Estrilda didn’t find any more porcupinish questions for him, so he supposed he’d given the right answer to that one. He also supposed she didn’t know he’d tried to take Alca to bed with him after her magic had helped him end Count Corvus’ rebellion. Had she known, she would have expressed her detailed opinion about it—Grus was sure of that. Estrilda had never been shy.
A couple of days later, still wearing his red robes, Anser came to the palace and asked, “Now that I’m arch-hallow, what do you want me to do?”
“See that things run on an even keel,” Grus told him. “Don’t let clerics meddle in politics—they don’t belong there. Past that, whatever you please, as long as you don’t make a scandal of yourself.”
“I’ll try,” Anser said. “But I don’t know anything more about the gods than what the priests down in Anxa taught me when I was little.”
“That should be plenty,” Grus answered. “Be good yourself, and expect the priests to be good, too. If you find some who aren’t—and I’m sure you will—then talk to me, and we’ll figure out what to do about them.”
His bastard son nodded. “All right. I’ll do that. Thanks, uh, Your Majesty.”
“Go on,” Grus said, liking him very much. “Just do the best you can, and everything will be fine.”
Not even Estrilda had an easy time disliking Anser. “He’s… sweet,” she admitted grudgingly.
“He is, isn’t he?” Grus said. “And the other thing is, with any luck at all, I won’t have to worry about who’s arch-hallow and whether he’ll give me trouble for the next twenty or thirty years.” He liked fixing things so they stayed fixed.
He wished he could fix things with the Thervings as readily as he’d fixed the arch-hallowdom. But Anser was cooperative. Fierce old King Dagipert wasn’t. With the coming of spring came another invasion from the west.
Lanius said, “Last year, you told me you couldn’t fight Dagipert with all your strength because of Corvus’ rebellion. There’s no rebellion now. Will you fight him with everything we have?”
Grus didn’t want to fight Dagipert with everything he had. He feared the Thervings would thrash the Avornan army, as they’d already thrashed it too many times. He needed a force that could stand up against them. He was building it, yes, but he knew the job was far from over.
But he didn’t want to look like a coward before his fellow king—or before all of Avornis, either. So he answered, “I’ll do everything I can, Your Majesty, to keep the Thervings from ravaging us the way they’ve done before.”
Lanius was harder to satisfy with a bland generality than he might have been. He asked, “What exactly does that mean?”
Since Grus didn’t know exactly what it meant, he answered, “You’ll see. Part of what we do—part of what we’re able to do—will depend on what King Dagipert does, you know.”
He didn’t think that completely satisfied the younger man, either. But Lanius held his peace. He’s seeing how much rope I’ve given myself, Grus judged. For the kingdom’s sake as well as his own, he hoped he could make good on what he’d promised.
To General Hirundo, he said, “When you move against the Thervings, do your best to keep them on land where they’ve already gone pillaging two years in a row. The sooner they get hungry, the sooner they’ll start thinking about going home.”
“I’ll try,” Hirundo said. “They don’t have much in the way of a supply train, and that’s a fact.”
“No, they don’t,” Grus agreed. “They keep themselves going by eating the countryside bare, like any locusts.”
Hirundo laughed. “That’s funny.”
Grus shook his head. “Maybe it would be, if the Thervings weren’t so dangerous. But they are, worse luck.”
“We beat ’em last year.” The general sounded confident enough. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t do it again.”
“I see one,” Grus said, “and that is that we did beat them last year.”
“I don’t follow you.” Hirundo frowned, perhaps to show how much he didn’t follow. “Now that we have beaten them, the men will know they can do it. They should have an easier time, not a harder one.”
“Maybe you’re right. I hope you’re right,” Grus said. “But the other thing you have to remember is, Dagipert’s trouble. He knows we beat his Thervings last year, too, and you can bet he’s had steam coming out of his ears ever since. He’s smart and he’s tricky and he’s nasty. If he hasn’t spent all winter trying to come up with some sneaky way of making us pay for what we did to him last year, I’d be amazed.”
“Ah.” Now Hirundo nodded. He seemed to decide nodding wasn’t enough, so he bowed, too. “You’re pretty smart and tricky and nasty yourself, Your Majesty. Trying to figure out what the other bastard’s going to do before he does it is always a good idea, but how often do people really sit down and think that through?”
“They ought to,” Grus said. There, he was sure, Lanius would agree with him. He wished he and the young king could find more things to agree about.
Hirundo, meanwhile, let out a scornful snort. “How often do people do what they ought to do? If they did, what would clerics use for sermons?”
“A point. A distinct point,” Grus admitted.
“Maybe you ought to take the field again, Your Majesty,” Hirundo said. “If anybody can outthink Dagipert, you’re the one.”
Grus hadn’t intended to. At the suggestion, though, he stroked his beard in thought. “Maybe I will,” he said at last. “I hadn’t planned on it, but maybe I will.”
Sosia beside him, King Lanius watched King Grus ride out of the city of Avornis at the head of his army, hurrying off to fight the Thervings. “I hope he’ll be all right,” Sosia said anxiously.
“So do I,” Lanius said. His wife hoped Grus would be all right because Grus was her father and she loved him. Lanius hoped Grus would be all right because, if he weren’t, some disaster would have come down on the army he led, and on the Kingdom of Avornis. Lanius didn’t love Grus. He didn’t think he ever would. He’d acquired some—well, more than some— reluctant respect for his father-in-law’s brains and nerve, but love? He shook his head. Not likely.
He glanced over toward Sosia. Her arms were folded across her belly. They lay there more easily than they would have not long before. She had more belly than she’d had not long before. The more she bulged, the more the reality that she was going to have a baby sank in for Lanius. Let it be a son, he thought. Let the dynasty go on. I’ll worry about Ortalis after my son is born.
Soldiers closed the great gates of the city after Grus’ army passed out of it. A carriage took Lanius and Sosia back to the palace. Another one took Estrilda and Ortalis. Lanius got on well enough with his mother-in-law, but he was glad not to travel in the same carriage as Ortalis.
At the palace, Sosia and Estrilda started chattering. Ortalis went off to do whatever he did. Whatever it was, Lanius didn’t want to know. He himself went looking for Marshal Lepturus.
“Hello, Your Majesty,” the commander of the royal bodyguards said when Lanius found him just coming out of the palace steam bath. “Trying to warm up my old bones, see if they’ll move a little smoother.”
Lanius started to say, You’re not old. The words died unspoken. They wouldn’t do, even for a polite compliment. Lepturus had commanded the bodyguards when Lanius’ father ruled Avornis, and he’d been commanding them for some time before King Mergus died. He remained sturdy, but his wrinkled, age-blotched skin, bald head, and snowy beard told him their own tale. Lanius wondered uncomfortably if the same thing would happen to him one day. He shivered, as though winter had suddenly run an icy finger along the ridge of his spine.