The Bastard King (49 page)

"They'll judge you, too," Dagipert said.

"I know." Grus tried not to worry about what would happen after he died. With King Dagipert's white hairs, the Therving had to think about what would come next. Grus went on, "Today you live; tomorrow you're dust. One fever will quench any man's pride. What will you say about all your murders in Avornis when you come before the gods?"

"I'll say they had it coming." The King of Thervingia was a tough customer. But he couldn't keep a small wobble from his voice.

"How will you face those terrible and just judges?" Grus continued. "Will you tell them you did it for wealth? Haven't you stolen enough to satisfy you? Isn't it about time to welcome peace? Live a bloodless and untroubled life from now on, so neither side slaughters fellow believers anymore. What could be worse than that?"

Dagipert glared at him across the gap between the two incomplete spans. "Oh, you're a serpent, you are, and you slay with your tongue," the Therving said.

Grus shrugged. "You were the one who wanted this talk. Can you listen, too?"

"How can I do anything else, the way you blather on?" Dagipert said. "I ought to start the war up again."

"Go ahead," Grus answered. "You haven't had everything your own way these past few years. You won't this time, either."

"Another lie," Dagipert jeered.

"You know better," Grus told him. "Besides, how much harm are you doing to Thervingia with these endless campaigns of yours? You can see what you do to us, but what about to your own people? How many men don't come home? How many smiths and potters and carpenters don't ply their trades? How many crippled men do you try to care for?"

"As though you care for what happens to Thervingia," King Dagipert said.

"I care about Avornis," Grus replied. "I expect you care about Thervingia the same way. Can't you see you're not going to win this war? What point to fighting over and over again across the same stretch of ground?"

Dagipert's face twisted. "What point? To make sure you gods-cursed Avornans don't think you can take my kingdom and me lightly, that's what."

"You've made that point," Grus said. And yet, in another sense, Dagipert hadn't, couldn't, and never would. Avornis was an old, old land - a land with a long, proud past. Other tribes had crossed over the Bantian Mountains from the plains to the west and set up their kingdoms on her borders before the Thervings. After Thervingia fell in ruins, others likely would again. And Avornis? Avornis would endure. When Grus had spoken to Dagipert of passing to dust, he hadn't just meant the King of Thervingia. He'd meant his kingdom, too, and Dagipert knew it.

"You sneery, scoffing, scornful, snooty ... Avornan," King Dagipert said bitterly. He turned on his heel and walked back toward the west bank of the Tuola. His guards fell in behind him, protecting him with their bodies as well as their shields.

Grus also withdrew. His men started knocking down his segment of bridge. The Thervings did the same. Grus wondered if the talks had accomplished anything or simply infuriated Dagipert even more. He sent his army on the way southeast, to a place where he could cross the Tuola with protections from archers aboard Avoman river galleys.

Before he reached the crossing place, though, word came that the Thervings were moving back, away from the river. Soon it became clear they were going back to Thervingia.

Two messengers came into the city of Avornis only hours apart. The first was from the plains of the south - an announcement that a baron named Pandion had rebelled against King Grus and announced that
he
was King Lanius' rightful protector. "How can he say that?" Lanius asked the messenger, a cavalry captain who'd stayed loyal to Grus. "I've never met him. I wouldn't take oath I've ever even heard of him."

"How much sleep do you suppose he'll lose about that, Your Majesty?" the captain replied. "With King Grus busy against the Thervings, Pandion figures he'll make hay while the sun shines - get as strong as he can before Grus is able to do much about it. That's how it looks to me, anyhow."

It looked that way to Lanius, too. He praised the officer and dismissed him. He couldn't do anything about Pandion's revolt. Not a soldier outside the royal bodyguard would obey his orders. The uprising was Grus' worry, not his.

The second messenger announced that the Thervings were withdrawing from Avornan soil and Grus was on his way back to the city of Avornis.

Lanius laughed till he cried. "I don't think it's
that
funny," Sosia said.

"No?" Lanius answered. "
I
do, by the gods. Baron Pandion may have started the worst-timed rebellion in all the history of Avornis."

His wife thought about that. Then she smiled, too. "Oh," she said. "I see." A bird flew by their bedroom window. Sosia went on, "You ought to send the man who brought word from the south to my father. He should know what's happened there as soon as he can."

Now it was Lanius' turn to think. He didn't need long before he nodded. "You're right. I wouldn't want your father thinking I tried to conceal anything like that from him."

"I didn't mean that," Sosia said. "He trusts you more than you think."

Was that praise or faint praise? Lanius wasn't sure. He wasn't sure he wanted to find out, either. He said, "I'll attend to it." And he did.

King Grus came back to the city of Avornis a few days later. He met Lanius outside the palace and said, "So this Pandion bastard thinks he can play games with me, does he? I'm going to teach him he hasn't even started to figure out the rules."

"Speaking of games and rules, how did you make Dagipert withdraw so very quickly?" Lanius asked.

"That's the funny thing, Your Majesty - I didn't," Grus answered. "He did it himself." He explained how he and the King of Thervingia had met in the middle of the Tuola, and how Dagipert had pulled back from Avornan soil not long afterward.

"You made him think about what he was doing," Lanius said admiringly. "You
must
tell a scribe exactly what you said to him. That's something future Kings of Avornis need to know."

"When I get a chance." Grus sounded indifferent. Seeing the disappointment Lanius didn't try to hide, the older man went on, "I'm sorry, but that's how it's got to be. I want to move against Pandion as fast as I can. With any luck at all, I'll hit him before he even knows I'm not fighting the Thervings anymore. The faster the better. If he's not ready to fight, I'll roll him up like a rug."

"But you rolled Dagipert up without fighting, don't you see?" Lanius said. "Isn't it important to set down how you did it?"

Grus said, "I didn't roll him up without fighting. We bought him off until we were ready, and then we spent years fighting Thervingia. I just convinced him he couldn't get anything out of one more year of war. See the difference?"

Reluctantly, Lanius nodded. "Yes, I think I do." He was the one who'd read all the histories. That Grus had a deeper view of what had happened than he'd seen himself was embarrassing.

As swiftly as Grus came into the capital, he left again. Very likely a good many of his men marched out of the city with hangovers from a brief carouse. Lanius wouldn't have wanted to tramp off with an aching head, and wouldn't have been happy if he'd had to. When he said as much to Grus, though, his fellow king only smiled. "They may not be happy to march," he said, "but I'll tell you one thing - they're plenty happy they don't have to fight the Thervings this year."

"But they will have to fight Pandion," Lanius said.

Grus smiled again. "If I had a choice between fighting Dagipert's wild men and a baron who'd grown too big for his breeches, Your Majesty, I know which one
I'd
pick, I'll tell you that. Especially when they think they're taking him by surprise."

"Oh," Lanius said. "Yes, that does make sense, doesn't it?"

"I try." As it often did, Grus' voice came dry as the southern plains after a long season without rain.

Lanius' ears burned, as though that dryness had set them afire. "Er, yes," he mumbled, wishing he could escape his father-in-law.

He got his wish, though not quite in the way he'd meant. With a nod, Grus said, "Well, I'll be off soon. Can't keep Pandion waiting, now can we?" He turned to go, then checked himself, adding, "I thank you for sending word of his revolt to me so quick."

"Uh, you're welcome." Lanius too hesitated. Then
he
added, "Uh, it was Sosia's idea." Better Grus should hear that from him than from her.

But by the way Grus nodded, he already knew. He said, "You still had to do it, though. And who knows? You might have wanted Pandion as protector instead of me."

"I don't want
anyone
as protector!" Lanius all but screamed it. Not having anyone as protector, though, wasn't one of the choices life offered him. It never had been. He wondered if it ever would be.

* * *

King Grus savored the feel of a pitching deck under his feet, the breeze in his face, the countryside smoothly flowing by as he led his fleet along the Halycus River toward Pandion's estates. "This is the life," he said to Nicator, who stood beside him. "This is more fun than staying cooped up in the palace all the time, gods curse me if it isn't."

"What's that, Your Majesty?" Nicator cupped a hand behind his ear. Patiently, Grus repeated himself. He had to do it yet again before Nicator nodded and said, "You're welcome to the crown, far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't take it on a bet."

I'm certainly lucky,
Grus thought.
Every king needs a man like you
-
someone he can trust at his back, someone who's not ambitious, or not too ambitious, on his own. Not every king finds a man like that.
The king turned away just in time to watch a couple of mergansers take alarm at the river galley and spring into the air. He wished he could enjoy freedom like that.

Nicator spied the saw-billed ducks, too; nothing wrong with his eyes. His thoughts ran in a different direction. "Those miserable birds taste too much like the fish they eat."

"I know," Grus answered.

Farmers tending fields and flocks looked up in surprise as the war galleys grided down the Halycus. A royal war fleet hadn't been seen in the heartland of Avornis for many years. Nobles in their castles were probably every bit as amazed, and a good deal more alarmed. Grus wanted them alarmed. If they were thinking of joining Pandion's revolt, or of starting one of their own, they needed to consider the risks of the game as well as the rewards.

Two days later, Nicator pointed ahead. "That should be Pandion's stronghold."

Grus shaded his eyes with the palm of his hand. "Yes, I think so," he agreed. The keep, of yellow limestone, seemed not so very strong, not so very well sited. Grus peered again. "Are those tents, there all around the moat?"

"Look at all the tents underneath the castle," replied Nicator, who hadn't heard him. He called, "Up the stroke," to the oar-master. To the trumpeters, he said, "Signal the other ships to speed up, too. The sooner we get there, the less time they'll have to get ready for us." His ears might be - were - bad, but his wits, like his eyes, still worked just fine. Grus wondered if Nicator caught the blaring horn calls or simply assumed they went forth because he'd ordered it.

The fleet had almost come abreast of the castle, which lay about half a mile from the Halycus, before Pandion's encampment began to stir. "Here's an interesting question," Grus shouted into Nicator's ear. "Will he try to fight us, or will he pull back into the castle and let us lay siege to him?"

Once Nicator understood, he said, "He'll fight, if you ask me. He can't pack that many men into the keep. Even if he could, he can't feed'em long - and the more the place holds, the less time he'll be able to keep 'em fed. If he beats us in a battle, he doesn't have to worry about that - or he doesn't think he does."

"We'll see," Grus bawled. Nicator was likely right. If he'd been in Pandion's shoes, he would have fought. The river galley's keel scraped against the gently sloping bank. Marines and most of the rowers jumped or scrambled off the ship to form the beginning of a battle line ashore. The rest of the rowers stayed behind. They would guard the galley if Pandion's men somehow broke past Grus' army.

Men spilled out of other river galleys, too, and off the barges accompanying them. Horses came off some of the barges, too, already saddled. Soldiers swung up onto them. A horse waited for Grus. He mounted reluctantly - but then, he always mounted reluctantly. More horns blared. The battle line swiftly lengthened. From the horse - a docile gelding - Grus waved. His army advanced on the castle.

Pandion's force was slower forming. These were peasants, most of them, not veterans of years of war against Thervingia and the Menteshe. They followed their overlord's orders, probably because they hadn't thought to do anything else. On they came, their line shorter than Grus' and more ragged. Grus looked to see if the rebel baron made himself obvious. He hadn't.

Arrows began to fly. On both sides, men began to fall. Some never made a sound, but lay still. More thrashed and screamed and cursed and wailed. As the sides drew closer, spears joined arrows. More and more men went down. A spear darted over Grus' left shoulder and buried itself in the ground behind him. Had it been a foot lower... He shuddered and did his best not to think of that.

The two lines collided, both yelling and calling on the gods and taking their names in vain. That fight was sword- and pike-work. It was very warm work for a little while, too, for the men Pandion led were fierce enough and to spare at the start. But bravery could do only so much against superior numbers and superior skill. Grus' line lapped around the rebels' flanks. Pandion's army had to give ground or face attack from sides and rear. Even when the rebels did give ground, they still had horsemen on their flanks.

After half an hour or so, their spirit began to fail. Grus was surprised they'd held out even that long, being both outnumbered and outfought - not in terms of courage, but in terms of strategy. A few at a time, Pandion's men started slipping out of the line of battle and trying to get away. Some of them made it. Grus' riders cut down more from behind.