The Bastard King

by Harry Turtledove

  “Come on,” he snapped at the captains who served him. “The sooner we close with the rebels and smash them up, the better off we’ll be, and the better off Avornis will be, too.”

  The army trampled fields as it advanced. Whatever livestock it got its hands on, it devoured. Grus had known those sorts of things would happen. Part of him exulted; they would make it harder for Corvus and Corax to keep on fighting against him. But part of him mourned, for everything that hurt his foes also hurt Avornis. That was the curse of civil war. No help for it, though.

  Thinking of curses made him order a couple of wizards to stick close by Lanius. The rebels might try to steal a victory the same way Queen Certhia had tried against him. Sorcerously killing the king from the ancient dynasty was one obvious way to go about it. Sorcerously killing Grus was another obvious way. He didn’t go too far from wizards himself, either.

  Things would have been easier had Corvus and Corax quietly stayed in the trap and let themselves be ground to bits between Grus’ army and Hirundo’s. But, like Grus, they had swarms of scouts out and about.

  “They’re falling back to the south, Your Majesty,” one of Grus’ riders reported. “Sure as anything, they’ve figured out how close we are.”

  “Too bad,” Grus growled. “We’ll just have to press them hard, then.” He turned to the trumpeters and shouted orders. Once again, they blew Advance. His men cheered as they went forward. They thought they had the rebels on the run.

  And what would the soldiers whom Corvus and Corax commanded think? With any luck, they would think they were in trouble. Thinking that could help turn it true. Only the very greatest generals could take a retreating army and make it fight hard once it stopped retreating. From everything Grus had seen, Corvus and Corax weren’t generals of that stripe. He didn’t want them suddenly proving him wrong now.

  Not much later, another rider came in to report to him—not one who’d traveled with him through the Maze, but an unfamiliar fellow. Grus’ guards and the wizards with the army all kept a wary eye on the newcomer—another quick way for Corvus and Corax to win their fight would be by sending out an assassin.

  But the rider said, “General Hirundo’s compliments, Your Majesty, and he’s ready to work with you any way you like.”

  “That’s good news,” Grus answered, thinking, That’s good news if it’s true. He went on, “How am I to know you come from Hirundo and not from the rebels?”

  “You could just keep me prisoner and take my head if the general doesn’t vouch for me when he joins you,” the scout said. “Or you could let me tell you that Hirundo says the two of you first met down in the south, where he drove the Menteshe to the Stura River and your galleys kept them from crossing back to the land they hold.”

  “We did meet that way,” Grus said, nodding. “But even so, I am going to keep you here till he vouches for you—just to be sure. I don’t think Corvus and Corax know that story, but they could.”

  The scout nodded. “The general told me you’d probably say that. He said you didn’t like to take chances unless you had to.”

  “Did he?” Grus murmured. One corner of his mouth quirked up in a wry smile. “Well, I suppose he’s right.” He turned to the guards. “Treat this fellow well, but don’t let him go anywhere till we find out exactly who he is.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” they chorused.

  “Sounds to me like General Hirundo was right,” the rider said as Grus’ soldiers led him off.

  When the sun was setting that day; Hirundo himself rode into Grus’ camp. He rode in with no ceremony at all. In fact, Grus’ guards greeted him with as much suspicion as they had the rider he’d sent before him. He’d shed all trappings of rank, and wore plain, grimy clothes and a broad-brimmed hat as disreputable as any Grus had ever seen.

  Grus greeted him with, “I’d say you don’t mind taking chances for the fun of it.”

  “Ah.” Hirundo grinned. “Dromas got here ahead of me, did he? And you probably went and clapped him in irons because you weren’t sure I’d sent him.”

  “I did not,” Grus said indignantly. “But I didn’t let him go, either. Now that you’re here, I will.”

  “That’ll make him happy,” Hirundo said. “And as for me, I figured I’d take fewer chances gallivanting over the landscape like this than I would in gilded mail and helmet. Nobody takes scouts seriously. Even if the rebels caught me, they wouldn’t do anything much to me. But if they’d captured me while I was dressed as the famous and ferocious General Hirundo, they’d either kill me or hold me for ransom.”

  “Famous and ferocious?” Grus said.

  “At the very least, Your Majesty.” Hirundo’s grin got wider. “And very much at your service, I might add.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Grus said, meaning every word. “Pity we couldn’t quite catch Corax and Corvus between us.”

  “When children play at war, or when poets write about it, they make it easy,” Hirundo answered. “We know better, or we’re supposed to. The gods-cursed bastards on the other side have plans of their own, and they’re rude enough to think we’re the gods-cursed bastards. We just have to keep after ’em, that’s all, and show ’em they’re wrong.”

  “Anyone would guess you’ve been doing this for a little while,” Grus observed.

  “Who, me, Your Majesty? I started day before yesterday. Next battle I see will be my first.”

  “If I had the Scepter of Mercy in my hands right this minute, I do believe I’d clout you in the head with it,” Grus said, and Hirundo laughed out loud. After a bit of thought, Grus shook his head. “No, I’d save it, and clout Corvus and Corax in the head with it instead.”

  “Clout them in the head with what?” asked King Lanius, who, unlike anyone else in the encampment, had no trouble getting through Grus’ guards.

  “Oh, hello, Your Majesty. Allow me to present General Hirundo to you,” Grus said. “Hirundo, here is my colleague, King Lanius.” Lanius and Hirundo said all the right things. Hirundo was much more polite with Lanius than with Grus, whom he knew well. After the formalities, Grus went on, “I’d like to clout the rebels in the head with the Scepter of Mercy.”

  “Would you?” Lanius sounded prim and disapproving; rough soldiers’ jokes were not usually for him. But then he surprised Grus by saying, “Well, if that’s what you have in mind, I can tell you how to go about it.”

  “I know how to go about it,” Grus answered. “All I have to do is march halfway down from the Stura River to the southern hills, beat all the Menteshe who try to stop me, lay siege to Yozgat, beat the Banished One in person if he tries to stop me, take up the Scepter, and start clouting.” He snapped his fingers. “What could be simpler?”

  Lanius’ face froze. “Since you already have all the answers, I won’t trouble you any further.” He nodded to Hirundo. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, General.” Turning on his heel, he stalked away.

  “Oh, dear,” Grus said. “I put his back up, didn’t I? He looks like a cat after you’ve rubbed its fur the wrong way.”

  “I wonder what he was going to tell you about the Scepter of Mercy,” Hirundo remarked.

  Grus shrugged. “Could have been almost anything. He knows … a lot, is all I can tell you. But he doesn’t always know which parts of what he knows are worth knowing, if you know what I mean.” He paused. That had confused even him. After a moment, he resumed. “Whatever he knows, though, it doesn’t matter, because every word I said was true, too. I can talk about the Scepter of Mercy till I’m blue in the face, but I can’t get my hands on it, no matter how much I’d like to. Corvus and Corax, now, they’re a different story. Them, I can reach. Since we didn’t manage to trap them this time around, the next thing we need to try is.…”

  Lanius had never been so angry—not even, he thought, when Arch-Hallow Bucco sent his mother away for the first time. That had been a boy’s burst of temper. This was a man’s rage—the rage any man grown might feel at being condescended to, talked down t
o.

  What made the rage worse yet was that Lanius knew how completely impotent it was. If he summoned soldiers to seize his fellow king, what would they do? He knew all too well. They would laugh, seize him, instead, and haul him before Grus.

  What if I flee the camp? he thought. What if I go over to Corvus and Corax myself?

  He stopped and rubbed his chin. His beard was still thin and scraggly, but it was a beard; that it might make Grus think him still a boy never crossed his mind. If he went over to the rebels, he would strike his father-in-law a heavy blow. Some of the soldiers who fought for Grus might follow him to Corvus and Corax. Others would surely waver in their loyalty to the new king.

  A lot of youths would have thought so far and no further—except how to sneak out of camp and head south. But second thoughts, for Lanius, were as natural and automatic as first ones. King Mergus, his father, had been a man of headlong action. King Grus was cut from the same cloth. Lanius wished he were. Whatever he wished, he knew he wasn’t.

  As things were, he stood rubbing his chin for some little while, thinking things through. The question he asked himself that most youths wouldn’t have was, If I go over to Corvus and Corax, and if Grus doesn’t catch me trying it, what happens next?

  The more he thought about that, the less he liked the answers he got. Corvus had already declared himself king. Would he drop that claim because the legitimate king came into his camp? Lanius’ lips quirked in a bitter, mocking smile. Not likely. From everything Lanius could see, nobody ever dropped a claim like that as long as his head stayed on his shoulders.

  What then? Lanius saw only one answer—Corvus would treat him the same way Grus was treating him, would use him as a puppet, as a mask. He himself would stay king in name, and Corvus would be king in fact. He had no particular illusions about Count Corvus’ character. If Corvus ever decided he wasn’t useful or wasn’t necessary anymore, he would suffer an unfortunate accident or illness in short order.

  Grus could have slain him. Instead, Grus had married him to Sosia. Lanius had come to be fond of Grus’ daughter, no matter how furious he was at Grus himself. Would he stay—would he be allowed to stay—wed to her if he went over to Count Corvus and Corvus won? He shook his head. That answer was painfully obvious. You might not stay wed to her if you go over to Corvus and Corvus loses, he told himself.

  Lanius started to laugh, though it wasn’t really funny. Here in half a minute, he’d talked himself out of running off to the rebels. I’ll have to avenge myself some other way.

  Scowling, Grus peered across the Enipeus River. On the far side stood Count Corvus’ keep and, somewhat farther away, Count Corax’s. More to the point, drawn up on the far side of the river stood the rebels’ army, plainly determined to keep Grus and his men from crossing.

  He turned to General Hirundo. “What do we do about this?” he asked.

  “I presume we can get the boats and such we need to force our way across?” Hirundo asked in return.

  Directed at the man who had been commodore, that was the next thing to an insult. “We can get them, yes,” Grus said shortly.

  “All right, Your Majesty.” As usual, Hirundo sounded cheerful. “Once we do, we use them to run the rebels ragged. We get part of our army over the river someplace where they’re not patrolling very hard, and we make that part out to be bigger than it is, so they come pelting up with all their men to squash it. Then we put the rest of the army on the southern bank somewhere else and go after them hard from behind.”

  “The risk being that they beat the one part and then come back and beat the other,” Grus remarked.

  “Your Majesty, there is some risk of that, yes, but not a lot. The way I look at things, Corvus couldn’t beat a rug if you handed him a paddle.”

  Grus snorted. “You’re probably right.” He grew a little more serious. “Don’t take too many chances, though. Remember—even though you’re probably right, you may be wrong, and you may make yourself wrong by being too sure you’re right.”

  Hirundo contemplated that. At last, he said, “There are times when I think you’re wasted as King of Avornis, Your Majesty. You might have done better as arch-hallow instead.”

  “No, thanks,” Grus said at once. “Let’s make the arrangements.”

  He summoned Captain Nicator and told him what he wanted. Nicator’s beard had grown white as new snow, and Grus’ longtime comrade now had to cup a hand behind his ear to make out the king’s words. Once he did, though, he nodded. “I’ll take care of it, boss,” he said. “Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  “I always worry,” Grus answered.

  “Well, don’t—not this time,” Nicator told him. “When I say I’ll take care of things, don’t I do it?”

  He proved as good as his word. He always had, for as long as Grus had known him. Along with river galleys, smaller boats started showing up on the Enipeus within a few days. Grus didn’t know where Nicator came up with them; by all he could tell, the captain might have pulled them out of his back pocket. They raced up and down the river. That was a game Nicator’s and Grus’ ships had played against the Menteshe down in the far south. The rebels’ horsemen galloped after the ships, now this way, now that. Some of Hirundo’s men started moving up and down the river, too.

  “By the time we’re done, Corvus and Corax won’t dare sit down, for fear we’ll be standing behind their chairs with a knife.” Nicator sounded as though he was enjoying himself.

  Grus grinned. “That’s what I want. That’s exactly what I want.”

  Nicator proved as good as his word, or even a little better. He started landing little bands of soldiers on the southern bank of the river, some here, some there, some somewhere else. They would shoot a few arrows at the rebel scouts who came up to spy out how many of them there were, start a few fires, run off a few sheep and pigs, and then get back onto the boats and river galleys and recross the Enipeus. Corvus and Corax had nothing to speak of on the river. Some soldiers had gone over to them, and they’d raised more from the farmers on their estates. But sailors remained overwhelmingly loyal to Grus.

  “Think they’re ripe yet?” Nicator asked one afternoon.

  After weighing things, Grus nodded. “Yes. Let’s get this over with—if we can.”

  When the sun rose the next day, Nicator ferried Hirundo’s force over the Enipeus. Corvus and Corax’s men needed longer than they should have to realize this wasn’t another pinprick raid. The first few scout companies that went up against the attackers vanished without trace. Then the whole rebel army began to move, in sudden, desperate haste. From the north bank of the river, Grus watched the pillar of dust that signaled where every force moving on land in summertime was.

  As soon as he was sure Corvus and Corax had committed themselves, he ordered the rest of his own force onto Nicator’s fleet. Horns blared. Sergeants shouted and cursed. Horses neighed or simply snorted in resignation. And the fleet did what Grus had wanted from it—it put his men right in the rebels’ rear.

  Sergeants shouted louder than ever as soldiers streamed off the barges and boats and river galleys. “Move!” they bellowed. “Move fast! Help your friends! We do this the right way, we all get to go home afterward!” If anything would make the men fight like fiends, that was it.

  As soon as he was on the south side of the Enipeus, Grus mounted his horse. As a rider, he remained a good sailor. King Lanius, not far away from him, had a much better seat. But Grus stayed on, and he stayed out in front of his men. “Come on!” he shouted. He waved his sword, and didn’t quite cut off the horse’s ears with it. “We’ve got ’em where we want ’em now! This time, we finish ’em!”

  The men cheered. Lanius said nothing at all, and didn’t try to keep up with the van of the onrushing army. Grus knew his fellow king was unhappy with him. He also knew Lanius wasn’t, and never would be, a warrior.

  Grus had more urgent things to worry about, anyhow. Before long, his soldiers started scooping up men who’d fought for Cor
vus and Corax. “What are you bastards doing here?” one of them snarled as he went off into captivity. “You’re supposed to be up there.” He pointed upstream, where Hirundo’s men unquestionably were.

  “Life is full of surprises,” Grus answered. The rebel only gaped at him.

  Others who fought for Corvus and Corax must have galloped ahead to let the brothers know they were under attack from front and rear at once. Before long, Grus found rebels drawn up in a ragged line across a field of barley. He pointed his sword at them. “Can they stop us?” he yelled. His men roared in response, and he led the charge at a gallop, hoping all the while he wouldn’t fall off his horse.

  Some of the rebel horsemen and foot soldiers had bows. Grus watched a rider take aim at him. He hoped the fellow wasn’t taking dead aim. The archer let fly. The arrow hissed past Grus’ head. Then he and his men were on the soldiers who followed Corax and Corvus.

  Battle, as always, seemed a blur. Grus struck and turned blows and shouted and cursed and urged his followers on. Sometimes he missed; sometimes his sword bit on flesh. Even when the blade did strike home, more often than not he had no idea how much damage he did. Everyone on the field was shouting and groaning and screaming. What was one more cry of pain among the rest?

  “We’ve broken them!” someone yelled. It was, Grus realized, someone on his side. Sure enough, the rebels—those of them still on their feet—streamed off in flight.

  “This is only the beginning,” Grus called. “This was just a rear guard. They wanted to slow us up. We didn’t even let them do that. We’ve got to keep moving now, come to grips with the rest of the army, and break it, too.” He pointed west. “Forward!”

  His men cheered. Why not? They’d won a fight, and hadn’t suffered much doing it. That made them ready for more.

  They got it, too. A scout came galloping back with news: “Corax and Corvus are mixing it up with Hirundo’s men. If we pitch into their rear now—”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Grus agreed. He shouted, “Forward!” again at the top of his lungs.