Return of the Thief

by Megan Whalen Turner

  Yes.

  I was Erondites. I knew what would destroy the king and would not let Lader triumph from beyond the grave. Do not overreach.

  “Your Majesty?” Pegistus prompted impatiently.

  “We will not cross the river,” the king said slowly, but with certainty.

  Trokides was outraged. “On the word of a child?” he said.

  “Your Majesty?” Pegistus protested. “If the Medes turn and come this way again, Roa will not stop them.”

  “No,” said the king. “We will build a fort here and garrison it.”

  “On Roa’s land?” Pegistus was horrified.

  “No, not on Roa’s land,” said the king. It had been in his mind all along to make the king of Roa pay for his treachery. Eugenides moved his hand across the map. “This is Attolia now.”

  “And if the king of Roa objects?” Trokides asked, quite reasonably.

  The king shrugged. “He can send his complaints to the courts of the Greater Powers of the Continent or to his new friend Ghasnuvidas, emperor of the Mede, and see who comes to his aid. This land is Attolia, and we will march no farther.”

  Far away in the capital city of Attolia, Eddis woke in the dark. She’d been dreaming, as she had so many times before, of a dark night and the crisp mountain air of Eddis, the sky full of stars shining so bright on the Sacred Mountain that the snow on its slopes glowed even though there was no moon. She’d dreamed she was on the roof walks of her palace, looking over her city, and the quiet night was shattered by a crack and then a roar as the mountaintop exploded into a ball of fire and gouts of flame shot into the air, only to be hidden by an ever-expanding cloud of smoke. She had run through the palace, desperate to reach the streets to warn the people. The snow on the slopes was melting, some of it turning to steam but the rest into a burning river of mud and lava that would roll down the slopes to sweep over her city and fill the mountain valley.

  “Helen?” murmured her husband beside her. Circling her with his arm, he pulled her close, shifting her bulk with an ease she envied. “Nightmare?” he asked.

  “I ran through the streets and they were empty, Sophos. The windows, the doors, they were boarded over and everyone was gone. The Sacred Mountain was erupting and there was no one there.”

  The terrible tension was fading, and she was already falling back asleep to dream again. She wasn’t in her palace or in Eddis. This time, she was looking over the rooftops of some other city, seeing them fill with people who’d felt the ground shaking under their feet, heard the rumbling of the distant explosion, and come out to watch the eruption taking place far away.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Over the next few weeks, the Peninsula’s soldiers put down their weapons and began felling trees to make room for a sturdy fort. They dug trenches and laid the courses for stone walls while the king exchanged letters and messengers with the king of Roa. There was posturing and threats. Roa sent a new spokesman, shifty-eyed and provoking. We did not know it then, but Roa had bribed the remaining Mede officers to make a stand on the far side of the Lusimina. The Medes were indeed lying in wait, as Pegistus had feared. However, our king would not be baited into crossing the river, and every day more of the enemy’s soldiers disappeared on their way home. As the deserters had nothing but their weapons and the clothes on their backs, they soon turned to looting the countryside as they went.

  “Remind your king that, unlike the Medes, the Attolians have always been good neighbors,” Eugenides told Roa’s ambassador. “Our losses have been steep because of his betrayal, and this small parcel of land is all we seek as compensation.”

  When it was clear that he would receive no support from the army of Ghasnuvidas, the king of Roa capitulated. Some historians would have you believe that Roa’s land was seized outright, but I myself watched the treaties being written and know that there were agreements and payments made in exchange for what, in all honesty, was a stretch of empty forest and two small coastal towns.

  The stone walls of the new fort were waist-high in places when news came that Attolia had safely delivered twins. All work stopped for three days of celebration. I think the king might have appreciated a quiet moment to reflect on this great change in his life, on what it meant to lose a father and to become one, but he was king, and the momentous birth of not one heir for Attolia, but two, was a public event and not a private one. There was more news, equally momentous. The Charter of the Three States had been drafted, and the king could return home.

  Half of the forces remaining were left to garrison the new fort on the Lusimina, and the others marched with the king back along the coast toward Nedus, where the Sapphire was waiting to take him to the capital. On the way, the king detoured to climb up the hill to the temples at Reyatimi, the sanctuary where Costis and Kamet had been watching for the Mede invasion.

  In each of the temples, the king made a dedication. At all but two of them, he offered up a gold tablet inscribed with his gratitude for the safe delivery of his children. At the altar of Ula, though, he left a set of gold earrings he’d had cast from the coins in the treasury abandoned in the Mede camp after the death of Bu-seneth. The last temple he visited was that of the Reyatimus, which is what they called the Sky God in that place. The king was met in the forecourt by a priest who eyed him warily.

  “Eugenides.” The priest called him by name. “It is rare a Thief comes to our doors.”

  “I would make an offering, if it is not unwelcome.”

  “Your god and ours have a tempestuous relationship,” the priest demurred, his gaze resting on the object the king held.

  “They have their moments of cooperation,” the king reminded him. His smile fading, he indicated the helmet he held under his arm. “This was my father’s. I would dedicate it with a sum sufficient to build a new altar in the temple, if you will accept it.”

  The priest nodded. He reached to take the helmet, saying, “No offering from a son to honor his father is unwelcome here.”

  We did not have the Etisians to blow us home, and the whole way the king was impatiently pacing the length of the Sapphire or scrambling into the rigging to kick his heels high above her decks. It gave Ion indigestion. As our ship rounded Cape Elydia, they lit the signal fires on the headland, and we saw the beacons catch fire along the coast. By the time we docked, the whole city and most of the population of the nearby countryside had filled the streets.

  Standing at the Sapphire’s railing, the king grumbled, “Crowds of people, shouting at me. My least favorite thing.”

  The captain appeared surprised by the response to a hero’s welcome. Trokides had spent more time with the king than the captain had. He said something too quiet to be heard above the sound of the crowd.

  “What was that?” the king asked him.

  “It’s just that you have so many least favorite things, Your Majesty,” said Trokides, in a deliberately bland voice.

  Pegistus snickered.

  “I can have you both ganched, you know,” said the king over his shoulder as he started down the gangplank.

  He walked up from the harbor at a snail’s pace. Everyone wanted to touch the king, to catch his sleeve, to embrace him. With every step he was kissing someone or being kissed, while those who couldn’t squeeze into the streets leaned from the windows above to shower us all with flowers. When at last he reached the steps leading up to Attolia’s palace, the king gently detached the last few grasping hands before he slipped between the ranks of the royal guards. Those of us who had accompanied him that far turned aside to make our way around to a less ostentatious entry into the palace. As Ion tugged me by the hand, lest I be lost in the confusion, the king slowly, solemnly climbed the steps to where Attolia, Sounis, and Eddis awaited him.

  Arriving at the top, he said to his queen, “You could have sent a carriage,” and she said back to him, “You could have ridden the horse.”

  He had walked right past the horse waiting for him at the dock, draped in silk and velvet, saddle a
nd bridle decorated in gems worth a king’s ransom. Grinding his teeth, Teleus had reordered the guard to convey him on foot, but the crowd had been impossible to control. All of us around the king had received similar treatment, at least as many flower petals and almost as many kisses.

  Attolia courtesied to her king, and the people roared with approval. He brushed petals off his shoulders and bowed in return. “My queen,” he said over the noise of the crowd. “You are well?”

  “I am well,” she told him. He stepped to kiss her and the cheering grew even louder.

  The king and Sounis exchanged bows. When he came to Eddis, the king caught her by the hand.

  “Let me spare you the bow or the courtesy, cousin,” he said, and kissed her on the forehead. The noise was deafening.

  “Crowds of people, shouting at you!” said Eddis. He could read her lips.

  “My least favorite thing!” he shouted back.

  For some time they stood, waving to the crowd and listening to the cheers. Then, with one final wave, they retreated through the forecourt and into the palace. When the doors closed behind us, it was blissfully quiet, the sound from outside reduced to no more than a murmur.

  “You are well?” said the king, searching Attolia’s face, now that the audience around them was smaller.

  “I am,” she reassured him.

  “And the children?”

  “Come and see,” she said. Leaving Eddis and Sounis to manage the ceremonial expectations of the court, Attolia led the king to the anteroom of the royal nursery.

  The king stood, shifting from foot to foot, excited and anxious by turns. Phresine came first, with the prince. Like any nurse, she eyed the king suspiciously. “Lower your arms, I’m not a giant,” she said sharply. “There, now. Your hand under his head, that’s it,” she instructed him before finally releasing the bundle wrapped in Attolian blue and gold. “Your son,” she said as she stepped back, ceremony creeping in again, as if there were any ritual that could further enrich that first moment a man holds his child.

  Hesitantly the king cradled the baby in his good arm. “So serious,” he said, looking into the tiny face in awe.

  “They do not smile at first, Your Majesty,” said Phresine.

  When Attolia cleared her throat, the king dragged his eyes away from the baby. “I thought he should carry your father’s name,” she said.

  “Not your father’s?” asked the king. This was a prince of Attolia, and the queen’s father’s name had precedence.

  Attolia said softly, “Your father’s name would honor my house.” The king nodded without speaking. Attolia reached to take her son as Luria was bringing out the princess. We’d heard her wailing in the nursery, and she was still fretting as Luria laid her in the king’s arms. Captured by the sight of an unfamiliar face, she fell silent. The king looked into his daughter’s eyes as he had looked into his son’s, and his smile faded.

  “Gen?” said Attolia, suddenly afraid. Phresine’s arms were reaching for the princess as the king drew the baby away.

  “It’s nothing,” he said. “It’s only that I can see now what my grandfather must have seen, what every Thief before me has seen.” With growing confidence, he shifted the bundle onto his other arm and used his finger to brush the baby’s cheek. Smiling again, he said, “She is Eugenia, and if she falls, her god will catch her.” Less solemnly, he added, “I could pitch her off the roof to show y—”

  “No.”

  “It’s what they do in Eddis. Of course, they wait until there’s been a heavy snowfall, but—”

  “No!”

  “Do you mind?” he asked, his voice serious again, because Attolia believed in his gods, worshipped his gods in their temples, but she did not love them.

  “I do not mind,” said Attolia, equally serious until she added, “She cannot be more trouble than her father.” She tucked the blanket a little tighter around the child in her arms. “Hector,” she affirmed for her son. “And Eugenia,” for her daughter.

  “A king and his Thief,” said Eugenides.

  That evening in the megaron, as the tables were being pushed back after dinner, one of the musicians played a scatter of notes on his pipe. They were the opening notes of an Eddisian line dance and easily recognized, even as the music master was frantically hushing the player.

  The king, who’d been half asleep, sat bolt upright.

  “Dance with me?” he said to Attolia.

  Puzzled, Attolia agreed. They always led the first dance.

  “Splendid,” said the king. “I was afraid I’d have to ask Eddis and she’s as big as a house.”

  “You would have to put me in a wheelbarrow and roll me around the room,” said Eddis.

  “Oh, but we aren’t dancing here,” said the king. He jumped to his feet and headed for the musicians.

  The music master was bowing and apologizing. “I’m so very sorry, Your Majesty. It won’t happen again. It was entirely inappropriate.”

  “No, it wasn’t, and it will happen again, but not here,” said the king. “Pick up your instruments, all of you, and follow me. Everyone, follow me,” he said to the gathered patronoi of Eddis and Sounis and Attolia, and they did. They paraded after him up the ceremonial staircases and along the passageway that led to the narrower stairs that in turn led to the roof—even Eddis, with Sounis hovering near her like an anxious sheepdog.

  The sun was just setting, the sky was blue and gold, and all the clouds were blushing pink as people poured out onto the guard walks that surround the roofs of the palace. There was plenty of room. The king pointed out a convenient space for the musicians and waved to everyone else to take their places. Holding the queen’s hand, he picked his way up the tiled roof of the ceremonial hall to the peak. Attolia, accompanying, was as surefooted as the king. Once at the peak, they waited for the music master to bring his players to order, and when the musicians began to play, Eugenides and Irene danced.

  Effortlessly they performed the steps of the traditional line dance, moving forward and back, along the ridge of the roof, careless of the steep slope on either side. At the end of the dance, the king released Attolia and bowed as she courtesied. Then he descended to catch Eddis by the hand. Eddis protested, he cajoled, and together they climbed up the roof. Attolia, meanwhile, had taken Sounis by the hand and led him up as well. He looked far more anxious than the other three, but as the musicians played, the four of them danced gracefully to the music, and then they descended, each to select a new partner.

  Everyone else was dancing on the flat guard walks—Ion and his new wife smiling at each other, Celia and Lavia laughing. Phresine danced with Trokides. Baron Anacritus danced with his wife and then with his lover, while his wife was dancing with the king. Much to my surprise, Chloe had singled out the magus, who seemed very pleased at the attention. Costis was dancing with his younger sister when I saw Kamet approach Teleus, who’d propped himself against a crenelated wall.

  The captain refused to dance, his grief for Relius so all-encompassing that even the king handled him gently. It would be many long months before Meleo the Gant succeeded in subduing his southern neighbors and before the Pents, sensing the coming changes in their alliance with the Braels, changed tack with the Lesser Peninsula. Dropping their demands for an apology from the king, they would release the prisoner they’d secretly held and send him home. Teleus and I would cry happier tears together then.

  That night, as we celebrated the return of the high king and the new charter that unified the Peninsula, I am not sure how many saw the handsome young men with goat feet, the celadon-skinned women with leaves and flowers in their hair moving from partner to partner. Anacritus danced with a woman covered in silvery scales. An imposing figure in a flowing blue robe bowed stiffly to the king before offering a hand to Attolia. Relinquishing her, the king turned with a smile to dance with a woman whose skirts billowed as if in a wind that touched nothing else.

  When Moira descended from the rooftop to offer me her hand, I shoo
k my head, gesturing to my bent leg.

  “Pheris, how foolish,” said Moira, “to think that means you cannot dance.” When she held out her hand again, I took it.

  After a time, the light left the sky and the darkness settled in, the musicians fell silent, and the king led us down from the rooftop. Peace stole over the palace and the long day was over. The three countries, Sounis, Eddis, and Attolia, were one, and the gods were pleased.

  THE END

  Alyta’s Missing Earring

  “Eugenides,” said one of the fates.

  “What?”

  “We know you are lurking. What are you up to?”

  “Nothing,” said the god of Thieves. Then he shrugged. “Hiding.”

  “From whom this time?”

  “Alyta.”

  All three fates lifted their heads in surprise. Alyta, though the daughter of the storm god, was one of the gentler goddesses.

  “She wants a favor,” said the god of thieves.

  Sphea, the spinner, nodded in understanding. The gods and goddesses often came to the half-bred mortal son of the Earth, asking him to use the gifts given to him by the Great Goddess on their behalf.

  “What could Alyta need stolen?” Metiri asked as she measured out a length of her sister’s spinning.

  Eugenides waved his hands, as if pestered by gnats. “Whatever it is, I am not stealing it. I already told her that.” He drew close to Hega, looking over her shoulder at the pattern on her loom. “I thought there would be more red,” he said.

  Hega snorted.

  While the weaver’s fingers were occupied elsewhere on her loom, the god of Thieves deftly shifted several of her threads. When Hega moved her fingers back, she felt the change.

  “You’ve made a knot,” she complained.

  “Just a twist,” said Eugenides. “A little one.”

  “And look, these threads are out of order now. I will have to unweave this whole section, and Sphea’s new yarn will have to wait.”

  “Then let it stay,” Eugenides suggested. Whispering in her ear, he said, “It looks better, this. Doesn’t it? Say it does.”