“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Alca hesitated, then added, “If neither of us were wed, that might be different. But as things are?” Shaking her head, she slipped out of the tent. Grus poured his goblet full again and finished the job of getting drunk.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
For the most part, Lanius was glad to get back to the royal palace. He had, after all, lived there his whole life. Coming back to the moncats and the forays into the archives meant returning to comfortable routine. Coming back to Sosia was pleasant, too. But, as day followed day and routine submerged him, he did wonder if he’d lost a chance he might not see again.
Even finding an answer was far from easy. When Lanius asked the question in the privacy of his own mind, that was one thing. But when he asked it out in the world, that was something else—something more dangerous. Asking the wrong person could prove deadly dangerous. Who was the right person? Was anyone the right person?
After some thought, he arranged to see Lepturus. The commander of the royal bodyguards had always been loyal to the dynasty of which Lanius was the last survivor. Even if Lepturus gave an answer he didn’t like, he doubted the older man would pass his words on to Grus.
Lepturus heard him out in thoughtful silence. The officer plucked at his beard. It was white these days. It had been iron gray when Lanius first knew him. How had Lepturus gotten so old without his noticing? At last, the guards commander said, “Me, I think you did just the right thing by sitting tight and not starting a fight here when you got back from the field, Your Majesty. If you’d risen against Grus, you would have lost.”
In a way, that was what Lanius wanted to hear. It was what he’d told himself. And yet… “Don’t you think the soldiers would have risen for me, for the dynasty, against the upstart?”
“Some of them would have,” Lepturus replied at once. “Some of the bodyguards would have, too.”
“But not all of them?” Lanius asked, and the guards commander shook his head. Lanius grimaced. That hurt. If not all the men who’d protected him since he was a baby would have risen for him, he would have lost, without a doubt. “Why wouldn’t they?”
“On account of Grus looks to be a pretty good fighting man, and we need that,” Lepturus answered. “It’s not the only thing we need, but it’s the one soldiers think about. You can’t expect anything different. And Grus was smart when he sent Nicator back here with you. Everybody likes Nicator. Olor’s beard, I like the old pirate myself. And he likes Grus—always has, always will.”
King Lanius sighed. No, that wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear. But he’d called Lepturus to tell him the truth, or as much of it as the guards commander saw. He asked, “What do you think of Grus?”
“Me?” That question seemed to startle Lepturus, where the others hadn’t. “Me?” he said again. “He could have done a lot worse, I will say that.”
“If he had, I’d be dead,” Lanius said.
“That’s part of what I mean,” Lepturus replied. “He’s held back King Dagipert for one more year, he beat Corvus and Corax, he married you to Sosia instead of putting you in the grave… He could have done a lot worse. Plenty of other people would have—Corvus springs to mind.”
That wasn’t what Lanius wanted to hear, either. “But what about Grus?” he demanded. “Do you think anybody needs him? Do you think the kingdom needs him?”
“Probably,” Lepturus answered. Lanius threw his hands in the air and walked off. The commander of the bodyguards called, “Don’t do anything foolish, now,” after him.
“I won’t,” Lanius answered. He had a pretty good idea of what Lepturus meant by the words— don’t start plotting against Grus. He hadn’t intended to do that even if Lepturus had shown interest in the idea. Grus had already proved he was good at sniffing out conspiracies about as fast as they were born.
Lanius went in to watch Bronze and the young moncats and to stroke them. They didn’t give him any trouble, except when he scratched their furry bellies and they snapped at his hand for no particular reason. They were more skittish than ordinary cats, but ordinary cats sometimes nipped for no particular reason, too.
As far as Lanius’ pets knew, he remained sole and all-powerful King of Avornis. He fed them and cared for them and petted them. Past that, what else mattered? Nothing—not as far as the moncats were concerned. Lanius’ laugh made the beasts turn their slit-pupiled eyes his way. They wouldn’t have understood that he didn’t really think anything was funny, or why he didn’t.
The door opened behind him. He turned with the same sort of surprise the moncats had given him when he laughed. When he came in here, people usually left him alone. That was exactly how he wanted it, too.
“Oh,” he said. He couldn’t even snarl like a moncat, the way he wanted to. “Hello, Sosia.”
“Hello,” his wife answered. “Am I bothering you?”
That was a poser. If he said no, he’d be telling a lie; if he said yes, he’d offend her. Silence stretched. Too late, he realized that was as bad as “Yes” would have been.
Sosia sighed. “Well, I’m sorry,” she said, “but I do think we’d better talk.”
“Do you?” Lanius didn’t feel like talking to anybody, not then.
But Sosia nodded, though she had to know something was bothering him. She owned some of Grus’ stubbornness in going straight at whatever troubled her. “Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” she told him. “It has to do with my father, doesn’t it?”
“How can you imagine that?” Lanius said.
Sarcasm didn’t deflect her. He’d hoped it might, but hadn’t really expected it would. “Everything has to do with my father. He’s the king who gives the orders, and I know how much you hate that.”
“I’m sorry,” Lanius answered. “I didn’t mean for you to know.”
“Well, I do,” Sosia said. “I don’t know what I can do about it, though.”
“Not much,” he said.
She nodded again. “No, I suppose not. But the one thing I can tell you is, he’s not your enemy. He likes you.”
That jerked more bitter laughter from Lanius. “He has an odd way of showing it, wouldn’t you say? Stealing my power—”
“Marrying you to me,” Sosia broke in. “He wouldn’t do that with someone he hated. I hope he wouldn’t, anyhow. He and I have always gotten on well, so I don’t think he would do anything like that to me, either.”
“I should hope not. You’re his daughter. People are supposed to treat their children right.” Lanius spoke with great conviction. He believed with all his heart that he would have been treated better if King Mergus had lived longer. “When we have children, by the gods, I’m going to spoil them rotten.”
Now, though, Sosia shook her head. “That isn’t the way to do it, either. My father thought my grandfather was too rough on him, so he decided to spoil Ortalis rotten. Look how well my brother turned out.”
With his mind’s eye, Lanius looked—and then quickly looked away. Ortalis frightened him too much for long contemplation. “Maybe you’re right,” he said. “But maybe Ortalis would have turned out like that any which way. How can you tell?”
“I don’t suppose you can,” Sosia admitted. One reason they got along was that they both respected reasoned argument. But she added, “Still, do you think he’d have turned out worse if Father had tried harder to teach him he had no business doing things like that?”
Unhappily, Lanius, who had to respect reasoned argument himself, shook his head. “No, that doesn’t seem likely, does it?”