“I’m sure you could,” Sosia said. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t nuisances, or couldn’t be if they got the chance. If they started swinging through the trees here in the city, we wouldn’t have any songbirds left before long.”
“Don’t be silly. Songbirds can fly away,” Lanius said.
“Grown songbirds can,” Sosia replied. “But what about the ones in their nests? What about eggs? Do moncats eat eggs?”
“I don’t know.” Lanius felt harassed. He probably sounded harassed, too. But his stubborn honesty made him add, “When the Chernagors gave me Iron and Bronze, their leader did say the islands they came from didn’t have a lot of squirrels.”
Sosia nodded. “Squirrels, too. I hadn’t thought about them, but that certainly makes sense. If moncats get loose in Avornis, they could be as bad as a plague.”
“Plagues don’t purr,” Lanius said. To his relief, his wife had no quick comeback for that. Here, though, Sosia had gotten a step ahead of him. He’d thought of giving moncats as presents to favored nobles and courtiers—that had been in his mind since the day Yaropolk presented him with the first pair. What if whoever got them let them roam like ordinary cats? Birds and squirrels would be very surprised and very unhappy.
Could I give them on condition they stay indoors? No sooner had the thought crossed Lanius’ mind than he shook his head. He couldn’t possibly hope to enforce such a condition. Giving an order he couldn’t enforce would only make him look the fool.
Then he laughed bitterly. I can’t enforce any order I give. After all, I’m only the King of Avornis. Grus now, Grus is the King of Avornis. If he gives orders, people follow them…or else. But even Grus knows better than to give orders nobody’s likely to obey. He’s shown as much by the way he’s handled his laws on taking land away from the peasants.
“What’s funny?” Sosia asked him.
“Nothing, really,” he answered.
She looked at him. “When you say things like that, you’re usually angry at my father. Do you think I don’t know?”
“I suppose not.” Lanius felt a dull embarrassment, almost as though his wife had caught him looking at lewd drawings. His temper slipped. “It is hard, staying here in the palace and not able to do anything about anything except the moncats and the archives.”
“I’m sorry,” Sosia said quietly.
“Are you? Why should you be?” He lashed out at her—she was close and handy. “Your father’s the real King of Avornis, the one who really can do things.”
“Why should I be sorry?” She still didn’t raise her voice. “Because I’m your wife. Because I don’t want you to be unhappy.”
“Whyever not?” Lanius asked, sarcastic still.
Sosia flushed. Lanius felt ashamed of himself. That didn’t deserve a serious answer, and he knew it. But Sosia gave him one. “Why? Because I love you, that’s why.”
He stared at her. Of all the things she might have said, that was the last one he’d expected. They were married, of course. That hadn’t been love, though; that had been Grus’ orders, as much to Sosia as to Lanius. They’d tried to please each other in bed, yes. He didn’t think that was necessarily love, either— more on the order of two polite people making the best of the situation in which they found themselves. And they had a son. When they lay with each other so regularly, that wasn’t surprising. Lanius loved Crex. He knew Sosia did, too. But that she loved him…
He started to answer, I don’t know what to say. Just before he did, he realized that would be a mistake. There was only one thing he could possibly say, and he did. “I love you, too, Sosia. I have for a long time. I just didn’t know if I ought to say so.”
Did he mean it? He didn’t know. But the way her face lit up made him glad he’d said it. “Why wouldn’t you say so?” she asked.
Lanius hoped his resentment didn’t show on his face. Now he had to come up with another answer! But, to his relief, he did, and he decided it was at least half true. “I was afraid to,” he told her. “If I’d said something like that and then found out you didn’t love me back—I don’t think I could have stood that.”
She set her hand on his. “That’s funny,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. “I was afraid of the same thing: That’s why I stayed quiet so long, even after Crex was born. But I knew I had to say something now, or else we might never be able to trust each other again.”
He took her in his arms. “Thank you,” he said. Knowing he could trust someone… He tried to remember the last time he’d been sure of that. For the life of him, he couldn’t. He squeezed Sosia tighter. Maybe this was love. He still wasn’t sure. How could he be, when he had no standard of comparison?
Avornis’ green banners fluttering all around him, Grus rode out of the city of Avornis at the head of his army. When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw Queen Estrilda, Queen Sosia, and King Lanius on the battlements waving to him and the soldiers. A maidservant beside Sosia held Prince Crex. Grus waved to all of them. The adults waved back, even Lanius. Grus smiled. They were getting along better. That made everything easier.
Prince Ortalis wasn’t there. Under other circumstances, that might have angered Grus. But he knew his son was out hunting. He knew both his sons were out hunting, as a matter of fact. He didn’t care one way or the other about whether Anser hunted. His bastard was a good-natured youngster with or without the chase. But Ortalis…
Grus aimed what might have been a prayer of thanks heavenward. Since starting to hunt, Ortalis hadn’t outraged any maidservants. He’d had a long, fairly friendly affair with one of them, which was, for him, an all-time first. He was much easier to be around— much less obnoxious, Grus thought, coining closer to the real truth. He still took no interest in matters of state, but Grus was happy enough with the changes he had seen in his son to fret less about those he hadn’t.
General Hirundo, who rode beside him, said something. Grus realized that, but had no idea what Hirundo had told him or asked. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Try again, please? I was woolgathering.”
“Happens to everybody, Your Majesty,” Hirundo said with one of his ready smiles. “There are days I’m glad my head’s stuck on good and tight, because I’d lose it if it weren’t. What I said was, here’s hoping the Thervings don’t give us too much trouble this year.”
“That would be nice,” Grus agreed. “I’m not going to count on it, but it would be very nice indeed.”
“How much longer can Dagipert live, do you suppose?” Hirundo wondered.
“He might drop dead tomorrow, or he might last another fifteen years,” Grus said with a shrug. “He’s still strong, worse luck. When the two of us fought a couple of years ago, he came closer to killing me than I did to killing him.” He looked around and lowered his voice before adding, “I’m just glad the Menteshe haven’t raised up a prince like him, or we’d have more trouble in the south than we do.”
He couldn’t help wondering if the Banished One was listening to him. That shouldn’t have been possible. He knew as much. After Alca’s sorcery, though, he also knew in his belly that no humanly recognizable limits applied to the Banished One.
If the great enemy of Avornis was listening, he gave no sign. Grus knew a certain amount of relief, but only a certain amount; the Banished One might be listening and saving up resentment for revenge years later. His scale of time also lay far beyond merely mortal ken.
Meanwhile, Grus enjoyed the fine spring day. Green waxed glorious on the meadows and fields and farms around the city of Avornis. Birds newly returned from the south sang from housetops, twittered in hedgerows, and snatched insects on the wing. Grus wondered why the birds chose to go down to the Banished One’s domain for winter, but then realized they’d been flying south long before the gods cast the Banished One from the heavens. The birds weren’t to blame.