"Your Majesty?" Lagopus dug a finger in his ear, as though wondering if he could have heard right.
"Let him escape. Don't be obvious about it — don't let him know you're letting him — but do it," Grus said. "He knows some things now that will make the Menteshe quarrel among themselves, but only if he gets away. He's the sort who will be looking for a chance. Make sure you give him one."
"Yes, Your Majesty. Just as you say." Lagopus was nothing if not dutiful. He saluted and went back to that compound. He would do as Grus told him. Bori-Bars would get away. And then… they would see what they would see.
Princess Limosa curtsied to King Lanius when she came up to him in a palace hallway. The serving woman behind Limosa carried little Prince Marinus. "Hello, Your Majesty," Limosa said. "How are you today?"
"Pretty well, thanks," Lanius answered. "Yourself?"
"I'm fine," she said. "I'm very pleased you and the queen are going to have another baby." She really did sound as though she meant it. Maybe she was blind to the politics all around her. Or maybe she just thought that, with Prince Crex, the succession — at least if it passed through Lanius — was already assured.
"Thank you. So am I. Of course, Sosia will have to do the work," Lanius said.
Limosa laughed. "That's the truth!" she exclaimed. "I think women forget how hard it is after every birth. If they didn't, they wouldn't have more than one baby, and then where would we be?"
"Gone," Lanius said, which made Limosa laugh again. He walked past her and held out his arms. "Let me see Marinus."
The maidservant put the baby in his arms. Marinus stared up at him. The baby was at the age when he smiled at anything and everything. By the way he looked up at Lanius; the king made him the happiest baby in the world just by existing. His little pink hands reached out…
Lanius jerked his head back in a hurry. "Oh, no, you don't, you little rascal! You're not going to get a handful of my beard. My children have already done that, and I know how much it hurts." Everything he said around Limosa could turn awkward, even something as innocuous as that. She relished pain. Hastily, he went on, "I think he looks more like you than like Ortalis."
"Yes, I do, too," Limosa answered. If the other thought occurred to her, she gave no sign of it. She went on, "Ortalis isn't so sure. He thinks Marinus has his nose."
Lanius looked down. The baby's nose was the small, mostly shapeless blob common to about eight babies in ten. "Where's the rest of it, in that case?" the king inquired, which sent both Limosa and the serving woman into a fit of the giggles.
"I'll take him back if you like, Your Majesty," the woman said. He handed her Marinus. The baby's face clouded up. He started to cry. Lanius didn't think that was a testimony to his own personality. Marinus sounded fussy and cranky. The maidservant began rocking him in her arms. Sure enough, his eyelids started to sag. "I'll wait until he's sound asleep, then put him in his cradle," the woman told Limosa.
"That will be fine, Pica," Limosa said.
She and Lanius chatted. She did most of the chatting, as the king wasn't overburdened with small talk. He didn't mind; most people did more talking than he did. After a couple of minutes, Pica carried Marinus away. By then, the baby wouldn't have noticed anything short of the ceiling dropping on him.
A little while after that, Limosa said, "I do go on and on."
"No," Lanius said, which wasn't strictly true. In fact, she did go on and on, but he didn't mind. "It's very interesting." That was true — she picked up most gossip before it got to him.
"You're kind to say so." Limosa looked around. Lanius understood that glance, having used it a good many times himself — she was seeing whether any servants were close enough to overhear. Satisfied none was, she went on, "And you're kind for not thinking me — stranger than I am." Now her gaze went down to the mosaic tiles on the floor.
"Stranger than you are?" For a moment, Lanius was puzzled. In every way he could think of but one, Limosa was ordinary enough. When he remembered the exception, of course, it made up for a lot of the rest. He felt like looking down at the floor himself. "Oh. That."
"Yes. That." Limosa's chin lifted defiantly. "Well, you are, because you don't." She paused as though sorting through whether that was what she really meant. Lanius needed to do the same thing. They both decided at about the same time that she had gotten it right. Relief in her voice, she went on, "You don't act like you think I'm some sort of a monster or something."
"I don't," Lanius said, which was true. He would have said the same thing about Ortalis, and sounded just as sincere — and he would have been lying through his teeth. About Limosa, though, he did mean it. Despite her husband, despite her father, he had nothing at all against her. He tried to figure out why, and to put it into words. The best he could do was, "You just — like what you like, that's all."
"Yes, that really is all." Her eyes glowed. "You see? You do understand. Oh! I could just kiss you!"
He could tell she meant it. And, if the look on her face meant what he thought it did, things could easily go on from there after a kiss. The idea of putting a cuckold's horns on his unloving and unlovable brother-in-law had a certain delicious temptation to it. But Lanius was too relentlessly practical to take it any further than being tempted. An affair with a serving girl annoyed nobody but Sosia, and both he and the kingdom could deal with that. An affair with a princess carried much more baggage. Nor did he think Ortalis would wear horns gracefully. On the contrary.
And so, as gently as he could, Lanius said, "I thank you for the thought, but that might not be a good idea."
Limosa's eyes fell open. Maybe she saw for the first time where that kiss might lead. Her cheeks turned the color of iron just out of the forge. "Oh!" she said again, in an altogether different tone of voice. "You're right. Maybe it isn't."
Gently still, Lanius added, "Besides, what you like isn't… what very many people like."
She turned redder yet, which he wouldn't have believed if he hadn't seen it. In a faintly strangled voice, she said, "That isn't all I like."
Lanius was willing to believe her. She wouldn't have borne Capella and Marinus if she hadn't done other things, and they were things she was likely to like if she did them. But exactly what she liked and didn't like wasn't really his business, or anyone's except hers and perhaps Ortalis'.
She must have realized that, too, because she squeaked, "Please excuse me," and hurried away. Lanius stared after her. He sighed. Maybe they would be able to talk more openly with each other from now on. Or maybe they wouldn't be able to talk at all. Time would tell, nothing else.
"Time will tell." Lanius said it out loud. It was true of so many things. He wanted to know whether Sosia would have a boy or a girl. Time would tell. He wanted to know how Grus' army was doing down in the Menteshe country. Time would tell. He wanted to know if Grus would reclaim the Scepter of Mercy. Time would tell. He wanted to know what the Scepter could do in the hands of a King of Avornis. Time would — or might — tell.
"But it won't tell soon enough!" Lanius said that out loud, too. He wanted to know all those things now. He didn't want to have to wait to find out. News from Grus might be only minutes away. Lanius hoped so. He surely wouldn't have to wait more than days for that. With the others, though, he would have to be more patient.
He'd had a lot of time to learn patience. Snaking through the archives had helped him acquire it. So had years of being altogether powerless. If he hadn't been patient then, he might have gone mad. He laughed. Some of the people in the palace probably thought he had, although, he hoped, in a harmless way.
And patience had paid. Now he had more power than he'd ever expected, more power than he'd ever dreamed of in those first few years after Grus put the crown on his own head.