The Chernagor Pirates (69 page)

“Well?” the guard said. “You won't get anything like that back at the palace.”

That was true. “Not bad,” Lanius said. The men around him laughed, so he must have sounded surprised.

Ortalis stooped and cut a bloody slice from the stag's liver. He skewered it and toasted it over the fire. “Here,” he said as he thrust the stick at Lanius. “Best eating in the world.”

It wasn't—not to the king, anyhow. “Needs salt,” Lanius declared. To his amazement, not only Anser but also two of the guards carried little vials of salt in their belt pouches. They all offered it to him. “Thank you,” he said, and flavored the meat. It still wouldn't have been his first choice, but it was tasty. He nodded to the other men. “Anyone who wants a slice can help himself.”

Several of them did. The speed with which the liver disappeared told him what a delicacy they thought it. One of them poked at the deer's heart with his knife and looked a question at Lanius. He nodded again. The guards sliced up the heart and roasted it, too.

“Mighty kind of you to share like this, Your Majesty,” one of them said, his mouth full.

“My pleasure,” Lanius answered. The kidneys also went. He said, “Venison in the palace tonight.”

“Your turn next,” Anser said to his half brother. “Think you can match the king's shot?”

“I don't know.” Ortalis sent Lanius a sidelong glance. “But then, seeing the way he usually shoots, I don't know if he can match it, either.”

Lanius was sure he couldn't. “Show some respect for your sovereign, there,” he said haughtily. In a slightly different tone, the retort would have frozen Ortalis. As it was, Grus' legitimate son laughed out loud. So did Anser and the guards. Lanius found himself laughing, too. He still cared nothing for the hunt as a chance to stalk and kill animals. For the hunt as a chance to enjoy himself … that was another story.

Ortalis not only didn't make a clean kill when he got a shot at a deer, he missed as badly as Lanius usually did. The deer sprang away. “What happened there?” Anser asked.

“A black fly bit me in the back of the neck just as I loosed,” Ortalis answered. “You try holding steady when somebody sticks a red-hot pin in you.” He rubbed at the wounded area.

“Well, it's an excuse, anyhow,” Anser drawled. Ortalis made a rude noise and an even ruder gesture. The Arch-Hallow of Avornis returned the gesture. It wasn't one Lanius would have looked for from a holy man, but Anser hardly even pretended to be any such thing.

And he shot a bow better than well enough. He hit a stag when his turn came to shoot first. The deer fled, but not too far; the trail of blood it left made it easy to track. It was down by the time the hunters caught up with it. Anser had a knife on
his
belt. He stooped beside the stag and cut its throat.

“Your turn for the, uh, oysters,” Lanius said.

“Good.” Anser beamed. “I like 'em. You won't see me turn green, the way you did before you tasted them.”

“Oh.” Lanius hadn't known it had shown.

Anser, meanwhile, was grubbing in the dirt by the dead stag. He proudly displayed some mushrooms. “I'll toast these with a piece of liver. Not with the mountain oysters—those are so good, I'll eat them by themselves.” And, not much later, he did.

Lanius took better care to miss the next time he got a shot. He did, and the stag ran off into the woods. Anser and Ortalis teased him harder than they would have before he'd made a kill.

He teased back. That was the biggest part of the reason he came hunting at all. And yet, after he'd shot the stag, his conscience troubled him much less than he'd expected. One of these days, he might even try to hit something when he shot.

CHAPTER THIRTY

King Grus sat on the Diamond Throne, staring down at the ambassadors from Hrvace. The Chernagors looked up at him in turn. “Well?” Grus said in a voice colder than the autumn wind that howled outside the palace. “What have you got to say for yourselves? What have you got to say for your prince?”

The Chernagors eyed one another. Even the Avornan courtiers in the throne room muttered back and forth. Grus knew why. He wasn't following the formulas Kings of Avornis used with envoys from the Chernagor city-states. He didn't care. Unlike Lanius, he cared nothing for ceremony for its own sake. He wasn't sure the polite formulas applied to a city-state with which Avornis was practically at war, anyhow.

“Your Majesty, I am Bonyak, ambassador from Prince Tvorimir of Hrvace,” said one of the Chernagors—the one with the fanciest embroidery on his tunic. He did his best to stay close to the formula, continuing, “I bring you Tvorimir's greetings, as well as those of all the other Chernagor princes.”

“By the gods, I've already dealt with the other Chernagor princes,” Grus growled. “I would have dealt with Tvorimir, too, if it hadn't decided to rain cats and dogs up there. Do you also bring me greetings from the Banished One?”

“No, Your Majesty,” Bonyak replied. “I bring you assurances from Prince Tvorimir that he has nothing to do with the Banished One, and that he has never had anything to do with him.”

“Oh? And will Tvorimir tell me his ships weren't part of the fleet that raided my coast? How much nerve does he have?”

Bonyak's smile was an odd blend of wolf and sheep. “Prince Tvorimir does not deny that his ships raided your coast. But he told me to tell you—he told me to remind you—that a Chernagor does not need to go on his knees to the Banished One to smell the sweet scent of plunder.”

“Sweet, is it?” Grus had to work not to laugh. When Bonyak solemnly nodded, the king had to work even harder. He said, “And you would know this from personal experience, would you?”

“Oh, yes,” Prince Tvorimir's ambassador assured him. Hastily, the Chernagor added, “Though I have never plundered the coast of Avornis, of course.”

“Of course.” Grus' voice was dry, so very dry that it made Bonyak look more sheepish than ever. But Grus grudged him a nod. “It could be. And I suppose that what Prince Tvorimir says could be, too. Why has he sent you down here to the city of Avornis?”

“Why? To make amends for our raids, Your Majesty.” Bonyak gestured to his henchmen. “We have gifts for the kingdom, and we also have gifts for you.”

“Wait.” Now Grus nodded to a courtier who'd been waiting down below the Diamond Throne. The man had remained discreetly out of sight behind a stout pillar, so Grus could have failed to call on him without embarrassing the Chernagors. But, since Bonyak seemed conciliatory … “First, Your Excellency, I have presents for you and your men.”

The courtier doled out leather sacks from a tray. Bonyak hefted the one the Avornan gave him. He nodded, for it had the right weight. He also looked relieved—Grus was steering the ceremony back into the lines it should take.

“My thanks, Your Majesty,” the ambassador said. “My very great thanks indeed. Now shall we give our gifts in return?”

“If you would be so kind,” Grus answered.

Bonyak nudged the flunkies, who were busy feeling the weight of their own sacks. They set one heavy, metal-bound wooden chest after another in front of the Diamond Throne. “These are for Avornis, Your Majesty,” Bonyak said. Courtiers leaned forward, waiting for him to open one of the boxes, their faces full of avid curiosity.

At Bonyak's nod, one of the men who followed him undid the hasp on the topmost chest and opened it. “Fifty thousand pieces of silver, from Prince Tvorimir to Avornis,” Bonyak said. “His Highness will also make an agreement like the ones the princes of Hisardzik and Jobuka made with your kingdom not long ago.”

“Will he?” Grus said. Bonyak nodded again. The Avornan courtiers murmured among themselves. The present wasn't very interesting—they'd seen plenty of silver themselves—but the news that came with it was good. Grus nodded back. “I am pleased to accept this silver for the kingdom,” he declared in loud, formal tones. “Never let it be said that I did not seek peace between Avornis and the Chernagor city-states.”

“Prince Tvorimir has this same thought,” Bonyak said.
Of course he does
—
for the time being,
Grus thought.
I've made him afraid of me.
The Chernagor ambassador went on, “Prince Tvorimir also sends you a personal gift, a gift from him to you, not from Hrvace to Avornis.”

As Bonyak had before, he gestured to the burly, bearded men who accompanied him. One of them came forward with an enormous earthenware jug, which he set beside the chests of silver pieces. Bonyak said, “This is a special kind of liquor, which we have in trade from an island far out in the Northern Sea. It is stronger than any ale or wine, strong enough so that it burns the gullet a little on the way down.”

“Does it indeed?” Grus said, his voice as neutral as he could make it.

Bonyak understood what he wasn't saying. “I will gladly drink of this, Your Majesty. And let your wizards test it, if you think I have taken an antidote,” the envoy said. “By the gods in the heavens, may my head answer if it is poison.”

He did drink, and with every sign of enjoyment. “I will make a magical test anyhow,” Grus replied, “and if it is poison, your head
will
answer. For now, you and your comrades are dismissed.”

Bowing, the Chernagors departed from the throne room. Grus summoned Pterocles and explained what he wanted. The wizard looked intrigued. “Liquor that isn't wine or ale? How interesting! I suppose it isn't mead, either, for mead's no stronger than either of the others. Yes, I can test it against poisons.” He dipped out a little of the liquid from the mug, then poured it over an amethyst. Neither the stone nor the liquor showed any change. Pterocles added a couple of sprigs of herbs to the dipper. “Cinquefoil and vervain,” he explained to Grus. “They're sovereign against noxious things.” He murmured a charm, waited, and then shrugged. “All seems as it should, Your Majesty. There is one other test to make, of course.” He fished the herbs out of the dipper.

“What's that?” the king asked.

“A very basic one.” Pterocles grinned. He raised the dipper to his lips and drank what was in it. He coughed as he swallowed. “Whew! That's strong as a demon—your Chernagor wasn't joking.” He paused, considering. “Can't complain about the way it warms me up inside, though. I wonder how the people the Chernagors got it from made it.”

“Ask Bonyak—not that he'll tell you even if he knows,” Grus said. “Well, if it hasn't turned you inside out and upside down, why don't you let me have a taste, too?”

“I don't know. Why don't I?” Pterocles filled the dipper again and handed it to him.

Grus took it. He sniffed. The stuff smelled more like wine than anything else, though less fruity. He sipped cautiously. When he swallowed, he could feel the heat sliding down to his stomach. It spread out from there. “Not bad,” he said after the same sort of pause for thought as Pterocles had used. “A mug's worth would be plenty to get you drunk.”

Pterocles eyed the jug. “I'd say a mug's worth would be enough to get you dead—but what away to go.”

“If you were going to make something like this, how would you do it?” Grus asked.

The wizard laughed. “If I knew the answer to that, I'd already be doing it. Some things you can concentrate by boiling. But when you boil wine, you make it weaker than it was before, not stronger. I don't know why. But it is so—I know that.”

“Maybe you need to save what's boiling away instead of what's left in the pot, then,” Grus said with a laugh of his own.

“Who knows? Maybe I do.” Pterocles kept on smiling. “I don't know how I'd do that, though.”

“I was only joking,” Grus said. “Probably nothing to it.”

Lanius' head felt as though some demented smith with a heavy hammer were using it for an anvil. Pterocles insisted the liquor Prince Tvorimir gave to King Grus wasn't poisoned. But Lanius had poisoned himself with it the night before. His father-in-law had warned him a little would get him drunk. Lanius hated to admit it, but his father-in-law had been right and more than right.

And because Grus had been so right, Lanius faced the moncats' room with a wince. The warmth and the smells—especially the smells—were not what he wanted with a tender head. But he had never trusted the servants to take care of the animals. If they didn't do the work, that meant he had to. Despite the wince, he opened the door, went in, and quickly closed it behind him.

It was as bad as he'd thought it would be. His stomach twisted. He almost had to leave very abruptly. After one gulp, though, he brought things under control again and got to work. Cleaning the moncats' sandbox was a job nasty enough as things were, and seemed even worse when he was nauseated himself. He was glad the animals used a sandbox like ordinary cats; if they'd done what they wanted wherever they wanted, they would have been much harder to keep.

After he took care of that, he went to the kitchens to get them some meat. The fat cook named Cucullatus grinned at him and said, “Haven't seen that funny animal of yours for a while now. Did you chain it up?”

“No, but I'm tempted to,” he answered. “Pouncer makes me suspicious when it's being good—it's probably up to something.” Cucullatus laughed a sour laugh.

Lanius went back to the moncats' room with the meat. The animals swarmed around his feet, rubbing and purring and acting for all the world as though they really were lovable creatures and not furry opportunists. He knew better. They were as heartless and self-centered as any of his courtiers.

Before dumping most of the food in their dishes, he doled out treats to one moncat or another. He was busy doing that when he noticed Pouncer wasn't begging there with the rest of the moncats. He looked around the room—and didn't see it.

“Oh, by the gods, where has the stupid creature gone now?” he exclaimed. But the problem wasn't that Pouncer was stupid—the problem was that the moncat was too smart for its own good.