If anything, the tent cities that sprang up around the walls of the capital were healthier in winter than they would have been in summer. Sicknesses that would have flourished in the heat lay dormant with snow on the ground. Latrines didn’t stink the way they would have when the sun shone high and bright and warm in the sky. Flies were nowhere to be seen.
When spring came, Grus was ready to move. He hoped he would catch Prince Vasilko by surprise. Even if he didn’t, he thought he could beat Prince Vsevolod’s ungrateful son. If I can’t beat him with what I’ve got here, I can’t beat him at all, he thought. He knew what Vasilko and the other Chernagor princes could throw at him. He thought his chances were good.
“Gods keep you safe,” Estrilda said in the quiet of their bedchamber the night before he left for the north.
“Thanks.” Grus set a hand on her hip. They lay bare in the royal bed. They’d just made love, which had left both of them almost satisfied. Something had broken after Estrilda found out about his affair with Alca. It was repaired these days, but the broken place and the rough spots where the glue held things together still showed, were still easy to feel. Grus wondered if they would ever smooth down to where he couldn’t feel them. After more than a year, he was beginning to doubt it.
She said, “Be careful. The kingdom needs you.”
Grus grunted. Estrilda didn’t say anything about what she needed. There were bound to be good reasons for that. Almost too late, he realized ignoring her words except for that grunt wouldn’t be good. He said, “The one thing that worries me is, I won’t be able to lay proper siege to their cities, the way I could to Avornan towns.”
“Why not?” Estrilda asked. Talking about cities and sieges was impersonal, and so safe enough.
“Because I can’t take a fleet north with me,” Grus answered. Here, at least, he could talk. Estrilda wouldn’t blab, and the royal bedchamber was as well warded against wizardry as any place in Avornis. “The Chernagors can fill their big seagoing ships with more than trade trinkets, curse them. When my army stood in front of Nishevatz last summer, Prince Vasilko brought grain in by sea, and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I don’t see how I’ll be able to stop it this year, either. I’ll have to take their cities by storm. I won’t be able to starve them out.”
“That will cost more men, won’t it?” Estrilda said. “That’s… unfortunate.”
“Yes it will, and yes it is,” Grus agreed. “I don’t see any way around it, though. Most of our galleys sail the Nine Rivers. Some of them scuttle along the coast, but I don’t see how I could bring them up to the Chernagor country. One storm along the way and…” He shook his head.
“Wouldn’t storms wreck the Chernagor ships, too? Then you wouldn’t have to worry about them.”
Moodily, Grus shook his head. “It’s not that simple. Their ships are made to sail on the open sea. Ours mostly aren’t. Ours are fine for what they do, but sailing on the Northern Sea isn’t it. For the Chernagors, it is. They build stronger than we do. They need to, traveling from one little island to the next the way they do.”
“You’ll find something.” When it came to ships, Estrilda had confidence in the onetime river-galley captain she’d married. When it came to women—she had confidence there, but confidence of the wrong sort.
When Grus thought about it, he had to admit he’d given her reason.
Lanius came out of the city to see him and the army off. “Gods go with you,” the other king told him. “We both know how important this is, and why.” Again, he didn’t say the name Milvago, or even suggest it. Even so, it was there.
Prince Ortalis came out, too. He said not a word to Grus. Grus said nothing to him, either. Each of them looked at the other as though he hoped never to see him again. That was likely to be true.
“Gods bless this army and lead it to victory.” Arch-Hallow Anser sounded more cheerful than either Grus or Lanius. If he noticed the way Grus and Ortalis eyed each other, it didn’t show on his smiling face.
With a resigned sigh, Grus swung up into the saddle of his horse. Another summer of riding lessons, he thought. I’m turning into a tolerable horseman in spite of myself.
The only ones who looked eager to return to the land of the Chernagors were Prince Vsevolod and his countrymen who’d gone into exile in Avornis with him. “I will see my son again,” Vsevolod said, in tones of fierce anticipation. Grus realized that, as badly as he got along with Ortalis, the two of them were perfect comrades next to Vsevolod and Vasilko.
“Are we ready?” Grus asked General Hirundo.
“If we’re not, by Olor’s beard, we’ve certainly wasted a lot of time and money,” Hirundo answered.
“Thank you so much. You’ve made everything clear,” Grus said. Hirundo bowed in the saddle. Grus laughed. Prince Vsevolod scowled. Vsevolod, as Grus had seen, spent a lot of time scowling. Grus waved to the trumpeters. The sun flashed golden from the bells of their horns as they raised them to their lips. Martial music filled the air. The Avornans began moving north.
King Lanius wore shabby clothes when he went exploring in the archives. That kept the palace washerwomen happy. It also let him feel easier about putting on hunting togs to go hunting with Arch-Hallow Anser. Was he in perfect style? He neither knew nor cared. If anyone but Anser had invited him out on a hunt, he not only would have said no but probably laughed in the other mans face. But he really liked Anser, and so he’d decided to see just what it was the arch-hallow so enjoyed.
Grus joked about being uncertain on a horse. Lanius really was. He felt too high off the ground, and too likely to arrive there too suddenly. He also felt sure he would be saddlesore come morning. If Olor had meant men to splay their legs apart like that, he would have made them bowlegged to begin with.
Anser took his bow from the case that held both it and a sheaf of arrows. He skillfully strung it, then set an arrow to the string, drew, and let fly. The arrow quivered in the trunk of a tree, a palm’s breadth above a prominent knot. “A little high,” he said with a rueful shrug. “You try.”
Clumsily, Lanius strung his own bow. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d held a weapon in his hand. Even more clumsily, he fitted an arrow to the string. Drawing the bow made him grunt with effort. The shaft he loosed came nowhere near the tree, let alone the knot.
Some of the beaters and bodyguards riding along with the king and the arch-hallow snickered. “Oh, dear,” Anser said. It wasn’t scornful, just sympathetic. There were reasons why everyone liked him.
“I’m in more danger from the beasts than they are from me,” Lanius said. If he laughed at himself, maybe the rest of the hunting party wouldn’t, or at least not so much.
“You will not be in any danger, Your Majesty,” one of the bodyguards declared. “That’s why we’re along.” He had a thoroughly literal mind. No doubt that helped make him a good guard. No doubt it also helped make him a bore.
Bird chirped in the oaks and elms and chestnuts. Lanius heard several different songs. He wondered which one went with which bird. “Look!” He pointed. “That one has something in its beak.”
“Building a nest,” Anser said. “It’s that time of year.”
Sunlight came through the leaves in dapples. The horses wanted to stop every few steps and nibble at the ferns that sprang up at the bases of gnarled tree trunks. Lanius would have let them, but Anser pressed on, deeper into the woods. The city of Avornis was only a few miles away, but might have lain beyond the Northern Sea. City air stank of smoke and people and dung. The air here smelled as green as the bright new leaves on the trees.