“Well, no,” Grus admitted. “As a matter of fact, I’d like to see the Chernagors jumping up and down and flapping their arms. That would be more interesting than anything that’s happened since we came down from Varazdin.”
Pterocles gave him a reproachful look. The wizard was a serious man. He wanted everyone else to be serious, too. Grus wasn’t, not often enough to suit him. The king missed Alca. She’d had a sense of whimsy. That was one of the things that had made her attractive to him—and one of the reasons he’d had to send her away.
He sighed. His breath made more fog, a little billow amidst the great cottony swirls of the stuff. It tasted like water and salt on his lips. Kisses and tears, he thought, and shook his head. Stop that.
The mist seemed to swallow most of his soldiers. He looked around. By what his senses told him, he had men close by him, wavering specters a little farther away, and creatures that made noise but could not be seen beyond those ghosts. He hoped his senses were wrong. He also hoped his outriders would note other creatures that made noise before they could be seen.
Pterocles was muttering to himself. He would drop the reins, make a few passes, and then grab for what he’d just dropped; he wasn’t much of a horseman. Alca had never had any trouble casting a spell and staying on her horse at the same time. Grus did a little muttering of his own. Law allowed a King of Avornis six wives. Estrilda, whom Grus had married long before he dreamt of becoming King of Avornis, had strong opinions on the subject—opinions that had nothing to do with what the law allowed.
When Pterocles went on muttering and mumbling, Grus pushed Alca out of his mind—a relief and a pain at the same time—and asked, “Something?”
“I don’t know,” the wizard answered, which was not at all what Grus wanted to hear. Pterocles went on, “If I had to guess, I’d say it was another wizard, feeling for me the same way as I’m feeling for him.”
“I… see.” Grus drummed the fingers of his right hand against his thigh. “You’re not supposed to guess, not on something like this. You’re supposed to know.”
“I work magic, Your Majesty. I don’t work miracles,” Pterocles said tartly. “If I had to guess” —he took an obvious sour pleasure in repeating the phrase— “that other groping wizard out there is as confused as am.”
No, you don’t work miracles, Grus thought. But the Banished One is liable to. He didn’t say that to Pterocles. His wizard had to know it already. Harping on it would hurt the man’s confidence, which wouldn’t help his magic.
From out of the mist ahead came a shout. “Who goes there?” Grus needed a moment to realize the call was in Avornan, which meant it had to have come from the throat of one of his own scouts. His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. He hated fighting from horseback. Whether he hated it or not, though, it was enormously preferable to getting killed out of hand.
An answering shout came back. Grus did some muttering and mumbling of his own. The fog played tricks with sound as well as with sight. Not only did he fail to make out any words in that answer, he couldn’t even tell in what language it had been. Logically, those had to be Chernagors out there… didn’t they? What do you expect? he asked himself. Menteshe to spring out of nowhere, here, hundreds of miles from their land?
He wished he hadn’t just thought that the Banished One might work miracles.
But it wasn’t the Banished One. A couple of minutes later, the scout came back to the main body of the Avornan army. “Your Majesty! Your Majesty! We’ve met Prince Vsevolod and his men!”
For a moment, Grus took that for good news. Then, realizing what it was likely to mean, he cursed furiously. “Why isn’t Vsevolod in Nishevatz, by the gods?” he demanded.
The answer was what he’d feared. The scout said, “Because Prince Vasilko’s cast him out.” Grus cursed again. He’d come too late. The man the Banished One backed had seized the city.
CHAPTER THREE
The more Lanius thought about it, the more he wondered why on earth he’d ever wanted to rule Avornis. Too much was happening too fast, and not enough of it was good. Prince Ulash’s ambassador now waited in a hostel only a couple of blocks from the royal palace. Lanius didn’t want to have anything to do with the fellow, whose name was Farrukh-Zad. The king had sent quiet orders to delay the envoy’s arrival as much as possible. He’d hoped Grus would get back and deal with the fellow. But Grus had troubles of his own in the north.
His father-in-law couldn’t do much about the Menteshe while he was campaigning up in the Chernagor country. And the news Grus sent back from the north wasn’t good. About half the Chernagors seemed to welcome Avornan soldiers with open arms. The other half seemed just as ready to fight them to the death. Maybe that showed the hand of the Banished One. Maybe it just showed that the Chernagors didn’t welcome invaders of any sort.
And the palace still buzzed with whatever had happened or might have happened or someone imagined had happened between Prince Ortalis and a serving girl (or two or three serving girls, depending on who was telling the story and sometimes on who was listening). Lanius hadn’t yet sent Grus that delightful news. His father-in-law was already worrying about enough other things.
Sighing because things had fallen into his lap, Lanius decked himself in his most splendid robes. The sunlight pouring through an open window gleamed and sparkled off pearls and jewels and gold thread running through the scarlet silk. Admiring him, Sosia said, “You look magnificent.”
“I don’t feel any too magnificent.” Lanius picked up the heavy crown and set it on his head. “And I’ll have a stiff neck tomorrow, on account of this miserable thing.”
“Would you rather you didn’t wear it?” his wife asked sharply.
“No,” he admitted. His laugh was rueful. Up until now, he’d chafed at being king in name without being king in fact. Now, with Grus away, what he said did matter, and he felt that weight of responsibility much more than he’d expected to. He went on, “And I have to keep the Menteshe from noticing anything is bothering me. That should be… interesting all by itself.”
But sitting on the Diamond Throne and looking down the length of the throne room helped steady him. He was king. Farrukh-Zad was only an ambassador. Whatever happened, he would soon go back to the south. Lanius laughed again, there on the throne. No matter what kind of a mess I make of this meeting, Grus is the one who’ll have to pay the price.
Courtiers stared at him. But then the guardsmen in front of the throne stiffened to alertness, and Lanius pulled his face straight. Prince Ulash’s ambassador advanced up the long central aisle of the throne room. He strode with a conqueror’s arrogance. That clumping march would have seemed even more impressive had he not been badly bow-legged. He was swarthy and hook-nosed, with a black mustache and a hawk’s glittering black eyes in a forward-thrusting face sharp as the blade of an ax. He wore a fur cap, a fur jacket, and trousers of sueded leather. A saffron cloak streamed out behind him.
Three other Menteshe followed in his wake, but Lanius hardly noticed them. Farrukh-Zad was the man who counted. And doesn’t he know it? Lanius thought. Just seeing the Menteshe was plenty to make Lanius’ bodyguards take half a step out from the throne toward him. Farrukh-Zad noticed as much, too, and smiled as though they’d paid him a compliment. To his way of thinking, they probably had.