The Chernagor Pirates (9 page)

“Here is your rightful prince!” Grus said again. “Cast down the ungrateful, unnatural son who has stolen your throne. Do you want the servants of the Banished One loose in your land? That is what Vasilko will give you.”

Vsevolod strode forward. Despite his years, he still stood very straight, very erect. He looked every inch a prince. He shouted up at the warriors on the wall. He surely knew a lot of them as men, not merely as Chernagors.

“What does he say?” Grus asked the interpreter.

“He says he will not punish them if they yield up Vasilko to him,” the Chernagor answered. “He says he knows they were fooled. He says he will not even kill Vasilko. He says he will send him into exile in Avornis, where he can learn the error of his ways.”

“Hmm.” Grus wondered how Vsevolod had meant that. He didn't much want Vasilko in his kingdom, not even in the Maze. But he supposed Vsevolod was doing the best he could. If the old man had promised to torture his son to death the minute he got his throne back, which of them was really likely to have fallen under the influence of the Banished One?

That thought brought on another.
How do I know Vasilko really is the man the Banished One backs?
Grus wondered. He sent Vsevolod a sudden hard stare. He'd always believed the old lord of Nishevatz. Why would Vsevolod have summoned him up to the Chernagor country, if not to fight the forces of the Banished One? Why?
What if the answer is, to lure me into a danger I can't hope to escape?

“He is calling on them to open the gates,” the interpreter said. Grus knew he'd missed a couple of sentences. That jolt of suspicion had driven everything else out of his mind for a moment. The older he got, the more complicated life looked. He eyed Vsevolod again. By the time he got
that
old, how would things seem? Would he be able to find any straight paths at all, or would every choice twist back on itself like a snake with indigestion? The interpreter added, “He says he will not harm any of them, if they return to his side now. He also says you Avornans will go home then.”

“Yes, that's true.” Grus saw no point to putting a permanent garrison in Nishevatz. That would just embroil him in a war against all the other Chernagor city-states. Unless he aimed to conquer this whole stretch of coast, seizing a little of it would be more trouble than it was worth.

Vsevolod called to the men on the wall one more time. The interpreter said, “He asks them, what is their answer?”

They did not keep him waiting long. Almost as one man, they drew their bows and started shooting at him and Grus and their companions. The guardsmen threw up their shields.

Thock! Thock! Thock!
Arrows thudded into metal-faced wood. A softer splat was an arrow striking flesh rather than a shield. A guard gasped, trying to hold in the pain. Then, failing, he howled.

Guards and the royalty they guarded got out of range as fast as they could. Avornan archers rushed forward to shoot back at the Chernagors on the walls. Grus doubted they hit many, but maybe they did make the Chernagors keep their heads down. That would at least spoil the foe's aim.

After what seemed like forever but couldn't have been more than half a minute, the arrows the Chernagors kept shooting thudded into the ground behind Grus, and not into shields or flesh. He wasn't ashamed to let out a sigh of relief. He turned to Vsevolod and asked, “Are you all right?”

Panting, the deposed lord of Nishevatz nodded. “Only—winded. I am not—as swift—as I used to be.” He paused to catch his breath. “What will you do now?”

“Well, we've tried being sneaky, and that doesn't work,” Grus said. “We've tried being reasonable, and that didn't work, either. We can't very well starve them out, can we, not when they can bring in food by sea?”

“What does that leave?” Vsevolod asked morosely.

“Assaulting the walls,” Grus answered. He stared toward those walls again. The Chernagors were still trading arrows with his archers. They were getting the better of it, too; they had the advantage of height. Grus sighed. “Assaulting the walls,” he repeated, and sighed again. “And I hate to think about it, let alone try.”

Whenever Bubulcus saw King Lanius coming, he did his best to disappear. With one moncat still on the loose, that was wise of him. It wasn't wise enough, though. The longer Pouncer stayed missing, the angrier Lanius got. Had Bubulcus been truly wise, he would have fled the palace and not just ducked into another room or around the corner when the king drew near.

“One of these days,” Lanius told Sosia, “I am going to lose all of my temper, and I really will send that simpering simpleton to the Maze.”

“Go ahead,” his wife answered. “If you're going to act like a king, act like a
king.
”

The only trouble here was, acting like a king meant acting like an ogre. No matter how angry at Bubulcus Lanius got, at heart he remained a mild-mannered man better suited to scholarship than to ruling. He could too easily imagine what a disaster exiling Bubulcus would be to the servant's family. And so he muttered curses under his breath, and told himself he would condemn Bubulcus tomorrow, and then put it off for another day.

He left meat in places to which he hoped the moncat might come. A couple of times, the moncat did come to one of those places … and stole the meat and disappeared again before anybody could catch it. Bubulcus came very close to exile the first time that happened, very close indeed.

Lanius did his best to live his life as though nothing were wrong. He went into the archives, trying to find out as much as he could about Nishevatz and the Chernagors for Grus. He doubted his father-in-law would be grateful, but, grateful or not, Grus still might find the information worth having.

Of course, Lanius would have enjoyed going to the archives regardless of whether he found anything useful to Grus. He liked nothing better than poking around through old sheets of parchment. Whenever he did, he learned something. He had to keep reminding himself he was trying to find out about the Chernagors. Otherwise, he might have happily wandered down any of half a dozen sidetracks.

He also liked going into the archives for the same reason he liked caring for his animals—while he was doing it, people were unlikely to bother him. Palace servants weren't forbidden to come into the archives after him. Old tax records and ambassadors' reports, unlike moncats and monkeys, couldn't escape and cause trouble. But no one in the royal palace except Lanius seemed to want to venture into the dark, dusty chambers that held the records of Avornis' past.

When the Chernagors first descended on the north coast, Avornans had reacted with horror. Lanius already knew that. The Chernagors hadn't been merchant adventurers in those distant days. They'd been sea-raiders and corsairs. Lanius suspected—he was, in fact, as near sure as made no difference—they were still sea-raiders and corsairs whenever and wherever they could get away with it.

He'd just come across an interesting series of letters from an Avornan envoy who'd visited Nishevatz in the days of Prince Vsevolod's great-grandfather when a flash of motion caught from the corner of his eye made him look up. His first thought was that a servant had come into the archives after all. He saw no one, though.

“Who's there?” he called.

Only silence answered.

He suddenly realized his seclusion in the archives had disadvantages as well as advantages. If anything happened to him here, who would know? Who would come to his rescue? If an assassin came after him, with what could he fight back? The most lethal weapon he had was a bronze letter opener.

And if the Banished One had somehow learned he spent a lot of time alone in the archives … Unease turned to fear. A thrall under the spell of the Banished One had already tried to murder him while he was caring for his animals. Flinging a treaty in an assassin's face wouldn't work nearly as well as throwing a moncat had.

“Who's there?” This time, Lanius couldn't keep a wobble of alarm from his voice.

That alarm got worse when, again, no answer came back.

Slowly, fighting his fear, Lanius rose from the stool where he'd perched. He clutched the letter opener in his right hand. He was no warrior. He would never be a warrior. But he intended to put up as much of a fight as he could.

Another flash of motion, this one from behind a cabinet untidily full of officers' reports from a long-ago war against the Thervings. “Who's there?” Lanius demanded for a third time. “Come out. I see you.”
And oh, how I wish I didn't.

More motion—and, at last, a sound to go with it. “Mrowr?”

Lanius' joints felt all springy with relief. “Olor's beard!” he said, and then, “Come out of there, you stupid moncat!”

The moncat, of course, didn't. All Lanius could see of it now was the twitching tip of its tail. He hurried over to the oak cabinet. Any moment now, the moncat was only too likely to start scrambling up the wall, to somewhere too high for him to reach it.

He was, in fact, a little surprised it hadn't fled already. With his fear gone and his wits returning, he clucked as he did when he was about to feed the moncats. “Mrowr?” this one said again, now on a questioning note. He hoped it was hungry. Though mice skittered here and there through the royal palace, hunting them would surely be harder work than coming up to a dish and getting meat and offal. Wouldn't it?

“It's all right,” Lanius said soothingly, stepping around the cabinet. “It's not your fault. I'm not angry at you. I wouldn't mind booting that bungling Bubulcus into the middle of next month—no, I wouldn't mind that at all—but I'm not angry at you.”

There sat the moncat, staring up at him out of greenish-yellow eyes. It seemed to think it was in trouble no matter how soothingly he spoke, for it sat on its haunches clutching in its little clawed hands and feet an enormous wooden serving spoon it must have stolen from the kitchens. The spoon was at least as tall as the moncat, and that included the animal's tail.

“Why, you little thief!” Lanius burst out laughing. “If you went sneaking through the kitchens, maybe you're not so hungry after all.” He stooped to pick up the moncat.

It started to run away, but couldn't make itself let go of the prize it had stolen. It was much less agile trying to run with one hand and one foot still holding the spoon. Lanius scooped it up.

Still hanging on to the spoon, the moncat twisted and snapped. He smacked it on the nose. “Don't you bite me!” he said loudly. It subsided. Most of the moncats knew what that meant, because most of them had tried biting him at one time or another.

Feeling like a soldier who'd just finished a triumphant campaign, Lanius carried the moncat—and the spoon, which it refused to drop—back to its room. Once he'd returned it to its fellows, he sent a couple of servants after Bubulcus.

“Yes, Your Majesty?” Bubulcus asked apprehensively. Even servants rarely sounded apprehensive around Lanius. He savored Bubulcus' fear—and, savoring it, began to understand how an ordinary man could turn into a tyrant. Bubulcus went on, “Is it … is it the Maze for me?”

“No, not that you don't deserve it,” Lanius said. “I caught the missing moncat myself, so it isn't missing anymore. Next time, though, by the gods … There had better not be a next time for this, that's all. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, Your Majesty! Thank you, Your Majesty! Gods bless you, Your Majesty!” Blubbering, Bubulcus fell to his knees. Lanius turned away. Yes, he understood how a man could turn into a tyrant, all right.

The Chernagor stared at Grus. Words poured out of him, a great, guttural flood. They were in his own language, so Grus understood not a one of them. Turning to the interpreter, he asked, “What is he saying? Why did he sneak out of Nishevatz and come here?”

“He says he cannot stand it in there anymore.” The interpreter's words were calm, dispassionate, while passion filled the escapee's voice. Grus could understand that much, even if he followed not a word of what the man was saying. “He says Vasilko is worse than Vsevolod ever dreamed of being.”

Grus glanced over toward Vsevolod, who stood only a few feet away. Vsevolod, of course, didn't need the translation to understand what the other Chernagor was saying. His forward-thrusting features and beaky nose made him look like an angry bird of prey—not that Grus had ever seen a bird of prey with a big, bushy white beard.

More excited speech burst from the Chernagor who'd just gotten out of Nishevatz. He pointed back toward the city he'd just left. “What's he going on about now?” Grus asked.

“He says a man does not even have to do anything to oppose Vasilko.” Again, the interpreter's flat, unemotional voice contrasted oddly with the tones of the man whose words he was translating. “He says, half the time a man only has to realize Vasilko is a galloping horse turd”—the Chernagor obscenity sounded bizarre when rendered literally into Avornan—“and then he disappears. He never has a chance to do anything against Vasilko.”

“You see?” Vsevolod said. “Is how I told you. Banished One works through my son.” Now grief washed over his face.

“I see.” Grus left it at that, for he still had doubts that worried him, even if he kept quiet about them. Some of those doubts had to do with Vsevolod. Others he could voice without offending the refugee Chernagor. He told the interpreter, “Ask this fellow how he managed to escape from Nishevatz once he decided Vasilko was … not a good man.” He didn't try to imitate that picturesque curse.

The interpreter spoke in throaty gutturals. The man who'd gotten out of Nishevatz gave back more of them. The interpreter asked him something else. His voice showed more life while speaking the Chernagor tongue than when he used Avornan. He turned back to Grus. “He says he did not linger. He says he ran away before Vasilko could send anyone after him. He says—”