Hirundo bowed again. He didn't say anything. His silence was part of the price Grus paid for being king. If he had spoken, Grus was sure he would have said something like, Most people would forget all about that as soon as they got a crown on their head. It was probably — no, certainly — true, but it wasn't the sort of thing you told a sovereign, even an easygoing one.
The Menteshe didn't need long to realize something had gone wrong. Seeing the Avornans moving forward, seeing their animals healthy and not on their last legs, told the nomads Grus' army had found water one way or another. But the nomads didn't turn any special savagery against the thralls. It was as though they couldn't imagine those near-beasts doing anything for good or ill — doing anything at all, except what beasts did.
Instead, with a fury that seemed to Grus not far from despair, the Menteshe struck at the Avornan army. As always, they hit hard. Volleys of arrows stung Grus' force. Wounded men and wounded horses screamed. The Avornans wavered. If the nomads had kept pelting them with arrows from long range, they might have broken.
What saved the Avornans were the siege engines rattling along in the baggage train. Those could hit the Menteshe where Avornan archery couldn't. And, as always, each of the flying stone balls and stout darts did far more damage than a mere arrow could have. The Menteshe abruptly seemed to lose patience with the long-range duel. Shouting curses in their own language, they charged.
In charging, they threw away the advantage they'd enjoyed. They'd had the better of the missile duel even if they didn't like stones flying their way. At close quarters, the Avornans, who wore heavier armor and rode sturdier horses, had the edge.
The Menteshe didn't need long to realize they'd made a mistake. By the time they did, though, it was too late. They were already entangled with the Avornans. Getting out of trouble proved harder than getting into it, which was usually true. The Avornan lancers and archers and spear-carrying foot soldiers made the Menteshe sorry they hadn't stayed farther away.
And when the nomads did finally break free, they were too battered and too disorganized to go back to the strategy that had worked well for them before. They were also too closely pursued. They rode off toward the south. Grus didn't push the pursuit hard. That would have let his men get shaken out into loose order, where they would be vulnerable to the nomads. He wanted to play to his own countrymen's strengths as long as he could.
Watching the Menteshe retreat, Hirundo said, "That will give them something to think about."
"I hope so," Grus said. "They tried to stop us with filth in the wells, and they couldn't. And they tried to stop us with soldiers again, and they couldn't do that, either. What have they got left?"
"They may have more fight left in them. They're tough," the general answered. "And then, if they keep losing, they stand siege in Yozgat. The place is supposed to be formidable."
"We'll find out how formidable it is," Grus said. Like Hirundo, he was looking south. Hirundo no doubt thought he was thinking of the city where the Scepter of Mercy had lain for so long. And so he was, but he was also looking farther south still, toward the Argolid Mountains. What would the Banished One do if — no, probably when — the Avornan army encircled the city? We'll find out, Grus thought again.
Pouncer knew what to do, every step of the way. King Lanius watched as the moncat proved as much in the city slice he'd had Tinamus design and build. "Look at him go!" Lanius exclaimed.
"He's a remarkable animal, Your Majesty," Collurio agreed. "It's been a… a privilege working with him."
"You started to say something else," Lanius told him. "What was it? A pleasure? But you didn't say that."
"No, I didn't. The moncat pushes back too hard to make it a pleasure," Collurio said.
After a few heartbeats, Lanius shook his head. "I don't think that's quite right. It's just that, well, a moncat is a cat. Pouncer will do what Pouncer wants to do, not what we want him to do. The trick is to get the miserable creature to want to do what we want him to do — and not to knock him over the head with a rock when he doesn't want to do it."
"Yes — and that last," Collurio agreed with a weary smile. "Anyone can tell you've had some experience with animals, Your Majesty."
"And with children," Lanius said.
That made the trainer laugh. "And with children," he agreed. "Oh, yes. Children, though, mostly grow out of it. Beasts never do."
"True enough." But Lanius was thinking about Ortalis, and about how much beastliness he'd never grown out of. Collurio might have heard this or that about Ortalis; palace gossip always leaked out into the streets of the capital. The animal trainer didn't have to live with the prince, no matter what he'd heard. As far as Lanius was concerned, that made Collurio the lucky one.
Pouncer kept on with the routine it had learned. It knew where to go and what to do to earn each new reward. The moncat knew how to reverse its course, too. Lanius kept looking away from Pouncer and up into the sky. No hawks. No eagles. Not even a jay scolding people for being people. Just a few small white clouds drifting on a warm, lazy breeze.
"I'm glad you're here, Your Majesty. We're just coming to the hard part now," Collurio said. "Crinitus and I are going to start widening the distances between rewards. We'll set them out in every other usual place, so the moncat will have to go twice as far between them. Then we'll double the distance again, and so on until we have what you want."
The trainer only knew what the king wanted. He remained unsure why Lanius wanted it. Lanius didn't enlighten him. The less the trainer knew, the safer he was — and the safer Pouncer was. Collurio had already drawn the Banished One's interest. If the exiled god looked his way again…
"Have you had any more dreams?" Lanius asked. "Has Crinitus had any?"
"Dreams?" Collurio looked blank for a moment, but only for a moment. "Oh, those dreams! No, the gods in the heavens be praised, I haven't. That one was plenty to last me a lifetime. I don't think my son has. If he had, I expect he would have said so."
They returned to the business at hand the next morning. As Collurio had said he would, he put out only half as many rewards as usual for Pouncer. When the moncat got to where the first one should have been, it looked around in surprise on discovering the treat wasn't there. After a brief pause, though, it went on to where the next treat should have been — and was.
Collurio breathed a sigh of relief. "You're always afraid they'll just sit down and lick themselves when they run into something different," he said. "I didn't really expect that, but you can't know ahead of time."
Pouncer hesitated whenever a reward was missing, but kept on with the routine to get the ones that were there. When Collurio put the moncat through its paces again later in the day, it went straight from reward to reward, scarcely even slowing at the sites that had held treats but did no more.
"He's figured it out!" Lanius said happily.
"Looks that way," Collurio agreed. "Like I told you, we'll keep going until he's good and used to doing it this way, then stretch the distance between rewards again. We're going in the right direction, Your Majesty."
Lanius nodded. "Yes," he said. "I really think we are."
King Grus fanned himself with a fan made of peacock feathers. It was not only gorgeous but, in this sweltering weather, highly practical. Anything that stirred the air was welcome. Even now, with the sun sinking down in the west, it was hotter than it ever got in the city of Avornis.
"Your Majesty?" A sweating guardsman stuck his head into the pavilion.
"What is it?" Grus asked.
"One of our scouts just rode into camp. I think he's got himself a high-and-mighty Menteshe with him."
"Oh, he does, does he?" With a grunt, the king heaved himself up off the stool where he'd perched. "Well, I suppose I'd better come see what the fellow wants, then, hadn't I?"