The Bastard King

by Harry Turtledove

  As his scouts told him what the rebels were doing, so their outriders warned them his army was on the way. His men couldn’t simply pitch into their rear, taking them by surprise. But Corvus and Corax didn’t have enough soldiers to withstand Hirundo and Grus at the same time. When the rebel leaders pulled men out of the fight against Hirundo to confront Grus’ advancing army, Hirundo pressed them harder. And Grus could see how the line they’d quickly turned about and formed against him wavered.

  He spied Corax, who was crying, “Kill the king! Kill the false king!”

  “Come and try it!” Grus yelled. He spurred toward Corvus’ brother. The rebel count, seeing him, booted his own horse up into a gallop. Grus wondered if he’d made a mistake, and if he would live through it. Unlike him, Corax really knew what he was doing on horseback. The noble’s sword sparkled in the sun.

  No matter what Corax knew, it didn’t help him. An arrow caught him in the face. That bright blade flew from his hand. He slid off his horse and thudded down into the dust. He might have died even before he hit the ground. Grus, clutching the hilt of his own sword, allowed himself the luxury of a sigh of relief.

  And seeing him fall broke the rebels’ spirit. Some of them ran off in all directions, thinking of nothing but saving themselves. More threw down swords and spears and bows and flung up their hands in surrender. Only a stubborn handful around Corvus fought their way free of the disaster and headed south in any kind of order.

  By then, the sun was almost down. Grus let that last knot of rebels get away, not least because he doubted any pursuit could catch up with them. He was, for the moment, content to see what he and his men had won.

  He turned to Hirundo, who had a bloody rag tied around a cut on his forehead just below the brim of his helmet. “Let’s camp here for the night. We’ll care for the wounded and go on from there in the morning.”

  “That seems fine, Your Majesty.” Hirundo sounded as weary as Grus felt. He had a dent in his helm that hadn’t been there the day before; maybe the wound to his forehead had come when the brim got forced into his flesh. He waved. “The men are camping here whether we want them to or not.”

  Sure enough, tents sprouted like toadstools at one edge of the battlefield. Soldiers prowled the field, plundering the dead and looking for missing friends who might have been hurt. Grus tried not to listen to the moans of the wounded. He always tried. He always failed. To take his mind off them, he pointed to an especially large tent and said, “There’s King Lanius’ pavilion.”

  Hirundo nodded and pointed in a different direction. “And here comes Lanius himself.”

  “Good.” Grus waved to his fellow king. He’d hardly seen King Lanius since the fighting started. He was glad Lanius had come to him now. He didn’t want them quarreling. Lanius waved back, and Grus’ bodyguards stepped aside to let the young king join the older one.

  And then, altogether without warning, Lanius jerked out a dagger and stabbed Grus in the chest. He let out a horrid, wordless cry of dismay when the point snapped off—King Grus still wore a light shirt of mail under his tunic.

  Grus’ response was altogether automatic. His sword sprang from its scabbard. He struck once, with all his strength. His blade bit deep into Lanius’ neck. Blood fountained. It smelled like hot iron. With a groan, head half severed, the young King of Avornis fell dead at his feet.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Chaos in the camp. The racket a little while before had been bad enough. Anyone who hoped to sleep would have had a hard time of it. Now the endless moans of the wounded—and their shrieks when surgeons set about trying to repair their wounds—were joined by a sudden chorus of outraged shouts. And those shouts didn’t ebb. They spread over the whole encampment like wildfire, getting louder and more furious at every moment. Running feet were everywhere, too. All at once, no one in Grus’ army or Hirundo’s seemed content to walk anywhere.

  At first, the shouts had been wordless—expressions of raw, red rage and horror. Little by little, though, men started yelling one king’s name or the other’s. And they started using a word that, when connected to any king’s name, meant nothing but trouble and worry and sorrow ahead for the realm the man had ruled. They started yelling, “Dead!”

  Up till then, it had been possible to ignore the racket, especially for someone who wanted nothing but food and rest. But hearing the word dead connected with the name of Grus and with the name of Lanius proved impossible to ignore, even for the most detached, scholarly individual in the whole encampment.

  With a sigh, and with a look of regret aimed at the bread and dried meat he wouldn’t be able to eat, at the cup of wine he wouldn’t be able to finish, and at the inviting cot he wouldn’t be able to fall into any time soon, King Lanius got to his feet and ducked his way out through the tent flap and into the night.

  “What on earth is going on around here?” he demanded of the first soldier he saw.

  He expected an answer. He might have gotten an excited answer, an angry answer, even an incoherent answer, but he thought he would acquire something in the way of information. Instead, the soldier gaped at him, mouth falling open. The man’s eyes bugged out of his head. “A ghost!” he cried. “Sweet Queen Quelea guard me, a ghost!” He fled.

  Lanius said something nasty under his breath. He drummed his fingers on the outside of his thigh. Why me? he wondered. Why do I find the maniacs when all I’m looking for is the answer to a simple question?

  The frightened soldier’s wails made other men stare his way. He walked toward them, repeating, “What on earth is going on?”

  “Oh, by the gods,” one of them said fearfully. “It is him. I know his look, and I know his voice, too.”

  Then they all cried out, “A ghost!” and fled every which way.

  King Lanius pinched himself. It hurt. He was, emphatically, still flesh and blood. He hadn’t really needed to do any pinching, either; all the time he’d spent on a horse that day had left him saddlesore. Avornan lore said a great many things about ghosts. Some he’d heard from servants, some he’d found poking through the royal archives. Never in all his days had he heard of a saddlesore spook.

  He strode forward. If things had been confused before—and they had—the addition of eight or ten fleeing men screaming, “A ghost!” at the top of their lungs did nothing to calm the situation. He heard more soldiers—men who couldn’t possibly have seen him—also start shouting, “Ghost! Ghost! Gods preserve us, a ghost!”

  “Idiots,” Lanius snarled. “Fools. Morons. Imbeciles. Lack-wits. Dolts. Clods. Chowderheads. Buffoons. Soldiers.”

  One of them, trying to run away from him, almost trampled him instead. Lanius grabbed the fellow and refused to let him go. “Oh, Queen Quelea save me, it’s got its claws in me now!” the man moaned, plainly believing his last moments on earth had arrived.

  “Shut up, you … you soldier, you,” Lanius told the trooper. He shook him, which only terrified the fellow worse. “Now, gods curse you, tell me why you think I’m dead.”

  “Because … Because … Because … King Grus killed you.” The soldier got it out at last. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. He went limp in Lanius’ arms. Lanius had heard of people fainting from fright. Up till that moment, he’d never seen it.

  And he’d finally gotten an answer. He didn’t think he’d gotten any information, though. “King Grus did what?” he said. The soldier, of course, didn’t answer. Lanius let go of him in disgust. The man slumped to the ground and hit his head on a rock. As far as Lanius could tell, that was more likely to hurt the rock than the man’s obviously empty head.

  Resisting the impulse to kick the fellow while he was down, Lanius looked around for Grus’ pavilion. He didn’t see it, and growled something he’d heard a bodyguard say after banging his thumb with a hammer.

  If he couldn’t find the pavilion, maybe he could find his fellow king. No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than another soldier caromed off him. He grabbed this one, too, and snarled, “
Where’s Grus?”

  The man goggled at him, but didn’t faint. Lanius would have kicked him if he had. Instead, still gaping, the soldier said, “He’s over that way.” A moment later, he blurted, “Why aren’t you dead?”

  “I don’t know,” Lanius snapped, exasperated past endurance. “Why aren’t you, you simple son of a whore?”

  “You’re the bastard,” the soldier retorted, at which Lanius, in a perfect transport of fury, did kick him. He howled. He also managed to break free, which was lucky for him—Lanius was reaching for the dagger he wore on his belt. Up till then, he’d used the fancy weapon only as an eating knife. Now he wanted to kill with it. “Nobody cut me down,” the soldier added. “That’s why I’m not dead.” Lanius would gladly have taken care of it, but the man ran off into the night.

  Since the soldier had escaped, Lanius went on in the direction in which he’d pointed. A couple of minutes later, he came upon Grus and General Hirundo. Bodyguards surrounded them. And, sure enough, a corpse dressed in royal robes much like those Lanius was wearing lay only a few paces away.

  “What happened here?” Lanius asked loudly.

  Everyone stared at him. The guards, after a moment’s astonishment, started forward to lay hold of him. “Stop!” Grus said, and they did. Lanius knew a momentary stab of jealousy. Nobody ever obeyed him like that. With what Lanius later realized was commendable calm, Grus went on, “I just killed somebody who looked and sounded exactly like you. Are you the real Lanius, or are you somebody else who looks like him and wants to do me in?”

  “By Olor’s beard, I’m beginning to wonder myself,” Lanius answered. “You realize I’d say I was myself regardless of whether that were so?”

  “Oh, yes.” Grus nodded. “The other fellow had your voice, but you sound more like you even so, if you know what I mean.” He wore not a dagger but a sword on his hip. His hand had closed on the hilt, but he didn’t draw the blade. Instead, he asked, “What was the name of that Therving trader who gave you your first pair of moncats?”

  “He wasn’t a Therving. He was a Chernagor,” Lanius said. At first, he thought Grus a fool for not remembering. Then he realized his father-in-law was testing him, and felt a fool himself. “His name was Yaropolk.”

  “Relax, boys,” Grus told his bodyguards. “This is the real King Lanius. Hello, Your Majesty. That fellow there”—he pointed to the corpse—“has your face and your voice. Or he did, till I let the air out of him.”

  “Looking like me let him get close to you,” Lanius said slowly.

  “I’d say you’re right,” Grus answered. “I’d say Corvus and Corax have a pretty good wizard working for them, too. Or Corvus does; Corax is dead. I came as close to being dead myself as makes no difference. But here I am, and I still aim to have my reckoning with dear Count Corvus.” He sounded thoroughly grim.

  “All right. Better than all right, in fact—good,” Lanius said. “I don’t like having my image stolen.”

  “Your Majesty, I didn’t like it, either, not even a little bit,” Grus said. “And remember, it could have gone—it could still go—the other way, too. Wouldn’t you have let someone who looked like me get close?”

  “Yesss.” Lanius stretched the word out into a long, slow hiss. “Yes, I think I might have.”

  “We’ll both be careful, then,” Grus said. “But I’ll tell you one thing more.” He waited till Lanius raised a questioning eyebrow, then continued, “Corvus had better be more careful than either one of us.”

  “Yes,” King Lanius said once more. Just for a moment, he too sounded fierce as a soldier. “Oh, yes, indeed.”

  General Hirundo pointed up the steep slope toward the castle perched at the top of the crag. “There it is. There he is,” Hirundo said. “That’s what Corvus is king of these days. The rest of Avornis is yours.”

  “True.” Grus nodded. “That makes us better off than we were when Corvus decided to start calling himself king, and half the countryside hereabouts decided it would sooner have him with a crown on his head than Lanius.”

  That stretched the truth a bit, and Grus knew it. Corvus had proclaimed he wouldn’t do anything to Lanius. The countryside in the south had risen against Grus himself, not against his colleague on the throne. He intended to go right on telling his version of the story, though. People would feel better about his crushing Corvus if they thought Corvus threatened the old dynasty. Grus was every bit as much a usurper as the nobleman who’d rebelled against him. The only difference between them was that Grus was more successful than Corvus.

  That’s the difference that matters, Grus thought, and then, One of these years, some dusty chronicler pawing through the archives Lanius loves so much is liable to realize Corvus’ revolt was aimed at me, not at Lanius at all. He’ll write it all down, and everybody will call me a liar. Grus considered that, then shrugged. People will call me a King of Avornis who was a liar. That’s what counts.

  Hirundo brought him back to the here-and-now by asking, “You don’t intend to try storming that place, do you?”

  “By the gods, no!” Grus exclaimed. “I’d have about as much chance as the Banished One would of storming his way back into the heavens.”

  Hirundo’s expressive features showed his relief. He accepted the figure of speech as meaning Grus knew he had no chance of storming Corvus’ keep. Grus had meant it that way, too. But he realized he didn’t know what kind of chance of storming back into the heavens the Banished One had. All he knew was that the Banished One hadn’t done it yet, not in all the time he’d spent here in the material world. By human standards, he’d been banished a very long time. By his own? Who could say, except for him?

  Contemplating how to take Corvus’ stronghold was more comforting than thinking about the Banished One’s return to the heavens. What would he do, if he ever forced his way back? Nothing pretty—Grus was sure of that.

  Up on the walls of the grim gray stone keep, men moved. Grus could barely make out the distant motion, like that of ants on the ground as seen by a man standing upright. Hirundo looked toward the castle, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand. He stared so fixedly, Grus wondered if he could make out more than someone with ordinary eyesight might have done. But before Grus could ask, Hirundo turned to him with a question of his own. “If Corvus yields himself to you, will you let him live?”

  Grus scratched at the corner of his jaw. “I would have, if he hadn’t sent that sorcerously disguised fellow to try to murder me.” He sighed. “I suppose I would even now, for the sake of having the civil war over and done with. We don’t have time for it, you know—not with Dagipert still in arms against us and with the Menteshe ready to come to the boil whenever they choose.” Another, longer, sigh. “Yes, if Corvus wants to live out his days somewhere in the very heart of the Maze, in a place he’ll never come out of, I’ll let him do it.”

  “All right, then,” Hirundo said. “You should send a messenger and let him know as much, in that case. His keep will take a lot of besieging, and who knows what may go wrong while we’re waiting down here to starve him out?”

  Grus said one more time, “You make more sense than I wish you did. I’ll do it.”

  He sent a young officer up the slope, a white banner in hand to show he had no hostile intent. The youngster went up to the wall of the keep. Grus made out his progress by keeping an eye on the white moving against the dark background. After a while, his officer trudged down the slope once more. Little by little, he grew from moving white speck to man once more.

  “Well?” Grus asked him when he came back into the encampment.

  “Sorry, Your Majesty, but he says no.” By the indignation on the young man’s face, Count Corvus had not only said no but embellished upon it. “He says he can’t trust you.”

  “I like that!” Grus exclaimed. “He rebelled when I was crowned, he just sent a sorcerously disguised assassin against me, and now I’m the one who can’t be trusted! Some people would call that funny.”

&n
bsp; “I said as much,” the young officer answered. “And when I said it, Count Corvus called me a traitor.”

  “He can say whatever he likes.” Grus’ smile was predatory. “That’s what he’s got left—nasty talk from a mewed-up castle. I hope he enjoys it.”

  “I wonder how much grain he has in there, and how many men,” Hirundo said.

  “Yes, those are the questions,” Grus agreed. “I’m sure he’s wondering the same thing. The answer will tell him how long he can hold out. He doesn’t have enough men to sally against us. I’m sure of that, or he wouldn’t have let himself be locked away in his lair.”

  “Does he think we’ll go away before he starves?” Hirundo said. “Not likely!”

  “No,” Grus said. But it was perhaps more likely than his general thought. If the Thervings or the Menteshe started moving, Grus knew he might have to break off the siege to deal with them. Corvus was playing a desperate game, yes, but not quite a hopeless one.

  These days, Lanius needed approval from a wizard or witch before he could come into Grus’ presence. That would have offended him more had not Grus required sorcerous approval of himself before he saw Lanius. He was equitable in small things. Maybe he thought that made his usurpation of all large things more tolerable to Lanius. Sometimes, it even did.

  Having proved he was himself, Lanius told Grus, “I know how we can solve all these questions of who’s who.”

  “Oh?” Grus said. “Well, tell me, Your Majesty.”

  “Send me back to the city of Avornis,” Lanius answered. “I’m of no use to you here, and of no use to myself here, either. I’d like to go home to my wife. I’d like to go home to the moncats. I’d like to go home to the archives.”

  Grus eyed him. “And when I go home, Your Majesty, would I find the city of Avornis closed up tight against me? The question I’m asking is, How do I trust you?”

  That he’d made Lanius his son-in-law apparently counted for nothing. And, perhaps, with reason. Had Lanius thought he could get away with revolt, he might have tried it. But this journey with Grus warned him he would only lose if he rebelled. And so he said, “Send enough soldiers back to keep an eye on me, if you feel the need. But send me home.”