He might have been talking about a girl on the edge of womanhood. Grus eyed the valley through which the stream ran. He had at least as much experience gauging such things as his general did. More than a little reluctantly, he nodded. "Well, you're probably right about that."
"Then let's stop here if we're going to stop," Hirundo said. "Otherwise, you may decide not to stop at all."
Grus didn't want to stop. He wanted to push on to Yozgat. Knowing it was impractical didn't make him want it any less.
Are your eyes bigger than your stomach? They'd better not be, he told himself sternly. "All right," he said. "We'll garrison this line, and we'll head home."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Hirundo said. "This is the right thing to do. The Banished One would thank you for going on."
Would he? That was the question — or one of the questions, anyhow. The Banished One had tormented Avornis through the Menteshe for centuries. The nomads remained men, though, with wills of their own; they weren't thralls. And now they were a weapon that had broken in the Banished One's hands. Since Prince Ulash's death, his sons had cared more for fighting each other to lay hold of his throne than for raiding north of the Stura. And Korkut and Sanjar had kept right on going after each other despite the Avornan thrust south of the river.
If they kept on like that, they would have no principality left to rule even after one of them finally won their civil war. Neither prince seemed to care. Beating a brother was more important to both of them than turning back an invader. Grus would have scorned them more if he hadn't known a good many Avornans who thought the same way.
In the Argolid Mountains south of Yozgat, where he'd dwelled since being cast down from the heavens, the Banished One had to be beside himself with fury. What dreams was he sending to Ulash's unloving children? Having been on the receiving end of more of those dreams than he cared to remember, Grus almost pitied Korkut and Sanjar. No one, not even a Menteshe prince, deserved that kind of attention.
The king looked south again. Haze and clouds hid the mountains for now. If the exiled god couldn't use the Menteshe as he'd been accustomed to doing in days gone by, how could he strike at Avornis?
Weather was one obvious weapon. The Banished One had afflicted Avornis with at least one dreadful winter in the recent past. He'd tried to make the capital starve — tried and failed. Probably because he'd failed, he'd hesitated to use that ploy since. But it still remained not only possible but dangerous, deadly dangerous. No ordinary wizard could do much with the weather, either for good or for ill; it was beyond a mere man's strength. Such restrictions meant little to the Banished One, who was neither ordinary wizard nor mere mortal.
Lanius had done a good job of laying in extra stocks of grain before that harsh winter came down. Grus thought it would be wise to do the same thing again. Suppose the Banished One didn't choose to repeat himself. What else might he do?
Feeling his own imagination failing, Grus looked around for Pterocles. When he didn't see the sorcerer close by, he sent horsemen out to hunt him down. Before long, Pterocles rode up on his mule. "What can I do for you, Your Majesty?" he asked.
"Come aside with me a little ways." The king rode off until no one could hear what he and the wizard had to say to each other. Pterocles followed. The royal guards stationed themselves to ensure that no one approached the two of them. Grus said, "If you were the Banished One, what would you do to Avornis now?"
"Why ask me?" Pterocles said, his indignation at least partly genuine.
"Because whatever he does, it will probably be through magic," Grus replied. "Who here knows more about magic than you? The answer had better be nobody, or I'm putting my trust in the wrong man."
The wizard's shrug was altogether fatalistic. "I can't tell you anything about that, Your Majesty. All I can tell you is, the Banished One has noticed some of what I've done, and he's decided he doesn't like me." He spread his hands, palms up. "That's really about all. Believe me, he knows more about me than I do about him."
Grus looked south again. Reluctantly, he found himself nodding. He had also felt the futility of trying to outguess a being far older, far wiser, and far stronger than himself. "All right." He explained his own reasoning, such as it was, and went on, "So I was trying to figure out what he might do if he didn't decide to give us another hard winter, or maybe what he might do on top of another hard winter."
"Ah. I see. Well, that makes more sense than asking what I would do if I were the Banished One." Pterocles' voice was tart. "Put that way…" He didn't look south. He looked up to the heavens, his eyes far away. Was he asking the gods for guidance, or was he just making his own calculations, as a man will? Grus couldn't tell and didn't want to ask. At last, the wizard came out of his reverie. "Hunger. Disease. Fire. Fear," he said. "Those are the weapons he has, it seems to me. Which one will he use? How will he use it? Will he use more than one?" He shrugged. "I don't know. I have no way of knowing. Before too long, I expect we'll find out."
Grus expected the same thing. Hunger? Hunger went hand in hand with bad weather. Anyone to whom the Banished One had appeared in a dream learned more than he ever wanted to know about fear. Disease? Fire? Now the king was the one who nodded. Yes, those were surely possible. "What can you do against him? What can any of our wizards do against him?"
"What can I — what can we — do?" For a man who was cheerful most of the time, Pterocles smiled a peculiarly bleak smile now. "Why, the best I can, of course, Your Majesty."
"I see." Grus almost asked the wizard how good he thought that best would be. But part of him feared Pterocles didn't know. Another part feared Pterocles did know, and would tell him. With a heavy sigh, he said, "Well, we'll do what we can to hold on here, and then we'll go home, and then… then we'll see what happens next."
"That's right, Your Majesty," Pterocles said with another of those bleak smiles. "Then we'll see what happens next."
Ortalis didn't say anything to Lanius about the king's latest quarrel with Sosia. Lanius hadn't really thought he would, but was glad to be proved right. Ortalis never had gotten along very well with his sister; he made no bones about that. Then again, Ortalis never had gotten along very well with anybody.
A moment after that thought crossed the king's mind, he shook his head. Ortalis and Anser managed to stay on good terms, not least because sunny Anser stayed on good terms with everyone. And Ortalis seemed genuinely devoted to Limosa — and she to him.
He eyed Limosa's swelling belly with the same anxious pride most new fathers showed. He had more reasons for pride than most prospective fathers did, too. "I hope it's a boy," he told Lanius one day when they met in a corridor. "I want a son of my own."
"I know," Lanius said, as politely as he could. Ortalis had never figured out much about politics. If he had a son, it would complicate the succession. It would endanger the place Lanius' son Crex held now. The smartest thing he could have done was keep his mouth shut about what he wanted when he was talking to Lanius. Ortalis seldom did the smartest thing.
Ortalis probably wasn't thinking about the succession right this minute, for he asked, "Do you have your boy crawling around in the archives with you? I know that's your favorite sport. I can't see why, but I know it is."
"Crex… hasn't shown much interest in it yet," Lanius answered. That his son hadn't was a grief to him. He kept telling himself that there was time, that Crex might yet see how important and how fascinating state papers could be. He kept telling himself, yes, but he had a harder and harder time making himself believe it.