The King of Attolia

by Megan Whalen Turner

  Eugenides glanced at Costis. Costis straightened, prepared to defend his king to the death against this huge Eddisian nanny.

  Aulus sighed wearily. “Gen. Go to sleep.”

  The king grudgingly slipped down under the covers. To Costis’s awed delight, the enormous Eddisian actually straightened the covers and tucked them in.

  Aulus went back to the window, but didn’t begin the dice game again. He whistled a quiet tune Costis didn’t recognize, filled with long, soothing notes. Before the second repetition of the tune, the king was asleep.

  Boagus got up to check on him, hanging over him for a long time and watching him carefully. Finally he nodded at Aulus and stepped back to his chair. He and Aulus made themselves comfortable, both putting their boots up on the small wooden table, negotiating wordlessly how four feet might be simultaneously squeezed onto it. Then they closed their eyes like professional soldiers who know better than to miss a chance for rest, and appeared to fall asleep themselves.

  When Costis moved, just shifting his weight from one foot to the other, not only one but both of the Eddisians opened an eye to look him over. Costis didn’t move again. The king slept until the watch trumpets blew their noon fanfare. When he’d eaten, Aulus let him have his reports back.

  In the afternoon, apropos of nothing, Aulus said, “I heard you were scared white by your jailer yesterday.”

  Gen did not look up from what he was reading. “That would be Ornon talking again,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Aulus, smiling.

  “No,” said the king, looking up at last. “I was not scared white by one of my jailers.”

  He looked down—pretended to go back to what he was reading, but didn’t. Instead he fiddled with the nubs of the embroidery on the bedcover. Boagus opened his mouth, but at a signal from Aulus, he shut it again. They waited. Aulus appeared to be willing to wait forever.

  “I nearly had them killed, every single one of them, garroted, gutted, and dead.”

  Costis remembered the sick look on the king’s face and the sudden long silence in the cell.

  “Your captain, too?” Aulus asked.

  “Oh, certainly. He would have been first in line.” He pushed his hand through his hair. “I told him I can do anything I want,” he admitted.

  “Ahh,” said Aulus, “I suppose he thought that was the King of Attolia talking?”

  “I suppose he did.”

  Boagus shook his head. “You really can do anything you want, now.” Eugenides’s glare made him throw up his hands in the air and add hastily, “Not that you couldn’t always.”

  Aulus chuckled. “If I had a gold coin for every time I heard you say that you could do anything you wanted, I’d be rich,” he said, “as rich as—” He searched for an appropriate comparison.

  “As Ornon before he lost all his sheep,” Boagus finished for him. The two soldiers laughed, and even the king smiled. Reinforcing Costis’s suspicion that Eugenides had been responsible for Ornon’s lost sheep, Boagus asked, “Do you still baa like a lamb when he walks into the room?”

  Eugenides shook his head. “Ornon took me aside first thing after the coronation ceremony and explained that it would be beneath my dignity.”

  Aulus and Boagus stared. Eugenides’s expression was bland.

  “He said that?” Aulus asked.

  “He did,” the king confirmed.

  “What did you say?” Boagus asked suspiciously.

  “I promised to bark like a sheepdog instead.”

  The Eddisians chuckled again.

  “You don’t, though?” Aulus had to ask.

  The king eyed him with disgust. “Give me some credit,” he said, and when Aulus was visibly relieved, added, “Not when anybody else can hear me.”

  The Eddisians roared.

  The king laughed more quietly, holding his hand against his side. Even Costis smiled. He quickly straightened the smile. It wasn’t his place to laugh with the king, but he was pleased all the same.

  A figure appeared suddenly in the doorway. Costis’s hand went to his empty sword belt. Aulus and Boagus crouched forward in their seats and then relaxed. The figure was Ornon. Squelched laughter leaked out like the flames of a poorly snuffed candle.

  “Ambassador Ornon,” said Eugenides in a slightly choked voice. “How good of you to drop by.”

  “I believe you have been having a joke at my expense, Your Majesty,” Ornon said, crossing the room to sit in a chair by the fire screen.

  “We wouldn’t dream of it, Ambassador.”

  “I am so relieved. I might have to suggest a celebration to mark your return to health. A day of special audiences, perhaps.” As the king’s expression changed he added, “A royal parade?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Well, I do think it would be a fine way to reassure the populace, but not if Your Majesty disliked it.”

  “Thank you. I dislike it very much. My apologies if we have offended you.”

  “Not at all.” Ornon’s dry smile registered points scored on either side, then faded. “If you are done laughing, send your keepers away. I am afraid I have news.”

  “Bad news?”

  Ornon shrugged. “Good for our hopes of peace and a unified triumvirate to stand against the Mede. Bad news,” he said gently, “for the heir of Sounis.”

  Laughter gone, the king said, “They have his body, then?”

  “No. Not yet. But we have reports that Sounis is retaking the countryside. If the rebels had him alive as a hostage, they would have said so by now.”

  “I see.”

  Ornon signaled the Eddisians. “Perhaps you would excuse us?”

  The king waved Costis out of the room as well.

  Costis followed the looming bulk of Aulus out of the bedchamber and through the anteroom and from there to a waiting room filled with the paraphernalia of women—embroidery stands, sewing tables, a harp, and, looking uncomfortably out of place, the king’s attendants. The queen’s attendants were nowhere to be seen, displaced by the men who had little to do to serve their king and instead sat kicking their heels. They looked at the Eddisians and at Costis with hostile eyes.

  “There is a guardroom,” said one of the attendants pointedly as Aulus settled into a chair.

  “There is a guardroom, Your Highness, I am sure you meant to say,” said Aulus as he leaned back and hooked a table closer with one booted foot and then rested the foot on top of it. Both chair and table creaked alarmingly. “I’m sure it’s a very nice guardroom.”

  He smiled. The attendants took his meaning. They looked as if they thought Aulus might be pulling wool over their eyes, but none of them had the nerve to call what might not be a bluff.

  Costis didn’t think it was a bluff. Aulus looked very little like a prince, but that meant nothing—Eugenides didn’t look like a king. Ornon needed someone to sit with the king and restrain him, someone who would be safe from Eugenides’s retaliation. A prince of the house of Eddis would be a natural choice if there was one on hand. No prince of Attolia would serve as a common soldier, but that also might be different in Eddis. Costis didn’t think Eddis had any brothers, but this might be a close cousin of Eddis’s and a prince of the house.

  Costis realized that the entire room was now looking rather pointedly at him. He wasn’t a baron, or the heir of a baron, or a prince. What was he doing in the waiting room? The king’s attendants clearly thought he should go. Trying to look as if he really didn’t care what they thought, he looked toward Aulus for his opinion.

  “Huh,” said Aulus. “That’s a good question.” He turned to Boagus. “Go ask what Gen wants done with his pet guard.”

  Boagus went and came back. “He said he wants Costis in the guardroom round the clock. He says you can go to hell.”

  “Are you Costis?” Aulus asked.

  Costis nodded.

  “Off you go, then,” said Aulus. Costis went. As he started for the door, Aulus bellowed, “Go to hell yourself, you silly bastard.”
The knickknacks on the table almost seemed to rattle. The attendants looked pained. As Costis stepped through the door, he caught a glimpse of one of the queen’s attendants looking through the doorway from another room. She was equally pained.

  Costis spent the rest of the afternoon in the guardroom, feeling no more welcome than in the attendants’ waiting room. He’d expected to be greeted when he arrived. He nodded to the lieutenant on duty. The lieutenant looked right through him. Puzzled, Costis had looked around the room at the men standing on guard at the door and at the others in more relaxed poses around the room. No one met his eyes. Men who’d seemed comfortable working with him a few days earlier looked away. Shrugging, Costis picked a spot on a padded bench and sat. He was off duty, even if he couldn’t leave.

  Teleus came through the guardroom later and stopped to speak to him. No one else had all afternoon. Teleus only asked what the king’s orders were, and then he left. Dinner was brought up for the attendants. When they were finished, Costis ate what he suspected were leftovers alone in a makeshift dining room. They were nice leftovers, at least, better than he would have eaten in the mess hall. Phresine showed him where he could sleep, in an interior room with no windows, a narrow bed, and a washstand. There were chests stacked along one wall, and Costis guessed the dismal spot was probably a closet cleaned out to make room for him. Hard to believe the royal apartments, so lavish elsewhere, would otherwise have such a plain corner. Expecting better of royal closets, Costis went to bed disappointed.

  In the morning, stiff from a poor night’s sleep, he shaved and washed as well as he could in the fresh water brought to the washstand, then presented himself to the king. He arrived in the middle of an argument.

  “I am not interested in one of your moon promises,” Aulus was saying.

  “It doesn’t really matter if you believe me,” said the king. “I am throwing you out. The promise was just a sop to keep your feelings from being hurt.”

  “And if we refuse to go?”

  Boagus was cleaning his fingernails with a knife.

  “I have a whole guardroom full of brawny veterans who’d enjoy a chance to drag two Eddisians out of here, particularly if you kicked a lot and they could kick you back.”

  Aulus shook his head sadly. “I’m disappointed.”

  “Well, I am fed up. Get out.”

  Aulus considered, then leaned back in the chair. It squealed in agonized protest. “Noontime. When the watch trumpets blow. We’ll leave then.”

  “Oh? I shall magically be healed then, and you won’t need to hang over me like an anxious cow? What of any significance is going to be different at noon?”

  Aulus crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Ornon will owe me three gold queens.”

  The king’s brow cleared. “I see. Very well. You leave at noon.”

  “And…,” said Aulus.

  “If you aren’t leaving until noon, there isn’t going to be any ‘and.’”

  “And,” Aulus insisted, “you keep your pet Costis with you. If you break your promise to rest easy, he will send a message to the queen, who will pass it to Ornon, who will send for us.”

  He looked at Costis to see if he accepted the responsibility. Costis, in turn, looked at the king. The king said, “I thought you and Boagus were heading for some unnamed post in the hinterlands.”

  “Soon,” Aulus assured him.

  The Eddisians left at noon. Costis stayed. The king smiled at him occasionally, but otherwise ignored him. He read papers and wrote things out on a lap desk. He called in people to speak to him, and when he did, he sent Costis into the anteroom and asked him to close the door. He called Costis his watchdog when the queen visited. The queen actually smiled at Costis, which warmed Costis right down to his toes.

  After another solitary meal, Costis went back to his closet and to bed. He woke in the dark to knocking on the door. The king was leaving and, in keeping with his promise, had sent for Costis.

  Relius was relieved. The king was apologetic.

  “I couldn’t be here last night,” the king said as he settled onto the stool.

  “Teleus told me this afternoon that you had Eddisian visitors.” One night apart had elided their community, and the exchange of small talk was awkward.

  “One particularly large one sitting in my room all night. How is your hand?”

  “Fine,” Relius answered automatically, then flinched. His hand hurt, the swelling gross, though the bones were now set. At least it was still on the end of his arm. The king’s hand was gone.

  “Relius,” the king spoke softly. “I should have been here last night. I am sorry.”

  “There is little reason for you to take such care, Your Majesty.”

  The king put his hand on Relius’s shoulder, his only hand, Relius couldn’t help thinking. “You’re being stupid. She was within her rights. So were you.”

  “How can you think that?” Safely dead.

  “Well, it’s something like a tenet of my profession. When you fail, and failure is inevitable, you pay the penalty.”

  “But me you pardoned.”

  “You aren’t a member of my profession.” It was too glib. He sighed. “Maybe I should have said that if you fail, you must be willing to pay the penalty. You were willing, Relius. That’s what I went to that cell to find out. As to the actual payment of penalties, you have no idea how many times my cousin, who is Eddis, rescued me from well-deserved agonies. What else did you and Teleus talk about?”

  Relius let him change the subject. “He’s angry about Costis.”

  “I’m not happy myself.” The king checked to see if their voices carried to the far side of the room. “So, I have something to ask you.”

  In the morning, Costis was cautiously optimistic. Even with the midnight excursion, the king seemed better. The circles under his eyes had faded, and his color was improved. In the afternoon, he was sitting in the sun at the window warmly wrapped in an embroidered robe when the queen arrived. Costis stiffened to a more precise form of attention, but the king didn’t appear to notice the opening and closing door. Attolia brushed her hand along his shoulders, and he turned to smile at her, but then turned back to the view.

  “Homesick?” she asked.

  “Thinking of Sophos.”

  “I see.”

  “Is there news?”

  Attolia shook her head, dropping gently into a chair beside him.

  “Ornon said there would be if he were alive.”

  “Most likely,” said Attolia. “You were fond of him?”

  The king shrugged. “He was very likable—Eddis would have married him.”

  “Do you know whom she will marry now?”

  “Sounis, I suppose.”

  “But she hates Sounis,” said the queen.

  “She is the Queen of Eddis. Queens make sacrifices.”

  Attolia was quiet, then. “She would have been happy with Sophos?” she asked softly.

  “I think so. They had exchanged a number of letters.”

  “I never understood why she didn’t marry you.”

  The king settled further into the seat with a snort. “Maybe the prospect of being driven out of her mind put her off,” he said.

  The queen smiled. “What did she see in Sophos, then?”

  It took the king some time to find an answer. “He was kind,” he said at last.

  “And you’re not?” Attolia responded sharply.

  Finally the king turned to look at her, his eyebrows raised in amusement. He shook his head.

  “No,” she observed thoughtfully. “You aren’t, are you?” Then she dropped her eyes in a mocking imitation of demurral and said, “You’ve always been kind to me.”

  The king laughed out loud. He held out his arm, and she leaned against him.

  “What a lie that was,” he said.

  Of course, the king was kind. Costis would be dead if he weren’t. And the queen wouldn’t love him, if he was unkind to her. Costis was puzzling through the
convolutions of human relationships, which were so unlike the neatly arranged patterns in a fireside story, when a light touch at his sleeve made him turn. Phresine was trying to close the door. He looked from Phresine to the king and queen and, flushing, stepped back into the anteroom. Phresine pulled the door closed, leaving the king and the queen alone.

  Costis didn’t see the king again until the next morning. He arrived at the bedchamber door just as he had the day before, and found two of the king’s attendants, Ion and Sotis, waiting there. Ion opened the door, and smiled unpleasantly as Costis passed through. Sotis cleared his throat to announce Costis’s arrival, and the king looked up from the papers he was reading. He was fully dressed and sitting on top of the bedcovers.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  It was like a kick in the gut, leaving Costis dumb, and he hesitated in confusion.

  “I don’t need you. I am officially recovered,” the king said. “You can go back to your regular duties.” After a moment he looked pointedly at the door behind Costis, and numbly, Costis withdrew. Ion closed the door behind him, and in the anteroom, Sotis assiduously studied the braid on his cuff as Costis passed by.

  Between the anteroom and the queen’s guardroom, Costis considered what his “regular duties” were and decided he didn’t have any. Certainly he didn’t have any that involved remaining at loose ends in the queen’s guardroom under the hostile gaze of its veterans. He went through the guardroom and all the way through the palace, back to his own room without stopping. He flung off his armor, kicking the breastplate under the bed and then cursing the pain in his toes. Breathing heavily, he forced himself to drag the breastplate back out and hang it carefully in its accustomed place, and tidied away the rest of his duty armor. Then, in less formal dress, he went to the mess hall. Perhaps his mates would be less hostile than the veterans.

  If anything, they were worse than hostile. Their unexplained pity had grown thicker and more difficult to ignore. Feeling more angry instead of less, Costis went to find Aristogiton and cornered him in an alley between two of the barracks buildings as he was coming off duty.