The Scepter's Return (61 page)

People you sent away,
he meant. “Oh, joy,” Grus said in distinctly hollow tones.

Not many people lived in the Maze of their own accord. There were some fishermen, some trappers, a few men who gathered herbs and sold them to healers and wizards, and a few more who did a variety of things they tried to keep dark from Avornis' tax collectors. Every so often, as Grus' boat made its way through those tricky channels, someone would watch for a while from a boat of his own or from a hummock of ground slightly higher and drier than most.

A couple of the larger hummocks boasted real villages. Grus' boat gave those a wide berth. Monasteries sprouted like toadstools on smaller patches of more or less dry ground. Some of them were for people who wanted to get away from the world and contemplate the gods at their leisure. Others—more—were for people put away from the world and invited to contemplate the gods instead of being executed and finding out about them with no need for contemplation.

Grus' captors took him toward a monastery of the latter sort. The structure seemed more like a fortress than anything else. Its outer walls looked at least as formidable as the ones Grus had faced at Yozgat. But these works were designed to hold people in, not out.

Gygis cupped his hands in front of his mouth and hallooed when the boat approached those frowning walls. One of the men atop them shouted back. “We've got a new friend for you!” Gygis yelled.

“Who's Grus angry at now?” came the reply.

Gygis laughed. Sitting there beside him, Grus didn't think it was so funny. “You'll see when we bring him in,” Gygis said.

A rickety little jetty stuck out into the stream. One of Gygis' men tied up the boat. He looked at Grus and jerked a thumb toward the monastery. “Out you go.”

Out Grus went. After sitting in the cramped boat for a couple of days, his legs had a low opinion of walking, but he managed. Gygis and his men made sure Grus went nowhere but toward the monastery.

He and they had to wait outside while a stout portcullis groaned up. Were those monks turning the windlass that raised the chains attached to the portcullis? Who else would they be?

A plump man in a shapeless brown wool robe met the newcomers just inside the portcullis. “Well, well,” he said. “Who have we here?”

“Abbot Pipilo, let me present your newest holy man,” Gygis said with a broad, insincere smile. “His name is Grus.”

“Grus?” Pipilo stared first at Gygis, then at the suddenly overthrown king. “Olor's beard, it
is
Grus! How did Lanius manage that?”

In spite of himself, Grus started to laugh. Even in the gloom of the fortified gateway, he could see Gygis turn red. The officer said, “King Ortalis now holds the throne with King Lanius. You would be well advised to remember it. He is my master, and I serve him gladly.”

“Until something happens to him, or until you see a better deal for yourself,” Grus said. “That's how you served me.”

“King … Ortalis?” Pipilo said. “Well, well! Isn't
that
interesting?” He gathered himself, then nodded to Grus. “Come in, come in. You're safe here, anyhow.”

“Huzzah,” Grus said.

Pipilo laughed. “It may not be everything you hoped for, but you'll agree, I think, it's better than a lot of the things that could have happened to you with your son taking the throne.” Since Grus couldn't argue with that, he kept quiet. Pipilo went on, “Forgive me for saying this, but I think I ought to remind you that here you'll just be another monk. If this little domain has a sovereign, I am he.”

He didn't sound as though he was rubbing Grus' nose in that—only reminding him, as he'd said. And Grus did need reminding. His word had literally been law for years. Having someone else tell him what to do would be … different.

“I hear what you're saying,” he answered carefully.

That made the abbot laugh again. “By which you mean you don't want to believe it. Well, nobody can blame you for that. You just got here, and you didn't want to come. But you
are
here, and I have to tell you you're unlikely to leave, and so you should try to make the best of it.”

How could anyone make the best of
this? Grus wondered. He kept that to himself for fear of insulting Pipilo. The abbot beckoned him forward. Grus followed Pipilo into the monastery. Gygis and his henchmen must have gone back to their boat, for the portcullis creaked down again. With it in place, Grus was trapped here, but he felt no more imprisoned than he had with the iron gate still up.

“First thing we'll do is get you a robe, Brother Grus,” Pipilo said. “You'll feel more at ease when you look like everybody else. It will be warmer than that nightshirt, too. You were taken by surprise, I gather?”

“Oh, you might say so.” Grus' voice was as dry as he could make it. Pipilo chuckled appreciatively. “How did you become a monk?” Grus asked him, meaning,
I don't remember sending you here.

“As a matter of fact, I've been here since the very end of King Mergus' days,” Pipilo replied, understanding what he hadn't said as well as what he had. “I was a young man then, but he thought I had too much ambition. I dare say he was right, or I wouldn't have risen to become abbot, would I?”

One ambition he evidently didn't have was escape. Even if he had had it, it wouldn't have done him much good, so he was just as well off without it. A vegetable garden filled much of the monastery's large courtyard. Some of the monks weeding and pruning there looked up from their labors to stare at Grus. They wore brown robes with hoods like Pipilo's. Grus would have felt as out of place here in his royal regalia as he did in his nightshirt.

Wearing that nightshirt didn't keep him from being recognized. A man of about his own age with a wild gray beard came up to him and wagged a finger in his face. “See how it feels, Your Majesty? Do you see?”

“That will be enough of that, Brother Petrosus,” Pipilo said. “You did not care to have people revile you when you first joined us here. Kindly extend Brother Grus the same courtesy you wanted for yourself.”

Grus' former treasury minister didn't care to listen. “Is Ortalis king now?” he demanded of Grus, who couldn't help nodding. Petrosus chortled. “Then I'll get out! I know I will! Limosa will see to it.”

Would Ortalis listen to Petrosus' daughter about this? He might, certainly, but Grus had his doubts. And he didn't want Petrosus to think he could get away with anything. He said, “Listen, my former friend, if Ortalis will send his own father into exile, why would he care even a copper's worth about his father-in-law?”

Petrosus scowled at him. “Because I wouldn't tell him what to do every minute of the day and night.”

“No?” Grus laughed, not pleasantly. “Do you know how many scars he's put on your daughter's back?” He didn't tell Petrosus that Limosa had enjoyed getting her welts. Maybe Petrosus already knew about his daughter's tastes. If he didn't … Grus was aiming to hurt him, but that went too far.

“And that will be enough of that from you also, Brother Grus,” Pipilo said with the air of a man who had the authority to give such orders. “Brother Petrosus, kindly return to your gardening.” Petrosus went, though his face was crimson and he ground his teeth in fury. That he went proved to Grus what a power Pipilo was here.

The abbot led the king to a storeroom where, as promised, a monk issued him a brown robe and a pair of stout sandals. The robe was as comfortable as anything he'd worn. The sandals would need breaking in.

A bell rang. “That is the call to midmorning prayer,” Pipilo said. “We gather together at daybreak, midmorning, noon, midafternoon, and sunset. Come along, Brother. You are one of us now, and this is required of you.”

“Is there any way I can get out of it?” asked Grus, who had trouble imagining the gods in the heavens paying much attention to grayer.

“It is required,” Pipilo repeated. “Anyone who does not conform to the rule here will find his stay much less pleasant than it might be otherwise.”

With that not so veiled threat ringing in his ears, Grus followed Pipilo to the chapel. Monks streamed in from all over the monastery. It held more of them than Grus had expected. He was relieved to see they weren't all men he'd sent into exile here. That would have made his stay even less pleasant than it was liable to be otherwise. All he could do now was try to make the best of things.

“Welcome, brethren, welcome,” Pipilo said from the pulpit. “A new brother has joined us today, as some of you will already know. Please welcome Brother Grus to our ranks.”

“Welcome, Brother Grus!” the other monks chorused. Some of them actually sounded as though they meant it. Others stared at him with the same vindictive relish Petrosus had shown. He could read their faces with no trouble at all.
Here is the man who put me here, and now he's here himself,
they were thinking.
Let's see how he likes it!

Whatever they were thinking, they got no chance to say it to Grus' face. Abbot Pipilo led them in prayers and hymns to King Olor and Queen Quelea. Grus knew the prayers and the words to the hymns. Coming out with them was easier than staying silent. He didn't think they would do any harm. On the other hand, he didn't think they would do any good, either.

When the prayers ended, the monks went back to their labors. Grus looked around, wondering what to do next. Pipilo came up to him. “This way, Brother, if you please,” he said. Shrugging, Grus followed.

Pipilo took him to the kitchens. They were almost as large as the ones for the royal palace. The abbot introduced Grus to Brother Neophron, the chief cook. “Have you had any practice working with food?” Neophron asked.

“Not for a good many years,” Grus answered.

Neophron's sigh made several chins wobble. Like most cooks who were good at their job, he was a hefty man. “Well, why don't you start off peeling turnips and chopping them up?” he said. “You can't do much harm there.”

Several baskets of white-and-purple turnips stood on a counter. With another shrug, Grus got to work.
From the Scepter of Mercy to this,
he thought.
Thank you, Ortalis.
After a while, though, he found he minded the work less than he'd expected. It wasn't exciting, but it struck him as worthwhile. He was helping to feed people, himself among them. How could that be bad?

After half an hour or so, Neophron casually strolled over to see how he was doing. The chief cook nodded, which also made the flesh under his jaw shake. “I've seen neater work,” he said, “but that comes with doing it. You're willing enough, by Olor's beard.”

Grus got a break for noontime prayers and then for the midday meal. It was quite plain: bread and cheese and beer. But there was enough of it. The monks ate at long tables in a large dining hall. Grus recognized fewer men than he'd expected.
Not
recognizing them, and not being recognized by them, came as something of a relief.

After lunch, Grus went back to the kitchens. He cut up more turnips, which went into great pots of stew for supper. He washed dishes. He chopped firewood. Along with the turnips, the stew had barley and onions and peas and beans and, for flavor, a little sausage finely chopped. A cook who served it in the palace would have been on the street the next minute. For soldiers in the field, though, it would have done fine. It filled Grus up.

The cell to which Pipilo led him after sunset prayers was just that. It was barely big enough to turn around in. The latrine was down the corridor. His nose would have told him which way if Pipilo hadn't. The bed was a straw-stuffed pallet on a ledge at the back of the cell. The wool blanket was rough and scratchy, but it was thick.

Grus lay down. The only light came from a distant torch. The straw rustled under him. He'd slept very little the night before in the boat with Gygis. He'd worked hard since coming to the monastery. He yawned. He could have lain there brooding and plotting. He fell asleep instead.

Sosia was furious, and didn't even try to hide it. “He can't do this!” she snarled at Lanius in the near-privacy of their bedchamber. “He
can't
! You're not going to let him get away with it, are you?”

“Well, as long as the soldiers do what he tells them to, and as long as the people here don't start throwing rocks at him whenever he sticks his nose outside the palace, I'm not sure what I can do,” Lanius said reasonably. “How long that will be, I don't know. Not too long, I hope.”

“I'll
throw a rock at him if he sticks his nose anywhere near me!” Sosia said. “My own brother! My brother did that!
My
brother did it to
my
father! Some fine family we turned out to be, isn't it?”

Lanius aimed to go on looking at the bright side of things as long as he could. “He sent your father to the Maze,” he said. “He didn't do anything more than that, and I suppose he could have. He hasn't done anything to either one of us, and he hasn't done anything to the children.”

His wife's hands automatically went to her belly, as though to protect the new life growing there. “He'd better not! He'll be sorry if he tries!”

“Well, he hasn't, and he could have done that, too,” Lanius said. “If he hasn't, it probably means he doesn't want to.”

“He'd better not,” Sosia repeated darkly. “King Ortalis!” Her laughter had a hysterical edge. “Olor's beard, Lanius, he hasn't got any more business running this kingdom than one of your moncats does.”

He has less business running the kingdom than Pouncer does, I think. Pouncer was able to pick up the Scepter of Mercy. Can Ortalis?
Lanius kept that to himself. It wasn't that he didn't want Sosia to know about his doubts. They might have helped set her mind at ease. But she might have let her brother know about them. Lanius didn't want Ortalis having any idea that he had doubts. He wanted his brother-in-law confident that he could handle the Scepter.