The Chernagor Pirates (26 page)

He thought about hashing it out with Anser, too. But Anser wasn't the right man to deal with such concerns. With his sunny nature, he had a hard time seeing the bad in anyone else. And he didn't know enough about the true nature of the Banished One, nor did Lanius feel like instructing him.

With nobody to talk to about Ortalis, Lanius did his brooding in privacy on the way back to the royal palace. He was used to that. Once upon a time, he'd resented being so much alone. Now he took it for granted.

When he and the rest of the royal family returned to the palace, they found the servants in a commotion. “He's done it! He's gone and done it!” they exclaimed in ragged chorus.

That sounded inflammatory. It didn't sound very informative. “Who's gone and done what?” Lanius asked.

The servants looked at him as though he were an idiot for not knowing. “Why, Prince Ortalis, of course,” several of them answered, again all at once.

Lanius, Sosia, Estrilda, and Anser all looked at one another. Crex and Pitta were too small to worry about what their uncle did, and ran off to play. Lanius said, “All right, now we know who. What has Ortalis done?” He braced himself for almost any atrocity. Had Ortalis hurt
another
serving girl? Had he decided to have a couple of moncats served up in a stew? The king wouldn't have put anything past him.

But the servants replied, “He's gotten married.”

“He
has?
” Now the king, two queens, and the arch-hallow all cried out in astonishment. That wasn't just news; that was an earthquake. Grus had been trying to find Ortalis a bride on and off for years. He hadn't had any luck, either. Ortalis' reputation was too ripe. Grus had sent Lepturus, the head of the royal bodyguards, to the Maze for refusing to let his granddaughter marry the prince. And now Ortalis had found himself a wife?

“To whom?” Lanius asked. “And how did this happen?”

“How did it happen without us hearing about it?” Sosia added.

Bubulcus knew all the details. Lanius might have guessed he would. “He's married to Limosa, Your Majesty. You know, the daughter of Petrosus, the treasury minister.” He seemed to sneer at the king for being in the dark.

They deserve each other,
was the first uncharitable thought that went through Lanius' mind. But that wasn't fair to Limosa, whom he'd met only a couple of times. He disliked her father, who was stingy and bad-tempered even for a man of his profession.

“How did it happen?” Sosia asked again. She might have been speaking of a flood or a fire or some other disaster, not a wedding.

“In the usual way, I'm sure,” Bubulcus replied. “They stood before a priest, and he said the proper words over them, and then they …” He leered.

“Don't be a bigger fool than you can help,” Lanius snapped, and Bubulcus, knowing he'd gone too far, turned pale. Lanius added, “You know what Her Majesty meant.”

“And which priest who wed them?” Anser added, sounding very much like the man in charge of ecclesiastical affairs. “He did it without the king's leave, and without mine. He'll have more than a few questions to answer—you may be sure of that.”

Perdix, who'd wed King Mergus and Queen Certhia after Lanius was born, had had more than a few questions to answer, too. He'd prospered while Lanius' father lived … and gone to the Maze not long after Mergus died. He was years dead now.

“Well, I don't know the name of the priest, though I'm sure you can find out,” Bubulcus said, implying that, if he didn't know it, it couldn't possibly be important. “But I do know they were wed in some little temple at the edge of town, not in the cathedral.”

“I should hope not!” Lanius said. “Wouldn't
that
be a scandal? A worse scandal, I mean. He shouldn't have wed at all, not on his own. It's not done in the royal family.” A dozen generations of kings spoke through him.

“It is now,” Queen Estrilda said. “And it's not the worst match he could have made, even if he shouldn't have made it himself.”

“What do you want to bet Petrosus proposed it?” said Sosia, who liked the treasury minister no better than Lanius did. “He's likely eager to make any kind of connection with our family.”

“Does he … know about Ortalis?” Anser asked.

“How could he not know?” Lanius replied.

“If he does, how could he do that to the girl?” the arch-hallow wondered. “I hope she won't be too unhappy.”

Hoping Limosa wouldn't be too unhappy was the kindest thing anyone found to say about the marriage. Lanius had seen omens he liked better.

Grus had just gotten off his horse when a messenger from the south galloped into the Avornan army's encampment shouting his name. “Here!” he called, and waved to show the rider where he was.

General Hirundo had just dismounted, too. “Can't we get a couple of days out of the city of Avornis without having one of these excitable fellows come after us, riding like he's got a fire under his backside?”

“No, that's me.” Grus made as though to rub the afflicted parts. Up came the messenger, and thrust a rolled-up sheet of parchment at him. “Thanks—I suppose,” the king said, taking it. “What's this?”

“Uh, Your Majesty, it speaks for itself,” the messenger replied. “I think it had better talk and I'd better keep quiet.”

“Don't like the sound of
that,”
Hirundo remarked.

“Neither do I.” King Grus broke the seal, slid off the ribbon holding the parchment closed, unrolled the sheet, and read the letter, which was from King Lanius. When he was done, he muttered a curse that didn't come close to satisfying him.

“What is it, Your Majesty?” Hirundo asked.

“My son,” Grus answered. “It seems Prince Ortalis has taken it into his head to marry Petrosus' daughter, Limosa. He hasn't just taken it into his head, in fact—he's gone and done it.”

“Oh,” Hirundo said. Seldom had a man managed to pack more meaning into a single syllable.

“My thoughts exactly.” Grus wanted to doubt Lanius, but the other king, no matter how clever, would never have had the imagination to make that up.

“What will you do about it?” Hirundo asked.

The more Grus thought about that, the less he liked the answers that occurred to him. “I don't see what I
can
do about it, except tell Anser to land on the priest who married them like a landslide,” he answered reluctantly. “The wedding's legal, no doubt about it. I can't break off this campaign to go back to the capital and try to set things right. But oh, I wish I could.” The only reason Petrosus could have dangled Limosa in front of Ortalis was to gain himself more influence. No one else around the palace had been willing to use a daughter in a gambit like that. If Petrosus thought it would work, he would have to think again before too long.

“Yes.” Hirundo didn't say any of the things he might have, which proved him an unexpected master of diplomacy. But the expression on his face was eloquent. “Maybe it will turn out all right.” He didn't sound as though he believed it.

“Yes, maybe it will.” Grus sounded even less convinced than Hirundo, which wasn't easy.
And I'm talking about my own son.
That was a bitter pill. If he'd sounded any other way, though, he would have been hiding what he really felt. He sighed. “I have to go on. We have to go on. Whatever happens back at the capital is less important than what we do against the Chernagors.”

Hirundo inclined his head. “Yes, Your Majesty.” If the king said it, they would go on. Grus was sure the news of Ortalis' wedding was spreading through the army with the usual speed of rumor. No one but Hirundo seemed to have the nerve to beard him about it. That suited him fine.

I almost wish a Chernagor fleet would strike our western coast hard enough to
make
me turn around,
he thought, and then quick, in case gods or the Banished One somehow overheard that,
I did say “almost.”

Except for the hunger for something nasty often smoldering in Ortalis' eyes, there had never been anything wrong with his looks. And now even those low fires seemed banked, as they had when he was hunting regularly. The smile he gave King Lanius was just about everything a smile ought to be. The bow that followed was more in the way of formal politeness than Lanius had had from him in years. “Your Majesty,” Ortalis said, “let me present to you my wife, Princess Limosa.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Lanius said, as formally. He nodded to the treasury ministers daughter. “We
have
met before. Let me welcome you to the royal family.”
What else can I do?
“I hope you will be very happy.”
I don't really believe you will, but anyone can hope.
He also hoped none of what he was thinking showed on his face.

Evidently it didn't, for Limosa smiled as she dropped him a curtsy and said, “Thank you very much, Your Majesty. I'm sure I will.” She gazed at Ortalis with stars in her dark eyes. She was a little on the plump side, with a round, pink face, curly brown hair with reddish glints in it, and a crooked front tooth. No one would have called her beautiful, but she was pleasant enough.

Sosia came into the dining room. Ortalis introduced Limosa again. As Lanius had, Sosia said all the right things. If she was insincere, as he was, he couldn't hear it in her voice. He hoped that meant Ortalis and Limosa couldn't, either.

To her brother, Sosia did say, “This was very sudden.”

“Well …” Was Ortalis blushing? Lanius wouldn't have believed such a thing possible. The prince went on, “We found we suited each other, and so we did what we did.” Limosa turned even pinker, but she nodded.

Suited each other? What did that mean?
Do I really want to know?
Lanius wondered. Before he could find any way to ask, servants came in with bread and butter and honey and apples for breakfast. He and Sosia and Ortalis and his new bride settled down to eat. Lanius also wondered if Petrosus would wander in. But Limosa's father did not put in an appearance. Being polite to Limosa was easy enough. Lanius would have had to work harder to stay polite to Petrosus.

“Ortalis raised his cup of wine to Limosa's lips. It was a pretty, romantic gesture—about the last thing Lanius would have expected from his brother-in-law.
Cristata was happy with Ortalis at first, too,
he reminded himself.
She said so. Then look what happened.

Limosa said, “I hope the war against the Chernagors goes well.”

No one could argue with that. No one tried. Lanius said, “
I
hope your father keeps our allowance at something close to a reasonable level.”

She blushed again. “You mean he doesn't always?” Lanius solemnly shook his head. Limosa said, “That's terrible!”

“Yes, Sosia and I think so, too,” Lanius agreed, his voice dry. He wondered how much influence Limosa had on Petrosus. If she really thought it was terrible, and if she really had some influence …

But she said, “I'm sorry, but it's not like he listens to me very much.” She'd understood Lanius' hint, then. That didn't surprise him. Petrosus had been a courtier for many years; why wouldn't his daughter see that what seemed a comment was in fact a request for her to do something about it? Then Limosa added, “He didn't even know we were going to get married until after the priest conducted the ceremony.”

“No?” Lanius said in surprise and disbelief.

Now she shook her head. So did Ortalis. Lanius glanced at Sosia. She looked as astonished as he was. If Limosa had asked her father whether he wanted her to wed Ortalis, what would he have said? What every other father and grandfather said when approached about it? That
wouldn't
have surprised Lanius … too much. Petrosus might have been willing to sacrifice happiness for the sake of his own advancement.
Or is that just my dislike for Petrosus coming out?
Lanius wondered. Hard to be sure.

Sosia asked, “What does your father think about it now?”

“He'd better like it,” Ortalis growled before Limosa could answer. She seemed willing to let him speak for her. That was interesting.
Someone new I'm going to have to try to learn to figure out,
Lanius thought. Archives were much more tractable than living, breathing people. Even inscrutable moncats were easier to make sense of than people.

He lifted his cup of wine in salute. “I hope you'll be … very happy together,” he said. He'd started to say,
I hope you'll be as happy as Sosia and I have been.
Considering the jolt his affair with Cristata had given their happiness, those weren't such favorable words as they would have been a little while before.

Ortalis and Limosa beamed. They must not have noticed the hesitation. Sosia had. Did she know what he'd almost said? He wouldn't have been surprised. She knew him better than anyone else did—save perhaps her father. Lanius didn't like admitting, even to himself, that Grus had a knack for getting inside his mind. But he didn't like denying the truth, either.

He eyed Ortalis and Limosa again. How were they at facing up to the truth? Did the thought so much as cross their minds? He doubted it.
Too bad for them,
he thought.

“Come on,” Grus said. His horse trudged up toward the top of the pass that linked Avornis to the land of the Chernagors. He leaned forward in the saddle and squeezed the beast's barrel with his knees.
“Get
up, there.” The horse went a little faster—not much, but a little.

Beside the king, Hirundo beamed. “You're becoming a horseman after all, Your Majesty.”

“Go ahead—insult me,” Grus said. “If things had gone the way I wish they would have, I'd hardly ever need to get onto one of these miserable beasts.”

Hirundo didn't seem to know what to make of that. Grus had hoped he wouldn't. The king rode on. The army followed. Every so often, Grus looked back over his shoulder to see if a messenger was coming out of the south. He'd already had one. He spied no more this time. That either meant the Chernagors weren't raiding the Avornan coast or that the Avornan garrisons and river galleys and new oceangoing ships were beating them back. Grus hoped it meant one of those two things, anyhow.