The Chernagor Pirates (24 page)

“I understand.” Grus eyed the tall, tall masts. “Handling all that canvas will take a lot of practice by itself.”

“We do have some Chernagor prisoners to teach us the ropes,” Plegadis said. When a shipwright used that phrase, he wasn't joking or spitting out a cliché. He meant exactly what the words implied.

He wasn't joking, but was he being careful enough? “Have you had a wizard check these Chernagors?” Grus asked. “We may have some of the same worries with them that we do with the Menteshe, and even with the thralls. I'm not saying we will, but we may.”

Plegadis' grimace showed a broken front tooth. “I didn't even think of that, Your Majesty, but I'll see to it, I promise you. What I was going to tell you is, some of the fishermen here make better crew for this Chernagor ship than a lot of river-galley men. They know what to do with a good-sized sail, where on a galley it's row, row, row all the time.”

“Yes, I can see how that might be so.” Grus looked east, out to the Azanian Sea. It seemed to go on and on forever. He'd felt that even more strongly when he went out on it in a river galley. He'd also felt badly out of his element. He'd gotten away with fighting on the sea, but he wasn't eager to try it again in ships not made for it.
Would I be more ready to try it in a monster like that?
he wondered.
Once I had a good crew, I think I might be.
Out loud, he went on, “I don't care where the men come from, as long as you get them.”

“Good. That's the right attitude.” Plegadis nodded. “We have to lick those Chernagor bastards. I'm not fussy about how. They did us a lot of harm, and they'd better find out they can't get away with nonsense like that. I'll tell you something else, too. Along this coast, plenty of fishermen'll think an ordinary sailor's wages look pretty good, poor miserable devils.”

“I believe it,” Grus answered. The eastern coast was Avornis' forgotten land. If a king wanted to make a man disappear, he sent him to the Maze. If a man wanted to disappear on his own, he came to the coast. Even tax collectors often overlooked this part of the kingdom. Grus knew he had until the Chernagors descended on it. He added, “If all this makes us tie the coast to the rest of Avornis, some good will have come from it.”

To his surprise, Plegadis hesitated before nodding again. “Well, I think so, too, Your Majesty, or I suppose I do. But you'll find people up and down the coast who won't. They
like
being … on their own, you might say.”

“How did they like it when the pirates burned their towns and stole their silver and raped their women?” Grus asked. “They were glad enough to see us after that.”

“Oh, yes.” The shipwright's smile was as crooked as that tooth of his. “But they got over it pretty quick.” Grus started to smile. He started to, but he didn't. Once again, Plegadis hadn't been joking.

When all else failed, King Lanius took refuge in the archives. No one bothered him there, and when he concentrated on old documents he didn't have to dwell on whatever else was bothering him. Over the years, going there had served him well. But it didn't come close to easing the pain of losing Cristata.

And it wasn't just the pain of losing her. He recognized that. Part of it was also the humiliation of being unable to do anything for someone he loved. If Grus had ravished her in front of his eyes, it could hardly have been worse. Grus hadn't, of course. He'd been humane, especially compared to what he might have done. He'd even made Lanius see his point of view, but so what? Cristata was still gone, she still wouldn't be back, and Lanius still bitterly missed her.

Next to that ache in his heart, even finding another letter as interesting and important as King Cathartes' probably wouldn't have meant much to him. As things turned out, most of what Lanius did find was dull. There were days when he could plow through tax receipts and stay interested, but those were days when he was in a better mood than he was now. He found himself alternately yawning and scowling.

He fought his way through a few sets of receipts, as much from duty as anything else. But then he shook his head, gave up, and buried his face in his hands. If he gave in to self-pity here, at least he could do it without anyone else seeing.

When he raised his head again, sharp curiosity—and the beginnings of alarm—replaced the self-pity. Any noise he heard in the archives was out of the ordinary. And any noise he heard here could be a warning of something dangerous. If one of the thralls had escaped …

He turned his head this way and that, trying to pinpoint the noise. It wasn't very loud, and it didn't seem to come from very high off the ground. “Mouse,” Lanius muttered, and tried to make himself believe it.

He'd nearly succeeded when a sharp clatter drove such thoughts from his mind. Mice didn't carry metal objects—knives?—or knock them against wood. Today, Lanius had a knife at his own belt. But he was neither warrior nor assassin, as he knew all too well.

“Who's there?” he called, slipping the knife from its sheath and sliding forward as quietly as he could. Only silence answered him. He peered ahead. Almost anything smaller than an elephant could have hidden in the archives. He'd never fully understood what
higgledy-piggledy
meant until he started coming in here. He often wondered whether anyone ever read half the parchments various officials wrote. Sometimes it seemed as though the parchments just ended up here, on shelves and in boxes and barrels and leather sacks and sometimes even wide-mouthed pottery jugs all stacked one atop another with scant regard for sanity or safety.

Elephants Lanius didn't much worry about. An elephant would have had to go through a winepress before it could squeeze between the stacks of documents and receptacles. Assassins, unfortunately, weren't likely to be so handicapped.

“Who's there?” the king called again, his voice breaking nervously.

Again, no answer, not with words. But he did hear another metallic clatter, down close to the ground.

That made him wonder. There were assassins, and then there were … He made the noise he used when he was about to feed the moncats. Sure enough, out came one of the beasts, this time carrying not a wooden spoon but a long-handled silver dipper for lifting soup from a pot or wine from a barrel.

“You idiot animal!” Lanius exclaimed. Unless he was wildly mistaken, this was the same moncat that had frightened him in here before. He pointed an accusing finger at it. “How did you get out this time, Pouncer? And how did you get into the kitchens and then out of them again?”

“Rowr,” Pouncer said, which didn't explain enough.

Lanius made the feeding noise again. Still clutching the dipper, the moncat came over to him. He grabbed it. It hung on to its prize, but didn't seem otherwise upset. That noise meant food most of the time. If, this once, it didn't, the animal wasn't going to worry about it.

“What shall I do with you?” Lanius demanded.

Again, Pouncer said, “Rowr.” Again, that told the king less than he wanted to know.

He carried the moncat back to its room. After putting it inside and going out into the hallway once more, he waved down the first servant he saw. “Yes, Your Majesty?” the man said. “Is something wrong?”

“Something or someone,” Lanius answered grimly. “Tell Bubulcus to get himself over here right away. Tell everybody you see to tell Bubulcus to get over here right away. Tell him he'd better hurry if he knows what's good for him.”

He hardly ever sounded so fierce, so determined. The servant's eyes widened. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, and hurried away. Lanius composed himself to wait, not in patience but in impatience.

Bubulcus came trotting up about a quarter of an hour later, a worried expression on his long, thin, pointy-nosed face. “What's the trouble now, Your Majesty?” he asked, as though he and trouble had never met before.

Knowing better, the king pointed to the barred door that kept the moncats from escaping. “Have you gone looking for me in there again?”

“Which I haven't.” Bubulcus shook his head so vigorously, a lock of greasy black hair flopped down in front of one eye. He brushed it back with the palm of his hand. “Which I haven't,” he repeated, his voice oozing righteousness. “No, sir. I've learned my lesson, I have. Once was plenty, thank you very much.”

Once hadn't been plenty, of course. He'd let moncats get loose twice—at least twice. He might forget. Lanius never would. “Are you sure, Bubulcus? Are you very sure?” he asked. “If you're lying to me, I
will
send you to the Maze, and I won't blink before I do it. I promise you that.”

“Me? Lie? Would I do such a thing?” Bubulcus acted astonished, insulted, at the mere possibility. He went on, “Put me on the rack, if you care to. I'll tell you the same. Give me to a Menteshe torturer. Give me to the Banished One, if you care to.”

The king's fingers twisted in a gesture that might—or might not—ward off evil omens. “You don't know what you're talking about,” he said. “Thank the true gods for your ignorance, too.”

“Which I do for everything, Your Majesty,” Bubulcus said. “But I'm not ignorant about this. I know I didn't go in there. Do what you want with me, but I can't tell you any different.”

Sending him to the rack had more than a little appeal. With a certain amount of regret, Lanius said, “Go find a mage, Bubulcus. Tell him to question you about this. Bring him back here with you. Hurry. I'll be waiting. If you don't come back soon, you'll wish some of the foolish things you just said did come true.”

Bubulcus disappeared faster than if a mage had conjured him into nothingness. Lanius leaned against the wall. Would the servant come back so fast?

He did, or nearly. And he had with him no less a wizard than Pterocles himself. After bowing to Lanius, the wizard said, “As best I can tell, Your Majesty, this man is speaking the truth. He was not in those rooms, and he did not let your pet get out.”

“How
did
the moncat get loose, then?” Lanius asked.

Pterocles shrugged. “I can't tell you that. Maybe another servant let it out. Maybe there's a hole in the wall no one has noticed.”

Bubulcus looked not only relieved but triumphant. “Which I told you, Your Majesty. Which I didn't have anything to do with.”

“This time, no,” Lanius admitted. “But your record up until now somehow didn't fill me with confidence.” Bubulcus looked indignant. Pterocles let out a small snort of laughter. Lanius gestured. “Go on, Bubulcus. Count yourself lucky and try to stay out of trouble.”

“Which I've already done, except for some people who keep trying to put me into it,” Bubulcus said. But then he seemed to remember he was talking to a King of Avornis, not to another servant. He bobbed his head in an awkward bow and scurried away.

“Thank you,” Lanius told Pterocles.

“You're welcome, Your Majesty.” The wizard tried a smile on for size. “Dealing with something easy every once in a while is a pleasure.” He too nodded to Lanius and ambled down the corridor.

Something easy?
Lanius wondered. Then he decided Pterocles had a point. Finding out if a servant lied was bound to be easier—and safer—than, say, facing a Chernagor sorcerer. But how
had
Pouncer escaped? That didn't look as though it would be so easy for Lanius to figure out.

Grus listened to Pterocles with more than a little amusement. “A moncat, you say?” he inquired, and the wizard nodded. Grus went on, “Well, that's got to be simpler than working out how to cure thralls.”

Pterocles nodded. “It was this time, anyhow.”

“Good. Not everything should be hard all the time,” Grus said, and Pterocles nodded again. Grus asked, “And how
are
you coming on curing thralls?”

Pterocles' face fell. He'd plainly hoped Grus wouldn't ask him that. But, once asked, he had to answer. “Not as well as I would like, Your Majesty,” he said reluctantly, adding, “No one else in Avornis has figured out how to do it, either, you know, not reliably, not since the Menteshe wizards first started making our men into thralls however many hundred years ago that was.”

“Well, yes,” Grus admitted with a certain reluctance of his own. He didn't want to think about that; he would sooner have forgotten all those other failures. That way, he could have believed Pterocles was starting with a clean slate. As things were, he could only ask, “Do you think you've found any promising approaches?”

“Promising? No. Hopeful? Maybe,” Pterocles replied. “After all, as I've said, I've been … emptied myself. So have thralls. I know more about that than any other Avornan wizard ever born.” His laugh had a distinctly hollow note. “I wish I didn't, but I do.”

“What about the suggestions Alca the witch sent me?” Grus asked once more.

With a sigh, the wizard answered, “We've been over this ground before, Your Majesty. I don't deny the witch is clever, but what she says is not to the point. She doesn't understand what being a thrall means.”

“And you do?” Grus asked with heavy sarcasm.

“As well as any man who isn't a thrall can, yes,” Pterocles replied. “I've told you that before. Will you please listen?”

“No matter how well you say you understand, you haven't come up with anything that looks like a cure,” Grus said. “If you do, I'll believe you. If you don't, if you don't show me you have ideas of your own, I am going to order you to use Alca's for the sake of doing
something.
”

“Even if it's wrong,” Pterocles jeered.

“Even if it is,” Grus said stubbornly. “From all I've seen, doing something is better than doing nothing. Something
may
work. Nothing never will.”

“If you think I'm doing nothing, Your Majesty, you had better find yourself another wizard,” Pterocles said. “Then I
will
go off and do nothing with a clear conscience, and you can see what happens after that.”