The Chernagor Pirates

Grus listened to Pterocles with more than a little amusement. “A moncat, you say?” he inquired, and the wizard nodded. Grus went on, “Well, that’s got to be simpler than working out how to cure thralls.”

Pterocles nodded. “It was this time, anyhow.”

“Good. Not everything should be hard all the time,” Grus said, and Pterocles nodded again. Grus asked, “And how are you coming on curing thralls?”

Pterocles’ face fell. He’d plainly hoped Grus wouldn’t ask him that.

But, once asked, he had to answer. “Not as well as I would like, Your Majesty,” he said reluctantly, adding, “No one else in Avornis has figured out how to do it, either, you know, not reliably, not since the Menteshe wizards first started making our men into thralls however many hundred years ago that was.”

“Well, yes,” Grus admitted with a certain reluctance of his own. He didn’t want to think about that; he would sooner have forgotten all those other failures. That way, he could have believed Pterocles was starting with a clean slate. As things were, he could only ask, “Do you think you’ve found any promising approaches?”

“Promising? No. Hopeful? Maybe,” Pterocles replied. “After all, as I’ve said, I’ve been… emptied myself. So have thralls. I know more about that than any other Avornan wizard ever born.” His laugh had a distinctly hollow note. “I wish I didn’t, but I do.”

“What about the suggestions Alca the witch sent me?” Grus asked once more.

With a sigh, the wizard answered, “We’ve been over this ground before, Your Majesty. I don’t deny the witch is clever, but what she says is not to the point. She doesn’t understand what being a thrall means.”

“And you do?” Grus asked with heavy sarcasm.

“As well as any man who isn’t a thrall can, yes,” Pterocles replied. “I’ve told you that before. Will you please listen?”

“No matter how well you say you understand, you haven’t come up with anything that looks like a cure,” Grus said. “If you do, I’ll believe you. If you don’t, if you don’t show me you have ideas of your own, I am going to order you to use Alca’s for the sake of doing something.”

“Even if it’s wrong,” Pterocles jeered.

“Even if it is,” Grus said stubbornly. “From all I’ve seen, doing something is better than doing nothing. Something may work. Nothing never will.”

“If you think I’m doing nothing, Your Majesty, you had better find yourself another wizard,” Pterocles said. “Then I will go off and do nothing with a clear conscience, and you can see what happens after that.”

If he’d spoken threateningly, Grus might have sacked him on the spot. Instead, he sounded more like a man delivering a prophecy. That gave the king pause. Too many strange things had happened for him to ignore that tone of voice. And Pterocles, like Alca, had dreamed of the Banished One—the only sign Grus had that the Banished One took a mortal opponent seriously. Where would he find another wizard who had seen that coldly magnificent countenance?

“If you think you’re smarter than Alca, you’d better be right,” he said heavily.

“I don’t think anything of the sort,” Pterocles said. “I told you she was clever. I meant it. But I’ve been through things she hasn’t. A fool who’s dropped a brick on his toe knows better why he’d better not do that again than a clever fellow who hasn’t.”

That made sense. It would have made more sense if the wizard had done anything much with what he knew. “All right, then. I know you’re pregnant,” Grus said. “I still want to see the baby one of these days before too long.”

“If the baby lives, you’ll see it,” Pterocles said. “You don’t want it to come too soon, though, do you? They’re never healthy if they do.”

Grus began to wish he hadn’t used that particular figure of speech. Even so, he said, “If you miscarry with your notions in spite of what you think now, I want you to try Alca’s.”

He waited. Pterocles frowned. Obviously, he was looking for one more comment along the lines he’d been using. When the wizard’s eyes lit up, Grus knew he’d found one. Pterocles said, “Very well, Your Majesty, though that would be the first time a woman ever got a man pregnant.”

After a—pregnant—pause, Grus groaned and said, “Are you wizard enough to make yourself disappear?”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Pterocles said, and did.

His mulishness still annoyed Grus. But he had a twinkle in his eye again, and he was getting back the ability to joke. Grus thought—Grus hoped—that meant he was recovering from the sorcerous pounding he’d taken outside of Nishevatz. Maybe the baby—if it ever came— would be worth seeing after all.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Lanius had just finished telling Sosia the story of the moncat and the stolen silver dipper. It was an amusing story, and he knew he’d told it well. His wife listened politely enough, but when he was through she just sat in their bedchamber. She didn’t even smile. “Why did you tell me that?” she asked.

“Because I thought it was funny,” Lanius answered. “I hoped you would think it was funny, too. Evidently I was wrong.”

“Evidently you were,” Sosia said in a brittle voice. “You can tell me funny stories, but you can’t even tell me you’re sorry. Men!” She turned her back on him. “You’re worse than my father. At least my mother wasn’t around when he took up with somebody else.”

“Oh.” More slowly than it should have, a light went on in Lanius’ head. “You’re still angry about Cristata.” He was angry about Cristata, too—angry that Grus had paid her off and sent her away. Sosia had other reasons.

“Yes, I’m still angry about Cristata!” his wife blazed. Lanius blinked; he hadn’t realized how angry she was. “I loved you. I thought you loved me. And then you went and did that. How? Why?”

“I never stopped loving you. I still love you,” Lanius said, which was true—and which he would have been wiser to say sooner and more often. “It’s just… she was there, and then…” His voice trailed away, which it should have done sooner.

“She was there, and then you were there.” Sosia made a gesture boys used in the streets of the city of Avornis, one that left nothing to the imagination. “Is there anything else to say about that?”

“I suppose not,” Lanius answered. From Sosia’s point of view, what he’d done with Cristata didn’t seem so good. From his own… He sighed. He still missed the serving girl. “Kings of Avornis are allowed to have more than one wife,” he added sulkily.

“Yes—if they can talk their first one into it,” Sosia said. “You didn’t. You didn’t even try. You were having a good time screwing her, so you decided you’d marry her.”

“Well, what else but fun are wives after the first one for?” Lanius asked, he thought reasonably. “Oh, once in a while a king will be trying to find a woman who can bear him a son, the way my father was. But most of the time, those extra wives are just for amusement.”

“Maybe you were amused, but I wasn’t,” Sosia snapped. “And I thought I amused you. Was I wrong?”

Even Lanius, who didn’t always hear the subtleties in what other people said, got the point there. “No,” he said hastily. “Oh, no indeed.”

Sosia glared at him. “That’s what you say. Why am I supposed to believe you?”

He started to explain why he saw little point in lying to her, especially now that Cristata was gone. He didn’t get very far. That wasn’t the answer she was looking for. He needed another heartbeat or two to figure out the sort of answer she did want.

Some time later, he said, “There. Do you see now?” They were, by then, both naked and sweaty, though snow coated the windowsills. Sometimes answers didn’t need words.

“Maybe,” Sosia said grudgingly.

“Well, I’ll just have to show you again,” Lanius said, and he did.