“The gods can give you fog, if they will,” Pterocles said.
“Yes. If they will.” Grus said no more than that. If the Banished One had power over wind and weather, surely the gods in the heavens did, too. Come on, Grus thought in their direction. It wasn’t a prayer—more like an annoyed nudge. You can make things harder for the Banished One.
Were they listening? Grus laughed at himself. How could he tell? If they didn’t pay some attention to it, though, they could earn an eternity’s worth of regrets. With the world in his hands, the Banished One might find a way back to the heavens. Grus tried to see beyond the sky. He couldn’t—he was only a man. But the gods could do whatever they pleased. Olor could take six wives and still keep Quelea contented. If that wasn’t a miracle, Grus didn’t know what would be.
If he didn’t believe in the power of the gods, what other power was there left to believe in? That of the Banished One. Nobody could deny his power. Yielding to it, worshiping it, was something else again.
“Fog,” Grus said. “We need fog.”
Fog filled the streets of the city of Avornis, rolling off the river, sliding silently over the walls, muffling life in the capital. The silence struck Lanius as almost eerie. Did the thick mist really swallow sound, or was it so quiet because people didn’t care to go out and try to find their way around in the murk? The question seemed easier to ask than to answer.
When the king stepped out of the royal palace, it grew indistinct, ghostly, behind him. If I walk back toward it, he thought, will it really be there? Or will it disappear or recede before me like a will-o‘-the-wisp?
Lanius exhaled… His own breath added to the fog swirling all around him. From what he had read, such smothering, obliterating fogs were far commoner in the land of the Chernagors than they were here. He hoped Grus kept his army alert through them, and didn’t let Vasilko’s men launch a surprise attack against the Avornan lines.
He walked a little farther from the palace. Even his footsteps seemed sorter than they should have. Was that his imagination? He didn’t think so, but he supposed it could have been.
“Your Majesty?” a guard called from behind him. The man sounded anxious. When Lanius looked back, he saw why. Or, better, he didn’t see why, for the guardsman had disappeared altogether. “Your Majesty?” the fellow called again, something close to panic in his voice. “Where are you, Your Majesty?”
“I’m here,” Lanius answered, and walked back toward the sound of the guardsman’s voice. With each step, the royal palace became more decidedly real. The king nodded to the worried bodyguard. “Thick out there today, isn’t it?”
“Thick as porridge,” the guard said. “I’m glad you came back, Your Majesty. I would have gone after you in another moment, and the mist might have swallowed me whole. You never can tell.”
“No, I suppose not.” Lanius hid a smile. But it faded after a couple of heartbeats. The Banished One could do things with the weather no ordinary sorcerer could hope to match. If he had sent the fog, and if someone—or something —lurked in it… Lanius’ shiver had nothing to do with the clammy weather. By way of apology, he said, “I was foolish to wander off in it myself.”
The guardsman nodded. He would never have presumed to criticize the king. If the king criticized himself, the guard would not presume to disagree.
Lanius went back inside the palace. His cheeks and beard were beaded with moisture. He hadn’t noticed it in the fog, where everything was damp, but he did once he came inside. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his royal robe. A servant coming up the hallway sent him a scandalized stare. His cheeks heated, as though he’d been caught picking his nose in public.
At least it wasn’t Bubulcus, the king thought. Bubulcus would have made him feel guilty about it for the rest of his days.
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!” That call echoing down the corridor came not from a guardsman but from a maidservant.
“I’m here,” Lanius called back. “What’s gone wrong now?” By the shrill note of hysteria in the woman’s voice, something certainly had.
She came around the corner and saw him. “Come quick, Your Majesty!”
“I’m coming,” Lanius said. “What is it?”
“It’s the prince,” she said. Terror gripped Lanius’ heart—had something happened to Crex? Then the serving woman added, “He’s done something truly dreadful this time,” and Lanius’ panic eased. Crex wasn’t old enough to do anything dreadful enough to raise this kind of horror in a grown woman. Which meant…
“Ortalis?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the woman said.
“Oh, by the gods!” Lanius said. “What has he done?” Which serving girl has he outraged, and how badly? was what he meant.
But this serving woman answered, “Why, he went and killed a man. Poor Bubulcus.” She started to cry.
“Bubulcus!” Lanius exclaimed. “I was just thinking about him.”
“That’s all anybody will do from now on,” the serving woman said. “He had a wife and children, too. Queen Queleas mercy on them, for they’ll need it.”
“How did it happen?” Lanius asked in helpless astonishment. The woman only shrugged. Lanius spread his hands. “You were going to take me to him. You’d better do that.”
She did. They had to push through a growing crowd of servants to get to Ortalis, who still stood over Bubulcus’ body. A whip lay on the floor behind the prince. Blood soaked the servant’s tunic. It pooled beneath him. His eyes stared up sightlessly. His mouth, Lanius was not surprised to find, was open. In character to the last, the king thought.
The bloody knife in Ortalis’ right hand was a small one, such as he might have used for cutting up fruit. It had sufficed for nastier work as well.
“What happened here?” Lanius demanded as he shoved his way to the front of the crowd. “And put that cursed thing down, Ortalis,” he added sharply. “You certainly don’t need it now.”
Grus’ son let the knife fall. “He insulted me,” he said in a distant— almost a dazed—voice. “He insulted me, and I hit him, and he jeered at me again—said his mother could hit harder than that. And the next thing I knew… The next thing I knew, there he was on the floor.”
Lanius looked around. “Did anyone see this? Did anyone hear it?”
“I did, Your Majesty,” said a sweeper with a grizzled beard. “You know how Bubulcus always likes—liked—to show how clever he was, to see how close to the edge he could come.”
“Oh, yes,” Lanius said. “I had noticed that.”
“Well,” the sweeper said, “he sees that there whip in His Highness’ hand—”
“I’d just come in from a ride,” Ortalis said quickly.
“In this horrible fog?” Lanius said. He wished he had the words back as soon as they were gone. He could guess what Ortalis had really been doing with the whip. With whom, and did she like it? he wondered, feeling a little sick.
“Anyways,” the sweeper went on, “Bubulcus asks him if that’s the whip he uses to hit little Princess Capella. And that’s when His Highness smacked him.”
“I… see,” Lanius said slowly. Had he been in Ortalis’ boots, he thought he would have hit Bubulcus for that, too. Using a whip on a willing woman was one thing. Limosa thinks Ortalis is wonderful, Lanius reminded himself, gulping. Using the same whip on a baby girl was something else again. Not even Ortalis would do such a thing— Lanius devoutly hoped.
If Ortalis had let it go there, Lanius didn’t see how anyone could have said anything much. But Bubulcus had had to make one more crack, and then… “After that,” the sweeper said, “His Highness punctured him right and proper, he did.”