The guards in front of the Scepter of Mercy stiffened to attention when Lanius walked up. "Your Majesty!" they chorused.
"As you were," the king said, and the guardsmen relaxed. Lanius picked up the Scepter. Being able to pick it up encouraged him; as King Cathartes had written centuries before it was stolen, it would not let itself be used for anything unrighteous.
Lanius thought carefully about how to seek what he wanted from the Scepter. If he sought to make Grus and Ortalis and Petrosus suddenly love one another, he was sure his wish would go ungranted. There was such a thing as asking — and asking for — too much.
Up until now, he'd used the Scepter of Mercy for things that would obviously help Avornis as a whole. Chief among them was seeking better harvests in the lands the Menteshe had ravaged in their invasion before Prince Ulash died. Even with that help, he feared the southern provinces would still be a long time recovering.
This… This was something else. Whether he used the Scepter of Mercy or didn't, Avornis wouldn't change one way or the other. Few people outside the monastery would have any idea of what he'd done. This almost struck him as a task too small and trivial to bring to the Scepter's notice, as it were.
But there — were small mercies as well as large ones. If Grus and Ortalis and Petrosus had to live together — and they did — couldn't they live together without rubbing one another raw every day of their enforced cohabitation? It didn't seem too much to ask. Grus particularly deserved peace and quiet, if that was what he'd found at the monastery.
Lanius aimed the Scepter in the general direction of the Maze. He wasn't sure that helped, but he didn't see how it could hurt. He shaped the idea behind what he wanted until it was clear in his mind. Then he sent it forth, out through his will, out through his arm, out through the Scepter.
He'd felt power thrum through the Scepter of Mercy when he used it to do what he could for the southern croplands. He felt it again now, but not nearly to the same degree. That made him smile at himself. Not even he believed this was as important as anything he'd done with the Scepter before. All the same, that didn't mean it wasn't worth doing.
"What did you do, Your Majesty?" one of the guardsmen asked as Lanius set the Scepter of Mercy back on its velvet cushion.
He smiled again, a little sheepishly. "I'm not quite sure. I hope I find out in a while." The guard smiled back, thinking he'd made a joke. The smile slowly faded as the man realized Lanius meant it.
Because Grus had always been in the habit of rising early, the call to sunrise prayer worked no great hardship on him. Even back in the palace, he would have been up soon anyhow. He rolled his eyes. From the Maze, the palace seemed farther than Yozgat had from the city of Avornis.
He'd gotten to Yozgat. He didn't think he'd get back to the palace. What still surprised him was how little that seemed to matter. He slid out of bed, belted his robe around him, and joined the stream of monks trudging down the hallway toward the chapel.
The sky was bright in the east as he walked across the courtyard, but the sun hadn't risen. Night's chill still lingered, though it wouldn't much longer. The day would be warm and muggy. The air was full of the damp, mostly stagnant smell that pervaded the Maze. A jay flew by overhead, screeching.
In their robes, monks often appeared interchangeable. Grus didn't notice he was walking only a few feet from Petrosus until he'd been doing it for some little while. The former treasury minister saw him, too, but didn't say anything. Neither did Grus.
That could have been worse, he thought as he went into the chapel. Along with the rest of the monks, he offered up the day's first hymns to King Olor and Queen Quelea and the other gods in the heavens. He sang with better conscience than he would have before the Scepter of Mercy came back to the city of Avornis. The gods probably didn't pay much attention to what went on here in the material world, but sometimes they did, and it mattered that they did. He hadn't been convinced that was so. Now he believed it.
When the service was over, the monks trooped into the refectory for breakfast. Grus took a bowl of barley porridge and a mug of ale from one of the servers, then sat down at a bench and a table just like all the other benches and tables in the large hall. Again, he wasn't as far from Petrosus as he wished he were. The other man left him alone. That suited him fine.
After breakfast, Grus went into the kitchens himself to wash dishes. That kept him busy for most of the morning. The head cook came over to watch him. "You sure don't mind work, do you?" Neophron said.
Shrugging, Grus answered, "Why should I? What else is there to do here but sit around twiddling my thumbs?"
"Some people would like that — you bet they would." Neophron laughed. "Never thought I'd have a king working under me, and that's the truth."
"You don't," Grus said. The other man raised an eyebrow. Grus continued, "If I were still king, I'd be back in the city of Avornis. Since I'm here, I'm a monk like any other monk." That was true enough; no one had tried to make life in the monastery any easier or any softer for him because of what he had been.
"Guess you're right," Neophron said after a little thought. "Well, I never figured I'd have somebody who used to be a king working under me, either." He eyed Grus to see if the formerly illustrious dishwasher would argue with that. Grus didn't. He just rinsed out another mug and set it on a rack to dry.
Once he'd leveled the mountain of earthenware, he went out into the courtyard. Petrosus was watering the garden. He eyed Grus, but again didn't speak to him. Petrosus had been snapping every time Grus came out of the kitchens. His silence seemed doubly welcome because it was so unexpected.
Here came Ortalis. He looked discontented — but then, he usually did. He minded work, but Abbot Pipilo didn't care whether he minded or not. He got it either way, and he got punished when he didn't do it well enough to suit Pipilo or whoever else was set over him. That did nothing to improve his temper.
He gave Grus a curt nod and kept walking. Caught by surprise, Grus nodded back. He and his son quarreled even more readily than he and Petrosus did. They had, anyway, ever since Ortalis' brief reign collapsed and he ended up here along with his father. Grus had looked for yet another barb from Ortalis. He scratched his head, wondering why he didn't get one.
After quiet persisted for a few days, Grus approached Pipilo in his office and asked him if he'd had anything to do with it. The abbot gravely shook his head. "No, Brother Grus, not I. I said not a word to either of them or to you, figuring whatever I said would do no good and might make things worse."
"It wouldn't have made them worse with me. All I want is peace and quiet," Grus said.
Pipilo smiled thinly. "One man's notions of peace and quiet are not always the same as another's." He held up his hand before Grus could reply. "I don't intend to offend anyone by saying this."
"Oh, you don't offend me, Father Abbot," Grus said. "I know that's true. Anyone who's had anything to do with more than a few people will know it's true."
The abbot smiled again. "Yes, you would have had that kind of experience before you, ah, joined us, wouldn't you? Well, Brother, if you've sent prayers up to the gods for tranquility, maybe you've had them answered."
"Maybe I have." Grus couldn't see how else he could respond to Pipilo, and he couldn't see where else to go from there. Since he couldn't, he bowed and left the office — which was, no doubt, just what Pipilo wanted him to do.
Even so, he grappled with the small problem — not that silence from Ortalis and Petrosus was a problem, even if the reason for their silence was — as stubbornly as he'd grappled with the problems King Dagipert or the Chernagor pirates posed for Avornis. Past their eventually delivering the Scepter of Mercy into his hands, he didn't see that the gods in the heavens listened to prayers very often, let alone answered them.