Lanius had just promised Tinamus he wouldn't be punished for lese-majeste no matter what he did. He didn't expect the architect to do anything that deserved punishment, where Ortalis' expression indicted him half a dozen times a day. All the same… "The only thing he'd learn in a dungeon was how to hate me forever. Sooner or later, he'll get over this. If nothing else works, Limosa will bring him around."
"Maybe." Sosia's mouth twisted again, as though she'd tasted something sour. She liked Limosa less than Lanius did. To her, Ortalis' wife was more a threat than a person. If Limosa gave Ortalis a son, Ortalis would think the succession passed through him alone. Grus might even think the same thing. Ortalis' opinion didn't matter so much. Grus' mattered overwhelmingly. Sosia went on, "If you want to send Ortalis to the Maze, I won't say a word about that, either."
"I can get away with more and more these days," Lanius said. "Your father's stopped thinking I'll try to overthrow him whenever he turns his back. But if I did that, there would never be peace between us again. No matter what I think, no matter what you think, Ortalis matters to him. And…" He didn't want to go on or to admit what came next even to himself. But he did. "And if we quarrel with each other, I'll lose, curse it. He's better at such things than I am."
He paused again, hoping his wife would tell him he was wrong. But Sosia only sighed and said, "You're better than you used to be."
He could have directly confronted Ortalis. That was not his way, though. It never had been. He wouldn't have said even as much as he had if he hadn't been worried for the child Limosa carried.
Instead of bearding his brother-in-law, then, he called on Anser in his residence by the grand cathedral. Anser got along with everybody. Maybe he could find a way for Lanius and Ortalis to get along with each other.
A forest of antlers decorated the walls of Anser's study — antlers from stags he'd slain himself. Lanius wondered what Anser's predecessors as arch-hallow would have thought of that. Some of them had been saints, some scholars, some statesmen, even a few scoundrels. The king didn't think any of them had taken his chief pride in his skill with the bow.
Anser wore the arch-hallow's red robe as casually as though it were a greengrocer's tunic and breeches. He took his title more lightly than any of the men who'd gone before him, too. He neither was nor wanted to be a theologian. All he was doing as arch-hallow was making sure the priesthood caused King Grus no trouble. That, Lanius had to admit, he did pretty well.
A smile of what looked like and surely was real pleasure spread over Anser's face when Lanius walked in. "Your Majesty!" he exclaimed. Laughing, he bowed himself almost double. He didn't need to do that; he came as close to being a genuine friend as a king could have. But he didn't do it because he had to. He did it because he felt like it, which made the gesture very different from what it would have been otherwise.
He made Lanius laugh, too, which wasn't always easy. "Good to see you, by the gods," Lanius said.
"Let me fetch you some wine. That'll make it better yet." Anser bustled off. He came back with a jug and two mismatched cups, for all the world like any bachelor who didn't ever bother pretending to be a fussy housekeeper.
Lanius sipped appreciatively. "I tell you," he said, "I'm tempted to take that whole jug and pour it down my throat."
"Go ahead, if you want to. Plenty more where it came from." Anser didn't have a whole lot of use for fighting temptation. He was more apt to yield to it. After a moment, though, he realized Lanius seldom talked that way. He pointed a finger at the king. "Something's on your mind, isn't it?" By the way he said it, he might have feared Lanius was suffering from a dangerous disease.
"Afraid so," the king replied, and poured out the story of his trouble with Ortalis.
"You really do need the rest of the jug, don't you?" Anser said when he was done.
"I don't know that I need it. But I want it." Lanius wondered whether Anser recognized the difference. A glance at all those antlers made him doubt it. Sighing, he went on, "I didn't intend to quarrel with him, but then — "
"It's easy enough to quarrel with Ortalis even when you don't intend to," the arch-hallow finished for him.
That wasn't what Lanius had been about to say, which made it no less true. He said, "All I wanted to do was make sure nothing bad happened to Limosa."
"No matter how much she might enjoy it," Anser murmured.
Lanius had been finishing the cup of wine. He almost choked at that. Anser was in dangerous form this morning. "I was thinking of the baby," Lanius said carefully.
"Well, of course you were," Anser said. That couldn't be anything but polite agreement… could it?
Wondering too much would only make matters worse, Lanius decided. He said, "I was hoping you could help persuade Ortalis I didn't mean to offend him. I was only trying to do his whole family a good turn."
"What's that saying about getting punished for your good deeds and not for your bad ones?" Anser clucked sympathetically. Then he did something more practical — he refilled Lanius' winecup. Lanius drank without hesitation; no, he wouldn't have minded getting drunk by then, not at all. The arch-hallow poured his own mug full again, too. After a sip, he went on, "I'll do what I can, Your Majesty, but I don't know how much that'll be."
"I understand. Believe me, I understand," Lanius said. "When Ortalis gets an idea into his head, he — " He stopped so hard, he almost bit his tongue. What had almost come out of his mouth was he beats it to death. It wouldn't have been anything but a figure of speech, but it would have been a disastrous one here.
"Yes, he does, doesn't he?" Anser said. Maybe he was just responding to the pause. Lanius dared hope. The other choice was that Anser knew exactly what he hadn't said, which would be almost as embarrassing as though he'd actually said it. He can't prove that was what I meant, Lanius thought. Anser, who didn't need to prove a thing, continued, "I'll try. I said I would, and I will. We don't need this kind of foolishness in the palace when we're fighting the Menteshe, too."
"You've got good sense," Lanius said gratefully.
"A whole fat lot of good it's liable to do me here, too," the arch-hallow replied with a wry grin. Knowing that also showed he had good sense. He added, "You do pretty well that way yourself, Your Majesty. Ortalis, though, once he gets angry, everything else flies out of his head."
Again, he wasn't wrong. Lanius took a long pull at his wine. "I don't expect miracles," he said. "Miracles are for the gods, not for us. Do what you can, and I'll be glad of it no matter what it is."
"Thanks. The family ought to stick together. And we — " Now Anser was the one who broke off in a hurry.
Lanius wondered why. Then, all at once, he didn't. Had Anser swallowed something like, We bastards ought to stick together, too? Lanius didn't, wouldn't, think of himself as a bastard, but Anser really was one. Did he ever wonder if he might have been in line for the throne had his birth turned out different? He'd hardly be human if he didn't. But he wasn't — he never had been — a jealous man, which was probably all to the good. Lanius would have been furious at almost anyone who suggested he might not be legitimate. But how could he get angry at Anser, who really wasn't?
"By Olor's prong, we should, shouldn't we?" Lanius said.
If he'd talked about some other part of Olor's anatomy, Anser might not have been sure he'd filled in what the arch-hallow hadn't said. As things were, Anser turned red as a modest maiden hearing her beauty praised for the first time. "I meant no offense, Your Majesty," he mumbled.
"I took none," Lanius said quickly. "And I thank you very much for trying to talk to Ortalis. If he'll listen to anybody, he'll listen to you."
"Yes," Anser said with a nod. "If."