“And when did it become your business what god Nishevatz follows?” Vasilko plainly had a prince’s pride.
“The Banished One has tried to kill me more than once,” Grus said. “The nomads who follow him have worked all sorts of harm on Avornis. His friends are my foes, and if he is the sort of god usurpers follow, how safe are you on your stolen throne?”
That made Vasilko look around in sudden alarm, as though wondering which of his officers he might be better off not trusting. But then the Chernagor straightened once more. “We stand united,” he said loudly.
“Is that what you called me here to tell me?” Grus asked. Beside him, Pterocles stirred. Grus knew what the wizard was thinking—that Vasilko had called him here to launch a sorcerous attack against him. Grus would have been happier if he hadn’t found that fairly likely himself.
But some of Vasilko’s pride leaked out of him as he stood there and looked out on land he could not rule because the Avornan army held him away from it. He spoke more quietly when he replied, “No. I want to learn what terms you may have in mind.”
“Are you yielding? Is Nishevatz yielding?” Grus demanded, his voice taut with excitement.
“Not now. Not yet. Maybe not ever,” Vasilko said. “I told you, I want to know your terms.”
Grus hadn’t thought hard about terms until this moment. He had always assumed the siege would have to drag on until the bitter end, until his men either stormed the walls or starved Nishevatz into surrender—or, with bad luck, failed. Slowly, he said, “The people of the city are to acknowledge Beloyuz as Prince of Nishevatz. They are to let my army into Nishevatz, and to give up all their weapons except for eating knives and one sword for every three men. You yourself are to come back to Avornis with me, to live out your days in exile in the Maze.”
He waited to see how Vasilko would respond to that. He didn’t have to wait long. “No,” Vasilko said, and turned his back. “The fight goes on.”
“So be it,” Grus said. “You will not get a better bargain from me when we break into Nishevatz.”
That made Vasilko turn back. “You talk about doing that. Go ahead and talk. But when you have done it, then you will have earned the right. Not now.” He disappeared from Grus’ view; the king supposed he had gone down from the wall.
“So much for that,” Grus remarked as he returned to the siege line the Avornans had set up. “I’d hoped for better, but I hadn’t really looked for it.”
“You got more than I thought you would, Your Majesty,” Pterocles said. Grus raised a questioning eyebrow. The wizard went on, “This was a real parley, even if it didn’t work. I thought it would be nothing but a try at assassinating you.”
“Oh.” Grus thought that over. He set a hand on Pterocles’ shoulder. “You have a pretty strange notion of what goes into progress, you know that?”
“I suppose I do,” the sorcerer said.
“Any luck?” General Hirundo called when Grus came into the siege line.
The king shook his head. “Not a bit of it, except that Vasilko didn’t try to murder me.” Hirundo laughed. Grus would have meant it for a joke before Pterocles had spoken. Now he wasn’t joking. The siege went on.
“Back when I was your age,” King Lanius told his son, “the Thervings were a lot fiercer than they are now. They even laid siege to the city of Avornis a couple of times, though they couldn’t take it.”
Prince Crex listened solemnly. “How come they’re different now?” he asked.
Lanius beamed. “Good question! King Berto, who rules them nowadays, is a peaceable fellow. He wants to be a holy man.”
“Like Arch-Hallow Anser?” Crex asked.
“Well… in a way,” Lanius said. Anser wasn’t particularly holy; he just held a post that required the appearance of holiness from its occupant. From everything Lanius had seen, King Berto was sincere in his devotion to the gods. But how to explain that to a little boy? Not seeing how he could, Lanius continued, “Berto s father, King Dagipert, was more interested in fighting than in praying.”
Crex frowned. “So if the next King of Thervingia would sooner fight than pray, will we have wars with the Thervings all the time again?”
That was an even better question. “I hope we won’t,” Lanius answered. “But both sides have to want peace for it to stick. Only one needs to want a war.”
He waited to see what Crex would make of that. After another brief pause, Crex asked, “When is Grandpa coming home?”
“I don’t know,” Lanius said, blinking at the effortless ease with which children could change the subject. “When he’s taken Nishevatz, I suppose.”
“I miss him,” Crex said. “If he were a king who liked to pray instead a king who likes to fight, would he be home now?”
Maybe he hadn’t changed the subject after all. “I don’t know, son,” Lanius said again. “He might have to go fight anyhow, because up in the Chernagor country he’s fighting against the Banished One.”
“Oh,” Crex said. “All right.” And he went off to play without so much as a backward glance at his father.
He ought to know more about these things. He’ll be king one day— I hope, Lanius thought. Crex needed to know about the different bands of Menteshe, about all the Chernagor city-states and how they fit together, about the Thervings, and about the barbarous folk who roamed beyond the Bantian Mountains but might swarm over them to trouble either Thervingia or Avornis itself. He needed to know about the Banished One, too, however much Lanius wished he didn’t.
Right now, the only way for Crex to find out everything he needed to know was to ask someone who already knew. The trouble was, nobody, not even Lanius, knew offhand everything a King of Avornis might need to learn about his kingdom’s neighbors.
“I ought to write it all down,” Lanius said. He nodded, pleased with the idea. It would help Crex. He was sure of that. And it would give him the excuse to go pawing through the archives to find out whatever he didn’t already know about the foreigners his kingdom had to deal with.
He laughed at himself. As though he needed excuses to go pawing through the archives! But now he would be doing it for a reason, not just for his own amusement. Didn’t that count?
When he told Sosia what he had in mind, she didn’t seem to think so. “Will I ever see you again?” she asked. “Or will you go into that nasty, dusty room and disappear forever?”
“It’s not nasty,” Lanius said. He couldn’t deny the archives were dusty. On the other hand, he had a few very pleasant memories of things he’d done there, even if his wife didn’t need to hear about them.
Sosia’s shrug showed amused resignation. “Go on, then. At least when you’re in there, I know what you’re doing.” Again, Lanius congratulated himself for not telling her it wasn’t necessarily so.
He’d spent a lot of time going through the archives looking for what they had to say about the Banished One and the Scepter of Mercy. Now he was looking for some different things—for how his ancestors, and the kings who’d ruled Avornis before his ancestors came to the throne, had dealt with their neighbors.
He couldn’t keep from laughing at himself. Arch-Hallow Anser hunted deer. So did Prince Ortalis, who would have hunted more tender game if he could have gotten away with it. And me? Lanius thought. I hunt pieces of parchment the mice haven’t nibbled too badly. He knew Anser and Ortalis would both laugh at him if that thought occurred to them. Why not beat them to the punch?
Before the end of his first hunting trip in the archives—no serving girls along to act as beaters for the game he sought—he knew he would have no trouble coming up with all he needed and more besides. Then he found a new question. What would he do once he had everything he needed? He’d written countless letters. This was the first time he’d tried writing a book—he’d never begun the one on palace life.