The Scepter's Return (69 page)

Pipilo remarked that Baron Numerius' transition to Brother Numerius was not going as smoothly as it might have. The king didn't intend to worry about that. He doubted whether Numerius would ever escape from the monastery, which meant he had the rest of his life to get used to being a monk. If he'd paid his taxes and not tried to turn peasants into his personal dependents, he wouldn't have brought the change in way of life on himself. Since he had, he could just make the best of it.

One of these days, one of these years, one of these centuries, someone poking through the archives might come across the abbot's letter and the other documents about Baron Numerius' decline and fall. Lanius tried to keep all of them together, so some curious king or scholar in times to come could get the whole story. He wished some of his predecessors had followed the same rule. The archives held lots of unfinished tales, or at least tales where he'd found no ending. There were also some where he had no beginning, and others with the vital middle missing.

He closed the archives' heavy doors behind him. A smile stole over his face.
This
was where he belonged, as surely as Anser was made for the woods and the chase. The watery sunlight, the dancing dust motes, the slightly musty smell of old parchment, the quiet … What could be better? Nothing he'd ever found.

Pipilo's letter went into a case stuffed with documents on the struggle Avornis had had with its greedy nobles. Grus had started the struggle, and he'd won it. These days, the nobles recognized the superiority of the monarchy. The ones who hadn't were in monasteries or beyond human judgment.

No one before Grus had seen a problem in the rising power of the nobility—not even King Mergus, and Lanius' father had been both clever and ruthless. Grus had seen it, taken action against it, and done something about it. He deserved a lot of credit for that. Lanius wondered if chroniclers in years to come would give it to him.

“Between us, we made a fine king,” Lanius murmured. He hadn't been able to come to the archives as often as he wanted lately. He'd been too busy dealing with royal affairs large and small. Grus would have handled a lot of them while he was still in the palace. Having someone else to handle them was the only reason Lanius could see even to think about recalling his father-in-law.

For the moment, he put aside all thoughts of royal affairs—even the ones about serving girls. He poked through the jumble of documents at random, looking for anything interesting he might turn up. He found mention of a small scandal involving his many-times-great-grandfather and a black-eyed maidservant. The arch-hallow of the time had preached a very pointed sermon in the great cathedral. Lanius wondered if his ancestor had had to put aside his lady friend. The archives didn't say—or if they did, the document with the answer wasn't with the rest. One more story without an end.

Lanius heard a noise. It came from somewhere in the bowels of the archives, from the cases and crates in the shadows near the edge of the enormous room.

“Pouncer!” he called. “Is that you?”

Calling a moncat usually did as much good as calling any other kind of cat. Every once in a while, though, you got lucky. Lanius did this time. “Mrowr?” Pouncer said blurrily.

“Come here, you ridiculous animal.” Lanius knew that was no way to talk to the beast that had brought the Scepter of Mercy out of Yozgat. He knew, but he didn't care. It was a perfectly good way to talk to a cat that was making a nuisance of itself—and Pouncer was.

He heard Pouncer moving through the archives, with luck, toward him. The moncat wasn't as quiet as it might have been; he could follow its progress by clunks and the occasional clank. Did that mean …? Up until now, Pouncer hadn't raided the kitchens since coming back from the south—or hadn't gotten caught raiding the kitchens, anyhow.

Out came the beast. When Lanius saw it, he started to laugh. He couldn't help himself. Pouncer held a good-sized silver spoon in one small, clawed hand, for all the world as though it were the Scepter of Mercy. In its jaws, the moncat carried a dead mouse. No wonder that meow had sounded odd.

Plop! Pouncer dropped the mouse at Lanius' feet. The king knew that was an honor from the moncat, even if it was one he could have done without. “Oh, yes, you're a brave fellow, a hero among moncats,” he said, which happened to be true. He could have called Pouncer a soup tureen full of giblet gravy and it wouldn't have mattered to the moncat, as long as he used the proper tone of voice. It had to sound like praise.

As soon as Lanius lifted the mouse by the tail, the moncat wanted it back again. Lanius knew that would happen; he'd seen it before. He scooped Pouncer up. The moncat shifted the spoon to its hind feet, which gripped just as well as its hands. That let those hands seize the mouse once more. Pouncer contentedly nibbled on its tail and began to purr.

This
was the creature that had defeated the Banished One, that had returned the Scepter of Mercy to Avornan hands? Watching it, listening to it, the idea seemed absurd. But it was true.

“Come on, you preposterous thing,” Lanius said. “You can keep the mouse, but you have to give back the spoon.”

He cradled Pouncer in one arm and tried to take the spoon away with his free hand. The moncat hung on with both hind feet. Thanks to their thumbs, it hung on tight. He shrugged and gave up for the time being. The archives could wait. He needed to take the thief back to the scene of the crime.

He hadn't gotten even halfway before he almost ran into a cook. “Your Majesty!” she said, and then, “Oh! You've already caught the miserable beast.”

“So I have,” Lanius agreed. “Let's go back to the kitchens. Maybe you can trade some mutton for the spoon. Or if that doesn't work, we'll take it away there.”

“Mutton!” The cook rolled her eyes. “That thing doesn't deserve mutton. It deserves a poke in the snout for being a nuisance and a thief.”

“Oh, I don't know,” Lanius said. “Pouncer
did
get the Scepter of Mercy out of Yozgat, remember. Maybe you could give the beast something for that, eh?”

The cook shook her head. “Who cares about some old Scepter? What's it ever done for me? That's what I want to know.”

“We're not fighting the Menteshe anymore, and the Banished One isn't so much trouble,” Lanius reminded her. “That's all on account of the Scepter of Mercy.”

“Like the Menteshe were ever going to come up to the city of Avornis,” the cook jeered. “Like the Banished One ever cared about the likes of me.” She laughed at the idea.

And it
was
silly when you put it in such terms. Lanius couldn't deny it, and didn't try. “Sometimes things that help the kingdom a lot don't matter very much to some of the people who live there,” he said. Pouncer bit off the mouse's tail. It dangled from the corner of the moncat's mouth for a moment. Then it disappeared.

When they got back to the kitchens, the head cook laughed to see Pouncer still clutching the silver spoon. Cucullatus' chins and belly wobbled as he laughed; he was fond and more than fond of what he turned out. “So you nabbed the thief, eh, Your Majesty?” he said. “More than the Menteshe ever did, by Olor's beard.”

“Menteshe, Menteshe, Menteshe!” The woman who'd gone to get Lanius threw her hands in the air. “Why don't people talk about something important? The price of lard in the market square—
that
matters. But who cares about a bunch of foreigners, anyway?”

How many people all over Avornis felt the same way? More than a few, probably. Lanius sighed. He couldn't even show her she was wrong; she didn't know enough even to realize how ignorant she was. Instead of trying, the king turned to Cucullatus. “Would you be kind enough to ransom the spoon with a bit of mutton?”

“I can do that,” the head cook replied at once, though his underling sniffed. “Will the beast want it, though, what with its dainty there?” He pointed to what was left of the mouse.

“Who knows? All we can do is find out,” Lanius answered. “You'll get the spoon back any which way.” He tugged on it. Pouncer still didn't want to let go.

“Oh, I know, Your Majesty,” Cucullatus said. “Let me go bring you that mutton. Be right back.” Off he went. Off went the woman who'd gone to get Lanius, too. She plainly remained convinced she'd outargued the king.

The mutton was fresh, unsullied by either garlic or mint. The moncat meowed on smelling it. Maybe it was better than a murdered mouse. Lanius thought so, but he was no moncat. He got the silver spoon away from Pouncer while the moncat was distracted and handed it to Cucullatus. “Get it out of sight.”

“Right you are.” The cook tossed it into a bucket of sudsy water. That was perfect. Not only did the spoon disappear, but moncats liked getting wet no better than their ordinary cousins did.

Pouncer seemed torn between mouse and mutton, and ended up nibbling on each in turn. “Thanks for your help, and for the ransom,” Lanius told Cucullatus. He explained why he thought Pouncer deserved it.

“What, Your Majesty? You think the Scepter of Mercy is worth a bit of mutton? Seems to me you set a pretty high price on it.” Cucullatus' eyes twinkled.

“That's what I told him,” said the woman cook who'd come after Lanius. “He didn't want to listen to me—oh, no.”

Lanius' eyes met Cucullatus'. The head cook smiled and sighed at the same time, as though to say,
What can you do about some people?
The answer to that was simple. You couldn't do anything about some people. You had to make the best of them when there was a best to make, and put up with them when there wasn't.

Now Lanius was the one who sighed. He'd been King of Avornis since he was a little boy, and that was what he'd learned? Why hadn't he smoked fish for a living in that case?

When you got down to it, though, plenty of people went through their whole lives without ever figuring out anything so basic about their fellow men and women. If they had realized it, there would have been far fewer quarrels.

Lanius also had to put up with Pouncer. “I'm going to take the thief of Yozgat back to his chamber,” the king said. “We'll see how long the beast stays there this time.”

“As long as it feels like it, and not a minute longer,” Cucullatus predicted. That told Lanius the head cook understood moncats as well as any mere human being was ever likely to.

Pouncer started wiggling even before Lanius opened the door. The moncat knew where it was going, and didn't want to go there. Lanius could put it in the room. Not for all his power could the king make it stay there.

After barring the door again, Lanius started back to his bedchamber. He needed to get away from Elanus every now and then, but he always felt bad about doing it. He hadn't gone far before someone called him. He wasn't too sorry to turn back. “Oh, hello, Otus. What can I do for you today?”

“Hello, Your Majesty.” The freed thrall hurried up the corridor toward him. “I just wanted to thank you again for all you've done for my people south of the Stura. You and King Grus, I should say.” He shyly bobbed his head.

“I'm glad we did it, and I know Grus was, too. Grus is, I should say.” Lanius meticulously corrected himself. He went on, “Seeing you here, and Fulca, too, shows me every day that what we did was worthwhile.”

Otus smiled. “Seeing Fulca every day—seeing her the way she's supposed to be, not like a brainless beast—shows me what you did was worthwhile.” He bowed. “And I thank you for it, and so does she.”

“Sometimes things work out the way you hope they would,” Lanius said. “Not always, not even most of the time, but sometimes.”

“They did here. You even paid the Banished One back. That's worth everything, and two coppers more besides,” Otus said.

“So it is,” Lanius said. Sometimes things
did
work out. He'd gone from bastard to crowned king, from puppet to king in his own right. Thervingia and the Chernagors and the Menteshe had all harried Avornis. Now no enemy did. Even the Banished One was beaten, as Otus had said. Grus had had a lot to do with that. Lanius couldn't deny it, and didn't try.
But I had a lot to do with it myself,
he thought proudly. He had the biggest, hardest job in the world, and he'd grown to the point where he could do it and, he hoped, do it well. Slowly, he nodded to himself. No, not bad for someone who'd started out a bastard. Not bad at all. He headed back to Sosia and Elanus.

About the Author

Harry Turtledove is an American novelist of science fiction, historical fiction, and fantasy.
Publishers Weekly
has called him the “master of alternate history,” and he is best known for his work in that genre. Some of his most popular titles include
The Guns of the South
, the novels of the Worldwar series, and the books in the Great War trilogy. In addition to many other honors and nominations, Turtledove has received the Hugo Award, the Sidewise Award for Alternate History, and the Prometheus Award. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, earning a PhD in Byzantine history. Turtledove is married to mystery writer Laura Frankos, and together they have three daughters. The family lives in Southern California.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2005 by Dan Chernenko

Cover design by Mauricio Díaz

ISBN: 978-1-5040-2748-9