“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 barn 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.
Lanius sighed again. Grus had had to make choices like these much more often than he had himself. When Grus saw trouble ahead, he’d made the hard choice, too—made it with everyone but Lanius himself, in fact, and Ortalis. He’d eventually paid for trusting Ortalis to be harmless. Lanius eyed Limosa. Could she be dangerous? Yes, without a doubt. One more sigh, and then Lanius said what he thought he had to say. “I’m very sorry, Your Highness, but I’m going to send you to a nunnery.”
“You can’t!” Limosa gasped. “You wouldn’t!” But Lanius could, and she could see he would. She went on, “I’d do anything—anything at all—to stay free.”
How did she mean that? The way it sounded? That seemed likely. She was an attractive woman, but she didn’t do anything special for Lanius, even if she had tempted him once. Even if she had, he could f
ind plenty of others to do whatever he wanted, and they would be in no position to strike at the throne. “I’m sorry,” he said again.
Limosa started to wail. As though that were a signal, a couple of the king’s guardsmen—all of them, these days, vouched for by Hirundo—came into the bedchamber. As they took Limosa’s arms, she cried, “The children! What about the children?”
“They’ll be well taken care of,” Lanius promised. Marinus and Capella were too little to pose any threat for years to come. And, with both their father and their grandfather overthrown, they would have no connection to the ruling house of Avornis by the time they grew up. He nodded to the guards. “She is to go to the nunnery dedicated to Queen Quelea’s mercy in the Maze.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the men chorused. Limosa wailed louder than ever.
“It’s the finest nunnery in the kingdom,” Lanius said, and then, biting his lip, “It’s the nunnery where Grus sent my mother after she plotted against him.”
“I don’t care! I don’t want to be a nun!” Limosa shrieked.
“I’m afraid all your other choices are worse,” Lanius told her. She gave him a terrible look. Trying to soften her, he went on, “I am sorry. I truly am. This isn’t how I would have wanted things to work out.”
“No? Why not?” Limosa said. “Out of everybody, you’re the only one who’s gotten just what he wanted.”
That held some truth—probably more than some. Lanius would have been happy enough if Grus had gone on sharing the throne. Grus was better at some things—things like this, for instance—than he was himself. But he could do these things if he had to. He proved it, telling the guards, “Take her away.”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” they said again. Limosa screamed and clawed and scratched, all of which turned her departure into a spectacle but delayed it by not even a minute. As the din finally faded, Lanius called for a maidservant and said, “Please fetch me a cup of wine—a large cup of wine.”
She curtsied, not as deeply as Limosa had. But then, she wasn’t in trouble. She also said, “Yes, Your Majesty,” and hurried away to do Lanius’ bidding. Everyone in the palace will be doing my bidding now, he thought. He’d come across ideas he liked much less.
Sosia walked into the bedchamber while Lanius was still waiting for his wine. “Well,” she said—maybe she’d borrowed the turn of phrase from Grus, too. “That must have been fun.”
“Just about as much as you think it was,” Lanius agreed. “I don’t see what else I could have done, though. People get more ambitious for their children than they do for themselves.”
“I’m not arguing with you—not about this, anyhow.” Sosia made a very sour face. Lanius realized she wouldn’t calmly accept anything he wanted to do. As if to underscore that, she continued, “You give me plenty of worse things to argue about.”
The maidservant came in with the wine then—a large cup, as Lanius had asked of her. He thanked her less warmly than he might have if Sosia weren’t standing there watching him. His wife’s upraised eyebrow said she knew that perfectly well. The maidservant made haste to disappear. Lanius took a long pull at the cup. Then he sighed and shook his head. “Still doesn’t get the taste of Limosa out of my mouth.” He tried again with a longer pull yet.
“She made a nuisance of herself, all right,” Sosia agreed, which was one of the larger understatements Lanius had heard lately. Sosia hesitated, then said, “May I ask you something?”
By her tone of voice, Lanius knew exactly what her question would be. He raised the winecup to his lips yet again. When he lowered it, it was empty, and he still found himself wishing for more. He did his best to keep that from his voice as he replied, “What is it?”
“What are you going to do about Father?”
He looked down into the cup. Despite his wishes, it stubbornly stayed empty. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I don’t have to do anything right away. He’ll just have found out Ortalis isn’t king anymore. Let’s see what happens, all right?”
“You are the king,” Sosia said. “In the end, it will be as you please.”
Why don’t you feel that way about serving girls? Lanius wondered. But serving girls, unlike this, weren’t a matter of state. Too bad, he thought.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
It was a day like any other day since Grus came to the monastery. Along with the other monks, he was called out of bed early for dawn prayers. Then he ate breakfast. As usual, it was filling but bland. Neophron and the other cooks had either never heard of spices, didn’t like them, or couldn’t afford to put any in the barley mush. After breakfast, Grus went into the kitchens to wash earthenware bowls and mugs and horn spoons.
Prayer and work alternated through the day, work predominating. After what seemed not so very long, it was time for supper. As usual, a little sausage did go into the mush for the evening meal. So did some beans and peas. The mug of ale that washed things down was larger than the one at breakfast—not enough to get drunk on, but plenty to take the edge off a bad day. Grus’ hadn’t been bad, but it too got better.
Most of the time, Ortalis stayed as far away from Grus as he could in the dining hall. That suited Grus as well as it did his son. This evening, though, Ortalis chose to sit across from him. “We ought to eat better than this,” Ortalis complained.
Grus shrugged. “It’s enough. Even if it weren’t, why are you telling me about it? I can’t change things one way or the other.”
“But I can, by Olor’s prong!” Ortalis said—perhaps a dubious oath for a monastery. “I never wasted my time in the archives, or in the forest, come to that. When I went hunting, I went out to kill things, and I did. I could do it again.”
“Maybe you could,” Grus said. Anser had never complained about Ortalis’ talent, only about his judgment in when to be bloodthirsty. With another shrug, Grus went on, “I’m not the one to tell you you can or you can’t, though. If you want to convince somebody to let you go out, the abbot is your man.”
“He won’t listen to me,” Ortalis said scornfully. “He’ll think I’m trying to get away.”
“He might,” Grus agreed. “The same thought crossed my mind, you know.”
“Why should it? You told me yourself—I’m in here for good,” Ortalis said. “We all are. I’m used to it by now.”
He didn’t sound used to it. He sounded suspiciously hearty, like a man saying what he thought people around him wanted to hear. Grus sipped from his ale. That was good; the monks who brewed it did know what they were doing. He said, “The other thing I told you was, it’s not in my hands. And it’s not. The only one who can tell you yes—or even no—is Pipilo.”
“I will talk to him, then. He’ll see sense,” Ortalis said. He’ll do what I want him to do, was what he likely meant by that. He’d never been able to tell the difference between what he wanted at the moment and what was right.
Grus was not unduly surprised when Pipilo came up to him a few days later and said, “Your son has approached me about the possibility of going out and hunting for the larder. Is he as good an archer and stalker as he says he is?”
“I don’t know how good he said he was, but he’s pretty good, yes,” Grus answered.
“He did sound as though he knew what he was talking about,” the abbot allowed. “That is, of course, only one part of the issue at hand. The other is, were he to go beyond the walls, would he be tempted to abandon his monastic robe and try to return to the secular world?”
Of course he would, Grus thought. All he said was, “The two of us, I fear, are estranged. I cannot be just in judging him, and so I will not try. You have to decide that yourself.”
“You’re honest, anyhow,” Pipilo told him.
“Most of the time, anyhow—when it looks like a good idea,” Grus said. “Were you a married man before you came here?”
“I was.” Pipilo nodded.
“Well, then.” Grus stopped, as though no more needed to be said. By the way Pipilo laughed, he had said e
nough.
In the end, the abbot decided not to let Ortalis go out hunting. If Grus had been in his sandals, he would have decided the same thing. Ortalis blamed him for it. Grus had expected that, though not the full force of his son’s fury. Storming up to him in the monastery courtyard, Ortalis shouted, “You’re keeping me locked up in this stinking jail!”
“I had nothing to do with putting you here.” Grus looked down his nose at Ortalis—not easy when his son was taller. “You can’t say the same about how I got here. Do you hear me complaining about it?”
“No, but you’re soft in the head or something.” Mere truth wasn’t going to dent Ortalis’ outrage. “You told the warder—”
“The abbot, and you’d better remember it, or he’ll make you sorry.”
Ortalis rolled his eyes. “Who cares what you call him? The point is, the old blackguard won’t let me go out. I know he talked to you about it. What other reason would he have for keeping me in here except that you told him to?”
“Maybe he has eyes of his own to see with?” Grus suggested.
“What do you mean?”
“Anyone who does have eyes knows you’d take off in a heartbeat if you got outside the walls,” Grus said, more patiently than he would have thought possible. “Pipilo doesn’t need me to tell him that. You tell him yourself, every time you breathe. If you want to know what I said to him, ask him yourself. I’m sure he’ll give you the truth.”
“Suppose you tell me, before I knock some teeth loose,” Ortalis growled.
Grus had given his son a few beatings. They hadn’t done what he’d hoped they would. Maybe he should have started sooner and given more. On the other hand, maybe he never should have started at all. If he and Ortalis fought now, Ortalis probably could beat him. “You won’t believe me even if I do,” he said.
“Try me,” Ortalis said. Grus recounted the conversation with the abbot as exactly as he could. Ortalis snorted and rolled his eyes again. “You’re right. I don’t believe you.” Instead of swinging at Grus, he stormed off.
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