He had no answer for that. Even so, he promised, “You’ll not want.”
“For money, you mean?” Alca asked, and Grus nodded. Her laugh was bitter as wormwood. “And for love, Your Majesty? Can Petrosus allocate that from the treasury, too?” She held up a hand. “Never mind. It’s not your fault alone—it’s not as though you forced me. But that doesn’t make things easier right now. If you’ll excuse me…” She walked down the corridor. Grus wanted to follow her, but he knew that would only make matters worse, if they could be any worse.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“Something’s wrong,” Sosia said in the quiet of the royal bedchamber.
“Wrong? Where?” The last time she’d said that, it had alarmed Lanius. This time, it only puzzled him. “Everything seems quiet to me. Thervingia’s peaceful. The Chernagors are squabbling amongst themselves instead of with us. We taught the Menteshe a lesson—I hope we did, anyhow. The moncats are healthy. Even the monkeys are doing well. What could be wrong?”
His wife sent him an exasperated look. “There are times when I wish you paid less attention to your beasts and more to the people around you. Something’s wrong with Father.”
“Oh.” For various reasons he found good, Lanius paid as little attention to Grus as he could get away with. Sometimes, of course, that was like trying not to pay attention to a natural calamity. A couple of heartbeats later than he should have, Lanius realized he needed to ask, “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Sosia answered. “That’s part of what worries me. Haven’t you noticed how he has his mind on something lately, something that doesn’t let him pay attention to things right under his nose?”
“I’m like that all the time,” Lanius said.
“Yes, I know.” Sosia’s tone was quietly devastating. She went on, “But Father isn’t. Or he never used to be. If he is now, all of a sudden, it must be because something isn’t the way it ought to be.”
“Why don’t you ask him what it is?”
Sosia’s expression got more exasperated than ever. “Don’t you think I have? He just looked at me and said, ‘Nothing.’ But it isn’t nothing. If it were nothing, he wouldn’t act the way he’s acting.”
“Maybe he’d tell me if I asked him,” Lanius said.
“Maybe he would,” Sosia said. “You’re a man. Maybe that makes a difference. Would you try, please?”
“All right, when I find the chance.” Lanius wondered what he was getting himself into. “The time has to be right. I can’t just ask him out of the blue, or he won’t tell me anything. I wouldn’t tell anybody anything if I got asked out of the blue.”
“All right.” Sosia didn’t complain, which proved how worried she was.
Finding the right time to ask his father-in-law personal questions proved harder than he’d expected. The moment did finally come, though. King Grus was complaining that Evren’s Menteshe had done more damage down in the south than he’d thought they would when their invasion started. “Unfortunate,” Lanius agreed.
“Worse than unfortunate,” Grus said. “Between this and all the losses we had from the civil war and from the Thervings, I just hope the harvest is decent next year. If it’s bad, we could see trouble.”
“Is that what’s been bothering you lately?” Lanius asked, as casually as he could. “Worry about the harvest, I mean?”
Grus gave him a stare as opaque as stone. “Nothing has been bothering me lately,” he said tonelessly.
Up until then, Lanius hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary with Grus. That stare and that unconvincing denial, though, were far out of character—so far out of character, Grus would be bound to prickle up if Lanius called him on it. Instead, Lanius said, “Well, Sosia’s been worried that you aren’t quite yourself.”
“Who else would I be?” Grus’ laugh also sounded wrong.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” Lanius answered. “I’m only telling you what she told me. Women are funny creatures sometimes.” He did his best to sound like the man of the world he wasn’t.
The effort fell flat. Grus nodded soberly and said, “That they are. You can’t live with ’em, and you can’t live without ’em.” And he told nothing more of whatever was on his mind. A couple of further questions only brought out stares that made the first one seem warm and friendly by comparison. Lanius didn’t need long to give up.
That evening, he told Sosia what little her father had said. “Men!” she said, as though writing off half the human race with one scornful word.
“I found out more than you did,” Lanius said defensively.
“But you didn’t find out enough,” Sosia replied.
“Well, if you want to know more, you can ask him yourself,” Lanius said. “You didn’t see the way he looked at me. Or—” He broke off.
“Or what?” his wife asked.
“Or how he didn’t want to talk,” Lanius answered. That wasn’t what he’d started to say, or anything close to it. But, suddenly, he doubted he ought to suggest that she ask Alca.
“Grus?” Estrilda’s voice was soft but determined. “There’s something we need to talk about, Grus.”
This is what being wounded feels like, Grus thought. It’s been a long time, but I remember. First the shock, then, after a little while, the pain. As a man sometimes will, he vowed not to show the pain no matter how much it hurt—and no matter how much more it was likely to hurt soon. Nodding to Estrilda, he asked, “What is it?” Here it comes. Oh, yes, here it comes.
And then she said, “We ought to find Ortalis a wife. High time he was married. Past time he was married, in fact. If he doesn’t get a wife before too long, people will… will start to wonder if something’s wrong with him.”
More than once in the fighting against the Menteshe, arrows had hissed past Grus’ head, arrows that would have been deadly if they’d struck home. He’d been in the heat of battle then. He hadn’t had time to know relief. He did now. Almost giddy with it, he answered, “You’re right, dear. We ought to see what we can do.”
This isn’t escape. This is only a reprieve. It may not even be a long one. She could find out tomorrow. Olor’s beard, she could find out this afternoon. She’s bound to find out before too long. So Grus told himself. He still felt as though he’d drunk three cups of strong wine, one right after another.
“We should have started in on this a long time ago,” Estrilda said. “It may not be easy, even though you’re the king.”
Even though you’re the king, plenty of fathers may not want to take the chance of marrying any daughter of theirs to your son. That was what she meant. Conversations about Ortalis were always full of things left out, things not spoken, blunt truths turned into euphemisms. Grus wished it were otherwise.
“It’s… better since he took up hunting,” he said. Ortalis was flesh of his flesh, too, and he too talked around his son’s troubles.
“Some,” Estrilda said. “Have you noticed, though, that he doesn’t hunt with Anser anymore? I don’t know why, but he doesn’t. And there’s nothing wrong with Anser… now.” She couldn’t resist tucking on that last word. Grus heard another arrow buzzing by him. Estrilda couldn’t help liking Anser. Hardly anyone could help liking him. But she couldn’t help remembering he was Grus’ bastard, either.
How bad will it be when she finds out about Alca ? No sooner had Grus asked himself the question than he decided he didn’t want to know the answer. He might, he probably would, find out whether he wanted to or not, but not right now. Back to Ortalis, then. “Have you got anyone particular in mind?”