“And speaking of useless…” The new king snapped his fingers. The palace servants all looked attentive and eager. Scolopax laughed again. So this was the world Mergus had known for so long, was it? No wonder he’d kept it all to himself. It was too fine to share. The king pointed to the closest servant. “You! Fetch me Certhia, miscalled the queen. Hop to it, now.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the man said, and off he went. King Scolopax marveled. No insolence, no back talk, no delay. Ah, to be the king!
In due course, Certhia entered the throne room. Still in mourning for dead Mergus, she wore black, but her gown was of glistening silk, and worth a not so small fortune. Sour-faced bitch, Scolopax thought as she curtsied. And when she murmured “Your Majesty,” she might have been saying, You swine.
But she was only Lanius’ mother. Scolopax was—king. “Your marriage to my brother will not stand,” he said.
“Hallow Perdix wed us,” Certhia answered. “Arch-Hallow Megadyptes has declared the marriage fitting and proper.”
“This for Arch-Hallow Megadyptes.” Scolopax snapped his fingers. “And this for that pimp of a Perdix.” He made a much cruder gesture.
Certhia’s eyes widened. “May I be excused, Your Majesty?”
“You are not excused. You are dismissed, just like what’s-his-name was,” King Scolopax declared. “Get out of the palace. At once. If you show your nose around here again, I’ll make you sorry for it.”
“But—my son,” Certhia said.
“I shall tend to my nephew, that little bastard.” Scolopax turned to the wonderfully pliant servants. “Throw her out. Don’t let her come back. Do it right this minute.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” they chorused, and they did it. Watching them obey was almost more fun than drinking wine. Almost.
Scolopax pointed to yet another servant—he seemed to have an unending supply of them. “You! Go tell the so-called Arch-Hallow Megadyptes he is to come before me at once. And you!”—this to another man—“Draft a letter for delivery to the Maze, summoning that wise, holy, and pious fellow, Arch-Hallow Bucco, back here to the capital as fast as he can get here. Go!” They both bowed. They both went.
Megadyptes was gaunt and frail, a man with more strength of character than strength of body. When he came before Scolopax, the palpable aura of holiness that shone from him gave the king pause. Bowing, he said, “How may I serve Your Majesty?”—and not even Scolopax could find the faintest hint of reproach in his voice.
But that didn’t matter. Scolopax knew what he knew. “You made my brother’s marriage legitimate. You made his brat legitimate.”
“Why, so I did, Your Majesty,” Megadyptes agreed, showing the king nothing but calm. “King Mergus had, till then, no heir but you. The gods gave him no son till the autumn of his years. They have given you no son at all, I am sorry to say.”
He did sound sorry. That didn’t keep King Scolopax’s wrath from rising, though the arch-hallow had spoken nothing but truth. Scolopax’s wife was a sour harridan named Gavia. But she could have been the sweetest woman in the world, and it wouldn’t have mattered much. Scolopax had married her because his father made him marry her. He’d always spent more time with his favorites among the guardsmen than with Gavia or any other woman. His current favorites were two stalwart mercenaries from the Therving country, Waccho and Aistulf.
“You never mind me,” Scolopax growled. “You mind the gods.” That wasn’t quite what he’d meant to say. At least, it wasn’t quite how he’d meant to say it. But he was the king. He didn’t have to take anything back. He didn’t have to, and he didn’t.
Megadyptes looked at him with sorrowful eyes. “I do mind the gods, as best I can,” he said. “And I mind the kingdom, as best I can. I did what I did for Avornis’ sake.”
“Avornis is mine!” Scolopax shouted.
“For now, Your Majesty,” Arch-Hallow Megadyptes said calmly. “For now.”
“Mine!” Scolopax yelled again, even louder than before— loud enough to bring those echoes from the ceiling. But even that wasn’t enough for him. He sprang down from the throne, seized Megadyptes’ long white beard with both hands, and yanked with all his strength. The Arch-Hallow of Avornis let out a piteous wail of pain. Scolopax yanked again. “You are deposed!” he cried. “Get out, you wretch, before I give you worse!”
Tufts of Megadyptes’ beard, like bits of wool, fluttered out from between the king’s fingers and down to the floor. The arch-hallow’s cheeks and chin began to bleed. “I will pray for you, Your Majesty,” he said.
Courtiers and servants looked this way and that—every way but at King Scolopax. The king was too furious to notice, or to care. “Get out!” he screamed. Megadyptes bowed once more, and departed. An enormous silence settled over the throne room once he had gone.
Later that day, Aistulf told Scolopax, “Don’t worry about it, Your Majesty. You did the right thing. Whatever you want to do, it is the right thing.” The guardsman was tall and blond and muscular and handsome, with a bristling mustache and a chin shaved naked. Scolopax found that most exciting.
“Of course I did,” the king answered. “How could I do anything else?”
And when Scolopax slept that night, he saw in his dreams a supremely handsome face studying him. The face was splendid enough to make even Aistulf (even Waccho, who was handsomer still) seem insipid—but cold, cold. Scolopax stirred and muttered. Something in those eyes… Then the watcher murmured, “Well done,” and smiled. That should have made the king feel better. Somehow, it only made things worse.
Lanius recited the alphabet perfectly. His tutor beamed, “That’s very fine,” the man said. “Now, can you write it for me, too?”
“Of course I can.” Lanius hardly bothered hiding his scorn.
“Can you?” The tutor was brand new in the palace. He’d spent the last several years trying to educate the sons of the nobility, most of whom were as resistant to learning as a cesspit cleaner’s children were to disease. To find a pupil not only willing but eager felt like something close to a miracle. He pulled pen and ink and parchment from his wallet. “Show me.”
“I will.” And Lanius did. As soon as he took hold of the pen, the tutor knew he told the truth. His letters staggered and limped as much as any five-year-old’s, but they were all properly shaped. “There!”
“That’s… very good indeed,” the tutor said.
No one had praised Lanius since his father died and his mother went away. It went straight to his head, as wine would have in a grown man. “I can do more than that,” he said. “I can write words, too.”
“Oh, you can, can you?” Again, the tutor had trouble believing him. He was a solemn child, small for his age, with eyes as big in his face as a kitten’s. When he nodded, he showed disconcerting wisdom. The tutor said, “Well, why don’t you let me see that, too?”
I want my mother to come back to the palace. I miss her, Lanius wrote. Again, the letters were of a child. The thought behind them was simple, but how many children his age could have put it forth so accurately? Not many, and the tutor knew it full well.
“You really can write!” he exclaimed. “That’s wonderful!”
Again, Lanius blossomed with the praise. But then he looked at the tutor once more with those eyes wise beyond his years. “If I already know these things,” he asked, “why do I need you?”
The tutor coughed. However arrogant the question, he thought he’d better give it a serious answer. “Well, for one thing, you know a lot—an amazing lot—but I still know more.”