"We'll settle it, the two of us," Ortalis answered. But he didn't say how he thought they should settle it, or what sort of settlement it might be. Instead, he scooped up his baby son, who giggled. "My father won't have anything to do with it. Not a thing, you hear me?"
"I hear you," Lanius said, almost as though he were gentling a wild animal. He felt that way. Ortalis seemed to think it was more important that Grus not be involved in the succession than who ended up succeeding. That made no sense to Lanius, but plainly it did to his brother-in-law.
"All right." Ortalis breathed heavily, his nostrils flaring each time he inhaled. "That's how it's going to be. We'll take care of things. He won't." He carried Marinus away.
Lanius was glad to see him go. Sweat trickled down the king's sides from his armpits. He hated confrontations. He didn't do them well, and he didn't relish fights or arguments of any kind. And this one…
What he'd wanted to scream at Ortalis was, Not now! You thick-skulled dunderhead, not now! This isn't the time for these things. Wait until we know what happens in the south, for better or for worse.
Would Ortalis have listened if he'd shouted something like that? He didn't think so. Ortalis was a master of timing – of bad timing, that is. He saw what he wanted and he grabbed for it. He didn't think of anything past that. Sometimes I wish I didn't, either, Lanius thought.
He needed a while to realize Ortalis hadn't threatened him. Ortalis hadn't threatened Grus, either. He hadn't sounded friendly, but how could anyone sound friendly talking about the succession? All Grus' legitimate son had said was that he and Lanius would have to settle things after Grus was dead. How could anyone disagree with that?
When Lanius told Sosia what Ortalis said, her eyes lit up. She might have been Ortalis spotting a deer on the hunt. "Write that down and send it to my father," she said. "Write it down just the way you told it to me. As soon as his orders get back here, Ortalis will end up in the Maze, and that will be that."
"Why?" Lanius said. "It really was harmless."
"If Ortalis is worrying about the succession, it's not harmless." Sosia spoke with great conviction. "A scorpion couldn't be more dangerous. A snake couldn't be. Write to my father. He'll say the same thing."
But Lanius shook his head. "Not now. He has more important things to worry about."
"More important than this?" Sosia didn't believe a word of it.
"More important than this," Lanius said firmly. "If the army is outside of Yozgat, that's more important than anything." He started to say that Ortalis could overthrow him and the siege would still be more important. He started to, but he didn't.
Sosia looked down her nose at him even as things were. She looked very much like her brother then, which she didn't usually do. Lanius hated the thought, which didn't make it any less true. Now Sosia was the one who started to say something but didn't. He knew what it would have been – something rude about Pouncer. Ortalis would have said it. He had said it. Still, not hearing it but watching her think it hurt almost as much as her shouting it would have.
Lanius made himself shrug. He knew what he'd done. And he knew what he'd written to Grus. Now all he had to do was wait for the other king's reply – and hope it was the one he wanted to hear.
For once, Grus looked to the east, not the south. The walls of Yozgat dominated the horizon, all the more so when silhouetted against the lightening predawn sky. Everything seemed quiet on the walls. Grus had done everything he could to keep the Menteshe and the Banished One from learning when he would order an assault. He hadn't known himself. Every night before going to bed, he'd tossed two coins. On the night he first got two heads… That had been last night. He'd left his pavilion then, told Hirundo, "Tomorrow," and gone back to get what sleep he could.
And now tomorrow was here.
He turned to Hirundo, who stood beside him. "Are we ready?"
"If we're not, it isn't because of anything we haven't done up until now," the general answered. With each moment of growing light, the gilded armor he and Grus wore seemed to shine more brightly.
"Then let's go," Grus said.
Nodding casually, Hirundo walked over to the trumpeters waiting nearby. He set a hand on the closest one's shoulder and spoke in a low, casual voice. The trumpeter and his comrades raised their horns to their lips and blew the call for the attention. A heartbeat later, other musicians all around the encirclement relayed the call to the waiting men.
The soldiers sprang into action as though they were forming some elaborate dance. Dart- and stone-throwers started shooting at the top of the wall, trying to clear Menteshe from it. Archers ran forward to get into range added ordinary arrows to the mix. Men flung hurdles into the moat, to give attackers and scaling ladders purchase for the assault on the walls.
"Let's go! Let's go!" sergeants screamed. "Keep moving, gods curse your stupid, empty heads!"
More slowly than they might have, the Menteshe realized Grus' men were trying to storm Yozgat. Their own horns rang out, on harsher, brassier notes than the ones Avornan trumpeters used. Grus could hear their guttural shouts of alarm, and their own officers and underofficers shouting commands and advice^ probably not much different from what his men were using. Anyone who didn't hurry in an attack was liable to be in trouble, from the enemy or from his own side.
The thud of stones smacking against the wall was like a giant landing haymaker after haymaker. Engines groaned clunked as artificers tugged on windlasses and loaded new stone balls and darts onto them. They clacked and swooshed and bucked when the missiles flew off against Yozgat.
"Forward the ladders!" Hirundo shouted.
Was it too soon? Had enough hurdles gone into the moat to support the ladders and the men who would climb them? Grus thought he would have waited a little longer before giving command. But he also knew he might have been wrong. Hirundo had keen judgment for such things.
"Come on!" the king yelled. "You can do it!"
He hoped they could do it. Now the sun climbed up over horizon, spilling light across the countryside. Avornans started swarming up a ladder. The Menteshe at the top of the wall pushed it over with a forked pole. The soldiers on it shrieked they fell back to earth.
Heavy rocks crashed down on other climbing soldiers. The Menteshe greeted others with boiling water and red-hot sand. A few men gained a lodgement on top of the wall – but not for long. The defenders swarmed over them and overwhelmed them before they could be reinforced. Grus cursed. He knew he was too old to lead a charge up a ladder. He knew it, but he wished he were leading one just the same.
Hirundo was watching the fight as intently as he was – and had sworn as loudly and as foully when the Menteshe stamped out the Avornan foothold at the top of the wall. Now, his mouth as tight as though he were trying to hold in the pain of a wound, the general turned to the king and said, "I don't think we're going to be able to get up, Your Majesty."
Grus had already begun to fear the same thing. Even so, he asked, "What about the far side of the wall, the one we can't see from here?"
"Horns would have brought us the news," Hirundo said.
"Hmm." Grus knew that, too – at least as well as Hirundo did. He was looking for excuses to go on with the attack. "No chance at all, you say?"
"If we'd been able to hang on to that little stretch where we made it onto the wall for a minute – then we'd have a chance, and a good one," the general replied. "The way things are? No. We're just throwing men away, and we're not getting anything much for them."