"Oh, you would, would you?" The cook didn't believe a word of it. "And why wouldn't the gods despise the rotten creature?"
"Because Pouncer just may be the salvation of the kingdom," Lanius replied, and the cook's eyes bugged out of his head all over again. The king continued, "I am sorry about the marrow bone. Some soup or stew or gravy won't be all that it might have been. But I suppose you can probably find another."
"This is no joking matter, Your Majesty," the cook protested.
"Good, because I'm not joking," the king said. 'The spoon likely will come back. You can come up with a new bone. Do you have any other reasons to shriek in my ear, or was that everything?"
The cook glowered. He scowled. He swelled up like a puffer fish. Lanius stood there waiting. As he'd expected, the cook deflated. "I'm sorry, Your Majesty," he said in a much smaller voice.
"There. That's much better. You see? You can talk like a normal human being when you want to. Well done," Lanius said. "And now, what do you expect me to do about my willful, obnoxious, annoying, pestilential – but not, mind you, gods-despised – moncat?" Lanius was proud of himself for remembering all the nasty names he'd called Pouncer.
By the way the cook gaped, the king's memory impressed him, too. He said, "If you can make sure the beast never comes back to the kitchens, that would be nice. If you can get the spoon back, that would be, too." He went out of his way to sound mild.
"I don't think I can stop Pouncer from getting in," Lanius said. "I've tried, and I haven't had much luck. I won't lie to you about anything like that. But I already told you there's a pretty good chance the spoon will turn up."
"All right, Your Majesty. Thank you, Your Majesty." The cook turned around and headed back toward the kitchen, a meeker and more subdued man than the bellowing hysteric who'd come roaring up to Lanius.
The king laughed a little as he made for the archives. Turning excitable people into calm ones wasn't a skill most people thought of when they imagined things a sovereign ought to be able to do. That didn't mean it wasn't valuable, though. Oh, no – far from it.
Lanius hoped he would find Pouncer in the archives with his prize. That would let him bring the spoon back to the kitchens in something approaching triumph. It would also let him feel virtuous for resisting the temptation to wallop the cook over the head with it – unless he yielded to the temptation instead, which offered pleasures of its own.
But there was no sign of the moncat when Lanius got to the archives. He called Pouncer and even lay down on the dusty floor and thumped his chest, the way he did to summon Pouncer for a treat. Pouncer either was too far away to hear or didn't feel like coming. Lanius only shrugged. So much for neat endings, he thought, and went back to sorting through documents.
King Grus suspected some generals tried to storm cities for no better reason than that sitting around besieging them was boring. Sitting down outside of Trabzun was boring. He wasn't inclined to complain even so. As long as dysentery didn't break out in his army, he thought he could take the city far more cheaply by siege than by storm.
Grus glanced toward the walls of Trabzun. Torches flared every few paces along them. By the flickering torchlight, the king could make out Menteshe archers and a few pikemen. The garrison wanted him to know – or at least to think – it was ready for anything. He let out a wry chuckle.
"How long do you think the siege will last?" Pterocles asked.
"I can't tell you, not within months," Grus said. "Depends on how much food the Menteshe have, on how much they want to starve ordinary people to feed the soldiers, on… oh, all sorts of things. It would have been over a lot sooner if you'd been able to shut off their water supply – I'll tell you that."
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty. I am sorry," Pterocles said. "I can't help the way the springs and wells are laid out, though. You have to blame the gods for that."
"I wasn't blaming you," Grus assured him. "I can see how you wouldn't be able to do anything about it. But I can wish it were different, though, too." He looked over toward Trabzun again. "I can wish a lot of things were different."
"Your Majesty?" Pterocles made an inquiring noise.
"Oh, nothing.. nothing," Grus repeated, a little annoyed that he'd shown so much of himself. Pterocles plainly didn't believe him – which seemed only fair, since he wasn't telling the truth. But he didn't want to tell the wizard just how much he wished his one legitimate son had turned out to be a decent, hardworking man instead of.. what he was. The older Grus got, the more he thought about what would happen after he wasn't here to rule Avornis.
When he first seized the throne, he'd expected Ortalis to succeed him. Lanius could go right on wearing the crown; he was, after all, the last twig of the old, familiar dynasty. If he had a son by Sosia, that boy could be called king, too. But real power would flow through Ortalis and his descendants.
That wasn't exactly how things looked anymore, however much Grus wished they still did. Lanius had proved more than Grus expected, Ortalis less. If I were to die now… Grus shook his head, shying away from the thought like a horse shying from a buzzing fly. Sooner or later, the fly would land. It would sting. Sooner or later – but please. King Olor, not yet.
Things would only get more complicated if Ortalis had a son. Grus had heard from Lanius that Limosa was expecting another child. He hadn't heard from Ortalis. He couldn't remember whether Ortalis had ever written to him while he was in the field. Maybe a letter of justification or two, to try to put a good light on some palace scrape Ortalis had gotten into. Past that, no.
It didn't necessarily matter. Grus knew that. Being able to write an interesting letter – indeed, being able to write at all – was no prerequisite for kingship. If people would do what you told them to do, and would do it even when you didn't watch over them to make sure they did, you had what you needed to be a king. And if what you told them to do worked most of the time, you had what you needed to be a fairly good king.
"It isn't magic," Grus murmured.
He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud till Pterocles asked, "What isn't?"
"Oh," Grus said. "Being a king, I meant."
"Not the kind of magic I do," the wizard agreed. "But a good king has magic of his own. A good king needs to have people like him and take him seriously at the same time. Plenty of people have one or the other. Having both at once isn't so easy."
That wasn't far from Grus' thought. He said, "I wonder how you get them." He was thinking of Ortalis and Lanius again. There was no doubt people took Lanius seriously. How much they liked him was another question. As for Ortalis…
Grus was just as glad when Pterocles broke into his train of thought by saying, "I can't tell you that, Your Majesty. I'm afraid nobody else can, either. Plenty of people besides kings wish they knew the answer there."
"I suppose so." Grus did more than suppose it; he was sure it was true. He looked in the direction of Trabzun once more. "What could we do to make that place fall faster?"
"Undermine the walls?" Pterocles suggested. "I'm no general, but I know besiegers often try that. It must work some of the time."
"It does – some of the time," Grus said. "Times when it does, the men on the other side usually don't know you're doing it until things start falling down on their heads. With all this open country around the town, hiding the digging and getting rid of the dirt without the Menteshe noticing would be a neat trick." His gaze sharpened. "Or do you think you could help bring it off?"
"Maybe." Pterocles made the word long and thoughtful. "It would depend on not letting the Menteshe sorcerers inside Trabzun know I was using a masking spell. Once they realize there's something to see through, they will, and in a hurry."
"Try anyhow," Grus urged. He wouldn't just be sitting and waiting now, and that was – or at least felt – all to the good.