Harry Turtledove - The Scepter's return

Now Pterocles just looked at him. "I don't have the faintest idea, Your Majesty. But I expect we'll find out. Don't you?"

Grus didn't answer. That wasn't because he felt any doubts — he didn't. On the contrary; he was so sure Pterocles was right that he didn't think the question needed answering.

He had expected the Banished One to bend every bit of his power toward making sure the Menteshe broke off their civil war and turned all their ferocity against the advancing Avornans. That didn't seem to be happening… or maybe the Banished One's puppets had escaped the control of their puppet master for the time being. Small raiding bands struck at Grus' army — struck and, in classic nomad fashion, galloped away again before Grus' less mobile forces could hit back. But those were pinpricks, fleabites. Menteshe prisoners affirmed that the nomads were still using most of their energy to hammer away at one another.

A dispatch rider down from the north let Grus take his mind off the Menteshe for a little while. Among the letters the man brought was a long one from King Lanius. Lanius was conscientious about keeping Grus up to date on what he did in the capital. He probably feared Grus would oust him if he didn't tell him what he was up to — and he might have been right.

That afternoon, Grus frowned to see that Lanius hadn't approved a tax hike. There would probably be a letter — an angry letter — from the treasury minister in this batch, too. I'll look for it later, Grus thought, and read on. He ended up disappointed. That wasn't because Lanius didn't justify his reasons for opposing the increase. He did, in great detail. They even made a good deal of sense. But the bulk of the letter was an even more detailed account of how the other king was training a moncat. If Lanius wanted a hobby, Grus didn't mind. If he wanted to bore people with it… That was a different story.

The king went through the leather dispatch case. He was looking for the inevitable letter from Euplectes, but found one from the city of Sestus first. Unlike Lanius', it was short and to the point. Alauda could scarcely write. She scratched out three or four lines to let him know she and her son, Nivalis, were both well. Grus smiled — he was glad to have the news. Nivalis was his son, too, a bastard he'd sired on Alauda a few years before, while he was driving the Menteshe out of the southern provinces.

He did find the treasury minister's letter then. Reading it came as something of a relief. Euplectes was indignant about Lanius' stubbornness, but he wasn't furious. Even if he were furious, it would only have been a bureaucratic kind of anger. Compared to the rage of a wife who'd just found out her husband was unfaithful — again — fusses and fumings over tax rates were easy enough to put up with.

Grus snapped his fingers. Calling the dispatch rider, he asked, "How was the trip down from the Stura?"

"Not bad, Your Majesty," the fellow answered. "No, not bad at all, matter of fact. There was one time when I thought a couple of those nomad bastards might take after me, but they spotted a troop of our horsemen and sheered off right smart. Aside from that, I didn't see a one of 'em all the way down. Didn't miss 'em, neither."

"I believe you," Grus said. "All right. Thanks. That's good news."

"You think you can keep the line open all the way down to this Yozgat place?" the rider asked.

"I don't know," Grus said — that was the question, all right. "But I aim to try."

Sosia looked at Lanius as though he'd lost his mind. "You're going to build this… this thing off in the country somewhere, and you're going to spend a lot of your time there? You?"

Maybe she thought she was losing her mind instead. She certainly didn't seem to believe her ears.

But the King of Avornis only nodded. 'That's right."

"Why?" his wife demanded. "Sweet Quelea's mercy, why? If Anser told me that, I'd understand. He'd want it for a hunting villa. Ortalis, too. But you! Again, disbelief filled her voice. "You don't care about hunting. We both know that. You don't care about anything except the archives and…" Her gaze sharpened. Sudden suspicion filled her eyes. "If you think you can put some pretty little thing in this place and go have your fun with her whenever you please, you'd better think again."

"No, no, no." Lanius protested louder than he might have, for that had occurred to him. A little reluctantly, he threw the idea in the dustbin. "Come out whenever you please. Don't tell me you're on the way ahead of time. If you find me with a woman there, do whatever you want. I'll deserve it, and I won't say a word. By the gods, Sosia, I won't. That's not why I'm doing this."

She studied him. "Maybe," she said at last. "You don't usually come right out and lie to me. When you want to hide something, you usually just don't say anything about it at all."

"Well, then," he said, trying not to show how disconcerted he was. She knew him pretty well, all right. He'd spent the past few months not saying anything at all about Oissa, whom Sosia saw several times a day. Seeing her and noticing her were two different things, though.

"Maybe," the queen repeated. "But if you don't want to put a bedwarmer in it, why do you want to build something out in the country?"

Lanius didn't say anything about that at all.

Sosia glared. "Next thing you know, you'll tell me it's got to do with the war against the Banished One, and you'll expect me to believe that."

Of itself, Lanius' hand twisted in the gesture that was supposed to keep the Banished One from paying any attention to what was going on. He didn't really believe the gesture did any good, but it couldn't hurt. "Don't talk about such things," he told her. "Just — don't. I don't know how much danger it might cause. It might not cause any. On the other hand, it might cause more than you can imagine." He walked over to her and set his hands on her shoulders. "I mean it."

She didn't shake him off. "You do," she agreed wonderingly.

"Yes, I do," he answered, "and I wish I didn't have to tell you even that much." He knew it was his own fault that he did. He'd given her reason to doubt he was faithful. He wasn't as faithful as he might have been (he thought of Oissa again, and of the smell of cedar). But this didn't have anything to do with that, and he had to convince her it didn't.

"All right." Sosia still didn't shake him off. Instead, she stepped forward and gave him a quick hug. Then she said, "I'm still going to come out and check on you every so often, and I won't tell you when."

"Fine," Lanius said. Keep thinking it might be a love nest. Then you won't think about what else it might be. He felt ashamed of himself. If he couldn't tell things to Sosia, to whom could he?

No sooner had he asked himself the question than he found the answer. It wasn't no one, either, as he'd thought it would be. He could talk to Grus, to Pterocles, even to Collurio. They all shared one thing — they'd drawn the Banished One's special notice. Lanius would rather have done without the honor, but the choice didn't seem to be his.

Sosia, on the other hand, knew nothing of such nighttime visits. For her, the world was a simpler, safer place. The king wanted to keep it that way for her if he could.

Three days later, he rode out into the country with Collurio, looking for the right place to build. The trainer said, "You're taking a chance, you know."

"Oh, yes." Lanius nodded. "If things go wrong, though, we can start over. We have the time to do this, and we have the time to do it properly. Things aren't moving very fast south of the Stura."

"Should they be?" Collurio asked.

"I can't tell you that. I'm not a general. I never wanted to be a general. There are some things I'm good at, but that isn't one of them," Lanius answered. "But if this whole business were easy, some other King of Avornis would have done it three hundred years ago. You know what we're up against."