Hirundo cursed, too. “What do we do, then?” he asked.
Grus looked ahead. Yes, he could cross into the land of the Chernagors in two or three days. How much good would that do him? Nishevatz was ready, more than ready, to stand siege. While he reduced it—if he could reduce it—what would the Chernagor pirates be doing to Avornis? What did he have to put into river galleys and defend his own cities but this army here? Not much, and he knew it. Tasting gall, he answered, “We turn around. We go back.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
King Lanius had hoped to welcome King Grus back to the city of Avornis as a conquering hero. Grus was back in the capital, all right, but as a haggard, harried visitor, ready to rush toward the south and east to fight the Chernagors. “You got this news before I did,” Grus said in his brief sojourn in the palace. “What did you do?”
“Sent it on to you,” Lanius answered.
Grus exhaled through his nose. “Anything else?”
Hesitantly, Lanius nodded. “I sent an order to river-galley skippers along the Nine Rivers to head for the coast and fight the invaders. That doesn’t count the ships here by the capital. I told them to stay put because I thought your army would need them.” He waited. If he’d made a botch of things, Grus would come down on him like a rockslide.
His father-in-law exhaled again, but on a different note—relief, not exasperation. “Gods be praised. You did it right. You did it just right. I couldn’t have done better if I’d been here myself.”
“You mean that?” Lanius asked. Praise had always been slow heading his way. He had trouble believing it even when he got it.
But Grus nodded solemnly. “We cant do anything without men and ships. The faster they get to the coast, the better.” His laugh held little mirth. “A year ago, I was wondering how the Chernagors’ oceangoing ships would measure up against our river galleys. This isn’t how I wanted to find out.”
“Yes, it should be interesting, shouldn’t it?” To Lanius, the confrontation was abstract, not quite real.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Grus was testy now, not handing out praise. “If we lose, they’ll ravage our coast all year long. They’ll go up the rivers as far as they like, and they’ll keep on plundering the riverside cities, too. This isn’t a game, Your Majesty.” He turned the royal title into one of reproach. “The kingdom hasn’t seen anything like this since the Chernagors first settled down in this part of the world, however many years ago that was.”
Lanius knew, but it didn’t matter right this minute. He nodded. “All right. I do take your point.”
“Good.” Grus, to his relief, stopped growling. “You must, really, or you wouldn’t have done such a nice job setting things up so we’ll be able to get at the Chernagors in a hurry.”
For a moment, that praise warmed Lanius, too. Then he looked at it with the critical eye he used when deciding how much truth a chronicle or a letter held. Wasn’t Grus just buttering him up to make him feel better? Lanius almost called him on it, but held his peace. What was even worse than Grus trying to keep him happy? The answer came to mind at once—Grus not bothering to keep him happy.
Three days later, Lanius was able to stop worrying about whether Grus kept him happy. The other king had loaded his men aboard river galleys and as much other shipping around the capital as Lanius had commandeered. The army’s horses stood nervously on barges and rafts. Lanius watched from the wall as the force departed with as little ceremony as it had arrived.
One vessel after another, the fleet slid around a bend in the river. A grove of walnuts hid the ships from sight from the capital. Lanius didn’t wait for the last one to disappear. As soon as the river galley that held Grus glided around that bend, he turned away. Bodyguards came to stiff attention. They formed a hollow square around him to escort him back to the palace.
He was about halfway there, passing through a marketplace full of honking geese and pungent porkers, when he suddenly started to laugh. “What’s so funny, Your Majesty?” a guardsman asked.
“Nothing, really,” Lanius answered. He wasn’t about to tell the soldier that he’d suddenly realized the city of Avornis was his again. Grus had taken it back in his brief, tumultuous stay. He would reclaim it again after this campaigning season ended. But for now, as it had the past summer, the royal capital belonged to Lanius.
If the king said that to the guard, it might reach the other king. Unpleasant things might happen if it did. Lanius had learned a courtier’s rules of survival ever since he’d stopped making messes on the floor. One of the most basic was saying nothing that would land you in trouble if you could avoid it. He still remembered, and used, it.
The doors to the palace were thrown wide to let in light and air. That almost let Lanius ignore how massive they were, how strong and heavy their hinges, how immense the iron bar that could help hold them closed. They weren’t saying anything they didn’t have to, either. For now, they seemed innocent and innocuous and not especially strong.
But they really are, he thought. Am I?
Hirundo looked faintly—maybe more than faintly—green. To Grus, the deck of a river galley was the most natural thing in the world. “Now you know how I feel on horseback,” the king said.
His general managed a faint smile. “Your Majesty, if you fall off a horse, you’re not likely to drown,” he observed, and then gulped. Yes, he was more than faintly green.
“Horses don’t come with rails,” Grus said. “And if you need to give back breakfast there, kindly lean out over the one the galley has. The sailors won’t love you if you get it on the deck.”
“If I need to heave it up, I won’t much care what the sailors think,” Hirundo replied with dignity. Grus gave him a severe look. Puking on the deck proved a man a lubber as surely as trying to mount from the right side of the horse proved a man no rider. Under the force of that look, Hirundo grudged a nod. “All right, Your Majesty. I’ll try.”
Grus knew he would have to be content with that. A weak stomach could prove stronger than good intentions. That thought made the king wonder how Pterocles was taking the journey. As far as Grus knew, the wizard hadn’t traveled far on the Nine Rivers.
Pterocles stood near the port rail. He wasn’t hanging on to it, and he didn’t seem especially uncomfortable. As he looked out at the fields and apple and pear orchards sliding by, the expression on his face was more… distant than anything else. King Grus nodded to himself. That was the word, all right. Pterocles had never quite been himself after the Chernagor wizard—or had it been the Banished One himself?—struck him down outside of Nishevatz. Something was missing… from his spirit? From his will? Grus had a hard time pinpointing where the trouble lay, but he feared it was serious.
Prince Vsevolod had stayed behind in the city of Avornis. Nothing he could say would be likely to make the Chernagor pirates change their minds. Grus didn’t miss him. Lanius likes being king, he thought. Let him put up with Vsevolod. That’ll teach him.
Before long, groves of olives and almonds would replace the fruit trees that grew here. The fleet wasn’t very far south or east of the capital; they’d just emerged from the confusing tangle of streams in the Maze the day before. Down farther south, farmers would grow only wheat and barley; rye and oats would disappear. Before long, though, vineyards would take the place of some of the grainfields.