The Bastard King (7 page)

He'd had to learn flattery. Some of his lessons said that people flattered princes, not the other way round. Maybe that was true for other princes. It wasn't true for Lanius.

His tutor didn't answer right away. The man plucked at his beard, thinking things over. At last, he said, "Let me ask His Majesty's chamberlains. It's not really up to me. It's up to the king."

Hope died in Lanius. "He won't let me. He never lets me do anything I want. He won't even let me see my mama." He'd just lost his first tooth. His tongue kept exploring the hole where it had been. Once there, now gone. Having Queen Certhia banished from the palace left the same sort of hole in his life. He would grow a new tooth. How could he grow a new mother?

"Let me ask," the tutor said again. "You
are
King Scolopax's heir, after all." That meant little to Lanius. From everything he'd seen, it also meant little to Scolopax. But when the tutor came back, he was smiling. "It's all arranged. You can do it. You have to put on your fancy robe and your coronet, but you can do it."

"Oh, thank you!" Lanius cried. The robe, heavy with gold thread, made his skinny shoulders sag and hurt from its weight. The coronet was too small for him, and most uncomfortable. He didn't care. Getting something he really wanted didn't happen very often. He intended to enjoy it as much as he could.

He had a place not far from the throne, across the aisle from Arch-Hallow Bucco. Even that couldn't rain his day, although the arch-hallow kept glaring at him as though he had no right to exist.

King Scolopax sat impassive on the sparkling Diamond Throne. His robes, of cloth-of-gold, put Lanius' to shame. His golden crown, set with rubies and sapphires and emeralds, was far heavier than Lanius' coronet. His expression might have been regal calm. On the other hand, he might have been slightly sozzled.

But then Lanius forgot all about his uncle, the king. Here came the Thervings. Their ambassador wore a fur jacket, leather trousers, and boots that clomped on the marble throne-room floor. Avornan soldiers in gilded chain-mail shirts surrounded him and his companions. Lanius wished they would go away. They made it hard for him to see the Thervings.

A herald bawled out the ambassador's name - Zangrulf. He bowed very low to King Scolopax. The other Thervings, the ones who served the ambassador, bowed lower still. Lanius wanted to imitate them. Only the thought that he would probably get a spanking if he did made him hold still.

"Avornis has paid tribute to Thervingia for many years," the ambassador said in fluent if accented Avornan. "The last treaty for the tribute is going to expire. King Dagipert expects you to renew it at the same rate."

Behind Lanius, his tutor, dressed in a robe so fine it was surely borrowed, let out a soft hiss of anger. "He bargains over kingdoms the way an old woman in the vegetable market bargains over beets."

Lanius hardly heard him. He was watching his uncle, up there on the Diamond Throne. Scolopax looked every inch a king. He sat hardly moving, staring down at the Therving ambassador like a god looking down on creatures some other, clumsier, deity had made. When Zangrulf finished, Scolopax deigned to speak one word: "No."

At that one word, whispers almost too soft to hear raced through the throne room. Lanius felt the surprise and excitement, though he didn't know what they meant. Zangrulf spelled that out for him like his tutor spelling out a new, hard word. "If you refuse, Your Majesty, King Dagipert will be within his rights to go to war against you, to go to war against Avornis."

Those whispers raced through the throne room again. This time, they had a little more weight to them. This time, too, that one word was loud even in the quiet.
War.

"No," King Scolopax repeated. "That's what I said, and that's what I meant. You can tell it to your precious king, or to anyone else you please."

"Think twice, Your Majesty," Zangrulf said. "Think three times. King Dagipert is fierce, and dangerous to anger. The armies of Thervingia are brave, and ready for battle. King Mergus did not refuse us. He - "

Lanius could have told the Therving that mentioning his father was not the way to get his uncle to go in a direction he wanted. He could have told that to Zangrulf, but he never got the chance. King Scolopax did it for him. When Scolopax said "No!" this time, he shouted the word out at the top of his lungs. Then he pointed to the door. "Get out!" he yelled. "Get out, and be happy you still keep your head on your shoulders.
Get out!"

As though the embassy had gone just the way he'd hoped, Zangrulf bowed again. So did his retainers. They turned and trooped out of the throne room. The Avornan guards surrounded them, as they had before. Lanius wanted to clap his hands. All through his life, he would love a parade.

"He did what?" Commodore Grus said when news of the fiasco in the throne room got to Veteres.

"He turned down Dagipert's ambassador," said the man with the news. "Turned him down flat, by the gods."

Grus gulped his wine. "Now what? Is it war with the Thervings?"

"It had better not be war," Nicator exclaimed. "If it is, how do we fight it? We haven't got enough soldiers, and we haven't got enough river galleys, either."

"You know that," Grus said. "I know that. Why doesn't King Scolopax know that?"

"Beats me." Nicator drained his mug and waved to the barmaid for another. "He's king, after all. He's supposed to know things like that. He's supposed to know everything that's going on in Avornis."

"I should say so," Grus exclaimed. "I know everything that's going on in my flotilla - that's my job. The whole kingdom is his job."

"There's a certain kind of captain who doesn't think that way," Nicator said. "You know the kind I mean. He'll say'Do this. Do that. Do the other thing,' but he won't bother to find out if you've got the men or the gear or the money or the time to carry out his orders. That's not his worry - it's yours. But then
you
get the blame if what he says turns out to be impossible."

Grus nodded. "Oh, yes. I know officers like that. I run them out of my service just as fast as I can."

"I know you do, skipper," Captain Nicator said. "A lot of buggers like that, though - they're nobles, and they're not so easy to get rid of."

"Don't remind me," Grus said. He'd come as far as he had because he'd proved he was good at what he did. Nobles who'd gotten their posts because of who their grandfathers were had to obey his orders. That didn't keep them from looking down their noses at him.

The barmaid came over to the table with a pitcher of wine. She filled Nicator's mug. Grus shoved his across the table toward her. She poured it full, too.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Nicator said, and patted her on the bottom.

She drew back. "You can buy the wine," she said, "and I'll be glad to see your silver. But you can cursed well keep your hands to yourself.
That's
not for sale. If I could line up all the bastards who make filthy jokes about barmaids so I could swing a sword once and take off all their empty heads, I'd do it." She stomped away.

"Whew!" Nicator said, and took a long pull at his mug. "She had steam coming out of her ears, didn't she?"

"Just a little," Grus answered. "I think I'm going to keep my mouth shut for about the next ten years." He'd been known to make jokes about barmaids. He'd been known to do more than joke. He had a bastard boy down in Anxa. Every quarter, he sent gold to the boy's mother. Estrilda knew about that. She'd given him her detailed opinion of it when she found out, but she'd eventually forgiven him. Grus shook his head. That wasn't true. She hadn't forgiven him, but she had decided to stop beating him over the head.

Three days passed before Zangrulf the Therving arrived on his return journey to King Dagipert. Escorting his party was an Avornan officer named Corvus, a fellow whose gilded armor, fancy horse, and supercilious expression said he had more land and more money than he knew what to do with. "Take these nasty fellows over the river," he told Grus, an aristocratic sneer in his voice. "We're well rid of them, believe me."

Zangrulf wasn't supposed to hear that, but he did. He looked down his nose at Corvus. "We'll be back one day soon," he said. "See how you like us then."

The Avornan nobleman turned red. "I'm not afraid of you," he said. "I'm not afraid of anything."

"Stupid twit," Captain Nicator said in a low voice. Grus nodded.

Aldo the wizard came up to Zangrulf and muttered something in the Thervings' tongue. Zangrulf laughed out loud. Pointing at Corvus, he said, "He tells me you'll get just what you deserve."

"Oh, he does, does he?" Corvus' hand fell to the hilt of his sword. "Tell him to keep his stinking mouth shut, or I'll give him just what he deserves."

"I'll take you and your men across the river," Grus said to Zangrulf, before a war broke out on the spot. King Dagipert's ambassador nodded. All the way back to the ruined bridge, though, Aldo kept looking first at Grus, then back toward Corvus. He kept laughing, too.

King Scolopax celebrated his third year on the throne with a party that lasted for eight days. He hated Mergus more than ever, for depriving him of this pleasure for so long. He'd spent too much of his life doing what Mergus told him to do. Now he was king, and everyone - everyone! - had to do as
he
said.

In fact, only one thing still troubled him a little. "I wish I had a proper heir, an heir of my own body," he complained to Aistulf one day. "That horrid wart Lanius gives me the shivers. His pointed little nose is always in one book or another,
and
he's Mergus', not mine."

"An heir of your own body?" the king's favorite murmured. "Well, there is a way to arrange that, you know, or at least to try."

Stroking him, Scolopax shook his head. "Not for me, or so it seems. I do try every now and again - by the gods, every wench in the palace throws herself at me these days - but I don't rise to the occasion."

"Too bad, Your Majesty," Aistulf said. "Women can be fun, too."

"I've got you, and I've got Waccho," King Scolopax said. "If I had any more fun, I'd fall over." Aistulf laughed. These days, everyone laughed when Scolopax made a joke. The king went on, "Besides, that wart won't put his scrawny little backside on the throne till after I'm dead, and I don't expect I'll care about it then."

"That's so," Aistulf agreed. Everyone agreed with Scolopax these days. He liked that, too.

He said, "Shall we go out to the meadow and knock the ball around?" He was an avid polo player. Considering his years and thick belly, he was a pretty good one, too.

"Whatever you like, Your Majesty," Aistulf said. Polo wasn't high on his list, or on Waccho's. But keeping Scolopax happy was.

"Yes," the king said - happily. "Whatever I like."

Before long, he was galloping across the meadow, wild as a Menteshe nomad. The cavalrymen who rode with him and his favorites played hard. Scolopax couldn't be bothered with running Avornis - the Thervings had been ravaging the west for a year now, and he had yet to send much of a force against them; that was what he had generals for, after all - but polo was different. Polo was important. No one who thought otherwise got to play with the king twice.

His horse thundered past his last opponent. He swung his mallet with the power of a man half his age. The mallet caught the ball exactly as he'd wanted. He couldn't have aimed it any better if he'd rolled it into the net. "Goal!" he shouted joyously, and threw his arms up in triumph.

"Well shot, Your Majesty," said the defender he'd beaten.

"A perfect shot, Your Majesty," said Aistulf, who didn't want anyone but himself - and perhaps Waccho - flattering the king.

And then, quite without his bidding it, Scolopax's mallet slipped from his fingers and fell to the trampled meadow. He swayed in the saddle. He tried to bring up his right hand to rub at his forehead, but it didn't want to obey him. He used his left instead. He swayed again, and almost fell.

"Are you all right, Your Majesty?" Aistulf asked.

"I have a terrific headache," Scolopax answered. His whole right side seemed numb - no, not numb, but as though he had no right side at all. He couldn't keep his balance. Slowly, he slid off the horse. He gazed up at the sky in mild surprise, the smell of dirt and grass in his nostrils.

"Your Majesty!" Aistulf shouted, and then, "Quick! Go fetch a healer!"

Scolopax heard someone galloping away. He hardly noticed, for he saw, or thought he saw, a face full of cold, cold beauty staring down at him. "Too bad," the Banished One said. "Oh, too bad. And I had such hopes for you." Scolopax tried to answer, but couldn't. Though it was noontime, the sky grew dark. Very, very soon, it grew black.

Lanius jumped into the air, as high as he could. "Mama!" he cried, and ran to her. He hadn't seen her since his father died. In the life of a child, three years are an age. He'd sometimes wondered if he would even recognize her. But he did. Oh, he did!

"Darling!" Queen Certhia squeezed the breath out of him. "You've gotten so big and tall," she said. "But you're too skinny. You need to eat more. You look like a boy made out of sticks."

"I'll eat more," Lanius promised. He would have promised his mother almost anything. "I'll even eat - " He shook his head. He wouldn't promise to eat his vegetables. That would be going too far.

"You're the king now, after all," Certhia said. "The king has to be strong, so Avornis will be strong."

"All right." It didn't seem real to Lanius. He was only eight years old. The one change he'd been able to notice was that palace servants called him
Your Majesty
now instead of
Your Highness.
Even his tutor called him
Your Majesty.
But he still had to go to lessons every day - not that he minded them. He said, "I'm sorry Uncle Scolopax died."

His mother's face went hard and cold. "I'm not," she said. "He was a stupid, nasty man, Lanius. You'll make a much better king when you grow up. I'm sure you will."

"How are you sure, Mama?" Lanius asked, genuinely curious.