The Bastard King

by Harry Turtledove

  “Go on.” King Mergus’ voice was rough as sandstone.

  “Hear me, then: If the Banished One hates your son, if he curses your son, surely he also fears him.”

  Back and forth along the Stura, from the last cataract in the foothills of the mountains to the Sea of Azania and then upstream once more. This was the life the Tigerfish and the rest of the Avornan river galleys led when on patrol.

  Grus had duly written up his dream of the Banished One and submitted it as part of his report to his superiors. For a while, he wondered if he would be summoned to the city of Avornis and questioned further. When no summons came, he began to wonder if it had been only a meaningless dream.

  But part of him knew better.

  Not many men, even aboard the Tigerfish, knew what had chanced that night. Grus had never been one to make much of himself or of what happened to him. He had told Turnix, though; he wanted the strongest protective amulets the wizard could make. And he’d told Nicator. If anything happened to him, his lieutenant needed to know why it might have happened.

  They were drinking in a riverside tavern one day—on the north bank of the Stura, of course; the south was not for the likes of them—when Nicator asked, “You never heard a word about that, did you?”

  Grus shook his head. “Sometimes you wonder if anybody back in the city of Avornis remembers how to read.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me if nobody did,” Nicator agreed. “Wouldn’t surprise me one bloody bit.” He slammed his fist down on the tabletop for emphasis. He’d taken a lot of wine on board.

  So had Grus, come to that. He said, “What do they care about the border? The king’s going to have a baby—or maybe he’s had it by now. That’s important, if you live in the capital.”

  “I didn’t know the king could have a baby. They must do things different in the big city,” Nicator said. They both laughed, which proved they were drunk. He went on, “I don’t care who’s king. Our job stays the same any which way.”

  “Of course it does,” Grus said. “We take care of what’s real so they can worry about shadows back there.”

  Next morning, when the Tigerfish raised sail and glided on down toward the sea, his own headache seemed the realest thing in the world. He sipped at the rough red wine the river galley carried, trying to ease his pain. Nicator also looked wan. Grus tried to remember what they’d been talking about in the tavern. They’d been complaining about the way the world worked; he knew that much. But what else would you do in a tavern?

  Turnix came up to him. Sweat poured down the wizard’s chubby cheeks. This far south, summer was a special torment for a round man. “A quiet cruise we’ve had,” Turnix remarked.

  “Yes.” Grus wished the wizard would keep quiet.

  No such luck. Turnix went on, “Somehow, I don’t think it’ll stay that way.” His eyes were on the southern shore; the shore that didn’t belong to Avornis, the shore the Banished One claimed for his own.

  “No,” Grus said. Maybe, if he kept answering in monosyllables, Turnix would take the hint and go away.

  But Turnix had never been good at taking hints. He said, “Something’s stirring.”

  That got Grus’ attention, however much he wished it wouldn’t have. Like a miser coughing up a copper penny, he spent yet another syllable. “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” the fat little wizard admitted. “I wish I did. So much that’s closed to me would be open if only I were a little more than I am.” He sighed and looked very sad. “Such is life.”

  Grus didn’t answer that at all. He stood there letting the breeze blow through him. And then, of course, he too looked to the south.

  Oh, trouble might come from any direction. He knew that. The Thervings dreamt of putting a king of their own in the city of Avornis. They always had. They always would. Maybe the Banished One worked through them, too. Maybe they would have been nuisances just as great if he’d never been banished. Grus wouldn’t have been surprised.

  And off in the north, the Chernagors plotted among themselves and with Avornis and against Avornis. Some of them wanted Avornan lands. Some of them wanted their neighbors’ lands. Some of them, from some of the things Grus had heard, plotted for the sake of plotting, plotted for the sport of plotting.

  So, yes, trouble might come from anywhere. But the south was the direction to look first. The Banished One was there. The principalities of the Menteshe who followed him were there. And, of course, the Tigerfish was there, too. Just their luck.

  “What do you know?” Grus asked Turnix.

  “Something’s stirring,” Turnix repeated helplessly.

  “If I were foolish enough to put my faith in wizards, you’d teach me not to,” Grus growled. He never could tell what would offend Turnix. That did the job. The wizard strode away, his little bump of a nose in the air.

  But however vague he was, he wasn’t wrong today. Trouble found the Tigerfish that very afternoon. It came out of the south, too. Had Grus wanted to, he could have patted himself on the back for expecting that much.

  He didn’t. He was too busy worrying.

  When trouble came, it didn’t look like much: A lone thrall ran up to the southern bank of the Stura and shouted out to the river galley, crying, “Help me! Save me!” The thrall didn’t look like trouble. He looked like any thrall—or, for that matter, like the Avornan peasant his ancestors had surely been. His hair and beard were long and dirty. He wore a linen shirt and baggy wool breeches and boots that were out at the toes.

  No matter how he looked, he was trouble. In lands where the Banished One ruled, most thralls—almost all thralls—forgot Avornis, forgot everything but getting in the crops for their Menteshe masters and for the One who was the master of the Menteshe. When the Kingdom of Avornis pushed back the nomads, her wizards sometimes needed years to lift the magic from everyone in a reconquered district. But every so often, a thrall would come awake and try to escape. Every so often, too, the Banished One would pretend to let a thrall come awake, and would use him for eyes and ears in Avornis. Much harm had come to the kingdom before the Avornans realized that.

  “Help me!” the thrall called to the Tigerfish. “Save me!”

  Nicator looked at Grus. “What do we do, Captain?”

  Grus didn’t hesitate. He wasn’t sure he was right, but he didn’t hesitate. “Lower the sail,” he commanded. “Drop the anchors. Send out the boat. But remember—not a man is to set foot on the southern bank of the river. We aren’t at war, and we don’t want to give the Menteshe an excuse for starting one when we’re not ready.”

  “What if the thrall can’t get out to the boat?” Nicator asked. Grus shrugged. He intended to play the game by the rules. Nicator nodded.

  “Help me! Save me!” the thrall cried. The boat glided toward him. Peering south past him, Grus spied a cloud of dust that meant horses—horses approaching fast. The Menteshe had realized a thrall was slipping from their power—or they were making a spy seem convincing.

  Which? Grus didn’t know. Let me get the fellow aboard my ship, and then I’ll worry about it, he thought.

  As the boat drew near him, the thrall waved for the sailors to come closer still. When they wouldn’t, he threw up his hands in what looked like despair. Grus’ suspicions flared. But then, as the horsemen galloped toward the riverbank, the fellow splashed out into the Stura. The sailors hauled him into the boat and rowed back toward the Tigerfish as fast as they could go.

  The nomads reined in. Pointing toward the boat, they shouted something in their harsh, guttural language. When the boat didn’t stop, they strung their bows and started shooting. Arrows splashed into the river around it. One slammed home and stood thrilling in the stern. And one struck a rower, who dropped his oar with a howl of pain. Another man took his place.

  “That thrall had better be worth it,” Nicator remarked.

  “I know,” Grus said. By then, the boat had almost reached the Tigerfish. The arrows of the Menteshe began to fall short. The nomads shoo
k their fists at the river galley and rode away.

  Turnix, who was a healer of sorts, bound up the wounded sailor’s arm. It didn’t look too bad. Grus eyed the thrall, who stood on the pitching deck with a lifelong landlubber’s uncertainty and awkwardness. The fellow stared as Grus came up to him. “How do you move so smooth?” he asked.

  “I manage,” Grus answered. “What are you?”

  “My name is—”

  Grus shook his head. “Not Who are you. What are you? Are you a trap for me? Are you a trap for Avornis? If you are, I’ll cut your throat and throw you over the side.”

  “I do not understand,” the thrall said. “Something died in me. A deadness died in me. When I came alive”—he tapped his head with a forefinger—“I knew I had to get away. Everyone else in the village was dead like that, even my woman. I had to run. How could I be the only one who heard himself thinking?”

  He said the right things. A thrall who somehow came out from under the Banished One’s spells would have sounded the way he did. But so would a spy.

  “Turnix!” Grus yelled. The wizard hurried up to him, still scrubbing the wounded sailor’s blood from his hands. Grus pointed to the thrall. “Find out if the Banished One still lurks in his heart.”

  “I’ll try, Captain.” Turnix sounded doubtful. “I’ll do my best, but magic is his by nature, mine only by art.”

  And you haven’t got enough art, either, Grus thought, but he kept quiet. Turnix pointed at the thrall as though his finger were a weapon. He chanted. He made passes, some sharp, some slow and subtle. He muttered to himself and gnawed his lower lip. At last, he turned to Grus. “As far as I can tell, he is what he claims to be, what he seems to be.”

  “As far as you can tell,” Grus repeated. Turnix nodded. Grus sighed. “All right. I hadn’t planned to put in at Anxa, but I will now. They have a strong fortress there, and several strong wizards. I’ll put him in their hands. If they find he’s clean, they’ll make much of him. If they don’t …” He shrugged.

  “You think I still have—that—inside me,” the thrall said accusingly.

  “You may. Or you may not. For Avornis’ sake, I have to be as sure as I can,” Grus replied. Even letting the fellow see Anxa was a certain small risk. No, Avornis wasn’t at war with the Menteshe, not now—but she was not at peace, either. With the Banished One loose in the world, there was no true peace.

  Mergus felt helpless. He’d never had to get used to the feeling, as ordinary men did. But not even the King of Avornis could do anything while his concubine lay groaning in the birthing chamber and he had to wait outside.

  How long have I been out here? he wondered, and shook his head. A steward came in with a silver carafe and cup on a golden tray. “Some wine, Your Majesty?”

  “Yes!” Mergus exclaimed. The man poured the cup full and handed it to him. As he raised it to his lips, Certhia cried out again. Mergus’ hand jumped. Some of the wine slopped out of the cup and onto the polished marble floor. The king cursed softly. He didn’t want to show how worried he was. Rissa had said Certhia would bear a boy. She hadn’t said that the baby would live—or that his concubine would.

  The steward tried on a smile. “Call the spilled wine an offering, Your Majesty.”

  “I’d sooner call you an idiot,” Mergus growled. “Get out—but leave that pitcher.” The servant fled.

  By the time the birthing-chamber door opened, the king was well on the way to getting drunk. He glowered at the midwife. “Well, Livia?”

  “Very well, Your Majesty,” she answered briskly. Her wrinkles and the soft, sagging flesh under her chin said she was almost as old as Mergus, but her hair, piled high in curls, defied time by remaining black, surely with the help of a bottle. “I congratulate you. You have a son. A little on the small side, a little on the scrawny side, but he’ll do.”

  “A son,” King Mergus breathed. He’d wanted to say those words ever since he became a man. When he was young, he’d never dreamt he would have to wait so long. When he got older and hope faded, as hope has a way of doing, he’d almost stopped dreaming he would be able to say them at all. That only made them sweeter now.

  He looked into the carafe. It was empty. His cup was about half full. He thrust it at Livia. “Here. Drink.”

  She would not take it, but shook her head. Those piled curls never stirred. Tapping her foot impatiently, she said, “Won’t you ask after your lady?”

  “Oh.” Mergus had never had to get used to feeling embarrassed, either. “How is she?”

  “Well enough,” the midwife said. She paused, tasting her words, and seemed to find them good, for she repeated them. “Yes, well enough. She did well, especially for a first birth. If the fever holds off”—her fingers twisted in a protective gesture—“she should do fine.”

  Mergus offered her the wine again. This time, she took it. He asked, “Can I see the boy—and Certhia?”

  “Go ahead,” Livia told him. “I don’t know how glad she’ll be to see you, but go ahead. Remember, she’s been through a lot. No matter how well things go, it’s never easy for a woman.”

  Mergus hardly heard her. He strode past her and into the birthing chamber. The room smelled of sweat and dung and, faintly, of blood—a smell not so far removed from that of the battlefield. Certhia had managed to prop herself up against the back of her couch. She held the newborn baby to her breast. The stab of jealousy Mergus felt at seeing the baby sucking there astonished him.

  Certhia managed a wan smile that turned into a yawn. “Here he is, Your Majesty. Ten fingers, ten toes, a prick—a big prick, for such a little thing.”

  The king had already seen that for himself. It made him as absurdly proud as he’d been jealous a moment before. “Good,” he said. “Give him to me, will you?”

  Awkwardly, Certhia pulled the baby free. His face screwed up. He began to cry. His high, thin wail echoed from the walls of the birthing chamber. Certhia held him out to Mergus.

  “A son,” the king murmured. “At last, after all these years, a son.” He held his newborn heir much more easily than Certhia had. He’d never had a son before, no, but he’d had plenty of practice with daughters. Putting the baby up on his shoulder, he patted it on the back.

  “That’s too hard. You’ll hurt him,” Certhia said.

  “I know what I’m doing,” Mergus told her. And he proved it—a moment later, the baby rewarded him with a surprisingly loud belch. The baby stopped crying then, as though he’d surprised himself.

  “We’ll call him—”

  “Lanius,” King Mergus broke in. He wanted to say the name before anyone else could, even his concubine. “Prince Lanius. King Lanius, when his time comes.” The prince—the king to come—had, at the moment, an oddly shaped head much too big for his body, and an unfocused stare. Mergus’ daughters had outgrown such things. He knew Lanius would, too.

  Livia the midwife stuck her head into the chamber. “There’s a priest here,” she said.

  “Good,” Mergus said. “Tell him to come in.” As the man in the green robe did, Certhia squeaked and tried to set her robe to rights. Ignoring that, King Mergus nodded to the priest. “Get with it, Hallow Perdix. I need a proper queen.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Captain Grus was drinking wine in a riverside tavern in the town of Cumanus when the news got to him. The fellow who brought it to the tavern stood in the doorway and bawled it out at the top of his lungs. The place—it was called the Nixie—had been noisy and friendly, with rivermen and merchants chattering; with a dice game in one corner; with about every other man trying to get one of the barmaids to go upstairs with him. But silence slammed down like a blow from a morningstar.

  Nicator broke it. “He married her? He took a seventh wife? Go peddle it somewhere else, pal. Nobody’d do anything like that. It’s against nature, is what it is.”

  All over the Nixie, heads solemnly bobbed up and down, Grus’ among them. The very idea of a seventh wife was absurd. (His own wife, Estrilda, would
have found the very idea of a second wife for him absurd—but that was a different story, and a different sort of story, too, since it had nothing to do with the gods—but if Olor had only six wives …)

  The news bringer held out both hands before him, palms up, as though taking an oath. “May the Banished One make me into a thrall if I lie,” he said, and the silence he got this time was of a different sort. Nobody, especially here on the border, would say such a thing lightly. Into that silence, he went on, “He did marry her, I tell you. Said he wanted to make sure his heir—Lanius, the brat’s name is—wasn’t a bastard. Hallow Perdix said the words over him and his concubine—I mean, over Queen Certhia.”

  “How’d he find a priest who’d say such filthy words?” somebody asked belligerently.

  “How? I’ll tell you how,” answered the man in the doorway. “The priest who married them was Hallow Perdix. Now he’s High Hallow Perdix. He was no fool, not him. He knew which side his bread was buttered on.”

  “That’s terrible!” two or three people said at once. Whether it was terrible or not, Grus was convinced it was true. The man with the news had too many details at his fingertips for it to be something he was making up.

  “What does the arch-hallow have to say about the whole business?” he asked.

  “Good question!” the news bringer said. “Nobody knows the answer yet, I don’t think. If he says Prince Lanius is a bastard, he’s a bastard, all right, and he isn’t a prince, not anymore.”

  “If he says that, I know what King Mergus says: ‘Out!’” Nicator jerked a thumb at the door, as though dismissing a rowdy drunk.

  “Can the king sack the arch-hallow?” Grus asked.

  “I don’t know,” Nicator said. “Can the arch-hallow tell the king the son he’s waited for his whole life long is nothing but a little bastard who’ll never, ever, plop his backside down on the Diamond Throne?”

  That was another good question. Grus had no idea what sort of answer it had. He was sure of one thing, though—Avornis would find out. No, he was suddenly sure of two things. He wished he weren’t, and gulped his wine cup dry to try to chase the second thing from his head.