The Scepter's Return

by Harry Turtledove

  The king wished Avornis boasted an arch-hallow who held his seat because of his holiness, not because he happened to be the other king’s bastard. Like everybody else, Lanius liked Anser. Even Ortalis, in whom the milk of human kindness had long since curdled, liked Anser. Even Estrilda, who should have despised him as the living symbol of her husband’s betrayal, liked Anser. However likable he was, though, he found deer more dear than Queen Quelea, and King Olor more boring than boar.

  But then again, maybe it wouldn’t matter one bit. If the gods in the heavens were so nearly indifferent to what went on in the material world, how much would they care whether the arch-hallow was a refined and subtle theologian or a crackerjack archer? Maybe less than Lanius hoped they did.

  And in that case …

  “In that case,” the King of Avornis muttered, “it’s up to Grus and me and Pterocles and Collurio and Tinamus and Otus and Hirundo and—” He broke off. He could have gone on naming names for quite a while. On the other hand, he could have stopped after the ones to whom the Banished Ones had sent dreams. They might have been enough by themselves.

  Or maybe no one and nothing would be enough. How could anyone do more than hope when confronting an exiled god? Sometimes even holding on to hope seemed hard as holding up the weight of the world on his shoulders.

  When he stood up, he was a little surprised, or maybe more than a little, to find he labored under no literally crushing burden. He walked slowly down the corridor that would take him to the kitchens if he followed it all the way. He didn’t really intend to; he wasn’t really going anywhere at all. He was just ambling along, thinking about what might happen, what he could do, what would be possible if things went the way he wanted, and what he would have to do if they didn’t.

  Servants bowed and curtsied. Lanius noticed them just enough to bow in return. But when Limosa started to drop him a curtsy, he came back to the real world with a snap. “Don’t bother,” he said quickly. “You might not be able to get up again if you do.”

  Her belly seemed to bulge more every day now. The baby was still a couple of months away, which meant that belly would be even bigger by the time it was born. She carried a chunk of raisin loaf in one hand.

  “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I’m just getting to where all I want is for this to be over. Pretty soon, it will be.”

  “I remember Sosia saying the same thing,” Lanius said.

  “I feel like I’m carrying around a great big melon, except melons don’t kick,” Ortalis’ wife said, setting the hand without the raisin loaf just above her navel.

  She was another likable one. Lanius cordially loathed her father, and wasn’t a bit sorry when Grus sent Petrosus to the Maze. She was wed to a man who’d alarmed the king for as long as he’d known him. She carried a baby that could throw the succession into turmoil. All the same, Lanius didn’t dislike her. He worried about her, but that wasn’t the same thing.

  “Everything will be fine,” Lanius said.

  Limosa nodded. “Oh, I think so, too. It’s not a lot of fun when it finally happens, but it does usually turn out all right. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be any more people after a while. And when it is over”—her face softened—“you’ve got a baby. Babies are fun.”

  Babies were a lot more fun if someone else did the cleaning up after them. Limosa took that for granted. Since Lanius did, too, he didn’t call her on it. He only smiled and nodded and said, “I remember.”

  “Crex and Pitta are getting big now,” Limosa said. “You and Sosia ought to have another baby yourselves.”

  Since Lanius wasn’t currently welcome in Sosia’s bed, prospects for a new royal prince or princess lay nowhere in the immediate future. If Limosa didn’t already know that, Lanius didn’t feel like explaining it to her. He just said, “Maybe one of these days.”

  “It would be nice,” Limosa said. If she worried about the succession, or about a son of hers threatening Crex’s place, she didn’t show it. Maybe that was good acting on her part. Petrosus had surely grafted her onto Lanius’ family in the hope that a grandson of his would wear the crown. But even Lanius had trouble believing she attached enormous importance to it.

  “So it would,” he said. She wasn’t wrong—he’d enjoyed Crex and Pitta very much when they were small.

  “May I ask you something, Your Majesty?” she said.

  “You can always ask. Whether I answer depends on what the question is,” Lanius replied.

  Limosa nodded. “Of course. All I want to know, though, is what you’re doing out in the country. Why do you want to build what sounds like a slice of a city?”

  She wasn’t the only one wondering about that. Even Tinamus, the architect responsible for it, wondered. Wondering was harmless. Knowing? Knowing was all too likely to be anything but. With what Lanius hoped was a harmless smile, he said, “It’s a hobby, that’s all. Why does Ortalis like to go hunting?”

  For some tiny fraction of a heartbeat, alarm spread over Limosa’s face. She knew the answer to that question, then. It was something on the order of, He hunts animals so he doesn’t hunt people. Lanius started to apologize; he hadn’t meant to embarrass her. But maybe what he’d said wasn’t so bad after all. She didn’t press him about what he was building anymore.

  Instead, she murmured, “Hobbies,” made as though to curtsy again without actually doing it, and went on up the corridor.

  Lanius shook his head. If things didn’t work out the way he hoped, plenty of people would be unhappy with him for wasting so much time and money. For now, though, he didn’t have to worry about that. Even Grus agreed what he was doing was worth a try. As soon as the building was finished, he and Collurio could get down to some serious work there. In the meantime …

  In the meantime, shrieks erupted from the kitchens. Maybe that meant one of the cooks had stuck a knife in another. Such things happened every once in a while. More like, though …

  “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!” A cook came running toward Lanius, waving her arms in the air. “Oh, there you are, Your Majesty! Come quick! It’s that horrible creature of yours, Your Majesty! It’s stolen a big silver spoon!”

  “Sooner or later, we’ll get it back,” the king said. “Pouncer hardly ever loses them.”

  “Miserable thieving animal.” None of the cooks had a good word to say for moncats. “Nothing but vermin. We ought to set traps.”

  “You will do no such thing.” Most of the time, Lanius was among the mildest of men. When he wanted to, though, he could sound every inch a monarch. The cook blinked, hardly believing her ears. He went on, “You will not. Do you understand me?”

  The cook turned pale as milk. “We won’t do it, Your Majesty. Queen Quelea’s sweet mercy on me, I was only joking.”

  “All right, then.” Lanius knew he’d hit too hard. But she’d alarmed him. He asked, “Is the moncat still in the kitchens, or did it run off?”

  “It went up the wall like it was a big, furry fly, and then in through some crack or other. It’s gone.” The cook regained a little spirit. “And so is that stinking spoon.” She sounded as indignant as though she’d bought it herself.

  “Maybe I can lure it back. Let’s go see, shall we?” Lanius said. “A few scraps might do the trick.”

  Warmth from the fires and ovens surrounded him when he walked into the kitchens. So did the savory smells of roasting meat and baking bread. A pastry cook was drizzling honey over some fruit tarts. The cooks, men and women, sassed one another in a lively slang enriched by more obscenity and profanity than any this side of the royal army.

  The old crack near the ceiling had been sealed up. The cook pointed to another likely one. The king clambered up on a ladder, a lamp in one hand, some scraps of beef cut from a joint in the other. That left no hands free in case he slipped. He resolved not to slip. This is very undignified, he thought, but only after it was far too late to do anything about it.

  He held the lamp up to the crack, hoping to see Pouncer’s eyes
glowing yellow somewhere not far away. No such luck. All he could make out was a spiderweb with the pale spider that had made it squatting near the edge. The spider ran away when his breath shook the web. He climbed down the ladder and shook his head. “He’s gone.”

  “Well, it’s not like that’s a big surprise,” the cook said, but then, recalling to whom she was talking, she added, “Thank you for trying, Your Majesty.”

  “It’s all right,” Lanius said. “Sooner or later, the spoon will show up. Pouncer doesn’t keep them.”

  She nodded. The cooks did know that. The moncat had lost a couple, but only a couple. Things could have been worse. As it was, Pouncer’s thieving gave the kitchens something to complain about. Everyone needed something to complain about. It was as much fun as … stealing spoons.

  The past few years, Grus had spent every summer in the field. Coming back to the city of Avornis—coming back to the rest of the royal family—always took adjusting. This fall, it seemed to take more than usual. Estrilda greeted him with, “Any new mistresses I should know about?”

  “No,” he answered at once. He would have said the same thing had the answer been yes. He fought battles in the summertime; he didn’t want to fight more of them after he got back to the palace.

  His wife greeted his declaration with something less than a ringing endorsement, inquiring, “Any mistresses I shouldn’t know about?”

  “None of those, either,” he told her. She sniffed. Here, though, he was at least technically truthful. The last mistress he’d had that Estrilda shouldn’t have known about—and didn’t—was Alauda, a widow he’d met during the Menteshe invasion of Avornis’ southern provinces. Estrilda also shouldn’t have known—and didn’t know—about Grus’ bastard boy named Nivalis. Grus made sure his son and the boy’s mother lacked for nothing money could buy. He’d never seen Nivalis. He wanted to, one of these days.

  Estrilda looked at him. “Why not?” she asked him, something approaching true curiosity in her voice. “Are you really getting old?”

  “There are times when I think so,” Grus admitted. There were times when he was sure of it. He didn’t feel like admitting that, even to himself. He went on, “Besides—thrall women? They’re only a short step up from the barnyard animals.”

  As though that would stop you. It hovered in the air, but Estrilda didn’t say it. She did say, “What about after they’ve had the spell lifted?”

  She wouldn’t let it alone. Grus didn’t suppose he should have been surprised. He’d given her plenty of reasons to doubt him—more reasons than she knew, in fact. But he wasn’t lying when he said, “They still have a lot of growing up to do after that happens.”

  “Really?” Estrilda’s voice was as chilly as any winter sent by the Banished One. “I saw the woman Otus brought back from south of the Stura. She looked all grown up to me.”

  “Fulca will grow up faster than a little girl would,” Grus said. “Otus certainly did. But talk to her. You’ll see what I mean.”

  Estrilda still didn’t seem happy. In fact, she seemed determined not to be happy. She said, “What about when you go back next year? The women who were thralls will be all grown up by then.”

  “I hope they will,” Grus said. Estrilda sent him a sharp look. He explained, “If they aren’t, something will have gone wrong. Either we won’t have truly freed them or the Menteshe will have found a way to enslave them again.”

  His wife looked as though she wanted to challenge that, too, but she couldn’t figure out how. “Well, all right,” she said reluctantly. “You really did beat back the Banished One, didn’t you?”

  Grus shook his head. “No. We beat back the Menteshe. They’re still fighting among themselves, and that made it harder for the Banished One to do anything to us. I’m afraid we’re not out of the woods yet, though.” He told her why not.

  “Oh,” she said, and then, “Queen Quelea in her mercy grant that he can’t do anything so wicked.”

  “May it be so,” Grus said, doubting it would be. What had the gods in the heavens done to stop the Banished One since exiling him to the material world? Some people said they’d given Avornis the Scepter of Mercy. If that was true, though, why had they let the Banished One and his minions hold it for so many centuries? Grus had no answer for that, and didn’t think anyone else did, either.

  Changing the subject, Grus asked, “When did Ortalis start keeping company with these junior guard officers?”

  “This past spring,” Estrilda answered. “He goes hunting with them sometimes, when he’s not with … the arch-hallow.” She couldn’t help reminding Grus that Anser was his bastard.

  “Hunting,” Grus said with relief. “That’s all right, then.” He wasn’t going to worry about his son as long as Ortalis had some reasonable cause to hang around with the guardsmen. Ortalis had never shown himself to be very interested in politics.

  “Limosa will have her baby before long,” Estrilda remarked.

  That wasn’t quite a change of subject, though Grus wished it were. He said, “Maybe she’ll have another girl. That will leave things the way they are.”

  “So it will.” His wife looked at him. “What if she has a boy instead?”

  “What if she does?” Grus answered. “It makes life more complicated, that’s what. Crex isn’t just connected to us. He’s part of the old dynasty, too. Limosa’s son wouldn’t be.”

  “Will Ortalis care?” Estrilda asked.

  “Not by the way he’s been talking, from what I hear,” Grus said.

  Estrilda studied him some more. “Will you care?”

  “Him having a son would make things … untidy,” Grus said. “I don’t like untidy things.” He didn’t want to come right out and say that he preferred the succession to pass through Lanius to Crex, not through Ortalis to his son. He wasn’t sure Estrilda agreed with him.

  “I can’t say that I blame you,” Estrilda said now. “We had a pretty good idea of how things would go. Now it could be all up in the air again.” She sent Grus another sour stare. “All the gods in the heavens be praised that Anser doesn’t care about the throne. That’s only luck, you know.”

  She wasn’t wrong there, either. Grus thought about Nivalis in a way he hadn’t before. If he himself lived another fifteen or twenty years—far from certain, but also not impossible—his bastard little boy would grow to be a young man. What would Nivalis think about his place in life? Would he think about what might have been his if he’d been born on the right side of the blanket? Would he think it might be his any which way?

  “He’s a good fellow, Anser,” was all the king said, and even Estrilda couldn’t disagree with that.

  Again not really changing the subject at all, she repeated, “Maybe Limosa will have another girl.”

  “Here’s hoping.” There. Grus had said it. He didn’t want his only legitimate son to have a son of his own. If that wasn’t sad, what was? He couldn’t think of anything to match it. A moment later, though, he found something, for the mother of his only legitimate son nodded agreement.

  Not only did she nod—she also said, “I wish Lanius and Sosia would have another baby—with luck, another boy. So many things can happen, even when children aren’t in line for the throne.”

  That was also true. Grus said, “They’ve seemed … not too happy with each other lately, from what I’ve heard.”

  His wife glared at him. “You know the reason why, too, or you’d better. He seduces serving girls, or lets them seduce him. It amounts to the same thing either way. And you’re a fine one to tell him to stop being unfaithful to our daughter, you are, when you can’t keep it in your drawers.”

  Since Grus couldn’t deny that as a general working rule, he did his best to deny it in this particular case, saying, “Well, if you’re worrying about what goes on south of the Stura, you can cursed well worry about something else. I already told you, nothing’s going on down there—nothing like that, anyway.”

  “Oh, such thrilling news!” If
Estrilda had used a different tone of voice, Grus might have thought she meant it. As things were, her sarcasm only stung the more.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The last time Limosa had a baby, there’d been a small scandal when all the rumors about lash marks and scars on her back proved true. By now, that was old news. When she disrobed for the midwife this time, no one would get—too—excited about it.

  Lanius had other things to worry about this time around, chiefly whether she would have a boy or a girl. Ortalis had the same worry, even if his hopes and the king’s ran in opposite directions.

  It had just started to snow when Limosa’s bag of waters broke. That was a sure sign of labor beginning in earnest, and servants hotfooted it from the palace to bring back the midwife. Lanius listened to Ortalis burble and babble for a little while, then excused himself and got as far away from his brother-in-law as he could.

  He started to head for the archives, but changed his mind. He’d needed years to teach the servants not to bother him there. Someone would have to come with news of Limosa’s baby. Better not to be with the moncats, either. And he also couldn’t go to his own bedchamber, because Sosia was there. She still didn’t appreciate his company.

  That left … what? He ended up in one of the palace’s several small dining rooms. Instead of eating, he caught up on correspondence. He felt virtuous. He also rapidly grew bored. This was the part of governing that Grus did better than he did.

  Someone opened the door and stuck his head into the room. “Oh,” Grus said. “Sorry to bother you, Your Majesty. I was just looking for a quiet place where I could get a little work done until Limosa has her baby, however long that takes.”

  Laughing, Lanius answered, “That’s exactly what I’m doing here.”

  “Oh,” Grus said again, and then, “Mind if I join you?”