The Scepter's Return

by Harry Turtledove

  “It does indeed.” Lanius favored Grus with a brief but speculative glance.

  To his acute embarrassment, his father-in-law burst out laughing one more time. Grus aimed an accusing finger at him. “By Olor’s beard, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking you’re looking at another iron-handed old tyrant.”

  “You’re not a tyrant,” Lanius blurted. Grus laughed harder than ever. Lanius got more embarrassed than ever.

  “Oh, dear,” Grus wheezed at last. “The worst of it is, you’re not even slightly wrong. I’m never going to be young again, that’s for sure. And the Chernagors and the Menteshe and a good many Avornan nobles will tell you what an iron-handed rogue I am. Come to that, those Avornan nobles will likely call me a tyrant, too.”

  “I didn’t,” Lanius said virtuously.

  “So you didn’t,” Grus agreed. “And the Scepter of Mercy doesn’t think I’m a tyrant, either, or it wouldn’t let me pick it up. And do you know what? I care more about what it thinks than I do about any Avornan noble.”

  Lanius had no idea whether the Scepter thought in manlike terms. He was inclined to doubt it. But he knew what the other king meant all the same. “Oh, yes,” he said, remembering his relief of a little while before. “The Scepter is an honest judge.”

  Grus smiled. “Do you want to know something funny?”

  “I would love to know something funny,” Lanius answered.

  “Right this minute, I hardly know how to be king,” his father-in-law said. “We haven’t got any enemies. The Chernagors are quiet. The Menteshe are quiet. The King of Thervingia isn’t just quiet—he’s coming here on a pilgrimage. Even our nobles are quiet. What am I supposed to do? Sit on the Diamond Throne and twiddle my thumbs?” He started twiddling them even though he wasn’t on the throne.

  “There are worse troubles to have,” Lanius said, and started twiddling his own thumbs. Grus chuckled. Lanius went on, “Enjoy the quiet while you can, because it won’t last. It never does. The Chernagors will get bored not being piratical. Sooner or later, Korkut or Sanjar is bound to win that civil war. Then the Menteshe will start trying to take bites out of what we’ve won south of the Stura, and maybe on this side of the river, too. They don’t need the Banished One to make them want to raid us.”

  “This thought had already crossed my mind,” Grus said.

  “Things won’t stay quiet forever inside Avornis, either,” Lanius added. “Somebody with a lot will decide that, however much he has, it isn’t enough. And he’ll blame you—or maybe me—for that, and he’ll start making trouble. I don’t think it’ll happen tomorrow, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait very long, either.”

  “That all sounds sensible. You usually do make good sense, Your Majesty. So I’ll have things to worry about again, will I? My heart wouldn’t break if I didn’t,” Grus said.

  “I’m sorry, but I’m afraid you’ll have to. Things work that way,” Lanius said.

  Grus only shrugged. “Do you know what else? After bringing the Scepter back, getting excited about any of them won’t be easy.” Lanius thought the other king was joking, then took a second look at him and decided he wasn’t.

  In Ortalis’ dream, he held Avornis in the palm of his hand. The kingdom was his, and rightfully his. He didn’t know what had happened to his father or to Lanius, but they weren’t around to give him trouble. He did know that.

  “You see?” the Voice told him. “You can do it. Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. This kingdom belongs to you. They may try to keep you from taking what’s yours, but they won’t get away with it, will they?”

  “No!” dream-Ortalis said.

  “Avornis is yours, and Marinus’ after you. Isn’t that right?” the Voice asked.

  “You’d better believe it is!” dream-Ortalis answered.

  “And if they do try to steal your birthright? What will you do then?” the Voice inquired. “What can you do then?”

  “Punish them!” dream-Ortalis exclaimed.

  “How would you do that?” the Voice asked, as smoothly and suavely as though it were at some elegant reception.

  Ortalis’ response was anything but elegant. “With whips!” he shouted. “With whips, until they scream for mercy. Or maybe I’d take them out to the woods and … and hunt them! Yes, maybe I’d do that!” Excitement surged through him. His father and Lanius and even Anser had kept him from ever really hunting people. In his dreams, though, it was perfectly all right. In his dreams, in his special dreams, everything went just the way he wanted.

  “Once you caught them, you could mount their heads on the wall of the royal bedchamber,” the Voice mused. “They would look good there.”

  “They might,” Ortalis murmured. “Yes, they just might.”

  “Might what?” Limosa asked, breaking off the dream and returning Ortalis to everyday reality. It seemed much less real than the bright, vivid scene he’d just left. His wife, oblivious, went on, “You were talking in your sleep.”

  “Was I?” Ortalis blinked, there in the darkness of his bedroom. The brilliant light by which he’d seen things in his mind’s eye was gone, gone. Yet the sense of excitement he’d felt in his dreams remained. There was excitement, and then there was excitement. “Maybe I was thinking I might do … this.” He reached for Limosa.

  She squeaked as his hands roamed her. “What? In the middle of the night?” she said, as though the very idea were a crime against nature. She shoved him away.

  When she did something like that, it only excited him more. “Yes, in the middle of the night,” he said, and began to caress her again.

  If she’d kept on struggling, he would have taken her by force. He enjoyed that, though it appealed to Limosa less than the special thrill of the whip. But she must have decided he was going to do what he wanted whether she came along or not, and that she would have a better time coming along. Instead of trying to fight him off, she began to stroke him in turn and to urge him on.

  He needed very little urging. He drove home, again and again, until Limosa gasped and shuddered beneath him. A moment later, he spent himself, too. “Maybe you should talk in your sleep more often,” Limosa purred.

  “Maybe I should,” Ortalis said. He stood up, used the chamber pot, and lay down again. Sleep came quickly, but all his dreams were ordinary.

  When he woke up the next morning, he felt vaguely cheated. Not even Limosa’s smile, bright as the sunshine outside, could drive that feeling away from him. In his dreams, his special dreams, he was everything he was supposed to be, and everything went the way he wanted it to. And the Voice was there, urging, explaining, supporting. The Voice seemed more real and more full of character than most of the people he knew in the clear light of day.

  He called a servant, and told the man to have his breakfast and Limosa’s brought to the bedchamber. “Yes, Your Highness,” the man said, and hurried away.

  “You don’t want to eat with the king?” Limosa asked.

  “No, not today,” Ortalis answered, and let it go at that. She meant Lanius, of course. But Ortalis’ father was back in the palace, too, and the prince especially did not want to eat with him.

  “I hope His Majesty won’t be offended,” Limosa said.

  “It’ll be all right.” Ortalis didn’t much care whether it would or not. But he thought it would. Lanius was soft. Even when he was slighted, he hardly seemed to notice most of the time.

  Ortalis laughed. I know better than that, he thought. He never forgot an insult. One of these days, I’ll pay everybody back for everything. Lanius, Anser, his father—everyone. He was starting to get the feeling that that day wasn’t so far away, either.

  A knock on the door said breakfast had arrived. Ortalis took the tray from the servant and brought it back to the bed. It wasn’t anything fancy—barley porridge enlivened with chopped onions and chunks of sausage, with wine to wash it down—but it was good, and it filled the belly.

  Limosa put on a tunic and a long skirt. “
I’m going to see how the children are,” she said.

  “All right,” Ortalis answered. “Better Marinus’ howling while he’s teething should keep a nursemaid up half the night than that it should bother us.”

  “Well, yes,” Limosa said, “but plenty of people who don’t have the money for nursemaids have children, too. They must get through teething and sick babies by themselves, or there wouldn’t be any more people.”

  “Gods know how they manage it,” Ortalis said.

  “What will you do today?” Limosa asked.

  “Beats me,” Ortalis said cheerfully. He lay down on the bed again. “Maybe I’ll just go back to sleep.” He hoped he could. He wished he could. The kingdom of his special dreams and the seductive soothing of the Voice were ever so much more attractive than the mundane reality of the Kingdom of Avornis.

  His wife’s sniff told him that wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear. “They’re your children, too,” she said pointedly.

  “I’ll be along in a while,” he said. If that didn’t make her happy, too bad.

  She knew better than to push an argument very far with him. “All right,” she said, and left the bedchamber.

  Ortalis did lie down again. But, no matter how he tried, sleep would not come.

  From the city of Avornis, the Bantian Mountains were barely visible—a purple smear on the horizon on a clear day, a smear that vanished with the least fog or haze. Here on the frontier between Avornis and Thervingia, the mountains’ saw-backed shape defined the boundary between land and sky.

  King Grus and his soldiers waited for King Berto to cross over the border. Grus had waited with soldiers for King Dagipert to cross the border, too. Then he’d waited—and waited anxiously—to do battle. Now the soldiers were an honor guard.

  One of his guardsmen pointed east. “Here come the Thervings, Your Majesty,” the man said.

  Grus shaded his eyes with the palm of his hand. “You’re right,” he said after a moment. “Is that Berto, there in the middle? The one whose beard is going gray?” He wasn’t sure just how old Berto was. Older than Lanius and younger than he was himself, but that covered a lot of ground.

  “I think so, Your Majesty,” the guardsman replied. “Yes—I’m sure it is. He’s wearing a coronet.”

  Even as he spoke, the King of Thervingia’s gold circlet flashed in the sun. Grus nodded. “Well, so he is. He doesn’t have very many men with him, does he?” The troopers who rode with Berto were far fewer than the men accompanying Grus. If he’d wanted to … But he didn’t. If Dagipert had given him a chance like this, he would have been sorely tempted. Dagipert, of course, had been far too canny ever to make such a mistake.

  Chuckling, Grus remembered his last meeting with Berto’s father. They’d each rebuilt part of a bridge over the Tuola River, a bridge that had long been cast down to help keep the Thervings out of the heartland of Avornis. They’d spoken across a gap too wide to let either reach the other with a weapon. And after the parley, Avornans and Thervings wrecked what they’d built.

  These days, the bridge over the Tuola stood again. Grus had crossed it on the way to the border. Therving traders and Avornan merchants went over it every day. Soldiers—soldiers in arms, anyhow—didn’t seek to cross it. That was why it stood again.

  Berto had almost reached the granite pillar that marked the border. Dagipert had knocked that pillar over not long after the start of his reign, but it too stood once more. Grus waved to the approaching King of Thervingia. “Welcome, Your Majesty!” he called, first in Avornan, then in Thervingian. He didn’t speak much of the latter, but he’d made sure to learn that phrase.

  “Thank you, Your Majesty,” Berto answered, first in his own tongue, then in almost accentless Avornan. He kept on using Grus’ language as he continued, “I am glad to enter your kingdom as a peaceful pilgrim.”

  “And we are glad to have you here.” Grus rode up to the pillar, but not an inch beyond. He held out his hand. Berto took it. His clasp was stronger than Grus had expected. He might not be a warrior, but he was no weakling.

  Berto rode past Grus and into Avornis. “It’s been many years since I’ve seen your capital,” he said, and smiled. “This time, my people won’t have to besiege it to let me get inside.”

  Grus smiled back. “You’ve always been welcome to visit, Your Majesty, as long as you didn’t try to bring your whole kingdom along.”

  “Here I am,” Berto said. “I think the men I have with me will be plenty. In fact, I think I could have come alone and been as safe as though I’d stayed at home—maybe safer. Any man who could use the Scepter of Mercy, any man who could bring it back from the south, would not betray his trust with a guest.”

  And what am I supposed to say to that? Grus wondered. The first thing that came into his mind and out of his mouth was, “You do me too much credit.”

  “I don’t think so,” Berto said. “The Scepter of Mercy!” His gray eyes went wide with what Grus slowly recognized as awe. “Real proof that the gods in the heavens care about us and care for us.”

  “Well, so it is.” Grus didn’t mention that it seemed to him to be proof the gods in the heavens didn’t care about the material world very much. If they had, would they have let the Scepter stay lost for so many centuries? Would they have let so many generations of thralls live and die one short step above beast-hood? Grus suspected they worried more about the Banished One and his chances of storming into the heavens again than about Avornis or Thervingia or anything else merely human.

  He didn’t say any of that to Berto. If the other king wanted to believe in merciful gods who watched over him, why not? Grus wished he could do the same.

  “Shall we go on, then, Your Majesty?” Berto said.

  “I am at your service, Your Majesty,” Grus replied. He waved to his men. They all swung their horses back toward the east, back toward the city of Avornis. Dust kicked up from the animals’ hooves as they began to walk. Grus smiled again. Going places at a walk was a pleasure, a luxury, all by itself. He’d spent a lot of years trying to get from here to there in a tearing hurry. Right this minute, he didn’t have to, and he wanted to savor the sensation of slowness.

  Cattle and sheep grazed in the meadows. Farmers tended their fields—harvest time wasn’t far away. When Dagipert warred against Avornis, this province west of the Tuola had been a ravaged wasteland, fought over and plundered by both sides. Peace had a lot to be said for it.

  “I’ve always wanted to meet you,” Berto said. “My father admired you greatly.”

  “Did he?” Grus hoped he didn’t sound too surprised. “I always had great respect for him, too.” In less polite language, that meant, He scared the whey out of me. “He was a formidable man.”

  “He would say, ‘The cursed Avornans found somebody who knew what he was doing, and just in the nick of time.’” Berto’s voice was mild, on the border between tenor and baritone. He deepened and roughened it to give a pretty good impression of the way his father had sounded. He went on, “I mean no offense—that was how he talked. And he’d say, ‘If not for that miserable Grus, I’d have Avornis in my belt pouch.’”

  Dagipert had come close as things were. Grus said, “Both sides spilled a lot of blood and a lot of treasure. You should always be able to fight at need, but you shouldn’t go looking for the need all that often.”

  “I agree,” Berto said, and said no more.

  Once again, Grus wondered how he would have done if he’d had to worry about Thervingia along with the Chernagors and Menteshe. Not very well, he thought. Yes, who would have imagined the ferocious Dagipert could have a peaceable, pious son? Grus sent a sudden, startled glance upward. Maybe the gods in the heavens did.

  “What is it?” Berto asked.

  “Nothing,” Grus answered. Then, because he was an honest man (except sometimes when he was talking to his wife), he added, “I don’t think it’s anything, anyway.” It certainly wasn’t anything he or Lanius or Pterocles would be able to prove. Th
e most they would ever be able to do was wonder.

  To his relief, King Berto proved incurious. “All right,” he said, and let it go at that. The two sovereigns and their retinues rode deeper into Avornis.

  The gates to the city of Avornis stood open. Lanius waited on his horse not far outside the one that faced west. Beside him, looking much more comfortable on horseback, sat Anser. The arch-hallow had other things than horsemanship to worry about today. “I’m not used to riding in these robes,” he muttered. The crimson vestments of his office were indeed a far cry from the hunting clothes he usually chose when he got on a horse.

  “Can’t be helped,” Lanius said. “King Berto expects you to look like a holy man.”

  “I know. I’ll do it,” Anser said. “He doesn’t know just what he’s getting, though, does he?”

  “He’s getting the arch-hallow,” Lanius told him. “That’s all he has to worry about.” He looked down the road that led to Thervingia, the road along which so much trouble for Avornis had come in years gone by. The dust from Berto’s followers and Grus’ had been visible for some little while. Now he could make out the horses that were kicking it up. “They won’t be long.”

  “So they won’t,” Anser agreed. “I’ll show Berto the great cathedral, and then he’ll go over to the palace and slobber on the Scepter of Mercy.”

  That was inelegant, which didn’t make it any less likely to be true. Up rode King Grus and King Berto. Grus bowed in the saddle and nodded to Lanius. “Your Majesty, I am pleased to present to you His Majesty, King Berto of Thervingia.”

  Lanius held out his hand to Berto. “We’ve met before, Your Majesty.”

  The Therving had been smiling before. His smile got broader now. “Why, so we have. I was not sure you would remember.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lanius said, although in fact he could not recall Berto’s face. “Welcome to the city of Avornis.” He waved back toward the open gate. “You are welcome here.”

  No Therving, not even the mighty Dagipert, had ever forced his way into the capital. But Berto hadn’t tried to force his way in; he came in peace. He was looking from Anser to Grus and back again. More than Ortalis back at the palace, Anser favored his father. Berto didn’t remark on it, not out loud. All he said was, “I am honored to make your acquaintance, Most Holy.”