King Lanius leaned forward. So did the other Avornans in the throne room. The Chernagors were wide-faring sailors and traders. Equally ancient custom said their gifts to Kings of Avornis might be anything at all, as long as they were interesting. Lyut gestured to the men behind him.
“Here, Your Majesty,” Lyut said as the other Chernagors took skins out of leather sacks and unrolled them. The skins were from great cats, lion-sized, with orange hair striped with black. “These come from lands far away.”
“I’m sure they must,” Lanius said politely. “You must tell me more later.” He tried to sound enthusiastic. The skins were interesting, but the Chernagors had done better. The mustachioed monkeys and the strange moncats Lanius raised were, to his way of thinking, cases in point.
With another bow, Lyut said, “That would be my pleasure, Your Majesty. In the meantime, though, I hope you will hear my petition.”
“You have come from far away to make it,” Lanius said. “Speak, then. Tell me what is in your mind.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty. You are as gracious as you are wise.” Lyut paused, then went on, “Let me be blunt, Your Majesty. There are men in Nishevatz who would let my city-state fall under the shadow of the Banished One. More—there are men in my city-state who would help Nishevatz fall under the shadow of the Banished One. Prince Vsevolod resists them, but he is not a young man. And who knows in which direction his son, Prince Vasilko, will turn? We need your help, Your Majesty. We need Avornis’ help.”
King Lanius wanted to laugh. He also wanted to cry. By himself, he didn’t have the power to help a Chernagor city-state. That lay in Grus’ hands. Lanius said, “What I can do, I will do.” Lyut bowed again. Maybe he took that as a promise of aid. Or maybe he knew how weak Lanius truly was, and took it for a promise of nothing at all.
CHAPTER TWO
Grus hated riding horseback. He wished he could reach the Chernagor city-states by river galley. He’d been a sailor—a galley captain, a commodore—for years. Aboard ship, he knew what he was doing. On a horse, he felt like a buffoon. Very often, the horse he was riding thought he was a buffoon, too.
Unfortunately, if he wanted to bring an army into the lands of the Chernagors, he had to go by horseback. Rivers in Avornis came out of the Bantian Mountains in the west, and flowed east and south to the sea. A low spur of the Bantians ran west from their northern extremity. Thanks to that watershed, no one could travel from Avornis to the Chernagor country by river.
And so, muttering under his breath, Grus turned to General Hirundo and said, “There has to be another way to do this.”
Hirundo was a cavalry officer. Grus tried not to hold it against him. Grinning, he said, “Oh, there is, Your Majesty.”
“By Olor’s beard, what is it?” Grus was ready to grasp at any straw.
“Instead of riding, you could walk like a pikeman,” Hirundo said.
“Thanks so much. I’m glad I asked you for advice,” Grus said. Hirundo laughed out loud.
The army moved north, horses’ hooves and the feet of marching men kicking up a cloud of dust that clung to everything and left eyes and mouths feeling as though they’d been dipped in grit. Out in the fields, farmers plowed the rich black soil. Down in the south, where Grus and Hirundo had spent their younger days, crops went into the ground with the fall rains and were harvested in the spring. Things were different here.
Some things were different, anyhow. Most of the farmers, though, fled as soon as they saw soldiers. Grus had seen that countless times before, in the south and here, not far from the capital. Some farmers took Avornan soldiers for the enemy. Some simply weren’t inclined to take chances. Avornans were also known to pillage, to rob, and to kill for the sport of it.
Grus said, “We aren’t running things as smoothly as we ought to. Our farmers shouldn’t think they have to run away from our soldiers. If it weren’t for the soldiers, the farmers would have plenty of worse things to worry about.”
“Well, yes,” Hirundo said. “My best guess is, they already know that. But they know our boys can turn on ’em, too. I wish it didn’t happen as much as you do. You know what wishes are worth, though. Give men swords and spears and bows and pay ’em to fight, and you’ll find they’ll go into business for themselves along with fighting for you.”
“ ‘Go into business for themselves,’ ” Grus echoed. “That’s the politest way to say ‘turn brigand’ I’ve ever heard.”
“Oh, I’m polite, Your Majesty,” Hirundo said. “In fact, I’m about the politest son of a whore you’re ever likely to meet.”
Laughing, Grus said, “So I see.”
Wagons full of grain and a shambling herd of cattle accompanied the army on the march. This early in the year, the only way the men could have lived off the countryside was by stealing every cow and sheep and pig for miles around. That wouldn’t have endeared them to the peasants they were supposed to protect.
When they camped for the night, some of them slept on bare ground under the stars, others in little tents of canvas or leather. Grus and Hirundo had fancy, airy pavilions of silk, the king’s larger than the general’s. Grus ate the same porridge and beef as his soldiers, though. Eating with them was the best way to make sure they got food worth eating.
After supper, Hirundo poked his nose into Grus’ tent and said, “Ask you a couple of things, Your Majesty?”
“Of course. Come in.” Grus picked up a folding chair and unfolded it. He pointed to a jug of wine with a couple of cups beside it. “Have something to drink.” The wine was better than what his soldiers drank.
“Don’t mind if I do.” After looking a question at Grus, Hirundo poured the king a cup, too. “What do you think we can do when we get up to Nishevatz?” the general asked after they’d both sipped.
“I hope we can knock down whatever faction the Banished One’s backers have put together there,” Grus answered.
“That would be good,” Hirundo agreed. “But how likely is it? The Banished One has a long reach. We’ve seen as much.”
“Haven’t we just?” Grus agreed. “But the Chernagor country is right at the end of it. We’ll be on the spot. That will make a difference. I hope it will, anyhow.”
“It had better,” Hirundo said. “If it doesn’t, we’re in a lot of trouble, you know.”
Grus took a long pull at his wine. He wanted to ease the situation with a joke, as Hirundo so often did. He wanted to, but couldn’t come up with one for the life of him. “We are in a lot of trouble,” he said at last. “The Banished One hasn’t tried interfering in affairs so openly in a long time—maybe not ever. Lanius says he never tried to kill Kings of Avornis before when they weren’t in the field against him.”
Hirundo smiled. “Lanius ought to know.”
“Oh, yes. He knows all sorts of things.” Grus let it go at that. The one thing Lanius didn’t know, as far as Grus could see, was what was important and what wasn’t. Grus went on, “You said you wanted to ask me a couple of things. What’s the other one?”
The general’s mobile features squeezed into a frown. After a moment, he brightened and said, “All right, now I remember. Once we settle this mess in Nishevatz, do you think we’ll be able to turn around and march home again? Or are we going to spend the next five or ten years putting out fires in the Chernagor country?”
“I hope we’ll be able to do this quickly and neatly and then go home again,” Grus said. “I don’t know whether that will happen, though. It’s not just up to me, you know. The Banished One will have something to do with it. So will the Chernagors. They like squabbling among themselves—and they don’t always like outsiders sticking their noses in on one side or the other.”