The Chernagor Pirates

by Harry Turtledove

  Lanius hadn’t expected him to be quite so frank. He wondered whether that frankness made things better or worse. “You have no shame at all, do you?” he said.

  “Where my family is concerned? Very little, though I’ve probably been too soft on Ortalis over the years,” Grus said. “He’s embarrassed me more times than I wish he had, but that isn’t what you meant, and I know it isn’t. I’ll do whatever I think I have to do. If you want to be angry at me, go ahead. You’re entitled to.”

  And no matter how angry you are, you can’t do anything about it. That was the other thing Grus meant. He was right, too, as Lanius knew only too well. His impotence was at times more galling than at others. This … He couldn’t even protect a woman he still insisted to himself he loved. What could be more humiliating than that? Nothing he could think of.

  “Where did you send her?” he asked after a long silence.

  Some of the tension went out of Grus’ shoulders. He must have realized he’d won. He said, “You know I won’t tell you that. You’ll find out sooner or later, but you won’t be up in arms about it by the time you do.”

  His obvious assumption that he knew exactly how Lanius worked only irked the younger man more. So did the alarming suspicion that he might be right. Lanius said, “At least tell me how much you’re giving her. Is she really taken care of?”

  “You don’t need to worry about that.” Grus named a sum. Lanius blinked; he might not have been so generous himself. Grus set a hand on his shoulder. He shook it off. Grus shrugged. “I told you, I’m not going to get angry at you, and you can go right ahead and be angry at me. We’ll sort it out later.”

  “Will we?” Lanius said tonelessly, but Grus had turned away. He wasn’t even listening anymore.

  Lanius slept by himself that night. Sosia hadn’t wanted to sleep beside him since finding out about Cristata. He didn’t care to sleep by her now, either. He knew he would have to make peace sooner or later, but sooner or later wasn’t yet.

  He thought he woke in the middle of the night. Then he realized it was a dream, but not the sort of dream he would have wanted. The Banished One’s inhumanly cold, inhumanly beautiful features stared at him.

  “You see what your friends are worth?” the Banished One asked with a mocking laugh. “Who has hurt you worse—Grus, or I?”

  “You hurt the whole kingdom,” Lanius answered.

  “Who cares about the kingdom? Who has hurt you?”

  “Go away,” Lanius said uselessly.

  “You can have your revenge,” the Banished One went on, as though the king hadn’t said a word. “You can make Grus pay, you can make Grus weep, for what he has done to you. Think on it. You can make him suffer, as he has made you suffer. The chance for vengeance is given to few men. Reach out with both hands and take it.”

  Lanius would have liked nothing better than revenge. He’d already had flights of fantasy filled with nothing else. But, even dreaming, he understood that anything the Banished One wanted was something to be wary of. And so, not without a certain regret, he said “No.”

  “Fool! Ass! Knave! Jackanapes! Wretch who lives only for a day, and will not make himself happy for some puny part of his puny little life!” the Banished One cried. “Die weeping, then, and have what you deserve!

  The next thing Lanius knew, he was awake again, and drenched in sweat despite the winter chill. He wished the Banished One would choose to afflict someone else. He himself was getting to know the one who had been Milvago much too well.

  Land travel in winter was sometimes easier than it was in spring or fall. In winter, rain didn’t turn roads to mud. Land travel was sometimes also the only choice in winter, for the rivers near the city of Avornis could freeze. After Grus’ troubles with Lanius, he was glad to get away from the capital any way he could. If the other king tried to get out of line, he would hear about it and deal with it before anything too drastic could happen. He had no doubt of that.

  Once Grus reached the unfrozen portion of the Granicus, he went faster still—by river galley downstream to the seaside port of Dodona. The man who met him at the quays was neither bureaucrat nor politician, neither general nor commodore. Plegadis was a shipwright and carpenter, the best Avornis had.

  “So she’s ready for me to see, is she?” Grus said.

  Plegadis nodded. He was a sun-darkened, broad-shouldered man with engagingly ugly features, a nose that had once been straighter than it was now, and a dark brown bushy beard liberally streaked with gray. “Do you really need to ask, Your Majesty?” he said, pointing. “Stands out from everything else we make, doesn’t she?”

  “Oh, just a bit,” Grus answered. “Yes, just a bit.”

  Plegadis laughed out loud. Grus stared at the Avornan copy of a Chernagor pirate ship. Sure enough, it towered over everything else tied up at the quays of Dodona. To someone used to the low, sleek lines of river galleys, it looked blocky, even ugly, but Grus had seen what ships like this were worth.

  “Is she as sturdy as she looks?” the king asked.

  “I should hope so.” The shipwright sounded offended. “I didn’t just copy her shape, Your Majesty. I matched lines and timber and canvas, too, as best I could. She’s ready to take to the open sea, and to do as well as a Chernagor ship would.”

  Grus nodded. “That’s what I wanted. How soon can I have more just like her—a proper fleet?”

  “Give me the timber and the carpenters and it won’t be too long—middle of summer, maybe,” Plegadis answered. “Getting sailors who know what they’re doing in a ship like this … That’ll take a little while, too.”

  “I understand.” Grus eyed the tall, tall masts. “Handling all that canvas will take a lot of practice by itself.”

  “We do have some Chernagor prisoners to teach us the ropes,” Plegadis said. When a shipwright used that phrase, he wasn’t joking or spitting out a cliché. He meant exactly what the words implied.

  He wasn’t joking, but was he being careful enough? “Have you had a wizard check these Chernagors?” Grus asked. “We may have some of the same worries with them that we do with the Menteshe, and even with the thralls. I’m not saying we will, but we may.”

  Plegadis’ grimace showed a broken front tooth. “I didn’t even think of that, Your Majesty, but I’ll see to it, I promise you. What I was going to tell you is, some of the fishermen here make better crew for this Chernagor ship than a lot of river-galley men. They know what to do with a good-sized sail, where on a galley it’s row, row, row all the time.”

  “Yes, I can see how that might be so.” Grus looked east, out to the Azanian Sea. It seemed to go on and on forever. He’d felt that even more strongly when he went out on it in a river galley. He’d also felt badly out of his element. He’d gotten away with fighting on the sea, but he wasn’t eager to try it again in ships not made for it. Would I be more ready to try it in a monster like that? he wondered. Once I had a good crew, I think I might be. Out loud, he went on, “I don’t care where the men come from, as long as you get them.”

  “Good. That’s the right attitude.” Plegadis nodded. “We have to lick those Chernagor bastards. I’m not fussy about how. They did us a lot of harm, and they’d better find out they can’t get away with nonsense like that. I’ll tell you something else, too. Along this coast, plenty of fishermen’ll think an ordinary sailor’s wages look pretty good, poor miserable devils.”

  “I believe it,” Grus answered. The eastern coast was Avornis’ forgotten land. If a king wanted to make a man disappear, he sent him to the Maze. If a man wanted to disappear on his own, he came to the coast. Even tax collectors often overlooked this part of the kingdom. Grus knew he had until the Chernagors descended on it. He added, “If all this makes us tie the coast to the rest of Avornis, some good will have come from it.”

  To his surprise, Plegadis hesitated before nodding again. “Well, I think so, too, Your Majesty, or I suppose I do. But you’ll find people up and down the coast who won’t. They like being …
on their own, you might say.”

  “How did they like it when the pirates burned their towns and stole their silver and raped their women?” Grus asked. “They were glad enough to see us after that.”

  “Oh, yes.” The shipwright’s smile was as crooked as that tooth of his. “But they got over it pretty quick.” Grus started to smile. He started to, but he didn’t. Once again, Plegadis hadn’t been joking.

  When all else failed, King Lanius took refuge in the archives. No one bothered him there, and when he concentrated on old documents he didn’t have to dwell on whatever else was bothering him. Over the years, going there had served him well. But it didn’t come close to easing the pain of losing Cristata.

  And it wasn’t just the pain of losing her. He recognized that. Part of it was also the humiliation of being unable to do anything for someone he loved. If Grus had ravished her in front of his eyes, it could hardly have been worse. Grus hadn’t, of course. He’d been humane, especially compared to what he might have done. He’d even made Lanius see his point of view, but so what? Cristata was still gone, she still wouldn’t be back, and Lanius still bitterly missed her.

  Next to that ache in his heart, even finding another letter as interesting and important as King Cathartes’ probably wouldn’t have meant much to him. As things turned out, most of what Lanius did find was dull. There were days when he could plow through tax receipts and stay interested, but those were days when he was in a better mood than he was now. He found himself alternately yawning and scowling.

  He fought his way through a few sets of receipts, as much from duty as anything else. But then he shook his head, gave up, and buried his face in his hands. If he gave in to self-pity here, at least he could do it without anyone else seeing.

  When he raised his head again, sharp curiosity—and the beginnings of alarm—replaced the self-pity. Any noise he heard in the archives was out of the ordinary. And any noise he heard here could be a warning of something dangerous. If one of the thralls had escaped …

  He turned his head this way and that, trying to pinpoint the noise. It wasn’t very loud, and it didn’t seem to come from very high off the ground. “Mouse,” Lanius muttered, and tried to make himself believe it.

  He’d nearly succeeded when a sharp clatter drove such thoughts from his mind. Mice didn’t carry metal objects—knives?—or knock them against wood. Today, Lanius had a knife at his own belt. But he was neither warrior nor assassin, as he knew all too well.

  “Who’s there?” he called, slipping the knife from its sheath and sliding forward as quietly as he could. Only silence answered him. He peered ahead. Almost anything smaller than an elephant could have hidden in the archives. He’d never fully understood what higgledy-piggledy meant until he started coming in here. He often wondered whether anyone ever read half the parchments various officials wrote. Sometimes it seemed as though the parchments just ended up here, on shelves and in boxes and barrels and leather sacks and sometimes even wide-mouthed pottery jugs all stacked one atop another with scant regard for sanity or safety.

  Elephants Lanius didn’t much worry about. An elephant would have had to go through a winepress before it could squeeze between the stacks of documents and receptacles. Assassins, unfortunately, weren’t likely to be so handicapped.

  “Who’s there?” the king called again, his voice breaking nervously.

  Again, no answer, not with words. But he did hear another metallic clatter, down close to the ground.

  That made him wonder. There were assassins, and then there were … He made the noise he used when he was about to feed the moncats. Sure enough, out came one of the beasts, this time carrying not a wooden spoon but a long-handled silver dipper for lifting soup from a pot or wine from a barrel.

  “You idiot animal!” Lanius exclaimed. Unless he was wildly mistaken, this was the same moncat that had frightened him in here before. He pointed an accusing finger at it. “How did you get out this time, Pouncer? And how did you get into the kitchens and then out of them again?”

  “Rowr,” Pouncer said, which didn’t explain enough.

  Lanius made the feeding noise again. Still clutching the dipper, the moncat came over to him. He grabbed it. It hung on to its prize, but didn’t seem otherwise upset. That noise meant food most of the time. If, this once, it didn’t, the animal wasn’t going to worry about it.

  “What shall I do with you?” Lanius demanded.

  Again, Pouncer said, “Rowr.” Again, that told the king less than he wanted to know.

  He carried the moncat back to its room. After putting it inside and going out into the hallway once more, he waved down the first servant he saw. “Yes, Your Majesty?” the man said. “Is something wrong?”

  “Something or someone,” Lanius answered grimly. “Tell Bubulcus to get himself over here right away. Tell everybody you see to tell Bubulcus to get over here right away. Tell him he’d better hurry if he knows what’s good for him.”

  He hardly ever sounded so fierce, so determined. The servant’s eyes widened. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, and hurried away. Lanius composed himself to wait, not in patience but in impatience.

  Bubulcus came trotting up about a quarter of an hour later, a worried expression on his long, thin, pointy-nosed face. “What’s the trouble now, Your Majesty?” he asked, as though he and trouble had never met before.

  Knowing better, the king pointed to the barred door that kept the moncats from escaping. “Have you gone looking for me in there again?”

  “Which I haven’t.” Bubulcus shook his head so vigorously, a lock of greasy black hair flopped down in front of one eye. He brushed it back with the palm of his hand. “Which I haven’t,” he repeated, his voice oozing righteousness. “No, sir. I’ve learned my lesson, I have. Once was plenty, thank you very much.”

  Once hadn’t been plenty, of course. He’d let moncats get loose twice—at least twice. He might forget. Lanius never would. “Are you sure, Bubulcus? Are you very sure?” he asked. “If you’re lying to me, I will send you to the Maze, and I won’t blink before I do it. I promise you that.”

  “Me? Lie? Would I do such a thing?” Bubulcus acted astonished, insulted, at the mere possibility. He went on, “Put me on the rack, if you care to. I’ll tell you the same. Give me to a Menteshe torturer. Give me to the Banished One, if you care to.”

  The king’s fingers twisted in a gesture that might—or might not—ward off evil omens. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Thank the true gods for your ignorance, too.”

  “Which I do for everything, Your Majesty,” Bubulcus said. “But I’m not ignorant about this. I know I didn’t go in there. Do what you want with me, but I can’t tell you any different.”

  Sending him to the rack had more than a little appeal. With a certain amount of regret, Lanius said, “Go find a mage, Bubulcus. Tell him to question you about this. Bring him back here with you. Hurry. I’ll be waiting. If you don’t come back soon, you’ll wish some of the foolish things you just said did come true.”

  Bubulcus disappeared faster than if a mage had conjured him into nothingness. Lanius leaned against the wall. Would the servant come back so fast?

  He did, or nearly. And he had with him no less a wizard than Pterocles himself. After bowing to Lanius, the wizard said, “As best I can tell, Your Majesty, this man is speaking the truth. He was not in those rooms, and he did not let your pet get out.”

  “How did the moncat get loose, then?” Lanius asked.

  Pterocles shrugged. “I can’t tell you that. Maybe another servant let it out. Maybe there’s a hole in the wall no one has noticed.”

  Bubulcus looked not only relieved but triumphant. “Which I told you, Your Majesty. Which I didn’t have anything to do with.”

  “This time, no,” Lanius admitted. “But your record up until now somehow didn’t fill me with confidence.” Bubulcus looked indignant. Pterocles let out a small snort of laughter. Lanius gestured. “Go on, Bubulcus.
Count yourself lucky and try to stay out of trouble.”

  “Which I’ve already done, except for some people who keep trying to put me into it,” Bubulcus said. But then he seemed to remember he was talking to a King of Avornis, not to another servant. He bobbed his head in an awkward bow and scurried away.

  “Thank you,” Lanius told Pterocles.

  “You’re welcome, Your Majesty.” The wizard tried a smile on for size. “Dealing with something easy every once in a while is a pleasure.” He too nodded to Lanius and ambled down the corridor.

  Something easy? Lanius wondered. Then he decided Pterocles had a point. Finding out if a servant lied was bound to be easier—and safer—than, say, facing a Chernagor sorcerer. But how had Pouncer escaped? That didn’t look as though it would be so easy for Lanius to figure out.

  Grus listened to Pterocles with more than a little amusement. “A moncat, you say?” he inquired, and the wizard nodded. Grus went on, “Well, that’s got to be simpler than working out how to cure thralls.”

  Pterocles nodded. “It was this time, anyhow.”

  “Good. Not everything should be hard all the time,” Grus said, and Pterocles nodded again. Grus asked, “And how are you coming on curing thralls?”

  Pterocles’ face fell. He’d plainly hoped Grus wouldn’t ask him that. But, once asked, he had to answer. “Not as well as I would like, Your Majesty,” he said reluctantly, adding, “No one else in Avornis has figured out how to do it, either, you know, not reliably, not since the Menteshe wizards first started making our men into thralls however many hundred years ago that was.”

  “Well, yes,” Grus admitted with a certain reluctance of his own. He didn’t want to think about that; he would sooner have forgotten all those other failures. That way, he could have believed Pterocles was starting with a clean slate. As things were, he could only ask, “Do you think you’ve found any promising approaches?”