And then, as they were drawing near the city of Avornis, the relay stations abruptly stopped. A peasant working in a muddy field laughed when Grus asked him where the next one was. “I’ll tell you where, pal,” he answered. “The other side of Count Corvus’ lands, that’s where. We ain’t had nothing like that hereabouts since my granddad’s day—and Corvus’ granddad’s, too.”
“Why not?” Grus asked. “The kingdom needs them.”
“Take it up with Corvus, if you care to,” the peasant said. “It’s none of my business, and it’ll go right on being none of my business, on account of I want to keep my head attached to my neck.” He went back to grubbing in the mud.
Grus and Nicator rode their sad, weary mounts across Count Corvus’ lands. They rode past the great, frowning castle in which Corvus dwelt. Grus decided to ask the Count no questions after all. He didn’t forget, though. To Nicator, he said, “Some of these nobles need reminding they aren’t kings themselves.”
“Only way you’d make ’em remember is by dropping a rock on their heads,” Nicator answered.
“I know.” Grus looked around. “Where can I get my hands on a rock?” Nicator laughed. Grus didn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Arch-Hallow Bucco lifted up his hands in prayer. “From cold, from hunger, from flood, and from the wrath of our foes, deliver us, O ye gods!” he prayed.
Not even Lanius could quarrel with that. When the ice finally melted, the capital’s drainage channels had faced a challenge as dangerous as any Therving siege. They’d guided away the floodwaters, and Lanius was glad to thank the gods that they had.
Standing next to him, though, his mother sniffed scornfully. “If Bucco said the day was sunny, I’d carry an umbrella,” Queen Certhia remarked, not bothering to hold her voice down.
Lanius laughed. So did several other people who heard her. Bucco peered toward the noise. When he saw it centered on Certhia, his mouth tightened, but he went on with the service. He’d had his time in the sun, had it and not succeeded. Now Lanius’ mother had her chance.
“We need to beat the Thervings again,” she told Lanius after they returned to the palace. “We need to, and we will. And you”—she pointed at him—“you will stay in the city of Avornis while our armies go do it.”
Sometimes even a king couldn’t escape the hand of fate. Lanius recognized this as one of those times. “Yes, Mother,” he said. If he’d been anxious to watch another battle, he might have made a bigger fuss—or he might not have, and quietly tried to arrange something with Lepturus instead. As things were, one introduction to the iron world of warfare would last him a lifetime.
“Everything should go well,” Certhia said. Lanius wondered whether she was trying to convince him or herself. But she went on, “Corax is leading a band of Heruls across the mountains, and Corvus will command our army.”
“And the Menteshe have been very quiet this spring,” Lanius added. “We made the Banished One thoughtful when we came through his dreadful winter so well. He thinks we’re strong, and so he doesn’t want anything to do with us for a while.”
Queen Certhia nodded. “Just so. I’m glad I thought to make sure the city was so well provisioned. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened?”
“Who knows?” Lanius echoed tonelessly. He raised an eyebrow as he eyed his mother. She looked back, smiling and candid. As far as he could tell, she really believed supplying the city of Avornis had been her idea. If she ever wrote her memoirs— something Lanius found unlikely, but even so—she would undoubtedly write that she’d had the idea to bring extra grain into the capital to ward against the harsh winter she’d seen coming. Later historians and chroniclers, believing her, would write the same thing. She might be remembered as Queen Certhia the Forethoughtful, or something of the sort.
Contemplating that made Lanius distrust every work of history he’d ever read. Were they all full of such foolishness? He would have to do more judging for himself. Plainly, he couldn’t believe everything that was written down.
He saw no point in arguing with his mother about it. He wouldn’t change her mind. He did ask, “Is it wise to have so much power resting in the hands of two brothers?”
“Corvus and Corax, you mean?” Certhia asked. Lanius nodded. His mother shrugged. “They’re both good officers, and they both have splendid blood.”
She waited for him to tell her, Yes, Mother, again. He didn’t. He said, “Isn’t that more likely to make them rebel, not less? Half the nobles in the kingdom think they deserve to be King of Avornis.”
“But without nobles, we’d have hardly any officers,” Queen Certhia pointed out—which, unfortunately, was also true. Certhia ruffled Lanius’ hair. He hated that. She went on, “If you’re looking for an officer who isn’t a noble, Commodore Grus is in charge of the river galleys that will bring the Heruls into the Thervings’ rear.” She sniffed, as she had in the cathedral. “His father’s called Crex the Unbearable, and I’m not sure even Crex himself knows who his father was.”
“Grus has done well,” Lanius said.
“Well, maybe he has, but even so…” His mother sniffed yet again. “It’s not as though he were a man to take seriously.”
A serving girl came up to them with a tray of cakes and wine. Lanius took a cake—they were glazed with honey and full of raisins—and a cup of wine. The girl smiled at him. He smiled back. He didn’t quite know how it had happened, but girls, lately, didn’t revolt him nearly as much as they had when he was younger.
His mother had noticed that, too. Frost filled her voice as she said, “You may go now, Prinia.”
“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” the girl said, and hurried away.
“Why did you snap at her like that?” Lanius asked. “She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Not yet,” Queen Certhia said dryly.
“I don’t understand,” Lanius said.
“I know,” his mother answered. “But you will. Very soon now, you will. And then life will get more complicated—though you may be having too much fun to think so.”
Lanius scratched his head. Sometimes his mother made no sense at all.
“Another ship, another stretch of the Tuola River,” Grus said with a sigh as he boarded the Bream. One river galley was much like another, but they weren’t all identical. The Bream had seen better days. Her planking was pale with age. She seemed sound enough, but somehow didn’t feel lucky. Grus eyed the sailors. They looked back at him and Nicator.
“We’ll do our job here, and then they’ll send us south to the Stura again,” Nicator said. He muttered something under his breath that had to do with horses, then, “Thervings or Menteshe. Thervings or Menteshe…”
“Gods grant we have an easy time for a change,” Grus said.
“That would be nice,” Nicator agreed. “What they’ve set us to sounds easy enough, anyhow. All we have to do is get Corax’s band of Heruls down the river and onto our bank of it so they can go on and pitch into the Thervings from behind. Should be simple as you please, so long as everything goes like it’s supposed to.”
“If everything went the way it was supposed to, the King of Avornis wouldn’t need to keep moving us around like pieces on the board,” Grus said. “And remember, this is Count Corax, dear Count Corvus’ brother.”