“You stupid, manure-brained idiot!” Cucullatus bawled at the poor sweeper. Then he turned on the rest of the men and women in the kitchens. “Well? Don’t just stand there, you fools! Catch the miserable little beast!”
If that wasn’t a recipe for chaos, Lanius couldn’t have come up with one. People bumped into one another, tripped one another, and cursed one another with more passion than Lanius had ever heard from them. Several of them carried knives, and more knives, long-tined forks, and other instruments of mayhem lay right at hand. Why they didn’t start stabbing one another was beyond the king.
After a couple of minutes of screaming anarchy, somebody asked, “Where did the stinking creature go?”
Lanius looked around. So did the kitchen staff, pausing in their efforts to tear the place down. “Where did the stinking creature go?” somebody else said.
Pouncer had disappeared. A wizard couldn’t have done a neater job of making the moncat disappear.
However he got in here, that’s the way he must have gone, Lanius thought. Unlike the kitchen staff, he had, or believed he had, a pretty good idea of where the moncat would go next. He pointed to Cucullatus. “Give me two or three strips of raw meat.”
“But the moncat is gone, Your Majesty,” Cucullatus said reasonably.
“I know that. I’ll eat them myself,” Lanius said. Cucullatus stared. “Never mind what I want with them,” the king told him. “Just give them to me.”
He got them. Servants gaped to see him hurrying through the palace corridors with strips of raw, dripping beef in his hand. A couple of them even worked up the nerve to ask him what he was doing. He didn’t answer. He just kept on, not quite trotting, until he got to the archives.
When he closed the heavy doors behind him, he let out a sigh of relief. No more bellowing cooks, no more nosy servants. Only peace, quiet, dust motes dancing in sunbeams, and the soothing smell of old parchment. This was where he belonged, where no one would come and bother him.
Even as he pulled some documents—tax registers, he saw they were—from the shelf of a cabinet that had known better centuries, he was shaking his head. Today, he hoped he would be bothered. If he wasn’t… If he wasn’t, Pouncer had decided to go back to the moncats’ chamber instead. Or maybe the perverse beast would simply wander through whatever secret ways it had found until it decided to come out in the kitchens again.
Lanius looked at the registers with one eye while looking all around the archives chamber with the other. He didn’t know where Pouncer would appear. Actually, he didn’t know whether Pouncer would appear at all, but he did his best to forget about that. He did know this was the best bet he could make.
And it paid off. Just when he’d gotten engrossed in one of the registers in spite of himself, a faint, rusty, “Mrowr?” came from behind a crate that probably hadn’t been opened in at least two hundred years.
“Come here, Pouncer!” Lanius called, and then he made the special little chirping noise that meant he had a treat for the moncat.
Out Pouncer came. The moncat still clutched the spoon it had stolen. Even the spoon paled in importance, though, before the lure of raw meat. “Mrowr,” Pouncer said again, this time on a more insistent note.
“Come on,” Lanius coaxed, holding a strip of beef where the moncat could see—and smell—it. “Come on, you fuzzy moron. You know you want this.”
Want it Pouncer did. Sidling forward, the moncat reached out with a clawed hand. Lanius gave it the first piece of meat. The moncat ate quickly, fearful of being robbed even though none of its fellows were near. In some ways it was very much like a man. Once the meat had disappeared, Pouncer held out that little hand and said, “Mrowr,” yet again.
Give me some more, or you’ll be sorry. Lanius had no trouble translating that particular meow into Avornan. The king gave the moncat another piece of meat. This one vanished more slowly. As it did, Pouncer began to purr. Lanius had been waiting for that. It was a sign he could pick up the moncat without getting his hand shredded. He did. Pouncer kept on purring.
Feeling more than a little triumphant, Lanius carried the moncat— and the serving spoon it had stolen—out of the royal archives. The tax registers he left where they were. They dated from the early years of his fathers reign. No one had looked at them since; Lanius was sure of that. They weren’t going anywhere for the time being. And one of these days he would have to have a peek inside that crate Pouncer had been hiding behind.
Pouncer started twisting in the king’s arms and trying to get free before Lanius reached the moncats’ chamber. Lanius still had one strip of meat left. He offered it to the moncat, and bought just enough contentment to keep from getting clawed the rest of the way there. Pouncer even let him take away the wooden spoon.
Cucullatus clapped his hands when Lanius brought the spoon back to the kitchens. “Well done, Your Majesty!” he said, as though Lanius had just captured Yozgat and reclaimed the Scepter of Mercy.
“Thank you so much,” Lanius said.
“Kidney pie,” Cucullatus went on, ignoring or more likely not noticing the king’s irony. Lanius frowned; the commotion with the moncat had almost made him forget why he’d come to the kitchens in the first place. The chief cook went on, “Her Majesty will enjoy it. You wait and see.”
“Ah.” Lanius nodded. “Yes, I hope she does.”
Sosia did. When she sat down to supper on her birthday, she smiled and wagged a finger at Lanius. “Somebody’s been talking to the kitchens,” she said as a servant gave her a big helping of the pungent dish.
“Why would anyone talk to a kitchen?” Lanius asked. “Ovens and pots and skewers don’t listen very well.”
His wife gave him a severe look. “You know what I mean,” she said. “You’ve been talking to the people who work in the kitchens. There. Are you happier?”
“I couldn’t be happier, not while I’ve got you,” Lanius answered.
Sosia smiled. “That’s sweet,” she said. But then the smile slipped. “In that case, why—?” She stopped and shook her head. “No, never mind. Not tonight.”
Lanius had no trouble figuring out what she’d started to say. In that case, why did you take Cristata to bed? Why did you want to make her your second wife? To Lanius, it made good enough sense. He hadn’t been unhappy with Sosia. He’d just wanted to be happy with Cristata, too. He still didn’t see anything wrong with that. Grus’ daughter, however, had a decidedly different opinion.
And what about Zenaida? Lanius asked himself. He knew what Sosia’s opinion of her would be. He didn’t think he was in love with her, the way he had with Cristata. Maybe seeing that he didn’t would keep Sosia from getting so furious this time. On the other hand, maybe it wouldn’t do him any good at all. She’d better not find out about Zenaida, the king thought.
He smiled at Sosia. “Happy birthday,” he told her.
“You’re even eating the kidney pie yourself,” she said in some surprise.
And so Lanius was. His thoughts full of maidservants, he’d hardly noticed he was doing it. Now that he did notice, he was reminded again that this was not his favorite dish—too strong for his taste. Still, he shrugged and answered, “I don’t hate it,” which was true. As though to prove it, he took another bite. What he did prove, to himself, was that he didn’t love it, either.
“I’m glad,” Sosia said.
Later that evening, Lanius made love with his wife. He didn’t hate that, either. If Zenaida was a little more exciting… well, maybe that was because she wasn’t as familiar as Sosia—and maybe, also, because the thrill of the illicit added spice to what they did. Nothing illicit about Sosia, but nothing wrong with her, nothing that made him want to sleep apart. He did his best to please her when they joined.