“Not the answer to the question you asked, though.”

He shrugged, dismissing her concern. “Moira said I will die of a fall, not by the sword. Galen and Petrus can stop wrangling over my health.”

“Men fall in battle.”

That stopped the king.

“They fall ill,” added Attolia, spearing an entirely harmless pastry and transferring it to her plate. They were dining together in a private room after the king’s morning training with his guard. “Eddis cannot force her barons to bow to me, nor can Sounis,” said the queen. “I cannot force mine to bow to them. Not even to stop the Mede will they unite, except through you. The Eddisians accept you as high king over your cousin who is Eddis—”

“Except all the ones who don’t,” muttered the king.

“Because you are Eddisian. The barons of Sounis may not like to see their king bow to you, but they know that otherwise they would be ruled by the Mede. My barons do not like a foreign king, but they comfort themselves with the fact that the king of Attolia is Annux.”

The king tipped his fork back and forth, watching the light reflecting on the tablecloth. He knew this. He knew all of this. There was no reason to say it except to force him to admit that it was true.

“To send people to their deaths and not risk my own is contemptible,” he said.

“Is it?” Attolia said, her words leached of any emotion.

The king had the grace to look embarrassed, and the queen, having made her point, moved on. “A letter has come from Eddis. She reports that someone named Therespides is a cause for concern. He stirs up trouble, suggesting you have no right to be ruler over Eddis.”

“He’s right. That’s why Helen rules over Eddis.”

“She suspects he is being paid for his efforts. Who is he?”

“He used to be on your payroll, or rather, the payroll of your former master of spies. Relius used to give him money in exchange for information,” said the king.

“Eddis has no evidence of clandestine meetings, and the Mede ambassador is only one possible source of the money,” said Attolia, delicately chewing her lip.

“She should send that ambassador back to the Medes,” said the king.

“And admit she is no longer sovereign and no longer in need of her own ambassador?” Attolia countered.

The king conceded, waving his hand. “You’re right. Sounis can shoot him instead.” The queen was not amused.

“Did your cousin Cleon truly break your fingers?” she asked abruptly.

Startled, the king said, “Cleon broke one of them, mostly by accident. My exceptionally more vicious cousin Lader broke two more. Why do you ask?”

“Cleon offers the most amenable ear to Therespides. Eddis says she would like to have him out of her court.”

“She should exile him, then.”

“My suggestion as well, but she feels she cannot without causing more difficulties. You and I agreed you would have new attendants once the scandal over Sejanus died down.”

“We agreed I might have attendants who didn’t hate me, or at least ones who weren’t standing around watching while someone tried to kill me.”

“Eddis asks, if you have gotten over your unfortunate history with him, whether Cleon might be one of them.”

With only an appearance of consideration, Eugenides said, “Cleon Omeranicus is already my attendant. Wouldn’t it cause confusion having two Cleons?”

The queen deferred with an almost invisible shrug. It would hardly serve to pick one’s government servants by the convenience of their names, but she knew an excuse when she heard one and didn’t press further.

“Maybe Lader?” she suggested.

The king’s laugh was light, but bitter. “Only if he comes back from the dead.”

Most of my days were spent in the waiting room. It was not a requirement; officially I was free to come and go just like any of the other attendants. Unlike them, I was afraid to venture too far from the king’s protecting presence. I walked alone to the library to meet my tutor through well-traveled passageways and did not give in to the temptation to explore beyond them. Instead I tucked myself into a corner of the waiting room where the light from the window above obscured my presence. Safe enough there, I could think my own thoughts or listen to the talk around me.

Much of the conversation was boring. Philologos pined for a young woman named Terse, without any sympathy from me. Verimius pursued the poet Lavia, who wrote terrible poetry about Celia, one of the queen’s attendants. Cleon was in love with a girl whose father was a devoted member of the queen’s party at court, which was awkward, as Cleon’s family was deeply in debt to my grandfather who was Susa.

“At least you’re not an Erondites,” Verimius consoled him, with a sidelong glance at me.

Indeed, one of the satellite members of the house of Erondites had been found very bruised at the bottom of a staircase. He insisted that he’d tripped.

Some things I saw I did not yet understand: why a guard stared at Layteres, the second son of Baron Xortix, and why Layteres pretended so poorly not to notice. The other guards in Aristogiton’s squad watched them both with expressions I couldn’t read. Medander’s purpose as he surreptitiously carved the edge on a die was more clear. He saw my eyes on him and put the die in his pocket, scowling.

Verimius and Medander talked openly about their dislike of the king, oblivious not only to my attentive ears but also to the reaction of the guards standing duty at the doors and the squad leader sitting on the bench nearby.

“He knows nothing of how to rule,” Verimius sulked.

“He did not agree to let you have the disputed land?”

“He said it is the queen’s decision.”

“Pathetic,” said Medander. “He is supposed to be king. It is the queen who rules while he keeps low company. Promoting filthy okloi.”

“Well, Costis was a patronoi.”

“Two olive trees and a goat don’t make an estate. He should have been hanged. His friends, too.”

One of the guards standing by the door was Clopius, a good friend to one of the men in Aristogiton’s squad, the men Costis had risked his life to shelter from the queen’s rage. I remember this moment particularly because Clopius died trying to protect the king after the ambush at the roadside tomb.

Xikos was less direct.

“So, Hilarion, are you for the king now?” he asked in his needling way.

“And if I am?” Hilarion responded.

“Well, it hardly matters, does it? The king is not for us, is he? None of our bootlicking will make him treat us as real companions.” He’d used “our,” but he meant “your.” He just didn’t have the nerve to insult Hilarion outright.

“I wouldn’t think your bootlicking would make anyone treat you as a real companion, Xikos,” said Hilarion, laughing at him. “I am for the king because I am for the king. That is all.”

“Oh, surely there is some self-service there? Convince him of your loyalty and improve your fortune?”

“And do you think my fortunes are in doubt, Xikos?”

It was Xikos who needed to have his fortunes repaired. It had been a godsend to his family to have him made an attendant of the new king, and he’d squandered the opportunity. Rather than blame himself, Xikos pretended it was the king who was at fault.