The Scepter's Return (49 page)

Other servants were convinced he'd either quarreled with a new mistress or gotten her pregnant. Since he didn't have a mistress at the moment, that wasn't true, either. If they'd known he was worrying about whether a letter and a sketch had gotten down to Yozgat safely, they would have been convinced he'd lost his wits.

But Lanius couldn't help being snappish. The servants walked softly around him. Had his temper been of a different sort, he might have enjoyed stirring up alarm in the palace and punishing people when they did anything wrong, no matter how small. As things were, he regretted their fear when he noticed it.

Three days later, the letter he'd been waiting for finally came. He all but tackled the courier who handed him the message tube. When he recognized the royal seal on the letter, he whooped. When he broke the seal and unrolled the letter and recognized Grus' strong, simple script, he whooped again.

Your Majesty, with the gods' help I have your letter and your sketch,
the other king wrote.
I may even mean that instead of sticking it in for the sake of padding or decoration. The sketch is quite good, good enough to be used for its intended purpose. When all else is in readiness, we shall go forward. And, because the gods watched over what you last sent me, I dare hope they will go on looking out for our endeavors.
His signature was a hasty scrawl nothing like the rest of his handwriting.

“Ha!” Lanius said, and then, “Ha!” again.

“Is the news good, Your Majesty?” the courier asked.

“The news is very good,” Lanius answered. “Yes, by Olor's beard, very good indeed.” He fumbled in his belt pouch. As usual, he never knew what in the way of money he would find there. A handful of silver seemed to do the job. He pressed it on the courier, saying, “And this for the good news.”

“I thank you, Your Majesty.” The man bowed and left.

For a little while, Lanius was as happy as he had been anxious. Some of the serving women exclaimed among themselves, guessing—wrongly—why he seemed so pleased. However mistaken, their guesses were funny and lewd, and Lanius once more had trouble not laughing out loud when he overheard them.

But his worries came back sooner than he would have liked. Grus had gotten his letter and the sketch that went with it—good. The other king would have had a harder time going forward without them. But, by themselves, they weren't enough to let him go forward. Until Lanius knew he could … well, what was there to do but worry?

Grus eyed the newcomers to the siege line around Yozgat with no small curiosity. The two men closely resembled each other, but for a generation's difference in age. Each of them had a long face and a big nose. The older man's mustache was shot with gray, the younger one's just losing the downy look of youth. They even stood alike. They both had a slightly stagy manner, as though they never stopped performing.

And, at the moment, they both put down cups of wine as fast as they could. The older man said, “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty, but if we'd known the trip down here would be the way it was, I don't think you could have found enough gold in the world to get us to make it.”

“Why is that, Collurio?” Grus asked, though he suspected he already knew the answer.

The animal trainer drained his cup before replying. He filled it again from the jar of wine in Grus' pavilion. “Why?” he repeated. “I'll tell you why—because I thought we were going to get killed a dozen times, that's why.”

“Only a dozen?” his son murmured.

“Well, I don't know. Host track after a while,” Collurio said. “It all started when a log hit the boat we were in while we were crossing the Stura and almost pitched us into the river. By the gods in the heavens, I don't know what I would have done—I never learned to swim.”

“Ah?” Grus said. “How were you saved?”

“Well, the rowers pulled like madmen, and the log swung a little right at the last instant, so it smacked into the very back of the boat—”

“You mean the stern,” Grus said, thinking,
Landlubber.

“Whatever you call it.” Collurio wasn't inclined to be fussy. “Anyhow, the log just glanced off, you might say, and swung us around, but it didn't tip us over.”

He'd had no reason ever to learn the word
capsize.
Grus didn't suppose he would want a vocabulary lesson now. The king didn't think that log had come sliding down the Stura by accident. He hoped it hadn't swerved at the last instant by accident, either. “What happened next?” he asked.

Collurio nudged his son. “You tell it, Crinitus.”

“All right,” the younger man said. “That was when the wagon had to run for a fort about half a bounce ahead of the Menteshe.”

“That was the first time, you mean,” Collurio said.

“Well, yes.” Crinitus nodded. “The first time. But a few lancers rode out from the fort, and for some reason the nomads didn't keep coming after us. They must have thought the soldiers were going to pitch into them. It didn't look to me like there were enough Avornans for that, but I'm not going to complain, believe me.”

“Neither will I,” Collurio said. He looked at Grus. “I thought the same thing my son did. It was nothing but Queen Quelea's mercy that saved us.”

I hope you're right,
Grus thought. What he said was, “I gather you had some other narrow escapes?”

“A wagonload of 'em,” Collurio said, and laughed at his own wit. “Some of the riders and drivers we talked to said those kinds of things happen all the time. If they do, though, I don't see how anything ever gets here, and that's the truth.”

“Sometimes things don't,” Grus said. “I'm glad the two of you did. And, meaning no offense to you, I'm even gladder the moncat did.”

Collurio scratched his plowshare of a nose. “King Lanius kept going on and on about how the beast was more important than I understood. I would have told him he was daft if he wasn't the king—I probably shouldn't say that to you, should I, eh, Your Majesty?”

“I've had the same thought about King Lanius now and again,” Grus replied, “but I have to admit I've been wrong more than I've been right.”

“It could be. Yes, it could be,” Collurio replied, pouring more wine for himself and Crinitus. He and his son would be drunk in short order if they kept that up. He went on, “Other thing besides him being king that made me keep my fool mouth shut was
those
dreams. You know about
those
dreams, Your Majesty? King Lanius said you did.”

“Oh, yes.” Grus raised his own winecup in salute to the animal trainer. “I do know about
those
dreams, and I know who sends them, too. Welcome to the club. There aren't very many of us. We're the people who worry
him.”
He looked south, toward the Argolid Mountains.

Collurio shuddered. “His Majesty—His other Majesty, I mean—told me the same thing. I'll tell you what I told him—I could do without the honor.”

“I wish I had one of those dreams.” Crinitus sounded resentful at being left out.

“Don't.” Grus and Collurio said the same word at the same time. Grus went on, “With a little luck—and I think with only a little luck now, not the great slabs of it we would have needed a while ago—with a little luck, I say,
he
won't have much chance to trouble us like that anymore.”

“How's that, Your Majesty?” Collurio sounded like a sorely perplexed man. “I've tried and I've tried, but I just can't cipher it out. Why did we fetch the moncat down to the walls of Yozgat?”

If Collurio couldn't see it, then—with that little bit of luck—the Banished One wouldn't see it, either. Pterocles had been taken by surprise when Grus explained it. Pterocles, in fact, had been completely astonished. “Why?” the king said. “I'll tell you why.”

“Please!” This time, Collurio and Crinitus spoke together.

“To take the Scepter of Mercy, that's why,” Grus said.

The two animal trainers, middle-aged and young, looked at him with identical expressions. Their faces both said,
Your Majesty, you're out of your mind.
Grus' biggest worry was that they were liable—indeed, were much too likely—to be absolutely right.

Again, Lanius waited anxiously for word from the south. He wanted to be sure that Pouncer (and, not quite incidentally, Collurio and Crinitus) had reached the Avornan works surrounding Yozgat. Unless he was wrong, and unless the Banished One and the Menteshe were better fooled than he thought, they would do everything they could to stop the moncat and its trainers. If they did …

If they do, I'll start over with a different beast
—
and with different trainers,
the king thought.
No, I'll start over with several moncats, and send them down separately.

That was a good idea. The more he looked at it, the more he wished he would have done it this time instead of letting everything rest on Pouncer's furry shoulders. But Pouncer had advantages over all the others. They would have taken longer to learn what they needed to know—what he hoped they needed to know.

If something went wrong this campaigning season, though, would he ever have the chance to send more moncats south of the Stura? Would Grus be able to lay siege to Yozgat again? Lanius couldn't be sure. All the same, he had the feeling this was Avornis' best chance, maybe Avornis' only chance.

Having that feeling only left him more anxious to learn what was going on down there in the south.

Even if Pouncer had gotten to Yozgat safely, that was no guarantee the moncat would succeed. Lanius was acutely conscious of how old the descriptions of the city he'd used were. He couldn't do anything about that; they were the newest ones he had. If not for the archives, he wouldn't have had any. Street plans changed little, even after the Menteshe held a town for many years. He'd seen that proved after the siege of Trabzun. He had to believe it held true for Yozgat as well.

Lanius tried his best not to show his excitement whenever a courier came into the palace, and not to show his disappointment when the couriers would hand him messages that had nothing to do with what was going on around Yozgat. It wasn't easy, and got harder as day followed day with no news from the south.

Whatever I hear doesn't really matter,
he told himself.
It will only be word of what's already happened, and I won't be able to do anything about it one way or the other.
That was true, but it was cold consolation. He wanted to feel, he wanted to
know,
that what he'd done made a difference.

If it made a difference. That was the other side of the coin, the side he didn't want to think about. One way or the other, he'd find out.

When Grus finally did send a letter, it told him less than he wished it would have. Grus gave a good reason for that, but still left Lanius frustrated. After the usual greetings, the other king wrote,
You will be pleased to hear that your two intrepid animal trainers and the animal they trained have gotten here safely. This is after adventures that put to shame those of your recent letter and sketch.
He described some of them, then went on,
However dangerous the journey, they
did
arrive safely, which I take as a good sign. Maybe the gods in the heavens are paying a little attention, a very little, to the material world after all. I dare hope.

We now wait for a moonless night. Once we have it, we will find out if we are smarter than we think or only better at fooling ourselves
—
or letting ourselves be fooled.
His signature followed.

Looking at the date on the letter, Lanius saw Grus had written it two weeks earlier. Then, the moon had been swelling toward full. Now it was shrinking toward new. Grus had his moonless nights, if he wanted them.

Maybe Grus had already done what needed doing. Maybe word was on the way. Lanius hoped it was. He also hoped Olor and Quelea and the rest
were
paying attention to what went on down here, as the other king suggested. The Banished One pretty plainly hadn't wanted Lanius' letter and sketch or Collurio, Crinitus, and Pouncer to make it to Yozgat. Just as plainly, they had made it. If the gods in the heavens hadn't helped them, who had? No one at all? Lanius couldn't believe that, not with the Banished One trying to stop them.

Again, he wasn't sure what the gods could do here. The material world wasn't their proper sphere. Of course, the gods hadn't intervened directly. Olor hadn't hurled a thunderbolt. Quelea hadn't spread flowers over the landscape to distract the Menteshe. What did seem to have spread was confusion—and confusion wasn't material.

“Exciting times ahead,” Lanius murmured. He hoped they would be exciting. After a moment, he shook his head. He hoped they would be exciting in the right way. Even if the Banished One triumphed, there would be plenty of excitement. But it wouldn't be the kind Avornis wanted to know.

We'll find out soon,
the king thought. He wondered whether he would be able to sense the change if things went well. Then he wondered whether he'd be able to sense the change if they went dreadfully wrong.
We'll find out,
he thought again. Or maybe he'd already found out, and the answer was no.

“I'll find out if I find out,” he said, and laughed. When he found out, he'd know how much he really had to laugh about—if he had anything at all.

“Black as the inside of a sheep,” Collurio muttered.

“Not quite that bad,” Grus said. But then, the animal trainer had lived almost his entire life in the city of Avornis, where torches and lamps and candles always burned to hold night at bay. This was dark enough, and more than dark enough. Only stars shone in the sky. No campfires burned anywhere near the king and his comrades. A few torches shone up on Yozgat's walls, but the Menteshe didn't use their light to peer out. The city's defenders just wanted to be sure they could see any Avornans unexpectedly joining them on the walls.