The Scepter's Return

by Harry Turtledove

  “Well, you were right,” Grus told his general as they encamped for the night.

  Hirundo bowed. “Thank you kindly, Your Majesty. One of the reasons people want to do things for you is that you say things like that. Plenty would just take the credit, whether it belonged to them or not.”

  “I’ve known officers like that—who hasn’t? Nothing’s ever their fault, either,” Grus said. Hirundo nodded. The king continued, “If you have a choice, you’d rather lean on the other kind. I do try to remember that myself.”

  Hirundo bowed again. He didn’t say anything. His silence was part of the price Grus paid for being king. If he had spoken, Grus was sure he would have said something like, Most people would forget all about that as soon as they got a crown on their head. It was probably—no, certainly—true, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you told a sovereign, even an easygoing one.

  The Menteshe didn’t need long to realize something had gone wrong. Seeing the Avornans moving forward, seeing their animals healthy and not on their last legs, told the nomads Grus’ army had found water one way or another. But the nomads didn’t turn any special savagery against the thralls. It was as though they couldn’t imagine those near-beasts doing anything for good or ill—doing anything at all, except what beasts did.

  Instead, with a fury that seemed to Grus not far from despair, the Menteshe struck at the Avornan army. As always, they hit hard. Volleys of arrows stung Grus’ force. Wounded men and wounded horses screamed. The Avornans wavered. If the nomads had kept pelting them with arrows from long range, they might have broken.

  What saved the Avornans were the siege engines rattling along in the baggage train. Those could hit the Menteshe where Avornan archery couldn’t. And, as always, each of the flying stone balls and stout darts did far more damage than a mere arrow could have. The Menteshe abruptly seemed to lose patience with the long-range duel. Shouting curses in their own language, they charged.

  In charging, they threw away the advantage they’d enjoyed. They’d had the better of the missile duel even if they didn’t like stones flying their way. At close quarters, the Avornans, who wore heavier armor and rode sturdier horses, had the edge.

  The Menteshe didn’t need long to realize they’d made a mistake. By the time they did, though, it was too late. They were already entangled with the Avornans. Getting out of trouble proved harder than getting into it, which was usually true. The Avornan lancers and archers and spear-carrying foot soldiers made the Menteshe sorry they hadn’t stayed farther away.

  And when the nomads did finally break free, they were too battered and too disorganized to go back to the strategy that had worked well for them before. They were also too closely pursued. They rode off toward the south. Grus didn’t push the pursuit hard. That would have let his men get shaken out into loose order, where they would be vulnerable to the nomads. He wanted to play to his own countrymen’s strengths as long as he could.

  Watching the Menteshe retreat, Hirundo said, “That will give them something to think about.”

  “I hope so,” Grus said. “They tried to stop us with filth in the wells, and they couldn’t. And they tried to stop us with soldiers again, and they couldn’t do that, either. What have they got left?”

  “They may have more fight left in them. They’re tough,” the general answered. “And then, if they keep losing, they stand siege in Yozgat. The place is supposed to be formidable.”

  “We’ll find out how formidable it is,” Grus said. Like Hirundo, he was looking south. Hirundo no doubt thought he was thinking of the city where the Scepter of Mercy had lain for so long. And so he was, but he was also looking farther south still, toward the Argolid Mountains. What would the Banished One do if—no, probably when—the Avornan army encircled the city? We’ll find out, Grus thought again.

  Pouncer knew what to do, every step of the way. King Lanius watched as the moncat proved as much in the city slice he’d had Tinamus design and build. “Look at him go!” Lanius exclaimed.

  “He’s a remarkable animal, Your Majesty,” Collurio agreed. “It’s been a … a privilege working with him.”

  “You started to say something else,” Lanius told him. “What was it? A pleasure? But you didn’t say that.”

  “No, I didn’t. The moncat pushes back too hard to make it a pleasure,” Collurio said.

  After a few heartbeats, Lanius shook his head. “I don’t think that’s quite right. It’s just that, well, a moncat is a cat. Pouncer will do what Pouncer wants to do, not what we want him to do. The trick is to get the miserable creature to want to do what we want him to do—and not to knock him over the head with a rock when he doesn’t want to do it.”

  “Yes—and that last,” Collurio agreed with a weary smile. “Anyone can tell you’ve had some experience with animals, Your Majesty.”

  “And with children,” Lanius said.

  That made the trainer laugh. “And with children,” he agreed. “Oh, yes. Children, though, mostly grow out of it. Beasts never do.”

  “True enough.” But Lanius was thinking about Ortalis, and about how much beastliness he’d never grown out of. Collurio might have heard this or that about Ortalis; palace gossip always leaked out into the streets of the capital. The animal trainer didn’t have to live with the prince, no matter what he’d heard. As far as Lanius was concerned, that made Collurio the lucky one.

  Pouncer kept on with the routine it had learned. It knew where to go and what to do to earn each new reward. The moncat knew how to reverse its course, too. Lanius kept looking away from Pouncer and up into the sky. No hawks. No eagles. Not even a jay scolding people for being people. Just a few small white clouds drifting on a warm, lazy breeze.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Your Majesty. We’re just coming to the hard part now,” Collurio said. “Crinitus and I are going to start widening the distances between rewards. We’ll set them out in every other usual place, so the moncat will have to go twice as far between them. Then we’ll double the distance again, and so on until we have what you want.”

  The trainer only knew what the king wanted. He remained unsure why Lanius wanted it. Lanius didn’t enlighten him. The less the trainer knew, the safer he was—and the safer Pouncer was. Collurio had already drawn the Banished One’s interest. If the exiled god looked his way again …

  “Have you had any more dreams?” Lanius asked. “Has Crinitus had any?”

  “Dreams?” Collurio looked blank for a moment, but only for a moment. “Oh, those dreams! No, the gods in the heavens be praised, I haven’t. That one was plenty to last me a lifetime. I don’t think my son has. If he had, I expect he would have said so.”

  They returned to the business at hand the next morning. As Collurio had said he would, he put out only half as many rewards as usual for Pouncer. When the moncat got to where the first one should have been; it looked around in surprise on discovering the treat wasn’t there. After a brief pause, though, it went on to where the next treat should have been—and was.

  Collurio breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re always afraid they’ll just sit down and lick themselves when they run into something different,” he said. “I didn’t really expect that, but you can’t know ahead of time.”

  Pouncer hesitated whenever a reward was missing, but kept on with the routine to get the ones that were there. When Collurio put the moncat through its paces again later in the day, it went straight from reward to reward, scarcely even slowing at the sites that had held treats but did no more.

  “He’s figured it out!” Lanius said happily.

  “Looks that way,” Collurio agreed. “Like I told you, we’ll keep going until he’s good and used to doing it this way, then stretch the distance between rewards again. We’re going in the right direction, Your Majesty.”

  Lanius nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I really think we are.”

  King Grus fanned himself with a fan made of peacock feathers. It was not only gorgeous but, in this sweltering weather, highly pr
actical. Anything that stirred the air was welcome. Even now, with the sun sinking down in the west, it was hotter than it ever got in the city of Avornis.

  “Your Majesty?” A sweating guardsman stuck his head into the pavilion.

  “What is it?” Grus asked.

  “One of our scouts just rode into camp. I think he’s got himself a high-and-mighty Menteshe with him.”

  “Oh, he does, does he?” With a grunt, the king heaved himself up off the stool where he’d perched. “Well, I suppose I’d better come see what the fellow wants, then, hadn’t I?”

  He had no idea who the nomad would be or which faction he represented. Whatever the answers to those questions were, Grus could guess what the man would want—would demand, probably. He would tell Grus that the Avornans had to go back over the Stura, and that they must not join with whichever faction he didn’t happen to favor. The Menteshe knew only one song, though they tried to disguise that by singing it in different keys.

  “Your Majesty.” The nomad bowed low before Grus.

  And Grus found he recognized him. “Good day, Qizil son of Qilich. What does Prince Sanjar want with me?” he inquired.

  The Menteshe bowed again, lower this time. “I am honored that you remember me, Your Majesty.”

  “Oh, yes. I remember you. And I know Sanjar’s men have attacked mine this year. What have we got to say to each other?”

  “When we last spoke, Your Majesty, you mentioned something in which you were interested.” Qizil didn’t name the Scepter of Mercy. Did that mean he was too close to Yozgat? Or was he too close to the Banished One’s lair in the Argolid Mountains?

  It didn’t really matter. Whether Qizil named it or not, Grus knew perfectly well what he was talking about. “Well?” the king asked. “You’re right. I am interested. Does Sanjar have it?” If the concubine’s son had stolen the Scepter from his unloving half brother, Grus was ready to deal with him. Grus would have made almost any bargain for the Scepter of Mercy.

  But, regretfully, the Menteshe emissary shook his head. “No, I must tell you that it still rests in Yozgat. But my principal will join his men to yours in the effort to take the city and the—prize.”

  Grus bowed. “My thanks. That is generous of Prince Sanjar, but it would be more generous if things were different. The way they are, the Banished One could make them turn against us without warning, the way they did when they fought us not long ago. Then it was Sanjar’s men and Korkut’s all together, and all against my army.”

  To his surprise, Qizil looked embarrassed. “That … was not what we expected to happen, Your Majesty. Our own shamans are looking into it.”

  “Are they?” Grus was surprised all over again. This was the first time he’d ever heard of Menteshe working against the Banished One’s wizardry. He didn’t know whether to believe it, either.

  “They are. We are not puppets on strings. We are not thralls.” Pride rang in Qizil’s voice. “We serve the Fallen Star because we choose to serve him. If the choice is not ours—well, maybe we will choose differently.”

  “You tempt me,” Grus said. “It’s a pity you don’t tempt me quite enough. If I could be sure you were your own men and would stay your own men—that might be different. But the way things, are, my men can’t trust Sanjar’s men at their side or behind them. And so I think we’ll just have to go on by ourselves.”

  “This could be the worst mistake you ever make,” Qizil warned.

  “Maybe,” Grus said. “But it could also be one of the smarter things I’ve done lately, and so I’m going to do it. If you ever persuade me you’re really broken free of the Banished One, we may have something to talk about. Until then, I’m afraid we don’t.”

  Qizil winced at the name the Avornans gave the exiled god. That told Grus he might not be happy with his ultimate overlord, but he wasn’t ready to break away from him, which meant Sanjar wasn’t ready to break with the Banished One, either. It would have been nice if things were different.

  “I will take your words back to my sovereign,” Sanjar’s ambassador said.

  “Yes, do,” Grus said. Unfortunately, to his way of thinking, Sanjar was only Qizil’s superior; the Banished One remained his sovereign—and Sanjar’s, too. They could see they were less free than they wanted to be, but they could not yet see how to get away.

  After dismissing Sanjar’s envoy, Grus summoned Pterocles. He told the wizard what Qizil had said. Pterocles stayed silent for some little while. “That is interesting,” he said at last. His voice sounded far away; he was plainly still deep in thought. “I wonder what the Menteshe could do to block the Banished One’s spells if they set their minds to it. They know his magic much better than we do.”

  “Than most of us except you do, anyhow,” Grus said.

  “Oh, I’m sure he gets into their minds sometimes, only to help them with their spells, not to knock them down,” Pterocles said. “They ought to know him from the inside out, too, so to speak.”

  “What would a warding spell against him be like?” the king asked.

  Pterocles started to laugh. “If I knew, Your Majesty, I’d use one,” he said. “Since I don’t know, since I’m just guessing, I’d say it would be something like the spell that frees thralls. Same principles, anyhow—probably a different way of using them.”

  “That sounds as though it ought to be true—which doesn’t mean it is, of course.” Grus plucked at his beard as he considered. “Would you do well to leave that spell written out someplace where the nomads might find it?”

  “You do ask fascinating questions,” Pterocles breathed. He paused again in thought. When he came out of his study, he said, “The way it looks to me, Your Majesty, that sword has two edges. Letting the Menteshe learn exactly how we free thralls might help them do something against the Banished One. The other edge is, it might help them—or him—figure out how to counter our spell. I’ll do it if you order me to, but not unless you do.”

  Grus grunted. Now he had to do some studying of his own. In the end, he said, “No, I won’t order you to do it. You’re right—the risk that they might find a way to fight our spell is real, and we can’t ignore it. For now, it’s too important. But if we win this campaign, it gives us something to think about doing next, so we won’t forget about it, either.”

  “I hadn’t even begun to think about what happens next,” Pterocles said.

  “Neither had I, but we need to,” Grus said. “Once we free the serfs, we ought to help the Menteshe build barriers against the Banished One.” Maybe the Scepter of Mercy will help, he thought. But even if it doesn’t, we should try. Aloud, he went on, “We’ll still have trouble with them, no doubt, but it’ll be trouble like we have with the Thervings—ordinary human trouble. It won’t be the kind of trouble we have now.”

  “That would be good,” Pterocles said seriously.

  “It would, wouldn’t it?” Grus’ smile was wistful. “If I only had to worry about ordinary, human troubles … Yes, that would be wonderful. Well, here’s hoping.”

  “Make way for His Majesty!” Lanius’ guardsmen bawled as they rode into the city of Avornis. “Make way! Make way!”

  People scrambled to clear the streets. Lanius wished the troopers wouldn’t make such a fuss. He’d told them as much, but they refused to listen to him. Anyone who thought a king gave orders that were always instantly obeyed had never been a king.

  “Look! It’s the king!” People shouted and pointed, as though seeing him could somehow make a difference in their own lives. And then someone yelled, “Hurrah for King Grus! Beat those Chernagors!” In a heartbeat, everyone was cheering and applauding.

  Lanius, by contrast, was fuming and steaming. Not only didn’t the people know who Avornis’ current foe was, they didn’t even know who he was. And then, to his own surprise, he started to laugh. Like any king, he’d had wistful thoughts of living a normal life, of going through the streets of his own capital unrecognized. Well, here he was, going through the streets of his own c
apital, and he certainly seemed unrecognized. This was as close to anonymity as he was ever likely to come.

  The palace battlements and, not far away, the heaven-leaping spire of the great cathedral dominated the city skyline. The closer Lanius came, the taller they seemed. He smiled as he got ready to fall back into the routine of palace life. The country holiday had been pleasant, but this was home.

  Servants bowed and curtsied when he went up the broad stairway and into the palace. “Your Majesty!” they exclaimed. “Welcome back, Your Majesty!”

  “It’s good to be back,” Lanius answered, over and over again. He beamed at the servants. They knew he wasn’t King Grus. He’d never thought that was any special reason for which to admire them, but he did now.

  “You’ll want a bath, won’t you, Your Majesty?” one of the servants said.

  That was probably a polite way of telling him he smelled of horse. He couldn’t smell it himself; he’d been too close to it for too long. But he nodded. “Thank you very much. A bath would be wonderful.”

  And it was wonderful—a big copper tub to soak in, with plenty of hot water to wash away the stinks and the kinks of a journey on horseback. They brought him wine, too, and put the cup where he could reach it without getting out of the tub.

  He was thinking regretfully about getting out and getting dressed when the door to the bathing chamber opened yet again. This time, though, it wasn’t another servant with a pitcher of hot water. It was Sosia.

  “I hope you had a nice stay in the country,” she said, politely if not enthusiastically.

  “Thank you—I did,” Lanius answered.

  “I hope it wasn’t too nice.” Her claws came out, just for a moment.

  “Not like that,” he said truthfully, though he would have said the same thing even if it hadn’t been true. “It’s good to see you again,” he added, also truthfully. “How are you?”

  “I’m going to have a baby.”