The Chernagor Pirates

“King Grus!” shouted a soldier who recognized his voice. An instant later, a hundred, a thousand throats had taken up the cry. “King Grus! Hurrah for King Grus!”

That proved a mixed blessing. His own men did rally to him. But the Menteshe cried out, too, and pressed him as hard as they could in the crimson-shot darkness. Arrow after arrow hissed past his head. If the archers had been able to see clearly what they were shooting at, he doubted he could have lasted long. At night, though, they kept missing. Even as he slashed with his sword, he breathed prayers of thanks to the gods.

In the screaming, cursing chaos, he took longer to realize something than he should have. When he did, he bawled it out as loud as he could. “There aren’t very many of them. Hit them hard! We can beat them!”

Maybe the magic—Grus presumed it was magic—that had let the Menteshe slip past his sentries couldn’t have hidden more of them; Pterocles had also had trouble masking too many men. Whatever the reason, this wasn’t an assault by their whole army, as he’d feared when Pterocles’ cry of alarm first woke him. It was a raid. It could have been a costly raid, but now it wouldn’t be.

Prince Ulash’s men didn’t need much more time to figure that out for themselves. When they did, they weren’t ashamed to flee. The Avornans spent some small, panicky stretch of time striking at one another before they realized the enemy had gone.

More fuel went on the fires. As they flared up, Hirundo waved to Grus. “Well, that’s one way to settle your supper,” the general said cheerfully.

Grus noticed three or four cuts, luckily all small, that he’d ignored in the heat of battle. “For a little while there, I wondered if we’d get settled along with supper,” he remarked. Hirundo laughed, as though the Menteshe had done no more than play a clever joke on the Avornan army. Grus was in no mood for laughter. He raised his voice, shouting, “Pterocles!”

He had to call the wizard’s name several times before he got an answer. He’d begun to fear the nomads had slain Pterocles. No sorcerer was immune to an arrow through the throat or a sword cut that tore out his vitals. But, at length, Pterocles limped into the firelight. He had an arrow through him, all right, but through one calf. He’d wrapped a rag around the wound. Not even the ruddy light of the flames could make his face anything but pallid.

“Are you all right?” Grus exclaimed.

“That depends, Your Majesty,” the wizard said, biting his lip against the pain. “Is the wound likely to kill me? No. Do I wish I didn’t have it? Yes.”

Hirundo said, “I’ve never known a wound I was glad I had.”

“Nor I,” Grus agreed. “Have a healer draw the shaft and give you opium for the pain. You’re lucky the arrowhead went through—the healer won’t have to cut it out of you.”

“Lucky.” Pterocles savored the word. After a moment, he shook his head. “If I were lucky, it would have missed me.”

Grus nodded, yielding the point. He said, “We’re all lucky you sensed the nomads coming. What sort of spell did they use to get past the sentries, and can we make sure it won’t work if they try it again?”

“A masking spell on the sentries,” Pterocles answered. “A masking spell on them, and a sleep spell on me —maybe on this whole camp, but I think just on me—so we wouldn’t know the Menteshe were here until too late. It might have done everything the nomads wanted if I hadn’t had an extra cup of wine last night.”

“What’s that?” Hirundo said. “Wine makes me sleepy.”

The wizard managed a bloodless smile, though blood was darkening the cloth he’d put around his wounded leg. He said, “Wine makes me sleepy, too. But it also makes me wake up in the middle of the night— which I did, for I had to piss or burst. And when I woke…”

Hirundo clapped his hands. Grus was sure that was the first time he’d ever heard anyone’s bladder applauded. “Stay where you are. Don’t move on it anymore,” the king told Pterocles, and turned to a soldier standing not far away. “Fetch a healer to treat the wizard’s wound.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The man hurried off.

“You didn’t answer the second half of my question,” Grus said to Pterocles. “Can we make sure Ulash’s men don’t get away with this again?”

Pterocles said, “The sleep spell isn’t easy. It caught me by surprise this time. It won’t the next.”

“What about other wizards?” Grus asked.

“I can let them know what to be wary of,” Pterocles told him. “That will give them a good chance to steer clear of the spell, anyhow.”

“Better than nothing,” Grus said. It wasn’t enough to suit him, but he judged it would have to do. His army had come through here. And tomorrow… Tomorrow, Pelagonia, he thought.

Sosia hurried up to Lanius. Some strong emotion was on her face. Had she found out he’d been dallying with serving women again? He didn’t want to go through another row.

But instead of screaming at him or trying to slap his face, Sosia burst out, “He does! Oh, Lanius, he does!”

Lanius knew he was gaping foolishly. He couldn’t help himself. “Who does?” he inquired. “And, for that matter, who does what?”

She stared at him as though he should have understood at once what she was talking about. “My brother,” she answered with a grimace. “And he does… what you’d expect.”

“Are you sure?” Lanius grimaced, too. That was very unwelcome news. “Ortalis is hurting serving girls again, even though he’s hunting? Even though he’s got a wife?”

“No, no, no!” Sosia’s expression said she’d been right the first time— he was an idiot. “He’s hurting Limosa.”

“You’re crazy.” The words were out of Lanius’ mouth before he had the chance to regret them. Even then, only part of him did regret them, for he went on, “I saw her yesterday. She looked as happy as a moncat with a lizard to chase. She’s looked—and sounded—that way ever since they got married. I don’t know why, but she has. She loves your brother, Sosia. She’s not pretending. Nobody’s that good an actress. And he does go out hunting. If he were hurting her, she could come to you or to me or to Anser and scream her head off. She hasn’t. She doesn’t need to do it, yes?”

“I don’t know.” Now his wife looked confused.

“What exactly do you know? And how do you know it?”

“I know Limosa’s got scars on her back, the same sort of scars… the same sort of scars Ortalis has put on other girls,” Sosia answered. Lanius grimaced again, remembering Cristata’s ravaged back. Sosia’s eyes said she noticed him remembering, and knew he was remembering the rest of Cristata, too. But she visibly pushed that aside for the time being and continued, “And I know because a serving woman happened to walk in on Limosa while she was bathing. She doesn’t usually let any servants attend her then, and that’s strange all by itself.”

The king nodded; it was unusual. Did it mean Limosa had scars she didn’t want anyone to see? Try as he would, he couldn’t think of anything else.

“But Limosa hasn’t said anything about this?” he asked.

“No.” Sosia shook her head. “She chased the maidservant away, and she’s been going on as though nothing happened ever since.”

“I wonder if the maid was wrong, or if she was making it up,” Lanius said.

“No,” Sosia repeated. “I know Zenaida. She wouldn’t. She’s reliable.”

“Well, so she is,” Lanius agreed, his voice as expressionless as he could make it. He wondered what Sosia would have called the serving woman had she known he was sleeping with her. Something other than reliable, he was sure.

He went through the palace the next morning looking for Limosa, and naturally didn’t find her. Then, after he’d given up, he came around a corner and almost bumped into her. She dropped him a curtsy, saying, “Hello, Your Majesty.”

“Hello, Your Highness.” Lanius had almost gotten used to calling Limosa by the title. He’d also paid her a bigger compliment than that— he’d almost forgotten she was Petrosus’ daughter. “How are you today?”

Her smile lit up her face. She wasn’t a beautiful woman, but when she smiled it was easy to forget she wasn’t. “I’m very well, Your Majesty, very well indeed. I hope you are, too.”