The Scepter_s Return см-3

by Dan Chernenko

  "Has nothing to do with it," Grus broke in. "Is your master his own master, or is he not?"

  "Prince Korkut owns no man his master. That includes you, Your Majesty," Falak said pointedly.

  So there, Grus thought. But it wasn't enough of a so there to slow him down. "That's nice," he said. "It doesn't answer the question I asked, though. Is he his own master or not? If he is, will he give me the Scepter of Mercy in exchange for help against Sanjar? If he isn't, why am I wasting my time talking to you? Let the Banished One send me an envoy if he wants something from me."

  Now Falak bared his teeth in what looked like a smile but wasn't. "Be careful what you ask for. You may get it."

  Grus pretended less concern than he felt. "Avornis has met his envoys before. The last one came to tell us everyone in the capital would starve to death in the coming winter. You see how true that turned out to be." He remembered the winter the Banished One had sent Avornis. He hadn't been king yet; he'd been down in the south, and it was appalling even there. It had been worse up at the city of Avornis, but the city – and the kingdom – came through. How close it had been

  … He preferred not to think about that, and so he didn't.

  Falak bowed. "Say what you will. I see this discussion is pointless. If you and Korkut meet, it will be on the field. And if the Fallen Star does deign to notice your nerve, may you have joy of it." He bowed again, then bounded up into the saddle. He jerked savagely at the reins to turn his horse's head and trotted back toward the south. Hirundo waved to the scouts who'd brought him in. They rode off, too, to return Falak's weapons to him and to escort him out beyond the Avornans' lines.

  "As you say, Your Majesty, it was worth asking." Hirundo shrugged. "Too bad he told you no, too."

  "Now we have some idea about which of Ulash's sons is more in awe of the Banished One," Grus said. "Sanjar might have given up the Scepter if he'd had it. Maybe I should have thrown in with him."

  The general shook his head. "I doubt it. If he did hold the Scepter of Mercy, he'd've hung on to it just like Korkut. It's a lot easier to think about giving away something you haven't got." He stared south. The dust their horses kicked up began to swallow Falak and his Avornan escorts.

  "I suppose you're right. No, I know you're right," Grus said. "We just have to go on, then. And if the Banished One does send an envoy" – he shuddered – "well, we'll deal with that as best we can, too."

  Lanius put smoked salmon and sliced onions and olives on a roll. He slid the silver tray across the table to Ortalis and Limosa. "Here you are," he said. "This will make a fine breakfast." Turning to Sosia, he added, "Pass the pitcher of wine when you're through with it, please."

  "Of course," she said, and she did. The pitcher, also silver, was decorated with a relief of Olor in pursuit of a goddess who would become one of his six wives. Since she wasn't overburdened by clothes, she looked as though she had a good chance of escaping him this time.

  Ortalis piled salmon and onions high. He went easy on the olives; he wasn't as fond of them as Lanius was. "Your turn," he said to Limosa.

  She usually liked smoked salmon. Today, she put a little on a roll. She looked at it. She added a few sliced olives and then hesitantly reached for a pungent slice of onion. She raised the roll to her mouth, but put it down before she could take a bite. "Please excuse me," she said, and bolted from the table.

  "Oh, dear," Lanius said, and then, at the sound of retching a moment later, "Oh, dear. How long has she been sick?"

  Sosia had another question for her brother – she asked, "When is she going to have the baby?" Lanius kicked himself for not figuring that out on his own.

  "Some time this winter," Ortalis answered. "She only realized she was carrying a child a few days ago. We were going to wait until we were surer before we told you – but it looks like there's no more need to wait now. If the gods are kind, they'll send me a son."

  Sosia murmured something that had no words in it. Lanius sipped at his wine to make sure Ortalis couldn't see his face till he got it under control. He didn't much want Grus' legitimate son to have a male heir. Ortalis' son would be a rival for Crex. So far, Ortalis hadn't shown much interest in the throne. The kind of power he craved was more personal than political. But he might well want to seize for a son what he didn't care about for himself.

  Limosa walked back into the dining room. She looked wan. When she sat down, she reached for her winecup. She sloshed the wine around in her mouth before swallowing it.

  "Are you all right?" Lanius asked.

  "Better now, anyway," she answered. "I'm afraid I, uh, didn't quite make it to the privy. The servants have a mess to clean up."

  "That's what servants are for," Ortalis said with a wave of the hand.

  I'm sure they love you, too, Lanius thought. He nodded to Limosa. "So – another baby on the way? Congratulations!" He could say that and still hope she would have a girl.

  She blushed, ever so slightly; that she'd been so pale made it easier to see. "Thank you, Your Majesty. You're kind to say so." She picked up the roll she'd so hastily abandoned. This time, she did take a bite.

  "Will it stay down?" Sosia asked. apprehensively, as though listening to her stomach. Then her smile got wider. "Yes, it'll be all right. Everything's fine in there now. I got rid of what was bothering me – until the next time."

  "Yes – until the next time," Sosia echoed with womanly sympathy. She knew what Limosa was going through in a way that Lanius couldn't. Morning sickness was nothing he'd ever wanted to learn about at first hand, either.

  Even though Limosa said she was feeling better, she didn't finish the roll and the smoked salmon. She excused herself again. This time, Lanius was glad to see, she didn't leave the room at a dead run. The king looked across the table at his brother-in-law. "Be careful with her," he warned.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Ortalis asked, but his eyes said he knew.

  Lanius spelled it out anyway. "While she's with child, leave the whip… wherever you keep it. Hunt more instead, do whatever else you think you need to do, but don't give her new stripes. This isn't the time for it."

  Something hot and unpleasant kindled in Ortalis' eyes. "You mind your business, Your Majesty, and I'll mind mine." In his mouth, Lanius' title sounded more like curse than compliment. Grus' legitimate son rose from the table, turned on his heel, and strode out after his wife.

  "I wouldn't have told him that," Sosia said. "Why not? Because Limosa enjoys it as much as he does? That's not reason enough, not when she's going to have a baby," Lanius said. "He's liable to get carried away, and who knows what would happen then?"

  His wife shook her head. "No, not because Limosa likes it. Because if she does die… then or in childbed, we don't have to worry about any son of Ortalis'. We don't have to worry about him so much, either."

  From a political point of view, Sosia made breathtakingly good sense. She had much more of Grus' ruthless pragmatism than Ortalis did; all he'd gotten was the ruthlessness. Even so, Lanius said, "I don't want Limosa dead. I can't stand her father, gods know, and your brother – " He broke off before resuming, "Well, he is what he is, that's all. But Limosa? She's kind of sweet, even if she… likes what she likes. Who would have thought Ortalis could find such a good match? And having him running wild again might make things worse, not better."

  "Maybe." Sosia didn't sound as though she believed it for a minute. "You're too soft for your own good, if you care even a copper for what I think. Who cares about likes? You want Crex to be king after you, don't you?"

  "Of course I do. But – "

  "No buts." Now Sosia swept out of the dining room. Lanius stared after her. One piece of well-meant advice, and he'd managed to clear the room. If that wasn't a record, he didn't know what would be.

  Pterocles pointed to a mound rising from the mostly flat land of the Menteshe country. Sadly, the wizard said, "Another one. That's the third or fourth we've seen."

  "I know." King Grus sounded none too
happy, either. "They're what cities look like after they die. The rubbish the people who live there throw out year after year makes the ground higher than it is anywhere else. And when the walls get knocked down and the buildings fall to pieces, too…"

  "This is what's left," Pterocles finished. "I wonder what happened to the people who used to live here."

  "Some of them died," Grus said. "Got killed, I mean. Others? Others are bound to be the ancestors of the thralls you're freeing. That town's been dead a long time."

  As the Avornan army drew nearer, he could see the jagged remains of walls and buildings crowning the hill and giving it a silhouette no natural rise would have had. He wondered what the name of the place had been. If he described where it lay, Lanius could probably tell him. Lanius knew all sorts of things that didn't matter. Things that did? A different story.

  But the Banished One took Lanius seriously. Grus couldn't let himself forget that. The exiled god wouldn't have threatened the other king in dreams if he hadn't. He threatened only people he took very seriously indeed. Hirundo, for instance, had done as much as any man to turn back the Menteshe and to beat the Chernagors, but the Banished One let him sleep undisturbed of nights. Grus scratched his head. He didn't pretend to understand the choices the Banished One made.

  Grus laughed. It was funny, after a fashion. Had he understood all the choices the Banished One made, he would have been well on the way toward godhood himself. Part of him – the part that wanted to live forever – wished he were. But he knew too well he wasn't. His beard had far more salt than pepper in it these days. He remained healthy enough, but knew he lacked much of the strength and stamina he'd enjoyed when he was half his age. Sooner or later, he would lose what he still kept. He didn't like that – he hated it – but he knew it was true.

  He looked toward the dead, abandoned city. Places had lifespans of their own, just as people did. They usually lasted far longer, but the Banished One had watched this town age and wither and die while he went on. He'd probably smiled as he watched, too. The town had been full of Avornans, and had gone to ruin at the hands of the Menteshe. They worshiped the Banished One; why wouldn't he smile to see their triumph?

  Unlike people, though, places could come back to life. Grus turned to Hirundo. "Do you know what we ought to do?"

  "I've got a list as long as your arm, Your Majesty," the general said. "Most of it is things I need to do day before yesterday. The less important bits, though, I can get away with doing yesterday. So what's yours?"

  He sounded as serious as he ever did. Grus explained, finishing, "If we're going to take this land away from the Menteshe, we've got to do something with it for ourselves. If we could bring it back to the way it was before the nomads swept down on it…"

  "Don't get your hopes up too high," Hirundo said. "Back in the old days, they didn't have to worry about the Menteshe at all. Even if we do drive 'em back, they'll be right over the border, just waiting to pounce when they see the chance. We can't clear them out of this whole country. It's too big, and there are too cursed many of them."

  Grus wished he could find some way to contradict that, but he couldn't.

  "If things work out the way we want them to, though, people will remember us for as long as Avornis lasts." Grus supposed that kingdoms flourished and then grew old, too, the same way people and towns did. Not wanting to think that might happen to Avornis in years yet to come, he went on, 'That's about as close to living forever in this world as we're likely to come."

  "There are children," Hirundo pointed out.

  "Well, yes. So there are." Grus let it lie there. He was disappointed in his son, and feared he always would be disappointed in Ortalis. His hopes along those lines ran through Sosia and his grandson. He didn't like having more faith in his daughter and her line than in the one he'd always wanted to be his heir.

  He also didn't know what Crex would turn out to be like. The boy was still too young to make that plain. The one thing Grus could say was that he didn't seem to be vicious. He wished more than anything that he could say the same about Ortalis. He'd tried to believe Ortalis would outgrow whatever gave him the need to hurt things, tried long after it should have been obvious that his legitimate son's ways were set. He didn't believe it anymore. I may have been foolish to expect he'll ever have it in him to give. I was foolish. But there's a difference between foolish and blind.

  Did King Olor, looking down from the heavens, have the same sort of thoughts about mankind as a whole? Grus shrugged. He couldn't do anything about that. He didn't look up past the sky. He looked south, toward the mountains where the Banished One lived. The Banished One doubtless had his own thoughts about mankind, too. Grus aimed to prove him wrong.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Tinamus the architect looked up in surprise from the sheaf of notes King Lanius had just given him. "These are… very detailed. Your Majesty."

  "I wanted to have them as exact as I could," Lanius said. "Would you have liked it more if they were vaguer?"

  Tinamus didn't answer. All the same, Lanius realized that he would have. The architect wasn't a courtier, and didn't have the courtier's knack for hiding what he thought. His long, thin, rather pale face showed each thought flitting across it. Lanius found that more refreshing than otherwise.

  "I'm not just doing this for my amusement, you know," the king said.

  "So I gather." Tinamus flipped through the notes. His hands were long and thin and pale, too – clever hands. "Why are you doing it, if you don't mind my asking?"

  Lanius hesitated. He didn't want to lie to the architect, but he didn't want to tell him the truth, either. At last, he said, "It might be better if you didn't know. It might be safer – not for me, but for you."

  "Safer, Your Majesty?" Tinamus' eyebrows jumped in surprise. "Who except maybe another builder could care whether I do this for you? The other builders here in the city of Avornis may be jealous of the commission you pay me, but I don't think any of them would try to knock out my brains with a plumb bob or anything like that."

  "Good. I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't want to believe our architects were wild and unruly men." Lanius smiled at Tinamus, who seemed one of the least unruly men he'd ever met. "Can you do it? Will you do it? Or should I ask one of your ferocious colleagues?"

  "It doesn't seem difficult. One of them could probably do it as well as I can." No, Tinamus was no courtier. Anyone used to the ways of the court would have loudly proclaimed he was the only person in the whole world who could possibly handle this job. He wagged a finger at Lanius. "But I tell you this, Your Majesty – any of them will be as curious as I am, and will want to know why you say that what looks like a straightforward piece of work may not be safe."

  "Mmp." Lanius wished he could have made a happier noise than that. However much he didn't want to admit it even to himself, Tinamus had a point. If the work was going to endanger him, he had a right to know why. Sighing, Lanius said, "The less you know about why you're doing what you're doing, the less likely you are to have trouble from the Banished One."

  Tinamus' eyebrows leaped again. His eyes, gray as granite, opened very wide. "The… Banished One, Your Majesty?" He stuck a finger in his right ear, as though to show he didn't believe he'd heard straight.

  Lanius only nodded. "That's what I said."

  The architect's left hand twisted in the gesture that was supposed to keep the exiled god's glance far away. Lanius used it, too, though he was far from sure it did any good. Tinamus asked, "Why on earth would… he care about what I build for you?"

  "I won't answer that," Lanius said. "As I told you, the less you know, the better off you'll probably be. Whatever the reason, though, what you're doing may interest him."

  "That's the craziest thing I ever heard." Tinamus laughed out loud. "When I tell me wife – " He broke off before Lanius could even open his mouth, and said, "Oh. If this has to do with the Banished One, and if I shouldn't know very much, she should know even less, shouldn't she?"

&nb
sp; He was quick. Lanius liked that. He said, "Not telling her much – or anything – might be a good idea, yes. The fewer people who know and the less they know, the better off they're likely to be."

  "What about the stonemasons and bricklayers and carpenters and pick-and-shovel men who work on this? What shall I tell them?" Tinamus asked.

  "Tell them whatever you please. Tell them you think the king's gone round the bend," Lanius answered. By the look in the architect's eye, he wasn't far from thinking that. Lanius grinned. "Go ahead. Enjoy yourself. By the gods, I swear I'll never punish you for lese-majeste."

  Tinamus grinned back. "Now that I've got your oath, I ought to go screaming rude things from the housetops."

  "Go ahead. I'm sure you'll get people to believe them." Lanius laughed to show he was joking. And so he was – mostly. But some people were still more inclined to believe bad things about him than they would have been for some other king. He'd never quite lived down his father's scandalous seventh marriage and the days when, as a boy, he'd been reckoned a bastard on account of it. The scars he bore because of those days had faded, but they'd never disappeared.

  The captain of King Grus' scouts was a tough little man named Strix. Most of the scouts were tough little men. Tough big men did other things in the army. Little men put less weight on their horses than did their larger counterparts. That gave the horses a bit more speed, a bit more endurance, and let them come closer to matching what the Menteshe mounts could do.

  Right now, Strix was a tough little man with a worried look on his weathered, sharp-nosed face. He said, "Your Majesty, we've got three scouts missing."

  "Missing?" Grus said sharply. "You mean the Menteshe have them?" That would be bad. Grus had trouble imagining anything worse. When the nomads took prisoners, they often made sport of them, and showed a fiendish ingenuity in their amusement. The Banished One would have been proud of them. The Banished One probably was proud of them.