"Fair enough," Lanius said. "From now on, the woman Alauda is to have her usual allowance, and you are to continue your usual discretion about it." He'd been so discreet, Lanius had had no idea that Sosia and Ortalis and Anser had another little half brother.
"Just as you say, Your Majesty, so shall it be," the treasury minister promised. "As long as I have instructions, I shall carry them out to the best of my ability." Without instructions, he would sit there and look up at the ceiling and gather dust; that was the corollary. But he was a useful and reasonably able official. Expecting someone in his place to have imagination, too, was no doubt asking too much.
"We'll let it go at that, then," Lanius said. Alauda and Nivalis were taken care of. Lanius wondered what the boy was like. Grus had never said a word about him. The other king had always been able to keep secrets. Had Grus ever seen his newest bastard? He might have been able to, traveling to or from the wars with the Menteshe. If so, though, he'd never given the slightest sign.
In due course, another letter came from the monastery. Thank you for your generosity toward this boy. It shows you deserve to use the Scepter of Mercy, Grus wrote. Thank you also for using it to help bring peace among the monks in this place. Nothing less than the Scepter of Mercy, I am sure, could have eased the strife that flourished here.
Lanius looked at that and slowly shook his head. Grus had no great amount of book learning. He was no scholar, and would have laughed at the idea of becoming one. But, as he always had, he saw how things worked. He got to the bottom of them. And when he did, he was rarely wrong. He certainly hadn't been this time.
Still bemused, Lanius summoned Hirundo. "What can I do for you, Your Majesty?" the general asked.
"Did you know Grus had a bastard son a few years ago?" Lanius asked.
To his surprise, Hirundo laughed. "Oh, yes. We were both in the tavern when he saw the boy's mother. Matter of fact, I saw her first. But he took a shine to her, so I backed off – he was king, after all. I've never set eyes on the boy, mind you, but I liked his mother."
"No one ever said anything about it," Lanius said.
"What's to say? These things happen." Hirundo shrugged.
Since Lanius knew it was only luck that none of the serving girls he'd bedded had conceived, he couldn't very well argue with that. He did say, "A king's bastard makes for… certain problems, you might say."
"Oh, no doubt about it," the general replied. "But Grus isn't king anymore, and it doesn't sound like he wants to be king anymore. Since that's so, I expect you'll be able to handle anything that comes up. Odds are nothing will – the boy'll likely be grateful for as much of a head start as he can get in life."
"I hope you're right." Lanius eyed Hirundo. A general could make for… certain problems, too. If Hirundo had risen in Grus' name, he and his longtime friend might well have prevailed. And if he'd rebelled in his own name, he also might have won. He was and always had been popular with the soldiers.
But he seemed content not to wear a crown. Maybe, watching Grus, he'd seen how much work being king really was. Lanius wondered what Hirundo would have done if he thought Grus wanted to retake the throne. That, fortunately, seemed to be one thing he himself and Avornis didn't have to worry about.
Hirundo probably knew what he was thinking. A general also had to be a courtier. But if he did know, he gave no sign of it. He just dipped his head and asked, "Anything else, Your Majesty?"
"No, I don't think so," Lanius answered. Hirundo sketched a salute and left the room. Lanius sat there scratching his head. "Nivalis," he murmured. It wasn't a bad name – and, to his ear at least, it didn't sound the least bit kingly. That made him like it better.
Another day at the monastery, not much different from the one that had gone before. The one that came after probably wouldn't be much different, either. Grus didn't worry about it. He'd seen enough ups and downs. Steadiness, right now, suited him.
Some monks who'd spent much longer behind these frowning walls still couldn't abide it here. Petrosus wasn't the only one who schemed to get a royal order, or an ecclesiastical one, releasing him from his vows and letting him return to the secular world. Ortalis wasn't the only one who paced the courtyard and the hallways like an animal in a cage too cramped to suit it.
A break in routine came when Pipilo summoned Grus to his office. Grus tapped at the open door. "You wanted me, Father Abbot?" he asked respectfully. Monks were supposed to respect their abbot. Grus did respect Pipilo. He knew how hard being in charge of any community was. Pipilo did a good job of running the monastery, and deserved respect for it.
He nodded to Grus now. "Yes. Come in, Brother, and close the door after you." When Grus had, Pipilo said, "You do surprise me."
"Have I done something wrong?" Grus didn't believe he had, but he often discovered the rules here by bumping into them. From what he heard, he wasn't the only monk to whom that happened.
But the abbot said, "No, no, no – not at all. Just the opposite in fact. I grow more amazed day by day at how well you fit in here."
"Thank you, Father Abbot." Grus couldn't resist adding, "I said I would."
"Yes, so you did," Pipilo agreed. "But people say all kinds of things. Some prove true. Some…"
Grus laughed. "Anyone would think you were a man who had some small experience in ruling men, Father Abbot."
That made Pipilo smile. "Maybe not as much as you, Brother, but yes – some. You were always a man who did so many things. Here, there aren't so many things to do. I thought you would be restless and bored. I thought you would want to go back to the secular world so you could do more."
"If this had happened to me a few years ago, I would have. I'm sure of that," Grus said. "No more, though. I'm content here."
"I see that," Pipilo said. "But how? Why?"
"What more do I need to do?" Grus said. "After all I've done, anything else would be an anticlimax. I'm not King of Avornis anymore, but my daughter is still married to the king. My son… Well, my son won't get any better than he is, no matter what I do. But my grandchildren are growing up, and my bastard boy is still arch-hallow. My family is as well set up as I could make it."
"And you have that other little bastard," Pipilo observed.
"Yes, I have Nivalis, too, though I'll never get to know him," Grus said. "I am sorry about that, but I wouldn't have gotten to know him even if I'd stayed king. My wife never quite found out about him." He took some modest pride in that, and knew it deserved no more.
"Congratulations – I suppose," the abbot said dryly. "The way it looks to me now, it's a shame you're older than I am and came to the monastic life so late. Otherwise, you'd be my likely successor. I told you that once before. I mean it more than ever now."
"Kind of you to think so, Father Abbot, but I told you I'd turn down the honor any which way," Grus replied. "That's part of why I don't mind being here, too. I've had a bellyful of telling people what to do."
"Have you really?" Pipilo sounded surprised again. "Most people never get enough of that."
Grus shrugged politely. "Maybe not, but most people don't get as big a dose as the one I had, either."
The abbot eyed him, then also shrugged. "I don't know whether I should believe you, but I do. And how do you like taking orders instead of giving them?"
"Not very much," Grus admitted. "No, not very much at all. But now that I know the routine and fit into it better than I did, people don't have to give me as many orders as they did when I first came here. I know what I need to do, and I do it."