He would have to ask another time, if another time ever came. For now, the tough, sticky web of ceremony held him. “Greetings to you, sir,” he replied. “And you are… ?”
“I am called Lyashko, Your Majesty.” Lyashko’s Avornan was fluent, even more so than Yaropolk’s had been. “I bring you not only my greetings but also those of my overlord, Prince Bolush of Durdevatz, and also the greetings of all the other princes of the Chernagors.”
“I am pleased to accept Prince Bolush’s greetings along with your own,” Lanius said. The rest of the Chernagor princes undoubtedly had no idea Lyashko existed. Chernagors always tossed in that last bit like cooks adding a sprig of parsley to garnish a supper plate—it had no purpose but decoration.
“Very good. Very good.” Lyashko smiled and nodded. The hoops in his ears sparkled as they caught the torchlight.
“I am pleased to give you and your comrades gifts,” Lanius said. Out came servants with sacks of coins calculated to the farthing. The gifts Avornis gave to Chernagors rigidly followed the recipients’ ranks, and the formulas for presenting them never changed.
Hefting his own sack—larger and heavier than any of the rest—Lyashko nodded again. “And I am pleased to have gifts for you as well, Your Majesty.”
Lanius leaned forward in anticipation. So did his courtiers. Gifts from Chernagors to Kings of Avornis could be anything at all. That custom was adhered to just as rigidly.
Lyashko spoke to his men in their own tongue. To Avornan ears, the Chernagor language sounded like a man choking to death. One of the dark-haired men came forward and set a block of fine red wood at the base of Lanius’ throne. “It will carve nicely,” Lyashko said, returning to Avornan, “and it has a fine odor.”
Sure enough, a spicy scent, stronger and sweeter than that of cedar, rose from the block. “Thank you,” Lanius said. “Where does this wood come from?”
“An island far out in the Northern Sea,” Lyashko answered. His people seldom gave away secrets they didn’t have to. Lyashko went back to the Chernagor speech. Another man set a necklace of black pearls on the wood. “For Her Majesty, the Queen.”
“In Her Majesty’s name, I thank you,” Lanius said. Sosia wasn’t there to meet the Chernagors; that would have gone flat against custom. Seeing the soft shimmer of light from the pearls, he felt something more was called for. “They’re very beautiful,” he told Lyashko. “This is a generous gift.”
“Why else are we here, but to make you happy?” Lyashko said. The sack of coins he’d just gotten suggested one other reason he might have come to the city of Avornis. Like any other folk, the Chernagors did what was advantageous to them first and worried about other things later. And, like any other folk, they preferred bragging about how generous they were to admitting any such thing.
“Black pearls are rare,” Lanius said. Lyashko’s big head bobbed up and down in agreement. He spoke in his own language again. A moment later, all the Chernagors were nodding. King Lanius went on, “Where did you find so many?”
“There is, in the Northern Sea, an island where the natives dive deep into the water to take the shellfish the pearls come from,” Lyashko replied. “It is hard, dangerous work, and only a very few of the shells have any pearls at all, let alone black ones.”
“Whereabouts in the Northern Sea is this island?” Lanius asked.
Lyashko sent him a reproachful look. He wasn’t supposed to ask specific questions like that; he was only supposed to marvel. At last, the envoy from Durdevatz answered, “That is not easy to say, Your Majesty, for it lies far from any other land.”
King Lanius almost asked the Chernagor what the name of the island was. He started to, but then held back. What point to the question? Lyashko wouldn’t give him a straight answer, and he didn’t want more evasions. Better just to let it go.
When he didn’t ask, Lyashko’s broad shoulders shook with a sigh of relief. The envoy spoke in his own language once more. A couple of other Chernagors lugged up a large crate or box covered with a sheet of shining blue silk. Just as Lyashko was about to go into his speech, a series of harsh, shrill screeches came from inside the crate. The Chernagor gave a rather sickly grin. “Knowing your fondness for strange beasts,” he said, “we have brought you these, which paid us back by spoiling the surprise.”
He brusquely swept aside the silk sheet. Inside the cage—for such it was—was a pair of monkeys. They were mostly black, with white on their bellies, white eyebrows, and great sweeping white mustaches that gave them the look of somber old men. To Lanius’ surprise, they were smaller than his moncats. They stared at him from round black eyes.
As he stared back, he wondered if the pearls Lyashko had brought for Sosia would be enough to reconcile her to the monkeys. He dared hope, anyhow. “Thank you very much,” he said. “It’s been a long time since anyone here in the city of Avornis has seen animals like these.”
“There’s a reason for that, too, Your Majesty,” Lyashko said. “They’re delicate creatures. You have to keep ’em warm all through the winter. If you don’t, they’ll get a flux of the lungs and die.”
“I see,” Lanius said. “Tell me everything else I need to know about them, please. Are they a male and a female?”
“They are, but I don’t know how much good it’ll do you,” the Chernagor replied. “I’ve never heard of ’em breeding while they’re caged.”
“We’ll see,” Lanius said, anticipating a new challenge. “What do they eat? That’s something else I’d better know.”
“In the trees, they eat leaves and fruit and eggs and bugs and anything little they can catch,” Lyashko said. “We’ve been feeding them what we eat, and they’ve done all right with that. They really like cabbage—they think it’s the best stuff in the world.”
“Cabbage,” Lanius repeated. “I’ll remember that.” He turned formal. “I thank you again, Lyashko, and again I thank Prince Bolush through you.”
“My pleasure, Your Majesty,” Lyashko said. “And since you noised it about that you were after monkeys…” He got a look at Lanius’ face. “Oh, wasn’t I supposed to say that out loud? Sorry. Real sorry.”
Lanius sighed. Sosia was going to have a thing or two to say to him. Maybe more than a thing or two.
Alca drummed her fingers on the tabletop in Grus’ quarters in Cumanus. “Your Majesty, I don’t know what more we can learn about thralls here that we can’t find out back in the city of Avornis.”
Grus sighed. She was right, and he knew it. He sighed again all the same. “I have my reasons for not wanting to go back right away.”
“I know you do,” the witch answered. “But have those reasons got anything to do with the thralls, or even with the Menteshe?”
“No,” Grus admitted. Had he said anything else, she would have known he was lying. Prince Evren’s riders had gone back to the south side of the Stura, those who’d escaped Avornan soldiers and river galleys. Grus thought it would take more than even the Banished One’s command to get them to move on Avornis again anytime soon. As for the thralls, they’d stopped crossing the river in such large numbers as soon as the war with Evren’s men broke out. To put it mildly, Grus doubted that was a coincidence.
Alca said, “Well, then. What’s keeping us here, in that case?”
He looked at her. “You know as well as I do.”
She reached for the goblet of wine in front of her. After she sipped from it, her tongue flicked out like a cat’s to get rid of a deep red drop at a corner of her mouth. Grus watched, fascinated. Alca did her best not to notice him watching. She said, “This has to end. When we go home, we have to be two people who spent a while working together, and nothing more. You see that, don’t you?”