Lanius made the feeding noise again. Still clutching the dipper, the moncat came over to him. He grabbed it. It hung on to its prize, but didn’t seem otherwise upset. That noise meant food most of the time. If, this once, it didn’t, the animal wasn’t going to worry about it.
“What shall I do with you?” Lanius demanded.
Again, Pouncer said, “Rowr.” Again, that told the king less than he wanted to know.
He carried the moncat back to its room. After putting it inside and going out into the hallway once more, he waved down the first servant he saw. “Yes, Your Majesty?” the man said. “Is something wrong?”
“Something or someone,” Lanius answered grimly. “Tell Bubulcus to get himself over here right away. Tell everybody you see to tell Bubulcus to get over here right away. Tell him he’d better hurry if he knows what’s good for him.”
He hardly ever sounded so fierce, so determined. The servant’s eyes widened. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he said, and hurried away. Lanius composed himself to wait, not in patience but in impatience.
Bubulcus came trotting up about a quarter of an hour later, a worried expression on his long, thin, pointy-nosed face. “What’s the trouble now, Your Majesty?” he asked, as though he and trouble had never met before.
Knowing better, the king pointed to the barred door that kept the moncats from escaping. “Have you gone looking for me in there again?”
“Which I haven’t.” Bubulcus shook his head so vigorously, a lock of greasy black hair flopped down in front of one eye. He brushed it back with the palm of his hand. “Which I haven’t,” he repeated, his voice oozing righteousness. “No, sir. I’ve learned my lesson, I have. Once was plenty, thank you very much.”
Once hadn’t been plenty, of course. He’d let moncats get loose twice—at least twice. He might forget. Lanius never would. “Are you sure, Bubulcus? Are you very sure?” he asked. “If you’re lying to me, I will send you to the Maze, and I won’t blink before I do it. I promise you that.”
“Me? Lie? Would I do such a thing?” Bubulcus acted astonished, insulted, at the mere possibility. He went on, “Put me on the rack, if you care to. I’ll tell you the same. Give me to a Menteshe torturer. Give me to the Banished One, if you care to.”
The king’s fingers twisted in a gesture that might—or might not— ward off evil omens. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Thank the true gods for your ignorance, too.”
“Which I do for everything, Your Majesty,” Bubulcus said. “But I’m not ignorant about this. I know I didn’t go in there. Do what you want with me, but I can’t tell you any different.”
Sending him to the rack had more than a little appeal. With a certain amount of regret, Lanius said, “Go find a mage, Bubulcus. Tell him to question you about this. Bring him back here with you. Hurry. I’ll be waiting. If you don’t come back soon, you’ll wish some of the foolish things you just said did come true.”
Bubulcus disappeared faster than if a mage had conjured him into nothingness. Lanius leaned against the wall. Would the servant come back so fast?
He did, or nearly. And he had with him no less a wizard than Pterocles himself. After bowing to Lanius, the wizard said, “As best I can tell, Your Majesty, this man is speaking the truth. He was not in those rooms, and he did not let your pet get out.”
“How did the moncat get loose, then?” Lanius asked.
Pterocles shrugged. “I can’t tell you that. Maybe another servant let it out. Maybe there’s a hole in the wall no one has noticed.”
Bubulcus looked not only relieved but triumphant. “Which I told you, Your Majesty. Which I didn’t have anything to do with.”
“This time, no,” Lanius admitted. “But your record up until now somehow didn’t fill me with confidence.” Bubulcus looked indignant. Pterocles let out a small snort of laughter. Lanius gestured. “Go on, Bubulcus. Count yourself lucky and try to stay out of trouble.”
“Which I’ve already done, except for some people who keep trying to put me into it,” Bubulcus said. But then he seemed to remember he was talking to a King of Avornis, not to another servant. He bobbed his head in an awkward bow and scurried away.
“Thank you,” Lanius told Pterocles.
“You’re welcome, Your Majesty.” The wizard tried a smile on for size. “Dealing with something easy every once in a while is a pleasure.” He too nodded to Lanius and ambled down the corridor.
Something easy? Lanius wondered. Then he decided Pterocles had a point. Finding out if a servant lied was bound to be easier—and safer— than, say, facing a Chernagor sorcerer. But how had Pouncer escaped? That didn’t look as though it would be so easy for Lanius to figure out.
Grus listened to Pterocles with more than a little amusement. “A moncat, you say?” he inquired, and the wizard nodded. Grus went on, “Well, that’s got to be simpler than working out how to cure thralls.”
Pterocles nodded. “It was this time, anyhow.”
“Good. Not everything should be hard all the time,” Grus said, and Pterocles nodded again. Grus asked, “And how are you coming on curing thralls?”
Pterocles’ face fell. He’d plainly hoped Grus wouldn’t ask him that.
But, once asked, he had to answer. “Not as well as I would like, Your Majesty,” he said reluctantly, adding, “No one else in Avornis has figured out how to do it, either, you know, not reliably, not since the Menteshe wizards first started making our men into thralls however many hundred years ago that was.”
“Well, yes,” Grus admitted with a certain reluctance of his own. He didn’t want to think about that; he would sooner have forgotten all those other failures. That way, he could have believed Pterocles was starting with a clean slate. As things were, he could only ask, “Do you think you’ve found any promising approaches?”
“Promising? No. Hopeful? Maybe,” Pterocles replied. “After all, as I’ve said, I’ve been… emptied myself. So have thralls. I know more about that than any other Avornan wizard ever born.” His laugh had a distinctly hollow note. “I wish I didn’t, but I do.”
“What about the suggestions Alca the witch sent me?” Grus asked once more.
With a sigh, the wizard answered, “We’ve been over this ground before, Your Majesty. I don’t deny the witch is clever, but what she says is not to the point. She doesn’t understand what being a thrall means.”
“And you do?” Grus asked with heavy sarcasm.
“As well as any man who isn’t a thrall can, yes,” Pterocles replied. “I’ve told you that before. Will you please listen?”
“No matter how well you say you understand, you haven’t come up with anything that looks like a cure,” Grus said. “If you do, I’ll believe you. If you don’t, if you don’t show me you have ideas of your own, I am going to order you to use Alca’s for the sake of doing something.”
“Even if it’s wrong,” Pterocles jeered.
“Even if it is,” Grus said stubbornly. “From all I’ve seen, doing something is better than doing nothing. Something may work. Nothing never will.”
“If you think I’m doing nothing, Your Majesty, you had better find yourself another wizard,” Pterocles said. “Then I will go off and do nothing with a clear conscience, and you can see what happens after that.”
If he’d spoken threateningly, Grus might have sacked him on the spot. Instead, he sounded more like a man delivering a prophecy. That gave the king pause. Too many strange things had happened for him to ignore that tone of voice. And Pterocles, like Alca, had dreamed of the Banished One—the only sign Grus had that the Banished One took a mortal opponent seriously. Where would he find another wizard who had seen that coldly magnificent countenance?