The Chernagor Pirates (57 page)

He waited to see how Vasilko would respond to that. He didn't have to wait long. “No,” Vasilko said, and turned his back. “The fight goes on.”

“So be it,” Grus said. “You will not get a better bargain from me when we break into Nishevatz.”

That made Vasilko turn back. “You talk about doing that. Go ahead and talk. But when you have done it, then you will have earned the right. Not now.” He disappeared from Grus' view; the king supposed he had gone down from the wall.

“So much for that,” Grus remarked as he returned to the siege line the Avornans had set up. “I'd hoped for better, but I hadn't really looked for it.”

“You got more than I thought you would, Your Majesty,” Pterocles said. Grus raised a questioning eyebrow. The wizard went on, “This was a real parley, even if it didn't work. I thought it would be nothing but a try at assassinating you.”

“Oh.” Grus thought that over. He set a hand on Pterocles' shoulder. “You have a pretty strange notion of what goes into progress, you know that?”

“I suppose I do,” the sorcerer said.

“Any luck?” General Hirundo called when Grus came into the siege line.

The king shook his head. “Not a bit of it, except that Vasilko didn't try to murder me.” Hirundo laughed. Grus would have meant it for a joke before Pterocles had spoken. Now he wasn't joking. The siege went on.

“Back when I was your age,” King Lanius told his son, “the Thervings were a lot fiercer than they are now. They even laid siege to the city of Avornis a couple of times, though they couldn't take it.”

Prince Crex listened solemnly. “How come they're different now?” he asked.

Lanius beamed. “Good question! King Berto, who rules them nowadays, is a peaceable fellow. He wants to be a holy man.”

“Like Arch-Hallow Anser?” Crex asked.

“Well … in a way,” Lanius said. Anser wasn't particularly holy; he just held a post that required the appearance of holiness from its occupant. From everything Lanius had seen, King Berto was sincere in his devotion to the gods. But how to explain that to a little boy? Not seeing how he could, Lanius continued, “Berto's father, King Dagipert, was more interested in fighting than in praying.”

Crex frowned. “So if the next King of Thervingia would sooner fight than pray, will we have wars with the Thervings all the time again?”

That was an even better question. “I hope we won't,” Lanius answered. “But both sides have to want peace for it to stick. Only one needs to want a war.”

He waited to see what Crex would make of that. After another brief pause, Crex asked, “When is Grandpa coming home?”

“I don't know,” Lanius said, blinking at the effortless ease with which children could change the subject. “When he's taken Nishevatz, I suppose.”

“I miss him,” Crex said. “If he were a king who liked to pray instead a king who likes to fight, would he be home now?”

Maybe he hadn't changed the subject after all. “I don't know, son,” Lanius said again. “He might have to go fight anyhow, because up in the Chernagor country he's fighting against the Banished One.”

“Oh,” Crex said. “All right.” And he went off to play without so much as a backward glance at his father.

He ought to know more about these things. He'll be king one day
—
I hope,
Lanius thought. Crex needed to know about the different bands of Menteshe, about all the Chernagor city-states and how they fit together, about the Thervings, and about the barbarous folk who roamed beyond the Bantian Mountains but might swarm over them to trouble either Thervingia or Avornis itself. He needed to know about the Banished One, too, however much Lanius wished he didn't.

Right now, the only way for Crex to find out everything he needed to know was to ask someone who already knew. The trouble was, nobody, not even Lanius, knew offhand everything a King of Avornis might need to learn about his kingdom's neighbors.

“I ought to write it all down,” Lanius said. He nodded, pleased with the idea. It would help Crex. He was sure of that. And it would give him the excuse to go pawing through the archives to find out whatever he didn't already know about the foreigners his kingdom had to deal with.

He laughed at himself. As though he needed excuses to go pawing through the archives! But now he would be doing it for a reason, not just for his own amusement. Didn't that count?

When he told Sosia what he had in mind, she didn't seem to think so. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked. “Or will you go into that nasty, dusty room and disappear forever?”

“It's not nasty,” Lanius said. He couldn't deny the archives were dusty. On the other hand, he had a few very pleasant memories of things he'd done there, even if his wife didn't need to hear about them.

Sosia's shrug showed amused resignation. “Go on, then. At least when you're in there, I know what you're doing.” Again, Lanius congratulated himself for not telling her it wasn't necessarily so.

He'd spent a lot of time going through the archives looking for what they had to say about the Banished One and the Scepter of Mercy. Now he was looking for some different things—for how his ancestors, and the kings who'd ruled Avornis before his ancestors came to the throne, had dealt with their neighbors.

He couldn't keep from laughing at himself. Arch-Hallow Anser hunted deer. So did Prince Ortalis, who would have hunted more tender game if he could have gotten away with it.
And me?
Lanius thought.
I hunt pieces of parchment the mice haven't nibbled too badly.
He knew Anser and Ortalis would both laugh at him if that thought occurred to them. Why not beat them to the punch?

Before the end of his first hunting trip in the archives—no serving girls along to act as beaters for the game he sought—he knew he would have no trouble coming up with all he needed and more besides. Then he found a new question. What would he do once he had everything he needed? He'd written countless letters. This was the first time he'd tried writing a book—he'd never begun the one on palace life.

What would he call it? The first thing that came to mind was
How to Be a King.
He wondered if that was too simple. Would any ambitious noble or officer think he could rule Avornis if he had the book? Of course, the kingdom had seen plenty of would-be usurpers without it, so how much would that matter? Would it matter at all?

How to Be a King,
then. It said what he wanted to say, and it would do for now. If he got a better idea later, he could always change it. The next question was, how to go about writing it? What did he need to tell Crex, and how should he tell it? How could he make a book like that interesting enough to tempt a prince who could do anything he wanted to go on reading it?

He was, he realized, asking himself a lot of questions. As soon as the thought crossed his mind, he laughed and clapped his hands. He got pen and parchment. After inking the pen, he wrote,
What do you need to know, my son, to become the sort of king Avornis should have?
Having asked the question, he proceeded to answer it. He asked another, more specific, question, and answered that, too. The answer posed yet another question. He also answered that one.

The longer Lanius wrote, the more detailed the questions got, and the more poking through the archives he had to do to answer them. Not many days went by before he was trying to sort out the complicated history of Avornan dealings with the individual Chernagor city-states, and doing his best to give advice on how to play them off one against another.

He thought about having a scribe make a copy of that part of
How to Be a King
so he could send it up to Grus in the Chernagor country. He thought about it, but he didn't do it. Grus was liable to think he was interfering in the campaign—and Grus was also a pretty good horseback diplomat, even if he didn't care to spend days at a time digging through the archives.

Lanius muttered. The older he got, the more complex his feelings toward his father-in-law became. Grus had stolen most of the royal power. He'd made Lanius marry his daughter. It hadn't turned out to be an altogether loveless marriage, but it wasn't the one Lanius would have made if he'd had a choice, either.

Set against that were all the things Grus might have done but hadn't. He might have taken Lanius' head or packed him off to the Maze. He hadn't. He might have become a fearsome tyrant, slaughtering anyone who presumed to disagree with him. Despite repeated revolts against his rule, he hadn't. And he might have lost big pieces of Avornis to the Thervings, to the Menteshe, or to the Chernagor pirates. He hadn't done that, either.

He
had
raised a worthless son, and he had fathered a bastard or two. He had also done his best to keep Lanius too poor to cause trouble for him. Set against that, he had gotten the Banished One's notice. If the Banished One took Grus seriously, Lanius didn't see how he couldn't.

Grus gets the job done,
Lanius thought reluctantly.
Whatever he needs to do, he usually manages to do it.
The other king had even found a way to keep nobles from turning Avornan peasants into their personal retainers. That was a problem Lanius hadn't even noticed. Grus hadn't just noticed it. He'd solved it.

“He's still a usurper,” Lanius murmured. That was true. It was also infuriating. But Grus could have been
so
much worse. Admitting it was even more infuriating for Lanius.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Rain dripped from a sky the color of dirty wool. King Grus squelched through the mud, heading from his pavilion toward the Avornan line around Nishevatz. He could hardly see the walls of the city through the shifting curtain of raindrops. Rain in the summertime came every now and again to the city of Avornis; down in the south, it was rare, rare enough to be a prodigy. Here in the Chernagor country, the weather did whatever it pleased.

The mud tried to pull the boots right off Grus' feet. Each step took an effort. Every so often, he would pause to kick gobs of muck from his boots, or to scrape them against rocks. He tried to imagine Lanius picking his way through this dirt pudding of a landscape. The image refused to form. There was more to Lanius than he'd thought when he first took the throne; he was willing to admit that much. But the other king was irrevocably a man of the palace. Put him in charge of a siege and he wouldn't know what to do.

Each cat his own rat,
Grus thought. He knew he would have as much trouble in the archives as Lanius would here in front of Nishevatz. In his own province, Lanius was perfectly capable. Grus remained convinced that what
he
did was more important for Avornis.

“Halt! Who comes!” A sentry who looked like a phantom called out the challenge.

“Grus,” Grus answered.

That phantom came to attention. “Advance and be recognized, uh, Your Majesty.” The king did. The sentry saluted. He wore a wool rain cape over a helmet and chainmail. He'd smeared the armor with grease and tallow, so that water beaded on it. Even so, when the weather finally dried—if it ever did—he and all the other Avornan soldiers would have plenty of polishing and scraping to do to keep rust from running rampant. With another salute, the sentry said, “Pass on, Your Majesty.”

“I thank you.” Grus' own helm and chainmail were gilded to mark his rank. That made the iron resist rust better, but he would have to do some polishing and scraping, too. He did not let servants tend to his armor, but cared for it himself. It protected him. How better to make sure it was as it should be than to tend it with his own eyes and hands?

Another sentry, alert as could be, challenged him. Again, Grus advanced and was recognized. The sentry said, “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but where are your bodyguards?”

“Back there somewhere,” Grus answered vaguely. He felt a small-boy pride at escaping them.

The sentry clucked in disapproval. “You should let them keep an eye on you. How will you stay safe if they don't?”

“I can take care of myself,” Grus said. The sentry, being only a sentry, didn't presume to argue. Grus went on. The farther he went, though, the more shame ate away at his pride. The man was right. He took good care of his armor and forgot his bodyguards, who might prove at least as important in keeping him alive.

Promising himself he wouldn't do that anymore, he pressed on now. He got away with it, too. When he found Hirundo, the general ordered half a dozen men to form up around him. Grus didn't quarrel. Hirundo wagged a finger. “You've been naughty.”

“No doubt.” The king's tone was dry—the only thing in the dripping landscape that was. “What do you propose to do about it?”

“Why, send you to bed without supper, Your Majesty,” Hirundo answered with a grin. “Oh, and keep you safe, if I can, since you don't seem very interested in doing that for yourself.” Unlike the guard, he had rank enough to point out Grus' folly.

“Believe me, you've made your point,” Grus said. “I hope you're not going to turn into one of those tedious people who keep banging on tent pegs after they've driven them into the ground.”

“Me? I wouldn't dream of such a thing.” Hirundo was the picture of soggy innocence. “I hope you're not going to be one of those tedious tent pegs that keep coming loose no matter how you bang on them.”

“Ha,” Grus said, and then, for good measure, “Ha, ha.” Hirundo bowed, unabashed as usual. The king pointed in the general direction of Nishevatz. “How would you like to try to attack the walls under cover of this rain?”

“I will if you give the order, Your Majesty.” Hirundo turned serious on the instant. “If you give me a choice, though, I'd rather not. Archery is impossible in weather like this, and—”

“For us and for them,” Grus broke in.

“Oh, yes.” The general nodded. “But they don't need to shoot much. They can just drop things on our heads while we're coming up the ladders. We need archers more than they do, to keep their men on the walls busy ducking while we're coming up. And planting scaling ladders in gooey muck isn't really something I care to do, either.”