The Scepter's Return (56 page)

“It could be,” Grus said. “Here's one more thing, though.” He paused. The royal guardsman nodded expectantly. Grus continued, “It's better this way.” The guardsman nodded again, this time in complete agreement.

Lanius approached the Scepter of Mercy furtively, almost as though he were sneaking up on it. He wasn't really, of course. He couldn't, not when so many guardsmen watched it all the time. No one was going to make off with it again, not if the two Kings of Avornis had anything to say about it.

The guardsmen bowed and saluted their sovereign. Lanius nodded back, trying to hide his apprehension. He closed his hand on the Scepter and lifted. Up it came from the velvet cushion on which it rested. Lanius breathed a silent sigh of relief and set it down again.

“That's a marvelous thing, Your Majesty,” a guard said.

“Yes, isn't it?” Lanius agreed. He didn't tell the guardsman—he didn't intend to tell anyone—the Scepter had let him pick it up even though he'd sneaked a serving girl into the archives. Whatever it expected of Kings of Avornis, it didn't insist on sainthood. He hadn't been sure. Had things turned out the other way, he would have been as penitent as he could—and he would have put the maidservant aside. Maybe that would have been enough. He could hope so, anyway.

“Is it really true that one of your moncats stole the Scepter out of Yozgat?” the guardsman asked.

“It's really true,” Lanius said solemnly. “And if you don't believe me, you can ask Pouncer.”

The soldier started to nod, then stopped and sent him a look somewhere between quizzical and aggrieved. Lanius smiled to himself as he went on his way. He didn't want people taking him for granted.

King Grus came around the corner. “What are you looking so pleased about, Your Majesty?” Grus asked. “The Scepter?”

“Well, yes, in a manner of speaking.” Lanius looked back over his shoulder to make sure the guardsman couldn't hear, then explained how he'd confused the man.

He got a laugh from Grus. “You never know—maybe the moncat would tell him,” the other king said.

“Maybe Pouncer would,” Lanius agreed. “With that beast, you never know for sure until you see what happens.”

“Maybe the gods in the heavens
were
working through him,” Grus said. “We'll never know, not for certain.”

“Maybe.” But Lanius went on, “I can't imagine a better disguise for a god than a moncat.”

That made Grus laugh again. “No doubt you're right. At least the Banished One didn't get into him.” The other king was joking, but Lanius felt a chill all the same. The Banished One probably
could
have done something like that. Why hadn't he? The only answer that occurred to Lanius was that, if the exiled god despised people, wasn't he likely to despise animals even more?

Lanius didn't say that out loud. No dreams had troubled him since the Scepter came back to the capital, but who could say how long the Banished One's reach was even now? Instead, the king changed the subject. “So Berto truly is coming? It's been a long time since I've seen him. I was still a boy.”

“Berto's really coming. Yes, indeed.” Grus nodded. “Grimoald should be back in Thervingia by now, telling him we'd be glad to see him. And you're one up on me, because I've never set eyes on the man. Dagipert … Dagipert's a different story.”

“In all kinds of ways,” Lanius said, and Grus nodded once more. Lanius went on, “It's funny, you know, that Berto's more pious than we are.” He thought of his sport with the serving girl. The Scepter of Mercy had forgiven him—either that, or found there was nothing that needed forgiving. “Of course, he knows less than we do, too.” He mouthed Milvago's name, but didn't say it aloud. “A good thing, too,” he finished. “If Thervingia had pitched into us while we were fighting the Chernagors or the Menteshe …”

“Yes, that's a nightmare right there, isn't it?” Grus said. “I worried about it for a while after Dagipert died. I couldn't believe that iron-handed old tyrant would have a son who cared for nothing but praying. Only goes to show you never can tell, doesn't it?”

“It does indeed.” Lanius favored Grus with a brief but speculative glance.

To his acute embarrassment, his father-in-law burst out laughing one more time. Grus aimed an accusing finger at him. “By Olor's beard, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking you're looking at another iron-handed old tyrant.”

“You're not a tyrant,” Lanius blurted. Grus laughed harder than ever. Lanius got more embarrassed than ever.

“Oh, dear,” Grus wheezed at last. “The worst of it is, you're not even slightly wrong. I'm never going to be young again, that's for sure. And the Chernagors and the Menteshe and a good many Avornan nobles will tell you what an iron-handed rogue I am. Come to that, those Avornan nobles will likely call me a tyrant, too.”

“
I
didn't,” Lanius said virtuously.

“So you didn't,” Grus agreed. “And the Scepter of Mercy doesn't think I'm a tyrant, either, or it wouldn't let me pick it up. And do you know what? I care more about what it thinks than I do about any Avornan noble.”

Lanius had no idea whether the Scepter
thought
in manlike terms. He was inclined to doubt it. But he knew what the other king meant all the same. “Oh, yes,” he said, remembering his relief of a little while before. “The Scepter is an honest judge.”

Grus smiled. “Do you want to know something funny?”

“I would love to know something funny,” Lanius answered.

“Right this minute, I hardly know how to be king,” his father-in-law said. “We haven't got any enemies. The Chernagors are quiet. The Menteshe are quiet. The King of Thervingia isn't just quiet—he's coming here on a pilgrimage. Even our nobles are quiet. What am I supposed to do? Sit on the Diamond Throne and twiddle my thumbs?” He started twiddling them even though he wasn't on the throne.

“There are worse troubles to have,” Lanius said, and started twiddling his own thumbs. Grus chuckled. Lanius went on, “Enjoy the quiet while you can, because it won't last. It never does. The Chernagors will get bored not being piratical. Sooner or later, Korkut or Sanjar is bound to win that civil war. Then the Menteshe will start trying to take bites out of what we've won south of the Stura, and maybe on this side of the river, too. They don't need the Banished One to make them want to raid us.”

“This thought had already crossed my mind,” Grus said.

“Things won't stay quiet forever inside Avornis, either,” Lanius added. “Somebody with a lot will decide that, however much he has, it isn't enough. And he'll blame you—or maybe me—for that, and he'll start making trouble. I don't think it'll happen tomorrow, but I don't think we'll have to wait very long, either.”

“That all sounds sensible. You usually do make good sense, Your Majesty. So I'll have things to worry about again, will I? My heart wouldn't break if I didn't,” Grus said.

“I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you'll have to. Things work that way,” Lanius said.

Grus only shrugged. “Do you know what else? After bringing the Scepter back, getting excited about any of them won't be easy.” Lanius thought the other king was joking, then took a second look at him and decided he wasn't.

In Ortalis' dream, he held Avornis in the palm of his hand. The kingdom was his, and rightfully his. He didn't know what had happened to his father or to Lanius, but they weren't around to give him trouble. He did know that.

“You see?” the Voice told him. “You can do it. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't do it. This kingdom belongs to you. They may try to keep you from taking what's yours, but they won't get away with it, will they?”

“No!” dream-Ortalis said.

“Avornis is yours, and Marinus' after you. Isn't
that
right?” the Voice asked.

“You'd better believe it is!” dream-Ortalis answered.

“And if they do try to steal your birthright? What will you do then?” the Voice inquired. “What
can
you do then?”

“Punish them!” dream-Ortalis exclaimed.

“How would you do that?” the Voice asked, as smoothly and suavely as though it were at some elegant reception.

Ortalis' response was anything but elegant. “With whips!” he shouted. “With whips, until they scream for mercy. Or maybe I'd take them out to the woods and … and
hunt
them! Yes, maybe I'd do that!” Excitement surged through him. His father and Lanius and even Anser had kept him from ever really hunting people. In his dreams, though, it was perfectly all right. In his dreams, in his
special
dreams, everything went just the way he wanted.

“Once you caught them, you could mount their heads on the wall of the royal bedchamber,” the Voice mused. “They would look good there.”

“They might,” Ortalis murmured. “Yes, they just might.”

“Might what?” Limosa asked, breaking off the dream and returning Ortalis to everyday reality. It seemed much less real than the bright, vivid scene he'd just left. His wife, oblivious, went on, “You were talking in your sleep.”

“Was I?” Ortalis blinked, there in the darkness of his bedroom. The brilliant light by which he'd seen things in his mind's eye was gone, gone. Yet the sense of excitement he'd felt in his dreams remained. There was excitement, and then there was excitement. “Maybe I was thinking I might do … this.” He reached for Limosa.

She squeaked as his hands roamed her. “What? In the middle of the night?” she said, as though the very idea were a crime against nature. She shoved him away.

When she did something like that, it only excited him more. “Yes, in the middle of the night,” he said, and began to caress her again.

If she'd kept on struggling, he would have taken her by force. He enjoyed that, though it appealed to Limosa less than the special thrill of the whip. But she must have decided he was going to do what he wanted whether she came along or not, and that she would have a better time coming along. Instead of trying to fight him off, she began to stroke him in turn and to urge him on.

He needed very little urging. He drove home, again and again, until Limosa gasped and shuddered beneath him. A moment later, he spent himself, too. “Maybe you should talk in your sleep more often,” Limosa purred.

“Maybe I should,” Ortalis said. He stood up, used the chamber pot, and lay down again. Sleep came quickly, but all his dreams were ordinary.

When he woke up the next morning, he felt vaguely cheated. Not even Limosa's smile, bright as the sunshine outside, could drive that feeling away from him. In his dreams, his special dreams, he was everything he was supposed to be, and everything went the way he wanted it to. And the Voice was there, urging, explaining, supporting. The Voice seemed more real and more full of character than most of the people he knew in the clear light of day.

He called a servant, and told the man to have his breakfast and Limosa's brought to the bedchamber. “Yes, Your Highness,” the man said, and hurried away.

“You don't want to eat with the king?” Limosa asked.

“No, not today,” Ortalis answered, and let it go at that. She meant Lanius, of course. But Ortalis' father was back in the palace, too, and the prince especially did not want to eat with him.

“I hope His Majesty won't be offended,” Limosa said.

“It'll be all right.” Ortalis didn't much care whether it would or not. But he thought it would. Lanius was soft. Even when he was slighted, he hardly seemed to notice most of the time.

Ortalis laughed.
I know better than that,
he thought. He never forgot an insult.
One of these days, I'll pay everybody back for everything.
Lanius, Anser, his father—everyone. He was starting to get the feeling that that day wasn't so far away, either.

A knock on the door said breakfast had arrived. Ortalis took the tray from the servant and brought it back to the bed. It wasn't anything fancy—barley porridge enlivened with chopped onions and chunks of sausage, with wine to wash it down—but it was good, and it filled the belly.

Limosa put on a tunic and a long skirt. “I'm going to see how the children are,” she said.

“All right,” Ortalis answered. “Better Marinus' howling while he's teething should keep a nursemaid up half the night than that it should bother us.”

“Well, yes,” Limosa said, “but plenty of people who don't have the money for nursemaids have children, too. They must get through teething and sick babies by themselves, or there wouldn't be any more people.”

“Gods know how they manage it,” Ortalis said.

“What will you do today?” Limosa asked.

“Beats me,” Ortalis said cheerfully. He lay down on the bed again. “Maybe I'll just go back to sleep.” He hoped he could. He wished he could. The kingdom of his special dreams and the seductive soothing of the Voice were ever so much more attractive than the mundane reality of the Kingdom of Avornis.

His wife's sniff told him that wasn't what she'd wanted to hear. “They're your children, too,” she said pointedly.

“I'll be along in a while,” he said. If that didn't make her happy, too bad.

She knew better than to push an argument very far with him. “All right,” she said, and left the bedchamber.

Ortalis did lie down again. But, no matter how he tried, sleep would not come.

From the city of Avornis, the Bantian Mountains were barely visible—a purple smear on the horizon on a clear day, a smear that vanished with the least fog or haze. Here on the frontier between Avornis and Thervingia, the mountains' saw-backed shape defined the boundary between land and sky.

King Grus and his soldiers waited for King Berto to cross over the border. Grus had waited with soldiers for King Dagipert to cross the border, too. Then he'd waited—and waited anxiously—to do battle. Now the soldiers were an honor guard.