“Yes, Commodore,” the men chorused. Heedless of Corax’s bellows, they bundled him back into the boat. When they got back to the northwestern bank of the Tuola, they showed what they thought by dumping him into the middle of a mudflat and letting him make his filthy, dripping way back to the Heruls.
“What do we do now, Skipper?” Nicator asked.
“I’ll stay here for a few days,” Grus answered, still seething. “If he shows any sign—any sign at all—of acting like a civilized human being, I’ll ferry him and the Heruls across the river.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“If he doesn’t? A pox on him and a plague on the barbarians, that’s what.”
“What about the fight with the Thervings?”
“Well, what about it?” Grus returned. “Do you think I should be the only one worrying about it? Let’s see if Corax cares about the kingdom, or if the only thing in the whole world Corax cares about is Corax.”
“Something’s gone wrong somewhere,” Lepturus said.
“What do you propose to do about it?” Queen Certhia demanded, blue eyes flashing fire.
The guards commander sent King Lanius an annoyed glance. He might have been saying, Pretty soon you’ll be old enough to rule on your own, and I won’t have to put up with this nonsense from your mother. That often worked well for him—often, but not always. And not today, for Lanius wanted to know exactly what was going on, too. “What do you propose to do about it?” he asked.
Lepturus sighed. “I don’t know just what I can do about it, Your Majesty,” he said. “All I know is, the Heruls didn’t cross the Tuola the way they were supposed to. You know what that means as well as I do. It means our army’s going to have to fight the Thervings without any help. Count Corvus keeps telling everybody what a great general he is. Pretty soon we find out if he’s right.”
He didn’t sound as though he believed Corvus were such a great general. He sounded as though he doubted whether the nobleman could find the fingers at the ends of his hands without a map. And he managed that without a word of open reproach for Count Corvus. Lanius admired him; he was used to more direct insults.
“But Corax is Corvus’ brother,” Queen Certhia said. “He’d come to his aid if he possibly could.”
“Maybe.” Lepturus didn’t sound as though he had much use for Corax, either.
“I think it’s Commodore Grus’ fault,” Certhia said. “I think he should come to the city of Avornis at once, and explain his disgraceful conduct.”
“For one thing, we don’t know it’s disgraceful, Your Majesty,” the guards commander said patiently. “Why don’t we wait and see how the campaign goes before we start throwing blame around like it was mud?”
Certhia fumed. “I am going to give orders that Grus come to the city of Avornis at once. At once, do you hear me?”
“I hear you, Your Royal Highness,” Lepturus answered wearily.
“Well, I am,” Certhia said, and hurried out of the chamber where the three of them were meeting.
“You don’t think that’s a good idea?” Lanius asked.
Lepturus shook his head. “No, I don’t. Too soon to start blaming. You ought to wait till a campaign’s over before you do that. Try doing it in the middle and you’re liable to end up looking like a first-class fool—meaning no disrespect to the lady your mother, of course.”
“Ah, of course,” Lanius said. Lepturus was better than anyone he knew at getting his point across by denying he had any point to get across. Lanius asked, “How do you think the campaign will turn out, Lepturus?”
“If you want to know ahead of time how things’ll turn out, Your Majesty, you talk to wizards or witches, not to soldiers,” the commander of his bodyguards replied. “They’ll be glad to tell you. Sometimes they’ll even be right.”
“I’m talking to you right now, Lepturus.” Lanius put an edge in his voice. “Do you think it will turn out well?”
Lepturus looked at him for a long time, then said, “No.”
“Well, Skipper, what are you going to do with that?” Nicator pointed to the parchment Grus held.
Grus read the parchment one more time. Then he crumpled it and tossed it into the Tuola. “There. That takes care of that. They never sent it. I never got it.”
“Commodore, that’s mutiny!” Turnix exclaimed.
“No.” Grus shook his head. “If I ordered every river galley on all the Nine Rivers to make for the city of Avornis and throw little King Lanius out of the royal palace on his backside, that would be mutiny. I don’t intend to do any such thing.”
“But you’re disobeying an order.” The wizard, at times—the most inconvenient times, generally—showed a remorselessly literal mind.
“How can I disobey an order I never got?” Grus asked.
“But they’ll find out you did, and then you’ll be in even more trouble,” Turnix said.
“That won’t be for a while. I’ll worry about it later,” Grus said. Turnix threw his hands in the air and walked up the deck of the Bream toward the bow.
Nicator said, “Skipper, if you did order all the river galleys to make for the capital, do you suppose their captains would do it?”
“I don’t know,” Grus answered. “I don’t want to find out. I don’t want to have to find out.”
“Well, no,” his captain admitted. “But if you did, I think they might. You’ve won victories, and the blue-blooded generals mostly haven’t. It’d make all those blue bloods who look down their pointy snoots at the navy think twice, eh? You just bet it would.”
He was right, Grus knew. The Avornan navy was and always had been a stepchild. It was there. It was sometimes useful. But it wasn’t where careers were made. It wasn’t where heroes were made. The cavalry came first, then the foot. River galleys? A long way after either. A man with a father called Crex the Unbearable could never have risen to high rank on land, as Grus had in the lesser service.
“I hope it never comes to that,” Grus said. “And I hope they hang Corax from the tallest tree they can find. But he’s the one who wants to be King of Avornis, not me.”
“All right, Skipper. All right.” Nicator nodded. “I know why you have to talk like that. But like I said, if you ever did give the order, I bet the other captains would follow it.”
“Who knows? I’m not going to give it, so what’s the point of wondering?” He had to say that, too.
But river galleys had one advantage over foot soldiers and even horsemen. They were swift, swift, swift. If he ever chose to move against the capital—and if his captains chose to move with him—he could move fast. He rubbed his chin. He could…
He’d never wanted to strike for the royal power. Only in the past couple of years had he realized he might strike for it, it might be within his grasp. Yes, he was the son of Crex the Unbearable. Yes, he was only a commodore, not a general—not even an admiral, since the Avornan navy rarely gave out such an exalted rank. But if he seized the capital, if he seized the palace, who could stop him from putting the crown on his own head? Nobody, not so far as he could see.
“What happens if you get another letter that says you have to go to the city of Avornis?” Nicator asked.
“I don’t know,” Grus said. “Maybe I’ll lose that one, too. I won’t worry unless they try to take my command away.”
“What do you think will happen to Corvus’ army without Corax and the Heruls coming along to give it a hand?”