“All right,” she said, “except you’re heavy.”
“Sorry.” He took more of his weight on his elbows and knees. He hadn’t known what to expect about marriage. So far, it didn’t seem bad at all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Grus found the Avornan crown annoyingly heavy; it made his neck ache. The royal robes were thick and hot. Beneath them, sweat trickled down his sides from under his arms and slid along the small of his back. On the deck of a river galley, he could have dressed as he pleased. Servants and courtiers gave him no such choice when he sat down on the Diamond Throne.
Before that heavy crown went on his head, he had fondly imagined the King of Avornis was the one man in the whole kingdom who could do what he wanted all the time. Now he found out how wrong he’d been. Ceremony and tradition hemmed in the king on all sides. He’d given up asking why. Because this is how we’ve always done it irked him more each time he heard it, but he had no good comeback for it. Precedent ruled. Grus hoped he could.
On a steamy summer’s day three weeks after Lanius’ wedding, he had his doubts about that. The crown seemed particularly heavy, the robes particularly oppressive. He wondered what would have happened had he insisted on sitting on the Diamond Throne bareheaded and wearing a light linen shirt and trousers. He didn’t try it. He feared it was likelier to cause an uprising against him than acts of out-and-out tyranny.
And he had enough worries without making more for himself. A herald called, “Behold Zangrulf, ambassador from King Dagipert of Thervingia!”
Accompanied by a small retinue, the Therving approached the throne. He gave Grus an impeccable bow. Then, in a low voice, he murmured, “Well, Your Majesty, you’ve got a fancier rank than when I saw you last.”
“So I have,” Grus answered. “I wondered if you’d remember me ferrying you across the Tuola.”
“Oh, yes,” Zangrulf said. “You were too good an officer to forget in a hurry. You proved that again the last time King Dagipert found it necessary to invade Avornis.”
“The last time?” Grus raised an eyebrow. “I tell you straight out, Your Excellency, I don’t care for the sound of that.”
Zangrulf shrugged. He drew himself up and raised his voice till it filled the whole throne room. “Hear the words of my master, the mighty King Dagipert of Thervingia.” He looked and sounded the very picture of arrogance. Unfortunately, considering what the Thervings had done to Avornis during their last invasion, he’d earned the right. He went on, “My master demands that you forthwith divorce from King Lanius your daughter, Sosia, since Lanius has long had a valid wedding contract with his daughter, Princess Romilda.”
“No,” Grus said. “Your master knows that contract is not valid. He extorted it from Arch-Hallow Bucco by force, but King Lanius’ own mother, Queen Certhia, repudiated it as soon as she heard of it.”
Zangrulf coughed. “Odd to hear you praise Queen Certhia, all things considered.”
That made Grus cough, too. He had, after all, exiled Lanius’ mother to the Maze. And, just as Dagipert had hoped to force Lanius to wed Romilda, he had forced Lanius to marry Sosia. What, then, was the difference between him and Dagipert?
Simple, Grus thought. For one thing, I’m an Avornan and Dagipert isn’t. For another, I got away with it.
Dagipert had aimed to bind Avornis to Thervingia, with himself as master of both. He wouldn’t get away with that, either, not as long as Grus had a word to say about it. “King Dagipert has no business meddling in Avornis’ internal affairs,” Grus declared.
“It is easy to tell a man he has no business doing this or that,” Zangrulf said. “If the man is strong, though, and you are weak, you are a fool to speak too boldly. Here is what my master says.” He raised his voice again. “Dissolve the marriage between Lanius and your daughter, restore the marriage vowed between Lanius and Princess Romilda, or my master will invade Avornis again and punish you for your usurpation. Do this or there will be war.”
The word seemed to echo from the high ceiling. Courtiers whispered it and carried it back to the farthest reaches of the chamber. Zangrulf stood there, tall and haughty and savage and fierce, as though he were the very personification of the terrible, terrifying word. No one could forget what the Thervings had done in Avornis only the year before.
Grus sighed. He’d hoped for better news than Zangrulf had brought, but he hadn’t really expected it. “Here is what I say to your master,” he told the Therving envoy. “I say no. I say he can do his worst, and it will not make me change my mind. Take my words to him, and let him do what he wants with them.”
Zangrulf bowed. “You will be sorry you have defied him.”
No, I would be sorrier if I yielded to him, and so would the kingdom. “We will fight you,” he said. “You will not have such an easy time of it. Tell that to King Dagipert, too.”
With another bow, one that put Grus in mind of an offended cat, Zangrulf walked out of the throne room. Courtiers buzzed and fussed as they left the chamber in the wake of the ambassador. Grus didn’t like their frightened voices, but didn’t know what he could do about them.
“You did the right thing,” Lepturus said to him. The guards commander sounded very much his normal self, for which Grus was duly grateful.
“Dagipert can ravage lands he’s already ravaged,” Grus said. “What else can he do? Nothing I can see. We’ll ride that out, he’ll get tired of it, and life will go on again. Most of the people have fled from that country by now.”
“Sounds right to me,” Lepturus agreed.
Grus was starting to like the veteran officer. Lepturus was fiercely loyal to Lanius; that had been plain from the beginning. If I’d gotten rid of Lanius, he’d‘ve found some way to make me pay, Grus thought. Since I didn’t, he’ll work with me. And, since I didn’t, I think I can work with him. He’s a good soldier, too.
The two of them stayed in the throne room, talking about ways they might throw Dagipert back. A few of Grus’ marines lingered, too, to make sure Lepturus had nothing evil in mind. One of the marines yawned. Another one leaned toward a pal and whispered what was probably a joke. The other marine snorted, then did his best to pretend he hadn’t.
And then a messenger rushed into the chamber, crying, “Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Grus remarked to Lepturus. He nodded to the messenger. “What’s gone wrong now? It can’t be Zangrulf. He only just left.”
“No, Your Majesty, it’s Count Corvus.” When Grus heard that, his heart sank. The messenger, oblivious, confirmed his worst nightmare. “Except he’s not calling himself Count Corvus anymore. He’s just declared that he’s king!”
Lanius got much less upset about Corvus’ rebellion than Grus did. In a sour sort of way, he even found it funny. “He’s done to you what you did to me,” he remarked to the man who’d taken most of his place.
But Grus shook his head. “If he wins, I’m a dead man. Did I kill you, Your Majesty? I wed you to my own flesh and blood, is what I did. And if Corvus wins, what happens to you?”
Lanius started to say something like, No one can rule Avornis without me. But he didn’t know that was true, and he didn’t want to get Grus any angrier than he was already. And so he asked, in a smaller voice than he’d thought he would use, “What will you do?”
“What will I do?” Grus echoed. Lanius expected the ex-commodore’s fury to burst into flame. Instead, it came out cold as ice. “I am going to beat that bastard. I am going to beat him like a drum. And by the time I’m done, no other miserable noble will dare raise his hand against a King of Avornis for the next fifty years.” He stalked away like a tiger on the prowl.