"Should they be?" Collurio asked.

"I can't tell you that. I'm not a general. I never wanted to be a general. There are some things I'm good at, but that isn't one of them," Lanius answered. "But if this whole business were easy, some other King of Avornis would have done it three hundred years ago. You know what we're up against."

The day was fine and bright and sunny. Collurio turned pale all the same. "Yes, Your Majesty. I do know that." He scratched the tip of his big nose. "Who would have thought that teaching an animal tricks would teach me such things?"

"You aren't the only one who has it," Lanius said. "Remember that. And remember one more thing – you're the right man for this job because you have it." Collurio nodded, but every line of his body said he would rather have been the wrong man. Lanius felt the same way, but the choice wasn't theirs. It lay in the hands of the Banished One – the hands Lanius had seen reaching out for him more than once just before he woke up with pounding heart and staring eyes.

They rode on, bodyguards flanking them but far enough away to let them talk without being overheard. Here and there, farmers worked in vegetable plots and berry patches or tended pigs and chickens. This close to the ever-hungry capital, they raised produce to sell rather than feeding themselves with what they grew. They didn't run away when they saw armored men on horseback, either, the way most peasants did.

Thrashes hopped about, looking for bugs and worms under trees. A squirrel chittered in a treetop. Somewhere not far away, a woodpecker drummed. A rabbit ran through a meadow. Half a heartbeat later, a fox followed like a flash of flame.

"How will you know what you want, Your Majesty?" Collurio asked.

"When I see it, I'll know," Lanius said.

And he did. Willows grew alongside the bank of a stream, their branches dipping down almost to the water. Metallically yammering kingfishers dove after fish. Near the stream, a meadow stretched out away toward a stand of forest off in the distance. No one's cattle or sheep grazed the meadow; the tumbledown rain of what had been a farmer's hut said nobody had worked the land for a long time. Maybe things weren't perfect, but they were more than good enough.

"Here," Lanius declared. That was the advantage of being a king – when he said here, here it would be.

Hirundo bowed to King Grus. "Well, Your Majesty, you were right."

"You say the sweetest things," Grus answered, and the general guffawed. Grus went on, "Here he comes now. Look ferocious."

"Grr." Hirundo bared his teeth. Grus glared at him – that was overacting at its worst. But the Menteshe riding in under a flag of truce was still too far away to notice his mugging. By the time the nomad and the Avornan cavalrymen surrounding him drew near, Hirundo was somber as a pyre builder. Given his usual high spirits, that was overacting, too, but the Menteshe wouldn't recognize it as such.

The fellow swung down off his horse. Two royal guardsmen strode up to him, their boots scuffing up little puffs of gray dust at each step. The Menteshe knew what they had in mind. He surrendered his weapons without any fuss, even a slim knife he carried in his boot. When the guardsmen were satisfied, they stepped aside. The Menteshe bowed low to Grus.

"Good day, Your Majesty," he said in fluent Avornan. "I am Falak son of Yinal, and I have the honor to represent Prince Korkut, the son and heir of the great Prince Ulash." He bowed again. He had a proud, hawk-nosed face with broad cheekbones and elegant eyebrows above dark eyes stubbornly unimpressed by anything they chanced to light upon – the King of Avornis very much included.

"Pleased to meet you," Grus said politely. "And what can I do for you on this fine day?" It was, in fact, a beastly hot day. Grus had gotten used to the weather in the city of Avornis and in the cool, misty Chernagor country to the north. Southern spring and approaching summer were reminding him how fierce they could be.

"We have not seen Avornans here for many long years," Falak said. "You would do well to remember what happened to the ones who came before you."

"I remember," Grus replied. "You would do well to remember we can take care of ourselves. So would Korkut. And so would the Banished One." Maybe that last was bravado. No – certainly it was bravado. But if it weren't also what Grus believed, he never would have crossed the Stura in the first place.

One of Falak's elegant eyebrows rose. His eyes widened ever so slightly. He hadn't expected Grus to give back arrogance for arrogance. "You dare speak of the Fallen Star so?" he whispered. "You have, perhaps, more nerve than you know what to do with."

"Perhaps I'll take the chance," Grus said. "I asked you once before – what can I do for you? And for Prince Korkut, I assume?"

He wondered if Falak would try to order him out of the Menteshe country. He intended to say no if Falak did, but it would tell him how confident Korkut was. But Falak did nothing of the sort. Instead, he said, "My master knows you have seen many rebels since you became King of Avornis."

'True," Grus admitted. And not only was it true, it was also shrewd. Korkut showed more wits than Grus had thought he owned.

Falak went on, "Since this is true, you will understand how my master feels when he faces a rebellion against him."

"Oh, I don't know. Quite a few people would say Sanjar has a better claim to Ulash's throne than Korkut does," Grus said.

"Quite a few people are liars and cheats. It is unfortunate, but it is true," Falak said. "I would not want to number the King of Avornis among them."

"You would make a mistake if you did. You might be making your last mistake if you did." Hirundo sounded hard as iron, sharp as a spearhead.

Falak son of Yinal bowed to him. "I have done no such thing, Your Excellency." He was a cool customer, all right. Turning back to Grus, he said, "Since you have come into my master's lands with an army behind you, he dares hope you have come to help him defeat the would-be usurper."

Did Korkut really hope that? Grus didn't believe it for a minute. Did the Menteshe hope to use the Avornans against his unloved half brother? That struck the king as a lot more likely. He said, "Sanjar hopes I'll do the same thing against Korkut, you know."

"He would," Falak said scornfully. "He has no chance to defeat my master on his own, and he knows it only too well."

"I'm not so sure about that – and neither is Korkut, or he wouldn't have sent you to me," Grus said. Falak only shrugged, neither admitting nor denying. He knew his business; Grus would have been glad to have a man of his talents on the Avornan side. The king continued, "I have nothing against either prince. But I also have no reason to love either of them."

Falak smiled thinly. "By which you mean you will help the man who gives you the most."

Grus smiled back. "By which I mean exactly that, yes."

"My master will meet any price within his ability," Korkut's emissary said. "Tell me yours, so I may take it to him."

"The Scepter of Mercy."

Falak's face froze. That jolted him no less than it had Sanjar's envoy. He took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "That, I am afraid, is not within his ability to give."

"Why not? It's in Yozgat, isn't it? He holds Yozgat, doesn't he? Or has Sanjar taken it away from him in the last few days?"

"Sanjar has done no such thing," Falak said indignantly. "My master does hold Yozgat. And the Scepter of Mercy is there. I have seen it with my own eyes." Grus was suddenly as jealous as a lovesick youth seeing the girl of his dreams walking with someone else, someone he couldn't stand. Falak either didn't notice or, more likely, affected not to. "My master could not yield it up, though. The Fallen Star – "