“But do the Thervings mean it, Skipper, or are they trying to trick us?” Nicator persisted.
“I don’t know.” Grus turned to Turnix. “You’re the wizard. What do you think?”
Turnix looked troubled. “I still can’t be certain.”
“I won’t let anyone beat you if you’re wrong,” Grus said. “I want your best guess.”
The wizard nervously plucked at his beard. “I don’t think the Thervings know I got through their sorcerous screen. I do think they’re hiding something real, not running a bluff. You asked… sir.”
“You gave me what I asked for.” Now— what to do with it? Grus went into the tiny cabin at the stern that let him and Nicator and Turnix sleep out of the rain. He found a scrap of parchment, a quill pen, and a bottle of ink. He wrote rapidly, then brought the note to Turnix. “Here. Send this to one of the wizards with the cavalry and foot soldiers and back to the city of Avornis.”
Turnix read the note, then nodded. “You’ve summed things up here very well.”
Grus shrugged. “Never mind that. As long as they know.”
By the nervous way people went through the halls of the royal palace in the city of Avornis, one might think that one of the gods had stirred the place with a stick for sport. King Lanius felt the trouble without knowing what had caused it. When he asked his mother, Queen Certhia patted him on the head and told him, “It’s nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart.”
She could have done no better job of making him angry if she’d tried for a month. Glaring at her, he said, “Arch-Hallow Bucco would have told me just the same thing, Mother.”
Certhia mouthed something silent about Bucco. Then she said, “It’s nothing you can do anything about, and that’s the truth.”
“I don’t care whether I can do anything about it or not,” Lanius said. Like any child, he’d had to get used to the idea that things happened regardless of his opinion about them. “But I do want to know. I’m only a few years from coming of age. Then I’ll be King of Avornis in my own right. I should know as much as I can before then, don’t you think?”
His mother sighed and ruffled his hair. “I remember when I could hold you in the crook of my elbow. You were such a tiny thing then.”
Lanius hated when his mother told him things like that. “I’m not a tiny thing anymore.”
She had to nod. “No, that’s true. You’re not.”
“Tell me, then,” he said.
“All right. Let’s see what you make of it,” his mother said. “We have word from Commodore Grus and his wizard on the Tuola that the Thervings are planning something sorcerous farther up the river than his galleys can go.” She waited to hear what he would say next.
He frowned in thought. “Is this Grus a good officer?”
“Lepturus keeps track of such people. He says Grus is very clever,” Queen Certhia answered. “Lepturus says he may be too clever for his own good, but no doubt he’s able.”
“Would you have known that if Lepturus hadn’t told you?” Lanius asked.
His mother looked impatient. “Really, Lanius, you can’t expect me to keep track of all the officers who serve you.”
“Why not?” Lanius asked in genuine surprise. “You’re the head of the Council of Regents now. That means you might as well be King of Avornis. You should know these men.”
“Never mind that,” Certhia said. “I do know Grus now, thanks to Lepturus. What do you think we ought to do, supposing this report is true?”
“That’s the place everyone expects Dagipert to attack anyhow, just because our ships can’t help stop the Thervings there,” Lanius replied. “We ought to do everything we can to hold him back.”
Certhia gave him an odd look. “Did someone tell you to say that? One of your bodyguards, maybe? Or your tutor?”
“No, Mother,” Lanius replied. “I figured it out for myself. It looks pretty obvious, doesn’t it?”
For some reason he couldn’t fathom, that only made his mother’s expression odder. “How old are you?” she asked, and held up her hand before he could answer. “No, never mind—I know you’re eleven. But you don’t talk like you’re eleven. You talk like a man who’s my age, or maybe twice my age.”
“I just talk the way I talk,” Lanius said.
“I know,” Queen Certhia said. It didn’t sound like praise, or not altogether like praise. After a moment, she went on, “Lepturus gave me the same advice you did—that we go out and face the Thervings there in the foothills with everything we have.”
“Will you take it?” Lanius asked.
She nodded. “Yes. Lepturus will lead the army out of the city of Avornis. As head of the regency, I’m going with them.”
“I should come, too,” Lanius exclaimed. “I’m the king, after all.” Even if I can’t do anything much, he added to himself.
“Your coming along is fine if we win,” his mother said. “But what if we lose? What if King Dagipert gets his hands on you?”
“I suppose I’d have to marry his silly daughter,” Lanius said, which struck him as all too close to a fate worse than death. Other than that, though, falling into Dagipert’s hands didn’t worry him all that much. He’d been in someone else’s hands—one someone’s or another’s—ever since his father died. He didn’t like it, but he was used to it. And besides… “With me there, the soldiers will know they’d better not lose.”
“I want you to stay here safe in the city of Avornis,” Queen Certhia answered, and nothing Lanius could say to her would make her change her mind.
Nothing Lanius could say to her… After his mother left— stalked out of his bedchamber, really—the King of Avornis sent a servant to Lepturus, asking if the commander of the royal bodyguard would come and see him. Lepturus came at once. “You don’t ask me to come see you, Your Majesty,” he said after making his bows. “You tell me to come see you. That’s what being king is all about, you know.”
“No, I don’t know anything of the sort,” Lanius answered. “How should I?”
Lepturus grunted laughter. “Well, you’ll find out, Your Majesty. By the gods, you will. When you say ‘Hop,’ you’ll never see so many hop toads as go up in the air for you. Won’t be so very long, either.”
Lanius remembered that for the rest of his days, even though his coming of age seemed much further away to him than it did to Lepturus.
The guards commander asked, “What can I do for you, Your Majesty? You just name it. If it’s in my power, it’s yours.”
That was what Lanius wanted to hear. He said, “When you march against King Dagipert and the Thervings, take me along with you.”
“What?” Lepturus rumbled, his eyes widening. Lanius repeated himself. Grown-ups, he’d noticed, had trouble hearing, or at least trouble listening. Lepturus heard him out for the second time, and then asked, “Why do you want to do a thing like that?”
“Because I’m the King of Avornis, and that’s what the King of Avornis is supposed to do.” Lanius sounded very sure. He explained why. “I’ve read it in books, you see.”
“But the books don’t say anything about what happens when the King of Avornis is only eleven years old,” Lepturus said.
“Well, if I were bigger, I could fight better, but I don’t think one soldier more or less would make a lot of difference about whether we win or lose,” Lanius said. “Do you, Lepturus?”
With a chuckle, Lepturus shook his head. “No, I don’t suppose so. Tell me, though, Your Majesty, what’s your mother got to say about all this?”
“She says, ‘No!’ She says, ‘Heavens, no!’ ” King Lanius answered. “That’s why I called you—to see if I could get you to change her mind.”