The Chernagor Pirates

by Harry Turtledove

  “No, Your Majesty,” Bonyak replied. “I bring you assurances from Prince Tvorimir that he has nothing to do with the Banished One, and that he has never had anything to do with him.”

  “Oh? And will Tvorimir tell me his ships weren’t part of the fleet that raided my coast? How much nerve does he have?”

  Bonyak’s smile was an odd blend of wolf and sheep. “Prince Tvorimir does not deny that his ships raided your coast. But he told me to tell you—he told me to remind you—that a Chernagor does not need to go on his knees to the Banished One to smell the sweet scent of plunder.”

  “Sweet, is it?” Grus had to work not to laugh. When Bonyak solemnly nodded, the king had to work even harder. He said, “And you would know this from personal experience, would you?”

  “Oh, yes,” Prince Tvorimir’s ambassador assured him. Hastily, the Chernagor added, “Though I have never plundered the coast of Avornis, of course.”

  “Of course.” Grus’ voice was dry, so very dry that it made Bonyak look more sheepish than ever. But Grus grudged him a nod. “It could be. And I suppose that what Prince Tvorimir says could be, too. Why has he sent you down here to the city of Avornis?”

  “Why? To make amends for our raids, Your Majesty.” Bonyak gestured to his henchmen. “We have gifts for the kingdom, and we also have gifts for you.”

  “Wait.” Now Grus nodded to a courtier who’d been waiting down below the Diamond Throne. The man had remained discreetly out of sight behind a stout pillar, so Grus could have failed to call on him without embarrassing the Chernagors. But, since Bonyak seemed conciliatory … “First, Your Excellency, I have presents for you and your men.”

  The courtier doled out leather sacks from a tray. Bonyak hefted the one the Avornan gave him. He nodded, for it had the right weight. He also looked relieved—Grus was steering the ceremony back into the lines it should take.

  “My thanks, Your Majesty,” the ambassador said. “My very great thanks indeed. Now shall we give our gifts in return?”

  “If you would be so kind,” Grus answered.

  Bonyak nudged the flunkies, who were busy feeling the weight of their own sacks. They set one heavy, metal-bound wooden chest after another in front of the Diamond Throne. “These are for Avornis, Your Majesty,” Bonyak said. Courtiers leaned forward, waiting for him to open one of the boxes, their faces full of avid curiosity.

  At Bonyak’s nod, one of the men who followed him undid the hasp on the topmost chest and opened it. “Fifty thousand pieces of silver, from Prince Tvorimir to Avornis,” Bonyak said. “His Highness will also make an agreement like the ones the princes of Hisardzik and Jobuka made with your kingdom not long ago.”

  “Will he?” Grus said. Bonyak nodded again. The Avornan courtiers murmured among themselves. The present wasn’t very interesting—they’d seen plenty of silver themselves—but the news that came with it was good. Grus nodded back. “I am pleased to accept this silver for the kingdom,” he declared in loud, formal tones. “Never let it be said that I did not seek peace between Avornis and the Chernagor city-states.”

  “Prince Tvorimir has this same thought,” Bonyak said. Of course he does—for the time being, Grus thought. I’ve made him afraid of me. The Chernagor ambassador went on, “Prince Tvorimir also sends you a personal gift, a gift from him to you, not from Hrvace to Avornis.”

  As Bonyak had before, he gestured to the burly, bearded men who accompanied him. One of them came forward with an enormous earthenware jug, which he set beside the chests of silver pieces. Bonyak said, “This is a special kind of liquor, which we have in trade from an island far out in the Northern Sea. It is stronger than any ale or wine, strong enough so that it burns the gullet a little on the way down.”

  “Does it indeed?” Grus said, his voice as neutral as he could make it.

  Bonyak understood what he wasn’t saying. “I will gladly drink of this, Your Majesty. And let your wizards test it, if you think I have taken an antidote,” the envoy said. “By the gods in the heavens, may my head answer if it is poison.”

  He did drink, and with every sign of enjoyment. “I will make a magical test anyhow,” Grus replied, “and if it is poison, your head will answer. For now, you and your comrades are dismissed.”

  Bowing, the Chernagors departed from the throne room. Grus summoned Pterocles and explained what he wanted. The wizard looked intrigued. “Liquor that isn’t wine or ale? How interesting! I suppose it isn’t mead, either, for mead’s no stronger than either of the others. Yes, I can test it against poisons.” He dipped out a little of the liquid from the mug, then poured it over an amethyst. Neither the stone nor the liquor showed any change. Pterocles added a couple of sprigs of herbs to the dipper. “Cinquefoil and vervain,” he explained to Grus. “They’re sovereign against noxious things.” He murmured a charm, waited, and then shrugged. “All seems as it should, Your Majesty. There is one other test to make, of course.” He fished the herbs out of the dipper.

  “What’s that?” the king asked.

  “A very basic one.” Pterocles grinned. He raised the dipper to his lips and drank what was in it. He coughed as he swallowed. “Whew! That’s strong as a demon—your Chernagor wasn’t joking.” He paused, considering. “Can’t complain about the way it warms me up inside, though. I wonder how the people the Chernagors got it from made it.”

  “Ask Bonyak—not that he’ll tell you even if he knows,” Grus said. “Well, if it hasn’t turned you inside out and upside down, why don’t you let me have a taste, too?”

  “I don’t know. Why don’t I?” Pterocles filled the dipper again and handed it to him.

  Grus took it. He sniffed. The stuff smelled more like wine than anything else, though less fruity. He sipped cautiously. When he swallowed, he could feel the heat sliding down to his stomach. It spread out from there. “Not bad,” he said after the same sort of pause for thought as Pterocles had used. “A mug’s worth would be plenty to get you drunk.”

  Pterocles eyed the jug. “I’d say a mug’s worth would be enough to get you dead—but what away to go.”

  “If you were going to make something like this, how would you do it?” Grus asked.

  The wizard laughed. “If I knew the answer to that, I’d already be doing it. Some things you can concentrate by boiling. But when you boil wine, you make it weaker than it was before, not stronger. I don’t know why. But it is so—I know that.”

  “Maybe you need to save what’s boiling away instead of what’s left in the pot, then,” Grus said with a laugh of his own.

  “Who knows? Maybe I do.” Pterocles kept on smiling. “I don’t know how I’d do that, though.”

  “I was only joking,” Grus said. “Probably nothing to it.”

  Lanius’ head felt as though some demented smith with a heavy hammer were using it for an anvil. Pterocles insisted the liquor Prince Tvorimir gave to King Grus wasn’t poisoned. But Lanius had poisoned himself with it the night before. His father-in-law had warned him a little would get him drunk. Lanius hated to admit it, but his father-in-law had been right and more than right.

  And because Grus had been so right, Lanius faced the moncats’ room with a wince. The warmth and the smells—especially the smells—were not what he wanted with a tender head. But he had never trusted the servants to take care of the animals. If they didn’t do the work, that meant he had to. Despite the wince, he opened the door, went in, and quickly closed it behind him.

  It was as bad as he’d thought it would be. His stomach twisted. He almost had to leave very abruptly. After one gulp, though, he brought things under control again and got to work. Cleaning the moncats’ sandbox was a job nasty enough as things were, and seemed even worse when he was nauseated himself. He was glad the animals used a sandbox like ordinary cats; if they’d done what they wanted wherever they wanted, they would have been much harder to keep.

  After he took care of that, he went to the kitchens to get them some meat. The fat cook named Cucullatus grinned at him
and said, “Haven’t seen that funny animal of yours for a while now. Did you chain it up?”

  “No, but I’m tempted to,” he answered. “Pouncer makes me suspicious when it’s being good—it’s probably up to something.” Cucullatus laughed a sour laugh.

  Lanius went back to the moncats’ room with the meat. The animals swarmed around his feet, rubbing and purring and acting for all the world as though they really were lovable creatures and not furry opportunists. He knew better. They were as heartless and self-centered as any of his courtiers.

  Before dumping most of the food in their dishes, he doled out treats to one moncat or another. He was busy doing that when he noticed Pouncer wasn’t begging there with the rest of the moncats. He looked around the room—and didn’t see it.

  “Oh, by the gods, where has the stupid creature gone now?” he exclaimed. But the problem wasn’t that Pouncer was stupid—the problem was that the moncat was too smart for its own good.

  The two places where Lanius knew the moncat went were the kitchens and the archives. Pouncer hadn’t gone to the kitchens lately. Did that mean it was likely to make an appearance there now, or that it would keep on staying away? The king pondered. Trying to think like a Chernagor was hard enough. Trying to think like a moncat? He wanted to throw up his hands at the mere idea.

  But he had to decide. Kitchens or archives? He took some scraps of meat and hurried off toward the room where he’d spent so much happy time. If Pouncer did show up there, he wanted to kick the moncat for disturbing his peace of mind.

  He still didn’t know how Pouncer got into the archives, any more than he knew how the miserable beast escaped from its room. Instead of contentedly pawing through parchments, he had to poke around in dark corners where Pouncer was likely to come forth. Wherever the moncat did emerge, it always looked enormously pleased with itself. Lanius couldn’t decide whether that amused him or infuriated him.

  “Pouncer?” he called. “Are you there, Pouncer, you stinking, mangy creature?” Pouncer was as fastidious as any other moncat, and didn’t stink. The beast’s luxuriant fur proved it wasn’t mangy. Lanius slandered it anyhow. Why not? It was no more likely to pay attention to anything he said to or about it than any other moncat, either.

  It did, however, pay attention to food. Lanius lay down on his back on the least dusty stretch of floor he could find. He thumped on his chest. If Pouncer was anywhere close by, that noise ought to attract the moncat. It would do its trick, climb up on his chest, and win its tasty reward. It would … if it was close enough to hear.

  “Mrowr?” The meow, though muffled, made Lanius want to cheer. It also made him proud—in a peculiar way. Here he was, congratulating himself for … what? For beating the Menteshe? For finding something important about the Chernagors in the archives? No. What had he done to win those congratulations? He’d outthought a moncat.

  Of course, what was the alternative? As far as he could see, it was not outthinking a moncat. And how proud would he have been of that?

  “Mrowr?” Pouncer’s meow definitely sounded strange, as though the moncat were behind something that deadened the noise … or as though it had something in its mouth.

  And so it did, as Lanius discovered when the moncat came toward him. A rat’s tail dangled from one side of Pouncer’s jaws, the rat’s snout from the other. As it had been trained to do, Pouncer climbed up onto the king’s chest. The moncat dropped the rat right there.

  “Thank you so much!” Lanius exclaimed. He didn’t want to grab the rat even to throw it away. And Pouncer, naturally, was convinced it had done him not only a favor but an honor by presenting him with its kill. Pouncer was also convinced it deserved a treat from his hands—it had gotten up on his chest the way it was supposed to.

  He gave the moncat a scrap of meat. Pouncer purred and ate it. Then Pouncer picked up the rat again, walked farther up Lanius’ chest with it, and, still purring all the while, almost dropped it on his face.

  “If you think you’re trying to train me to eat that, you’d better think again,” the king told the moncat.

  “Mrowr,” Pouncer answered, in tones that could only mean, Why aren’t you picking this up now that I’ve given it to you?

  “Sorry,” said Lanius, who was anything but. When he sat up, the rat rolled away from where Pouncer had put it and fell on the floor. With another meow, this one of dismay, the moncat dove after it. The king grabbed the animal. The moncat grabbed the rat. “Mutton’s not good enough for you, eh?” Lanius demanded. This time, Pouncer didn’t say anything. The moncat held the rat in both clawed hands and daintily nibbled at its tail.

  Lanius didn’t try to take away its prize. Pouncer was less likely to kick or scratch or bite as long as it had the rat. That remained true even after the chunk of meat the king had fed it.

  And yet, even though Pouncer had caught the rat on its own, it hadn’t declined to clamber up onto him for the little bit of mutton. He’d trained it to do that, and it had.

  “Not much of a trick,” Lanius told the moncat. Pouncer didn’t even pretend to pay attention. The rat’s tail was much more interesting, to say nothing of tasty. The king went on, “Of course, I’m not much of an animal trainer, either. I wonder what someone who really knows what he’s doing could teach you.”

  “Mrowr,” Pouncer said, as though doubting whether anybody—Lanius included—could teach it anything.

  How much could a moncat learn? Suppose a skilled trainer really went to work with the beasts. What could he teach them? Would it be worth doing, or would Grus grumble that Lanius was wasting money? Grus often grumbled about money he wasn’t spending himself. Still, it might be amusing.

  Or, just possibly, it might be more than amusing. Lanius stopped short and stared at Pouncer. “Could you learn something like that?” he said. “Are you smart enough? Could you stay interested long enough?”

  With the rat’s tail, now gnawed down to the bone here and there, dangling from the corners of Pouncer’s mouth, the moncat didn’t look smart enough for anything. Even so, Lanius eyed it in a way he never had before.

  He put it back in its room, knowing it probably wouldn’t stay there long. Then he went looking for King Grus, which wasn’t something he did very often. He found the other king closeted with General Hirundo. They were hashing out the campaign in the Chernagor country over mugs of wine. “Hello, Your Majesty,” Grus said, courteous as usual. “Would you care to join me?”

  “As a matter of fact, Your Majesty, I’d like to talk to you in private for a little while, if I could,” Lanius answered.

  Grus’ gaze sharpened. Lanius didn’t call him Your Majesty every day, or every month, either. The older man rose. “If you’ll excuse us, Hirundo …” he said.

  “Certainly, Your Majesty. I can tell when I’m not wanted.” The general bowed and left. Had he spoken in a different tone of voice, he would have thought himself mortally insulted, and an uprising would have followed in short order. As things were, he just sounded amused.

  After Hirundo closed the door behind him, Grus turned back to Lanius. “All right, Your Majesty. If you wanted my attention, you’ve got it. What can I do for you?”

  Lanius shook his head. “No, it’s what I can do for you.” Honesty compelled him to add, “Or it may be what I can do for you, anyhow.” He set out the idea he’d had a little while earlier.

  The other king stared at him, then started to laugh. Lanius scowled. He hated to be laughed at. Grus held up a hand. “No, no, no. By the gods, Your Majesty, it’s not you.”

  “What is it, then?” Lanius asked stiffly.

  “It’s the idea,” Grus said. “It’s not you.”

  It’s my idea, Lanius thought, still offended. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Why—” Grus started to be glib, but caught himself. He did some thinking, then admitted, “I don’t know that anything’s wrong with it. It’s still funny, though.”

  When Lanius went to bed that night, the Banished One appeared to him i
n a dream. Before that cold, beautiful, inhuman gaze, the king felt less than a moncat himself. The Banished One always raised that feeling in him, but never more than tonight. Those eyes seemed to pierce the very center of his soul. “You are plotting against me,” the Banished One said.

  “We are enemies,” Lanius said. “You have always plotted against Avornis.”

  “You deserve whatever happens to you,” the Banished One replied. “You deserve worse than what has happened to you. You deserve it, and I intend to give it to you. But if you plot and scheme against me, your days will be even shorter than they would otherwise, and even more full of pain and grief. Do you doubt me? You had better not doubt me, you puling little wretch of a man.”

  “I have never doubted you,” Lanius told him. “You need not worry about that.”

  The Banished One laughed. His laughter flayed, even in a dream. “I, worry over what a sorry mortal does? Your life at best is no more than a sneeze. If you think you worry me, you exaggerate your importance in the grand scheme of things.”

  Even in a dream, Lanius’ logical faculties still worked—after a fashion. “In that case,” he asked, “why do you bother appearing to me?”

  “You exaggerate your importance,” the Banished One repeated. “A flea bite annoys a man without worrying him. But when the man crushes the flea, though he worries not a bit, the flea is but a smear. And so shall you be, and sooner than you think.”

  “Sometimes the flea hops away,” Lanius said.

  “That is because there is very little difference between a man and a flea,” the Banished One retorted. “But between a man and me—you shall see what the difference is between a man and me. Oh, yes—you shall see.” As he had once before, years earlier, he made as though to reach out for Lanius.

  In the nick of time—in the very nick of time—the king fought himself awake. He sat bolt upright in his bed, his heart pounding. “Are you all right?” Sosia asked sleepily.