He tried to reach in a little farther—and something tapped him on the back of the hand.
He jerked his hand away, and almost fell off the ladder. If he landed on his head and it wasn’t the cooks’ fault… He’d still end up with a smashed skull, or maybe a broken neck. A hasty grab made sure he wouldn’t fall. But his heart still pounded wildly. What the demon had touched him in there?
Staring into the crack, he saw only blackness. “Let me have a lamp,” he called to the people below. A skinny cook’s helper who couldn’t have been more than twelve came up the ladder to give him one. The rungs creaked again, but held.
Lanius held the clay lamp up to the crack. The little flame from the burning oil didn’t reach very far. He poked his face toward the crack, trying to see farther into it. That only got in the way of the lamplight. He pulled back a little.
Suddenly, he saw light inside the crack—two lights, in fact. They appeared, vanished for a moment, and reappeared once more. That blink of a disappearance… As soon as he thought of it as a blink, he realized what he was seeing—the eyes of an animal, throwing back some of the lamplight that fell on them. And what sort of animal was most likely to lurk in this particular crack?
Again, Lanius realized the answer the moment he asked the right question. “Pouncer!” he exclaimed. “You come out of there this instant!”
“Mrowr,” Pouncer said. The moncat, of course, did what it wanted to do, not what Lanius wanted it to do.
The king reached in after it. It batted at his hand once more. As far as it was concerned, it was playing a game. It kept its claws in their sheaths, and didn’t try to hurt Lanius, He was enjoying himself a good deal less than the moncat. Pouncer was too far back in there for him to grab the beast and haul it out. If he tried, the game would quickly stop being one. The moncat had very sharp claws, and even sharper teeth. As long as it stayed in there, it could hurt him, and he couldn’t get it out.
“Miserable, stupid creature,” he grumbled.
That told the cooks and cleaners what was going on. “Is it the moncat again, Your Majesty?” a woman asked. Lanius nodded.
“What do you want to do?” asked a cook with a gray beard.
“I want to make the beast come out,” the king replied. “If I try to haul it out by the scruff of the neck, it’ll tear my hand to pieces.”
“Give it some scraps,” the cook suggested. Lanius hoped he would have thought of that himself in a few heartbeats. The cook called, “Bring a scrap of meat for His Majesty!”
Before long, the scrawny assistant who’d come up with the lamp did. Lanius held the bit of meat at the edge of the crack. Pouncer grabbed it and ate it without coming out. “Another scrap!” Lanius said. He could hear the moncat purring. It was having a fine time. He wished he could say the same.
He got the next scrap. He let Pouncer see this one, but held it far enough away to make the moncat come out after it.
Since he was still holding the lamp in his right hand, grabbing Pouncer was an awkward, clumsy business. He managed, though, and also managed to get down the ladder with lamp, moncat, and himself intact. The kitchen crew cheered. Pouncer finished the second scrap of meat and looked around for more.
The cook who’d thought of feeding scraps to the moncat saw that, too. “Now that thing won’t want to steal spoons anymore,” he said. “It’ll want to steal meat instead.”
That seemed depressingly probable to Lanius. “I’m going to take it back to its room for now,” he said. “Maybe it will stay there for a while, anyhow.” He looked down at Pouncer. The moncat stared back. Was that animal innocence or animal mischief in its eyes? Lanius couldn’t tell. He suspected he’d find out.
One day followed another in the siege of Nishevatz. King Grus did his best to make sure the Avornan army had enough food, and to try to heal the soldiers who fell sick. Disease could devastate a force more thoroughly than battle. Healers and wizards did what they could against fluxes of the bowels and other ailments. None of the sicknesses raced through the camp like wildfire, as they so often did.
Grus wondered how things were on the other side of the wall. Every so often, one or two of Vasilkos warriors would slip down a rope and come out to the Avornan line. Like the first few men who’d given up the fight, they were hungry and weary, but they weren’t starving. Vasilkos followers still fought back when Grus poked at them. They showed no signs of being ready to give up.
And then, one morning that had seemed no different from any other, a messenger came back from the siege line to the king’s pavilion. “Your Majesty, Prince Vasilko is on the wall!” the young soldier said excitedly. “He says he wants to talk to you.”
“Does he?” Grus said, and the young soldier nodded. Grus got off the stool he’d been sitting on. “Well, then, I’d better find out what he has to say for himself, hadn’t I?”
In spite of his words, he didn’t approach Nishevatz by himself. He brought a company of soldiers, enough men to protect himself if Vasilko turned treacherous, and he also brought Pterocles.
The wizard trembled a little—trembled more than a little—as he approached the walls of Nishevatz. “I hope I can protect you, Your Majesty,” he said. “If the Banished One puts forth all his strength through Vasilko…”
“If I didn’t think you could help me, I wouldn’t have asked you to come along,” Grus answered. “You’re the best I’ve got, and by now you have the measure of what the Banished One can do.”
“Oh, yes. I have his measure,” Pterocles said in a hollow voice. “And he has mine. That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Grus clapped him on the back. Pterocles’ answering smile was distinctly wan. Grus tried not to let it worry him. His own curiosity was getting the better of him as he drew near the walls of Nishevatz. He’d been at war against Vasilko for years, but had never set eyes on him up until now. He peered up, trying to pick Vsevolod’s rebellious son out from the rest of the Chernagor defenders.
Nothing in Vasilko’s dress gave him away. Grus wished he’d taken that same precaution. Vasilko and the other Chernagors would have no trouble figuring out who he was if they wanted to try something nasty instead of parleying. With a shrug, Grus cupped his hands in front of his mouth and called, “I’m here, Vasilko. What do you want to say to me?”
The Chernagor who stepped up to the very edge of the battlement was older than Grus had thought he would be. The King of Avornis had expected to face an angry youth, but Vasilko was on the edge of middle age. Grus realized he need not have been startled; Vsevolod had died full of years. Still, it was a surprise.
Vasilko looked down at him with as much curiosity as he felt himself. “Why do you persecute me?” the usurper asked in Avornan better than Vsevolod had spoken.
“Why did you overthrow your father when you were his heir?” Grus answered. “Why do you follow the Banished One and not the gods in the heavens?”
Some of the Chernagors up on the walls of Nishevatz stirred. Grus supposed they were the ones who could understand Avornan. In a town full of traders, that some men could came as no great wonder. A few of them sent Vasilko startled looks. Did they think he still worshiped King Olor and Queen Quelea and the rest of the heavenly hierarchy? Maybe they were learning something new.
Vasilko said, “Avornis’ throne was not yours by right, either, but you took it.”
“I did not cast out King Lanius,” Grus answered, wishing Vasilko hadn’t chosen that particular comeback. Grus went on, “King Lanius is in the royal palace in the city of Avornis right now. And I never cast aside the gods in the heavens. They knew what they were doing when they exiled the Banished One.” I hope — I pray— they knew what they were doing.