The Chernagor Pirates

Grus got back to the capital. Grus looked up at the heavens, wondering if that could be too much to ask of the gods.

Every once in a while, Lanius liked getting out of the royal palace. He especially liked going over to the great cathedral not far away, partly because some of the ecclesiastical archives went back even further than those in the palace and partly because he liked Arch-Hallow Anser.

He didn’t know anyone who didn’t like Grus’ bastard son. Even Queen Estrilda liked Anser, and she’d borne Grus’ two legitimate children. Prince Ortalis liked Anser, too, even though they had quarreled now and again, and Ortalis rarely liked anybody.

That didn’t mean Lanius thought Anser made a perfect arch-hallow. He’d been a layman when Grus first named him to the post, and had worn the black, green, and yellow robes of the ascending grades of the priesthood on successive days before donning the arch-hallow’s scarlet garb. He still knew—and cared—little about the gods or the structure of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. His chief passion, almost his only passion, was hunting.

But he was loyal to Grus. To the man who held the real power in Avornis, that counted for much more than anything else. Lanius might prove a problem for Grus. Ortalis might, too. Anser? No. Anser never would.

He bowed to the king when Lanius stepped into his chamber in a back part of the cathedral where ordinary worshipers never went. “Good to see you, Your Majesty!” he exclaimed with a smile, and he sounded as though he meant it.

“Good to see you, too, most holy sir.” Lanius also meant it. You couldn’t help being glad to see Anser. He wasn’t far from Lanius’ own age, and looked a lot like Grus—more like him than either Ortalis or Sosia. They favored their mother, which probably made them better-looking.

“What can I do for you today?” Anser asked. “Did you come to visit me, or shall I just send for Ixoreus and wave while you wander down to the archives?” He grinned at Lanius.

Ixoreus, one of his secretaries, knew more about the ecclesiastical archives than any man living. But Lanius smiled back and, not without a certain regret, shook his head. “No, thanks, though it is tempting,” he said. “I wanted to ask you a question.”

“Well, here I am. Go right ahead,” Anser replied. “If I know, I’ll tell you.”

And he would, too. Lanius had no doubt of it. He thought back to‘ the days of Arch-Hallow Bucco, Anser’s predecessor. Bucco had been a formidable scholar, administrator, and diplomat. He’d been regent during part of Lanius’ childhood; he’d even sent Lanius’ mother into exile. He wouldn’t have told anyone his own name unless he saw some profit or advantage in it. All things considered, Lanius preferred Anser.

He said, “What I want to know is, did you write to King Grus about… any troubles Ortalis has had lately with women?”

“Not me,” the arch-hallow said at once. “I’ve heard a few things, but I wouldn’t send gossip to… the other king.” The hesitation was so small, Lanius barely noticed it. Anser really did work hard at being polite to everybody.

“It’s not just gossip. I wish it were,” Lanius said. “But I’ve heard about it from Ortalis himself. He didn’t want Grus to find out. Now Grus has. By the letter I have from him, he’s not very happy about it, either.”

“I can see how he wouldn’t be. Ortalis… I like my half brother, most ways,” Anser said. He saw the good in people—maybe that was why everybody liked him. He proved as much now, for he went on, “He’s a clever fellow, and I enjoyed hunting with him, at least until he.…” His voice trailed away again.

“Yes. Until he.” Lanius didn’t finish the sentence, either. Ortalis would sooner have hunted men, or rather women, than beasts. And what he would have done when he caught them… was one more thing Lanius didn’t care to contemplate. “Somebody told Grus about this latest news.”

“It wasn’t me,” Anser said again. He looked up at the ceiling, as though hoping to find answers there. “I wish we hadn’t had that… trouble with the hunting. It did seem to help, for a while.”

“Yes, for a while,” Lanius agreed. For several years, Ortalis had held his demons at bay by killing beasts instead of doing anything with or to people. But that hadn’t satisfied him, not for good. And so… And so I’m hashing this out with Anser, Lanius thought unhappily.

“I wish I knew what to tell you, Your Majesty. I wish I knew what to tell Ortalis, too,” the arch-hallow said.

“No one has ever been able to tell Ortalis anything. That’s a big part of the problem,” Lanius said.

Anser nodded. “So it is.” Suddenly, he grinned again. “Now don’t you wish you’d gone down under the cathedral with Ixoreus?”

“Now that you mention it, yes,” Lanius said. They both laughed. Then Lanius had another thought. He asked, “You grew up down in the south, didn’t you?”

“Yes, that’s right—in Drepanum, right along the Stura River,” Anser said, and Lanius remembered that Grus had captained a river galley that patrolled the Stura. Anser went on, “Why do you want to know?”

“I just wondered if you knew anything special about Sanjar and Korkut—you know, things you might hear because you’re right across the border but would never come all the way up to the city of Avornis.”

“About Ulash’s sons?” The arch-hallow frowned and shook his head. “The only thing I ever heard is that they don’t like each other very well—but you can say that about half the brothers in the world, especially when they’re princes.”

“I suppose so.” Lanius had no brothers. When King Mergus, his father, at last had a son by his concubine Certhia, he’d married her although that made her his seventh wife. All the ecclesiastics in Avornis had screamed at the top of their lungs, since even King Olor up in the heavens had only six. A lot of them had reckoned—some still did reckon—Lanius a bastard because of Mergus’ irregularities. Thanks to his own past, he had a certain amount of sympathy for Anser. He wondered if that sympathy ran the other way, too. Anser had never said a word along those lines—but then, Lanius was known to be touchy about his ancestry.

Anser didn’t say anything about ancestors now, either. He said, “Sorry I can’t tell you more about them.”

“Who knows when it might matter?” Lanius replied with a shrug. “Who knows if it will matter at all?”

Slowly—too slowly to suit King Grus—twilight deepened toward darkness. The tall, frowning walls of Nishevatz seemed to melt into the northern sky. Only the torches Chernagor sentries carried as they paced along their stretches of walkway told where the top of the wall was.

Grus turned to Calcarius and Malk, the Avornan and Chernagor officers who would lead a mixed assault party back through the secret tunnel Prince Vsevolod had used to flee the city. “You know what you’re going to do?” he said, and felt foolish a moment later—if they didn’t know by now, why were they trying it?

“Yes, Your Majesty,” they chorused. Grus had to fight down a laugh. They were both big, gruff fighting men, but they sounded like a couple of youths impatient with an overly fussy mother.

The men they would lead waited behind them—Avornans in pants and kilted Chernagors, their chainmail shirts clanking now and again as they shifted from foot to foot. They were all big, gruff fighting men, too, and all volunteers. “Gods go with you, then,” Grus said. “When you seize the gate near the other end of the tunnel, we’ll come in and take the city. You don’t need to hold it long. We’ll be there to help as soon as it opens.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Calcarius and Malk spoke at the same time once more. They smiled at each other. They acted like a couple of impatient youths, too—youths eager to be off on a lark. Calcarius looked around and asked, “Is it dark enough yet? Can we start?”

“Another half hour,” Grus said after looking around. Color had faded out of the air, but shape remained. Not only the officers in charge of the storming party but all the men who would go on it pouted and fumed. Grus wagged a finger at them. “You hush, every one of you, or I’ll send you to bed without supper.”

They jeered at him. Some of the Chernagors translated what he’d said into their language for those who didn’t speak Avornan. Some of the burly men in kilts said things that didn’t sound as though they would do with being translated back into Avornan.

Time crawled past. It might have gone on hands and knees. The stars came out. They grew brighter as twilight ebbed. They too crawled—across the sky. Grus used them to judge both the time and the darkness. At last, he slapped Calcarius on his mailed shoulder and said, “Now.”

Even in the darkness, the Avornan officer’s face lit up. “See you soon, Your Majesty.”