Sometimes—far more often than not—a man who grumbled about the way things were was stuck with them, because they wouldn’t change. And when they did, he often found himself wishing they hadn’t. Knowing when to be content with what you had was something Grus had never mastered.
Only a couple of weeks after he complained to Estrilda about how quiet everything was, a messenger came up from the south—from the Stura River, the border between Avornis and the lands of the Menteshe. “Something strange is afoot, Your Majesty,” he said.
“Something strange is always afoot along the border,” Grus answered. “I ought to know—I put in enough time down there in my younger days. What is it now?”
“Your Majesty, I’ll tell you exactly what’s afoot,” the messenger answered. “The nomads’ thralls are afoot, that’s what. They’re coming over the Stura into our lands down there by the hundreds, more of ’em every day.”
“What?” Grus scratched his head. “But that’s crazy. Thralls don’t do things like that.” Being content with their lot—or perhaps just unable to imagine anything different—was a big part of what made the thralls of the Menteshe so terrifying to ordinary men, to whole men. Grus went on, “When one thrall wakes up and gets away, that’s unusual.” It was so very unusual, it often meant the “awakened” thrall was in fact not awakened at all, but a spy for the Menteshe and the Banished One. “Hundreds?” Grus said. “That hardly seems possible.”
“It’s true, though,” the messenger said. “What are we going to do with them if they keep coming? How are we going to feed them?”
Grus had a more basic worry. “Why are they doing it?” he asked.
“No one knows, Your Majesty,” the man from the south replied. “Some of them are thralls still, even on our side of the river. The rest have no memory of who they were or why they came over the border.”
“Isn’t that interesting?” Grus whistled tunelessly. He asked the messenger a few more questions, then sent him away to a barracks from which he could be summoned in a hurry at need.
The first thing he did after that was give Lanius the news. “How very peculiar,” his son-in-law said when he’d finished.
“Then you’ve never heard of anything like this?” Grus knew he sounded disappointed; he expected Lanius to know about such things.
But the younger king shook his head. “No, never,” he answered in a low, troubled voice. “We’d better try to find out about it, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I think that would be a good idea,” Grus said. “It’s sorcery from the Banished One that makes thralls, and also sorcery from him that lets some of them seem to break free and come into Avornis to spy on us.”
“This doesn’t sound like either of those things,” Lanius observed.
“It has to be sorcery of some sort, don’t you think?” Grus said. “What else could make thralls change their ways? They don’t do that by accident.”
“They never have, anyhow,” Lanius said.
“I’ll summon Alca the witch,” Grus said. “She’s seen the Banished One face-to-face in dreams, the same as we have. If anybody can get to the bottom of it, she’s the one.” Lanius raised an eyebrow. Grus looked back at him, waiting to see if he would say anything. He didn’t. Grus added, “I think I’d better go down to the south myself, to see with my own eyes what’s going on. This is far enough out of the ordinary that I don’t want to rely on secondhand reports.”
Lanius raised both eyebrows this time. He said, “It’s… unusual for the King of Avornis to leave the capital when not on campaign.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t be.” Grus eyed his son-in-law. Could Lanius organize a coup while he was out of the city? That would be reason enough to keep him from going. He shook his head. Lanius might not—surely did not—like him. But his son-in-law didn’t have nearly enough backing among the soldiers to overthrow him. Grus made it his business to know such things. He glanced over to Lanius again. He was quite sure the other king knew it, too.
By the way Lanius looked back at him, the younger man was making the same calculation and, to his own dismay, coming to the same conclusions. “Perhaps you’re right,” Lanius said at last. “Some things do indeed need to be seen at first hand. And you’ll be a grandfather again by the time you get back.”
“Yes.” Grus nodded. “I don’t want my grandchildren to have to worry about being made into thralls themselves. That’s why I’m going.” He waited for Lanius to tell him he was being foolish or was exaggerating the problem. Lanius said nothing of the sort. That made Grus wonder whether, instead of exaggerating, he was underestimating whatever was going on in the south.
Well, he thought, I’ll find out.
King Lanius watched King Grus and Alca sail south on a river galley. Grus’ retinue of guards and secretaries and servants crowded not only that galley but the one that sailed with it. A king couldn’t go anywhere without an appropriate retinue. Lanius took that for granted. It sometimes seemed to chafe Grus.
As his river galley sailed away, Grus stood at the stern by the steersman—the position of command. Anyone looking at him would have guessed he’d been a river-galley skipper before taking the throne. Alca stood at the bow, with one hand on the sternpost, looking ahead to the mystery of the south. Though the galley was crowded, no one seemed to think it wise to come near the witch. She had a little space all her own.
Beside Lanius, Sosia said, “I do wonder what’s going on down there. I hope it isn’t a trap to lure Father into danger.”
“With all the men he’s taking, he could smash just about any trap,” Lanius said.
“Yes, that’s so.” Sosia looked relieved.
Lanius knew there was something he hadn’t said. He thought Grus and the soldiers with him could defeat a Menteshe ambush. Whether Grus and Alca could defeat a sorcerous onslaught from the Banished One, though, might be a different question. The king and the witch had paid each other next to no notice as they went aboard the river galley and took their separate places. Lanius scratched his head. He knew he wasn’t understanding something. He wasn’t sure what he was missing, which only made him the more curious.
But then Sosia said, “I want to go back to the palace.” She set both hands on her swollen belly.
“All right.” Lanius was getting tired of seeing Grus off, but preferred staying home himself.
As they returned, they found Anser and Ortalis arguing in a hallway just inside the entrance. Grus’ bastard was shaking his head and saying, “No, we can’t do that. That isn’t hunting, by the gods!”
“What would you call it, then?” Ortalis seemed genuinely amazed his half brother didn’t care for what he thought of as fine sport.
“Murder is the word that springs to mind,” the young Arch-Hallow of Avornis answered.
That was enough—more than enough—to draw Lanius’ attention. Hunting interested him not at all. Something that might be murder was a different story. “What’s going on here?” he asked, as casually as he could.
“Nothing,” Ortalis said quickly. “Nothing at all.”
“It didn’t sound like nothing to me,” Lanius said.
“It didn’t sound like nothing to me, either,” Anser added.
Sosia nodded. “Come on, Ortalis—out with it,” she said.
Prince Ortalis gave his sister a harried look. “Oh, all right,” he muttered. “Regular hunting’s all very well, but after a while it gets… boring, you know what I mean? I was looking for a way to spice it up. That’s all I was doing. Olor’s beard, everyone makes such a fuss about every little thing I say.”
“What exactly did you say?” Lanius asked.