“You know what he did,” Sosia said.
“Yes. But he didn’t force her—it’s very plain he didn’t force her. He didn’t hurt her. He’s not a perfect man. I never said he was. But there’s a long way from not being a perfect man to being a beast. And if I can see that in your father, maybe you should, too.”
“Maybe,” Sosia said, but the look in her eyes might have belonged to a little girl saving up more spit so she could go on with her tantrum.
“He’s… a good enough king,” Lanius said. “I don’t want to admit it. But I’m not blind. I can see what he’s done. It’s… good enough, taken all in all.”
Could I have done as well? he asked himself. Could I have gotten people to do as I say, the way Grus does? He doubted it.
He was a man for the archives and for odd animals and for his family and perhaps for a small circle of friends.
Sosia said, “What he did with—with that woman, that wasn’t good enough.”
“I didn’t say it was,” Lanius answered. “I suppose he and your mother will eventually straighten it out.” Grus wouldn’t put Estrilda aside because he was sleeping with another woman, either. Plenty of Kings of Avornis had done things like that, too.
“I hope so,” Sosia said. “I don’t know how, though.”
“Well, it’s their worry,” Lanius said. And thank the gods for that, he thought.
By the way Alca looked at Grus, he might have been something wet and sticky and smelly she’d stepped on in the street. Her expression made him feel that way, too. She said, “So it’s come to this, has it?”
“I’m afraid it has,” he answered miserably.
“You have to send me away?” The witch’s gesture held infinite bitterness. “Why not send her away?”
With a sigh, he said, “I can’t. She’s the mother of my children. And—” He stopped again.
Alca finished for him, saying, “And when you get down to it, you’d rather have her around than me.”
“I’m sorry,” Grus whispered.
“You’re sorry?” Alca said. “How do you think I feel?”
Grus wished she would have made this easier. She had no reason to, of course. “Go wherever you will, except this city,” he said. “Wherever you go, you won’t want, I promise.”
“I won’t want? I’ll want for a husband; for a lover; for a life. People will whisper behind my back and point fingers at me for the rest of my life. ‘She’s the one who laid the king, who sucked the king’s—’ ” Alca broke off. “I won’t want? Ha!”
“What money can do, I’ll make sure money does,” Grus said.
“I didn’t come to your bed to be your whore.”
“I don’t want to give you money because you were my whore, gods curse it,” Grus said. “I want to give you money because it’s all I can give you now.”
“You have to save the rest for the mother of your children,” Alca said, and Grus winced. She went on, “The mother of your legitimate children, I should say.” Grus flinched again. Alca shook her head. “Queen Quelea help me, I knew it would come to this.”
“Anser and his mother never lacked for anything,” Grus said. “I made sure of that.”
The witch said, “Ha!” again, even more scornfully than before. “Where was his father? Where was her man?”
“She ended up marrying,” Grus said. “Her husband raised the boy as his own.”
“He was generous with a cuckoo’s egg.” Alca’s sarcasm flayed. “Do you suppose I’ll find a man who could cherish something the king used and then discarded? Wouldn’t I be lucky?”
“Alca, please—” Grus began.
She shook her head. “I haven’t begged you for anything. You have no call to beg me, Your Majesty.” Grus’ title might have been a curse in her mouth, as it had been in Estrilda’s. “Do what you’re going to do.”
“I told you what I’d do,” Grus said. “You know why. Tell me where you’d rather go—”
“I’d rather not go anywhere,” Alca said.
Grus sighed. “You don’t have that choice.”
“Send me wherever you please, then,” the witch said. “If this is the thanks I get for saving your life and then for thinking…” She shook her head again. “No, I never did think that. I was always sure this would end badly.”
“I wish things could be different,” Grus said.
“You wish you hadn’t gotten caught.” Yes, Alca sounded very much like Estrilda. “You were a fool, and I was a fool, and…” She looked through him, and something in her voice changed. “And you will be a fool again, and your child, your precious child, will make you pay for it.”
All of a sudden, Grus wanted her as far away as she could go. She blinked and seemed to come back to herself. Too late, as far as he was concerned. If that wasn’t prophecy, what was it? He tried to gather himself, saying, “I’ll send you to Pelagonia, then.” The town was in the middle of the southern plains, a long way from the capital.
“You can do whatever you want,” Alca said. “Whether it’s right or fair doesn’t matter.”
If Grus could do whatever he wanted, why was he doing this? He knew why. Sometimes, even the King of Avornis took orders from a higher authority—and what authority could be higher than an outraged spouse?
People didn’t commonly set off on a journey across Avornis in the dead of winter, especially not when the winter in question was a hard one. When Alca left the royal palace, left the city of Avornis, for Pelagonia, no one said a word about what people didn’t commonly do. Everyone knew why she was leaving, and everyone knew remarking on it wouldn’t be wise.
All Lanius said was, “Maybe we’ll have some peace and quiet in the palace now.” Even he waited a couple of days before saying anything, and even he made sure only his wife heard him.
“That would be good,” Sosia agreed. “We don’t need any more scandals of that particular sort.” The look she gave him warned he’d better not cause a scandal of that particular sort.
“We don’t need any scandals of any sort,” he said, being a man who liked things neat and tidy. Having been born as part of a scandal, he particularly deplored them. He knew things weren’t always neat and tidy—if they had been, he would have ruled Avornis instead of just reigning over it—but he wished they were.
“She’s gone. She won’t be back,” Sosia said, as though that was a very good thing indeed. Lanius had his own views on the subject, had them and made a point of keeping them to himself.
He did need to see King Grus about something else. His father-in-law didn’t seem to want to see him—or anyone else, for that matter. Not for the first time, Lanius put it off… and then put it off again, and eventually, as he had before, let it slip to the back of his mind. Yes, it was something Grus needed to hear and Lanius needed to tell him, but it wasn’t anything Lanius really wanted to talk about or Grus would care to hear. Nobody who carried bad news was eager to blurt it out, especially when the person who got it couldn’t do anything about it.
And, before long, Lanius and Grus both had other things to worry about. The winter went on and on and got worse and worse. Lanius suspected the Banished One had more than a little to do with that, as he had before. He didn’t know whether Grus suspected the same thing. He didn’t feel inclined to ask, either. Grus couldn’t very well ask Alca to use her sorcery to help find out, not anymore, and the other king didn’t seem to have found a new wizard he could trust.