The Bastard King

by Harry Turtledove

  “It is easy to tell a man he has no business doing this or that,” Zangrulf said. “If the man is strong, though, and you are weak, you are a fool to speak too boldly. Here is what my master says.” He raised his voice again. “Dissolve the marriage between Lanius and your daughter, restore the marriage vowed between Lanius and Princess Romilda, or my master will invade Avornis again and punish you for your usurpation. Do this or there will be war.”

  The word seemed to echo from the high ceiling. Courtiers whispered it and carried it back to the farthest reaches of the chamber. Zangrulf stood there, tall and haughty and savage and fierce, as though he were the very personification of the terrible, terrifying word. No one could forget what the Thervings had done in Avornis only the year before.

  Grus sighed. He’d hoped for better news than Zangrulf had brought, but he hadn’t really expected it. “Here is what I say to your master,” he told the Therving envoy. “I say no. I say he can do his worst, and it will not make me change my mind. Take my words to him, and let him do what he wants with them.”

  Zangrulf bowed. “You will be sorry you have defied him.”

  No, I would be sorrier if I yielded to him, and so would the kingdom. “We will fight you,” he said. “You will not have such an easy time of it. Tell that to King Dagipert, too.”

  With another bow, one that put Grus in mind of an offended cat, Zangrulf walked out of the throne room. Courtiers buzzed and fussed as they left the chamber in the wake of the ambassador. Grus didn’t like their frightened voices, but didn’t know what he could do about them.

  “You did the right thing,” Lepturus said to him. The guards commander sounded very much his normal self, for which Grus was duly grateful.

  “Dagipert can ravage lands he’s already ravaged,” Grus said. “What else can he do? Nothing I can see. We’ll ride that out, he’ll get tired of it, and life will go on again. Most of the people have fled from that country by now.”

  “Sounds right to me,” Lepturus agreed.

  Grus was starting to like the veteran officer. Lepturus was fiercely loyal to Lanius; that had been plain from the beginning. If I’d gotten rid of Lanius, he’d’ve found some way to make me pay, Grus thought. Since I didn’t, he’ll work with me. And, since I didn’t, I think I can work with him. He’s a good soldier, too.

  The two of them stayed in the throne room, talking about ways they might throw Dagipert back. A few of Grus’ marines lingered, too, to make sure Lepturus had nothing evil in mind. One of the marines yawned. Another one leaned toward a pal and whispered what was probably a joke. The other marine snorted, then did his best to pretend he hadn’t.

  And then a messenger rushed into the chamber, crying, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

  “I don’t like the sound of that,” Grus remarked to Lepturus. He nodded to the messenger. “What’s gone wrong now? It can’t be Zangrulf. He only just left.”

  “No, Your Majesty, it’s Count Corvus.” When Grus heard that, his heart sank. The messenger, oblivious, confirmed his worst nightmare. “Except he’s not calling himself Count Corvus anymore. He’s just declared that he’s king!”

  Lanius got much less upset about Corvus’ rebellion than Grus did. In a sour sort of way, he even found it funny. “He’s done to you what you did to me,” he remarked to the man who’d taken most of his place.

  But Grus shook his head. “If he wins, I’m a dead man. Did I kill you, Your Majesty? I wed you to my own flesh and blood, is what I did. And if Corvus wins, what happens to you?”

  Lanius started to say something like, No one can rule Avornis without me. But he didn’t know that was true, and he didn’t want to get Grus any angrier than he was already. And so he asked, in a smaller voice than he’d thought he would use, “What will you do?”

  “What will I do?” Grus echoed. Lanius expected the ex-commodore’s fury to burst into flame. Instead, it came out cold as ice. “I am going to beat that bastard. I am going to beat him like a drum. And by the time I’m done, no other miserable noble will dare raise his hand against a King of Avornis for the next fifty years.” He stalked away like a tiger on the prowl.

  Up till then, Lanius hadn’t quite taken Grus seriously. But Grus’ display of chilly, purposeful rage—that, Lanius couldn’t ignore. He had no trouble at all imagining Grus turning it against him if he displeased his father-in-law. He did have trouble imagining what would happen after that, but only because he knew he wouldn’t be there to see it.

  For the next several days, he spent most of his time either with his new bride (would Sosia prove any sort of shield against her father?), holed up deep in the royal archives, or with the moncats. Grus was unlikely to come after him in any of those places. In spite of his fears, Grus didn’t come after him.

  The moncats fascinated Sosia as much as they did Lanius. She went to see them and play with them whenever she could. They soon became as used to her as they were to him. For one brief moment, that made him jealous—after all, Yaropolk had given Iron and Bronze to him. Then he thought about it and laughed at himself. He could imagine a lot of worse reasons to be jealous of his wife than that his pets also liked her.

  He’d taken her into the archives, too, not long after they were wed. The great chamber full of books and scrolls and sheets of parchment proved to interest her not at all. She could read and write. She wasn’t stupid; Lanius had seen that almost at once. But Avornis’ past was a closed door to her, and she didn’t care to open it. He was disappointed, but he knew things could have been much worse.

  Spider and Snitch grew by leaps and bounds—literally. When they first came into the world, they clung to Bronze’s fur and to her limbs all the time. They had to. Like any kittens, they were born with their eyes closed. Once they began to see, once their arms and legs and tiny almost-clawed hands began to gain some cunning …

  Spider, in particular, seemed determined to kill himself before he grew up. Nothing fazed him, not even things that should have. He took dizzying leaps. Every so often, one of them proved too dizzying, and he would land on the carpeted floor of his room with a splat. He seemed to think that was funny. Up till then, Lanius had never imagined an animal with a sense of humor, but he was convinced Spider had one. The moncat would scramble up to the same perch and fall down in the same way two or three times in a row. Sometimes he would miss leaps he should have made, and miss seemingly on purpose, just for the fun of it.

  He would beg for treats, as solemnly as any beggar on the streets of the city of Avornis. He would sit there and stare up at Lanius or Sosia with solemn eyes—bluer than Bronze’s—and hold out his little hands, palms up. Or he would stand on his head and hold out his little gripping feet, soles up. Upside down and right side up were all one to him.

  Snitch was more direct. She didn’t beg very often—she stole. That was how she’d gotten her name. She was good at it, too. She soon learned in which pocket Lanius carried the treats he gave the moncats. After that, those treats weren’t safe anymore. She would reach in with any of four hands, filch what she wanted, and then scramble up high where Lanius couldn’t catch her and take back the bits of dried meat. At least half the time, she picked Lanius’ pocket without his being any the wiser. The first he would know that she’d struck again would be the sight of her streaking to one of those high perches to enjoy what she’d won.

  She could easily outclimb Lanius. Staying away from Spider—and from Bronze—wasn’t so simple. Unlike a mere human, her brother and her mother were as spry as she was. She had to eat fast or risk losing her gains and getting bitten.

  Once Sosia watched her scamper away with a treat—this one given, not stolen—only to have Spider jump on her, thrash her, and take it away. To Lanius’ amazement, his wife left the moncats’ room in tears. He didn’t dare ask her what was wrong. That night, as they lay down and began to drift toward sleep, she said, out of the blue, “That reminded me too much of the way my brother and I were when we were little.”

  “What did?�
� Then Lanius realized what she had to be talking about. “Oh!” he exclaimed.

  Sosia nodded. “Yes. Ortalis could be … a handful.”

  As far as Lanius was concerned, Ortalis remained a handful. He had taken Ortalis’ measure early on, and had as little to do with Grus’ son as he could. To his relief, that seemed to suit Ortalis, too. The prince showed no interest in affairs of the kingdom—only in his own affairs with an endless stream of serving women. Some he dropped when they began to bore him, which didn’t usually take long. Some abandoned him. A couple abandoned the palace and disappeared into the city or left for the provinces. Lanius wondered what Ortalis could have done to make them leave a situation they could hardly hope to improve upon. He never asked Ortalis—and the maidservants, of course, were no longer there to be asked.

  King Dagipert, predictably, roared over the border. Grus’ response struck Lanius as tepid. His co-ruler sent horsemen out to harass the invading Thervings, but ordered his commanders not to try to bring on a general battle.

  “Why don’t you want to fight them?” Lanius asked. “Didn’t you get summoned here as Avornis’ protector?”

  “Yes, and I need to keep an army to be able to do any protecting,” Grus answered irritably. “Trying to deal with Dagipert and Corvus together is more than twice as hard as dealing with either one of the bastards by himself. Some of the soldiers I could use to fight the Thervings have gone over to Corvus, and they won’t follow my orders. And I can’t use all the men who are loyal to me to fight against that rebel bastard, or else Dagipert will ride roughshod over us again. Do you see what I’m saying, Your Majesty?”

  In his mouth, Lanius’ royal title somehow became one of reproach. And, regretfully, Lanius had to nod, for he did see. “Corvus wouldn’t have rebelled against me,” he said.

  “Maybe you’re right. On the other hand, maybe you’re not. Corvus wants to do what Corvus wants to do, first, last, and always. And Corax is just as bad.” Grus gave Lanius a sour stare. “I do hate to remind you, Your Majesty, but I never would have reached for the throne in the first place if your mother hadn’t come much too close to murdering me.”

  Maybe he was right about whether he would have reached for the throne. On the other hand, maybe he wasn’t.

  Grus went on, “I’m sure you don’t care about what happened to me.” Before Lanius could even try to deny it, the other king added, “Think about this, though—if your mother had slain me by sorcery, what do you suppose would have happened to Sosia right afterward?”

  Lanius hadn’t contemplated that. Now he did. What would his mother have done to the kinsfolk of someone she’d toppled? He didn’t know, not for certain, but the histories he’d read offered several possibilities—none of them pretty. He thought about some of those things happening to his wife. He wasn’t head over heels in love with her, but he was fond of her. Imagining a couple of those things … His stomach flip-flopped. He turned away.

  Grus’ voice pursued him. “You see what I mean. This isn’t a game, Your Majesty, or if it is, I’m playing for my life. And do bear one other thing in mind, if you please.”

  “What’s that?” Lanius asked.

  “I’m playing for yours, too,” Grus answered.

  “Well, well,” Grus said to the smiling cavalry officer who stood before him. “I remember you, Colonel Hirundo. You’ve come up in the world a bit since we played hammer and anvil with the Menteshe.” Zangrulf had said the same thing to him.

  Hirundo’s smile became a saucy, sassy grin. “I was thinking the same thing about you, Your Majesty, if you want to know the truth.”

  “I always want to know the truth,” Grus answered. “Life’s hard enough to deal with even when you do. When you don’t—” He shook his head. “Forget it. So tell me the truth about what we can do to Dagipert and the Thervings.”

  That grin faded back into a smile. Even the smile had trouble staying on Hirundo’s handsome face. “The truth? We can’t do much. We can do what you’ve been doing—nip at him, pick off a few men who stray too far from his main line of march. Past that …” He shrugged. “If we try to slug it out with him with the army we’ve got, he’ll stomp us.”

  “I was hoping you might tell me something different,” Grus said glumly. “I’m a river-galley man, so I thought I might be missing something when it comes to fighting on dry land.”

  “I’m afraid not,” Hirundo answered. “Or if you are, I’m missing something, too.”

  “All right, then,” Grus said. “Do what you can. Meanwhile, I have to do what I can to keep Corvus from walking in the back door while Dagipert’s trying to get in at the front.”

  “Yes, that might be a problem,” Hirundo agreed airily. “Aren’t you glad, Your Majesty, that you decided you wanted to be king?”

  “I didn’t particularly decide I wanted to be king,” Grus answered. “I decided that was the best way to keep from getting murdered. And now that I’m on the throne, I’ll be gods-cursed if I let that arrogant bastard of a Count Corvus throw me off of it.”

  “Ah, dear, dear Corvus,” Hirundo said. “He always did endear himself to everyone around him, didn’t he?”

  “If that’s the word you want to use,” Grus said. “Go on now. Keep the Thervings in play, and I’ll see what I can do about making sure our own nobles don’t cost us too much.”

  “Good luck,” Hirundo told him. “At least when I go forth, I’ll be sure all my foes are in front of me. You’d better worry about your back, too.” He sketched a salute, bowed, and hurried away. Grus had given him something clear-cut to do, and he would do it. Grus was sure he would do it well, too.

  Grus’ own fight, as Hirundo had said, was less simple. The King of Avornis wished his officer hadn’t spelled that out quite so plainly. How many men who said they were loyal to him really spent their time praying to Olor and Quelea—or to the Banished One—that he would fall and Corvus ascend to the Diamond Throne? He didn’t know. He hadn’t the faintest idea. Hirundo could see Thervings and Avornans and know which side was which. No, things weren’t so easy in a civil war.

  I can’t know who’s loyal to me and who’s a traitor behind a smiling mask, Grus thought. No, I can’t. But I know someone who can, or who may be able to.

  He summoned Alca the witch. She bowed very low before him. “How may I serve you, Your Majesty?” she asked.

  “You can stop that, to start with,” Grus said roughly. “You saved me from something so nasty, I’d rather not think about it. If that didn’t earn you the right to treat me like a human being and not something made out of gold and ivory, I don’t know what would.”

  She cocked her head to one side, studying him. It was an unnerving sort of scrutiny; he had the feeling she was looking not just at his face but deep inside him. He didn’t think he was ready for such an examination. He didn’t think anyone could be.

  It lasted no more than three heartbeats, four at the outside. It only seemed to go on forever. After that uncomfortably long little stretch of time, Alca nodded. “I am your servant, Your Majesty. Say what you require, and I will give it to you if I can.”

  “My servant?” Grus doubted that. He doubted it very much. He didn’t think the witch served anyone but herself, any more than Lanius’ moncats—or ordinary cats, for that matter—did. But he didn’t care to argue with her, either. Her politeness, like a cat’s, deserved to be respected. So, as she’d suggested, he said what he required. “I want to know how many folk here who say they’re loyal to me really back Count Corvus.”

  Alca frowned. “I can try, Your Majesty, but that’s not an easy sorcery to bring off. And I could make mistakes. Sometimes someone can be unhappy with you without being a traitor. The spell I’d use would—or could, anyhow—find both kinds of people.”

  “I see.” Grus nodded, less happily than he might have. “How about this? Can your magic find someone who really hates me and is hiding that, and tell him from someone who’s just unhappy with me, from somebody who might or might
not be disloyal?”

  “Maybe.” Alca sounded dubious. “I can try.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Grus said. “Run the test on King Lanius first. He hides it pretty well for someone so young, but I know he doesn’t love me and he never will.”

  “All right.” Alca looked startled. “You’re taking a certain chance, you know, depending on how I feel about you.”

  “You saved me once,” Grus said.

  “Ah, but you weren’t a usurper then,” the witch answered. “You were an officer the kingdom needed. Now you’re someone who’s put the ancient dynasty in the shade.”

  Grus studied her. If she’d been startled, he was astonished. “If you think I did that to the dynasty, what am I liable to do to someone who has the nerve to call me on it?”

  Alca didn’t flinch. “For one thing, I did save you, no matter why. I think you have honor enough to spare me on account of that. And if you don’t … well, even kings ought to think twice before they strike at witches. Witches have ways of taking vengeance ordinary mortals don’t.”

  “That might do me harm,” Grus said, “but it wouldn’t do you any good.”

  “True.” Alca surprised him again, this time by smiling. “I am not an ordinary mortal, but I am a mortal. Witches are. Wizards are. So are kings.”

  “Test your spell on Lanius, as I said,” Grus told her. “I don’t punish people for speaking their minds to me, but I do want to know if they know what they’re doing.”

  “If I didn’t know what I was doing, why would you want me working any sort of magic for you?” Alca asked.

  Grus laughed. “You don’t know Turnix, the wizard who served with me when I was a river-galley skipper.”

  “Oh, but I do!” Alca said. “He isn’t that bad a wizard.” She stopped short of suggesting he was a good one. She was better, and they both knew it. Grus waved his hands, yielding the point. Alca asked, “Does it matter to you whether Lanius knows I’m testing him?”