Ortalis laughed. Why shouldn't he? It wasn't his worry. Lanius came close to hating him in that moment. Then Ortalis said, "Maybe he'd rather get out to the woods and see what he could do with a bow in his hands."
"He's still a little young for that, I think," Lanius said, and went on his way before his brother-in-law could find some other way to make him feel bad. Ortalis had jabbed at exactly what Lanius feared most – that Crex might sooner have a good time than gain the knowledge he needed to make a proper ruler. Lanius wondered what he could do about that. He wasn't sure he could do anything – another grief, one that wouldn't go away.
A royal guardsman tramping stolidly up the corridor sketched a salute as the king walked by. His mailshirt jingled. He smelled of leather and stale sweat. Lanius stopped and looked after him, a thoughtful expression on his face.
If I order the guards to seize Ortalis and take him to the Maze – and Limosa with him – will they obey? The king plucked at his beard. These days, he was the effective ruler of Avornis, or at least of the city of Avornis, when Grus went out on campaign. Most of what he did, though, was as close to what Grus would have done as he could come. That was how Grus had let him accrue bits of power little by little – Lanius had made sure that what he was given wouldn't be threatening.
Grus would not send his legitimate son to the Maze, not for complicating the succession. After all, Ortalis' son would be as much Grus' grandson as Crex was. If Lanius banished Ortalis, would Grus let it stand? Lanius sighed. He didn't think so. And he didn't think he had a prayer of resisting or defeating Grus, especially not when his father-in-law would be coming back from the first successful Avornan campaign south of the Stura in centuries.
"Too bad," Lanius murmured. "Too bad, too bad, too bad."
He wondered what Sosia thought. If she believed he could get away with it… He shook his head. He couldn't trust her judgment in this. She was biased, too. But – another interesting problem – which way was she biased? Against Ortalis, for threatening Crex's succession? Or against Lanius himself, for his choice of amusements? He still thought the former, but the latter was a long way from impossible, and he knew it. He would have to decide for himself.
And he did. He decided he couldn't take the chance of getting rid of Ortalis like that. Chances were, he wouldn't get away with it. He would have to hope Limosa had another girl. Plenty of people did, he thought optimistically.
As King Grus rode north toward the Stura, he had one of the few experiences that made him really and truly glad he'd taken his share – or, as Lanius no doubt would have seen it, more than his share – of the Avornan crown. Again and again, freed thralls came running up to him. "King Olor bless you!" they would shout. "Queen Quelea bless you! All the gods bless you!"
Guardsmen kept the thralls from coming too close. You never could tell, not till too late. One of them was liable not to be a freed thrall at all, but a thrall still guided and controlled by the Banished One. An assassin was as easy to hide among others who looked and acted just like him (or, perhaps even more dangerous, just like her) as a poisoned needle in a haystack.
Grus understood that. He didn't argue with it. It left him sad even so. Doing his best to smile, he said to Hirundo, T was never so popular up in Avornis proper."
"Well, maybe not," the general allowed. "But you never did so much for the proper Avornans as you have for these people."
Slowly, Grus nodded. He thought he'd made a pretty good King of Avornis. He didn't think even Lanius could argue with that, though the other King of Avornis might – would – look down his nose while grudgingly admitting Grus hadn't been so very bad. Grus had done his best to keep the peasants out of the rapacious nobles' grasp. He'd won enough civil wars against the nobles to persuade them that rebellion was a bad idea. He'd held the Thervings at bay. He'd beaten back the Chemagor pirates. And he'd fought the Menteshe to something that was, at the moment, better than a draw.
But even though he'd done all that, he hadn't given the proper Avornans their souls again. He couldn't have. They already had them. The thralls, now… The thralls and their ancestors had gone on for centuries with something missing from their spirits – most of what separated men from beasts. Thanks to Grus (and to Pterocles; he didn't aim to steal the wizard's credit), they had that part of themselves back again. They had it, and they knew they had it, and they were grateful.
"Don't let it worry you," Hirundo told him. "Give them some time to get used to it and they'll be as selfish as anybody else."
Grus made a horrible face. "I'll remember you in my nightmares," he said. He was laughing, but quickly sobered. His nightmares featured not Hirundo but the Banished One. And if Hirundo was right – well, so what? One of his goals in coming over the Stura was to turn the thralls into normal human beings. And one thing normal human beings did was sometimes act like ungrateful wretches. He couldn't complain if that happened here.
One evening not long before he'd go back over the river, Otus approached him as he sat eating supper outside his pavilion. Guards hung by the first freed thrall, but unobtrusively. They didn't really believe Otus remained under the spell of the Banished One, but they were still guards.
But Grus also didn't think the Banished One was looking out through Otus' eyes right this minute. He recognized the expression on the thrall's face – that of a man who wanted something. Unlike the thralls south of the Stura, Otus had been free for a while, and he seemed very much a normal man.
"Hello," Grus said. "What can I do for you today?"
Otus bowed. He'd learned court ceremonial – no doubt the first thrall who ever had. "Your Majesty, they have freed the village with my woman in it."
"Have they?" Grus said. "That's good news." It was very good news, since he hadn't expected his men to go so far west. The Menteshe had proved weaker than he'd thought.
"I – think so, yes." Otus sounded distinctly nervous.
He's not worrying about the Menteshe, Grus realized. "You had a woman in that village, didn't you?" the king said, and then the light dawned. "And you also have a woman back in the city of Avornis, eh?" He started to laugh, not that Otus was likely to find it funny. He understood those difficulties only too well. So did Lanius, come to that. And now the ex-thrall?
Otus nodded. Yes, he looked distinctly nervous, too. "What am I going to do, Your Majesty? What can I do?"
"You can choose one of them, or you can choose the other one, or you can hope they won't gang up on you if you try to keep them both," Grus answered. "These are the choices a free man has to make."
"Sometimes this business is not so easy," Otus observed.
"No, sometimes it isn't," Grus said. "Have you seen your woman here now that she's had the spell lifted?"
"No, not yet."
"Go do that first. You can't decide anything – not so it makes sense – till you know where you stand with her. Maybe she isn't the person you thought she'd be. Maybe whatever you saw in her when you were both thralls, it won't be there anymore. If it's not, that will tell you what you need to do. And if it is, well, bring her along up into the north if you want to. The choice is yours."
"You are a wise man, Your Majesty," Otus said humbly.
Grus laughed out loud. "Ask my wife about me and women and you'll get a different story, I promise. If I were wise in such things, I would have gotten into a lot less trouble than I have."
"But you give good advice."
"Giving good advice is easy." Grus laughed again, at himself. "What's hard is taking good advice, by Olor's beard." Otus didn't look as though he believed the king. If that didn't prove how inexperienced he was, Grus couldn't imagine what would.