"A little late to worry about it now, don't you think?" the Voice said. "You can also tell your father-in-law why you failed to recall him. I am sure he will be interested in hearing about that – and about the stripes on his daughter's back."
"Shut up, curse you!" Ortalis cried furiously. No, he didn't want to see Petrosus, either.
The Voice laughed. How the Voice laughed! "Your curses are worthless. You break wind with your mouth, little man – nothing more. But I have been well and truly cursed by those who knew exactly what they were doing, and who, catching me unawares and trusting – a mistake I shall never make again – had just the power to send me forth and to maroon me, accursed, in this material world. For believe me, otherwise I would not waste my time on such worms as you."
He laughed again, laughed and screamed at the same time. Ortalis woke there at the side of the boat, a cry of horror on his lips. "Shut up, curse you," said one of the rowers – the same thing Ortalis himself had told the Voice.
"But the dream – " Ortalis broke off in confusion. The dream was gone now. Here was reality, and was it much better? He discovered he was nodding to himself. Even going to face his father, even going to face Petrosus, was better than facing the being that owned the Voice. Anything was better than that.
A boot stirred him. "Shut up, I told you. Think you're still king? Not if you can't pick up the Scepter, you're not. Serves you right, by the gods in the heavens!" Was that better than facing the Voice? As a matter of fact, it was.
Grus' biggest surprise at the monastery was how little he minded being there. He was busy with either work or prayer most of the day, but the work wasn't of the sort that would have kept him from thinking. Peeling turnips or washing dishes or chopping firewood didn't take much in the way of brains.
Part of him said he should have been figuring out how to escape, how to get back to the city of Avornis, how to put the crown back on his own head. The rest asked a question he'd never asked before he recovered the Scepter of Mercy: Why?
Before, it would have been a question that got a serious answer. Something always wanted doing, and he'd always been, or seemed to be, the only man who could do it. The nobles of Avornis needed quelling? Who could keep them in line but a strong king? Nobody.
Dagipert of Thervingia wanted to make Lanius his son-in-law and turn Avornis into a Thervingian puppet kingdom? Again, who could guess what mischief might have sprung from that without a strong king to resist? Nobody.
Who could beat back the Chernagor pirates? Who could drive the Menteshe out of Avornis' southern provinces? Was Lanius up to the job? Not likely! Lanius had his virtues, but military prowess wasn't one of them. He was perhaps the least military King of Avornis of all time. (He would have known whether that was true better than Grus did himself.) If Grus hadn't tended to such things, who would have? Once more, nobody.
And there was the Scepter. Lanius was the one who'd thought of using a moncat to get into Yozgat and bring it out. That never would have occurred to Grus, not in a thousand years. But Yozgat lay a long way south of the Stura. Who besides Grus could have taken an Avornan army down to the Menteshe stronghold, besieged it, and given Pouncer the chance to sneak in? Nobody, yet again.
But now the nobles were cowed, the Thervings quiet, the Chernagors intimidated, the Menteshe divided amongst themselves, even the Banished One beaten for the time being, and the Scepter of Mercy back in the city of Avornis where it belonged.
All that being so, what did he have left to do?
He'd had the same thought before, after wielding the Scepter of Mercy against the Banished One. Then, it hadn't seemed so important. He would go back to the capital – he had gone back to the capital – and pick up the reins again. Whatever came along, he would deal with it. And if it turned out to be less exciting than beating back King Dagipert and less dramatic than recovering the Scepter.. well, so what?
Grus had wondered whether Lanius would try to gather more power into his own hands. He'd never imagined Ortalis would. Royal power wasn't the sort that had ever interested Ortalis very much. But now that he had it…
Now that he had it, he was welcome to it, as far as Grus was concerned. If he had great things in him, he could let them out. Grus had trouble imagining that, but life was full of surprises. The brown robe he wore proved that. And if Lanius didn't care to see his brother-in-law ruling the kingdom in his stead, he could do something about it or not, just as he pleased.
It's not my worry, not anymore. That bothered Grus hardly at all. He'd spent a lot of years being worried, and he'd had a lot of important things to worry about. Was he going to get all hot and bothered over whether his son or his son-in-law ended up telling the rest of the Avornans what to do? After fending off King Dagipert, after bringing back the Scepter of Mercy, what difference did something like that make?
Abbot Pipilo came into the kitchen where Grus was washing supper dishes. "You're fitting in here better than I thought you would, Brother," the abbot remarked.
"Am I? That's nice." Grus thought about it for a moment and then said, "This isn't so bad."
"I certainly don't think so, but then my station was far less exalted than yours," Pipilo said. "Some of your fellow monks are, ah, surprised you show so little distress at being cast down."
Grus knew exactly what that meant – Petrosus was perturbed that he wasn't weeping and wailing and tearing out chunks of his beard. "It's not so bad," he said again. "It's even – restful in a way, isn't it? I don't have to tell anybody what to do, and I know what I have to do myself."
The abbot bowed to him. "You will make a good monk," he declared. "If you outlive me, you may make a good abbot."
"I wouldn't want to," Grus replied. "I told you – I've spent almost my whole life giving orders. Enough is enough."
"I wonder if you'll say that a year from now, when your duties no longer seem like a holiday from kingship."
Pipilo was shrewd, no doubt about it. But Grus said, "I think I will. What's left for me to do back in the city of Avornis? Nothing I can see."
"I hope for your sake that you're right," the abbot said. "You'll have an easier time of it if you are. But you're one of the people I worry about going over the wall. You might manage it, and you might get back to the city of Avornis, too. I don't say that about many of the men here."
"Thank you for the compliment, uh, Father." Grus was still getting used to that; he hadn't called anyone Father since laying Crex, his own father, on the pyre. "But even if I did, who would care? Whether it's Ortalis or Lanius on the throne, he won't want me back."
Pipilo raised an eyebrow. "Some of your followers might."
Would Hirundo rise against a king from a younger generation? Would Pterocles? They might possibly, against Ortalis. Against Lanius? Grus found it unlikely. And besides… "How do you know my followers aren't on the way here, or to another monastery, or in a dungeon, or dead? If you use that kind of broom, you're smart to sweep out all the dust." Was Ortalis that smart? Who could guess for certain? Sooner or later, one way or another, Grus would find out.
With a shrug, Pipilo said, "Well, it will be as it will be," which no one could possibly argue with. He added, "I am taking up too much of your time," and went on his way, leaving Grus to the dirty plates and bowls and spoons. Grus shrugged and ran a rag across the next bowl.
If his calm perplexed the abbot, it really did infuriate Petrosus. And what infuriated Ortalis' father-in-law even more was the lack of any command releasing him from the monastery. "Your pup is as ungrateful as you are," Petrosus snarled to Grus.
The deposed king, walking through the monastery courtyard, paused and bowed to the deposed treasury minister, on his hands and knees in the vegetable garden. "I love you, too, Brother," Grus said sweetly.
"I'm not your brother, and I wouldn't want to be." Petrosus spat on the pile of weeds he'd uprooted.
Grus had had a brother, a younger brother, but the other boy had died when he was so young, he hardly remembered him.
"Don't worry," Grus said. "I don't want you for one, either. But with these" – he flapped the sleeves of his robe – "it's not like we've got much choice."
Petrosus came back with yet another unpleasantly. Before Grus could answer, a sentry on the wall – a wall undoubtedly built more to keep the monks in than to keep intruders out – called, "Who comes?"
That sent everyone within earshot hurrying toward the gate. Petrosus jumped up from the vegetable plot and pushed past Grus without a harsh word. Grus wondered what was going on, but not for long. They were about to get a new monk, or maybe more than one. And they couldn't know ahead of time who the new arrivals might be. After all, a king had joined them the last time.
Whatever answer came from beyond the monastery, that tall, thick wall muffled it. Abbot Pipilo pushed through the crowd of monks. "Let me by, Brothers," he said. "Let me by. Tending to this is my duty." When men didn't get out of the way fast enough to suit him, he wasn't too holy to move them aside with a well-placed elbow to the ribs.
He slipped through the inner gate by himself, closed it behind him, and walked up to the portcullis. Grus could hear him parleying with the men who brought the new monk or monks. The abbot's voice rose in surprise, but after a moment he sang out, "Open!"
Grunting monks turned a capstan. Chain rattled and clanked as it wound around the big wooden drum. Squealing, the portcullis rose. Monks oiled the iron every day to keep it from rusting. They got to leave the monastery. Only men Pipilo trusted had the privilege. Grus wondered if he would ever gain it. In Pipilo's sandals, he wouldn't have trusted himself.
"Close!" the abbot called. The monks grunted again as they bent to the bars of the capstan, although lowering the portcullis was easier work than raising it.
After the great iron grill thudded home, Pipilo said something else, too low for Grus to follow it. The answering voice was high and furious. Grus stiffened. That couldn't be… He looked at Petrosus, who also stood there in frozen astonishment.
But it was. When the gate opened, Pipilo said, "Brothers, I present to you our new colleague and comrade, Brother Ortalis!"
Now Grus did some elbowing to get to the front of the crowd of monks. "Well, well," he said to his son. "What brings you here?"
Ortalis looked harried. Sullenly, he answered, "I couldn't pick up the miserable Scepter."
"Why am I not surprised?" Grus jeered, and then realized he really wasn't surprised. The Banished One had told him his successor wouldn't be able to. The exiled god had sworn he was telling the truth. He'd even offered to take oath by his ungrateful descendants, something Grus had never imagined from him. And he hadn't lied, or not very much. The one thing he hadn't said was that the man who failed to lift the Scepter of Mercy would be Grus' long-term successor. Lying by omission was often more effective than coming out and saying that which was not true. Grus knew as much. He also knew he shouldn't have been surprised to discover the Banished One did, too.
"You weren't going to let me have the throne at all," Ortalis said. " You thought Lord Squint-at-a-scroll would make a better king than I would."
"Yes, and by all the signs I was right, wasn't I?" Grus answered. "The Scepter of Mercy thought so, too."
His son – his one legitimate son – suggested a use for the Scepter of Mercy at once illegal, immoral, and painful. Several monks of more fastidious temperament gasped in horror. Ortalis went on, "And a whole fat lot of good your scheming did you. You think Lanius will call you back? Don't hold your breath, Father dear, that's all I've got to tell you."
"No, I don't expect him to call me back," Grus answered calmly. "The difference is, I don't care."
"You don't care? My left one, you don't!" Ortalis cried. "How couldn't you? You were king, by the gods! King! Now look at you, in that shabby brown robe – "
"It is a robe of humility," Abbot Pipilo broke in. "Soon, Brother Ortalis, you will wear one, too."
Whatever burned in Ortalis, humility had nothing to do with it. Ignoring the abbot, he raged on. "In that shabby robe, I tell you, mucking out the bam and pulling up weeds in the miserable garden. What joy!"
Shrugging, Grus answered, "They haven't let me weed yet. That seems to be work for men who've been here longer and know more about growing things. Brother Petrosus here gets to do that, for instance. I haven't had to muck out, either – not yet, though I expect I will. Mostly I've been peeling vegetables and washing dishes and helping out in the kitchens any other way the senior cooks need."
Ortalis gave his father-in-law such a venomous, even murderous, stare that whatever Petrosus might have said to him curdled in his throat. Ortalis could have been much more formidable if only he'd worked at it, Grus thought sadly. But he never wanted to work at anything. There, in a nutshell, lay the difference between his son and himself – between Lanius and his son, too.
As usual, though, Ortalis saved most of his spleen for Grus. "What's the matter with you?" he demanded. "Do they put poppy juice in the wine here?"
"It's mostly ale," Grus said.
"Good ale," Pipilo said. "We brew it ourselves, Brother Ortalis, if the craft interests you."
Except for a look on his face that said no craft interested him, Ortalis ignored that, too. He aimed a forefinger at Grus as though it were an arrowhead. "You're happy here!" he cried. By his tone, his own quirks sank into insignificance beside such a perversion. " Happy!"
And Grus found himself nodding. "As a matter of fact, I am."
" How?" The question from his son was a pain-filled howl.
"It's not that hard," Grus answered. "There's enough to do. There's enough to eat. There's nothing much to worry about. I've been wondering for a while now what I could do that would come close to what I've already done. I didn't see anything. If you've already done the biggest things you're ever going to do, it's high time somebody put you out to pasture. Maybe I ought to thank you."
"That is the proper attitude for a monk," Abbot Pipilo said approvingly.
Ortalis, by contrast, turned very red and seemed on the edge of pitching a fit. "Olor's beard!" he cried. "Do you think I would have sent you here if I thought you were going to like it?"
"No." Maybe Grus didn't completely have the proper attitude for a monk, for he couldn't resist a dig at his son and brief successor, saying, "And I'll like it even better now that you're here to keep me company."
Several monks laughed at that, Petrosus loud among them. Even Pipilo smiled. He said, "Come, Brother Ortalis. Time to cast aside the raiment of the outer world for the robe that makes all of us one, all of us the same in the eyes of the gods in the heavens."
What Ortalis had to say about the gods in the heavens was, to put it mildly, pungent and uncomplimentary. No one reproached him, not even the abbot. Grus would have bet quite a few of the monks had said similar things when they first came here. Maybe some of them still had those thoughts. But most would have been able to see by now that they couldn't do anything about them, so what was the point of holding on to them?
"Come, Brother," Abbot Pipilo said again. And, even if Ortalis still fumed and cursed, he came.
Limosa dropped King Lanius a curtsy that bent her low. They were in Lanius' bedchamber, not the throne room, but she treated him with the greatest possible formality. And fear made her voice wobble when she said, "Y-Your Majesty."
"Straighten up," Lanius said impatiently. "You don't need to tremble like that. I'm not going to tie rocks to your feet and throw you in the river or stake you out for wolves – I promise you that."
"Thank you, Your Majesty." Limosa did straighten, but remained wary. "Uh – what are you going to do with me?"
"Well, that's what we're here to talk about, isn't it?" Lanius said. Listening to himself, he thought he sounded a good deal like Grus. That well at the start of the sentence gave him the chance to work out what he ought to say next.
"I'm no trouble to Your Majesty, not now," Limosa said. "With… with Ortalis put away, I'm no trouble to anybody."
"Well…"
Lanius repeated. Yes, that was useful. "I'm not so sure. For one thing, you might want revenge. For another, you're mother to King Grus' grandchildren. You could plot for them, if not for yourself."
He thought Limosa would protest that she'd never do such a thing. He wouldn't have believed her, but that was the line he looked for her to take. Instead, she turned pale. "You wouldn't do anything to my children!"
"Not like that, no, of course not," Lanius answered. "I'm not a monster, you know." Did she? She'd been married to a monster of sorts, and loved him. What did that say?
"Of course not, Your Majesty," Limosa said softly. But what else could she say? If she told Lanius he was a monster, she gave him all the excuse he needed to prove it on her person. I'm King of Avornis. I'm the only King of Avornis, he thought – he was still getting used to that, for it was true for the first time in his life. If I don't want to bother with excuses, I don't need them. Limosa was thinking along with him, at least in part, for she added, "Whatever you do, I know you'll be just."
Plainly, she knew, and could know, no such thing. She hoped reminding him of the possibility would turn it into reality. Lanius drummed his fingers on his thigh. "You were Queen of Avornis for a little while," he said, perhaps more to himself than to Limosa. "How likely are you to forget that?"
"It wasn't my idea." Limosa almost spat out the words in her haste to set them free. Her voice went shrill and high. "It was Ortalis' plan – all his. I didn't want anything to do with it."
"No, eh?" Lanius said. She shook her head; her hair flipped back and forth with the vehemence of the motion. The king sighed sadly. One thing years at court did for a man – or maybe to him – they gave him a pretty good notion of when someone was lying. "I'm sorry, Your Highness" – he wasn't going to call her Your Majesty, not now – "but I don't believe you."
She'd gone pale before. Now she went white. "But it's the truth, Your Majesty! It is! How can I persuade you?" She dug herself in deeper with every panicky word.
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