The Chernagor Pirates

“Pretty well, anyhow,” Lanius said.

“Good. I’m so glad to hear it.” That wasn’t, or didn’t sound like, simple courtesy alone; it sounded as though Limosa meant it. “If you’ll excuse me…”

“Of course,” Lanius said. She smiled again, even more brightly than before. Fluttering her fingers at him, she hurried down the hall, her skirt rustling at each step.

She was radiant. That was the only word Lanius could find. And she’s supposed to bear the mark of the lash on her back? The king shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t believe it. He didn’t know what Zenaida thought she’d seen. Whatever it was, he was convinced she’d gotten it wrong.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Pelagonia’s iron-shod gates swung open. The Avornan defenders on the wall—soldiers of the garrison in helmets and mailshirts, armed with swords and spears and heavy bows, plus a good many militiamen in leather jerkins, armed with daggers and with hunting bows good for knocking over rabbits and squirrels but with no range or punch to speak of—cheered Grus and his army as he led it into the town.

He waved back to the men who’d held Pelagonia against the Menteshe. He pasted a smile on his face. His heart pounded as though he were storming Yozgat and driving Prince Ulash from his throne. That had nothing to do with Pelagonia itself, so he didn’t want the people here noticing anything amiss. It had everything to do with one woman who’d come—been sent—to live here.

He wanted to see Alca as soon as he got the chance. And yet, he would be quietly setting up housekeeping with Alauda while he stayed here. He recognized the inconsistency. Recognizing it and doing anything about it were two different beasts.

A baron named Spizastur commanded in Pelagonia. He was a big, bluff fellow with gray eyes and a red face—an even redder nose, one that suggested he put down a lot of wine. “Greetings, Your Majesty!” he boomed. “Mighty good to see you, and that’s the truth!” Was he drunk? Not in any large, showy way, anyhow, though he did talk too loud.

“Good to be here,” the king replied.

“I’m not sorry to see the last of those thieving devils,” Spizastur declared, again louder than he needed to. “Been a long time since they came this far north. Won’t be sorry if I never see ’em again, either.”

Grus knew it was far from certain Pelagonia had seen the last of the Menteshe. He didn’t say that to Spizastur. It would only have disheartened the noble and the soldiers who’d held Prince Ulash’s men out of the city. He did say, “I hope you have billets for my men—and a place for me to stay.”

“Billets for some, anyhow,” Spizastur replied. “This isn’t the big city, where you can fit in a great host and never notice. For you yourself, Your Majesty, I’ve got rooms in the keep.”

“I thank you.” Grus would sooner have stayed with some rich merchant—odds were that would have been more comfortable. But he couldn’t tell Spizastur no. “I have a… lady friend with me,” he murmured.

“Do you?” The local commander didn’t seem surprised. “I’ll see to it.”

Grus didn’t pay much attention to Alauda until that evening. He was busy with Spizastur and Hirundo, planning where the army would go next and what it would try to do. And he kept hoping Alca would come to the keep.

Alauda yawned as the two of them got ready for bed. She said, “I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?” Grus, his mind partly on the campaign and partly on Alca, paid little attention to the widowed barmaid he’d brought along on a whim.

But she found half a dozen words to make him pay attention. “I’m going to have a baby,” she said. Any man who hears those words, especially from a woman not his wife, will pay attention to them.

“Are you sure?” Grus asked—the timeworn, and foolish, common response to such news.

She nodded, unsurprised. “Yes, I’m positive. My courses should have come, and they haven’t. My breasts are tender”—Grus had noticed that—“and I’m sleepy all the time. I had a baby girl, but she died young, poor thing. I know the signs.”

Are you sure it’s mine? But no, he couldn’t ask that. He didn’t think she’d played him false since they’d become lovers, and they’d been together long enough so the father couldn’t be anyone from before even if she hadn’t made it plain she’d slept alone since her husband died. Grus said, “Well, well. I’ll take care of you, and I’ll take care of the baby. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” Alauda breathed. By the way she said it, she had worried. In her place, Grus supposed he would have, too.

He shook his head. He might have been trying to clear it after a punch in the jaw. “I hope you’ll forgive me, but I still don’t intend to bring you back to the capital with me. I don’t think my wife would understand.” Actually, Estrilda would understand altogether too well. That was what Grus was afraid of.

“I’m not worried about that,” Alauda said quickly. “You told me you wouldn’t once before.”

“All right. Good.” He realized he needed to do something more, and went over and gave her a kiss. She clung to him, making her relief obvious without a word. He kissed her again, and patted her, and lay down beside her. She fell asleep almost at once. She’d said being pregnant left her sleepy. Lying awake beside her as she softly snored, Grus sighed and shook his head. He’d been thinking about saying good-bye to her. He couldn’t very well do that now.

And he was drifting off to sleep himself when a new thought woke him up again. What would Alca think when she found out? After that, sleep took even longer to find Grus.

Lanius studied Grus’ letters from the south with the obsessive attention of a priest trying to find truth in an obscure bit of dogma. Naturally, Grus put the best face he could on the news he sent up to the city of Avornis— what he said quickly spread from the palace out to the capital as a whole. Piecing together what lay behind his always optimistic words was a fascinating game, one made more interesting when played with a map.

Just now, Lanius suspected his fellow king of cheating. Grus wrote of a night attack his army had beaten back, and then said, We have entered a town on the north bank of the Thyamis River, from which, as opportunity arises, we will proceed against the Menteshe.

“Which town on the north bank of the Thyamis?” Lanius muttered, more than a little annoyed. It could have been Naucratis, it could have been Chalcis, or it could have been Pelagonia. Grus didn’t make himself clear. Depending on where he was, he could strike at the nomads several different ways.

From the context, the Avornan army seemed most likely to be in Pelagonia. But why hadn’t Grus come out and said so? Up until now, he’d at least told people in the capital where he was, if not always why he’d gone there. Figuring out why was part of the game, too.

And then, after one more glance from the letter to the map, Lanius said, “Oh,” and decided he knew where the army was after all. If Estrilda saw the name Pelagonia, she wouldn’t need to look at a map to know where it was. She already knew that, in the only way likely to matter to her—it was where Grus had sent his mistress. What was he doing there now? That was what she would want to know. Did it have anything to do with fighting Prince Ulash’s men, or was the king seeing the witch again?

If Grus failed to send a dispatch up to the capital, everyone there would wonder what disaster he was trying to hide. But if he sent a dispatch that said, We have entered a town on the north bank of the Thyamis River —well, so what? If Estrilda saw the dispatch, would she realize a town on the north bank of the Thyamis River meant Pelagonia?. Not likely.

From being annoyed at Grus, Lanius went to admiring him. The other king had had a problem, had seen it, and had solved it in a way that caused him no more problems. If that wasn’t what being a good king was all about, Lanius didn’t know what would be.

Back in the palace, Lanius had problems of his own. He might have known rumors about Limosa would race through it like a fire through brush in a drought. He had known it, in fact. And now it had. Servants gossiped and joked, careless of who heard them. He didn’t want the royal family mocked. He was touchy about his own dignity—after people had called him a bastard through much of his childhood, who could blame him for that? And he was touchy about the dignity of the family.