“Well, what is this danger, then?” Grus asked gruffly. “Have Ulash’s men crossed over to the north bank of the river? Have they set some sort of ambush for the Tigerfish? Has he put galleys of his own in the Stura?”
“None of those, sir. Worse than those, sir,” the wizard answered.
The sailors muttered, some in fear, some in derision. Nicator said, “Fling him over the rail and let him swim home, the useless, shivering son of a yellow dog.”
“I know what I know,” Turnix declared.
“I know what you know, too,” Grus said. “Less than you think you know, that’s what you know. And until you know you know less than you think you know, I think you’d better know enough to get out of my sight.”
That wasn’t easy to do on a river galley, which measured only about eighty feet from ram to dragon, forepost to rudder. Turnix did make himself scarce, though, and that served well enough. “Too bad he doesn’t make himself disappear,” Nicator muttered darkly.
As the sun sank behind the Tigerfish, her anchors splashed into the river at bow and stern. Grus ate hard bread and salty sausage with his men, and washed supper down with wine. He made sure the night watch was strong—the Banished One claimed the darkness as his own. After everything seemed as safe as Grus could make it, he lay down on the deck planking, wrapped himself in a thick wool blanket, and fell asleep.
And he discovered that Turnix wasn’t such a bumbler after all. For when Grus fell asleep that night, he dreamt, and when he dreamt, he saw the Banished One face-to-face. He fought to wake up, of course. He fought, and lost, and wished the wizard had been wrong instead of all too right.
“I see you, Grus,” the Banished One said. His voice and his face held the same terrifying, unearthly beauty. He was not a thing of this world. He belonged in the heavens—or he had.
Which would be worse, answering him or not? “I see you,” Grus heard some inner part of him say.
“You will fail. You will fall,” the Banished One told him. Those terrible eyes looked into his soul, and Grus quailed. Men were not meant to be measured so. Vast contempt blazed forth from the Banished One. “And even if you think you triumph, you fail regardless.” He laughed. That was harder to bear than the gaze. Grus hadn’t thought anything could be.
“Go away,” his inner voice croaked. His spirit made a sign he would have used in the flesh.
And he was awake, staring up at the innocent, cheerfully twinkling stars. Except for a few mosquitoes buzzing overhead, everything was calm and peaceful as could be. The sailors on watch strode along the deck, bows in their hands, swords on their belts. But sweat soaked Grus, and he smelled the sour reek of his own fear.
He looked around for Turnix. The wizard lay snoring, not ten feet away. Grus silently begged his pardon. Facing the Banished One was a more deadly danger than any on the river. This time, Turnix had known more than even he’d thought he’d known.
“Come on,” Mergus said testily as he led Certhia down a seldom used corridor somewhere in the bowels of the royal palace. Torches burned fitfully in sconces on the wall. The air had a dead, unbreathed feel to it. The king was impatient. “Do you know how hard this was to arrange?”
Certhia was getting impatient, too. “You’re the king. You can do whatever you want.”
Mergus laughed. “That only proves you’ve never been a king.” His laughter and his words echoed oddly from the rough-hewn stone. The stone might have been unused to having sounds bounce off it.
His guards waited at the top of the stairway. They were probably sniggering and poking one another in the ribs with their elbows. They thought he’d brought his concubine down here so he could make love to her in this strange, uncomfortable, but private place. Mergus had let them think so. Mergus the proud, Mergus the arrogant, submitted to embarrassment—even courted embarrassment—without a murmur, without a whimper.
Certhia giggled. Mergus hadn’t told her why he’d brought her down here, either. She drew her own conclusions. Mergus looked around. He wouldn’t have chosen this for a trysting ground, but…
The witch appeared in the corridor in front of him and Certhia. One instant, she wasn’t there; the next, she was. Certhia squeaked in surprise. The witch ignored her and dropped King Mergus a curtsy. “You summoned me, Your Majesty?”
“Yes.” Mergus had summoned someone, at any rate. The witch was younger than he, older than Certhia, her brown hair lightly streaked with gray. She had a broken nose that somehow made her look interesting, not homely. By her plain linen smock and long black wool skirt, she wasn’t rich. By the silver rings in her ears and on one finger, she wasn’t poor, either. Mergus asked, “What do I call you?”
“Rissa will do,” she answered. “It may be my name, it may not. But it will do.”
His answering nod was quick and harsh. “All right, Rissa. You know what I want of you?”
“Would I be here if I didn’t?” Without more ado, Rissa turned to the king’s concubine. “Take off your smock, dear. I need to feel of you.”
Certhia squeaked again, this time in outrage. “What?”
“Do it,” the king said, the iron clang of command in his voice no less than if he’d been ordering soldiers into battle against the Thervings.
She bridled. She was no soldier, and the iron clang of command only put her back up. “What for?” she demanded.
Mergus visibly started to say Because I told you to. A moment later, he visibly thought better of it. “Because I’m going to find out if you’re carrying a boy,” he replied after that tiny pause.
“Any court wizard could tell you,” Certhia said.
“No court wizard could keep his mouth shut afterward,” the king said. “Rissa here will. Rissa here had better, anyhow. Now come on. We haven’t got all day down in this miserable hole.”
Certhia started to argue more. Then she thought better of it. With a sigh that said she was still unhappy—and that she expected King Mergus to know it—she pulled her smock off over her head.
A heavy gold chain supporting an amulet hung in the shadowed valley between her breasts. They were larger and sagged a bit more than they had before she conceived.
Rissa paid no attention. She set her hands lower, on Certhia’s belly. The king’s concubine hadn’t shown her pregnancy for long. Clothed, she hardly showed it even now. But the witch nodded as soon as she touched Certhia’s flesh. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Yes, what?” King Mergus’ voice was hard and urgent.
“Yes, it will be a boy,” Rissa answered matter-of-factly. Then, the palms of her hands still on Certhia, she stiffened. When she spoke again, she sounded nothing like herself. “I hate him. I shall punish him. Though he have a son, let him be impotent. Let his hope die before him. Let all laugh at what he has become. As I have ordained, so let it be.” The brass of a slightly sour trumpet rang in her words.
Certhia gasped in terror. “That is the Banished One, cursing your son!” Her hand flashed to the amulet she wore. In danger, she forgot she was naked from the waist up. “King Olor, protect him! Queen Quelea, protect me!”
Mergus’ fingers twisted in a protective gesture every Avornan learned by the age of three. He murmured prayers, too. After his heart’s first frightened lurch steadied, he also murmured defiance. “He’ll not have him!” Now his hands folded into fists. “He’ll not!” He’d been without an heir of his flesh too long. He would have defied worse than the Banished One to keep that heir… he would have, were there worse than the Banished One.
Rissa’s hands fell away from Certhia. The witch blinked a couple of times, as though coming back to herself. She did not seem to remember what she’d said—what had been said through her—or Certhia and Mergus’ replies. Only when she saw their faces did she ask, “Is something wrong?”