King Grus let out a sigh of exaggerated patience. “Please, Your Majesty,” he said. “I’ve already told them you’d do it.”
“Oh.” Lanius drummed his fingers on his thigh. “That means I’m stuck with the job, doesn’t it? All right. But I’ll thank you not to make any more plans for me without telling me you’re doing it.”
“I expect that’s fair enough, Your Majesty.” After a few heartbeats, Grus seemed to realize something more was called for, for he went on, “I won’t do it again.” That was better, but not good enough. Lanius waited without a word. Again, Grus paused. Again, he found words, this time saying, “I’m sorry.”
“You should be,” Lanius said, but that was what he’d been waiting to hear. He sighed. “Let’s get it over with.”
The clerics’ names were Grasulf and Bench. Grasulf was tall and fuzzily bearded, while Berich was squat and fuzzily bearded. They both spoke good Avornan, and they both seemed honored that Lanius was taking them around the cathedrals of the city of Avornis. Grasulf said, “King Berto will be so jealous when we go home and tell him all that we have done in your kingdom.”
Voice dry, Lanius answered, “King Berto’s father did quite a lot in our kingdom, too.”
To his amazement, both Therving clerics looked embarrassed. Berich said, “That is too bad, Your Majesty. Many of us thought so even while the war was going on. This is where the worship of the true gods centers. To fight against Avornis is to fight against the gods.”
“King Dagipert didn’t think so,” Lanius said.
“Dagipert was a very strong king,” Grasulf said. “While he lived, we had to do what he said. But there is not a cleric in Thervingia who is not glad to have peace with Avornis at last. And the same holds for our soldiers. We fought against your kingdom year after year, and what did we get because of it? Nothing anybody can see. So says King Berto, and we think he is right.”
Of course you do, or say you do, Lanius thought. He is your new king, and you have to obey him. You had better think he is right. He couldn’t say that to Grasulf and Berich, not when what they thought—what Berto thought—was exactly what he wanted Thervingians to think. He did say, “I am glad to hear you speak so. As long as you do, the Banished One will never gain a foothold in Thervingia.”
He made the gesture that was supposed to ward off the Banished One (how much good it really did, or whether it did any good at all, he couldn’t have said). The two yellow-robed clerics used the same gesture. Berich said, “May his followers never come into our land.”
“Yes, may that be so,” Lanius agreed.
Grasulf looked over his shoulder, as though afraid Dagipert might still somehow hear what he said. When he spoke, it was in a low voice. “They do say the Banished One sent minions to him who was our king. They say it, though I do not know if it was true.”
“I have heard it,” Lanius said. “I do not know if it was true, either.”
“I believe it,” Berich said. “Gods curse me if I do not believe it. Dagipert was always one to trust in his own strength. He would dare hear the Banished One’s envoys. He would be sure he could use the Banished One for his own purposes, and not the other way around.”
“He would be sure, yes,” Grasulf said solemnly. “But would he be right?”
“Who can say?” Berich replied. “That he was confident in his own strength does not mean he was right to be confident.”
“True,” Lanius said. Such rumors had floated around Dagipert for years, though he always denied them. Lanius had hoped to learn the truth after the formidable King of Thervingia was dead. But maybe Dagipert had been the only one who knew what the truth was, and had taken it onto his pyre with him.
Lanius shook his head. The Banished One knows, he reminded himself. The Banished One knows, and he dies not. Thinking so vividly of Avornis’ great foe made him wonder if he would dream of him that night. He didn’t, and wondered why. Maybe, he thought, I worried enough about him that he doesn’t need to visit me in dreams. I’ve already done his work for him.
That worried him even more than dreaming of the Banished One might have done.
King Grus watched Avornis go through much of a quiet summer. The Thervings left his kingdom alone. So did the Menteshe. No irate baron rose up against him. The first thing he wondered—and it was an amazement that lasted through that easy season—was what had gone wrong; what the gods were planning to make him sorry for those warm, lazy, peaceful months.
Estrilda laughed at him when he said as much to her in the quiet of their bedchamber. “Don’t you think you’re entitled to take it easy for a little while?” she asked.
“No!” His own vehemence surprised even him, and plainly alarmed his wife. He went on, “When have I ever taken it easy? When have I ever had the chance to take it easy? When, in all the years since I first went aboard a river galley? Why should I start doing it now?”
“You always worked hard,” Estrilda said, nodding. “You worked hard so you could get someplace you’d never gone before. But, sweetheart”—she took his hands in hers—“you’re King of Avornis. You can’t rise any higher than this, can you? Since you can’t, you’ve earned the right to relax.”
Grus thought about that. Had he done all he’d done for the sake of getting ahead? Some of it, maybe, but all? He doubted that. The more he thought about it, the more he doubted it, too.
He’d worked hard because he liked working hard, because he was good at it. Claiming anything else would be a lie.
And he certainly could rise or fall even though he was King of Avornis. He could be a good king or a bad one, remembered with a smile, remembered with a shudder—or, perhaps worst of all, not remembered. He dreaded that. Women had children to let them know they were immortal. What did men have? Only their names, in the minds and in the mouths of others after they were gone.
If I could be the king who reclaimed the Scepter of Mercy from the Banished One… They’d remember me forever, then, and cheer my name whenever they heard it. Grus laughed at himself. When he thought about getting the Scepter of Mercy back, he wasn’t just measuring himself against every King of Avornis who’d reigned over the past four hundred years. He was also, in effect, standing back to back with the Banished One himself. If that wasn’t mad and overweening pride, what would be?
He didn’t presume to mention his ambition to Estrilda. He knew what she would say. He knew she would be right, too.
All he did say was, “I want to be as good a king as I can.”
“Well, all right,” Estrilda said reasonably. “When things are going on, you should deal with them. And you do—you landed on Pandion like a falling tree last year. But why should you run around and wave your arms and get all excited when nothing’s happening that you need to worry about?”
“Because something may be going on behind the scenes,” Grus replied. “If I deal with little troubles now, they won’t turn into big ones later.”
“If you get all upset over nothing, you may make what was a little problem get bigger in a hurry,” his wife pointed out, which was also more reasonable than Grus wished it were. “Besides, you said it yourself—there aren’t any problems right now.”
“There aren’t any I can see,” Grus said. “That doesn’t mean there aren’t any at all.”
“How do you know it doesn’t?” Estrilda asked. “Everything I know about seems fine, anyhow.” By the way she said it, that proved her point.