The Bastard King

CHAPTER THIRTY

Lanius found himself with a pleasant problem—the moncats were having more kittens than he had good names for them. Not only that, keeping track of which moncat owned which name taxed even his formidable memory. He was almost glad the monkeys were unlikely to breed. He would have had to come up with more names yet.

Bronze’s belly bulged with what would be two more kittens before much longer. Lanius wasn’t sure which younger moncat had sired them. He hoped it was the one he’d named Rusty, a beast even redder than the reddest red tabby. Rusty resembled neither Bronze nor Iron very much; Lanius wondered from which of them, and how, he’d inherited his looks. They had to come down from one of the original pair of moncats or the other—that much, at least, seemed clear.

Rusty, at the moment, seemed to be doing his best to kill himself, swinging about on boards and sticks with what in a human would have been reckless disregard for his life. Even the monkeys might not have been able to match his acrobatics, for he had claws to help him hold on and they didn’t. Lanius took out a piece of meat and clucked to him. He had different noises to tell each moncat when a treat was for it—one more thing their burgeoning population threatened to disrupt.

Another moncat, a brownish female, tried to steal the tidbit. “Not for you!” Lanius said, and jerked the meat away. The female gave him a hard look. He was convinced moncats thought and remembered better than ordinary cats. Maybe they were even more clever than his monkeys. He wondered about that, but hadn’t found a way to test it.

Down dropped Rusty, fast enough to raise Lanius’ hackles. As soon as the moncat came to the floor, it hurried over to Lanius and started trying to climb him. He gave Rusty the piece of meat. The moncat crouched at his feet while it ate. Rusty knew Lanius wouldn’t let any of the other animals steal its meat. That made the King of Avornis deserve a little extra affection in the moncat’s eyes.

As Lanius often did, he bent down to stroke Rusty. He tried to tame the moncats as much as he could. The Chernagors had warned him the beasts were less affectionate than ordinary cats—a depressing thought if ever there was one—and the sea-rovers hadn’t been joking. Every so often, though, a moncat would decide to act like a pet instead of a wild animal.

This was one of those lucky moments. Rusty—again, probably happier than usual because of the treat it had just enjoyed— not only purred but also rolled over and over like a lovable pussycat encouraging its owner to pet it. Rusty even let Lanius rub his stomach, though it and the other moncats usually scratched and bit when the king took such a liberty.

Emboldened, Lanius squatted. He picked Rusty up and put it in his lap. To his delight, the moncat let him get away with that. In fact, Rusty purred louder than ever. Lanius beamed. He hadn’t imagined a moncat could act so lovable.

Rusty purred so loud, the King of Avornis didn’t notice the knocking on the door for some little while. Even after noticing, he did his best to ignore it. He wanted that moment to last forever. But the knocking went on and on.

“Yes? What is it?” Lanius said when he couldn’t ignore it anymore. If some stupid servant was having conniptions about something unimportant, he intended to cut off the fellow’s ears and feed them to the moncats.

The door opened. That made Lanius think it was Grus—the servants knew better. Even as Lanius muttered a curse, his hand kept stroking Rusty. The moncat kept purring.

It wasn’t Grus. It wasn’t any of the servants Lanius recognized, either. After a moment, though, he realized he did recognize the man, even if not as a servant. The fellow was one of the thralls Grus and Alca had brought back from Cumanus.

Lanius marveled that he did know him for who—for what— he was. Thralls’ faces usually bore the blank stares that could as easily have belonged to barnyard animals. Not here. Not now. Purpose informed this man’s features. His eyes glittered as he stared straight at Lanius. The long, sharp knife he held in his right hand glittered, too.

Still eyeing Lanius, the thrall strode into the moncats’ room. The animals gaped at him. They weren’t used to seeing anybody but the king. The thrall took another slow, deliberate step. Lanius thought he saw the Banished One peering out through the man’s eyes.

He’s come to kill me, the king thought without undue surprise and—he was surprised about this—without undue fear. He wondered whether by that he he meant the thrall or the Banished One, who impelled the fellow forward as surely as a merely mortal puppeteer worked his puppet’s strings.

Rusty let out a small, questioning mew. Lanius kept hold of the moncat. He came to his feet and took a step back, toward the far wall of the room. Smiling, raising the knife, the thrall came after him.

I’m going to die here, Lanius thought. He didn’t know how the thrall had gotten out of the room where Alca had studied him and his fellows—and where they’d stayed, largely ignored, after she left the city of Avornis. How didn’t seem to matter at the moment. He was out, and he had a knife, and, smiling, he took another purposeful step toward the king.

Only later did Lanius decide the thrall—and, through him, the Banished One—wanted to watch and savor his fear. Just then, no such elaborate thoughts filled his mind.

He threw Rusty in the thrall’s face.

The moncat squalled with fury, and with fear of its own. Up till a moment ago Lanius had been friendly, even loving, and Rusty had returned those feelings as well as an animal could. And now this!

Rusty clung with all four clawed hands—and with tail, as well. The thrall let out a gurgling shriek of pain, surprise, and fury of his own (or of his Master). He grabbed for the moncat to try to tear it loose. Rusty sank needle-sharp teeth into his hand. The thrall shrieked again.

Having had one good idea, Lanius got another one. He fled. Dodging the thrall was no problem. Not even with some part of the Banished One’s spirit guiding him could the thrall commit murder with a frenzied, clawing moncat clinging to his head.

Other moncats had already escaped from the chamber. That was one more thing Lanius knew he would have to worry about later. Meanwhile, he burst out into the corridor, crying, “Guards! Guards! An assassination!” He wished the crucial word weren’t five syllables long; it took forever to say.

Ordinary servants started shouting, too. Out came the thrall. He’d finally gotten rid of Rusty, but his face looked as though he’d run full speed through a thousand miles of thorn bushes. His left hand bled, too. He kept shaking his head to keep blood from running into his eyes.

Guards pounded up the hallway. “Seize that man!” Lanius shouted. “Take him alive for questioning if you can.”

Without a word, the guards rushed at the thrall. He tried to rush at Lanius. Restraining him didn’t work. He fought so fiercely, he made them kill him. Lanius cared much less than he’d thought he would. Staring down at the pool of blood spreading across the mosaic work floor, all he said was, “I hope that was the only mischief afoot here.”

A woman’s scream rang down the corridor.

A servant said, “You do remember, Your Majesty, that you were going to lunch with Her Majesty?”

“Yes, I remember.” Grus didn’t look up from the pile of parchments he was wading through.

“You should have gone some little while ago,” the servant said.

“I suppose I should,” Grus admitted. But he and Estrilda were still so fragile together, even going through petitions for tax relief seemed preferable to eating with her. Still, if he didn’t go at all, he’d insult her, and that would only make things between them worse—if they could be worse.

Shaking his head, he rose and went up the hall toward the chambers he still shared with his wife, though much less intimately than he had in the past. “Oh, Your Majesty, aren’t you dining with the queen?” asked a servant coming the other way. “A rather strange-seeming fellow was asking after you, and I sent him in that direction.”

“Strange-seeming?” Grus frowned. “What do you mean?”

“He sounded like a soldier, though he didn’t quite look like one,” the man answered. “He looked like… I don’t know what. A soldier down on his luck, maybe. But he spoke like a lord.”

“A soldier down on his luck? What would a soldier down on his luck be doing in… ?” Grus started again. “You know, now that I think of it, we put those thralls we brought up from Cumanus in old soldiers’ clothes, didn’t we?” He pointed at the servant. “When did you see this fellow?”

“Why, just now, Your Majesty,” the man answered. “But a thrall wouldn’t be able to speak, would he?”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Grus said. “Not unless—”

Estrilda screamed.

Grus yanked his sword from the scabbard and started to run. The servant pounded after him, though the most obviously lethal thing the man had on his person was a large, shiny brass belt buckle. I’ll have to remember that, Grus thought. Then Estrilda screamed again, and he stopped thinking about anything but getting to her as fast as he could.

A door slammed. An instant later, a body thudded against it, once, twice, three times. That noise helped guide Grus better than the screams had. So did the sound of the door giving way.

He dashed into the small dining room where he and Estrilda should have been eating. The man who’d just forced the door to the adjoining pantry whirled. A long kitchen knife gleamed in his hand. “Here you are!” he said, and lunged toward Grus.

He was a thrall. Grus recognized him, and the old clothes he wore. But his face didn’t hold its usual blank look. Hatred blazed from his eyes. If that wasn’t the Banished One staring out through them, Grus couldn’t imagine ever seeing Avornis’ foe face-to-face.

The thrall thrust at him. Grus beat the stroke aside. A long kitchen knife made a fine murder weapon when the victim couldn’t fight back. Against a proper sword, it wasn’t so much.

The thrall tried to stab Grus again. This time, Grus knocked the knife flying. The thrall threw himself at the king bare-handed.

Grus’ sword stroke almost separated the man’s head from his shoulders. He cursed himself a moment later; he might have been able to wring answers from the would-be assassin. He’d get no answers now. Blood gouted from the thrall. He staggered, still glaring furiously at Grus, and then slowly crumpled to the floor.

Estrilda came out of the little pantry where she’d fled. Her face was white as milk. She looked at the twitching, bleeding corpse and gulped. She seldom got reminded of the sorts of things Grus had done for a living before he donned the crown.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

His wife nodded. “He didn’t get a chance to do anything to me,” she said, her voice shaky.

Stooping, Grus wiped the sword on the dead thrall’s shirt, and jammed it back into the scabbard. Then he went over and took Estrilda in his arms. She clutched him, started to pull away as she remembered she was angry at him, and then seemed to decide this wasn’t the right time for that and clutched him after all.

More servants came running up in the wake of the one who’d followed Grus. So did royal bodyguards. Grus jerked a thumb at the thrall’s body. “Get that carrion out of here and clean up this mess,” he said. “And, by the gods, make sure King Lanius and the rest of my family are all right.”

People started leaving as fast as they’d come, and bumped into others coming to see what was happening after it had already happened. Estrilda pointed to a pair of guards. “You men stay,” she said. “More of these devils may be loose.”

She was right. Grus knew as much. So did the bowing bodyguards. “Yes, Your Majesty,” they chorused.

When Grus started to put an arm around his wife again, she did slip away. Her eyes stayed on the dead thrall as a servant dragged the body out by the feet. “You should have let him kill me,” she murmured.

“What?” Grus wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What are you talking about?” Before Estrilda could answer, more guards clattered up, their chainmail shirts jingling. Grus said, “You men—go to the thralls’ chamber. You know where that is?” They nodded. “Good,” he told them. “See how many are left there, and don’t let any more out no matter what.” They hurried away. He turned back to Estrilda. “Now what nonsense were you spouting?”

“It isn’t nonsense. You should have let him kill me,” Estrilda said. “Then you could call your witch back here, and you’d be happy.”

Grus stared at her. “Has anyone ever told you you were an idiot?” he asked, his voice harsh. Numbly, she shook her head. He said, “Well, everybody missed a perfect chance, then, because you are. By the gods, Estrilda, I love you. I always have.”

“Even when you were with Alca?” she demanded.

“Yes, curse it,” Grus said, more or less truthfully. “I never stopped loving you. It was just… she was there, and we were working together, and…” He shrugged. “One of those things.”

Perhaps luckily, a bodyguard chose that moment to announce, “King Lanius is safe, Your Majesty. A thrall did come after him, but he got away when he flung a moncat in the son of a whore’s face.”

“Did he?” Grus said, blinking. “Well, good for him. That’s quick thinking.” Another guard came in to report that only two thralls were missing, while the rest seemed as passive and animal-like as ever. Grus nodded. “Glad to hear it.” But he also had other things on his mind. He turned back to Estrilda. “Will you listen to me, please?”

“It’s hard to listen to what you say when I know what you did,” she answered. “But I just saw you save me, and so…” She gnawed at the inside of her lower lip. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“You know I’m not perfect,” Grus said. “But I do try. Could you… try to think I’m… not quite so bad?” He’d wanted to come out with something ringing. That wasn’t it. He had to hope it would do.

Estrilda wasn’t looking at him. She was still eyeing the pool and trail of blood the thrall had left behind. Slowly—very slowly—she nodded. “I’ll try.”

Together, Lanius and Grus eyed the door to the palace chamber that had held the thralls—that still did hold all but two of them. The door was now closed, the bar on the outside back in place. The thralls in there couldn’t get outside. Of course, the two murderous thralls who had been in there shouldn’t have been able to get outside, either. They shouldn’t have been able to, but they had.

Lanius eyed the guards who’d stood in front of the door when the thralls escaped. The guards looked back, a sort of wooden embarrassment on their faces. “But couldn’t you hear the bar was coming out of the bracket?” Lanius asked them.

In identical rhythms, they shook their heads. “No, Your Majesty,” one of them said.

“Everything looked fine to us,” the other added.

“You didn’t notice the two thralls sneaking past you?” Grus demanded.

The royal bodyguards shook their heads. “No, Your Majesty,” one said.

“We didn’t see anything funny,” the other agreed.

“I believe them,” Lanius said.

“So do I, worse luck,” Grus said. Now he shook his head, in the manner of a man disgusted with himself. “This whole sorry mess is my fault.”

“Your fault?” Lanius said in surprise. “How?”

“I should have had a wizard keeping guard on the thralls all the time,” Grus answered. “I should have, but I didn’t. After Alca… left the capital, I just let that go. I didn’t have a wizard I particularly trusted—I still don’t—and the thralls seemed harmless, so I thought a couple of ordinary soldiers and a door barred on the outside would keep them out of mischief. I turned out to be wrong.”

“Underestimating the Banished One doesn’t pay.” Lanius snapped his fingers.

“What is it?” Grus asked.

“Later.” Lanius nodded toward the guards, as though to say, Not in front of them. Their wooden expressions never changed. After a moment, he realized terror lay beneath that woodenness. They had to wonder if they would lose their heads for almost letting the two Kings of Avornis be murdered. Lanius nodded toward them again. “It’s not their fault. They were ensorcelled.”

He waited to see if Grus would hold a grudge. Grus didn’t usually, but he didn’t usually have a narrow escape from assassination, either. Lanius knew a certain amount of relief when Grus said, “Yes, I know that. The Banished One has a cursed long reach, and we can’t always hope to outguess him.” The guards showed their relief, mute but very obvious. Grus went on, “Sometimes I wonder if we can ever hope to outguess him.”

“So do I,” Lanius said, as fervently as though he were praying in a temple. He wished the comparison weren’t so apt.

A messenger hurried up the corridor, calling, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”

“Yes?” Lanius and Grus spoke together.

Lanius wondered why he bothered. The messenger, inevitably, wanted to talk to Grus. “Your Majesty, the treasury minister reminds you that you were supposed to meet with him more than an hour ago.”

The treasury minister wouldn’t let a little thing like an assassination attempt interrupt his schedule. “Tell Petrosus—” Grus began, but then caught himself. “Tell Petrosus I’ll be with him soon. The quicker we get back to normal, the better.” He nodded to Lanius. “Isn’t that right, Your Majesty?”

“Well, yes, but—”

Grus didn’t let him finish. “Glad you agree. I’ll see you in a bit. Meanwhile, I’d better go find out what’s in Petrosus’ beady little mind. So if you’ll excuse me…” He started after the messenger.

“But there was something I needed to tell you,” Lanius said. “Something important.”

“I’m sure it will keep,” Grus said over his shoulder, by which he couldn’t mean anything but, I’m sure that, whatever you have to tell me, it can’t possibly be important.

Before Lanius could shout at Grus and tell him what a blockhead he was, the other king was around the corner and gone. Lanius muttered under his breath. Then he cursed out loud, which did him no more good than the other had. He almost followed Grus. What point, though? Grus wouldn’t listen to him now. The palace servants would. He set them to rounding up the moncats that had gotten out of their room after the thrall opened the door.

Later that day, Sosia said, “King Olor be praised you’re all right. You and Father both, I mean.”

Even her relief was enough to stab at Lanius, almost as though it were the knife the thrall had tried to use against him. “King Olor be praised indeed,” he said, and wondered when he’d been so sarcastic before. He couldn’t think of a time.

He was glad Sosia didn’t notice. She said, “Father’s had a lot happen to him lately.”

“So he has.” But Lanius couldn’t help adding, “He did some of it to himself, you know.”

Sosia didn’t argue. “Of course he did. But not today, not unless you’re going to blame him for bringing those thralls north so he could study them.”

Grus had already blamed himself for that. But Lanius said, “I’ll never blame anybody for trying to learn things. I do wish he’d listened to me when I tried to tell him that—”

But Sosia suddenly wasn’t listening to him anymore, either. Crex came in crying and limping on a scraped knee. That had to be washed off—which produced more wails and tears—and he had to be cuddled by both Sosia and Lanius. By the time Crex decided he might possibly be all right after all, the servants were bringing in supper. Lanius drank more wine with the food than he usually did. He went to bed not long after supper and slept like a log—except that logs don’t usually wake up the next morning with a headache.

Grus reached for the carafe. “Here,” he said to Estrilda. “Let me pour you some more wine.”

She pushed her goblet across the table toward him. “Thanks,” she said. “Tonight I can use it.”

He filled the goblet for her, and poured more for himself, too. As they both sipped, he said, “I should think so.” He’d seen a lot of fighting. Nobody had ever tried to kill Estrilda before, even if she’d been an afterthought to the thrall.

She set down the goblet. “Did I say thank you?” she asked.

“You have now.” Grus shrugged. “You didn’t need to.”

“I think I did. I… may have been harder on you lately than I should have been.”

“It’s all right.” Grus shrugged again. “I can’t say you didn’t have your reasons. I can’t say I didn’t give them to you, either.”

“You could have just let… whatever was going to happen there, happen.” Estrilda took a long pull at the wine. “Then you wouldn’t have had to worry about this mess anymore.”

“You said that earlier,” Grus said. Estrilda nodded. He went on, “I don’t think you’ve ever said anything that made me angrier. It’s a sorry business when I have to kill somebody to show you I love you, that’s all I’ve got to say.”

“Yes.” His wife nodded. “It is a sorry business, isn’t it?”

Grus started to answer that, then suddenly realized odds were he’d be better off keeping his mouth shut. Since it was already open, he couldn’t very well do that. He could pour more wine down his throat—he could, and he did. His cheeks and ears started feeling numb. He wondered just how much wine he’d drunk. Enough, evidently.

Estrilda reached for her goblet, missed, laughed much too loud, and at last succeeded in capturing it. “I’m going to wish I was dead tomorrow morning,” she said, “but I don’t care right now. I’m going to keep on drinking, because I’m not dead.”

“No, and I’m glad you’re not,” Grus said.

“So am I.” She yawned. “I may not be dead, but I am sleepy.” None too steadily, she got to her feet. “I’m going to bed.”

“Wait. I’ll come with you.” The room spun a little as Grus got up. He thought his walk back to the royal bedchamber was fine, if a little slow. By the way she giggled, Estrilda didn’t. Grus thought her swaying strides pretty funny, too, but he didn’t giggle. He felt proud of his own restraint.

“Do you need anything, Your Majesties?” a servant asked. Grus shook his head, which made the room spin more. The servant left, closing the door behind him. Grus undressed and got under the covers; even inside the palace, the night was cold. Estrilda got into bed with him. They’d been sleeping in the same bed all along. Usually, since finding out about Alca, she’d built a barricade of pillows to make sure sleeping was the only thing they did together.

Tonight, she didn’t. Grus noticed that, but he just lay there, waiting to see what she would do or say. Pushing too hard too soon could only be a mistake. “Good night,” he said, and blew out the lamp.

“Good night,” Estrilda answered as night swallowed the room. Grus shifted a little. He felt Estrilda shifting, too.

Their knees bumped. It was the first time they’d touched in bed since she found out. Grus said, “Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” His wife shook her head, making the mattress sway a little on the leather lashings that supported it. “No. It’s not all right. But I thought it was the end of the world, and it’s not that, either. There are pieces left. Maybe we can put some of them back together again.”

“I hope so,” Grus said. “I—” The words wouldn’t come. He reached for her instead, there in the darkness. If she pushed him away… If she did, she did, that was all.

She didn’t. She reached for him, too. “I’m not going to tell you no tonight,” she said, “not after…” She checked herself. “I’m not going to tell you no.”

He caressed her. He knew what pleased her. He’d had years and years to find out. It wasn’t the way it had been with Alca, where he’d learned something new every time. Now he shook his head. If she’d try not to be angry tonight, he’d try not to think of Alca. That seemed only fair.

Then, a little later, he wondered if he could do what he wanted to do. He wished he hadn’t had so much wine. But he managed. By the way Estrilda quivered beneath him, he managed more than well enough. He gave her a kiss as he slid from on her to beside her. “Good night,” he muttered, spent.

“Good night,” she answered. He wasn’t sure he even heard her. Already he slid into sleep as deep and dark as the blackness filling the bedroom.

Lanius needed a way to get Grus’ attention. He didn’t like the one he found, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work. With a resigned mental sigh, he said, “Your Majesty?”

Grus always noticed when Lanius admitted he too was King of Avornis, not least because Lanius did it so seldom. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“We need to talk for a few minutes,” Lanius said. “It’s important. Seeing what happened yesterday, I think it’s very important.”

That got through. Grus nodded. “Say what you have to say. I promise I’ll listen.”

“Let’s go someplace quiet, where we can talk by ourselves.” Lanius’ gaze flicked toward the servants bustling along the corridor.

“Whatever this is, you’re serious about it,” Grus remarked. Now Lanius nodded. Grus asked, “Is this—whatever it is—is it what you’ve already started to tell me a couple of times?”

“Yes,” Lanius said. “I had to put it off then. After yesterday, I can’t put it off anymore.”

“All right, Your Majesty.” Grus did do him the courtesy of taking him seriously. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

A couple of maidservants were gossiping in the first room whose door the kings opened. The women stared in astonishment. Now they would have something new to gossip about. The next room the kings tried had shelves piled high with bed linen, and only a little space in which to stand while putting things on those shelves or taking them down.

“Will this do?” Lanius asked doubtfully.

“Nobody will bother us in here, that’s for sure,” his father-in-law answered. “Go on, shut the door.” After Lanius had, Grus asked, “Well, what’s on your mind?”

“Have you ever heard the name… Milvago?” Lanius asked. He’d never said the name aloud before, and looked around nervously as he did. Someone— something—might be listening.

To Grus, it was only a name, and an unfamiliar one. “Can’t say I have,” he replied, indifferent. “Sounds like it ought to be Avornan, but I wouldn’t want to guess past that. You’re the one who’s talking, so tell me about this Milvago.”

“I can’t tell you much,” Lanius said. “I don’t know much. Most of what was written has been dust and ashes for hundreds of years, and the priests have made sure all the ceremonies are different nowadays. They tried to get rid of all the records, too, but they couldn’t quite manage it. They’re only human, after all. Even the peasants have forgotten him, and peasants can have longer memories than anybody.”

“Who is he? Or should I say, who was he?” Grus asked.

“You’re the one who knows history, so I expect you can tell me. Some long-ago heretic? Sounds like it, by the way you talk.”

“You might say so.” Lanius knew his voice sounded strange. “Yes, you just might say so.”

“All right. Fair enough,” Grus said. “But please don’t get angry at me, Your Majesty, when I ask you why I need to know any of this.”

“I won’t get angry,” Lanius said. “It’s a reasonable question. And the answer is, we still hear about him today. The only difference is, we call him the Banished One.”

That got Grus’ full and complete attention. Lanius had been sure it would. The older man leaned toward him, intent as a hunter on his prey. “Milvago was … what? The name he had before he was cast down from the heavens?”

“Yes.” Lanius nodded. “The name he had when he was a god. I found it on an ancient parchment in the ecclesiastical archives under the cathedral.”

“The name he had when he was a god,” Grus echoed. “Do you have any idea how strange that sounds?”

“Believe me, Your Majesty, it sounds at least as strange to me as it does to you,” Lanius replied. “I haven’t said anything about this to anyone, not till now.”

Twice in the space of a few minutes, he’d used Grus’ royal title. It had been months, maybe years, since the last two times he’d used it. And Grus noticed. Lanius could see as much. But the other King of Avornis didn’t mention it. Instead, he asked the right question. Lanius had noticed his gift for that. “Well,” Grus said, “if this Milvago was a god once upon a time, what was he the god of? Bad weather, maybe? Or just bad temper generally?”

Those were good, quick, reasonable guesses. Lanius wished with all his heart one of them was right. But he answered with the truth—what he was convinced was the truth—he’d found far under the cathedral. He gave that truth in one word—“Everything.”

“What do you mean?” Grus asked. “What was he the god of?”

“Everything,” Lanius repeated miserably. “As best I can tell, he was the chief god in the heavens, the god from whom Olor and Quelea and the rest sprang long, long ago.”

“You’re joking.”

“By the gods” —Lanius laughed, though it was anything but funny— “I am not.”

“What did they do?” Grus demanded. “Turn on him and cast him down, the way nasty sons will turn on a rich father when they’re too impatient to wait for him to die?”

Now he was the one who sounded as though he was joking. But Lanius nodded, saying, “Yes, I believe that’s exactly what they did, though Milvago may have been the nasty one. The way he’s behaved here on earth would make you think so, anyhow.”

Grus’ eyes were wide and staring. “And we have to stand against a god like that?”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Lanius answered. “If you don’t believe we still have free will, what’s the point to anything?”

But the details of philosophical discussion had never interested Grus. He waved Lanius’ words away. “How are we supposed to fight against the god who made the ground we’re walking on? How, by the—” He broke off. Lanius understood that. Why swear by the gods when you were talking of the one who’d sired them?

But, in literal terms, Grus’ question had an answer, or Lanius hoped it did. “How? The same way we’ve been fighting him ever since he was cast down from the heavens. Even if he was all-powerful once upon a time, he isn’t anymore. If he were, he couldn’t very well have been cast down from the heavens in the first place, could he? And as for creating the world, who knows whether Milvago did that or not? What happened to his father, if he had one?”

He waited to see how Grus would take that. He’d always respected his father-in-law’s resourcefulness; without it, Grus never would have won his share of the crown. For the moment, it seemed to have abandoned the older man. Lanius didn’t suppose he could blame Grus. He himself had had a while to work through, to work past, his shattering discovery. The other king was trying to take it in all at once.

“Don’t tell anybody else,” Grus said suddenly.

“What?” Lanius asked, taken aback.

“Whatever you do, don’t tell anybody else,” Grus repeated. “Do you want Avornans worshiping the Banished One, the way the Menteshe do? Some of them would.”

He was bound to be right. Lanius hadn’t thought of that. Maybe Grus’ resourcefulness hadn’t deserted him after all. Lanius said, “I haven’t even told Sosia or Anser.”

“Good,” Grus said. “Don’t. By Olor’s—” He broke off again, shaking his head like a man bedeviled by gnats. “I half wish you hadn’t told me. Maybe more than half.”

“How do you think I felt when I found out?” Lanius exclaimed. “There I was, down in the deepest level of the archives, all alone with a secret no one but the Banished One has known for… for a very long time.” His sense of chronology, usually so sharp, deserted him.

Grus set a hand on his shoulder. He seldom cared to have anyone but Sosia or his children touch him, but the warmth and solid weight of Grus’ hand felt oddly reassuring. Grus said, “We just have to go on, that’s all. We’ve always known he was stronger than we are. If he’s… even stronger than we thought, what difference does that make, really?”

We just have to go on. That was easy to say, harder to do. “If we had the Scepter of Mercy…” Lanius said.

“Yes. If,” Grus said.

“The Banished One—Milvago—wants to make sure that we don’t have it, that we can’t use it.” Lanius looked south, in the direction of Yozgat. “So we really have to get it back, don’t we?” Grus nodded.

As Kings Grus and Lanius struggle to hold their joint kingdom together against the ever-present threat of the Banished One, another danger rises over the coastline…