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Pterocles nodded again, enthusiastically this time. “She really is. You know how you’ve been nagging me about spells to cure thralls?”

“I know I’ve been interested in that, yes.” Grus’ voice was dry. “I also know you made a point of telling me Alca’s ideas were worthless.”

“Well, they were. She didn’t understand. But now she does,” the wizard said. “When I get back to the capital, I’ll have all sorts of good ideas—hers and mine—to try out.”

“Good. We can use all the good ideas we can find,” Grus said. “And if you’d be so kind, tell her I can see her this afternoon.”

“I’ll do that.” Pterocles went on his way.

Grus wondered if he’d just been clever or very foolish. Alca was a powerful witch—and he’d sent her away from the city of Avornis. Now he came to Pelagonia not with his wife, which would have been bad enough, but with a new mistress, and one who would have his child. Would it be surprising if Alca felt like turning him into a dung beetle?

The real irony was that he didn’t love Alauda. He never had and never would. He enjoyed her in bed, and that was about as far as it went. She had the outlook of a peasant girl who’d become a barmaid, which was exactly what she was. Alca, on the other hand, he’d liked and admired long before they slept together. That wasn’t a guaranteed recipe for falling in love, but it was a good start.

He waited more than a little nervously in a small, bare room in the quarters in the keep Spizastur had given Alauda and him. He didn’t know what Alauda was doing. He hoped she was napping.

A guardsman stuck his head into the room. “Your Majesty, the witch is here.” He had tact. He’d served Grus back in the palace. He had to know all the lurid gossip about the king and Alca. What he knew didn’t show in his voice.

Gratefully, Grus answered, “Send her in.”

Alca came into the chamber slowly and cautiously. Until Grus saw how she moved, how her pale, fine-boned face was set to show as little as it could, he hadn’t realized she was at least as nervous as he was. She brushed a lock of black hair back from her forehead. “Your Majesty,” she said, her voice not much above a whisper.

“Hello, Alca,” Grus replied, and he wasn’t much louder. “It’s good to see you.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Alca said. “I wasn’t sure it would be, but it is, in spite of everything.”

“How have you been?” he asked.

“This place is an even bigger hole than I thought it would be, and most of the men here ought to be horsewhipped,” she answered. “I didn’t much care for watching the Menteshe burn our fields, either.”

“Oh.” Grus winced. “I’m sorry. Curse it, I am sorry—about everything. When we started, I didn’t think it would end up like… this.”

“I did,” Alca said bleakly. “I did, but I went ahead anyhow—and so it’s partly my own fault that this happened to me. Partly.” She cocked her head to one side and eyed him in a way he remembered painfully well. “Will you tell this latest woman of yours that you’re sorry about everything, too?”

Pterocles had said she knew about Alauda. Grus wondered if the wizard had told her, or if she’d found out by magic, or maybe just by market gossip. Any which way, a king had a demon of a time keeping secrets, especially about himself. However Alca knew, her scorn burned. Gruffly, Grus answered, “I hope not.”

Alca nodded. “Yes, I believe that. You always hope not. And when things go wrong—and they do go wrong—you’re always surprised. You’re always disappointed. And that doesn’t do anybody any good, does it?”

“Is that why you came here? To rail at me?”

“What will you do if I say yes? Exile me to some no-account town in the middle of nowhere? I take it back, Your Majesty”—the way Alca used the royal title flayed Grus—“I’m not so glad to see you after all.”

They glared at each other. After a long, furious silence, Grus asked, “Have you been glad to see Pterocles?”

Alca’s face changed. “Yes,” she breathed. “Oh, yes, indeed. That is a clever young man. He needs to be kicked every so often—or more than every so often—but he’ll do great things if—” She broke off.

“If the Banished One doesn’t kill him first,” Grus finished for her.

“Yes. If.” The witch nodded again. “He’s dreamed of the Banished One. Did you know that?”

“It’s one of the reasons I made him my chief wizard aft—” Now Grus stopped short. After I sent you away was what he’d started to say, but he decided not to say it. “One of the reasons I made him my chief wizard,” he repeated. “It’s a sign the Banished One takes you seriously, I think.”

“An honor I could do without,” Alca said, and shivered in the warm little room.

Grus agreed with her there, no matter how much the two of them quarreled about their personal affairs. The king asked, “Have you made any progress on spells to cure the thralls? Pterocles seemed to think you had.”

Her eyes lit up. “Yes. I really think we have. He knows some things I never could have imagined. But then, he found out about them the hard way, too. To be struck down by the Banished One… I’d sooner have the dreams, and that’s the truth.”

“I believe it. I think you’re right.” Grus hesitated. “It’s dead, isn’t it? When I came to Pelagonia, I thought…” He shook his head. “But no. It really is dead.”

“You thought that, when you came here with another woman?” Alca shook her head, too—in disbelief. “You can still surprise me, Your Majesty, even when I ought to know better. But yes, it’s as dead as that table there.” She pointed. “And it would be even if you hadn’t brought her along. I know how big a fool I am—not big enough to let you hurt me twice, and I thank the gods I’m not.”

Suddenly Grus was much more eager to escape this provincial town than he ever had been to come here. “I won’t trouble you anymore,” he mumbled.

“I’ll work with your wizard,” Alca said. “I’ll do whatever I can to help Avornis. I told you that when I wrote to you. But I don’t think I ever want to see you again.”

“All right,” Grus said. Just then, it was more than all right. It came as an enormous relief.

Whenever a courier came into the city of Avornis from the south, King Lanius worried. His chief fear was that Grus might have met disaster at the hands of the Menteshe. That would have put him back on the Diamond Throne as full-fledged ruler of the kingdom, but only by ruining the kingdom. Some prices were too high to pay.

He had another worry, small only in comparison to that one. So far this fighting season, the Chernagor pirates had stayed away from the Avornan coast. If they descended on it while Grus was busy against the Menteshe… Lanius didn’t know what would happen then, but he knew it wouldn’t be good.

Reports from Grus came in regularly. He seemed to be making as much progress against the nomads as anyone could reasonably expect. And the coast stayed quiet. No tall-masted ships put in there. No kilted buccaneers swarmed out to loot and burn and kill—and to distract the Avornans from their campaign against Prince Ulash’s Menteshe.

Lanius wondered why not. If the Banished One’s hand propelled both the Menteshe and the Chernagors against Avornis, couldn’t he set both foes in motion against her at the same time? Failing there struck Lanius as inept, and, while he might wish the god cast down from the heavens made many such mistakes, he’d seen that the Banished One seldom did.

He asked Prince Vsevolod why the Chernagors were holding back. “Why?” Vsevolod echoed. “I tell you why.” Maybe the sour gleam in his eye said he thought Lanius should have figured it out for himself. Maybe it just said he didn’t care for the King of Avornis. In that case, the feeling was mutual.