The Chernagor Pirates

the sense to cut his losses. The other king was usually a man who saw what needed doing and did it.

Less than a week later, Captain Icterus rode back into the city of Avornis and reported to Lanius. The grin on the officer’s face told the king most of what he needed to know before Icterus started talking. When he did speak, he got his message into one sentence. “You don’t need to worry about Baron Clamator anymore, Your Majesty.”

“That’s good news, Captain,” Lanius said. “And how did it happen that I don’t?”

Icterus’ grin got wider. “We happened to ride past him as he was on his way to drink with the baron who lives the next castle to the west. We scooped him up smooth as you please, and he was on his way to the Maze before his people even knew he was missing.”

“Well done, Colonel!” Lanius said, and Icterus’ smile got bigger and brighter still. Lanius hadn’t thought it could.

The good news kept the king happy the rest of the morning. But he went back to worrying about the north as he examined tax records from the provinces later in the day. Almost in spite of himself, he was learning how the kingdom was administered. The numbers were all they should have been—better than Lanius had expected, in fact. But that let him worry more about the land of the Chernagors. Had Pterocles met a powerful wizard who inclined toward the Banished One? Or had the Banished One himself reached out from the far south to smite the Avornan wizard? Maybe it didn’t matter. With the Banished One, though—with Milvago that was—how could any man say for certain?

And then Lanius got distracted again, this time much more pleasantly. A serving woman stuck her head into the chamber where he was working and said, “I beg pardon, Your Majesty, but may I speak to you for a moment?”

“Yes, of course,” Lanius answered. “What do you want—uh—?” He couldn’t come up with her name.

“I’m Cristata, Your Majesty,” she said. She was a few years younger than Lanius—say, about twenty—with light brown hair, green eyes, a pert nose, and everything else a girl of about twenty should have. But she looked so nervous and fearful, the king almost didn’t notice how pretty she was.

“Say whatever you want, Cristata,” he told her now. “Whatever it is, I promise it won’t land you in trouble.”

That visibly lifted her spirits; the smile she gave him was dazzling enough to lift his, too. “Thank you, Your Majesty,” she breathed, but then looked worried again. She asked, “Even if it’s about… someone in the royal family?”

Lanius grimaced. He had a fear of his own now—that he knew what sort of thing Cristata was going to talk about. He had to answer quickly, to make her see he had no second thoughts. “Even then.” He made his voice as firm as he could.

“Will you swear by the gods?” He hadn’t satisfied her.

“By the gods,” he declared. “By all the gods in the heavens.” That left Milvago—the Banished One—out.

“All right, then,” Cristata said. “This has to do with Prince Ortalis, Your Majesty. Remember, you swore.”

“I remember.” Lanius started to tell her he’d heard stories about Ortalis before. But the words never passed his lips. That wasn’t fair to Grus’ legitimate son. What he’d heard before could have been lies. He didn’t think so, but it could have been. And, for that matter, what Cristata was about to tell him might be a lie, too. Lying about a prince to a king was a risky business for a servant, yet who could say for certain? Ortalis might—no, Ortalis was bound to—have enemies who could use her as a tool. With a sigh, Lanius said, “Go ahead.”

Cristata did. The way she told her story made Lanius think it was likely true. Ortalis’ good looks and his status had both drawn her. That seemed plausible—and even had Ortalis been wizened and homely, a serving girl would have taken a chance if she said no when he beckoned. That wasn’t fair. It probably wasn’t right. But it was the way life worked. Lanius had taken advantage of it himself, back in the days before he was married.

Everything between Ortalis and Cristata seemed to have started well. He’d been sweet. He’d given her presents. She didn’t try to hide that she’d said yes for reasons partly mercenary, which again made Lanius more inclined to believe her.

Little by little, things had gone wrong. Cristata had trouble saying exactly when. Some of what later seemed dreadful had been exciting at the time… at first, anyhow. But when she did begin to get alarmed, she found herself in too deep to get away easily. Her voice became bitter. “By then, I was just a piece of meat for him, a piece of meat that had the right kind of holes. Before long, he even stopped caring about those.”

She paused. Lanius didn’t know what to say. Not knowing, he made a questioning noise.

It must have meant something to Cristata. Nodding as though he’d just made a clever comment, she said, “I can show you some of it. I can show you all of it if you like, but some will do.” Her linen tunic fit loosely. As she turned her back on Lanius, she slipped it down off one shoulder, baring what should have been soft, smooth skin.

“Oh,” he said, and involuntarily closed his eyes. He didn’t think anyone with a grudge against Ortalis could have persuaded her to go through with… that for money.

She quickly set her tunic to rights again. “At least it did heal,” she said matter-of-factly. “And he gave me… something for it afterwards. I thought about just taking that and keeping quiet. But is it right, Your Majesty, when somebody can just take somebody else and use her for a toy? What would he have done if he’d killed me? He could have, easy enough. Some of the girls who’ve left the court… Did they really leave, or did they disappear a different way?”

Lanius had wondered the same thing. But no one had ever found anything connecting Ortalis to those disappearances—except for the couple of maidservants who’d gone back to the provinces well rewarded for keeping their mouths shut afterwards. Cristata, evidently, didn’t want to go that way. Lanius asked her, “What do you think I should do?”

“Punish him,” she said at once. “You’re the king, aren’t you?”

The real answer to that question was, yes and no. He reigned, but he hardly ruled. Explaining his own troubles, though, would do Cristata no good. He said, “King Grus would be a better one to do that than I am.”

Cristata sent him a look he was more used to feeling on his own face than to seeing on someone else’s. The look said, My, you’re not as smart as I thought you were, are you? Cristata herself said, carefully, “Prince Ortalis is His Majesty’s son.” Sure enough, she might have been speaking to an idiot child.

“Yes, I know,” Lanius answered. “But King Grus, please believe me, doesn’t like him doing these things.” Cristata looked eloquently unconvinced. Sighing, Lanius added, “And King Grus, please believe me, is also the one who has the power to punish him when he does these things. I am not, and I do not.”

“Oh,” she said in a dull voice. “I should have realized that, shouldn’t I? I’m sorry I bothered you, Your Majesty.”

“It wasn’t a bother. I wish I could do more. You’re—” Lanius stopped. He’d been about to say something like, You’re too pretty for it to have been a bother. If he did say something like that, it would be the first step toward complicating his life with Sosia. And, all too likely, Cristata would have heard the same sort of thing from Ortalis. She’d believed it from him, and been sorry afterwards. What did she think Lanius might do to her if she were rash enough to believe again?

Even though he’d stopped, her eyes showed she understood what he’d meant. Now she was the one who sighed. Perhaps as much to herself as to him, she said, “I used to think being pretty was nice. If you’d told me it was dangerous…” She shrugged—prettily. “I’m sorry I took up your time, Your Majesty.” Before Lanius could find anything to say, she swept out of the little chamber.

The king spent the next few minutes cursing his brother-in-law, not so much for exactly what Ortalis had done as for making Lanius himself embarrassed to be a man.

No one knew the river galleys that prowled Avornan waters better than King Grus. The deep-bellied, tall- masted ships that went into and out of Nishevatz were a different breed of vessel altogether, even more different than cart horses from jumpers. Sailing on the Northern Sea was not the same business as going up and down the Nine Rivers that cut the Avornan plain.

“We need ships of our own,” Grus said to Hirundo. “Without them, we’ll never pry Vasilko out of that city.”