“Loose-mouthed gossip seller,” suggested Aris, and at Costis’s puzzled expression, he looked amused again and rolled his eyes.
“Do you know how much that humiliating tidbit about the king was worth?” Aris asked. “However it did get to Dite’s friend, you can be sure someone was very well paid on the way.”
Costis was horrified.
“Does he think that I sold that story to someone?”
Aris shrugged.
Costis swore, cursing the king in every particular.
He was still angry the next morning. He was determined to say something to the king at the first opportunity, and that was to be during their morning training together. The king didn’t look as if he were holding a dire insult against Costis. But then, Costis thought, the king never looked the way he was supposed to. He just stood there, patiently waiting for Costis to put up his sword for the same pathetic basic exercises. Costis didn’t move. He stood very proudly, with his shoulders square, and rushed into what he had to say.
“Your Majesty, if you believe I sold that story about your cousins—”
The king interrupted before he was finished. “I would never accuse you of such a thing.”
“—well, you are mistaken, I assure you,” Costis insisted. Only after he’d spoken did the king’s words sink in.
The king laughed. Costis held on tight to his temper. The men around him were turning to stare.
Stiffly Costis said, “You may think poorly of me, and I think poorly of myself, but I did not spread that story.”
“Too slow to find a buyer? Better luck next time.”
Costis lifted his chin a little higher. “I would never stoop to revealing information I knew was private.”
“Not even if you don’t like the person whose privacy you are protecting?”
“Especially not then,” said Costis, and hoped his disdain showed.
“I see.” The king only looked more amused. “First position, this morning? I’ll try not to hit you in the face again. It will be harder if you keep sticking your chin out like that.”
Costis left the training ground defiantly satisfied. He may have sounded like an ass, in fact, he knew he had, but he’d shown the king he had some pride left. He was very pleased with himself, at least until he was summoned by the queen.
Costis was hurrying, as usual, from the king’s apartments at midday. He had to move sharply to get something to eat in the Guards’ mess and then be back in time for his duty in the afternoon. It would have been easier to carry bread and cheese in his belt, but that was a uniform violation. He could have skipped the meal, but his stomach had shown an embarrassing tendency to rumble in the quiet of the afternoon court sessions.
One of the queen’s attendants, Imenia, approached him in the passage, and he stepped aside to allow her to pass, but she stopped.
“The queen wishes to speak to you, Lieutenant,” she said.
Costis gaped. “Me?”
The attendant responded with a stare.
Costis stammered an apology. “Forgive me, where shall I go?”
Imenia condescended to nod and turned away, expecting him to follow, which he did. He knew the names of the attendants, and had been slowly putting those names to the faces he saw at the afternoon courts and at the dinners. Imenia was not the first of the queen’s attendants, but she was among the most senior.
Feeling light-headed, only partly because he’d had no food at all that day, he followed to the door of the queen’s apartments. Imenia nodded at the guards in the hallway there. They neither challenged nor even looked at Costis. They seemed somehow more impressive than the men who guarded the king. Beyond the doorway, the guardroom of the queen glowed with light from the windows near the ceiling. The room was far larger than the king’s guardroom, paneled entirely in wood inlaid with mosaic pictures. Costis stared.
He’d thought the king’s apartments were the height of opulence, until he saw this room, not even an audience chamber, merely the guardroom. The noise of his boots, crossing the carpetless floor, reminded him that he hadn’t come to admire the walls. He handed his sword to the guard waiting to take it and made haste after Imenia, who hadn’t slowed.
She passed through one of the open doors on the far side of the guardroom and down a passage, then turned into a narrower passage that was lit indirectly by light from the windows in the rooms opening off it. She stopped at a doorway and waved Costis in. The queen waited for him in the small audience room. Her chair was the only furniture.
The queen looked him over impassively and spoke to the point. “What is the king doing when he retires to his room without his attendants?”
Costis wished the queen had asked him her question the day before, when he hadn’t just told the king he wouldn’t stoop to distribute gossip. He could almost hear what Aris called his ideals crashing to the ground like a pile of sticks. This wasn’t gossiping; this was his queen asking him a direct question, or alternatively, asking him to betray the privacy of the king, who was his sovereign, or alternatively, a goat-footed throne-stealing interloper. Costis thanked the gods he could keep his conscience clear and answer, “I don’t know, Your Majesty.”
“Don’t know, Lieutenant, or won’t tell?”
“I don’t know, Your Majesty. I am sorry.”
The queen looked thoughtful. “Nothing?”
Costis swallowed.
“Do you mean to say that as far as you are aware, he spends the entire time sitting and looking out the window and nothing else?”
“That’s correct, Your Majesty,” Costis said, relieved that it was the truth.
“You may go.”
Costis stepped backward through the door and retraced his steps to the guardroom. The attendant who had brought him was nowhere to be seen. Costis held up his head but he couldn’t shake the sensation of creeping away from the majesty of the queen. That, he told himself, was what a sovereign should be.
One morning in the Guards’ bath, the valet was buckling on Costis’s greaves when he spoke. “I have a friend,” he said quietly, “who heard something the other day.”
Costis, warned by the tone of his voice, kept his own low. “What did he hear?”
“Two men talking. You know how it is in the plunges, people think they are going on too quietly to be heard, but suddenly every word they say seems to be going directly into your ear.”
“Yes,” said Costis. Everyone knew that the curved roofs of the baths sometimes caused strange echoes to carry unexpected distances. “I’ve had that happen to me. But usually it’s a vet talking about the girls he’s left behind.”
“These two weren’t talking about girls.”
“Go on,” said Costis.
“Well, I will,” said the valet, “because it’s been worrying me and I’d like to pass it on and then forget it. The one asked the other if things were going well, and the other said yes, just as planned, he thought he would be successful in a few more weeks. He said he thought the first man would be very pleased with the results. Those were his words, ‘very pleased with the results.’”
“So?” said Costis. “They could be talking about anything, managing a farm, training a horse.”
“I don’t think so,” said the valet. He finished with the greaves and stood, face to face with Costis. “It was the Baron Erondites and Sejanus.”
Of course, it would be Sejanus, Costis thought. “I suppose,” he said slowly, “that Baron Erondites served in the Guard under the old king, and as Sejanus was still a guard until he became the king’s attendant, they both have privileges to use the Guards’ baths…if they didn’t want anyone else in the court to see them talking.”
“Exactly,” said the valet. “And now I am going to forget I ever heard anything.” He stepped back. Thinking hard, Costis left for the palace.
Dite had been cut off in every way from his family, though the baron had stopped short of disinheriting him. People thought he still held out hope that Dite might come to his sense
s. In contrast, the baron was publicly fond of Sejanus, providing him with an allowance and keeping his town house open for Sejanus’s use. It was Sejanus who made it clear that he was a loyal member of the Guard, and kept his distance from his father. People might have thought that his loyalty was more to the Guard itself, and to his career in it, than personally to the queen, but having your greatest loyalty be to your own career wasn’t a crime, really, or there would be more people in the queen’s prisons. Sejanus certainly shared his father’s opinion of his brother, Dite, and Dite returned the favor. They made it abundantly clear whenever they chanced to meet. Sejanus called Dite a fop and a coward. Dite sneered at Sejanus and referred to him as a sweaty uncultured pig, but he had been forced to watch in helpless rage one evening as Sejanus cruelly cut through his lyre strings one by one, while their friends looked on in amusement or discomfort, depending on where their sympathies lay. Because Sejanus would be heir if Dite were disinherited, his animosity was not surprising and didn’t suggest any disloyalty to Attolia.
But a murmured conversation in an out-of-the-way corner did. It sounded like a conspiracy, and no conspiracy that had Baron Erondites as a member could be good for the queen.
The question was what to do with the information. It had obviously worried the valet, so he had passed it on to Costis, which made some sort of sense, though he wished the valet had chosen someone else. Now that Costis was the possessor of the information, what was he going to do with it?
Tell Relius. Costis’s lip curled in distaste at the idea, but telling the queen’s master of spies was the obvious course of action. Relius knew everything about every palace intrigue. Perhaps he already knew about this one and it was old news. At any rate, this was not gossip, and no gentlemanly rules applied. Loyalty to the throne was all that was needed to guide Costis’s actions, that and a sense of self-preservation. Like the valet, Costis would pass on the information and then try to forget as quickly as he could that he had ever known it.
He watched Sejanus more closely that day. Suspecting his motives, Costis found everything about Sejanus even less amusing. He resolved to speak to Relius as soon as he was dismissed by the king.
In the afternoon, the king and queen sat to hear the business of their kingdom. At least, the queen sat to hear the business; Costis was still not sure what the king was doing. Costis paid more attention than Eugenides seemed to. He found many things surprisingly interesting, some things distasteful, and some horrifying.
The king, on the other hand, seemed to find everything boring. He slumped back on the throne and stared at his feet or at the ceiling. He never appeared to be listening and at times appeared to be asleep, though Costis suspected him of feigning the sleep just to be provoking. If so, the queen remained unprovoked. She coolly administered the court as if the king were not there.
Only once had the king seemed alert, when one of Relius’s men reported the first rumors that the barons of Sounis had risen in revolt against him and that his heir, Sophos, had disappeared, probably having been abducted by the rebels. Even then the king had had no comment to make. He had spoken in court only once, and that was only because he had been blatantly nudged by the Eddisian advisors.
That day a discussion had been going on for some time about where to garrison Eddisian troops. The barons who hosted the troops paid for their upkeep, and several had complained of the unfair distribution of the burden. One of the assistants to the Ambassador from Eddis had turned to the king and asked point-blank, “What does Your Majesty think?”
“What?” Eugenides had to shake himself out of a daydream. He glowered at the Eddisians, angry at being disturbed.
Ornon cleared his throat. “Baron Anacritus would like to be relieved of the burden of supporting our garrison. We are discussing where else they might be stationed.”
“Baron Cletus is next door. Put them there.”
“Ah,” said Ornon diplomatically. “Our engineers have observed that there is a gorge which makes that posting tactically…compromised.” It made the posting tactically useless, as it separated Baron Cletus’s land from every major travel route. Costis had been listening while all this had been explained in detail. He had caught back a sigh, not looking forward to hearing it all again, but he was spared by the king’s whim.
Eugenides waved his hand and said airily, “Build a bridge.”
There was much surreptitious eye rolling, but the king had been asked for his decision, he’d made it, and it had to be taken seriously. The discussion turned to the logistics of bridge building. Afterward, as they traveled together toward the royal apartments, Eugenides had prided himself on his performance. “Very clever,” the queen had said dryly. Costis noticed that he never saw the assistant to the Ambassador from Eddis after that. No one addressed the king anymore, and he went back to woolgathering.
He was certainly not paying attention to a report on the organization of an upcoming trip that the royal retinue would take at harvesttime when the door behind the throne opened and Relius slipped between the guards posted there. He came in at the back of the room so that he could step up to the thrones from behind and lean down to whisper into the queen’s ear. Like the Captain of the Guard, he continued to address himself only to Attolia unless forced to speak to Eugenides.
In response to Relius’s message, Attolia dismissed most of the court. The few people scattered through the large room waited in near silence, the only sound the light footsteps of the Secretary of the Archives as he crossed the open marble floor to the door of an anteroom. The heels on his elegant leather shoes tapped. The short cape that hung from his shoulders billowed against a coat even more expansively embroidered than the king’s. The guards at the door opened it on his signal, and he stepped inside, reappearing as an escort to a slow-moving party. One man was carried in a chair, and another, with his eyes bandaged, was led by the hand. The third man walked on his own but with a shuffling gait that suggested an injury.
They came before the queen, and slowly the people left in the throne room drew around them. Costis’s drowsiness fled.
“They were arrested simultaneously, or very nearly,” said Relius.
“In the same place?”
“No, Your Majesty. One in Ismet, one in Zabrisa, one in the capital.”
Zabrisa and Ismet were the names of Mede towns. Zabrisa, Costis knew, was on the coast. There was a map of the Mede Empire in the room where the king met with his Mede tutor, but Costis couldn’t recall seeing Ismet on it.
“Then the first arrested did not betray the others?” said the queen.
“No, Your Majesty. None of them even knew of the others.”
“Then you have a larger tear in your net.”
“I believe so. Immeasurably so, Your Majesty. There are sources who should have warned me by now of these events…had they been able.”
“I see,” said the queen. Attolia’s spies in the Mede Empire were strangely silent. Frightened into hiding, Costis guessed, or dead.
“Who betrays us, Relius?” asked Attolia.
“My Queen, I will know by this time tomorrow, I swear it.”
Attolia turned to the men before her. “How is it that you have returned if you were arrested by the Mede Emperor?”
“We are messengers, Your Majesty, from the emperor’s heir.”
“And your message?”
“He is preparing an army against you, Your Majesty. We were read the provisions for the forces, the levies of men, weapons, and food.”
“Fetch them chairs,” ordered the queen. When the two standing men had been gently cared for, seated in chairs and supported with pillows, she said, “Go on.”
“The armies he is gathering are vast, Your Majesty. The entire empire is directed against us.”
“The Continent has armies as well. They will not let us be so easily overrun.”
But the spy shook his head. “The Heir Apparent says to tell you that the Continent will not act on hearsay, nor act in time. His forces are spread
across his empire, and he will keep them so until the navy is ready. He will deny that he intends to invade until he brings his army together at the harbor. Once they have swept over the Peninsula, the Greater Powers will have no easy means to evict them. The Heir says they won’t even try. They have their own battles to fight among themselves.”
“The next Emperor of the Mede is sure of himself, indeed, if he sends you back to me with messages of his intent. In my experience, patronoi, my opponent’s self-confidence is usually my best asset.”
“My family are okloi, Your Majesty. We have no land of our own,” the man said humbly.
The queen disagreed. “You have all three served Attolia well. There will be land for you. The secretary will see to it.” Relius escorted the men away.
When they were gone, the queen made no move to resume business. She stared into space. The king spoke at last.
“The Mede are returning sooner than you expected.”
“Not necessarily,” said the queen. “The old emperor still lives. The Heir cannot move until he takes the throne. He is consolidating his power more quickly than I had hoped, however.”
“Is it Nahuseresh pushing him?”
Attolia shook her head. “I am afraid it is his own desire motivating him. Relius says that Nahuseresh remains out of favor.”
“Yes. Relius.” The king paused. “Your master of spies is a liar, and this time he is lying,” the king said slowly, “to you.”
Attolia frowned, then almost imperceptibly shook her head.
“Have him arrested,” said the king. After another pause he added unequivocally, “Now.”
If he succeeds in having me killed, you could be the next Captain of the Guard. What, then, if the king destroyed Relius? Who would replace him?
Costis hardly breathed. The king hadn’t ordered the arrest himself, though he could have, but he had directed the queen to do so, in public. Now they would see if the queen could protect her own or not.
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