The Bastard King

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

King Lanius saw the Banished One in his dreams, too, as he hadn’t since he was a little boy. Confronted by that coldly handsome, coldly perfect visage, his first urge was to run and hide. Had he been able to, he would have, but the Banished One ruled the kingdom of his night.

“Think you to trifle with me?” he heard, the chambers of his skull suddenly a prison. “You had better think again. Son of a dozen kings, are you? Have you any idea how little that matters, how small a stretch of time that covers, what a weak and puny land Avornis truly is?”

Contempt radiated from him like light and heat from a fire. In his dream, Lanius answered, “Say what you will, but this is mine.”

“No.” Contempt turned to something harsher—absolute rejection. “No, and no, and no. Stupid little man, ugly little man, the world is mine. It is not much, not when I have had better stolen from me, but it is mine. And I will use it as my stepping-stone to return to what truly belongs to me. Rest assured, I shall step on you, too. Rest assured, the more you make your maggot wriggles against me now, the more I shall enjoy it. Rest assured, your slimy, stinking, puling brat will not enjoy even what you do. Rest—”

He might have gone on, but Lanius, who could rest no more, woke then with a gasp of horror. He sprang out of bed, waking Sosia, too, and rushed to the nursery to make sure Crex was all right. The baby slept, peaceful as could be, snoring a little around a thumb stuck in his mouth. Feeling a little foolish, or perhaps more than a little, Lanius went back to his own bedchamber.

“What was that all about?” Sosia already sounded half asleep again.

“A bad dream,” Lanius replied. Sosia grunted, nodded, and started to snore herself. Lanius lay awake for a long, long time afterward. Calling the Banished One’s visit a dream didn’t begin to do justice to what had happened. His memory was as precise, as real, as though they’d spoken face-to-face. The visit held none of a dream’s usual blurriness and ambiguity. It was real. He would have staked his life on that.

Maybe he slept again that night. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t. Either way, he was yawning and fuzzy-headed the next morning. When he saw King Grus, he found his fellow sovereign in much the same straits. “Bad dreams?” he asked.

Grus nodded. “You might say so. Yes, you just might say so. You?”

“The same,” Lanius agreed. “It might be better not to name any names.”

“Yes.” Grus nodded again. “It might. Do you believe your dreams?”

“Do I believe I had them? Of course I do,” Lanius said. “Do I believe what I heard in them? He has reason to lie.”

“I tell myself the same thing,” Grus said. “I keep telling myself the same thing, over and over, doing my best to convince myself of it. I’m glad you’re doing the same thing. He would be easy to believe.”

“He would be easier to believe if he didn’t hit so hard,” Lanius observed. “But we’re only mortals, after all. Why should he waste his time finding out the best ways to get us to do what he wants?”

“Not what he wants,” Grus broke in. “What he requires. There’s a difference.”

“Well, yes,” Lanius said. “Of course, you have your ways of getting me to do what you require, and—”

His father-in-law’s face froze. Lanius had had that same thought many times. He hadn’t spelled it out in Grus’ hearing before. Part of him was glad to see he had at least struck a nerve. A good deal more of him was frightened. Every so often, he managed to get Grus angrier than he really wanted to. This looked like one of those times.

“You don’t even know what a spoiled brat you are and how soft you’ve had it,” Grus said quietly. “I ought to beat the stuffing out of you for that—it might give you a hint. But I won’t dirty my hands with you. If you want to see the difference between the Banished One’s methods and mine, cross over the Stura and try thralldom. That will tell you what you need to know, though I doubt you’d care for the lesson.”

“I—I’m sorry,” Lanius said. “I went too far.”

“Yes, you did, didn’t you?” Grus still steamed. “Even if I’d married you to the headsman’s daughter instead of my own, you’d have gotten off easier from me than you would from the Banished One.” He turned his back and walked away.

Lanius’ ears burned. The worst of it was, he knew Grus was right. He’d said something cruel and stupid, and Grus had pinned his ears back. But knowing he’d gotten what he deserved didn’t make getting it any more pleasant.

He muttered something he’d heard an angry guardsman say. The trouble was, his own words had held some truth, too. He couldn’t do as he pleased, and the reason he couldn’t was that Grus wouldn’t let him. That didn’t mean Grus thought the world was his by right. It just meant Grus didn’t like to take chances.

No doubt that made a difference in how the gods would judge Grus when he came before them at the end of his days on earth. He did—Lanius grudgingly supposed—have hope of a happy afterlife. Where it seemed to make little difference, though, was in its effect on Lanius. Grus can say whatever he wants. I may not be a thrall, but I’m not free, either. And if he thinks I like that, he’s wrong.

Grus made a point of not seeing Lanius for the next few days. Had he seen him, he still thought he might have punched him in the face—the temptation lingered. Only little by little did he realize Lanius was as irked with him as he was with his son-in-law. Grus didn’t think Lanius had any business being so irked, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t.

Lanius didn’t come seeking him out, either. Maybe that meant the younger king was embarrassed, too. Grus wouldn’t have bet on it. More likely, Lanius was still fuming, too. Eventually, they would need to work together again. As far as Grus was concerned, it could wait.

He didn’t seek out Alca. Things hadn’t gone as he wanted the last time he tried that. They could undoubtedly go worse still if Estrilda found out what he wanted to do with her. But Grus didn’t flee the witch when they met in a corridor, either. Instead, he asked her, “Have you had bad dreams?”

“Oh, yes.” Had she answered any other way, Grus would have been sure she was lying. Her face was pale, skin drawn tight across her bones. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. “I have had dreams. He does take his revenge.”

“Did you know he would?” Grus asked.

“Not that way,” she replied. “I knew I would pay for the spell somehow or other. He might have done worse. He might yet do worse.”

“Do you believe what he tells you in the dreams?” Grus thought for a moment, then decided to change the way he’d said that. “When he tells it to you, you can’t help but believe it. How do you make yourself stop once you wake up?”

“Because I know he lies,” Alca answered. “When we’re face-to-face, so to speak, I must believe him, as you say, because he is so strong. But even then I know I’m going to wake again, and when I wake I’ll know he was trying to befool me.”

“If I had the Scepter of Mercy, what could I do to him?” Grus asked.

Alca raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know, Your Majesty. The Scepter of Mercy has lain under the Banished One’s hand for a long time. I can’t begin to tell you what it might do. You would be wiser to ask King Lanius. He studies times past and the things of times past, doesn’t he?”

“Yes, but he’s no wizard,” Grus replied. “I was hoping you might be able to tell me more than he can.” I was hoping not to have to listen to another one of his lectures, too. “After all, the Scepter of Mercy is a sorcerous tool, and—”

“No, I don’t think so.” Alca shook her head. “I don’t think so at all, Your Majesty, not in the sense you mean. No wizard made it—no human wizard, I mean. It wouldn’t have power against the Banished One if it came from the wit and will of an ordinary wizard.”

“No? I always thought—” He’d never sought to learn where the Scepter came from. Maybe that was a mistake on his part. But he’d always had more important things to worry about. And I probably still do, he thought. He tried a different tack. “If no ordinary wizard made it, where does it come from?”

“I don’t know that, either, Your Majesty. Maybe the gods gave it to us, a long, long time ago. Maybe the power was always in some part of it, and wizards recognized power and made the Scepter around that one potent part. Maybe—” The witch broke off. “I can guess for as long as you like. But I’d only be guessing, for I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows, except perhaps the Banished One.”

Grus’ fingers twisted in a sign of rejection. “I’m not going to ask him.”

He’d meant it for a joke, but Alca nodded seriously. “That’s wise, Your Majesty. That’s very wise. If you plan to have anything to do with the Scepter of Mercy, the less the Banished One knows of whatever you have in mind, the better.”

“Yes.” Grus hadn’t thought of it in quite those terms. He hadn’t thought hard about trying to regain the Scepter of Mercy, either—not till recently. The more he thought about it, though, the better he liked it. If I could somehow bring it off, I’d be the greatest hero Avornis has known for hundreds of years.

And if I fail, I’ll die a thrall, knowing the Banished One is laughing at me.

Not till later did he realize that wasn’t necessarily so. He could order an army—led by Hirundo, say—south across the Stura, while he stayed here safe in the city of Avornis. He could. He didn’t think he ever would, though.

He wondered why not. What could he do that Hirundo couldn’t? He had no answer for that. But he knew what he thought about officers who sent men into danger they feared to face themselves. And something else also applied—or he thought it did. One day not long after that, he asked Hirundo, “Have you ever dreamt of the Banished One?”

“Me?” The general shook his head. “No, and I thank all the gods I haven’t. I can’t imagine a worse omen. Why, Your Majesty? Have you?”

“Now and then,” Grus answered. “Every now and then.”

“May you stay safe,” Hirundo said. “Have you got a wizard or a witch keeping watch over you? You’d better.”

“I do.” Grus didn’t know how much Alca—or anyone else— could do if the Banished One seriously sought his life. No, that wasn’t true. He did know, or at least had a pretty good idea. He preferred not to think about it, though. Instead of asking Hirundo anything more about the Banished One, he said, “What do you think the Thervings are likely to do come spring?”

“They’ll be trouble, I expect. They usually are.” Hirundo accepted the change of subject with obvious relief.

But the answers he’d given left Grus thoughtful. Why hadn’t the Banished One shown himself to Hirundo? He had come to haunt the dreams of Grus himself, of Lanius, and of Alca. Why not Avornis’ best general? Because they offered a real challenge, and Hirundo didn’t? But how? That, Grus did not know.

How could a mere man hope to outguess, hope to outsee, the Banished One, who, if he wasn’t immortal, certainly came closer than any human being? You can’t, he thought. You will always face— Avornis will always face— an enemy wiser than you are.

Then how to win? Logic said he had no chance. Yet Avornis had survived all these centuries despite its great foe’s wisdom and strength. The Banished One makes mistakes, too, Grus realized. No matter how wise he is, he can’t help underestimating mankind. That costs him. Sometimes it costs him dear.

Hope, then. Hope in spite of logic. But Grus was not greatly reassured. He played a dangerous game indeed if he relied on his opponent’s making a mistake to give him any chance of winning.

These days, King Lanius was not only a father but felt like a grandfather. Not only had Bronze presented him with a new litter of moncat kittens, but Snitch, whom he’d helped raise from a tiny thing, had also bred. He worried a little about breeding family members, but his books seemed to think it was acceptable for dogs, so he put it out of his mind. He had no choice, anyhow. Both new litters consisted of a male and a female. Lanius was growing convinced moncats usually did things that way.

“Before too long,” he told Sosia, “they’ll be as common around the palace as ordinary cats are.”

“Is that such a good thing?” his wife asked. “Ordinary cats can be a nuisance. Moncats can be even more trouble, because they’ve got hands.”

Part of Lanius knew she was right. The rest did its best to reject the idea. “They’re wonderfully interesting beasts,” he said. “I could write a book about them.”

“I’m sure you could,” Sosia said. “That doesn’t mean they aren’t nuisances, or couldn’t be if they got the chance. If they started swinging through the trees here in the city, we wouldn’t have any songbirds left before long.”

“Don’t be silly. Songbirds can fly away,” Lanius said.

“Grown songbirds can,” Sosia replied. “But what about the ones in their nests? What about eggs? Do moncats eat eggs?”

“I don’t know.” Lanius felt harassed. He probably sounded harassed, too. But his stubborn honesty made him add, “When the Chernagors gave me Iron and Bronze, their leader did say the islands they came from didn’t have a lot of squirrels.”

Sosia nodded. “Squirrels, too. I hadn’t thought about them, but that certainly makes sense. If moncats get loose in Avornis, they could be as bad as a plague.”

“Plagues don’t purr,” Lanius said. To his relief, his wife had no quick comeback for that. Here, though, Sosia had gotten a step ahead of him. He’d thought of giving moncats as presents to favored nobles and courtiers—that had been in his mind since the day Yaropolk presented him with the first pair. What if whoever got them let them roam like ordinary cats? Birds and squirrels would be very surprised and very unhappy.

Could I give them on condition they stay indoors? No sooner had the thought crossed Lanius’ mind than he shook his head. He couldn’t possibly hope to enforce such a condition. Giving an order he couldn’t enforce would only make him look the fool.

Then he laughed bitterly. I can’t enforce any order I give. After all, I’m only the King of Avornis. Grus now, Grus is the King of Avornis. If he gives orders, people follow them…or else. But even Grus knows better than to give orders nobody’s likely to obey. He’s shown as much by the way he’s handled his laws on taking land away from the peasants.

“What’s funny?” Sosia asked him.

“Nothing, really,” he answered.

She looked at him. “When you say things like that, you’re usually angry at my father. Do you think I don’t know?”

“I suppose not.” Lanius felt a dull embarrassment, almost as though his wife had caught him looking at lewd drawings. His temper slipped. “It is hard, staying here in the palace and not able to do anything about anything except the moncats and the archives.”

“I’m sorry,” Sosia said quietly.

“Are you? Why should you be?” He lashed out at her—she was close and handy. “Your father’s the real King of Avornis, the one who really can do things.”

“Why should I be sorry?” She still didn’t raise her voice. “Because I’m your wife. Because I don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“Whyever not?” Lanius asked, sarcastic still.

Sosia flushed. Lanius felt ashamed of himself. That didn’t deserve a serious answer, and he knew it. But Sosia gave him one. “Why? Because I love you, that’s why.”

He stared at her. Of all the things she might have said, that was the last one he’d expected. They were married, of course. That hadn’t been love, though; that had been Grus’ orders, as much to Sosia as to Lanius. They’d tried to please each other in bed, yes. He didn’t think that was necessarily love, either— more on the order of two polite people making the best of the situation in which they found themselves. And they had a son. When they lay with each other so regularly, that wasn’t surprising. Lanius loved Crex. He knew Sosia did, too. But that she loved him…

He started to answer, I don’t know what to say. Just before he did, he realized that would be a mistake. There was only one thing he could possibly say, and he did. “I love you, too, Sosia. I have for a long time. I just didn’t know if I ought to say so.”

Did he mean it? He didn’t know. But the way her face lit up made him glad he’d said it. “Why wouldn’t you say so?” she asked.

Lanius hoped his resentment didn’t show on his face. Now he had to come up with another answer! But, to his relief, he did, and he decided it was at least half true. “I was afraid to,” he told her. “If I’d said something like that and then found out you didn’t love me back—I don’t think I could have stood that.”

She set her hand on his. “That’s funny,” she said, her voice hardly above a whisper. “I was afraid of the same thing: That’s why I stayed quiet so long, even after Crex was born. But I knew I had to say something now, or else we might never be able to trust each other again.”

He took her in his arms. “Thank you,” he said. Knowing he could trust someone… He tried to remember the last time he’d been sure of that. For the life of him, he couldn’t. He squeezed Sosia tighter. Maybe this was love. He still wasn’t sure. How could he be, when he had no standard of comparison?

Avornis’ green banners fluttering all around him, Grus rode out of the city of Avornis at the head of his army. When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw Queen Estrilda, Queen Sosia, and King Lanius on the battlements waving to him and the soldiers. A maidservant beside Sosia held Prince Crex. Grus waved to all of them. The adults waved back, even Lanius. Grus smiled. They were getting along better. That made everything easier.

Prince Ortalis wasn’t there. Under other circumstances, that might have angered Grus. But he knew his son was out hunting. He knew both his sons were out hunting, as a matter of fact. He didn’t care one way or the other about whether Anser hunted. His bastard was a good-natured youngster with or without the chase. But Ortalis…

Grus aimed what might have been a prayer of thanks heavenward. Since starting to hunt, Ortalis hadn’t outraged any maidservants. He’d had a long, fairly friendly affair with one of them, which was, for him, an all-time first. He was much easier to be around— much less obnoxious, Grus thought, coining closer to the real truth. He still took no interest in matters of state, but Grus was happy enough with the changes he had seen in his son to fret less about those he hadn’t.

General Hirundo, who rode beside him, said something. Grus realized that, but had no idea what Hirundo had told him or asked. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Try again, please? I was woolgathering.”

“Happens to everybody, Your Majesty,” Hirundo said with one of his ready smiles. “There are days I’m glad my head’s stuck on good and tight, because I’d lose it if it weren’t. What I said was, here’s hoping the Thervings don’t give us too much trouble this year.”

“That would be nice,” Grus agreed. “I’m not going to count on it, but it would be very nice indeed.”

“How much longer can Dagipert live, do you suppose?” Hirundo wondered.

“He might drop dead tomorrow, or he might last another fifteen years,” Grus said with a shrug. “He’s still strong, worse luck. When the two of us fought a couple of years ago, he came closer to killing me than I did to killing him.” He looked around and lowered his voice before adding, “I’m just glad the Menteshe haven’t raised up a prince like him, or we’d have more trouble in the south than we do.”

He couldn’t help wondering if the Banished One was listening to him. That shouldn’t have been possible. He knew as much. After Alca’s sorcery, though, he also knew in his belly that no humanly recognizable limits applied to the Banished One.

If the great enemy of Avornis was listening, he gave no sign. Grus knew a certain amount of relief, but only a certain amount; the Banished One might be listening and saving up resentment for revenge years later. His scale of time also lay far beyond merely mortal ken.

Meanwhile, Grus enjoyed the fine spring day. Green waxed glorious on the meadows and fields and farms around the city of Avornis. Birds newly returned from the south sang from housetops, twittered in hedgerows, and snatched insects on the wing. Grus wondered why the birds chose to go down to the Banished One’s domain for winter, but then realized they’d been flying south long before the gods cast the Banished One from the heavens. The birds weren’t to blame.

Hirundo kept his mind more firmly fixed on the task ahead. “Seeing as we will have to face old Dagipert before too long, what do you suppose he’ll be up to this campaigning season?”

“No good,” Grus replied, which made the general laugh. Grus chuckled, too, but he hadn’t been joking. He went on, “He’ll do whatever he can to hurt Avornis. He’s been doing it for years. Why should he change?”

“He’s been doing it altogether too well, too,” Hirundo said.

“I’m not the one to tell you you’re wrong,” Grus said, “but I’m sure Dagipert would say he hasn’t done it well enough. If he had his way, after all, he’d be calling the shots in Avornis these days, and Lanius’ children would be his grandchildren, not mine.”

Not even the burgeoning growth of spring could mask all the depredations the Thervings had wrought over the past few years. Isolated farmhouses and barns still stood in gaunt, charred ruins. A hawk perched on a chimney that remained upright while the house of which it had been a part was only a memory. It stared at Grus and the oncoming soldiers out of great yellow eyes, then flew away. Weeds smothered what would have been—should have been—fields of wheat or barley or rye.

And country farmhouses weren’t all that suffered. Whole villages and even fortified towns had vanished off the face of the earth. “We’ll be years rebuilding this,” Grus said, a gloomy thought that had occurred to him before.

Even before the army reached the Tuola River, Grus sent scouts out ahead of it and to either side. Unlike Count Corvus, he didn’t intend to be taken by surprise.

But whether King Grus intended for it to happen or not, Dagipert did surprise him. The bridges over the Tuola remained down. Only ferryboats connected the western province with the rest of Avornis. That didn’t keep Avornans from the west from fleeing over the river with news—the Thervings had marched into the western province as Grus was marching out of the city of Avornis.

One of the refugees said, “That’s not our chief news, Your Majesty—that the Thervings are over the border, I mean.” Another man standing behind him nodded. “I’m carrying a message from King Dagipert.”

“Well, you’d better tell me what is, then,” Grus answered. “Don’t waste time, either.”

The man from the far bank of the Tuola said, “Maybe you won’t have to fight. Dagipert wants to talk to you face-to-face.”

“Oh, he does, does he?” Grus said. “Someplace near a forest, I’d bet, where he can spring an ambush the first chance he sees.”

“No, sir.” The man shook his head. “He wants both sides to bridge out from the banks of the Tuola till their spans almost meet in the middle. He says they should stop just too far apart to let a murderer jump from one to the other. He swears by Olor and Quelea he’ll go back to Thervingia in peace once you’ve met.”

Grus felt men’s eyes on him. He knew it might be a trap. Dagipert might want nothing more than time to solidify his position in the province west of the Tuola. Time would do him only so much good, though. The Avornans still controlled the river itself. They could use their ships to put an army across almost where they chose—near its headwaters, the Tuola did get too shallow for such games.

After half a minute’s thought, Grus decided the chance to win a summer without war—it would be the first of his reign— was too good to pass up. “Will you go back to Dagipert?” he asked the man who’d spoken to him. When the fellow nodded, Grus said, “All right, then. Tell him I agree. We’ll build where his ambassadors usually cross the river—he’ll know the place.”

He led his own army to the remains of the bridge that had stood in happier times. He didn’t lead all of it there, though. He sent detachments to cover a couple of other likely crossings, in case Dagipert had some elaborate treachery in mind. But the King of Thervingia certainly seemed to have brought most if not all of his army to the other side of the crossing. Their tents, some of wool, others of leather, formed a sprawling, disorderly town there.

“I wonder how long they can stay in one spot before hunger and disease get loose among ’em,” Hirundo said in speculative tones.

“Yes.” But Grus’ agreement was halfhearted. He knew he could feed his own men for a long time. Disease, though… Disease could break out any moment, as the gods willed. Fluxes of the bowels and smallpox sometimes did more to break up a campaign than anything the warriors on the other side might manage.

Avornan engineers built an elegant wooden span halfway across the Tuola. The Thervings’ bridge was nowhere near as handsome. Grus doubted it would have held as much weight as the Avornan effort. But, for Dagipert and a few guardsmen, it served perfectly well. And it advanced at least as fast as the bridge the Avornans built.

In a couple of days, Avornans and Thervings who spoke Avornan were shouting back and forth across the narrowing stretch of river that separated them. They agreed Grus and Dagipert would meet at dawn the next morning.

Grus wore royal robes as he stepped out onto the bridge. Under them, he wore a mail shirt. His crown was a helmet with a gold circlet of rank. Several guardsmen with large shields accompanied him, to make sure the Thervings didn’t shoot arrows at him while he was within easy range.

On the other side of the Tuola, King Dagipert’s preparations looked similar. His royal robes were even gaudier than the Avornan ones they imitated. He wore a real crown over what looked like a brimless, close-fitting iron cap. His guards were enormous and burly men. They carried shields slightly smaller than those the Avornans used, but only slightly.

Dagipert himself had a bushy white beard and a long white braid that hung halfway down his back. His shoulders were stooped, perhaps from years, perhaps from the weight of a mail shirt of his own. As he got closer, Grus saw he had an engagingly ugly face. If he was going to die soon, he didn’t know it. Remembering his father, Grus knew that didn’t mean anything, but he wished Dagipert would have looked feebler.

Dagipert was studying him, too. In fluent Avornan, the King of Thervingia said, “I should have killed you when we met on the field a couple of years ago.”

“And a good day to you, too, Your Majesty,” Grus replied. That made Dagipert laugh. Grus went on, “I wouldn’t have been sorry to stretch you out in the dirt, either, you know.”

“Not the way you handle a horse,” Dagipert said. “My grandmother had a better seat when she was eighty-five.”

That stung. Grus didn’t even think Dagipert was lying, which made it sting all the more. “Did you ask for this meeting so you could insult me?”

“Among other things,” Dagipert answered. “You yoked your daughter to Lanius when he should have married mine. Arch-Hallow Bucco made the betrothal agreement.”

“He didn’t have the authority to do it. And he’s dead. You may as well quit complaining about that, Dagipert, especially since Lanius’ son”— and my grandson, Grus thought, though he didn’t say that out loud—“will be one before long.”

“Yes, Lanius has a son. You have a grandson,” Dagipert said heavily. The King of Thervingia scowled from under bushy eyebrows, reminding Grus of a very old, very sly, very dangerous bear. “And, by the gods, I’ve made you pay for your thievery.”

“Are you telling me you wouldn’t have ravished Avornis if I weren’t king, if Lanius hadn’t wed Sosia?” Grus asked. “I don’t believe it for a minute.”

“Believe what you please,” King Dagipert growled. “I’m telling you that you Avornans robbed me of what should have been mine.” He drew himself up with touchy, affronted pride.

“You worship the same gods we do,” Grus answered. “People say you give Olor and Quelea and the rest great respect, but you don’t act like it. A godsless man, a man who’d sooner follow the Banished One, is the sort who kills and plunders innocents.”

“Don’t you say I have anything to do with the Banished One,” Dagipert said hotly. “That’s a foul lie!”

No one in Avornis had ever been sure. But aloud Grus replied, “I didn’t say you did. I said you acted like a man who would sooner follow the Banished One.”

“I’m no oath breaker,” Dagipert snarled. “You Avornans are the ones who lie through your teeth.”

“When have I ever lied to you?” Grus asked. “I had nothing to do with whatever Arch-Hallow Bucco did or didn’t say. I’m not bound by it. No Avornan except Bucco ever thought we were bound by it.”

“By King Olor’s beard, I thought you were bound by it,” Dagipert said.

I’ll bet you did, because it suited you so well. Grus went on with what he’d planned to say before Dagipert sidetracked him with talk of Bucco. “If you do honor the gods—and I think you do—stop unjustly plundering and killing the innocent. Make peace with us; we follow the same gods you do. Why should you stain your hands with the blood of those who believe as you do? You’re a mortal, like any other man. When you die, the gods will judge you.”

“They’ll judge you, too,” Dagipert said.

“I know.” Grus tried not to worry about what would happen after he died. With King Dagipert’s white hairs, the Therving had to think about what would come next. Grus went on, “Today you live; tomorrow you’re dust. One fever will quench any man’s pride. What will you say about all your murders in Avornis when you come before the gods?”

“I’ll say they had it coming.” The King of Thervingia was a tough customer. But he couldn’t keep a small wobble from his voice.

“How will you face those terrible and just judges?” Grus continued. “Will you tell them you did it for wealth? Haven’t you stolen enough to satisfy you? Isn’t it about time to welcome peace? Live a bloodless and untroubled life from now on, so neither side slaughters fellow believers anymore. What could be worse than that?”

Dagipert glared at him across the gap between the two incomplete spans. “Oh, you’re a serpent, you are, and you slay with your tongue,” the Therving said.

Grus shrugged. “You were the one who wanted this talk. Can you listen, too?”

“How can I do anything else, the way you blather on?” Dagipert said. “I ought to start the war up again.”

“Go ahead,” Grus answered. “You haven’t had everything your own way these past few years. You won’t this time, either.”

“Another lie,” Dagipert jeered.

“You know better,” Grus told him. “Besides, how much harm are you doing to Thervingia with these endless campaigns of yours? You can see what you do to us, but what about to your own people? How many men don’t come home? How many smiths and potters and carpenters don’t ply their trades? How many crippled men do you try to care for?”

“As though you care for what happens to Thervingia,” King Dagipert said.

“I care about Avornis,” Grus replied. “I expect you care about Thervingia the same way. Can’t you see you’re not going to win this war? What point to fighting over and over again across the same stretch of ground?”

Dagipert’s face twisted. “What point? To make sure you gods-cursed Avornans don’t think you can take my kingdom and me lightly, that’s what.”

“You’ve made that point,” Grus said. And yet, in another sense, Dagipert hadn’t, couldn’t, and never would. Avornis was an old, old land—a land with a long, proud past. Other tribes had crossed over the Bantian Mountains from the plains to the west and set up their kingdoms on her borders before the Thervings. After Thervingia fell in ruins, others likely would again. And Avornis? Avornis would endure. When Grus had spoken to Dagipert of passing to dust, he hadn’t just meant the King of Thervingia. He’d meant his kingdom, too, and Dagipert knew it.

“You sneery, scoffing, scornful, snooty… Avornan,” King Dagipert said bitterly. He turned on his heel and walked back toward the west bank of the Tuola. His guards fell in behind him, protecting him with their bodies as well as their shields.

Grus also withdrew. His men started knocking down his segment of bridge. The Thervings did the same. Grus wondered if the talks had accomplished anything or simply infuriated Dagipert even more. He sent his army on the way southeast, to a place where he could cross the Tuola with protections from archers aboard Avoman river galleys.

Before he reached the crossing place, though, word came that the Thervings were moving back, away from the river. Soon it became clear they were going back to Thervingia.