Only later did Lanius decide the thrall—and, through him, the Banished One—wanted to watch and savor his fear. Just then, no such elaborate thoughts filled his mind.
He threw Rusty in the thrall’s face.
The moncat squalled with fury, and with fear of its own. Up till a moment ago Lanius had been friendly, even loving, and Rusty had returned those feelings as well as an animal could. And now this!
Rusty clung with all four clawed hands—and with tail, as well. The thrall let out a gurgling shriek of pain, surprise, and fury of his own (or of his Master). He grabbed for the moncat to try to tear it loose. Rusty sank needle-sharp teeth into his hand. The thrall shrieked again.
Having had one good idea, Lanius got another one. He fled. Dodging the thrall was no problem. Not even with some part of the Banished One’s spirit guiding him could the thrall commit murder with a frenzied, clawing moncat clinging to his head.
Other moncats had already escaped from the chamber. That was one more thing Lanius knew he would have to worry about later. Meanwhile, he burst out into the corridor, crying, “Guards! Guards! An assassination!” He wished the crucial word weren’t five syllables long; it took forever to say.
Ordinary servants started shouting, too. Out came the thrall. He’d finally gotten rid of Rusty, but his face looked as though he’d run full speed through a thousand miles of thorn bushes. His left hand bled, too. He kept shaking his head to keep blood from running into his eyes.
Guards pounded up the hallway. “Seize that man!” Lanius shouted. “Take him alive for questioning if you can.”
Without a word, the guards rushed at the thrall. He tried to rush at Lanius. Restraining him didn’t work. He fought so fiercely, he made them kill him. Lanius cared much less than he’d thought he would. Staring down at the pool of blood spreading across the mosaic work floor, all he said was, “I hope that was the only mischief afoot here.”
A woman’s scream rang down the corridor.
A servant said, “You do remember, Your Majesty, that you were going to lunch with Her Majesty?”
“Yes, I remember.” Grus didn’t look up from the pile of parchments he was wading through.
“You should have gone some little while ago,” the servant said.
“I suppose I should,” Grus admitted. But he and Estrilda were still so fragile together, even going through petitions for tax relief seemed preferable to eating with her. Still, if he didn’t go at all, he’d insult her, and that would only make things between them worse—if they could be worse.
Shaking his head, he rose and went up the hall toward the chambers he still shared with his wife, though much less intimately than he had in the past. “Oh, Your Majesty, aren’t you dining with the queen?” asked a servant coming the other way. “A rather strange-seeming fellow was asking after you, and I sent him in that direction.”
“Strange-seeming?” Grus frowned. “What do you mean?”
“He sounded like a soldier, though he didn’t quite look like one,” the man answered. “He looked like… I don’t know what. A soldier down on his luck, maybe. But he spoke like a lord.”
“A soldier down on his luck? What would a soldier down on his luck be doing in… ?” Grus started again. “You know, now that I think of it, we put those thralls we brought up from Cumanus in old soldiers’ clothes, didn’t we?” He pointed at the servant. “When did you see this fellow?”
“Why, just now, Your Majesty,” the man answered. “But a thrall wouldn’t be able to speak, would he?”
“I wouldn’t think so,” Grus said. “Not unless—”
Estrilda screamed.
Grus yanked his sword from the scabbard and started to run. The servant pounded after him, though the most obviously lethal thing the man had on his person was a large, shiny brass belt buckle. I’ll have to remember that, Grus thought. Then Estrilda screamed again, and he stopped thinking about anything but getting to her as fast as he could.
A door slammed. An instant later, a body thudded against it, once, twice, three times. That noise helped guide Grus better than the screams had. So did the sound of the door giving way.
He dashed into the small dining room where he and Estrilda should have been eating. The man who’d just forced the door to the adjoining pantry whirled. A long kitchen knife gleamed in his hand. “Here you are!” he said, and lunged toward Grus.
He was a thrall. Grus recognized him, and the old clothes he wore. But his face didn’t hold its usual blank look. Hatred blazed from his eyes. If that wasn’t the Banished One staring out through them, Grus couldn’t imagine ever seeing Avornis’ foe face-to-face.
The thrall thrust at him. Grus beat the stroke aside. A long kitchen knife made a fine murder weapon when the victim couldn’t fight back. Against a proper sword, it wasn’t so much.
The thrall tried to stab Grus again. This time, Grus knocked the knife flying. The thrall threw himself at the king bare-handed.
Grus’ sword stroke almost separated the man’s head from his shoulders. He cursed himself a moment later; he might have been able to wring answers from the would-be assassin. He’d get no answers now. Blood gouted from the thrall. He staggered, still glaring furiously at Grus, and then slowly crumpled to the floor.
Estrilda came out of the little pantry where she’d fled. Her face was white as milk. She looked at the twitching, bleeding corpse and gulped. She seldom got reminded of the sorts of things Grus had done for a living before he donned the crown.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
His wife nodded. “He didn’t get a chance to do anything to me,” she said, her voice shaky.
Stooping, Grus wiped the sword on the dead thrall’s shirt, and jammed it back into the scabbard. Then he went over and took Estrilda in his arms. She clutched him, started to pull away as she remembered she was angry at him, and then seemed to decide this wasn’t the right time for that and clutched him after all.
More servants came running up in the wake of the one who’d followed Grus. So did royal bodyguards. Grus jerked a thumb at the thrall’s body. “Get that carrion out of here and clean up this mess,” he said. “And, by the gods, make sure King Lanius and the rest of my family are all right.”
People started leaving as fast as they’d come, and bumped into others coming to see what was happening after it had already happened. Estrilda pointed to a pair of guards. “You men stay,” she said. “More of these devils may be loose.”
She was right. Grus knew as much. So did the bowing bodyguards. “Yes, Your Majesty,” they chorused.
When Grus started to put an arm around his wife again, she did slip away. Her eyes stayed on the dead thrall as a servant dragged the body out by the feet. “You should have let him kill me,” she murmured.
“What?” Grus wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What are you talking about?” Before Estrilda could answer, more guards clattered up, their chainmail shirts jingling. Grus said, “You men—go to the thralls’ chamber. You know where that is?” They nodded. “Good,” he told them. “See how many are left there, and don’t let any more out no matter what.” They hurried away. He turned back to Estrilda. “Now what nonsense were you spouting?”
“It isn’t nonsense. You should have let him kill me,” Estrilda said. “Then you could call your witch back here, and you’d be happy.”
Grus stared at her. “Has anyone ever told you you were an idiot?” he asked, his voice harsh. Numbly, she shook her head. He said, “Well, everybody missed a perfect chance, then, because you are. By the gods, Estrilda, I love you. I always have.”
“Even when you were with Alca?” she demanded.