When he first seized the throne, he'd expected Ortalis to succeed him. Lanius could go right on wearing the crown; he was, after all, the last twig of the old, familiar dynasty. If he had a son by Sosia, that boy could be called king, too. But real power would flow through Ortalis and his descendants.

That wasn't exactly how things looked anymore, however much Grus wished they still did. Lanius had proved more than Grus expected, Ortalis less. If I were to die now… Grus shook his head, shying away from the thought like a horse shying from a buzzing fly. Sooner or later, the fly would land. It would sting. Sooner or later – but please. King Olor, not yet.

Things would only get more complicated if Ortalis had a son. Grus had heard from Lanius that Limosa was expecting another child. He hadn't heard from Ortalis. He couldn't remember whether Ortalis had ever written to him while he was in the field. Maybe a letter of justification or two, to try to put a good light on some palace scrape Ortalis had gotten into. Past that, no.

It didn't necessarily matter. Grus knew that. Being able to write an interesting letter – indeed, being able to write at all – was no prerequisite for kingship. If people would do what you told them to do, and would do it even when you didn't watch over them to make sure they did, you had what you needed to be a king. And if what you told them to do worked most of the time, you had what you needed to be a fairly good king.

"It isn't magic," Grus murmured.

He didn't realize he'd spoken aloud till Pterocles asked, "What isn't?"

"Oh," Grus said. "Being a king, I meant."

"Not the kind of magic I do," the wizard agreed. "But a good king has magic of his own. A good king needs to have people like him and take him seriously at the same time. Plenty of people have one or the other. Having both at once isn't so easy."

That wasn't far from Grus' thought. He said, "I wonder how you get them." He was thinking of Ortalis and Lanius again. There was no doubt people took Lanius seriously. How much they liked him was another question. As for Ortalis…

Grus was just as glad when Pterocles broke into his train of thought by saying, "I can't tell you that, Your Majesty. I'm afraid nobody else can, either. Plenty of people besides kings wish they knew the answer there."

"I suppose so." Grus did more than suppose it; he was sure it was true. He looked in the direction of Trabzun once more. "What could we do to make that place fall faster?"

"Undermine the walls?" Pterocles suggested. "I'm no general, but I know besiegers often try that. It must work some of the time."

"It does – some of the time," Grus said. "Times when it does, the men on the other side usually don't know you're doing it until things start falling down on their heads. With all this open country around the town, hiding the digging and getting rid of the dirt without the Menteshe noticing would be a neat trick." His gaze sharpened. "Or do you think you could help bring it off?"

"Maybe." Pterocles made the word long and thoughtful. "It would depend on not letting the Menteshe sorcerers inside Trabzun know I was using a masking spell. Once they realize there's something to see through, they will, and in a hurry."

"Try anyhow," Grus urged. He wouldn't just be sitting and waiting now, and that was – or at least felt – all to the good.

CHAPTER EIGHT

A bird sang in the gardens around the palace. Lanius wondered what sort of bird it was. Some people could tell one bird from another by the briefest snatch of song. The king wasn't one of them. He knew a hawk from a heron, but not much more, not by note alone.

I could learn, he thought. I could, if I had the time. But that was a formidable challenge. He already had hobbies – the moncats, the archives, serving girls every now and then. When he was younger, he'd taught himself to draw and paint, but he didn't have the time to stay sharp at that. Being a king swallowed more hours than he wished it did.

The bird went on singing. It didn't care whether he knew what it was. It was singing for the joy of it, or maybe to find a mate – which involved a different kind of joy.

Sosia looked across the breakfast table at Lanius. "I just asked you a question," she said pointedly. "Didn't you hear me?"

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't. I'm afraid I was listening to the bird outside."

She gave him the withering glance wives reserve for husbands who aren't all they might be. "I might have known," she said. "How many times have I caught you with your head in the clouds?"

"It wasn't in the clouds," Lanius protested. "Just in the garden."

"Better there than some places," Sosia said. She knew about his occasional hobby, and didn't like it. She also thought it more occasional than it was. She would have liked it even less if she'd known more about it. With exaggerated patience, she repeated herself. "I said, have you been paying attention to the company my brother's been keeping lately?"

Lanius shook his head. "I generally try not to pay attention to the company your brother keeps, unless you mean Anser. Wouldn't you say it's more Limosa's worry than mine, anyhow?"

Sosia made an exasperated noise. "Not that kind of company." The hooded glance she sent him said she thought he knew too much about that kind of company himself. With an obvious effort, she made herself put that thought aside. She went on, "I meant some of the young officers he's been drinking with."

"Ortalis?" Lanius said in surprise. His wife nodded. He took a sip of wine while he thought. "Three things occur to me." He ticked them off on his fingers. "Maybe they're men with pretty sisters – or pretty wives. Maybe they're men who like to hunt. Or maybe, knowing Ortalis, they're men with, ah, peculiar tastes."

"I'd think he's chatted up enough of them to make that last unlikely – although you never can tell." Sosia's mouth twisted in distaste. "The other two? Maybe. There's something else, though – something you're not seeing."

"What?" Lanius asked in real perplexity. He thought he'd thought of everything. He took pride in thinking of as many things as he could.

But Sosia found something he'd missed. "Maybe he's plotting with them."

"Ortalis?" Now Lanius all but squeaked in surprise. "He's done a lot of nasty things, but they're all nasty because he is what he is. They're not nasty because he's after the crown."

"Not yet," his wife said grimly. "But if Limosa has a boy… He may care more on account of his children than he does for himself. Plenty of people are like that."

Lanius couldn't tell her she was wrong, for he knew she wasn't. He said, "Well, I'll keep an eye on it." He didn't mean he'd spy on Ortalis himself. He had palace servants he trusted to take care of that for him. "If he's talking with young officers, he can't mean too much by it. He'd be talking with their superiors if he did."

"Maybe," Sosia said again. Again, she didn't sound as though she believed it. "Sometimes, though, if you get the junior officers on your side, they'll bring the senior officers with them."

Once more, Lanius couldn't tell her she was wrong. He said, "You can come up with things like that, because you're as sly as your father." He seldom praised Grus' cleverness, but he knew he couldn't ignore it. "But Ortalis?" He shook his head. "Say what you want about your brother, but nobody's ever accused him of being subtle."

"If he were subtle, I wouldn't know what he was doing, would I?" his wife retorted. "Even if he's not subtle, that doesn't mean he's not dangerous."

"We'll see what's going on, that's all." Lanius could easily imagine Ortalis as dangerous to him in a fit of temper. Imagining his brother-in-law as dangerous in a conspiracy was something else again.