The Scepter's return

CHAPTER THIRTY

Lanius was amazed at all the correspondence Grus had dealt with. Letters addressed to the other king kept coming in weeks and months after Grus went to the monastery. Now Lanius had to deal with them.

Some of them didn't get dealt with; Lanius wasn't the administrator Grus had been. He consoled himself by thinking people would write again if anything really important fell through the cracks. Maybe he was right, maybe he wasn't. Either way, it made him feel better.

He did try to read everything that came in addressed to Grus. One letter, in a scrawl just this side of illiteracy, talked about how a boy named Nivalis was flourishing. It also complained — deferentially — that payment for the boy's expenses was overdue. It was signed by a woman named Alauda.

"Well, well," Lanius said, and then again, "Well, well." He'd never heard of Nivalis or Alauda.

So Grus had another bastard out there, did he? Did he? If he did, he must have fathered the boy when he was down in the south fighting the Menteshe. It wasn't impossible. Before sending money to a woman who might be trying to deceive, though, Lanius wrote to Grus in the monastery.

The answer came back as promptly as such things could. Please pay her, Your Majesty, Grus wrote. The boy is mine, and I promised her she would not want. I do not care to be forsworn on something like this, and the expense is not large. And besides, who knows what Nivalis may grow up to become?

There was an interesting thought. The boy would know his heritage. His mother would make sure of that. He might come to the city of Avornis for an education, or to serve as a soldier. If he had any reasonable part of Grus' abilities, he could prove formidable. Avornis needed formidable people; there were never enough to go around.

And so Lanius wrote back to Grus, saying, Have no fear. I will make sure your obligations continue to be met. He ordered the treasury minister to send Alauda the usual payment. "Yes, Your Majesty," the man replied. Unlike Petrosus, he'd never given Lanius any trouble. "I delayed until I learned what your intentions here were."

He was smart enough to see he could have gotten into trouble for acting as easily as for not acting. Not acting could be mended. If he'd acted on his own, that would have been irrevocable, and would surely have landed him in hot water if he'd guessed wrong. He might not have been brave, but he'd been sensible.

"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."

Ortalis hadn't figured that out yet. He still tried to buck the monastery's routine. That, of course, landed him in more trouble than he would have had if he'd gone along at first. But Ortalis had never done anything the easy way, and it didn't look as though he would start now.

Pipilo must have known how Ortalis loved strife, for he asked, "Do you have any hints for dealing with your son?"

"Sorry, but no." Grus spread his hands, palms up. "If I did, don't you think I would have used them myself?"

"I meant no offense, Brother," Pipilo said. "I asked for the sake of peace and quiet here in the monastery. I know you prize them; I value them no less."

"I wasn't angry," Grus said. "I just know I didn't do as well with Ortalis as I wish I had. I truly don't know how much any one person can be responsible for what someone else turns out to be. I don't think anyone else knows, either, and I do think anyone who'll tell you he does is lying. But however much one person can be to blame for another, I'm to blame for Ortalis. I'm sorry. I wish he'd turned out better. But he is what he is, and that's all he is."

"It's remarkable how much he's calmed down toward you the past few weeks," the abbot said. "For that matter, you and Brother Petrosus seem to be getting along better, too. I'm glad to see it. Feuds in a place like this can cause a lot of trouble, because people can't get away from one another."

"I'm glad to see it, too," Grus said, and said no more than that. He couldn't prove Lanius had used the Scepter of Mercy to make sure he and Ortalis and Petrosus didn't feel the way

Pipilo had described; the king hadn't answered his comment about that. But nothing else made sense to him. Neither Ortalis nor Petrosus was one to back away from a quarrel. Come to that, neither was Grus.

"May I ask you one more question, Brother?" Pipilo said.

Grus bowed to him. "How can I refuse the holy abbot of this monastery anything at all? Don't I owe him obedience?"

"Quite a few of our brethren have no trouble refusing me any number of things," Abbot Pipilo replied with a laugh. "I have no doubt you could be among them if you chose. Well, here is my question, and do with it what you will. Suppose a river galley came up to the monastery tomorrow with an order signed by the arch-hallow or the king, saying you were released and could return to the world. What would you do then?"

"What would I do, Father Abbot?" Grus echoed. "I would be very surprised, that's what."

Pipilo sent him a reproachful stare. "You answer by not answering. Please don't evade, but tell me straight out — would you stay or would you go?"

"Yes," Grus answered, which made Pipilo stare more reproachfully still. Grus held up a hand, as though to ward off those sorrowful eyes. He said, "The truth is, I don't know what I'd do. And the other truth is, I don't expect that river galley, and I do think you'll be wasting your time if you expect it."

"All right, Brother," Pipilo said. Grus wasn't sure it was all right; the abbot liked things just so, and fumed when he couldn't get them that way. He went on, "I suppose I'll have to be satisfied with that. You may go."

"Thank you, Father Abbot," Grus replied. Any man who said he supposed he'd have to be satisfied was in fact anything but satisfied. Grus knew that perfectly well. He wondered whether Pipilo did, or whether the abbot hid resentment even from himself. Grus dared hope not; Pipilo knew well how other men work, and so he ought to have at least some notion of how he worked himself.

Bright sunshine in the courtyard made Grus blink until his eyes got used to it. Sparrows hopped in the garden. The monks argued about whether to shoo them out or not. Some said they ate grubs and insects, and so should be tolerated. Others insisted they stole seeds, and so should be scared off. Both sides were loud and excitable, no doubt because the question that roused the excitement was so monumentally trivial.

Petrosus let them stay when they hopped near him. Grus would have expected him to drive them away. He was the sort who drove away everything that came close to him. If he let the little birds come close, to Grus that was as near proof as made no difference that they really did some good in the garden.

The next day, a river galley pulled up to the monastery. Grus felt Pipilo's eye on him before the abbot went out to see why the ship had come. Grus shrugged, as though to say he'd had nothing to do with it — and he hadn't. He wondered what he would do if that galley bore a release from this new life he'd entered. He shrugged again. He still didn't know, and tried not to worry about it.

One thing he did know — his heart didn't leap and fly at the thought of escaping the monastery. He didn't hate the idea, but he wasn't passionate about it, either.

If he had been passionate, he would have been disappointed. The galley came not to let anyone out of the monastery but to put someone into it. The new monk was a baron — or rather, a former baron — named Numerius. Grus didn't remember his face; he wasn't sure they'd ever met. He did know Numerius squeezed his peasants for more than their due and paid his own tax assessments late and often only in part. Now he'd gone too far or done it once too often, and Lanius had made sure he wouldn't do it again.

He came up to Grus. He was a big, blocky man with a red blob of a nose and a bushy brown beard streaked with gray. "I heard you were in here," he said. "I figured that other fellow wouldn't give me any trouble." He sounded accusing, as though his sudden arrival at the monastery were somehow Grus' fault.

"Seems you were wrong, then, doesn't it?" Grus said. "By all the signs, Lanius makes a perfectly good king."

"I figured he was just a figurehead," Numerius said. "That's all he ever was."

"Now that you mention it," Grus said, "no."

"Huh?" The deposed baron gaped at him. "Come on. You know better than that. You called the shots. That weedy little bugger did what you told him."

"He did when I took the crown," Grus admitted. "But he was only a boy then, on the edge of turning into a man. As time went by, he gave more and more orders, and they were usually good ones." He didn't admit how much that had worried him when it first started. Instead, he went on, "You shouldn't be surprised he can go on by himself now that he's the only king."

"Shouldn't I?" Numerius rumbled. "Well, I bloody well was when his soldiers swooped down on me. I never had a chance." He spat in disgust.

He wasn't the first baron who'd discovered the Kings of Avornis were serious these days about holding on to royal prerogatives. Several of his colleagues were in this very monastery. Maybe they could form a club.

Pipilo had let Numerius talk with Grus. Now, though, he said, "Come along, Brother. Time for you to get your robe and learn what will be required of you in your new station in life."

"I don't want to be a bloody monk!" Numerius roared.

"Your other choice was to be shorter by a head. I'm sure of it," Grus said. "I may be wrong, but I'd guess you didn't want that, either."

By the way Numerius glared at him, he would have been happy to see Grus shorter by a head. When Abbot Pipilo spoke to him again, his voice held more than a little sharpness. "Come along, Brother Numerius. I told you that once, and I am accustomed to obedience. No matter what you were before you came here, you are only one brother of many in this monastery. Many who are here came from a station higher than yours. Brother Grus is a case in point, and he is contented with his lot. Come along, I say."

Numerius came. He looked surprised at himself, but Pipilo, like a good general, could make himself obeyed when he wanted to. Hirundo had the gift. Grus did, too. It had to do with speaking in a tone that suggested nothing but obedience was possible.

Half an hour later, Numerius emerged in the plain brown robe of an ordinary monk. With his dirty but fine secular garb went a lot of his arrogance. As the abbot had said, he was just one among many now. The robe emphasized that, both to others and to himself.

Pipilo came out, too, and walked over to Grus. "I hope he will not trouble you as some of the other brethren did," he said quietly.

"I don't think so," Grus answered. "I wasn't the one who ordered him here, after all. I couldn't very well be, could I? I was already here myself when he got in trouble once too often."

"Once too often?" Pipilo's eyebrows rose. "You sound as though you knew him."

"No, not really. But I knew of him," Grus said. "He was always a man who would grab for everything he could — and for quite a few things he wasn't supposed to. I hope he won't cause you trouble."

The abbot smiled an experienced smile. "Men of that sort are not rare, here as in the wider world. I have met more than a few. If Brother Numerius proves troublesome, rest assured I have ways to bring him to heel."

"All right, Father Abbot. You know your business best," Grus said. And it's not my worry. Not one bit of it's my worry, he thought. He'd carried the worries, the weight, of the whole kingdom for many years. Now that burden was gone. Getting sent here had lifted it from his shoulders. He felt as though he were straighter and taller without it.

He almost owed Ortalis a debt for taking the weight away. The trouble was, Ortalis hadn't really intended to put it on his own shoulders. He would probably have ended up dropping it somewhere and watching moss grow on it.

Well, Avornis wouldn't have to worry about that. Lanius' shoulders were on the narrow side, but he was a conscientious man. When he saw a burden that needed lifting, he picked it up. And he wouldn't set it down until they laid him on his pyre.

And then Crex would pick it up, as long as he stayed healthy. If he didn't, Sosia was going to have another baby — maybe she'd already had it — and she could have more. One way or another, things would go on. He missed Estrilda, but a lot of that was habit, too.

They'll go on without you, Grus said to himself, tasting how that felt. A few years earlier, it would have troubled him enormously. Now? He found himself shrugging. Things would have gone on without him before many years passed any which way. A little sooner, a little later — what difference did it make? None he could see.

Realizing that, he also realized he had his answer to Abbot Pipilo's question. If that ship had come for him, he would have stayed in the monastery. What point was there to coming out again? Things would go on without him no matter where he was, so this made as good a place as any — better than most. Here he would stay.

Lanius took the latest letter from Abbot Pipilo to the archives himself. He wasn't sorry to get away from Elanus' crying. The new baby was healthy, but he cried more than Crex and Pitta had put together. Or maybe I just don't remember. It's been a while now, Lanius thought. Either way, he could escape to the archives. Sosia had no place like that to go, though serving women and a wet nurse gave her a lot of help with her new son.

Pipilo remarked that Baron Numerius' transition to Brother Numerius was not going as smoothly as it might have. The king didn't intend to worry about that. He doubted whether Numerius would ever escape from the monastery, which meant he had the rest of his life to get used to being a monk. If he'd paid his taxes and not tried to turn peasants into his personal dependents, he wouldn't have brought the change in way of life on himself. Since he had, he could just make the best of it.

One of these days, one of these years, one of these centuries, someone poking through the archives might come across the abbot's letter and the other documents about Baron Numerius' decline and fall. Lanius tried to keep all of them together, so some curious king or scholar in times to come could get the whole story. He wished some of his predecessors had followed the same rule. The archives held lots of unfinished tales, or at least tales where he'd found no ending. There were also some where he had no beginning, and others with the vital middle missing.

He closed the archives' heavy doors behind him. A smile stole over his face. This was where he belonged, as surely as Anser was made for the woods and the chase. The watery sunlight, the dancing dust motes, the slightly musty smell of old parchment, the quiet… What could be better? Nothing he'd ever found.

Pipilo's letter went into a case stuffed with documents on the struggle Avornis had had with its greedy nobles. Grus had started the struggle, and he'd won it. These days, the nobles recognized the superiority of the monarchy. The ones who hadn't were in monasteries or beyond human judgment.

No one before Grus had seen a problem in the rising power of the nobility — not even King Mergus, and Lanius' father had been both clever and ruthless. Grus had seen it, taken action against it, and done something about it. He deserved a lot of credit for that. Lanius wondered if chroniclers in years to come would give it to him.

"Between us, we made a fine king," Lanius murmured. He hadn't been able to come to the archives as often as he wanted lately. He'd been too busy dealing with royal affairs large and small. Grus would have handled a lot of them while he was still in the palace. Having someone else to handle them was the only reason Lanius could see even to think about recalling his father-in-law.

For the moment, he put aside all thoughts of royal affairs- even the ones about serving girls. He poked through the jumble of documents at random, looking for anything interesting he might turn up. He found mention of a small scandal involving his many-times-great-grandfather and a black-eyed maidservant. The arch-hallow of the time had preached a very pointed sermon in the great cathedral. Lanius wondered if his ancestor had had to put aside his lady friend. The archives didn't say — or if they did, the document with the answer wasn't with the rest. One more story without an end.

Lanius heard a noise. It came from somewhere in the bowels of the archives, from the cases and crates in the shadows near the edge of the enormous room.

"Pouncer!" he called. "Is that you?"

Calling a moncat usually did as much good as calling any other kind of cat. Every once in a while, though, you got lucky. Lanius did this time. "Mrowr?" Pouncer said blurrily.

"Come here, you ridiculous animal." Lanius knew that was no way to talk to the beast that had brought the Scepter of Mercy out of Yozgat. He knew, but he didn't care. It was a perfectly good way to talk to a cat that was making a nuisance of itself — and Pouncer was.

He heard Pouncer moving through the archives, with luck, toward him. The moncat wasn't as quiet as it might have been; he could follow its progress by clunks and the occasional clank. Did that mean…? Up until now, Pouncer hadn't raided the kitchens since coming back from the south — or hadn't gotten caught raiding the kitchens, anyhow.

Out came the beast. When Lanius saw it, he started to laugh. He couldn't help himself. Pouncer held a good-sized silver spoon in one small, clawed hand, for all the world as though it were the Scepter of Mercy. In its jaws, the moncat carried a dead mouse. No wonder that meow had sounded odd.

Plop! Pouncer dropped the mouse at Lanius' feet. The king knew that was an honor from the moncat, even if it was one he could have done without. "Oh, yes, you're a brave fellow, a hero among moncats," he said, which happened to be true. He could have called Pouncer a soup tureen full of giblet gravy and it wouldn't have mattered to the moncat, as long as he used the proper tone of voice. It had to sound like praise.

As soon as Lanius lifted the mouse by the tail, the moncat wanted it back again. Lanius knew that would happen; he'd seen it before. He scooped Pouncer up. The moncat shifted the spoon to its hind feet, which gripped just as well as its hands. That let those hands seize the mouse once more. Pouncer contentedly nibbled on its tail and began to purr.

This was the creature that had defeated the Banished One, that had returned the Scepter of Mercy to Avornan hands? Watching it, listening to it, the idea seemed absurd. But it was true.

"Come on, you preposterous thing," Lanius said. "You can keep the mouse, but you have to give back the spoon."

He cradled Pouncer in one arm and tried to take the spoon away with his free hand. The moncat hung on with both hind feet. Thanks to their thumbs, it hung on tight. He shrugged and gave up for the time being. The archives could wait. He needed to take the thief back to the scene of the crime.

He hadn't gotten even halfway before he almost ran into a cook. "Your Majesty!" she said, and then, "Oh! You've already caught the miserable beast."

"So I have," Lanius agreed. "Let's go back to the kitchens. Maybe you can trade some mutton for the spoon. Or if that doesn't work, we'll take it away there."

"Mutton!" The cook rolled her eyes. "That thing doesn't deserve mutton. It deserves a poke in the snout for being a nuisance and a thief."

"Oh, I don't know," Lanius said. "Pouncer did get the Scepter of Mercy out of Yozgat, remember. Maybe you could give the beast something for that, eh?"

The cook shook her head. "Who cares about some old Scepter? What's it ever done for me? That's what I want to know."

"We're not fighting the Menteshe anymore, and the Banished One isn't so much trouble," Lanius reminded her. "That's all on account of the Scepter of Mercy."

"Like the Menteshe were ever going to come up to the city of Avornis," the cook jeered. "Like the Banished One ever cared about the likes of me." She laughed at the idea.

And it was silly when you put it in such terms. Lanius couldn't deny it, and didn't try. "Sometimes things that help the kingdom a lot don't matter very much to some of the people who live there," he said. Pouncer bit off the mouse's tail. It dangled from the comer of the moncat's mouth for a moment. Then it disappeared.

When they got back to the kitchens, the head cook laughed to see Pouncer still clutching the silver spoon. Cucullatus' chins and belly wobbled as he laughed; he was fond and more than fond of what he turned out. "So you nabbed the thief, eh, Your Majesty?" he said. "More than the Menteshe ever did, by Olor's beard."

"Menteshe, Menteshe, Menteshe!" The woman who'd gone to get Lanius threw her hands in the air. "Why don't people talk about something important? The price of lard in the market square — that matters. But who cares about a bunch of foreigners, anyway?"

How many people all over Avornis felt the same way? More than a few, probably. Lanius sighed. He couldn't even show her she was wrong; she didn't know enough even to realize how ignorant she was. Instead of trying, the king turned to Cucullatus. "Would you be kind enough to ransom the spoon with a bit of mutton?"

"I can do that," the head cook replied at once, though his underling sniffed. "Will the beast want it, though, what with its dainty there?" He pointed to what was left of the mouse.

"Who knows? All we can do is find out," Lanius answered. "You'll get the spoon back any which way." He tugged on it. Pouncer still didn't want to let go.

"Oh, I know, Your Majesty," Cucullatus said. "Let me go bring you that mutton. Be right back." Off he went. Off went the woman who'd gone to get Lanius, too. She plainly remained convinced she'd outargued the king.

The mutton was fresh, unsullied by either garlic or mint. The moncat meowed on smelling it. Maybe it was better than a murdered mouse. Lanius thought so, but he was no moncat. He got the silver spoon away from Pouncer while the moncat was distracted and handed it to Cucullatus. "Get it out of sight."

"Right you are." The cook tossed it into a bucket of sudsy water. That was perfect. Not only did the spoon disappear, but moncats liked getting wet no better than their ordinary cousins did.

Pouncer seemed torn between mouse and mutton, and ended up nibbling on each in turn. "Thanks for your help, and for the ransom," Lanius told Cucullatus. He explained why he thought Pouncer deserved it.

"What, Your Majesty? You think the Scepter of Mercy is worth a bit of mutton? Seems to me you set a pretty high price on it." Cucullatus' eyes twinkled.

"That's what I told him," said the woman cook who'd come after Lanius. "He didn't want to listen to me — oh, no."

Lanius' eyes met Cucullatus'. The head cook smiled and sighed at the same time, as though to say, What can you do about some people? The answer to that was simple. You couldn't do anything about some people. You had to make the best of them when there was a best to make, and put up with them when there wasn't.

Now Lanius was the one who sighed. He'd been King of Avornis since he was a little boy, and that was what he'd learned? Why hadn't he smoked fish for a living in that case?

When you got down to it, though, plenty of people went through their whole lives without ever figuring out anything so basic about their fellow men and women. If they had realized it, there would have been far fewer quarrels.

Lanius also had to put up with Pouncer. "I'm going to take the thief of Yozgat back to his chamber," the king said. "We'll see how long the beast stays there this time."

"As long as it feels like it, and not a minute longer," Cucullatus predicted. That told Lanius the head cook understood moncats as well as any mere human being was ever likely to.

Pouncer started wiggling even before Lanius opened the door. The moncat knew where it was going, and didn't want to go there. Lanius could put it in the room. Not for all his power could the king make it stay there.

After barring the door again, Lanius started back to his bedchamber. He needed to get away from Elanus every now and then, but he always felt bad about doing it. He hadn't gone far before someone called him. He wasn't too sorry to turn back. "Oh, hello, OUs. What can I do for you today?"

"Hello, Your Majesty." The freed thrall hurried up the corridor toward him. "I just wanted to thank you again for all you've done for my people south of the Stura. You and King Grus, I should say." He shyly bobbed his head.

"I'm glad we did it, and I know Grus was, too. Grus is, I should say." Lanius meticulously corrected himself. He went on, "Seeing you here, and Fulca, too, shows me every day that what we did was worthwhile."

Otus smiled. "Seeing Fulca every day — seeing her the way she's supposed to be, not like a brainless beast — shows me what you did was worthwhile." He bowed. "And I thank you for it, and so does she."

"Sometimes things work out the way you hope they would," Lanius said. "Not always, not even most of the time, but sometimes."

"They did here. You even paid the Banished One back.

That's worth everything, and two coppers more besides," Otus said.

"So it is," Lanius said. Sometimes things did work out. He'd gone from bastard to crowned king, from puppet to king in his own right. Thervingia and the Chernagors and the Menteshe had all harried Avornis. Now no enemy did. Even the Banished One was beaten, as Otus had said. Grus had had a lot to do with that. Lanius couldn't deny it, and didn't try. But I had a lot to do with it myself, he thought proudly. He had the biggest, hardest job in the world, and he'd grown to the point where he could do it and, he hoped, do it well. Slowly, he nodded to himself. No, not bad for someone who'd started out a bastard. Not bad at all. He headed back to Sosia and Elanus.