Dan Chernenko - The Chernagor Pirates

Estrilda lay down beside him. She had, he noticed, put on fresh perfume. He’d thought he would go straight to sleep. As things turned out, he didn’t. But when his eyes did close, he slept very soundly.

He woke up in the morning feeling, if not younger than the day before, then at least oiled and repaired. Now that he was back, he had to get on top of things again. Otherwise, who was the real king? Was he? Or was Lanius?

Before any of that, though, he saw his grandchildren. Crex and Pitta both wondered why he hadn’t brought them any presents from the Chernagor country. “Sorry, my dears,” he said. “I was worried about bringing me back. I didn’t worry much about presents.” He had tribute from Hisardzik and Jobuka, but he didn’t think silver coins with the faces of shaggy-bearded princes on them would fascinate children.

Capella didn’t ask for presents. She waved her arms and legs in Limosa’s arms and smiled up toothlessly at the king. “She’s a pretty child, Your Highness,” Grus said.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Limosa answered politely. “I wish her other grandfather could see her, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Grus said. “I am sorry, but Petrosus isn’t coming out of the Maze.”

“Even if he isn’t why your son and I got married?” Limosa said. “Even if we got married because—” She didn’t go on. She turned red and looked down at her baby.

Grus had a pretty good idea of what she would have said. It made him want to blush, too, even if he hadn’t actually heard it. He was afraid she would show him her back. To his relief, she didn’t. He gathered himself. “Even then,” he told her. “If your father wasn’t plotting that, he was plotting something else. He’ll stay where he is.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Limosa whispered. She took Capella away, as though that was the only way she could find to punish Grus. And so it probably was.

Ortalis didn’t come to pay his respects. Grus sent a servant after him. When the king finally saw his son, he said, “Well, now that you’ve finally done it, how does it feel to kill a man?”

“I knew you were going to bother me about that,” Ortalis said sullenly. “I knew it. And I didn’t even enjoy sticking the knife in him. It just… happened, that’s all. I wish it hadn’t. But he got me angry, and then he said something really foul, and—” He shrugged.

Eyeing him, Grus decided it could easily have been worse. Ortalis wasn’t consumed by remorse, but at least he had some idea of what it was. Grus said, “You should have just punched him.”

“I suppose so,” his son said. “His woman and her brats are taken care of. Lanius made sure of that. Can I go now, or do you want to yell at me some more? I don’t kill servants for fun.”

“All right,” Grus said, and Ortalis left. Grus sighed. Considering what Ortalis did do for fun, was it any wonder that Grus had wondered? He didn’t think so.

Business, the king thought. If he was going to pick business, he wanted to pick interesting business to start with. He went to the chamber where Otus the former thrall dwelt. “Sorry, Your Majesty,” a guard said. “He’s not here right now.”

“Where is he?” Grus asked.

“He’s got a lady friend. He’s with her,” the guard answered.

“At this hour of the morning?” Grus exclaimed. The guard smirked and nodded. Grus said, “If I were wearing a hat, I’d take it off to him. Shall I wait until he’s, ah, finished?”

“I can fetch him, if you like,” the guardsman said.

“No, never mind,” Grus said. “I’ll come back and visit him later. He wouldn’t thank me for interrupting him, would he?”

“I don’t know about that, Your Majesty, but /wouldn’t,” the guard replied, chuckling at his own cleverness.

“All right, then. I’ll try again in an hour or so,” Grus said, and left.

When he came back, the guard nodded to him. “He’s here now, Your Majesty,” the fellow said. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Your Majesty!” Otus said when Grus walked into his chamber. “It is good to see you again.”

“Good to see you,” Grus answered. “I’m more pleased than I can tell you at how well you’re doing.” That was the truth. Only Otus’ southern accent and a certain slight hesitation in his speech said that he had been a thrall. He looked bright and alert and altogether like a normal man. He evidently acted like a normal man, too. “Who’s your, ah, friend?” Grus asked.

“Her name is Calypte, Your Majesty.” Otus seemed less happy than Grus had thought he might. “She is very sweet. And yet… You know I have a woman down in the south, a woman who is still a thrall?”

“Yes, I know that.” The king nodded.

Otus sighed. “I do her wrong when I do this. I understand that. But I am here, and she is there—and she is hardly more than a brute beast. I loved her when I was a beast myself. I might love her if she were a beast no more. Your Majesty, so many thralls down there! Save them!”

Otus’ appeal didn’t surprise Grus. The power with which the ex-thrall phrased it did. “I’ll do what I can,” the king answered. “I don’t know how much that will be. It will depend on the civil war among the Menteshe, and on how well wizards besides Pterocles can learn to cure thralls.”

And if they truly can, he thought. He didn’t say that to Otus, who seemed normal enough. If Otus hadn’t seemed normal, Grus wouldn’t have thought of campaigning south of the Stura at all.

“You could make beasts into men.” If the former thrall wasn’t cured, he sounded as though he was. “Who but the gods could ever do that until now? You would be remembered forever.”

Grus laughed. “Are you sure you weren’t born a courtier?”

“I’m sure, Your Majesty,” Otus said. “Courtiers tell lies. I’m too stupid to do that. I tell you the truth.”

“I’m going to tell you the truth, too,” Grus said. “I want to fight south of the Stura. I don’t know if I can. It’s dangerous for Avornan kings to go over the frontier. There have been whole armies that never came back. I want to cure thralls. I don’t want to see free men taken down into thralldom.”

“You wouldn’t!” Otus exclaimed. “Look at me. I’m free. I’m cured. Whatever the Banished One can do, he can’t make me back into what was.”

From what Lanius wrote, Otus bad always insisted on that. The trouble was, he would have insisted on it as vehemently if it were a lie as he would have if it were true. Grus didn’t know how to judge which it was. He didn’t know what to do, either.

“I already told you—I’ll decide what to do come spring,” he said after some thought. “If the Menteshe have a prince by then and they’re solidly behind him, I may have to sit tight. If they don’t… If they don’t, well, I’ll figure out what to do next then, that’s all.”

“You ought to be ready to move, whether you do or not,” Otus remarked.

That held a good deal of truth. “I already have soldiers in the south,” Grus said. “There’s one other thing I need to check up on before I make up my mind.”

“What’s that?” Otus asked.

Grus didn’t answer, not directly. Instead, he chatted for a little while longer and then took his leave. He went to a small audience chamber and told a servant, “Find the serving girl named Calypte and tell her I’d like to talk with her, please.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The servant dipped his head and hurried off.

Calypte came into the room less than a quarter of an hour later. Until then, Grus couldn’t have matched her name with her face. She was in her late twenties, short, a little on the plump side, with a round face, very white teeth, and dark eyes that sparkled. She wore a leaf-green dress and had tied a red kerchief over her black hair and under her chin. Dropping Grus a curtsy, she said, “What is it, Your Majesty?” She sounded nervous. Grus didn’t suppose he could blame her. She had to think she was either in trouble or that he was about to try to seduce her.