The Chernagor Pirates

by Harry Turtledove

  Lanius stuck his hand into the crack and felt around. His palms and fingers scraped against rough stone and brickwork. The opening got wider farther back. A person couldn’t have hoped to go through the passageway, but it wouldn’t be any trouble for a moncat.

  “This is how you get to the kitchens, all right,” Lanius muttered. “Now—where do you sneak into the archives?” He’d never seen Pouncer come out there. The moncat usually appeared in about the same part of that large chamber, but cabinets and crates and barrels all packed with parchments made searching for an opening much harder than it was here.

  He tried to reach in a little farther—and something tapped him on the back of the hand.

  He jerked his hand away, and almost fell off the ladder. If he landed on his head and it wasn’t the cooks’ fault … He’d still end up with a smashed skull, or maybe a broken neck. A hasty grab made sure he wouldn’t fall. But his heart still pounded wildly. What the demon had touched him in there?

  Staring into the crack, he saw only blackness. “Let me have a lamp,” he called to the people below. A skinny cook’s helper who couldn’t have been more than twelve came up the ladder to give him one. The rungs creaked again, but held.

  Lanius held the clay lamp up to the crack. The little flame from the burning oil didn’t reach very far. He poked his face toward the crack, trying to see farther into it. That only got in the way of the lamplight. He pulled back a little.

  Suddenly, he saw light inside the crack—two lights, in fact. They appeared, vanished for a moment, and reappeared once more. That blink of a disappearance … As soon as he thought of it as a blink, he realized what he was seeing—the eyes of an animal, throwing back some of the lamplight that fell on them. And what sort of animal was most likely to lurk in this particular crack?

  Again, Lanius realized the answer the moment he asked the right question. “Pouncer!” he exclaimed. “You come out of there this instant!”

  “Mrowr,” Pouncer said. The moncat, of course, did what it wanted to do, not what Lanius wanted it to do.

  The king reached in after it. It batted at his hand once more. As far as it was concerned, it was playing a game. It kept its claws in their sheaths, and didn’t try to hurt Lanius. He was enjoying himself a good deal less than the moncat. Pouncer was too far back in there for him to grab the beast and haul it out. If he tried, the game would quickly stop being one. The moncat had very sharp claws, and even sharper teeth. As long as it stayed in there, it could hurt him, and he couldn’t get it out.

  “Miserable, stupid creature,” he grumbled.

  That told the cooks and cleaners what was going on. “Is it the moncat again, Your Majesty?” a woman asked. Lanius nodded.

  “What do you want to do?” asked a cook with a gray beard.

  “I want to make the beast come out,” the king replied. “If I try to haul it out by the scruff of the neck, it’ll tear my hand to pieces.”

  “Give it some scraps,” the cook suggested. Lanius hoped he would have thought of that himself in a few heartbeats. The cook called, “Bring a scrap of meat for His Majesty!”

  Before long, the scrawny assistant who’d come up with the lamp did. Lanius held the bit of meat at the edge of the crack. Pouncer grabbed it and ate it without coming put. “Another scrap!” Lanius said. He could hear the moncat purring. It was having a fine time. He wished he could say the same.

  He got the next scrap. He let Pouncer see this one, but held it far enough away to make the moncat come out after it.

  Since he was still holding the lamp in his right hand, grabbing Pouncer was an awkward, clumsy business. He managed, though, and also managed to get down the ladder with lamp, moncat, and himself intact. The kitchen crew cheered. Pouncer finished the second scrap of meat and looked around for more.

  The cook who’d thought of feeding scraps to the moncat saw that, too. “Now that thing won’t want to steal spoons anymore,” he said. “It’ll want to steal meat instead.”

  That seemed depressingly probable to Lanius. “I’m going to take it back to its room for how,” he said. “Maybe it will stay there for a while, anyhow.” He looked down at Pouncer. The moncat stared back. Was that animal innocence or animal mischief in its eyes? Lanius couldn’t tell. He suspected he’d find out.

  One day followed another in the siege of Nishevatz. King Grus did his best to make sure the Avornan army had enough food, and to try to heal the soldiers who fell sick. Disease could devastate a force more thoroughly than battle. Healers and wizards did what they could against fluxes of the bowels and other ailments. None of the sicknesses raced through the camp like wildfire, as they so often did.

  Grus wondered how things were on the other side of the wall. Every so often, one or two of Vasilko’s warriors would slip down a rope and come out to the Avornan line. Like the first few men who’d given up the fight, they were hungry and weary, but they weren’t starving. Vasilko’s followers still fought back when Grus poked at them. They showed no signs of being ready to give up.

  And then, one morning that had seemed no different from any other, a messenger came back from the siege line to the king’s pavilion. “Your Majesty, Prince Vasilko is on the wall!” the young soldier said excitedly. “He says he wants to talk to you.”

  “Does he?” Grus said, and the young soldier nodded. Grus got off the stool he’d been sitting on. “Well, then, I’d better find out what he has to say for himself, hadn’t I?”

  In spite of his words, he didn’t approach Nishevatz by himself. He brought a company of soldiers, enough men to protect himself if Vasilko turned treacherous, and he also brought Pterocles.

  The wizard trembled a little—trembled more than a little—:as he approached the walls of Nishevatz. “I hope I can protect you, Your Majesty,” he said. “If the Banished One puts forth all his strength through Vasilko …”

  “If I didn’t think you could help me, I wouldn’t have asked you to come along,” Grus answered. “You’re the best I’ve got, and by now you have the measure of what the Banished One can do.”

  “Oh, yes. I have his measure,” Pterocles said in a hollow voice. “And he has mine. That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  Grus clapped him on the back. Pterocles’ answering smile was distinctly wan. Grus tried not to let it worry him. His own curiosity was getting the better of him as he drew near the walls of Nishevatz. He’d been at war against Vasilko for years, but had never set eyes on him up until now. He peered up, trying to pick Vsevolod’s rebellious son out from the rest of the Chernagor defenders.

  Nothing in Vasilko’s dress gave him away. Grus wished he’d taken that same precaution. Vasilko and the other Chernagors would have no trouble figuring out who he was if they wanted to try something nasty instead of parleying. With a shrug, Grus cupped his hands in front of his mouth and called, “I’m here, Vasilko. What do you want to say to me?”

  The Chernagor who stepped up to the very edge of the battlement was older than Grus had thought he would be. The King of Avornis had expected to face an angry youth, but Vasilko was on the edge of middle age. Grus realized he need not have been startled; Vsevolod had died full of years. Still, it was a surprise.

  Vasilko looked down at him with as much curiosity as he felt himself. “Why do you persecute me?” the usurper asked in Avornan better than Vsevolod had spoken.

  “Why did you overthrow your father when you were his heir?” Grus answered. “Why do you follow the Banished One and not the gods in the heavens?”

  Some of the Chernagors up on the walls of Nishevatz stirred. Grus supposed they were the ones who could understand Avornan. In a town full of traders, that some men could came as no great wonder. A few of them sent Vasilko startled looks. Did they think he still worshiped King Olor and Queen Quelea and the rest of the heavenly hierarchy? Maybe they were learning something new.

  Vasilko said, “Avornis’ throne was not yours by right, either, but you took it.”

  “I did not cast out King Lanius,�
�� Grus answered, wishing Vasilko hadn’t chosen that particular comeback. Grus went on, “King Lanius is in the royal palace in the city of Avornis right now. And I never cast aside the gods in the heavens. They knew what they were doing when they exiled the Banished One.” I hope—I pray—they knew what they were doing.

  “And when did it become your business what god Nishevatz follows?” Vasilko plainly had a prince’s pride.

  “The Banished One has tried to kill me more than once,” Grus said. “The nomads who follow him have worked all sorts of harm on Avornis. His friends are my foes, and if he is the sort of god usurpers follow, how safe are you on your stolen throne?”

  That made Vasilko look around in sudden alarm, as though wondering which of his officers he might be better off not trusting. But then the Chernagor straightened once more. “We stand united,” he said loudly.

  “Is that what you called me here to tell me?” Grus asked. Beside him, Pterocles stirred. Grus knew what the wizard was thinking—that Vasilko had called him here to launch a sorcerous attack against him. Grus would have been happier if he hadn’t found that fairly likely himself.

  But some of Vasilko’s pride leaked out of him as he stood there and looked out on land he could not rule because the Avornan army held him away from it. He spoke more quietly when he replied, “No. I want to learn what terms you may have in mind.”

  “Are you yielding? Is Nishevatz yielding?” Grus demanded, his voice taut with excitement.

  “Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever,” Vasilko said. “I told you, I want to know your terms.”

  Grus hadn’t thought hard about terms until this moment. He had always assumed the siege would have to drag on until the bitter end, until his men either stormed the walls or starved Nishevatz into surrender—or, with bad luck, failed. Slowly, he said, “The people of the city are to acknowledge Beloyuz as Prince of Nishevatz. They are to let my army into Nishevatz, and to give up all their weapons except for eating knives and one sword for every three men. You yourself are to come back to Avornis with me, to live out your days in exile in the Maze.”

  He waited to see how Vasilko would respond to that. He didn’t have to wait long. “No,” Vasilko said, and turned his back. “The fight goes on.”

  “So be it,” Grus said. “You will not get a better bargain from me when we break into Nishevatz.”

  That made Vasilko turn back. “You talk about doing that. Go ahead and talk. But when you have done it, then you will have earned the right. Not now.” He disappeared from Grus’ view; the king supposed he had gone down from the wall.

  “So much for that,” Grus remarked as he returned to the siege line the Avornans had set up. “I’d hoped for better, but I hadn’t really looked for it.”

  “You got more than I thought you would, Your Majesty,” Pterocles said. Grus raised a questioning eyebrow. The wizard went on, “This was a real parley, even if it didn’t work. I thought it would be nothing but a try at assassinating you.”

  “Oh.” Grus thought that over. He set a hand on Pterocles’ shoulder. “You have a pretty strange notion of what goes into progress, you know that?”

  “I suppose I do,” the sorcerer said.

  “Any luck?” General Hirundo called when Grus came into the siege line.

  The king shook his head. “Not a bit of it, except that Vasilko didn’t try to murder me.” Hirundo laughed. Grus would have meant it for a joke before Pterocles had spoken. Now he wasn’t joking. The siege went on.

  “Back when I was your age,” King Lanius told his son, “the Thervings were a lot fiercer than they are now. They even laid siege to the city of Avornis a couple of times, though they couldn’t take it.”

  Prince Crex listened solemnly. “How come they’re different now?” he asked.

  Lanius beamed. “Good question! King Berto, who rules them nowadays, is a peaceable fellow. He wants to be a holy man.”

  “Like Arch-Hallow Anser?” Crex asked.

  “Well … in a way,” Lanius said. Anser wasn’t particularly holy; he just held a post that required the appearance of holiness from its occupant. From everything Lanius had seen, King Berto was sincere in his devotion to the gods. But how to explain that to a little boy? Not seeing how he could, Lanius continued, “Berto’s father, King Dagipert, was more interested in fighting than in praying.”

  Crex frowned. “So if the next King of Thervingia would sooner fight than pray, will we have wars with the Thervings all the time again?”

  That was an even better question. “I hope we won’t,” Lanius answered. “But both sides have to want peace for it to stick. Only one needs to want a war.”

  He waited to see what Crex would make of that. After another brief pause, Crex asked, “When is Grandpa coming home?”

  “I don’t know,” Lanius said, blinking at the effortless ease with which children could change the subject. “When he’s taken Nishevatz, I suppose.”

  “I miss him,” Crex said. “If he were a king who liked to pray instead a king who likes to fight, would he be home now?”

  Maybe he hadn’t changed the subject after all. “I don’t know, son,” Lanius said again. “He might have to go fight anyhow, because up in the Chernagor country he’s fighting against the Banished One.”

  “Oh,” Crex said. “All right.” And he went off to play without so much as a backward glance at his father.

  He ought to know more about these things. He’ll be king one day—I hope, Lanius thought. Crex needed to know about the different bands of Menteshe, about all the Chernagor city-states and how they fit together, about the Thervings, and about the barbarous folk who roamed beyond the Bantian Mountains but might swarm over them to trouble either Thervingia or Avornis itself. He needed to know about the Banished One, too, however much Lanius wished he didn’t.

  Right now, the only way for Crex to find out everything he needed to know was to ask someone who already knew. The trouble was, nobody, not even Lanius, knew offhand everything a King of Avornis might need to learn about his kingdom’s neighbors.

  “I ought to write it all down,” Lanius said. He nodded, pleased with the idea. It would help Crex. He was sure of that. And it would give him the excuse to go pawing through the archives to find out whatever he didn’t already know about the foreigners his kingdom had to deal with.

  He laughed at himself. As though he needed excuses to go pawing through the archives! But now he would be doing it for a reason, not just for his own amusement. Didn’t that count?

  When he told Sosia what he had in mind, she didn’t seem to think so. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked. “Or will you go into that nasty, dusty room and disappear forever?”

  “It’s not nasty,” Lanius said. He couldn’t deny the archives were dusty. On the other hand, he had a few very pleasant memories of things he’d done there, even if his wife didn’t need to hear about them.

  Sosia’s shrug showed amused resignation. “Go on, then. At least when you’re in there, I know what you’re doing.” Again, Lanius congratulated himself for not telling her it wasn’t necessarily so.

  He’d spent a lot of time going through the archives looking for what they had to say about the Banished One and the Scepter of Mercy. Now he was looking for some different things—for how his ancestors, and the kings who’d ruled Avornis before his ancestors came to the throne, had dealt with their neighbors.

  He couldn’t keep from laughing at himself. Arch-Hallow Anser hunted deer. So did Prince Ortalis, who would have hunted more tender game if he could have gotten away with it. And me? Lanius thought. I hunt pieces of parchment the mice haven’t nibbled too badly. He knew Anser and Ortalis would both laugh at him if that thought occurred to them. Why not beat them to the punch?

  Before the end of his first hunting trip in the archives—no serving girls along to act as beaters for the game he sought—he knew he would have no trouble coming up with all he needed and more besides. Then he found a new question. What would he do once he had
everything he needed? He’d written countless letters. This was the first time he’d tried writing a book—he’d never begun the one on palace life.

  What would he call it? The first thing that came to mind was How to Be a King. He wondered if that was too simple. Would any ambitious noble or officer think he could rule Avornis if he had the book? Of course, the kingdom had seen plenty of would-be usurpers without it, so how much would that matter? Would it matter at all?

  How to Be a King, then. It said what he wanted to say, and it would do for now. If he got a better idea later, he could always change it. The next question was, how to go about writing it? What did he need to tell Crex, and how should he tell it? How could he make a book like that interesting enough to tempt a prince who could do anything he wanted to go on reading it?

  He was, he realized, asking himself a lot of questions. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he laughed and clapped his hands. He got pen and parchment. After inking the pen, he wrote, What do you need to know, my son, to become the sort of king Avornis should have? Having asked the question, he proceeded to answer it. He asked another, more specific, question, and answered that, too. The answer posed yet another question. He also answered that one.

  The longer Lanius wrote, the more detailed the questions got, and the more poking through the archives he had to do to answer them. Not many days went by before he was trying to sort out the complicated history of Avornan dealings with the individual Chernagor city-states, and doing his best to give advice on how to play them off one against another.

  He thought about having a scribe make a copy of that part of How to Be a King so he could send it up to Grus in the Chernagor country. He thought about it, but he didn’t do it. Grus was liable to think he was interfering in the campaign—and Grus was also a pretty good horseback diplomat, even if he didn’t care to spend days at a time digging through the archives.