The Bastard King

by Harry Turtledove

  In a way, that was what Lanius wanted to hear. It was what he’d told himself. And yet … “Don’t you think the soldiers would have risen for me, for the dynasty, against the upstart?”

  “Some of them would have,” Lepturus replied at once. “Some of the bodyguards would have, too.”

  “But not all of them?” Lanius asked, and the guards commander shook his head. Lanius grimaced. That hurt. If not all the men who’d protected him since he was a baby would have risen for him, he would have lost, without a doubt. “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “On account of Grus looks to be a pretty good fighting man, and we need that,” Lepturus answered. “It’s not the only thing we need, but it’s the one soldiers think about. You can’t expect anything different. And Grus was smart when he sent Nicator back here with you. Everybody likes Nicator. Olor’s beard, I like the old pirate myself. And he likes Grus—always has, always will.”

  King Lanius sighed. No, that wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. But he’d called Lepturus to tell him the truth, or as much of it as the guards commander saw. He asked, “What do you think of Grus?”

  “Me?” That question seemed to startle Lepturus, where the others hadn’t. “Me?” he said again. “He could have done a lot worse, I will say that.”

  “If he had, I’d be dead,” Lanius said.

  “That’s part of what I mean,” Lepturus replied. “He’s held back King Dagipert for one more year, he beat Corvus and Corax, he married you to Sosia instead of putting you in the grave.… He could have done a lot worse. Plenty of other people would have—Corvus springs to mind.”

  That wasn’t what Lanius wanted to hear, either. “But what about Grus?” he demanded. “Do you think anybody needs him? Do you think the kingdom needs him?”

  “Probably,” Lepturus answered. Lanius threw his hands in the air and walked off. The commander of the bodyguards called, “Don’t do anything foolish, now,” after him.

  “I won’t,” Lanius answered. He had a pretty good idea of what Lepturus meant by the words—don’t start plotting against Grus. He hadn’t intended to do that even if Lepturus had shown interest in the idea. Grus had already proved he was good at sniffing out conspiracies about as fast as they were born.

  Lanius went in to watch Bronze and the young moncats and to stroke them. They didn’t give him any trouble, except when he scratched their furry bellies and they snapped at his hand for no particular reason. They were more skittish than ordinary cats, but ordinary cats sometimes nipped for no particular reason, too.

  As far as Lanius’ pets knew, he remained sole and all-powerful King of Avornis. He fed them and cared for them and petted them. Past that, what else mattered? Nothing—not as far as the moncats were concerned. Lanius’ laugh made the beasts turn their slit-pupiled eyes his way. They wouldn’t have understood that he didn’t really think anything was funny, or why he didn’t.

  The door opened behind him. He turned with the same sort of surprise the moncats had given him when he laughed. When he came in here, people usually left him alone. That was exactly how he wanted it, too.

  “Oh,” he said. He couldn’t even snarl like a moncat, the way he wanted to. “Hello, Sosia.”

  “Hello,” his wife answered. “Am I bothering you?”

  That was a poser. If he said no, he’d be telling a lie; if he said yes, he’d offend her. Silence stretched. Too late, he realized that was as bad as “Yes” would have been.

  Sosia sighed. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said, “but I do think we’d better talk.”

  “Do you?” Lanius didn’t feel like talking to anybody, not then.

  But Sosia nodded, though she had to know something was bothering him. She owned some of Grus’ stubbornness in going straight at whatever troubled her. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” she told him. “It has to do with my father, doesn’t it?”

  “How can you imagine that?” Lanius said.

  Sarcasm didn’t deflect her. He’d hoped it might, but hadn’t really expected it would. “Everything has to do with my father. He’s the king who gives the orders, and I know how much you hate that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lanius answered. “I didn’t mean for you to know.”

  “Well, I do,” Sosia said. “I don’t know what I can do about it, though.”

  “Not much,” he said.

  She nodded again. “No, I suppose not. But the one thing I can tell you is, he’s not your enemy. He likes you.”

  That jerked more bitter laughter from Lanius. “He has an odd way of showing it, wouldn’t you say? Stealing my power—”

  “Marrying you to me,” Sosia broke in. “He wouldn’t do that with someone he hated. I hope he wouldn’t, anyhow. He and I have always gotten on well, so I don’t think he would do anything like that to me, either.”

  “I should hope not. You’re his daughter. People are supposed to treat their children right.” Lanius spoke with great conviction. He believed with all his heart that he would have been treated better if King Mergus had lived longer. “When we have children, by the gods, I’m going to spoil them rotten.”

  Now, though, Sosia shook her head. “That isn’t the way to do it, either. My father thought my grandfather was too rough on him, so he decided to spoil Ortalis rotten. Look how well my brother turned out.”

  With his mind’s eye, Lanius looked—and then quickly looked away. Ortalis frightened him too much for long contemplation. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But maybe Ortalis would have turned out like that any which way. How can you tell?”

  “I don’t suppose you can,” Sosia admitted. One reason they got along was that they both respected reasoned argument. But she added, “Still, do you think he’d have turned out worse if Father had tried harder to teach him he had no business doing things like that?”

  Unhappily, Lanius, who had to respect reasoned argument himself, shook his head. “No, that doesn’t seem likely, does it?”

  Unhappily, Grus eyed Ortalis, who had never shown any sign of respecting any argument whatsoever. “A serving woman is not a toy,” he growled, loud enough for his words to echo from the walls of the small audience chamber.

  His son’s expression, and every line of the younger man’s body, said he didn’t believe that, not even for a minute. “We were only having fun,” the prince said sulkily.

  Grus shook his head. “You were having fun. What she was having … I’d rather not think about some of that. The healers say she will get better, though.”

  “Well, there you are, then.” Ortalis seemed convinced Grus was getting upset over nothing.

  “I made a promise to you a while ago,” Grus said. “Do you remember?”

  Ortalis plainly didn’t. Grus hit his son, hard, in the face. Ortalis fell back with a cry of pain and, especially, of shock. When he straightened, murder was in his eyes. Grus could see it all too clearly. He set his hand on the hilt of his sword. Ortalis checked the forward lunge he’d been about to make.

  “That’s better,” Grus snapped. “And I only gave you a piece there, a little piece, of what I promised you the first time you did something like this. Count yourself lucky, by the gods.”

  Again, Ortalis plainly didn’t. “You can’t do that to me,” he whispered in a deadly voice.

  “I can. I did. And I’ll do more. I’m sending the girl back to her home village.” Grus wondered if walloping his son whenever he’d stepped out of line as a boy would have done any good. Too late to worry about that now, worse luck. “I’m taking the indemnity that I’m giving her straight out of your allowance, too.”

  “That’s not fair!” Ortalis exclaimed. Whenever something touched him, he was quick enough to talk about what was fair and what wasn’t. Whenever something touched someone else, he might as well have been a blind man.

  “Suppose I mark you just the same way you marked her?” Grus asked. “Would you think that was fair?” It was what he’d promised to do, but he didn’t have the stomach for it now. He wished he did.
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  In any case, it didn’t get through. Grus could see that it didn’t. His only son’s eyes remained shiny as glass, opaque as stone. If I die tomorrow, he’ll try to claim the throne. What happens to Avornis if he does? Grus didn’t care to think about that, so he shoved it to the back of his mind. He didn’t want to think about Ortalis in control of anything. I just have to make sure I don’t die tomorrow, that’s all—and make sure he doesn’t help me.

  “That’s my silver, and you’ve got no business touching it.”

  “I ought to touch you, and with a horsewhip, too,” Grus growled. “Get out of my sight—and if you abuse another girl like that one, by the gods, I think I will horsewhip you. You don’t blacken only your name when you do such things—you blacken mine, too, and I won’t stand for it.”

  Without another word, Ortalis stormed off. Grus turned to a jar of wine sitting on a table close by. He poured a mug from it and gulped thirstily, wishing he could rinse the taste of his son out of his mouth. He’s what I’ve got, Grus thought, and took another swig from the wine. I have to make the best of him.

  His fist slammed down on the table. The wine jug jumped. He had to grab it to keep it from falling over. What if there’s no best to make of Ortalis? That had occurred to him more than a few times. Whenever it did, he told himself his son just needed a few more years to finish growing up, and that everything would be fine once Ortalis did. Telling himself the same hopeful story over and over again got harder as the years went by. Lanius, on the other hand … But Lanius wasn’t of his own blood.

  Estrilda walked into the room. “Well?” she asked.

  Grus shook his head. “No, not very well,” he answered. “But we do the best we can—all of us do. I don’t know what else there is.”

  Estrilda sighed deeply. “No, not all of us do the best we can,” she said. “Things would be easier if we did.”

  That made Grus pour his mug full again. “Want one?” he asked his wife. When she nodded, he grabbed another mug and filled it for her. He stared toward the door through which Ortalis had left. “I suppose it could have been worse,” he said at last.

  “Yes. He could have killed her. It wouldn’t have taken much more.”

  “I know.” Grus moodily started on that second cup of wine. Thinking about Ortalis—dealing with Ortalis—was going to turn him into a drunk. “What are we going to do about him?”

  “I don’t know.” Estrilda sounded as gloomy as Grus felt. “We’ve been trying to do anything at all since he was little, and we haven’t had much luck. He’s got a streak of blood lust this wide in him.” She held her hands far enough apart to make Grus wince.

  “Maybe I can get him interested in the chase,” Grus said suddenly. “If he’s killing stags and boar and tigers, maybe …” He didn’t quite know how to go on from there. “Maybe that will be enough to keep him happy,” he finished at last.

  His wife raised her mug to her lips. She looked at him over the rim. Little by little, her expression went from dubious to thoughtful. “Maybe,” she said. “It has a chance, anyhow—as long as he thinks going hunting is his idea, not yours.”

  “Oh, yes, I know that,” Grus said. “If it’s my idea, something must be wrong with it. I have to say, though, I was the same way with my father.”

  Estrilda snorted. “With your father’s ideas, a lot of the time something was wrong.”

  “You never said that when he was alive,” Grus said.

  “I know I didn’t. What would the point have been? But are you going to tell me I’m wrong?”

  Grus considered. Crex had started out with nothing. He’d been one more farm boy come to the city of Avornis trying to make something of himself. Unlike most, he’d actually done it. He deserved credit for that. Even so … “No, you’re not wrong,” Grus admitted. “He was a hardhead, first, last, and always. Maybe that’s where Ortalis comes by it.”

  He sounded hopeful. If he could blame blood for the way his son behaved, he wouldn’t have to blame himself. He wouldn’t even have to blame his son so much. If it was in the blood, how could Ortalis help acting the way he did?

  “Your father was stubborn, and he had bad ideas sometimes—well, more than sometimes—but he wasn’t … like that,” Estrilda said. “He never enjoyed … hurting things.” Even she shied away from saying hurting people.

  She was probably right. No, she was certainly right. Grus sighed. He didn’t like to think of himself as a man who had a vicious son. That he didn’t like it, unfortunately, didn’t mean it wasn’t so.

  Lanius was trying to coax Iron from a high perch near the door to the older male moncat’s room. Iron still lived by himself. He showed a regrettable tendency toward infanticide.

  When living by himself, though, Iron wasn’t a bad-natured beast. People were too big for him to try to kill. Besides, they fed him and stroked him. For that, he was willing to tolerate their not being moncats.

  “Come here,” Lanius urged. Talking to a moncat was as useless as talking to an ordinary cat. He could have talked sweetly to Iron till he was blue in the face, and the male would have kept on staring at him out of those amber eyes. It wouldn’t have come down to within arm’s length.

  The chunk of raw meat Lanius held in his hand was a lot more persuasive. Iron made an eager little keening noise. Lanius knew what it meant—I want that. Give it to me!

  Lanius didn’t give it to the moncat. He held it just beyond the reach of Iron’s little, almost-clawed hands. The moncat swiped at it, but missed. Those amber eyes sent Lanius a baleful stare.

  He’d seen that before. The glare had more force than an ordinary cat’s pique; Lanius still wasn’t impressed. Iron was going to do what Lanius wanted, not the other way around.

  So he thought, anyhow. Then, as Iron was coming down to take the tidbit, the door to the moncat’s room opened. A servant said, “Excuse me, Your Majesty, but—”

  Quick as a wink, Iron streaked past the startled servitor and out into the hallway.

  “You idiot!” Lanius shouted.

  “Your Majesty!” the servant said reproachfully. Lanius was almost always polite to the servants, more as though they were equals than subjects.

  Not here. Not now. “You idiot!” the king said again, even louder. “By the gods, Bubulcus, don’t just stand there! Help me catch him!”

  “Which way did he go?” Bubulcus asked. “I wasn’t paying any attention to the stupid—” He broke off.

  “He could be anywhere by now!” Lanius groaned. “Come on!” He pushed by Bubulcus and looked up and down the hallway. Iron had already turned at least one corner, for Lanius couldn’t see the beast. Down on the ground, the moncat was about as quick and nimble as an ordinary cat. And once Iron found somewhere to climb … Lanius groaned again. “If he gets away, you’ll be sorry,” he told the servant.

  Bubulcus turned pale. Lanius had always been mild, but he’d read in histories and chronicles about things some of his predecessors had done to serving men and women who’d displeased them. He doubted Bubulcus had read any of those things. He had no idea whether Bubulcus could read at all. But stories of what kings in a temper might do had probably passed from one generation of palace cooks and sweepers and tailors to the next.

  “Come on!” Lanius said. “Let’s go after him.” He started up the hallway. He wasn’t sure he was going in the right direction. All he knew was that he had no chance at all of catching Iron if he just stayed where he was. If he went somewhere, he had an even-money chance of proving right.

  And he did prove right. A startled squawk from a serving woman up ahead told him he’d picked the proper direction. When he rounded the corner, he almost ran over her—she was a laundress, bending to pick up linens she’d dropped. “That horrible, gods-cursed thing nipped my ankle when it ran by,” she said, “and everything went flying. If I got a shoe into its ribs, it’d go flying, let me tell you it would.”

  “A good thing you didn’t, then,” Lanius said. “Come on, Bubulcus. You, too, gi
rl. Worry about the laundry later. Iron is more important.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” the laundress said, but she came.

  Before long, Lanius led a procession of seven or eight servants through the corridors of the royal palace, all of them shouting and pointing and tripping over one another. The moncat darted and dodged and scurried and, once, ran back through all the pursuers.

  Iron swarmed up a tapestry toward the ceiling. Lanius cursed as Iron sprang out from the wall, seized the stem of a candelabra, swung up to a cornice—and then discovered he had nowhere else to go.

  The king murmured a silent prayer of thanks that Iron hadn’t knocked down the candelabra. All those burning candles falling … Lanius shivered. The whole palace might have gone up.

  Iron, meanwhile, snarled and bared needle-sharp teeth at the panting king and the servants who’d brought it to bay. “Easy, there,” Lanius said soothingly. Then he remembered the scrap of meat he’d been about to feed the moncat. He looked down. Sure enough, he’d never dropped it. He held it out to Iron. “Here, boy.”

  “Which it doesn’t deserve, not after all the trouble it’s caused,” Bubulcus said.

  “Who helped him?” Lanius retorted. “What wouldn’t wait?”

  “I just wanted to know what you intended to wear to the reception tonight,” Bubulcus answered.

  “And for that you turned the whole palace upside down?” Lanius wanted to hit the servant over the head with a rock. “You are an idiot.”

  “Well, how was I supposed to know the miserable moncat would run wild?” Bubulcus sounded indignant.

  So did Lanius. “Why do you suppose there’s a rule against bothering me when I’m in with any of the moncats, not just Iron?”

  “I don’t know why you have the stupid creatures in the first place. What are they good for?”

  “Thank the gods I don’t ask the same question about you,” Lanius replied. He held out the strip of meat to Iron. The moncat reached for it with little sharp-nailed hands. Lanius pulled it back out of reach. Iron’s eyes flashed. Lanius took no notice. He let Iron see the meat and smell it.