“I figured that out,” he answered. Feeling the baby move— now, sometimes, seeing the baby move—inside his wife was one of the strangest things he’d ever known. It made everything seem inescapably real.
“Careful in there, Crex,” Sosia said. “That hurt.” She looked up at Lanius with a rueful smile on his face. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
As always, she called the baby by the name they would give it if it turned out to be a boy. They hadn’t even talked about what they might call it if it was a girl. Lanius’ answering smile was probably rueful, too, though he did his best to make it seem cheerful. He didn’t have mixed feelings about getting kicked, of course. But he did have mixed feelings, and feelings worse than mixed, about naming their son—if he was a son—after Grus’ father. He’d wanted to call a baby boy Mergus, for his own father. He’d wanted to, but Sosia had gotten her way.
Oh, I make a mighty king, don’t I? Lanius thought. I’m so mighty, I can’t even give my firstborn son the name I want.
Sosia said, “When we have another boy, we’ll name him Mergus.”
Lanius started. “How did you know what I was thinking?”
“Whenever I call him Crex, you look… I don’t know… not quite the way you should. Not quite happy. I want you to be happy, you know.”
If she didn’t, no one in all the world did. Lanius believed she did. But she didn’t care enough to let him call a boy Mergus. He muttered to himself. That wasn’t quite right. She did care. But she had to weigh other things against what he wanted.
Family, Lanius thought. Hers included not just him but also Grus and Estrilda and Ortalis and, the king supposed, now Arch-Hallow Anser, too. Lanius had seen how much family counted among Grus and his kin. The only exception to the rule he’d found was Ortalis—and he’d never thought of Ortalis as a good example for anyone.
With a sigh, Lanius nodded. “All right.” It wasn’t, but he had no choice. When he spoke again, he spoke as firmly as though he were a king issuing a decree other people really had to obey. “Our second son will be named Mergus.”
“Come on!” Grus called to his men. “Keep after them. If we beat them on our side of the Tuola, we drive them out of Avornis altogether. Let’s push them back into Thervingia where they belong.”
“Campaigning right by the Tuola on our side almost feels like campaigning in Thervingia,” Hirundo remarked.
“I know it does,” Grus said. “It shouldn’t, though. This is just as much Avornan soil as the ground the royal palace sits on. It’s closer to the border, so the barbarians keep trying to take it away from us. But it’s ours.”
“I’m not arguing, Your Majesty.” Hirundo grinned. “You’d probably take my head if I tried it.”
“I ought to take your head for your silly talk,” Grus replied— with a laugh to make sure Hirundo and everyone else listening knew he was joking.
His army certainly seemed to feel it wasn’t in Avornan territory, or maybe just that it wasn’t in safe territory, when it encamped that night. Even without orders from General Hirundo, the soldiers set out swarms of sentries and chopped down trees and dragged them around the camp to make a palisade that would, at least, slow down any Therving rush out of the darkness.
A courier from the capital rode into camp not long after sunset. “What have you got for me there?” Grus asked when soldiers brought the fellow before him.
“A letter from your daughter, Queen Sosia,” the man answered.
“Ah? By the gods, has she had her baby?” Grus demanded. “Tell me at once! At once, I say! Is she well? Is the baby a boy?”
But the courier was shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty, but no,” he said. “She’s not given birth yet. Thinking on what the lady your daughter looks like and remembering my wife, I’d say it’ll come any day now, but it hasn’t happened yet.”
“All right.‘” Grus clamped down on his disappointment. “What is she writing about, then?”
“I’m sorry again, sir, but I don’t know,” the courier replied. “She gave me the letter sealed, just as you see it, and she didn’t tell me why she’d written to you.”
“Well, in that case I’ll have to find out, won’t I?” Grus turned to the soldiers who’d escorted the courier to his pavilion. “He’s come a long way and ridden hard. Give him food and wine and a place by a fire to sleep tonight.”
As they led the man from the capital away, Grus ducked into his tent. He sat down in a folding chair by a lamp on a light folding table. Breaking the green wax seal on the letter, he unrolled the parchment and began to read.
Hello, Father, Sosia wrote. King Olor keep you and the army safe. I wish I would have this baby. I think I have been carrying it for the last five years. It feels that way, anyhow. Grus smiled. His daughter with a pen in her hand sounded the same as she did when she was talking. Sosia didn’t put up with much nonsense—her own or anyone else’s. She went on, I really did not write to complain. I wrote because I thought you might be interested to hear that Ortalis has gone out hunting again, and come back happy after the kill. I also thought you might be interested to hear that he and Arch-Hallow Anser, our half brother, went hunting together. They both seemed to have a good time.
Grus stroked his beard. That was interesting. He’d known his bastard boy was a passionate hunter. When he’d started trying to get Ortalis to kill wild things instead of tormenting pets and people, he hadn’t connected the one and the other. Evidently his sons had made the connection without any help from him.
Knowing Ortalis for what he was, he wondered if the connection was safe for Anser. After a moment, he decided it was. Ortalis didn’t want to be Arch-Hallow of Avornis, and he had to know a bastard couldn’t supplant him. That meant Anser was probably in no danger of suffering a hunting accident.
Sosia finished, This was a fine idea of yours, Father. I wish you had thought of it years ago. I have never seen Ortalis as cheerful as he is these days. May it last. And may I have this baby soon! The next time you hear from me, I think you will be a grandfather. With love — She signed her name.
After reading through the letter again, Grus slowly nodded. It wasn’t the news he’d wanted to hear, but it was good news all the same.
Bronze had just had another pair of kittens. Again, one was male, the other female. That didn’t prove moncats always did things so, but made it seem more likely to Lanius. As had Spider and Snitch, the new babies clung to their mother’s fur with all four hands and wrapped their tails around her for whatever extra help those could give. He wondered what to name the new ones.
He just watched her. That she accepted, warily.
Someone knocked on the door. “Who’s there?” Lanius asked, doing his best to stifle his annoyance at being disturbed here.
“Me, Your Majesty,” Bubulcus replied.
Now Lanius snarled much as a moncat would have done. “Don’t come in,” he told the servant who’d let Iron get loose in the palace corridors. “Just tell me what you want.”
“Believe me, Your Majesty, I wasn’t going to come in,” Bubulcus said with such dignity as he could muster. “Not me. Not again. But you have to know, sir—the lady your wife’s been brought to her bed.”
“Oh!” Lanius said. Baby moncats were one thing—important, yes, but… Next to his own firstborn, they were only little animals, after all. “I’m coming.”