Dan Chernenko - The Bastard King

She didn’t. She reached for him, too. “I’m not going to tell you no tonight,” she said, “not after…” She checked herself. “I’m not going to tell you no.”

He caressed her. He knew what pleased her. He’d had years and years to find out. It wasn’t the way it had been with Alca, where he’d learned something new every time. Now he shook his head. If she’d try not to be angry tonight, he’d try not to think of Alca. That seemed only fair.

Then, a little later, he wondered if he could do what he wanted to do. He wished he hadn’t had so much wine. But he managed. By the way Estrilda quivered beneath him, he managed more than well enough. He gave her a kiss as he slid from on her to beside her. “Good night,” he muttered, spent.

“Good night,” she answered. He wasn’t sure he even heard her. Already he slid into sleep as deep and dark as the blackness filling the bedroom.

Lanius needed a way to get Grus’ attention. He didn’t like the one he found, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t work. With a resigned mental sigh, he said, “Your Majesty?”

Grus always noticed when Lanius admitted he too was King of Avornis, not least because Lanius did it so seldom. “Yes, Your Majesty?”

“We need to talk for a few minutes,” Lanius said. “It’s important. Seeing what happened yesterday, I think it’s very important.”

That got through. Grus nodded. “Say what you have to say. I promise I’ll listen.”

“Let’s go someplace quiet, where we can talk by ourselves.” Lanius’ gaze flicked toward the servants bustling along the corridor.

“Whatever this is, you’re serious about it,” Grus remarked. Now Lanius nodded. Grus asked, “Is this—whatever it is—is it what you’ve already started to tell me a couple of times?”

“Yes,” Lanius said. “I had to put it off then. After yesterday, I can’t put it off anymore.”

“All right, Your Majesty.” Grus did do him the courtesy of taking him seriously. “Let’s go somewhere and talk.”

A couple of maidservants were gossiping in the first room whose door the kings opened. The women stared in astonishment. Now they would have something new to gossip about. The next room the kings tried had shelves piled high with bed linen, and only a little space in which to stand while putting things on those shelves or taking them down.

“Will this do?” Lanius asked doubtfully.

“Nobody will bother us in here, that’s for sure,” his father-in-law answered. “Go on, shut the door.” After Lanius had, Grus asked, “Well, what’s on your mind?”

“Have you ever heard the name… Milvago?” Lanius asked. He’d never said the name aloud before, and looked around nervously as he did. Someone— something —might be listening.

To Grus, it was only a name, and an unfamiliar one. “Can’t say I have,” he replied, indifferent. “Sounds like it ought to be Avornan, but I wouldn’t want to guess past that. You’re the one who’s talking, so tell me about this Milvago.”

“I can’t tell you much,” Lanius said. “I don’t know much. Most of what was written has been dust and ashes for hundreds of years, and the priests have made sure all the ceremonies are different nowadays. They tried to get rid of all the records, too, but they couldn’t quite manage it. They’re only human, after all. Even the peasants have forgotten him, and peasants can have longer memories than anybody.”

“Who is he? Or should I say, who was he?” Grus asked.

“You’re the one who knows history, so I expect you can tell me. Some long-ago heretic? Sounds like it, by the way you talk.”

“You might say so.” Lanius knew his voice sounded strange. “Yes, you just might say so.”

“All right. Fair enough,” Grus said. “But please don’t get angry at me, Your Majesty, when I ask you why I need to know any of this.”

“I won’t get angry,” Lanius said. “It’s a reasonable question. And the answer is, we still hear about him today. The only difference is, we call him the Banished One.”

That got Grus’ full and complete attention. Lanius had been sure it would. The older man leaned toward him, intent as a hunter on his prey. “Milvago was … what? The name he had before he was cast down from the heavens?”

“Yes.” Lanius nodded. “The name he had when he was a god. I found it on an ancient parchment in the ecclesiastical archives under the cathedral.”

“The name he had when he was a god,” Grus echoed. “Do you have any idea how strange that sounds?”

“Believe me, Your Majesty, it sounds at least as strange to me as it does to you,” Lanius replied. “I haven’t said anything about this to anyone, not till now.”

Twice in the space of a few minutes, he’d used Grus’ royal title. It had been months, maybe years, since the last two times he’d used it. And Grus noticed. Lanius could see as much. But the other King of Avornis didn’t mention it. Instead, he asked the right question. Lanius had noticed his gift for that. “Well,” Grus said, “if this Milvago was a god once upon a time, what was he the god of? Bad weather, maybe? Or just bad temper generally?”

Those were good, quick, reasonable guesses. Lanius wished with all his heart one of them was right. But he answered with the truth—what he was convinced was the truth—he’d found far under the cathedral. He gave that truth in one word—“Everything.”

“What do you mean?” Grus asked. “What was he the god of?”

“Everything,” Lanius repeated miserably. “As best I can tell, he was the chief god in the heavens, the god from whom Olor and Quelea and the rest sprang long, long ago.”

“You’re joking.”

“By the gods” —Lanius laughed, though it was anything but funny— “I am not.”

“What did they do?” Grus demanded. “Turn on him and cast him down, the way nasty sons will turn on a rich father when they’re too impatient to wait for him to die?”

Now he was the one who sounded as though he was joking. But Lanius nodded, saying, “Yes, I believe that’s exactly what they did, though Milvago may have been the nasty one. The way he’s behaved here on earth would make you think so, anyhow.”

Grus’ eyes were wide and staring. “And we have to stand against a god like that?”

“We don’t have to do anything,” Lanius answered. “If you don’t believe we still have free will, what’s the point to anything?”

But the details of philosophical discussion had never interested Grus. He waved Lanius’ words away. “How are we supposed to fight against the god who made the ground we’re walking on? How, by the—” He broke off. Lanius understood that. Why swear by the gods when you were talking of the one who’d sired them?

But, in literal terms, Grus’ question had an answer, or Lanius hoped it did. “How? The same way we’ve been fighting him ever since he was cast down from the heavens. Even if he was all-powerful once upon a time, he isn’t anymore. If he were, he couldn’t very well have been cast down from the heavens in the first place, could he? And as for creating the world, who knows whether Milvago did that or not? What happened to his father, if he had one?”

He waited to see how Grus would take that. He’d always respected his father-in-law’s resourcefulness; without it, Grus never would have won his share of the crown. For the moment, it seemed to have abandoned the older man. Lanius didn’t suppose he could blame Grus. He himself had had a while to work through, to work past, his shattering discovery. The other king was trying to take it in all at once.

“Don’t tell anybody else,” Grus said suddenly.

“What?” Lanius asked, taken aback.