Harry Turtledove - The Scepter's return

"Of course I will." Ortalis tried to sound confident, too. He really would rather have forgotten all about the Scepter. Now that it was back here, he didn't suppose he could, not permanently, but he still wanted to.

He cursed well could forget about it for the time being. He kissed Limosa, too, kissed her hard, and kept on kissing her until he tasted blood. She whimpered in mixed pain and pleasure. They were always mixed for her. Giving them was always mixed for him. If the two of them weren't made for each other, no couple ever had been.

"Oh, Ortalis," she murmured when at last their lips separated. He caressed her roughly and took her even more roughly. "Oh," she said again, softly, when he went into her. A few minutes later, the sounds she made were altogether unrestrained. Ortalis laughed, there on top of her. Then he groaned as though he were the one under the lash — a place he'd never had the least interest in being.

If palace servants — or his father's spies — heard noises like that, they wouldn't think twice about them. They might be jealous, but that kind of jealousy didn't worry Ortalis. On the contrary — it made him proud.

After they'd used the chamber pot and gotten back into their nightclothes, Limosa teased him, saying, "You're going to act just like a man. You're going to roll over and go right to sleep."

"You do that as often as I do," he said, which was true. But his yawn declared she hadn't been wrong, either.

He went out hunting the next morning. He didn't invite Anser, though his half brother had been his chief hunting partner for a long time. Not all the men he did invite had reputations as enthusiastic followers of the chase. They were, however, all enthusiastic followers of Ortalis. To Grus' legitimate son, that counted for much more.

One nice thing about the hunt was that it seldom roused suspicion. If you went out and came back with lots of carcasses, you'd had a good day. If you went out and came back with next to nothing, the most anybody would say was, "Oh, bad luck!" If anything besides hunting happened while you were out there… Well, who was likely to find out?

With his henchmen gathered together, Ortalis could ask them, "Are we ready to move when the time comes?"

"Your Highness, we are." Serinus spoke with what sounded like complete confidence and assurance. The other young officers in the royal bodyguard nodded.

"Will your men follow you no matter what orders you give them?" Ortalis persisted.

"Your Highness, they will." Again, Serinus sounded very sure. Again, his fellow officers nodded. Ortalis could never have gotten so many of them together in the palace without stirring up more gossip than he wanted. Out here in the woods body was likely to pay any attention to what he did.

He said, "You've told me what I most needed to hear, time is coming soon. I know I can count on you to do your duty"

The time is coming soon. A year or two earlier, he would have been able to imagine saying those words. He never would have had the nerve. Truth to tell, he wouldn't have had the will either. But things had changed since then. He had a son now, a son and heir. That made him look differently — as oppose indifferently — on his place in the bigger scheme of things. And he had his dreams. The Voice made him think of his place in bigger scheme of things, too, and that his place ought to be bigger as well.

"Soon?" Some of his followers sounded pleased. A few sounded alarmed. Ortalis knew what that meant. It meant he had some fair-weather friends, men who would suck up to a prince for the sake of whatever advantage that might bring, but who wouldn't back him when it counted.

He glanced toward Serinus and Gygis. They both noded They were his most reliable followers. He could count on them to make sure none of the others got cold feet at a bad time.

"Soon," he said firmly. "It will be fast. It will be smooth. And then things will go on as they were meant to."

"Let's give three cheers for King Ortalis!" Gygis called.

Everyone in the hunting party did cheer, too. Ortalis beamed at Gygis. Good to know who the clever ones were, and that was very clever indeed. Now they'd all cheered him as king. They couldn't say they hadn't had any idea what he was thinking about. And they would have a harder time withdrawing from this plot.

"When the time comes, do we deal with both of them together, or just the one?" Serinus asked.

"Just my father. He's the one who's always been trouble for me," Ortalis said venomously. "We don't need to worry about Lanius. He's been my old man's lapdog for years. Why should he be any different for me?"

Several young officers chuckled. Serinus sketched a salute. "However you want it, Your Majesty, that's how it'll work. I just needed to find out."

"Fair enough," Ortalis said. The more he heard himself called Your Majesty and King Ortalis, the better he liked it. People should have been calling him things like that a long time ago. If Grus had to share the throne with somebody, he should have shared it with Ortalis, not with the weedy good-for-nothing who'd sat on it beforehand.

"What will you do when you're king, Your Majesty?" one of the guards officers asked eagerly.

"Why, I'll do — " Ortalis broke off. Despite having lived in the palace for many years, he had only a vague notion of what his father did when not harassing him. He gave the best answer he could. "I'll do all kinds of really neat stuff."

That seemed to satisfy the guardsman. "I bet you will, Your Majesty!" he said.

Serinus pulled a flask off his belt and yanked out the stopper. "Here's to the new king!" he said. Most of the officers had flasks of their own. They drank the toast, and passed wine to the few men who hadn't brought any. Ortalis had his own flask. As he drank the red, red wine, he imagined it was his father's blood. It would have been even sweeter if it were.

A knock on the bedchamber door in the middle of the night always meant trouble. Grus knew that. Good news would wait until sunup. Bad news? Bad news cried out to be heard right away.

"What do they want?" Estrilda asked sleepily.

"I don't know." Clad in only his nightshirt, Grus was already getting out of bed. "I'd better find out, though." He walked over to the door and asked, "Who's there? What's the word?"

"It's Serinus, Your Majesty," said the man on the other side, and Grus relaxed, recognizing the captain's voice. Serinus went on, "A courier's just come in from the south. Some kind of trouble down there — I don't know exactly what, but it didn't sound good."

"Oh, by the gods!" Grus exclaimed. And it might have been by the gods, too. Had the Banished One found some way around the concessions Grus had forced from him with the

Scepter of Mercy? Were the Menteshe kicking up their heels even without any help from the exiled god? Or had some ambitious and stupid noble decided this was a good time to rebel? "I'm coming," Grus added, and unbarred the door. "Where is this fellow, anyway?"

"Near the front entrance, Your Majesty," Serinus answered. "He's hopping around like he's got to run for the jakes any time now."

"He can do that after I've talked to him," Grus said. "Come on. What are you waiting for?" He hurried up the corridor.

So did Serinus, who hadn't really been waiting for anything. A couple of squads of soldiers, all of them armed and armored, fell in with the guards officer and the king. But for their thumping boots and jingling chainmail, the hallways in the palace were very quiet. Grus wondered what the hour was.

He also suddenly wondered why, at whatever hour this was, so many soldiers should appear as though from nowhere. Suspicion flared in him. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

"This way, Your Majesty," Serinus said as though he hadn't spoken.