“He told you that, did he?” Lanius said suspiciously.
Alca nodded. “He did.”
“Well, regardless of whether he told you that or not, why should I believe it?” Lanius demanded.
“May I speak frankly, Your Majesty?”
“Why not?” Lanius didn’t bother trying to hide his bitterness. “It’s not as though I can do anything to you any which way.” He eyed the witch. She wasn’t far from his mother’s age, and seemed nice enough. A few years before, that would have made him want to trust her. Now it made him more suspicious than ever; he wondered whether Grus had chosen her to lull him into a false sense of safety.
But then she said, “Even so, Your Majesty. And Grus would need no special excuse to get rid of you… if he wanted to do that. He could do it, and then give out whatever reason he chose after he had. Am I right or am I wrong?”
No one, not even Grus, had ever spelled out Lanius’ helplessness quite that way before. Now, all at once, Lanius began to think he would hear truth from this woman. He said, “You tell me he will only use what you learn here to go after enemies he doesn’t already know about?”
Alca nodded once more. “That is exactly what I tell you. Ask King Grus, if you like, and he will tell you the same.”
“Never mind,” Lanius said. “The point is, I believe you. Go ahead. Make your magic.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Alca said. “I’ll be back directly, then. I need to bring a few things here.”
The spell proved much more formidable than Lanius had expected. The witch peered at him through peacock feathers, and through what looked like picture frames first of horn and then of ivory, while she chanted and made passes. She had a couple of retorts bubbling over braziers during the spell. One of them sent up yellowish smoke, the other reddish. Lanius expected to smell the sweetness of incense, but the odors that reached his nose were harsher, more acrid. He coughed once or twice.
Alca’s chant rose and fell, rose and fell. The spell took longer than Lanius had thought it would, too. Suddenly, he snapped his fingers and said, “It doesn’t have to be this showy, does it?”
“I don’t know what you mean, Your Majesty,” Alca said when she found a moment to pause in her enchanting.
“I think you do,” he said. “I think you’re making this magic fancy on purpose, to overawe the people you aim it at.”
She paused. Her eyes gleamed as she peered at him in a new and thoughtful way. He wasn’t sure he wanted anybody looking at him like that, but realized he’d invited it. After that long, thoughtful silence, she said, “You see through things, don’t you?”
“You mean, the way a wizard sees through things?” Lanius shook his head. “I have no gift along those lines. I wish I did.”
Alca shook her head. “No, that isn’t what I meant, Your Majesty,” she answered. “I can tell you will never make a wizard, yes. But what of that? A man who is learned and wise sees through things in his own way, too.”
“Do you think so?” Lanius won praise so seldom, he wanted to blossom like a flower in sunlight when he did. But praise also made him suspicious. He was King of Avornis, after all. What did someone who flattered him want?
If the witch wanted anything from him, she hid it very well. “I do, Your Majesty,” she answered, and then said, “And now, if you’ll excuse me…” When Lanius didn’t say no, she packed up her sorcerous apparatus and left without another word.
King Grus stood before his assembled captains and couriers in the square in front of the palace, Alca the witch at his side. He bowed to her as to an intimate friend. She dropped him a fine curtsy in return. He spoke with unusual formality to the men through whom he ran Avornis. “Alca is an extraordinary woman, and has served me extraordinarily well. Not only did she save my life when foul wizardry beset me, but, through her own rare magical talent, she has found a perfect way for me to test the hearts of those in my command, and to know exactly who is in the pay of the Thervings, or of Corvus and Corax the traitors… or of the Banished One.”
Alca stirred beside him when he said that. “Your Majesty, when a mortal pits his sorceries against those of the Banished One, he usually loses,” she whispered. “You shouldn’t tell them that I—”
“Hush,” he said, also quietly. “You may know I’m not telling the whole truth, but they don’t, do they?”
“Ah.” Ever so slightly, the witch’s eyes widened. Still speaking in that tiny whisper, she went on, “You’re sneakier than I thought.”
With a bland smile, Grus answered, “Me? Sneaky? I haven’t got the faintest idea what you’re talking about.” Alca rewarded him with a noise halfway between a snort and a snicker. She knew him well enough not to take that too seriously.
His officers and ministers, on the other hand… Looking as regal as he could, Grus stared out at them. His face might have been carved from marble, like the relief portraits of long-dead Kings of Avornis set into the palace walls as decoration—and perhaps to intimidate the kings who came after them.
The men’s faces were livelier and more interesting. Some of them, like Nicator, looked delighted that he could sniff out enemies with the witch’s help. Others, like Lepturus, showed little—but then, Lepturus never showed much. Three or four tried to look delighted and ended up looking bilious instead. A couple seemed angry. Angry that I presume to spy on their thoughts, or angry that I might discover their treason? Grus wondered. And one or two looked terrified. The king knew that didn’t necessarily prove anything, but noted who they were even so.
“Before long, Alca will call in each of you and work her magic,” he said. “And we will go on and beat our foes. For now, my friends, you’re dismissed.” He waved, as though shooing them out of the square.
In a low voice, Alca said, “You know, Your Majesty, you might be able to get the same result if I knew no magic at all. So long as those people think I know what’s in their hearts, they’ll behave as though I really do.”
“Yes, that occurred to me,” Grus answered. “We’ll go on from here, and we’ll see what happens next.”
What happened next was that two ministers and three officers slipped out of the city of Avornis. Grus wasn’t surprised to hear they’d surfaced with Corvus. He was a little surprised when one of Arch-Hallow Bucco’s aides disappeared from the capital. So, by all appearances, was Bucco. “I never thought the man anything but a hard-working, holy priest,” the arch-hallow said.
“I believe you,” Grus told him. “Just to be on the safe side, though, I’d like you to let Alca test you with her spell.”
“You cannot doubt me, Your Majesty!” Bucco exclaimed. “After all, I put the crown on your head.”
“And you would have put it on Corvus‘, if he hadn’t made a hash of his chance,” Grus answered. “We both know that’s true, don’t we? So I had better find out what’s in your heart.”
He didn’t say what he would do if Bucco refused to let the witch use her wizardry. He didn’t have to say anything. Letting Bucco draw his own pictures worked much better. Several men had fled before Alca could see their secrets. The arch-hallow didn’t. He went to his sorcerous appointment with the air of a cat going into a washtub, but he went. When he and the witch emerged, Alca said, “He is tolerably loyal to Your Majesty.”
“Good,” Grus said heartily. “I expected nothing else.”
That made Bucco bristle. “If you expected nothing else, why did you put me through that humiliating ordeal?”
Grus’ smile seemed to show as many teeth as a moncat’s. “Because what you don’t expect can hurt you worse than what you do.” Bucco bowed stiffly and left the palace as fast as his old legs would carry him.