"Is everything inside this part of the city the same as it is in the slice he had Tinamus build?" Crinitus asked.
"Good question," Grus said. "I don't know the answer to that. I don't think King Lanius knew the answer to that. He hoped things hadn't changed too much, and so do I. Before much longer, we'll see."
As though his words were a cue, Avornan archers and siege engines far around the line started shooting at Yozgat. Grus' men had been doing that almost – but not quite – at random for several days now. The Menteshe responded much as the king hoped they would. They sent men to the threatened stretch and didn't worry much about any other part of the wall.
"Now," Grus said. He and the trainers and the wizard crossed the gangplank and hurried toward the moat. Collurio carried Pouncer's cage. Crinitus and Pterocles were in charge of a long, thin pole. Carpenters had made it up in sections in the capital, and other woodworkers had joined the sections together once the animal trainer brought it down to Yozgat.
When they got to the edge of the moat, Grus stared up toward the wall. No one up there seemed to be paying any attention to what was going on outside the city. Pterocles noted the same thing, saying, "Looks quiet enough."
"Yes." Grus nodded. "We're going to try it. Gentlemen, if you'd be so kind…"
Crinitus and Pterocles angled the pole up toward the top of the wall. At last, after what seemed much too long, the far end of the pole tapped against the crenellations up there. "Anyone hear that, do you think?" Crinitus asked anxiously.
No shouts came from the wall. No Menteshe came over to grab the other end of the pole. "Everything seems all right," Grus murmured. "Why don't you let the moncat out of the cage, Collurio?"
"I'll do it," the animal trainer answered, also in a low voice. He fiddled with the door to the cage. As it swung open, he said, "I hope the trip down here hasn't made the beast forget what it's supposed to do. That happens sometimes, and we had an awfully long trip."
"Only one way to find out," Grus said.
Pouncer let out a musty meow. It wasn't quite like the noises ordinary cats made, but was closer to those than anything else. The moncat poked its head out of the cage as though unsure such liberties were allowed. When no one shouted at it or poked it to make it withdraw, it came all the way out of the cage, stretched – and settled down on the ground to lick its backside. "Miserable thing!" Crinitus exploded, and made as though to prod it with his foot.
His father stopped him. "Let the beast be," he said. "It has to tend to itself before it can tend to what we want of it."
Pouncer stopped grooming itself. Grus could tell the moment when the moncat noticed the pole. The animal made a small, interested noise. The moment Collurio heard that, he made a small, pleased noise. Pouncer went up the pole. With what were essentially hands on all four limbs, the moncat was less graceful than ordinary cats on the ground. As soon as it started climbing the pole, though… The moncat gripped with forefeet and hind feet, and rose faster and more skillfully than Grus would have imagined possible.
"Gods be praised!" Collurio breathed. "It still knows what it's supposed to do."
No wonder he sounds relieved, Grus thought. If the animal balked, who would have gotten the blame? That wouldn't have fallen on Pouncer. After all, a moncat was only a moncat. It would have landed on Collurio and Crinitus.
"Up to the top and on the wall," the younger trainer said. "I can't feel its weight on the pole anymore."
"Up to the top and into Yozgat," Grus said. He hoped Pouncer went into Yozgat, anyhow. If the moncat chose to amble along the wall instead, who could say what would happen? Maybe one of the Menteshe up there would find a new pet. Or maybe, since the city was under siege, one of the plainsmen would find supper. But Grus couldn't do anything about that now. It was up to Pouncer – and, maybe, to Pterocles. Grus turned to the wizard. "Are you ready?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." The wizard gave Grus an ironic bow. "You need me for this spell about as much as you need to break an egg by dropping the great cathedral on it."
"That's nice," Grus said placidly. "You told me something like that before. I've got you, this way I don't have to tell anybody else about what we're doing, I know you're up to it, and you'll do a good job of breaking that egg."
Along with his usual sorcerous paraphernalia, Pterocles had several small chunks of raw mutton wrapped in cloth in his belt pouch. He held one of them in the palm of his left hand. In his right hand he held an arrowhead shot from the walls of Yozgat. "Same trick I used outside of Trabzun, only with a new twist," he remarked. "The law of contagion means the arrowhead that had been inside Yozgat is still connected to the place."
He began to chant in a low voice no one on the walls could have heard. When he broke off, the bit of mutton vanished from his hand. "It's inside the city?" Grus asked. "It's where it's supposed to be?"
"Yes, Your Majesty – right where the moncat is supposed to find it," Pterocles answered patiently. "I told you, a hedge-wizard could move this meat around as well as I can."
"Just keep doing it," the king said. "If it's so easy it offends your dignity, well, maybe I'll have you do something harder next time, that's all."
Pterocles repeated the spell again and again. Piece after piece of mutton disappeared. By the wizard's murmured comments, Grus gathered that each one was going deeper into Yozgat. Collurio and Crinitus knew just where in the model of the city Pouncer was accustomed to getting his rewards as he went through his routine. As closely as Pterocles could, he was putting mutton in spots that corresponded to those.
The wizard started the spell yet again, then paused. "Your Majesty, this one will go close to the citadel. There are sorcerous wards in place. If I penetrate them, I may alert the wizard who set them. Shall I put the meat there anyhow?"
"No!" Grus wasn't sure he was right, but he didn't hesitate. "The moncat will go on anyhow, I think, and I don't want to alert the Menteshe. No matter what, I don't want to alert the Menteshe. We may have to try this again, and surprise will help if we do."
"As you wish." Pterocles accepted his decision. A big part of what made a king a king was getting people to accept his choices. Of course, if they accepted too many that were wrong…
"I think this is good. I hope it is," Collurio said. "The moncat is a clever beast. Even if some rewards are missing, it will usually go on, expecting to find the rest. I have seen as much."
"Thank you," Grus told him. But he'd made his choice for reasons mostly different from the one the trainer had given. He thought he would have made it even if Collurio had told him something else.
"I'll place these other bits on the way back, then," Pterocles said. "I wish I knew just where in Yozgat Pouncer is now."
"Nothing we can do but wait," Grus said. However true that was, he didn't like it. Sooner or later, the Menteshe were bound to notice his companions and him, to say nothing of the pole that led up to the wall.. weren't they? Alert men should have noticed them already. Maybe, just maybe, the gods were helping to keep the defenders from noticing what was going on under their noses. Or maybe the Menteshe weren't alert because they didn't think the Avornans could put men on the walls without their knowing it.
And they were right. The Avornans couldn't sneak men up onto the walls of Yozgat. But the Menteshe hadn't thought about moncats. They'd probably never heard of them. What they didn't know.. might give them a surprise.