The Scepter's Return (11 page)

Now Pterocles just looked at him. “I don't have the faintest idea, Your Majesty. But I expect we'll find out. Don't you?”

Grus didn't answer. That wasn't because he felt any doubts—he didn't. On the contrary; he was so sure Pterocles was right that he didn't think the question needed answering.

He had expected the Banished One to bend every bit of his power toward making sure the Menteshe broke off their civil war and turned all their ferocity against the advancing Avornans. That didn't seem to be happening … or maybe the Banished One's puppets had escaped the control of their puppet master for the time being. Small raiding bands struck at Grus' army—struck and, in classic nomad fashion, galloped away again before Grus' less mobile forces could hit back. But those were pinpricks, fleabites. Menteshe prisoners affirmed that the nomads were still using most of their energy to hammer away at one another.

A dispatch rider down from the north let Grus take his mind off the Menteshe for a little while. Among the letters the man brought was a long one from King Lanius. Lanius was conscientious about keeping Grus up to date on what he did in the capital. He probably feared Grus would oust him if he didn't tell him what he was up to—and he might have been right.

That afternoon, Grus frowned to see that Lanius hadn't approved a tax hike. There would probably be a letter—an angry letter—from the treasury minister in this batch, too.
I'll look for it later,
Grus thought, and read on. He ended up disappointed. That wasn't because Lanius didn't justify his reasons for opposing the increase. He did, in great detail. They even made a good deal of sense. But the bulk of the letter was an even more detailed account of how the other king was training a moncat. If Lanius wanted a hobby, Grus didn't mind. If he wanted to bore people with it … That was a different story.

The king went through the leather dispatch case. He was looking for the inevitable letter from Euplectes, but found one from the city of Sestus first. Unlike Lanius', it was short and to the point. Alauda could scarcely write. She scratched out three or four lines to let him know she and her son, Nivalis, were both well. Grus smiled—he was glad to have the news. Nivalis was his son, too, a bastard he'd sired on Alauda a few years before, while he was driving the Menteshe out of the southern provinces.

He did find the treasury minister's letter then. Reading it came as something of a relief. Euplectes was indignant about Lanius' stubbornness, but he wasn't furious. Even if he were furious, it would only have been a bureaucratic kind of anger. Compared to the rage of a wife who'd just found out her husband was unfaithful—again—fusses and fumings over tax rates were easy enough to put up with.

Grus snapped his fingers. Calling the dispatch rider, he asked, “How was the trip down from the Stura?”

“Not bad, Your Majesty,” the fellow answered. “No, not bad at all, matter of fact. There was one time when I thought a couple of those nomad bastards might take after me, but they spotted a troop of our horsemen and sheered off right smart. Aside from that, I didn't see a one of 'em all the way down. Didn't miss 'em, neither.”

“I believe you,” Grus said. “All right. Thanks. That's good news.”

“You think you can keep the line open all the way down to this Yozgat place?” the rider asked.

“I don't know,” Grus said—that was the question, all right. “But I aim to try.”

Sosia looked at Lanius as though he'd lost his mind. “You're going to build this … this thing off in the country somewhere, and you're going to spend a lot of your time there?
You?”
Maybe she thought she was losing
her
mind instead. She certainly didn't seem to believe her ears.

But the King of Avornis only nodded. “That's right.”

“Why?” his wife demanded. “Sweet Quelea's mercy, why? If Anser told me that, I'd understand. He'd want it for a hunting villa. Ortalis, too. But
you?”
Again, disbelief filled her voice. “You don't care about hunting. We both know that. You don't care about anything except the archives and.…” Her gaze sharpened. Sudden suspicion filled her eyes. “If you think you can put some pretty little thing in this place and go have your fun with her whenever you please, you'd better think again.”

“No, no, no.” Lanius protested louder than he might have, for that had occurred to him. A little reluctantly, he threw the idea in the dustbin. “Come out whenever you please. Don't tell me you're on the way ahead of time. If you find me with a woman there, do whatever you want. I'll deserve it, and I won't say a word. By the gods, Sosia, I won't. That's not why I'm doing this.”

She studied him. “Maybe,” she said at last. “You don't usually come right out and lie to me. When you want to hide something, you usually just don't say anything about it at all.”

“Well, then,” he said, trying not to show how disconcerted he was. She knew him pretty well, all right. He'd spent the past few months not saying anything at all about Oissa, whom Sosia saw several times a day. Seeing her and noticing her were two different things, though.

“Maybe,” the queen repeated. “But if you don't want to put a bedwarmer in it, why
do
you want to build something out in the country?”

Lanius didn't say anything about that at all.

Sosia glared. “Next thing you know, you'll tell me it's got to do with the war against the Banished One, and you'll expect me to believe that.”

Of itself, Lanius' hand twisted in the gesture that was supposed to keep the Banished One from paying any attention to what was going on. He didn't really believe the gesture did any good, but it couldn't hurt. “Don't talk about such things,” he told her. “Just—
don't.
I don't know how much danger it might cause. It might not cause any. On the other hand, it might cause more than you can imagine.” He walked over to her and set his hands on her shoulders. “I mean it.”

She didn't shake him off. “You do,” she agreed wonderingly.

“Yes, I do,” he answered, “and I wish I didn't have to tell you even that much.” He knew it was his own fault that he did. He'd given her reason to doubt he was faithful. He
wasn't
as faithful as he might have been (he thought of Oissa again, and of the smell of cedar). But this didn't have anything to do with that, and he had to convince her it didn't.

“All right.” Sosia still didn't shake him off. Instead, she stepped forward and gave him a quick hug. Then she said, “I'm still going to come out and check on you every so often, and I
won't
tell you when.”

“Fine,” Lanius said.
Keep thinking it might be a love nest. Then you won't think about what else it might be.
He felt ashamed of himself. If he couldn't tell things to Sosia, to whom could he?

No sooner had he asked himself the question than he found the answer. It wasn't
no one,
either, as he'd thought it would be. He could talk to Grus, to Pterocles, even to Collurio. They all shared one thing—they'd drawn the Banished One's special notice. Lanius would rather have done without the honor, but the choice didn't seem to be his.

Sosia, on the other hand, knew nothing of such nighttime visits. For her, the world was a simpler, safer place. The king wanted to keep it that way for her if he could.

Three days later, he rode out into the country with Collurio, looking for the right place to build. The trainer said, “You're taking a chance, you know.”

“Oh, yes.” Lanius nodded. “If things go wrong, though, we can start over. We have the time to do this, and we have the time to do it properly. Things aren't moving very fast south of the Stura.”

“Should they be?” Collurio asked.

“I can't tell you that. I'm not a general. I never wanted to be a general. There are some things I'm good at, but that isn't one of them,” Lanius answered. “But if this whole business were easy, some other King of Avornis would have done it three hundred years ago. You know what we're up against.”

The day was fine and bright and sunny. Collurio turned pale all the same. “Yes, Your Majesty. I do know that.” He scratched the tip of his big nose. “Who would have thought that teaching an animal tricks would teach
me
such things?”

“You aren't the only one who has it,” Lanius said. “Remember that. And remember one more thing—you're the right man for this job
because
you have it.” Collurio nodded, but every line of his body said he would rather have been the wrong man. Lanius felt the same way, but the choice wasn't theirs. It lay in the hands of the Banished One—the hands Lanius had seen reaching out for him more than once just before he woke up with pounding heart and staring eyes.

They rode on, bodyguards flanking them but far enough away to let them talk without being overheard. Here and there, farmers worked in vegetable plots and berry patches or tended pigs and chickens. This close to the ever-hungry capital, they raised produce to sell rather than feeding themselves with what they grew. They didn't run away when they saw armored men on horseback, either, the way most peasants did.

Thrushes hopped about, looking for bugs and worms under trees. A squirrel chittered in a treetop. Somewhere not far away, a woodpecker drummed. A rabbit ran through a meadow. Half a heartbeat later, a fox followed like a flash of flame.

“How will you know what you want, Your Majesty?” Cullurio asked.

“When I see it, I'll know,” Lanius said.

And he did. Willows grew alongside the bank of a stream, their branches dipping down almost to the water. Metallically yammering kingfishers dove after fish. Near the stream, a meadow stretched out away toward a stand of forest off in the distance. No one's cattle or sheep grazed the meadow; the tumbledown ruin of what had been a farmer's hut said nobody had worked the land for a long time. Maybe things weren't perfect, but they were more than good enough.

“Here,” Lanius declared. That was the advantage of being a king—when he said
here,
here it would be.

Hirundo bowed to King Grus. “Well, Your Majesty, you were right.”

“You say the sweetest things,” Grus answered, and the general guffawed. Grus went on, “Here he comes now. Look ferocious.”

“Grr.”
Hirundo bared his teeth. Grus glared at him—that was overacting at its worst. But the Menteshe riding in under a flag of truce was still too far away to notice his mugging. By the time the nomad and the Avornan cavalrymen surrounding him drew near, Hirundo was somber as a pyre builder. Given his usual high spirits, that was overacting, too, but the Menteshe wouldn't recognize it as such.

The fellow swung down off his horse. Two royal guardsmen strode up to him, their boots scuffing up little puffs of gray dust at each step. The Menteshe knew what they had in mind. He surrendered his weapons without any fuss, even a slim knife he carried in
his
boot. When the guardsmen were satisfied, they stepped aside. The Menteshe bowed low to Grus.

“Good day, Your Majesty,” he said in fluent Avornan. “I am Falak son of Yinal, and I have the honor to represent Prince Korkut, the son and heir of the great Prince Ulash.” He bowed again. He had a proud, hawk-nosed face with broad cheekbones and elegant eyebrows above dark eyes stubbornly unimpressed by anything they chanced to light upon—the King of Avornis very much included.

“Pleased to meet you,” Grus said politely. “And what can I do for you on this fine day?” It was, in fact, a beastly hot day. Grus had gotten used to the weather in the city of Avornis and in the cool, misty Chernagor country to the north. Southern spring and approaching summer were reminding him how fierce they could be.

“We have not seen Avornans here for many long years,” Falak said. “You would do well to remember what happened to the ones who came before you.”

“I remember,” Grus replied. “You would do well to remember we can take care of ourselves. So would Korkut. And so would the Banished One.” Maybe that last was bravado. No—certainly it was bravado. But if it weren't also what Grus believed, he never would have crossed the Stura in the first place.

One of Falak's elegant eyebrows rose. His eyes widened ever so slightly. He hadn't expected Grus to give back arrogance for arrogance. “You dare speak of the Fallen Star so?” he whispered. “You have, perhaps, more nerve than you know what to do with.”

“Perhaps I'll take the chance,” Grus said. “I asked you once before—what can I do for you? And for Prince Korkut, I assume?”

He wondered if Falak would try to order him out of the Menteshe country. He intended to say no if Falak did, but it would tell him how confident Korkut was. But Falak did nothing of the sort. Instead, he said, “My master knows you have seen many rebels since you became King of Avornis.”

“True,” Grus admitted. And not only was it true, it was also shrewd. Korkut showed more wits than Grus had thought he owned.

Falak went on, “Since this is true, you will understand how my master feels when he faces a rebellion against him.”

“Oh, I don't know. Quite a few people would say Sanjar has a better claim to Ulash's throne than Korkut does,” Grus said.

“Quite a few people are liars and cheats. It is unfortunate, but it is true,” Falak said. “I would not want to number the King of Avornis among them.”

“You would make a mistake if you did. You might be making your
last
mistake if you did.” Hirundo sounded hard as iron, sharp as a spearhead.

Falak son of Yinal bowed to him. “I have done no such thing, Your Excellency.” He was a cool customer, all right. Turning back to Grus, he said, “Since you have come into my master's lands with an army behind you, he dares hope you have come to help him defeat the would-be usurper.”