Dan Chernenko - The Chernagor Pirates

Lazutin promptly proved he was a prince of merchants and a merchant prince—he started haggling with Grus over how much he would have to pay and for how long. Grus let him dicker the settlement down to a first payment of forty thousand plus thirty-five thousand a year for eight years. He was willing not to take all of Lazutin’s pride. This way, the prince could go back to his people and tell them he’d gotten something from the hard-hearted King of Avornis.

Grus did say, “We’ll leave your lands as soon as we receive the first payment.”

“Why am I not surprised?” Lazutin said. After a moment, he chuckled ruefully. “You’re wasted on the Avornans, Your Majesty. Do you know that? You should have been born a Chernagor.”

“A pleasant compliment,” said Grus, who supposed Lazutin had meant it that way. “I am what I am, though.” And what I am right now is the fellow holding the whip hand.

“So you are,” Lazutin said sourly. “What you are now is a nuisance to Hisardsik.”

“What you were before was a nuisance to Avornis,” Grus replied. “Do you think the one has nothing to do with the other?”

Prince Lazutin plainly thought just that. Why shouldn’t he have been able to do as he pleased without worrying about consequences? What pirate ever needed to have such worries? After he sailed away, what could the folk whose coasts he had raided do? Here, it turned out the Avornans could do more than he had dreamed.

“The sooner we have the payment, the sooner we’ll leave your land,” Grus said pointedly, “and the sooner you can start the harvest.”

Fury filled Lazutin’s face. But it was impotent fury, for his warriors were shut up inside Hisardzik. They could stand siege, yes, but they could not break out. If Grus felt like burning the countryside instead of trying to break into the city, what could they do about it? Nothing, as their prince knew.

“You’ll have it,” Lazutin said. Then he turned his back and stalked off to Hisardzik. Sverki the interpreter stalked after him, mimicking his walk as expertly as he had conveyed his tone.

“He doesn’t love you. He’s not going to, either,” Hirundo said.

“I don’t care if he loves me or not,” Grus said. “I want him to take me seriously. By Olor’s beard, he’ll do that from now on.”

“Oh, darling!” The general sounded like a breathless young girl. “Tell me you—you take me seriously!”

Grus couldn’t take him seriously. Laughing, he made as though to throw something at him. Hirundo ducked. “Miserable troublemaker,” Grus said. By the way Hirundo bowed, it might have been highest praise.

But Grus stopped laughing when he read the letter from King Lanius that had caught up with his army on the march between Nishevatz and Hisardzik. Lanius sounded as dispassionate as any man could about what had happened between Ortalis and Bubulcus. However dispassionate he sounded, that made the servant no less dead. The penalty Lanius had imposed on Ortalis struck Grus as adequate, but only barely.

After rereading Lanius’ letter several times, Grus sighed. Yes, Ortalis had been provoked. But striking a man in a fit of fury and killing one were far different things. Ortalis had always had a temper. Every so often, it got away from him. This time, he’d done something irrevocable.

What am I going to do with him? Grus wondered. For a long time, he’d thought Ortalis would outgrow his vicious streak, and ignored it. That hadn’t worked. Then he’d tried to punish his son harshly enough to drive it out of him, and that hadn’t worked, either. What was left? The only thing he could see was accepting that Ortalis was as he was and trying to minimize the damage he did.

“A fine thing for my son,” Grus muttered.

When Grus took the Avornan throne, he had assumed Ortalis would succeed him on it, with Lanius remaining in the background to give the new rulers a whiff of respectability. What else was a legitimate son for? But he’d begun to wonder some time before. His son-in-law seemed more capable than he had expected, and Ortalis… Ortalis kept doing things where damage needed minimizing.

He read Lanius’ letter one more time. The king from the ancient dynasty really had done as much as he could. If his account was to be believed, the servants despised Ortalis now only a little more than they had before. Considering what might have been, that amounted to a triumph of sorts. Grus hadn’t imagined he could feel a certain debt toward his son-in-law, but he did.

Prince Lazutin made the payment of forty thousand pieces of silver the day after he agreed to it with Grus. The prince did not accompany the men bringing out the sacks of silver coins. The interpreter, Sverki, did. “Tell His Highness I thank him for this,” Grus said (after he’d had a few of the sacks opened to make sure they really did hold silver and not, say, scrap iron).

“You are most welcome, I am sure,” Sverki said, sounding and acting like Lazutin even when the Prince of Hisardzik wasn’t there.

“I look forward to receiving the rest of the payments, too,” Grus said.

“I am sure you do,” Sverki replied. Something in his tone made Grus look up sharply. He sounded and acted a little too much like Lazutin, perhaps. If the interpreter here was any guide to what the prince felt, Grus got the idea he would be wise not to hold his breath waiting for future payments to come down to the city of Avornis.

What could he do about that? He said, “If the payments do not come, Hisardzik will not trade with Avornis, and we may call on you up here again. Make sure your principal understands that.”

Sverki looked as mutinous as Lazutin would have, too. “I will,” he said sulkily. Grus hid a smile. He’d gotten his message across.

Lanius stared at Otus’ guardsman. “You’re joking,” he said. “By the gods, Your Majesty, I’m not,” the soldier replied. “He’s sweet on Calypte. Can’t argue with his taste, either. Nice-looking girl.”

“Yes.” Lanius had noticed her once or twice himself. That the thrall’s eye—the ex-thrall’s eye—might fall on her had never crossed his mind. He said, “But Otus has a woman down south of the Stura.”

The guardsman shrugged. “I don’t know anything about that. But even if he does, it wouldn’t be the first time a fellow far from home finds himself a new friend.”

“True.” Lanius had found himself a few new friends without going far from home. He asked, “Does Calypte realize this? If she does, what does she think?”

“She thinks he’s sweet.” By the way the guard said the word, he might have been giving an exact quote. “Most of the serving girls in the palace think Otus is sweet, I suppose on account of he looks but doesn’t touch very much.”

“Is that what it is?” Lanius said.

“Part of it, anyway, I expect,” the guard answered. “Me, I feel ’em when I feel like it. Sometimes they hit me, sometimes they enjoy it. You roll the dice and you see what happens.”

“Do you?” Lanius murmured. He’d never been that cavalier. He could have been. How many women would haul off and hit the King of Avornis? He shrugged. Most of the time, he hadn’t tried to find out. “How serious is Otus?” he asked now. “Is he like a mooncalf youth? Does he just want to go to bed with her? Or is he after something more? If he is, could she be?”

With a laugh, the guard said, “By the gods, Your Majesty, you sure ask a lot of questions, don’t you?”

“Why, of course,” Lanius answered in some surprise. “How would I find out if I didn’t?” That was another question. Before Otus’ guard could realize as much, the king said, “Take me to him. I’ll see what he has to say.”