Lanius’ joints felt all springy with relief. “Olor’s beard!” he said, and then, “Come out of there, you stupid moncat!”
The moncat, of course, didn’t. All Lanius could see of it now was the twitching tip of its tail. He hurried over to the oak cabinet. Any moment now, the moncat was only too likely to start scrambling up the wall, to somewhere too high for him to reach it.
He was, in fact, a little surprised it hadn’t fled already. With his fear gone and his wits returning, he clucked as he did when he was about to feed the moncats. “Mrowr?” this one said again, now on a questioning note. He hoped it was hungry. Though mice skittered here and there through the royal palace, hunting them would surely be harder work than coming up to a dish and getting meat and offal. Wouldn’t it?
“It’s all right,” Lanius said soothingly, stepping around the cabinet. “It’s not your fault. I’m not angry at you. I wouldn’t mind booting that bungling Bubulcus into the middle of next month—no, I wouldn’t mind that at all—but I’m not angry at you.”
There sat the moncat, staring up at him out of greenish-yellow eyes. It seemed to think it was in trouble no matter how soothingly he spoke, for it sat on its haunches clutching in its little clawed hands and feet an enormous wooden serving spoon it must have stolen from the kitchens. The spoon was at least as tall as the moncat, and that included the animal’s tail.
“Why, you little thief!” Lanius burst out laughing. “If you went sneaking through the kitchens, maybe you’re not so hungry after all.” He stooped to pick up the moncat.
It started to run away, but couldn’t make itself let go of the prize it had stolen. It was much less agile trying to run with one hand and one foot still holding the spoon. Lanius scooped it up.
Still hanging on to the spoon, the moncat twisted and snapped. He smacked it on the nose. “Don’t you bite me!” he said loudly. It subsided. Most of the moncats knew what that meant, because most of them had tried biting him at one time or another.
Feeling like a soldier who’d just finished a triumphant campaign, Lanius carried the moncat—and the spoon, which it refused to drop— back to its room. Once he’d returned it to its fellows, he sent a couple of servants after Bubulcus.
“Yes, Your Majesty?” Bubulcus asked apprehensively. Even servants rarely sounded apprehensive around Lanius. He savored Bubulcus’ fear—and, savoring it, began to understand how an ordinary man could turn into a tyrant. Bubulcus went on, “Is it… is it the Maze for me?”
“No, not that you don’t deserve it,” Lanius said. “I caught the missing moncat myself, so it isn’t missing anymore. Next time, though, by the gods… There had better not be a next time for this, that’s all. Do you understand me?”
“Yes, Your Majesty! Thank you, Your Majesty! Gods bless you, Your Majesty!” Blubbering, Bubulcus fell to his knees. Lanius turned away. Yes, he understood how a man could turn into a tyrant, all right.
The Chernagor stared at Grus. Words poured out of him, a great, guttural flood. They were in his own language, so Grus understood not a one of them. Turning to the interpreter, he asked, “What is he saying? Why did he sneak out of Nishevatz and come here?”
“He says he cannot stand it in there anymore.” The interpreter’s words were calm, dispassionate, while passion filled the escapee’s voice. Grus could understand that much, even if he followed not a word of what the man was saying. “He says Vasiiko is worse than Vsevolod ever dreamed of being.”
Grus glanced over toward Vsevolod, who stood only a few feet away. Vsevolod, of course, didn’t need the translation to understand what the other Chernagor was saying. His forward-thrusting features and beaky nose made him look like an angry bird of prey—not that Grus had ever seen a bird of prey with a big, bushy white beard.
More excited speech burst from the Chernagor who’d just gotten out of Nishevatz. He pointed back toward the city he’d just left. “What’s he going on about now?” Grus asked.
“He says a man does not even have to do anything to oppose Vasiiko.” Again, the interpreter’s flat, unemotional voice contrasted oddly with the tones of the man whose words he was translating. “He says, half the time a man only has to realize Vasiiko is a galloping horse turd”—the Chernagor obscenity sounded bizarre when rendered literally into Avornan—“and then he disappears. He never has a chance to do anything against Vasiiko.”
“You see?” Vsevolod said. “Is how I told you. Banished One works through my son.” Now grief washed over his face.
“I see.” Grus left it at that, for he still had doubts that worried him, even if he kept quiet about them. Some of those doubts had to do with Vsevolod. Others he could voice without offending the refugee Chernagor. He told the interpreter, “Ask this fellow how he managed to escape from Nishevatz once he decided Vasiiko was… not a good man.” He didn’t try to imitate that picturesque curse.
The interpreter spoke in throaty gutturals. The man who’d gotten out of Nishevatz gave back more of them. The interpreter asked him something else. His voice showed more life while speaking the Chernagor tongue than when he used Avornan. He turned back to Grus. “He says he did not linger. He says he ran away before Vasiiko could send anyone after him. He says—”
Before the interpreter could finish, the other Chernagor gasped. He flung his arms wide. “No!” he shouted—that was one word of the Chernagor speech Grus understood. He staggered and began to crumple, as though an arrow had hit him in the chest. “No!” he shouted again, this time blurrily. Blood ran from his mouth—and from his nose and from the corners of his eyes and from his ears, as well. After a moment, it began to drip from under his fingernails, too. He slumped to the ground, twitched two or three times, and lay still.
Grimly, Vsevolod said, “Now you see, Your Majesty. This is what my son, flesh of my life, now does to people.” He covered his face with his gnarled hands.
“Apparently, Your Majesty, this man did not escape Vasilko’s vengeance after all.” The interpreter’s dispassionate way of speaking clashed with Vsevolod’s anguish.
“Apparently. Yes.” Grus took a gingerly step away from the Chernagor’s corpse, which still leaked blood from every orifice. He took a deep breath and tried to force his stunned wits into action. “Fetch me Pterocles,” he told a young officer standing close by. He had to repeat himself. The officer was staring at the body in horrified fascination. Once Grus got his attention, he nodded jerkily and hurried away.
The wizard came quickly, but not quickly enough to suit Grus. Pterocles took one look at the dead Chernagor, then recoiled in dread and dismay. “Oh, by the gods!” he said harshly. “By the gods!”
Grus thought of Milvago, who was now the Banished One. He wished he hadn’t. It only made Pterocles righter than he knew. “Do you recognize the spell that did this?” the king asked.
“Recognize it? No, Your Majesty.” Pterocles shook his head. “But if I ever saw the man who used it, I’d wash my eyes before I looked at anything else. Can’t you feel how filthy it is?”
“I can see how filthy it is. Feel it? No. I’m blind that particular way.”
“Most of the time, I pity ordinary men because they can’t see what I take for granted.” Pterocles looked at the Chernagor’s corpse again, then recoiled. “Every once in a while, though, you’re lucky. This, I fear, is one of those times.”
Bowing nervously before King Lanius, the peasant said, “If my baron ever finds out I’ve come before you, I’m in a lot of trouble, Your Majesty.”
“If the King of Avornis can’t protect you, who can?” Lanius asked.