The garden's beauty was lost on Tinamus. His clever hands twisted and writhed. They might have had lives — unhappy lives — of their own. "I hardly know where to begin," he said.
"Many people think the beginning is one of the better places," Lanius remarked.
His sarcasm flew right over Tinamus' head. Hands still clutching each other, the builder asked, "Have you ever had — bad dreams?"
"Oh," Lanius said. Half a dozen words, and everything was clear — clearer to him, probably, than it was to Tinamus. "Yes, by the gods, I have. So the Banished One finally decided to visit you, too, did he?"
Tinamus looked astonished, then flabbergasted. "How could you possibly know that?" Tinamus demanded.
"You asked me if I've had bad dreams. The only dreams that are that bad are from… him," Lanius said. "What did he tell you?"
"That he was going to punish me for building what I built for you," Tinamus answered. "That I deserved to be punished, because I was making a nuisance of myself."
"Congratulations," Lanius said somberly.
That struck home — struck home and angered Tinamus. "You shouldn't joke at other people's misfortune," he said.
"I wasn't. I wouldn't. I'm not," Lanius said. "But if the Banished One cares enough about you to send you a dream, you've done something he doesn't like. And what's so bad about that?"
"Building a fancy place for your whatdoyoucallit — your moncat, that's right — to run?" Tinamus exclaimed. "That's crazy. The Banished One would have to be out of his mind to worry about it even for a heartbeat."
"The Banished One is a great many things, most of them unpleasant," Lanius said. "Out of his mind, he is not."
Tinamus shook his head in stubborn disbelief. "He must be — either that or he's in my dreams for something that has nothing to do with what I built for you, no matter what he said."
King Lanius supposed that was possible. He didn't know everything Tinamus had done. But he found it about as likely as Ortalis putting away his whips and giving up his hunting. The king said, "Do you know Collurio the animal trainer?"
"I don't think I've met him. I know his name — but I suppose a lot of people here know his name." Tinamus' eyes grew sharper. "Hold on. Didn't I hear somewhere that he's training animals for you?"
"I don't know whether you heard it or not, but it's true." Lanius bent down to sniff a yellow rose. The flower was beautiful. As usual, though, he thought the red ones smelled sweeter. He turned back to Tinamus. "Here's something you probably haven't heard — he's also had dreams from the Banished One."
"An animal trainer?" Tinamus' eyes widened. "By Olor's beard, Your Majesty, why?"
"Because he's doing something the Banished One doesn't like. So am I, and I've had those dreams. And so are you — and now you've had them, too." Lanius held out his hand. "So you see I meant it when I congratulated you."
The architect looked at the king, looked at his outstretched hand, as though he couldn't believe what he was seeing and hearing. Even after he clasped the proffered hand, he still looked and sounded bemused. "An animal trainer. Me. Why should the Banished One care about the likes of us? You're the King of Avornis, Your Majesty. At least it makes some kind of sense that he would worry about you."
"Glad you think so," Lanius said dryly. "There are plenty of people who would say that all I ever do is play with animals and poke around in the archives, and so nobody ought to worry about me at all — not even people, let alone the Banished One."
Now Tinamus stared at him in a new way. Lanius realized the builder hadn't expected to hear anything like that from him. Lanius shrugged. Tinamus was getting all sorts of surprises today. After a dream from the Banished One, a complaint from the king most likely wouldn't loom so large. And, sure enough, Tinamus asked, "What — what do I do — what can I do — if… if he visits me again?"
"You can't do much," Lanius answered, "except remember that he can't hurt you in one of those dreams. He can scare you until you almost wish you were dead, but he can't hurt you. Otherwise, I would have died a long time ago, and so would some other people."
Tinamus nodded. "All right, Your Majesty. Thank you. That does help — some, anyhow. Uh, do you mind telling me who else, besides you and the animal trainer?"
"You might have less trouble from him if you didn't know." Lanius waited to see whether Tinamus would press him even so. The architect said not another word. The king wasn't the least bit surprised.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Whenever wagons reached the Avornan army besieging Yozgat, Grus let out a sigh of relief. The Menteshe did their best to harass his communications with the north. Sometimes that best was alarmingly good. In theory, he controlled everything between Yozgat and the Stura. Theory was wonderful. In practice, the nomads could nip in and raid when and as they chose.
To make them regret it, he ordered a special wagon train to come down to Yozgat. The wagons didn't carry sacks of wheat and beans. Instead, archers lay under the usual canvas covers. It was an uncomfortable trip for the men, but not an unprofitable one. Sure enough, the nomads attacked the wagons and the riders escorting them.
As always, the Menteshe were fierce and dashing and intrepid. They charged the wagons as though they were wolves and those wagons full of raw meat. Very often, that kind of charge routed the escorts and let the Menteshe do as they pleased with the wagons and the men who drove them.
Very often — but not this time. Avornan officers shouted words of command. Off popped the canvas covers. Up popped the archers, who hadn't had an easy or pleasant time of it in hiding. They were ready to make the Menteshe pay. They poured volley after volley into the onrushing nomads at close range.
The Menteshe, those who survived the trap, galloped away even more wildly than they'd advanced on the wagon train. Word of the ploy must have spread fast, because after that attacks on the wagons eased for a while. When the triumphant archers came into the lines around Yozgat, Grus gave every one of them a bonus of twenty silverpieces.
Meanwhile, the siege ground on. Grus decided against another all-out assault on the walls. The defenders had been too tough for him to find success at all likely. Instead, he tried something different. He had soldiers who spoke the Menteshe language shout to the men besieged in Yozgat that they could freely leave the city if they surrendered, and that the only thing they were defending was Prince Korkut's vanity.
He didn't expect immediate results — a good thing, too, for he didn't get them. He hoped the trapped nomads would start talking among themselves and eventually decide they didn't have much chance of getting out alive if they kept on fighting.
"They've got to be worried in there — don't they?" he asked Hirundo.
"Nobody has to be anything," the general replied, which wasn't what Grus wanted to hear. Hirundo did add, "I tell you, though, Your Majesty — if I was cooped up in there, I'd be worried."
That was more like it. "I was thinking the same thing," Grus said. "Maybe they'll turn on Korkut. Maybe they'll even do it before.." His voice trailed away.
"Before what?" Hirundo asked.
"Before we try something else," Grus said — an answer that was no answer.
Hirundo, nobody's fool, realized as much at once. "What sort of other things have you got in mind, Your Majesty? From what you and the engineers and Pterocles have said, undermining the walls doesn't look like it'll work. I'm ready to try to storm them again whenever you give the word, but I don't know how good our chances are there. Or…" He snapped his fingers and grinned at the king. "You've figured out some way to give our men wings after all."