Again, he wasn't sure what the gods could do here. The material world wasn't their proper sphere. Of course, the gods hadn't intervened directly. Olor hadn't hurled a thunderbolt. Quelea hadn't spread flowers over the landscape to distract the Menteshe. What did seem to have spread was confusion — and confusion wasn't material.
"Exciting times ahead," Lanius murmured. He hoped they would be exciting. After a moment, he shook his head. He hoped they would be exciting in the right way. Even if the Banished One triumphed, there would be plenty of excitement. But it wouldn't be the kind Avornis wanted to know.
We 'll find out soon, the king thought. He wondered whether he would be able to sense the change if things went well. Then he wondered whether he'd be able to sense the change if they went dreadfully wrong. We'll find out, he thought again. Or maybe he'd already found out, and the answer was no.
"I'll find out if I find out," he said, and laughed. When he found out, he'd know how much he really had to laugh about — if he had anything at all.
'Black as the inside of a sheep," Collurio muttered.
"Not quite that bad," Grus said. But then, the animal trainer had lived almost his entire life in the city of Avornis, where torches and lamps and candles always burned to hold night at bay. This was dark enough, and more than dark enough. Only stars shone in the sky. No campfires burned anywhere near the king and his comrades. A few torches shone up on Yozgat's walls, but the Menteshe didn't use their light to peer out. The city's defenders just wanted to be sure they could see any Avornans unexpectedly joining them on the walls.
Grus laughed almost inaudibly. They would have company up there for a little while, all right. But it wouldn't be the kind of company they were looking for — Grus hoped with all his heart it wouldn't be, anyhow — and it wouldn't hang around for long.
"Everything ready?" the king whispered. When no one told him no, he nodded to himself and said, "Let's try it, then."
Soldiers quietly moved sharpened timbers aside to make a gap in the palisade. Other soldiers laid a gangplank over the ditch surrounding the fence of stakes. Grus, Collurio, Crinitus, and Pterocles waited before crossing. Looking over at Yozgat, Collurio said, "The other king really did know this slice of the city, didn't he? The towers he drew in the sketch are just in the same place as the ones in Yozgat."
"Is everything inside this part of the city the same as it is in the slice he had Tinamus build?" Crinitus asked.
"Good question," Grus said. "I don't know the answer to that. I don't think King Lanius knew the answer to that. He hoped things hadn't changed too much, and so do I. Before much longer, we'll see."
As though his words were a cue, Avornan archers and siege engines far around the line started shooting at Yozgat. Grus' men had been doing that almost — but not quite — at random for several days now. The Menteshe responded much as the king hoped they would. They sent men to the threatened stretch and didn't worry much about any other part of the wall.
"Now," Grus said. He and the trainers and the wizard crossed the gangplank and hurried toward the moat. Collurio carried Pouncer's cage. Crinitus and Pterocles were in charge of a long, thin pole. Carpenters had made it up in sections in the capital, and other woodworkers had joined the sections together once the animal trainer brought it down to Yozgat.
When they got to the edge of the moat, Grus stared up toward the wall. No one up there seemed to be paying any attention to what was going on outside the city. Pterocles noted the same thing, saying, "Looks quiet enough."
"Yes." Grus nodded. "We're going to try it. Gentlemen, if you'd be so kind…"
Crinitus and Pterocles angled the pole up toward the top of the wall. At last, after what seemed much too long, the far end of the pole tapped against the crenellations up there. "Anyone hear that, do you think?" Crinitus asked anxiously.
No shouts came from the wall. No Menteshe came over to grab the other end of the pole. "Everything seems all right," Grus murmured. "Why don't you let the moncat out of the cage, Collurio?"
"I'll do it," the animal trainer answered, also in a low voice. He fiddled with the door to the cage. As it swung open, he said, "I hope the trip down here hasn't made the beast forget what it's supposed to do. That happens sometimes, and we had an awfully long trip."
"Only one way to find out," Grus said.
Pouncer let out a musty meow. It wasn't quite like the noises ordinary cats made, but was closer to those than anything else. The moncat poked its head out of the cage as though unsure such liberties were allowed. When no one shouted at it or poked it to make it withdraw, it came all the way out of the cage, stretched — and settled down on the ground to lick its backside. "Miserable thing!" Crinitus exploded, and made as though to prod it with his foot.
His father stopped him. "Let the beast be," he said. "It has to tend to itself before it can tend to what we want of it."
Pouncer stopped grooming itself. Grus could tell the moment when the moncat noticed the pole. The animal made a small, interested noise. The moment Collurio heard that, he made a small, pleased noise. Pouncer went up the pole. With what were essentially hands on all four limbs, the moncat was less graceful than ordinary cats on the ground. As soon as it started climbing the pole, though… The moncat gripped with forefeet and hind feet, and rose faster and more skillfully than Grus would have imagined possible.
"Gods be praised!" Collurio breathed. "It still knows what it's supposed to do."
No wonder he sounds relieved, Grus thought. If the animal balked, who would have gotten the blame? That wouldn't have fallen on Pouncer. After all, a moncat was only a moncat. It would have landed on Collurio and Crinitus.
"Up to the top and on the wall," the younger trainer said. "I can't feel its weight on the pole anymore."
"Up to the top and into Yozgat," Grus said. He hoped Pouncer went into Yozgat, anyhow. If the moncat chose to amble along the wall instead, who could say what would happen? Maybe one of the Menteshe up there would find a new pet. Or maybe, since the city was under siege, one of the plainsmen would find supper. But Grus couldn't do anything about that now. It was up to Pouncer — and, maybe, to Pterocles. Grus turned to the wizard. "Are you ready?"
"Yes, Your Majesty." The wizard gave Grus an ironic bow. "You need me for this spell about as much as you need to break an egg by dropping the great cathedral on it."
"That's nice," Grus said placidly. "You told me something like that before. I've got you, this way I don't have to tell anybody else about what we're doing, I know you're up to it, and you'll do a good job of breaking that egg."
Along with his usual sorcerous paraphernalia, Pterocles had several small chunks of raw mutton wrapped in cloth in his belt pouch. He held one of them in the palm of his left hand. In his right hand he held an arrowhead shot from the walls of Yozgat. "Same trick I used outside of Trabzun, only with a new twist," he remarked. "The law of contagion means the arrowhead that had been inside Yozgat is still connected to the place."
He began to chant in a low voice no one on the walls could have heard. When he broke off, the bit of mutton vanished from his hand. "It's inside the city?" Grus asked. "It's where it's supposed to be?"
"Yes, Your Majesty — right where the moncat is supposed to find it," Pterocles answered patiently. "I told you, a hedge-wizard could move this meat around as well as I can."