The Bastard King (65 page)

"Put me down!" the little boy squawked.

"In a little while," Sosia told him.

"Now!" Crex said.

Sosia gave him a last squeeze. He twisted free, got the ball away from Pitta, and threw it to his father. Lanius missed it again. The king laughed anyway. Sosia hugged Pitta. Lanius tickled Crex as he went by. Crex squealed. Lanius laughed louder.

Petrosus didn't look happy. The treasury minister pointed out through the windows at the drifts of snow surrounding the royal palace. He said, "Winters like this, Your Majesty, make your legislation concerning the purchase of smallholders' land by the nobility more difficult to implement."

"I'm not sure I follow that," said Grus, who was sure he didn't. "What's the weather got to do with whether laws get followed or not?"

To his surprise, Petrosus had not only an answer but one that made sense. He said, "Hard winters make smallholders more likely to fail, and to fall into debt. Because of that, they are more likely to wish to sell their property. And, when they do sell it, who is more likely to buy than the local nobles?"

"Hmm." Grus plucked at his beard. "Maybe we ought to add to those laws - something to the effect that they have to try to sell to relatives and neighbors before they're allowed to take money from nobles."

"That may do some good," Petrosus said judiciously. "I'm not sure how much it will do, though - their relatives and neighbors are liable to be looking at the same sort of trouble, don't you think?"

"I wish you made less sense than you do," Grus said. "Draft the revisions anyhow, though, if you'd be so kind. Maybe they won't work so well. But we'll never know if we don't try, will we?"

"No, Your Majesty," the treasury minister replied. "I do admire your optimism, I must say."

"We have to try," Grus said again. "If things don't work out the way we hope, we'll try something else, that's all." His laugh wasn't in the least self-conscious. "I'm a tinker and a tinkerer, Petrosus. I'll keep fiddling with something till I get it right or till I see it won't work no matter how much tinkering I give it."

"I have noticed that, yes." By the way Petrosus said it, he didn't mean it as praise.

"Draft the revisions," he said once more. "Draft them, and I'll issue them." Petrosus nodded. At Grus' gesture, the treasury minister left the room. He would do as he'd said, and he'd do a good job of making the new laws as likely to be obeyed as he could. He might think Grus a few bricks short of a wall, but he followed the king's commands simply because they
were
the king's commands.

Under a bad king, a man like that would be very dangerous,
Grus thought. He hoped he wasn't a bad king. He didn't think he was, but what bad king ever did? Even Scolopax, a bad king if ever there was one, had surely believed he was doing the best job he could.

Having finished his business with Petrosus, Grus went back to the royal chambers. Playing with his grandchildren was more fun than talking about taxation policy with the treasury minister. Or it would have been, if he'd gotten the chance to do it. But the first person he saw there was Estrilda.

They'd been married a long time - long enough for him not even to notice the hard, set expression on her face. That turned out to be a mistake. Without preamble, she said, "I hear - later than I should have, but I do hear - Alca the witch's husband has left her."

"Do you?" Grus said, hoping he could evade disaster.

He couldn't. "I certainly do," Estrilda said. "And I hear why he left her, too."

"Do you?" Grus said again. He wished something - the announcement of an invasion from Thervingia, for instance - would let him escape, but no such luck.

"Yes, I do." Estrilda walked - stalked - up to him. "And I'll tell you exactly what I think about it, too."

"What?" Grus asked. She sounded calm and reasonable, which gave him some cause to hope.

That also proved misplaced.
"This!"
she shouted, and slapped him in the face, a roundhouse blow that snapped his head back. Then - but only then - she burst into tears.

She started to swing on him again. Though his ears were ringing, he caught her wrist. "That's enough," he said. "It was ... just one of those things."

"Oh, I'll bet it was," Estrilda said. "Let go of me, you - " She called him a few names he wouldn't have expected from Nicator, let alone his own wife.

When he did let her go, she tried to slap him again. He managed to grab her wrist once more.
"Stop
that!"

"Why should I?
You
didn't."

"It wasn't like that," Grus protested.

"Oh, I'm sure it wasn't," Estrilda said. "You were away for a long time, you got lonely, and there she was...."

In another tone of voice, the words might have been sympathetic. As things were, the sarcasm flayed. Grus' face heated. He raised a hand and cautiously touched his cheek. It already felt on fire. "But - " he tried.

"No buts." Estrilda effortlessly overrode him. He might have tried harder to argue back if he hadn't known all too well he was in the wrong. She went on, "I might believe that if I hadn't heard it all before. But I have, gods curse you. That's what you told me after your other little slut went and had Anser. I could believe it once.
Once,
I tell you. If you try to give me the same tired lies twice, you're a fool, and I'd be a bigger one to pay any attention to you."

"But it's true," Grus said - the ancient and useless cry of wandering husbands (and wives) through the ages when they were found out. And he even meant it.
Would I have gone to bed with Alca if we'd stayed here in the city of Avornis?
he asked himself.
Of course not.

He didn't stop to think that was, not least, because they would have been found out even sooner than they had been. And he didn't stop to think that he would have wanted to take her to bed even if he hadn't done it.

Nor did his excuses help him a bit. "I don't care whether it's true or not," Estrilda snarled. "You did what you told me - what you promised me - you wouldn't do again. That's what I care about."

"I'm sorry," Grus said - another ancient and useless cry.

He had no luck with that one, either. "I'll bet you're sorry," Estrilda said. "You're sorry you got caught. Why else would you be sorry? You were down there in the south having yourself a fine old time. You always have yourself a fine old time down in the south, don't you?"

"It wasn't like that," Grus said.

"Oh, I'm sure. Tell me how it was." His wife shook her head. "No, don't. I don't want to hear it."

"But I love you," Grus said. It was true. He'd never stopped caring for Estrilda. How much good it was likely to do him was a different question.

It did him none at all. "You picked a wonderful way to show it, didn't you?" Estrilda said acidly.

"You don't understand," Grus protested.

"I'm sure you told that to What's-her-name, the witch," Estrilda said with a scornful laugh.'"My wife doesn't understand me.' How many liars have lured women into bed with that one? But I understand you, all right. I understand you just fine." She spat on the floor at Grus' feet. "And that's what I think of you."

"Estrilda - "

She shook her head. "No. I don't want to hear it. Whatever it is, it'll only be another lie." She stabbed out a finger at him; he supposed he should have been glad she didn't have a knife. "What would you say, what would you do, if I'd been screwing one of your handsome bodyguards? Well? What do you have to say about that,
Your Majesty?"
She laced the royal title with revulsion.

"That's different," Grus said. The mere idea filled him with rage.

Estrilda laughed in his face - a vicious laugh, a flaying laugh. "Men say so. Men can afford to say so. They're mostly bigger and stronger than women, and they mostly make the rules. But do you really think I'm any less disgusted with you than the witch's husband is with her?"

Through all of this, Grus had done his best not to think about Alca's husband. He went right on doing his best not to think about him. He said, "How can I show you how sorry I am?"

"Send Alca away," Estrilda said at once. "I don't care where you send her, as long as it's far from the city of Avornis. I never want to see her again. I never want you to see her again, either."

"But she's one of the best sorcerers in the kingdom," Grus protested.

"I'm sure that's what you noticed about her - her sorcery, I mean," his wife said with a glare that could have melted iron.

"If it weren't for her sorcery, I'd be dead," Grus said. "Would that - ?" He stopped. If he asked Estrilda,
Would that make you happy?
she was altogether too likely to answer,
Yes.
Instead, he went on, "Her magic was what put an end to Corvus' rebellion, too."

"Huzzah," Estrilda said. "If she's such a wonderful witch, she'll do very well for herself wherever you send her. And if she doesn't, she's always got another trade to fall back on - fall on her back on." She spat again.

"She's no harlot," Grus protested, beginning to get angry himself. Estrilda only laughed another laugh full of daggers. "She isn't," Grus said stubbornly.

"Fine. I don't care what she is, as long as she isn't here," his wife said. "You asked me what you could do, and I told you. That's a start, anyhow. If you don't want to ..." She didn't say what she would do then. Grus could imagine a good many possibilities, none of them pleasant.

He sighed. He'd put himself in this predicament, and knew it only too well. "Have it your way, then. She'll go."

"All right," Estrilda said. "That's a start. A start, mind you." Another sigh escaped from Grus. He might have known mending fences with his wife would cost him. He
had
known mending fences with his wife would cost him. Now he would have to find out exactly how expensive it was.

* * *

Lanius had always chafed at his own obscurity. He'd wanted to be at the heart of great affairs. Once in a while, though, being of no particular importance had its advantages.

King Grus' ... problems with Queen Estrilda made everyone in the royal palace walk on eggs. The least misstep landed a servant in trouble. Lanius didn't want to think about what sort of trouble a misstep might land him in. But what was he supposed to say when Sosia rounded on him one afternoon and demanded, "You'd never do anything like that, would you?"

As a matter of fact, he knew what he was supposed to say. "Of course not, dear."

"Good," his wife said. "There's nothing worse, nothing lower, than somebody who's unfaithful."

Lanius nodded politely. He was used to keeping his opinions to himself.
Being unfaithful is bad, yes,
he thought.
Getting caught being unfaithful is worse.

That was one of the things that had kept him from amusing himself with the serving women in the palace, as he'd done before he was married. If he did, Lanius would find himself in the same unpleasant predicament as Grus. Grus was welcome to it.

Besides which, Sosia kept him happy enough. He didn't know whether Estrilda had kept Grus happy. But some men - and, no doubt, some women - fooled around just for the sport of fooling around. He didn't fully understand the impulse.

Sosia went on, "It's hard when you can't trust anybody."

"Yes, it is," Lanius agreed. He'd known about that since he was very small.

"How
could
he?" Sosia demanded.

"If you really want to find out, you'll ask
him
," Lanius answered.

She made a horrible face. "I couldn't do that."

Lanius shrugged. "Well, don't ask me, because I wasn't there and I didn't do it." He wanted her to remember that.

"But you're a man," she said.

"Women go astray, too," he pointed out, which made Sosia scowl again. He added, "The witch here has - had - a husband; too."

"Had," Sosia said. "He threw her out of the house. I wish Mother could throw Father out of her house."

That made Lanius laugh, though it wasn't really funny. "She can't," he said. "Nobody can do anything to your father that he doesn't want done."
Except an assassin,
he thought, but he didn't say that for fear of the evil omen. He didn't want Grus dead, just out of his hair.

Sosia said, "I know nobody can do anything to him. It doesn't seem fair."

"Really?" Lanius laughed again, with even less mirth than before. "I never would have noticed."

His wife turned red. "I know you don't think what's happened is right. I wouldn't be your queen if it hadn't happened, you know."

And would I be happier if you weren't?
Lanius didn't know. Most marriages in Avornis were arranged unions, not love matches. This one hadn't worked out badly; by now, the two of them did love each other, perhaps as much from familiarity as for any other reason. As for Grus ... "Your father isn't that bad a man."

"He's a beast!" Sosia exclaimed.

"No." Lanius shook his head. "If your father were a beast, he would have murdered me. I admit as much. He would have murdered lots of people. He hasn't. He has no taste for blood. Plenty of Kings of Avornis have."

"You know what he did," Sosia said.

"Yes. But he didn't force her - it's very plain he didn't force her. He didn't hurt her. He's not a perfect man. I never said he was. But there's a long way from not being a perfect man to being a beast. And if I can see that in your father, maybe you should, too."

"Maybe," Sosia said, but the look in her eyes might have belonged to a little girl saving up more spit so she could go on with her tantrum.

"He's ... a good enough king," Lanius said. "I don't want to admit it. But I'm not blind. I can see what he's done. It's ... good enough, taken all in all."

Could I have done as well?
he asked himself.
Could I have gotten people to do as I say, the way Grus does?
He doubted it.

He was a man for the archives and for odd animals and for his family and perhaps for a small circle of friends.

Sosia said, "What he did with - with that woman, that wasn't good enough."