But he sometimes had moments when he wished he could be, if not in the action, then closer to it than he was while staying in the royal palace and the city of Avornis. Those moments came most often when the latest dispatch from Grus in the Chernagor country or from the officers in the south reached the capital.
He didn’t want to go into the field. But he wanted to know more about what went on there than he could find out from reading reports in the comfortable shelter of the palace. He would sometimes question the couriers who brought them. Some of the men who came down from the north had actually seen the things Grus was talking about. They helped make them seem real for Lanius.
The king had less luck with the dispatch riders who brought word of the civil war among the Menteshe up from the south. One of them said, “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but we have to piece this together ourselves. We don’t have our own people down by Yozgat watching the battles. We wait until word comes up to our side of the river, and then we try to figure out who’s lying and who isn’t.”
“How do you go about doing that?” Lanius asked.
“Carefully,” the courier answered, which made the king laugh. The other man went on, “I wasn’t joking, Your Majesty. All sorts of rumors bubble up about what’s going on between Sanjar and Korkut. We try to pop the bubbles and see which ones leave nothing but a bad smell behind.”
“Shame Avornis can’t do more,” Lanius remarked.
Very seriously, the courier shook his head. “We’re ordered not to favor either one of the Menteshe princes. If we did, the fellow we showed we didn’t like would use that to rally the rest of the nomads to his side. We don’t want to give either one of them that edge. Let them smash away at each other for as long as they please.”
That gray wisdom sounded like Grus. “All right,” Lanius said. “Just my impatience talking, I suppose.”
His brother-in-law had a different sort of impatience driving him. “I can’t wait for Limosa to have her baby,” Ortalis said one hot summer afternoon.
“Ah?” Lanius said. If Ortalis started going on about how much he wanted a son, Lanius intended to find an excuse to disappear. He didn’t want to hear about a baby that might prove a threat to his own son’s position.
But that wasn’t what was on his brother-in-law’s mind. Ortalis nodded like a hungry wolf thinking about meat. “That’s right,” he said. “There are things you can’t do when a woman’s carrying a child.”
“Ah?” Lanius said again. “Such as what?” Certain postures had been awkward after Sosia’s belly bulged, but they’d gone on making love until not long before she bore Crex and Pitta.
“Things,” Ortalis repeated, and declined to elaborate.
This time, Lanius didn’t say, “Ah.” He said, “Oh.” He recalled the kinds of things his brother-in-law enjoyed. Cristata’s scarred back, and the way the ruined skin had felt under his fingers, leaped vividly to mind. What would happen if you did that sort of thing with—to—a pregnant woman? After a moment’s thought, he shook his head. Maybe it was squeamish of him, but he didn’t really want to know.
What he was thinking must have shown on his face. Prince Ortalis turned red. “Don’t get all high and mighty with me,” he said. “I’m not the only one who does things like that.”
“I didn’t say you were.” Lanius didn’t want another quarrel with Ortalis; they’d had too many already. But he didn’t want Grus’ legitimate son to think he liked Ortalis’ ideas of fun, either. Picking his words with care, he said, “There’s enough pain in the world as is. I don’t much see the point of adding more on purpose.” He nearly added, It seems like something the Banished One would do. At the last instant, he swallowed that. If Ortalis didn’t have ideas about the Banished One, why give them to him?
All Ortalis did now was make an exasperated noise. “You don’t understand,” he said.
“You’re right.” Lanius nodded emphatic agreement. “I don’t.”
He hadn’t asked Ortalis to explain. He hadn’t wanted Ortalis to explain. But explain his brother-in-law did. “Curse it,” Ortalis said angrily, “it’s not adding pain the way a Menteshe torturer would. It’s different.”
“How?” Now Lanius did ask. The word escaped him before he could call it back.
“How? I’ll tell you how. Because while it’s going on, both people are enjoying it, that’s how.” Ortalis sent Lanius a defiant stare.
The king remembered Cristata again. Not naming her, he said, “That isn’t what… one of the other people told me.”
Ortalis knew who he was talking about without a name. The prince laughed harshly. “That may be what she said afterwards. It isn’t what she said while it was going on. By the gods, it’s not. You should have heard her. ‘Oh, Ortalis!’ ”
He was an excellent, even an alarming, mimic. And he believed what he was saying. The unmistakable anger in his voice convinced Lanius of that. Was he right? Lanius doubted it. Right or not, though, he was sincere.
How could he be so wrong about that, sincere or not? Well, even Cristata admitted she’d enjoyed some of it at first. And then, when it had gone too far for her, maybe Ortalis had taken real fear for the artificial fear that was part of the game. Maybe. Lanius could hope that was how it had been.
But he wanted to hunt girls for sport. How can I forget that? What would he have done once he caught them? Part of him, again, didn’t want to know. Part feared he already knew.
When Lanius didn’t say anything, Ortalis got angrier. “Curse it, I’m telling you the truth,” he said.
“All right. I believe you.” Lanius didn’t, but he couldn’t help believing Ortalis believed what he said. And he believed—no, he knew—arguing with Ortalis was more trouble than it was worth.
Limosa’s labor began a few days later. Netta, the briskly competent midwife who’d attended Sosia, went in with Ortalis’ wife. Lanius didn’t linger outside Limosas bedchamber, as he had outside the birthing chamber where Sosia had borne their son and daughter. That was Ortalis’ job now. The king did get news from women who attended the midwife. From what they said, everything was going the way it should. Lanius hoped so. No matter what he thought of Petrosus, he didn’t dislike the exiled treasury minister’s daughter.
The sun had just set when the high, thin, furious wail of a newborn baby burst from the bedchamber. Lanius waited expectantly. Netta came out of the room and spoke to Ortalis in a voice that could be heard all over the palace. “Congratulations, Your Highness,” she said. “You have a fine, healthy new daughter, and the lady your wife is doing well.”
“A daughter?” Ortalis didn’t bother keeping his voice down, either, or keeping the disappointment out of it. But then he managed a laugh of sorts. “Well, we’ll just have to try again, that’s all.”
“Not for six weeks,” the midwife said firmly. “You can do her a real injury if you go to her too soon. I’m not joking about this, Your Highness. Stay out of her bed until then.”
How long had it been since anyone but Grus had spoken to Ortalis like that? Too long, probably. The prince took it from Netta, saying nothing more than, “All right, I’ll do that.”
“Princess Limosa said you were going to name a girl Capella. Is that right?” Netta asked.
“Yes. It’s her mother’s name,” Ortalis answered.
“Its a good name,” the midwife said. “I have a cousin named Capella. She’s a lovely woman, and I’m sure your little princess will be, too.”
What Ortalis said in response to that, Lanius didn’t hear. He went into his bedchamber and told Sosia, “It’s a girl!”