“If you think you’re smarter than Alca, you’d better be right,” he said heavily.
“I don’t think anything of the sort,” Pterocles said. “I told you she was clever. I meant it. But I’ve been through things she hasn’t. A fool who’s dropped a brick on his toe knows better why he’d better not do that again than a clever fellow who hasn’t.”
That made sense. It would have made more sense if the wizard had done anything much with what he knew. “All right, then. I know you’re pregnant,” Grus said. “I still want to see the baby one of these days before too long.”
“If the baby lives, you’ll see it,” Pterocles said. “You don’t want it to come too soon, though, do you? They’re never healthy if they do.”
Grus began to wish he hadn’t used that particular figure of speech. Even so, he said, “If you miscarry with your notions in spite of what you think now, I want you to try Alca’s.”
He waited. Pterocles frowned. Obviously, he was looking for one more comment along the lines he’d been using. When the wizard’s eyes lit up, Grus knew he’d found one. Pterocles said, “Very well, Your Majesty, though that would be the first time a woman ever got a man pregnant.”
After a—pregnant—pause, Grus groaned and said, “Are you wizard enough to make yourself disappear?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” Pterocles said, and did.
His mulishness still annoyed Grus. But he had a twinkle in his eye again, and he was getting back the ability to joke. Grus thought—Grus hoped—that meant he was recovering from the sorcerous pounding he’d taken outside of Nishevatz. Maybe the baby—if it ever came— would be worth seeing after all.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Lanius had just finished telling Sosia the story of the moncat and the stolen silver dipper. It was an amusing story, and he knew he’d told it well. His wife listened politely enough, but when he was through she just sat in their bedchamber. She didn’t even smile. “Why did you tell me that?” she asked.
“Because I thought it was funny,” Lanius answered. “I hoped you would think it was funny, too. Evidently I was wrong.”
“Evidently you were,” Sosia said in a brittle voice. “You can tell me funny stories, but you can’t even tell me you’re sorry. Men!” She turned her back on him. “You’re worse than my father. At least my mother wasn’t around when he took up with somebody else.”
“Oh.” More slowly than it should have, a light went on in Lanius’ head. “You’re still angry about Cristata.” He was angry about Cristata, too—angry that Grus had paid her off and sent her away. Sosia had other reasons.
“Yes, I’m still angry about Cristata!” his wife blazed. Lanius blinked; he hadn’t realized how angry she was. “I loved you. I thought you loved me. And then you went and did that. How? Why?”
“I never stopped loving you. I still love you,” Lanius said, which was true—and which he would have been wiser to say sooner and more often. “It’s just… she was there, and then…” His voice trailed away, which it should have done sooner.
“She was there, and then you were there.” Sosia made a gesture boys used in the streets of the city of Avornis, one that left nothing to the imagination. “Is there anything else to say about that?”
“I suppose not,” Lanius answered. From Sosia’s point of view, what he’d done with Cristata didn’t seem so good. From his own… He sighed. He still missed the serving girl. “Kings of Avornis are allowed to have more than one wife,” he added sulkily.
“Yes—if they can talk their first one into it,” Sosia said. “You didn’t. You didn’t even try. You were having a good time screwing her, so you decided you’d marry her.”
“Well, what else but fun are wives after the first one for?” Lanius asked, he thought reasonably. “Oh, once in a while a king will be trying to find a woman who can bear him a son, the way my father was. But most of the time, those extra wives are just for amusement.”
“Maybe you were amused, but I wasn’t,” Sosia snapped. “And I thought I amused you. Was I wrong?”
Even Lanius, who didn’t always hear the subtleties in what other people said, got the point there. “No,” he said hastily. “Oh, no indeed.”
Sosia glared at him. “That’s what you say. Why am I supposed to believe you?”
He started to explain why he saw little point in lying to her, especially now that Cristata was gone. He didn’t get very far. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for. He needed another heartbeat or two to figure out the sort of answer she did want.
Some time later, he said, “There. Do you see now?” They were, by then, both naked and sweaty, though snow coated the windowsills. Sometimes answers didn’t need words.
“Maybe,” Sosia said grudgingly.
“Well, I’ll just have to show you again,” Lanius said, and he did.
After that second demonstration, he fell asleep very quickly. When he woke up, it was light. What woke him was Sosia getting out of bed. He yawned and stretched. She nodded without saying anything.
“Good morning,” he told her.
“Is it?” she asked.
“Well, I thought so.”
“Of course you did,” she said. “You got what you wanted last night.”
In some annoyance, Lanius said, “I wasn’t the only one.”
“No?” But Sosia saw that wouldn’t do. She shrugged. “One night’s not enough to set everything right between us.”
Lanius sighed. “What am I going to have to do now?”
“You’re not going to have to do anything,” Sosia said. “You need to show me there are things you want to do, the kinds of things people who care about each other do without thinking.”
Since Lanius hardly ever did anything without thinking, he almost asked her what she was talking about. He quickly decided not to. Show me you love me, was what she meant. Keep on showing me until I believe you.
Some of what he did would be an act. He knew that. Sosia undoubtedly knew it, too. She wanted a convincing act—an act good enough to convince him as well as her. If he kept doing those things, maybe he would convince himself. Maybe I won’t, too, he thought mulishly. But he would have to make the effort.
He did his best. He went out into the hall and spoke to a serving woman, who hurried off to the kitchens. She came back with a tray of poached eggs and pickled lamb’s tongue, Sosia’s favorite breakfast. Lanius preferred something simpler—bread and honey and a cup of wine suited him very well.
As Sosia sprinkled salt over the eggs, she smiled at Lanius. She’d noticed what he’d done. That was something, anyhow.
A snowstorm filled the air around the palace with soft, white silence. In the middle of that silence, King Grus and Hirundo tried to figure out what to do when sunshine and green leaves replaced snow and cold. “How many men do you want to leave behind to make sure the Chernagors don’t ravage the coast again?” Hirundo asked. “And if you leave that many behind, will we have enough left to go up into the land of the Chernagors and do something useful ourselves?”
Those were both good questions. Grus wished they weren’t quite so good. He said, “Part of that depends on how many ships Plegadis can build, and on whether we can fight off the pirates before they ever come ashore.”
“You’d know more about that than I do,” Hirundo answered. “All I know about ships is getting to the rail in a hurry.” He grinned and then stuck out his tongue. “Give me a horse any day.”