The Bastard King (12 page)

To keep from thinking about that, he went back to what they'd been talking about before. "How can Bucco stay head of the Council of Regents when he's gone and sold us to Dagipert and the Thervings?"
Sold us to the Banished One,
he almost said. But no one had ever proved that about the King of Thervingia, and the Avoman peasants who now lived under Thervingian rule weren't the soulless thralls the Menteshe treated like cattle.

Crex said, "Pack of spineless swine in the palace, that's how."

Estrilda added, "Lanius isn't old enough to rule on his own, and won't be for years. Who else can do the job? Queen Certhia?"

"How could she do it worse than Bucco has?" Grus demanded.

Crex loosed a long, loud, sour laugh. "If she gets the chance, sonny, maybe she'll show you how."

"Good day, Your Majesty." Lepturus bowed to King Lanius.

"And a good day to you." Lanius gave back the bow to the commander of his bodyguards.

To his surprise, Lepturus pulled out a sheet of parchment from the gold-embroidered pouch he wore on his belt. "Read this," he said, his lips hardly moving. "Read it, then get rid of it."

No less than any other boy, Lanius delighted in intrigue for its own sake. He unrolled the parchment. The note was short and to the point.
Do you want to see your mother back in the palace ?
it asked.
If you do, help Lepturus.

"Well, Your Majesty?" the dour guards commander asked gruffly.

Before answering, Lanius tore the parchment into tiny scraps, then went to a window and scattered the scraps to the wind. As he came back, Lepturus nodded approval. The young King of Avornis whispered, "You know I want her back. How can we do it?"

"That depends," Lepturus said quietly. "Do you really want to marry this Therving princess?"

Lanius made a horrible face. "I don't want to marry
anybody.
Who'd want to have anything to do with
girls?"
A world of scorn filled his voice.

Lepturus' furry eyebrows twitched. So did his mouth - about as close as he could come to a smile. "Oh, they have their moments," he observed. Lanius, who would argue about anything, was more than ready to quarrel over that. Lepturus didn't give him a chance. He held up a hand and said, "Never mind. Call Bucco to the palace and tell him you won't marry Princess What's-her-name no matter what."

"Will he pay any attention?" Lanius asked. "He's head of the Council of Regents, after all. He runs Avornis. I don't. He won't let me."

"He may run Avornis," Lepturus answered. "He doesn't run
you.
If you say you
won't
marry this girl, what can he do except try to talk you into it?"

"I don't know." Lanius wasn't so sure he wanted to find out, either. But he decided he would, if that meant Bucco left and his mother came back.

When he nodded, Lepturus clapped him on the shoulder, hard enough to stagger him. "Good lad," he said. "Do you want someone to write the words for you, or would you sooner do it yourself?"

"I'd
sooner do it." Lanius drew himself up, though he still reached only the middle of Lepturus' chest.

The guards commander nodded. "All right. By all the signs, you'll do a better job than a secretary's liable to. Tell him to come tomorrow, in the middle of the morning. The rest will be taken care of. Easier and neater here than at the cathedral."

"Taken care of how?" Lanius asked. Lepturus just looked at him, and Lanius realized he wouldn't get any more answer than that. He started to get angry, but checked himself. "Never mind. I'll write the letter."

He did, and sent it off by a servant he trusted more than most of the others. The man brought back a reply from Bucco.
I shall be there, Your Majesty. You may rely on it,
the arch-hallow wrote.
I trust I shall be able to persuade you to reconsider.

"Ha!" Lanius said. "
I
trust you won't."

Bucco came at the appointed hour. Lanius received him in as much state as he could. He had no formal power in Avornis, but he had rank, and rank could look like power. Arch-Hallow Bucco wore his most ornate crimson robe, shot through with gold thread and encrusted with pearls and rubies and sapphires. He played the same game as Lanius, but he had power to go with his rank.

He'd just launched into his speech to Lanius when Queen Certhia strode into the audience chamber, backed by Lepturus and two squads of royal bodyguards. "Mother!" Lanius exclaimed, and ran to her.

"Halt!" Bucco commanded. Lanius, to his own astonished dismay, halted just beyond the reach of his mother's arms. Bucco stabbed a forefinger at Certhia. Had he worn a sword on his belt, he might have stabbed with that, instead. The arch-hallow said, "You were banned from the palace, madam."

"And now you are,
sir."
Certhia laced the title with cold contempt. She beckoned to Lanius. He realized he didn't have to obey the arch-hallow, and threw his arms around his mother.

"On what authority?" Bucco demanded.

"Mine," Queen Certhia said.

"And mine," Lepturus added. The guards commander had a sword on
his
belt, and didn't seem likely to be shy about using it.

Certhia went on, "And the other regents have voted you off the council for daring to propose this marriage alliance. They agree with me that it would do nothing but deliver Avornis into Dagipert's bloodstained hands. Here is the notice of their vote."

She handed Bucco a sheet of parchment. "They have also voted me, as King Mergus' widow, its head until King Lanius comes of age."

Bucco read the parchment, then crumpled it and threw it down. "This is outrageous! This is illegal!"

"After the fiasco you've caused, you'd better be grateful you're getting off with a whole skin," Lepturus said. "If you let your jaw flap, maybe you won't." Bucco gave him a terrible look, but found it better to say nothing. His stiff back radiating fury, he stalked away.

"Does this mean I won't have to marry King Dagipert's daughter?" Lanius asked.

"Let's see him
try to
marry her to you," his mother answered. Lanius clapped his hands.

The
Otter
glided along the Tuola River, on patrol against the Thervings. Now that Arch-Hallow Bucco no longer headed the regency, now that Queen Certhia had taken his place, King Lanius would
not
be betrothed to Princess Romilda of Thervingia. Grus approved of that. He didn't expect King Dagipert would, though. No one in Avornis expected Dagipert would. War was coming now. The only question was when.

"We never should have landed in this mess in the first place," Nicator grumbled. "Bucco never should have made that bargain."

"Of course he shouldn't," Grus said. "I just think it's a gods-cursed shame he's still in the cathedral. They should have thrown him out of there when they flung him out of the palace."

"I hear old Megadyptes didn't want the arch-hallow's job back," Nicator answered. "He's too holy for his own good, you ask me."

"Me, I'd sooner have an arch-hallow who spends his time praying than one who tries to run the kingdom."

Nicator grunted. "I don't mind Bucco trying so much as I mind him botching the job. And he cursed well did. And we'll have to pay for it."

"Don't remind me," Grus said. The
Otter
and the rest of his flotilla could give the Thervings a hard time if they tried to cross the Tuola. But the river galleys could go only so far up the stream. Past that, Avornis' horsemen and foot soldiers and wizards had to hold back Dagipert's army. Could they?
We'll find out,
Grus told himself, trying to smother his own doubts. Wistfully, he added, "It would be nice if
somebody
could run the kingdom, wouldn't it?"

"Well, you just might say so, yes," Nicator answered. He looked northwest, toward the rapids that kept the river galleys from moving any farther up the Tuola. Water boomed and thundered over black jagged rocks. Rainbows came and went in the flying spray. "What do we do when the Thervings try to go around us? They will, you know."

"Of course they will," Grus said. "We'll just have to work with the soldiers as best we can, that's all."

"Happy day." Nicator sounded unimpressed - but then, Nicator made a habit of sounding unimpressed. "If those bastards had any brains, they wouldn't have been soldiers in the first place."

Plump and fussy, Turnix bustled up to Grus and waited to be noticed. The commodore nodded to him now. "What's up?"

"Something's stirring, sir," Turnix answered.

"What do you mean, stirring?" Grus demanded. "And where?"

Turnix pointed toward Thervingia. "Something there. Something magical. Something big, or I wouldn't know anything about it. I do believe they're trying to mask it, but it's too big for that. I know it's there even through their spells."

"Ax is going to fall," Nicator said grimly.

"I think you're right," Grus said. "Turnix, can you tell exactly where this spell's coming from?"

"I haven't tried, not up till now," the wizard said. "I will if you like. The Thervings' masking makes it harder."

"Do your best," Grus said. "It's important."

"Well, it may be important," Nicator said. "Their wizards may be trying to bluff us about whatever they're keeping under wraps."

Grus didn't want to think about that. By Turnix's pained expression, the wizard didn't, either. It wasn't that Nicator was wrong. It was only that knowing he was right made everyone's life more complicated. Grus spoke to Turnix. "See if you can find it. Maybe that will tell you whether it's real or not."

"Good enough." Turnix turned toward Thervingia. He took an amulet set with a translucent green stone out from under his shirt and held it up so that the sun sparkled off it. Then he began to chant. He made one pass after another with his left hand. A couple of minutes into the spell, he staggered and muttered to himself.

"Are you all right?" Grus asked.

"I think so," Turnix said. "They've got wizards looking for people who try to sneak through their masking spells, too. Whatever they're doing, they don't want anybody knowing about it."

"All the more reason for us to find out," Grus said.

Turnix nodded. He started chanting again, and swung the amulet back and forth, back and forth. Suddenly, he let out a sharp exclamation of triumph. The stone in the amulet turned clear as glass on part of the arc. Turnix pointed. "There!"

"Toward the northwest, where we'd expect to have trouble," Grus noted.

"But do the Thervings mean it, Skipper, or are they trying to trick us?" Nicator persisted.

"I don't know." Grus turned to Turnix. "You're the wizard. What do
you
think?"

Turnix looked troubled. "I still can't be certain."

"I won't let anyone beat you if you're wrong," Grus said. "I want your best guess."

The wizard nervously plucked at his beard. "I don't think the Thervings know I got through their sorcerous screen. I do think they're hiding something real, not running a bluff. You asked ... sir."

"You gave me what I asked for."
Now
-
what to do with it?
Grus went into the tiny cabin at the stern that let him and Nicator and Turnix sleep out of the rain. He found a scrap of parchment, a quill pen, and a bottle of ink. He wrote rapidly, then brought the note to Turnix. "Here. Send this to one of the wizards with the cavalry and foot soldiers and back to the city of Avornis."

Turnix read the note, then nodded. "You've summed things up here very well."

Grus shrugged. "Never mind that. As long as they know."

By the nervous way people went through the halls of the royal palace in the city of Avornis, one might think that one of the gods had stirred the place with a stick for sport. King Lanius felt the trouble without knowing what had caused it. When he asked his mother, Queen Certhia patted him on the head and told him, "It's nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart."

She could have done no better job of making him angry if she'd tried for a month. Glaring at her, he said, "Arch-Hallow Bucco would have told me just the same thing, Mother."

Certhia mouthed something silent about Bucco. Then she said, "It's nothing you can do anything about, and that's the truth."

"I don't care whether I can do anything about it or not," Lanius said. Like any child, he'd had to get used to the idea that things happened regardless of his opinion about them. "But I do want to know. I'm only a few years from coming of age. Then I'll be King of Avornis in my own right. I should know as much as I can before then, don't you think?"

His mother sighed and ruffled his hair. "I remember when I could hold you in the crook of my elbow. You were such a tiny thing then."

Lanius hated when his mother told him things like that. "I'm not a tiny thing anymore."

She had to nod. "No, that's true. You're not."

"Tell me, then," he said.

"All right. Let's see what you make of it," his mother said. "We have word from Commodore Grus and his wizard on the Tuola that the Thervings are planning something sorcerous farther up the river than his galleys can go." She waited to hear what he would say next.

He frowned in thought. "Is this Grus a good officer?"

"Lepturus keeps track of such people. He says Grus is very clever," Queen Certhia answered. "Lepturus says he may be too clever for his own good, but no doubt he's able."

"Would
you
have known that if Lepturus hadn't told you?" Lanius asked.

His mother looked impatient. "Really, Lanius, you can't expect me to keep track of all the officers who serve you."

"Why not?" Lanius asked in genuine surprise. "You're the head of the Council of Regents now. That means you might as well be King of Avornis. You should know these men."

"Never mind that," Certhia said. "I do know Grus now, thanks to Lepturus. What do you think we ought to do, supposing this report is true?"

"That's the place everyone expects Dagipert to attack anyhow, just because our ships can't help stop the Thervings there," Lanius replied. "We ought to do everything we can to hold him back."