like a snake with indigestion? The interpreter added, “He says he will not harm any of them, if they return to his side now. He also says you Avornans will go home then.”
“Yes, that’s true.” Grus saw no point to putting a permanent garrison in Nishevatz. That would just embroil him in a war against all the other Chernagor city-states. Unless he aimed to conquer this whole stretch of coast, seizing a little of it would be more trouble than it was worth.
Vsevolod called to the men on the wall one more time. The interpreter said, “He asks them, what is their answer?”
They did not keep him waiting long. Almost as one man, they drew their bows and started shooting at him and Grus and their companions. The guardsmen threw up their shields.
Guards and the royalty they guarded got out of range as fast as they could. Avornan archers rushed forward to shoot back at the Chernagors on the walls. Grus doubted they hit many, but maybe they did make the Chernagors keep their heads down. That would at least spoil the foe’s aim.
After what seemed like forever but couldn’t have been more than half a minute, the arrows the Chernagors kept shooting thudded into the ground behind Grus, and not into shields or flesh. He wasn’t ashamed to let out a sigh of relief. He turned to Vsevolod and asked, “Are you all right?”
Panting, the deposed lord of Nishevatz nodded. “Only—winded. I am not—as swift—as I used to be.” He paused to catch his breath. “What will you do now?”
“Well, we’ve tried being sneaky, and that doesn’t work,” Grus said. “We’ve tried being reasonable, and that didn’t work, either. We can’t very well starve them out, can we, not when they can bring in food by sea?”
“What does that leave?” Vsevolod asked morosely.
“Assaulting the walls,” Grus answered. He stared toward those walls again. The Chernagors were still trading arrows with his archers. They were getting the better of it, too; they had the advantage of height: Grus sighed. “Assaulting the walls,” he repeated, and sighed again. “And I hate to think about it, let alone try.”
Whenever Bubulcus saw King Lanius coming, he did his best to disappear. With one moncat still on the loose, that was wise of him. It wasn’t wise enough, though. The longer Pouncer stayed missing, the angrier Lanius got. Had Bubulcus been truly wise, he would have fled the palace and not just ducked into another room or around the corner when the king drew near.
“One of these days,” Lanius told Sosia, “I am going to lose all of my temper, and I really will send that simpering simpleton to the Maze.”
“Go ahead,” his wife answered. “If you’re going to act like a king, act like a
The only trouble here was, acting like a king meant acting like an ogre. No matter how angry at Bubulcus Lanius got, at heart he remained a mild-mannered man better suited to scholarship than to ruling. He could too easily imagine what a disaster exiling Bubulcus would be to the servant’s family. And so he muttered curses under his breath, and told himself he would condemn Bubulcus tomorrow, and then put it off for another day.
He left meat in places to which he hoped the moncat might come. A couple of times, the moncat did come to one of those places… and stole the meat and disappeared again before anybody could catch it. Bubulcus came very close to exile the first time that happened, very close indeed.
Lanius did his best to live his life as though nothing were wrong. He went into the archives, trying to find out as much as he could about Nishevatz and the Chernagors for Grus. He doubted his father-in-law would be grateful, but, grateful or not, Grus still might find the information worth having.
Of course, Lanius would have enjoyed going to the archives regardless of whether he found anything useful to Grus. He liked nothing better than poking around through old sheets of parchment. Whenever he did, he learned something. He had to keep reminding himself he was trying to find out about the Chernagors. Otherwise, he might have happily wandered down any of half a dozen sidetracks.
He also liked going into the archives for the same reason he liked caring for his animals—while he was doing it, people were unlikely to bother him. Palace servants weren’t forbidden to come into the archives after him. Old tax records and ambassadors’ reports, unlike moncats and monkeys, couldn’t escape and cause trouble. But no one in the royal palace except Lanius seemed to want to venture into the dark, dusty chambers that held the records of Avornis’ past.
When the Chernagors first descended on the north coast, Avornans had reacted with horror. Lanius already knew that. The Chernagors hadn’t been merchant adventurers in those distant days. They’d been sea-raiders and corsairs. Lanius suspected—he was, in fact, as near sure as made no difference—they were still sea-raiders and corsairs whenever and wherever they could get away with it.
He’d just come across an interesting series of letters from an Avornan envoy who’d visited Nishevatz in the days of Prince Vsevolod’s great-grandfather when a flash of motion caught from the corner of his eye made him look up. His first thought was that a servant had come into the archives after all. He saw no one, though.
“Who’s there?” he called.
Only silence answered.
He suddenly realized his seclusion in the archives had disadvantages as well as advantages. If anything happened to him here, who would know? Who would come to his rescue? If an assassin came after him, with what could he fight back? The most lethal weapon he had was a bronze letter opener.
And if the Banished One had somehow learned he spent a lot of time alone in the archives… Unease turned to fear. A thrall under the spell of the Banished One had already tried to murder him while he was caring for his animals. Flinging a treaty in an assassins face wouldn’t work nearly as well as throwing a moncat had.
“Who’s there?” This time, Lanius couldn’t keep a wobble of alarm from his voice.
That alarm got worse when, again, no answer came back.
Slowly, fighting his fear, Lanius rose from the stool where he’d perched. He clutched the letter opener in his right hand. He was no warrior. He would never be a warrior. But he intended to put up as much of a fight as he could.
Another flash of motion, this one from behind a cabinet untidily full of officers’ reports from a long-ago war against the Thervings. “Who’s there?” Lanius demanded for a third time. “Come out. I see you.”
More motion—and, at last, a sound to go with it. “Mrowr?”
Lanius’ joints felt all springy with relief. “Olor’s beard!” he said, and then, “Come out of there, you stupid moncat!”
The moncat, of course, didn’t. All Lanius could see of it now was the twitching tip of its tail. He hurried over to the oak cabinet. Any moment now, the moncat was only too likely to start scrambling up the wall, to somewhere too high for him to reach it.
He was, in fact, a little surprised it hadn’t fled already. With his fear gone and his wits returning, he clucked as he did when he was about to feed the moncats. “Mrowr?” this one said again, now on a questioning note. He hoped it was hungry. Though mice skittered here and there through the royal palace, hunting them would surely be harder work than coming up to a dish and getting meat and offal. Wouldn’t it?
“It’s all right,” Lanius said soothingly, stepping around the cabinet. “It’s not your fault. I’m not angry at you. I wouldn’t mind booting that bungling Bubulcus into the middle of next month—no, I wouldn’t mind that at all—but I’m not angry at you.”
There sat the moncat, staring up at him out of greenish-yellow eyes. It seemed to think it was in trouble no matter how soothingly he spoke, for it sat on its haunches clutching in its little clawed hands and feet an enormous wooden serving spoon it must have stolen from the kitchens. The spoon was at least as tall as the moncat, and that included the animal’s tail.
“Why, you little thief!” Lanius burst out laughing. “If you went sneaking through the kitchens, maybe you’re not so hungry after all.” He stooped to pick up the moncat.
It started to run away, but couldn’t make itself let go of the prize it had stolen. It was much less agile trying to run with one hand and one foot still holding the spoon. Lanius scooped it up.
Still hanging on to the spoon, the moncat twisted and snapped. He smacked it on the nose. “Don’t you bite
