The Chernagor Pirates

by Harry Turtledove

  If he could bring the Scepter of Mercy back to the capital in triumph … Well, if that wasn’t enough to get him remembered for a long, long time, nothing ever would be.

  He noticed Hirundo watching him. The general smiled, noticing him notice. “You do want it,” Hirundo said. “It’s as plain as the nose on your face.”

  Considering how formidable that nose was, it must have been plain indeed. “I can’t tell you you’re wrong,” Grus said. “Ever since the Scepter got stolen, there hasn’t been a King of Avornis who didn’t want to take it back.”

  “Yes, but how many of them have had a chance to do it?” Hirundo asked.

  “I don’t know,” Grus answered. “I’m not even sure I have that chance. But I aim to find out.”

  “One thing, Your Majesty—you can leave Lanius behind to run things here while you go off to war,” Hirundo said. “He’ll do fine while you’re away.”

  “Yes.” King Grus let it go at that. Lanius had done fine running things in the city of Avornis while he went on campaign himself. He wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad, though. He’d kept Lanius away from power as long as he could. The more the scion of the ancient dynasty held, the less secure Grus’ grip on the rest was.

  Lanius had never tried to rise against him. If he did … Grus didn’t know what would happen. Not knowing worried him. He was reaching the end of his prime of life as Lanius entered his. He realized that. He wondered if the other king did, too.

  He hoped not.

  Lanius washed down his breakfast porridge with a sip of wine, then said, “I’m off to the moncats.”

  Queen Sosia looked back across the table at him. “Is that where you’re going?” she murmured.

  Lanius’ ears heated. That had nothing to do with the wine. “Yes, that is where I’m going,” he said. “You’re welcome to come along if you care to.”

  His wife shook her head. “No, thank you—never mind. If I came along, that would be where you went.” She took a long pull at her own cup of wine.

  “It was where I was going anyway,” Lanius said. Sosia didn’t answer. The king got up from the table and left in a hurry. Anything he said after that would make things worse, not better. There were times when he told Sosia he was going to visit the moncats and he paid a call on a serving girl instead. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for the queen. He hadn’t expected to when Grus arranged their marriage, but he did. But he was king, even if he was the second of two kings, and he could do more or less as he pleased. Every so often, he pleased to yield to temptation.

  Grus was in no position to tell him what a wicked fellow he was. The other king didn’t hesitate, either, when he saw a face or a form that struck his fancy. Queen Estrilda had given him as much trouble for it as Sosia gave Lanius.

  This time, though, Lanius left the small dining room by his bedchamber in a warm glow of injured innocence. He really had intended to go to the moncats and nowhere else. Well, almost nowhere else—he stopped in the kitchens for some scraps of meat first. “You’re going to waste more good food on those thieving, miserable creatures,” one of the cooks said, sadly shaking her head.

  “They aren’t miserable.” Lanius couldn’t deny that moncats stole, because they did. The cook only sniffed.

  When the king got to the moncats’ chamber, he opened the door with care. He didn’t want them getting out. With their grasping hands and feet and with their agility, they were hard as a demon to catch when they got loose.

  Some of the moncats in the room were washing themselves, some sleeping with their tails wrapped around their noses, and some climbing on the framework of boards and branches that did duty for a forest. They stared down at Lanius out of green or yellow eyes.

  They were clever animals, clever enough to give him the uneasy feeling they were measuring him with those glances, measuring him and finding him … perhaps barely adequate. “Pouncer?” he called. “Are you here, Pouncer, you miserable beast?” He stole the cook’s word now that she couldn’t hear him do it, though he meant it for reasons different from hers.

  He laughed at himself. He was a fairly miserable creature in his own right if he expected Pouncer or any other moncat to come when called. Moncats weren’t just like ordinary house cats. Thanks to their hands and sharp wits, they could make bigger pests of themselves than house cats could. But they were every bit as cross-grained as the most ordinary tabby.

  Pouncer should have been here. The moncat shouldn’t have been able to get out. But it could. Lanius had yet to figure out how it managed the trick. Once, Pouncer had disappeared right before his eyes. He’d stopped watching the moncat for a moment—no more than a moment—and when he looked back, Pouncer wasn’t there to be watched anymore. It made the king wonder who was smarter than who.

  Moncats crowded around him. They knew he often brought them treats. He doled out a few scraps of meat. A couple of snarling squabbles broke out; moncats had no more in the way of manners than any other animals (or, for that matter, small children) did. As Lanius fed the others, he kept looking around for Pouncer—and finally spotted the male at the top of the climbing apparatus.

  Lanius lay down on his back. He thumped his chest with his free hand. Pouncer knew what to do when that happened. The moncat scrambled down and jumped up on top of the king. “That’s a good boy,” Lanius said, and scratched it under the chin and behind the ears.

  Pouncer wasn’t a bad-tempered beast, and put up with it. All the same, the moncat practically radiated impatience. I’m not doing this trick for your sake, it would have said if it could talk. Where’s my meat?

  “Here, you greedy thing.” Lanius held out a piece. Pouncer took it from his hand with a clawed thumb and forefinger. The moncat didn’t snatch, but was careful not to hurt the person giving it a reward.

  Once Pouncer had the treat, what point was there to staying with Lanius any longer? Away the moncat went, back up on the boards. Lanius stared after it. I taught you an ordinary little trick, he thought. What could someone who really knows how to train animals do?

  CHAPTER TWO

  King Grus swung up into the saddle. General Hirundo, who was already mounted, grinned slyly. “You’re getting pretty good at that, Your Majesty,” he said.

  “Oh, shut up,” Grus answered, and Hirundo laughed out loud. The trouble was, the general was right, and Grus knew it. Over the years, he had become a pretty decent horseman. He’d never intended to. On a river galley—even on one of the tall-masted ocean-going ships the Avornans were building in imitation of the Chernagor pirates—he knew what he was doing. He’d never planned on riding very much. He’d never planned on becoming King of Avornis, either. That had worked out pretty well, at least so far. As for horsemanship … When he shrugged, his gilded mailshirt clinked on his shoulders.

  Instead of a stallion, he did ride a good-natured gelding. He’d done that even when he knew he was going to get in a fight. He valued control and obedience more than fire in a horse.

  “Are we ready?” he asked.

  “If we weren’t, would we be doing all this?” Hirundo said reasonably.

  “Let’s go, then.” Grus used the reins and the pressure of his knees to urge his horse into motion. Hirundo’s high-spirited charger pranced along beside it.

  As they rode out of the stables, mounted imperial lancers formed up around them. The guardsmen wore heavy shirts of mail and rode big, strong horses. Even the horses wore armor that protected their heads and breasts. The lancers’ charge was irresistible at close range. The problem was getting the Menteshe, who usually kept but loose order on their ponies, to bunch together long enough to receive a charge.

  “Your Majesty!” the guardsmen shouted. Grus waved to them. Under the bar nasals of their conical helmets, a good many of the troopers grinned at him.

  He waved again. “Are we going to run the nomads ragged?” he called.

  “Yes!” the lancers shouted. Grus waved again. I hope we are, anyway, he thought.

  The rest o
f the army he would take south from the city of Avornis waited outside the walls. Before he could go out to it, though, he needed to take care of one loose end. “Where are Pterocles and Otus?” he asked.

  “They were in there getting saddled up, too,” Hirundo said. “What’s taking them so long?”

  “Well, if you think I’m a poor excuse for a cavalryman …” Grus said. Hirundo threw back his head and laughed. A minute or two later, Pterocles and Otus emerged. Both of them rode mules. Grus had hardly ever known a wizard who trusted himself on horseback, while the freed thrall (Grus hoped he was a freed thrall) hadn’t had much chance to acquire the equestrian art.

  Pterocles dipped his head to Grus. “Your Majesty,” he murmured.

  “Your Majesty,” Otus echoed. He was a brown-haired, open-faced man approaching his middle years. He looked like anybody else, in other words. He sounded like anybody else, too. Oh, he had an accent that said he came from the south, but a lot of Avornans had that kind of accent. He also had a slightly old-fashioned turn of phrase. When thralls spoke at all, they spoke as ordinary Avornans had centuries before. They’d long been cut off from the vital, changing current of the language.

  When he was a thrall, Otus might have had as many words as a two-year-old. He might not, too. He’d had to learn to speak as a child would after being freed from the charm that had held him down for so long. He’d learned far faster than a child would have, though. Only tiny traces of how he’d once talked lingered in his speech.

  “Are you ready to head down to your homeland?” Grus asked him.

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” he answered. “I would like to see my woman freed. I would like to see all thralls freed.”

  “So would I,” Grus said. “That’s … one of the things we’re going to try to do. I hope we can.” He glanced toward Pterocles. If they couldn’t do that, and if they couldn’t protect themselves from being made into thralls after they crossed the Stura, they would do better not to go over the river at all.

  But Pterocles’ magic had said that they would cross it. Not that they should, but that they would. If Grus was going to make the attempt, he wanted to make it on his terms. Pterocles nodded back. He had to know what was in Grus’ mind. He seemed confident his sorcery could handle what was required. Grus didn’t care whether he was confident. The king cared about whether he was right.

  We’ll find out, Grus thought. “Let’s get moving,” he said harshly. Flanked by the lancers, he rode toward the capital’s southern gate. The streets that led from the palace to the gates were cobbled; most of the ones that ran into them weren’t.

  A few people came out to watch the king and his retinue go by. Men wore tunics and baggy trousers. Women had on either short tunics and skirts that reached their ankles or long tunics that fell just as far. In past years, Grus had drawn bigger crowds when he went out on campaign. He’d done it every year lately, though, and it didn’t impress the jaded city dwellers anymore.

  “Beat the lousy Chernagors!” somebody called, and waved a broad-brimmed felt hat.

  Grus waved back without batting an eye. He had beaten the Chernagors the year before. Some people knew that. Others, like this fellow, hadn’t gotten the word. These days, Grus took in stride things that would have infuriated him when he was younger.

  The shout did infuriate Otus. “Don’t they know what’s going on, Your Majesty?” he demanded. “How can they not know? They’re free. They don’t have the Banished One clouding their minds. Why shouldn’t they know?”

  “They have their lives to lead,” Grus answered with a shrug. “They don’t care who the enemy is. As long as it’s someone far away, that suits them fine. That’s all most people want from a king, you know—to make sure enemies stay far away. Nothing else matters nearly as much.”

  “Except taxes.” Hirundo and Pterocles said the same thing at the same time.

  But Grus shook his head. “They’ll even put up with taxes as long as things stay peaceful. If they get a fight on their doorstep, that’s when they start thinking the king is squandering what they give him.”

  Out through the open gates they rode. The great valves had swung inward. The sun gleamed off the iron that sheathed the heavy timbers. No foreign enemy had ever stormed the city of Avornis. Back when Grus first took the throne, King Dagipert of Thervingia had besieged the Avornan capital. He’d had no better luck than any other invader. These days, King Berto—Dagipert’s son—ruled the Thervings. Unlike Dagipert, he cared more for prayer than plunder. Grus hoped he had a long reign, and that he stayed pious. With trouble in the north and south, Avornis needed peace in the east.

  Horsemen and foot soldiers were drawn up in neat ranks on the meadow outside the city. Most of the horsemen were archers. Some foot soldiers also carried bows; others shouldered long pikes, to hold enemy soldiers away from the bowmen.

  “Grus!” the army shouted as one man. “Hurrah for King Grus! Grus! Grus! Avornis!” The cry came echoing back from the brown stone walls of the city.

  Hirundo smiled sidewise at Grus. “You hate hearing that, don’t you?”

  “Who, me?” Grus answered, deadpan. Hirundo chuckled. The king raised his voice so the soldiers could hear him. “We’re going south of the Stura. The Menteshe have had it all their own way down there for too long. Time to show them that land is ours by right. We’ve beaten them on this side of the river, and we’re going to beat them on that one.”

  “Hurrah for King Grus!” the soldiers shouted again.

  Grus pointed south. “We are going to go forward until we win or until I give the order to retreat. I do not intend to give the order to retreat.”

  The soldiers cheered again. Guardsmen around him, his general and his wizard and the freed thrall with him, Grus started down toward the Stura.

  A dog pranced on its hind legs on a wooden ball. A cat leaped through a hoop. A rooster ran up a ladder and rang a bell at the top. Another dog turned flips on the back of a pony that trotted round and round in circles.

  Crex and Pitta clapped their hands. Lanius and Sosia exchanged amused glances. They had to admire the animal trainer’s skills, but neither one of them was quite as enchanted as their children.

  “How does he make them do those things?” Pitta whispered to Lanius.

  “He gives them food they like when they do something he likes,” Lanius answered. “Before long, they get the idea.”

  Pitta shook her head. “It can’t be that easy.”

  And so it wasn’t, not in detail. She was bound to be right about that. But Lanius knew he had the broad outlines right. He’d trained Pouncer to come up and sit on his chest that way. It wasn’t much of a trick—nothing to compare to what these animals were doing—but the principle couldn’t be much different.

  When the show ended, the pony lowered its head and extended its right forefoot in a salute. The dogs did the same. The rooster spread its wings while stretching out its leg. The cat … yawned. And the trainer, a big-nosed, bushy-mustached man named Collurio, put both hands in front of his chest and bowed very low.

  “Well done!” Lanius called. His wife and children echoed him.

  Collurio bowed again, not quite so deeply. “I thank you, Your Majesties, Your Highnesses. Always a pleasure to work for such an appreciative audience.” He had a showman’s voice, a little louder and a little more clearly enunciated than it needed to be. Lanius had also paid him well to perform, but he was much too smooth to bring up such a tiny detail.

  He spoke to his assistant, a youth who, except for lacking a mustache, looked a lot like him. The youngster took charge of the animals and led them out of the audience chamber where they’d put on their show. Collurio started to follow. Lanius said, “Wait a moment, if you please.”

  The animal trainer stopped and turned back. “Of course, Your Majesty. I am at your service.” Though he sounded more than a little surprised and curious, the bow he gave the king now was as smooth as any of the others.

  Lanius got to his feet. “W
alk with me,” he said, and Collurio fell in beside him. When a pair of royal guards started to approach, Lanius waved them back out of earshot. They looked at each other, but obeyed. People mostly did obey Lanius … as long as Grus was away from the palace.

  “Like I say, Your Majesty, I’m at your service. But what sort of service can I do for you?” Yes, Collurio was curious. He also sounded nervous. Lanius didn’t suppose he could blame him for that.

  “First things first,” the king said. “Can you keep secrets? Give me the truth, please. If you say no, I won’t be angry—I’ll just talk to someone else. But if you say yes and then let your mouth run free, I promise you’ll wish you were never born.”

  “I don’t blab, Your Majesty,” Collurio said. “And I’m not the sort who gets soused in a wineshop and spills his guts without even knowing he’s doing it, either.”

  Did he mean it? Lanius decided he did. “All right, then. Have you ever tried to train a moncat? Would you like to?”

  “I never have,” Collurio said slowly. “There aren’t many outside the palace.” He was right about that. All the moncats in Avornis were descended from the pair a Chernagor ambassador had given to Lanius some years earlier. The king had made presents of a few of them to favored nobles, but only a few. Most he kept himself. Collurio went on, “I would like to, yes, if I get the chance.”

  “If you want it, I think it’s yours,” Lanius said. “There’s one particular moncat I’d like you to try to teach one particular thing.”

  Collurio bowed one more time. “I am your servant, Your Majesty. What is it that you want the animal to learn?” But after Lanius described it, the trainer frowned. “Meaning no disrespect, but that is not one thing. It is a whole series of things. The moncat would have to learn them one at a time, and would also have to learn to do them in the right order. I am not sure whether the creature would be clever enough. I am not sure whether it would be patient enough, either.”