"The moncat! The moncat! The gods love the moncat!" some people in front of a saddlery shouted as first the two kings and then Pouncer's cage went by.
Olor and Quelea and the rest had reason to love Pouncer, considering what the beast had done. But had they loved it before? Had they made it love going into the kitchens and stealing spoons? Had they given Lanius the idea that an animal which stole spoons might also steal a Scepter? He didn't think so, but how could he prove he was right to doubt it?
He couldn't, and knew as much. Once the notion occurred to him, he also knew he would spend the rest of his life wondering.
People cheered as Prince Ortalis rode through the streets of the city of Avornis. The only trouble was, they weren't cheering him. All the cheers were for his father, whom he hated and feared, and for his brother-in-law, for whom he'd always felt an amused contempt.
He wasn't amused, not anymore.
As for the Scepter of Mercy, what was the point of making such a fuss over a bauble Avornis plainly didn't need? How many years had it been gone? Lanius had told him, but he'd forgotten. Lots, though – he knew that. Had the kingdom fallen apart because it wasn't there? Of course not.
He'd tried explaining to Lanius what was only plain sense. The king hadn't wanted to listen. He'd babbled all sorts of mystical nonsense instead. Ortalis knew it was nonsense, but he hadn't felt like arguing. Life was too short.
He wondered just how he was so sure Lanius was spouting nonsense. It seemed obvious, but why? Maybe it had something to do with the dreams he'd had lately. Lanius had dreams, too, but he didn't seem to enjoy his. Ortalis wondered what was wrong with Lanius, anyhow.
How could anybody not enjoy dreams that showed him as the most powerful man in the kingdom, able to do whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted? They seemed so real, too, as though they were actually happening. And the voice – the Voice – that guided him through them didn't detract from that realism. Oh, no – just the opposite. It made everything seem sharper, more intense.
He could almost hear the Voice now, even though he was awake. He knew exactly what it would be telling him. There were his father and Lanius, riding out in front of him. They were both hanging on to the Scepter of Mercy. They thought it was important, even if he didn't. Since they did, shouldn't they have let him share it with them?
The question answered itself, at least in his mind. Of course they should have. But would they? No. They weren't even letting him get anywhere near it. Was that fair? Was that just? Not likely!
"Moncat! Moncat! Hurrah for the moncat!" people shouted. Ortalis didn't think that was fair, either. A stupid animal got the applause, but what did he get? Nothing.
His father probably thought he would be happy riding along here. Hadn't his father kept him from doing anything when it came to running the kingdom? Hadn't his father even tried to keep him from getting married? That was the truth, all right – no use trying to pretend anything different.
And hadn't his father sucked up to Lanius for all he was worth? That was the truth, too – the truth from Ortalis' eyes, anyhow. His father treated Lanius more like a son than he did his own legitimate offspring.
I've got a son of my own now, Ortalis thought. Anybody who thinks he won't wear the crown – wear it after me, by the gods! – had better think again.
The blue jewel that crowned the Scepter of Mercy sparkled in the sun. It drew all eyes to it, including Ortalis'. I don't care if it's important or not, he said to himself. If they think it is, they should give me a share of it. They should, but they won't, because they want to keep it all to themselves.
Was that really his own voice inside his head, or was it the Voice? He wasn't sure one way or the other. It didn't really matter. His voice and the Voice were saying the same thing.
After what felt like forever and a stop at the cathedral for what seemed no good reason, the procession finally got back to the palace. Ortalis slid down off his horse with a sigh of relief. He was glad to let a groom lead the animal away.
People went right on making much of his father and Lanius. Nobody paid any attention to him. He might as well not have existed. His father probably would have been happier if he didn't.
Well, he still had some friends, anyhow. Times like this showed him who they were. A guard captain named Serinus came up to him and said, "Pretty fancy show – if you like that kind of thing, anyway."
Ortalis made a face. "Just between you and me, I could live without it."
"I'll bet you could, Your Highness," Serinus said sympathetically. "Did they ever give you the attention you deserve? Doesn't look that way, not to me. Hardly seems right."
"Sure doesn't." Another friend of Ortalis', a lieutenant named Gygis, came up in time to hear Serinus finish.
"Question is, what can we do about it?" Ortalis said. The three of them put their heads together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
King Grus sat on the Diamond Throne, the Scepter of Mercy in his right hand. When he rested his arm on the arm of the throne, the base of the Scepter fit perfectly into a small depression there. He smiled to himself. He'd noticed that depression before, but he'd never really thought about why the throne had it.
Up the central aisle of the throne room toward him came a big, burly Therving named Grimoald. He had a hard, ruddy face, a thick, graying tawny beard, and graying tawny hair tied back in a braid that was not the least bit effeminate. Coupled with the wolfskin jacket he wore, he looked almost as much like a beast as a man.
The royal guardsmen in front of the throne must have thought the same thing, for they bristled like dogs scenting a wolf. Grimoald, however, affected not to notice that. He bowed low before Grus. In good if gutturally accented Avornan, he said, "Your Majesty, I bring you greetings and congratulations from my master, King Berto of Thervingia."
"I am always happy to have King Berto's greetings, and I send him my own," Grus replied. "I am also happy that his kingdom and mine have lived side by side in peace for so long, and I hope they go on living in peace for many years to come."
He meant every word of that. Berto's father had come much too close to conquering Avornis. King Dagipert had also almost succeeded in marrying Lanius to his daughter, which would have left him the dominant influence in the kingdom and his grandson, if he had one, probably King of both Avornis and Thervingia. Berto, however, was peaceable and pious by nature – proof, if proof was needed, that sons often differed greatly from their fathers.
Berto's ambassador bowed again. "You are gracious, Your Majesty. My sovereign sent me here as soon as word reached him that the Scepter of Mercy had come back to the city of Avornis after its, ah, long absence. I see the news was true." He stared at the Scepter with poorly disguised wonder. His eyes were blue, though not nearly as blue as the gem topping the talisman.
"Yes, it is true," Grus agreed. "King Lanius and I both did everything we could to bring the Scepter out of Yozgat. Between us, we managed." He might have bragged of his own accomplishments. He might have, yes, if he hadn't been holding the Scepter of Mercy. It didn't approve of boasting, at least not about matters involving it.
Even his modesty was plenty to impress Grimoald. "His Majesty, King Berto, has a favor to ask of you, if your kindness stretches so far," the Therving said.
"I would hear it first," Grus said. He was glad to find the Scepter didn't keep him from being normally cautious.
"Of course," the envoy said. "My king wonders whether he would be welcome if he made a pilgrimage here to see the Scepter of Mercy with his own eyes."
"He would be very welcome," Grus said, not hesitating for even a moment. "Nothing would make me happier than entertaining him here. King Lanius has met him, I believe. I have not had the privilege, though I did meet his father." They'd tried to kill each other, too, but he didn't mention that.
Grimoald's eyes glinted. He was old enough to remember the days when Thervingia and Avornis fought war after war. Maybe he longed for those days. Grus wouldn't have been surpri
sed if a lot of Thervings did; they had always been a fierce folk, and it would likely take more than the reign of one peaceable king to make them anything else. But they hadn't risen against Berto, not once in all the years since he succeeded Dagipert.
Whatever Grimoald's opinion of days gone by might have been, he made a good, solid diplomat. Bowing to Grus once more, he said, "I shall convey your generous invitation to His Majesty. I am sure he will be eager to make the journey."
"Good," Grus said. "And of course there will be gifts for an envoy on such welcome business."
Grimoald bowed yet again. "You are much too kind, Your Majesty. I expected nothing of the kind."
"Well, whether you expected it or not, it's my pleasure," Grus said. Gifts for ambassadors were commonplace – as Grimoald no doubt knew perfectly well. Elaborate custom regulated the ones between the Chernagor city-states and Avornis. Arrangements with Thervingia were less formal, which meant Grus could be more lavish if he chose. Here, he did choose. Grimoald struck him as an able man, one he wanted well disposed toward him and toward his kingdom.
The Therving said, "You can be sure I will do everything I can to make Avornis appear in the best possible light." He understood why Grus was giving him presents, then. Good.
After Grimoald had made his final bows and left the throne room, Grus descended from the Diamond Throne. "A King of Thervingia visiting here?" said one of his guardsmen, a veteran – the soldier was perhaps forty-five, not far from Grimoald's age. "Not hardly like it was in the old days, and that's the truth. If Dagipert had, ah, visited here, he would've torn the palace down around our ears."
"Yes, the same thing crossed my mind," Grus answered. "And do you know what else? I'll bet it crossed Grimoald's, too. He had that look in his eye."
"D'you think so?" the guardsman said. "Well, I wouldn't be surprised. I wonder if we tried to murder each other, him and me, back when Berto's old man sat on their throne."
"It could be," Grus said. "Here's one more thing, though." He paused. The royal guardsman nodded expectantly. Grus continued, "It's better this way." The guardsman nodded again, this time in complete agreement.
Lanius approached the Scepter of Mercy furtively, almost as though he were sneaking up on it. He wasn't really, of course.
He couldn't, not when so many guardsmen watched it all the time. No one was going to make off with it again, not if the two Kings of Avornis had anything to say about it.
The guardsmen bowed and saluted their sovereign. Lanius nodded back, trying to hide his apprehension. He closed his hand on the Scepter and lifted. Up it came from the velvet cushion on which it rested. Lanius breathed a silent sigh of relief and set it down again.
"That's a marvelous thing, Your Majesty," a guard said.
"Yes, isn't it?" Lanius agreed. He didn't tell the guardsman – he didn't intend to tell anyone – the Scepter had let him pick it up even though he'd sneaked a serving girl into the archives. Whatever it expected of Kings of Avornis, it didn't insist on sainthood. He hadn't been sure. Had things turned out the other way, he would have been as penitent as he could – and he would have put the maidservant aside. Maybe that would have been enough. He could hope so, anyway.
"Is it really true that one of your moncats stole the Scepter out of Yozgat?" the guardsman asked.
"It's really true," Lanius said solemnly. "And if you don't believe me, you can ask Pouncer."
The soldier started to nod, then stopped and sent him a look somewhere between quizzical and aggrieved. Lanius smiled to himself as he went on his way. He didn't want people taking him for granted.
King Grus came around the comer. "What are you looking so pleased about, Your Majesty?" Grus asked. "The Scepter?"
"Well, yes, in a manner of speaking." Lanius looked back over his shoulder to make sure the guardsman couldn't hear, then explained how he'd confused the man.
He got a laugh from Grus. "You never know – maybe the moncat would tell him," the other king said.
"Maybe Pouncer would," Lanius agreed. "With that beast, you never know for sure until you see what happens."
"Maybe the gods in the heavens were working through him," Grus said. "We'll never know, not for certain."
"Maybe." But Lanius went on, "I can't imagine a better disguise for a god than a moncat."
That made Grus laugh again. "No doubt you're right. At least the Banished One didn't get into him." The other king was joking, but Lanius felt a chill all the same. The Banished One probably could have done something like that. Why hadn't he? The only answer that occurred to Lanius was that, if the exiled god despised people, wasn't he likely to despise animals even more?
Lanius didn't say that out loud. No dreams had troubled him since the Scepter came back to the capital, but who could say how long the Banished One's reach was even now? Instead, the king changed the subject. "So Berto truly is coming? It's been a long time since I've seen him. I was still a boy."
"Berto's really coming. Yes, indeed." Grus nodded. "Grimoald should be back in Thervingia by now, telling him we'd be glad to see him. And you're one up on me, because I've never set eyes on the man. Dagipert… Dagipert's a different story."
"In all kinds of ways," Lanius said, and Grus nodded once more. Lanius went on, "It's funny, you know, that Berto's more pious than we are." He thought of his sport with the serving girl. The Scepter of Mercy had forgiven him – either that, or found there was nothing that needed forgiving. "Of course, he knows less than we do, too." He mouthed Milvago's name, but didn't say it aloud. "A good thing, too," he finished. "If Thervingia had pitched into us while we were fighting the Chernagors or the Menteshe…"
"Yes, that's a nightmare right there, isn't it?" Grus said. "I worried about it for a while after Dagipert died. I couldn't believe that iron-handed old tyrant would have a son who cared for nothing but praying. Only goes to show you never can tell, doesn't it?"
"It does indeed." Lanius favored Grus with a brief but speculative glance.
To his acute embarrassment, his father-in-law burst out laughing one more time. Grus aimed an accusing finger at him. "By Olor's beard, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you're looking at another iron-handed old tyrant."
"You're not a tyrant," Lanius blurted. Grus laughed harder than ever. Lanius got more embarrassed than ever.
"Oh, dear," Grus wheezed at last. "The worst of it is, you're not even slightly wrong. I'm never going to be young again, that's for sure. And the Chernagors and the Menteshe and a good many Avornan nobles will tell you what an iron-handed rogue I am. Come to that, those Avornan nobles will likely call me a tyrant, too.
"I didn't," Lanius said virtuously.
"So you didn't," Grus agreed. "And the Scepter of Mercy doesn't think I'm a tyrant, either, or it wouldn't let me pick it up. And do you know what? I care more about what it thinks than I do about any Avornan noble."
Lanius had no idea whether the Scepter thought in manlike terms. He was inclined to doubt it. But he knew what the other king meant all the same. "Oh, yes," he said, remembering his relief of a little while before. "The Scepter is an honest judge."
Grus smiled. "Do you want to know something funny?"
"I would love to know something funny," Lanius answered.
"Right this minute, I hardly know how to be king," his father-in-law said. "We haven't got any enemies. The Chernagors are quiet. The Menteshe are quiet. The King of Thervingia isn't just quiet – he's coming here on a pilgrimage. Even our nobles are quiet. What am I supposed to do? Sit on the Diamond Throne and twiddle my thumbs?" He started twiddling them even though he wasn't on the throne.
"There are worse troubles to have," Lanius said, and started twiddling his own thumbs. Grus chuckled. Lanius went on, "Enjoy the quiet while you can, because it won't last. It never does. The Chernagors will get bored not being piratical. Sooner or later, Korkut or Sanjar is bound to win that civil war. Then the Menteshe will start trying to take bites out of what we've won south of the Stura, and maybe on
this side of the river, too. They don't need the Banished One to make them want to raid us."
"This thought had already crossed my mind," Grus said.
"Things won't stay quiet forever inside Avornis, either," Lanius added. "Somebody with a lot will decide that, however much he has, it isn't enough. And he'll blame you – or maybe me – for that, and he'll start making trouble. I don't think it'll happen tomorrow, but I don't think we'll have to wait very long, either."
"That all sounds sensible. You usually do make good sense, Your Majesty. So I'll have things to worry about again, will I? My heart wouldn't break if I didn't," Grus said.
"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you'll have to. Things work that way," Lanius said.
Grus only shrugged. "Do you know what else? After bringing the Scepter back, getting excited about any of them won't be easy." Lanius thought the other king was joking, then took a second look at him and decided he wasn't.
In Ortalis' dream, he held Avornis in the palm of his hand. The kingdom was his, and rightfully his. He didn't know what had happened to his father or to Lanius, but they weren't around to give him trouble. He did know that.
"You see?" the Voice told him. "You can do it. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it. This kingdom belongs to you. They may try to keep you from taking what's yours, but they won't get away with it, will they?"
"No!" dream-Ortalis said.
"Avornis is yours, and Marinus' after you. Isn't that right?" the Voice asked.
"You'd better believe it is!" dream-Ortalis answered.
"And if they do try to steal your birthright? What will you do then?" the Voice inquired. "What can you do then?"
"Punish them!" dream-Ortalis exclaimed.
"How would you do that?" the Voice asked, as smoothly and suavely as though it were at some elegant reception.
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