The Bastard King

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The yellow-robed cleric named Daption bowed low before King Grus. “Your Majesty, I’m sorry to have to tell you that Arch-Hallow Bucco met the common fate of all mankind last night. The end must have come easily—he went to bed in the evening, and no one could wake him come morning.”

“That is an easy passing,” Grus agreed. “My father was lucky in his going, too. I wonder if I will be.” He sighed. The gods knew the answer to that, but he wouldn’t, not till the day.

“May it be so, Your Majesty,” the cleric said, and then, quickly, “May you not need to learn for many years to come. I meant no offense, no ill-wish, no—”

Grus raised a hand. “You didn’t offend me. I understood what you meant.”

“Your Majesty is gracious,” Daption said, relief in his voice. “Uh, have you yet thought about who will follow Bucco as Arch-Hallow of Avornis? There are, of course, several good candidates from among the senior clerics of the capital, and no doubt others in the provinces, as well. Do you know when you will announce Bucco’s replacement, or will you ask for advice from the hierarchy before making your choice?”

“Arch-Hallow Bucco was a bold and powerful man,” Grus observed. “He always had his own notion of what should be done.”

“Indeed he did.” The yellow-robed priest sounded proud to have served under such a man. But Grus hadn’t meant it for praise. As far as he was concerned, Bucco had stuck his nose where an arch-hallow had no business putting it. Daption coughed a couple of times before continuing, “As I say, Your Majesty, there are several excellent candidates for the position. If you like, we would be pleased to submit to you a list of the possibilities, from whom you may, of course, choose.”

“I’m sure you’d be pleased,” Grus said. Like the nobility, the priesthood wanted more power for itself and less of what it saw as interference from the Kings of Avornis. Of course, what it saw as interference looked like necessary oversight to Grus, as it had to the kings who came before him. “I won’t need a list, though. I know the man I want as arch-hallow.”

“Do you?” Daption raised an eyebrow in polite disappointment. “And he is—?”

“His name is Anser,” Grus replied.

Daption thought for a moment, then frowned. “I’m very sorry, Your Majesty, but I must confess I do not know the name. From what city does he come?”

“From Anxa, down in the south,” Grus said.

“I… see,” Daption said. “How interesting. Since the Menteshe came, we haven’t had so many arch-hallows from that part of the kingdom. Not a few kings have feared to choose southern men because of the possible taint from the Banished One.”

“I’m not worried about that here,” Grus said firmly.

“I do admire your intrepid spirit, Your Majesty.” The yellow-robed cleric made his praise sound like, I think you’re out of your mind, Your Majesty. His frown hadn’t gone away, either. “What is this Anser’s rank, if I may make so bold as to ask? Surely he cannot now wear the yellow robe; I believe I know all the clerics of my own rank throughout Avornis. Would you elevate to the arch-hallowdom a man from the green, or even from the black?” He closed his eyes for a moment in well-bred horror at the thought.

Grus sighed. He’d hoped Daption wouldn’t make him give all the details so soon, but the other man had, and now there was no help for it. “Anser will be a red-robed priest—which is to say, the Arch-Hallow of Avornis—as soon as he is consecrated,” the King of Avornis said.

Daption’s eyes grew wide. “Do you mean to say he is… a secular man?” the priest whispered. “You would place a secular man on the arch-hallow’s throne? That is—highly irregular, Your Majesty.”

“Maybe so,” Grus said, “but he has one virtue that, to me, outweighs all the rest.”

“And that is?” The priest sounded as though it couldn’t possibly be anything important enough to counterbalance his secularity.

“He’s my son,” Grus answered. To him, that counted for more than anything else.

“Your son?” Daption echoed. “But I thought Prince Ortalis was your only son.”

“Prince Ortalis is my only legitimate son,” Grus said. “Anser was… just one of those things that sometimes happen. He’s part of my family, though, and I intend to take care of him.”

“Is that what you call it, Your Majesty?” the cleric demanded. “But what of our holy faith?”

“I think our holy faith will do quite well, thanks,” Grus said. “The gods have children. I don’t expect King Olor and Queen Quelea will be too upset because I had one out of wedlock. Queen Estrilda has forgiven me.” Mostly, he added to himself.

“But… Your Majesty!” Daption seemed to be struggling to put his protest into terms that wouldn’t infuriate the King of Avornis. “Appointing a… a boy who has lived a… a secular life to the post of arch-hallow offends the dignity of all holy clerics who have held the post since the beginning of time.”

“After Anser’s been arch-hallow for a while, he’ll be as holy as any other cleric, don’t you think?” Grus asked mildly.

“But—” Daption tried again.

This time, Grus cut him off with a sharp question. “Are you telling me I haven’t got the right to appoint the man I want as Arch-Hallow of Avornis? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not, Your Majesty.” The yellow-robed priest did have the sense to see he was treading on dangerous ground. But he went on, “Appointing such a person to such a position, though, is… is unprecedented.”

Grus gave him a cheerful smile. “Maybe it was. It isn’t anymore, is it? I’ve just created a precedent for it, haven’t I?”

As King of Avornis since he was a little boy—as the descendant of a dozen generations of Kings of Avornis—Lanius naturally had a strong sense of dignity. The idea that his bastard half-brother-in-law should be named Arch-Hallow of Avornis offended that sense.

“Have you ever met this Anser?” he asked Sosia.

His wife shook her head. Before she answered, she yawned. Early in her pregnancy, she was sleepy all the time. “No,” she said. “Are you surprised? I know of him, but that’s all.”

“Has your father—his father—ever met him?”

Sosia shrugged. “I don’t know for certain. I don’t think so, but I couldn’t take oath on it.”

“Well, who on earth would appoint someone he doesn’t even know to such an important job?”

“No one appoints kings at all. They just happen,” Sosia said pointedly. As Lanius was a king who had just happened, that struck home. His wife went on, “The kingdom seems to get through with good kings and bad ones and indifferent ones. Do you think it can’t survive with Anser as arch-hallow?”

“No,” Lanius admitted. “But couldn’t your father have picked a better man for the spot, since he does get to choose?”

“Better how?” Sosia asked.

“Wiser. More holy. Older. Anser can’t even be as old as I am, can he?”

“I don’t think so, not quite,” Sosia said. “Maybe that wasn’t what Father meant by ‘better,’ though. Maybe he cared more that Anser would stay loyal to him. Family counts for the world with Father. If you don’t know that, you don’t know anything about him.”

Lanius started to make a sarcastic remark about Ortalis, but changed his mind at the last minute. Sosia had a point. Bucco, loyal only to himself, had menaced the crown and Lanius’ grip on it as long as he lived. What Lanius did say was, “Well, maybe you’re right. But what am I supposed to tell this Anser when he comes to the city of Avornis?”

“How about, ‘Welcome to the capital’?” his wife suggested. “How about, ‘I hope you do a good job as arch-hallow’?”

Since Lanius had no better ideas, those were the first two things he did tell Anser when, not quite a month later, Grus’ bastard son arrived from the south. “Thank you so very much, uh, Your Majesty,” Anser replied. His eyes were enormous with wonder at where he found himself. But for that, he looked much like a younger version of Grus—looked more like him, probably, than either Sosia or Ortalis, both of whom had a good deal of Estrilda in their features.

“What do you know about the priestly hierarchy?” Lanius asked him, coming up with a question of his own.

“Not much,” Anser said frankly. “I would worship down in Anxa. Everybody down in the south worships hard. With the Menteshe and the Banished One so close, we know the gods are our hope. But I never thought of being a priest, let alone arch-hallow, till… till Father sent word for me to come here.”

He seemed open and friendly and easy to like, none of which Lanius had expected. The king asked, “What did you want to do, then?”

“I was apprenticed to my uncle—my mother’s brother. He’s a miller, with the biggest mill in Anxa. He has four daughters and no son, so I suppose it might have been mine one day. And I like to hunt—I really like to hunt, and I’m a dead shot with a bow—and I’d love to breed horses if I had the money.”

Lanius tried very hard not to smile. He didn’t think he’d ever met such an… ordinary person in all his life. “If the Arch-Hallow of Avornis doesn’t have the money to do whatever he wants, I don’t know who would,” he remarked.

Anser’s eyes got wider yet. Lanius hadn’t thought they could. “Really?” the young bastard breathed. “That never occurred to me. Do you suppose I’d have the time to go out hunting, too?”

“If you want to, I think you might,” Lanius answered. “Except for a king”—he couldn’t say except for the King, not when Avornis had two—“who could tell the arch-hallow no?”

“Really?” Anser said again. “You have to understand, Your Majesty, I never thought about any of this till Father told me to come here. I’ve thought about it since, of course, but I don’t know enough about what I’ll be doing to have my thoughts make a whole lot of sense, if you know what I mean.”

“What do you think you’ll be doing?” Lanius asked.

“Whatever Father wants me to, I expect,” Anser said. His grin made that disarming. “That’s why he chose me for the job, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Lanius said. “What do you think about it?”

“It’s all right with me,” Anser said. “Father always took the best care of me he could. He didn’t pretend I wasn’t there, the way a lot of men do with their bastards. What else can I do— what else should I do—but pay him back for that as well as I know how?”

Loyalty, Lanius thought. Grus expected to get it. And, evidently, Anser expected to give it. The whole family put a large weight on it. Lanius shook his head. Ortalis? I don’t think so. I don’t think Grus thinks so, either.

He wondered for a moment why Grus hadn’t named his legitimate son Arch-Hallow of Avornis. He wondered for a moment, yes, but no longer. Grus is liable to want Ortalis to be King of Avornis after him. He probably wishes Ortalis were better than he is, but I’m afraid he wants him to be king any which way.

Lanius couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a more frightening thought.

Not even Grus could make the clerics anoint Anser as arch-hallow in one fell swoop—not when his bastard boy wasn’t a priest at the start of the process. If the men who consecrated Anser and appointed him to the priesthood wore sour expressions, they were wise enough to keep their mouths shut except for the necessary prayers. And Grus was wise enough to keep his mouth shut about their expressions.

Having been hallowed, Anser wore a black robe for one day, a green robe on the next, and a yellow one the day after that. Then the clerics could give him a red robe with clear consciences. Grus didn’t see that the quick parade through the ecclesiastical ranks mattered very much, but he was wise enough to keep his mouth shut about mat, too. He was not a man who ran from trouble, but he wasn’t a man who stirred it up for no good reason, either.

Anser’s wide-eyed, openmouthed awe at the royal palace, the great cathedral in the city of Avornis, and, in fact, everything about the capital made Grus smile. He didn’t quite know what to do about discovering his bastard was a much more likable youngster than his legitimate son.

One thing he didn’t do was mention it to Estrilda. One day, though, his wife asked, “Did you think about inviting Anser’s mother up here to see him made arch-hallow?”

“No,” Grus replied at once—he knew a question with more prickles than a porcupine when he heard one.

“Why not?” Estrilda asked.

“Because I didn’t think you’d like it.”

“Ah.” Estrilda considered that, then nodded. “Well, you were right.” He’d thought he’d gotten away as clean as a married man who’d fathered a bastard could hope to with his wife, but then Estrilda asked, “What was she like? Anser’s mother, I mean.”

Grus could have told her in great detail. Before he started to— just before he started to—he realized that question had plenty of prickles, too, even if they were better hidden. As casually as he could, he answered, “Do you know, it was so long ago I hardly remember. I was drunk when it happened, anyhow.”

Estrilda didn’t find any more porcupinish questions for him, so he supposed he’d given the right answer to that one. He also supposed she didn’t know he’d tried to take Alca to bed with him after her magic had helped him end Count Corvus’ rebellion. Had she known, she would have expressed her detailed opinion about it—Grus was sure of that. Estrilda had never been shy.

A couple of days later, still wearing his red robes, Anser came to the palace and asked, “Now that I’m arch-hallow, what do you want me to do?”

“See that things run on an even keel,” Grus told him. “Don’t let clerics meddle in politics—they don’t belong there. Past that, whatever you please, as long as you don’t make a scandal of yourself.”

“I’ll try,” Anser said. “But I don’t know anything more about the gods than what the priests down in Anxa taught me when I was little.”

“That should be plenty,” Grus answered. “Be good yourself, and expect the priests to be good, too. If you find some who aren’t—and I’m sure you will—then talk to me, and we’ll figure out what to do about them.”

His bastard son nodded. “All right. I’ll do that. Thanks, uh, Your Majesty.”

“Go on,” Grus said, liking him very much. “Just do the best you can, and everything will be fine.”

Not even Estrilda had an easy time disliking Anser. “He’s… sweet,” she admitted grudgingly.

“He is, isn’t he?” Grus said. “And the other thing is, with any luck at all, I won’t have to worry about who’s arch-hallow and whether he’ll give me trouble for the next twenty or thirty years.” He liked fixing things so they stayed fixed.

He wished he could fix things with the Thervings as readily as he’d fixed the arch-hallowdom. But Anser was cooperative. Fierce old King Dagipert wasn’t. With the coming of spring came another invasion from the west.

Lanius said, “Last year, you told me you couldn’t fight Dagipert with all your strength because of Corvus’ rebellion. There’s no rebellion now. Will you fight him with everything we have?”

Grus didn’t want to fight Dagipert with everything he had. He feared the Thervings would thrash the Avornan army, as they’d already thrashed it too many times. He needed a force that could stand up against them. He was building it, yes, but he knew the job was far from over.

But he didn’t want to look like a coward before his fellow king—or before all of Avornis, either. So he answered, “I’ll do everything I can, Your Majesty, to keep the Thervings from ravaging us the way they’ve done before.”

Lanius was harder to satisfy with a bland generality than he might have been. He asked, “What exactly does that mean?”

Since Grus didn’t know exactly what it meant, he answered, “You’ll see. Part of what we do—part of what we’re able to do—will depend on what King Dagipert does, you know.”

He didn’t think that completely satisfied the younger man, either. But Lanius held his peace. He’s seeing how much rope I’ve given myself, Grus judged. For the kingdom’s sake as well as his own, he hoped he could make good on what he’d promised.

To General Hirundo, he said, “When you move against the Thervings, do your best to keep them on land where they’ve already gone pillaging two years in a row. The sooner they get hungry, the sooner they’ll start thinking about going home.”

“I’ll try,” Hirundo said. “They don’t have much in the way of a supply train, and that’s a fact.”

“No, they don’t,” Grus agreed. “They keep themselves going by eating the countryside bare, like any locusts.”

Hirundo laughed. “That’s funny.”

Grus shook his head. “Maybe it would be, if the Thervings weren’t so dangerous. But they are, worse luck.”

“We beat ’em last year.” The general sounded confident enough. “I don’t see any reason why we can’t do it again.”

“I see one,” Grus said, “and that is that we did beat them last year.”

“I don’t follow you.” Hirundo frowned, perhaps to show how much he didn’t follow. “Now that we have beaten them, the men will know they can do it. They should have an easier time, not a harder one.”

“Maybe you’re right. I hope you’re right,” Grus said. “But the other thing you have to remember is, Dagipert’s trouble. He knows we beat his Thervings last year, too, and you can bet he’s had steam coming out of his ears ever since. He’s smart and he’s tricky and he’s nasty. If he hasn’t spent all winter trying to come up with some sneaky way of making us pay for what we did to him last year, I’d be amazed.”

“Ah.” Now Hirundo nodded. He seemed to decide nodding wasn’t enough, so he bowed, too. “You’re pretty smart and tricky and nasty yourself, Your Majesty. Trying to figure out what the other bastard’s going to do before he does it is always a good idea, but how often do people really sit down and think that through?”

“They ought to,” Grus said. There, he was sure, Lanius would agree with him. He wished he and the young king could find more things to agree about.

Hirundo, meanwhile, let out a scornful snort. “How often do people do what they ought to do? If they did, what would clerics use for sermons?”

“A point. A distinct point,” Grus admitted.

“Maybe you ought to take the field again, Your Majesty,” Hirundo said. “If anybody can outthink Dagipert, you’re the one.”

Grus hadn’t intended to. At the suggestion, though, he stroked his beard in thought. “Maybe I will,” he said at last. “I hadn’t planned on it, but maybe I will.”

Sosia beside him, King Lanius watched King Grus ride out of the city of Avornis at the head of his army, hurrying off to fight the Thervings. “I hope he’ll be all right,” Sosia said anxiously.

“So do I,” Lanius said. His wife hoped Grus would be all right because Grus was her father and she loved him. Lanius hoped Grus would be all right because, if he weren’t, some disaster would have come down on the army he led, and on the Kingdom of Avornis. Lanius didn’t love Grus. He didn’t think he ever would. He’d acquired some—well, more than some— reluctant respect for his father-in-law’s brains and nerve, but love? He shook his head. Not likely.

He glanced over toward Sosia. Her arms were folded across her belly. They lay there more easily than they would have not long before. She had more belly than she’d had not long before. The more she bulged, the more the reality that she was going to have a baby sank in for Lanius. Let it be a son, he thought. Let the dynasty go on. I’ll worry about Ortalis after my son is born.

Soldiers closed the great gates of the city after Grus’ army passed out of it. A carriage took Lanius and Sosia back to the palace. Another one took Estrilda and Ortalis. Lanius got on well enough with his mother-in-law, but he was glad not to travel in the same carriage as Ortalis.

At the palace, Sosia and Estrilda started chattering. Ortalis went off to do whatever he did. Whatever it was, Lanius didn’t want to know. He himself went looking for Marshal Lepturus.

“Hello, Your Majesty,” the commander of the royal bodyguards said when Lanius found him just coming out of the palace steam bath. “Trying to warm up my old bones, see if they’ll move a little smoother.”

Lanius started to say, You’re not old. The words died unspoken. They wouldn’t do, even for a polite compliment. Lepturus had commanded the bodyguards when Lanius’ father ruled Avornis, and he’d been commanding them for some time before King Mergus died. He remained sturdy, but his wrinkled, age-blotched skin, bald head, and snowy beard told him their own tale. Lanius wondered uncomfortably if the same thing would happen to him one day. He shivered, as though winter had suddenly run an icy finger along the ridge of his spine.

“Here.” Marshal Lepturus’ joints creaked and crackled as he sat down on a marble bench outside the door to the steam bath. “What can I do for you?”

Lanius sat down beside him. He looked around before he answered. No servants were in sight. He spoke in a low voice— fortunately, Lepturus’ ears, unlike Nicator’s, still worked fine. “Now that Grus has left the city, I want your help with something.”

The guards commander leaned toward him. “What have you got in mind? I’m listening.” He too spoke so quietly, no one but Lanius could possibly have heard him.

“I want to bring my mother back from the Maze,” Lanius said.

Marshal Lepturus looked at him for a long time before answering, softly and sadly but very definitely, “No.”

“What?” Lanius couldn’t remember the last time Lepturus had said that to him, certainly not on anything this important. “In the name of the gods, why not?”

“Do you aim to fight your own civil war against King Grus, Your Majesty?” Lepturus asked. “We’ve been over that ground before, you know.”

“Civil war? No, of course not,” Lanius said. “All I want to do is set my mother free.”

“That may be all you want, but that’s not all you’d get.” Lepturus spoke with mournful certainty. “What’s Grus going to do when he hears Queen Certhia’s back in the royal palace, eh? She did try to kill him, you know. He’s bound to figure she’ll try it again, first chance she gets. Wouldn’t you, in his boots?”

“It could be all right,” Lanius said. “It really could. He’s King Grus now. Nobody would try to take that away from him. Things aren’t the same as they were before.”

He was trying to convince himself as well as Lepturus. He believed what he was saying. Lepturus, plainly, didn’t. “If you bring your mother back, one of two things happens. Either she ends up dead—and maybe you along with her, depending on how it all works out—or Grus ends up dead. Those are your choices. I know which way I’d bet, too.”

“Wouldn’t you back me?” Lanius yelped. Lepturus’ saying no shook him to the core.

“I shouldn’t, not if you go ahead and try anything that stupid,” Lepturus said. “I won’t help you get your mother. I’ll tell you that right now, straight out. If you do somehow get her here without my help… you’d be a gods-cursed fool. My help wouldn’t do you any good, anyhow. You’d still lose. Certhia’d end up dead, you’d likely end up dead, and I’d likely end up dead, too. Happy day.”

“Is this the thanks I give her for giving me life?” Lanius asked bitterly. “Do I let her get old in a convent in the Maze?”

He’d meant it for a rhetorical question. But, to his surprise, Lepturus nodded. “I’m afraid it is, Your Majesty. It’s the best thanks you can give her. If you bring her out of the Maze, she won’t get old. That’s what I was telling you.”

“Yes.” Lanius tried a different tack. “Don’t you think she’d want to take the chance?”

Marshal Lepturus surprised him again, this time by smiling. “Yes, I think she would. I’d bet money on it, matter of fact. She’s got nerve—and to spare, your mother does.” He sounded very fond—and very knowing. Lanius suddenly wondered if the two of them had been lovers after King Mergus died. He’d never wondered anything like that about his mother before. If they had been lovers, they’d kept quiet about it; there’d never been the faintest whisper of scandal, and people had always been ready to do more than whisper—they’d been ready to shout.

Before Lanius could wonder how to ask or even whether to ask, Lepturus went on, “But that’s why you’ve got to have the sense to leave her where she is. If you bring her out of the Maze—if you bring her back to the city of Avornis—odds are you’ll just get her killed. Is that what you want?”

“Of course not. Don’t you think I could win? Don’t you think we could win?”

“You watched Grus against Corvus and Corax. What do you think?”

Lanius winced. While he’d watched Grus against the rebels, he’d been convinced he would lose if he tried to rise up against his father-in-law. When Grus had let him go back to the city of Avornis while besieging Corvus, he hadn’t tried to hold the capital against Sosia’s father. For one thing, Nicator and a good-sized host of marines had come back to the city of Avornis with him. But, for another, he simply hadn’t dared. He’d been too sure he would lose.

Why did he think differently now? Only one answer occurred to him—he would have his mother at his side. Would having Queen Certhia with him make enough difference to let him beat Grus? When he looked at that with his heart, he felt it would. When he looked at it with his head, he knew it wouldn’t.

And when he looked at Lepturus… The guards commander hadn’t quite answered his question before. He asked it again. “You wouldn’t help, would you?”

Regretfully, Lepturus shook his head. “I want you to stay alive, and I want Certhia to stay alive, and I’ve got this low, sneaking yen to stay alive a while longer myself.”

“Curse you, Lepturus,” King Lanius said wearily. Lepturus bowed his head, as though Lanius had praised him. Maybe, in the end, Lanius had, though he would never have admitted that even to himself. He made a fist and slammed it down on his thigh, again and again. “All right. All right. I’ll leave it alone.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. You won’t be sorry.”

“No? I’m sorry already.” Lanius rose from the marble bench and hurried away. No one, not even a man who’d known him his whole life long, should have to see a king cry.

“We beat the Thervings last year,” Grus told his men. “We beat them when we had a civil war simmering, too. This year, our back is safe. When we meet them again, let’s beat them again.”

The soldiers raised a cheer. Grus nodded approval. They weren’t where he wanted them to be as far as fighting strength went, but they didn’t quake in their boots at the prospect of facing King Dagipert’s men, either. That would do.

General Hirundo said, “We’re gaining, Your Majesty.”

“Just what I was thinking, as a matter of fact,” Grus answered. “If we can keep from getting overrun and massacred, we’ll have ourselves a pretty fair army in a couple of years.”

“Er… yes.” Hirundo gave him a curious look. “That’s a cheery thought you had there.” He pretended to shiver to show just how cheery he thought it.

“We’re going out against the Thervings. We’re not staying behind the walls of the city of Avornis,” Grus said. “Year before last, we’d have waited for him to quit tearing up the countryside and go away, and we’d have hoped he didn’t do too much harm while he was tearing things up. So, yes, it is a cheery thought if you look at it the right way.”

“Well, I’d rather look at it like that than think of the Thervings overrunning us, I will say,” Hirundo replied. “Thinking about that for too long puts a crimp in your day.”

“If we think about it, we can think about ways to keep it from happening,” Grus said. “That’s what I want to do. If we don’t think about it… If we don’t think about it, then we might as well bring Corvus out of the Maze and put him in charge of the army again.”

“No, thanks, Your Majesty,” Hirundo said. “We tried that once, and it didn’t work out very well.” He waved. “We can still see just how well it worked.”

“I know,” Grus said. Here, not far from the Tuola River, the Thervings had done a lot of burning and looting. They hadn’t come so far east this year, but the land remained empty, almost barren. They’d killed a lot of the farmers who’d worked it, and carried others back to Thervingia with them. One of these days, when things were safer, Grus knew he would have to try to resettle this land. But not yet. First, he’d have to work to make things safer. And he had a lot of work ahead of him.

Riders came galloping back from the direction of the river. “Thervings!” they shouted. “A whole great swarm of Thervings!”

Grus looked at Hirundo. “Well, General,” the king said, “now we have to make sure we don’t get overrun and massacred, don’t we?”

“That would be nice,” Hirundo agreed.

Horns screamed out commands to shift from marching column into line of battle. The men obeyed the trumpets—and their officers’ bellowed orders—without fuss and without worry, or at least with no outward show of it. Grus watched them closely. He liked what he saw. Turning to Hirundo, he said, “They’re ready enough.”

“Yes, I think so, too,” the general replied. “Pretty soon, we’ll find out how ready the Thervings are.”

They didn’t have to wait long. The Thervings came forward already in line of battle. The sun glinted from spearheads and sword blades and helmets and chainmail shirts. The Thervings howled like wolves and roared like tigers. They actively liked to fight. That seemed very strange to Grus. He didn’t know a single Avornan to whom it didn’t seem strange. Liking to fight was a sure hallmark of barbarians—the Menteshe did, too.

Like it or not, the Avornans sometimes had to fight. This was one of those times: Fight or run away. They’d done too much running, and suffered too much for it. Not liking to fight didn’t mean they couldn’t. Grus hoped it didn’t, anyhow. If it did, he was in a lot of trouble.

“Forward!” he shouted, and pointed to the trumpeters. Their horns blared out the same message.

And the Avornan soldiers, horse and foot, went forward. They shouted Grus’ name, and Lanius‘, and Hirundo’s, and that of Avornis itself. The first time Grus heard men shouting his name, the hair had stood up on the back of his neck with awe and pride. Now that he’d been at the game for a while, he gauged other things, such as how ready to fight they sounded. Again, he found nothing about which to complain.

King Dagipert’s men always sounded ready. They sounded so very ready, no sane soldier should have wanted to face them. Grus, sword in hand, wondered what he was doing here. Then he shrugged. If he fell, Ortalis would doubtless try to rule. If Ortalis could, he would. If he couldn’t, Lanius would. Who would get rid of whom? Either way, my line goes on, the king thought.

He wanted to go on himself. But here he was on horseback, brandishing that sword, galloping toward men who wanted nothing more than to kill him—unless, of course, it was to torture him and then kill him. A sensible man would have galloped in the other direction. Lanius was sensible. Grus, or some large part of him, wished he were.

A big, burly, bearded, braided Therving stood in front of him, holding his ax in both hands. The Therving swung up the ax at the same time as Grus drew back his sword. They both tried to kill each other at the same time, too. The Therving’s ax stroke missed—missed by what couldn’t have been the thickness of a hair. Grus’ sword bit. The Therving howled.

And then Grus was past, and hacking and slashing at more of Dagipert’s soldiers. By himself, he was no great warrior, as he knew too well. But he wasn’t by himself. He headed hundreds of horsemen, most of them shouting his name. At their head, he was something larger, grander, and altogether more menacing than an ordinary soldier. He and his riders drove deep into the Thervings’ ranks, as though nothing in the world—certainly not the men from the Bantian Mountains—could stop them.

This time, that turned out to be true. For a while, the Thervings fought with all their usual ferocity. But they weren’t used to meeting Avornans who fought at least as savagely as they did. When Grus and his men kept going forward in spite of all the Thervings could do to stop them, panic seeped through the enemy’s ranks.

All at once, Grus wasn’t striking at men who were trying to cut him down. All at once, there were only Therving backs before him, as Dagipert’s host broke and fled.

Half an hour later, his horse stood panting at the eastern bank of the Tuola. Therving corpses lay scattered from the battlefield all the way to the riverbank. If Dagipert’s men hadn’t had boats in the river, none of them would have gotten away. Grus paused for a long, deep breath. “They won’t cross back this year, by the gods,” he said. The men with him cheered.