“Yes,” Grus answered, most reluctantly. It wasn’t that he didn’t care for Estrilda. It wasn’t even that he didn’t look forward to taking her to bed again. He supposed Alca was thinking like thoughts about her husband. Even so… “I don’t want it to end.”
“I know that. But it has to, don’t you see?” Alca said. “The longer it goes on, the more trouble it will cause when they find out about it back at the capital.”
“Who says anyone will find out?” Grus asked.
The look she gave him was not that of a witch foretelling the future. It was the look of a woman who knew how the world worked, and all the more wounding because of that. “Most of the time, ordinary people can’t keep their love affairs secret,” she said. “You’re the King of Avornis. What do you think the odds are?”
He wished she’d put it some other way. “Well, no one will find out from me,” he said.
“Or from me,” Alca answered. “But what has that got to do with anything? People will gossip—about the doings of a king especially.”
“We have been working together,” Grus said. “Everyone knows that. We were friends before we came down to Cumanus. Everyone knows that, too. It will be all right. Nobody will think so much of our seeing a lot of each other.” He’d seen as much of her as there was to see. He thought of the little mole she had on the inside of one thigh, and of…
But she gave him that worried look again. “Either it will be all right, or it will be all the worse on account of that. I know which way I’d bet. Even so, we should go back to the capital. Otherwise—” She broke off.
“Otherwise what?” Grus asked when she didn’t finish the thought.
He didn’t think she was going to answer, but she finally did. In a very low voice, she said, “Otherwise I don’t think I’ll want to go back at all, and we have to. You know we do.”
Grus thought about letting the love affair run away with him, about casting Estrilda aside and putting Alca in her place, or about taking Alca as a second wife after she left her husband. He thought about it for perhaps half a minute, and then shook his head.
Alca was watching him. Still very quietly, she said, “You see, Your Majesty.”
He wished she hadn’t used his title then. It only added to the weight he had to carry. No doubt she’d done it with just that in mind. He sighed. He was the king, but even a king had trouble getting away with some things. “We’ll go back to the city of Avornis,” he said. “Take as many thralls as you think you’ll need. Do everything you can to check them first, though. We don’t want to take trouble back with us.”
“We will be taking trouble back with us,” Alca said. “But you’re right, of course. We don’t want to take that kind of trouble back with us, too.”
With another sigh, Grus said, “I’ll talk to the river-galley captains and set things moving.” Alca smiled happily. That stung.
When Grus did talk to the galley captains, they seemed surprised he was leaving Cumanus. That stung, too. They couldn’t have been surprised because of the state of the river—the Stura ran higher in fall than it did in summertime. They couldn’t have expected he would find out more about the thralls here anytime soon—Alca hadn’t come up with anything new for quite some time. And they probably didn’t think the Menteshe would pick this time of year to invade Avornis again.
In that case, they had to be surprised because he was cutting short his affair with Alca. They couldn’t be surprised if they didn’t know about it. And if they knew about it, they were all too likely to talk once they got back to the city of Avornis.
He didn’t tell Alca about that. She might not say, “I told you so,” but she would surely think it.
Guarded and urged along by soldiers, half a dozen thralls boarded one of the river galleys bound for the capital. Ordinary peasants would have stared and exclaimed. The thralls took the ship as much in stride as they did everything else. It was only one more incomprehensible thing among the swarm of incomprehensibilities that made up their lives.
Alca, on the other hand, boarded the galley on which she and Grus would travel with every sign of relief. “Wonderful to be going home at last, isn’t it?” she said brightly.
“Wonderful,” Grus echoed. What a liar I am, he thought.
No one required Lanius to come to the piers to greet Grus on his return from the south. Maybe Grus didn’t think he’d won enough of a victory to hold a celebration. Maybe it had just slipped his mind to send ahead to the city, and order one. Either way, it didn’t bother Lanius. He had his children. He had the archives. He had the moncats. Now he had the monkeys with the ridiculous mustaches, too.
He was with the monkeys when Grus came in. They required a room of their own, not only because they needed to be kept warm whereas the moncats didn’t but also because the moncats, larger and fiercer, would have made a meal out of them if they’d lived together.
When the door opened behind Lanius, he turned in some annoyance. By now, the servants knew they weren’t supposed to bother him when he was with the animals. Grus, however, was a different story. He did as he pleased. He eyed the monkeys with more than a little curiosity. They stared back at him from their round black eyes with at least as much curiosity. One of them fiddled with its droopy mustache, just as a man might have done.
“Quite a menagerie you’re getting,” Grus remarked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a monkey before.”
“I hadn’t, either. The Chernagors brought them to me,” Lanius answered. More slowly than he should have, he added, “Welcome home.”
“Thanks, Your Majesty.” Grus’ voice was dry. He eyed the monkeys again. “The Chernagors are shrewd. Say what you want about ’em, they’re nobody’s fools. They must have figured out that you like funny beasts.”
“Well… yes.” Lanius didn’t care to admit that he’d given the Chernagors a few hints about what he liked. If he told Grus, it would get back to Sosia. It probably would anyway, sooner or later, because of what Lyashko had said in the throne room. But when it got back to his wife, he knew he would hear about it.
“If you want to see strange creatures, I can show you some I brought back from the south,” Grus said.
“Really? What sort of creatures?” Lanius asked eagerly. He knew there were some animals and birds that dwelt in the south but never came up to the capital. He knew which of those he would most like to see, too. Had Grus figured out that the road to his affection ran through his curiosity? Maybe he had. He was nobody’s fool, either.
But what he said now—“Thralls”—rocked Lanius back on his heels. Grus went on, “We brought some of them back so we can go on studying them here.”
“I see,” Lanius said. “But isn’t that dangerous?”
“Probably,” the older man answered. “We decided not bringing ’em back would be even more dangerous, though. I hope we were right.” He didn’t look altogether contented with the choice he’d made.
For his part, Lanius didn’t suppose he could quarrel with that choice till he knew more; whether it proved right or wrong, Grus had obviously made it with care. Lanius said, “Yes, I would like to see the thralls before long.”
“Good.” Grus nodded in unreserved approval. Lanius cherished that, for he seldom got it. Thoughtfully, Grus went on, “You need to have a notion of just what kind of foe Avornis is up against there.”
“Oh.” That quite took the urge off Lanius’ desire to learn more about thralls. His own voice grim, he said, “As a matter of fact, Your Majesty, so do you.”