Dan Chernenko - The Scepter_s Return

"Will Ortalis care?" Estrilda asked.

"Not by the way he's been talking, from what I hear," Grus said.

Estrilda studied him some more. "Will you care?"

"Him having a son would make things… untidy," Grus said. "I don't like untidy things." He didn't want to come right out and say that he preferred the succession to pass through Lanius to Crex, not through Ortalis to his son. He wasn't sure Estrilda agreed with him.

"I can't say that I blame you," Estrilda said now. "We had a pretty good idea of how things would go. Now it could be all up in the air again." She sent Grus another sour stare. "All the gods in the heavens be praised that Anser doesn't care about the throne. That's only luck, you know."

She wasn't wrong there, either. Grus thought about Nivalis in a way he hadn't before. If he himself lived another fifteen or twenty years – far from certain, but also not impossible – his bastard little boy would grow to be a young man. What would Nivalis think about his place in life? Would he think about what might have been his if he'd been born on the right side of the blanket? Would he think it might be his any which way?

"He's a good fellow, Anser," was all the king said, and even Estrilda couldn't disagree with that.

Again not really changing the subject at all, she repeated, "Maybe Limosa will have another girl."

"Here's hoping." There. Grus had said it. He didn't want his only legitimate son to have a son of his own. If that wasn't sad, what was? He couldn't think of anything to match it. A moment later, though, he found something, for the mother of his only legitimate son nodded agreement.

Not only did she nod – she also said, "I wish Lanius and Sosia would have another baby – with luck, another boy. So many things can happen, even when children aren't in line for the throne."

That was also true. Grus said, "They've seemed… not too happy with each other lately, from what I've heard."

His wife glared at him. "You know the reason why, too, or you'd better. He seduces serving girls, or lets them seduce him. It amounts to the same thing either way. And you're a fine one to tell him to stop being unfaithful to our daughter, you are, when you can't keep it in your drawers."

Since Grus couldn't deny that as a general working rule, he did his best to deny it in this particular case, saying, "Well, if you're worrying about what goes on south of the Stura, you can cursed well worry about something else. I already told you, nothing's going on down there – nothing like that, anyway."

"Oh, such thrilling news!" If Estrilda had used a different tone of voice, Grus might have thought she meant it. As things were, her sarcasm only stung the more.

The last time Limosa had a baby, there'd been a small scandal when all the rumors about lash marks and scars on her back proved true. By now, that was old news. When she disrobed for the midwife this time, no one would get – too – excited about it.

Lanius had other things to worry about this time around, chiefly whether she would have a boy or a girl. Ortalis had the same worry, even if his hopes and the king's ran in opposite directions.

It had just started to snow when Limosa's bag of waters broke. That was a sure sign of labor beginning in earnest, and servants hotfooted it from the palace to bring back the midwife. Lanius listened to Ortalis burble and babble for a little while, then excused himself and got as far away from his brother-in-law as he could.

He started to head for the archives, but changed his mind. He'd needed years to teach the servants not to bother him there. Someone would have to come with news of Limosa's baby. Better not to be with the moncats, either. And he also couldn't go to his own bedchamber, because Sosia was there. She still didn't appreciate his company.

That left… what? He ended up in one of the palace's several small dining rooms. Instead of eating, he caught up on correspondence. He felt virtuous. He also rapidly grew bored. This was the part of governing that Grus did better than he did.

Someone opened the door and stuck his head into the room. "Oh," Grus said. "Sorry to bother you, Your Majesty. I was just looking for a quiet place where I could get a little work done until Limosa has her baby, however long that takes."

Laughing, Lanius answered, "That's exactly what I'm doing here."

"Oh," Grus said again, and then, "Mind if I join you?"

"Not a bit," Lanius told him. "And if you want to write some letters for me along with your own, I don't mind that, either. I was just thinking you're better at this part of being a king than I am."

"Well, I don't know about that," Grus said. "When something interests you, you get better at it than I ever could. When it doesn't, you don't bother with it so much, that's all."

Lanius thought about that. He didn't need long to decide Grus was right. "I should do better," he said.

"Probably," Grus said. "Everybody has some things he should do better – and if you don't believe me, you can ask either one of our wives."

"Ha!" Lanius said. "We don't need to ask them – they come right out and tell us."

"Wives do that sometimes. Husbands do it to wives, too, I expect." Grus sat down across the table from Lanius. He dumped a disorderly pile of letters and blank leaves of parchment on the table in front of him, pulled the stopper from a burnt-clay bottle of ink, dipped a goose quill, and began to write. The pile stayed disorderly. Lanius was much neater about the way he worked. But Grus dipped his pen and wrote, dipped his pen and wrote, dipped his pen… He wasn't neat, but he got the job done, turning out letter after letter.

"I'm jealous," Lanius remarked.

The other king only shrugged. "It's nothing very special," he said. "Most of the time, the simplest answer will do. Yes, no, tell me more, whatever the local official decided also seems right to me. It's only on the odd things that you really have to slow down and think." He passed a letter across to Lanius. "Will you read this to me, please? My sight hasn't lengthened too badly, but I have trouble when somebody writes as small as this."

Lanius read it. It was an appeal of a conviction for theft. "Thanks," Grus said. He wrote a few lines, set the letter aside, and went on to the next.

"What did you tell him?" Lanius asked.

"What would you have told him?" Grus asked in return.

"It doesn't seem likely that the victim and the captain and the city governor are all in league against the appellant," Lanius said. "They would have to be for him to be innocent, seems to me."

"Seems the same way to me," Gras replied. "So I told him no. Not worth wasting a lot of time on it."

"I suppose not." Lanius had come up with the same answer as his father-in-law. He would have fussed much more over the letter, though. He wanted things to sound good. Grus just wanted to make sure no one could misunderstand what he meant. Lanius had rarely seen him fail to live up to that standard.

After a while, Grus stopped writing. He looked at Lanius and said, "I wonder how much longer it will be."

"No way to know," Lanius answered, having not the slightest doubt about what Grus meant. "Babies come when they feel like coming, not when you tell them to."

"I'm not going to say you're wrong. I can't very well when you're right, can I?" The other king inked his pen, started another letter, and then stopped once more. "Here's something you haven't heard from me. If you tell anybody I said it, I'll call you a liar to your face. Have you got that?"

By the way he said it, Lanius knew he was liable to do worse than call him a liar. "I won't blab. I don't blab."

"Well, that's true, too – you don't." Grus leaned forward and dropped his voice to something not much above a whisper. "I hope it's a girl."