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 find 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 I monastery. Along with the other monks, he was called out X 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."