“Thank you, sweetheart,” Nicator said, and patted her on the bottom.
She drew back. “You can buy the wine,” she said, “and I’ll be glad to see your silver. But you can cursed well keep your hands to yourself. That’s not for sale. If I could line up all the bastards who make filthy jokes about barmaids so I could swing a sword once and take off all their empty heads, I’d do it.” She stomped away.
“Whew!” Nicator said, and took a long pull at his mug. “She had steam coming out of her ears, didn’t she?”
“Just a little,” Grus answered. “I think I’m going to keep my mouth shut for about the next ten years.” He’d been known to make jokes about barmaids. He’d been known to do more than joke. He had a bastard boy down in Anxa. Every quarter, he sent gold to the boy’s mother. Estrilda knew about that. She’d given him her detailed opinion of it when she found out, but she’d eventually forgiven him. Grus shook his head. That wasn’t true. She hadn’t forgiven him, but she had decided to stop beating him over the head.
Three days passed before Zangrulf the Therving arrived on his return journey to King Dagipert. Escorting his party was an Avornan officer named Corvus, a fellow whose gilded armor, fancy horse, and supercilious expression said he had more land and more money than he knew what to do with. “Take these nasty fellows over the river,” he told Grus, an aristocratic sneer in his voice. “We’re well rid of them, believe me.”
Zangrulf wasn’t supposed to hear that, but he did. He looked down his nose at Corvus. “We’ll be back one day soon,” he said. “See how you like us then.”
The Avornan nobleman turned red. “I’m not afraid of you,” he said. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Stupid twit,” Captain Nicator said in a low voice. Grus nodded.
Aldo the wizard came up to Zangrulf and muttered something in the Thervings’ tongue. Zangrulf laughed out loud. Pointing at Corvus, he said, “He tells me you’ll get just what you deserve.”
“Oh, he does, does he?” Corvus’ hand fell to the hilt of his sword. “Tell him to keep his stinking mouth shut, or I’ll give him just what he deserves.”
“I’ll take you and your men across the river,” Grus said to Zangrulf, before a war broke out on the spot. King Dagipert’s ambassador nodded. All the way back to the ruined bridge, though, Aldo kept looking first at Grus, then back toward Corvus. He kept laughing, too.
King Scolopax celebrated his third year on the throne with a party that lasted for eight days. He hated Mergus more than ever, for depriving him of this pleasure for so long. He’d spent too much of his life doing what Mergus told him to do. Now he was king, and everyone—everyone!—had to do as he said.
In fact, only one thing still troubled him a little. “I wish I had a proper heir, an heir of my own body,” he complained to Aistulf one day. “That horrid wart Lanius gives me the shivers. His pointed little nose is always in one book or another, and he’s Mergus‘, not mine.”
“An heir of your own body?” the king’s favorite murmured. “Well, there is a way to arrange that, you know, or at least to try.”
Stroking him, Scolopax shook his head. “Not for me, or so it seems. I do try every now and again—by the gods, every wench in the palace throws herself at me these days—but I don’t rise to the occasion.”
“Too bad, Your Majesty,” Aistulf said. “Women can be fun, too.”
“I’ve got you, and I’ve got Waccho,” King Scolopax said. “If I had any more fun, I’d fall over.” Aistulf laughed. These days, everyone laughed when Scolopax made a joke. The king went on, “Besides, that wart won’t put his scrawny little backside on the throne till after I’m dead, and I don’t expect I’ll care about it then.”
“That’s so,” Aistulf agreed. Everyone agreed with Scolopax these days. He liked that, too.
He said, “Shall we go out to the meadow and knock the ball around?” He was an avid polo player. Considering his years and thick belly, he was a pretty good one, too.
“Whatever you like, Your Majesty,” Aistulf said. Polo wasn’t high on his list, or on Waccho’s. But keeping Scolopax happy was.
“Yes,” the king said—happily. “Whatever I like.”
Before long, he was galloping across the meadow, wild as a Menteshe nomad. The cavalrymen who rode with him and his favorites played hard. Scolopax couldn’t be bothered with running Avornis—the Thervings had been ravaging the west for a year now, and he had yet to send much of a force against them; that was what he had generals for, after all—but polo was different. Polo was important. No one who thought otherwise got to play with the king twice.
His horse thundered past his last opponent. He swung his mallet with the power of a man half his age. The mallet caught the ball exactly as he’d wanted. He couldn’t have aimed it any better if he’d rolled it into the net. “Goal!” he shouted joyously, and threw his arms up in triumph.
“Well shot, Your Majesty,” said the defender he’d beaten.
“A perfect shot, Your Majesty,” said Aistulf, who didn’t want anyone but himself—and perhaps Waccho—flattering the king.
And then, quite without his bidding it, Scolopax’s mallet slipped from his fingers and fell to the trampled meadow. He swayed in the saddle. He tried to bring up his right hand to rub at his forehead, but it didn’t want to obey him. He used his left instead. He swayed again, and almost fell.
“Are you all right, Your Majesty?” Aistulf asked.
“I have a terrific headache,” Scolopax answered. His whole right side seemed numb—no, not numb, but as though he had no right side at all. He couldn’t keep his balance. Slowly, he slid off the horse. He gazed up at the sky in mild surprise, the smell of dirt and grass in his nostrils.
“Your Majesty!” Aistulf shouted, and then, “Quick! Go fetch a healer!”
Scolopax heard someone galloping away. He hardly noticed, for he saw, or thought he saw, a face full of cold, cold beauty staring down at him. “Too bad,” the Banished One said. “Oh, too bad. And I had such hopes for you.” Scolopax tried to answer, but couldn’t. Though it was noontime, the sky grew dark. Very, very soon, it grew black.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lanius jumped into the air, as high as he could. “Mama!” he cried, and ran to her. He hadn’t seen her since his father died. In the life of a child, three years are an age. He’d sometimes wondered if he would even recognize her. But he did. Oh, he did!
“Darling!” Queen Certhia squeezed the breath out of him. “You’ve gotten so big and tall,” she said. “But you’re too skinny. You need to eat more. You look like a boy made out of sticks.”
“I’ll eat more,” Lanius promised. He would have promised his mother almost anything. “I’ll even eat—” He shook his head. He wouldn’t promise to eat his vegetables. That would be going too far.
“You’re the king now, after all,” Certhia said. “The king has to be strong, so Avornis will be strong.”
“All right.” It didn’t seem real to Lanius. He was only eight years old. The one change he’d been able to notice was that palace servants called him Your Majesty now instead of Your Highness. Even his tutor called him Your Majesty. But he still had to go to lessons every day—not that he minded them. He said, “I’m sorry Uncle Scolopax died.”
His mother’s face went hard and cold. “I’m not,” she said. “He was a stupid, nasty man, Lanius. You’ll make a much better king when you grow up. I’m sure you will.”