"Well, I don't know about that," Grus said. "When something interests you, you get better at it than I ever could. When it doesn't, you don't bother with it so much, that's all."
Lanius thought about that. He didn't need long to decide Grus was right. "I should do better," he said.
"Probably," Grus said. "Everybody has some things he should do better – and if you don't believe me, you can ask either one of our wives."
"Ha!" Lanius said. "We don't need to ask them – they come right out and tell us."
"Wives do that sometimes. Husbands do it to wives, too, I expect." Grus sat down across the table from Lanius. He dumped a disorderly pile of letters and blank leaves of parchment on the table in front of him, pulled the stopper from a burnt-clay bottle of ink, dipped a goose quill, and began to write. The pile stayed disorderly. Lanius was much neater about the way he worked. But Grus dipped his pen and wrote, dipped his pen and wrote, dipped his pen… He wasn't neat, but he got the job done, turning out letter after letter.
"I'm jealous," Lanius remarked.
The other king only shrugged. "It's nothing very special," he said. "Most of the time, the simplest answer will do. Yes, no, tell me more, whatever the local official decided also seems right to me. It's only on the odd things that you really have to slow down and think." He passed a letter across to Lanius. "Will you read this to me, please? My sight hasn't lengthened too badly, but I have trouble when somebody writes as small as this."
Lanius read it. It was an appeal of a conviction for theft. "Thanks," Grus said. He wrote a few lines, set the letter aside, and went on to the next.
"What did you tell him?" Lanius asked.
"What would you have told him?" Grus asked in return.
"It doesn't seem likely that the victim and the captain and the city governor are all in league against the appellant," Lanius said. "They would have to be for him to be innocent, seems to me."
"Seems the same way to me," Gras replied. "So I told him no. Not worth wasting a lot of time on it."
"I suppose not." Lanius had come up with the same answer as his father-in-law. He would have fussed much more over the letter, though. He wanted things to sound good. Grus just wanted to make sure no one could misunderstand what he meant. Lanius had rarely seen him fail to live up to that standard.
After a while, Grus stopped writing. He looked at Lanius and said, "I wonder how much longer it will be."
"No way to know," Lanius answered, having not the slightest doubt about what Grus meant. "Babies come when they feel like coming, not when you tell them to."
"I'm not going to say you're wrong. I can't very well when you're right, can I?" The other king inked his pen, started another letter, and then stopped once more. "Here's something you haven't heard from me. If you tell anybody I said it, I'll call you a liar to your face. Have you got that?"
By the way he said it, Lanius knew he was liable to do worse than call him a liar. "I won't blab. I don't blab."
"Well, that's true, too – you don't." Grus leaned forward and dropped his voice to something not much above a whisper. "I hope it's a girl."
"Do you?" Lanius hoped he didn't squeak in surprise. Grus solemnly nodded. "Even though Ortalis is your legitimate son?" Lanius asked. Grus nodded again. Lanius couldn't believe he was telling anything but the truth. He also couldn't help asking, "Why?"
"It makes things simpler," Grus told him. "When you get as old as I am, you decide simpler is better most of the time."
His answer wasn't as simple as it might have been. Lanius had no doubt the other king knew as much. Had Grus been pleased with Ortalis, had he thought his legitimate son would make a good successor, he would have done whatever he needed to do to make sure the crown went to him and his descendants. If anyone – Lanius included – stood in his way, that would have been too bad for the person who proved an obstacle.
As things were, though… "Thank you," Lanius said quietly, though he knew Grus' choice wasn't so much praise for him as a judgment on Ortalis.
"Don't worry about it," Grus said. "You're not the boy I shoved aside to take the throne anymore. Don't think I haven't noticed. I don't believe you'll ever make much of a warrior – I don't see you taking the field and driving everybody before you. But except for that, you make a good king."
Lanius didn't see himself as much of a warrior, either. Fighting wasn't something he was or wanted to be good at. He nodded to Grus all the same. "You haven't made a bad king yourself." He wasn't sure he'd ever admitted even that much to the man who'd stolen more than half his throne.
Grus gave him a seated bow. "Thank you, Your Majesty."
"You're welcome, Your Majesty," Lanius responded, every bit as seriously.
Grus seemed to be casting about for something else to say. Whatever it was, he didn't find it. Instead, he went back to the letter that he'd stopped halfway through. He finished it and went on to the next. Lanius started writing again, too. He still couldn't match his father-in-law for speed.
An hour later, or maybe two, shouts in the corridor outside made them both look up from their work. Someone knocked on the door to the dining room. "Come in," the two kings said together.
"Your Majesty!" a servant said excitedly. He paused, blinked, and tried again. "Uh, Your Majesties, I mean. I have great news, Your Majesties! Princess Limosa has had a baby boy!"
Grus had to reward the servant who brought him word of Ortalis' son. He had to pretend it was good news. Things in the palace would have been even worse if he hadn't.
Ortalis gave money to every servant he saw. He kissed all the women, including those old enough to be his mother. He slapped all the men on the back. He didn't walk down the palace hallways. He danced instead.
"Marinus!" he said to anyone who would listen. "We'll call the baby Marinus!"
It wasn't a name from Grus' side of the family. Maybe it was connected to Petrosus' – or maybe Ortalis and Limosa had just decided they liked it. Grus didn't feel like asking. He said, "Congratulations," to his legitimate son, and hoped his face wasn't too wooden while he did it. Evidently not, for Ortalis only grinned at him. Seeing Ortalis grin felt almost as strange as congratulating him. Ortalis' face frequently wore a frown or a scowl or a sneer. A grin? Grus wondered where those usually sour features found room for one.
Lanius did somewhat better, saying, "I hope Limosa is well?"
"Oh, yes." Ortalis stopped cutting capers long enough to nod. "The midwife said she came through it as well as a woman can."
"Good," Lanius said.
"Wonderful," Grus agreed, thinking nothing of the sort. But then, that wasn't fair. Say what you would of Petrosus, Limosa was an inoffensive creature. Her worst failing up until now had been the unfortunate taste for pain that made her such a good match for Ortalis. But bearing an inconvenient boy came close to being an unforgivable sin.
Did she realize as much? If she did, she had the sense to hide the knowledge. Naivete, here, worked to her advantage. Ortalis understood what she'd done, all right. He started dancing again, dancing and singing, "I have an heir! Thank you, King Olor! I have an heir!"
Lanius showed none of what he was thinking. Grus admired that, and hoped his own features were under something close to as much control. He wouldn't have bet on it, though. And then something occurred to him that actually let him smile. He's calling on King Olor. He isn't calling on the Banished One.
That he should think such a thing about his own son… He shrugged. Yes, it was sad. But Ortalis had given him plenty of reason to worry about whose side he was on. Seeing and hearing such a worry come to nothing wasn't the worst thing in the world.
Grus studied his joyful legitimate son. Just because Ortalis didn't shout the Banished One's praises didn't mean he saw eye to eye with Grus and Lanius. The way he was carrying on showed he didn't, at least as far as the succession went. He could do the Banished One's work without acknowledging the exiled god as his overlord. He might work more effectively in the Banished One's behalf if he didn't acknowledge him. Few men got out of bed thinking, I'm going to do something evil today. Many more thought, I'm going to do something good, not seeing that what they reckoned good was anything but in the eyes of most of their fellows.