"What are you working on?" Ortalis asked. When Lanius explained, his brother-in-law made a horrible face. "Why on earth are you wasting your time with that sort of nonsense?"

"I don't think it's nonsense," Lanius said. "We need to see that the laws are carried out, and we need to punish people who break them."

"That's work for a secretary, or at most for a minister," Ortalis said. "A king tells people what to do."

"If I don't already know what they're doing, how can what I tell them make any sense?" Lanius asked reasonably. "And secretaries do do most of this. But if I don't do some, how can I know whether they're doing what they're supposed to? If a king lets officials do whatever they want, pretty soon they're the ones telling people what to do, and he isn't."

"You're welcome to it." Ortalis went off down the hall shaking his head.

Grus had tried to get his legitimate son to show some interest in governing Avornis. Lanius knew that. He also knew Grus hadn't had much luck. Ortalis didn't, and wouldn't, care. In a way, that made Lanius happy. Ortalis would have been a more dangerous rival if he'd worried about – or even taken any notice of – the way government actually worked.

Ortalis would also have been a more dangerous rival without the streak of cruelty that ran through so much of what he did. Hunting helped keep it down, which was one reason Lanius would go hunting with him despite caring nothing for the chase. Worse things happened when Ortalis didn't hunt than when he did.

Or was that true? His wife, Princess Limosa, had stripes on her back, and Ortalis had put them there although he hunted. Lanius shook his head. Limosa was a perfect match for Ortalis in a way Lanius hadn't thought possible. She liked getting stripes as much as he liked giving them. The mere idea made Lanius queasy.

Had Petrosus known that about his daughter when he dangled her in front of Ortalis? Lanius had no idea, and he wasn't about to write to the Maze to find out. Which was worse? That Petrosus had known about her, and used her.. peculiarity to attract Ortalis? Or that he hadn't, but was willing to have Ortalis hurt her as long as it gained him advantage in the court?

"Disgusting either way," Lanius muttered. He knew what Petrosus'. . peculiarity was – power.

But Petrosus hadn't had the chance to indulge his peculiarity. Grus had made sure of that. As soon as Grus found out who Ortalis' new wife was, into the Maze that treasury minister went. On the whole, Lanius approved of that. Grus had power and liked wielding it, but he'd never been as heartless in his pursuit of it as Petrosus was. A good thing, too, Lanius thought. I'd be dead if he were.

If only Grus had been as stem with Ortalis as he had with Petrosus. But for a long time he'd had a blind spot about his legitimate son. By the time he couldn't ignore what Ortalis was, it was much too late to change him. Lanius wondered whether Ortalis could have changed if Grus had tried harder earlier. The question was easier to ask than to answer.

Lanius went back to the tax register. As far as he could tell, nobody by the coast was trying to cheat the kingdom. That was how things were supposed to work. Ortalis probably would have asked him why he'd gone to all this trouble just to find out everything was normal. If I hadn't checked, I wouldn't have known. Lanius imagined himself explaining that to Ortalis. He also imagined Ortalis laughing in his face.

"Too bad," Lanius said out loud. A servant walking down the corridor gave him a curious look. He'd gotten plenty of those. He looked out at the servant. The man kept walking.

Hurting things is Ortalis' peculiarity. Knowing things is mine. A white butterfly flitted about in a flower bed outside the window. As soon as Lanius saw it, he recognized it as a cabbage butterfly. Knowing that would never do him any good, but he did know it, and he was glad he did. As for some of the other things he knew… Well, you never could tell.

A scout galloped back toward the Avornan army. His horse's flying hooves kicked up dust at every stride. Like the rest of the Avornan scouts, he rode a small, tireless mount of the sort the Menteshe bred. But he wore a surcoat over chainmail, not the boiled leather soaked in melted wax the nomads favored. And he shouted, "Your Majesty! Your Majesty!" in unaccented Avornan.

"Here I am," Grus called, as though the royal standards weren't enough to let the scout find him.

"They're coming, Your Majesty!" the man said, and pointed southward.

"Now it begins," Hirundo said quietly. Grus shook his head. "It began when we set out from the city of Avornis – or long before that, depending on how you look at things." He gave his attention back to the scout. "How many of them are there, and how soon will they hit us?"

"Enough to cause trouble," the scout answered – not a precise answer, but one that told the king what he needed to know. The man went on, "You should see their plume of dust in a little while." He patted the side of his horse's neck. The beast was lathered and blowing hard. "I almost killed Blaze here getting to you quick as I could."

"I'm glad you did, and I won't forget it," Grus said. "You've given us the time we need to shake out our battle line. Hirundo, if you'll do the honors…"

"Be glad to, Your Majesty," the general replied. He shouted commands to the trumpeters. They raised their horns to their mouths and blared out martial music. Not quite as smoothly as Grus would have liked, the army began to move from column into line of battle.

"Put a good screen of horse archers in front of the heavy cavalry," Grus said. "We don't want the Menteshe to find out we've got the lancers along till they can't get away from them."

Hirundo sent him an amused look. "I thought you asked me to do the honors." In spite of the teasing – which embarrassed Grus – he followed the king's orders.

"You'll want me here with you, Your Majesty?" Pterocles asked.

"Oh, yes." Grus nodded. "We're not on our home ground anymore. This is country where the Banished One has had his own way for a long time. I don't know whether the Menteshe wizards can do anything special here. If they try, though, you're our best hope to stop them."

"You may put too much confidence in me," Pterocles said. "I know these wizards can do one thing – if we lose, if they capture us, they can make us into thralls."

"Yes," Grus said tightly. "If we lose, they won't capture me." He'd made up his mind about that.

Pterocles said, "What I can do, I will do. You have my word."

"Good." Grus made sure his sword was loose in its sheath. The gray in his beard reminded him he wasn't a young man anymore. He'd never been especially eager to trade sword strokes with his foes. He could do it when he had to, and he'd always done it well enough, but it wasn't his notion of sport, the way it was for more than a few men. The older he got, the less enthusiastic a warrior he made, too.

After a while, more horns cried out, this time in warning. Men up ahead of Grus pointed toward the south. Peering through the dust his own soldiers had kicked up, he spied the unmistakable plume that meant another army was on the way.

Soon the Menteshe became visible through their cloud of dust. They were marvelous horsemen. They started riding as soon as they could stay in the saddle, and stayed in the saddle most of their lives. He wished his own cavalry could match them. That the Avornans couldn't was part of what made the nomads so dangerous.

The Menteshe started shooting as soon as they came into range, or even a little before. Avornan scouts sent arrows back. Men on both sides pitched from the saddle; horses fell to the ground. The scouts galloped back toward the main body of soldiers. Whooping, the Menteshe pursued them.