Dan Chernenko - The Scepter_s Return

Slowly, Grus nodded. He thought he'd made a pretty good King of Avornis. He didn't think even Lanius could argue with that, though the other King of Avornis might – would – look down his nose while grudgingly admitting Grus hadn't been so very bad. Grus had done his best to keep the peasants out of the rapacious nobles' grasp. He'd won enough civil wars against the nobles to persuade them that rebellion was a bad idea. He'd held the Thervings at bay. He'd beaten back the Chemagor pirates. And he'd fought the Menteshe to something that was, at the moment, better than a draw.

But even though he'd done all that, he hadn't given the proper Avornans their souls again. He couldn't have. They already had them. The thralls, now… The thralls and their ancestors had gone on for centuries with something missing from their spirits – most of what separated men from beasts. Thanks to Grus (and to Pterocles; he didn't aim to steal the wizard's credit), they had that part of themselves back again. They had it, and they knew they had it, and they were grateful.

"Don't let it worry you," Hirundo told him. "Give them some time to get used to it and they'll be as selfish as anybody else."

Grus made a horrible face. "I'll remember you in my nightmares," he said. He was laughing, but quickly sobered. His nightmares featured not Hirundo but the Banished One. And if Hirundo was right – well, so what? One of his goals in coming over the Stura was to turn the thralls into normal human beings. And one thing normal human beings did was sometimes act like ungrateful wretches. He couldn't complain if that happened here.

One evening not long before he'd go back over the river, Otus approached him as he sat eating supper outside his pavilion. Guards hung by the first freed thrall, but unobtrusively. They didn't really believe Otus remained under the spell of the Banished One, but they were still guards.

But Grus also didn't think the Banished One was looking out through Otus' eyes right this minute. He recognized the expression on the thrall's face – that of a man who wanted something. Unlike the thralls south of the Stura, Otus had been free for a while, and he seemed very much a normal man.

"Hello," Grus said. "What can I do for you today?"

Otus bowed. He'd learned court ceremonial – no doubt the first thrall who ever had. "Your Majesty, they have freed the village with my woman in it."

"Have they?" Grus said. "That's good news." It was very good news, since he hadn't expected his men to go so far west. The Menteshe had proved weaker than he'd thought.

"I – think so, yes." Otus sounded distinctly nervous.

He's not worrying about the Menteshe, Grus realized. "You had a woman in that village, didn't you?" the king said, and then the light dawned. "And you also have a woman back in the city of Avornis, eh?" He started to laugh, not that Otus was likely to find it funny. He understood those difficulties only too well. So did Lanius, come to that. And now the ex-thrall?

Otus nodded. Yes, he looked distinctly nervous, too. "What am I going to do, Your Majesty? What can I do?"

"You can choose one of them, or you can choose the other one, or you can hope they won't gang up on you if you try to keep them both," Grus answered. "These are the choices a free man has to make."

"Sometimes this business is not so easy," Otus observed.

"No, sometimes it isn't," Grus said. "Have you seen your woman here now that she's had the spell lifted?"

"No, not yet."

"Go do that first. You can't decide anything – not so it makes sense – till you know where you stand with her. Maybe she isn't the person you thought she'd be. Maybe whatever you saw in her when you were both thralls, it won't be there anymore. If it's not, that will tell you what you need to do. And if it is, well, bring her along up into the north if you want to. The choice is yours."

"You are a wise man, Your Majesty," Otus said humbly.

Grus laughed out loud. "Ask my wife about me and women and you'll get a different story, I promise. If I were wise in such things, I would have gotten into a lot less trouble than I have."

"But you give good advice."

"Giving good advice is easy." Grus laughed again, at himself. "What's hard is taking good advice, by Olor's beard." Otus didn't look as though he believed the king. If that didn't prove how inexperienced he was, Grus couldn't imagine what would.

The freed thrall rode off the next morning. Grus sent a squad of horsemen with him; he didn't want Otus gallivanting over the countryside by himself. Being the first freed thrall might still make him special. Grus didn't want Menteshe raiders grabbing him and taking him away so the Banished One could find out exactly how he'd been freed.

After Otus rode away, Grus forgot about him for a little while. Part of the Avornan army would stay behind in the south to protect the land they'd won this campaigning season. Getting the rest back across the Stura was a large, complicated job. Coping with it, and especially coping with the absence of some barges that should have been there, kept the king busy for several days.

Once the army had crossed, Grus let everyone rest in Anna for a while before pressing on up to the capital. He and Hirundo were making sure everything was going smoothly when Otus walked up to them. With him was a dark, quiet-looking woman. Otus' face lit up whenever he looked at her. He said, "Your Majesty, this is Fulca. My woman." Pride filled his voice.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Fulca," Grus said gravely. "I'm glad you're free."

"Glad to be free." Like any newly liberated thrall, she spoke hesitantly. She hadn't needed many words when she lay under that dark magic. She pointed to Otus. "He knows you? Knows king? Really? Truly?"

"Really. Truly," Grus assured her.

"I told you so," Otus said. By that alone, he and Fulca might have been married for a long time.

She sniffed in response. "Tell all sorts of things. Tell is easy. Tell true? No, tell true not so easy. Even free, not so easy."

Grus was no prophet, no soothsayer. But he would have bet anything he owned that Otus' serving girl in the palace was going to end up disappointed. Fulca had a spark Otus plainly responded to. And that was the way she was now, with the veils of thralldom newly lifted. How she'd be once she really learned to speak, really learned to think.. . How would she be? She'd be formidable, that was how. Grus beamed at Otus. "You did the right thing, deciding to go over there."

Otus beamed back. Grus had let Fulca think coming for her was Otus' idea. A white lie wouldn't hurt here, the king judged. Otus still needed some practice at being a man. As who does not? Grus thought. As who does not, by the gods?

Lanius had often ridden out of the city of Avornis to greet Grus and a returning army. More often than not, he'd been annoyed and resentful at having to help aggrandize the other king. Today, though, he rode out and waited for the army without the least bit of resentment. Considering who – considering what – Grus' principal foe had been, how could he do anything else?

"I want to see the soldiers, Father," Crex said from a pony beside Lanius.

"Soldiers!" Pitta added. Lanius wasn't at all sure she cared about them, but she wasn't going to let her brother get away with anything.

"They'll be here soon," Lanius promised. "Be patient, both of you."

They looked at him as though the word did not belong to the Avornan language. As far as they were concerned, it didn't.

Anser was also there to greet the returning army. Even dressed in the arch-hallow's red robe, he looked as though he would rather be hunting. Sosia and Estrilda had made the journey as well. Grus' daughter and wife talked quietly with each other. Lanius suspected he was lucky he could not hear what they were saying.