CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
King Lanius was gnawing the meat off a goose drumstick when he almost choked. “Are you all right?” Sosia asked. “I think so,” he replied once he could speak again. He tried to snap his fingers in annoyance, but they were too greasy. Muttering, he wiped his hands on a napkin—he did remember not to use the tablecloth, which would have been the style in his grandfather’s day, or his own clothes, which would have been the style in his grandfather’s grandfather’s day. He sipped from his wine cup—his voice needed more lubricating even if his 6ngers didn’t. “The only problem is, I’m an idiot.”
“Oh.” Sosia eyed him. “Well, I could have told you that.”
“Thank you, sweetheart.” Lanius gave her a seated bow. He waited. Nothing more happened. He muttered again, then broke down and said, “Aren’t you going to ask me why I’m an idiot?”
His wife shrugged. “I hadn’t intended to. But all right—how were you an idiot this time?” Her tone said she knew how he’d been an idiot before, and with which serving girls.
“It’s not like that.” Lanius hid his own smile. Sosia still hadn’t found out about Flammea.
“In that case, maybe I really am interested,” Sosia said.
“Thank you,” Lanius repeated. By the elegant way she inclined her head, her family might have been royal much longer than his. Now he did smile. That struck him funny. Sosia laughed at him. In a couple of heartbeats, he was laughing, too.
“Tell me,” the queen said.
“Do you remember the old parchments the envoy from Durdevatz brought me as a gift when he came down here last summer?”
Sosia shrugged again. “I didn’t, not until you reminded me. Playing around with those old things is your sport, not mine.” Quickly, she added, “But its a better sport than playing around with young things, by the gods.” Lanius made a face at her; he would have guessed she’d say that. She made one right back at him. “What about these precious parchments, then?”
“They may be precious parchments, for all I know. I was so excited to get them, and then I put them away to go through them in a little while… and here it is more than a year later, and I haven’t done it. That’s why I’m an idiot.”
“Oh.” Sosia thought that over, then shrugged. “Well, you’ve had reasons for being one that I’ve liked less, I will say.”
“Yes, I thought you would.” Lanius made another face at her. She laughed again, so she wasn’t too peeved. Sure enough, she hadn’t found out about Flammea.
Lanius almost charged away from the supper table to look at the documents from Durdevatz. He was halfway out of his seat before he realized that would be rude. Besides, the light was beginning to fail, and trying to read faded ink by lamplight was a lot less enjoyable than, say, trying to seduce a maidservant. Tomorrow morning would do.
When the morning came, he found himself busy with moncats and monkeys and a squabble between two nobles down in the south. He forgot the parchments again, at least until noon. Then he went into the archives to look at them. He was sure he remembered where they were, and he was usually good about such things. Not this time. He confidently went to where he thought he’d put the gift from Durdevatz, only to find the parchments weren’t there. Some of the things he said then would have made a guardsman blush, or more likely blanch.
Cursing didn’t help in any real way, even if it did make him feel better. Once he stopped filling the air with sparks, he had to go poking around if he wanted to find the missing parchments. They were bound to be somewhere in the archives. No one would have stolen them. He was sure of that. He was the only person in the city of Avornis who thought they were worth anything.
If they weren’t where he thought he’d put them, where were they likely to be? He looked around the hall, trying to think back more than a year. He’d come in, he’d had the parchments in his hand… and what had he done with them?
Good question. He wished he had a good answer for it.
After some more curses—these less spirited than the ones that had gone before—he started looking. If he hadn’t put them where he thought, what was the next most likely place?
He was on his way over to it when something interrupted him. Ancient parchments—even ancient parchments from up in the Chernagor country—were unlikely to say, “Mrowr?”
“Oh, by the gods!” Lanius threw his hands in the air and fought down a strong urge to scream. “I haven’t got time to deal with you right now, Pouncer!”
“Mrowr?” the moncat said again. It didn’t care where the king had put the documents from Durdevatz. It had gotten out of its room again, and had probably also paid a call on the kitchens. The cooks had stopped up the one hole in the wall, but the moncat had found another. It liked visiting the kitchens—all sorts of interesting things were there. Who was going to deal with it if the king didn’t? Nobody, and Lanius knew it only too well.
These days, though, he had a weapon he hadn’t used before. Because he’d thought he knew where the parchments were, he was wearing a robe instead of the grubby clothes he often put on to dig through the archives, but he didn’t care. He lay down on the dusty floor and started thumping his chest with his right hand.
“Mrowr!” Pouncer came running. Lanius had trained the moncat to know what that sound meant— if I get up onto him, he’ll give me something good to eat. That was what Pouncer had to be thinking. The moncat was carrying a big, heavy silver spoon. Sure enough, the archives hadn’t been its first stop on its latest jaunt through the spaces between the palace’s walls.
“You’ve stolen something expensive this time. Congratulations,” Lanius said, stroking Pouncer under the chin and by the whiskers. Pouncer closed its eyes and stretched out its neck and rewarded him with a feline smile and a deep, rumbling purr. The moncat didn’t even seem offended that he hadn’t fed it anything.
He stood up, carefully cradling the animal in his arms. Pouncer kept acting remarkably happy. Lanius carried the moncat out of the archives and down the hall to the chamber where it lived—until it felt like escaping, anyhow. Pouncer didn’t fuss until he took the silver spoon away from it. Even then, it didn’t fuss too much. By now, it was used to and probably resigned to his taking prizes away from it.
Once Pouncer was back with the other moncats, Lanius brought the spoon to the kitchens. “You didn’t steal that yourself, Your Majesty!” Quiscula exclaimed when she saw what he carried. “That miserable creature’s been here again, and nobody even knew it.”
“Pouncer doesn’t think it’s a miserable creature,” Lanius told the pudgy cook. “Talented would probably be a better word.”
“Talented, foof!” Quiscula said. “Plenty of thieves on two legs are talented, too, and what happens to them when they get caught? Not half what they deserve, a lot of the time.”
“Thieves who go on two legs know the difference between right and wrong,” Lanius said. “The moncat doesn’t.” He paused. “I don’t think it does, anyhow.”
“A likely story,” Quiscula said. “It’s a wicked beast, and you can’t tell me any different, so don’t waste your breath trying.”
“I wouldn’t think of it.” Lanius held out the spoon. “Here. Take charge of this until Pouncer decides to steal it again.”
“Oh, you’re too generous to me, Your Majesty!” Quiscula played the coquette so well, she and Lanius both started laughing. She accepted the spoon from the king.
Lanius started back toward the archives, wondering if he would ever get to look for those parchments. Everything seemed to be conspiring against him. And everything, today, included Princess Limosa, who was carrying her baby down the corridor. “Hello, Your Majesty,” Limosa said. “Isn’t Capella the sweetest little thing you ever saw?”