The Chernagor Pirates (36 page)

He almost died before dawn, with no chance to worry about Alauda or Alca or, for that matter, Estrilda. The Menteshe often shied away from stand-up fights, yes. But a night attack, an assault that caught their enemies by surprise, was a different story.

Their wizards must have found some way to fuddle the sentries, for the Avornans knew nothing of their onslaught until moments before it broke upon them. They would have been caught altogether unaware if Pterocles hadn't started up from his pallet, shouting, “Danger! Danger!” By the confused shock in his voice, he didn't even know what sort of danger it was, only that it was real and it was close.

His cry woke Grus. The king's dreams had been of anything but danger. When he woke, one of Alauda's breasts filled his hand. He'd known that even in his sleep, and it had colored and heated his imaginings.

Now … now, along with the wizard's shouts of alarm, he heard the oncoming thunder of hoofbeats and harsh war cries in a language not Avornan. Cursing, he realized at least some of what must have happened. He threw on drawers, jammed a helmet down on his head, seized sword and shield, and ran, otherwise naked, from the tent.

“Out!” Grus shouted at the top of his lungs. “Out and fight! Quick, before they kill you all!”

Soldiers started spilling from their tents. In the crimson light of the dying campfires, they might have been dipped in blood. Many of them were as erratically armed and armored as the king himself—this one had a sword, that one a mailshirt, the other a shield, another a bow.

They were a poor lot to try to stop the rampaging Menteshe. And yet the nomads seemed to have looked for no opposition whatever. They cried out in surprise and alarm when Avornans rushed forward to slash at them, to pull them from their horses, and to shoot arrows at them. They'd been looking to murder Grus' soldiers in their tents, to take them altogether unawares. Whatever happened, that wouldn't. More and more Avornans streamed into the fight, these more fully armed than the first few.

One of Prince Ulash's men reined in right in front of Grus. The nomad stared around, looking for foes on horseback. He found none—and had no idea Grus was there until the king yanked him out of the saddle. He had time for one startled squawk before landing in a campfire. He didn't squawk after that. He shrieked. The fire was dying, but not yet dead. And the coals flared to new life when he crashed down on them.

As for Grus, he sprang into the saddle without even thinking about how little he cared for horses and horsemanship. The pony under him bucked at the sudden change of riders. He cuffed it into submission, yelling, “Avornis! Avornis! To me, men! We can beat these cursed raiders!”

“King Grus!” shouted a soldier who recognized his voice. An instant later, a hundred, a thousand throats had taken up the cry. “King Grus! Hurrah for King Grus!”

That proved a mixed blessing. His own men did rally to him. But the Menteshe cried out, too, and pressed him as hard as they could in the crimson-shot darkness. Arrow after arrow hissed past his head. If the archers had been able to see clearly what they were shooting at, he doubted he could have lasted long. At night, though, they kept missing. Even as he slashed with his sword, he breathed prayers of thanks to the gods.

In the screaming, cursing chaos, he took longer to realize something than he should have. When he did, he bawled it out as loud as he could. “There aren't very many of them. Hit them hard! We
can
beat them!”

Maybe the magic—Grus presumed it was magic—that had let the Menteshe slip past his sentries couldn't have hidden more of them; Pterocles had also had trouble masking too many men. Whatever the reason, this wasn't an assault by their whole army, as he'd feared when Pterocles' cry of alarm first woke him. It was a raid. It could have been a costly raid, but now it wouldn't be.

Prince Ulash's men didn't need much more time to figure that out for themselves. When they did, they weren't ashamed to flee. The Avornans spent some small, panicky stretch of time striking at one another before they realized the enemy had gone.

More fuel went on the fires. As they flared up, Hirundo waved to Grus. “Well, that's one way to settle your supper,” the general said cheerfully.

Grus noticed three or four cuts, luckily all small, that he'd ignored in the heat of battle. “For a little while there, I wondered if we'd get settled along with supper,” he remarked. Hirundo laughed, as though the Menteshe had done no more than play a clever joke on the Avornan army. Grus was in no mood for laughter. He raised his voice, shouting, “Pterocles!”

He had to call the wizard's name several times before he got an answer. He'd begun to fear the nomads had slain Pterocles. No sorcerer was immune to an arrow through the throat or a sword cut that tore out his vitals. But; at length, Pterocles limped into the firelight. He had an arrow through him, all right, but through one calf. He'd wrapped a rag around the wound. Not even the ruddy light of the flames could make his face anything but pallid.

“Are you all right?” Grus exclaimed.

“That depends, Your Majesty,” the wizard said, biting his lip against the pain. “Is the wound likely to kill me? No. Do I wish I didn't have it? Yes.”

Hirundo said, “I've never known a wound I was glad I had.”

“Nor I,” Grus agreed. “Have a healer draw the shaft and give you opium for the pain. You're lucky the arrowhead went through—the healer won't have to cut it out of you.”

“Lucky.” Pterocles savored the word. After a moment, he shook his head. “If I were lucky, it would have missed me.”

Grus nodded, yielding the point. He said, “We're all lucky you sensed the nomads coming. What sort of spell did they use to get past the sentries, and can we make sure it won't work if they try it again?”

“A masking spell on the sentries,” Pterocles answered. “A masking spell on them, and a sleep spell on me—maybe on this whole camp, but I think just on me—so we wouldn't know the Menteshe were here until too late. It might have done everything the nomads wanted if I hadn't had an extra cup of wine last night.”

“What's that?” Hirundo said. “Wine makes me sleepy.”

The wizard managed a bloodless smile, though blood was darkening the cloth he'd put around his wounded leg. He said, “Wine makes me sleepy, too. But it also makes me wake up in the middle of the night—which I did, for I had to piss or burst. And when I woke …”

Hirundo clapped his hands. Grus was sure that was the first time he'd ever heard anyone's bladder applauded. “Stay where you are. Don't move on it anymore,” the king told Pterocles, and turned to a soldier standing not far away. “Fetch a healer to treat the wizard's wound.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The man hurried off.

“You didn't answer the second half of my question,” Grus said to Pterocles.
“Can
we make sure Ulash's men don't get away with this again?”

Pterocles said, “The sleep spell isn't easy. It caught me by surprise this time. It won't the next.”

“What about other wizards?” Grus asked.

“I can let them know what to be wary of,” Pterocles told him. “That will give them a good chance to steer clear of the spell, anyhow.”

“Better than nothing,” Grus said. It wasn't enough to suit him, but he judged it would have to do. His army had come through here. And tomorrow …
Tomorrow, Pelagonia,
he thought.

Sosia hurried up to Lanius. Some strong emotion was on her face. Had she found out he'd been dallying with serving women again? He didn't want to go through another row.

But instead of screaming at him or trying to slap his face, Sosia burst out, “He does! Oh, Lanius, he does!”

Lanius knew he was gaping foolishly. He couldn't help himself. “Who does?” he inquired. “And, for that matter, who does what?”

She stared at him as though he should have understood at once what she was talking about. “My brother,” she answered with a grimace. “And he does … what you'd expect.”

“Are you sure?” Lanius grimaced, too. That was very unwelcome news. “Ortalis is hurting serving girls again, even though he's hunting? Even though he's got a wife?”

“No, no, no!” Sosia's expression said she'd been right the first time—he
was
an idiot. “He's hurting
Limosa.
”

“You're crazy.” The words were out of Lanius' mouth before he had the chance to regret them. Even then, only part of him
did
regret them, for he went on, “I saw her yesterday. She looked as happy as a moncat with a lizard to chase. She's looked—and sounded—that way ever since they got married. I don't know why, but she has. She loves your brother, Sosia. She's not pretending. Nobody's that good an actress. And he
does
go out hunting. If he were hurting her, she could come to you or to me or to Anser and scream her head off. She hasn't. She doesn't need to do it, yes?”

“I don't know.” Now his wife looked confused.

“What exactly
do
you know? And how do you know it?”

“I know Limosa's got scars on her back, the same sort of scars … the same sort of scars Ortalis has put on other girls,” Sosia answered. Lanius grimaced again, remembering Cristata's ravaged back. Sosia's eyes said she noticed him remembering, and knew he was remembering the rest of Cristata, too. But she visibly pushed that aside for the time being and continued, “And I know because a serving woman happened to walk in on Limosa while she was bathing. She doesn't usually let any servants attend her then, and that's strange all by itself.”

The king nodded; it
was
unusual. Did it mean Limosa had scars she didn't want anyone to see? Try as he would, he couldn't think of anything else.

“But Limosa hasn't said anything about this?” he asked.

“No.” Sosia shook her head. “She chased the maidservant away, and she's been going on as though nothing happened ever since.”

“I wonder if the maid was wrong, or if she was making it up,” Lanius said.

“No,” Sosia repeated. “I know Zenaida. She wouldn't. She's reliable.”

“Well, so she is,” Lanius agreed, his voice as expressionless as he could make it. He wondered what Sosia would have called the serving woman had she known he was sleeping with her. Something other than reliable, he was sure.

He went through the palace the next morning looking for Limosa, and naturally didn't find her. Then, after he'd given up, he came around a corner and almost bumped into her. She dropped him a curtsy, saying, “Hello, Your Majesty.”

“Hello, Your Highness.” Lanius had almost gotten used to calling Limosa by the title. He'd also paid her a bigger compliment than that—he'd almost forgotten she was Petrosus' daughter. “How are you today?”

Her smile lit up her face. She wasn't a beautiful woman, but when she smiled it was easy to forget she wasn't. “I'm very well, Your Majesty, very well indeed. I hope you are, too.”

“Pretty well, anyhow,” Lanius said.

“Good. I'm so glad to hear it.” That wasn't, or didn't sound like, simple courtesy alone; it sounded as though Limosa meant it. “If you'll excuse me …”

“Of course,” Lanius said. She smiled again, even more brightly than before. Fluttering her fingers at him, she hurried down the hall, her skirt rustling at each step.

She was radiant. That was the only word Lanius could find.
And she's supposed to bear the mark of the lash on her back?
The king shook his head. He couldn't believe it. He didn't believe it. He didn't know what Zenaida thought she'd seen. Whatever it was, he was convinced she'd gotten it wrong.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pelagonia's iron-shod gates swung open. The Avornan defenders on the wall—soldiers of the garrison in helmets and mailshirts, armed with swords and spears and heavy bows, plus a good many militiamen in leather jerkins, armed with daggers and with hunting bows good for knocking over rabbits and squirrels but with no range or punch to speak of—cheered Grus and his army as he led it into the town.

He waved back to the men who'd held Pelagonia against the Menteshe. He pasted a smile on his face. His heart pounded as though he were storming Yozgat and driving Prince Ulash from his throne. That had nothing to do with Pelagonia itself, so he didn't want the people here noticing anything amiss. It had everything to do with one woman who'd come—been sent—to live here.

He wanted to see Alca as soon as he got the chance. And yet, he would be quietly setting up housekeeping with Alauda while he stayed here. He recognized the inconsistency. Recognizing it and doing anything about it were two different beasts.

A baron named Spizastur commanded in Pelagonia. He was a big, bluff fellow with gray eyes and a red face—an even redder nose, one that suggested he put down a lot of wine. “Greetings, Your Majesty!” he boomed. “Mighty good to see you, and that's the truth!” Was he drunk? Not in any large, showy way, anyhow, though he did talk too loud.

“Good to be here,” the king replied.

“I'm not sorry to see the last of those thieving devils,” Spizastur declared, again louder than he needed to. “Been a long time since they came this far north. Won't be sorry if I never see 'em again, either.”

Grus knew it was far from certain Pelagonia
had
seen the last of the Menteshe. He didn't say that to Spizastur. It would only have disheartened the noble and the soldiers who'd held Prince Ulash's men out of the city. He did say, “I hope you have billets for my men—and a place for me to stay.”

“Billets for some, anyhow,” Spizastur replied. “This isn't the big city, where you can fit in a great host and never notice. For you yourself, Your Majesty, I've got rooms in the keep.”

“I thank you.” Grus would sooner have stayed with some rich merchant—odds were that would have been more comfortable. But he couldn't tell Spizastur no. “I have a … lady friend with me,” he murmured.