The Scepter's return

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Ortalis was convinced that if he'd been any more bored, he would have been dead. His father and Lanius and the visiting barbarian were making such a fuss over the Scepter of Mercy, he more than half wished it would have stayed down in Yozgat. Had his father — had anyone — ever made such a fuss over him? He didn't think so.

Lanius, of course, was crazy for old things, and now he had his hands on something as old as the hills. It all made Ortalis want to yawn. So the Scepter was here. Kings could pick it up and do things with it. When I'm king, I'll pick it up and do things with it, Ortalis thought. Until then, who cares?

"Do you like to go hunting?" Ortalis asked Berto at a feast the evening after the King of Thervingia came to the palace.

Berto paused to gnaw the meat off a roasted duck drumstick before answering, "Not very much, I'm afraid, Your Highness. I find prayer and contemplation more pleasant ways to pass the time."

"Oh," said Ortalis, who found prayer and contemplation even duller than all the unending chatter about the Scepter, if such a thing was possible. He thought for a moment, then tried again, asking, "What do you like in a woman?"

"Well, piety, to begin with," Berto said, and Ortalis gave up. Even if the Therving had no.. special tastes, he could have come up with something more interesting than that. But he made his answer seem the most natural thing in the world.

Once more, Ortalis fought to stifle a yawn. He reached for another chunk of duck himself. The dead bird had to be more interesting than the Therving.

"What of you, Your Highness?" Berto asked. "How did you aid your father and your sister's husband in recovering the Scepter of Mercy?"

"In… recovering it?" Ortalis could hardly believe his ears. He couldn't have cared less about getting the Scepter back. As far as he was concerned, the Banished One was welcome to it. But King Berto would have dropped the leg bone if he'd said that. The only thing he did say was, "Well, any way I could, of course."

That did the job, and with room to spare. The King of Thervingia beamed at him and raised his winecup in salute. "Spoken like the true son of a great father!" He gulped down the sweet red wine.

So did Ortalis, who needed little excuse, or sometimes none at all, for some serious guzzling. A serving girl poured his cup full again after he drained it. He smiled at her. She quickly found something to do somewhere else. He laughed; he'd drunk enough to make even that funny. He wanted to tell Berto that of course he was Grus' true son, that Grus' bastard son was a nice enough fellow but of no real consequence. He wanted to, but he didn't. To Grus, he was of no real consequence himself. He knew that — knew it and hated it.

"I'll show him," he muttered. "I'll show everybody, I will."

"What's that, Your Highness?" King Berto asked. Why wasn't he too drunk to pay attention to someone else's private mutterings?

"Have you ever listened to a voice? A Voice, I mean?" Ortalis said in return. "A Voice that told you — that showed you — the way things were supposed to be?"

Berto frowned, which made his bushy eyebrows almost meet above his long, straight nose. "Are you talking about your conscience? I know I try to listen to mine. I am only a man. I do things I wish I hadn't later on. But I do try."

They both used Avornan, but they didn't speak the same language. Ortalis was no more talking about his conscience than he'd thought of looking for piety in a woman. He almost told Berto so to his face, just to see the barbarian splutter. But something — maybe even the Voice — warned him that wouldn't be a good idea.

He endured the rest of the banquet, then staggered off to bed. After blearily kissing Limosa half on the mouth, half on the cheek, he fell deep into sodden slumber. And then, as he'd hoped he would, he dreamed.

The dream felt and seemed more real than reality. These dreams always did. He looked out on the world the way it should have been. The biggest difference was that it was a world that recognized Ortalis as its rightful lord and master. The Voice said, "They mock you behind your back."

When the Voice said something, there was no room for doubt. "Oh, they do, do they?" Ortalis growled. "Well, I'll show them. I'll show them all. You just see if I don't."

"Time grows short," the Voice warned. "Chances grow few. You would do well to seize the ones you have."

"I will. Oh, I will," Ortalis said. "You don't need to worry about that. I'll take care of everything — just wait and see."

"Are your friends your true friends?" the Voice asked. "Are your enemies lulled and drowsy?"

Ortalis thought of Serinus and Gygis, and of the other young officers he'd cultivated since Marinus was born. "My friends are my true friends," he answered. "They know where their hopes lie."

"Good," the Voice said smoothly. "And your enemies? Are they lulled?"

At that, Ortalis laughed a raucous and bitter laugh, there in the middle of his dream. "Why should they need lulling? They don't think they do, not from the likes of me."

For a dreadful moment, he wondered if the Voice would laugh, too — laugh at him, not with him. But it didn't. Instead, it said, "Well, then, the time is coming, and coming soon, don't you think?"

"What time?" Ortalis asked, and the dream showed him. It was better than he'd imagined, better than he could have imagined before the Voice started speaking to him in the night. The time was coming soon? He could hardly wait.

Grus and Pterocles and Otus stood staring at the Scepter of Mercy. Grus could understand why King Berto had traveled so far to see the great talisman. If it had come to Thervingia, he thought he might have traveled there to see it himself. But it was here in the city of Avornis, and he could look on it, he could use it, whenever he liked. Somehow, that pleased him less than he'd thought it would. Maybe being able to leave it, as Berto had done, was better than keeping it.

Otus didn't think so. A smile on his face, the former thrall said, "It freed my folk." He shook his head and bowed to Grus and Pterocles. "Well, no. You two freed my folk. But the Scepter made sure they will stay free."

"So it did," Grus said. And the Scepter had let him impose his will on the Banished One. With it in his hand, he'd been, for a little while, as great as — greater than — the exiled god. He had been… but now, again, he wasn't. He snapped his fingers.

"What is it, Your Majesty?" Pterocles asked.

"Where do I go from here?" Grus had a question of his own.

The wizard frowned. "I don't understand."

"Where do I go from here?" Grus repeated. At last he did understand at least some of what was troubling him. "Where?" he said yet again. "What's left for me to do, after I've done this!" He pointed to the Scepter.

"Why, live happily ever after." That wasn't Pterocles but Otus. He went on, "By the gods in the heavens, if anyone's ever earned the right, you're the man."

Slowly, Grus shook his head. "This isn't a fairy tale, I'm afraid. I wish it were. I've spent a lot of years matched against the Thervings and the Chernagors and the Menteshe and our own nobles. I've fought and I've schemed and I've plotted. Lanius worked out how to get the Scepter back from Yozgat, and I went and did it. I did it, and I used the Scepter the way you said, Otus — and now what can I possibly do for the rest of my days that will matter even a tenth as much?"

"Oh," Pterocles said softly. "Now I see."

Otus still looked puzzled. He had what he wanted — his soul to call his own and his woman to call his own, too — and he was content. What Grus had was the certain knowledge that he'd already done the greatest deeds of his life. He was proud of them, yes, but they made everything that might come after feel like an anticlimax.

And how many years of anticlimax did he have to look forward to? No way for him to be sure, of course. Perhaps the gods in the heavens were sure of such things. If so, keeping it to themselves was one of the few kindnesses they showed mortal men.

Grus turned away from the Scepter of Mercy. Getting what you'd always wanted your whole life long was wonderful. Having it in front of you and knowing you would never want anything as much again as long as you lived — and also knowing that nothing you did want would be of any great consequence next to what you already had — was daunting.

For a moment, he imagined he heard laughter far off in the distance. Then he realized he wasn't imagining it; it was a servant somewhere halfway across the palace. A sigh of relief escaped him. He'd feared it was the Banished One, getting the last laugh after all.

He looked south, as he'd hardly done since coming back to the city of Avornis. Suppose the exiled god had gotten what he always wanted. Suppose he'd been able to master the Scepter of Mercy and regain rule in the heavens. Would he have lived happily ever after? Or would even limitless domination have palled after a while? Grus didn't know, of course. By the nature of things, he couldn't know how things would have gone for the Banished One. But he knew how he would guess.

It also occurred to him that the Banished One didn't know how lucky he was, not to have gotten his heart's desire. He could go on scheming and plotting and trying to come up with ways to get the Scepter of Mercy out of the hands of the Kings of Avornis. That wouldn't be so easy now, not since Grus had enjoined him against using any of the surrounding peoples against the kingdom. But the exiled god could keep on trying. Since he hadn't gotten his heart's desire, his existence still held purpose.

Grus wished he could be sure the same held true for his own.

Lanius also found himself wondering what to do now that the Scepter of Mercy had returned to Avornis. He was better than Grus at finding ways to occupy his time. He wrote a long, detailed account of King Berto's visit to the capital. He feared Crex wouldn't read the account; his son hadn't shown much interest in How to Be a King. But even if Crex never did glance at it, it would stay in the archives. Some other king might find it useful one day — or, if not that, it might help keep the future king awake on a long, warm summer afternoon. That was immortality, of a sort.

Immortality of another sort made Sosia's belly bulge. Lanius hoped for a second son. Things would feel… safer if Crex had a brother. And who could say? Maybe the new child would have the scholarly temperament Crex lacked.

Sosia didn't worry about any of that. "I want this baby to come out," she said. "I'm tired of looking like I swallowed a pumpkin. I'm even tireder of squatting over a chamber pot gods only know how many times a day."

"I'm sorry," Lanius said. "I can't do anything about that."

She sent him a glance half affectionate, half annoyed. "You did have something to do with this business, you know."

"Well, yes," he admitted.

"I just wish Queen Quelea had found a better way to go about it," his wife said. She eyed him again. "Can the Scepter of Mercy do anything about that! It would be a mercy if it could."

"I don't know, but I wouldn't think so," Lanius answered, flabbergasted. "There's nothing in the archives about using it for anything like that, anyhow."

Sosia sighed. "I might have known. Of course, men wouldn't think to use it against the pangs of childbirth. They're men!" She brightened, but only for a moment. Then gloom returned. "Their wives would have thought of it, though. I'm sure of that. So I suppose you're right. Too bad."

Remembering the cries he'd heard from women in labor, Lanius found himself nodding. "I'll use it when your time comes," he promised. "I'm sure of one thing — it can't hurt you."

"Thank you," Sosia said. "You do care about me, when — "

"Of course I do," Lanius interrupted.

But Sosia hadn't finished, and she intended to. "When you're not thinking about old parchments in the archives, or about your moncats -

"

He tried interrupting again. "If it weren't for Pouncer and things I found in the archives, we wouldn't have the Scepter of Mercy, I don't think we would, anyway," Grus might have been able to break into Yozgat, but even the other king didn't think it would have been easy.

Sosia waved Pouncer — and the Scepter — aside, too. "Or about your serving girls." That was where she'd been heading all along.

The funny thing was that, even if she didn't — and wouldn't — understand as much, she was right to lump the maidservants with the documents and the animals. They were a hobby. He enjoyed them, but after Cristata he'd never conceived a passion for any of them. But that wasn't what Sosia wanted to hear. Lanius knew exactly what she wanted to hear, and he said it. "I'm sorry, dear."

"A likely story." She didn't look too unhappy, though. That was what she'd wanted to hear, and he couldn't very well say anything more.

He was in the archives later that day — by himself — when rustling behind a cabinet way off in a dim corner of the room showed he wasn't quite by himself after all. He thought he knew what that rustling meant, and he proved right. In due course, Pouncer came out. The moncat walked up to the king and dropped most of a mouse at his feet.

"Mrowr," Pouncer said, as though making sure Lanius understood the magnitude of the gift. As far as the moncat was concerned, this was more important than the Scepter of Mercy. The Scepter had just been a thing. A mouse was food.

"Yes, I know what a wonderful fellow you are," Lanius said. He scratched the moncat behind the ears and at the sides of the jaw and gently rubbed its velvet nose. In due course, Pouncer rewarded him with a rusty purr. That was about as big a reward as any cat ever gave. It made Lanius wonder why people kept them. He supposed the dead and mangled mouse on the floor represented a partial answer, but it didn't seem enough.

He never had found out how Pouncer got out of the moncats' room and roamed the narrow passages within the palace walls. Since Pouncer — and the Scepter of Mercy — returned to the city of Avornis, he'd stopped looking. That was his reward to Pouncer.

"Mrowr," Pouncer said again, and looked down at what remained of the mouse.

Lanius, being well trained by then, knew what was expected of him. He stroked Pouncer and praised his hunting talents some more, and then picked up the little corpse (fortunately, what remained included a tail, not too badly chewed). After holding it for a moment — which seemed to mean he would eat it if he only had the time — he gave it back to the moncat. Pouncer took the dainty in its clawed hands and ate another few mouthfuls. Lanius turned his head away.

He didn't miss the mouse. If Pouncer ate all the mice in the archives, he would have been delighted. But he didn't want to watch the moncat do it. That squeamishness had a lot to do with why he was such a reluctant hunter, too. Anser and Ortalis both found it funny.

He didn't mind Anser's teasing. Considering Ortalis' tastes, he was in a poor position to chide anybody about anything. That didn't stop him, of course. If it had, he would have been a different sort of person altogether. Too bad he's not, Lanius thought, and went back to an old tax register.

Hirundo bowed as he came into the small audience chamber where King Grus sat. "Thanks for seeing me, Your Majesty," the general said.

"As though I wouldn't!" Grus said, and waved him to a stool. "Here, sit down and make yourself at home. A servant is com — Ah, here she is now." The serving girl set a tray with wine and cakes and a bowl of roasted chickpeas on the table. After pouring wine for Grus and Hirundo, she curtsied and left.

Hirundo's gaze followed her. "Pretty little thing," he murmured. He raised his silver goblet in salute to Grus. "Your good health, Your Majesty!"

"Same to you." Grus returned the salute. "We're both pretty lucky, for people our age. Most of the parts still work most of the time."

"That's not bad." Hirundo scratched his beard, which was not quite as gray as Grus'. "A lot of people my age are dead."

Grus chuckled, not that it was anything but truth wrapped in a joke. He ate some of the chickpeas, then washed them down with more wine. That meant he got to the bottom of his goblet. After he poured it full again, he asked, "Well, what's on your mind?"

Before answering, Hirundo got up and shut the door to the audience chamber. When he came back, he slid his stool closer to Grus'. In a low voice, he asked, "Your Majesty, who are your son's friends?"

Grus frowned and scratched his head. The idea that Ortalis had friends was enough — more than enough — to bemuse him. His legitimate son was not an outgoing sort. "I don't know," the king said. "What are you driving at?"

"Maybe nothing," Hirundo said. "In that case, I'll beg his pardon, and yours, too. But do you remember him hanging around with these guards officers before we went off to fight south of the Stura?"

"He hunts with some of them — I know that," Grus said. "Not with all of them," Hirundo said, which was true enough. "Do you really want him wasting time with them? What if he's not wasting it, if you know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean," Grus answered; the same thought had occurred to him. Even though it had, the king had trouble taking it seriously. "Ortalis likes hunting and… some other things." Grus didn't care to talk about those, although Hirundo knew what they were — come to that, half the city of Avornis knew what they were. "I've never really thought he liked politics."

"You might want to think again, then, Your Majesty," the general said. "People who don't like politics don't make friends like that."

"No?" Grus raised an eyebrow. "Who would Ortalis make friends with?" If he makes friends at all. He didn't — quite — say that out loud. Instead, he went on, "Priests? Not likely, not unless they're like Anser and enjoy going after deer. Scholars? He never cared for his lessons. I wish he'd cared more, but he didn't. Maidservants?"

Hirundo grinned at that. "Well, who doesn't?"

Some of Ortalis' dealings with maidservants might have started out in a friendly way, but that wasn't how they'd ended. Still, Grus said, "As far as I know, he hasn't done anything like that since he married Limosa. I wanted to clobber him with a rock when he did marry her, but it really looks like he loves her." The idea of Ortalis' loving anyone but himself was even more curious than the idea of his making friends.

"She…" Hirundo's voice trailed away. Grus had no trouble figuring out what the general would have said. She lets him do what he wants to her. She even likes it when he does. Every word of that was true, too. All the same…

"I think there's something more to it," the king said. "He's been different since she had a girl, and he's been quite a bit different since she had a boy."

"Ha!" Hirundo stabbed out a triumphant forefinger at him. "There! You said it yourself, Your Majesty. He has been different, and he has different friends, and you ought to look at him in a different way."

That made good logical sense. Grus realized as much. Logic or no logic, he couldn't do it. He could imagine his son being dangerous in a fit of fury. Anything that required planning? He didn't think so. Going hunting the next day was about as far as Ortalis' planning reached.

The more dubious Grus looked, the more insistent Hirundo got. He said, "For all you know, Limosa's egging him on."

"Maybe," Grus said, not wanting to laugh in his old friend's face. He couldn't see anyone leading Ortalis around by the nose. He'd never had any luck doing it, anyhow; he knew that.

Of course, he'd always tried to lead Ortalis in the direction he himself wanted his son to go. It never occurred to him that Ortalis might be easier to lead in the direction he wanted to go, or that the dreams he and Lanius had always perceived as nightmares might seem something else again to his son. And they were leading Ortalis, too…

Even in their bedchamber, behind a door that was closed and barred, Limosa's voice was the barest thread of whisper. "Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"I have to," Ortalis whispered back, even more softly. Limosa worried about Grus because he'd sent her father to the Maze. Ortalis worried about Grus because his father had been there scowling at him, shouting at him, hitting him, for as long as he could remember. Why Grus had felt he needed to do those things was forgotten. That Grus had done those things never would be, never could be. Ortalis went on, "It's for Marinus' sake."

"Of course it is," Limosa said. "He's not just robbing you. He's robbing your whole line, that's what he's doing. And all because of -

"

"Lanius," Ortalis finished for her. He whispered his brother-in-law's name, too. Somehow, that let him pack more scorn into it, not less. "All he does is sit around and read things all day, read things and play with his miserable animals. And for him — for him — my own father's going to disinherit me, disinherit his grandson, too. Oh, no, he's not, by the gods."

That some of his own actions — and inactions — might have given Grus reason to prefer Lanius to him never once crossed his mind. Even if it had, Limosa or, more likely, the Voice in his dreams that were better than dreams would have talked him around. He wouldn't have needed much persuading; like most people, he saw himself in the best possible light.

Limosa saw him in the best possible light, too. She leaned over and kissed him. "When you put on the crown, you'll show everybody what being king is really all about. You'll be the best king Avornis ever had. You'll pick up the Scepter of Mercy and… do all sorts of good things with it." Her imagination failed her, there at the end.

"Of course I will." Ortalis tried to sound confident, too. He really would rather have forgotten all about the Scepter. Now that it was back here, he didn't suppose he could, not permanently, but he still wanted to.

He cursed well could forget about it for the time being. He kissed Limosa, too, kissed her hard, and kept on kissing her until he tasted blood. She whimpered in mixed pain and pleasure. They were always mixed for her. Giving them was always mixed for him. If the two of them weren't made for each other, no couple ever had been.

"Oh, Ortalis," she murmured when at last their lips separated. He caressed her roughly and took her even more roughly. "Oh," she said again, softly, when he went into her. A few minutes later, the sounds she made were altogether unrestrained. Ortalis laughed, there on top of her. Then he groaned as though he were the one under the lash — a place he'd never had the least interest in being.

If palace servants — or his father's spies — heard noises like that, they wouldn't think twice about them. They might be jealous, but that kind of jealousy didn't worry Ortalis. On the contrary — it made him proud.

After they'd used the chamber pot and gotten back into their nightclothes, Limosa teased him, saying, "You're going to act just like a man. You're going to roll over and go right to sleep."

"You do that as often as I do," he said, which was true. But his yawn declared she hadn't been wrong, either.

He went out hunting the next morning. He didn't invite Anser, though his half brother had been his chief hunting partner for a long time. Not all the men he did invite had reputations as enthusiastic followers of the chase. They were, however, all enthusiastic followers of Ortalis. To Grus' legitimate son, that counted for much more.

One nice thing about the hunt was that it seldom roused suspicion. If you went out and came back with lots of carcasses, you'd had a good day. If you went out and came back with next to nothing, the most anybody would say was, "Oh, bad luck!" If anything besides hunting happened while you were out there… Well, who was likely to find out?

With his henchmen gathered together, Ortalis could ask them, "Are we ready to move when the time comes?"

"Your Highness, we are." Serinus spoke with what sounded like complete confidence and assurance. The other young officers in the royal bodyguard nodded.

"Will your men follow you no matter what orders you give them?" Ortalis persisted.

"Your Highness, they will." Again, Serinus sounded very sure. Again, his fellow officers nodded. Ortalis could never have gotten so many of them together in the palace without stirring up more gossip than he wanted. Out here in the woods body was likely to pay any attention to what he did.

He said, "You've told me what I most needed to hear, time is coming soon. I know I can count on you to do your duty"

The time is coming soon. A year or two earlier, he would have been able to imagine saying those words. He never would have had the nerve. Truth to tell, he wouldn't have had the will either. But things had changed since then. He had a son now, a son and heir. That made him look differently — as oppose indifferently — on his place in the bigger scheme of things. And he had his dreams. The Voice made him think of his place in bigger scheme of things, too, and that his place ought to be bigger as well.

"Soon?" Some of his followers sounded pleased. A few sounded alarmed. Ortalis knew what that meant. It meant he had some fair-weather friends, men who would suck up to a prince for the sake of whatever advantage that might bring, but who wouldn't back him when it counted.

He glanced toward Serinus and Gygis. They both noded They were his most reliable followers. He could count on them to make sure none of the others got cold feet at a bad time.

"Soon," he said firmly. "It will be fast. It will be smooth. And then things will go on as they were meant to."

"Let's give three cheers for King Ortalis!" Gygis called.

Everyone in the hunting party did cheer, too. Ortalis beamed at Gygis. Good to know who the clever ones were, and that was very clever indeed. Now they'd all cheered him as king. They couldn't say they hadn't had any idea what he was thinking about. And they would have a harder time withdrawing from this plot.

"When the time comes, do we deal with both of them together, or just the one?" Serinus asked.

"Just my father. He's the one who's always been trouble for me," Ortalis said venomously. "We don't need to worry about Lanius. He's been my old man's lapdog for years. Why should he be any different for me?"

Several young officers chuckled. Serinus sketched a salute. "However you want it, Your Majesty, that's how it'll work. I just needed to find out."

"Fair enough," Ortalis said. The more he heard himself called Your Majesty and King Ortalis, the better he liked it. People should have been calling him things like that a long time ago. If Grus had to share the throne with somebody, he should have shared it with Ortalis, not with the weedy good-for-nothing who'd sat on it beforehand.

"What will you do when you're king, Your Majesty?" one of the guards officers asked eagerly.

"Why, I'll do — " Ortalis broke off. Despite having lived in the palace for many years, he had only a vague notion of what his father did when not harassing him. He gave the best answer he could. "I'll do all kinds of really neat stuff."

That seemed to satisfy the guardsman. "I bet you will, Your Majesty!" he said.

Serinus pulled a flask off his belt and yanked out the stopper. "Here's to the new king!" he said. Most of the officers had flasks of their own. They drank the toast, and passed wine to the few men who hadn't brought any. Ortalis had his own flask. As he drank the red, red wine, he imagined it was his father's blood. It would have been even sweeter if it were.

A knock on the bedchamber door in the middle of the night always meant trouble. Grus knew that. Good news would wait until sunup. Bad news? Bad news cried out to be heard right away.

"What do they want?" Estrilda asked sleepily.

"I don't know." Clad in only his nightshirt, Grus was already getting out of bed. "I'd better find out, though." He walked over to the door and asked, "Who's there? What's the word?"

"It's Serinus, Your Majesty," said the man on the other side, and Grus relaxed, recognizing the captain's voice. Serinus went on, "A courier's just come in from the south. Some kind of trouble down there — I don't know exactly what, but it didn't sound good."

"Oh, by the gods!" Grus exclaimed. And it might have been by the gods, too. Had the Banished One found some way around the concessions Grus had forced from him with the

Scepter of Mercy? Were the Menteshe kicking up their heels even without any help from the exiled god? Or had some ambitious and stupid noble decided this was a good time to rebel? "I'm coming," Grus added, and unbarred the door. "Where is this fellow, anyway?"

"Near the front entrance, Your Majesty," Serinus answered. "He's hopping around like he's got to run for the jakes any time now."

"He can do that after I've talked to him," Grus said. "Come on. What are you waiting for?" He hurried up the corridor.

So did Serinus, who hadn't really been waiting for anything. A couple of squads of soldiers, all of them armed and armored, fell in with the guards officer and the king. But for their thumping boots and jingling chainmail, the hallways in the palace were very quiet. Grus wondered what the hour was.

He also suddenly wondered why, at whatever hour this was, so many soldiers should appear as though from nowhere. Suspicion flared in him. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

"This way, Your Majesty," Serinus said as though he hadn't spoken.

"Wait a minute." Grus stopped. "For one thing, you didn't answer me. What is going on? And, for another, this isn't the way to the front hall."

"Well, so it isn't." Serinus smiled. It was not the sort of smile Grus wanted to see — more the sort a wolf would have worn just before it sprang. The young officer bowed to Grus. "But you see, Your Majesty, that's part of what's going on." He nodded to the soldiers. The ones who carried swords drew them. The ones who carried spears pointed them at Grus. "You can come along with us quietly or" — he shrugged — "the servants will have to clean a mess off the floor. Up to you."

"You can't do this!" Grus blurted. "You can't expect to get away with it, either."

"Oh, but we can. And we do. And we will." Serinus sounded as though he had all the answers. At the moment, he certainly had more of them than Grus did.

"Where do you aim to take me?" Grus asked. In his nightshirt, without even an eating knife on his belt — without even a belt! — He couldn't do much about it no matter where it was.

His best hope was that somebody would come by and notice this… this kidnapping. But no one except Serinus and his men seemed to be up and about.

"Why, to the Maze, of course." Serinus certainly had the answer to that question. "You've sent enough people there yourself. High time you find out what it's like, don't you think?"

Grus thought nothing of the sort. Still more outraged than afraid, he filled his lungs to shout for help. Some of the soldiers saw him doing it. They shook their heads. A couple of them brandished their weapons. He didn't shout.

"Smart fellow." Serinus nodded approval. "They say blood is so hard to get out from between these little mosaic tiles." His voice lost its good humor and assumed the snap of command. "Now get moving. If anybody sees us and tries to stop us, you'll be the one who's sorriest. I promise you that."

Believing him, Grus did get moving. He couldn't help asking, "Who put you up to this? King Lanius?"

Serinus laughed uproariously. So did his henchmen. "By the gods in the heavens, no," the officer answered, laughing still. "We serve King Ortalis."

"King — ?" Associating his son with sovereignty was so ridiculous; Grus couldn't do it even now. He wanted to laugh himself, at the absurdity of the idea. He wanted to, but he couldn't. Ortalis and these men evidently didn't think it was absurd. I should have paid more attention to Hirundo, Grus thought, much too late for it to do him any good.

Serinus and the soldiers hustled him out of the palace. They bundled him onto a horse and tied his legs beneath him. They had horses, too. Out of the city they rode, as slick as boiled asparagus.