The Chernagor Pirates (4 page)

“Don't mind if I do.” After looking a question at Grus, Hirundo poured the king a cup, too. “What do you think we can do when we get up to Nishevatz?” the general asked after they'd both sipped.

“I
hope
we can knock down whatever faction the Banished One's backers have put together there,” Grus answered.

“That would be good,” Hirundo agreed. “But how likely is it? The Banished One has a long reach. We've seen as much.”

“Haven't we just?” Grus agreed. “But the Chernagor country is right at the end of it. We'll be on the spot. That will make a difference. I hope it will, anyhow.”

“It had better,” Hirundo said. “If it doesn't, we're in a lot of trouble, you know.”

Grus took a long pull at his wine. He wanted to ease the situation with a joke, as Hirundo so often did. He wanted to, but couldn't come up with one for the life of him. “We
are
in a lot of trouble,” he said at last. “The Banished One hasn't tried interfering in affairs so openly in a long time—maybe not ever. Lanius says he never tried to kill Kings of Avornis before when they weren't in the field against him.”

Hirundo smiled. “Lanius ought to know.”

“Oh, yes. He knows all sorts of things.” Grus let it go at that. The one thing Lanius didn't know, as far as Grus could see, was what was important and what wasn't. Grus went on, “You said you wanted to ask me a couple of things. What's the other one?”

The general's mobile features squeezed into a frown. After a moment, he brightened and said, “All right, now I remember. Once we settle this mess in Nishevatz, do you think we'll be able to turn around and march home again? Or are we going to spend the next five or ten years putting out fires in the Chernagor country?”

“I
hope
we'll be able to do this quickly and neatly and then go home again,” Grus said. “I don't
know
whether that will happen, though. It's not just up to me, you know. The Banished One will have something to do with it. So will the Chernagors. They
like
squabbling among themselves—and they don't always like outsiders sticking their noses in on one side or the other.”

“Might as well be a family,” Hirundo said.

That startled a laugh out of Grus. He said, “You're right. But it's also what worries me most.”

As the army pushed north, the mountains climbed ever higher on the horizon. They were neither as tall nor as jagged as the Bantians proper. Snow was already melting from their peaks. In the range to the west, it would cling to the mountaintops all summer long.

Several passes gave entry to the Chernagor country on the far side of the mountains. Naturally, Grus led his men to the one closest to Nishevatz. He ordered scouts out well ahead of the main body of the army. If the Banished One's backers (who might include Prince Vasilko) wanted to ambush them before they got to Nishevatz, the pass was the best place to try it. Grus remembered Count Corvus coming to grief against the Thervings because he didn't watch out for an ambush. Had Corvus found it instead of the other way around, he likely would have made himself King of Avornis. As things were, he was a monk in the Maze these days, and would never come out.

No ambush waited in the pass. But one of the scouts said, “Your Majesty, we rode up to the watershed and then down a ways. When we looked to the north, we saw the whole country was full of smoke.” Several other riders nodded.

Grus and Hirundo exchanged glances. They both knew what was most likely to cause that. A company of cavalry around him, Grus rode out ahead of the army to see for himself. Sure enough, when he got to the top of the pass and peered north, it was just as the scout had said. Grus caught Hirundo's eye again. “They've gone and started their war without us,” he said. “I'll bet I can tell you which side Vasilko's on, too.”

“Not ours,” Hirundo said. Grus nodded.

King Lanius hated being disturbed when he was with his moncats. Servants in the palace generally knew better than to bother him there. When someone knocked on the door to the moncats' room, Lanius muttered in annoyance—he had Bronze on his lap. “Who is it?” he called. “What do you want?”

He sat on the floor with Bronze. The reddish female was one of the first pair Yaropolk of Nishevatz had given him several years before. She was about the size of an ordinary house cat, and of a temperament not far removed from that of an ordinary cat. But moncats' paws were not those of ordinary cats. They had hands with real thumbs and feet with big toes that worked the same way. Even their tails could grip. They were made for life in the trees on their native islands somewhere out in the Northern Sea—just where, Yaropolk hadn't said.

“It's me,” came the answer from the other side of the door.

“And who are you?” Lanius knew he sounded irritated. He
was
irritated. He did his best not to show it to Bronze, stroking the moncat's back and scratching at the corner of its jaw to try to coax a purr out of it.

The door to the room opened. That made Lanius spring to his feet in fury, spilling Bronze out of his lap. The moncat yowled at such cavalier treatment. Lanius whirled to see who besides Grus had the nerve to disturb him in here. Moncats were smarter than ordinary cats. They realized at once that an open door meant a chance to get away. With gripping hands and feet, they could go places ordinary cats couldn't, too. A couple of escapes had proved that. One of the few rules Lanius had been able to enforce as though he really ruled was that servants were banned from his animals' chambers.

But this wasn't a servant. Prince Ortalis stood in the doorway. “Olor's beard, shut that before they all get loose!” Lanius exclaimed.

For a wonder, Ortalis did. Grus' legitimate son was a couple of years older than Lanius. He was taller, handsomer—and, most of the time, fouler-tempered. He looked around now with considerable curiosity; as far as Lanius knew, he'd never been in the moncats' chamber before. “What peculiar beasts,” he said. “Are they good for anything?”

“No more—and no less—than any other cat is,” Lanius answered. “Did you come here to ask me that?”

Ortalis made a horrible face. The question must have reminded him of why he
had
come. “You've got to help me, Lanius,” he said.

Lanius' heart sank. If Ortalis was in trouble, he feared he knew what sort. Hoping he was wrong, he asked, “Why? What did you do?”

“It wasn't the way she says it was,” his brother-in-law answered, which proved he was right. Ortalis went on, “By the gods, she liked it as much as I did, up until.…” He shook his head. “It's all kind of fuzzy now. We both drank a lot of wine.”

“What happened?” Lanius wondered if he really wanted to know. He decided he needed to, whether he wanted to or not. “What did you do?”

“She … got hurt a little.” Quickly, Ortalis went on, “It's not as bad as she says it is, though—I swear it's not. And she wanted more while it was going on. I wouldn't lie to you, Lanius. She did. She really did.”

“Your father won't be very happy with you when he finds out,” Lanius said.

“That's what I'm saying!” Ortalis howled. “You've got to help me make sure he doesn't. If he does …” He tapped the back of his neck with a forefinger, as though the headsman's ax were falling.

“What can I do?” Lanius asked. “I haven't got the power to do
anything
to speak of. You ought to know that.” Even if he could have done something, he would have only for Sosia's sake. Her brother repelled, revolted, and frightened him.

Ortalis said, “Money. She wants money.”

“Who doesn't?” Lanius pointed to one of the moncats. “You know, I've been painting pictures of these beasts and selling them because the treasury minister doesn't give me as much as I need.”

“Oh,” Ortalis said, as though Lanius had betrayed him when he needed help most. Maybe Lanius had. Grus' son went on, “I was hoping you could talk to Petrosus and get whatever I need—whatever you need, I mean.”

“Not likely,” Lanius said, thinking,
You meant what you said the first time. You're the only one you ever cared about.

“But what am I going to do?” Ortalis sounded desperate. “What am I going to
do
? If she doesn't get paid, she
will
blab. And then who knows what my father will do? He's yelled at me before.”

Yes, and that's because you've done nasty things to your women before
—one more thing Lanius saw no point in saying. Ortalis never paid attention to anyone but himself, and turned nasty—nastier—when he was crossed. As much to get his brother-in-law out of his hair as for any other reason, the king said, “Maybe you ought to talk to Arch-Hallow Anser, instead. He heads the temples, so he can get his hands on money that doesn't come through Petrosus.”

“Already tried him. He turned me down. My own flesh and blood, and he turned me down. Flat.” Anser was also Grus' son, but a bastard. Despite his irregular past, Lanius—and everybody else—found him much more agreeable than Ortalis. The king wasn't sure how bright Anser was. He was sure Grus' bastard, unlike his legitimate son, had his heart in the right place.

More than ever, he wanted Ortalis gone. Spreading his hands, he said, “I'm sorry, but I don't know what else to tell you now.”

“She's got to disappear,” Ortalis muttered. “One way or another, she's got to disappear.”

“By the gods, don't make it worse than it is already!” Lanius exclaimed in alarm.

“It can't get any worse than it is already,” his brother-in-law replied. “Just
you
remember, Lanius—you haven't heard a thing.”

“I remember,” Lanius said. “If you think I want to walk into the middle of a quarrel between your father and you, you'd better think again.” He'd made promises to keep quiet about certain things before, made them and kept them. He didn't promise now, and hoped Ortalis wouldn't notice.

Full of other worries, Ortalis didn't. “She's got to disappear,” he said once more, and then rushed out of the chamber.

The king hurried after him. As Lanius had feared; Ortalis didn't bother closing the door behind himself. Lanius did it before any of the moncats could get out. They did harm to their prey, too, but innocently and without malice. He wished he could say the same about Ortalis.

Whenever Grus breathed in, he tasted smoke. When he spat, he spat black. He turned to Hirundo and said, “It's so nice that we're welcome in the land of the Chernagors.”

“Oh, yes. Oh, yes, indeed.” The general spat black, too. Hirundo swigged from a cup of ale, swallowed, and said, “I'm also glad the men of Nishevatz invited us to their city-state. Just think what kind of a greeting they would have given us if they hadn't.”

“If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not,” Grus said wearily. The Avornan army had yet to see the city of Nishevatz itself. It was still busy reducing forts south of the town. Had it left them behind, the garrisons in them would have fallen on Grus' men as soon as they'd gone by, or else on his supply wagons later.

Varazdin, the latest of them, wasn't much different from any of the rest. The local limestone was golden, which made the walls and the keep inside look deceptively cheerful. As Grus had already seen with three other fortresses, Varazdin's looks were indeed deceiving. His men ringed the fortress, just out of range of the archers and catapults on the walls. Whenever they came close enough, the Chernagors inside started shooting and flinging things at them.

A handful of Chernagors of Prince Vsevolod's, party made their way toward Grus. Several more Avornan bodyguards accompanied them. The Chernagors
said
they were of Vsevolod's faction. Up until now, they'd acted as though they were of his faction. But if Grus' men trusted them on account of that, and if one of them really favored the rebels and Prince Vasilko, favored the Banished One who backed the rebels and the young prince … If that happened, Avornis would suddenly have Lanius on the throne, and then things would look very different.

Grus didn't intend that things should look different. The Chernagors, fortunately, didn't seem offended at guardsmen shadowing them wherever they went. They too played political games with knife and poison and dark wizardry. Their leader, Duke Radim, bowed to Grus. In gutturally accented Avornan, he said, “I have found out who commands in Varazdin, Your Majesty.”

“Have you? Good.” King Grus took a big swig from his mug of ale. He drank as much to wash the smoke out of his mouth as because he was thirsty. “Who is he?”

“He is Baron Lev, Your Majesty,” Radim answered. He was an old man, his beard white, his shoulders stooped. He put Grus in mind of a fortress much more ancient and weathered than Varazdin. What remained showed how mighty he must have been in his younger days. He added, “He is, or should be, loyal to Vsevolod.”

“He has an odd way of showing it,” Hirundo exclaimed.

Radim nodded gravely. “He was not reckoned an important man. No one told him Vsevolod would seek aid from Avornis. He thought your coming was a real invasion.”

“Doesn't he know better now?” Grus asked.

“Oh, yes.” Radim nodded again. “But his honor is touched. How can he yield you passage when his sovereign insulted him?”

“We're trying to help his sovereign,” Grus pointed out.

“He knows that. But the insult comes first.”

“Do you mean he's gone over to Vasilko?” Hirundo asked.

Now Radim shook his head. The Chernagors with him seemed shocked. “Oh, no,” he said. “Nothing like that. Still, how can a man who has been treated as though he were of no account cooperate in any way with those who so abused him? Should a woman who is taken by force cooperate with her ravisher and lie with him as though they truly loved each other?”