The Scepter's Return

by Harry Turtledove

  “No matter how much she might enjoy it,” Anser murmured.

  Lanius had been finishing the cup of wine. He almost choked at that. Anser was in dangerous form this morning. “I was thinking of the baby,” Lanius said carefully.

  “Well, of course you were,” Anser said. That couldn’t be anything but polite agreement … could it?

  Wondering too much would only make matters worse, Lanius decided. He said, “I was hoping you could help persuade Ortalis I didn’t mean to offend him. I was only trying to do his whole family a good turn.”

  “What’s that saying about getting punished for your good deeds and not for your bad ones?” Anser clucked sympathetically. Then he did something more practical—he refilled Lanius’ winecup. Lanius drank without hesitation; no, he wouldn’t have minded getting drunk by then, not at all. The arch-hallow poured his own mug full again, too. After a sip, he went on, “I’ll do what I can, Your Majesty, but I don’t know how much that’ll be.”

  “I understand. Believe me, I understand,” Lanius said. “When Ortalis gets an idea into his head, he—” He stopped so hard, he almost bit his tongue. What had almost come out of his mouth was he beats it to death. It wouldn’t have been anything but a figure of speech, but it would have been a disastrous one here.

  “Yes, he does, doesn’t he?” Anser said. Maybe he was just responding to the pause. Lanius dared hope. The other choice was that Anser knew exactly what he hadn’t said, which would be almost as embarrassing as though he’d actually said it. He can’t prove that was what I meant, Lanius thought. Anser, who didn’t need to prove a thing, continued, “I’ll try. I said I would, and I will. We don’t need this kind of foolishness in the palace when we’re fighting the Menteshe, too.”

  “You’ve got good sense,” Lanius said gratefully.

  “A whole fat lot of good it’s liable to do me here, too,” the arch-hallow replied with a wry grin. Knowing that also showed he had good sense. He added, “You do pretty well that way yourself, Your Majesty. Ortalis, though, once he gets angry, everything else flies out of his head.”

  Again, he wasn’t wrong. Lanius took a long pull at his wine. “I don’t expect miracles,” he said. “Miracles are for the gods, not for us. Do what you can, and I’ll be glad of it no matter what it is.”

  “Thanks. The family ought to stick together. And we—” Now Anser was the one who broke off in a hurry.

  Lanius wondered why. Then, all at once, he didn’t. Had Anser swallowed something like, We bastards ought to stick together, too? Lanius didn’t, wouldn’t, think of himself as a bastard, but Anser really was one. Did he ever wonder if he might have been in line for the throne had his birth turned out different? He’d hardly be human if he didn’t. But he wasn’t—he never had been—a jealous man, which was probably all to the good. Lanius would have been furious at almost anyone who suggested he might not be legitimate. But how could he get angry at Anser, who really wasn’t?

  “By Olor’s prong, we should, shouldn’t we?” Lanius said.

  If he’d talked about some other part of Olor’s anatomy, Anser might not have been sure he’d filled in what the arch-hallow hadn’t said. As things were, Anser turned red as a modest maiden hearing her beauty praised for the first time. “I meant no offense, Your Majesty,” he mumbled.

  “I took none,” Lanius said quickly. “And I thank you very much for trying to talk to Ortalis. If he’ll listen to anybody, he’ll listen to you.”

  “Yes,” Anser said with a nod. “If.”

  When the Avornan army stopped for the evening south of the Stura, Hirundo always threw out sentries all around it. Whenever he found the chance, he had the men run up a rampart around the encampment, too, made up of whatever timber or stones and rubble they could get their hands on. They sometimes grumbled. Hirundo took no notice of that, not where they could hear.

  “I know it’s not the strongest defense, and I know it’s work nobody likes to do,” he said to Grus on an evening when the complaints were louder than usual. “But it’s better than nothing, and it’ll slow the nomads down, maybe even throw ’em into confusion, if they try hitting us at night.”

  “You’re right. You couldn’t be righter,” Grus said. “Do you want me to say a few words—or more than a few words—to the soldiers about that?”

  Hirundo shook his head. “I think that would make things worse, not better. They’re following orders. They just don’t like them very much. If you start fussing about it, they’re liable to decide they have to have their own way no matter what. That’s how mutinies start.”

  “All right. You know best.” Grus thought for a little while, then slowly nodded. “Yes, if I had grumbling sailors to deal with, I’d probably handle them the same way. As long as they don’t think you think something’s worth pitching a fit about, they won’t get too excited themselves.”

  “That’s it exactly,” Hirundo agreed. “They need to be worrying about the Menteshe, not about earthworks and such. This should just be part of routine. And it is, pretty much. It’s a part they don’t care for, that’s all.”

  “All sorts of things down here I don’t care for.” Grus looked back toward the north. “One of them is that we aren’t getting as many wagonloads of supplies as I hoped we would.”

  Hirundo looked unhappy. The lamplight inside Grus’ pavilion deepened the shadows in his wrinkles and made him seem even less pleased than he would have in the daytime. “Miserable nomads have been raiding the wagon trains. They’ve decided they can make trouble for us that way without meeting our main force face-to-face, strength to strength.”

  “And they’re right, too, curse them,” Grus said. Hirundo didn’t deny it. Grus hadn’t thought he would. The king asked, “What can we do about it?”

  “We’re doing what we can,” Hirundo answered. “We’ve got solid guard parties going with the wagons. If they were any stronger, we’d start weakening the army here. We’ve built a line of real strongpoints back to the Stura. All of that only helps so much. The Menteshe get to pick and choose where they’ll hit us. That gives them the edge.”

  Grus drew his sword. The blade gleamed in the buttery light. “I’d like to give them the edge of this, by the gods,” he growled.

  “We gain. In spite of everything, we gain,” Hirundo said. “We’ve done better down here than I thought we would. Those thrall-freeing spells really work.”

  “They’d better, by Olor’s strong right hand!” Grus said. “I wouldn’t have had the nerve to stick my nose across the Stura without them.”

  Musingly, the general said, “Even if we lose here, we’ll still have caused the Menteshe a lot of trouble. With the people who do their work for them able to think for themselves, the nomads won’t have it all their own way anymore.”

  He was right, no doubt about it. Grus scowled even so. “I didn’t cross the river to lose. I crossed the river to lay siege to Yozgat, take the Scepter of Mercy away from whichever Menteshe prince happens to be hanging on to it, and to bring it back to the city of Avornis where it belongs.”

  Hirundo stared south. “I don’t know whether we’ll be able to get there by the end of this campaigning season. That’s a cursed long advance to make in one summer—and a cursed long supply line to protect, too. We’re already seeing some of the joys there.”

  He was right about that, too. His being right made Grus no happier—just the opposite, in fact. “We’ll do what we can, that’s all,” the king said. “And if we don’t get everything done that we hoped for …” He did some more scowling. “If that’s how things work out, then we go back and try again next year. We had to keep going back to the Chernagor country till things finally turned our way. If that happens here … then it does, that’s all.”

  “All right,” Hirundo said evenly. “I did want to make sure you were thinking about all the possibilities.”

  “Thank you so very much,” Grus said, and Hirundo laughed out loud, for he sounded anything but grateful.

  Pounc
er swarmed up a stick. When the moncat got to the top, it waited expectantly. Collurio gave it a bit of meat. Then Pouncer jumped to the next stick, which ran horizontally, and hurried along it. Lanius waited at the other end. “Mrowr?” Pouncer said.

  The king gave the moncat a treat. Pouncer ate it with the air of someone who’d received no less than his due. Lanius turned to Collurio. “You’ve taught this foolish beast more in a few weeks than I did in years.”

  “He’s a lot of things, Your Majesty, but he’s not a foolish beast,” the animal trainer answered. He eyed Pouncer with wary respect. “If these moncats ever learn to shoot dice and hire lawyers, you can start shaving them and docking their tails, because they’ll be people just as much as we are.”

  “Mrowr,” Pouncer said again. The moncat’s yawn displayed a mouthful of needle teeth. It also declared that the idea of being a person struck Pouncer as imperfectly delightful.

  Laughing, Lanius said, “He’s got us to wait on him hand and foot. That must be how he sees it, anyway. And why wouldn’t he? What do we do except give him things he likes to eat?”

  “He has to perform for them,” Collurio said.

  “He probably thinks he has us trained, not the other way around. And who’s to say he’s wrong?” Lanius scratched Pouncer by the side of the jaw. The moncat rewarded him with a scratchy purr.

  Collurio gave him a curious look. “Trainers say things like that all the time, Your Majesty. ‘Oh, yes, that dog’s taught me what I need to know,’ they’ll say, and then they’ll laugh to show they don’t really mean it—even when they do. But I’ve never heard anyone outside the trade talk that way before.”

  Astonishment spread over his face when Lanius bowed to him. “I thank you. I thank you very much, in fact,” the king said. “You just paid me a great compliment.”

  “Your Majesty?” Now Collurio was frankly floundering.

  “I’m nothing but an amateur, a hobbyist, at training animals, but you told me I talk like someone who makes a living at it,” Lanius explained. “If that’s not a compliment, what is?”

  “Oh.” Collurio’s chuckle had a sharp edge to it. “I see what you’re saying. Meaning no offense, but you wouldn’t seem so proud of sounding like an animal trainer if you really were one.”

  “Maybe not, but you never know,” Lanius said. “It’s honest work. It has to be. The animals are out there on display. Either they’ll do what you taught them or they cursed well won’t.”

  “There are always times when they cursed well won’t,” Collurio said. “Nobody likes times like that, but everybody has ’em. Anybody who tries telling you anything different is a liar. Those are the days when you go home telling your dogs that they don’t know a sheep from a wolf and your cats that they belong in rabbit stew.”

  That puzzled Lanius. “Why would a cat go in rabbit stew?”

  This time, Cullurio bowed low to him. “There is a question a king would ask. When you tell your cooks you feel like rabbit stew, you’re sure you’ll get real rabbit. Anyone else, unless he’s caught his bunnies himself—and cooked them himself, too—is liable to wonder whether he’s eating roof rabbit instead.”

  “Roof rab—? Oh!” Lanius had always been fond of a good, spicy rabbit stew. Now he wondered how many times his rabbit would have meowed. Collurio had exaggerated notions about how much a king could influence his cooks. The crew in the kitchens might well laugh behind their hands at the notion of fooling their sovereign. “I don’t know that I’m ever going to think about eating rabbit the same way again.”

  “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” Collurio said.

  “Don’t be. Having something new to think about is always interesting.” Lanius scratched Pouncer again. “You wouldn’t care one way or the other, would you? It’s all meat, as far as you’re concerned.”

  “Mrowr.” To Pouncer, that was the only possible answer.

  “Do you think he can learn … what I want him to learn?” Lanius asked Collurio. He didn’t care to speak too directly. No telling who might be listening, even if no ordinary mortal was in earshot.

  The trainer said, “He’s clever enough, no doubt of that.” Pouncer chose that moment to yawn, which made both men laugh. “Yes, he’s clever enough, but he’s a cat, all right,” Collurio went on. “Whether he cares enough—ah, that’s another question.” Lanius eyed Pouncer. Could the fate of a kingdom rest on whether a moncat cared enough? He feared it could.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Another river to cross. Grus looked over to the southern bank, which stood higher than the one he was on. Menteshe horsemen in some numbers trotted back and forth not far from the water. Every now and then, one of them would draw his bow and shoot an arrow at the Avornan army. Grus’ archers shot back, but most of their arrows fell in the river. The nomads’ bows outranged theirs.

  How many Menteshe am I not seeing? Grus wondered. He asked Hirundo, “What do you think about making a crossing here?”

  The general looked south, too. “If there are a whole lot more Menteshe than the ones we can see, I think I’d rather not.”

  That came unpleasantly close to echoing Grus’ thoughts. Even so, he said, “We can’t very well stop where we are.”

  “I know,” Hirundo said unhappily. “If we can keep them busy in front of us and sneak a detachment over the river either upstream or down-, that might do the trick. We try swarming straight across, they’ll bloody us.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Grus wished he were. The king said, “If that’s nothing but a cavalry screen, the Menteshe will laugh at us for wasting time and effort.”

  “No doubt,” Hirundo agreed. “But if it’s not and we crash into their main force headlong, they’ll laugh at that, too. They’ll spend years laughing at it, as a matter of fact.”

  “Maybe Pterocles can tell us how many of them there are,” Grus said.

  “Maybe.” Hirundo didn’t sound completely convinced.

  Since Grus wasn’t completely convinced, either, he couldn’t blame his general for seeming dubious. He summoned the wizard anyway, and told him what he wanted. Pterocles peered across the river. “I can try, Your Majesty,” he said at last. “Numbers are fairly easy to hide sorcerously, though. Have you thought of sneaking a few freed thralls across the river to look around? The nomads aren’t likely to pay much attention to them, and they can see how things are and come back.”

  Grus hadn’t thought of any such thing. By the flabbergasted look on Hirundo’s face, neither had he. He said, “Maybe you ought to promote him to general, Your Majesty. You can put me out to pasture, and I’ll just stand around chewing my cud.” He worked his jaw from side to side in uncanny imitation of a cow.

  “I don’t want to be a general! I’d have to tell other people what to do.” Pterocles spoke in obvious and obviously genuine horror.

  “Some people would say that’s one of the attractions of the job,” Grus remarked. By the way the wizard shook his head, he was not one of those people. Grus said, “Well, we will try that.”

  “Don’t waste time before you do,” Hirundo said. “Even if there aren’t a lot of Menteshe over there now, more and more of them will come up the longer we wait.” That also struck Grus as sage advice.

  Avornan wizards had lifted the dark sorcery from the men and woman of a village not far from the river. The thralls there were so newly free, they still remained filthy and shaggy. They weren’t the same as they had been, though; they were recognizably people, which they hadn’t been before. Their eyes had light in them, not the usual bovine dullness.

  That worried Grus. Would the Menteshe notice the difference? Thralls clamored to volunteer. Picking and choosing among them was the biggest problem. Not all of them had words enough to do a good job of reporting what they saw. They would soon; as Grus had seen with Otus, they soaked them up even faster than children did. But many of them hadn’t yet.

  Women were as eager as men to spy on the nomads. Grus hesitated before sending any of them over the river. The Mente
she were in the habit of doing whatever they pleased with women from among the thralls. Male thralls were too sunk in darkness and too terrorized to fight them, and female thralls, ensorceled as they were, hardly seemed to care. But it would be different for someone who was fully awake, fully alive.

  “One more time? So what?” one of the women said. “They do us, now we do them, too.” She gestured to show what she meant, in case the king hadn’t understood her. But he had. And he did send her over the river.

  She came back, too. So did both the men Grus sent with her. One of them said, “Not many Menteshe. Like this.” He opened and closed his hands a few times. “Not like this.” Now he opened and closed them many times. The other man and the woman both nodded.

  Grus still had to decide whether he believed them. If the Banished One held some control over them even now, this would be a good time for him to use it. He could badly hurt the Avornans if they ran into more nomads than they expected while crossing the river. He could … if he held some control over them even now.

  But if he did, then everything the Avornans tried south of the Stura was bound to fail anyhow. Grus refused to believe it. His refusal, of course, might prove one of the last thoughts he ever had while still in possession of his mind and will. He knew as much. He gave the orders anyway.

  The Avornans demonstrated downstream from where they’d encamped. A few riders crossed the river. Many soldiers looked as though they were getting ready to cross. The Menteshe galloped west to try to head them off—and most of the Avornans went over the river upstream from their camp. They rolled down on the nomads, scattered them, and drove them off in flight.

  Grus gave a golden ring to each of the thralls who’d gone across to spy on the Menteshe. The two men had learned enough by then to bow low in thanks. That woman sent him a smoldering smile. She was awake and fully herself, but she hadn’t yet figured out how to hide for politeness’ sake what she had in mind.

  She was pretty, and shapely, too. Once she was cleaned up, she would turn heads anywhere. All the same, Grus pretended not to notice the way she looked at him. Taking her to bed would be almost as bad, almost as unfair, as bedding a woman who remained a thrall. She needed time to figure out who and what she was. Once she’d done that … Once she’s done that, I’ll be far away, Grus thought. Probably just as well, too, for both of us.