The Scepter's Return

by Harry Turtledove

  “A likely story.” She didn’t look too unhappy, though. That was what she’d wanted to hear, and he couldn’t very well say anything more.

  He was in the archives later that day—by himself—when rustling behind a cabinet way off in a dim corner of the room showed he wasn’t quite by himself after all. He thought he knew what that rustling meant, and he proved right. In due course, Pouncer came out. The moncat walked up to the king and dropped most of a mouse at his feet.

  “Mrowr,” Pouncer said, as though making sure Lanius understood the magnitude of the gift. As far as the moncat was concerned, this was more important than the Scepter of Mercy. The Scepter had just been a thing. A mouse was food.

  “Yes, I know what a wonderful fellow you are,” Lanius said. He scratched the moncat behind the ears and at the sides of the jaw and gently rubbed its velvet nose. In due course, Pouncer rewarded him with a rusty purr. That was about as big a reward as any cat ever gave. It made Lanius wonder why people kept them. He supposed the dead and mangled mouse on the floor represented a partial answer, but it didn’t seem enough.

  He never had found out how Pouncer got out of the moncats’ room and roamed the narrow passages within the palace walls. Since Pouncer—and the Scepter of Mercy—returned to the city of Avornis, he’d stopped looking. That was his reward to Pouncer.

  “Mrowr,” Pouncer said again, and looked down at what remained of the mouse.

  Lanius, being well trained by then, knew what was expected of him. He stroked Pouncer and praised his hunting talents some more, and then picked up the little corpse (fortunately, what remained included a tail, not too badly chewed). After holding it for a moment—which seemed to mean he would eat it if he only had the time—he gave it back to the moncat. Pouncer took the dainty in its clawed hands and ate another few mouthfuls. Lanius turned his head away.

  He didn’t miss the mouse. If Pouncer ate all the mice in the archives, he would have been delighted. But he didn’t want to watch the moncat do it. That squeamishness had a lot to do with why he was such a reluctant hunter, too. Anser and Ortalis both found it funny.

  He didn’t mind Anser’s teasing. Considering Ortalis’ tastes, he was in a poor position to chide anybody about anything. That didn’t stop him, of course. If it had, he would have been a different sort of person altogether. Too bad he’s not, Lanius thought, and went back to an old tax register.

  Hirundo bowed as he came into the small audience chamber where King Grus sat. “Thanks for seeing me, Your Majesty,” the general said.

  “As though I wouldn’t!” Grus said, and waved him to a stool. “Here, sit down and make yourself at home. A servant is com—Ah, here she is now.” The serving girl set a tray with wine and cakes and a bowl of roasted chickpeas on the table. After pouring wine for Grus and Hirundo, she curtsied and left.

  Hirundo’s gaze followed her. “Pretty little thing,” he murmured. He raised his silver goblet in salute to Grus. “Your good health, Your Majesty!”

  “Same to you.” Grus returned the salute. “We’re both pretty lucky, for people our age. Most of the parts still work most of the time.”

  “That’s not bad.” Hirundo scratched his beard, which was not quite as gray as Grus’. “A lot of people my age are dead.”

  Grus chuckled, not that it was anything but truth wrapped in a joke. He ate some of the chickpeas, then washed them down with more wine. That meant he got to the bottom of his goblet. After he poured it full again, he asked, “Well, what’s on your mind?”

  Before answering, Hirundo got up and shut the door to the audience chamber. When he came back, he slid his stool closer to Grus’. In a low voice, he asked, “Your Majesty, who are your son’s friends?”

  Grus frowned and scratched his head. The idea that Ortalis had friends was enough—more than enough—to bemuse him. His legitimate son was not an outgoing sort. “I don’t know,” the king said. “What are you driving at?”

  “Maybe nothing,” Hirundo said. “In that case, I’ll beg his pardon, and yours, too. But do you remember him hanging around with these guards officers before we went off to fight south of the Stura?”

  “He hunts with some of them—I know that,” Grus said.

  “Not with all of them,” Hirundo said, which was true enough. “Do you really want him wasting time with them? What if he’s not wasting it, if you know what I mean?”

  “I know what you mean,” Grus answered; the same thought had occurred to him. Even though it had, the king had trouble taking it seriously. “Ortalis likes hunting and … some other things.” Grus didn’t care to talk about those, although Hirundo knew what they were—come to that, half the city of Avornis knew what they were. “I’ve never really thought he liked politics.”

  “You might want to think again, then, Your Majesty,” the general said. “People who don’t like politics don’t make friends like that.”

  “No?” Grus raised an eyebrow. “Who would Ortalis make friends with?” If he makes friends at all. He didn’t—quite—say that out loud. Instead, he went on, “Priests? Not likely, not unless they’re like Anser and enjoy going after deer. Scholars? He never cared for his lessons. I wish he’d cared more, but he didn’t. Maidservants?”

  Hirundo grinned at that. “Well, who doesn’t?”

  Some of Ortalis’ dealings with maidservants might have started out in a friendly way, but that wasn’t how they’d ended. Still, Grus said, “As far as I know, he hasn’t done anything like that since he married Limosa. I wanted to clobber him with a rock when he did marry her, but it really looks like he loves her.” The idea of Ortalis’ loving anyone but himself was even more curious than the idea of his making friends.

  “She …” Hirundo’s voice trailed away. Grus had no trouble figuring out what the general would have said. She lets him do what he wants to her. She even likes it when he does. Every word of that was true, too. All the same …

  “I think there’s something more to it,” the king said. “He’s been different since she had a girl, and he’s been quite a bit different since she had a boy.”

  “Ha!” Hirundo stabbed out a triumphant forefinger at him. “There! You said it yourself, Your Majesty. He has been different, and he has different friends, and you ought to look at him in a different way.”

  That made good logical sense. Grus realized as much. Logic or no logic, he couldn’t do it. He could imagine his son being dangerous in a fit of fury. Anything that required planning? He didn’t think so. Going hunting the next day was about as far as Ortalis’ planning reached.

  The more dubious Grus looked, the more insistent Hirundo got. He said, “For all you know, Limosa’s egging him on.”

  “Maybe,” Grus said, not wanting to laugh in his old friend’s face. He couldn’t see anyone leading Ortalis around by the nose. He’d never had any luck doing it, anyhow; he knew that.

  Of course, he’d always tried to lead Ortalis in the direction he himself wanted his son to go. It never occurred to him that Ortalis might be easier to lead in the direction he wanted to go, or that the dreams he and Lanius had always perceived as nightmares might seem something else again to his son. And they were leading Ortalis, too.…

  Even in their bedchamber, behind a door that was closed and barred, Limosa’s voice was the barest thread of whisper. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  “I have to,” Ortalis whispered back, even more softly. Limosa worried about Grus because he’d sent her father to the Maze. Ortalis worried about Grus because his father had been there scowling at him, shouting at him, hitting him, for as long as he could remember. Why Grus had felt he needed to do those things was forgotten. That Grus had done those things never would be, never could be. Ortalis went on, “It’s for Marinus’ sake.”

  “Of course it is,” Limosa said. “He’s not just robbing you. He’s robbing your whole line, that’s what he’s doing. And all because of—”

  “Lanius,” Ortalis finished for her. He whispered his broth
er-in-law’s name, too. Somehow, that let him pack more scorn into it, not less. “All he does is sit around and read things all day, read things and play with his miserable animals. And for him—for him—my own father’s going to disinherit me, disinherit his grandson, too. Oh, no, he’s not, by the gods.”

  That some of his own actions—and inactions—might have given Grus reason to prefer Lanius to him never once crossed his mind. Even if it had, Limosa or, more likely, the Voice in his dreams that were better than dreams would have talked him around. He wouldn’t have needed much persuading; like most people, he saw himself in the best possible light.

  Limosa saw him in the best possible light, too. She leaned over and kissed him. “When you put on the crown, you’ll show everybody what being king is really all about. You’ll be the best king Avornis ever had. You’ll pick up the Scepter of Mercy and … do all sorts of good things with it.” Her imagination failed her, there at the end.

  “Of course I will.” Ortalis tried to sound confident, too. He really would rather have forgotten all about the Scepter. Now that it was back here, he didn’t suppose he could, not permanently, but he still wanted to.

  He cursed well could forget about it for the time being. He kissed Limosa, too, kissed her hard, and kept on kissing her until he tasted blood. She whimpered in mixed pain and pleasure. They were always mixed for her. Giving them was always mixed for him. If the two of them weren’t made for each other, no couple ever had been.

  “Oh, Ortalis,” she murmured when at last their lips separated. He caressed her roughly and took her even more roughly. “Oh,” she said again, softly, when he went into her. A few minutes later, the sounds she made were altogether unrestrained. Ortalis laughed, there on top of her. Then he groaned as though he were the one under the lash—a place he’d never had the least interest in being.

  If palace servants—or his father’s spies—heard noises like that, they wouldn’t think twice about them. They might be jealous, but that kind of jealousy didn’t worry Ortalis. On the contrary—it made him proud.

  After they’d used the chamber pot and gotten back into their nightclothes, Limosa teased him, saying, “You’re going to act just like a man. You’re going to roll over and go right to sleep.”

  “You do that as often as I do,” he said, which was true. But his yawn declared she hadn’t been wrong, either.

  He went out hunting the next morning. He didn’t invite Anser, though his half brother had been his chief hunting partner for a long time. Not all the men he did invite had reputations as enthusiastic followers of the chase. They were, however, all enthusiastic followers of Ortalis. To Grus’ legitimate son, that counted for much more.

  One nice thing about the hunt was that it seldom roused suspicion. If you went out and came back with lots of carcasses, you’d had a good day. If you went out and came back with next to nothing, the most anybody would say was, “Oh, bad luck!” If anything besides hunting happened while you were out there … Well, who was likely to find out?

  With his henchmen gathered together, Ortalis could ask them, “Are we ready to move when the time comes?”

  “Your Highness, we are.” Serinus spoke with what sounded like complete confidence and assurance. The other young officers in the royal bodyguard nodded.

  “Will your men follow you no matter what orders you give them?” Ortalis persisted.

  “Your Highness, they will.” Again, Serinus sounded very sure. Again, his fellow officers nodded. Ortalis could never have gotten so many of them together in the palace without stirring up more gossip than he wanted. Out here in the woods, nobody was likely to pay any attention to what he did.

  He said, “You’ve told me what I most needed to hear. The time is coming soon. I know I can count on you to do your duty.”

  The time is coming soon. A year or two earlier, he wouldn’t have been able to imagine saying those words. He never would have had the nerve. Truth to tell, he wouldn’t have had the will, either. But things had changed since then. He had a son now, a son and heir. That made him look differently—as opposed to indifferently—on his place in the bigger scheme of things. And he had his dreams. The Voice made him think of his place in the bigger scheme of things, too, and that his place ought to be bigger as well.

  “Soon?” Some of his followers sounded pleased. A few sounded alarmed. Ortalis knew what that meant. It meant he had some fair-weather friends, men who would suck up to a prince for the sake of whatever advantage that might bring, but who wouldn’t back him when it counted.

  He glanced toward Serinus and Gygis. They both nodded. They were his most reliable followers. He could count on them to make sure none of the others got cold feet at a bad time.

  “Soon,” he said firmly. “It will be fast. It will be smooth. And then things will go on as they were meant to.”

  “Let’s give three cheers for King Ortalis!” Gygis called.

  Everyone in the hunting party did cheer, too. Ortalis beamed at Gygis. Good to know who the clever ones were, and that was very clever indeed. Now they’d all cheered him as king. They couldn’t say they hadn’t had any idea what he was thinking about. And they would have a harder time withdrawing from this plot.

  “When the time comes, do we deal with both of them together, or just the one?” Serinus asked.

  “Just my father. He’s the one who’s always been trouble for me,” Ortalis said venomously. “We don’t need to worry about Lanius. He’s been my old man’s lapdog for years. Why should he be any different for me?”

  Several young officers chuckled. Serinus sketched a salute. “However you want it, Your Majesty, that’s how it’ll work. I just needed to find out.”

  “Fair enough,” Ortalis said. The more he heard himself called Your Majesty and King Ortalis, the better he liked it. People should have been calling him things like that a long time ago. If Grus had to share the throne with somebody, he should have shared it with Ortalis, not with the weedy good-for-nothing who’d sat on it beforehand.

  “What will you do when you’re king, Your Majesty?” one of the guards officers asked eagerly.

  “Why, I’ll do—” Ortalis broke off. Despite having lived in the palace for many years, he had only a vague notion of what his father did when not harassing him. He gave the best answer he could. “I’ll do all kinds of really neat stuff.”

  That seemed to satisfy the guardsman. “I bet you will, Your Majesty!” he said.

  Serinus pulled a flask off his belt and yanked out the stopper. “Here’s to the new king!” he said. Most of the officers had flasks of their own. They drank the toast, and passed wine to the few men who hadn’t brought any. Ortalis had his own flask. As he drank the red, red wine, he imagined it was his father’s blood. It would have been even sweeter if it were.

  A knock on the bedchamber door in the middle of the night always meant trouble. Grus knew that. Good news would wait until sunup. Bad news? Bad news cried out to be heard right away.

  “What do they want?” Estrilda asked sleepily.

  “I don’t know.” Clad in only his nightshirt, Grus was already getting out of bed. “I’d better find out, though.” He walked over to the door and asked, “Who’s there? What’s the word?”

  “It’s Serinus, Your Majesty,” said the man on the other side, and Grus relaxed, recognizing the captain’s voice. Serinus went on, “A courier’s just come in from the south. Some kind of trouble down there—I don’t know exactly what, but it didn’t sound good.”

  “Oh, by the gods!” Grus exclaimed. And it might have been by the gods, too. Had the Banished One found some way around the concessions Grus had forced from him with the Scepter of Mercy? Were the Menteshe kicking up their heels even without any help from the exiled god? Or had some ambitious and stupid noble decided this was a good time to rebel? “I’m coming,” Grus added, and unbarred the door. “Where is this fellow, anyway?”

  “Near the front entrance, Your Majesty,” Serinus answered. “He’s hopping around l
ike he’s got to run for the jakes any time now.”

  “He can do that after I’ve talked to him,” Grus said. “Come on. What are you waiting for?” He hurried up the corridor.

  So did Serinus, who hadn’t really been waiting for anything. A couple of squads of soldiers, all of them armed and armored, fell in with the guards officer and the king. But for their thumping boots and jingling chainmail, the hallways in the palace were very quiet. Grus wondered what the hour was.

  He also suddenly wondered why, at whatever hour this was, so many soldiers should appear as though from nowhere. Suspicion flared in him. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “This way, Your Majesty,” Serinus said as though he hadn’t spoken.

  “Wait a minute.” Grus stopped. “For one thing, you didn’t answer me. What is going on? And, for another, this isn’t the way to the front hall.”

  “Well, so it isn’t.” Serinus smiled. It was not the sort of smile Grus wanted to see—more the sort a wolf would have worn just before it sprang. The young officer bowed to Grus. “But you see, Your Majesty, that’s part of what’s going on.” He nodded to the soldiers. The ones who carried swords drew them. The ones who carried spears pointed them at Grus. “You can come along with us quietly or”—he shrugged—“the servants will have to clean a mess off the floor. Up to you.”

  “You can’t do this!” Grus blurted. “You can’t expect to get away with it, either.”

  “Oh, but we can. And we do. And we will.” Serinus sounded as though he had all the answers. At the moment, he certainly had more of them than Grus did.

  “Where do you aim to take me?” Grus asked. In his nightshirt, without even an eating knife on his belt—without even a belt!—he couldn’t do much about it no matter where it was. His best hope was that somebody would come by and notice this … this kidnapping. But no one except Serinus and his men seemed to be up and about.