The Chernagor Pirates

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

King Lanius waited outside the brown stone walls of the city of Avornis as King Grus brought the army back to the capital. The whole royal family had come out to see Grus off. Lanius was there by himself to welcome the other king and the army back. King Grus waved from horseback. Lanius solemnly waved back.

“Welcome home,” he called.

“By Olor’s beard, it’s good to be back,” Grus answered.

“Congratulations on driving the Banished One from Nishevatz, and from the land of the Chernagors.” Lanius did not mind praising Grus for that.

“I thank you,” the other king replied. “I’m not sure we drove him out of the Chernagor country altogether, but we did weaken his hold there.” He had a strong streak of honesty in him—except, perhaps, when he was talking to his wife about other women (but how many men had that particular streak of honesty in them?).

Grus guided his horse away from the rest of the army and over beside Lanius. He always joked about what a bad rider he was, but he handled the animal perfectly well. Lanius wished he were as smooth. Grus reviewed the soldiers as they rode and marched past and into the city. The men were hard and scrawny and scraggly-bearded. Some of them limped; others showed fresh scars on faces or forearms.

One of the foot soldiers waved to Grus and called, “We earned our pay this time, didn’t we, Your Majesty?”

“I’d say you did, Buteo,” Grus answered. The soldiers face stretched to hold a pleased smile. He waved again, and kept looking back over his shoulder until the gateway hid him.

“You know him?” Lanius asked. “Was he one of your guards up there?”

“Buteo? No, just a soldier,” Grus said. “He’s brave, but not too smart. He’ll never even make sergeant, not if he lives to be a hundred. But he’s a good man at your back in a scrap.”

“Is he?” Lanius said. Grus nodded. Lanius asked, “How many soldiers do you know by name—and by what they can do, the way you did with him?”

“I never thought about it.” Now Grus did. “I can’t tell you exactly,” he said at last. “But I’ve got some notion of who about every other man is. Something like that. I know more about some—a lot more about some—and not so much about others.”

Lanius believed him. Lanius didn’t see how he could do anything else; Grus radiated conviction. “How do you manage that?” Lanius asked. “I couldn’t begin to, not to save my life.”

“How do you remember all the things you find in the archives? How do you put them together in interesting patterns?” Grus returned, “/couldn’t do that.”

“But knowing people, knowing how they work—that’s more important.” Lanius was sure it was more important, not least because he couldn’t do it himself. “I wish I were better at it.”

“You’ve done all right, seems to me,” Grus said. “If you hadn’t, more people would have taken advantage of you by now.”

“You did,” Lanius said. It was the first thing that came into his mind, and he brought it out with less bitterness than he would have expected.

It still made Grus give him a sharp look. “I wouldn’t be where I am if your mother hadn’t tried to kill me by sorcery,” the other king said. Grus barked laughter. “I wouldn’t be where I am if she’d done it, either.”

“Well, no,” Lanius admitted. Over the years, Grus had done any number of things he didn’t like. Lanius could hardly deny that Grus might have done far worse than he had. It was funny, if you looked at it the right way. He had to like Grus to a certain degree, because he couldn’t dislike him as much as he might have.

“How’s my daughter?” Grus asked—a question any father-in-law might ask of a son-in-law.

“She’s fine,” Lanius said. By and large, it was true. If Sosia sometimes had reason to throw things at him, that was none of Grus’ business. And it wasn’t as though Estrilda didn’t sometimes have reason to throw things at Grus.

“And what about Ortalis?” Grus said. “That was some nasty news you sent me about him and the servant.”

Carefully, Lanius said, “You will know that Ortalis and I don’t always get along as well as we might.” Grus nodded. Lanius went on, “Even I will say it wasn’t altogether Ortalis’ fault. Bubulcus provoked him—provoked him outrageously. Something should have happened to Bubulcus. What did happen, though, shouldn’t have.”

“That’s about how it seemed to me from your letter,” Grus agreed. “At least he didn’t do it for sport. That was what I was afraid of.”

“Oh, yes.” Lanius didn’t try to pretend he misunderstood. “That was what I was afraid of, too. I don’t know what I would have done then.” He gnawed on the inside of his lower lip. He was glad he hadn’t had to find out.

To his relief, Grus let it go there. He said, “And I’ve got a new granddaughter?”

“That’s right.” Lanius felt guarded there, too. If Capella had been a boy, what would that have done to the succession in Grus’ eyes? “Limosa thinks she’s the most wonderful baby in the world. I’d make a couple of exceptions myself.”

King Grus chuckled. “Yes, I can see how you might.” But the older man’s grin slipped. “Limosa.” He said the name of Ortalis’ wife as though it tasted bad. “He finally found somebody who likes the welts he gives her.” Grus made as though to spit in disgust, then—barely— thought better of it.

“She loves him,” Lanius said, which didn’t contradict Grus.

“Does that make it better or worse?” the other king asked.

Lanius thought it over. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “Do you?”

“What I know is… more about Ortalis than I wish I did,” Grus said—not a direct answer to what Lanius had said, but not an evasion, either.

The last soldiers passed into the city of Avornis. They were happy to be home, looking forward to beds in their barracks, to wine, and to women. What went on in the palace meant nothing to them. If they had to go fight, they would. Until then, they’d enjoy themselves.

Not for the first time, Lanius found himself jealous of men who could live for the moment. He sometimes wished he could do the same, without worrying about what would happen next. He laughed at himself. Given the nature he’d been born with, he might as well have wished for the moon while he was at it.

Even though Grus had lived softer in the field than his soldiers had, he was glad to return to the comforts of the palace. He was older than his soldiers, too, and needed to live softer. So he told himself, anyhow.

Estrilda greeted him cautiously, the way she did whenever he came back from campaign. Her look plainly said she wondered what he’d been up to in the land of the Chernagors. This time, he could look her straight in the eye, for he’d been up to very little. For one thing, the Chernagor women hadn’t much appealed to him. For another, he’d reached the age where conquests of that sort were less urgent than they had been in earlier years. That didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy them when they happened—Estrilda evidently hadn’t yet found out about his bastard boy by Alauda, for which he was duly grateful—but he didn’t go after them as energetically as he might have when he was younger.

Still somewhat suspicious, Estrilda said, “You were away for a long time.”

“So I was,” Grus said. “There was a lot to do, and doing it wasn’t easy. If you paid any attention to my dispatches, you’d know that.”

“Not everything you do ends up in your dispatches,” his wife answered. “I’ve seen that.”

He wanted to tell her she was wrong, or at least foolish, but she would know he was lying if he did. All he did do was shrug and say, “Not this time.” If Estrilda felt like quarreling, she would.

She didn’t. “It’s good to have you back,” she said.

“It’s good to be back,” Grus said. “If I had to right now, I do believe I’d kill for a hot bath.”

He soaked in a copper tub for more than an hour, scrubbing away the grime of the campaign and simply luxuriating in the water. Whenever it began to cool down, servants drained some and fetched in more jars of hot water from the kitchens. The king hated to get out. After scrubbing, he leaned his head back in the tub, wondering if he could fall asleep there. Not quite, he discovered, though he did come close.

After the bath, supper. He’d had his fill of seafood up in the Chernagor country. Roast goose stuffed with bread crumbs and dried apples stuck to the ribs. He’d drunk a lot of ale in the north—better that than water, which often brought disease—but sweet wine was better. And, after that, lying down in his own bed might have been best of all.

Estrilda lay down beside him. She had, he noticed, put on fresh perfume. He’d thought he would go straight to sleep. As things turned out, he didn’t. But when his eyes did close, he slept very soundly.

He woke up in the morning feeling, if not younger than the day before, then at least oiled and repaired. Now that he was back, he had to get on top of things again. Otherwise, who was the real king? Was he? Or was Lanius?

Before any of that, though, he saw his grandchildren. Crex and Pitta both wondered why he hadn’t brought them any presents from the Chernagor country. “Sorry, my dears,” he said. “I was worried about bringing me back. I didn’t worry much about presents.” He had tribute from Hisardzik and Jobuka, but he didn’t think silver coins with the faces of shaggy-bearded princes on them would fascinate children.

Capella didn’t ask for presents. She waved her arms and legs in Limosa’s arms and smiled up toothlessly at the king. “She’s a pretty child, Your Highness,” Grus said.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Limosa answered politely. “I wish her other grandfather could see her, too.”

“I’m sorry,” Grus said. “I am sorry, but Petrosus isn’t coming out of the Maze.”

“Even if he isn’t why your son and I got married?” Limosa said. “Even if we got married because—” She didn’t go on. She turned red and looked down at her baby.

Grus had a pretty good idea of what she would have said. It made him want to blush, too, even if he hadn’t actually heard it. He was afraid she would show him her back. To his relief, she didn’t. He gathered himself. “Even then,” he told her. “If your father wasn’t plotting that, he was plotting something else. He’ll stay where he is.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Limosa whispered. She took Capella away, as though that was the only way she could find to punish Grus. And so it probably was.

Ortalis didn’t come to pay his respects. Grus sent a servant after him. When the king finally saw his son, he said, “Well, now that you’ve finally done it, how does it feel to kill a man?”

“I knew you were going to bother me about that,” Ortalis said sullenly. “I knew it. And I didn’t even enjoy sticking the knife in him. It just… happened, that’s all. I wish it hadn’t. But he got me angry, and then he said something really foul, and—” He shrugged.

Eyeing him, Grus decided it could easily have been worse. Ortalis wasn’t consumed by remorse, but at least he had some idea of what it was. Grus said, “You should have just punched him.”

“I suppose so,” his son said. “His woman and her brats are taken care of. Lanius made sure of that. Can I go now, or do you want to yell at me some more? I don’t kill servants for fun.”

“All right,” Grus said, and Ortalis left. Grus sighed. Considering what Ortalis did do for fun, was it any wonder that Grus had wondered? He didn’t think so.

Business, the king thought. If he was going to pick business, he wanted to pick interesting business to start with. He went to the chamber where Otus the former thrall dwelt. “Sorry, Your Majesty,” a guard said. “He’s not here right now.”

“Where is he?” Grus asked.

“He’s got a lady friend. He’s with her,” the guard answered.

“At this hour of the morning?” Grus exclaimed. The guard smirked and nodded. Grus said, “If I were wearing a hat, I’d take it off to him. Shall I wait until he’s, ah, finished?”

“I can fetch him, if you like,” the guardsman said.

“No, never mind,” Grus said. “I’ll come back and visit him later. He wouldn’t thank me for interrupting him, would he?”

“I don’t know about that, Your Majesty, but /wouldn’t,” the guard replied, chuckling at his own cleverness.

“All right, then. I’ll try again in an hour or so,” Grus said, and left.

When he came back, the guard nodded to him. “He’s here now, Your Majesty,” the fellow said. “He’s waiting for you.”

“Your Majesty!” Otus said when Grus walked into his chamber. “It is good to see you again.”

“Good to see you,” Grus answered. “I’m more pleased than I can tell you at how well you’re doing.” That was the truth. Only Otus’ southern accent and a certain slight hesitation in his speech said that he had been a thrall. He looked bright and alert and altogether like a normal man. He evidently acted like a normal man, too. “Who’s your, ah, friend?” Grus asked.

“Her name is Calypte, Your Majesty.” Otus seemed less happy than Grus had thought he might. “She is very sweet. And yet… You know I have a woman down in the south, a woman who is still a thrall?”

“Yes, I know that.” The king nodded.

Otus sighed. “I do her wrong when I do this. I understand that. But I am here, and she is there—and she is hardly more than a brute beast. I loved her when I was a beast myself. I might love her if she were a beast no more. Your Majesty, so many thralls down there! Save them!”

Otus’ appeal didn’t surprise Grus. The power with which the ex-thrall phrased it did. “I’ll do what I can,” the king answered. “I don’t know how much that will be. It will depend on the civil war among the Menteshe, and on how well wizards besides Pterocles can learn to cure thralls.”

And if they truly can, he thought. He didn’t say that to Otus, who seemed normal enough. If Otus hadn’t seemed normal, Grus wouldn’t have thought of campaigning south of the Stura at all.

“You could make beasts into men.” If the former thrall wasn’t cured, he sounded as though he was. “Who but the gods could ever do that until now? You would be remembered forever.”

Grus laughed. “Are you sure you weren’t born a courtier?”

“I’m sure, Your Majesty,” Otus said. “Courtiers tell lies. I’m too stupid to do that. I tell you the truth.”

“I’m going to tell you the truth, too,” Grus said. “I want to fight south of the Stura. I don’t know if I can. It’s dangerous for Avornan kings to go over the frontier. There have been whole armies that never came back. I want to cure thralls. I don’t want to see free men taken down into thralldom.”

“You wouldn’t!” Otus exclaimed. “Look at me. I’m free. I’m cured. Whatever the Banished One can do, he can’t make me back into what was.”

From what Lanius wrote, Otus bad always insisted on that. The trouble was, he would have insisted on it as vehemently if it were a lie as he would have if it were true. Grus didn’t know how to judge which it was. He didn’t know what to do, either.

“I already told you—I’ll decide what to do come spring,” he said after some thought. “If the Menteshe have a prince by then and they’re solidly behind him, I may have to sit tight. If they don’t… If they don’t, well, I’ll figure out what to do next then, that’s all.”

“You ought to be ready to move, whether you do or not,” Otus remarked.

That held a good deal of truth. “I already have soldiers in the south,” Grus said. “There’s one other thing I need to check up on before I make up my mind.”

“What’s that?” Otus asked.

Grus didn’t answer, not directly. Instead, he chatted for a little while longer and then took his leave. He went to a small audience chamber and told a servant, “Find the serving girl named Calypte and tell her I’d like to talk with her, please.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The servant dipped his head and hurried off.

Calypte came into the room less than a quarter of an hour later. Until then, Grus couldn’t have matched her name with her face. She was in her late twenties, short, a little on the plump side, with a round face, very white teeth, and dark eyes that sparkled. She wore a leaf-green dress and had tied a red kerchief over her black hair and under her chin. Dropping Grus a curtsy, she said, “What is it, Your Majesty?” She sounded nervous. Grus didn’t suppose he could blame her. She had to think she was either in trouble or that he was about to try to seduce her.

He said, “You’re… friends with Otus, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.” Now that she knew where the ground lay, her nerves vanished. She stuck out her chin. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

A feisty little thing, Grus thought, and hid a smile. “No reason at all,” he answered. “I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about him.”

“Why?” Calypte demanded. “What business is it of anybody except him and me?”

“It’s also the kingdom’s business, I’m afraid,” Grus said. “You haven’t forgotten he used to be a thrall, have you?”

“Oh.” The maidservant’s face clouded. “If you really want to know, I had forgotten until you reminded me. He doesn’t act like a thrall—or the way I suppose a thrall would act. He just acts like—a man.” She looked down at the mosaics on the floor and turned pink. Grus got the idea Otus had acted very much like a man earlier in the morning.

This time, he didn’t try to hide his smile. He said, “I don’t want to know about any of that. It isn’t any of my business—you’re right. What I want to know is, have you ever seen any places where he doesn’t act just like a man, where being a thrall left him different?”

Calypte thought that over. She didn’t need long. When she was done, she shook her head. A black curl popped free. Tucking it back under the kerchief, she said, “No, I don’t think so. He hasn’t been in the palace for years, the way most people I know have, so there are things he doesn’t understand right away, but anybody new here is like that.”

“Are you sure?” Grus asked. “It could be more important than you know.”

“I’m not a witch or anything, Your Majesty,” Calypte answered. “I can’t cast a spell or do things like that. But from what I know, he’s as much of a man as a man could be.”

She was right. Pterocles could make tests she couldn’t even imagine. But the wizard would have admitted— had admitted—he couldn’t be altogether sure of the answers he got, not when he was measuring himself against the strength and subtlety of the Banished One. But the tests Calypte applied (not that she would have called them such) were ones that, by the very nature of things, Pterocles was not equipped to administer.

Grus found himself smiling again. “Fair enough,” he said. “You can go. And the next time you see Otus, you can tell him from me that I think he’s a lucky fellow.”

The serving girl smiled, too. “I’ll do better than that. I’ll show him.” And, by the way her hips swayed when she left the audience chamber, she would do a good, careful, thorough job of showing him, too.

Leaves blazed gold and maroon and scarlet. When the wind blew through the trees, it swirled them off branches and sent them dancing like bits of flame. Lanius admired the autumn. “This is reason to come out to the woods all by itself,” he said.

Arch-Hallow Anser and Prince Ortalis both laughed at the king. “This is pretty enough,” Anser said, “but the reason to come out here is the hunting.”

“That’s right,” Ortalis said, not that Lanius had expected him to say anything else. Anser came hunting because he enjoyed it. Ortalis came hunting because he enjoyed hunting, too, but in a different way. Lanius was glad to have Ortalis hunt, because he might do something worse if he didn’t.

And you— why do you come hunting? the king wondered. He didn’t take pleasure in it, the way Anser did. He didn’t need it, crave it, the way Ortalis did. But every so often Anser looked as though he would curl up and die of disappointment if he heard “No” one more time, and Anser was too nice a fellow to disappoint.

Smiling, the arch-hallow said, “Maybe you’ll kill something this time.”

“Maybe I will,” Lanius said. “Maybe a stag will die laughing at how badly I shoot.” Anser laughed, whether a stag would or not. Lanius managed a wry smile at his own ineptitude. He wasn’t much of a bowman. He knew that. But he also used his bad archery as an excuse not to have to kill anything. He didn’t think either Anser or Ortalis had ever figured that out. He hoped not, anyway.

“Think of venison,” Ortalis said lovingly. “Think of a roasted haunch, or of chunks of venison stewed for a nice long time in wine and herbs, until all the gamy taste goes away. Doesn’t it make your mouth water?”

Lanius nodded, because it did. He loved eating meat. Killing it himself had always been a different story. He recognized the inconsistency, and had no idea what to do about it.

One of Anser’s beaters nodded to the arch-hallow. “We’re off,” he said. He and his comrades disappeared into the woods.

“They’re better hunters than any of us,” Lanius said.

“I don’t know about that,” Ortalis said. Anser didn’t look convinced, either. They both enjoyed hunting for its own sake, which Lanius didn’t. Ortalis added, “The two of us could come out here without beaters, because we can find game on our own. Some people I could name, though…”

“If that’s what’s bothering you—” Lanius began.

“What? You think you could do your own stalking?” Ortalis broke in. “Don’t make me laugh.” That wasn’t what Lanius had started to say. He’d been about to tell Grus’ legitimate son and his bastard that he couldn’t have cared less about finding game on his own, that he came hunting for the sake of their company (especially Anser’s, though he wouldn’t have said that) and to get out to the forest and away from the palace. Maybe it was just as well Oitalis had interrupted him.

Something up in a tree chirped. Peering through the branches, Lanius got a glimpse of a plump brown bird with a striped belly. “Thrush,” Anser said without even looking toward it. “They fly south for the winter every year about this time.”

“Do they?” Lanius said. The arch-hallow nodded. Lanius still knew less about birds than he wished he did. He knew less than he wished he did about a lot of things. Not enough hours in the day, not enough days in the year to learn as much as he could about all the things he wanted to know.

“They’re tasty baked in a pie,” Ortalis said. Anser nodded again. This time, so did Lanius. Pies and stews full of songbirds were some of his favorite dishes. Again, though, he didn’t care to hunt thrushes himself.

A rabbit bounded by and disappeared into the undergrowth. Anser started to set an arrow to his bowstring, then checked the motion and laughed at himself. “Not much point to shooting at rabbits,” he said. “You only waste your arrows that way. If you want rabbits in your stew instead of songbirds, you go after them with dogs and nets.”

“Then you whack them over the head with a club,” Ortalis said. “That way, you don’t hurt the pelts.”

“I see,” Lanius said. He wondered what he really saw. What Ortalis said made perfect sense. Did the prince really sound as though he enjoyed the idea of whacking rabbits over the head with a club, or was Lanius only hearing what he expected to hear? The king couldn’t be sure, and decided he had to give his brother-in-law the benefit of the doubt.

“Come on,” Anser said. “There’s a clearing not far from here. If we post ourselves at the edge of it, we’ll get good shots.”

He glided down a game track as smoothly and silently as any of the men who served him, the men who looked so much like poachers. Lanius was sure he could find his own game if he had to. Ortalis did his best to move the same way, but wasn’t as good at it. Lanius tried not to trip over his own feet and not to step on too many twigs. Anser winced only once, so he supposed he wasn’t doing too bad a job.

The three high-ranking hunters had their usual low-voiced argument about who would shoot first. Lanius resigned himself to looking foolish in front of Grus’ sons. He’d done it before. You could try to kill a deer, he said to himself, and then shook his head. That wasn’t why he came out here.

A frightened stag bounded into the clearing. “Good luck, Your Majesty,” Anser whispered.

“Try to frighten it, anyhow, Your Majesty,” Ortalis whispered—a reasonable estimate of Lanius’ talents.

Since the shot was fairly long, the king didn’t worry much about taking aim, good, bad, or otherwise. He pointed the bow in the general direction of the stag and let fly. Even as he did so, the stag bounded forward. Anser and Ortalis sighed together. So did Lanius, with something approaching relief. This time, at least, he had a good enough excuse for missing.

If the stag had stood still, the arrow would have flown past in front of h. As things were, the shaft caught the animal just behind the left shoulder. The deer took four or five staggering steps, then fell on its side, kicking feebly. As Lanius stared in dismay, the kicking stopped and the stag lay still.

“Well shot, by Olor’s beard!” Anser cried. “Oh, well shot!” Ortalis whooped and pounded Lanius on the back. The king’s guards whooped, too.

He’d missed again, but he was the only one who knew it. This time, he’d missed at missing. Lanius gulped. He didn’t want to look at the animal he’d just killed.

But his ordeal, evidently, hadn’t ended. “Now you get to learn how to butcher the beast,” Ortalis said. “I wondered if you ever would.”

“Butcher it?” Lanius gulped. “That… isn’t what I had in mind.” He turned toward Anser for support.

The arch-hallow let him down. “It’s part of the job,” Anser said. “You ought to know what to do and how to do it. You don’t need to cut its throat; it’s plainly dead. That was as clean a kill as the one Ortalis had a while ago.”

“Huzzah,” Lanius said in a hollow voice. Anser and Ortalis clucked in disapproval and dismay when they discovered he had no knife on his belt. They would have sounded the same way if he’d gotten up in the morning and forgotten to put on his breeches. Ortalis drew his own knife and handed it to the king hilt first. He moved slowly and carefully as he did it, mindful of Lanius’ bodyguards. The edge of the blade, lovingly honed and polished, glittered in the sunlight.

“Here’s what you do,” Anser said. Following his instructions, Lanius did it. He kept his breakfast down, but had no idea how.

“If you want to start a little fire and roast the mountain oysters, they’re mighty good eating,” a guard said helpfully. “Same with a chunk of liver when it’s all nice and fresh, though it won’t keep more than a few hours.”

Lanius knew no more about starting a fire than about butchery. Anser took care of that. The guard skewered the mountain oysters on a stick and roasted them over the flames. When they were done, he handed Lanius the stick. The king wanted to throw it away. But the guardsman waited expectantly, and both Anser and Ortalis seemed to think he’d done Lanius a favor. With a silent sigh, Lanius ate.

“Well?” the guard said. “You won’t get anything like that back at the palace.”

That was true. “Not bad,” Lanius said. The men around him laughed, so he must have sounded surprised.

Ortalis stooped and cut a bloody slice from the stag’s liver. He skewered it and toasted it over the fire. “Here,” he said as he thrust the stick at Lanius. “Best eating in the world.”

It wasn’t—not to the king, anyhow. “Needs salt,” Lanius declared. To his amazement, not only Anser but also two of the guards carried little vials of salt in their belt pouches. They all offered it to him. “Thank you,” he said, and flavored the meat. It still wouldn’t have been his first choice, but it was tasty. He nodded to the other men. “Anyone who wants a slice can help himself.”

Several of them did. The speed with which the liver disappeared told him what a delicacy they thought it. One of them poked at the deer’s heart with his knife and looked a question at Lanius. He nodded again. The guards sliced up the heart and roasted it, too.

“Mighty kind of you to share like this, Your Majesty,” one of them said, his mouth full.

“My pleasure,” Lanius answered. The kidneys also went. He said, “Venison in the palace tonight.”

“Your turn next,” Anser said to his half brother. “Think you can match the king’s shot?”

“I don’t know.” Ortalis sent Lanius a sidelong glance. “But then, seeing the way he usually shoots, I don’t know if he can match it, either.”

Lanius was sure he couldn’t. “Show some respect for your sovereign, there,” he said haughtily. In a slightly different tone, the retort would have frozen Ortalis. As it was, Grus’ legitimate son laughed out loud. So did Anser and the guards. Lanius found himself laughing, too. He still cared nothing for the hunt as a chance to stalk and kill animals. For the hunt as a chance to enjoy himself… that was another story.

Ortalis not only didn’t make a clean kill when he got a shot at a deer, he missed as badly as Lanius usually did. The deer sprang away. “What happened there?” Anser asked.

“A black fly bit me in the back of the neck just as I loosed,” Ortalis answered. “You try holding steady when somebody sticks a red-hot pin in you.” He rubbed at the wounded area.

“Well, it’s an excuse, anyhow,” Anser drawled. Ortalis made a rude noise and an even ruder gesture. The Arch-Hallow of Avornis returned the gesture. It wasn’t one Lanius would have looked for from a holy man, but Anser hardly even pretended to be any such thing.

And he shot a bow better than well enough. He hit a stag when his turn came to shoot first. The deer fled, but not too far; the trail of blood it left made it easy to track. It was down by the time the hunters caught up with it. Anser had a knife on his belt. He stooped beside the stag and cut its throat.

“Your turn for the, uh, oysters,” Lanius said.

“Good.” Anser beamed. “I like ’em. You won’t see me turn green, the way you did before you tasted them.”

“Oh.” Lanius hadn’t known it had shown.

Anser, meanwhile, was grubbing in the dirt by the dead stag. He proudly displayed some mushrooms. “I’ll toast these with a piece of liver. Not with the mountain oysters—those are so good, I’ll eat them by themselves.” And, not much later, he did.

Lanius took better care to miss the next time he got a shot. He did, and the stag ran off into the woods. Anser and Ortalis teased him harder than they would have before he’d made a kill.

He teased back. That was the biggest part of the reason he came hunting at all. And yet, after he’d shot the stag, his conscience troubled him much less than he’d expected. One of these days, he might even try to hit something when he shot.