"I suppose so." By the way Ortalis said it, he hadn't even thought about the weather until Lanius brought it up. Again, though, he tried to hold up his end of things. "Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right."
It wasn't scintillating conversation, but it was conversation – more than Lanius had had from Ortalis for quite a while. Out in the garden, a sparrow chirped. A jay let out a couple of raucous screeches from a tree not far away. Lanius said, "Good to have all the birds back from the south."
"That's true." Now Ortalis showed some enthusiasm, even if it wasn't of the sort Lanius might have chosen; he said, "Songbirds done up in a stew or baked in a pie with carrots and onions and peas are mighty tasty."
"Well, so they are." Lanius like songbirds in a pie, too. Even if he didn't, he wouldn't have contradicted his brother-in-law just then. He did say, "I like to hear them singing. It's one of the things that tell me spring is here, along with the sweet smells from the flowers."
"Limosa likes flowers, too." Ortalis might have announced that his wife liked Thervingian poetry – to him, it was obviously her eccentricity. "Some of them do have nice colors," he allowed, as though he'd learned a few words of Thervingian himself to humor her.
"Yes, they do." Lanius enjoyed the poppies and roses and bluebells. He eyed Ortalis, wondering as he often did what went on in his brother-in-law's head. He sometimes thought he was better off not knowing. But, if Ortalis was working hard to act civilized, the least he could do himself was keep matching Grus' son. And so he asked once more, "How are you today?"
"I'm… not too bad." Ortalis hesitated, then went on, "Anser had a few things to say to me."
"Did he?" Lanius worked hard to keep his tone neutral. He didn't want Ortalis to know that had been his idea.
His brother-in-law nodded. "He did. He said he knew why the two of us squabbled. He said the whole palace knew about it. I don't much fancy that."
"Not a whole lot we can do about it now," Lanius said. There would have been a lot less palace gossip if Ortalis' tastes hadn't run to the whip. Telling him so was unlikely to change those tastes, worse luck.
"I suppose not." Ortalis didn't seem convinced. He never believed anything could be his fault, even in a small way. The only exception to that rule that Lanius had ever seen came when his brother-in-law went hunting. If Ortalis missed a shot, he laughed and joked about it the way a miller or a leather worker would have. But he was different in many regards when he went hunting.
"Well… any which way, I'm glad you're not angry anymore," Lanius said.
The corners of Ortalis' mouth turned down. Pretty plainly, he was still angry. Lanius hadn't really thought he wasn't. But Grus' legitimate son nodded a moment later. "Not worth making a big fuss about," he said. Coming from him, that was the height of graciousness.
Lanius nodded, acknowledging as much. "I don't think it is, either," he said, and held out his hand.
Ortalis clasped it. He squeezed just hard enough to let Lanius know he could have hurt him if he'd squeezed harder. That was Ortalis to the core. Then he cocked his head to one side and studied Lanius. "What are you and the beast trainer doing with that silly animal?"
"Seeing how much he can learn," Lanius answered easily. Whatever else he had in mind was his business, not Ortalis'.
"Seems like you're spending a lot of silver while you're at it," his brother-in-law observed.
Lanius only shrugged. "It's a hobby. Everybody has them." Unlike Ortalis', his didn't involve dealing out pain. Mentioning that just after they'd made up seemed a bad idea, so he didn't. Instead, he went on, "I'm not throwing the money at a lot of loose women. That keeps your sister happy."
Ortalis only shrugged. "I don't lose any sleep over what my sister thinks. I never have, and I don't suppose I ever will." From things Sosia had said, she and Ortalis hadn't gotten along even when they were children. Now, of course, Ortalis had a new reason to resent her – her son might stand in the way of his offspring when it came to the succession. I hope Limosa has another girl. Lanius didn't say that, no matter how strongly he felt it.
Ortalis set a hand on his shoulder. Again, the prince squeezed a little harder than he might have. "Have fun with your hobby," he said, and went on his way.
Lanius had expected he would do more snooping about the moncat. The king would have gone on saying as little as he could if Ortalis had. He might have talked with Grus and Pterocles about what he was up to. If it ever became absolutely necessary, he might have with Collurio.
"With my brother-in-law, my charming brother-in-law?" Lanius murmured. Without the least hesitation, he shook his head.
Once upon a time, Trabzun had been the Avornan city of Trapezus. Behind its gray stone wall, it still was a city of sorts, but it wasn't an Avornan city anymore. The tall, thin towers sprouting up in large numbers would never have occurred to a builder from the kingdom Grus ruled.
"They look like asparagus," Grus remarked.
"If you say so, Your Majesty," Hirundo answered. "Me, I think they look like something else myself."
"Something else? Oh." Grus made a face that almost matched Hirundo's leer. "Maybe yours is that skinny. I hope mine's not."
"What you do with it is as important as what you've got," the general declared in lofty tones.
Grus pointed toward Trabzun. "Well? What are we going to do with it? That place can stand a proper siege, and we can't go on without reducing it. The garrison could sally and do horrible things in our rear."
Hirundo could have risen to that, too, but he didn't. He said, "If you expected to get all the way to Yozgat in one campaigning season, you probably expected too much."
"I'd be lying if I said I didn't have my hopes," Grus admitted.
"Nothing wrong with hopes, as long as you don't let them ran away with you," Hirundo said.
Did I let them run away with me when I came south of the Stura in the first place? Grus wondered. He shook his head. He refused to believe that. And if he had hoped to get all the way to Yozgat (and he had)… He'd known he would probably need to be lucky. He had been, up till now.
"Maybe they'll surrender," he said, knowing he would have to be very lucky to see that happen.
"It's just like pretty girls – never hurts to ask, but they don't say yes as often as you wish they would," Hirundo answered.
"We won't have as much fun when they do here, either – if they do." In spite of saying that, Grus sent a herald up to the walls of Trabzun. The man shouted out a demand that the city open its gates to the Avornan army. He used both his own language and the guttural tongue of the Menteshe.
Soldiers on the wall shouted insults at him. To leave the rest of the army in no doubt that those were insults, they emptied chamber pots into the ditch in front of the wall. Some of them flung the pots out at the herald. None struck home, but he quickly rode back to the Avornan lines.
"They won't yield, Your Majesty," he reported.
"Oh, yes, they will," Grus said. "They just don't know it yet."
In the previous few years, he'd besieged several Chernagor towns. All of them were stronger than Trabzun seemed to be. This place didn't have the sea covering much of its perimeter. He sent his riders out to close the line around it. All the time, he hoped the Menteshe inside would sally. He would much rather have faced them out in the open than in the advantageous position the walls gave them.
They sat tight, though. Maybe they were hoping for rescuers, or maybe they thought they could outlast the besiegers. Maybe they were right, too. That unappetizing thought made Grus scowl, but he kept at the siege all the same. The Menteshe would surely prove right if he didn't try.
He didn't intend to storm the walls. That would be quick and decisive if it worked – and had about as much chance of working as he did of throwing double sixes back-to-back at dice. You could do it. He'd done it. But you were a fool if you counted on it, because it wasn't very likely.