“Another good question,” his general replied. “I think it’s likelier to ruin them, but you don’t know until the fight starts. For that matter, another fight where everybody’s torn up could ruin both sides.”
“You’re full of cheery notions, aren’t you?”
Hirundo bowed. Something in his back creaked, too. “I’m supposed to think about these things. I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t.”
“I know.” Grus looked around for Vsevolod again. When he didn’t see him, he yelled for a messenger. “Find out if the prince is hale,” he told the young man. “If he is, tell him I’d like to see him when he gets the chance.”
Nodding, the youngster hurried off. A few minutes later, Prince Vsevolod joined Grus. The ousted lord of Nishevatz wasn’t perfectly hale. He had a bloody bandage wrapped around his head. Even so, he waved aside Grus’ worried questions. “You should see man who did this to me,” he said. “Somewhere now, ravens pick out his eyes.”
“Good,” Grus said. “I have a question for you.”
“Ask,” Vsevolod said.
“How likely is it that we’ll see more Chernagor armies that don’t want us in this country anymore?”
Vsevolod frowned. Even before donning the bandage, he’d had a face made for frowning. With it, he looked like a man contemplating his own doom and not liking what he saw. “It could be,” he said at last. “Yes, it could be.”
“How likely do you think it is?” Grus persisted.
Now Prince Vsevolod looked as though he hated him. “If I were prince in another city-state, I would lead forth my warriors,” he said.
“I was afraid of that,” Grus said. “We don’t have the men here to fight off every Chernagor breathing, you know.”
“What will you do, then?” Vsevolod asked in turn. “Will you say you are beaten? Will you run back to Avornis with tail between your legs?”
He’s trying to make me ashamed, Grus realized. He’s trying to embarrass me into staying up here and going on with the war. Grus understood why the Prince of Nishevatz was doing that. Had he worn Vsevolod’s boots, he wouldn’t have wanted his ally to give up the fight, either. Being who and what he was, though, he didn’t want to risk throwing away his whole army. And so, regretfully, he said, “Yes.”
CHAPTER SIX
“Coming back here to the capital?” Lanius asked Grus’ messenger. “Are you sure?” “Yes, Your Majesty.” The young man sounded offended Lanius should doubt him. “Didn’t he tell me with his own mouth? Didn’t he give me the letter you’re holding?”
Lanius hadn’t read the letter yet. He’d enjoyed being King of Avornis in something more than name for a little while—he’d discovered he could run the kingdom, something he’d never been sure of before. Now he would go back to being nothing in fancy robes and crown. Grasping at straws, he asked, “How soon will he return?”
“It’s in the letter, Your Majesty. Everything is in the letter,” the messenger replied. When Lanius gave no sign he wanted to open the letter, the fellow sighed and went on, “They should be back inside of a month—less than that if they don’t have to fight their way out.”
“Oh.” Lanius didn’t much want to read the letter—seeing Grus’ hand reminded him how much more power the other king held. Talking to the courier made him the stronger one. “How has the fighting gone?”
“We’re better than they are. One of us is worth more than one of them,” the messenger said. “But there are more of them than there are of us, and so…” He shrugged. “What can you do?” He didn’t seem downcast at pulling back from the land of the Chernagors. Did that mean Grus wasn’t, or did it only mean he’d done a good job of persuading his men he wasn’t? Lanius couldn’t tell.
Even after dismissing the messenger and reading his father-in-law’s letter, he still wasn’t sure. Grus presented the withdrawal as the only thing he could do, and as one step in what looked like a long struggle. The Banished One will not do with the Chernagors as he has done in the south, he wrote. Whatever we have to do to stop him, we will.
He wasn’t wrong about how important keeping the Banished One from dominating the land of the Chernagors was. Lanius saw that, too. But, when he read Grus’ letter, he wondered if his father-in-law was saying everything he had in mind. Was he leaving the north country to make sure Lanius didn’t decide he could rule Avornis all by himself? Again, Lanius couldn’t tell.
Would I throw Grus out of the palace if I had the chance? As usual, Lanius found himself torn. Part of him insisted that, as scion of a dynasty going back a dozen generations, he ought to rule as well as reign. That was his pride talking. But, now that he’d had a taste of running the kingdom day by day, he found he would sooner spend time with his animals and in the archives. If Grus wanted to handle things as they came up, wasn’t he welcome to the job?
All things considered, Lanius was inclined to answer yes to that. Another question also sprang to mind. If I try to get rid of Grus and fail, the way I likely would, won’t he kill me to make sure I don’t try it again? Lanius was inclined to answer to that, too. Maybe—probably—the present arrangement was best after all.
No sooner had he decided, yet again, to let things go on as they were going than another messenger came before him. This one thrust a letter at him, murmured, “I’m very sorry, Your Majesty,” and withdrew before Lanius could even ask him why he was sorry.
The king stared at the letter. It gave no obvious clues; he didn’t even recognize the seal that helped hold it closed or the hand that addressed it to him. Shrugging, he broke the seal, slid off the ribbon around the letter, unrolled it, and began to read.
It was, he discovered, from the abbess of a convent dedicated to preserving the memory of a holy woman who’d died several hundred years before. For a moment—for more than a moment—the convent’s name meant nothing to him. He couldn’t have said where in Avornis it lay, whether in the capital or over in the west near the border with Thervingia or in the middle of the fertile southern plains. Then, abrupt as stubbing a toe, he remembered. The convent stood in the middle of the swamps and bogs of the Maze, not far from the city of Avornis as the crow flies but a million miles away in terms of everything that mattered. It had held his mother ever since she’d tried and failed to slay Grus by sorcery.
No more. Queen Certhia was dead. That was what the letter said. The messenger must have known. That had to be why he’d said he was sorry. It had to be why he’d slipped away, too—he didn’t want Lanius blaming him for the news.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Lanius said aloud. But a messenger from out of the Maze, a messenger who didn’t know him, wouldn’t know about that, either.
He made himself finish the letter. The abbess said his mother’s passing had been easy. Of course, she likely would say that whether it was true or not. She added praise for Certhia’s piety. Never, she wrote, was your mother heard to complain of her fate.
Lanius’ mouth twisted when he read that. Anger? Grief? Laughter? He couldn’t tell. Some of all of them, he supposed. Maybe his mother hadn’t complained because she was grateful Grus hadn’t done to her what she’d tried to do to him. Lanius sighed. That might be noble, but it struck him as unlikely. From all he remembered, gratitude had never been a large part of Queen Certhia’s makeup. Odds were she hadn’t complained simply because she’d known it would do no good.
Her pyre was set ablaze this morning, the abbess wrote. What is your desire for her ashes? Shall they remain here, or would you rather bring them back to the city of Avornis for interment in the cathedral?
The king called for parchment and pen. Let her remains be returned to the capital, he wrote. She served Avornis as well as the gods, acting as Queen Regnant in the days of my youth. She will be remembered with all due ceremony.
“And if Grus doesn’t like it, too bad,” Lanius muttered. He hadn’t seen his mother for years. He’d known he was unlikely ever to see her again. He’d also known ambition burned more brightly in her than love ever had. Even so
, as he stared down at the words he’d written, they suddenly seemed to run and smear before his eyes. He blinked. The tears that had blurred his sight ran down his face. He buried his head in his hands and wept as though his heart would break.
Even now that he was well back inside Avornis, King Grus kept looking back over his shoulder to make sure the Chernagors weren’t pursuing his army anymore. Beside him, General Hirundo whistled cheerfully.
“Can’t win ’em all, Your Majesty,” the general said. “We’ll have another go at those bushy-bearded bastards next spring, I expect.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Grus agreed. He took the defeat harder than Hirundo did. He knew more about the nature of the true foe they faced than did his general. Part of him wished Lanius had never told him who and what Milvago had been—part of him, indeed, wished Lanius had never found out. Fighting a god cast out of the heavens was bad enough. Fighting the onetime lord of the gods cast down from the heavens… No, he didn’t want his men knowing that was what they had to do.
Not far away, Prince Vsevolod rode along with slumped shoulders and lowered head. He’d doubtless hoped for better than he’d gotten when he called on the Avornans to help him hold on to his throne. But his ungrateful son, Prince Vasilko, still held Nishevatz. And Vasilko would go right on holding it at least until next spring.
Hirundo looked ahead, not behind. “We’ll be back to the city of Avornis in a couple of days,” he said.
Vsevolod muttered something his beard muffled. He wasn’t delighted about riding into exile, even if he was heading toward the greatest city in the world. Grus said, “Coming home is always good.” Vsevolod muttered again. He wasn’t coming home. He was going away from his, and had to fear he would never see it again.
With a grin, Hirundo said, “You’ll get a chance to see what the other king’s been up to, Your Majesty.”
“So I will.” Grus knew he sounded less gleeful at the prospect than Hirundo did. Lanius had done very well while he was gone—perhaps too well for comfort. If the other king was becoming a king… well, what could Grus do about it? Stay home and watch him all the time? He knew he couldn’t. The two of them could either clash or find a way of working together. Grus saw no other choices.
He looked around for Pterocles. There was the wizard, as hollow-eyed as he’d been since the sorcerer in Nishevatz struck him down for the second time. Grus waved to him. Pterocles nodded back and said, “Still here, Your Majesty—I think.”
“Good. I know you’re getting better.” Grus knew no such thing. Pterocles had shown less improvement than the king would have liked. Saying so, though, wouldn’t have made things any better. Grus wondered if he ought to have other wizards look Pterocles over when they got back to the city of Avornis. Then he wondered if that would help.
Pterocles was the best he had. Could some lesser wizard judge whether something was really wrong with him?
Too many things to worry about at the same time, Grus thought. All we’d need would be an invasion from the Menteshe to make everything perfect.
He glanced up to the heavens and muttered a quick prayer. He didn’t want the gods taking him seriously. The only question he had was whether they would pay any attention to him at all. “You’d better,” he murmured. If things went wrong down here on earth, the gods in the heavens might yet have to face their outraged sire. Grus wondered if they knew that. He also wondered how much help they could deliver even if they did.
Those were no thoughts to be having about gods he’d worshiped all his life. All the same, he would have been happier if he’d seen more in the way of real benefits from them. King Olor, if you happen to be listening, I could use a few blessings that aren’t in disguise. Grus laughed when that prayer crossed his mind. How many mortals couldn’t use a few blessings like that?
The men who followed the Banished One—the Menteshe, and presumably Prince Vasilko and his followers as well—knew what sort of rewards they got. Those who opposed him weren’t so sure. What they got wasn’t so obvious in this world. In the next, yes—provided the Banished One lost the struggle with his children and stayed banished. If he didn’t… Grus preferred not to think about that.
He had a lot of things he didn’t want to think about. By the time the army got back to the city of Avornis, those seemed to outnumber the things that were worth contemplating.
He’d sent messengers ahead. Lanius knew to the hour when he and the army would arrive. One more thing he’d wondered was whether he ought to do that. If Lanius had anything… unpleasant in mind, Grus was letting his fellow king know things that could be very useful to him. Grus didn’t think Lanius was plotting anything like that. His own spies back in the capital hadn’t warned him his son-in-law was hatching plots. Was Lanius clever enough to do some hatching without drawing their notice? Grus would have worried less if he hadn’t known how clever Lanius really was.
But no soldiers held the gates and walls of the city of Avornis against him. Lanius came out through the North Gate to greet him along with Sosia; with Prince Crex and Princess Pitta, their children; with Ortalis; with Estrilda; and with Arch-Hallow Anser. “Welcome home!” Lanius said.
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Grus replied, hoping his relief didn’t show. He would have worried more if Lanius had used his royal title in greeting him. He knew his fellow monarch didn’t think him a legitimate king. Had Lanius been plotting something, he might have tried buttering him up. This way, things were as they should be.
“Grandpa!” Crex and Pitta squealed. They ran toward Grus’ horse. He dismounted—something he was always glad to do—stooped, and squeezed them. That they were glad to see him made him feel he’d done something right with his life. Unlike adults, children gave you just what they thought you deserved.
A groom came forward to take charge of the horse. It was a docile beast, but Grus was still happy to see someone else dealing with it. Sosia and Anser greeted Grus only a couple of steps behind his grandchildren. “Good to have you home,” they said, almost in chorus, and both started to laugh. So did Grus. Neither his daughter nor his bastard boy seemed to have any reason to regret his return. And Sosia’s anger at his affair with Alca seemed to have faded, which was also good news.
“I wish things had gone better up in the Chernagor country,” Grus said. Lanius, hanging back, raised an eyebrow at that. Grus needed a moment to figure out why. A lot of Kings of Avornis, he supposed, would have proclaimed victories whether they’d won them or not. He saw no point to that. He knew what the truth was. So did the whole army. It would get out even if he did proclaim victory. If he did, the truth would make him look like a liar or a fool. This way, he would look like an honest man who’d lost a battle. He hoped that would serve him better.
Grus understood why Lanius hung back. His son-in-law had solid reasons not to care for him, and was a reserved—even a shy—young man. Ortalis hung back, too. Grus also understood that. His legitimate son had done plenty to displease him. He and Ortalis traded looks filled with venom.
And Estrilda also hung back. That hurt. Was his wife still steaming over Alca? He’d thought they’d patched that up. In fact, they had—but then he’d gone off to war. Maybe the patch had torn loose. Maybe she wasn’t angry about Alca, but suspected a Chernagor girl had warmed his bed while he was in the north. That hadn’t happened, not least because, again, he’d worried about the truth getting back to her. But, of course, she didn’t know it hadn’t happened.
Bang Grus sighed. Half my family likes me, the other half wishes I were still off fighting the Chernagors. It could be worse. But, by Olor and Quelea, it could be better, too.
He turned to Hirundo. Whether his family liked him or not, the kingdom’s business had to go on. “Send the men to the barracks,” he said. “Give them leave a brigade at a time. That way, they shouldn’t tear the city to pieces.”
“Here’s hoping,” Hirundo said. “If it looks like the ones who haven’t gotten leave are turning sour and nasty, I may speed things up.
”
Grus nodded. “Do whatever you think best. The point of the exercise is to keep things as orderly as you can. They won’t be perfect. I don’t expect them to be. But I don’t want riots and looting, either.”
“I understand.” Hirundo called out orders to his officers.
“What of me, Your Majesty?” Prince Vsevolod asked. “You send me to barracks, too?”
“As soon as I can, I aim to send you back to Nishevatz, Your Highness.” Grus pretended not to hear the Chernagor’s bitterness. “In the meantime, you’ll stay in the palace as my guest.”
“And mine,” Lanius added. “I have many questions to ask you about the land of the Chernagors and about your customs.”
Grus had all he could do not to laugh out loud. By the look on Sosia’s face, so did she. Lanius had pet moncats. He had pet monkeys, too. (The Chernagors, Grus remembered, had brought those beasts here to the capital.) And now, at last, Lanius had his very own pet Chernagor.
“Your Majesty, what I know, I tell you.” Vsevolod sounded flattered that Lanius should be interested. Grus had to turn away so neither the prince nor his fellow king would see him smile. If Vsevolod made a promise like that, it only proved he didn’t know what he was getting into.
Prince Vsevolod looked discontented. King Lanius had never seen anyone whose face, all harsh planes and vertical lines and with that formidable prow of a nose, was better suited to looking discontented. “Questions, questions, questions!” he said, throwing his hands in the air. “Am I prisoner, you should ask so many questions?”
“You told me you would tell me what you knew,” Lanius said.
“By gods, not all at once!” Vsevolod exploded.
“Oh.” By the way Lanius sounded, the Prince of Nishevatz might have just thrown a rock at his favorite moncat. “I am sorry, Your Highness. I want you to be happy here.”
Vsevolod nodded heavily. Lanius let out a small sigh of relief—he’d been right about that, anyhow. The exiled prince said, “How can I, cooped up in palace all time?”
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