The Scepter's Return (35 page)

The Banished One's envoy rode up to Grus a few minutes later. He gave his name as Tutush son of Budak. “I speak for the Fallen Star, and he speaks through me,” he declared, and sounded proud that that was so.

Grus could imagine no greater horror. He asked, “How do I know that you speak the truth?”

Tutush looked at him—looked through him, really. “You will have dreamt of my master,” he said.

Beside Grus, Pterocles inhaled sharply. The king had better self-control, but only barely. He no longer doubted Tutush. “Say on,” he told the Menteshe. The words were harsh in his mouth.

“Hear the Fallen Star, then. Hear him and obey.” Tutush looked almost as arrogant as he sounded. He had a hawk's proud face, with a scimitar of a nose and a slash of a mouth almost hidden by mustache and graying black beard. “The Fallen Star orders you from his lands. Go now, go in peace, and he will suffer you to leave unharmed.” The envoy spoke fluent, slightly old-fashioned Avornan. “Should you flout his will, though, you shall have only yourself to blame for your destruction.”

“I'll take the chance,” Grus replied. “The way it looks to me, the Banished One wants to scare me into leaving when he and his puppets haven't been strong enough to make me leave. He knows where I'm going, and he knows why. I'm bound for Yozgat, and for the Scepter of Mercy. If Prince Korkut gives it to me, I
will
go home—or if Prince Sanjar does, for that matter.” Maybe he could make the Banished One suspect Ulash's warring sons.

Or maybe not. Tutush threw back his head and laughed uproariously, as if Grus had just made some rich joke. “Fool! Do you think holding the Scepter of Mercy will make you happy? Even if you should touch it—which you never will—you would remain nothing but a puny mortal man, soon doomed to die and be forgotten.”

Grus only shrugged. “I'll take the chance,” he said again. “I'm not doing this for me—I'm doing it for Avornis, and for those who come after me.”

Tutush laughed again, even more woundingly this time. “He who comes after you will never wield it—never, do you hear me? So says the Fallen Star, and he speaks the truth. So he says; so he swears. He would swear by the accursed so-called gods in the heavens that he speaks truth here.”

“He can swear whatever he pleases, and take whatever oaths he pleases. That does not mean I would believe him, not when he is the fount from which all lies spring.” Grus tried to hide how startled he was. Had the Banished One
ever
sworn an oath like that? The king doubted it.

“This being so, you see that it makes no sense for you to do anything but give up your vain and foolish adventure,” Tutush said, as though the king had not spoken. “If you go on, you will only bring ruin to your kingdom, your army, and yourself. Go back, then, and enjoy what the Fallen Star permits you to retain as your own.”

The exiled god's implacable arrogance came through in every one of his envoy's words. It chilled Grus, but also angered him. “I'll take my chances,” he said one more time. “And whoever comes after me will have to take his chances with the Scepter of Mercy. I don't intend to worry about that. I want him to have the chance to take his chances.”

“Do you presume to reject my master's mercy?” Tutush sounded as though he couldn't believe his ears.

“I don't think your master knows the meaning of the word,” Grus replied. “He can't use the Scepter, after all. The only thing he can do is keep it away from people who can use it—and that does include the Kings of Avornis.”

“You will live to regret this,” Tutush said angrily. “But you may not live long.”

“So tell me,” Grus said, “who is the Banished One's favorite in the civil war?”

Tutush knew. Grus could see as much. And the ambassador started to answer. He started to, but he didn't finish. Grus had hoped to catch him by surprise and learn something important, something he could have used against both Menteshe princes. But all Tutush said was, “You'll find out—if you live so long. Good day.” He rode off. Grus thought the day was better because he was gone.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lanius was not sorry to come back to the city of Avornis, even though he'd enjoyed himself out in the country. Collurio and Pouncer stayed a while longer, working on what the moncat had to learn. The trainer seemed perfectly happy to remain. He'd gotten friendly with a washerwoman and his son had gotten friendly with her daughter, a neat arrangement that satisfied everyone except, perhaps, Collurio's wife.

As for the king, he was glad to return to the archives and the other moncats—even if they were neither as clever nor as exasperating as Pouncer. Returning to Sosia and his own children was pleasant, too, though he took longer to realize it. He did have the sense not to tell anyone, especially his own wife, that he took longer to realize it.

He also returned to a good deal of the petty business that surrounded a king, which for him was much less pleasant. He wished Grus were around to take care of it, but Grus, beginning a new campaign in the Menteshe country, had more urgent things to worry about. Appeals from lawsuits and from criminal cases did not appeal to Lanius. He had to take care of them, though; that was one of the things a king was for.

A report came in from a seaside province of a series of robberies and rapes and one murder committed by a man missing his left ear. Lanius remembered the luckless fellow the year before who'd claimed a one-eared man had done the killing for which he was blamed. Lanius hadn't taken that appeal any more seriously than the others who'd reviewed it, and the man was dead now.

“I'm afraid I made a mistake,” the king said to Sosia at supper that evening.

“You?” His wife raised an eyebrow. “I don't remember the last time you said that—and sounded like you meant it.” He winced. He'd called several of his affairs with serving girls mistakes. Somehow, that hadn't convinced Sosia. She went on, “What happened this time?”

He explained, finishing, “A man is dead on account of me.” He felt as though he were Ortalis at the hunt—except Ortalis enjoyed killing.

“It sounds like you did make a mistake,” Sosia agreed, which made him feel no better. But then she said, “I don't see how you can blame yourself for it. I wouldn't have believed a story about a one-eared man, either. And you're sorry now, aren't you?”

“I certainly am!” Lanius said. “I don't want someone dying who shouldn't have. That's not what a king's supposed to do.”

“Too late to worry about it now,” Sosia said. “It can happen once in a while, that's all. As long as you're not laughing about it, I think you're all right. You do try hard to make sure you don't make mistakes very often—gods know that's so. And I think you do pretty well at it. So remember you were wrong, yes, but don't have nightmares about it.”

Lanius' nightmares were of a different sort, and from a different source. But he nodded his thanks at Sosia's brisk, practical advice. “You sound a lot like your father—do you know that?” he said.

“Do I?” Sosia thought about it. Then she nodded, too. “Well, maybe I do, some. Is that such a surprise? He raised me—when he wasn't out on one of the Nine Rivers, anyhow.” Her mouth twisted. Lanius thought he knew why, and didn't ask to find out if he was right. One of the things Grus had done while he was out on one of the Nine Rivers was father her bastard half brother, the current Arch-Hallow of Avornis.

What Lanius did say was, “I meant it as a compliment. Your father is a shrewd man. Nobody would say anything else.” Not even he could say anything else, and he was the man whose crown Grus had … not stolen, since he still wore it, but brushed aside.

“Do you think he can bring the Scepter of Mercy back from the south?” Sosia asked.

That surprised Lanius; she seldom asked about affairs of state. “I hope he can,” the king said after a brief pause. “He has a better chance than any other King of Avornis since we lost the Scepter all those years ago. I'm doing everything I can to help him.”

“You haven't been in the archives so much lately,” Sosia said. “You've been fooling around with your moncats instead. You can't tell me
they've
got anything to do with getting the Scepter of Mercy back.” By her tone, she was as sure of that as she was that he couldn't give her any sort of good explanation for his fooling around with maidservants.

If he tried to tell her anything different, he'd just end up with an argument on his hands. He didn't want any arguments. Getting away from the palace had meant getting away from them. Even when Sosia came to check on him, they hadn't quarreled. He hadn't given her anything to quarrel about. He just shrugged and said, “I enjoy seeing what Pouncer can learn.”

“Well …” Sosia paused. Lanius waited for her to say something rude about how useless or how foolish that was, but she didn't. When she resumed, what came out was a grudging, “It's better than some hobbies you could have, I suppose.”

Better than seducing serving girls,
she doubtless meant. And she had a point. Training Pouncer was certainly more challenging than pursuing maidservants, many of whom hardly required seducing. Going after the serving girls, though, was more fun. Lanius kept that opinion to himself.

Even keeping it to himself didn't help. Sosia wagged a finger at him and said, “I know what you're thinking, you wicked wretch.” She tried to sound angry and severe, and—almost—succeeded.

“You can't prove a thing.” Lanius tried to sound naïve and innocent. He—almost—succeeded, too. They both started laughing. It was the first time they'd ever done that when they were talking about his going after other women. He hoped it meant Sosia wasn't angry at him anymore. That was probably too much to expect, though. Maybe she wasn't
very
angry.…

Grus never got tired of watching wizards free thralls. The beauty of the spell drew him. The rainbows that swirled around the heads of men and women lost to themselves, lost in darkness, would have been enough by themselves to attract his eye. But the look on the thralls' faces when the darkness fell away like a discarded cloak and they were thralls no more—that, to him, eclipsed even the rainbows.

The Avornan wizards he'd taken south of the Stura never seemed to tire of casting the liberation spell, either. Even the bumblers and the bunglers among them came away smiling when they succeeded—and constant practice meant even they got the spell down pat and succeeded almost all the time.

“They're so grateful, Your Majesty,” one of the wizards said after a woman who would have been pretty were she cleaned and combed kissed him as soon as she came fully into herself.

“I've seen that, yes,” Grus said. By the smoky looks the woman sent the sorcerer, she would have been glad to go on from kisses. Grus didn't think taking advantage of women who didn't yet fully know their own minds was sporting. He suspected not all the Avornan wizards and soldiers were so scrupulous. They were men (and most of them were much younger than he was), they were a long way from home, and they had … admirers. He hoped not too much trouble would spring from that.

“I know me!” the newly freed thrall exclaimed. She pointed to her well-rounded chest. “I know
me
!” She kissed the wizard again. “Thank, thank, thank!” Like most of her kind, she didn't have a lot of words, but she made the most of the ones she did have—and she would soon start picking up wagonloads of new ones.

“You're welcome, sweetheart,” the wizard murmured. The glance he sent Grus said he wished the king were busy doing something, anything, else. Maybe he didn't care how grimy the girl was.

Grus hadn't issued any orders about fraternizing with freed thralls. He saw no point to giving orders he couldn't enforce. That being so, he took himself elsewhere.

The village was the same sort of tumbledown ruin as all the other thralls' villages he'd seen on this side of the Stura. Some of the houses looked as though they hadn't been repaired since the days before the Menteshe took this land away from Avornis. Some of them looked as though their roofs hadn't been thatched since those days. That had to be an exaggeration … Grus supposed.

Scrawny chickens scuttled through the narrow, filth-clogged streets. An even scrawnier dog yapped around a corner from Grus. Ordinary Avornan peasants would have hanged themselves for shame over the way livestock here was treated—not because ordinary peasants particularly loved their animals (they didn't) but because treating the beasts so badly meant they yielded less than they would have with a little more effort turned their way.

As Grus got upwind of the village, he shook his head. That wasn't right. It wouldn't have taken more effort to do right by the animals—indeed, to do right by the whole village. It would have taken a little more
attention.
By the nature of what the dark sorcery did to thralls, though, attention was the last thing they could give.

Royal guardsmen bowed to Grus as he came up. Pterocles and Otus were talking outside the wizard's tent, which had gone up next to the bigger and grander royal pavilion. Pterocles waved to Grus. The king waved back and ambled over. The breeze chose that moment to shift, blowing the stink from the village over the encampment. Grus made a face. “How does anybody stand living with a stench like that?” he asked.

“Your Majesty, I didn't even notice it when I was a thrall,” Otus said. “It was just part of the air I breathed.”

“A nasty part,” Grus said.

Otus nodded gravely. “I think so, too—now. In those days, I didn't think about it any more than a dog thinks about rough ground under its feet.”

Grus remembered the dog he'd heard in the village. With all the bad smells, the poor beast had to be in torment—or else, thinking about the way some dogs liked to roll in filth, it was having the time of its life.