the Diamond Throne and looking down the length of the throne room helped steady him. He
was
king. Farrukh-Zad was only an ambassador. Whatever happened, he would soon go back to the south. Lanius laughed again, there on the throne.
No matter what kind of a mess I make of this meeting, Grus is the one who'll have to pay the price.

Courtiers stared at him. But then the guardsmen in front of the throne stiffened to alertness, and Lanius pulled his face straight. Prince Ulash's ambassador advanced up the long central aisle of the throne room. He strode with a conqueror's arrogance. That clumping march would have seemed even more impressive had he not been badly bowlegged. He was swarthy and hook-nosed, with a black mustache and a hawk's glittering black eyes in a forward-thrusting face sharp as the blade of an ax. He wore a fur cap, a fur jacket, and trousers of sueded leather. A saffron cloak streamed out behind him.

Three other Menteshe followed in his wake, but Lanius hardly noticed them. Farrukh-Zad was the man who counted.
And doesn't he know it?
Lanius thought. Just seeing the Menteshe was plenty to make Lanius' bodyguards take half a step out from the throne toward him. Farrukh-Zad noticed as much, too, and smiled as though they'd paid him a compliment. To his way of thinking, they probably had.

When Prince Ulash's envoy reached the throne, he bowed so low, he made a mockery of the ceremony. “Greetings, Your Majesty,” he said in excellent Avornan. “May peace lie between us.”

“Yes. May there be peace indeed,” Lanius replied. Even polite ritual had its place. It was no more than polite ritual. He and Farrukh-Zad surely both knew as much. Ulash's Menteshe and Avornis might not fight every year, but there was no peace between them, any more than there was peace between the gods and the Banished One.

Farrukh-Zad bowed again, even more sardonically than before. “I bring greetings, Your Majesty, from my sovereign, Prince Ulash, and from his sovereign.…” He did not name the Banished One, but he came close enough to make an angry murmur run through the throne room. Then he went on, “They send their warmest regards to you, King Lanius, and to your sovereign.…” He did not name King Grus, either, but the salutation was no less insulting on account of that.

He is trying to provoke me,
Lanius thought, and then,
He is doing a good job.
“I
am
King of Avornis,” he remarked.

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Farrukh-Zad said, in a tone that could only mean,
Of course
not,
Your Majesty.

“For example,” Lanius continued, affecting to ignore that tone, “if I were to order you seized and your head struck off for insolence, I would have no trouble getting my guards to obey me.”

Farrukh-Zad jerked, as though something had bitten him. So did one of his retainers.
That may be the wizard,
Lanius thought. His own stood in courtier's clothing close by the throne. The Menteshe ambassador said, “If you did, that would mean war between Avornis and my folk.”

“True,” Lanius agreed. “But I have two things to say there. First is, you would not see the war, no matter how it turned out. And second, when Prince Evren's Menteshe invaded Avornis last year, they hurt themselves more than they hurt us.”

“Prince Ulash is not Prince Evren,” Farrukh-Zad said. “Where his riders range, no crops ever grow again.”

“That must make life difficult in Ulash's realm,” King Lanius said. “Perhaps if his riders bathed more often, they would not have the problem.”

Avornan courtiers tittered. Farrukh-Zad was not swarthy enough to keep an angry flush of his own from showing on his cheeks. He gave Lanius a thin smile. “Your Majesty is pleased to make a joke.”

“As you were earlier,” Lanius replied. “Shall we both settle down to business now, and speak of what Prince Ulash wants of me, and of Avornis?”

Before answering, Farrukh-Zad gave him a long, measuring stare. “Things are not quite as I was led to believe.” He sounded accusing.

“Life is full of surprises,” Lanius said. “I ask once more, shall we go on?”

“Maybe we had better.” Farrukh-Zad turned and spoke in a low voice with one of the other Menteshe—the one who had started when Lanius warned him.
They expected me to be less than I am,
Lanius thought.
That must be why the embassy came when Grus was away. I've surprised them.
That was a compliment—of sorts. The ambassador gave his attention back to the king. “In the name of my sovereign, Prince Ulash, I ask you what Avornis intends to do with the thralls who have left his lands and come to those you rule.”

“Do you also ask that in the name of Prince Ulash's sovereign?” Lanius inquired, partly to jab Farrukh-Zad again, partly because he did want to know. Thralls—the descendants of the Avornan farmers who'd worked the southern lands before the Menteshe conquered them—were less than full men, only a little more than barnyard animals, thanks to spells from the Banished One. Every so often, thralls escaped those dark spells and fled. Every so often, too, the Banished One and the Menteshe used thralls who feigned escaping those spells as spies and assassins.

Again Farrukh-Zad conferred with his henchman before answering. “I am Ulash's ambassador,” he said, but his hesitation gave the words the lie. “These thralls are Ulash's people.”

“When they wake up, they have a different opinion,” Lanius said dryly. He wished Avornan wizards had had better luck with spells that could liberate a thrall from his bondage. The Banished One's sorceries, though, were stronger than those of any mere mortals. If all of Avornis fell to the Menteshe, would everyone in the kingdom fall into thralldom? The thought made Lanius shudder.

Farrukh-Zad said, “You have in your hands—you have in this very palace—many who fled without awakening. What do you say of them?”

“Yes, we do,” Lanius agreed. “One of them tried to kill me this past winter, while another tried to kill King Grus. We hold your sovereign's sovereign to blame for that.”

“You are unjust,” the Menteshe envoy said.

“I doubt it,” Lanius said. “Thralls who stay thralls usually stay on the land. Why would these men have crossed the Stura River into Avornis, if not through the will of the Banished One?”
There,
he thought.
Let Farrukh-Zad know I'm not
—
much—afraid to speak his master's name.

Now the ambassador's companion leaned forward to speak to him. Nodding, Farrukh-Zad said, “If you admit that these men belong to the Fallen Star, then you must also admit you should return them to him.”

Lanius would sooner have been pawing through the archives than playing verbal cut-and-thrust with a tool of a tool of the Banished One. No help for it, though. He said, “I did not admit that. I said the Banished One had compelled them to cross the river. Compulsion is not the same as ownership, and certainly not the same as right.”

“You refuse to give them back, then?” Farrukh-Zad's voice was silky with danger.

Avornan wizards still studied the thralls, learning what they could from them. Maybe the Banished One wanted them back because he was afraid the wizards would find out something important. Maybe. Lanius didn't know what the odds were, but he could only hope. “I do,” he said. “As long as they have done no wrong in Avornis, they may stay here.”

“I shall take your words back to Prince Ulash,” the envoy said. “Do not believe you have heard the last of this. You have not.” His last bow held enough polite irony to satisfy even the most exacting Avornan courtier. Having given it, he didn't wait for any response, or even dismissal, from King Lanius, but simply turned and strode out of the throne room, the other Menteshe in his wake.

Lanius stared after him. He'd always thought about the power that went with being king in fact as well as in name. As he began to use it, he saw that worry went with the job, too.

Riding as usual at the head of his army, Grus got his first good look at Nishevatz. Seeing the town did not delight him. If anything, it horrified him. “Olor's beard, Hirundo, how are we supposed to take that place?” he yelped.

“Good question, Your Majesty,” his general replied. “Maybe the defenders inside will laugh themselves to death when they see we're crazy enough to try to winkle them out.”

It wasn't quite as bad as that, but it wasn't good. Nishevatz had originally been a small island a quarter of a mile or so off the coast of the mainland. Before the Chernagors took the northern coast away from Avornis, the townsfolk had built a causeway from the shore to the island. The slow wheel of centuries since had seen silt widen the causeway from a road to a real neck of land. Even so, the approach remained formidable.

King Grus tried to make the best of things, saying, “Well, if it were easy, Vsevolod wouldn't have needed to ask us for help.”

“Huzzah,” Hirundo said sourly. “He was still in charge of things when he did ask us here, remember. He's not anymore.”

“I know. We'll have to see what we can do about that.” He called to Vsevolod, who rode in the middle of a small party of Chernagor noblemen not far away. “Your Highness!”

“What you want, Your Majesty?” Vsevolod spoke Avornan with a thick, guttural accent. He was about sixty, with thinning white hair, bushy eyebrows, and an enormous hooked nose.

“Do you know any secret ways into your city?” Grus asked. “We could use one about now, you know.”

“I know some, yes. I use one to get away,” Vsevolod replied.

“Vasilko know most of these, too, though. I show him, so he get away if he ever have trouble when he ruling prince. I not show him this one, in case
I
have trouble.” He jabbed a large, callused thumb—more the thumb of a fisherman or metalworker than that of a ruling prince—at his own broad chest.

“Can an army use it, or just one man?” Grus asked.

The ousted ruler ran a hand through his long, curly beard. A couple of white hairs clung to his fingers. He brushed his hand against his kilt to dislodge them. “Would not be easy for army,” he said at last. “Passage is narrow. Few men could hold it against host.”

“Does Vasilko know
how
you got out? Or does he just know
that
you did?”